- UK Hospitals To Deny Care To "Racist" Or "Homophobic" Patients
UK Hospitals To Deny Care To “Racist” Or “Homophobic” Patients
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Patients deemed to be “racist” or “homophobic” will be denied care in NHS Trust hospitals under new rules set to take effect in April.
“Currently, staff can refuse to treat non-critical patients who are verbally aggressive or physically violent towards them,” reports Sky News.
“But these protections will extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.”
Police will also be given new powers to prosecute “hate crimes” committed against NHS staff.
What is determined to be “racist” or “homophobic” is anyone’s guess, since many elderly patients will be totally unfamiliar with modern politically correct speech codes and could be deemed to have behaved in a racist or homophobic way even if they didn’t maliciously intend to.
Homophobic, sexist and racist patients could be barred from non-emergency care at NHS trusts, under new rules from April https://t.co/lTYHqBmME2
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 18, 2020
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As Jack Montgomery highlights, “In late 2017 an NHS patient who requested a female nurse to carry out a cervical smear complained when the hospital sent a person with “an obviously male appearance… close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble” who insisted “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”
The line between critical and non-critcal care is also up for debate. Will refusal to treat a patient because they said something someone deems offensive result in accidental deaths?
This is even worse than China’s social credit score, which hasn’t yet gone so far as to punish people by withdrawing medical treatment if they engage in wrongthink.
First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages. Now it’s deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people’s right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.
It’s also important to emphasize that these changes are coming in under a supposedly “conservative” government.
Respondents poked fun at the new rules.
“This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook,” remarked one.
This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook https://t.co/id7hxtJ0eI
— RSBM (@PunishedBukes) February 18, 2020
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“Don’t get sick in the UK if you’ve ever posted “Grooming gang” statistics,” commented another.
Don’t get sick in the UK if you’ve ever posted “Grooming gang” statistics. https://t.co/20QHTiAlJK
— Orwell & Goode (@OrwellNGoode) February 18, 2020
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Tyler Durden
Thu, 02/20/2020 – 02:00 - Global Centralization Is The Cause Of Crisis – Not The Cure
Global Centralization Is The Cause Of Crisis – Not The Cure
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Once you understand the globalist mindset, almost everything they do becomes rather robotic and predictable. It should not be surprising that the World Health Organization (WHO), a branch of the United Nations, has been so aggressive in cheerleading for the Chinese government and its response to the coronavirus outbreak. After all, China’s communist surveillance state model is a beta test for the type of centralization that the UN wants for the entire planet. They certainly aren’t going to point out that it was China’s totalitarian system that allowed the outbreak to spread from the very beginning.
Even now Xi Jinping is trying to rewrite history, claiming that he had been swift in responding to the crisis more than a month before he actually did. The lie that the coronavirus mutated naturally in a food and animal market in Wuhan continues to be peddled by the mainstream media even though no evidence supporting this claim exists. And China is still releasing rigged death and infection numbers while they have over 600 million people under martial law lockdown and their crematoriums continue pumping out the fumes of the dead 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Brave health workers like Li Wenliang, who was punished by the government for warning about the virus in December, have died in the process of trying to fight against the centralized behemoth just to get vital information to the world, but that never happened, right? It was actually president Xi and the CPC that saved the day. The WHO and the CPC say so. You’ll never hear the UN praise the efforts of Li Wenliang; they want his name to disappear down the memory hole as much as the Chinese government does.
The developing narrative is a familiar one – Local officials “stifled” the response to the outbreak while the centralized national leadership put things back on track with extreme control measures that have turned the Hubei province into a veritable internment camp. Whatever you do, don’t point out that it was the national government’s habit of imprisoning health officials that release “false information” that led to the delayed reaction on the coronavirus. Also, don’t point out that ground zero for the outbreak is just down the road from the largest Level 4 Biohazard Lab in Asia, because that would make you a “conspiracy theorist”.
The message being pounded into the public consciousness is clear: “Shut up and accept that Centralization works”. Even when it fails miserably, it is still the answer to all our problems. All we have to do is “adjust” the historical record a little bit every time the system breaks and then institute even MORE centralization in response.
In other words, if the interdependent and draconian top-down structure of the globalist state leads to crisis, then it is because it was not centralized ENOUGH. Centralization always begets more centralization.
The financial fascist system of central banking and corporate oligarchy leads to the socialist welfare state, and the socialist welfare state leads to the surveillance state, the surveillance state leads to the martial law state, and the martial law state leads to full-on global governance; an endless elitist empire.
The failings of centralization have caused numerous problems long before it led to a potential pandemic. The pandemic simply clarifies the issue. For example, the breakdown in the global supply chain is becoming a bigger threat by the day. The Baltic Dry Index a measure of shipping rates as well as global demand for goods, has essentially collapsed. This should have been the first warning sign that the supply chain was in trouble, but the mainstream doesn’t pay attention to the fundamentals, only stock markets. Enter Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, which has now abandoned its projections for 2020 and finally admitted that the shutdown of Chinese factories may just be a problem.
Some mentally challenged people out there are scoffing sarcastically at this issue, saying “Oh no, whatever will we do without i-Phones…?”. They don’t grasp the wider implications. If Apple’s production is going down because of the supply chain disruption then this is a signal that multiple companies and most of the economy are also going down because of supply chain disruptions. It’s not about i-Phones, it’s about the bigger picture.
Globalism has led to interdependent economies and nation states that no longer have redundancies in production. We have been forced to rely on production centers on the other side of the world for a vast majority of our goods.
When China shuts down, the US economy loses almost 20% of its supply chain. When Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam shut down from the virus, you can add another 10% to 15% on top of that. Retailers in the US represent around 70% of GDP. Cut off the supply chain in Asia and retailers lose a vast array of goods to sell. The US economy eventually shuts down also, even if the virus never spreads here.
Some people will argue that we don’t need all the “cheap plastic crap” from Asia anyway, and this situation is a “good thing”. Sorry to break it to you, but America’s economy is built on the selling of cheap plastic crap (along with the selling of the fiat dollar as the world reserve currency). Walmart (Chinamart if you discount agricultural products) is the largest employer in the US and the world, after all. Right or wrong, our economic system is so globalized that the fall of the Chinese dominoes will eventually knock down our own dominoes.
But when this disaster occurs and numerous national economies suffer from enforced globalist integration, guess what will happen next? The globalists will ride to our “rescue” with even greater centralization. This was their agenda all along.
Many people in the liberty movement are now aware of the Event 201 simulation, a war game run by globalists in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum on a “theoretical” coronavirus pandemic that kills 65 million people. This simulation took place only a couple of months before the real thing exploded in China in December. But hey, maybe that’s all just amazing coincidence. What concerns me even more is the solution that was presented at the end of Event 201 – the creation of a centralized global financial body that would manage the international response to the outbreak.
Isn’t it amazing how every major catastrophe caused by globalism seems to lead to more globalism? One might start to wonder if some of these events were triggered by incompetence, or if they were deliberately engineered. At the very least, crisis events have been allowed to fester unchecked by organizations like the WHO as they continue to write off the coronavirus as a non-issue that is “well under control” by a Chinese government that caused it to spread in the first place.
So here is what is going to happen next:
Best case scenario is that the Western world is mostly unscathed by the virus itself but the economic supply chain suffers major setbacks. The global economy, which was already crashing over the past year due to historic levels of corporate and consumer debt, not to mention faltering exports and freight, is finally tipped over the edge. The massive Everything Bubble, fueled by a decade of inflationary central bank stimulus, implodes. Governments respond with totalitarian measures in the name of “protecting the public”.
Globalist institutions like the IMF step in and suggest that frail national monetary systems come under the management of their Special Drawing Rights basket in order to mitigate the debt crisis. Essentially, this is the first step to global governance.
Worst case scenario, the virus spreads throughout the US and Europe and governments respond the same way China’s government has; martial law and full blown concentration camp culture. This would lead to civil war in the US because we are armed and many people will shoot anyone trying to put us into quarantine camps. Europe is mostly screwed.
The establishment then suggests that paper money be removed from the system because it is a viral spreader. China is already pushing this solution now. Magically, we find ourselves in a cashless society in a matter of a year or two; which is what the globalists have been demanding for years. Everything goes digital, and thus even local economies become completely centralized as private trade dies.
Again, this might be an engineered event, or it might simply be that the globalists are exploiting a natural outbreak. Either way, they are not going to let a good crisis go to waste. Whether or not they succeed is dependent on several factors, but mostly, its dependent on us. How many people will buy into the notion that centralization is the answer to out problems? How many people will realize that centralization is the CAUSE of all our problems? And how many people will fight to prevent ultimate centralization under a psychopathic globalist cult?
A viral outbreak is a significant danger to us all, but an even greater threat is the supposed cure. Trading our economic and social freedom in the name of stopping the coronavirus? No matter how deadly the bug, it’s just not worth it.
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 23:45 - New Estimates Suggest Chinese Tech Shipments Are About To Crash
New Estimates Suggest Chinese Tech Shipments Are About To Crash
Now that Apple has opened the floodgates and made it entirely clear that China’s economic collapse will slash revenue guidance on the year and lead to production woes through April, an onslaughter of earnings downgrades from other top technology companies with significant operations in China could be imminent.
Evidence grows by the day of supply chains grinding to a halt as the second-largest economy in the world falters (as described here last week)…
We’ve described how China’s economic output remains frozen, and even if supply chains were able to restart, companies don’t have enough capital to cover wages, or have delayed or stopped paying workers, suggesting that the Covid-19 outbreak has left businesses on the brink of disaster. Worse, workers can’t freely move around the country, and many are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, which has forced a massive labor shortage.
This is creating a perfect storm that could lead to an extended period of depressed factory output, triggering future shortages of products destined for Eastern and Western markets, and even more ripples across global supply chains.
As we’ve routinely noted in the last several weeks, the most exposed sector to the continued crunch across Chinese factories is technology.
Putting what we’ve already summarized together, there’s no way that full production can be seen by the end of this month or in early March, which means a massive reduction in shipments and product shortages are imminent. This will ultimately force many tech companies with exposure to China to revise their full-year earnings on the year.
TrendForce published a report earlier this week that serves as a preview of what’s to come for technology shipments.
The research firm said shipments of smartwatches, smartphones, computers, monitors, TVs, video game consoles, smart speakers, and automobiles, will take a big hit in the first quarter.
Here’s what the firm said about shipments for smartwatches, smart bracelets, and TWS Bluetooth earphones:
“In spite of the projected mid-February work resumption date, work stoppages, labor shortages, and material shortages can bring about a decline in 1Q20 production volume, with deferred releases of new products originally scheduled for 1H20 release.
In terms of the Chinese market, Chinese-branded wearables are mainly aimed at domestic sales and therefore expected to suffer more losses in 1H20 compared to international brands. In particular, competitive-priced generic brands and new brands may be even more affected by the outbreak because component suppliers and production capacities are prioritized to fulfill orders from established brands first, and consumers will have reduced willingness to buy in the short term.”
TrendForce said the virus outbreak is having a “high impact on the smartphone industry because the smartphone supply chain is highly labor-intensive. 1Q20 smartphone production is projected to decline by 12% YoY, making it the quarter with the lowest output within the past five years.”
“Parts in the upstream supply chain, including passive components and camera modules, are also showing shortages, which can potentially continue to negatively affect smartphone production in 2Q20, if the outbreak is not contained by the end of February. Should the outbreak intensify, TrendForce considers market need to be the most important consideration in the long-term analysis of the smartphone industry. Because of the interconnectedness of the global economy, the progression of China’s outbreak damages not only China’s GDP, but also the overall global economy, leading to a reduction of consumer purchasing power and subsequently presenting a difficult challenge for the overall smartphone industry. 2020 smartphone production is projected to reach 1.381 billion units, a 1.3% decline YoY and the lowest output since 2016. Still, due to the outbreak’s mercurial nature, it is entirely possible for 2020 smartphone production to fall below this forecast.”
As for notebooks, LCD monitors, and LCD TVs, these supply chains have been “undoubtedly hit the most by the coronavirus outbreak.”
“These companies lost precious working days after work resumption was postponed. After their production is resumed, on a whole, operators’ work resumption rate is low. Besides, all types of materials and components are in shortage. Hence, productivity plummets. For TVs and monitors, their manufacturing processes and demand for materials are similar. Therefore, according to TrendForce, in 1Q20, the TV set shipment is predicted to fall from previous prediction (48.8 million units) to 46.6 million units because of the outbreak. The monitor set shipment is projected to decrease from previous prediction (29 million units) to 27.5 million units. To assemble a NB set requires complicated key components. At the current stage, NB’s batteries, hinge, and PCB already experienced shortage or out of stock. This factor might cause some brands’ shipment quantity to remarkably drop from previous prediction (35 million units) to 30.7 million units in 1Q20.
The pandemic not only negatively affected the production’s supply chain, but it also hurts China’s consumer confidence and reduces end-market demand in the short and long run, respectively. Considering the pestilence’s potentially negative impact to China market’s demand, TrendForce moved down the top 3 application categories’ shipment scales for the year 2020. TVs’ shipment scale was reduced from previous prediction (219.6 million units) to 218.0 million units, down by 0.7 percentage point. Monitors’ shipment was reduced from previous prediction (125.8 million units) to 124.5 million units, down by 1.0 percentage point. Notebooks’ shipment was moved down from previous prediction (162.4 million units) to 160.2 million units, down by 1.4 percentage points.”
We expect a waterfall of negative earnings preannouncements to start for many technology companies with modest exposure to Chinese output. Apple’s downgrade on Monday was only the beginning…
Wall Street has priced the stock market for perfection while ignoring China’s virus crisis as one of the biggest shocks to hit the global economy since a decade ago.
Is the virus outbreak in China about to pop the Fed-induced stock market bubble?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 23:25 - The Intolerance Of The "Tolerant" Left: The End Of Liberal Democracy?
The Intolerance Of The “Tolerant” Left: The End Of Liberal Democracy?
Authored by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff via The Gatestone Institute,
We recently witnessed two events that indicated the possible demise of liberal democracy. The implications should frighten supporters of democratic forms of government in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognized and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law.
The growing intolerance of many “left-wing” groups is apparent in the uproar of the democratic election of the state premier of the German state of Thuringia as well as in the performance of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, publicly ripping up US President Donald J. Trump’s State of the Union address. It was an official document that belongs not to her but to the public, and of which she was merely its custodian.
That does not even start to mention the entire sham “impeachment” of President Trump, in which centuries of accepted due process were thrown in the gutter. The Senate “trial,” which probably should have been dismissed from the get-go as the “fruit of the poisonous tree” — a legal metaphor meaning that if any evidence is found to be tainted or violates a defendant’s constitutional rights, whatever “fruit” follows from it must be thrown out. The House, however, like the Inquisition, is allowed make up its own rules, and make them up it did. Another central problem seemed to be that a US president is obligated by law — under Ukraine (12978) – Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed in 1998 — not to hand taxpayer money over to the Ukraine without first checking to see that there is no corruption. Trump did, there was not, case closed. Trump was not only totally acquitted in a show trial that should not have existed in the first place, but his accusers seemed more guilty of what he was accused of — the non-crimes of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” — than he was.
Currently, there is growing concern on both sides of the Atlantic that the ability of many on the political “left” to accept the democratic process and the rights of those with whom one disagrees is becoming increasingly rare. According to Andreas Unterberger, Austria’s most widely read political blogger:
“The left exhibits mocking scorn or even aggressive violence. If a relevant part of the population is unwilling to respect democracy and those with dissenting opinions, then the constitutional state will necessarily implode.”
Sometimes it seems as if the underlying intention is actually to dismantle democratic norms and replace them with authoritarian ones. The thinking seems to be: If you vote any way other than for what we want, the result is automatically illegitimate and need not be accepted. In the US, this view had been evident in the three-year refusal to accept the election of President Trump by the “wrong” people”, as well as a refusal by many last year to accept the vindication of US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in yet another show trial devoid of evidence , and most recently warnings about a refusal to accept President Trump’s acquittal. The title of the latest book by the noted defense Attorney Alan M. Dershowitz, Guilt by Accusation, seems to be fast becoming the norm.
In Germany, the media establishment as well as Chancellor Angela Merkel were shocked to the point of demanding the reversal of the vote for the “wrong” premier of the state of Thuringia because the election came as a result of the “wrong” votes, namely those from the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). Baron Bodissey of the blog Gates of Vienna provided background information:
“The FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei, Free Democratic Party) is a relatively minor conservative business-oriented party in Germany. Nowadays it would be described as “classical liberal” if it were in an American context. In last fall’s state elections in Thuringia, the FDP just barely surpassed the threshold to seat representatives in the state parliament. The Left (Die Linke) gained the greatest share of the vote, but the constellation of leftist parties did not have enough seats to automatically form a government.
“Since then there has been wheeling and dealing by all parties in an effort to establish a viable coalition. Yesterday came a big surprise: with the support of the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union, Christian Democratic Union) and the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany), Thomas Kemmerich of the FDP was elected minister president (the equivalent of premier or governor) of the state of Thuringia…
[I]t seemed the cordon sanitaire against the AfD had been breached. Up until now, all across Western Europe the major immigration-critical populist parties had been kept out of government: the Sweden Democrats, the PVV in the Netherlands, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and the AfD in Germany. Even though those “xenophobic” parties are quite popular, they have yet to obtain a majority of the vote in their respective countries, and the other parties simply agree never to join a coalition with them. Did yesterday’s events in Thuringia signal a change?”
Not quite. The cordon shuddered a little bit, but remained intact. It seems the FDP never asked for the support of the AfD, and received it unexpectedly. Mr. Kemmerich and his party were just as appalled by the AfD as [the] leftist parties were. And Mr. Kemmerich announced he would resign his position to force new elections.
Mr. Kemmerich’s announcement of resignation came as a result of massive intimidation against his family, his children requiring police protection, and “Antifa” protests outside Thuringia’s parliament building. In this context, it is important to note the irony of the political left. The Left Party (“Die Linke”), the successor party of the SED, the Socialist Unity party of the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), accused the Free Democrats of believing that it was “better to rule with fascists than not to rule at all.” Indeed, there are grounds to argue that it is the Left Party, exhibiting the intolerance of fascists as the predecessors of the Left Party, that was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Germans trying to escape East Berlin by breaching the Berlin Wall. Even more ironic, it was on the 31st anniversary of the execution of 17-year-old Chris Gueffroy, guilty in the eyes of the ruling elite of wanting to leave the DDR, that the German mainstream media began its campaign of hatred against a democratically elected official.
Adding insult to injury, the strategist of the Left Party had the gall openly to insinuate that Mr. Kemmerich was voted into office “by the grace of those who murdered liberals, commoners, leftists and millions more in Buchenwald [concentration camp] and elsewhere.” In saying this, the strategist and others used what is currently the most potent weapon in political discourse: the instrumentalization of Nazi crimes as a weapon against political competitors. According to the German political analyst Vera Lengsfeld, politicians and media are employing psychological terror by igniting the “Nazi nuclear bomb” and by suggesting that the election of Mr. Kemmerich occurred thanks to a “Nazi party”, namely the AfD. Lengsfeld adds:
“What has taken place in Germany in the past three days can be considered a breach of the dam. Germany is witnessing the gradual erosion of democracy and the rule of law, a process that began in 2015 [during the migrant crisis] and which has become even more visible since and has ended in putsch against democracy.
“Overnight, Germany has turned into an open dictatorship of convictions. Unless true democrats display resistance and firmly defend democracy and the rule of law, it will once again become cold and dark in Germany.”
Dushan Wegner, another political commentator, asks whether a country can call itself a democracy if its chancellor demands the annulment of the election and the Free Democrats buckle in the face of disagreement, only because of the election of a state minister with the help of votes of a party behind a cordon sanitaire. Wegner argues:
“From faraway South Africa, Chancellor Angela Merkel said something very painful and simultaneously very frightening and shocking: ‘The election of the state minister was unforgivable and the vote must be reversed.’
“The chancellor openly demands the annulment of a democratic vote, one that she is unhappy about, and politics remains silent. I find it difficult to call those democrats that do not use all democratic and legal means to remove the chancellor from office.
“Germany currently fluctuates between democracy and absolutism thanks to Angela Merkel. Why bother exercising the right to vote when the ‘wrong’ choice can be annulled by the media and the chancellor through propaganda and veto?
“A Chinese proverb says: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Yes, these are interesting times, and yes, it is a curse. What is positive about interesting times is that they force us to define our stance. Do we stand for democracy or for elections until the results suit the ruler?”
Josef Hueber explains in a commentary how in a pseudo-democracy, elections mean voting until the result is “correct.” Moreover, it is important to use the right words: the undesirable democratic election is a “political Fukushima”, a breach of the dam, a catastrophe. The consequence of elections can be an “undesirable” or unexpected result for one political side; some will be elated, others disappointed. One could argue that this is democracy; this is how it is supposed to be. The understanding of democratic processes was unveiled with what recently transpired in the Thuringian parliament.
The situation in the United States is not much different. Th recent State of Union (SOTU) address demonstrated clearly what the Democrats’ view of tolerance and respect for the office of the president looks like. What began with the absence of self-avowed democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Maxine Waters and others ended in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of the speech at the end of the State of the Union address delivered by democratically elected President Donald Trump. By doing so, Pelosi disdained all America, not just the president.
Pelosi disdained the president’s supporters as well as a black girl who wants nothing more than a choice in education; she disdained the Tuskegee airman honored by the president; she disdained the great economic performance of the country. She acted in a petty and classless manner, unfitting for someone holding one of the highest offices in the United States. When asked by a reporter why she tore up Trump’s speech, Pelosi shot back, “Because it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives.” What are the alternatives, Madam Speaker? The legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who disagreed with some aspects of the SOTU, said:
“She represents the House as an institution — both Republicans and Democrats. Instead, she decided to become little more than a partisan troll from an elevated position. The protests of the Democratic members also reached a new low for the House. Pelosi did not gavel out the protest. She seemed to join it.
“It was the tradition of the House that a speaker must remain in stone-faced neutrality no matter what comes off that podium. The tradition ended last night with one of the more shameful and inglorious moments of the House in its history. Rather than wait until she left the floor, she decided to demonstrate against the President as part of the State of the Union and from the Speaker’s chair. That made it a statement not of Pelosi but of the House.”
Pelosi’s behavior shows a disappointing lack of argumentative abilities. If tolerance is to mean anything, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats should have exhibited just that. Instead, she, as a role model, did the opposite by engaging in petty and irresponsible behavior, followed by days futilely trying to have her outburst scrubbed from social media.
The entire episode fits seamlessly into a series of illiberal actions by the left in recent times. Consider the shutting down of debates on college campuses, thereby restricting freedom of speech. Or the attack on people wearing MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats. The author Kim R. Holmes explains the left’s increasing intolerance as follows:
“What we call a ‘liberal’ today is not historically a liberal at all but a progressive social democrat, someone who clings to the old liberal notion of individual liberty when it is convenient (as in supporting abortion or decrying the ‘national security’ state), but who more often finds individual liberties and freedom of conscience to be barriers to building the progressive welfare state.”
Seldom has the left on both sides of the Atlantic exhibited its increasing intolerance of dissenting opinions in a more concentrated manner than these past weeks. The foundations of liberal democracy are shaking noticeably. We are presently faced with yet more politically-based show trials: of the parliamentarian Geert Wilders in The Netherlands and of Matteo Salvini in Italy. It is up to the population and voters to decide whether liberal democracy is worth fighting for.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 23:05 - Two Years After Handing It The Biggest Ever Bailout Loan, IMF Finds Argentina Debt Levels Are "Unsustainable"
Two Years After Handing It The Biggest Ever Bailout Loan, IMF Finds Argentina Debt Levels Are “Unsustainable”
Back in the summer of 2018, when the IMF handed Argentina an unprecedented $56 billion bailout loan, the largest in IMF history, some warned that this is a case of deja vu similar to the 2001/2002 precedent when Argentina eventually defaulted on its foreign creditors, while humiliating the IMF which had signed off on Argentina’s economic policies that ended up in bankruptcy court. The IMF, however, was confident that this time would be different, and rushed – under now-ECB head Christine Lagarde – to hand to Argentina the greatest amount of money the IMF had ever disbursed to a struggling nation.
It turned out that this time wasn’t different, and after completing a week of meetings in Argentine, the IMF – which so generously handed out other people’s money to prop up the crumbling, corrupt Latin American nation less than two years aqo – finally threw in the towel and admitted that Argentina’s debt load is unsustainable, paving the way for the government to ask private bondholders to take on losses as it prepares to renegotiate its obligations.
The last time IMF officials commented on Argentina’s debt was in the fourth review of the credit line in July 2019, when they called it “sustainable, but not with a high probability.”
Oops. But it gets better.
A “meaningful contribution” will be necessary from private bondholders to restore the country’s debt sustainability, the IMF wrote in a statement Wednesday following talks with Argentine officials during its first technical mission in Buenos Aires under Alberto Fernandez’s presidency.
“The primary surplus that would be needed to reduce public debt and gross financing needs to levels consistent with manageable rollover risk and satisfactory potential growth is not economically nor politically feasible,” the Fund said, in what may be the most embarrassing moment in the Fund’s history.
Why embarrassing? Because as Hector Torres, a former executive director at the Fund who represented South American countries, said last summer, “The IMF has put a lot in — not just money, but prestige,” to avoid a default. “The fact that the arrangement is not performing well right now is an embarrassment,” he said. Little did he know just how embarrassing it would get.
As discussed previously, Fernandez is seeking to renegotiate billions of dollars in debt with private creditors, including the infamous $56 billion loan with the Washington-based organization.
Argentina’s record IMF loan has been on hold since August after Fernandez pulled off a shock upset of incumbent Mauricio Macri in a presidential primary vote, sending markets reeling.
“IMF staff emphasized the importance of continuing a collaborative process of engagement with private creditors to maximize their participation in the debt operation,” according to the statement. Meanwhile, Argentina’s economy has collapsed, the currency has plunged, bonds prices have been in freefall and debt rose to nearly 90% of GDP at the end of 2019, the Fund said.
But the biggest pain now await bondholders, some of whom were so dumb to actually buy 100 year bonds from Argentina. Guzman warned investors (or at least their replacement since those who made the original investment were surely summarily fired) last week they’ll probably be frustrated with negotiations, which he intends to wrap up by the end of March. South America’s second-largest nation owes over $38.7 billion to bondholders just this year, and payments peak in May. There is no way it can make those payments without magic.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 22:45 - The Cracks In US Households' Finances
The Cracks In US Households’ Finances
Submitted by Micro Hive; authored by Dominique Dwor-Frecaut is a macro strategist based in Southern California. She has worked on EM and DMs at hedge funds, on the sell side, the NY Fed , the IMF and the World Bank. She publishes the blog Macro Sis that discusses the drivers of macro returns.
US credit scoring is facing a revamp. Fair Isaac (FICO) recently announced changes to consumer credit scoring that will raise the credit core of highly-rated borrowers and lower that of lower-rated consumers. While lenders have a choice of ratings methodologies and could take time to adopt the new FICO scoring, Fed surveys show a gradual, but steady, tightening of consumer loans standards is already underway. With household balance sheets starting to show signs of strain, this trend could have a negative and significant impact on consumption, the main, and already-slowing, engine of US growth.
Healthy consumer balance sheets are often cited as one of the strengths of the US economy. Average household leverage ratios look good: relative to the crisis peak, debt is down by more than 20 percentage points of GDP and continues to slide lower (chart 1). The debt service ratio is lower than before the crisis and default rates are back to their pre-crisis levels. The one–well known– exception to this positive picture, is auto loans, about 9% of total household debt, where delinquencies are nearly back to their crisis peak.
Yet, a detailed look at consumer finances shows cracks starting to appear. While average mortgage delinquencies are still falling, credit card delinquencies have been rising since 2016 (chart 2).
At small banks, accounting for about 20% of consumer lending, credit card delinquencies are now well above their crisis peak. In addition, Discover, the US largest independent credit card network, has seen a 10% decline in its stock price caused by investor concerns over its classification of compromised loans. The performance of Fintechs, small but fast growing, could also come under pressure. Fintechs offer mainly unsecured personal loans, the fastest growing segment of the consumer credit market, that are used largely to repay or consolidate other debts, especially credit card debt. Lastly, personal bankruptcy filings increased in 2019 for the first time since 2010. These weaknesses are puzzling in view of the decline in unemployment to a 50-year low.
Raghuram Rajan, Chicago professor and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who famously predicted the crisis, asserts that widening income inequalities were a major driver of the unsustainable leveraging of low-income US households before the crisis. Since then, income inequalities have increased, with most of the income and wealth gains accruing to higher-income households (table 1).
Indeed Federal Reserve and Census Bureau data on income and debt distribution show that a large share of American households cannot cover their basic expenses out of income (table 2). For instance, one-third of Americans in the lowest income quintile cannot pay all their bills, even after skipping needed medical care. This income shortfall could explain low income households high leverage.
Of course, relative to the crisis the scale of bad consumer debt seems much more limited. In addition, regulatory tightening since the crisis has pushed risk out of the banking sector. Risks however are more likely to have been displaced than eliminated altogether. It may well turn out that consumer credit risks are now concentrated in fintechs. In any event, those are less systemically important than large deposit taking institutions.
The cracks in household balance sheets are still likely to add to downside risks to growth. The pre-crisis household debt overhang and subsequent deleveraging were major causes of the recession and weak recovery. This time around, while the debt overhang is smaller, it also seems concentrated within low income households that have a higher propensity to consume. Against this backdrop, a continued tightening of consumer credit standards could force low income households to increase their savings. Consumption growth, that is already slowing and is the US economy main growth engine, could slow further and bring GDP growth below potential.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 22:25 - Turkey Threatens "Imminent" Large Scale Invasion Of Idlib To Halt Syrian-Russian Advance
Turkey Threatens “Imminent” Large Scale Invasion Of Idlib To Halt Syrian-Russian Advance
New threats related to Idlib this week could see the Russian and Turkish armies on a direct collision course.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday threatened a full-scale military invasion of the war torn province after the Syrian Army and its Russian ally refused to halt their ongoing offensive.
“An operation in Idlib is imminent,” Erdogan told Turkish parliament of preparations for NATO’s second largest army. “We are counting down, we are making our final warnings”.
Turkish tank in the town of Binnish in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, via AFP. “Turkey has completed preparations for the implementation of its plan on Idlib, just like we did with previous operations. Frankly speaking, an operation in Idlib is only a matter of time,” Erdogan said.
He further emphasized that Turkey “is determined to pay any price to ensure security in both Idlib and Turkey.” The Syrian and Turkish armies have been engaged in sporadic fierce clashes for the past two weeks in Idlib, resulting in scores dead and wounded on each side, though specific numbers are disputed. Turkey has acknowledged at least 13 of its national troops killed.
“We will not leave Idlib to the [Syrian] regime, which does not understand our country’s determination, and to those encouraging it,” said Erdogan. Turkey has thus far sent limited deployments of troops and armored convoys into the northwest Syrian province to support and defend a dozen observation posts.
The Kremlin was quick to respond to such a threat of major escalation, pointing out that any Turkish offensive against Syrian forces in Idlib would be the “worst case scenario”.
“If it will be an operation against terrorist forces in Idlib, that would certainly be within the spirit” of Russia’s agreements with Turkey, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said before adding: “But if it is about an operation against legitimate Syrian armed forces, that would certainly be the worst case scenario.”
The IDPs break into one of the humanitarian supplies warehouses as they are fed up waiting for 6 hours in-line with so little being distributed. #Syria #Idlib pic.twitter.com/OTRyoyN7QH
— Hadi Albahra (@hadialbahra) February 19, 2020
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Talks between Turkish and Russian officials earlier this week related to Idlib failed to reach any agreement. This after Erdogan and Trump held a phone call wherein both leaders agreed the Syrian-Russian offensive must be halted “immediately”.
Mainstream media has also begun to again put Idlib coverage front and center as hundreds of thousands of civilians are said to be fleeing. Erdogan has long expressed fears that a million or more refugees could flood across the Turkish border, adding to the already some three million Turkey says it’s hosting.
UN figures state that at least 700,000 people have been displaced in Idlib since fighting was renewed in early December.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 22:05 - 2 'Diamond Princess' Passengers Die Of Coronavirus
2 ‘Diamond Princess’ Passengers Die Of Coronavirus
As Japanese health officials begin the second day of offloading passengers and crew from the ‘Diamond Princess’ cruise ship that has been under quarantine in Yokohama for the last two weeks, the Japanese press is reporting that two passengers from the ship have died.
The report cites unidentified government officials.
Two passengers from the Japanese cruise ship #DiamondPrincess have died of #COVID19, NHK reports pic.twitter.com/c8iUnAKkJC
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) February 20, 2020
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Even as roughly 600 passengers disembarked on Wednesday, Japanese officials announced 79 more confirmed cases aboard the ship on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infected to 621 – the largest outbreak outside mainland China.
In the US, the CDC has questioned the wisdom of Japanese officials, and accused them of failing to properly quarantine the ship, particularly after 14 passengers found to be carrying the virus were allowed onto a US evacuation flight.
All of the passengers leaving the ship have reportedly been tested for the COVID-19, according to the cruise line. Several hundred other passengers who aren’t taking repatriation flights to their home countries are expected to leave the ship on Thursday, and it’s unclear what will happen to them after that. Most of the passengers will be ferried back to their home countries, where they will face another two weeks of quarantine.
Japanese health officials are expected to begin offloading more passengers shortly (since it’s already mid-morning on Thursday in Tokyo). It’s not clear how these deaths will affect the process, if at all.
These are the first deaths since Hong Kong reported its second death and Iran reported two virus-related deaths. It brings the death toll ex-China to 9. They marked the second and thirds deaths in Japan, respectively.
Details about the deceased haven’t been released.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 21:53 - China's "Mandate Of Heaven" Is In Jeopardy
China’s “Mandate Of Heaven” Is In Jeopardy
Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
One event is taking center stage in the world that affects not only basic survival for millions of people, but the health of the global economy overall.
Of course, I’m talking about the coronavirus outbreak currently playing out before our eyes in China.
China’s economy was slowing substantially before the outbreak of the highly contagious and deadly virus last fall.
This slowing was the predictable result of excessive debt levels, Trump’s retaliation in the trade wars, and China’s encounter with what development economists call the “middle-income trap.”
Developing economies can grow at double-digit rates as they move from low-income (about $3,000 annual per capita income) to middle-income (about $10,000 annual per capita income).
The main requirements are limits on corruption, a large pool of available labor, and an attractive legal environment for foreign direct investment. Once investment is used for infrastructure and labor is mobilized, large-scale basic manufacturing can commence.
This powers growth and the accumulation of hard currency reserves from export earnings.
The difficulty begins when an economy tries to move from middle-income to high-income (about $18,000 annual per capita income). That move requires more than cheap labor and infrastructure investment. It requires applied technology to produce high-value added products.
Only Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have made this transition, (excluding Japan after World War II, and oil-exporting nations).
This explains why China has been so focused on stealing U.S. intellectual property.
Trump has been closing that avenue. China cannot generate the needed technology through its own R&D. China is stuck in the middle-income trap and a slowdown in growth is the inevitable result.
The story gets worse for China.
As of Friday, the total reported number of people infected by the coronavirus was 64,435. And the death toll was up to 1,383, including three people outside of China.
Those figures are official statistics released by China and other countries around the world where the virus has spread.
However, there is substantial medical, anecdotal, and model-based evidence that the actual infection rate and death rate may be ten to twenty times higher than those official statistics.
Over 60 million Chinese in several major cities are under “lock-down” where individuals are confined to their homes and may only leave once every three days to buy groceries.
Streets are empty, stores are closed, trains and planes are not moving, and factories are shut. The Chinese economy is slowly grinding to a halt.
This not only affects China’s economy as a whole, but the contagion filters down into individual companies that are dependent on China both for supply chain inputs and final sales.
And it will have a rippling effect on the U.S. economy also. This story has a long way to run.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 21:45 - Ayatollah Tweets "Wealthy Zionists" Control America Amid Push To Get Him Banned From Twitter
Ayatollah Tweets “Wealthy Zionists” Control America Amid Push To Get Him Banned From Twitter
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has marked the latest national event commemorating the death of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani by tweeting a deeply provocative statement asserting that “wealthy Zionists” control America.
The United States has reached the “peak of arrogance,” and is controlled by “wealthy Zionists and their corporate owners,” which makes it a “manifestation of oppression, abhorred by the world,” he said further, as reported in The Jerusalem Post.
Now deceased Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (left) with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, via Times of Israel/Wiki Commons. The statement comes after the Islamic Republic’s top cleric and head of the regime previously slammed Trump’s Mideast peace plan “Deal of the Century” as “satanic” because it ultimately represents the “Jewishization” of Jerusalem and the suppression of Islamic identity.
“To the dismay of US politicians, the satanic, evil US policy about Palestine — the so-called Deal Of The Century— will never bear fruit, by the grace of God,” Khamenei wrote on his official Twitter account in late January.
Such inflammatory and religiously charged rhetoric will likely only fuel an ongoing initiative of hawkish Republican Senators to get Khamenei and other top Iranian leaders banned from Twitter and other US social media platforms.
We are against the rule of oppression and arrogance. This is what we mean by “America.” Today, the peak of arrogance is the US, which is controlled by the wealthy Zionists & their corporate owners. The US is a manifestation of oppression. Thus, they’re abhorred by the world.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) February 18, 2020
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Earlier this month the group of Republicans including Ted Cruz (Tx.), Tom Cotton (Ark.) Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) wrote in the letter to Twitter: “While the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of Americans — and Twitter should not be censoring the political speech of Americans — the Ayatollah enjoys zero protection from the United States Bill of Rights.”
“And, as the leader of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism — directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of U.S. citizens — the Ayatollah and any American companies providing him assistance are entirely subject to U.S. sanctions laws,” they added.
Twitter has long defended its position of never banning heads of state from the platform, given the need to publicly articulate a country’s positions.
Israeli media has carefully documented Khamenei’s recent history of lashing out at “Zionists and Jews” on Twitter; however, as The Jerusalem Post notes, he’s long underscored a distinction between political Zionism and adherents of the Jewish religion:
Last year, the ayatollah said Iran is not antisemitic and that Jews live safely in Iran. In June 2019, he contrasted Iran’s treatment of Jews with “certain old Arab leaders who believed Jews should be thrown into the sea.”He says Iran is only opposed to the “Zionist” regime.
Regardless, American politicians and pundits typically view any and all disparaging remarks about ‘Zionists’ – especially coming out of Iran or the Islamic world in general – as an anti-Semitic trope.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 21:25 - Russia Is Defeating The U.S. In The Middle East Oil Game
Russia Is Defeating The U.S. In The Middle East Oil Game
Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,
Historically, Russia goes to great lengths to hide or disguise its strategic intentions but it clearly feels empowered enough in the Middle East to very obviously stake its claim in the region – excluding, for the time being only, Saudi Arabia – by stating that a slew of Russian companies are to spend up to US$20 billion on oil projects in Iraq in the near term.
“Since [U.S. President Donald] Trump outlined the new U.S. foreign policy of not engaging in conflicts abroad unless they were directly aligned with U.S. interests [October 2019], and then effectively withdrawing from Syria and from supporting the Kurds, Russia and China have felt that they can bring forward their plans to bring Iraq within their geopolitical arc of influence,” a senior source who works closely with Iraq’s Oil Ministry told OilPrice.com last week.
“They know that provided that they do not impinge on Saudi Arabia and, at a pinch the UAE and Kuwait, or launch attacks against U.S. personnel, then they can basically do whatever they want anywhere else, hence this announcement from Russia last week,” he added.
Before this announcement – which specifically mentioned Zarubezhneft, Tatneft, and Rosneftegaz as companies interested in pursuing specific but as yet unnamed projects, in addition to those Russia companies already active in the country (including Lukoil, Bashneft, and GazpromNeft) – Russia had adopted its usual stealth approach to building up its presence in Iraq.
“It is incremental colonialism, beginning one day with one relatively small contract being taken up by some Russian company nobody has heard of, then more Russian companies turn up in the same place under ‘contractor’ terms having been engaged by the company you gave the original contact to, then security companies turn up to guard all of the personnel, and suddenly you have a major Russian occupation of part of your key oil and gas infrastructure,” the Iraq source underlined.
The oil and gas prize for the Russians in Iraq is, of course, huge, but many in the industry do not realise that it is still underestimated. The official figures for oil are that Iraq has around 149 billion barrels of reserves (18 per cent of the Middle East total and 9 per cent of the global total) and is currently the second-largest oil supplier in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia. All of this oil coming at a mean average ‘lifting cost’ per barrel in Iraq of US$2 to US$3 per barrel, according to the IEA, at least as competitive as Saudi Arabia. For gas, the official figures are slightly less impressive, but they are likely even more underestimated than the oil figures, with Iraq having about 135 trillion cubic feet of reserves (the 12th largest in the world), mostly associated at the moment with oil fields in the supergiant fields in the south of the country. However, despite the occasional increase in reserves estimates over the past few years – extremely modest by the standards of its neighbours, incidentally – much of Iraq still remains unexplored or under-explored compared with other major oil-producing countries.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), and derived from the landmark United States Geological Survey (USGS) 2000 assessment and subsequent updates, the level of ultimately recoverable resources at that time was around 232 billion barrels of crude and natural gas liquids. Even this, though, might prove on the low side, added the IEA, as a detailed study by Petrolog around that time reached a similar figure but did not include the parts of northern Iraq in the KRG area or examination of the geological anomalies prevalent in the central and western regions of the country. Even using the much more conservative USGS number, Iraq had just a decade ago only produced around 15 per cent of its ultimately recoverable resources, compared with 23 per cent for the Middle East as a whole at that time. At that point, of the 530 potential hydrocarbon-bearing geological prospects identified by – only – geophysical means in Iraq only 113 had been drilled, with oil being found in 73 of them, a success rate of 65 per cent. Although more of these geophysically-identified sites have now been drilled many more new ones have arisen due to identification by more sophisticated analysis of seismic and historical data.
“The Russians have done their own testing of potential oil and gas reserves over the years and they think it is about double the current official estimates on both of those [oil and gas],” the Iraq source told OilPrice.com last week.
This is one of two key reasons why Russia has exploited every opportunity to expand its footprint in the north and south of Iraq. In the north it has been extremely successful so far in using its corporate proxy, Rosneft, to gain control over key elements of the region’s oil and gas infrastructure while in the south it had been forced by the U.S.’s own former ambitions to tread more stealthily. Although it has always been able to rely on being able to use Iran’s political and military over Iraq for its own purposes, these had to be sidelined for a while, at least whilst the real power in Iraq – Moqtada al-Sadr – was getting settled in to his power-broking role. As this was initially founded on the ultra-nationalist message (‘Iraq for the Iraqis, with no undue foreign influence’, in essence) of his election-winning ‘Sairoon’ power bloc, Moscow was able to tinker only the edges.
In such strategies, though, Russia is a master, and the influence it can ultimately wield starting from such a tiny access point is absolutely extraordinary. The most recent example of this – and a template for such strategies for any aspiring superpower, frankly – was the ‘awarding’ of a hitherto unknown development block in the middle of a wasteland by a hitherto unknown Russian company at a time when no one else was aware that anything was due to be awarded. As highlighted in-depth by OilPrice.com at the time, Russia’s Stroytransgaz (an almost unknown Russian oil and gas company – except by the U.S. whose Office of Foreign Assets Control extensively sanctioned it in 2014) signed a preliminary contract with the oil ministry in Baghdad for oil and gas exploration in Anbar province (a wasteland as far as Iraq’s oil and gas sector development goes). On the face of it, there was – and is – no real prospect of any substantial amounts of oil or gas being recovered from its Block 17 and additionally stationing any normal oil and gas workers there would be perilous to say the least, as it is an area torn by warring tribal communities, which even Islamic State avoided where possible.
The key to this, though – and vital in understanding the purpose behind the announcement of a doubling (possibly tripling) of Russian overt investment into Iraq – is that the area is critical in Russia fortifying its presence in the central Middle East and being able to secure a warm water multi-layered military presence in the Mediterranean.
“Russia risked full-on military confrontation with the U.S. to get a full-scale Black Sea port [Sevastopol] with access into the Mediterranean when it annexed Crimea in 2014, so there’s nothing it won’t do to build out its foothold in Syria and in the transit and supply route to Syria, which includes Iraq,” said the Iraq source.
In this context, then, Block 17 in Anbar – and the US$20 billion investment announced last week – makes perfect sense for the Russians, as it intends to secure what the U.S. military used to call ‘the spine’ of Islamic State where the Euphrates flows westwards into Syria and eastwards into the Persian Gulf. Along the spine running from east to west are the historical ultra-nationalist and ultra-anti-West cities of Falluja, Ramadi, Hit and Haditha, and then there is Syria, with its key strategic ports of Banias and Tartus. By happy ‘coincidence’ both Banias and Tartus are also extremely close to the massive Russian Khmeimim Air Base and the S-400 Triumf missile system. Although the base only came in to operation in 2015 supposedly to help in the fight against Islamic State, Russia appears to have changed its tactical plans for it, having also signed a 49 year lease on it, with the option for another 25 year extension. A short flight away is Russia’s Latakia intelligence-gathering listening station.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 21:05 - Watch Live: Bernie Battles "Billionaire" Bloomberg In Critical Las Vegas Debate
Watch Live: Bernie Battles “Billionaire” Bloomberg In Critical Las Vegas Debate
Americans will get a glimpse of the great ‘revolutionary class war’ over the soul of the Democratic Party Wednesday night as Democratic Primary frontrunner Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” who once proposed that no American be allowed to earn more than $1 million per year, faces off against latecomer Mike Bloomberg.
Bloomberg has shot up in the polls in recent weeks after leveraging his $62.8 billion fortune to build a massive campaign operation and finance a deluge of ad buys. The former NYC mayors participation in tonight’s debate is controversial: He only qualified yesterday, and his name isn’t even on the ballot in Nevada.
After skipping the first four contests, Bloomberg won’t officially enter the running until March 3 – better known as “Super Tuesday” – where it looks like he has a strong shot at winning several delegate-heavy states.
Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement Tuesday that the candidate is “looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country. The opportunity to discuss his workable and achievable plans for the challenges facing this country is an important part of the campaign process.”
Polls aren’t the only arena where Bloomberg has recently clocked a major advance: Ahead of the debate, online betting markets also placed Bloomberg in second to Sanders via the odds.
But, as Bernie has soared into the bookies’ odds lead, so the odds of a Trump win has surged…
If Bloomberg performs well tonight, parrying Sanders’ ad hominem attacks and slanders about billionaires, perhaps he’ll win over the rest of the doubters from his fellow moderates, and solidify his position as one true alternative to Sanders, especially as the Biden campaign implodes, Warren drops behind Klobuchar (with neither garnering much support) and Pete Buttigieg still can’t seem to convince much of the public that he’d be a trustworthy keeper of the nuclear codes.
Here is what The Hill sees as the five key things to watch for tonight…
How will Bloomberg combat attacks?
Bloomberg will walk onto Wednesday night’s debate stage with a target on his back as a result of his ascendance in the polls. The forum will give voters a new view of Bloomberg, who has not yet been on a debate stage this cycle and has given only a few sit-down interviews since announcing his candidacy. The self-funded candidate is set to make the stage in Nevada after the Democratic National Committee dropped a previous donor threshold. The biggest attacks Bloomberg has received from the Democratic field this cycle have been from Sanders. The senator has repeatedly accused Bloomberg of looking to buy his way into the Democratic nomination after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on ads. The war of words escalated further on Monday when Bloomberg accused Sanders of not doing enough to call out the behavior and rhetoric of a segment of his supporters. Biden and Klobuchar have both also signaled their eagerness to hit Bloomberg on the debate stage, including over comments the former New York City mayor made about stop-and-frisk policing and housing policy for low-income buyers. “I am also an advocate for him coming on the debate stage. I know that I’m not going to be able to beat him on the airwaves, but I can beat him on the debate stage,” Klobuchar said.
How will Sanders fend off attacks on ‘Medicare for All’?
Sanders’s Medicare for All proposal, a hallmark of his campaign, came under fire in Nevada last week after the state’s powerful Culinary Union warned that the plan would “end culinary health care” by replacing private plans with government-run insurance. Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Biden have all questioned how Sanders would pay for his Medicare for All plan. Warren faced similar questions earlier in the race. The recent developments regarding the Culinary Union, which ended up not endorsing a candidate, have put a newfound scrutiny on Sanders’s proposed plan. “It is striking that there’s been no explanation of how this is supposed to work when it could be one of the biggest things done to the American economy in a generation,” Buttigieg said, referring to Sanders’s plan, in January. Sanders has argued that health care costs will be more expensive over the next decade without a Medicare for All system. Sanders also came under pressure after the Culinary Union denounced the candidate’s supporters for “viciously” attacking union members online. Sanders urged supporters of all campaigns to stop online attacks, saying “harassment of all forms is unacceptable to me.”
Can Biden and Warren have their debate moment?
Biden and Warren were both seen as front-runners earlier in the race but have both seen a decline in support in the polls after less-than-stellar performances in Iowa and New Hampshire. Critics say Biden’s debate performances have been weak, which could be an impediment to him on Wednesday as he looks to revamp his campaign. Biden is banking on the support of Latinos and African Americans in Nevada and could use Wednesday’s debate stage as an opportunity to tout his ties with those communities across the country. Warren, who has had a number of strong debate performances, will also be looking for a breakout moment as she looks to hit the reset button on her campaign. The senator will likely be looking to reclaim her spot as the race’s top progressive from Sanders, while also looking for opportunities to hit Bloomberg. Klobuchar showed this month that strong debate performances matter after a good showing by the Minnesota senator ahead of the New Hampshire primary was widely seen as having contributed to her better-than-expected third-place finish in the Granite State.
How will Buttigieg, Klobuchar pitch to a more diverse electorate?
Buttigieg and Klobuchar have emerged from contests in Iowa and New Hampshire with momentum, but they will be addressing a vastly different audience in Nevada. The two Midwesterners have struggled throughout the campaign to appeal to voters of color, which threatens to hurt them in Nevada. The two have also not spent as much time in Nevada compared to Iowa and New Hampshire, so Wednesday could be critical in terms of making their case to voters. Buttigieg and Klobuchar will likely have to answer questions about their past careers as a mayor and prosecutor, respectively, and how they affected minority communities in their roles. Buttigieg has come under scrutiny for his handling of the aftermath of a police-involved shooting of a black man, as well as questions about the disproportionate arrests of black people for marijuana possession during his mayoral tenure and the firing of a black police chief. Klobuchar has come under fire for prosecuting a black teenager who was found guilty of murder in 2002 despite a number of flaws in the case uncovered by an Associated Press story. The senator has called for all evidence in the case to be reviewed.
Which candidates besides Bloomberg are most likely to clash or take fire?
Aside from Bloomberg, there are a number of other candidate clashes that could take place on Wednesday night. Buttigieg and Sanders have gone head-to-head over their differences in policies, often showcasing the division between moderates and progressives within the party. Biden also attacked Buttigieg over his experience as the former mayor narrowly won more delegates in the Iowa caucuses, effectively replacing Biden as the standard-bearer for the moderate wing of the party. Klobuchar could see dividends in attacking Sanders, billing herself as the more pragmatic candidate. However, she could also look to go after the moderates on stage in an effort to break further out of the crowded centrist lane. Warren, whose attacks on Sanders have fallen flat in the past, could also set her sights on the moderates in the race in an effort to contrast her more progressive ideas.
Reportedly, according to campaign officials, Bloomberg will not be standing on a box for the duration of the debate.
Watch the debate live below. It begins at 9 pm ET:
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 20:45 - 'You Are Here' – The Stages Of Collapse Exposed
‘You Are Here’ – The Stages Of Collapse Exposed
Authored by Tumoas Malinen via GnS Economics,
Could the coronavirus act as a catalyst for a new global economic crisis? It certainly has that potential – but how would the crisis proceed?
In the December 2018 issue of our Q-Review, we laid out the likely scenarios of an approaching global economic collapse. But, like most things in life, such a dramatic event is unlikely to proceed in a linear fashion. There will be different stages within it.
In December 2019 we outlined these stages, which are likely five: the onset, counter-attack, flood, calamity and recovery. Here, we briefly define the characteristics of each.
The onset
Currently, there seems to be two possible ignition points for the collapse: the credit market and the European banking sector.
At the onset, stresses that have been building in the credit markets since the summer of 2019 will explode, shrinking if not eliminating entirely the exits from many parts of that market. Downgrades of corporate debt in the U.S. and peripheral sovereign debt in the Eurozone will push large fixed-income investors, including pension funds, into higher-rated bonds, leading to large-scale selling of lower-rated bonds, forcing wider spreads and even more selling.
Panic will build first in the junk bond market, then in the “investment-grade” corporate bond market, and then rapidly metastasize to engulf the stock market. A frantic retreat to ‘safe-haven’ assets, including U.S. Treasuries, German Bunds and U.K. Gilts as well as cash and precious metals will commence.
Cascading banking troubles in Europe will have the same destabilizing effects on the global stock and bond markets.
The counterattack
The second phase of the collapse will be the desperate efforts of authorities to stop the crisis by a counterattack.
These are likely to include the restarting and acceleration of QE-programs and other market support programs, gigantic fiscal stimulus, increasing trade protectionism and possibly even calls for direct debt monetization (see Q-Review 3/2019 for an explanation).
However, the plummeting yields on safe-haven bonds will make reflexive central bank QE-programs utterly ineffective, while any central bank stock purchase programs will provide little relief from the panic gripping investors. Central banks will also be unable to ameliorate a massive reduction in market liquidity.
Most of the governments of the Eurozone are too indebted to engage in any meaningful stimulus, especially when confronted with cascading bank problems and eventual failures. China will desperately try to enact even more fiscal stimulus, but due to the collapse of global economic demand and the probable implosion of the housing and financial system bubbles in China, such attempts will be wholly inadequate. The Chinese economy will slam to earth in a hard landing.
The flood
The crack-up in the credit and stock markets will be followed by a flood of corporate bankruptcies.
So-called “zombie” corporations, faced with collapsing economic demand and exploding interest rates—due to the banking crisis and crashing credit markets—will fail on a scale unseen in decades. The value of the holdings of pension funds, charitable endowments, trust funds, insurance company variable accounts, and stock and bond mutual funds will crash in short order. Even lowly money-market funds may be at risk, just as they were in the Financial Crisis.
If the European banking sector has not ‘cracked’ by this point, this tsunami of corporate bankruptcies will wash it over the edge. As Europe holds the largest concentration of Global Systemically Important Banks, or G-SIBs, the European banking crisis will “go global” in an instant.
Massive global deflation will follow, led by an ugly chain of bank and corporate failures. Global liquidity will collapse. An utter economic crash will follow.
The calamity
Due to both crashing capital markets and banking sector bankruptcies, joblessness and poverty are likely to explode. Simultaneously, government tax revenues will collapse as incomes retreat and capital gains evaporate. As governments spending skyrockets in an orgy of Keynesian counter-cyclicality, national deficits will hit all-time highs on both an absolute and relative basis.
Governments will try to save critically-important banks, which will require large-scale funding many countries—such as those in the Eurozone—cannot afford and will not be able to finance in paralyzed capital markets. This economic reality makes depositor bail-ins the only, if politically-unpalatable option.
Confronted by new and harsh fiscal realities, pensions and other social security programs are likely to face serious cutbacks by desperate governments. An economic calamity sets in.
The recovery
We expect the global depression to last 4-5 years. The initial collapse is likely to be over within three years.
The path to recovery will depend crucially on how far the ‘cleansing’ of the economy, markets and financial sector is allowed to go. If the banking sector implodes completely, the economic deficit will naturally be made much deeper leading to a systemic crisis.
However, if the essential functions of the banking sector are sustained, especially in Europe, we would avoid the deepest malaise. Moreover, if unsound banks and “zombie” corporations are allowed to go-under or are wound-down methodically, it will clear much of the malinvestment from the economy, creating the foundation for a strong and sustained recovery.
So, if we manage to return to the principles of the market economy including, most crucially, a return to undistorted price discovery in the capital markets, we are likely to see one of the most powerful recoveries in global economic history. It would be led by robotization and general technological innovation, which hard economic times tend to foster.
However, debt monetization, Modern Monetary Theory (“MMT”) and other money-conjuring schemes would corrupt the economy further making a sustained recovery impossible (see more from Q-Review 4/2019).
Moreover, with the governments and the central banks assuming a much bigger role in the economy and society in this darker scenario, some form of fascism (which is, by definition, the merger of state and corporate power) would be the likely end-result of these developments.
We can do nothing more than hope that wise, courageous and far-sighted political leadership will spare us from that horrible fate.
When?
After the Fed launched its desperate repo-market bailout operations in September and October of last year, stresses in the credit markets eased-up and stock markets rallied. Following the coronavirus outbreak, junk bond yield-spreads shot-up, but they were quickly tamed by the massive support operations launched, once again, by major central banks (see Figure 1).
It’s truly interesting to see, how long the artificial liquidity can keep the stock markets up, when the economy slows.
Figure 1. The daily closing value of the S&P 500 index and the option-adjusted spread of the ICE BofAML US corporate C index over the spot Treasury curve. Source: GnS economicss, Fed St. Louis, Yahoo Finance
Now, everything depends on China, and the impact of the coronavirus. How bad will the situation get? Do we anticipate a global pandemic, which at this point appears increasingly likely? Can China restore production quickly, which currently looks unlike?
The virus is so hazardous for the Chinese economy, because the virus itself and the draconian measures adopted to contain it disrupt production and the incomes of millions of highly-indebted firms and households. The longer that this broad economic stress continues, the higher the likelihood of corporate defaults and bankruptcies.
China’s banking system is extremely levered (see Figure 2). As we explained in Q-Review 4/2019, China’s banking system will be unable to cope with any longer slowing down of growth, not to speak of a recession.
Large-scale defaults and bankruptcies caused by the reasons just discussed would hit the Chinese banking sector especially hard. The virus can in this way easily act as a catalyst for a deep and severe banking crisis in China. It would guarantee a global recession.
Figure 2. Asset of the shadow banking sector and the credit issued to the non-financial sector in China. Source: GnS Economics, PBoC, BIS, Fed St. Louis
Most importantly, if the coronavirus pushes the Eurozone into a recession within the next few months, which seems very likely, our weak banking sector is unlikely to be able to cope with that (see Q-Review 4/2019 for a detailed explanation). And, that would imply the beginning of a global banking crisis, as explained above.
This is to say that by summer, we may be at the onset.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 20:25 - Terrifying Charts Show China's Economy Remains Completely Paralyzed
Terrifying Charts Show China’s Economy Remains Completely Paralyzed
In our ongoing attempts to glean some objective insight into what is actually happening “on the ground” in the notoriously opaque China, whose economy has been hammered by the Coronavirus epidemic, last week we showed several “alternative” economic indicators such as real-time measurements of air pollution (a proxy for industrial output), daily coal consumption (a proxy for electricity usage and manufacturing) and traffic congestion levels (a proxy for commerce and mobility), before concluding that China’s economy appears to have ground to a halt. These observations were subsequently reaffirmed when we showed that steel demand, property sales, and passenger traffic had all failed to rebound from the “dead zone” hit during China’s Lunar New Year hibernation.
Meanwhile, as every investor scrambles for clues to find the upward inflection point in China’s economic output which would at least partially validated the unbridled euphoria in the stock – and, ironically, the bond market – we have some unpleasant news: more than one week after our initial report on “alternative” high-frequency (read daily) indicators in China’s economy, any tangible improvement in China’s economy has yet to be observed.
We start with some base commodity market observations courtesy of Goldman Sachs, which when looking at preliminary weekly demand data, finds that:
- Finished product production -7.4% w/w
- Mill stocks +18% w/w
- Trader stocks -19% w/w
According to Goldman’s Adam Gillard, the above implies full country apparent demand is down a massive -66% y/y.
Picking up where Goldman (and we) left off, UBS writes that while there are official announcements for each province or cities to end the extended Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays, “the actual work resumption faces many constraints and is hard to track.” And so, piggybacking on what Capital Economics did previously, UBS constructed a China Daily Activity Tracker to assess real time development, which covers many of the same indicators we have already noted previously including:
- daily average transport congestion index for 100 cities,
- daily coal consumption of 6 large independent power plants (IPPs);
- daily property sales in 30 major cities;
- daily passenger volume; and
- weekly steel furnace operating rates.
Alas, as we have noted previously and as Goldman shows above, UBS’ indicators show that “China’s activities remain very subdued vs the same time after previous CNYs.”
Here are some of the Swiss bank’s key observations:
Coal consumption and property sales: Daily coal consumption of 6 large IPPs has been only 60% of average level of that in the same period in 2017-2019 (Fig 3). The daily property sales volume of 30 major cities is currently only around 10% of 2017-2019 average, but already up from a week earlier (Fig 4).
Transport congestion index: The index is measured as actual transport time relative to the theoretical time at free-flow speeds. 100-city average transport congestion index is below 1.2 of late, much lower than around 1.6 for the same period of 2017-2019.
UBS also constructs a Heat Map by province in Fig 5 to show each province’s index change compared with their previous low on Jan 25-26 (CNY day). As one would expect, there has been virtually no rebound for the vast majority of cities.
Passenger volume: Latest daily passenger volume is only 19% of that in the same period during CNY travel season in 2019 (Fig 12). Overall, total numbers of passengers carried has been around 18%, or 82% below, the 2019 level!
Accumulated passenger volume since the CNY day is 308mn person*time, 18% of 1.7bn person*time one year ago. While the drop is partly due to cancelled trips, a big part is likely due to delayed returns of workers, who will eventually come back over the coming weeks, assuming of course China manages to contain the coronavirus and the population believes the communist government.
We then move to a similar daily-activity tracker, this time from Goldman which confirmed the terrifying paralysis China’s economy finds itself in:
Daily coal consumption of major electricity producers was still 33% weaker in the first 18 days of February this year than normal seasonality would suggest. Needless to say, one can’t claim there is even a remote possibility of a return to normal if electricity output (and demand) is running almost half compared to where it was this time last year.
The real estate market remains frozen. As Goldman notes, daily property sales volume in 30 major cities over the past week has climbed up to 13% of the average level in the previous 5 years. It was better than the 0% it was for much of the previous week.
Last but not least, while hardly coming as a surprise, movie box office revenues have been unchanged for the past three weeks, and remain frozen… at zero!
And, as we noted previously, one can argue that the most ominous chart is not what is frozen in China right now – which is almost everything – but what is soaring. Thanks to Capital Economics we know what that is: food prices.
As we warned previously, a paralyzed economy, with 750 million people in some form of lock down, where the people are becoming increasingly angry at Beijing’s now openly over propaganda, where countless workers will soon be fired as companies run out of funds, and even more companies will soon be bankrupt due to lack of ongoing operations, and where the price of food is surging makes for the most volatile combination possible, one which if not arrested soon could lead to a very violent climax.
* * *
Putting it all together, one may ask why are global stocks not only not falling but are in fact soaring to record highs? The answer, as Goldman accurately puts it, is that “rightly or wrong, it just doesn’t matter because investors continue to price policy support.“
Market sentiment is still on. Most clients have priced in that more loosening in liquidity and property will come. Tomorrow the Feb LPR data will be out and consensus is 10bps cut as MLF rate cut. Treasury futures may see some correction unless the rate cuts is greater in magnitude. But my survey shows that the short term sentiment will not be hurt. From retail wise, we have seen craze from retail subscription of mutual funds recently and Foresight, an all-star PFM, has raised Rmb12bn within 8hours which made the new record high in history.
In short, don’t worry about a thing, the Fed’s got this.
Once upon a time we used to joke that if the world is facing an apocalyptic situation, stocks may hit “limit up” because all traders would ask is when the Fed will start buying stocks, as Janet Yellen said last week the central bank will probably do in the next crisis. Unfortunately, it is no longer a joke.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 20:15 - Israel To Step Up "Offensive Action" – Will Turn Syria Into "Iranian Vietnam": Israeli Defense Chief
Israel To Step Up “Offensive Action” – Will Turn Syria Into “Iranian Vietnam”: Israeli Defense Chief
After over two years of sporadic Israeli air and missile attacks inside Syria, which Syria’s military has been more aggressive in responding to of late, Israel has issued a rare statement revealing its medium to long-term strategy, saying it will soon step up “offensive action” in the country to ensure Iranian fighters depart.
Speaking to Ynet News on Wednesday the new Israeli Defense Minister, Naftali Bennett said, “We will go from preventive action to offensive action — the only measure that guarantees us the expulsion of Iran out of Syria.”
“We are warning them (the Iranians), we will turn Syria into an Iranian Vietnam, and you will continue to bleed until the last Iranian soldier leaves Syrian territory,” the nation’s defense chief threatened.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett visit Golan Heights base overlooking Syria last year. Image source: GPO/Haaretz Israel’s latest attack on Damascus occurred last Thursday, which resulted in heavy damage at the Syrian capital’s international airport, which media reports claim was used for Iranian weapons storage. Satellite imagery analysis source ImageSat said one of the more severely damaged buildings was “probably used for storing ammunition or [surface-to-air missiles].”
Syrian opposition media claimed that four members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and three Syrian soldiers were killed in the airstrikes. Israel has throughout the war often conducted attacks from over Lebanese airspace, targeting what it claims are Iranian assets inside Syria. Israel almost never provides confirmation it was behind these attacks, with Netanyahu quipping to reporters when asked about it: “I don’t know what happened at night. Maybe it was the Belgian air force.”
With the final battle for Idlib province now underway in the northwest, Assad has clearly emerged victorious in the war, making Tel Aviv increasingly anxious about Iran’s continued entrenched presence in support of its ally.
In separate prior comments delivered on Tuesday, Defense Minister Bennett said Iran is changing its thinking inside Syria. “I can tell you that we are seeing the initial indications of Iran weakening and considering a new tack in Syria,” he told a military technology conference in Tel Aviv.
“[The Iranians] are sending forces in order to establish a presence there to exhaust us, but we are turning this disadvantage into an advantage. We have intelligence and operational superiority, and we are telling the Iranians clearly: Get out of Syria. There’s nothing for you here.”
#ISI #intelligence report confirms: #Damascus International Airport – Headquarters and warehouses destroyed by airstrike (17/2/2020). #Syria pic.twitter.com/g8QIMqnaqZ
— ImageSat Intl. (@ImageSatIntl) February 18, 2020
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“We are moving from a defensive position to an offensive position — to weaken, to exhaust, to tire and wear out the head of the octopus in order to weaken its arms,” Bennett said, using an analogy he employs frequently.
He also said recent anti-government demonstrations in Iran were a sign that the Iranian people were growing tired of the Ayatollah’s “foreign adventurism” in places like Syria, and that they are telling their leaders “Stop wasting money and our blood on adventures”.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 20:05 - "Greater Idaho": Conservatives In Oregon Want 22 Rural Counties To Secede And Become Part Of Idaho
“Greater Idaho”: Conservatives In Oregon Want 22 Rural Counties To Secede And Become Part Of Idaho
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Is the state of Idaho going to get a whole lot bigger? A group known as Greater Idaho is pushing for rural counties in Oregon and northern California to secede and become part of the state of Idaho. In fact, as you will see below, this effort has actually been endorsed by some of the top Republicans in the Oregon legislature. Today, the Oregon state government is completely and utterly dominated by the left, and due to the demographics of the state that is not likely to change any time soon. So conservatives in rural areas that are deeply upset over the direction of the state essentially have just two options. They can either move to a more conservative state, or they can attempt to redraw state lines.
Of course attempting to redraw state lines is a very complicated process, but at this point conservatives in Oregon are so fed up with the state legislature that they have decided to push ahead with this effort.
In fact, it is being reported that signatures are being collected right now in order to “put the proposal on ballots in November”…
Frustrated by liberal policies, some Oregon residents petitioned to leave the state – by moving the border with Idaho westward.
The movement secured initial approval from two counties and aims to get enough signatures to put the proposal on ballots in November, according to the group called Greater Idaho.
This is a very viable political movement, and it will be quite interesting to see where this goes.
For years, rural counties in Oregon have felt shortchanged by a state legislature that is dominated by the Portland area, and things have finally come to a breaking point. One of the chief organizers of this movement, Mike McCarter, says that this secession push “is our last resort”…
“Rural counties have become increasingly outraged by laws coming out of the Oregon Legislature that threaten our livelihoods, our industries, our wallet, our gun rights, and our values,” Mike McCarter, one of the chief petitioners, said in a news release. “We tried voting those legislators out, but rural Oregon is outnumbered and our voices are now ignored. This is our last resort.”
Initial efforts are focused on just a few counties, but eventually the goal of Greater Idaho is to get dozens of counties in Oregon and northern California to secede.
The following comes from Greater Idaho’s official website…
We are trying to change the present borders of Idaho, Oregon & Northern California so that certain counties & communities presently in Oregon & Northern California will become part of the State of Idaho.
Out of Oregon’s existing 36 counties, only 14 would remain in the state if Greater Idaho is able to achieve their goals, and a big chunk of northern California would become Idaho territory as well.
But getting this accomplished will not be easy. Approval would be needed from the state legislatures of Oregon, California and Idaho, and that would be a real challenge.
On top of that, the U.S. Congress would have to approve any plan, and getting that to happen would probably require a miracle.
But one thing that this movement has going for it is the fact that it has been endorsed by some big name state lawmakers in Oregon, and that includes the top Republican in the state Senate…
The Republican leader in the state Senate, Sen. Herman Baertschiger, supports the idea and told CNN he’d even help write the secession legislation.
“Democrats should be paying attention to how unhappy these Oregonians are with the current regime to seek secession from Oregon. I would welcome the idea to serve on the Greater Idaho legislature!” he said.
And Representative Gary Leif actually has a map of “Greater Idaho” hanging in his office…
Rep. Gary Leif, a Republican in the Oregon House of Representatives, has a poster of the “Greater Idaho” map hanging in his office.
“The Greater Idaho would then be the only West Coast state that is a conservative red coastal state. We would then truly be representing conservative values with rural constituents,” Leif explained.
It is certainly encouraging to see people take a really big idea and try to run with it.
But of course the liberals in Oregon are not exactly thrilled with the idea that most of their state could be ripped away from them and given to someone else. And as long as they are in firm control of the state legislature, it is going to be exceedingly difficult for this plan to get too far.
A similar scenario is playing out in Virginia. The Democrats have taken control of the state government, and the state continues to drift left with each passing year.
Obviously many of those living in rural Virginia counties do not like this one bit, and the recent attacks on Second Amendment rights brought things to a boiling point.
There has been a lot of talk that rural countries in Virginia could try to secede and join West Virginia, and West Virginia’s governor Jim Justice has publicly said that he would welcome those counties “with open arms”…
In an unlikely bid, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice says he would welcome neighboring Virginia counties to join his state amid Democrats’ control of Virginia’s government.
“If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or anywhere where you may be,” said Justice, a Republican. “We stand strongly behind the Second Amendment, and we stand strongly for the unborn.”
But once again, this effort in Virginia is facing the same sorts of obstacles that the Greater Idaho movement is facing.
Of course anything that is worth doing in life is going to require effort. And those that are trying to secure a better future for themselves, their families and their communities should be greatly applauded for doing so.
Ultimately, this is yet another sign of how incredibly divided we have become as a nation. In recent years we have seen multitudes of conservatives move to “red states” and multitudes of liberals move to “blue states”, and that trend is likely to accelerate in the years ahead.
It has gotten to the point where many of us literally do not even want to live in an area that is controlled by the other side, and the 2020 election is going to deepen our existing political divisions no matter who ends up winning.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 19:45 - "They Completely Dropped The Ball": Critics Bash Japan's Government
“They Completely Dropped The Ball”: Critics Bash Japan’s Government
Japan has become the country that’s perhaps most at risk of a major outbreak of COVID-19. It’s also the country with arguably the most to lose, in terms of its reputation, if it’s forced to call off the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
As we’ve noted several times over the past few days, from allowing the US to break its quarantine of the ‘Diamond Princess’ to releasing thousands of passengers and crew as new cases are still being identified, Japan’s public health officials seem to have repeatedly dropped the ball in suppressing an outbreak that isn’t very forgiving of mistakes.
In an uncharacteristically brusque statement, the CDC, which is coordinating the US response to the virus, claimed that Japan had “failed” with the ‘Diamond Princess’ quarantine. And on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that experts around the world feel the same way.
Even though most countries have promised to quarantine passengers and crew from the DP once they return home, Japan is simply letting thousands of potentially infected individuals out into the streets of Tokyo. The UK has advised Britons on board the ship to remain aboard until Friday, when it can organize an evacuation flight.
Given Japan’s elderly population, an outbreak of COVID-19 could be particularly deadly. Researchers have said that patients over the age of 80, and those with co-occurring health issues are at the highest risk of death upon infection.
For what it’s worth, Japan has taken some positive steps, as Japanese companies have ordered thousands to work from home, a policy the government has supported.
But while some events have been cancelled and some companies have told workers not to come into the office, the rush-hour trains in Tokyo are still packed with workers, and there has been little government discussion of a wider lockdown.
A top economist at Nomura, a Japanese bank, said PM Shinzo Abe’s government embarrassed itself by waiting for the WHO to declare a global pandemic before taking the outbreak seriously.
“The Japanese government’s decision to wait for the China-friendly WHO to make its much-delayed declaration of a global health emergency led to the first cases of domestic person-to-person transmission and tarnished the country’s international reputation,” Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Research Institute, wrote in a report.
Outside of the ‘Diamond Princess’, Japan has only confirmed 74 cases. But Koo suspects it’s already too late for the administration to stave off a severe economic shock.
“The coronavirus will probably cause a substantial amount of economic damage in Japan,” Koo wrote. The Abe administration, he says, “managed to completely drop the ball on this issue.”
And Roo isn’t the only economist who’s worried about Japan: A Bloomberg survey released Wednesday showed that the economists see Japan falling into recession as the coronavirus pummels an economy already reeling from a recent unpopular sales tax hike.
Earlier, we shared a rant from Professor Kentaro Iwata of the Faculty of Infectious Diseases at Kobe University, who claimed that the conditions aboard the ship were “completely chaotic.”
“The cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of controlling infections,” he said in one of them.
“There was not a single infection control professional on the ship, nor anyone professionally involved in infection prevention. The bureaucrats were in charge of everything.”
“There is no clear distinction between the green (healthy) zones and the red (potentially infected) zones. And the staff is running back and forth,” Iwata reported.
Researchers tracking the virus haven’t been able to ascertain how many of the patients were infected – they seemingly picked up the virus out of thin air. Though one notable exception was a hospital worker who was infected by one of the passengers aboard the ‘Diamond Princess.’
Japan isn’t the only government that was caught flat-footed by the outbreak. In reality, governments across the region failed to predict that it would have such a huge impact.
“This virus spread very, very fast. Not only China, not only Japan, but also many other countries cannot catch up with the speed of this virus,” Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor of virology at Tohoku University, told reporters in Tokyo. Oshitani also sits on the government panel tackling the virus. “Even if they implemented a travel ban to all of China, it was too late.”
Of course, the outbreak would need to get pretty damn bad for Japan and the Olympic Committee to actually cancel or postpone the games. Japan says all passengers and crew from the DP have been tested, and that anybody released will have tested negative and shown no symptoms of infection. Still, there’s a solid chance that many who have only just been infected don’t show symptoms for weeks, despite being contagious. Right now, it seems like Japan is planning to release hundreds of potentially infected people into the streets without a backup plan in case things go awry, or the worst case – that dozens of people contracted the virus in the closing days of the quarantine, and slipped through the inspection – becomes a reality.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 19:25 - The Mind Behind The "World Computer": Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin
The Mind Behind The “World Computer”: Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin
Authored by Horus Hughes via CoinTelegraph.com,
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology were meant to liberate the oppressed, bank the unbanked and democratize countries with opaque authoritarian governments. Whether or not the crypto sector has actually achieved these goals remains a topic of debate, but it is fair to say that a surprising number of crypto startups, initial coin offerings and blockchain companies have either missed the mark or proven to be outright scams.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
But Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been unassailable in his mission to build the “World Computer.” Since piecing together a revolutionary white paper in 2013, the soft-spoken genius behind the Ethereum project and Ether cryptocurrency has been a steady advocate for the democratizing capacity of decentralized networks.
Born on Jan. 31, 1991, Buterin lived the first six years of his life in the Russian city of Kolomna – roughly 62 miles away from Moscow – before he and his parents relocated to Canada in search of better employment opportunities. Buterin performed well in school, attending The Abelard School in Toronto and displaying an uncanny aptitude for mathematics and science. Buterin finished one year at the University of Waterloo before dropping out in 2013, as his passion for blockchain technology could not wait for finishing his studies.
Although Buterin had been an active participant in the Bitcoin community since 2011, as a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, he is better known as the man responsible for the seminal Ethereum white paper.
As an active participant and contributor to numerous Bitcoin communities, Buterin frequently proposed building a more fluid version of the Bitcoin core network that would support the swift creation of decentralized apps without functionality-layering procedures. Eventually, after a succession of failed proposals, Buterin decided to develop a new blockchain with built-in support for smart contracts; and the rest is history.
Ethereum in the post-ICO era
Initial coin offerings, made possible in large part by the ERC-20 token standard, came to the end of their era after the 2017 hype. The Ethereum project at times seemed to have lost its way, and both average observers and Ether advocates will likely agree that the development team is more focused on network upgrades and hard forks than stabilizing the value of the altcoin. For some speculators, that could be a negative, but most of Ethereum’s true believers would say the explicit desire to focus on the network’s functionality instead of Ether’s price is a net positive in the long term.
Recently, the network successfully implemented the Istanbul hard fork – the eighth to date – and the developers still intend for the network to shift to ETH 2.0, dubbed Serenity, in 2020.
Buterin provides a steady hand
What sets Vitalik Buterin apart from some of his peers is his approach to decentralization and his desire to preserve democratic principles in the crypto space. According to Buterin, the future of cryptocurrency is “diverse and pluralist,” and during times when the network’s decentralization has come under question, Buterin has stepped in to espouse the value of ensuring that all perspectives are heard and the collective desire is acted upon.
In August 2018, Buterin told Forbes:
“Recently, I am spending a lot of time working on the proof-of-stake and sharding protocols. This is what the Ethereum research community is focusing on more than anything else at this point. We think that proof-of-stake and scaling are both really important and there has been a lot of progress on improving the algorithms and the development of multiple limitations over the last couple of months. I’ve also been looking at the economic analysis of transaction fees and how transaction fee algorithms can be improved to basically cut fees down and make the protocol alignment centers better and more efficient.”
Buterin further explained that cryptocurrency needs to be easy enough to use that one could “walk into a convenience store, get a card, pay $5 and get $5, minus some small fee of like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, etc and start using it.”
What’s in store for 2020?
Now that 2020 is underway, the general focus within the crypto space has shifted to the upcoming Bitcoin reward halving as well as the maneuvering of large institutional investors into cryptocurrencies. Rather than obsessing over Etheruem’s valuation in its Bitcoin and USD pairings, Buterin is deeply focused on pushing the network toward its transition to Ethereum 2.0.
If implemented successfully, many in the sector believe the network upgrade will have a significant impact on the entire sector, including other networks like Tron, Cardano, EOS and Ontology — all of which claim to be superior to Ethereum.
Ethereum’s status as the most popular smart contract platform underlies the significance of the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. Proof of the network’s popularity is shown by the frequent overloads, where transaction times slow to a snail’s crawl and transaction fees rise to the point of rendering the network’s use less than sensible.
This congestion shows that demand for the network is steady, and if Ethereum 2.0 successfully launches, the network would be in even higher demand. According to Buterin, Ethereum 2.0 would stand as a serious competitor to other networks, and once fully implemented, transaction times could drop from minutes to approximately three seconds.
As Buterin said during the first sharding workshop in Taipei in 2018:
“Ethereum 1.0 is a couple of peoples’ scrappy attempt to build the world computer; Ethereum 2.0 will actually be the world computer.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 19:05 - Bizarre 'Road Rage Among Superpowers' Incident In Syria Caught On Film
Bizarre ‘Road Rage Among Superpowers’ Incident In Syria Caught On Film
A bizarre incident was captured on film Wednesday involving American and Russian military patrols.
The dangerous encounter took place in northeastern Syria near the town of Qamishli, site of prior recent stand-offs involving US special forces attempting to block Russian military patrols from going near oil fields in the region.
In the now viral video, a US armored vehicle is seen veering aggressively at a Russian military vehicle as it attempts to speed past the Americans.
Fast and 14urious: raqqa drift pic.twitter.com/YLRvb7sG8K
— Lost Weapons (@LostWeapons) February 19, 2020
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As the Russian vehicle careens off the side of the road, a Syrian bystander appears to be almost hit.
Analysis of the “crazy” road rage among superpowers footage offered by The Drive notes that the two vehicles actually hit each other during the high speed incident:
It’s not entirely clear why, but the Russian Tigr also makes to pass the Americans on the right at the same time, deliberately going offroad, and then wedges itself between the American M-ATV and the MaxxPro vehicles. The crew of the M-ATV responds by first attempting to block the Russians from passing any further and then drives them off the road. The two vehicles appear to actually hit each other at one point.
A civilian bystander on the roadside is seen leaping out of the way of the Tigr just in time. The Russian and American vehicles then come to a stop as the vehicle carrying the camera drives by.
US vehicle and Russian vehicle in a little altercation. Wacky Races Syria. pic.twitter.com/TLvAGhpBc2
— Jake Hanrahan (@Jake_Hanrahan) February 19, 2020
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The whole thing took place on a roadway in the same area of an exchange of gunfire between Syrian villagers and a US patrol that took place a week ago.
Local villagers were demanding the American occupiers depart, and blamed them for the prior death of a teenager.
The exchange of fire, later confirmed by the Pentagon, left a Syrian dead and resulted in the minor injury of one US soldier.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/19/2020 – 18:45
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