- These Are The World's Most Valuable Football Club Brands
These Are The World’s Most Valuable Football Club Brands
When the oldest national football competition—the FA Cup—was first played in 1872, the players didn’t get paid, clubs were local associations, and there were no such things as football brands.
Skip ahead a century and a half and many football clubs have comparable levels of global recognition to well-known consumer brands like Apple or Coca-Cola, while simultaneously commanding immense loyalty from fans from all walks of life.
These characteristics have immense financial worth. Today, Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao details which clubs, aside from competing on the pitch, also compete as football brands. Brand Finance, a brand valuation and strategy consultancy, has compiled a list of the world’s 50 most valuable football club brands.
ℹ️ Brand value refers to the present value of earnings specifically related to a football team’s brand reputation. This is separate and distinct from market value, or the value of an organization as a whole (i.e. what it would cost to buy a team)
Which Football Club Has the Most Valuable Brand?
Prized at $1.56 billion in 2023, Manchester City FC of England’s Premier League takes the top spot as the most valuable football brand.
The club’s brand value grew 13.5% in the last year, a testament to the club’s recent and sustained success on the domestic and international fronts. It has won the Premier league seven times since 2011, and in 2023 the club completed a historic “treble”—winning the Premier League, Champions League, and FA Cup, all in one season.
Here’s a look at the world’s top 50 most valued football club brands, listed in USD millions.
Rank Brand Country Brand Value
(USD millions)Value Change
(2022-2023)1 Manchester City FC 🇬🇧 UK $1,562 +13.50% 2 Real Madrid CF 🇪🇸 Spain $1,513 -14.40% 3 FC Barcelona 🇪🇸 Spain $1,425 -7.20% 4 Manchester United FC 🇬🇧 UK $1,412 -2.60% 5 Liverpool FC 🇬🇧 UK $1,411 -4.40% 6 Paris Saint-Germain 🇫🇷 France $1,174 -1.40% 7 FC Bayern Munich 🇩🇪 Germany $1,140 -11.30% 8 Arsenal FC 🇬🇧 UK $940 +0.02% 9 Tottenham Hotspur FC 🇬🇧 UK $931 -8.00% 10 Chelsea FC 🇬🇧 UK $893 -9.90% 11 Juventus FC 🇮🇹 Italy $655 -19.90% 12 Club Atletico de Madrid 🇪🇸 Spain $570 -15.10% 13 Borussia Dortmund 🇩🇪 Germany $562 -6.30% 14 FC Internazionale Milano 🇮🇹 Italy $528 -8.00% 15 AC Milan 🇮🇹 Italy $371 +0.19% 16 West Ham United FC 🇬🇧 UK $320 -6.40% 17 Newcastle United FC 🇬🇧 UK $259 +0.17% 18 SSC Napoli 🇮🇹 Italy $249 +0.18% 19 RasenBallsport Leipzig 🇩🇪 Germany $231 -18.40% 20 Aston Villa FC 🇬🇧 UK $222 +0.04% 21 AS Roma 🇮🇹 Italy $212 +0.01% 22 Eintracht Frankfurt 🇩🇪 Germany $210 -5.40% 23 Everton FC 🇬🇧 UK $205 -13.60% 24 Bayer 04 Leverkusen 🇩🇪 Germany $202 -8.00% 25 Sevilla FC 🇪🇸 Spain $196 -5.10% 26 Brighton &
Hove Albion FC🇬🇧 UK $189 -3.00% 27 Leicester City 🇬🇧 UK $187 -40.70% 28 Olympique De Marseille 🇫🇷 France $179 +0.07% 29 Crystal Palace 🇬🇧 UK $174 -1.70% 30 AFC Ajax 🇳🇱 Netherlands $172 -18.90% 31 Olympique Lyonnais 🇫🇷 France $166 -6.90% 32 Wolverhampton Wanderers FC 🇬🇧 UK $166 -29.80% 33 Leeds United 🇬🇧 UK $160 -25.60% 34 Real Betis 🇪🇸 Spain $159 +0.17% 35 Borussia Monchengladbach 🇩🇪 Germany $157 -18.80% 36 Villarreal CF 🇪🇸 Spain $143 -6.30% 37 Real Sociedad 🇪🇸 Spain $139 N/A 38 VfL Wolfsburg 🇩🇪 Germany $128 -34.90% 39 1.FC Koln 🇩🇪 Germany $125 -3.30% 40 SC Freiburg 🇩🇪 Germany $125 N/A 41 SL Benfica 🇵🇹 Portugal $123 +0.05% 42 Celtic FC 🇬🇧 UK $118 -9.70% 43 Brentford FC 🇬🇧 UK $118 N/A 44 Athletic de Bilbao 🇪🇸 Spain $117 -23.50% 45 SS Lazio SpA 🇮🇹 Italy $116 N/A 46 1.FC Union Berlin 🇩🇪 Germany $112 N/A 47 Valencia CF 🇪🇸 Spain $112 -38.70% 48 FC Porto 🇵🇹 Portugal $105 N/A 49 Fulham FC 🇬🇧 UK $104 N/A 50 CR Flamengo 🇧🇷 Brazil $102 -8.80% Close on City’s heels, Spain’s Real Madrid CF brand is also valued slightly above $1.5 billion, but is down 14% in the last year. The club lost their hold on both their domestic league and European championship titles this season, contributing to their decrease in brand worth in 2023.
On the Catalonian side of Spain, FC Barcelona’s brand remains ranked in third place, valued at $1.4 billion. The two Spanish giants have a near duopoly over La Liga, Spain’s domestic league, with one of them having won the title 62 times in the 94 years since the league was founded.
The rivalry gained another edge in the 2000s, hosting one each of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—two of the most-followed celebrities in the world and often regarded as some of the greatest players to play the game.
And while both Messi and Ronaldo left in the last five years, Barcelona and Real Madrid’s brands have stayed resilient. Both clubs have consistently ranked in the top five most valuable football club brands since 2013.
Four more club brands have been valued above $1 billion:
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Manchester United FC, England, ($1.41 billion)
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Liverpool FC, England ($1.41 billion)
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Paris Saint-Germain, France ($1.17 billion)
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FC Bayern Munich, Germany ($1.14 billion)
Countries with the Most Valuable Football Brands
From a regional perspective, the UK is home to the most high-worth football club brands (18), all of them in England with the sole exception of Scotland’s Celtic FC.
Country Clubs Brand Value
(USD millions)🇬🇧 UK 18 $9,371 🇩🇪 Germany 10 $2,992 🇪🇸 Spain 9 $4,374 🇮🇹 Italy 6 $2,131 🇫🇷 France 3 $1,519 🇵🇹 Portugal 2 $228 🇳🇱 Netherlands 1 $172 🇧🇷 Brazil 1 $102 Total 50 $20,889 The UK is followed by Germany (10) and Spain (9) with the most high-valued brands. Together, the top three countries account for almost three quarters of the most valued football club brands in the world.
With an even broader-picture gaze, Europe is home to 49 of the 50 listed clubs, a testament to the strength of the European football market. The only non-European team to make the list was CR Flamengo from Brazil.
What’s in a Brand?
While the value of a football club brand is not the same as the club value itself, a strong brand can do wonders for a club’s financial performance, and eventual value.
Just look at Manchester United, which hasn’t quite regained its stellar performances on field since Sir Alex Ferguson left in 2013, but nevertheless continues to be a commercial juggernaut—it had the fourth highest jersey sales in 2021.
A similar story can be seen with Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr when it signed Cristiano Ronaldo, which drove visits to its merchandise store up 300%.
With the new football season around the corner, it will be fascinating to see how the rankings of most valuable football brands change next year.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/21/2023 – 02:45 -
- The Future Of AI Is War… And Human Extinction As Collateral Damage
The Future Of AI Is War… And Human Extinction As Collateral Damage
Authored by Michael T Klare via TomDispatch.com,
A world in which machines governed by artificial intelligence (AI) systematically replace human beings in most business, industrial, and professional functions is horrifying to imagine. After all, as prominent computer scientists have been warning us, AI-governed systems are prone to critical errors and inexplicable “hallucinations,” resulting in potentially catastrophic outcomes.
But there’s an even more dangerous scenario imaginable from the proliferation of super-intelligent machines: the possibility that those nonhuman entities could end up fighting one another, obliterating all human life in the process.
The notion that super-intelligent computers might run amok and slaughter humans has, of course, long been a staple of popular culture. In the prophetic 1983 film “WarGames,” a supercomputer known as WOPR (for War Operation Plan Response and, not surprisingly, pronounced “whopper”) nearly provokes a catastrophic nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union before being disabled by a teenage hacker (played by Matthew Broderick). The “Terminator” movie franchise, beginning with the original 1984 film, similarly envisioned a self-aware supercomputer called “Skynet” that, like WOPR, was designed to control U.S. nuclear weapons but chooses instead to wipe out humanity, viewing us as a threat to its existence.
Though once confined to the realm of science fiction, the concept of supercomputers killing humans has now become a distinct possibility in the very real world of the near future. In addition to developing a wide variety of “autonomous,” or robotic combat devices, the major military powers are also rushing to create automated battlefield decision-making systems, or what might be called “robot generals.” In wars in the not-too-distant future, such AI-powered systems could be deployed to deliver combat orders to American soldiers, dictating where, when, and how they kill enemy troops or take fire from their opponents. In some scenarios, robot decision-makers could even end up exercising control over America’s atomic weapons, potentially allowing them to ignite a nuclear war resulting in humanity’s demise.
Now, take a breath for a moment. The installation of an AI-powered command-and-control (C2) system like this may seem a distant possibility. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Defense is working hard to develop the required hardware and software in a systematic, increasingly rapid fashion. In its budget submission for 2023, for example, the Air Force requested $231 million to develop the Advanced Battlefield Management System (ABMS), a complex network of sensors and AI-enabled computers designed to collect and interpret data on enemy operations and provide pilots and ground forces with a menu of optimal attack options. As the technology advances, the system will be capable of sending “fire” instructions directly to “shooters,” largely bypassing human control.
“A machine-to-machine data exchange tool that provides options for deterrence, or for on-ramp [a military show-of-force] or early engagement,” was how Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics, described the ABMS system in a 2020 interview. Suggesting that “we do need to change the name” as the system evolves, Roper added, “I think Skynet is out, as much as I would love doing that as a sci-fi thing. I just don’t think we can go there.”
And while he can’t go there, that’s just where the rest of us may, indeed, be going.
Mind you, that’s only the start. In fact, the Air Force’s ABMS is intended to constitute the nucleus of a larger constellation of sensors and computers that will connect all U.S. combat forces, the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control System (JADC2, pronounced “Jad-C-two”). “JADC2 intends to enable commanders to make better decisions by collecting data from numerous sensors, processing the data using artificial intelligence algorithms to identify targets, then recommending the optimal weapon… to engage the target,” the Congressional Research Service reported in 2022.
AI and the Nuclear Trigger
Initially, JADC2 will be designed to coordinate combat operations among “conventional” or non-nuclear American forces. Eventually, however, it is expected to link up with the Pentagon’s nuclear command-control-and-communications systems (NC3), potentially giving computers significant control over the use of the American nuclear arsenal. “JADC2 and NC3 are intertwined,” General John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated in a 2020 interview. As a result, he added in typical Pentagonese, “NC3 has to inform JADC2 and JADC2 has to inform NC3.”
It doesn’t require great imagination to picture a time in the not-too-distant future when a crisis of some sort — say a U.S.-China military clash in the South China Sea or near Taiwan — prompts ever more intense fighting between opposing air and naval forces. Imagine then the JADC2 ordering the intense bombardment of enemy bases and command systems in China itself, triggering reciprocal attacks on U.S. facilities and a lightning decision by JADC2 to retaliate with tactical nuclear weapons, igniting a long-feared nuclear holocaust.
The possibility that nightmare scenarios of this sort could result in the accidental or unintended onset of nuclear war has long troubled analysts in the arms control community. But the growing automation of military C2 systems has generated anxiety not just among them but among senior national security officials as well.
As early as 2019, when I questioned Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, then director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, about such a risky possibility, he responded, “You will find no stronger proponent of integration of AI capabilities writ large into the Department of Defense, but there is one area where I pause, and it has to do with nuclear command and control.” This “is the ultimate human decision that needs to be made” and so “we have to be very careful.” Given the technology’s “immaturity,” he added, we need “a lot of time to test and evaluate [before applying AI to NC3].”
In the years since, despite such warnings, the Pentagon has been racing ahead with the development of automated C2 systems. In its budget submission for 2024, the Department of Defense requested $1.4 billion for the JADC2 in order “to transform warfighting capability by delivering information advantage at the speed of relevance across all domains and partners.” Uh-oh! And then, it requested another $1.8 billion for other kinds of military-related AI research.
Pentagon officials acknowledge that it will be some time before robot generals will be commanding vast numbers of U.S. troops (and autonomous weapons) in battle, but they have already launched several projects intended to test and perfect just such linkages. One example is the Army’s Project Convergence, involving a series of field exercises designed to validate ABMS and JADC2 component systems. In a test held in August 2020 at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, for example, the Army used a variety of air- and ground-based sensors to track simulated enemy forces and then process that data using AI-enabled computers at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. Those computers, in turn, issued fire instructions to ground-based artillery at Yuma. “This entire sequence was supposedly accomplished within 20 seconds,” the Congressional Research Service later reported.
Less is known about the Navy’s AI equivalent, “Project Overmatch,” as many aspects of its programming have been kept secret. According to Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations, Overmatch is intended “to enable a Navy that swarms the sea, delivering synchronized lethal and nonlethal effects from near-and-far, every axis, and every domain.” Little else has been revealed about the project.
“Flash Wars” and Human Extinction
Despite all the secrecy surrounding these projects, you can think of ABMS, JADC2, Convergence, and Overmatch as building blocks for a future Skynet-like mega-network of super-computers designed to command all U.S. forces, including its nuclear ones, in armed combat. The more the Pentagon moves in that direction, the closer we’ll come to a time when AI possesses life-or-death power over all American soldiers along with opposing forces and any civilians caught in the crossfire.
Such a prospect should be ample cause for concern. To start with, consider the risk of errors and miscalculations by the algorithms at the heart of such systems. As top computer scientists have warned us, those algorithms are capable of remarkably inexplicable mistakes and, to use the AI term of the moment, “hallucinations” — that is, seemingly reasonable results that are entirely illusionary. Under the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine such computers “hallucinating” an imminent enemy attack and launching a war that might otherwise have been avoided.
And that’s not the worst of the dangers to consider. After all, there’s the obvious likelihood that America’s adversaries will similarly equip their forces with robot generals. In other words, future wars are likely to be fought by one set of AI systems against another, both linked to nuclear weaponry, with entirely unpredictable — but potentially catastrophic — results.
Not much is known (from public sources at least) about Russian and Chinese efforts to automate their military command-and-control systems, but both countries are thought to be developing networks comparable to the Pentagon’s JADC2. As early as 2014, in fact, Russia inaugurated a National Defense Control Center (NDCC) in Moscow, a centralized command post for assessing global threats and initiating whatever military action is deemed necessary, whether of a non-nuclear or nuclear nature. Like JADC2, the NDCC is designed to collect information on enemy moves from multiple sources and provide senior officers with guidance on possible responses.
China is said to be pursuing an even more elaborate, if similar, enterprise under the rubric of “Multi-Domain Precision Warfare” (MDPW). According to the Pentagon’s 2022 report on Chinese military developments, its military, the People’s Liberation Army, is being trained and equipped to use AI-enabled sensors and computer networks to “rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities.”
Picture, then, a future war between the U.S. and Russia or China (or both) in which the JADC2 commands all U.S. forces, while Russia’s NDCC and China’s MDPW command those countries’ forces. Consider, as well, that all three systems are likely to experience errors and hallucinations. How safe will humans be when robot generals decide that it’s time to “win” the war by nuking their enemies?
If this strikes you as an outlandish scenario, think again, at least according to the leadership of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a congressionally mandated enterprise that was chaired by Eric Schmidt, former head of Google, and Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense. “While the Commission believes that properly designed, tested, and utilized AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems will bring substantial military and even humanitarian benefit, the unchecked global use of such systems potentially risks unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability,” it affirmed in its Final Report. Such dangers could arise, it stated, “because of challenging and untested complexities of interaction between AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems on the battlefield” — when, that is, AI fights AI.
Though this may seem an extreme scenario, it’s entirely possible that opposing AI systems could trigger a catastrophic “flash war” — the military equivalent of a “flash crash” on Wall Street, when huge transactions by super-sophisticated trading algorithms spark panic selling before human operators can restore order. In the infamous “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, computer-driven trading precipitated a 10% fall in the stock market’s value. According to Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security, who first studied the phenomenon, “the military equivalent of such crises” on Wall Street would arise when the automated command systems of opposing forces “become trapped in a cascade of escalating engagements.” In such a situation, he noted, “autonomous weapons could lead to accidental death and destruction at catastrophic scales in an instant.”
At present, there are virtually no measures in place to prevent a future catastrophe of this sort or even talks among the major powers to devise such measures. Yet, as the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence noted, such crisis-control measures are urgently needed to integrate “automated escalation tripwires” into such systems “that would prevent the automated escalation of conflict.” Otherwise, some catastrophic version of World War III seems all too possible. Given the dangerous immaturity of such technology and the reluctance of Beijing, Moscow, and Washington to impose any restraints on the weaponization of AI, the day when machines could choose to annihilate us might arrive far sooner than we imagine and the extinction of humanity could be the collateral damage of such a future war.
* * *
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story.
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/21/2023 – 02:00 - Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden Family Caricatures
Victor Davis Hanson: The Biden Family Caricatures
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
The Biden first family seems determined to confirm every stereotype of their antisocial behavior – to the point of dysfunctionality…
During the 2020 campaign at least eight women alleged that then presidential candidate Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them.
One, Tara Reade alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.
Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.”
He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.
But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.
Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle, have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.
On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.
His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.
On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance—enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway…”
As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women.
He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children—if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse,” or “sick.”
And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop—regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world.
Last week, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki, Finland airport.
In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion.
She recoiled.
No matter—Biden continued at her shoulder.
Again, she flinched.
Biden then reverted to form, and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.
Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would likely have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media.
Not in Biden’s case.
The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.
Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness—newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.
Also, during the President’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.
All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden—despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.
Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.
Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.
The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.
Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction.
He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.
Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop that contained evidence of his own felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.
In sum, the President and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too public bad habits.
Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.
White House handlers should keep Joe Biden from even getting near small children and young women.
And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.
Sadly they can do neither.
These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.
The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional—and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:40 - Relocating To Austin Can Save High-Income New Yorkers $250,000
Relocating To Austin Can Save High-Income New Yorkers $250,000
New York City’s high-income earners face a soaring cost of living crisis and some of the highest tax rates in the country.
Compounding their financial struggles is an out-of-control crime wave, as Democratic leadership in City Hall struggles to maintain law and order. The strategy some have had to protect wealth and stretch salaries further is to move South.
We have explained to readers that “Moving To ‘Wall Street South’ From NYC Can Save You Up To $200k.”
If New Yorkers considered moving to Austin, Texas, they could save even more.
The Finance website SmartAsset compared NYC’s cost of living and tax rates to Austin’s to determine how much New Yorkers could save.
The results were stunning.
Someone earning $650,000 in the Big Apple saves $258,212 in Austin. Even someone making $150,000 in NYC could benefit from the move.
Source: Bloomberg In a post-Covid era, young professionals and families have fled high-taxed and crime-ridden Democrat metro areas for southern states, such as Texas. One of the most significant advantages of Texas is no corporate or personal income tax … and the state has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation.
But it’s not just all about taxes. The cost of living is cheaper overall. Plus, people are friendlier.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:20 - Looking To China For The Next Leg Higher Carries Risks
Looking To China For The Next Leg Higher Carries Risks
By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
Investors are counting on China to shake European equities out of a lull, but strategists warn that officials’ measures to bolster the world’s second-biggest economy may fall short of expectations.
Most of the Stoxx 600’s gains this year came in the first quarter, with the benchmark mostly moving sideways since then as investors priced in shifting monetary-policy expectations. Given European stocks’ strong reliance on China, all eyes are on the Politburo meeting later this month after officials vowed on Wednesday to boost the private economy.
“Slowing growth in China has taken some wind out of the sails for European equities in recent months,” says HSBC strategist Max Kettner, who maintains a cautious stance on Europe. While some easing has helped markets, policymakers are more cautious than before, “so a return to the post-2008 stimulus mix is unlikely,” he adds.
The latest reports out of China, showing weaker-than-expected economic growth and a contraction in real estate, have weighed on for European sectors particularly exposed to the economy — cyclicals like miners, industrials and autos, as well as luxury stocks.
Kettner says any Chinese stimulus news will likely boost the broader consumer discretionary sector in Europe, but warns that cyclicals on aggregate have already rallied strongly. “In terms of what is priced in currently, there’s already quite some hope for a growth recovery in the price.”
Miners have borne the brunt of China’s disappointing reopening. They are the worst performers in Europe this year, down 12%. The sector suffered another blow this week after Rio Tinto, the biggest constituent on the Stoxx 600 basic resources gauge, warned that the country’s faltering recovery continues to weigh on demand for metals.
“Structural downtrends” in the Chinese property sector, a major consumer of metals, are likely to continue weighing on European mining stocks, say JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka. Moreover, potential steel production cuts in China would be bearish for iron ore demand, meaning “lower metal prices could keep the sector’s earnings under pressure,” they add.
The strategists are negative on European stocks generally, seeing cyclical shares losing momentum in the second half, a trend that could worsen if expectations on China disappoint. They recommend investors “keep fading stimulus news,” adding that the region is sliding back into deflation and the property market will likely need “a much more aggressive policy support to rebound sustainably.”
For luxury stocks, which have been a strong driver of gains in Europe this year, a continued recovery in China will be necessary to support their strong performance. The sector has diverged from Chinese stocks, which have been dragged by disappointing data.
“It’s definitely more mixed than it was at the start of the year,” says Karim Chedid, head of EMEA iShares investment strategy, pointing out that the first leg of the China reopening has already played out, while domestic demand has been more sluggish than expected. As Chinese tourists start to travel again, there is a possibility for another tailwind for the sector, he says.
“As it stands, we believe that a brighter outlook for global growth is required for the euro to move sustainably higher and European equities to outperform again,” says Barclays strategist Emmanuel Cau. “And a lot has to do with China, which doesn’t look good at the moment.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 23:00 - Deny, Deflect, Defend: The Censors' Strategy On Display
Deny, Deflect, Defend: The Censors’ Strategy On Display
Despite the uproar surrounding the case, Judge Terry Doughty’s order in Missouri v. Biden was straightforward. It prohibited government actors from colluding with social media companies to censor “content containing protected free speech.”
In other words, the defendants – including the White House, the CDC, and the Department of Justice – must obey the Constitution they swore to uphold by adhering to the First Amendment. The censorship regime responded with familiar doublethink: denying the censorship exists while arguing that it must continue.
On Tuesday, the court held a hearing to consider whether Judge Doughty’s order should be reinstated. The oral arguments revealed the government’s three-part strategy: deny, deflect, and defend. Its lawyers denied the established facts, deflected from the controversy, and defended its actions through outlandish justifications.
In doing so, they demonstrated the censorship apparatus’s lack of remorse for stripping Americans of their constitutional liberties. Even worse, they insist that the totalitarian operations must continue.
1. Deny: Blame the Facts
At the hearing, government defendants maintained that plaintiffs have manufactured the case. Like their allies in the media, they argued that allegations of censorship were nothing more than “an assortment of out-of-context quotes and select portions of documents that distort the record to build a narrative that the bare facts simply do not support.”
The censorship is nonexistent, they insist. It is a “thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory,” in the words of Larry Tribe.
Unlike issues of legal interpretation, this is a factual matter. Either government actors colluded with Big Tech to suppress Americans’ free speech rights or they did not. Discovery revealed extensive documentation proving that they did, and the defendants make no effort to explain how Judge Doughty’s 155-page order detailing dozens of violations of the First Amendment is merely “an assortment of out-of-context quotes.”
Journalists including Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Berenson have detailed the “censorship industrial complex,” the entangled web of government agencies, NGOs, and private-public partnerships that seek to control the free flow of information. But reviewing that series of connections and collusions is unnecessary – the defendants’ recorded statements contradict their denial.
“Thank you for the ongoing collaboration,” one bureaucrat wrote after a US Government “industry meeting” with Big Tech companies in October 2020.
White House Advisor Rob Flaherty took a different tack in his demands to Twitter: “Please remove this account immediately.” The company complied within an hour. “Are you guys fucking serious?” he wrote to company officials after they failed to censor critics of the Covid vaccine. “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.” His boss was similarly direct regarding posts from RFK, Jr. “Hey Folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”
There is no need to recreate Judge Doughty’s 155-page opinion, but the denial of the censorship regime is facially absurd. Alex Berenson’s case, the revelations of the Twitter files, and the undisputed facts of Missouri v. Biden refute the defendant’s premise.
2. Deflect: Blame the Russians
Rather than address the case’s inconvenient facts, government lawyers quickly pivoted to their second tactic: deflection. They avoided the case and Judge Doughty’s ruling in favor of a hypothetical narrative.
At one point, they defended government agencies’ right to issue health advisories that say “the vaccines work or smoking is dangerous.” They argued, “There’s nothing unlawful about the government’s use of the bully pulpit.” That reasoning was uncontroversial, but it was not responsive to Judge Doughty’s order.
Under Doughty’s ruling, the White House can denounce journalists, deliver press briefings, publish on social media, enjoy the bully pulpit, and take advantage of the friendly media environment; it just can’t encourage private companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.
The defense conflates free speech with control over information to deflect attention from the censorship at issue. The tactic is not limited to the government’s powers under the order.
During the hearing, the judge asked the defense attorneys whether saying “the COVID vaccine does not work” is constitutionally protected free speech. “That speech itself could be protected,” the attorney responded at one point. After repeatedly refusing to concede that the First Amendment protects political opinions that deviate from President Biden’s agenda, he resorted to Russian fear-mongering.
“Let’s say it was spoken by a covert Russian operative, that would not be protected by free speech,” he told the judge. Like the issue of the government’s “use of the bully pulpit,” restricting Russian operatives’ speech is unrelated to Judge Doughty’s order.
The attorney’s refusal to defend basic First Amendment liberties was telling. The defense instinctively changed the issue from free speech to national security, relying on an oft-used fear tactic to subvert the First Amendment.
These deflections deliberately obfuscated the purpose of the hearings. Defendants implied the plaintiffs sought to ban anti-smoking PSAs and fund Kremlin media campaigns. Like their strategy of denial, the goal was to avoid discussion of their extensive censorship operations.
3. Defend: Blame the Virus
When the government was forced to address the case, it resorted to claiming that Covid justified the abolition of constitutional liberties. The pandemic-made-us-censor argument continued the pervasive Doublethink. Eradicating democratic norms was necessary to protect democracy, they reasoned. Previously, the Biden Administration told the court that reversing the order was necessary “to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”
Defendants argued that the evidence of the case vindicates the government actors. The attorneys said “It shows, in the face of urgent crises, a once-in-a-generation pandemic and bipartisan findings of foreign interference with U.S. elections, the government responsibly exercised its prerogative to speak on matters of public concern.”
They continued, “It promoted accurate information to protect the public and our democracy from these threats. And it used the bully pulpit to call on various sectors of society, including social media companies, to make efforts to reduce the spread of misinformation.”
Demonstrating no remorse, they remain proud of their efforts to usurp the First Amendment because of their self-professed noble aims. They expect this defense to evade judicial scrutiny.
When confronted with past censorship – including CISA’s “switchboarding” leading up to the 2020 election – defendants reasoned that prior conduct was not pertinent to the case because plaintiffs could not prove it will happen again.
They described the Department of Homeland Security’s unconstitutional censorship campaigns as “occurring long in the past.” They argued that health officials’ emails working to silence opponents should be disregarded because they were sent “more than two and a half years ago.”
The censorship apparatus is asking the courts to trust them to act responsibly despite repeatedly demonstrating its indifference, or perhaps disdain, toward the First Amendment.
While the government’s denials and deflections are insulting to the citizens they purport to represent, we must remain focused on their aim: they appealed Doughty’s order because they oppose constitutional restraints on their control of information.
We would hope that requiring the government to obey the Constitution would be uncontroversial; now, it may signify whether the rule of law still stands in the United States.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:40 - Experts Warn Renewable Energy Creates 'New Opportunities' For Chinese Grid Attacks
Experts Warn Renewable Energy Creates ‘New Opportunities’ For Chinese Grid Attacks
Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
America’s increasing reliance on intermittent power sources and batteries is creating novel risks, according to grid specialists who testified before Congress on July 18.
Wind turbines are viewed at a wind farm in Colorado City, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Many of the greatest among them emanate from a key geopolitical rival, China.
That’s partly because the new technologies frequently use inverters. When solar panels, wind turbines, and battery systems generate or store direct current electricity, inverters turn it into the alternating current electricity that flows through the grid.
Paul N. Stockton, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, opened what he called a “rabbit hole” in response to a question on inverters during the House Energy & Commerce hearing.
“Do we have a satisfactory supply of inverters for all of the renewable energy that’s being brought into the grid?” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) asked Mr. Stockton, who also holds positions on subcommittees in the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.
“Manufacturers in China are important producers of inverters being deployed nationwide, across the United States,” Mr. Stockton responded.
He explained that the country’s reliance on Chinese inverters could jeopardize grid security.
“Sure, we’ve got inverters. Some of them are made in China. Others may be manufactured for final assembly in friendly nations, but they might have components—hardware, software, and firmware—that could provide attack vectors. And the constant updating of firmware from the cloud and by service providers—who’s on top of that for maintaining adequate security? Congressman, that’s an opportunity for progress,” Mr. Stockton said.
Solar Panels With Parts From China
The United States’ use of solar panels with parts from China that are assembled in Southeast Asia has been a source of controversy in this Congress. President Joe Biden vetoed a bill that would have ended his temporary pause on tariffs affecting those panels.
In his written testimony, Mr. Stockton elaborated on the ways inverter-based resources “provide China with new opportunities to disrupt the grid.”
He referred to a 2022 report from the Department of Energy outlining the cybersecurity risks associated with the changes to America’s grid.
“I propose that we prioritize our efforts to prevent Chinese leaders from accomplishing their goals in attacking the grid,” Mr. Stockton wrote.
He noted that inverter-based resources have some advantages, testifying in writing that they “have provided reliable, much-needed power during the 2023 heat domes and other extreme events.”
“Yet, they are also prone to catastrophic failures that can put the grid at risk.”
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) also asked Mr. Stockton about inverter-related vulnerabilities facing the United States.
Mr. Stockton offered a central recommendation to the lawmakers in attendance:
“Above all, ensuring that at the level of the devices, we hold manufacturers’ feet to the fire and ensure the adoption of safe and secure inverters, instead of relying on individual utilities or energy aggregators or other entities within the larger electric system to do their own homework.”
Bruce J. Walker of the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure Security voiced similar concerns about the threat from China, citing the U.S. intelligence community’s 2023 threat assessment.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:20 - Russia, China Kick Off Joint Naval Drills Flexing Muscle In Sea Of Japan
Russia, China Kick Off Joint Naval Drills Flexing Muscle In Sea Of Japan
China and Russia have kicked off their anticipated joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan on Thursday. Chinese state television has described the purpose as ensuring security of “strategic passage at sea”.
Bloomberg noted of regional reporting that China and Russia are “testing their joint combat capability via the exercise” – but there’s been no specification of how long the exercise is expected to last, which involves land, air, and sea military assets. In reality, China and Russia are ‘answering’ recent US-Japan drills with provocative military exercises of their own in regional waters, at a moment Beijing has warned Japan over its deepening cooperation with NATO.
Illustrative file image of prior Russia-China military drills China’s defense ministry over the weekend confirmed that PLA naval vessels had set sail in preparation for new exercises with Russia.
This included Beijing sending five Chinese warships, among them a guided-missile destroyer, to participate – but without specifying an exact location within the Sea of Japan.
Last month both countries conducted joint air patrol over the Seas of Japan and East China, demonstrating their deepened ties, also amid the war in Ukraine which Beijing has yet to outright condemn, to the frustration of the West.
China has considered itself ‘neutral’ concerning the Ukraine conflict while at the same time highlighting the dangers of NATO expansion east. For this reason Washington has accused it of quietly supporting Moscow.
Bloomberg has meanwhile cited US sanctions and punitive measures aimed at both Beijing and Moscow as a chief motivator to grow militarily closer.
PLA Navy Ships Underway off Japan
“China and the armed forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted six joint military exercises together last year, the most in data going back two decades,” the publication notes.
“That accounted for two-thirds of all of China’s drills with foreign militaries in 2022, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the U.S. National Defense University (NDU).”
But Russia and China have conducted naval drills in other global hotspots as well, in the last months holding naval exercises with Iran in the Persian Gulf region.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 22:00 - Doubts And Questions About Biden Will Only Grow
Doubts And Questions About Biden Will Only Grow
Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Wire,
Wow, big news broke Tuesday – President Biden’s campaign is officially going to be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. For months nervous Democrats have wondered why Biden only had four full-time staffers devoted to his reelection effort and why the campaign wasn’t yet located anywhere.
This development will do absolutely nothing, however, to stop the panic within the party that Biden is too old to run for reelection and could easily lose to former President Donald Trump. Sorry, Team Biden, these fears will not be put to rest; they are going to persist and grow.
Though the White House and the Democratic National Committee may be trying to ignore it, there is suddenly a constant stream of stories in the media about doubts that Biden can make it across the finish line 16 months from now. Though Frank Bruni noted it’s probably too late, he encouraged Democrats in a New York Times column to talk about Hunter Biden, and suggested Biden should step aside: “It might be best, for him and for continued Democratic control of the White House, if he let Democrats choose a different 2024 nominee.”
And CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere’s reporting last week went there – top Democrats and donors continue to “reach out to those seen as possible replacement presidential candidates. Get ready, they urge…” Democrats, Dovere wrote, worry about Biden’s weak small-dollar fundraising – which shows diminished energy from the grassroots – as well as his light schedule, which they believe will only exacerbate the perception that he is too old to campaign or be president. A Democrat who had a senior role in Biden’s 2020 campaign is quoted saying “If Trump wins next November and everyone says, ‘How did that happen,’ one of the questions will be: what was the Biden campaign doing in the summer of 2023?”
In a recent New York Times report about how impressive Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s polling and campaign war chest is, and what that says about Biden’s weakness as an incumbent, Julian Castro, the former housing secretary, said “It’s clear there is a softness that perhaps is born out of a worry about electability in 2024.”
Biden’s polling is not soft, it’s terrible and has worsened over time. The age liability and concerns about Biden’s mental sharpness loom large across all surveys and voter groups. In some general election surveys, he loses to Trump. It’s hard to imagine next year, when he is older, that his standing will improve.
It’s not just that critical parts of the Democratic coalition are disappointed and apathetic and may not turn out to vote – but data shows some Asian, Hispanic, and black voters are beginning to support Republicans instead. John Della Volpe, polling director at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics and an expert on youth voting, recently wrote that young voters are increasingly identifying as independents, not Democrats, and are becoming disillusioned with politics as a means to create change. “Nearly every sign that made me confident in historic levels of youth participation in 2018, 2020 and 2022 – is now flashing red,” he wrote.
Biden also appears to have forgotten that, in an election he only won by fewer than 44,000 votes in three states, the support of Never Trump Republicans was critical. Recent reporting by NBC News shows the Biden White House has ignored many of those Republicans who stepped up to endorse him (except for Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake who both became ambassadors in his administration) and that they aren’t interested in supporting him again next year.
The Biden inner circle seems to be confident his age is a smaller political problem than the many ones Trump has. They also seem to be in denial that some of the Hunter Biden business dealings revelations are really bad, and that his father refusing to acknowledge his love child is terrible.
The campaign will remain focused mostly on the economy – there are plans for the president to embark on an “investing in America” tour this summer to tout the historic investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, and jobs that his administration has secured.
But it may be too late for Biden to toot his horn.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Austin Davis was recently quoted by the New York Times, talking about how poorly the administration has communicated its accomplishments to the public. “They’ve done a pretty bad job of telling the American people and Pennsylvanians what they have done,” he said.
No good economic news – there is much of it and more could materialize – seems able to eclipse the sting of inflation and sink in with voters when 74% of Americans believe we are on the wrong track. Voters give Biden poor ratings on the economy despite record job growth and – as David Brooks recently noted in the New York Times – a lower misery index (inflation rate added to unemployment rate) than Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama had when they were reelected.
And it’s clear that Republicans will pummel Biden over his unpopular vice president throughout next year’s campaign. “I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you are really counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something I think is likely,” Nikki Haley said, which is only the beginning of this refrain.
Dismissing Harris’ abysmally low approval rating, which makes clear she is a liability to an 80-year-old Biden running to be president until he is 86 years old, as racist and misogynistic won’t help make her more popular or help Biden win the electoral college.
The Biden campaign can raise a lot of money and hold lots of ribbon cuttings at factories and try to rehabilitate Harris – but nothing will calm the jitters building in the party about the increasing likelihood of a second Trump term.
A.B. Stoddard is associate editor and columnist at RealClearPolitics and a guest host on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:40 - "Go Somewhere That Understands Your Worth" – Los Angeles Police Union Boss Tells Cops Leaving City
“Go Somewhere That Understands Your Worth” – Los Angeles Police Union Boss Tells Cops Leaving City
Who in their right mind would want to be a police officer in a city run by Democrats or silly progressives who seemingly lack any understanding of how to protect law-abiding, tax-paying citizens from thieves, lunatics, and thugs?
You know things are bad when the police union leader in Los Angeles vents on Facebook in a post about hostile City Council members, advising departing members of the police force to find jobs in communities where the political leadership “understands your worth.”
“Go somewhere that respects the work you do and you don’t have to beg for a great contract,” Los Angeles Police Protective League’s vice president, Jerretta Sandoz, wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post.
Sandoz said, “Go somewhere that has a city council or city manager that openly acknowledges the great work you do, go somewhere that doesn’t have Two or more City Council members who hate you (no exaggeration).”
Sandoz represents approximately 9,000 police officers. Since 2019, the metro area has seen a surge in crime and homelessness and has lost over 1,000 officers.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore has blamed the officer exodus on “anti-police sentiments that grew after the law enforcement killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in recent years,” according to Los Angeles Times.
Sandoz’s displeasure with the progressive city leadership comes as the union continues to discuss a new labor contract for officers.
An emerging trend is progressive cities that demonize police are finding out the hard way that officers are leaving in droves. This sparks a doom loop of fewer patrols and a continued rise in crime.
Demonizing and defunding police has consequences. Perhaps it’s time to hold progressive politicians accountable for failed ‘defund the police’ movements that have transformed some metro areas nationwide into crime-ridden ‘hellholes.’
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:20 - "No Limit" On Number Of Ukrainian Refugees To Be Allowed Into Canada: Federal Memo
“No Limit” On Number Of Ukrainian Refugees To Be Allowed Into Canada: Federal Memo
Authored by Peter Wilson via The Epoch Times,
With 230,000 Ukrainians having already emigrated to Canada to flee the war, a recently disclosed internal memo from the Immigration Department says there is “no limit” on the number of Ukrainian war refugees that can be allowed into Canada.
The government closed applications on July 15 for Ukrainian refugees looking to obtain temporary emergency visas and free flights to Canada, but about 1.1 million Ukrainians applied for visas prior to the deadline—of which about 800,000 had been approved as of the beginning of July.
“There is no limit,” said a Department of Immigration memo sent to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The memo, titled “Information On Ukrainian Nationals Coming To Canada,” also elaborated on Ottawa’s recently announced plan to facilitate permanent residence status for any Ukrainian nationals and their family members already in Canada.
The new policy, which Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced on July 15, is set to come into effect this October.
The new plan will provide permanent residence status to Ukrainian nationals who have fled the war and want to stay in Canada. To qualify, Ukrainian refugees must be in Canada with temporary resident status and have at least one family member in the country.
The memo said that the new policy will benefit Ukrainians coming into Canada “from anywhere in the world,” regardless of whether they were fleeing Russian aggression, so long as they applied for temporary visas through the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel program prior to July 15.
Ukrainian Refugees
The plan fixed a quota of permitting entry to 365,000 Ukrainian immigrants in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.
“As this measure offers a temporary safe haven, those who come to Canada on Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel are not included in the Immigration Levels Plan, which is a projection of the number of permanent residents Canada plans to admit,” said the memo.
“Although a temporary measure, settlement services are available to Emergency Travel holders and their family members after they arrive so they can fully participate in Canadian communities while they are here.”
Canada’s temporary emergency visa program for Ukrainians was originally set to expire in March, but Mr. Fraser extended the program until July 15.
Only about 21 percent of Ukrainians who have been granted temporary visas have actually come to Canada, but they will have until the end of March 2024 to do so.
Refugees who obtained temporary visas and came to Canada will also have until the end of March 2024 to either apply to extend or change their temporary status in Canada.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 21:00 - Pushback Forces Major Retailer To Shelve Graphic Book On Sex Aimed At 10 To 15 Year Olds
Pushback Forces Major Retailer To Shelve Graphic Book On Sex Aimed At 10 To 15 Year Olds
Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Major Australian retailer Big W has pulled the children’s book “Welcome to Sex” from its shelves after it was lambasted for its graphic content.
Cover of “Welcome to Sex” Dr. Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, who hosts the ABC Radio podcast “Ladies, We Need to Talk.” Aimed at children aged 10 to 15, the book features detailed illustrations and instructions on how to engage in sexual intercourse, as well as information on male and female genitalia, and gender identity issues taken in Sydney, Australia on July 19, 2023. (M. Sun/The Epoch Times) Aimed at children aged 10 to 15, the book features detailed illustrations and instructions on how to engage in both heterosexual and homosexual intercourse, as well as information on masturbation, male and female genitalia, and gender identity (including transgenderism) while downplaying virginity.
“Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out” is stocked in major Australian retailer Big W, bookseller Dymocks, and Target, and is authored by Dr. Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, who hosts the ABC Radio podcast “Ladies, We Need to Talk.”
It is the fourth book in their “Welcome to” series, which has covered topics such as sexual consent and puberty.
The back cover of “Welcome to Sex,” by Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes, is aimed at children aged 10 to 15 and features detailed illustrations and instructions on how to engage in sexual intercourse, as well as information on male and female genitalia and gender identity issues in Sydney, Australia on July 19, 2023. (M. Sun/The Epoch Times) Yet Rachael Wong, CEO of Women’s Forum Australia, was critical of the latest edition being made available to children.
“Why is @BIGW selling this graphic sex guide for kids in Australia which includes how-tos for anal/oral sex, masturbation and heavily pushes gender ideology?” she wrote online.
In another Twitter post, she uploaded a video showing that the book was available in the children’s section of retailer Dymocks, despite claims the title was only available to parents.
Victorian Senator Ralph Babet called the book “sickening.”
“If you don’t think there is a war on for the souls and minds of your children, well, you have not been paying attention,” he wrote on Twitter.
“It’s important that we push back against this type of garbage content. Otherwise, it will never end!”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:40 - Robert Malone: You Are The Population They Want To Control
Robert Malone: You Are The Population They Want To Control
Authored by Robert Malone via The Brownstone Institute,
Worldwide birthrate per 1,000 people follows a very predictable trend.
In “developed” and/or wealthy nations, the birthrate is low and in nations at the lower end of the economic development scale, the birthrate is high.
Nothing new there.
Many countries, including the US, have birthrates that either are too low to sustain current population levels or are stable. Since 1970, the population of people born in the US has been stable at below 300 million. In fact, some estimates show a decline in population. All of the population growth in the US during this time period has been due to immigration. That is why the USA has grown to 336 million people in 50 years. This trend has only increased in recent years.
There were a record 44.8 million immigrants living in the US in 2018, making up 13.7 percent of the nation’s population. This represents a more than fourfold increase since 1960, when 9.7 million immigrants lived in the US, accounting for 5.4 percent of the total US population.
For Jill and I growing up in a blue state, we were indoctrinated at an early age by the public school system that having two children was the responsible thing to do to save the planet from overpopulation. That careers were more important than having a large family. That women would find more fulfillment in a education and career, as opposed to staying at home. That women should defer motherhood until college and a career were firmed established. That this was the responsible path to take. Today, young women receive the same messaging from our government, our schools systems, and mainstream corporate media.
This messaging by the US government is still as strident as when I was in my youth 50 to 60 years ago.
The truth is that UN’s Agenda 2030 asserts that migration is a human right.
What this means in practicality is that persons born in countries with high birthrates have a right to migrate into wealthy countries with low birth rates.
To begin – migration is not a “human right.”
Property laws and nation states exist for a reason. To assert otherwise is to assert that there is a one-world government which is in control of migration. Another usurpation of authority by the UN and the WEF.
This nation’s rules and regulations, our very Constitution do not apply to non-citizens. This is by design. Let’s abide by our Constitution and Bill or Rights, not UN agreements, such as Agenda 2030, which was signed by a US president and never ratified by the Senate.
Our country has done a fine job of convincing the American populace that large family size hurts families and individuals in aggregate. We were told that the reward of that, for better or worse, would be a stabilized population over time and preservation of the American way of life, environment, cultural heritage and associated economic opportunities for US citizens. And yet still they persist. This week, Kamala Harris specifically stated that a reduced population was key to children being able to breath and drink clean water. This is not the first time she has asserted this false narrative.
– Kamala Harris
Yet, the Biden border crisis grows ever more urgent and the rate of illegal immigration continues to surge. It is a no brainer to think that an option to reduce population might be as simple as reducing immigration, if that was their true intent.
The truth is that the US has a vibrant and amazing culture. A heritage built on independence, free speech, shared values, and strong work ethic. This heritage can easily be diluted by too much immigration. Just look what is happening France right now. Open migration policies have worked to cause a vast instability within the nation. France literally can no longer integrate so many people, with such different sets of cultural norms into their core national culture. This is not progress.
Under globalism, the heterogeneous cultures throughout the world are being weaponized as a way to destroy diversity; a path towards enabling a single, globalized government controlled by the UN and the WEF. Which is precisely what open borders, the immigration policies of the UN and even Kamala Harris’ statements seem to be working towards. It is time to end this nonsense and get back to a closed and orderly immigration system.
There are over 8 billion people in the world. The US can not take all those that wish to immigrate. To think otherwise is foolish.
America has to be an independent and free nation. We need to rely on Americans for our goods and services. A strong economy is one that meets its own needs internally. Whereby goods, services, medical care, and energy are produced domestically. A strong nation doesn’t need to import low-wage earners to do its dirty work. The bizarre directive of reducing the naturally born population while importing new immigrants serves no functional purpose except to further globalize the USA.
By accepting large numbers of immigrants while reducing our own American population, we further regress as a nation, and we will continue to accelerate economic devastation of both middle class and urban poor citizens. A new world order where migration is a right, borders are open and the UN controls the ebb and flow of populations is ceding American nationalism and will destroy the American experiment in self-governance.
Our government needs to stay out of the business of enforcing population measures.
Which brings me to the mRNA genetic shots. People worry that the mRNA jabs have some sequence or component, such as the lipid nano-particle or genetic code, which are causing sterility. And that these were intentionally designed to cause a decrease in fertility worldwide. This is not a completely unrealistic fear.
For years, there have been rumors of abortion vaccines and anti-fertility vaccines being developed in India and Africa. With evidence being presented for and against these rumors. But we do know for sure that China used forced sterilizations and forced abortions on its own citizens. Now, China worries that their population levels are crumbling rapidly. Government controls on family choices are immoral. The idea of a vaccine to control population is repugnant.
Which brings me to a newly published Nature paper that shows that using adeno-associated viral vectored techniques, cats can be permanently sterilized.
In this essay, I don’t want to get into the science behind this (let’s defer that to a later essay) but I do want to discuss the ethics of developing “gene therapy” techniques that rely on viral vectors for sterilization.
To begin with, such a fertility gene therapy technique using adeno-associated virus (AAV) “gene therapy” vectors could be accidentally or purposefully modified to be infectious. This requires a recombination event (rescue) of another related adenovirus, which could be a wild type. Once that happens, the viral vector could be replication competent: ergo infectious. Although AAV “gene therapy” vectors are not a full replicating virus; the truth is that in a research setting, using the full virus to create infectious products is relatively simple. It could be as simple as missing a purification step or a recombination event. If such a product were to escape or be released into the general cat population, it would be a disaster. If such a vector had a rescue event in an injected animal, it could literally create a new virus. What happens if it were to infect on other feline species, such as cheetahs, big cats, cougars or bobcats? There is a scenario whereby it could decimate the population of an endangered species or all the cats . Furthermore, there is a possibility that such a virus could jump species – even into humans. Adeno-associated viruses are respiratory viruses, so can spread easily. What happens then?
Not to mention, we already know that NGOs and governments are willing to consider reducing population via vaccination or forced sterilization. Who is to say whether an organization, perhaps even one with the “best of intentions” in mind (or believing that “the ends justify the means”), would be willing to go there. After what we have experienced over the past three years, I would consider it in the realm of possibility. Kamala Harris, Bill Gates and the WEF and UN all have made their positions crystal clear. Population reduction is imperative.
There must be more regulatory controls on biological research for both animals and humans.
But in the meantime, we have to consider that the government doesn’t really care about population control.
You can know them by their actions, not their words. Their words endorse low birthrate as a pathway to population stabilization, but their actions enable rampant population growth due to immigration. The DATA indicate that what they really are striving for is a New World Order, whereby the UN becomes the dominant force of the world, with nation states nestled under their organizational structure. One in which out-migration combined with regional population control via government-enabled birth control (via both pharmaceuticals and deployed propaganda) is designed to augment that process of enabling populations born in economically disadvantaged regions to gain control of more economically advanced nations and infrastructure while destroying the cultures and politico/economic structures which have historically enabled the economic development of these more advanced regions.
* * *
Republished from Substack
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:20 - Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City
Video Of Deserted Mall And Streets In Downtown San Fran Reveals Democrats Destroyed City
A recent poll commissioned by Probolsky Research found 60% of voters in San Francisco “disapprove” of Mayor London Breed’s performance, and only 22% believe she deserves re-election. There’s plunging confidence among the business community that progressive leadership in the crime-ridden metro can revive the poop-infested downtown area. Businesses are closing up shops in droves, while some building owners have stopped payments on malls and hotels as the city’s economic recovery appears bleak.
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce CEO Rodney Fong recently drew a dire historical parallel of the faltering metro area to the 1906 earthquake: “We have a lot of work to do as residents are more pessimistic than ever.”
Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned this week that the metro area is in trouble.
Benioff offered this grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.
“We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said, adding Breed needs to initiate a program to convert dormant office space into housing and hire additional law enforcement to restore law and order.
San Francisco’s demise is much more than just the remote or hybrid work narrative, and a record 30% of office space is vacant. Remember, without office workers, local shops can’t thrive.
This leaves us with Youtuber METAL LEO, who walked the downtown area, revealing empty streets and closed-up stores.
He wrote in the description of the video, “Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers, two hotels, a shopping center with more than 125 stores but only two remain open on three levels located in San Francisco, California.”
The video is an eye-opener of the economic collapse of the downtown area as it has transformed into a “ghost town” overnight. The exodus of companies and people is a vote of confidence that Breed’s progressive administration has failed. There are attempts to rebuild the downtown district, but that could take many years, meaning the city’s economic recovery won’t happen anytime soon.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 20:00 - China's Digital Yuan Nears $250 Billion Transaction Volume; Central Bank Governor
China’s Digital Yuan Nears $250 Billion Transaction Volume; Central Bank Governor
Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,
Nearly $250 billion worth of transactions have taken place using China’s digital yuan in the one-and-a-half years since the start of its pilot, the country’s central bank governor has claimed.
On July 19, People’s Bank of China governor Yi Gang told a conference in Singapore that its central bank digital currency transacted 1.8 trillion yuan as of the end of June.
Yi added there have been around 950 million transactions from roughly 120 million wallets since the digital yuan’s initial January 2022 rollout, leading to an average transaction amount of about $260.
MAS is honoured to have Dr Yi Gang, President of China Society for Finance and Banking as the speaker for the MAS Lecture 2023. Dr Yi spoke on “CBDC from China’s perspective”.
Find out more here: https://t.co/UbikjgQhRn pic.twitter.com/UuQwOQe8n0
— MAS (@MAS_sg) July 19, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
He claimed around $2.3 billion, or 16.5 billion digital yuan, was in circulation at the end of June, which only represents 0.16% of China’s monetary supply, according to a July 19 Reuters report.
The digital yuan’s adoption is still minimal relative to China’s 1.4 billion strong population, so far mostly being used for domestic retail payments aside from a few trials in Hong Kong.
On July 18, the South China Morning Post reported that the Bank of China Hong Kong began trialing another cross-border payment scheme for Bank of China customers at select retail stores in Hong Kong.
The trial was rolled out in a bid to further promote the cross-border applications of digital yuan and is the third cross-border trial of the CBDC in Hong Kong, according to the SCMP.
In a trial last year the BOCHK launched a program that encouraged customers to set up a BOC e-CNY wallet to receive $14 (100 yuan) to be used at the Hong Kong supermarket chain U Select.
In January, the central bank integrated smart contract functionality into the digital yuan to expand upon its use cases.
The $250 billion in digital yuan transactions is an over 70% increase from the number the bank cited in August 2022.
The amount is still, however, far off the amount of value processed by some of the largest public blockchains in the world.
Bitcoin, for example, processed $8.2 trillion in 2022, according to various reports.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:40 - Chinese Hackers Access Email Of US Ambassador, Compromise "Hundreds Of Thousands" Of US Government Emails
Chinese Hackers Access Email Of US Ambassador, Compromise “Hundreds Of Thousands” Of US Government Emails
There go all the latest attempts by the Biden admin at a detente with China.
The WSJ reports that hackers “linked to Beijing” have accessed the email account of the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in an attack that reportedly has “compromised at least hundreds of thousands of individual U.S. government emails.” Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, was also hacked in the cyber-espionage attack. While it remains unconfirmed, the two diplomats are believed to be the two most senior officials at the State Department targeted in the alleged spying campaign disclosed last week.
Unlike previous so-called “Russian hacking” campaigns which dominated the news between 2016 and 2022 and which were fabricated by the FBI to cover up the FBI’s own criminal activity, and where everything about the perps was known instantaneously, the “contours” of the Chinese hacking campaign aren’t fully known. According to the Journal, while the infiltration was limited to unclassified emails, “the inboxes of Burns and Kritenbrink could have allowed the hackers to glean insights into U.S. planning for a recent string of visits to China by senior Biden administration officials, as well as internal conversations about U.S. policies toward its rival amid a period of delicate diplomacy that has been challenged repeatedly in recent months.”
Burns and Kritenbrink are the second and third senior Biden administration officials to be identified in news reports as having their emails hacked. U.S. Secretary Gina Raimondo’s email was also compromised in the breach, U.S. officials have said, who also stated that the email of top US State official Antony Blinken, wasn’t directly infiltrated in the hack, nor were those in his circle of top advisers. Instead, the hackers appeared to focus on a small number of senior officials responsible for managing the U.S.-China relationship. That said, since this appears to be another planted deep state narrative which will change over time as the deep state’s needs also change, the WSJ was quick to caveat that “the estimate of individual emails accessed is rough and could also grow, the people said.”
“For security reasons, we will not be sharing additional information on the nature and scope of this cybersecurity incident at this time,” a State Department spokesman said. “The Department continuously monitors and responds to activity of concern on our networks. Our investigation is ongoing, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”
Kritenbrink accompanied Blinken on his trip to China a month ago, and Kritenbrink, Burns and Blinken all attended meetings with senior Chinese officials and with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Before the high-level talks in Beijing, Kritenbrink led a trip of less senior officials to lay the groundwork.
Last week the State Department led the Biden administration’s effort to restart diplomatic communications with China and notch progress in select areas including climate change and synthetic opioid trade. However, deep-seated disagreements over Taiwan, spying and other issues have led to a deterioration in relations, with broad U.S. political concerns about China have “prevented any reversal of the trend.”
According to the report, the hack was pulled off with the help of a flaw in Microsoft’s cloud-computing environment and has since been fixed; more than two dozen organizations globally were also affected. Fewer than 10 organizations were compromised in the U.S. and each of those appeared to have a small number of individual email accounts directly accessed by the hackers, a senior American cybersecurity official said last week. It isn’t known whether any federal agencies beyond the State and Commerce departments were targeted although we are confident that if they were then Hillary Clinton would gladly donate her version of BleachBit and a few hammers.
Microsoft hasn’t publicly disclosed how the breach began and has said it is continuing to investigate the incident.
Hilariously, the Administration of Joe “10 for the big guy” Biden, whose son is deep in China’s pockets, has keep radiosilent about the hack, which U.S. officials have described as surgical in nature “something that targeted a small number of specifically chosen high-value victims… and have sought to play down its overall impact, likening it to routine digital espionage that is constantly going on between adversarial nations.”
Right, because other nations routinely hack the email accounts of the most important US politicians.
Not surprisingly, Joe Bidem hasn’t formally blamed China for the hack, but senior Biden administration officials said they have no reason to doubt Microsoft’s assessment linking it to a Chinese hacking group. Meanwhile, China has denied the allegations and accused the U.S. of engaging in rampant cyber-enabled espionage around the world.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:20 - Lab-Grown Artificial 'Meat' May Actually Be Worse For The Environment
Lab-Grown Artificial ‘Meat’ May Actually Be Worse For The Environment
Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,
Lab grown “meat” may be potentially worse for the environment than actual beef and may have an even larger carbon footprint, according to a recent study.
This follows the USDA’s approval of the FDA’s decision on June 21 to greenlight the sale of lab-grown meat to American consumers.
GOOD Meat, a company that grows cell-based meat in its labs, announced in June the USDA’s approval to sell its products.
Advocates of lab grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, has been lauded by activists of being more environmentally friendly than beef, as it uses less land, water, and produces no greenhouse gases, compared to raising cattle.
The United States joins Singapore as the only country approving “cell-cultured” meat for human consumption
Only chicken has passed the official government approval process for now, with a “no questions” letter that grants permission for distribution, but pork and beef will have to wait.
However, a pre-print study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found that the environmental impacts of lab-grown or “cultivated” meat, are likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than its natural counterpart, based on current and near-term production methods.
Fake Meat May Actually Require More Energy Than Organic Meat
Amy Quinton from UC Davis Department of Food Science announced preliminary results from the study on the environmental impact of lab grown meat in a May 22 report.
The researchers assessed the amount of energy needed and the greenhouse gases emitted to create artificial beef and compared it with traditional organic meat production.
It was found that scaling up production using current lab methods was highly energy intensive.
Lab-grown meat is produced through the use of highly refined or purified growth media, which are the ingredients used to make animal cells multiply and is similar to how biotechnology firms make their drugs.
The UC Davis team found that the global warming potential of lab-based meat using this process, is four to twenty-five times greater than the average for retail beef.
“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” stated UC Davis doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, the study’s lead author.
“If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production,” he added.
Researchers Hope to Make Artificial Meat Production More Energy Efficient
The UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium, which led the study, are a group of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and educators researching lab grown meat.
The artificial meat industry plans on creating lab-grown meat using primarily food-grade ingredients or cultures, that use less energy-intensive pharmaceutical grade ingredients and processes in the future.
They hope that improvements in developing the technology, through “pharma to food,” will perfect the production of artificial meat products.
Other goals include the establishment and evaluation of cell lines that could be used to grow meat and to improve the structure in cultured meat.
Me. Risner stated, that if lab-based meat failed to create a more climate-friendly burger, there is still valuable science to be learned from the attempt.
“It may not lead to environmentally friendly commodity meat, but it could lead to less expensive pharmaceuticals, for example,” he added.
“My concern would just be scaling this up too quickly and doing something harmful for the environment.”
US Production Has Begun
Only a few places will be producing cell-cultured meat for public use for now.
Upside Foods and Good Meat, of California, will first be distributing their product at Bar Crenn in San Francisco and celebrity chef José Andrés’ restaurant, China Chilcano, in Washington, D.C.
China Chilcano will first serve Good Meat’s “Anticuchos de Pollo” on the week of July 31 as part of an exclusive tasting menu at $70 per person, by reservation only and then only available in very limited quantities.
Upside Foods COO Amy Chen told Scientific American that their product will display the regular round-shaped USDA inspection label.
Artificial meat will have the words “cell-cultured” written on the tag.
The two firms say that their artificial chicken meat will emit 92 percent fewer carbon emissions and use 95 percent less land during production.
Meanwhile, a Good Meat spokesperson told Townhall that the production process is still currently expensive.
“Bioreactors and the supporting infrastructure required to produce cultivated meat are not inexpensive to design, build and operate,” said the spokesperson, comparing the technology to the electronics industry where “costs will drop over time.”
Good Meat said a few more steps need to be made before that prices will drop.
The spokesperson said their lab was focused on improving the process to increase cell density, design larger-scale containers to grow meat, and creating more affordable and efficient nutrients to feed the cells.
Risner told Townhall that the lab meat industry would benefit from the creation of a supply chain for amino acids that could expand current manufacturing volumes.
“It will take a significant amount of time to reach mass commercial production,” the spokesperson continued.
Once cell-cultured meat hits mass production, Good Meat believes that sales will pick up as the public becomes more aware of the product.
The spokesperson said that the dishes sold in Singapore have already received universally high marks from diners, after gaining regulatory approval in the island nation in late 2020.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 19:00 - FBI Official Admits Under Oath They Knew Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real
FBI Official Admits Under Oath They Knew Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real
During a transcribed interview with the House Judiciary Committee, an FBI official revealed that at least one senior agent, along with potentially others, who had alerted social media companies about a potential “hack and dump” operation before the 2020 election, were aware of the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
As the House Judiciary Committee’s official Twitter account noted, “Testimony reveals the FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic, but when asked by a social media company about the laptop’s authenticity the FBI said ‘no further comment’.”
The FBI official, Laura Dehmlow, participated in discussions between the FBI and Facebook prior to the social media platform’s decision to censor the story related to Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election. Furthermore, The Intercept has indicated that Dehmlow was also involved in the Biden administration’s endeavors to suppress and censor content on social media platforms in relation to misinformation.
Massive. The perpetrators of this gigantic fraud must be investigated, prosecuted, and brought to justice.https://t.co/6ca4EO8TpP
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 20, 2023
Dehmlow, the head of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), acknowledged that her former colleague Brad Benavides was certainly aware of the laptop’s legitimacy, as per excerpts of her testimony.
When asked by the committee about other individuals within FITF who knew about the laptop, Dehmlow replied that she did not have exact information, but she presumed that Brad Benavides, then-FITF Section Chief, was aware.
“Do you know who else at FITF knew that the laptop was real?” the committee asked, according to the transcript.
“I don’t actually. I would assume both my – yes, I would certainly say that [then-FITF Section Chief] Brad Benavides was aware,” Dehmlow replied.
“What about the individuals on the Russia unit?” the committee asked.
“I would assume the [Russia] unit chief was also aware. I’m pretty certain of that fact,” Dehmlow replied.
Dehmlow was accompanied by an attorney with the Department of Justice during the interview. The transcript excerpts note that the attorney jumped in to clarify if Dehmlow knew with “certainty” or if she was merely “making deductions.”
“I’m pretty certain they were aware,” Dehmlow said.
These transcript excerpts were included in a letter from Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to FBI Director Christopher Wray. In his letter, Jordan requested names and records related to those within the bureau who were aware of the laptop’s existence and had been communicating with social media companies before the 2020 presidential election.
The laptop gained significant attention when the New York Post published a story on October 14, 2020, revealing details about then-candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings based on the laptop’s contents. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook limited the story’s reach to their vast user bases.
Simultaneously, behind the scenes, FITF and other federal government entities were engaging in routine meetings with social media companies, repeatedly cautioning them about a potential “hack and dump” operation. This information was highlighted in a recent court ruling from Louisiana, which addressed government censorship.
According to Jordan’s letter, after the FBI had convinced social media companies that the laptop was connected to a hack-and-dump operation, the bureau ceased sharing information, leading the companies to conclude that the New York Post’s story was part of Russian disinformation.
Dehmlow further stated during her testimony that she recollected a meeting or hearing about a meeting in which someone from Twitter asked about the laptop’s authenticity. One of the FBI participants on the call confirmed that it was indeed genuine before another participant interjected with “no further comment.”
Dehmlow’s testimony supports the claims made by IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapely, who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in May. Shapely revealed that the FBI had become aware of the laptop’s existence in October 2019, stating, “The FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 18:40 - No Sanctuary: NYC Shoos Migrants Away, Warns "No Guarantee" Of Shelter, Services
No Sanctuary: NYC Shoos Migrants Away, Warns “No Guarantee” Of Shelter, Services
New York City will ‘immediately’ begin discouraging asylum seekers from seeking refuge in the self-proclaimed sanctuary city, warning migrants coming from the southern border that there’s “no guarantee” they’ll receive shelter or services, Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.
“We have no more room in the city,” Adams said during a news conference at City Hall, in what the NY Times describes as a “somewhat unexpected departure from its long-held status as a sanctuary city, and as a place that guarantees a right to shelter.”
As part of the city’s shift in strategy, it will now require single adult migrants to reapply for shelter after 60 days, a move that the mayor said was designed to make room for families with children. Mr. Adams said the city would intensify efforts to help the migrants connect with family, friends or outside networks in order to find alternative housing arrangements.
If alternative housing arrangements are not available, single adult asylum seekers will have to return to the intake center and reapply for housing. It is unclear what would happen if there is not housing available at the intake centers. -NY Times
Pro-migrant activists aren’t happy.
“I have worked with thousands of people over the years whose lives were saved because of the right to shelter,” said Craig Hughes, a social worker with Mobilization for Justice, a nonprofit legal services group, in a statement to the Times. “The idea that there’s some imaginary place that people are going to go off to besides city streets is just false.”
NYC has seen an influx of more than 90,000 migrants since the spring of 2022, of which close to 55,000 are still under the care of the city. When combined with the city’s homeless population, New York is caring for a record 105,800 people across more than 188 sites, including 18 humanitarian relief centers.
Between July 10-16, there were 2,800 migrants who entered the city, according to the deputy mayor for health and human services, Anne Williams-Isom.
“Our compassion is infinite,” said a senior VP at NYC Health, Dr. Ted Long, adding “our space is not.”
The city has distributed flyers warning migrants there’s ‘no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services.’
“Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the U.S.,” the flier concludes.
Brad Lander, the city comptroller, said the announcement undermined the right to shelter and “the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”Credit…NYC Mayor’s Office Unfortunately for New York, the city remains under a decades-old court order requiring it to provide shelter to anyone who needs a bed.
City comptroller Brad Lander said the announcement undermines the city’s right to shelter, and “the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”
Housing advocates have called on NYC officials to make room in the shelter system by moving homeless people to permanent housing.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/20/2023 – 18:20
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