Today’s News 22nd July 2023

• Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase Of The Government's War On Thought-Crimes
  Mental Health Round-Ups: The Next Phase Of The Government’s War On Thought-Crimes

  Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is a dangerous activity.”

  – Hannah Arendt

  Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes: mental health round-ups and involuntary detentions.

  

  Under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

  If we don’t nip this in the bud, and soon, this will become yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the First and Fourth Amendments at will.

  This is how it begins.

  In communities across the nation, police are being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, based solely on their own judgment, even if those individuals pose no danger to others.

  In New York City, for example, you could find yourself forcibly hospitalized for suspected mental illness if you carry “firmly held beliefs not congruent with cultural ideas,” exhibit a “willingness to engage in meaningful discussion,” have “excessive fears of specific stimuli,” or refuse “voluntary treatment recommendations.”

  While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, they could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

  As the AP reports, federal officials are already looking into how to add “‘identifiable patient data,’ such as mental health, substance use and behavioral health information from group homes, shelters, jails, detox facilities and schools,” to its surveillance toolkit.

  Make no mistake: these are the building blocks for an American gulag no less sinister than that of the gulags of the Cold War-era Soviet Union.

  The word “gulag” refers to a labor or concentration camp where prisoners (oftentimes political prisoners or so-called “enemies of the state,” real or imagined) were imprisoned as punishment for their crimes against the state.

  The gulag, according to historian Anne Applebaum, used as a form of “administrative exile—which required no trial and no sentencing procedure—was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.”

  Totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union also declared dissidents mentally ill and consigned political prisoners to prisons disguised as psychiatric hospitals, where they could be isolated from the rest of society, their ideas discredited, and subjected to electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures to break them physically and mentally.

  In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers. Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

  The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years.

  Warrantless seizures, surveillance, indefinite detention, isolation, exile… sound familiar?

  It should.

  The age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by making them disappear—or forcing them to flee—or exiling them literally or figuratively or virtually from their fellow citizens—is happening with increasing frequency in America.

  Now, through the use of red flag laws, behavioral threat assessments, and pre-crime policing prevention programs, the groundwork is being laid that would allow the government to weaponize the label of mental illness as a means of exiling those whistleblowers, dissidents and freedom fighters who refuse to march in lockstep with its dictates.

  That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) its critics is diabolical. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these individuals are declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.

  These developments are merely the realization of various U.S. government initiatives dating back to 2009, including one dubbed Operation Vigilant Eagle which calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

  Coupled with the report on “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” issued by the Department of Homeland Security (curiously enough, a Soviet term), which broadly defines rightwing extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.

  Thus, what began as a blueprint under the Bush administration has since become an operation manual for exiling those who challenge the government’s authority.

  An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent.

  Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention.

  For instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.

  One tactic being used to deal with so-called “mentally ill suspects who also happen to be trained in modern warfare” is through the use of civil commitment laws, found in all states and employed throughout American history to not only silence but cause dissidents to disappear.

  For example, NSA officials attempted to label former employee Russ Tice, who was willing to testify in Congress about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, as “mentally unbalanced” based upon two psychiatric evaluations ordered by his superiors.

  NYPD Officer Adrian Schoolcraft had his home raided, and he was handcuffed to a gurney and taken into emergency custody for an alleged psychiatric episode. It was later discovered by way of an internal investigation that his superiors were retaliating against him for reporting police misconduct. Schoolcraft spent six days in the mental facility, and as a further indignity, was presented with a bill for $7,185 upon his release.

  Marine Brandon Raub—a 9/11 truther—was arrested and detained in a psychiatric ward under Virginia’s civil commitment law based on posts he had made on his Facebook page that were critical of the government.

  Each state has its own set of civil, or involuntary, commitment laws. These laws are extensions of two legal principles: parens patriae Parens patriae (Latin for “parent of the country”), which allows the government to intervene on behalf of citizens who cannot act in their own best interest, and police power, which requires a state to protect the interests of its citizens.

  The fusion of these two principles, coupled with a shift towards a dangerousness standard, has resulted in a Nanny State mindset carried out with the militant force of the Police State.

  The problem, of course, is that the diagnosis of mental illness, while a legitimate concern for some Americans, has over time become a convenient means by which the government and its corporate partners can penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors.

  In fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the pathologizing of individuals who resist authority as suffering from oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), defined as “a pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures.” Under such a definition, every activist of note throughout our history—from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.—could be classified as suffering from an ODD mental disorder.

  Of course, this is all part of a larger trend in American governance whereby dissent is criminalized and pathologized, and dissenters are censored, silenced, declared unfit for society, labelled dangerous or extremist, or turned into outcasts and exiled.

  Red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others), are a perfect example of this mindset at work and the ramifications of where this could lead.

  As The Washington Post reports, these red flag gun laws “allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

  With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats.

  While in theory it appears perfectly reasonable to want to disarm individuals who are clearly suicidal and/or pose an “immediate danger” to themselves or others, where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

  Remember, this is the same government that uses the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably.

  This is the same government whose agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies to identify potential threats.

  This is the same government that keeps re-upping the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the military to detain American citizens with no access to friends, family or the courts if the government believes them to be a threat.

  This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

  For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

  Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

  Let that sink in a moment.

  Now consider the ramifications of giving police that kind of authority in order to preemptively neutralize a potential threat, and you’ll understand why some might view these mental health round-ups with trepidation.

  No matter how well-meaning the politicians make these encroachments on our rights appear, in the right (or wrong) hands, benevolent plans can easily be put to malevolent purposes.

  Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation.

  The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, the war on COVID-19: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the government’s hands. For instance, the very same mass surveillance technologies that were supposedly so necessary to fight the spread of COVID-19 are now being used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, harass marginalized communities, and link people’s health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

  We stand at a crossroads.

  As author Erich Fromm warned, “At this point in history, the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:40

• Does "Made In America" Still Matter To Consumers?
  Does “Made In America” Still Matter To Consumers?

  Do American citizens care where their products come from? Well, it depends on who you ask.

  

  Over the past few decades, the importance of “Made in America” – labels on products indicating production was done in the U.S. – has ebbed and flowed.

  As China has grown into the United States’ economic rival and geopolitical adversary, the distinction between American-made and Chinese-made has resurfaced, even as some products have been mislabeled or locally produced but Chinese-owned.

  How do people currently feel? This chart, via Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop, uses survey responses from May 2023 out of Morning Consult, in which a representative sample of 1,000 U.S. adults were questioned on whether they had favorable views of products from U.S. companies using American or Chinese labor and parts.

  

  Who Prefers American-Made?

  According to the report, companies that choose to move production state-side will experience reputational gains with American consumers.

  In fact, around two-thirds of survey respondents said they regularly sought out products that were “Made in America” during the last year. But there were slight divides in gender (men favored American-made products more) and noticeable divides in generational responses.

  Here’s a look at the data on how different demographic groups valued national goods:

  

  Overall, thee older generations like baby boomers tend to be more patriotic in their purchasing opinions, with Gen Z being the least concerned with Chinese products.

  On the political spectrum, both Democrats and Republicans had the exact same share of respondents who favor American-made products at 76%. Comparatively, only 57% of independents favored American-made products, though they also responded least favorably to Chinese-made products at 22%.

  One other interesting point to come out of the survey: close to 50% of consumers said they would actually be willing to pay more for American-made products.

  The American Goods Market

  Looking at responses from U.S. adults overall, large shares of consumers are leaning towards domestic-made goods. Here are some additional insights worth considering:

  • 65% of U.S. adult consumers claimed to sometimes or always buy “Made in America” products intentionally

  • 43% prioritize purchasing American-made products rather than prioritizing other options like quality, sustainability, or affordability

  • 48% are willing to pay higher amounts for U.S.-based products. 39% responded they would pay between 6%-10% more for said products

  Overall, it appears that “in-house” goods are more desirable to Americans in the current environment. This also explains why regionalization is becoming more important for companies, whether in terms of reshoring (or onshoring) production back to America, or “nearshoring” to Mexico and closer neighbors.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:20

• The Navy And Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
  The Navy And Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

  Authored by Brett Ramsey via RealClearDefense.com,

  The Navy is all in for DEI.

  At the Navy website if one clicks on “who we are,” one of the first things that shows up is “diversity and equity.”  

  It must be important to show up so prominently.

  The Navy Diversity and Equity website page says: “I AM A SAILOR. WE ARE A TEAM. THIS IS OUR NAVY.” 

  “When Sailors feel included, respected and empowered, they will be more ready to win wars, deter aggression and maintain freedom of the seas.”

  – ADM Mike Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations.

  The Navy offers no evidence to support the CNO’s statement. It is not clear how the statement actually relates to diversity or equity.

  It does mention feeling “included” a form of “inclusion” but in a vague sort of way. In my 34 years in uniform, I don’t recall at any time being asked my feelings.

  Must be a new thing.

  I doubt the People’s Republic of China military leaders ask how their people are feeling?

  The Navy I served in stressed toughness, stamina, perseverance, physical fitness, strength, courage, honor, and commitment. 

  My feelings were secondary and that was well understood by me and my shipmates. I have been literally eyeball to eyeball with the Soviets in the North Atlantic tracking a Yankee class submarine.  Rest assured that former enemy had our full attention and our crew devoted no time to feelings. I have no doubt our current adversaries are just as potentially dangerous to our way of life as was the former Soviet Union.

  The Navy ought to focus on our real threats instead of touchy-feelie nonsense like sailors’ feelings.

  The Navy is a combat force whose job it is to break things and kill people when and where called upon to do so. Those whose personality or psyche demand constant attention to “feelings” probably ought to find something else to do.

  

  Let’s look at diversity

  How diverse should the Navy be? It doesn’t say. The fact is, the Navy is already about as diverse as any institution anywhere. The 2021 DOD report on demographics for Navy shows:

  

  Improved Race, Ethnicity Measures Show U.S. is More Multiracial (census.gov)

  DOD’s 2021 demographics shows the Navy has 114,100 enlisted personnel and 13,361 officers that identify as a minority. The Navy is already diverse. 37% of the Navy is from a measured racial demographic group leaving 63% that identify as white which matches the percent reported nationally in the 2020 Census. That is more diversity than the national average. An anomaly hidden from view is the Hispanic segment of the military. You will note that there is no category for Hispanic in the table above. Actually, 17.7% of the active DOD force is Hispanic but you would never know that from the figures above because it is not reported. The US census does not count Hispanics as a minority. Instead, they are considered a different ethnic group. According to Pew Research Center data published in 2021, 58% of

  Hispanics consider themselves to be white with the remainder identifying as some other color.  This unique accounting obfuscates the fact that the US military is even more diverse than appears to the naked eye when viewing DOD’s reports of racial groups. In fact, over 350,000 Hispanics serve in the military and add considerably to the diversity of the total force.

  Other than a slight underrepresentation of black officers, the Navy is at or exceeds the national demographic of racial diversity. This begs the question, what is all the fuss about diversity? The Navy is diverse! There is no need to become even more diverse than the Navy already is. Millions of dollars and precious time are being devoted to a problem that is outside of the Navy’s ability to control. Nay, you say…. what about the shortfall in black officers? What about it? The Navy is devoting a lot of time and effort into trying to recruit blacks to join the Navy to become officers, but the gap remains. One must ask the question, “Why?”  It is not because of discrimination because there are already thousands of black officers so there is obviously no barrier to blacks becoming officers. What is lacking is blacks who want to become naval officers. No amount of incentives or handwringing over a slight under-representation of blacks in the naval officer ranks is going to change a situation that obviously has other causes. Even the small shortfall is actually not the Navy’s fault as is brilliantly and eloquently analyzed and explained in detail by CDR Phil Keuhlen in Task Force One Navy Final Report:  “The Emperor’s New Clothes” Redux.  According to government graduation data there are more than 200,000 black college graduates each year. The problem is that very few of these qualified people have an interest in serving in the Navy. We ought to be curious about why. It is not because of discrimination as DOD’s own internal reports document that fewer than 2% of the 3.4 million that serve in DOD consider racism to be a problem.

  Let’s look at equity

  The Navy DEI webpage goes on to say “Putting on a uniform doesn’t mean sacrificing who you are. America’s Navy values diversity, equality, and inclusivity — striving to build a community of service members who accurately reflect the rich makeup of our country. Our belief is that with hard work and determination, anyone, from anywhere, has the power to be successful in the Navy.”  The Navy uses the word “equity” earlier twice and then in the next paragraph, the word “equality” is used. Which is it? These two things are not the same. Equity means equal outcomes regardless of merit. Equity is a term associated with social justice advocates who want equal outcomes for everyone regardless of merit. Is the Navy really advocating equal outcomes? How does that even work in a military organization with rigid technical requirements that dictate practices for safety reasons and for warfighting effectiveness? Military organizations are rigid, structured top-down organizations whose fixed chains of commands and methods demand uniformity, strict discipline, and consistency in order to function with any kind of efficiency. Adopting equity in a military chain of command is deadly and dangerous and will get people killed. Equality is equal opportunity based on merit, which is and has been the law of the land for a long time. Equality should be the Navy’s mantra, not equity. The Navy’s use of both terms may confuse those who visit their website? Is the Navy using both terms to conflate the two words into meaning the same thing in order to stimulate interest in the Navy?

  Let’s look at inclusion

  What does that even mean? In one section “putting on a uniform” is the first thing said. The word “uniform” is telling! It absolutely proves the Navy strives for uniformity…that’s why you wear a uniform. Everything top to bottom in the Navy is about uniformity. Ships and aircraft are built to uniform specifications. The way things are done is based on time-tested uniform best practices. Individuality is not allowed because that leads to bad outcomes and people dying. Putting on the uniform is absolutely about giving up your individuality while that uniform is on. You absolutely must sacrifice who you are to join the Navy most of the time. On duty you must conform to the Navy’s uniform standards for dress, behavior, operational excellence and a thousand other things. When you are off duty, then you have time to be yourself. While on duty, you belong to the Navy, you are included by wearing a common uniform, the same one at the same time as everyone else does. When you get up in the morning, you look at the Plan of the Day and it tells you what the uniform of the day is. How inclusive is that? We are all exactly on the same page and the uniform reminds you every day that you are part of something bigger, something important. What does the use of the word “inclusion” imply? Are there some fields in the Navy that only white people have? Of course not. The Navy’s use of the word is purely political, and politics should have no place in the Navy. It is used to show that the Navy has gotten with the program and is using the same language as the larger society and as desired or even dictated by the political left. But, how does that make for a better Navy….using politically charged terminology? It doesn’t! It has no place in the Navy and only serves to introduce doubt and dissension and make the Navy a less effective force. A cursory search reveals the popular origin of the use of the word in today’s parlance. Where you find the term used is in colleges and universities where the political philosophies of the left are preached, including in Critical Theory, Critical Legal Theory, and Critical Race Theory.

  “We are about to lose a major war”

  — Rani, Last of The Red Hot Boomers (@ShadesOfRani) July 21, 2023

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

  Conclusion

  There is no place in the Navy for the politics of DEI.

  The Navy is already diverse. The data is not in doubt.

  Equity has no place in the Navy. The Navy’s moral and practical foundation is a merit- based organization focused on being able to fight and win the nation’s wars at sea and projecting power ashore. Equity undermines merit. Dilution of merit in favor of equity will get people killed. Anyone telling you anything different is mistaken and should be ignored.

  Inclusion is a phantom and is word play from the political left. When you join the Navy, you are included by the very uniform you wear which is the same for everyone. The UCMJ guides your conduct and demands fair and equal treatment of all. The oath you swear to uphold has as its foundation the Constitution. Equal protection is guaranteed in the 14th Amendment and has been upheld by the Supreme Court many times including recently in the Harvard and UNC cases on college admissions. Nothing more is required.

  DEI adds nothing of value to our Navy. If just wastes resources and causes division within the ranks.

  *  *  *

  Brent Ramsey is a retired Navy CAPT. He was a military advisor to Congressman Mark Meadows 2016-2020. He is the author of dozens of published articles on national defense.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 23:00

• Twitter Roasts ATF For Posting Image Of Agent Loading Nazi Gun Pointed At Testicles 
  Twitter Roasts ATF For Posting Image Of Agent Loading Nazi Gun Pointed At Testicles 

  Twitter users are roasting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for an image tweeted by the Houston field office this week of an agent improperly following the basic rules of firearms safety: Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded and always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction. 

  The ATF agent appears to be at an indoor range in Austin. The agent is on the wrong side of a loading table while he loads a magazine for a Nazi MP 40 submachine gun. You will notice that the sub-gun is pointed at the agent’s testicles. 

  

  Here’s the tweet:

  The ATF Austin Office out on the range today with special guests from our local U.S. Attorneys’ Offices. pic.twitter.com/568GrEEHLG

  — ATF Houston (@ATFHou) July 19, 2023

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

  The core firearm safety rules at any gun range are: 

  • Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded. 

  • Always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction. 

  • Always keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire. 

  • Always keep your firearm on safe until you intend to fire.

  This could be interpreted as visual evidence that some ATF agents under Biden’s administration have no idea about basic firearm safety. Notably, even the agent responsible for social media, who took the photograph, failed to recognize the lapse in gun safety. 

  Twitter users mocked the photo, as some said, “Photographic proof the ATF shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near firearms.” 

  “I’m no highfalutin ATF bureaucrat, but I did receive training many years ago that you NEVER stand in front of the muzzle of any firearm, not even one that you are “certain” is unloaded,” someone else said. 

  Gun blog Truth About Gun said, “Standing in front of the loading table with firearms pointed at your junk is Gun Safety 101 for the distinguished agents of @ATFHQ and @ATFHou in particular. But if an FFL makes even a single typo, he gets his ticket pulled. Your tax dollars at work.” 

  “Reminder ATF is in charge of “policing” things pertaining to firearms. ATF agents don’t even follow one of the most important rules of firearm safety, Treat Every Gun As If It Is Loaded. That includes ones sitting on tables, like the one pointed at that idiot’s dick,” another person explained. 

  Here’s what the Federal Affairs Director of Gun Owners of America had to say about this: 

  The fact that the Houston branch of the ATF not only took, but posted, a photo of an alleged agent blatantly ignoring—or not knowing—basic firearm safety is a reflection of the agency’s ineptness. While ATF may be tasked with enforcing federal gun control, their staff obviously have no understanding or respect for even the basic rules of firearm safety. Gun owners have always known the anti-gun movement knows nothing about the firearms they want to ban—but to post it on Twitter is a new level of stupidity.

  Whenever I go shooting, I too load my magazines while standing down range & with my OPEN BOLT machine guns pointed straight at me. https://t.co/c7ACSpoUqG

  — Aidan Johnston (@RealGunLobbyist) July 20, 2023

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

  Not the best look for Biden’s ATF. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:40

• Illegal Immigrant Children With Tuberculosis Released Across US
  Illegal Immigrant Children With Tuberculosis Released Across US

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Thousands of young illegal immigrants with tuberculosis were released from U.S. government custody across one year, officials have revealed in a new report.

  

  The illegal immigrants, all under 18 years of age, were released to family members or other responsible adults despite having latent tuberculosis infection, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a recent disclosure.

  The dates of each release were not clear. HHS officials notified state officials from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023, of the tuberculosis-positive youth over a web-based system operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Aurora Miranda-Maese, an HHS official, told a court in the report.

  The CDC, which is part of HHS, declined to comment. HHS did not respond to requests for comment.

  The Washington Times first reported on the report, which runs 35 pages and covers other aspects of managing illegal immigrant youth who are transferred to HHS by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after crossing the border.

  Ms. Miranda-Maese said that each minor must undergo a medical examination within two business days of entering HHS custody. The examination helps officials assess the minors’ health, enables them to administer vaccines, and allows them to detect communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.

  A person with latent tuberculosis infection, or an infection without symptoms, requires three to nine months of treatment to prevent potential progression to active disease, according to HHS officials. Without treatment, 5 to 10 percent of infected people will develop active tuberculosis, or tubercolosis disease, according to the CDC.

  The CDC says that people with the disease are infectious, can transmit the disease to others, and can die if not treated. If tuberculosis becomes active, that is “a threat to both the individual’s and the public’s health,” according to Ms. Miranda-Maese.

  Minors do not typically receive treatment while in HHS custody because most are released before one month elapses, she said, opening up the possibility of problems such as the development of drug-resistant tuberculosis if treatment is initiated and discontinued before completion.

  To that end, HHS developed in 2018 a system that notifies state officials of illegal immigrant minors who have been sent to live in their states.

  Officials in 44 states received more than 2,450 alerts of illegal immigrant minors with tuberculosis in the year ending May 31, 2023, according to HHS.

  Over that same time, 126,069 minors were released by HHS.

  States

  Some states confirmed that they’ve been told of minors with active tuberculosis, in addition to latent cases.

  “The department, in conjunction with local health departments, coordinates care and appropriate follow-up for anyone with active tuberculosis reported through this mechanism,” a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health told The Epoch Times via email.

  And some minors, by the time states are alerted to cases, have already moved elsewhere.

  “Some individuals relocate prior to case interviews,” a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources told The Epoch Times in an email.

  Even if they haven’t, minors can choose not to undergo offered treatment, according to the spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Public Health.

  Critics said President Joe Biden was to blame for the situation.

  “Biden’s broken border policies continue to welcome millions of lawbreakers into our country, including countless thousands with infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) told The Epoch Times via email. “Rather than protecting Americans, the Biden regime is quite literally bringing disease and death to our doorstep.”

  Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that the releases of children with tuberculosis and other communicable diseases “is another example of the administration prioritizing the quick release of migrants over all other considerations, including public health, public safety, and national security.”

  Placement With Sponsors

  HHS deals with unaccompanied minors or children who arrive at the border without a responsible adult.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:20

• Forget Bears… Now Coked-Out Sharks Might Lurk Off Florida Coast
  Forget Bears… Now Coked-Out Sharks Might Lurk Off Florida Coast

  After Americans learned about the 1985 incident of a black bear that went on a coke-fueled, carnivorous blood fest in the comedic horror film “Cocaine Bear” earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before entertainment companies produced content about the possibility of cocaine-fueled sharks off Florida’s coast. 

  Tom “The Blowfish” Hird and the University of Florida environmental scientist Tracy Fanara conducted a series of tests to see whether sharks off Florida’s coast may have ingested bales of cocaine ditched by drug smugglers en route to the US, according to Live Science.

  

  “The deeper story here is the way that chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and illicit drugs are entering our waterways — entering our oceans — and what effect that they then could go on to have on these delicate ocean ecosystems,” Hird said. 

  A recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report showed a spike in global cocaine demand and supply. Major South and Central America to US routes are through the Caribbean Sea. There have been many reports over the decades of drug smugglers ditching bales of cocaine or sinking vessels due to hitting reefs. And it’s not unreasonable to believe marine life has ingested this drug. 

  In one experiment, Hird and Fanara created packages similar in size and appearance to real cocaine bales. They observed sharks heading straight for the bales and taking bites from them.

  To investigate further, Hird and Fanara design three experiments to see how sharks react to bales of “cocaine” dropped in the water. They create packages similar in size and appearance to real cocaine bales. In the first, they set these pseudo-bales next to dummy swans to see what the sharks go to. To their surprise, the sharks head straight for the bales, taking bites from them. One shark even grabs a bale and swims off with it. 

  Next, they make a bait ball of highly concentrated fish powder, which would trigger a dopamine rush as close to a hit of cocaine as the team could feasibly (and ethically) do. The sharks are seen going wild. “I think we have got a potential scenario of what it may look like if you gave sharks cocaine,” Hird said in the film. “We gave them what I think is the next best thing. [It] set [their] brains aflame. It was crazy.”

  Finally, the team drop their fake cocaine bales from an airplane to simulate a real-life drug drop — and multiple shark species, including tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier), move in. 

  Hird said that what they uncovered doesn’t necessarily show that sharks in Florida are consuming cocaine. A multitude of factors could explain the behavior observed during filming, and these experiments would need to be repeated over and over to draw full conclusions. 

  “We have no idea what [cocaine] could do to the shark,” Hird told Live Science, adding that of the limited research that’s been done, different fish appear to react in different ways to the same chemical. “So we can’t even say well this is a baseline and go from here,” he said. –Live Science

  In a separate topic, Hird said it’s not just cocaine but pharmaceutical drugs that are getting into the waterways and affecting marine life. 

  “The other thing we might find is actually this long flow, [this] drip of pharmaceuticals: caffeine, lidocaine, cocaine, amphetamine, antidepressants, birth control — this long slow drift of them from cities into the [ocean] is… starting to hit these animals,” Hird said.

  Bears… Sharks… What’s the next animal? 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 22:00

• Artificial Intelligence: The New Scapegoat
  Artificial Intelligence: The New Scapegoat

  Authored by Robert Aro via The Mises Institute,

  Earlier this week, CNBC expressed concerns regarding artificial intelligence:

  Fed banking regulator warns A.I. could lead to illegal lending practices like excluding minorities

  The 21st century is fast approaching the quarter mark. With the emergence of accessible, increasingly popular A.I. tools, it wouldn’t be the worst wager that the growth, development, and eventual ubiquitousness of A.I. is all but inevitable. It will be fascinating to witness how A.I. affects change in various industries, especially the financial sector and Hollywood.

  

  CNBC’s warning came from a speech given the same day by Vice chair for Supervision at the Fed, Michael S. Barr, titled Furthering the Vision of the Fair Housing Act:

  The digital economy has produced alternative data sources, some of which can provide a window into the creditworthiness of an individual who does not have a standard credit history.

  So far so good. With a relatively low cost, machine learning may find new ways to assist those struggling to find credit. However, he goes on to say:

  While these technologies have enormous potential, they also carry risks of violating fair lending laws and perpetuating the very disparities that they have the potential to address.

  Bad input leading to poor outputs is of concern. Worst yet, fundamental problems can exist in the system itself:

  Use of machine learning or other artificial intelligence may perpetuate or even amplify bias or inaccuracies inherent in the data used to train the system or make incorrect predictions if that data set is incomplete or nonrepresentative.

  He provided an example:

  For instance, digital redlining in marketing—the use of criteria to exclude majority-minority communities or minority applications—is one risk…

  That is certainly possible.

  One would expect that in a credit report, past and current employment and financial history would factor into one’s assessment, not one’s race.

  Ultimately, the use of A.I. should be embraced for its potential to save both time and money.

  While it may be employed to assist loan officers in credit applications, it could lead to redlining practices. Defining these practices and proving their occurrence could prove a costly challenge to federal regulators who likely don’t understand the technology themselves. We’re not yet at the stage where a nefarious A.I. can take blame for our problems. Should that day ever come we’ll have much larger issues at hand! 

  Nonetheless, in a freer world without a Federal Reserve system responsible for the economic booms and busts, there would be fewer impoverished communities and much less economic disparity. As A.I advances, with no taxpayer funded regulator, A.I.’s potential would help entrepreneurs across the socio-economic spectrum bring valuable products to market.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:40

• "Bidenomics" Has No Answer For Eviction Crisis… Or Much Else
  “Bidenomics” Has No Answer For Eviction Crisis… Or Much Else

  Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

  The Biden administration continues to insist that the economy is strong and its efforts are improving the situation.

  

  So, what is in its most recent efforts announced on Wednesday? From the White House:

  Today, the President will outline several new, concrete steps in the Administration’s effort to crack down on rental junk fees and lower costs for renters, including:

  • New commitments from major rental housing platforms—Zillow, Apartments.com, and AffordableHousing.com—who have answered the President’s call for transparency and will provide consumers with total, upfront cost information on rental properties, which can be hundreds of dollars on top of the advertised rent;

  • New research from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which provides a blueprint for a nationwide effort to address rental housing junk fees; and

  • Legislative action in states across the country—from Connecticut to California—who are joining the Administration in its effort to crack down on rental housing fees and protect consumers.

  Importantly, while these commitments from rental housing platforms will make renters better informed about the total cost, they do nothing to make housing more affordable. Here is what the platforms are doing:

  • Zillow is today launching a Cost of Renting Summary on its active apartment listings, empowering the 28 million unique monthly users on its rental platform with clear information on the cost of renting. This new tool will enable renters to easily find out the total cost of renting an apartment from the outset, including all monthly costs and one-time costs, like security deposits and application fees.

  • Apartments.com is announcing that this year it will launch a new calculator on its platform that will help renters determine the all-in price of a desired unit. This will include all up-front costs as well as recurring monthly rents and fees. The Apartments.com Network currently lists almost 1.5 million active availabilities across more than 385,000 properties.

  • AffordableHousing.com, the nation’s largest online platform dedicated solely to affordable housing, will require owners to disclose all refundable and non-refundable fees and charges upfront in their listings. It will launch a new “Trusted Owner” badge that protects renters from being charged junk fees by identifying owners who have a history of adhering to best practices, including commitment to reasonable fee limits, no junk fees, and full fee disclosure.

  So a search could now look something more like this:

  

  More from the White House release:

  Today’s announcements build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing efforts to support renters, including through the release of a first-of-its-kind Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights and a Housing Supply Action Plan, focused on boosting the supply of affordable housing—including rental housing. Reducing housing costs is central to Bidenomics, and recent data show that inflation in rental housing is abating. Moreover, experts predict that roughly 1 million new apartments will be built this year, increasing supply that will further increase affordability. The actions announced today will help renters understand these fees and the full price they can expect to pay, and create additional competition housing providers to reduce reliance on hidden fees.

  The problem with these efforts to support renters is that they do nothing to stop the eviction and homelessness crisis now. The Housing Supply Action Plan could maybe help with affordability at some distant date, and a blueprint is just that. Why can other places figure this out, but the US can’t? For example, Ross Barkan writes about Austria:

  Americans are usually shocked to learn that a vast majority of Viennese qualify to live in deeply affordable, high-quality housing. There is no downside to renting there because the rents will always be a small fraction of your annual income. Forty-three percent of all housing is insulated from the market and the government subsidizes affordable units for a wide range of incomes. Decades ago, a great amount of housing supply was built, and unlike in the United States, Vienna never abandoned the cause of public housing.

  It’s obvious to any tenant reading about Vienna that life there, from a standpoint of sheer economics, is better than life in any major American city. Rents, always high in New York and California, surged across the country during the pandemic, fueling a homelessness crisis that will not abate. For those who have housing, existence is only stress-free as long as the job is well-paying. One wrong turn and eviction is around the corner. Certain localities have stronger tenant protections than others. Either way, rent is something many Americans—those who don’t own property, and are nowhere close to buying anything—must think about constantly. It is an economic and psychological burden. To be liberated from it, like the Viennese, would be to enter a utopic state.

  Instead of anything resembling such policies, the Biden administration has been relentlessly hyping the junk fee efforts as a key part of its economic policy. From USA Today:

  The White House is also convinced it’s good politics, particularly as Biden tries to improve his standing with the public on the economy as the U.S. rebounds from 40-year high inflation.

  “Often policy is a way of showing character,” said Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden campaign pollster who conducts regular focus groups with voters. “When you’re a longtime politician and you’re in office, people think you get out of touch with their lives, you don’t have any commonsense. This shows, ‘Hey, I am in touch. I do have commonsense.’”

  But does it? With the announcement of the administration’s latest efforts, it seems like that plan is running on fumes. With rent increasingly unaffordable for many, will it really make a difference if fees are more transparent? Announcing such voluntary commitments from rental housing platforms without any additional measures to do anything about costs seems like a strange way to go politically, especially as rents continue to rise.

  

  Evictions are also rising. From Quartz:

  Eviction filings are on the rise in some US cities, according to datacollected by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. The lab published the first dataset on eviction filings in the US going back to 2000, which is based on (pdf) tens of millions of public state and county records. Rising costs of living are affecting Americans across the US, while stock of affordable real estate remains low.

  …Landlords in many US cities have completed at least half of their eviction filings since 2020 in the past year.

  New research in California – which has roughly a third of the country’s 582,000 homeless population – shows that the main driver behind homelessness there is simply that Californians were priced out of housing. The study from UCSF’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative is one of the deepest dives into the state’s crisis, and it shows how the homeless population is getting older and is often the result of just one bad break.  According to the study, “in the six months prior to homelessness, the median monthly household income was $960. A high proportion had been rent burdened.”

  In a recent YouGov survey, more than 50 percent of Americans thought limits on price increases would probably or definitely be an effective policy, and 61 percent blamed large corporations seeking maximum profit for inflation – the highest recipient of blame in the poll. Americans want more action. From Newsweek:

  Poverty remains a huge issue in the U.S., much more so than in other countries with similar levels of distributed wealth, and it is a cause of concern for a majority of Americans, as shown by the Newsweek/Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll. The poll, conducted among a sample of 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S. on May 31, found that some 53 percent of Americans are “very” concerned about the level of poverty in the country.

  Among Democrats—identified as people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020—the number went up to 58 percent, while among Republicans—identified as people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020—48 percent said they were “very” concerned about poverty in the U.S. Some 21 percent of Americans responding to the poll don’t earn enough money from their primary job to pay bills or maintain their family’s standard of living, while 52 percent are working multiple jobs to tackle the daily cost of living.

  The Biden Administration is betting its junk fee efforts, which have also included concert ticket vendors and others, along with softening inflation will be enough to overcome all the other bad news. So far, it’s not looking very promising. At this point in his term Biden is the second-most-unpopular president in modern U.S. history. Wednesday’s announcement might be part of the reason why as it represents the woefully inadequate response to the economic situation faced by so many.

  Just consider some more of the recent news:

  • With inflation biting, credit card debt in the US has been rising at one of the fastest rates in history and is at record highs.

  • Increasing precariousness has homelessness rising across the country, including up 40 percent in Los Angeles County over the past five years. It’s jumped18 percent this year in New York City.

  Here’s the Federal Reserve Board’s Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022 report:

  The report indicates that self-reported financial well-being declined in 2022, in part reflecting ongoing concerns about higher prices. In the fourth quarter of 2022, 73 percent of adults reported either doing okay or living comfortably financially, down 5 percentage points from the previous year and among the lowest levels observed since 2016.

  Consistent with these changes in overall financial well-being, fewer adults reported having money left over after paying their expenses. Fifty-four percent of adults said that their budgets had been affected “a lot” by price increases.

  According to a new survey from Bankrate, Americans said they would need to earn, on average, $233,000 a year to feel financially secure. The median earnings for a full-time, year-round worker in 2021 was $56,473, according to the US Census Bureau. Despite all that, the Biden administration continues to express confusion as to why voters aren’t happier with the economy.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:20

• FedNow Is Live And The Framework Is In Place For CBDCs
  FedNow Is Live And The Framework Is In Place For CBDCs

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  Yesterday, with a bit of fanfare but not TOO much fanfare, a “wonderful” new product was launched. FedNow is live, and we can all transfer money to our heart’s content via the Federal Reserve.

  Wow, that sounds great, doesn’t it? Of course, that is a spot created by the Federal Reserve and up ton the Federal Reserve YouTube channel.

  FedNow is live at 35 banks.

  Axios reports that 35 banks across the country are participating in the launch.

  By the numbers: So far, 35 banks have signed up as early adopters of FedNow, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, but notably not including Citigroup or Bank of America. That number is rather lower than the Fed led us to believe as recently as recently as June.

  The U.S. Treasury is also signed up as an early adopter of FedNow.

  Some 353 banks and credit unions have signed up for RTP.

  In order to use either service, both the sending and the receiving bank need to be signed up for the system.

  We are now officially on that slippery slope I’ve been talking about. I wrote about exactly this happening in my dystopian fiction, Good Citizens, and discussed how this could evolve to control almost every aspect of our lives.

  Why I’m concerned now that FedNow is live

  A while back, I wrote an article discussing a payment gateway designed by the Federal Reserve called FedNow. This is a way to make instant transfers between accounts, sort of like PayPal or Venmo, but without the users having to move the money from various wallets.

  While it sounds convenient, the concern is that this puts the infrastructure to quickly roll out CBDCs into place. Previously, I wrote about this.

  On March 15th, in the midst of the banking collapses, the Federal Reserve issued a press release detailing a new instant payment system that will be launched in July. That system is called FedNow. Here’s what they said about it.

  The first week of April, the Federal Reserve will begin the formal certification of participants for launch of the service. Early adopters will complete a customer testing and certification program, informed by feedback from the FedNow Pilot Program, to prepare for sending live transactions through the system.

  Certification encompasses a comprehensive testing curriculum with defined expectations for operational readiness and network experience. In June, the Federal Reserve and certified participants will conduct production validation activities to confirm readiness for the July launch.

  “We couldn’t be more excited about the forthcoming FedNow launch, which will enable every participating financial institution, the smallest to the largest and from all corners of the country, to offer a modern instant payment solution,” said Ken Montgomery, first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and FedNow program executive. “With the launch drawing near, we urge financial institutions and their industry partners to move full steam ahead with preparations to join the FedNow Service.”

  Many early adopters have declared their intent to begin using the service in July, including a diverse mix of financial institutions of all sizes, the largest processors, and the U.S. Treasury.

  This has all the hallmarks of a government strategy. First, they offer it as a “convenience” or a “safety measure.” Lots of people will jump on board in order to take advantage of this.

  Of course, we’ve heard this song before.

  Next, it will be pushed harder, and those who don’t adopt it will be mocked, thought of as backward, and treated with suspicion. After that, it’ll be darn near impossible to do anything without it. Sound familiar?

  The Federal Reserve Banks are developing the FedNow Service to facilitate nationwide reach of instant payment services by financial institutions — regardless of size or geographic location — around the clock, every day of the year. Through financial institutions participating in the FedNow Service, businesses and individuals will be able to send and receive instant payments at any time of day, and recipients will have full access to funds immediately, giving them greater flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments. Access will be provided through the Federal Reserve’s FedLine® network, which serves more than 10,000 financial institutions directly or through their agents.

  But what truly makes me worried is that since FedNow is live, this is a soft way to move us all over into using a federal money transferring system that could easily, easily be the platform for the implementation of CBDCs, the digital dollar that could end freedom as we know it.

  Please note that what we have with FedNow is NOT a CBDC. It’s just a payment gateway.

  But now, the early infrastructure is in place for CBDCs.

  Changing a nation’s entire currency is not an overnight project. If we were to go completely digital with our money, it would take a while. Several things would need to happen first:

  • A national financial infrastructure would need to be created that links accounts from all the banks to an information highway.

  • They’d need to get people comfortable with using this system and to do that, it would need to be fast and convenient. Who wouldn’t want their money right away? It feels like a win to sell a car and have 20K in your account instantly without waiting for the check to clear.

  • This provides some time to work out any bugs. The folks adopting FedNow would be the guinea pigs. It’s new, but everyone expects new stuff to be glitchy. If you’re getting in on the ground floor, you’re probably willing to be patient with that.

  • Next, they’ll want to get as many people voluntarily using it as possible. Expect generous offers, outrageous convenience, and free or cheap transactions.

  • Once it’s all in place and running smoothly, the final transition from cash money to digital money would just be a matter of the central bank devaluing our cash but allowing people to trade it for digital at full (or at least greater) value.

  If you’ve never listened to me before, please listen to me now. This IS the road we’re on. And once CBDCs are in place, especially if they are the only option, your every transaction will be monitored, data will be mined from your spending, and your choices can be controlled.

  What’s the big deal with CBDCs?

  CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency, and these are digital versions of a country’s currency. A digital currency alongside our current physical currency is voluntary. My concern is when that digital currency becomes the only option. And I do mean when, not if.

  A digital currency could mean such controls as automatic taxation or where and when you’re allowed to make purchases – all at the push of a button. The most likely way this will be rolled out is to “fight inflation” and “fix the economy.” As per the IMF:

  A world with lower inflation (and even zero inflation) and no persistent recessions may sound like a pipe dream, but we argue that it is possible by transitioning to an “electronic money standard.” Such a transition requires eliminating the zero lower bound, which central banks can achieve using readily available tools. Breaking the zero lower bound implies that the optimal rate of inflation will be lower than in the presence of the lower bound. This will empower central banks to quickly restore full employment and, over the medium term, possibly move toward targeting full price stability with zero inflation.

  Obviously, any kind of manipulation like this is false, and while there may be some temporary relief, it won’t solve the underlying problems with our economy.

  Bank for International Settlements wrote a glowing report about the “benefits” of the CBDC system. Here’s what I took away from this:

  • Central bankers can execute policy or modify rates instantaneously, at the push of a button.

  • Private crypto is bad.

  • Central bank digital currency is good.

  • CBDCs are better than crypto because they’re trusted.

  • CBDCs aren’t “subject to the practical limitations of paper money.” (i.e., they can be tracked.)

  • Therefore it protects against “money laundering, proliferation financing, and terrorist financing.”

  • It will increase the pool of data generated on users and transactions, thus “helping” the “proper authorities.”

  • “Multi-CBDC platforms” aids in decentralization. (i.e., a global economy)

  • On a common CBDC platform across multiple central banks, transactions are recorded on one ledger.

  I don’t think it means what they’re trying to tell us it means.

  What can you do?

  I’ve written a lot lately about the need to get your money out of the banks. You need something of value that does not require you to dance to the tune of the government’s fiddle. Imagine if you had a savings account and the “value” of that money changed with the implementation of CBDCs. Imagine it’s worth less, say, by 20 percent.

  Suddenly your $10,000 becomes $8,000. Your $100,000 loses $20K to become $80,000. It would only take a second, with the click of a button in some office up on the Mount Olympus of the Fed.

  If you have savings and you want to protect your money, you need to make at least a portion of it tangible.

  That means investing in:

  • Supplies like food, tools, and other long-term preps

  • Land

  • Precious metals

  I’m not suggesting going out and dealing in only silver dimes if you are in a situation in which you’re living from paycheck to paycheck. If you are in those shoes like so many of us are right now, you don’t have as many options. It isn’t feasible or practical if you’re going to need this money right away for existing expenses.

  But if you are trying to protect existing wealth and this is not money you’ll need to access immediately, I urge you to consider investing it into gold or silver to protect your savings during the economic downturn ahead. At the same time, getting your money out of this currency system that may soon be switched to CBDC is the only way to ensure it remains yours.

  I use ITM Trading, out of Phoenix, AZ, for all of my metals purchases. I know there are plenty of good companies out there, but I prefer ITM because of their focus on education. I’ve learned so much in my consultations (which are free, btw). I’ve been very impressed with the access to curated resources, research, and weekly insights on macroeconomics, central banks, currencies, and the global reset that they provide. To me, there’s really no other option for my purchases.

  If you want to schedule a strategy session with ITM, it’s absolutely free, and there is no pressure whatsoever. Some folks take weeks or months before investing, and others decide it isn’t for them. But what every single person walks away with is a clearer understanding of the monetary system and what investing in precious metals entails. And you get all of it at no charge. To schedule your own appointment, go here or call this number directly: 1-866-517-1257 – I’ll be really interested to know whether you’re as impressed as I am.

  We’re all just one wrongthink away from losing our money.

  Remember in Canada when Trudeau locked down accounts for supporting the trucker strike? We’re all just one wrongthink away from losing access to our money.

  Another recent precedent regarding losing access to the financial system is the case of Nigel Farage. Both he and his relatives have had bank accounts closed and been unable to open other accounts because they’ve been named PEPs: Politically Exposed Persons. Farage, if you recall, was pro-Brexit. He wrote:

  Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Farage, who said several other banks had denied him accounts, claimed he was the victim of over-zealous anti-money laundering regulations.

  “Anti-money laundering rules appear to have been wildly over-interpreted by the compliance departments of banks in the UK,” he wrote in the Brexit-supporting newspaper.

  “Nobody can deny that money laundering is a problem, he said. “Yet a series of agreements, EU directives and UK rules established to confront this menace have almost entirely failed to do so.

  “Banks now live in fear of receiving huge fines. Their default setting seems to be to close down the business and personal accounts of anybody who is deemed to require extra due diligence – be they the owner of a window cleaning firm or a pawnbroker.”

  He added: “Those who are paid in cash are no longer welcome; the compliance costs of servicing these accounts makes them unprofitable.”

  Mr Farage initially claimed that his account with Coutts, which acts on behalf of the royal family, had been closed in an “establishment”-orchestrated revenge mission for Brexit, sparking a free speech row.

  So it’s already happening. People are losing access to the system for having political beliefs that oppose the status quo that the ruling administration has in place.

  I know that these two examples are outside the US, but that doesn’t provide me even a tiny little bit of comfort. I’ve already suffered massive financial abuse at the hands of government-funded censorship groups. Many others have too.

  Is it really a stretch of the imagination that losing banking privileges could happen here in America, the Land of Cancel Culture? What will you do if you can no longer use a bank? How will you get and cash your paycheck? How will you pay your bills now that so many things must be done online?

  When we are no longer free to vociferously disagree, we aren’t free at all.

  You need a backup plan, and you need it now. FedNow is live, and I don’t believe that good things will follow.

  *  *  *

  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 21:00

• How US Vehicle Production Has Shifted Over 45 Years
  How US Vehicle Production Has Shifted Over 45 Years

  Over the last few decades, vehicle production in the U.S. has dramatically shifted, with SUVs emerging as the indisputable frontrunners.

  Once perceived as vehicles solely for off-road capabilities and adventuring (hence the name sport utility vehicle), SUVs soon became a useful transportation alternative for large families. Shortly after, they became the top-selling models for many automakers.

  In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Bruno Venditti, using on the annual production shares of different vehicle types from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), explore the factors that have led to the surging popularity of SUVs.

  

  U.S. Vehicle Production: The Rise of SUVs

  As SUV production has evolved, they’ve started to blur the line between car and truck classes. The EPA classifies most two-wheel drive SUVs under 6,000 lbs as cars (car SUVs), while those with four-wheel drive or above 6,000 lbs are trucks (truck SUVs).

  In the American market, sedans and wagons dominated production from before the 1970s and well into the 1990s. Combined with smaller car SUVs, cars accounted for more than half of U.S. vehicle production well into the 2010s.

  But the rapid rise of heavier truck SUVs has shifted the landscape. Sedans and wagons dipped below 50% of market production for the first time in 2004. And by 2017, trucks (including truck SUVs, pickups, and minivans) have been the ones accounting for over half of new vehicle production.

  

  The growth of SUVs can be partially linked to all-wheel drive systems that gained momentum in the 1980s, with the Audi Quattro winning three rallies in its rookie season of 1981.

  During that same time, new SUV models started to gain popularity, like the 1984 Jeep Cherokee—considered the first modern SUV with four doors—and Land Rover’s Range Rover, which entered the North American market in 1987.

  By melding the benefits of space, performance, and comfort into one vehicle, SUVs began competing with both vans and station wagons as the quintessential family car. In the 90s, affordable midsize models like the Ford Explorer, Subaru Legacy Outback, and Toyota RAV4 paved the way for more middle-class families to enter the SUV market.

  However, SUV production has been prone to fluctuations. Demand first started dropping as gas prices rose in the lead-up to the 2008 recession, which further strained finances and caused families to opt for cheaper non-SUV models. This significantly hurt the American “Big Three” automotive producers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) at the time, for which trucks and SUVs had become the primary market.

  SUV Fuel Efficiency and Millennials

  Driven by improvements in fuel efficiency and societal trends, SUV demand roared back over the last 10 years.

  Automakers have implemented fuel-saving technologies, such as direct injection and turbocharging, and have used more lightweight materials in construction to further boost engine efficiency.

  While fuel efficiency has improved across all types of vehicles over the last four decades, sedans and wagons climbed far earlier in miles per gallon (MPG) scores, while SUVs have only more recently started catching up.

  

  Since 2000, fuel efficiency for sedans and wagons improved by around 38%, while car SUVs saw a jump of 70% over the same time period, with both sitting at just over 30 MPG for 2021 models. Even larger truck SUVs, seen as the epitome of gas-guzzling vehicles, have become as efficient (in MPG terms) as sedans were in the 2000s.

  Another factor influencing the market is the surprising entry of millennials, who now represent the majority of the population in the United States. Just a few years ago, automakers were fretting over millennials being a childless, car-less, city-dwelling group who cared little about buying cars or homes.

  Fast forward to today—as millennials have aged and their wallets have gotten a little heavier, more of them are buying SUVs to drive to their suburban homes or just to fit their dogs.

  SUVs are also benefiting from the shift to electric vehicles. In 2022, SUVs represented 46% of global car sales, and electric SUVs accounted for over half of global electric car sales.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:40

• Plagued By Drought, China Turns To Coal To Keep The Lights On
  Plagued By Drought, China Turns To Coal To Keep The Lights On

  By John Kemp, senior market analyst

  

  China’s reliance on coal-fired power generation increased during the first half of 2023 as continued drought severely reduced hydroelectric power in the southern provinces.Total generation from all sources increased by +205 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the first six months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022 (“Output of energy products, National Bureau of Statistics, July 20″).

  

  The increase was +5.2%, which implies the government is probably on track to meet its declared target of around 5% for growth in gross domestic product this year.

  

  

  But hydro generation slumped by -132 billion kWh (-23%) to its lowest level for eight years as the protracted drought hit reservoir levels.

  

  The two southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan accounted for almost half (48%) of the country’s hydropower in 2020; adding the neighbouring areas of Guizhou and Guangxi takes the share to almost three-fifths (58%).

  

  But the region experienced much lower than average precipitation over the last 12 months, forcing sharp reductions in power production.

  

  Precipitation at the city of Yibin on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan totalled 626 millimetres in the 12 months ending in June 2023. Rainfall was just half the average over the previous eight years and down by almost 60% compared with the previous 12-month period.

  

  Some of the deficit caused by hydro generation was covered by increased generation from wind farms (+82 billion kWh) and solar power (+25 billion kWh).

  

  

  But the rest of the deficit and all the consumption growth was covered by a massive increase in thermal generation (+218 billion kWh) mostly from coal-fired units.

  

  Thermal generation increased by +8% compared with the same period in 2022 and accounted for 71% of all electrical output, up from 69% in the previous year.

  China’s coal fleet kept the lights on, air conditioning working and industry operating in the drought-stricken south and more recently in the north in an unprecedented heat wave.

  In response to government directives to ensure sufficient fuel stocks for generators, the country’s coal mines produced a record volume in the first six months.

  

  Domestic coal production climbed by +107 million tonnes (+5%) between January and June compared with the same period in 2022.

  At the same time, coal imports also surged by +107 million tonnes (+92%) as power generators and steelmakers built up inventories.

  

  In the first half of the year, wind and solar farms produced more electricity (560 billion kWh) combined than the country’s hydroelectric dams (450 billion kWh) for the first time.

  China’s energy transition is real and is proceeding rapidly…. But coal-fired generation and production is still likely to increase for at least the next several years because of the country’s inherited reliance on coal-fired units and the need to meet rapid load growth.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:20

• North Korea Issues Nuclear Warning Over US Nuke-Armed Submarine Off Peninsula
  North Korea Issues Nuclear Warning Over US Nuke-Armed Submarine Off Peninsula

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  North Korea on Thursday issued a warning over the US deployment of a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea, saying the provocation could potentially justify Pyongyang using its nuclear weapons.

  The Ohio-Class USS Kentucky docked in the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday, marking the first time since 1981 that an American nuclear-armed submarine arrived in the country. It also marked the first time since the US withdrew its tactical nukes from South Korea in 1991 that US nuclear weapons were deployed to the Korean Peninsula.

  

  The provocation coincided with the first meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), which was established by the US and South Korea to increase cooperation related to US nuclear weapons.

  North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun-nam slammed the US and South Korean cooperation on nuclear weapons in a press statement released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency.

  Kang said US and South Korean officials held the NCG meeting “to discuss the plan for using nuclear weapons against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].”

  Discussing North Korea’s nuclear policy, Kang said, “I remind the US military of the fact that the ever-increasing visibility of the deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons specified in the DPRK law on the nuclear force policy.”

  He said that Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine “allows the execution of necessary action procedures in case a nuclear attack is launched against it or it is judged that the use of nuclear weapons against it is imminent.”

  After US officials held the NCG meeting, they released a statement that said any nuclear attack from the North will “will result in the end of that regime.”

  

  South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday boarded the nuclear-armed USS Kentucky and repeated the “end of the regime” threat.

  The US nuclear deployment in South Korea provoked more North Korean missile tests as the two sides continue tit-for-tat escalations. The Biden administration has shown no interest in easing tensions and has vowed to continue deploying strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 20:00

• IRS Issues Important Notice To Storm Victims In 4 States About Paying Taxes Owed
  IRS Issues Important Notice To Storm Victims In 4 States About Paying Taxes Owed

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a notice to taxpayers in parts of four disaster-stricken states that they must file their federal income tax returns and pay any taxes owed by the end of the month or face consequences.

  

  This year, most taxpayers were required to file by April 18, which was also the deadline for paying any taxes owed to the IRS.

  However, the agency granted special relief to taxpayers affected by federally declared disasters in various regions in the form of filing and payment due date extensions.

  The extended deadlines varied by region. Some disaster-area taxpayers—including in most of California, as well as parts of Alabama and Georgia—were granted an extension until Oct. 16 to file their tax returns and make tax payments. For others, that deadline falls sooner.

  In a reminder issued earlier this week, the IRS said that taxpayers in storm-impacted parts of Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, have until July 31 to file their tax returns and pay any amounts due.

  “As long as their address of record is in a disaster-area locality, individual and business taxpayers automatically get the extra time without having to ask for it,” the agency said in a statement.

  The July 31 deadline applies to taxpayers affected by four different disaster declarations resulting from severe storms, tornadoes, and straight-line winds during late March and early April of this year.

  The following affected areas are included in the latest IRS reminder:

  Three counties in Arkansas: Cross, Lonoke, and Pulaski counties, were impacted by storms and tornadoes on March 31.

  Thirteen counties in Indiana: Allen, Benton, Brown, Clinton, Grant, Howard, Johnson, Lake, Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Sullivan, and White counties, affected by storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 31 to April 1.

  Seven counties in Mississippi: Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, Montgomery, Panola, Sharkey, and Washington counties, were hit by severe storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 24 to 25.

  Thirteen counties in Tennessee: Cannon, Giles, Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, Johnson, Lewis, Macon, McNairy, Morgan, Rutherford, Tipton, and Wayne counties, were impacted by severe storms, straight-line winds, and tornadoes from March 31 to April 1.

  Taxpayers who fall into the above categories and need an extension beyond July 31 can apply for extensions, but they must be submitted in paper format using Form 4868, the IRS said.

  The reason is that electronic filing options are not available for extension requests that fall after the original April 18 filing deadline.

  Taxpayers who owe the IRS money but miss their respective deadlines to file a tax return face a failure to file a penalty amounting to 5 percent of the unpaid tax due for each month that they’re late with the payment.

  This is also the case for unpaid amounts owed beyond a given deadline, in which case the IRS charges a failure to pay penalty of 0.5 percent of the tax owed per month.

  If both a failure to file and a failure to pay penalty are charged for a given month, then the failure to file penalty is reduced by the amount of the failure to pay penalty. This means that the combined penalty for a given month will never exceed 5 percent for each month or part of a month that the return was late.

  The penalties jointly max out at 25 percent of the unpaid tax owed.

  Special Notice

  The latest reminder follows a recent special mailing the IRS sent to taxpayers in disaster-affected areas as a follow-up clarification after an earlier message wrongly told them they had 21 days to pay taxes owed.

  “Although the initial notice indicated a payment deadline of 21 days, taxpayers in these disaster-declared regions actually have until a later date this year to make their payments within the designated timeframe,” the IRS said in a June 28 statement.

  In late May and June, taxpayers with balances due who live in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee that fell under disaster declarations received a CP14 notice from the IRS.

  Many of the CP14 notices incorrectly said the affected taxpayers had three weeks to pay outstanding balances.

  “We know our initial mailing caused confusion for taxpayers and tax professionals, and we worked quickly to send a follow-up reminder to help reassure people,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

  “This mailing reflects how we’re trying to be more taxpayer-focused given the additional resources that we’ve been given under the Inflation Reduction Act.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:40

• Ukraine To Receive F-16s By End Of Year, Kirby Says
  Ukraine To Receive F-16s By End Of Year, Kirby Says

  Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby suggested in a Fox News interview Thursday that Ukraine could received US F-16 fighter jets way ahead of schedule. 

  “Most likely, the F-16s will arrive in Ukraine before the end of the year. However, we do not believe that F-16s alone can alter the situation on the battlefield,” Kirby said.

  

  Very likely, training for Ukrainian pilots—which hasn’t even begun yet (at least officially) given NATO press statements have indicated the Denmark-bases training program is set to begin in August—won’t be complete by then.

  Top Zelensky officials, including the Ukrainian president himself, have pleaded for more advanced weaponry to arrive on the battlefield sooner. Amid what’s increasingly acknowledged in mainstream press as a failing counteroffensive, Ukraine’s military leaders have urged ‘superiority of the skies’. 

  But it’s clear that Kirby has downplayed that even Western fighter jets will be a major game-changer. He also emphasized in the interview that the most immediate need remains greater amounts of artillery ammunition, given especially the superior supplies which the Russians possess.

  Kirby listed out what he called the “four A’s”… as “artillery, ammunition, air defense and armor—tanks.”

  Ukrainian media too has begun to acknowledge that Western fighters may have little impact on the overall negative course of the counteroffensive:

  A week ago, Lieutenant General Douglas Sims said that conditions for a transfer of F-16s are not “ideal.” He stressed that Russians still have air defense capability, hinting that the number of jets that can arrive will not change the course of the counteroffensive.

  President Putin and Kremlin officials have said West-supplied jets will “burn” just like other foreign equipment. They’ve also warned that NATO is “playing with fire” in approving them for the Ukrainians.

  “The US may transfer F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine already this year. But we believe that the F-16 alone will not be able to turn the tide,” John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications said. pic.twitter.com/2gdtG2Cc0V

  — NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) July 21, 2023

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

  Initially, F-16s are expected to be sent “likely from European countries that have excess F-16 supplies” – according to the prior words of Jake Sullivan from the NATO summit in Vilnius last week.

  Russian foreign minister Lavrov has in the meantime underscored that the F-16s are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons, and so will be treated by Russian forces as such.

  “We have informed the nuclear powers – the US, UK and France – that Russia can’t ignore the ability of these aircraft to carry nuclear weapons,” the foreign minister said earlier this month. “No assurances [by the West] will help here,” he warned. In the midst of fighting, the Russian military isn’t going to investigate whether any specific jet is equipped to deliver nuclear weapons or not,” he added.

  Lavrov said yesterday that U.S.-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further.

  John Kirby also had a message for Lavrov: “If you’re worried about Ukrainian military capabilities, then you… pic.twitter.com/CzNYcJf6Fe

  — Yasmina (@yasminalombaert) June 6, 2023

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

  “The very fact of the appearance of such systems within the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be considered by us as a threat from the West in the nuclear domain,” Lavrov warned. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:20

• Food Giant Helps Get Child Trafficking Movie 'Sound Of Freedom' To The Big Screen
  Food Giant Helps Get Child Trafficking Movie ‘Sound Of Freedom’ To The Big Screen

  Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Angel Studios’ anti-people trafficking movie, “Sound of Freedom,” has earned nearly seven times its original budget after only two weeks at the box office.

  

  Shedding a light on a dark, shadowy world—especially child sex trafficking—the film’s commercial success comes years after its production, surviving a corporate merger, the COVID-19 pandemic, and reports of several screenings gone awry.

  The picture owes a lot to two men who wanted everyone to see it—the producer and co-star Eduardo Verastagui and president of Goya Foods, Bob Unanue.

  Opening on July 4, “Sound of Freedom” just surpassed $100 million at the box office, $85 million of which came from domestic theaters. It was made on a $14.5 million budget.

  

  Starring Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”) as former Homeland Security Agent and Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard, the movie is a call-to-action that tells the true story of how hundreds of people were rescued from human trafficking.

  It saw an increase of more than 30 percent in audience attendance in its second week, and more than 10,000 verified audience members have contributed to its 100 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

  It also continues to compete with mainstream movies with much lighter and more entertainment-focused subject matters and much higher budgets.

  But this successful movie might not have ever seen the inside of a theater without the help of food giant Goya Foods.

  “Sound of Freedom” had originally been ordered by 20th Century Fox with Mr. Verastagui already on as its producer and supporting role.

  But the movie became one of the many Fox projects shelved after the merger with The Walt Disney Company.

  “We helped him buy [“Sound of Freedom”] from Disney [and] became executive producers on that,” Mr. Unanue told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. “It just so happened that several years later trying to get it distributed that Angel Studios appeared on the scene.”

  Goya did not disclose the amount of money it contributed to the project.

  The film was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite Disney releasing the rights, that theater-closing event would require its producers to wait a little bit longer.

  Angel Studios acquired the distribution rights in 2023. He said Angel Studios was “a godsend” in turning around the movie for theatrical release in “just a few months.” Now, he said, they are in talks with Mel Gibson to do a series on human trafficking.

  Caring About Victims

  Tied to the completion and distribution of “Sound of Freedom” is the creation of Goya Cares, Mr. Unanue’s own program, which provides support to several nonprofits fighting child and human trafficking.

  Working primarily on the homefront, it supports several charities already entrenched in the fight to end trafficking and provide safe houses for victims, such as Catholic Charities and the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC).

  It also works with the Monique Burr Foundation to provide lesson plans and educational awareness in schools.

  “At the center of Goya Cares is a heart, and our heart reaches out to these victims of child trafficking and children who are suffering from mental illness so that they may have hope to live in a world where their life is valued, their freedom is a reality and their mind is at peace,” Mr. Unanue’s mission statement for the program states.

  “They need to be reminded that they are precious gifts from God.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 19:00

• CRE Storm: Over $800 Billion In Office Space In Nine Cities Could Become Obsolete By 2030
  CRE Storm: Over $800 Billion In Office Space In Nine Cities Could Become Obsolete By 2030

  During the regional bank failures in March, we directed our readership to focus on the next potential crisis: “CRE Nuke Goes Off With Small Banks Accounting For 70% Of Commercial Real Estate Loans.” By late March, Morgan Stanley warned clients of an upcoming maturity wall in commercial real estate, which amounts to $500 billion of loans in 2024, and a total of $2.5 trillion in debt that comes due over the next five years. 

  In a recent Bloomberg interview, Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital Group warned that the CRE space is in a “Category 5 hurricane.” He said, “It’s sort of a blackout hovering over the entire industry until we get some relief or some understanding of what the Fed’s going to do over the longer term.”

  

  The current downturn in CRE could persist for years, if not through the end of this decade. Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, along with Olivia White, a senior partner at McKinsey, and Aditya Sanghvi, a senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s real estate special initiative, published a note in Fortune, warning “$800 billion of office space in just nine cities could become obsolete by 2030.” 

  The authors of the report blame the CRE downturn on the “shift to remote and hybrid work prompted two further shifts in people’s behavior”: 

  First, many residents, untethered from their offices and therefore less fearful of long commutes, moved away from urban cores. New York City’s urban core (that is, the dozen densest counties in the metropolitan area) lost 5% of its population from mid-2020 to mid-2022. San Francisco’s urban core (San Francisco County, Alameda County, and San Mateo County) lost 6%.

  Second, consumers began shopping less at brick-and-mortar stores–and far less at stores in urban cores, where people were now less likely either to work or to live. Foot traffic near stores in metropolitan areas remains 10 to 20% below pre-pandemic levels, but the differences between urban and suburban traffic recovery are substantial. For example, in late 2022, foot traffic near New York’s suburban stores was 16% lower than it had been in January 2020, while foot traffic near stores in the urban core was 36% lower.

  As fewer employees work in the office, demand for office space will fall. By 2030, such demand will be as much as 20% lower, depending on the city–even in a moderate scenario in which office attendance goes up but remains lower than it was before the pandemic.

  And as fewer consumers shop at brick-and-mortar stores, demand for retail space will fall as well, according to our model. In the urban core of London, the hardest-hit city, demand for retail space will be 22% lower in 2030 than it was in 2019 in a moderate scenario.

  Some of the most significant declines in office and retail space demand through 2030 will be in major US cities such as San Francisco and New York City.

  

  The authors note that the demand for “residential space will suffer less”… Well, according to their forecasting model. 

  

  “The reduced demand will have major impacts on urban stakeholders. For example, in just nine cities that we studied especially closely, $800 billion of office space could become obsolete by 2030. And macroeconomic complications could make matters even worse,” the authors continued. Without office workers in downtown areas, economic recoveries in major cities will be a “U” shape or, in some cases, an “L.” 

  The unraveling of downtowns is already underway. We shared a video this week of scenes of San Francisco’s downtown transformed into a ‘ghost town.’ Building owners in the crime-ridden metro area are already giving up and defaulting as vacancies rise, crime surges, and refinancing is near impossible in today’s climate as the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates sky-high to tame the worst inflation in a generation. 

  We shift our attention to Baltimore City, where office towers are being dumped in an apparent firesale. 

  • Beginning Of CRE Firesale? Baltimore Office Tower Dumped At 63% Discount
  • CRE Panic Hits Baltimore As Second Office Tower Dumped At 69% Discount

  The authors failed to report that the sliding demand for office towers isn’t just because of “remote and hybrid work” but also due to an exodus of companies fleeing crime-ridden progressive cities that fail to enforce law and order. 

  If McKinsey’s predictions are correct, certain segments of the CRE market are expected to experience prolonged turmoil for years. Some US mayors have proposed an immediate solution to convert office towers into multi-family units. However, this transformation could take years due to the time-consuming processes of obtaining permits and construction.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:40

• Vast Majority Of Americans Say Illegal Immigration Is Either "Crisis" Or "Major Problem"
  Vast Majority Of Americans Say Illegal Immigration Is Either “Crisis” Or “Major Problem”

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

  Amid a historic wave of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully, an overwhelming majority of Americans polled say that illegal immigration is a crisis or—at best—a “major problem.”

  

  A recent poll by Gallup found that 39 percent of Americans believe the border situation is a full-blown “crisis.” Another 33 percent think it’s a “major problem,” meaning that a whopping 72 percent believe the situation on the border is bad enough to be considered seriously problematic.

  Views on illegal immigration held by Republicans – who have long opposed open borders – have remained mostly unchanged from 2019, when a similar poll was conducted by Gallup during the administration of then President Donald Trump.

  The relatively stable share (88 percent in 2019 vs. 91 percent in 2023) of Republican respondents saying illegal immigration is at least a “major problem” suggests that porous borders are less of a partisan issue than a matter of deep conviction for those aligned with the GOP.

  Democrats, on the other hand, have sharply raised their tolerance for illegal immigration between the Trump-era days and those of the administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat.

  In 2019, 68 percent of Democrats said it was a crisis or major problem, with that dropping to just 56 percent at the present time, suggesting Democrat views on the issue shift based on politics.

  Republicans in Congress have blamed the Biden administration for policies they say encourage people to undertake the perilous trek north and cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

  The Biden administration has blamed factors outside its control—like crime, corruption, and poverty in countries of origin—while blaming Mr. Trump for undermining the country’s asylum system, which the current administration says it’s trying to fix.

  

  Illegal immigrants wait to be taken by Border Patrol to a processing facility to begin their asylum-seeking process in Eagle Pass, Texas, on June 25, 2023. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

  June Numbers

  Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported this week that 144,607 encounters happened in June along the Southwest border, the lowest number since February 2021.

  CBP officials credited the decline in part to the Biden administration’s expansion of legal pathways and processes for entry into the United States.

  “Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant,” Troy A. Miler, CBP Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner, said in a statement.

  June marked the first full month since Title 42 restrictions expired on May 11 and were replaced with a new policy that, in many ways, resembled the one that ended.

  Title 42 was a regulation designed to prevent the introduction of contagious diseases in the United States. The rule was issued by the Trump administration in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was used over 2.5 million times to block asylum claims.

  When Title 42 ended, the Biden administration rolled out a new rule (pdf), which essentially reinstates a Trump-era travel policy, stipulating that illegal immigrants would be disqualified from applying for asylum in the United States if they didn’t first seek protection in countries that they traveled through on their way to the United States, with limited exceptions.

  The regulation is meant to decrease human smuggling activities at the southern border by encouraging asylum-seekers to use “lawful, safe, and orderly” pathways, such as seeking refuge in a country that they’ve passed through.

  

  Department of Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas (2nd-L) speaks at a press conference on May 5, 2023, in Brownsville, Texas. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

  Hours before Title 42 was set to expire, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that smugglers had been spreading the word that the border would be open after Title 42 expired.

  “I want to be very clear: our borders are not open,” he said at the time. “People who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be promptly processed and removed.”

  Issuing a warning to those considering making the trek to the border, he stressed:

  “Smugglers care only about profits, not people. Do not risk your life and life savings only to be removed from the United States if and when you arrive here.”

  Since Mr. Biden took office, over 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border into the United States.

  Scheduled Arrivals

  Meanwhile, DHS said at the end of June that more would-be illegal immigrants would be able to schedule their entry into the United States.

  The department’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will allow up to 1,450 appointments per day, an increase of 200 from the current number and 450 from the number available in May.

  “CBP is expanding the number of available appointments at ports of entry for the second time in less than two months, through scheduling enhancements and operational efficiencies,” Troy Miller, the top CBP official, said in a statement.

  The appointments, made through an application called CBP One, are “providing for safe and efficient processes at ports of entry,” he added.

  The would-be immigrants can schedule an appointment at a port of entry, or an official border crossing, through the application.

  The appointment scheduling was part of a January Biden administration announcement on steps that would be taken to deal with the spike in illegal immigration that has occurred since Mr. Biden took office.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:20

• Barbie Movie Applauded As A “Feminist Epic” While Depicting Men As Bumbling Villains
  Barbie Movie Applauded As A “Feminist Epic” While Depicting Men As Bumbling Villains

  The underlying and undeniable trend of modern day Hollywood is the making of movies that hate their own subject matter, specifically when that subject matter stems from traditional cultural norms.  The goal is “deconstruction.” Everything must be deconstructed, broken down, burned down, erased from the public consciousness and replaced with the “new” woke ideal.  Well, it was only a matter of time before they went after Barbie and the results are embarrassing.

  Produced by star Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig, Hollywood critics love Barbie, but their applause doesn’t revolve around the overall quality of the story.  Rather, it revolves around the messaging which is aggressively woke.  

  The Verge calls the movie a:

  “Bold vision built around the idea of deconstructing some of the more complex realities of what Barbie represents in order to tell a truly modern, feminist story.”

  The Wrap declares:

  “Once an equal parts fascinating and controversial Mattel toy, both loved and hate – a tiny-waisted, vacuously smiling, slender doll designed like a straight-male fantasy – is now a complicated feminist symbol of empowerment…”

  NBC News notes:

  “As Barbie makes her way in the real world, she must grapple with the overwhelming emotion and discomfort of being human, as well as a patriarchal system that would make her a secondary character in her own world.”

  The core plot of Barbie plays on the common feminist notion of “reversed roles” along with a predictable hatred of men and masculinity; starting in a place where women run everything and men are simply objects with “no agency.”  Ken is a dunce that Barbie controls while he is also simultaneously cruel, a classic woke depiction of “toxic masculinity.”  

  But when Barbie is transported to the real world (our world as viewed by feminism) she encounters a cartoonish level of male chauvinism and sexism, while Ken learns to love the patriarchy and tries to transport it back to Barbie’s world.  IndieWire asserts that Ken is the villain of the story as he destroys the feminist utopia of Barbieland:

  “It’s been hugely altered by the full force of a returning (and, dare we say it, red-pilled) Ken, who uses all his newfound male rage and patriarchal power to upend what was once a lady-powered idyll.”

  In fact, the film’s script uses the word “patriarchy” at least 10 times.  Obviously, the premise as a metaphor is faulty because the dynamic depicted in the flick doesn’t exist for women, at least not in western society.  Gender roles exist because of biology, not because of conspiracy.  But then, the ultimate childish fantasy is not Barbie’s dreamland, it’s the feminist ideal.   

  

  The surface story involves the realm of Barbie as a parallel universe to our own, but real life issues and fears start to invade Barbie’s thoughts and she begins to challenge the structures of the world she lives in while disrupting everyone’s blissful ignorance (This is how woke activists see themselves; as messiahs shocking people out of an illusion controlled by evil white men).

  Not surprisingly, the movie also ignores the essential reasons why Barbie as a toy is so popular.

  For decades Barbie has been a primary target of the feminist movement.  Their accusation is that the toy is a negative image reinforcement for young girls and a “tool for the patriarchy” for molding women into unattainable beauty standards as well as social standards.  In reality, Barbie is vastly successful because she’s a blank slate – Girls and women tend to project their personalities onto fictional characters (and many other things), and Barbie has no defined personality to get in the way.  Little girls make Barbie into whatever they want her to be, which is usually them.  This is the reason why we often hear feminists argue that everyone needs to “feel represented” in entertainment – They cannot relate unless they can project.   

  But as a blank slate there can be no “manipulation” or male domination with a toy like Barbie. So, feminist claims fall apart.  They simply ignore what the toy means to children and think only of what it means to them.

  By extension, there is no romance in the Barbie movie, no love story for Barbie and Ken, no playing house or taking care of babies.  All the things that little girls do with the toy are deliberately erased from the film.  Beyond the colorful set design, the movie is distinctly hostile to the idea that it should appeal to kids.  It is only made for one very narrow group of people:  Far left ideologues.

  Robbie sold the concept to Mattel as a movie that “loves Barbie” but also “doesn’t shy away from the problematic issues surrounding Barbie.”  It would be interesting to get an honest opinion from Mattel now that the movie has hit theaters – Was this really what they intended?  A complete deconstruction of their brand?  The movie even depicts the CEO of Mattel (played by Will Farrell) as an angry capitalist trying to force Barbie “back into her box.”

  In the middle of the film, a teenage girl shouts at Margot Robbie’s Barbie in a California high school cafeteria:

  “You represent everything wrong with our culture. You destroyed the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism…you fascist!”

  This is not a display of love for the toy, it’s a group of woke fanatics doing what they always do – It’s not enough that they hate the product and what it stands for, everyone else has to hate it too.  Feminists are not happy in their own crazed beliefs; they are only satiated when others are pressured to affirm those beliefs, often through propaganda.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 18:00

• Woe, The Humanity: How AI Fits Into Broadly Rising Anti-Humanism
  Woe, The Humanity: How AI Fits Into Broadly Rising Anti-Humanism

  Authored by Joel Kotkin & Samuel J. Abrams via RealClear Wire,

  The future of humanity is becoming ever less human. The astounding capabilities of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence have triggered fears about the coming age of machines leaving little place for human creativity or employment. Even the architects of this brave new world are sounding the alarm. Sam Altman, chairman and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, recently warned that artificial intelligence poses an “existential risk” to humanity and warned Congress that artificial intelligence “can go quite wrong.”

  

  While history is littered with apocalyptic predictions, the new alarms are different because they are taking place amid broad cultural forces that suggest human beings have lost faith in themselves and connections with humanity in general.  

  The new worldview might best be described as anti-humanism. This notion rejects the idea that human beings are perennially ingenious, socially connected creatures capable of wondrous creations – religious scripture, the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, the science of Einstein. Instead, it casts people, society, and human life itself as a problem. Instead of seeing society as a tool to help people to build and flourish, it stresses the need to limit the damage humanity might do.     

  Many climate change activists, for example, argue that humanity’s extinction could be a net plus for planet earth. State-sanctioned euthanasia, which just a few years ago was considered a radical assault on the sanctity of life, is becoming common practice in many Western countries – available not just to the terminally ill but those who are just tired of living. 

  All this is taking place as social science research reveals that people are increasingly cutting themselves off from one another. The traditional pillars of community and connection – family, friends, children, church, neighborhood – have been withering, fostering an everyday existence defined for many people by loneliness. The larger notion of human beings as constituting a larger, collective project with some sense of common goal is being replaced by a solipsistic individualism, which negates the classical liberal values of self-determination and personal freedoms in a worldview that nullifies the societies they built.

  These trends, which have been studied largely in isolation, could be amplified by the ascendance of artificial intelligence. As humanity wrestles with powerful new technologies, a growing body of research suggests that a more fundamental question may be whether human beings are willing to shape their own legacy in the new world order. 

  God as Gaia  

  Anti-humanism has a long history – it can be traced back at least to Thomas Malthus, who warned in 1789 that overpopulation was the greatest threat to human prosperity. Although the British economist and cleric was not hostile to humanity and his dark predictions never came true, his claim that people are the problem has provided the cri de coeur for the modern environmental movement. In 1968, the biologist Paul Ehrlich’s best-seller “The Population Bomb,” which expressed horror at the proliferation of people, prophesied that continued surges in population would lead to mass starvation. Ehrlich and his acolytes urged extreme measures to stave off disaster, including adding sterilant to the water supply to prevent human reproduction.  

  These views have not gone away. The big business-funded Club of Rome report, issued in 1972, embraced an agenda of austerity and retrenchment to stave off population-driven mass starvation and social chaos. Humanity’s ancient effort to create safety and comfort – its commitment to progress and prosperity – was cast as a lethal threat.  

  Others were less politic in their embrace of anti-human memes. In 1991, the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said that “in order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” Today, this mindset informs many climate change activists, who as the writer Austin Williams has noted, believe human beings represent “the biggest problem on the planet” as opposed to the “creators of a better future.” More than 11,000 scientists signed an emergency declaration in 2019 that said having fewer people should be a priority.  

  In a May New Yorker article about “The Earth Transformed,” a new book by Oxford University professor Peter Frankopan, Harvard professor Jill Lepore notes: “In his not at all cheerful conclusion, looking to a possibly not too distant future in which humans fail to address climate change and become extinct, Frankopan writes, ‘Our loss will be the gain of other animals and plants.’” Lepore then quips, “An upside!” 

  Manifestos such as Frankopan’s, whose writing on the history of climate change is quite nuanced, reflect how the climate agenda tends toward apocalypticism, and a highly toxic view of humanity. Already more than half of young people around the world believe the planet is doomed. Although few prioritize climate as their main concern, concerns about warming underpins a profoundly anti-human agenda based on the impoverishment of much of the population. Many corporate interests, as well as their allies among green activists, have embraced the notion of “degrowth,” embracing a weird form of autarkic feudalism in which people live in small places, eat a meager diet, and surrender any chance of upward mobility. The “tiny house” movement is a small example. It is hard to overstate what a radical departure this is from long-held beliefs tying progress to rising standards of living, much less creating offspring. 

  Such an approach seems to require a quasi-religious commitment which, if it does not claim justification from God, acts as the right hand of Gaia and of supposedly sanctified science. Two environmentalists, writing in Time magazine this April, argued that Earth Day should be designated a “religious holiday” just like Easter and Passover.  

  The Fading Family   

  Unlike traditional religious holidays, sacralized Earth Day festivities likely will not celebrate the family or human fecundity. Around the world, the ties between parents, children and extended family are clearly weakening and thus undermining the bonds that have held human society together from the earliest times.  

  Increasingly the very idea of family is under assault, particularly from universities and media that openly criticize monogamy and the nuclear family while extolling a wide array of alternatives including polyamory and some form of collectivized childrearing. Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times, who last week fretted that “human beings are soon going to be eclipsed” by AI, also argued in The Atlantic in 2020 that “the nuclear family was a mistake.” Brooks, no woke zealot, oddly echoed the group Black Lives Matter, which made opposition to the nuclear family a part of its basic original platform, even though family breakdown has hurt African American boys most of all. One prominent feminist, Sophie Lewis, advocates “full surrogacy” as a replacement for the traditional family.  

  To be sure, many children are being brought up without two parents. The number of children living in single parent households has more than doubled in the last 50 years. In the United States, the rate of single parenthood has grown from 10% in 1960 to over 40% today. 

  Rather than a nation of families, the United States is becoming a collection of autonomous human beings and childless households. The impacts of a weaker family, as Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves and others have noted, are felt most among poorer people, and particularly their offspring. “This is probably the best documented fact in sociology in America that no one wants to admit,” observed demographer Mary Eberstadt. 

  The links between family dysfunction and crime have been clear since at least the 1970s. This breakdown has worsened as city leaders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, New York and other urban centers now accept homelessness, open drug markets, and petty crime. This can be viewed as another aspect of anti-humanism, rejecting the notion that people are capable of productive and fulfilling lives. Instead of seeing people as members of a community with obligations to one another, it reflects a kind of live-and-let-die individualism that leads to isolation, despair, and anger. 

  The Friendless American  

  Family decline reflects just one aspect of an increasingly dehumanized social order. The U.S. Census Bureau has found that 28% of American households had just one person in 2020. In 1940, this number was just 8%. In a recent survey conducted by Cigna, researchers found that almost 80% of adults from the ages of 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely. In 2018, even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one study showed that 54% of Americans felt like no one in their life knew them well. The “atomization” of America, first examined 20 years ago by Robert Putnam in books such as “Bowling Alone,” has been simply “speeding out in the wrong direction,” warns journalist Jennifer Senior. 

  As the pandemic wound down in the spring of 2022 and many were looking to resume their lives as normally as possible, a survey of American adults revealed that many people found it harder to form relationships now, and one-fourth of adults felt anxious about socializing. The biggest source of anxiety, shared by 29% of respondents, was “not knowing what to say or how to interact.” As social commentator Arthur Brooks notes, “Many of us have simply forgotten how to be friends.” 

  But it’s young people who bear the brunt of the loneliness wave. Data from the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey on Community and Society indicate that younger Americans are, in fact, considerably more lonely and isolated than older Americans. For instance, 44% of 18 to 29-year-olds report feeling completely alone at least sometimes, compared with just 19% of 60 to 70-year-olds. Perhaps most troubling, 22% of younger Americans stated that they “rarely” or “never” have someone they can turn to when in need. For older Americans, this number was just 5%.  

  So, what replaces human connections? The solution is increasingly expressed as self-love — the notion that the individual, however flawed, needs to be celebrated above all other human connections. According to one recent survey, 44% of people believe self-love is an essential aspect of mental health. For some, like pop singer Lizzo, self-love means accepting even traits such as obesity, which are clear threats to basic health.  

  In this tech-dominant future, even the most pleasurable direct human contact is being supplanted by artificial stimulus.  Many younger people are falling into what researchers have characterized as a “sex recession.” There has been a significant rise in artificial sex and numerous reports have found that pornography consumption can negatively impact marital intimacy and reduce relationship satisfaction. Younger generations are having sex less often and experiencing far more relationship instability, leading to fewer marriages and more atomization. In Japan, the harbinger of modern Asian demographics, roughly a third of men enter their 30s as virgins and a quarter of men over 50 never marry. Nearly a third of Japanese in their 30s have never had sex.  

  Psychologist Maytal Eyal, writing in Time, quotes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggesting that that loving yourself is “the one foundation of everything.” She also quotes Nicole LaPera, a clinical psychologist with 6.4 million followers, who claims “Self-love is our natural state,” citing Miley Cyrus, whose recent hit “Flowers” proclaims, “I can love me better than you can.”  

  Life, Death, and Changing Attitudes 

  As reflected in “self-love,” anti-humanism rests on a belief system that substitutes the sanctity of human life with a new ideology centered on the autonomous individual’s wants and desires. This extends to changing views on the most basic events of human existence, birth and death.  

  Attitudes towards euthanasia are increasingly permissive and expansive. Today a majority of Americans (54%), according to Gallup, think that doctor-assisted suicide is morally acceptable. Ten states now provide euthanasia. Several others, including Massachusetts and Vermont, also want to expand the use of “end of life” procedures.  

  The United States is behind the curve on this issue. In Canada, euthanasia is being made available even to those not terminally ill. Some apply to be killed due to homelessness or depression; since the new euthanasia law went into effect in 2016, the numbers using it have grown ten-fold. Canadian medical professionals have been reported to urge terminally ill patients to end their lives earlier, in part to defray hospital expenses. There are even government plans to consider allowing assisted suicide for minors without parental consent. 

  These trends can be seen as well in some European nations, such as Switzerland, where people not terminally ill can orchestrate their own extermination. In Spain, one convicted murderer opted for suicide even before sentencing. Belgium allowed the assisted suicide of a 23-year-old woman with depression, something that has sparked considerable controversy. In Japan, it is widely discussed whether that rapidly aging population should institute euthanasia for the elderly, even those who are not sick or dying. Last year the country experienced twice as many deaths as births. 

  The shifts here and abroad reveal a diminishing value placed on human life. A Connecticut civil rights lawyer, a former strong supporter of liberalized euthanasia laws, reports how physicians advocated assisted suicide for patients with disabilities, even those able to live longer and thrive.  

  Similar attitudes toward life define the ever more contentious abortion debate. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, his platform was that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Today, the nation’s most prominent abortion advocates – like their opposite number in the pro-life movement – leave no room for compromise. Pro-choice leaders often view abortion as an unchallengeable “human right.” Just as the idea of limiting abortions for rape and incest, and placing very strict time limits, seems extreme to most Americans, the alternative view that has taken hold is that abortion idea is no longer something to be regretted, but celebrated. And this attitude has only intensified after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

  The Fading of Religion  

  The growing atomization of society has accompanied the historic decline of organized religion. Survey data show that two groups saw their rate of unhappiness rise more significantly than the others: single people, and those who did not regularly attend a religious service. The fading of religion, particularly among the young, intensifies isolation; the most recent AEI survey reveals, in contrast, that being faithful and part of a religious community deeply impacts feels of connectedness and isolation.  

  The decline of religion is a fundamental reality in most Western countries. In Europe, over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any religion. America, once considered an exception to the global secularizing trend, is also now rapidly “unchurching.” Younger Americans may still embrace of the notion of spiritual power but are leaving religious institutions at a rate four times that of their counterparts three decades ago. Almost 40% of people ages 18-29 have no religious affiliation.  

  The decline in faith among America’s youngest cohorts certainly threatens the trajectory of family formation; the fertility of women attending at least weekly religious services is about half-again higher than that of the secular. Globally, research shows that the higher the level of faith, the higher a country’s fertility will be, suggesting one way how traditional religion is at odds with the anti-human perspective of many in the climate movement.   

  A strong commitment to faith also correlates with community connectivity and engagement. For instance, just 10% of the religiously observant say they have no close friends; the number nearly doubles for those who have no faith.  

  This pattern extends to the younger generation. Religious younger Americans are more than twice as likely to do community work as their nonreligious Gen Z counterparts. Data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 2,000 young adults ages 18-25 coordinated by Neighborly Faith reveals that half of religious Gen Zers report volunteering in the community often or very often, compared to 30% of slightly religious Gen Zers and just 21% of non-religious Gen Zers. Despite narratives of insularity and social disconnect among religious Americans, it is primarily the religiously detached who are isolated and not connecting to others.  

  Tech and De-Humanization 

  Having moved away from family, community, and friendships, people increasingly seek salvation through technology – with some highly negative results. By empowering individuals, PCs, smart phones, and the rest have seemed to reduce the need for human connection. Increasingly, people are coming to see each other the same way machines see us – as data points to be fed into algorithms. “Science per se,” the late British chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, “has no space for empathy or fellow feeling.”  

  With the growth of artificial intelligence, the prospect of replacing humans by machines seems increasingly imminent. In Japan, where labor shortages are particularly intense, robots are being developed to care for their aging population and provide companionship for the increasingly rare young, as in Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian science fiction novel “Klara and the Sun.” Increasingly, even sex work could conceivably be dominated by artificial life forms.  

  As people hand over even their most intimate relations to machines, the designers of the new anti-human reality espouse the notion that, over time, most humans will be economically redundant and unnecessary. Researcher Gregory Ferenstein, who interviewed 147 tech company founders, found that most believe an “increasingly greater share of economic wealth will be generated by a smaller slice of very talented or original people. Everyone else will come to subsist on some combination of part-time entrepreneurial ‘gig work’ and government aid.”  

  Rather than see most humans as assets to society and the economy, many tech leaders, including AI pioneers like Sam Altman, envision offering the masses what Karl Marx would call “a proletarian alms bag,” a guaranteed income leaving them unstressed but marginally engaged in how society operates. This view is endorsed by many other tech oligarchs – Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick (former head of Uber), as well as Altman. 

  Yet recent experience suggests clear dangers in what virtual reality guru Rony Abovitz calls “computational autocracy.” When you look at Americans born after 1995,” notes New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, “what you find is that they have extraordinarily high rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and fragility.” Since 2010 , he notes, teenage girls have seen their rates of depression rise by 145%, while that for men has jumped 161%. Similar patterns, including hospitalizations for suicide, have risen across Western society.  

  The disturbing work of Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has revealed in detail the depressive symptoms among students K-12 over the past two decades. Today, half of U.S. students (50%) state that “they can’t do anything right” and that they “do not enjoy life” (49%). Sadly, 44% assert that their “life is not useful,” and this matches many attitudes on college and university campuses around the United States. According to Rebecca Rialon Berry, a professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University, “the intense sounds, colors and rapid movement of digital content can make it much more immersive and entrancing than the real world – and therefore much more difficult to disengage from.”

  Rise of a Post-Human World Order 

  For some, technology could also provide, as religion once did, the mechanism to reinvent the human race. Masayoshi Son, founder of the influential Softbank venture fund, recently suggested that artificial intelligence would lay the foundation for the creation of the “superhuman.” Scientists for a half century have harbored similar dreams and some no doubt welcome the Biden administration’s support for a vast project “to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers.” But cautionary tales about trying to create “the better human” are abundant: Consider the scientific promoters of early 20th century American eugenics as well as the examples of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. 

  The ultimate goal of the tech elite increasingly will be to meld people with machines. “Transhumanism” is based on the idea, espoused by former Google chief scientist Ray Kurzweil, that we can “transcend the limitations of our biological bodies and brains,” gaining control of “our fates” as well as our mortality. The new tech religion treats mortality not as a normal part of life, but as a “bug” to be corrected by technology. 

  Although it sounds like a cult, transhumanism has gained devotees from Silicon Valley including Sergei Brin, Larry Page, and Ray Kurzweil (of Google), to Peter Thiel and AI guru Sam Altman, whose Y Combinator is developing a technology for uploading one’s brain and preserving it digitally. The aim is to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence.”  

  This new religion is a step toward creating a scientifically ordered society detached from family, religion, and the broad sense of community. Philosopher Yuval Noah Harari envisions a future where “a small and privileged elite of upgraded humans” will use genetic engineering to cement the superior status of their offspring – a small, God-like caste of what he calls Homo deus who can lord over the less cognitively gifted Homo sapiens.  

  “You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans?” Harari asks. “Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins.” 

  Joel Kotkin is Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. 
  Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 07/21/2023 – 17:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest