- Should We Be Worried About The Next (Digital) Apocalypse?
Should We Be Worried About The Next (Digital) Apocalypse?
Authored by Alexandra Marshall via The Epoch Times,
Everyone loves a good apocalypse, and in 2022, there’s an end-times for everyone.
Some apocalypses are fictional—great for corporate lobbying and political ambition. Others are overplayed as a “get rich quick” scheme that vanishes without explanation.
But the real apocalypses, the ones that pose a genuine threat to civilisation, rarely make it to print. After all, there’s a difference between fear and terror, and no sensible politician wants to start a panic.
Societies built on technology become vulnerable to its flaws in the same way desert empires fear cloudless skies.
At the rate human civilisation is evolving, a true digital catastrophe would likely cause a Year Zero event, an epoch defined by digital darkness.
If important data was lost—assets wiped and identity data destroyed—there would be a resetting of civilisation. However, it would be foolish to imagine human beings can recover as quickly as a computer operating system.
Humanity has come close to digital calamity before, but not since crawling into the womb of Silicon Valley.
The digital revolution happened within a single lifetime, and we find ourselves in the difficult position of wanting to embrace technology without ending up imprisoned by it.
While we are busy avoiding virtual mouse traps laid by the government, we must take care to keep redundancies within society to protect against inevitable periods of digital failure. After all, one week without power is enough to send advanced cities into ruin.
The next digital apocalypse will not be stopped by teams of sweaty programmers, red-eyed and shaking in the din of the world’s server rooms.
The Y2K Bug
Some of us are old enough to remember when an innocent mistake from the dawning age of computers created panic in 1999.
The “Y2K bug” was a simple flaw in the handling of dates during calculations when four-digit dates were truncated into two digits to save space. This was fine from 1960 to 1999, but as the year 2000 approached, programmers had to stop procrastinating and patch the error which threatened the security of everything from banking to nuclear power plants, airliners, factory machinery, and the commercial world, while satellite systems and GPS posed a physical risk to safety.
Missile Commanders Lt. (L) and Lt. Col. Ken Reed confirm a launch warning over the phone during a practice drill at the North America Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs, Colo., Nov. 9, 1999. (Mark Leffingwell/AFP via Getty Images)
The tech industry was all at sea during this time, fixing micro-cracks on a listing cruise liner. It was an odd apocalypse because if you were not a programmer, there was nothing you could do.
Unlike the “bend the knee” mantra of climate change, the December of 1999 ended with an almost Norse fatalism culminating in a massive party beneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge (at least in Australia).
The crowd was covered in glitter, neon glow sticks, and outrageous heart-antenna headbands—three sheets to the wind on champagne. Most expected their city to go black and for the world’s computers to cough and die.
They didn’t. Those programmers worked to the last stroke of midnight. The bridge erupted in colourful plumes of gunpowder. The apocalypse was so uneventful that 22 years on, there are articles wrongly dismissing the danger.
No one had anything to gain from the Y2K bug. It was a pest ruthlessly exterminated by every government. (Shhhh. Let’s not talk about the year 2038 problem).
The Next Digital Apocalypse May Lead to a ‘Great Reset’
If the next long-prophesied digital apocalypse proves advantageous for those hoping to “reset” the global economy, our data may be sacrificed to serve “the greater good.”
A catastrophic loss of data would require a “fair system” of recovery—a “re-distribution” of assets, like a toddler knocking over a Monopoly board only for the parents to “fairly” put the houses back on all the squares regardless of who bought them. Those in dispute are gifted to the bank. Depending on a nation’s debt, loan-forgiveness in exchange for property acquisition is likely.
A digital apocalypse of this scale would probably arise from physical damage to the world’s largest server farms rather than cyber warfare. It’s much more effective to flatten a building, cut a cable, or even sustain a natural occurrence such as the Carrington Event of 1859.
An unstable energy grid, while not permanently destructive, would induce periods of digital interference that may alter our dependence on high-tech solutions in our economy.
In the real world, retailers are quick to switch to cash after an hour of blackouts.
If the tech community is honest with the public, the next digital apocalypse will not be malicious attacks from our friends in North Korea. It won’t be a gremlin from the 70s chewing on the cords nor a Nigerian Prince with a recently deceased relative.
Our apocalypse will be conducted in the halls of Parliament, designed by lobbyists and politicians who are rapidly transforming the digital world into an intangible prison block.
The loss of citizen control over the digital realm, replaced by the desires of the state, is an apocalypse humanity can never recover from. It would be the end of the free market Eden that forged our greatest technological achievements.
In its place, we will find an arms race of control that extends into our thoughts and beneath our skin.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 23:40 - Mapping The Biggest Tech Talent Hubs In The US & Canada
Mapping The Biggest Tech Talent Hubs In The US & Canada
The tech workforce just keeps growing. In fact, there are now an estimated 6.5 million tech workers between the U.S. and Canada – 5.5 million of which work in the United States.
This infographic, via Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley, draws from a report by CBRE to determine which tech talent markets in the U.S. and Canada are the largest. The data looks at total workforce in the sector, as well as the change in tech worker population over time in various cities.
The report also classifies which metro areas and regions can rightly be considered tech hubs in the first place, by looking at a variety of factors including cost of living, average educational attainment, and tech employment levels as a share of different industries.
The Top Tech Hubs in the U.S.
Silicon Valley, in California’s Bay Area, remains the most prominent (and expensive) U.S. tech hub, with a talent pool of nearly 380,000 tech workers.
Here’s a look at the top tech talent markets in the country in terms of total worker population:
America’s large, coastal cities still contain the lion’s share of tech talent, but mid-sized tech hubs like Salt Lake City, Portland, and Denver have put up strong growth numbers in recent years. Seattle, which is home to both Amazon and Microsoft, posted an impressive 32% growth rate over the last five years.
Emerging tech hubs include areas like Raleigh-Durham. The two cities have nearly 70,000 employed tech workers and a strong talent pipeline, seeing a 28% increase in degree completions in fields like Math/Statistics and Computer Engineering year-over-year to 2020. In fact, the entire state of North Carolina is becoming an increasingly attractive business hub.
Houston was the one city on this list that had a negative growth rate, at -2%.
The Top Tech Hubs in Canada
Tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon are continuously and aggressively growing their presence in Canada, further solidifying the country’s status as the next big destination for tech talent. Here are the country’s four tech hubs with a total worker population of more than 50,000:
Toronto saw the most absolute growth tech positions in 2021, adding 88,900 jobs. The tech sector in Canada’s largest city has seen a lot of momentum in recent years, and is now ranked by CBRE as North America’s #3 tech hub, after the SF Bay Area and Seattle.
Vancouver’s tech talent population increased the most from its original figure, climbing 63%. Seattle-based companies like Microsoft and Amazon have established sizable offices in the city, adding to the already thriving tech scene. Furthermore, Google is set to build a submarine high-speed fiber optic cable connecting Canada to Asia, with a terminus in Vancouver.
Not to be left behind, Ottawa has also taken giant strides to increase their tech talent and stamp their presence. The country’s capital even has the highest concentration of tech employment in its workforce, thanks in part to the success of Shopify.
The small, but well-known tech hub of Waterloo also had a very high concentration on tech employment (9.6%). The region has seen its tech workforce grow by 8% over the past five years.
Six out of the top 10 cities by tech workforce concentration are located in Canada.
Evolution of Tech Hubs
The post-COVID era has seen a shifting definition of what a tech hub means. It’s clear that remote work is here to stay, and as workers migrate to chase affordability and comfort, traditional tech hubs are seeing some decline — or at least slower growth — in their population of tech workers.
While it isn’t evident that there is a mass exodus of tech talent from traditional coastal hubs, the rise in high-paying tech jobs in smaller markets across the country could point to a trend and is positive for the industry.
While more workers with great talent, resources, and education continue to opt for cost-friendly places to reside and work remotely, will newer markets like Charlotte, Tennessee, and Calgary see a rise of tech companies, or will large corporations and startups alike continue to opt for the larger cities on the coast?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 23:20 - Ed Snowden: America's Open Wound – The CIA Is Not Your Friend
Ed Snowden: America’s Open Wound – The CIA Is Not Your Friend
Authored by Edward Snowden via ‘Continuing Ed’ Substack,
“Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.”
– Baruch Spinoza
It hasn’t been a month since President Biden mounted the steps of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, declaring it his duty to ensure each of us understands the central faction of his political opposition are extremists that “threaten the very foundations of our Republic.” Flanked by the uniformed icons of his military and standing atop a Leni Riefenstahl stage, the leader clenched his fists to illustrate seizing the future from the forces of “fear, division, and darkness.” The words falling from the teleprompter ran rich with the language of violence, a “dagger at the throat” emerging from the “shadow of lies.”
“What’s happening in our country,” the President said, “is not normal.”
Is he wrong to think that? The question the speech intended to raise—the one lost in the unintentionally villainous pageantry—is whether and how we are to continue as a democracy and a nation of laws. For all the Twitter arguments over Biden’s propositions, there has been little consideration of his premises.
Democracy and the rule of law have been so frequently invoked as a part of the American political brand that we simply take it for granted that we enjoy both.
Are we right to think that?
Our glittering nation of laws observes this year two birthdays: the 70th anniversary of the National Security Agency, on which my thoughts have been recorded, and the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act. The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President, through the National Security Council he controls.
Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), and—gasp—interfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.
In 1963, no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended, writing:
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble…”
Many today comfort themselves by imagining that the Agency has been reformed, and that such abuses are relics of the distant past, but what few reforms our democracy has won have been watered-down or compromised. The limited “Intelligence Oversight” role that was eventually conceded to Congress in order to placate the public has never been taken seriously by either the committee’s majority—which prefers cheerleading over investigating—or by the Agency itself, which continues to conceal politically-sensitive operations from the very group most likely to defend them.
“Congress should have been told,” said [Senator] Dianne Feinstein. “We should have been briefed before the commencement of this kind of sensitive program. Director Panetta… was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to Congress.”
How can we judge the ultimate effectiveness of oversight and reforms? Well, the CIA plotted to assassinate my friend, American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, in 1972, yet nearly fifty years of “reforms” did little to inhibit them from recently sketching out another political murder targeting Julian Assange. Putting that in perspective, you probably own shoes older than the CIA’s most recent plot to murder a dissident… or rather the most recent plot that we know of.
If you believe the Assange case to be a historical anomaly, some aberration unique to Trump White House, recall that the CIA’s killings have continued in series across administrations. Obama ordered the killing of an American far from any battlefield, and killed his 16 year-old American son a few weeks later, but the man’s American daughter was still alive by the time Obama left.
Within a month of entering the White House, Trump killed her.
She was 8 years old.
Nawar al-Awlaki
It goes beyond assassinations. Within recent memory, the CIA captured Gul Rahman, who we know was not Al-Qaeda, but it seems did save the life of Afghanistan’s future (pro-US) President. Rahman was placed in what the Agency described as a “dungeon” and tortured until he died.
They stripped him naked, save a diaper he couldn’t change, in a cold so wicked that his guards, in their warm clothes, ran heaters for themselves. In absolute darkness, they bolted his hands and feet to a single point on the floor with a very short chain so that it was impossible to stand or lie down – a practice called “short shackling” – and after he died, claimed that it was for his own safety. They admit to beating him, even describing the “forceful punches.” They describe the blood that ran from his nose and mouth as he died.
Short-shackling, as described by survivors
Just pages later, in their formal conclusion, declare that there was no evidence of beating. There was no evidence torture. The CIA ascribes responsibility for his death to hypothermia, which they blamed on him for the crime of refusing, on his final night, a meal from the men that killed him.
The CIA claimed the complaints of a man they tortured to death — regarding the violation of his human rights — were evidence of a “sophisticated level of resistance training.”
In the aftermath, the Agency concealed the death of Gul Rahman from his family. To this day, they refuse to reveal what happened to his remains, denying those who survive him a burial, or even some locus of mourning.
Ten years after the torture program investigated, exposed, and ended, no one was charged for their role in these crimes. The man responsible for Rahman’s death was recommended for a $2,500 card award — for “consistently superior work”.
A different torturer was elevated to the Director’s seat.
The Judgment of Solomon, Rubens, 1617
This summer, in a speech marking the occasion of the CIA’s 75th birthday, President Biden struck a quite different note than he did in Philadelphia, reciting what the CIA instructs all presidents: that the soul of the institution really lies in speaking truth to power.
“We turn to you with the big questions,” Biden said, “the hardest questions. And we count on you to give your best, unvarnished assessment of where we are. And I emphasize “‘unvarnished.’”
But this itself is a variety of varnishing — a whitewash.
For what reason do we aspire to maintain — or achieve — a nation of laws, if not to establish justice?
Let us say we have a democracy, shining and pure. The people, or in our case some subset of people, institute reasonable laws to which government and citizen alike must answer. The sense of justice that arises within such a society is not produced as a result of the mere presence of law, which can be tyrannical and capricious, or even elections, which face their own troubles, but is rather derived from the reason and fairness of the system that results.
What would happen if we were to insert into this beautiful nation of laws an extralegal entity that is not directed by the people, but a person: the President? Have we protected the nation’s security, or have we placed it at risk?
This is the unvarnished truth: the establishment of an institution charged with breaking the law within a nation of laws has mortally wounded its founding precept.
From the year it was established, Presidents and their cadres have regularly directed the CIA to go beyond the law for reasons that cannot be justified, and therefore must be concealed — classified. The primary result of the classification system is not an increase in national security, but a decrease in transparency. Without meaningful transparency, there is no accountability, and without accountability, there is no learning.
The consequences have been deadly, for both Americans and our victims. When the CIA armed the Mujaheddin to wage war on Soviet Afghanistan, we created al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden. Ten years later, the CIA is arming, according to then-Vice President Joe Biden, “al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.” After the CIA runs a disinformation operation to make life hard for the Soviet Union by fueling a little proxy war, the war rages for twenty-six years — far beyond the Union’s collapse.
Do you believe that the CIA today — a CIA free from all consequence and accountability — is uninvolved in similar activities? Can you find no presence of their fingerprints in the events of the world, as described in the headlines, that provide cause for concern? Yet it is those who question the wisdom of placing a paramilitary organization beyond the reach of our courts that are dismissed as “naive.”
For 75 years, the American people have been unable to bend the CIA to fit the law, and so the law has been bent to fit the CIA. As Biden stood on the crimson stage, at the site where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were debated and adopted, his words rang out like the cry of a cracked-to-hell Liberty Bell: “What’s happening in our country is not normal.”
If only that were true.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 23:00 - Xi Tells Armed Forces Focus On Preparing For Wars As Geopolitical Flashpoints Intensify
Xi Tells Armed Forces Focus On Preparing For Wars As Geopolitical Flashpoints Intensify
Coming off last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Uzbekistan where the two leaders met, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute observes, “Xi has likely sensed the opportunity to use the Sino-Russian ‘no limits’ partnership to extract greater Russian resources from Putin in exchange for China’s continued backing.”
“Despite his seemingly unimpressed face at the summit, Xi is unlikely to break ties with Putin over the lack of Russian progress in Ukraine. Russia simply remains too important a partner in China’s strategy to challenge the United States’ position in the Indo-Pacific,” the institute’s analysis adds.
And interesting given the timing, Xi on Wednesday – the same day that Putin declared a ‘partial’ national military mobilization – addressed a national military seminar, telling top officers to focus their attention on gearing up for potential military action on the horizon.
“It is imperative to conscientiously summarize and apply successful experience in reforms, to master new situations and [understand] the requirements of the tasks, to focus on preparing for wars, and to have the courage to explore and innovate,” Xinhua News Agency quoted the Chinse president as saying.
He said further at the Beijing-hosted defense conference, which included high-ranking representatives of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC), as well as the People’s Armed Police Force and military academies, that major reforms to the nations armed forces he initiated starting years ago have been successful.
“Long-standing systemic obstructions, structural incongruities and policy issues in the development of national defense and the armed forces have been resolved,” he told the top defense officials.
Last week’s SCO conference involved moments where Putin seemed on the defensive, particularly in dialogue with China’s Xi and India’s Modi…
🇷🇺🇨🇳 Vladimir #Putin said Thursday he understood China’s concerns over the #UkraineWar.
The acknowledgement was a surprising indication of friction between the two powers.@vtchakarova breaks down what is at stake for Moscow and Beijing in maintaining their alliance ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/WJ5dHrs76B
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) September 16, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Meanwhile, on Tuesday a pair of Western warships make a provocative sail through of the contested Taiwan Strait, at a moment the PLA military continues its heavy patrol presence surrounding Taiwan in the wake of the early August Pelosi visit, as CNN describes:
US and Canadian warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday following weekend remarks from President Joe Biden that the US would defend Taiwan in the event it is attacked by China.
A US Navy ship, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins, conducted a “routine Taiwan Strait transit” on Tuesday, US Navy spokesperson Lt. Mark Langford said in a statement.
The US ship conducted the transit “in cooperation with Royal Canadian Navy Halifax-class frigate HMCS Vancouver,” Langford said.
It wasn’t the first time Biden answered with a simple “yes” when pressed on whether the US would defend Taiwan if the island were invaded.
He issued the blunt response when asked in a CBS “60 Minutes” interview which aired Sunday what the US reaction would be if China decided to invade Taiwan. “Yes, if, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack,” he said in a sit-down with CBS’ Scott Pelley. Xi no doubt had such provocative comments from the US commander-in-chief fresh on his mind when he addressed Wednesday’s military conference in Beijing.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 22:40 - Four Reasons Why Dollar Dominance Won't Be Permanent
Four Reasons Why Dollar Dominance Won’t Be Permanent
Authored by Mark Nestmann via Nestmann.com,
We periodically read missives to the effect that “the dollar is doomed.” And we’ve been reading them for many years.
Consider this newsletter promotion from 1985. The headline was a lot like those we see today: “Get Your Dollars Out of the USA Before Uncle Sam Gets Them Out of You.” The copy predicted an imminent collapse in the US dollar’s value, along with hyperinflation.
Of course, neither of these things happened in 1985 … or over the next 37 years. Given this, you can understand why we tend to be skeptical when we read breathless pronouncements of impending gloom and doom for the greenback.
That’s especially true because at the moment, the dollar is surging in value. It’s at a 20-year high against the euro; a 24-year high against the Japanese yen; and a 37-year high against the British pound.
And we wouldn’t be surprised if the dollar strengthens further in the next few months, especially if the Federal Reserve follows through on its promises to continue raising interest rates.
But behind the scenes, the dollar looks more vulnerable.
We see four trends pointing the way.
First, while the dollar is effectively the world’s reserve currency, its share of global central bank currency reserves has been steadily shrinking for many years.
Today, about 59% of global central bank currency reserves are held in dollars. But in 2000, that number was 70%.
Second, American politicians have grossly abused the dollar’s privileged status.
One way they’ve done so is to borrow trillions of dollars to finance the country’s welfare-warfare state while simultaneously cutting taxes. No matter how much money its politicians borrow, central banks still need to accumulate dollars since so many global transactions are settled in dollars. Companies everywhere that conduct business internationally need to exchange their local currencies into dollars to pay for goods and services.
Third, Uncle Sam persists in using the dollar as a hammer to hold over the heads of its adversaries.
One form this hammer takes is US domination of the international payments settlement system called SWIFT – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. This organization offers over 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries a network enabling them to send and receive payment orders – mainly dollars – in a secure, standardized format.
Even though SWIFT is headquartered in Belgium, Uncle Sam has a great deal of influence over it. Thus, we anticipated that within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, SWIFT ejected most Russian banks from its network. Russia now joins Iran and North Korea as countries effectively isolated from the global dollar clearing network.
Fourth, the targets of US sanctions are taking steps to de-dollarize.
We wrote about some of them in this article last year. Since then, Russia and China have taken steps to end the use of dollars altogether. The latest initiative in this direction occurred in June at the 14th BRICS summit. BRICS – an acronym for the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – isn’t an organization as such, but rather a group of countries pursuing common goals. High on the list of those goals, as Chinese President Xi stated in his keynote speech:
We should expand BRICS cooperation on cross-border payment … to facilitate trade, investment, and financing among our countries.
Russian President Putin disclosed another crucial BRICS objective – setting up a new global reserve currency. It would consist of a basket of BRICS countries’ currencies.
It’s unlikely any of these initiatives pose any short-term threat to the dollar. Yet, the BRICS countries collectively account for 41% of global population, 24% of global GDP, and 16% of global trade.
Meanwhile, Americans are enjoying the effects of having the dollar riding high. For instance, they’re flocking to Europe to buy real estate. The hottest markets at the moment for buyers with fistfuls of dollars are in France (Paris and Provence); Italy (Tuscany and the Lake Como region); Portugal (Lisbon); and England (London).
The dollar’s run-up in value has also led to a prolonged decline in values of gold and silver. So far in 2022, gold has lost nearly 6% of its value; silver nearly 19%.
Still, gold’s performance is noteworthy, since the US Dollar Index, which tracks the strength of the dollar against a trade-weighted basket of foreign currencies, is up more than 14% for the year.
It’s anyone’s guess if the continuing efforts to dethrone the dollar’s reserve currency status will be successful, and when. But one thing is for sure. Eventually, the dollar is fated to join the long list of fiat currencies (i.e., currencies backed only by the governments that issued them rather than by a tangible asset such as gold) that have been debased out of existence.
On its way out, you’ll see even higher inflation, bail-ins, and exchange controls.
It’s only a matter of time. Make sure you’re ready when it comes.
* * *
On another note, many clients first get to know us by accessing some of our well-researched courses and reports on important topics that affect you. Like How to Go Offshore in 2022, for example. It tells the story of John and Kathy, a couple we helped from the heartland of America. You’ll learn how we helped them go offshore and protect their nestegg from ambulance chasers, government fiat and the decline of the US Dollar… and access a whole new world of opportunities not available in the US. Simply click here to register for this free program.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 22:20 - World's Highest Penthouse Listed For Record $250 Million
World’s Highest Penthouse Listed For Record $250 Million
A housing reset is underway and will soon affect home prices. Before the bottom falls out of the market, a penthouse apartment at New York’s Central Park Tower, the world’s tallest residential condominium, at 1,550 feet high, aims to be the country’s highest-ever home sale price.
WSJ reported that the 17,500-square feet penthouse is a staggering 1,400 feet above city streets and has a whopping $250 million asking price.
Extell Development’s Gary Barnett priced the deal while the real estate market still holds up, but signs of soaring mortgage rates indicate trouble ahead. Suppose he lands a buyer before the housing market corrects. It could end up being the most expensive home ever sold, surpassing hedge billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million condo across the street at 220 Central Park South.
Listing agent Ryan Serhant of Serhant said, “the uber-wealthy are looking for places to diversify assets, and real estate has become one of the most popular and sought-after mega-assets.”
Serhant said the price tag comes with a penthouse designed as one entire unit and the only one on top of the building. He said it has unobstructed views, unlike Griffin’s pad.
At $250 million, Barnett said it seems expensive but a relative bargain when breaking down square feet into dollar amounts, coming in at around $15,000 a square foot. He said that’s cheaper than buyers paid at Vornado Realty Trust’s 220 Central Park South. As well as Saudi billionaire Fawaz Al Hokair’s 432 Park Avenue condo, which was recently listed for more than $20,000 a square foot.
Barnett said instead of owning a piece of “artwork going for $100 million and even $200 million,” why not own “17,000 feet of steel and brick and glass at the top of the world, this seems like a relative bargain.”
If Serhant can find a buyer for Barnett at the $250 million asking price, it would beat out Griffin and other billionaires who’ve recently splurged on mansions.
The most expensive house to ever be listed is just another sign of a market top.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 22:00 - The "Stunning Success" Of The Green Revolution Is Yet Another Progressive Myth
The “Stunning Success” Of The Green Revolution Is Yet Another Progressive Myth
Authored by Kristoffer Mousten Hansen via The Mises Institute,
One of the key myths of the twentieth century is the benign role played by international, American-led institutions after the Second World War. American liberals/progressives, fresh from imposing the New Deal in the thirties and planning and directing a world war, turned their eyes to international affairs: the United States had a world historic mission of messianic proportions: lifting developing countries into modernity by remaking them (and all other countries, for that matter) in America’s own image.
The Cold War era was rife with projects and organizations to carry out this vision, from Bretton Woods and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the area of international finance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in military affairs to the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom used to spread progressive, US-friendly propaganda. These organizations all had mainly deleterious influences—I have previously indicated how Bretton Woods and the modern international financial system can best be described as financial imperialism—but in one area American interventionism is to this day universally acclaimed as benign: the Green Revolution.
The Official History of the Green Revolution
Population growth was considered a major problem in the sixties. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University in his 1968 Population Bomb predicted widespread hunger as soon as the 1970s and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. The world simply could not feed a larger human population. Although mainly focused on environmental damage from pesticide use, Rachel Carson’s famous 1962 book, Silent Spring, made similar points. Human population was bound to continue to grow, and this would result in untold suffering and environmental damage.
A key and imminent danger in the 1960s was India: always on the verge on starvation, only massive imports of American wheat kept the specter of mass death away. Then, in 1965, catastrophe struck: drought across most of the subcontinent caused the Indian harvest to fail. As the drought continued into the two following years, it appeared that Ehrlich’s and the other Neo-Malthusians’ predictions had come true.
Then, a miracle happened: in stepped a man, a veritable demigod, to judge by the worship lavished on him by contemporary normies. Norman E. Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, had since the forties been researching and breeding new wheat varieties in Mexico, initially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and after 1964 as leader of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, CIMMYT, initially funded by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the Mexican government).
Borlaug bred high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties that were widely adapted to different ecological environments. Since the early sixties, he had been working with M.S. Swaminathan of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and together they planted Borlaug’s new dwarf wheat varieties in northern India. Success was immediate: 1968 returned a bumper crop, as the new wheat yields were the highest ever recorded in India.
It appeared that the population doomers had been wrong. So said Borlaug himself when he in 1970 received the Nobel Peace Prize: in his acceptance speech, he proclaimed victory in the perpetual war between “two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction.” But the war was not over, he warned, and only continuous funding for technological research into food production and limits on reproduction could avert disaster.
Governments and philanthropists rose to the challenge, and capital poured into agricultural research of the Borlaugian variety as new international institutes were set up to continue the work Borlaug had begun in Mexico and in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (founded in 1960). The Green Revolution eradicated the scourge of famine, and since agriculture with Borlaugian technology had much higher yields, masses of land were liberated from agricultural use and returned to nature. A 2021 study in the Journal of Political Economy estimates that gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the developing world would have been up to 50 percent lower had it not been for Borlaug, Swaminathan and the other international Brahmins ready and willing to guide the unwashed masses of ignorant peasants.
There is a twofold problem with this account of agricultural history: it is based on bad economics, and its connection to the actual history of Indian agriculture is tangential at best.
The Green Revolutionaries’ Bad Economics
Celebrating the Green Revolution rests on two fundamental errors in economic reasoning: Malthusianism and misunderstanding agricultural economics.
Malthusianism is the mistaken belief that human population will grow faster than the food supply; in Thomas Malthus’s formulation, population growth follows a geometric progression (2, 4, 8, 16 …) and food supply an arithmetic progression (2, 3, 4, 5 …). As a result, mankind is destined, apart from brief periods, to live at the margin of subsistence: only disease, war, and famine will limit population growth.
The problem with Malthusianism is that it’s completely wrong, both as a matter of theory and of historical record. For one, food production and population growth are clearly not independent variables, since human labor is a key input in food production, a point made by Joseph A. Schumpeter. More fundamentally, as Ludwig von Mises explained, the Malthusian law of population is only a biological law—it is true for all animal species, but men are not simply animals. With the use of reason, they can refrain from mindless procreative activity, and they will do so if they themselves must support the result of said activity. Malthus himself clearly saw this and amended his theory in the second and later editions of his famous Essay on the Principle of Population (Frédéric Bastiat, as is his wont, has a much better and more optimistic explanation of the population principle).
Neither do the technophiliacs understand the economics of agriculture and food production. Ester Boserup, who is a key inspiration for the following brief explanation, developed the correct understanding of this issue in the 1960s, after studying Indian farming. The ignorance of Borlaug and company and their cheerleaders today and in the past is thus hardly excusable: the exact same historical conditions that they saw as “Malthusian,” after all, inspired Boserup to lay out the correct understanding of the matter.
As population grows, the labor supply expands, and more labor is applied to agricultural plots. The land’s yield therefore increases, although the returns on additional labor input diminish—as per the law of returns. Once the return on additional labor input is insufficient to justify it, new land is instead brought into cultivation, and once the land has been cleared, the physical productivity of labor increases. Since clearing new land requires some additional effort, farmers always have to weigh the potential returns from new lands versus the returns from more intensive cultivation of already cleared lands.
We can see this clearly in monetary terms: as more labor is applied to working the land, wages fall and land rents rise. As land rents and land values rise, the potential value of unsettled lands increases, and as wages fall, the expenditure needed to clear the land falls. Once the expected return on new lands outweighs the estimated cost of bringing it into cultivation, labor will be applied to clearing new lands. Then land rents will fall and wages rise until bringing more land into agricultural use is no longer deemed profitable.
Thus, population and food production expand in unison, sometimes due to more intensive cultivation, sometimes due to an increase in the area cultivated. The same analysis holds under more capitalistic conditions (i.e., when farmers have more tools and other capital inputs available): the return on applying more capital goods to present land is compared to potential returns from applying capital goods to expanding the cultivated land area. Even the most primitive form of agriculture is, of course, capitalistic, as agriculture is a roundabout production process, in which productive effort is widely separated in time from valuable output.
Indian agriculture in the 1960s functioned well, except when it was impeded by government meddling and institutional barriers. Such meddling can be extremely destructive, as Mao Zedong had shown in China just a few years previously during the Great Leap Forward. However, there was nothing Malthusian about that episode nor, as we shall see, about the alleged famine in India in the 1960s.
The 1960s Indian Famine: Bad History
The 1960s famine in India launched the Green Revolution and the international fame of its main protagonist, Norman Borlaug. From the outset, however, the narrative was skewed by political considerations.
American agriculture was heavily subsidized in the sixties, resulting in huge surplus production. This surplus could not be sold at the market price, at least not without bankrupting American farmers. Under typical interventionist logic, the American government intervened to subsidize the export of American farm products to maintain an artificially high price in the domestic market.
India was thereby inundated by cheap American wheat in the early sixties, but as G.D. Stone writes, this did not alleviate India’s food shortages—it caused them. In a simple case of farmers adjusting to their comparative advantage, Indians shifted their production to cash crops (such as sugarcane and jute) for export and thereby financed their imports of cheap American grain.
The drought of 1965 and the following years was real enough, but its impact was not simply a failure of food crops. The jute and sugarcane crops suffered, leading to real hardship for agricultural laborers. But this hardship never amounted to widespread famine. This did not matter for the narrative, however: in 1965, the American president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was trying to get Congress to approve a new farm bill with increased subsidies for agricultural exports and foreign aid in the shape of the Food for Peace plan. Reports of Indian drought were a godsend: faced with a recalcitrant Congress, Johnson played up the specter of drought and mass starvation. His legislation duly passed, and even more American grain was shipped to India, which doubtlessly did help alleviate some hardship in the short term.
Playing up the dire situation in India naturally also fed the agenda of Borlaug and company. The special wheat varieties bred in Mexico were widely introduced across northern India, and as the drought conveniently ended, the first harvest yielded a massive crop. Borlaug took credit, quite undisturbed by the coincidence that nearly all crop yields were at record levels in India and in neighboring China. The alleged success of American technocracy also played into the wider political narrative of American progressive leadership of the “free world”: in 1968, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), William Gaud, addressed the Society for International Development in Washington, DC, claiming that foreign aid and wise agricultural policies had fostered “a new revolution. Not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.”
The Green Revolution, led by government and NGO technocrats and financed mainly by Western development agencies, was off to the races. The breeding of hybrid rice and wheat varieties by the International Rice Research Institute and CIMMYT, respectively, was the flagship of modernity in farming. But even on its own terms, this is misleading at best. What happened was that agriculture in the developed world as well as in the West shifted to a very intensive cultivation that required a lot of capital inputs. Borlaug’s wheat varieties are a case in point, as Stone points out: only when large amounts of fertilizer were applied did these varieties outyield native Indian tall wheats. Technologies, it turns out, are not exogenous forces that are simply imposed and reshape the environment. The local people had developed crops and techniques suited to their situation, and it’s unlikely that Borlaug’s wheat would have been widely used had the Indian government (and foreign aid agencies) not at the same time massively subsidized the use of fertilizer and the construction of new irrigation systems.
The Reality of the Green Revolution
A last line of defense for the proponents of the Green Revolution’s benefits is that it has resulted in efficient food production, liberated labor for nonagricultural work, and that we can now go on to use modern genetic technologies to increase the quality of food and avoid malnutrition. Thus, for example, otherwise sensible people like Bjørn Lomborg have long championed the introduction of “golden rice”—a rice variety genetically engineered to be high in vitamin A—as a solution to malnutrition in rice-growing countries.
But the technocrats and their cheerleaders forget to mention or ignore the fact that the Green Revolution has itself been a cause of malnutrition. As wheat yields increased in India according to Stone, for instance, the relative price of wheat declined, and wheat thereby outcompeted alternative food sources rich in protein and micronutrients. Malnutrition rates in India thereby rose as a direct result of the Green Revolution. A similar development occurred in developed countries, for different but analogous reasons.
When it comes to technology freeing up labor, what has really happened is that overinvestment of capital in agriculture has reduced the demand for agricultural labor, but this has not increased the demand for labor elsewhere. On the contrary, since less capital is available for investment in nonagricultural sectors, the demand for labor and wages elsewhere has not risen. Thus, the Green Revolution has been an important contributing factor in the growth of third-world slums where people subsist on low-paying jobs and government handouts.
All in all, as we should expect when dealing with technocrats driven by progressive hubris to intervene in the economy’s natural development, the Green Revolution was not a blessing, the victory of wise scientists over the propensity of stupid peasants to breed uncontrollably. Rather, it has been an ecological, nutritional, and social disaster.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 21:40 - Tesla To Unveil "Optimus" Robot At Upcoming September 30th AI Event
Tesla To Unveil “Optimus” Robot At Upcoming September 30th AI Event
Call us not quite surprised that Elon Musk has amassed his fair share of skeptics over the last few years. And these skeptics are likely going to be in full force now that Tesla is getting ready to unveil its “Optimus” robot.
With a plan to “deploy thousands of humanoid robots” called Tesla Bots within its factories, “buzz” is reportedly building inside Tesla about the prospect of the auto company branching out into robotics, according to a new Reuters report.
Elon Musk has said the longer term goal for such robots would be for use “in homes, making dinner, mowing the lawn and caring for the elderly people” – and lets not forget also as a “sex partner”, according to the report.
In fact, Musk has speculated that the company’s robotics business could eventually be worth more than the company’s current car business – a carrot on a stick for investors and just the type of forward looking statement you’d want to make if trying to prop up a company’s already aggressive valuation.
Coming on September 30, Tesla plans to unveil a prototype of the robot at its “AI Day”, the report says. Not unlike the case with autonomous driving and rockets that land themselves, humanoid robots have already been under development for “decades” by companies like Honda Motor Co and Hyundai Motor Co’s Boston Dynamics unit.
The lead of NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Team, Shaun Azimi, told Reuters: “Self-driving cars weren’t really proved to be as easy as anyone thought. And it’s the same way with humanoid robots to some extent.”
Azimi continued: “If something unexpected happens, being flexible and robust to those kinds of changes is very difficult.”
Musk has claimed the robots will perform boring and dangerous jobs, and that the company can leverage its expertise in AI to build robots at scale. “The code you will write will at term run in millions of humanoid robots across the world, and will therefore be held to high quality standards,” a recent job listing for robot designers said.
Recall, it was at an autonomy event in 2019 that Musk promised 1 million robotaxis on the road by 2020. None of those have materialized as we head toward 2023. As such, skepticism about Tesla’s robot is high going into the event.
Nancy Cooke, a professor in human systems engineering at Arizona State University, says Musk will need to show robots doing multiple unscripted actions to be taken seriously. She commented: “If he just gets the robot to walk around, or he gets the robots to dance, that’s already been done. That’s not that impressive.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 21:20 - Jim Beam Is Making Renewable Gas From Bourbon
Jim Beam Is Making Renewable Gas From Bourbon
By Haley Zaremba of OilPrice.com
The renewable energy revolution just got a whole lot more fun. The Beam Suntory company has announced that it’s going to be increasing its production of Kentucky bourbon using the power of renewable gas. In order to meet the growing demand for whiskey, Jim Beam is going to increase capacity by a whopping 50% at its Booker Noe distillery in Boston, Kentucky while also reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by the same percentage. A recent press release from Jim Beam and its Japanese parent company Suntory announced a $400 million investment in a renewable biogas system.
“This expansion will help ensure we meet future demand for our iconic bourbon in a sustainable way that supports the environment and the local community that has helped build and support Jim Beam,” CEO Albert Baladi said.
Beam Suntory is building its renewable biogas facility 36 miles south of Louisville, Kentucky. The facility, which will be built across the street from the Booker Noe distillery, will use otherwise wasted byproduct (known as ‘spent stillage’) from the whiskey-making process to be converted into fuel through the use of “digesters.” The result is a so-called ‘renewable natural gas’ that will be piped right back into the distillery in a sustainable closed-loop system. The digesters will also produce a high-quality, low-cost fertilizer which Beam Suntory says they will make available to local farmers, “thereby supporting sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices.”
Renewable natural gas is an industry term for a biogas that has been upgraded to be used in place of fossil fuels. It’s often seen as a “bridging fuel” which diverts methane and carbon emissions by making use of waste products, allowing entities like Beam Suntory to lower their carbon footprint without totally revamping their infrastructure. As such, biofuels are a lower-emissions stepping stone between our current carbon-based economy and a future energy landscape that won’t revolve around fuels that emit any greenhouse gasses whatsoever. Biomethanes and biogases such as the ‘renewable natural gas’ to be produced for Jim Beam have much lower carbon dioxide and methane emissions than standard natural gas, but their emissions are not null – in fact, they are underestimated.
While biogas and biomethane are not perfect, they are a huge step in the right direction and will create a considerable positive impact on Jim Beam’s ecological footprint – all while ramping up production of the good stuff. The biogas-fuelled expansion project is supposed to be completed by 2024. By then, Suntory Bean says that the Booker Noe distillery will be 65% renewable natural gas-powered. What’s more, the project is expected to be a considerable job creator in the region.
As natural gas prices soar around the world, the move makes good economic sense, and will hopefully set a precedent in Kentucky, where 95% of the world’s bourbon is made. Lowering production costs is a good goal in any environment, but it’s especially attractive now when demand for both natural gas and alcohol is soaring. In the first half of 2022, Beam Suntory’s global net sales grew by 13% according to company reports.
Alcohol consumption climbed to new heights during the pandemic, ushering in a “new golden age” for the booze industry, as well as some very worrying trends for the health sector and addiction specialists. And alcohol demand is expected to keep climbing. A market analysis report from Grand View Research finds that the “global alcoholic drinks market size was valued at USD 1,448.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3% from 2022 to 2028.”
For those of us who enjoy a responsible nip now and then, the whiskey-fuelled renewable revolution does seem like a golden age, indeed.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 21:00 - At Least 7 Dead In Iran As Anti-Hijab Protests Grow
At Least 7 Dead In Iran As Anti-Hijab Protests Grow
A fifth day of protests in Iran have resulted in multiple deaths amid a security crackdown, following the death last week of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iranian Kurdistan who reportedly died due to being roughed up by police for “unsuitable attire” – or not conforming to Islamic Republic standards of a hijab.
Iranian officials say seven people have died since protests erupted Saturday, following Amini’s funeral, where women began removing their headscarves in protest, sometimes burning them in public displays of defiance. Demonstrators have decried instances of what they say is ‘live fire’ tactics and deadly forced used by police to disperse the protests, which have now spread across several provinces.
New Arab/Getty Images: Mahsa Amini was reportedly bludgeoned repeatedly against a wall after she was detained for showing too much hair. At least one of the dead has been reported as a security member, coming also amid hundreds of arrests. “Crowds cheered when women burned their hijabs on a bonfire in Sari on Tuesday, the fifth successive day of unrest,” BBC has reported of scenes coming from the country Tuesday. “Activists said a woman was among three protesters shot dead by security forces in Urmia, Piranshahr and Kermanshah.”
Dozens of videos showing fierce anti-hijab protests, as well as chants against the country’s ‘morality police’ have been circulating widely on the internet.
According to a description of some of the viral protest videos reviewed by The New York Times:
Protesters have been calling for an end to the Islamic Republic, chanting things like “Mullahs get lost,” “We don’t want an Islamic republic,” and “Death to the supreme leader.” Women have also burned hijabs in protest against the law, which requires all women above the age of puberty to wear a head covering and loose clothing.
The scenes in Iran are astonishing. How far will these protests go?
pic.twitter.com/AJeHB0yyYB— Frida Ghitis (@FridaGhitis) September 20, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Tehran has responded Tuesday by throttling internet speeds and also outright blocking social media sites, including Instagram.
“For security reasons, the relevant authorities may impose certain restrictions on internet speed,” Iran’s Information Ministry announced in a fresh statement.
⚠️ #Iran is now subject to the most severe internet restrictions since the November 2019 massacre.
▶️ Mobile networks largely shut down (MCI, Rightel, Irancell – partial)
▶️ Regional disruptions observed during protests
▶️ Instagram, WhatsApp restrictedhttps://t.co/8cCHIJA2Oi— NetBlocks (@netblocks) September 21, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Meanwhile, the circumstances surrounding Amini’s death have been contested, with authorities painting a narrative of a girl brought into custody who then suffered a heart attack:
There were reports that police beat Ms Amini’s head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif said.
The police have denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered “sudden heart failure”. But her family has said she was fit and healthy.
Authorities days ago even released a video which purports to show a young woman collapsing – though it remains impossible to verify the identity of the person in the clip or context…
For good measure I’m also tweeting the video that Iranian state TV has published. They say the woman had a heart attack and was not beaten. There’s no doubt western agencies and media want to portray Iran in the worst light possible. Keep that in mind. pic.twitter.com/jlvfaZZen3
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) September 19, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In his UN General Assembly address Wednesday, at a moment his government is facing international criticism including by Biden himself at the assembly meeting, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi decried the West’s ‘double standard’, saying “human rights belong to all but unfortunately this is trampled upon by many governments,” and cited the example of “the native tribes of Canada, whose bodies of hundreds of their children were discovered in mass graves in a school.”
The Iranian leader claimed further before the assembly, “We are defenders of a fight against injustice in all of its forms, against humanity, against spirituality, against the almighty, against the people of the world, no matter where it may occur.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 20:40 - I Told You So: Aramco CEO Slams Unrealistic Energy Policies
I Told You So: Aramco CEO Slams Unrealistic Energy Policies
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
Years of underinvestment in oil and gas production is the leading cause of today’s energy crisis, and when the global economy rebounds from the current slowdown, the little spare oil production capacity that’s left will be wiped out, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.
“Many of us have been insisting for years that if investments in oil and gas continued to fall, global supply growth would lag behind demand, impacting markets, the global economy, and people’s lives,” the CEO of the world’s largest oil company and top oil exporter said at the Schlumberger Digital Forum 2022 in Switzerland today.
Investment in oil and gas more than halved between 2014 and 2021, Nasser said, adding that “The increases this year are too little, too late, too short-term.”
Back in 2014, annual investment in oil and gas was $700 billion, which dropped to just over $300 billion last year, Aramco’s top executive said.
“These are the real causes of this state of energy insecurity: under-investment in oil and gas; alternatives not ready; and no back-up plan. But you would not know that from the response so far,” he added, reiterating a long-held view of Saudi Arabia that underinvestment in previous years will come back to bite energy supply.
“Even with strong economic headwinds, global oil demand is still fairly healthy today,” Nasser said.
“But when the global economy recovers, we can expect demand to rebound further, eliminating the little spare oil production capacity out there. And by the time the world wakes up to these blind spots, it may be too late to change course,” he added.
“That is why I am seriously concerned.”
Saudi Aramco called once again for more investment in oil and gas, especially capacity development.
“And at least this crisis has finally convinced people that we need a more credible energy transition plan,” Aramco’s CEO added.
Saudi Arabia has plans to boost its production capacity to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027, from around 12 million bpd now, but not much further above that. The Kingdom is one of just two major oil producers believed to hold some additional spare capacity now. The other producer is fellow OPEC member the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 20:20 - The Fed Is Wrong Again: Core Inflation Rapidly Rolling Over And Will Drop To 3% By Q1
The Fed Is Wrong Again: Core Inflation Rapidly Rolling Over And Will Drop To 3% By Q1
The Fed was dead wrong for the past decade in perpetuating QE long after the economic crisis had passed, but especially in 2020 and 2021 when it saw nothing but transitory inflation, and refused to step in an contain soaring prices which we are seeing today everywhere in action. And the Fed is also dead wrong now in its crusade to crush inflation – as it confirmed today when it hiked 75bps and telegraphed another 145bps of rate hikes – even if it means a grave recession.
Why is the Fed wrong again? Because besides sliding commodity prices (which will very likely soar in the very near future, especially once winter arrives in Europe and once Biden’s drain of the SPR is over), the bulk of core CPI components – and certainly some of the biggest drivers such as shelter, cars and airfares are rolling over fast.
That’s according to a new report by JPM’s Phoebe White (full note available to pro subs here), who writes that she forecasts a material softening in inflation across all of the components that have been the largest contributors of core inflation over the past year—not only vehicle prices, but rents, medical care services, and airfares as well—and last week’s hot CPI report does not change this view.
At a high level, we have seen a continued rotation in the composition of core inflation over recent months, with core services inflation accelerating from 3.7% Y/Y as of December 2021 to 6.1% as of August 2022, while core goods inflation has decelerated from 10.7% to 7.1%. Notably, even while core goods inflation continues to run hotter than core services inflation, services receive nearly triple the weight in the calculation of the core index, with the rent components alone comprising more than 40% of the basket (Exhibit 1). Thus, it is clear to see why rent inflation, which has accelerated above 6% Y/Y in recent months, is the largest contributor to core CPI inflation as of the August report: Exhibit 2 shows that the two rent measures, owners’ equivalent rent and rent of primary residence, account for 1.9%-pts and 0.7%-pts, respectively.
Let’s drill down into the data, starting start with rent inflation – which is the largest contributor to Core Inflation – and which the JPM analyst expects to peak in the next few months and roll over. Why? Take the Zillow Observed Rent Index which like the Apartment list price index (which we have discussed countless times especially when it was soaring higher), tends to lead the CPI rent measures, and this index has been softening recently.
And while JPM expects shelter inflation to break above 7% Y/Y by early next year – due to its several month delay from real-world prices – the bank also expects the pace of monthly gains to peak within the next few months. The rate of increases in the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which measures asking rents on new leases, peaked above 17% in February, but has softened to 12%
oya as of August—a notable softening, albeit still elevated versus the ~4% average pace observed prior to the pandemic. Unlike the Zillow data, the rent components in CPI track average rents across both new and existing leases. Thus fluctuations in the Zillow index slowly pass-through to official measures as the stock of leases begins to resemble the recent flow of new leases, with each percentage-point increase in the Zillow rent index preceding a 0.6%-pt cumulative increase in shelter CPI .
To be sure, one complicating dynamic that we have been highlighting is the fact that tighter monetary policy could temporarily exacerbate rental inflationary pressure, as high mortgage rates discourage home-buying. Indeed, now that no new home buyer reliant on a mortgage can possibly afford a house, they will likely have no choice but to find a rental. On the other hand, there is a limit to how high rents can go simply as a function of disposable income: outside of the top income cohort, JPM finds that rent affordability is already stretched, implying it will be difficult for rent inflation to sustain rates much above the pace of wage growth. And once neither housing nor rent is affordable, well then it becomes a political issue and Democrats will scream bloody murder – as Liz Warren already did today – and will demand Powell to start cutting rates.
Away from rents, new and used vehicles have had the next largest contributions to core CPI. And with demand softening, supply constraints easing, and raw material costs falling, JPM thinks declines in used vehicle prices are on the near-term horizon. Declines in new vehicle prices are likely to follow in 2023. In fact, the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, which measures the prices dealerships pay for used cars at auctions, has declined since its peak in January, with the index falling 4% in August alone, and another 2.3% over the first half of September.
When will this slowdown appear in official data: as chart 5 illustrates, the pass-through from the Mannheim index to the BLS data exhibits a 1-3 month lag, making it somewhat difficult to forecast the precise timing of inflections in the used vehicle CPI. Looking ahead, JPM expects the trend of falling used vehicle prices to continue over coming months: Chart 6 shows that the J.P Morgan Automotive Commodities Index is now down 35%, reflecting the cost-weighted average price of the commodities used to manufacture a vehicle. Used vehicle prices tend to be more sensitive to raw commodity costs compared with new vehicles, given that scrap value reflects a greater share of the overall price of a used vehicle.
The component with the next largest contributions to core CPI inflation is airline fares which is one of the more highly volatile categories of inflation. The still-high rate of airfare inflation on a year-ago basis reflects the surge observed through the spring alongside rising jet fuel prices, but this component has fallen by more than 14% since its peak in May, with prices likely to be somewhat more stable going forward.
Finally, the recent surge in health insurance inflation likely reflects, at least in part, the drop in insurance claims over a year ago, given the “retained earnings” methodology that BLS uses to calculate this component. Some utilization metrics are now tracking in line with pre-pandemic levels
Overall, when taking a deeper look at the largest contributors to core CPI inflation over the past year, JPMorgan sees clear evidence that core inflation is peaking and is likely to moderate fairly quickly on a sequential basis over the near term, falling from 6.5% in the three months through August, to about a 3.5% SAAR pace in 1Q 23 and just 3.1% in 2Q23, or essentially in line with the Fed’ target.
To be sure, the longer it takes for these dynamics to play out, the greater the risks that high inflation could become more ingrained. However, what is even more relevant is that the latest hawkish rate hike by the Fed – which guarantees that the Fed overshoots, driving a more material weakening in demand and triggering a recession — will certainly lead to even softer inflation. In other words, if the Fed halts its tightening campaign here, not only will core prices drop to where the Fed wants them, but a recession may even be averted. However, if Powell continues blindingly to hike, a crushing recession is virtually guaranteed. And since the Fed is always wrong about everything, the worst case scenario is now in play.
Much more in the full report available to pro subs in the usual place.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 20:00 - Three Martha Vineyard Migrants File Lawsuit Against DeSantis
Three Martha Vineyard Migrants File Lawsuit Against DeSantis
The undocumented migrants who were transferred to Martha’s Vineyard have quickly adopted one common American practice: litigation. A firm, Lawyers for Civil Rights, in conjunction with the migrant-led nonprofit Alianza Americas, filed the action on behalf of Yanet Doe, Pablo Doe and Jesus Doe who are using pseudonyms for the action “on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated.” The filing is a Jackson Pollock of legal claims with twelve claims thrown against Florida from false imprisonment to intentional infliction of emotional distress to misuse of the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund. The splattering of a claims face considerable legal barriers based on the consent of the migrants, as shown in a waiver released by Florida.
The filing of a lawsuit upon entry to the United States is not unprecedented, of course.
Indeed, I teach in torts where an immigrant to the United States filed a tort action for an involuntary inoculation upon entry in O’Brien v. Cunard. Yet, this is a case involving undocumented migrants who allegedly signed a waiver and agreed to the trip.
The filing does not include the widespread claims of kidnapping and human trafficking made by Democratic politicians and some legal experts. Cables programs are still claiming that criminal kidnapping charges should be brought after the flight.
The lawyers are alleging that the migrants were mislead or defrauded in going to Martha’s Vineyard. The flight is portrayed as “designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting this vulnerability for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests.”
Gov. DeSantis responded by calling the lawsuit “political theater,” which is ironic given that the flight was clearly designed as precisely that type of political theater.
However, most of these claims are highly dubious and will require substantially more factual support to survive a threshold challenge. The first challenge will be to show that the waiver was secured by trick or fraud. The consent form – available in English and Spanish – states:
“I agree to hold the benefactor or its designed representatives harmless of all liability arising out of or in any way relating to any injuries and damages that may occur during the agreed transport to locations outside of Texas until the final destination in Massachusetts.”
The lawyers are citing a brochure to support the claim of fraud. The brochure reads “Massachusetts Refugee Benefits” with instructions for how to change an address with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), including USCIS Form AR-11, “Alien’s Change of Address Card.” The complaint states:
On information and belief, the brochure was manufactured by Defendants. The brochure echoed the type of false representation that had been given orally, including statements such as: “During the first 90 days after a refugee’s arrival in Massachusetts, agencies provide basic needs support including…assistance with housing…furnishings, food, and other basic necessities…clothing, and transportation to job interviews and job training…assistance in applying for Social Security cards…registering children for school….”
The brochure had a separate section entitled “Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA),” which stated: “Provides up to 8 months of cash assistance for income-eligible refugees without dependent children, who reside in Massachusetts.” It had other sections that described “targeted services for . . . employment.”
The state says that the brochure takes material from the state website for refugees and migrants.
The state is also likely to replay media accounts of migrants expressing satisfaction with going to the island, including an NBC report as well as a Telemundo report of migrants thanking Desantis.
The most serious allegation is that Florida officials “told them they were flying to Boston or Washington, D.C., which was completely false.” The question is the proof of that representation since the waiver refers only to the destination being “the State of Massachusetts.”
Most of the claims are barely defined, let alone supported. For example, on false imprisonment, the complaint merely restates defrauding claims:
The Plaintiffs’ participation in the federal immigration processes—to which they are constitutionally entitled—was impeded, as they were transported thousands of miles away from where they needed to continue immigration proceedings. Plaintiffs were not informed that they would be flown to an island off the coast of Massachusetts that can only be reached by plane or ferry. The first time that many of the putative class learned that their destination was Martha’s Vineyard was when they were in mid-air. When they arrived, they were not provided with any of the goods and services which they were promised by Defendants. They felt defrauded and tricked and were traumatized by the experience.
The only confinement alleged is the flight itself, which necessarily does not allow people to leave mid flight. Thousands of migrants have been transferred by flights to locations around the country, including trips arranged by the Biden Administration and a Democratic mayor.
The complaint is stronger on rhetoric than supporting facts or law. It will face a motion to dismiss and that the litigants may be able to offer more evidence of a fraud or misrepresentations to negate their signed waivers. However, this is unlikely to result in a serious threat to these ongoing flights by various states. This is a civil action that, even if it can survive threshold challenges, will be in the court system for a long time in seeking to establish these claims. Many of these claims are likely to be dismissed or abandoned in the course of that litigation.
Here is the complaint: Alianza-Americas v. DeSantis
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 19:40 - Man Accused Of Murdering 18-Year-Old Conservative Released On Bail
Man Accused Of Murdering 18-Year-Old Conservative Released On Bail
A 41-year-old man accused of murdering 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson for being a supposed “Republican extremist” was released on $50,000 bail Tuesday from the Stutsman County jail in North Dakota.
According to the NY Post, Sannon Brandt spent just days in lockup after he was arrested in connection with the death of Ellingson – who Brandt initially told first responders that “he struck the pedestrian because the pedestrian was threatening him,” according to a probable-cause affidavit provided to Fox News Digital Wednesday morning.
Ellingson was walking on the street shortly before 3am following a weekend street dance in Foster County when he was struck with a pickup truck, according to the North Dakota Highway Patrol. He was rushed to Carrington Hospital where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
“Brandt stated that the pedestrian called some people and Brandt was afraid they were coming to get him,” the document continues. “Brandt admitted to State Radio that he hit the pedestrian and that the pedestrian was part of a Republican extremist group.”
North Dakota Highway Patrol reported on Sunday that there was a “street dance” on Jones Street near Hohneck Street in McHenry when Brandt struck Ellingson and then fled the scene.
Ellingson was rushed to a local hospital with serious injuries, but could not be saved.
Brandt’s and Ellingson’s families both showed up at the scene shortly after police arrived, court records show.
Ellingson’s parents later told police they knew Brandt, but they did not believe their son did. Ellingston’s mother described how she was on her way to pick up her son from McHenry when he called her and said “that ‘he’ or ‘they’ were chasing him.” She could no longer reach him after that. -NY Post
Brandt was arrested early Saturday morning in his Glenfield home after police stopped him outside. He “admitted to consuming alcohol prior to the incident,” according to the records.
“Brandt admitted to striking the pedestrian with his car because he had a political argument with the pedestrian and believed the pedestrian was calling people to come get him,” the court document continues. “Brandt admitted to leaving the scene of the incident and returning shortly after where he called 911.”
Brandt allegedly admitted to fatally hitting a teenage pedestrian with his car.
Foster County State’s Attorney
Brandt had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08, and was charged with criminal vehicular homicide. While he was charged with driving under the influence according to jail records, a criminal complaint did not include the charge, the Post reports.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 19:20 - Oil And Gas Jobs Are Bouncing Back In The Lone Star State
Oil And Gas Jobs Are Bouncing Back In The Lone Star State
By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com
Two years ago, oil and gas companies in Texas were laying off employees amid the most severe downturn in the industry’s history.
This year, job growth in America’s oil and gas heartland has been so strong that labor shortages have prevented the industry from expanding.
According to the latest data, Texas added 2,600 new oil and gas jobs in August in the upstream sector. That was a decline from July when the upstream industry added 3,100 new jobs, but still a robust number and the latest proof that oil and gas companies are over the pandemic.
“Upstream employment is growing steadily alongside the world’s demand for affordable, reliable energy. The Texas oil and natural gas industry continues to play its leadership role in enhancing national and energy security in our nation and for our trade allies around the world,” said the president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, commenting on the numbers released by the Texas Workforce Commission.
The data shows that since September 2020, the trough of the latest downturn, the upstream industry in Texas has added jobs at an average monthly rate of 1,943, for a total of 44,700 jobs added over the past two years. As of August, the total number of people employed by Texas upstream businesses stood at 201,700.
Upstream oil and gas employment is growing strongly in New Mexico as well: Texas and New Mexico share the Permian basin, seen as the top performer in the U.S. shale patch. The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions expects employment in that sector to expand by 10.8 percent by 2028.
Even with these strong employment growth rates, U.S. oil and gas is being plagued by a labor shortage that is interfering with growth plans, as frugal as these plans are. A lot of the limited production growth in the shale patch has been blamed on shareholders insisting they see some cash returns after years of backing drillers, but the lack of workers has also had a part to play.
Back in April this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Permian was “running out of the workers, cash and equipment needed to produce more oil.” Author Collin Eaton noted that many workers who were let go during the pandemic simply did not return to their old jobs when those became available. Some, he noted, left mid-project to look for higher wages elsewhere.
Since then, the number of oil and gas jobs has continued to grow, but not fast enough, it appears, compounded by shortages of materials and equipment, too. Shareholders in public companies are still the biggest culprit, according to analysts and to the companies themselves.
“Investors generally don’t want shale companies to pursue a growth model,” Ben Dell, chief executive of private equity firm Kimmeridge Energy, told the FT this month.
“The capital availability is extremely limited.”
According to data from Baker Hughes and Primary Vision, drilling activity in the U.S. shale patch is slowing down from its strong post-pandemic growth. Even in the Permian, cited as the biggest growth engine of the shale patch, the number of active rigs in the basin fell two weeks in a row leading up to the most recent data release.
A recent Wall Street Journal attributed this slowdown to private drillers running out of low-cost drilling locations. If this is indeed the case, it does not bode well for the near future of the industry. And it does appear to be the case, based on the Enverus data the WSJ cited: private drillers in the Permian have an inventory averaging some six years of low-cost locations.
What all this implies for employment in the U.S. oil industry is that growth there may well slow down at some point in the near future as analysts expect the limited inventory of private drillers to prompt another consolidation wave. For now, the going is good, but it won’t last forever.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 19:00 - Most Adults Should Be Screened For Anxiety, Depression According To US-Funded Panel
Most Adults Should Be Screened For Anxiety, Depression According To US-Funded Panel
A panel of experts operating under the Department of Health and Human Services has recommended that all adults under the age of 65 should be screened for anxiety disorders, and all adults regardless of age should be checked for depression amid an uptick in American reporting mental-health issues following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The guidance, released Tuesday, marks the first such recommendation regarding adult anxiety disorders from the US Preventative Services Task Force, which issued similar draft guidance several months ago for children and adolescents, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“This is a really important step forward,” said American Psychological Association CEO Arthur C. Evans. “Screening for mental-health conditions is critical to our ability to help people at the earliest possible moment.”
The task force said that there wasn’t enough evidence on whether or not screening all adults without signs or symptoms ultimately helps prevent suicide. The group didn’t recommend for or against screening for suicide risk, but called for more research in the area.
The task force, a panel of 16 independent volunteer experts, issues guidance on preventive-care measures. Health insurers are often required to cover services recommended by the task force under a provision in the Affordable Care Act. -WSJ
According to estimates from the federal Household Pulse Survey, over 30% of adults reported having symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder this summer, while the CDC reports that the percentage of US adults who received mental-health treatment over the past year increased from 19% in 2019 to 22% in 2021.
Mental health issues are often caught during doctor’s office screenings, where patients fill out questionnaires that can identify at-risk individuals who may not be showing obvious signs of a problem. The surveys ask about feelings of depression or hopelessness, trouble sleeping, eating, or thoughts of harming themselves, on a scale of ‘not at all’ to ‘nearly every day.’
“It helps me get a better idea about whether their insomnia is really pure insomnia or if it is part of depressive symptoms,” Dr. Riza Conroy, a primary-care physician at Ohio State University, told the Journal.
That said, widespread screening can also yield false-positives, leading to potential overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatment that may instead cause side effects, along with ‘unease and stigma,’ according to the task force and other mental-health experts.
“You could be flagging a lot of older adults for having an anxiety disorder when they don’t,” said Dr. Lori Pbert, task-force member and professor in the department of population and quantitative health sciences at UMass Chan Medical School.
“You end up with a score that you feel you have to act on,” said Stephanie Collier, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital and a consulting psychiatrist for the Population Health Management Team at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Massachusetts, who wasn’t involved with the new guidance.
To inform the new recommendations, task-force members reviewed evidence from some 173 studies that looked at screening-test accuracy and the effectiveness of available interventions for depression, anxiety disorders and suicide risk. A few studies looked at the direct impacts of the screening itself on health outcomes.
The task force concluded that screening all adults for depression, including those who are pregnant or postpartum as well as older adults, has a moderate net benefit, echoing its previous 2016 recommendations. The task force also recommended screening adults under 65, including pregnant and postpartum people, for anxiety but said that there wasn’t enough evidence to make the same recommendation for older adults. -WSJ
According to the report, the Task Force received some pushback in April over its lack of recommendation for suicide screening among adolescents.
“It could present a threat to forward progress in preventing suicide at a time when it’s clearly showing up as a national health crisis,” said Christine Yu Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
According to task force member Gbenga Ogedegbe, healthcare providers should use their professional judgement for each patient to determine whether to screen for suicide risks.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 18:40 - Polls: Americans Oppose Increasing Ukraine Aid, Defending Global Democracy
Polls: Americans Oppose Increasing Ukraine Aid, Defending Global Democracy
Authored by Kyle Anzalone & Connor Freeman via The Libertarian Institute,
Two new polls from Morning Consult and Concerned Veterans for America show at least a plurality of Americans are tired of interventionism. The results show twice as many Americans want to send less aid to Ukraine than those who would support sending more. Meanwhile, only 17% of Americans are concerned about defending democracy around the globe.
The Joe Biden White House built its foreign policy around the idea it would move away from fighting wars against terrorists in the Middle East, and refocus the Department of Defense on “Great Power Competition.” The administration marketed the policy as “autocracy versus democracy” with the White House leading the Western countries against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and other ostensibly bad countries.
Morning Consulting Polling The White House has faced some criticism for claiming to promote democracy and selling weapons to brutal tyrants in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and apartheid Israel. Though Morning Consult’s polling released last week shows the White House’s idea of promoting democracy is not resonating with the American people.
The poll asked Americans about their views on the country’s most pressing foreign policy challenges. Only 17% of respondents told the pollsters that “upholding global democracy” was a top five concern, ranking 11th behind drugs, climate, immigration, terrorism and the economic crisis.
The poll was backed by another by Concerned Veterans for America that found US citizens do not want increased involvement in Ukraine:
“Only 15% of the American public support sending more military and financial aid to Ukraine than wealthy European countries, with almost twice as many people (34%) wanting to send less assistance,” CVA wrote.
Chart via Morning Consult…
Additionally, a majority of Americans only want the assistance to continue if Europeans match the American commitment.
Image: American Friends Service Committee The poll shows Americans are firmly opposed to military intervention in Ukraine. Over 55% of respondents oppose direct American military intervention while only 14% percent support fighting a war for Kiev. The results for Ukraine were similar to Americans wanting a scaled-back role in the world, with 42% of respondents saying they want a smaller role and only 7% supported more intervention.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 18:20 - "Have U Been F**ked": Washington Monument Vandalized
“Have U Been F**ked”: Washington Monument Vandalized
The Washington Monument was defaced Tuesday night when a vandal wrote “Have u been fucked by this” in red paint, along with an arrow pointing up towards the phallic obelisk.
“Gov says tough shit” reads smaller text below.
An individual was arrested following the incident, according to Fox5 DC‘s Katie Barlow. According to Fox, the suspect is being charged with trespassing, tampering and vandalism.
VIDEO: One individual appears to be detained. @fox5dc pic.twitter.com/H6fQxaThH3
— Katie Barlow (@katieleebarlow) September 21, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
According to the US Park Service, the monument has been temporarily closed for an investigation and cleanup of the famous landmark built between 1848 and 1888.
Alert: Area around base of the Washington Monument temporarily closed. USPP have adult male in custody for vandalism. NPS conservators will work on restoration process.
— USPPNEWS (@usparkpolicepio) September 21, 2022
A spokesman for the National Parks Service told Fox that the graffiti echoes a similar incident on the nearby Lincoln Memorial, and may require a similar cleanup process.
“It’s very similar to the vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial in 2008 when a woman threw green paint at the base of the statue,” according to Mike Litterst. “Same material, paint on marble is very difficult to remove. Like we expect here – that one took multiple treatments over a couple of weeks. But ultimately it was entirely successful.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 18:00 - Colorado Becomes First State To Accept Bitcoin As Payment For Taxes
Colorado Becomes First State To Accept Bitcoin As Payment For Taxes
Authored by ‘NAMCIOS’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,
Colorado residents can now pay state taxes with bitcoin and cryptocurrency… but only with a PayPal account…
Colorado has become the first U.S. state to accept bitcoin for tax payments.
Gov. Jared Polis announced the implementation of the new payment method on Monday, at Denver Startup Week, according to a report by Axios Denver.
Citizens can use cryptocurrency to pay individual income tax, business income tax, sales and use tax, withholding tax, severance tax and excise fuel tax are eligible, per the report.
The state government’s Department of Revenue now lists “cryptocurrency” as a payment method among the more well-established debit and credit cards, ACH debit and credit, and cash.
However, users interested in parting with their bitcoin holdings to pay Colorado state taxes need to use a PayPal account.
“Only PayPal Personal accounts can pay using cryptocurrency,” Colorado’s Department of Revenue details, adding that the user needs to have the entire value of their invoice in a single cryptocurrency in their PayPal Cryptocurrencies Hub.
Citizens paying their taxes with cryptocurrency will be charged an additional $1 plus 1.83% of the payment amount in fees.
U.S. states have raced for the trophy of the most cryptocurrency-friendly jurisdiction as they seek to attract workers and businesses of the new remote-first economy.
However, it is hard to make the case for paying taxes with bitcoin, especially in Colorado’s fixed arrangement with PayPal. While the user would likely forgo future capital appreciation from the bitcoin price by doing so, that buying power wouldn’t be transferred to Colorado as the state doesn’t seek to hold BTC or cryptocurrency on its balance sheet.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/21/2022 – 17:40
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
