- Communist China Has Thrown Out The Old Rules of War
Communist China Has Thrown Out The Old Rules of War
Authored by Robert Spalding via RealClear Books & Culture,
When I first read the Chinese war manual “Unrestricted Warfare” in 1999, I thought it was wacky. I was flying B-2 Stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri and reading a lot about war. As an Air Force officer, I thought it was part of my day job to understand the bigger picture – even though the prevailing attitude in the military was “Just fly the planes.” “Unrestricted Warfare” was one of those books that caused a stir among some military folks because it had recently been translated into English. It had that insider whiff of mystery and secrets, a peek into the mind of the Chinese Communist Party.
(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Pool) Despite that mystique, not a lot of people were finishing the book. For one thing, regardless of its title, no one thought we were ever going to be fighting a war with China, so it seemed like a lot of work for very little payoff. For another, the book itself is not a light read. It is a dense compendium of strategy, economics, social theory, and futuristic thoughts about technology. It imparts centuries of military history, particularly as it relates to the United States, but I already knew a lot of that. It seemed vague and also a little sci-fi, not relevant to a U.S. bomber pilot – even one with a fascination for military history. My mistake.
If you look closely at everything China has done since 1999 – at all aspects of its economic, military, diplomatic, and technological relations with the rest of the world – it’s like watching “Unrestricted Warfare” come to life. One can find other glimpses into the secretive mentality of the CCP leaders, but this one is the single most important book for understanding the China of today. “Unrestricted Warfare” is the main blueprint for China’s efforts to unseat America as the world’s economic, political, and ideological leader. It shows exactly how a totalitarian nation set out to dominate the West through a comprehensive, long-term strategy that includes everything from corporate sabotage to cyberwarfare to dishonest diplomacy; from violations of international trade law and intellectual property law to calculated abuses of the global financial system. As one of the authors stated, “The only rule in ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ is that there are no rules.”
The book is the key to decoding China’s master plan for world domination, which has been progressing more steadily and successfully than most Americans realize – even accelerating in the reign of Xi Jinping. The manipulation of COVID policies, stonewalling the world about its origins, and mounting a massive disinformation campaign to blame the United States are merely recent examples.
So why is “Unrestricted Warfare” so obscure, even to people who study China professionally on behalf of the U.S. government, the Fortune 500, the investment world, the nonprofit world, academia, or the military? It’s not as if the book is some secret document that has never escaped the inner sanctum of the Chinese Communist Party. Just the opposite: The original translation by the U.S. government is in the public domain; you can google it and click on an English translation, for free, in less than a second.
The problem is that “Unrestricted Warfare” is hard to read. While any American can access it, few can understand it. The prose is dense and confusing, even in the original Mandarin, and even more so in that crude, free translation you’ll find on the web. Its insights are clouded by endless repetitions and meandering discursions into military history, cultural theory, and attacks on U.S. policy. The colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, get tangled in semantics and draw on faulty citations and unsourced references. They obsess about the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 to an extent that puzzles Americans who consider that war to be a minor footnote to history. And the authors’ metaphors are so weird to our ears as to seem utterly baffling. Just consider two chapter titles: “The War God’s Face Has Become Indistinct” and “What Do Americans Gain by Touching the Elephant?” Huh?
I mentioned “Unrestricted Warfare” several times in my previous book, “Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept.” I noted that the book was well known to modern-day China scholars but that perhaps because of its strange complexity, Western strategists had failed to connect its strategic vision with the seemingly random actions of China’s misleadingly benign and smiling countenance. Although some of the text is pretty clear: “Using all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interest.”
As I wrote at the time, that strategy can justify meddling in all manner of another country’s affairs: silencing ideas or promoting political discord, stealing technology, dumping products to disrupt markets. I was intrigued with the idea of creating an “army” of academics who could be used to gather medical, technological, and engineering information. The list of incursions goes on – and has grown since then.
Consider just a small number of the things the Chinese Communists have done:
- Seized on COVID as a weapon to be used to their benefit, not a humanitarian crisis to be solved.
- Viewed the climate change issue as a bargaining chip to win them economic concessions from global elites in return for reforms that they never intend to make.
- Sponsored corporate espionage on a scale beyond what the United States acknowledges.
- Launched unrelenting cyberattacks against Western companies and governments.
- Fueled America’s deadly fentanyl drug crisis by allowing illegal smuggling of banned substances.
- Used slave labor to produce goods such as clothing for sale to Western shoppers.
Despite all of these actions by the CCP, since publication of “Stealth War,” I’ve encountered skepticism from some readers who simply can’t believe that China has been methodically undermining the rest of the world with a patient, long-term, multidisciplinary strategy. Some even dismissed “Stealth War” as the work of an alarmist.
In the wake of that reaction, I realized how useful it would be to make the Chinese manual of war accessible to American readers so that they can see it for themselves. I set out to write a user-friendly guide that would explain “Unrestricted Warfare” chapter by chapter, adding examples while editing out the irrelevant and distracting parts of the original text. In the process I’ve drawn on history, military strategy, and Chinese culture to explain the context in which “Unrestricted Warfare” was written and then applied. My goal is to show how “Unrestricted Warfare’s” advice to the leadership of the CCP maps with terrifying consistency onto the events of the past two decades.
This book has opened my eyes to how the CCP has essentially sneak attacked us in slow motion. And made me think hard about where they are going next. I hope it can have the same effect on others. I want to share with the men and women in our government, my respected former colleagues, who have to make some important – maybe life and death – decisions about how we deal with the Chinese government in the very near future.
I know it can seem excessive to compare any country with Nazi Germany. But as we rethink our views on China, what other comparison is appropriate for a regime that casually and cold-bloodedly allowed COVID-19 to spread to the rest of the world at the same time it was forcing its Muslim citizens into concentration camps? Hong Kong parallels the takeover of Austria in 1938. And how do you account for the increasingly warlike rhetoric and military movements directed at Taiwan?
Imagine the reaction during World War II if an American company had tried to export its goods to imperial Japan, or if a Wall Street firm had tried to underwrite the bonds of a Nazi arms manufacturer. Unthinkable, right? And yet today countless Americans are still trying to do business with and in China, misunderstanding or ignoring the CCP’s war without rules.
I am deeply concerned that the Biden administration, despite some positive moves, is seriously underestimating the malevolence and power of the Chinese threat. Our adversaries wrote up their long-term plans in 1999 and have been executing them relentlessly ever since. Our leaders have a moral obligation to understand what’s happening, sound the alarm, wake up the country, and inspire Americans of all political stripes to do everything in their power to stop this totalitarian regime.
I also want the average American to have access to this book. It’s time for every influential person in America – policy makers, diplomats, business executives, investors, journalists, scientists, academics, and more – to become part of the resistance to the Chinese Communist Party.
My hope is that by explaining “Unrestricted Warfare” and its consequences, this book will make it impossible for my fellow Americans to continue to deny the reality of our existential conflict with China. The simple, chilling truth is that the CCP is doing everything in its power – mostly via economics, technology, diplomacy, and the media, not yet via military power – to destroy our way of life. To understand that plan, you need to understand “Unrestricted Warfare.” The stakes couldn’t be higher.
* * *
Robert Spalding retired from the U.S. Air Force as a brigadier general after more than 25 years of service. He is the CEO of SEMPRE and the author of “War Without Rules: China’s Playbook for Global Domination” (Sentinel, 2022).
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 23:40 - Seized on COVID as a weapon to be used to their benefit, not a humanitarian crisis to be solved.
- Exceptionalism Sagging? American Penises Are Only 59th Biggest In World
Exceptionalism Sagging? American Penises Are Only 59th Biggest In World
American exceptionalism has led US citizens to believe they’re inherently different than the rest of the world. They presume they’re the best in everything, but this has proven not to be the case over time. The latest example is penis size. This might be traumatizing for some American males, but the US ranks near the bottom of the list in average penis size.
According to The Sun, citing a new study, Americans have an average erect penis size of 5.35 inches and is shorter than their Ecuadorian, Haitians, French, Germany, Australian, Spanish, and even Indian counterparts. Not too far off from Japanese males at 5.34 inches.
Online pharmacy From Mars developed a new poll from 86 nations and found the US ranked 59th. The largest were Ecuadorians, coming in at a staggering 6.93-inch average erect length. The smallest was Cambodians at just 3.95 inches.
Pharmacist and spokesman Navin Khosla said, “most have wondered at some time or other if their penis is big enough.”
“Penis size can have a massive impact on confidence and self-image,” Khosla said.
With that in mind, Americans learning their penis size might not be the largest globally could be demoralizing. Being ranked so low on the list, only 1/5 of an inch larger than China’s average, is shocking.
And it appears the term “big swinging dick,” popularized by the book Liar’s Poker, which describes Michael Lewis’ experience as a bond trader on Wall Street in the 1980s, isn’t the case for American males, but rather Ecuadorians. Who would’ve ever thought?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 23:20 - New York Democrats Aim To Tax Ammo To Fund Anti-Gun Research
New York Democrats Aim To Tax Ammo To Fund Anti-Gun Research
Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,
Did you know that on a Federal, State, and Local level, Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation to fund gun-control research?
Imagine walking into your local gun shop, buying a gun, ammo to practice with, and unknowingly funding research used by groups actively working to disarm law-abiding citizens nationwide. This is the reality of new proposed ammo and firearms taxation throughout the United States.
Steph With TMGN breaks down the insidious nature of Firearms Taxation.
Our newest example is New York Senate Bill S8415, which would add an arbitrary 5-cent tax per round of ammunition larger than .22 Caliber. Rounds smaller than .22 Caliber would be subject to a 2-cent tax per round. According to the bill, the tax revenue would go to the state’s Gun Violence Research Fund.
What is the Gun Violence Research Fund, you may ask? According to Carl E. Heastie, speaker of the New York State Assembly, the Gun Violence Research Fund is meant to “Fund critical research into the root causes of gun violence, and help us address and solve those problems in our state and in our communities.”
While this messaging doesn’t explicitly state that the government will use the research to pass anti-gun bills, it’s worth noting that anti-gun groups did support the creation of this fund.
Anti-Gun groups are some of the most prominent supporters of “research” into gun violence and funding that research through less than honest means, such as proclaiming gun violence as a “public health crisis.” Of course, if the government were to designate it that way, government health agencies like NIH and the CDC could start funding this “research.”
Many in the corporate media have speculated that this may be their “golden ticket” to passing gun control through the legislative process instead of using their favorite method, executive fiat.
Regardless of lawmakers’ opinions, these taxes do nothing to reduce gun violence. RAND Corporation has confirmed this in a study on ammo & gun taxes that found “little empirical evidence to indicate how taxation would influence firearm-related outcomes, such as violent crime, suicide, self-defense, or sales of firearms.”
Still, legislators seem determined to “tax” away Americans’ right to own firearms or punish gun owners who can afford to pay the tax. The New York proposed law is just one example of that. California has adopted a similar method, with localities like San Jose implementing a mandatory tax on gun ownership. Those who are found in non-compliance will have their firearms confiscated.
These methods of gun control target the most vulnerable in our society. While taxes may not affect those who can afford to pay, those in lower-income brackets can essentially be “too poor” to enjoy their right to own a firearm.
Actions such as taxing and funding opposition research are small pieces of a larger picture. With the regulatory agency for firearms politically weaponized against the very items they seek to regulate and many in government openly hostile towards the right to bear arms, gun owners must work to change the minds of those around them. We’ve found that simple steps, like bringing friends, family, or those who are undecided to the range to experience firearms for themselves, can drastically change the way an individual views the issue of firearms politically.
This cultural change is our mission at The Machine Gun Nest; we seek to end the social stigma around guns and gun ownership. It’s crucial now more than ever to get involved in any way you can.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 23:00 - Hamptons Beachfront Mansion Rental Lists For Over $1.5 Million A Month
Hamptons Beachfront Mansion Rental Lists For Over $1.5 Million A Month
Hamptons is a playground for Wall Streeters during the summer months. Luxury rentals on eastern Long Island are going for big bucks, with some listed for more than $1 million a month, a bet hybrid work and big bonuses will continue to attract financial elites for the third consecutive year, according to Bloomberg.
After two years of surging demand for mansions in Hamptons as city dwellers moved to beach towns and rural communities, inventory in the area is tight and has driven up rental prices. The question this year is if mega-mansions overlooking the ocean can sustain more than a million dollars per month.
There are a few beachfront properties that demand an absurd amount of money. For example, 277 Surfside Drive in Bridgehampton is described as having “heroic views,” it recently lowered its rental prices for July from $1.5 million to $1.25 million. Down the street, 155 Surfside Drive has an asking rate of $1.65 million for July.
277 Surfside Drive
155 Surfside Drive
Corcoran Hamptons broker Susan Breitenbach said those beachfront properties “were a little bit over-inflated … They certainly can rent. Whether they get exactly that amount of money, we’ll see.”
During the pandemic, Manhattanites fled to the Hamptons as their ability to work from home allowed them to relocate. It wasn’t until last summer, the super-rich were back partying in the beach town.
Homes not on the beach were also pricey. A farmhouse in Bridgehampton, described as one of the best homes in horse country, had an asking rental price of $1.2 million for July to Labor Day.
Breitenbach said high rental prices were due to a post-COVID surge in demand for homes, thus reducing inventory. She even said off-season demand was elevated.
In a talk with clients, Breitenbach said they were sticking with their asking prices but are feeling out the market and are willing to negotiate.
“Those owners got a lot of money last year, so they are feeling out the market and keeping the same pricing.
“But I think people do have, this year compared to last year, a few more options. People are starting to travel again,” she said.
Data from AirDNA, a rental analytics company, shows rental prices in the Hamptons between May and September are up 22% from 2018 to 2021.
Though AirDNA said bookings are declining, the number of nights booked for rentals has slid 34% compared with last summer.
“Asking prices are up but there are still reductions on rentals, proof that landlords may be overreaching coming out of two hot years,” said Judi Desiderio, CEO of Hamptons brokerage Town and Country.
Desiderio explained high rental prices are due to a lack of inventory after Hamptons became a hotbed for city dwellers who bought homes. This took supply off the rental market as people wanted more permanent homes.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 22:40 - Escobar: Big Tech's "Cancel Culture" Love-Affair
Escobar: Big Tech’s “Cancel Culture” Love-Affair
Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. Journalism that does not conform must be taken down…
Utter insanity, @Twitter has suspended @RealPepeEscobar, one of Eurasia’s top journalists and geopolitical analysts, with 35 years experience in the field. Twitter, kindly RESTORE this account and verify him. @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/5gSzvA7tuu
— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) April 13, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This month, several of us – Scott Ritter, myself, ASB Military News, among others – were canceled from Twitter. The – unstated – reason: we were debunking the officially approved narrative of the Russia/NATO/Ukraine war.
As with all things Big Tech, that was predictable. I lasted only seven months on Twitter. And that was long enough. Contacts in California had told me I was on their radar because the account grew too fast, and had enormous reach, especially after the start of Operation Z.
I celebrated the cancelation by experiencing an aesthetic illumination in front of the Aegean Sea, at the home of Herodotus, the Father of History. Additionally, it was heart-warming to be recognized by the great George Galloway in his moving tribute to targets of the new McCarthyism.
In parallel, comic relief of the “Mars Attacks” variety was provided by expectations of free speech on Twitter being saved by the benign intervention of Elon Musk.
Techno-feudalism is one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties – published in early 2021 and reviewed here in a very thoughtful and meticulous manner.
Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. In my own case regarding Twitter and Facebook – two of the guardians of the internet, alongside Google — I knew a day of reckoning was inevitable, because like other countless users I had previously been dispatched to those notorious “jails”.
On one Facebook occasion, I sent a sharp message highlighting that I was a columnist/analyst for an established Hong Kong-based media company. Some human, not an algorithm, must have read it, because the account was restored in less than 24 hours.
But then the account was simply disabled – with no warning. I requested the proverbial “review”. The response was a demand for proof of ID. Less than 24 hours later, came the verdict: “Your account has been disabled” because it had not followed those notoriously hazy “community standards.” The decision was “reviewed” and “it can’t be reversed”.
I celebrated with a Buddhist mini-requiem on Instagram.
My hit-by-a-Hellfire missile Facebook page clearly identified for the general public who I was, at the time: “Geopolitical analyst at Asia Times”. The fact of the matter is Facebook algorithms canceled a top columnist from Asia Times – with a proven record and a global profile. The algos would never have had the – digital – guts to do the same with a top columnist from The New York Times or the Financial Times.
Asia Times lawyers in Hong Kong sent a letter to Facebook management. Predictably, there was no response.
Of course becoming a target of cancel culture – twice – does not even remotely compare to the fate of Julian Assange, imprisoned for over three years in Belmarsh under the most appalling circumstances, and about to be dispatched for “judgment” in the American gulag for the crime of committing journalism. Yet the same “logic” applies: journalism that does not conform to the hegemonic narrative must be taken down.
Conform, or Else
At the time, I discussed the matter with several Western analysts. As one of them succinctly put it, “You were ridiculing the U.S. president while pointing out the positives of Russia, China and Iran. That’s a deadly combination”.
Others were simply stunned: “I wonder why you were restricted as you work for a reputable publication.” Or made the obvious connections: “Facebook is a censorship machine. I did not know that they do not give reasons for what they do but then they are part of the Deep State.”
The group letter signed by the likes of Michael Morell, James Clapper, and Leon Panetta about the importance of Big Tech is horrifying. They just come out and say public information flow needs to be controlled for national security reasons. https://t.co/FwVmsRZBtU
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 20, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A banking source that usually places my columns on the desks of selected Masters of the Universe put it New York-style: “You severely p****d the Atlantic Council”. No question: the specimen who oversaw the canceling of my account was a former Atlantic Council hack.
Ron Unz in California had the account of his extremely popular website Unz Review purged by Facebook on April 2020. Subsequently, readers who tried to post their articles met with an “error” message describing the content as “abusive”.
When Unz mentioned my case to renowned economist James Galbraith, “he really was quite shocked, and thought it might signal a very negative censorship trend on the Internet.”
The “censorship trend” is a fact – for quite a while now. Take this U.S. State Department 2020 report identifying “pillars of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”
State Dept. Directive
The late Pompeo-era report demonizes “fringe or conspiracy-minded” websites who happen to be extremely critical of U.S. foreign policy. They include Moscow-based Strategic Culture Foundation – where I’m a columnist – and Canada-based Global Research, which republishes most of my columns (but so does Consortium News, ZeroHedge and many other U.S. websites). I’m cited in the report by name, along with quite a few top columnists.
The report’s “research” states that Strategic Culture – which is blocked by Facebook and Twitter – is directed by the SVR, Russian foreign intel. This is ridiculous. I met the previous editors in Moscow – young, energetic, with enquiring minds. They had to quit their jobs because after the report they started to be severely threatened online.
So the directive comes straight from the State Department – and that has not changed under Biden-Harris: any analysis of U.S. foreign policy that deviates from the norm is a “conspiracy theory” – a terminology that was invented and perfected by the C.I.A.
Couple it with the partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council – which is a de facto NATO think tank – and now we have a real powerful ecosystem.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.
No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”
Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”
So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.
The resulting algorithmic stupidity, also shared by Twitter – incapable of recognizing nuance, metaphor, irony, critical thinking – is perfectly integrated into what former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern brilliantly coined as the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex).
In the U.S., at least the odd expert on monopoly power identified this neo-Orwellian push as accelerating “the collapse of journalism and democracy.”
Facebook “fact-checking professional journalists” does not even qualify as pathetic. Otherwise Facebook – and not analysts like McGovern – would have debunked Russiagate. It would not routinely cancel Palestinian journalists and analysts. It would not disable the account of University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi – who was actually born in the U.S.
I received quite a few messages stating that being canceled by Facebook – and now by Twitter – is a badge of honor. Well, everything is impermanent (Buddhism) and everything flows (Daoism). So being deleted – twice – by an algorithm qualifies at best as a cosmic joke.
* * *
Pepe Escobar’s latest book is Raging Twenties. He remains un-cancelled on VK, Telegram and Instagram.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 22:20 - SIG Sauer Wins US Army Next Generation Weapon Contract
SIG Sauer Wins US Army Next Generation Weapon Contract
The US Army announced Sig Sauer, Inc won the production contract to manufacture and deliver two Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) variations (the XM5 Rifle and the XM250 Automatic Rifle) and new high tech 6.8-millimeter ammunition.
Sig Sauer won the 10-year contract to produce the weapons after the XM5 Rifle and the XM250 Automatic Rifle went through 27 months of prototyping and evaluation by the military service.
An initial delivery order on the contract is worth $20.4 million for weapons and ammunition. The contract will include accessories, spares, and contractor support. It also allows other Department of Defense services and foreign militaries to purchase the new weapons.
The XM5 Rifle replaces the M4/M4A1 carbine, and the XM250 Automatic Rifle replaces the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
Both are lightweight and extremely accurate, chambered in new 6.8-millimeter ammunition.
Before this announcement, we already knew the service selected a winner of the NGSW on April 3 following text within the DoD FY23 budget request by weapon system that the Army expected to procure 29,046 NGSWs in 2023. But at the time, the contractor who won the award wasn’t mentioned.
SIG Sauer is the winner, beating out General Dynamics – OTS and Textron Systems as the Army will begin to field these battlefield rifles in 2023.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 22:00 - China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis, Part 2: Water
China On The Verge Of A Major Food Crisis, Part 2: Water
By Eric Mertz of the General Crisis Watch Substack,
Before I started I wanted to address my last post. I wrote it a little too hastily due to a sick daughter and I plan to go back and clean it up somewhat. The political infighting aspect will be trimmed down as I plan to discuss that more in Part 3, with only the parts directly addressing the food issue being kept in.
China has also started taking efforts to address some of these issues and I want to address what they’re doing. I fully admit to having an axe to grind when it comes to the CCP, but I want to make sure I’m as intellectually honest as possible. This includes giving them credit on the rare instances they manage to do something smart.
The fact these plans will wind up making it worse is just icing on the cake.
I also want to reformat it according to the template I plan to use going forward.
I’ll also be doing a Part 0 for this series which will include a table of contents for all of the posts in this series, and which will provide an overview of the relevant portions of Chinese history with a special focus on the Confucian concept of the Mandate of Heaven and its removal.
I hope to get that done tomorrow evening, but can’t guarantee that will occur.
Water, water everywhere but all of it polluted
Water Thresholds
In order to understand the grave danger China is facing, we need to understand water usage and thresholds below which the population begins to face some level of danger. For that, we’re going to turn to Reuters for an overview.
At a minimum, a civilization requires 1,700 cubic meters of water per person per year to be considered water secure. This amounts to 373,947 gallons of water per person, with a minimum of 4,156 gallons of water per year to ensure good health.
Freshwater is used for everything from industry to agriculture to power generation, and our infrastructure is rated for a minimum level of water moving through the pipes. If that water falls below that level, pressure drops and the water can become unsafe.
This starts to become a problem at 1,000 cubic meters per person per year, and reaches a threat level at 500 cubic meters per person per year.
Beijing is currently sitting at 100 cubic meters of fresh water per person per year. Barely seven times the necessary minimum for a person to remain healthy, with the rest stretched thin and endlessly recycled as it eventually becomes useless for any purpose which brings it into contact with humans in any way.
Groundwater
When examining the water situation in a given country, the first place to look is always the groundwater situation. Which, in China’s case, isn’t very positive.
Over 80% of the groundwater in China is unsafe, according to publicly available data attained from a Chinese government survey. Information which is normally a closely held secret. Same with the fact that 47% of the groundwater in China is so badly polluted it can’t even be used for industrial purposes.
Note, Beijing gets almost a third of their water from groundwater sources, which must be thoroughly treated at massive cost in man-hours, materials, and energy before it can be used by the general public. This has resulted in Beijing sinking at a rate of 11 cm per year as the depleted aquifer results in subsidence.
Assuming its even at a level which can be affordably treated. Which 47% of the groundwater can’t be.
This situation is even worse in the cities, where 90% of the groundwater is unusable for purposes which would bring it into contact with people. And, ironically, although the groundwater pollution is worse in the cities, rural areas are more heavily affected due to the fact most rural communities lack the resources to treat either the water they take in for normal usage or the waste water they release back into the wild.
China has tried to fix the problems with the aquifer depletion issue by turning its cities into what are known as “sponge cities”. Designed to channel water underground into the aquifer as a flood management project, these sponge cities are intended to serve a dual purpose. Its a brilliant idea in theory, but the project involves lots of spending on infrastructure which is underground and impossible to see.
Which has resulted in the city officials wasting that money on beautification projects instead.
Rivers
Turning to the rivers, we find the situation is only slightly better. While the groundwater is contaminated at a rate of 80-90%, the surface water – that is both lakes and rivers – is only polluted at a rate of 70%.
Similarly to the groundwater, half of it is unusable for any human application. This includes agriculture, industrial use, fishing, or even boating. This is because 225 billion tons of industrial sewage is dumped into Chinese rivers and lakes on an annual basis.
This has had rather predictable results in the form of what are known as “cancer villages”. At least 400 villages, mostly in the Yangtze river basin, were given this designation before the CCP realized the mistake they made and withdrew the classification. In these locations, cancer rates are 169% higher than in surrounding communities, with mortality rates 80% higher due to the aggressive nature of the cancers and the lack of access to healthcare in rural China.
As a side note, these cancers trend heavily towards esophageal and lung cancer. Combined with the reduced lung capacity from the horrific levels of air pollution, its entirely plausible this – combined with the fact the government was hiding the spread of its disease and its symptoms – is why we saw people keeling over dead on the street due to COVID in China while not seeing it in the West.
Water Shortages in the North
South North Water Transfer Project
Now, if you’ve seen those videos of the roaring floods which race down the Yangtze and wipe away villages every spring, the idea that China may have a water shortage may seem incredible. The problem is these floods are highly centralized in the south and are a result of China’s rainy season – which only lasts for a few months in spring and autumn. Even during the relatively dry periods, however, 80% of the water in China is located in the Yangtze basin.
This is great news for the people in the Yangtze, who don’t generally need to worry about quantity – even if they have to worry about quality – but it leaves the much more heavily populated north with only 20% of the water to provide for close to 70% of the population.
Back when Mao was still China’s unquestioned dictator, he liked to joke about borrowing water from the south to give it to the population in the north. In 2002, the CCP began construction on the South North Water Transfer Project, a series of three canals which are intended to transfer 44.8 billion cubic meters of water from the over-watered south to the dry north every year. It has already cost China $62 Billion for the first two routes – with an additional $15 Billion expected to be spent on the third route.
The three routes are expected to transport 14.8 billion cubic meters on the east route, which consists of an upgrade of the Grand Canal, moving water from the Yangtze to Beijing, 13 billion cubic meters on the central route from the Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Han River into Beijing, and 17 billion cubic meters on the western route, which will pull water from the Mekong, Brahmaputra, Salween, Yangtze and two other rivers into the north to be distributed as needed for agricultural projects.
Along the eastern route, 13 pumping stations had to be built to lift the water being transferred 14.8 billion cubic meters a total of 65 meters (213 feet) to climb over the continental divide.
Construction of the project displaced 330,000 people, and resulted in 400 of the rivers which both canals cross having disappeared outright. Someone in China has since started building cities and industrial parks in these extinct rivers. Which puts them directly in the path of the seasonal floods.
And the project has already failed.
According to data provided by the CCP, the North South Water Transfer Project is only capable of transporting a third of the rated capacity on the East and Central Routes.
To make matters worse, the water in the canals and aqueducts is reportedly sufficiently polluted as to be unusable. Which means the canal is actually making the problem worse as it pollutes previously clean water along the route. And when the flooding which inundated Zhengzhou and killed thousands in the underground expressway* in spring of 2021 threatened the integrity of the Central Route, the PLA destroyed other dams – flooding cities and villages throughout central China – in order to protect Beijing’s new water supply.
The reduced water flow in the Yangtze has also resulted in drastically reduced levels of sediment flowing along the river – which reduced the fertility of the cropland in the basin – and out into the sea. A decrease in sediment which was already effected by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Case studies regarding the Russian River and its fisheries showed that decreased sediment outflow from rivers had a negative effect on the available fish which could be safely removed from the fisheries fed by the river.
However, the water problem in the north is already getting worse.
If you recall, in September of 2021, China blocked coal imports from their primary source of coal – Australia – over Australia recognizing what China was doing to both the Falun Gong and the Uyghurs as an act of genocide. This immediately resulted in rolling blackouts, which China responding by increasing coal mining in Inner Mongolia. Specifically, they demanded an additional output of 98.35 Million metric tons of new coal mining, which results in an additional 24 Million cubic meters of water becoming unavailable for the general public to use.
Thankfully, this is not coming from the rivers. Unfortunately that’s because 70% of the water used to produce coal comes from the aquifers. With 47% of the water in these aquifers being unusable, this is a new and tight squeeze on water availability in the north.
*Officially, only 250 people died in the flooding.
Agricultural practices
Finally, we have to discuss agriculture. As you know from reading the previous post, China is facing a massive agricultural shortfall due to a shortage of trucking – largely driven by COVID lockdown protocols – has seen the capacity of freight hauling in the rural areas being cut by 86%. This has primarily hit farmers as a third are unable to get the seeds and fertilizer they need to grow crops.
That fertilizer is desperately needed. 64% of arable land is located in the cool and dry northern half of the country, which means farmers must engage in dryland agriculture even before the increased demand for food. Traditional irrigation practices in the cooler and dryer north, which sees 500 milimeters of rain delivered over a two month period, involved flooding the fields with water and letting it dry – increasing the concentration of salts in the soils as the lack of follow-on water means the hotter soil will pull these salts to the surface of the fields just as harvest comes due.
This water is usually highly polluted with fertilizer, fungicide, and other chemicals used to ensure your food is as abundant as possible. These pollutants will flow from the fields into canals and streams, where they are filtered by the shellfish the local farmers use to supplement their diet and income.
However, these are not new problems. Each of the issues outlined above is one which has been known for years, and Chinese leadership have failed to solve them.
To understand why, we need to discard this myth we have of the CCP as some skilled chess player with a hundred-year vision. In reality, the CCP is as reactionary as any other government with an elected head of state – with the added problem of suffering from the trap so many dictators fall into regarding misinformation being filtered up to the chief executive by subordinates who do not want to lose their access to greater wealth and influence while also having to deal with the factional politics of an elected system.
Which is what the next part of this series will focus on.
In part three, we will dive into the hall of mirrors which is the factional infighting between Xi Jinping’s Tsinghua Clique and Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Clique. Get your thumbtacks and strings ready folks. You’re going to need them.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 21:40 - Russian Diamond Flow To India Stops As US Sanctions Cause Gem Chaos
Russian Diamond Flow To India Stops As US Sanctions Cause Gem Chaos
Do you own diamonds? It could be time to call up the local jeweler and reassess them. Here’s why:
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Russian diamond miner Alrosa PJSC, removing a third of the global supply of rough stones.
Bloomberg reports rough stones have stopped flowing from Russian mines to Surat, India, the mecca of diamond cutting and polishing.
Industry experts say traders and manufacturers are searching for workarounds as Indian banks are unwilling or unable to process payments with Alrosa due to OFAC’s sanctions.
Alrosa sent top officials earlier this week to Surat to speak with customers and trade groups about future sales.
For some context, Alrosa accounts for 33% of the global supply of rough stones, about the same as De Beers. OFAC’s sanctions against Russia have been seismic for the worldwide diamond industry as supply tightens, sending prices of the rock sky-high.
The Diamond Index via International Diamond Exchange (IDEX) surged 36% in the last two years.
Those experts also said Alrosa’s upcoming sale of rough stones was canceled because banks could not process payments. The Russian miner holds only ten sales each year.
Meanwhile, discontent is growing among G-20 members that not all will stop buying Russian stones. Retailers in China, India, and the Middle East plan to continue buying despite OFAC’s sanctions.
We noted earlier this week that not all BRICs have bowed to U.S. pressure to stop purchasing Russian goods. It lends credibility to an emerging multi-polar world.
Industry experts said Alrosa’s meeting could result in a bilateral (rupees for rubles) payment structure for the uncut gems. Again, this could be another example of the birth of the emerging Bretton Woods III system, recently popularized by Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar.
The disruptions around Russian diamonds will persist as supply tightens, only making the prices of the stone even more unaffordable. Then there are lab-grown diamonds, a cheaper alternative to the real thing.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 21:20 - "Pandemic Treaty" Will Hand WHO Keys To Global Government
“Pandemic Treaty” Will Hand WHO Keys To Global Government
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
The first public hearings on the proposed “Pandemic Treaty” are closed, with the next round due to start in mid-June.
We’ve been trying to keep this issue on our front page, entirely because the mainstream is so keen to ignore it and keep churning out partisan war porn and propaganda.
When we – and others – linked to the public submissions page, there was such a response that the WHO’s website actually briefly crashed, or they pretended it crashed so people would stop sending them letters.
Either way, it’s a win. Hopefully one we can replicate in the summer.
Until then, the signs are that what scant press coverage there is, mostly across the metaphorical back-pages of the internet, will be focused on making the treaty “strong enough” and ensuring national governments can be “held accountable”.
An article in the UK’s Telegraph from April 12th headlines:
Real risk a pandemic treaty could be ‘too watered down’ to stop new outbreaks
It focuses on a report from the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention (GPHC), and quotes one of the report’s authors Dame Barbara Stocking:
Our biggest fear […] is it’s too easy to think that accountability doesn’t matter. To have a treaty that does not have compliance in it, well frankly then there’s no point in having a treaty,”
The GPHC report goes on to say that the current International Health Regulations are “too weak”, and calls for the creation of a new “independent” international body to “assess government preparedness” and “publicly rebuke or praise countries, depending on their compliance with a set of agreed requirements”.
Another article, published by the London School of Economics and co-written by members of the German Alliance on Climate Change and Health (KLUG), also pushes the idea of “accountability” and “compliance” pretty hard:
For this treaty to have teeth, the organisation that governs it needs to have the power – either political or legal – to enforce compliance.
It also echoes the UN report from May 2021 in calling for more powers for the WHO:
In its current form, the WHO does not possess such powers […]
To move on with the treaty, WHO therefore needs to be empowered — financially, and politically.
It recommends the involvement of “non-state actors” such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation and International Labour Organisation in the negotiations, and suggests the treaty offer financial incentives for the early reporting of “health emergencies” [emphasis added]:
In case of a declared health emergency, resources need to flow to countries in which the emergency is occurring, triggering response elements such as financing and technical support. These are especially relevant for LMICs, and could be used to encourage and enhance the timely sharing of information by states, reassuring them that they will not be subject to arbitrary trade and travel sanctions for reporting, but instead be provided with the necessary financial and technical resources they require to effectively respond to the outbreak.
It doesn’t stop there, however. They also raise the question of countries being punished for “non-compliance”:
[The treaty should possess] An adaptable incentive regime, [including] sanctions such as public reprimands, economic sanctions, or denial of benefits.
To translate these suggestions from bureaucrat into English:
-
If you report “disease outbreaks” in a “timely manner”, you will get “financial resources” to deal with them.
-
If you don’t report disease outbreaks, or don’t follow the WHO’s directions, you will lose out on international aid and face trade embargoes and sanctions.
In combination, these proposed rules would literally incentivize reporting possible “disease outbreaks”. Far from preventing “future pandemics”, they would actively encourage them.
National governments who refuse to play ball being punished, and those who play along getting paid off is not new. We have already seen that with Covid.
Two African countries – Burundi and Tanzania – had Presidents who banned the WHO from their borders, and refused to go along with the Pandemic narrative. Both Presidents died unexpectedly within months of that decision, only to be replaced by new Presidents who instantly reversed their predecessor’s covid policies.
Less than a week after the death of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the IMF agreed to forgive almost 25 million dollars of Burundi’s national debt in order to help combat the Covid19 “crisis”.
Just five months after the death of President John Magufuli, the new government of Tanzania received 600 million dollars from the IMF to “address the covid19 pandemic”.
It’s pretty clear what happened here, isn’t it?
Globalists backed coups and rewarded the perpetrators with “international aid”. The proposals for the Pandemic treaty would simply legitimise this process, moving it from covert back channels to overt official ones.
Now, before we discuss the implications of new powers, let’s remind ourselves of the power the WHO already possesses:
-
The World Health Organization is the only institution in the world empowered to declare a “pandemic” or Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
-
The Director-General of the WHO – an unelected position – is the only individual who controls that power.
We have already seen the WHO abuse these powers in order to create a fake pandemic out of thin air…and I’m not talking about covid.
Prior to 2008, the WHO could only declare an influenza pandemic if there were “enormous numbers of deaths and illness” AND there was a new and distinct subtype. In 2008 the WHO loosened the definition of “influenza pandemic” to remove these two conditions.
As a 2010 letter to the British Medical Journal pointed out, these changes meant “many seasonal flu viruses could be classified as pandemic influenza.”
If the WHO had not made those changes, the 2009 “Swine flu” outbreak could never have been called a pandemic, and would likely have passed without notice.
Instead, dozens of countries spent millions upon millions of dollars on swine flu vaccines they did not need and did not work, to fight a “pandemic” that resulted in fewer than 20,000 deaths. Many of those responsible for advising the WHO to declare swine flu a public health emergency were later shown to have financial ties to vaccine manufacturers.
Despite this historical example of blatant corruption, one proposed clause of the Pandemic Treaty would make it even easier to declare a PHEIC. According to the May 2021 report “Covid19: Make it the Last Pandemic” [emphasis added]:
Future declarations of a PHEIC by the WHO Director-General should be based on the precautionary principle where warranted
Yes, the proposed treaty could allow the DG of the WHO to declare a state of global emergency to prevent a potential pandemic, not in response to one. A kind of pandemic pre-crime.
If you combine this with the proposed “financial aid” for developing nations reporting “potential health emergencies”, you can see what they’re building – essentially bribing third world governments to give the WHO a pretext for declaring a state of emergency.
We already know the other key points likely to be included in a pandemic treaty.
They will almost certainly try to introduce international vaccine passports, and pour funding into big Pharma’s pockets to produce “vaccines” ever faster and with even less safety testing.
But all of that could pale in comparison to the legal powers potentially being handed to the director-general of the WHO (or whatever new “independent” body they may decide to create) to punish, rebuke or reward national governments.
A “Pandemic Treaty” that overrides or overrules national or local governments would hand supranational powers to an unelected bureaucrat or “expert”, who could exercise them entirely at his own discretion and on completely subjective criteria.
This is the very definition of technocratic globalism.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 21:00 -
- Shanghai Doubles Down On Quarantine Measures Despite Decline In Cases
Shanghai Doubles Down On Quarantine Measures Despite Decline In Cases
Local authorities in Shanghai have made a big deal about their efforts to reopen factories and the city’s all-important port, while easing restrictions on some of the population. But the reality is that while authorities have focused on bringing factories (like Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory) back to some semblance of full production, millions of locals are still suffering under the weight of some of the world’s most stringent COVID measures (even after restrictions were eased on 4 million earlier this week).
Despite continued reductions in new case numbers, the local government on Thursday signaled that it’s not planning on easing lockdown measures any time soon. The government announced a nine-point action plan that will add more quarantine hospital beds and transfer all COVID-positive patients as well as their close contacts to quarantine centers – where they will be treated with “traditional Chinese medicine”, WSJ reports.
In a few instances, patients will be allowed to isolate at home, although only on a temporary basis, according to the plan, which also called for the maintenance of strict controls on movement, mass testing and contact tracing, according to WSJ.
Meanwhile, local authorities reported that more than 70% of 666 major industrial companies in Shanghai have resumed production in the past week, Vice Mayer Zhang Wei said during a regular briefing, according to Bloomberg. To be sure, the damage has already been done: Shanghai’s industrial output fell 7.5% in March as COVID caused the city’s industrial sector to essentially shut down, said Wu Jincheng, a local economic official.
There have been a few bright spots, however: Daily average container throughput at Shanghai Port was kept above 100,000 TEU in April.
In a Q&A with state media posted online on Friday, Shanghai’s government said it would focus on ensuring that all new infections are contained within quarantined areas and facilities and that the city would only gradually loosen restrictions on movement and activity on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis once this has been achieved (although earlier this week,
Shanghai health authorities unveiled an aggressive new COVID containment plan despite continued reductions in new cases, indicating China’s financial capital is still far from declaring victory over the country’s worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 20:40 - CDC Issues Nationwide Alert About Mysterious Hepatitis Cases In Children
CDC Issues Nationwide Alert About Mysterious Hepatitis Cases In Children
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health advisory after children in Alabama were discovered to have adenovirus and hepatitis infections.
A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on Sept. 30, 2014. (Tami Chappell/Reuters) They said that a “cluster of children” have been infected with both hepatitis and adenovirus after clinicians at a large hospital in Alabama issued a notice to the CDC in November 2021.
“Five pediatric patients with significant liver injury, including three with acute liver failure, who also tested positive for adenovirus” were reported by the hospital to the CDC, according to the agency, adding that the children were previously healthy and that none had COVID-19.
“Case-finding efforts at this hospital identified four additional pediatric patients with hepatitis and adenovirus infection for a total of nine patients admitted from October 2021 through February 2022,” the agency further wrote. Two of those patients required a liver transplant, and no patients died.
Other than the nine Alabama cases, two have been identified in North Carolina, health department officials told local media.
Authorities are now investigating a link between pediatric hepatitis and adenovirus cases. The agency also has asked clinicians and state public health officials to report if children under the age of 10 are found to have elevated aspartate aminotransferase or alanine aminotransferase, suggesting liver problems.
“Cases of pediatric hepatitis in children who tested negative for hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D, and E were reported earlier this month in the United Kingdom, including some with adenovirus infection,” the agency wrote.
The CDC also noted that five children had adenovirus type 41, which “typically presents as diarrhea, vomiting, and fever,” and “it can often be accompanied by respiratory symptoms.”
At least 100 children in the United Kingdom under the age of 10 have been diagnosed with acute hepatitis from an unknown cause, authorities have said. UK officials said there is “no link” between the cases and COVID-19 vaccines.
Cases have also been found in Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in a Tuesday announcement.
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver that can be caused by a viral infection, alcohol, prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications acetaminophen, high doses of certain herbal supplements, toxins, and various medical conditions. Hepatitis viruses, which spread via bodily fluids, can also cause liver inflammation.
Symptoms include abdominal pain—namely in the upper right part of the abdomen right below the ribs—dark-colored urine, light-colored stools, and jaundice, which is the yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 20:20 - Millennials Forced To Start Saving For Retirement Years Earlier Than Parents
Millennials Forced To Start Saving For Retirement Years Earlier Than Parents
Despite being burdened by nigh-unprecedented levels of debt (housing, education, cars and even credit-cards), millions of millennials have started saving for retirement years earlier than their baby-boomer parents – nine years earlier, on average, according to data cited by Bloomberg.
This fact was recently highlighted by data gathered via Charles Schwab’s “Retirement Reimagined” campaign, which suggests that the lack of pension plans and other retirement incentives offered to young people today is forcing them to take matters into their own hands.
As a result, millennials are saving for retirement years earlier than their parents and grandparents. But unfortunately this likely won’t be enough to close the wealth gap.
Millennials are also less likely to own homes, which is critical for creating wealth.
Source: Bloomberg
We noted earlier that presently, renters (including many millennials) are saying that they feel that their odds of ever owning a home are shrinking fast.
Because of this, millennials are heading toward a fundamentally different style of retirement than earlier generations.
“Millennial retirees will spend 24% less time on financial matters than boomers, using their savings to pursue their desired lifestyle and passions,” according to the report, which surveyed 5,000 Americans and used predictive analytics to anticipate retirement outcomes and attitudes by generation.
To be sure, this street runs both ways: younger workers are likely to start saving earlier for retirement than boomers simply by virtue of being auto-enrolled into their company’s 401(k) plan rather than having to opt into such plans, like boomers had to.
What’s more, workplace retirement plans are also adding auto-escalation clauses, where participants’ contribution as a percentage of their pre-tax paycheck is automatically bumped up 1% a year.
So, while millennials mostly won’t enjoy the pensions that were lavishly doled out to their forebears, at least they’re getting a head start.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 20:00 - "Humans" May Be All Over The Universe, Scientists Say
“Humans” May Be All Over The Universe, Scientists Say
Authored by Katie Hutton via TheMindUnleashed.com,
Let’s pretend for a moment that in the future humanity are able to travel to other planets and discover… even more humans.
A University of Cambridge astro-biologist believes that scenario is more possible than you’d imagine, based on his research.
The BBC’s Science Focus magazine recently published an interview with Simon Conway Morris, an evolutionary palaeobiologist at the university’s Department of Earth Sciences, in which he stated that researchers can “say with reasonable confidence” that human-like evolution has occurred in other parts of the universe.
The idea of convergent evolution, which, according to Science Focus, asserts that “random effects gradually average out such that evolution converges, tending to generate similar creatures in any given environment,” lies at the heart of Morris’ thinking. Flying, for instance, was used by the magazine as an illustration of how flying “had evolved independently on Earth at least four times — in birds, bats, insects, and pterosaurs.”
In summary, convergent evolution theory asserts that evolution is a natural law that operates similarly on all planets. In other words, the blue and green alien humanoids from “Star Trek” may be real.
It’s not only Morris who thinks extraterrestrial life evolved “human-like.” In fact, a biologist named Arik Kershenbaum at the prestigious British school published a whole book on it.
“Because evolution is the explanatory mechanism for life everywhere,” Kershenbaum told Quanta magazine this year, “then the principles that we uncover on Earth should be applicable in the rest of the universe.”
While it’s “tempting” to imagine extraterrestrial species who don’t share human cultural interests like philosophy and literature, Kershenbaum argues that they didn’t merely emerge as sophisticated technical entities. Even advanced extraterrestrial lifeforms would have “evolved from a pre-technological species,” Kershenbaum added.
“If that pre-technological species went on to develop all the things that we have now, chances are that they were built on building blocks that served that social purpose — things like bonding between group members, transmission of information and useful ideas between group members,” he told Quanta.
“A pre-technological alien civilization could be singing and dancing and telling stories just like pre-technological human civilization did, because it serves the same purpose.”
It’s fun to envision other planets where humanoid lifeforms are “singing, dancing, and telling tales” as on Earth.
We are more likely to relate to and communicate with aliens if evolution is as powerful as Darwinists like Kershenbaum and Morris think.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 19:40 - Indonesia Bans Edible Oil Exports, Sparks "Mayhem" As Global Food Crisis Ahead
Indonesia Bans Edible Oil Exports, Sparks “Mayhem” As Global Food Crisis Ahead
The rise of food protectionism by countries could exacerbate a massive hunger crisis that could take the world by storm later this year (well, that’s at least what the Rockefeller Foundation believes).
The world’s biggest palm oil producer, Indonesia, is the latest country to embrace protectionist measures to mitigate domestic food shortages, according to Bloomberg.
President Joko Widodo on Friday announced the export ban of all cooking oil and palm oil products would begin on April 28.
Widodo said during a television broadcast that the measures aimed to ensure domestic markets had ample cooking oil supplies following a dramatic increase in prices.
“I will monitor and evaluate the implementation of this policy so availability of cooking oil in the domestic market becomes abundant and affordable,” he said.
Following the news, traders are placing bullish bets that world supplies of cooking oil and palm oil products will tighten even more. U.S. soyoil futures jumped more than 3% to a record high of 84 cents per pound.
“The news will certainly create a mayhem,” said Paramalingam Supramaniam, director at Selangor-based broker Pelindung Bestari.
“We have the largest producer banning the exports of palm products which will add more uncertainty to the already tight availability of vegetable oil worldwide,” Supramaniam said.
The Ukraine conflict has roiled the global edible oil market. The Black Sea region accounts for 76% of world sunoil exports. Commercial shipments in the region have been disrupted due mainly by insurers for vessels charging very high war premiums that make cargo nearly impossible in insure.
Indonesia’s move adds to the growing food protectionism as several other countries, including Argentina, have raised export taxes on edible oils. Meanwhile, Moldova, Hungary, and Serbia have banned some grain exports.
Increasing food protectionism is another worry for importers dependent on other countries (such as ones in the Middle East and Africa) that may lead to shortages and trigger unrest.
As we noted initially, the Rockefeller Foundation has given a timeframe on when the food crisis begins.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 19:20 - Woke Twitter Elitists Are Too Stupid To Realize Elon Musk Is Saving The Platform
Woke Twitter Elitists Are Too Stupid To Realize Elon Musk Is Saving The Platform
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
In the past year Big Tech and Big Media are learning a valuable lesson – That “Get Woke, Go Broke” is not just a mantra, it’s a rule.
We’ve just seen companies like Netflix take a massive market beating because of their hubris and their presumption that they can simply dictate the path of our culture from on high through leftist propaganda. CNN just shut down their premium “+” service after a single month because no one trusts them enough to pay them pocket change for content. And Disney is about to lose their municipal charter in Florida because they thought they were in charge of the state and its laws, when in fact they are not.
Woke corporations are slowly but surely dying and leftists don’t seem to grasp the situation. They’ll never admit openly that the reason these companies are seeing declines is because of their cult-like political stance that justifies the forced indoctrination of everyone, including children. They’ll say it was covid, they’ll say it was inflation, they’ll say it was bigotry, but in reality it was always them. No one likes them, and people are finally realizing they don’t have to spend money buying products from insane leftists they don’t like.
In this regard Twitter is a bit of an enigma.
The social media company has gone from a relatively innocuous space for people to market online businesses and for politicians and celebrities to engage with their followers or detractors, to a vicious battleground overrun with leftist zealots hellbent on using the platform as a weapon to silence dissent and destroy the lives of people that disagree with them. The platform went from average social media outlet to becoming a birthplace for evil behavior. If I was to describe what Twitter really stands for today, I would say it is an attempt to build a global hive mind; a place where everyone is coerced into conformity with establishment ideals through peer pressure and mob aggression.
That is to say, Twitter is the antithesis to a free speech society; a beta test for the future of authoritarianism where you THINK you are allowed to speak your mind but only the “correct” opinions are allowed to pass.
How this happened is hard to say. Some theorize that leftist cultists scrambled like rats from the sinking ship of Tumblr and found their way over to Twitter to take up residency. I would argue that maybe Twitter was always intended to become what it now is. Just take a look at the monster’s gallery of its largest shareholders.
There’s Vanguard and Blackrock, which together represent a globalist vampire squid of epic proportions. Their tentacles are wrapped around almost every aspect of the economy including media, big pharma (companies like Pfizer), weapons manufacturers, huge swaths of the US housing market, etc. If these two mega conglomerates were to somehow be wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, the world would be a much better place. For now, they own almost everything.
Then there is Morgan Stanley, another “too big to fail” international banking firm which for some reason has a major stake in the realm of “tweets.” Whenever globalist companies like these pursue major investments in a communications platform there is generally something nefarious afoot. And, it should be noted that almost all the media companies they own push an agenda that leans hard left and is tyrannical in nature. We witnessed this undeniable dynamic in the past two years as media companies attacked anyone that stood against the illegal covid mandates.
Why do major globalist institutions have so much interest in Twitter? It’s not because Twitter is a money maker. In 2020 the company suffered a net income loss of over $1.14 billion. In 2021 there was an income loss of $221 million. Twitter still claims it earns a profit, but this is primarily derived from stock buybacks and state and federal government subsidies, meaning, without overnight loans from the Federal Reserve and tax breaks from government Twitter simply would not exist.
Twitter is carrying a debt load of around $6.75 billion in total liabilities according to the Wall Street Journal, which might not seem like much in comparison with many other companies but again, Twitter is not a money maker so any sizeable debt is a problem. They suffered dismal stock performance until the pandemic which led to trillions in stimulus dollars flooding into equities markets. Now that the covid checks have dried up, the company’s stock has spiraled down yet again. The only thing propping it up today is the sudden prospect of an Elon Musk buyout.
Twitter was bleeding users and was dealing with a declining membership base leading up to 2019, when the company decided they would fix the problem by NOT REPORTING traditional user numbers anymore. They shifted to a new metric which they claimed was designed to discount the removal of “spam and bot accounts.” One has to wonder how much of Twitter’s actual user base is made of real people rather than fake accounts? Even with the new metrics, evidence suggests they have continued to lose users and revenues since 2019, largely due to the hostile political witch hunt environment that Twitter has developed in the past few years.
The US government has also been heavily invested in Twitter since at least 2014, throwing millions into various projects the company has undertaken including many overseas. This makes sense because Twitter regularly shares user data with government agencies, often while claiming they don’t. Surveillance requests are kept secret and any releases of information on such requests are blocked by US courts.
Overall, Twitter is a cesspool of political and corporate corruption.
A sock puppet of massive globalist shareholders and a data clearing house for conglomerates and governments alike. This is why I have never had an account with them, and likely never will.
It boggles my mind how all of these facts can be right out in the open, yet the one thing that sends leftists on Twitter into a rage is the notion that Elon Musk might buy up enough stock in the company to determine its future course.
Here are some key facts that I think the Twitter elites need to consider:
1) Twitter has been on a downward plunge in terms of user base and revenues for years now. The fact that the company’s board has decided to assert a leftist political agenda and enforce unbalanced censorship rules is killing the company even further. In a few years, Twitter will not exist. Or, if it does, it will be a shell of its former self much like MySpace or Tumblr. The platform you people think you control is dying. Without fair public discourse and equally enforced guidelines Twitter serves no purpose other than to act as an echo chamber for leftist fanatics, and who wants to be a party to that?
2) The Twitter cult and their “blue check mark” gatekeepers are losing their minds over the prospect of a “billionaire” taking over Twitter when in reality the platform has been controlled by the worlds richest and most invasive shareholders for a long time. If you think Vanguard or BlackRock are better stewards than Elon Musk then I suggest you do a little more research on the history of these corporations.
3) Elon Musk’s interest in Twitter has stirred up excitement over a platform that was otherwise destined for the dumpster. I might even suggest that Musk’s activities are prolonging Twitter’s lifespan by drawing in investment that never would have been there otherwise. The blue checkmarks should be thanking him instead of attacking him.
4) What is the primary complaint that Twitter elitists have when it comes to Musk? That he MIGHT bring in more fair and balanced rules which would prevent political censorship. In other words, they are angry because he might allow true free speech within the boundaries of legality for conservatives as well as leftists. This is unacceptable to them. In their minds, free speech is only reserved for those with “correct thinking”, and they believe they get to dictate what “correct thinking” is. It takes a special kind of psychopath to believe that their side is the only side of an issue that deserves to be heard.
In terms of Elon Musk, I’m reserving judgment for now. Tesla and SpaceX receive billions in government subsidies and tax incentives, far more than Twitter does. I question the validity of any company that relies on government handouts in order to survive.
Musk is also an attendee of the World Government Summit in Dubai, where globalists from various nations meet to talk about the agenda for world centralization. Musk’s discussion was specifically on how he thinks the future of humanity is to “merge with machines”, much like having your cell phone attached to your brain. This sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me; government’s already track and monitor cell phone activity, do you really want them to do the same with your brain?
Musk’s anti-woke positions may be legitimate, or maybe it’s just a persona.
Setting all that aside, Musk’s surprising pursuit of Twitter is interesting no matter which way it goes. He could take control and shut the whole thing down, which is what I would suggest given the platform is a cancer on society and rife with government and corporate surveillance. Scattering the blue check cult to the four winds would be one of the best gifts Musk could give the the world right now. They can always complain about everything on other platforms, just not with so much concentrated corporate and government power at their disposal.
They’ll say this is all an attack on free speech, but these people don’t understand what free speech is. They believe that it is free speech if they walk up to people and say “I’m going to destroy you and your way of life.” And then when those people react to stop them, they cry that they are victims and claim that this is a violation of their rights. Where I come from, you don’t make threats against people and then expect them to do nothing about it. The leftists on Twitter and elsewhere are going to learn this lesson soon, one way or another.
* * *
If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch. Learn more about it HERE.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 19:00 - Baltimore Residents To Get $1,000 Checks In UBI Pilot Test
Baltimore Residents To Get $1,000 Checks In UBI Pilot Test
Newly elected Mayor Brandon Scott will provide unconditional payments of $1,000 a month for two years to low-income families in Baltimore City’s new guaranteed income pilot program, according to local news WBAL.
According to a statement released by Scott’s office, the $1,000 monthly checks will be distributed to 200 low-income households across a metro area that struggles with violent crime and a broken economy thanks to decades of Democratic leadership.
The city allocated $4.8 million in the American Rescue Plan funding to finance the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund. It’s a cover for pilot testing universal basic income (UBI).
Requirments for free money require that a person be a millennial (18-24), be either the biological or adoptive parents or guardians, and have income at or below the federal poverty level.
The free money comes with no strings attached, and they can spend it on anything.
Commenting on the UBI test program, Scott said:
“This is fundamentally about putting our families in a position to succeed. We are putting money directly into the hands of our residents because they know more than anyone else what their families need to ascend the ladder of opportunity.”
Baltimore will be the latest city to trial UBI in an increasing number of city leaders across the US who provide free money to their citizens as a base income.
Palm Springs, California, recently adopted a UBI pilot program for low-income transgender people. The city of Oakland, California, launched a UBI program for low-income families last year.
The popularity of UBI has grown ever since the federal government deployed trillions of dollars in helicopter money during COVID and handed out stimulus checks funded by the Federal Reserve.
“UBI is a candy-coated trap that breeds dependency in a population. Free money is an addictive drug, and America just had a big taste during the pandemic,” Brandon Smith via Alt-Market recently opined.
This sweet taste of UBI heaven has given people wanting more and politicians a new tool of control, where the government becomes the source of food and housing for the citizenry. This makes low-income people less inclined to stand against any abuse by the establishment, such as mass surveillance and the militarization of police.
The timing of Scott’s UBI announcement comes as the city could be on track for a record number of homicides this year. Murders are already above the 5-year average.
Perhaps, UBI in Baltimore is a distraction from the mayor’s failed plan to turn the city around.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 18:40 - China's Xi Echoes Putin In Proposal For New "Global Security Initiative" Amid Mounting International Criticism
China’s Xi Echoes Putin In Proposal For New “Global Security Initiative” Amid Mounting International Criticism
Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Chinese leader Xi Jinping on April 21 took several veiled swipes at Washington and allies’ sanctions on Russia, while proposing what he called a new China-led “global security initiative.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping delivers a speech via video link to the opening ceremony of the Bo’ao Forum For Asia in southern China’s Hainan Province on April 21, 2022. (Huang Jingwen/Xinhua via AP) Xi said the new initiative takes “legitimate security concerns of all” and upholds “the principle of indivisibility of security,” key concepts that Russia has used to justify its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its current assault on Ukraine.
The “indivisibility of security” broadly refers to the idea that the security of one state is inseparable from that of other countries in the region, and thus no state should enhance its security at the expense of another’s. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in justifying his invasion of Ukraine, had argued that NATO’s strategy breached this principle.
The Chinese leader’s remarks, made during a video speech to the annual Boao Asia Forum, came as Beijing continues to strengthen its ties with Moscow even after Putin’s invasion. Earlier this week, a top Chinese diplomat pledged to deepen links with the aggressor state during a meeting with Russia’s envoy to China in Beijing.
Since the war, the Chinese regime has repeatedly criticized Western sanctions and refused to condemn Moscow. It has also echoed Moscow’s propaganda claim that the United States and NATO instigated the conflict.
During his speech, the Chinese leader said the security initiative would uphold “non-interference in internal affairs” and respect “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” slogans consistently used by Beijing to justify and deflect criticism of its aggression towards Taiwan. Beijing views the self-ruled island as its own territory to be taken by force if necessary.
Xi didn’t explain how the framework will be implemented.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pose during their meeting in Beijing on Feb. 4, 2022. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images) The Chinese leader also reiterated Beijing’s opposition to “long-arm jurisdiction” and “unilateral sanctions,” without directly naming any country.
Last month, Western officials warned that Beijing had signaled a willingness to provide Moscow with economic and military aid for its war effort. This prompted President Joe Biden to warn Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a March 18 video call of unspecified “consequences” should the regime materially support Moscow.
Economic Woes
This year’s Boao Forum, known as the “Asian Davos,” came amid concerns about the impact of the regime’s heavy-handed “zero-COVID policy” on the global economy which is already being hit by the knock-on effects of the Ukraine war.
Economists from banks including Nomura and Barclays and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier this week revised down their GDP forecast for China, well below Beijing’s target of “around 5.5 percent.” Missing the key economic target could be an embarrassment to Xi who is seeking an unprecedented third five-year term in office at an important Chinese Communist Party meeting this fall.
The “strong resilience” of the Chinese economy is “unchanged” Xi told the conference on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, a free trade port that has not been locked down. He also called for advancing Asian cooperation amid growing isolations from the West.
Guests at the conference include Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, according to Beijing’s foreign ministry.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 18:20 - After 2 Years Of COVID Shutdowns, Schools Resort To Bribing Students To Come Back
After 2 Years Of COVID Shutdowns, Schools Resort To Bribing Students To Come Back
It appears that two years off from attending school thanks to the pandemic has changed the attitude about attending school now that most lockdowns in the U.S. have ended. In short, less students want to go.
So schools have turned to “trying to beg them back with gift cards, pep rallies, and insect-eating stunts”, according to a new article from Not The Bee, citing a report about “chronic absence” in schools by the New York Times.
“Chronic absence has skyrocketed” during the pandemic, said Hedy Chang, the director of Attendance Works, a national group that promotes solutions to chronic absenteeism, which been linked to weaker academic performance and can predict whether a student is more likely to drop out before finishing high school.
One high school freshman told the New York Times: “Kids aren’t showing up as much as they used to.” She says some of them have taken on jobs during the day, others have fallen out of the habit of coming to school, and “some of them get Covid”.
“While absenteeism rates for high-income students are leveling off, rates for low-income students have continued to worsen since the spring,” a December 2021 report produced by McKinsey & Company found.
In order to try and solve the issue, schools are offering night classes, giving gift cards for groceries and “at least one has eaten insects”. Other school officials have argued that pep rallies will lure kids back to school in person.
At least for now, this idea hasn’t worked, the Times reported:
When McDonough Middle School in Hartford, Conn., held a pep rally to encourage student attendance last month, about 16 percent of the school’s students were marked absent.
Ashley Jackson, an S.E.S. who often leads the pep rallies told The New York Times: “With attendance not being where we want it to be, we have to go that extra step. They know, at the end of the month, if I have perfect attendance, I get to see Ms. Martinez eat a bug.”
The silver lining? More than 40% of all students had been chronically absent for the year – so relatively speaking, 16% of the school being absent was a success!
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 18:00 - Risks Accumulate For China Investors, Including Harvard
Risks Accumulate For China Investors, Including Harvard
Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,
Risk is accumulating for China investors, with private equity in particular trouble. Harvard University, one of the world’s top PE investors, with an endowment of $53.2 billion, recently showed a crack in its veneer on China.
“In a sign of a potential pullback,” according to Bloomberg News, “Harvard University’s endowment is considering tapering its investments in China.” Bloomberg sources, familiar with Harvard’s investment strategy, asked to remain anonymous.
A night view of the Central Business District (CBD) in Beijing, China, on Nov. 10, 2021. (An Xin/Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty Images) Publicly, however, 34 percent of Harvard’s endowment in 2021 was in private equity, up from 23 percent in 2020. Harvard declined to tell Bloomberg what percent of its PE investments are in China.
Surveys cited by Bloomberg show that investors beyond Harvard are also getting nervous about China.
In the first half of 2021, according to Bain & Co., only 35 percent of China investment managers viewed the country’s outlook with confidence. Compare that to 60 percent who were confident on Asia more generally.
According to Preqin, a financial data analysis company, about half of alternative investors late last year saw Southeast Asia as the best emerging market opportunity, a 37 percent increase from the year prior.
Political Risk to Private Equity in China
PE invests in companies that are private, for example, that have not gone public through exchanges in financial centers like New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Because PE lacks a mass base of owners, it is in some ways more vulnerable to political risk, especially in China. If the value of companies held by PE firms decreases substantially due to some action by Beijing, there are fewer investors to complain.
Complaining is even more difficult in China, where power is centralized by Xi Jinping and his Standing Committee of just seven top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo members. The ideology of the CCP has historically been anti-capitalist, which is ultimately against private equity.
Xi, more than past Chinese leaders like Deng Xiaoping, looks backwards with nostalgia to the days of Maoism and state control of the economy.
PE investors in Chinese equities started to realize how vulnerable they were last year when Chinese regulators clamped down on broad sectors of the economy, including technology, ride-sharing, online education, and gaming.
Using the term “common prosperity,” the CCP took aim at the most profitable companies, disappeared some Chinese businessmen, and strong-armed others into massive donations that they would not otherwise have made.
Beijing Sinks Online Education
For example, in 2020, PE-backed investment in Chinese education companies reached $8.1 billion. As pandemic lockdowns denied children the classroom and sent them to their computers instead, online education companies seemed like a good billion-dollar bet. Valuations of some of them doubled within a year.
One such company was Yuanfudao, backed by $3.5 billion from PE investors, including Tencent Holdings, Jack Ma’s Yunfeng Capital, Hillhouse Capital Group, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and Temasek.
A child uses the mobile app of Yuanfudao, a Beijing-based online education startup, on a smartphone in Shanghai, China, on March 31, 2021. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images) But last summer, in the context of citizen complaints about education being too expensive for Chinese families, and according to the CCP, leading to low birth rates, Beijing took an extraordinary step.
It moved to ban profits among private tutoring companies that teach core school subjects. That any government would ban profits is almost unimaginable for a PE investor or anyone else.
The new rules converted the companies into nonprofit organizations and banned any further domestic or international investment. While enforcement details were hazy, the regulations came as a shock to PE firms that had already invested billions on the assumption that profits were still allowed. The ban risked killing many companies and making a profitable exit through going public, next to impossible.
The debilitating non-market result should have been predicted by Beijing’s regulators. Banning profits should cause investment in the private education sector to decrease. There will be fewer opportunities for children to learn in what has become an ongoing pandemic.
Some of the world’s worst lockdowns and travel restrictions are still on in China, including in Shanghai and Hong Kong, previously some of the freest places in China.
The response of parents to children at home without good online learning might reasonably be to have fewer children or emigrate away from China, both outcomes that put downward pressure on China’s population growth—the opposite of what Beijing intended.
Multivalent Accumulation of Risk to Investment in China
The cavalier and self-destructive attitude of CCP regulators to market principles is rightly giving institutional investors second thoughts about their billion-dollar investments in a totalitarian communist country that they previously liked to imagine was on its way to democracy and open markets. Investors drank their own Kool-Aid and now are paying the price.
The biggest American institutional investors are even growing skeptical about investing in specialist Chinese private equity funds. These funds, run by investors with white shoe pedigrees from banks like Goldman Sachs, are struggling to meet deadlines and hit their billion-dollar targets to attract new cash.
Pension funds and endowments are turning away from such China funds, not only due to political and market risks but because of building debt in the economy, COVID-19 restrictions, and the resulting downgrade in earnings expectations.
Xi’s regulation crackdown has hit China’s tech giants, including Tencent and Alibaba, even as the United States is barring production in Xinjiang due to the Uyghur genocide.
People walk past the Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, southern China’s Guangdong Province, on May 26, 2021. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images) American regulators are threatening to delist hundreds of Chinese firms listed on U.S. exchanges for failure to provide transparent audits to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In many instances, Chinese law does not allow such disclosures, putting the companies in an impossible situation of needing to choose which law to violate.
With Russia’s war in Ukraine, apparently supported by the CCP, the risks of secondary U.S. sanctions against China for the war in Ukraine cannot be ignored.
Over the last 12 months, a Pennsylvania state employees pension fund stopped committing new cash to China’s PE funds altogether. It currently has approximately 2 percent exposure to Chinese assets. Florida’s pension system of $253 billion in assets, less than 3 percent of which was in China as of January, has also turned the cash spigot off for new investment in China.
In the first quarter of 2022, U.S. dollar funds invested in China dropped to $1.4 billion, the lowest number since 2018 for that period, according to Bloomberg. Quarter after quarter last year, this sector suffered declines.
Even as the money for China private equity dries up, according to Bain & Co. research, its managers continue to grow in number, reaching approximately 1,200 between 2019 and 2021, an increase of 25 percent over the prior period.
Every day, more China money managers chase less China money in the field.
That will not end well. Billions in private equity funds should be pulled from China and redeployed to countries that have a better track record on human rights, democracy, and the market principles that best assure future profits and real prosperity for all.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/22/2022 – 17:40
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...
