Feb 23

Today’s News 23rd February 2020

  • Where Have You Gone, Smedley Butler? The Last General To Criticize US Imperialism
    Where Have You Gone, Smedley Butler? The Last General To Criticize US Imperialism

    Authored by Danny Sjursen via TomDispatch.com,

    There once lived an odd little man – five feet nine inches tall and barely 140 pounds sopping wet – who rocked the lecture circuit and the nation itself. For all but a few activist insiders and scholars, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler is now lost to history. Yet more than a century ago, this strange contradiction of a man would become a national war hero, celebrated in pulp adventure novels, and then, 30 years later, as one of this country’s most prominent antiwar and anti-imperialist dissidents.

    Raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and educated in Quaker (pacifist) schools, the son of an influential congressman, he would end up serving in nearly all of America’s “Banana Wars” from 1898 to 1931. Wounded in combat and a rare recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor, he would retire as the youngest, most decorated major general in the Marines.

    A teenage officer and a certified hero during an international intervention in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion of 1900, he would later become a constabulary leader of the Haitian gendarme, the police chief of Philadelphia (while on an approved absence from the military), and a proponent of Marine Corps football. In more standard fashion, he would serve in battle as well as in what might today be labeled peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, and advise-and-assist missions in Cuba, China, the Philippines, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, France, and China (again). While he showed early signs of skepticism about some of those imperial campaigns or, as they were sardonically called by critics at the time, “Dollar Diplomacy” operations — that is, military campaigns waged on behalf of U.S. corporate business interests — until he retired he remained the prototypical loyal Marine.

    But after retirement, Smedley Butler changed his tune. He began to blast the imperialist foreign policy and interventionist bullying in which he’d only recently played such a prominent part. Eventually, in 1935 during the Great Depression, in what became a classic passage in his memoir, which he titled “War Is a Racket,” he wrote:

    “I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service… And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers.”

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    Seemingly overnight, the famous war hero transformed himself into an equally acclaimed antiwar speaker and activist in a politically turbulent era. Those were, admittedly, uncommonly anti-interventionist years, in which veterans and politicians alike promoted what (for America, at least) had been fringe ideas. This was, after all, the height of what later pro-war interventionists would pejoratively label American “isolationism.”

    Nonetheless, Butler was unique (for that moment and certainly for our own) in his unapologetic amenability to left-wing domestic politics and materialist critiques of American militarism. In the last years of his life, he would face increasing criticism from his former admirer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the military establishment, and the interventionist press. This was particularly true after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany invaded Poland and later France. Given the severity of the Nazi threat to mankind, hindsight undoubtedly proved Butler’s virulent opposition to U.S. intervention in World War II wrong.

    Nevertheless, the long-term erasure of his decade of antiwar and anti-imperialist activism and the assumption that all his assertions were irrelevant has proven historically deeply misguided. In the wake of America’s brief but bloody entry into the First World War, the skepticism of Butler (and a significant part of an entire generation of veterans) about intervention in a new European bloodbath should have been understandable. Above all, however, his critique of American militarism of an earlier imperial era in the Pacific and in Latin America remains prescient and all too timely today, especially coming as it did from one of the most decorated and high-ranking general officers of his time. (In the era of the never-ending war on terror, such a phenomenon is quite literally inconceivable.)

    Smedley Butler’s Marine Corps and the military of his day was, in certain ways, a different sort of organization than today’s highly professionalized armed forces. History rarely repeats itself, not in a literal sense anyway. Still, there are some disturbing similarities between the careers of Butler and today’s generation of forever-war fighters. All of them served repeated tours of duty in (mostly) unsanctioned wars around the world. Butler’s conflicts may have stretched west from Haiti across the oceans to China, whereas today’s generals mostly lead missions from West Africa east to Central Asia, but both sets of conflicts seemed perpetual in their day and were motivated by barely concealed economic and imperial interests.

    Nonetheless, whereas this country’s imperial campaigns of the first third of the twentieth century generated a Smedley Butler, the hyper-interventionism of the first decades of this century hasn’t produced a single even faintly comparable figure. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Why that is matters and illustrates much about the U.S. military establishment and contemporary national culture, none of it particularly encouraging.

    Why No Antiwar Generals

    When Smedley Butler retired in 1931, he was one of three Marine Corps major generals holding a rank just below that of only the Marine commandant and the Army chief of staff. Today, with about 900 generals and admirals currently serving on active duty, including 24 major generals in the Marine Corps alone, and with scores of flag officers retiring annually, not a single one has offered genuine public opposition to almost 19 years worth of ill-advised, remarkably unsuccessful American wars. As for the most senior officers, the 40 four-star generals and admirals whose vocal antimilitarism might make the biggest splash, there are more of them today than there were even at the height of the Vietnam War, although the active military is now about half the size it was then. Adulated as many of them may be, however, not one qualifies as a public critic of today’s failing wars.

    Instead, the principal patriotic dissent against those terror wars has come from retired colonels, lieutenant colonels, and occasionally more junior officers (like me), as well as enlisted service members. Not that there are many of us to speak of either. I consider it disturbing (and so should you) that I personally know just about every one of the retired military figures who has spoken out against America’s forever wars.

    The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; Vietnam veteran and onetime West Point history instructor, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich; and Iraq veteran and Afghan War whistleblower, retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis. All three have proven to be genuine public servants, poignant voices, and — on some level — cherished personal mentors. For better or worse, however, none carry the potential clout of a retired senior theater commander or prominent four-star general offering the same critiques.

    Something must account for veteran dissenters topping out at the level of colonel. Obviously, there are personal reasons why individual officers chose early retirement or didn’t make general or admiral. Still, the system for selecting flag officers should raise at least a few questions when it comes to the lack of antiwar voices among retired commanders. In fact, a selection committee of top generals and admirals is appointed each year to choose the next colonels to earn their first star. And perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that, according to numerous reports, “the members of this board are inclined, if not explicitly motivated, to seek candidates in their own image — officers whose careers look like theirs.” At a minimal level, such a system is hardly built to foster free thinkers, no less breed potential dissidents.

    Consider it an irony of sorts that this system first received criticism in our era of forever wars when General David Petraeus, then commanding the highly publicized “surge” in Iraq, had to leave that theater of war in 2007 to serve as the chair of that selection committee. The reason: he wanted to ensure that a twice passed-over colonel, a protégé of his — future Trump National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster — earned his star.

    Mainstream national security analysts reported on this affair at the time as if it were a major scandal, since most of them were convinced that Petraeus and his vaunted counterinsurgency or “COINdinista” protégés and their “new” war-fighting doctrine had the magic touch that would turn around the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Petraeus tried to apply those very tactics twice — once in each country — as did acolytes of his later, and you know the results of that.

    But here’s the point: it took an eleventh-hour intervention by America’s most acclaimed general of that moment to get new stars handed out to prominent colonels who had, until then, been stonewalled by Cold War-bred flag officers because they were promoting different (but also strangely familiar) tactics in this country’s wars. Imagine, then, how likely it would be for such a leadership system to produce genuine dissenters with stars of any serious sort, no less a crew of future Smedley Butlers.

    At the roots of this system lay the obsession of the American officer corps with “professionalization” after the Vietnam War debacle. This first manifested itself in a decision to ditch the citizen-soldier tradition, end the draft, and create an “all-volunteer force.” The elimination of conscription, as predicted by critics at the time, created an ever-growing civil-military divide, even as it increased public apathy regarding America’s wars by erasing whatever “skin in the game” most citizens had.

    More than just helping to squelch civilian antiwar activism, though, the professionalization of the military, and of the officer corps in particular, ensured that any future Smedley Butlers would be left in the dust (or in retirement at the level of lieutenant colonel or colonel) by a system geared to producing faux warrior-monks. Typical of such figures is current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley. He may speak gruffly and look like a man with a head of his own, but typically he’s turned out to be just another yes-man for another war-power-hungry president.

    One group of generals, however, reportedly now does have it out for President Trump — but not because they’re opposed to endless war. Rather, they reportedly think that The Donald doesn’t “listen enough to military advice” on, you know, how to wage war forever and a day.

    What Would Smedley Butler Think Today?

    In his years of retirement, Smedley Butler regularly focused on the economic component of America’s imperial war policies. He saw clearly that the conflicts he had fought in, the elections he had helped rig, the coups he had supported, and the constabularies he had formed and empowered in faraway lands had all served the interests of U.S. corporate investors. Though less overtly the case today, this still remains a reality in America’s post-9/11 conflicts, even on occasion embarrassingly so (as when the Iraqi ministry of oil was essentially the only public building protected by American troops as looters tore apart the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in the post-invasion chaos of April 2003). Mostly, however, such influence plays out far more subtly than that, both abroad and here at home where those wars help maintain the record profits of the top weapons makers of the military-industrial complex.

    That beast, first identified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now on steroids as American commanders in retirement regularly move directly from the military onto the boards of the giant defense contractors, a reality which only contributes to the dearth of Butlers in the military retiree community. For all the corruption of his time, the Pentagon didn’t yet exist and the path from the military to, say, United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, or other typical corporate giants of that moment had yet to be normalized for retiring generals and admirals. Imagine what Butler would have had to say about the modern phenomenon of the “revolving door” in Washington.

    Of course, he served in a very different moment, one in which military funding and troop levels were still contested in Congress. As a longtime critic of capitalist excesses who wrote for leftist publications and supported the Socialist Party candidate in the 1936 presidential elections, Butler would have found today’s nearly trillion-dollar annual defense budgets beyond belief. What the grizzled former Marine long ago identified as a treacherous nexus between warfare and capital “in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives” seems to have reached its natural end point in the twenty-first century. Case in point: the record (and still rising) “defense” spending of the present moment, including — to please a president — the creation of a whole new military service aimed at the full-scale militarization of space.

    Sadly enough, in the age of Trump, as numerous polls demonstrate, the U.S. military is the only public institution Americans still truly trust. Under the circumstances, how useful it would be to have a high-ranking, highly decorated, charismatic retired general in the Butler mold galvanize an apathetic public around those forever wars of ours. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is practically nil, given the military system of our moment.

    Of course, Butler didn’t exactly end his life triumphantly. In late May 1940, having lost 25 pounds due to illness and exhaustion — and demonized as a leftist, isolationist crank but still maintaining a whirlwind speaking schedule — he checked himself into the Philadelphia Navy Yard Hospital for a “rest.” He died there, probably of some sort of cancer, four weeks later. Working himself to death in his 10-year retirement and second career as a born-again antiwar activist, however, might just have constituted the very best service that the two-time Medal of Honor winner could have given the nation he loved to the very end.

    Someone of his credibility, character, and candor is needed more than ever today. Unfortunately, this military generation is unlikely to produce such a figure. In retirement, Butler himself boldly confessed that, “like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical…”

    Today, generals don’t seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more’s the pity…


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 23:30

  • Nevada Berning: Sanders Wins Nevada Caucuses
    Nevada Berning: Sanders Wins Nevada Caucuses

    Update (23:15): With 27% of precincts reporting, Sanders has retained a 46.6% lead over Biden (22.8), with Pete Buttigieg in third at 14.4%.

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    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is projected to win the Nevada caucuses after early reports suggest a landslide victory, according to Fox News, which named Sanders the winner.

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    While just four percent of the results are in, Sanders has 56% of the delegates, followed by Biden at 18.8% and Warren at 8.5%.

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    The closely-watched process began with Nevada Democrats optimistic that they would avoid a repeat of the technical glitches that plagued the caucuses in Iowa. Those fears led the state Democratic Party to decide to rely on traditional reporting by phone, rather than an app made by the same developer that created the app blamed for the debacle in Iowa. It has also scrapped a plan to use a Google Forms app loaded onto iPads. –Fox News

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    “Nevada Democrats have learned important lessons from Iowa, and we’re confident they’re implementing these best practices into their preparations,” said DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. “We’ve deployed staff to help them across the board, from technical assistance to volunteer recruitment.”

    On Saturday, DNC Chairman Tom Perez told Fox News that the party is in “great shape,” adding “We have all of the early vote results distributed to the caucus sites. People are checking now…. I think it’s going to be a really exciting day.”

    This story is developing, check back for updates.

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    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 23:18

  • Visualizing The Cost And Composition Of America's Nuclear Weapons Arsenal
    Visualizing The Cost And Composition Of America’s Nuclear Weapons Arsenal

    The American nuclear weapons arsenal is nowhere near its 1960s peak, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, there are still thousands of warheads in the stockpile today.

    The U.S. nuclear program is comprised of a complex network of facilities and weaponry, and of course the actual warheads themselves. Let’s look at the location of warheads, how they’re deployed, and the costs associated with running and refurbishing an aging nuclear program.

    Let’s launch into the data.

    Nuclear Weapons Map

    As of 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense maintained an estimated stockpile of 3,800 nuclear warheads for delivery by more than 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft. Roughly 1,300 warheads are actually deployed, while most of the remaining inventory is either held in reserve (as a hedge against “technical or geopolitical surprises”) or is destined to be dismantled.

    These weapons are thought to be stored across 11 U.S. states, with the vast majority residing in New Mexico, Washington, and Georgia.

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    Source

    Over 1,500 of the warheads in New Mexico are retired and are destined to be dismantled at the Pantex facility in Texas.

    The United States also maintains a small amount of nuclear inventory in and around Europe as well. Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base likely holds the biggest supply of warheads outside the U.S., and a few weapons are also located in storage vaults in Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.

    Deployment Data

    Nuclear warheads, while devastatingly powerful, are nothing without a delivery mechanism. In simple terms, there are three primary methods for actually launching missiles: Silos, bombers, and submarines.

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    The most common deployment of nuclear weapons is under the sea. The U.S. Navy is thought to operate 14 ballistic missile submarines, with each carrying as many as 24 Trident II missiles.

    Missile silos are not as popular as they once were, but the U.S. Air Force still maintains 400 silo-based missiles, and another 50 are kept “warm” in the event of an emergency.

    America’s Nuclear Weapons Budget

    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is required to project the 10-year costs of nuclear forces every two years.

    Though much of the program is shrouded in secrecy, the budget below provides an overview of the costs of running America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

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    Costs in the budget are split between the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Department of Defense (DoD), which handle different parts of the process.

    On one hand, the DoD takes care of the delivery systems for warheads. Those submarines, bombers, and missile silos spread around the country will add up to a projected $249 billion in costs over the next decade. Another large portion of the DoD budget accounts for operational aspects of the program, such as funding facilities, control, and early warning systems.

    On the other hand, the DoE is responsible for building and maintaining the actual warheads themselves. The U.S. stopped producing new warheads in the 1990s, but all that changed last year.

    Back in the Bomb Business

    Generally, we think of nuclear weapons stockpiles as a sunsetting resource, slowly being dismantled; however, since the treaty that ended the arms race collapsed in mid-2019, the flood gates may be opening once again.

    New warheads are reportedly rolling off the production line, and in the beginning of this year, Lockheed Martin was tapped by the U.S. Navy to manufacture low yield submarine-based nuclear missiles.

    The development of lower yield nuclear weapons appears to be a response to efforts by Russia to modernize their arsenal.

    Recent Russian statements […] appear to lower the threshold for Moscow’s first-use of nuclear weapons.

    – Nuclear Posture Review (2018)

    With this new weapons development, the U.S. is aiming to create “tailored response options” to any potential conflict. By eliminating the perceived advantages that adversaries may have, the U.S. is hoping to lower the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.

    Arms control advocates warn that new lower-yield warheads entering production will lower the threshold for a nuclear conflict.

    While advocates and critics of nuclear weapons debate the merits of new weapons, we appear to be entering a new era of weapons proliferation.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 23:00

  • Fat Women Are Not A National Priority
    Fat Women Are Not A National Priority

    Authored by Eric Margolis via The Unz Review,

    Good work, Democrats! In the Las Vegas debate, you blasted every target but Donald Trump. Instead of quivering in his Gucci loafers, the man who would be king was left dancing on air.

    The man who should have been king, newcomer Mike Bloomberg, was left looking like a beaten-up cigar store Indian. He had not prepped for the debate and failed to dodge the obvious incoming missile attacks on him launched by a hissing Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.

    Many veteran Republicans fear that TV promoter Trump will steamroll Warren, Buttigieg, Biden and Amy Klobuchar. They may be right. Trump had to be delighted by the no-prisoners Democratic debate that bloodied his opponents before he could even get to them. Bloomberg was totally unprepared for the savage attacks launched against him. He looked like a neophyte suffering from camera fright.

    I got a good read on Bloomberg when I had an intimate dinner with him some years ago. Rather than the stiff, unsmiling man we saw on TV in Las Vegas, in real life Bloomberg is clearly brilliant yet understated, charming, and endowed with a sharp sense of humor and quick wit.

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    Bernie Sanders, who has three homes, blasted Bloomberg for being ‘rich.’ This is a big sin to the Democrats who, like Hillary Clinton, pocketed millions in political support from big banks, unions and businesses under the cover of night or via bogus speaking fees and her fake foundation – a scam emulated by Trump.

    The deeply corrupt Democratic National Committee, controlled by Hillary Clinton, rigged the vote that blocked Bernie Sanders during the last election. When news of this scandal emerged, Hillary kicked off the anti-Russian hysteria to divert attention from her chicanery.

    Yes, Bloomberg may be the 9th or 10th richest man in the world. But his net worth comes from ownership of one of our most successful and reliable financial news organizations that he built up from nothing, and that employs important numbers of men and women. The use of Bloomberg terminals saves forests of trees.

    Ignore Elizabeth Warren’s cheap shots about women being called names like ‘horse-faced lesbians’ or ‘fat’ at his firm. Many men speak this way to one-another in casual talk. Women often do the same regarding men. The answer to this is to totally segregate the sexes, as in Saudi Arabia. Trying to whip up a war of the sexes is not going to make angry Elizabeth Warren president. She should stick to her commendable work with banking and voting rights.

    It’s pretty clear after the shootout in Vegas that Joe Biden has used up his last chance. Black voters and unions won’t save him. He looked old and very tired. But not as tired or off the mark as Mike Bloomberg. By contrast Bernie looked old, to be sure, but was full of beans.

    As a foreign affairs specialist, what really dismayed me was that there was only one significant mention of international policy. That’s when the abrasive, loud-mouthed Sen. Amy Klobuchar could not remember the name of the president of Mexico. For God’s sake, she on a senate committee that deals with Mexico.

    While our presidential debate focuses on overweight women and health care, the US and Russia have come terrifyingly close to open war in the Mideast.

    But barely any mention of this in the debates. Trump and his big money men from New York and Las Vegas are trying to push Iran into an air war. The US is seeking to overthrow the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, and Iran. Clashes between China and the US are a major danger. Former defense chief Sam Nunn warns the US and Russia are closer to a nuclear conflict than any time since the 1960’s Cuban missile crisis. No matter.

    Americans want entertainers for their made-for-TV politicians. Poor, dignified Mr. Bloomberg didn’t know he would face professional actors, not legislators.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 22:30

  • Unfriendly Skies: Southwest Airlines Wants You To Call Out Bad Behavior
    Unfriendly Skies: Southwest Airlines Wants You To Call Out Bad Behavior

    Perhaps we can expect a lot more delayed flights and passenger infighting and general craziness over this next year as Southwest airlines has just implemented a controversial new policy. 

    As part of its required pre-flight emergency briefing, Southwest Airlines will now encourage passengers to report any “unwelcome behavior” that occurs to the flight attendants. 

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    Image via CNN

    The policy went into effect January 22, and the statement comes immediately after instructions over operating the oxygen masks. CNN recorded an announcement at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as saying: “We are here for your comfort and safety. Please report any unwelcome behavior to your flight attendant. Thank you for your attention.”

    Southwest spokesman Brian Parrish told CNN: “This change reflects Southwest’s commitment to ensuring a safe and welcoming environment at all times.” He added that passengers should see the flight attendants as “an approachable, professional resource for reporting any unwelcome behaviors or conduct during a flight.”

    However, in these times of heightened paranoia, there’s a hundred ways this could go wrong, given the hundred different interpretations and thresholds different people have for what’s deemed vaguely as “unwelcome behavior” (won’t share an elbow rest? talking too loud? bad breath? someone merely doesn’t like that there’s a Muslim on board?).

    Recently an American Airlines flight was delayed when a man who boarded wearing a gas mask (and not merely a surgical mask), made neighboring passengers uncomfortable to the point of causing enough of a panic to significantly delay the flight. And in a Southwest Airlines incident which made national news, a dad and his toddler were kicked off a flight because the 2-year old threw a minor tantrum upon boarding. This happened even after the child had calmed down. 

    There have also been multiple instances over the past years of flights canceled or delayed simply because passengers and crew members felt “uncomfortable” upon seeing men wearing Muslim garb on board. 

    The new Southwest Airlines policy appears aimed at preventing in-flight sexual assaults or harassment, which authorities say have been on the rise. According to FBI figures cited by CNN:

    FBI investigations into midair sexual assaults increased by 66% over a four-year period, from fiscal year 2014 to 2017. The bureau reported that it had opened 63 investigations into sexual assault on aircraft in 2017, compared with 57 in 2016, 40 in 2015 and 38 in 2014.

    If notified of an assault or harassment, the airline says its crew members have been given a variety of options depending on the situation — from demanding the offending passenger stop their behavior to notifying the captain, or to alerting law enforcement on the ground should a significant incident take place. 


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 22:00

  • Behold The "Green" Scam: Here Are The Most Popular ESG Fund Holdings
    Behold The “Green” Scam: Here Are The Most Popular ESG Fund Holdings

    Every several years it’s same old: not long after the start of the post-crisis era, the investing craze du jour was 3D printers; when that fizzled it was replaced with craft burgers/sandwiches which then morphed into the biotech bubble; when that burst blockchain companies were the bubble darlings of the day, which in turn were replaced by cannabis stocks. Not longer after, the pot bubble burst, leaving a void to be filled.

    That’s when the virtue-signaling tour de force that is ESG, or Environmental, Social, and Governance, made its first appearance, which just happened to coincide with the oh so obviously staged anti-global warming crusade spearheaded by a 16-year-old child (whose words are ghost-written by its publicity-starved parents) as well as central banks, politicians, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, countless “green” corporations and NGOs, and pretty much everyone in the crumbling establishment.

    After all, who can possibly be against fixing the climate, even if it costs quadrillions… or rather especially if it costs quadrillions – because in one fell swoop, central banks assured themselves a carte blanche to print as much money as they would ever need, because who evil egotistical bastard would refuse the monetization of, well, everything if it was to make sure future generations – the same generations these same central banks have doomed to a life of record wealth and income inequality – had a better life (compared to some imaginary baseline that doesn’t really exist).

    And since the green movement was here to stay, so was the wave of pro-ESG investing which every single bank has been pitching to its clients because, well you know, it’s the socially, environmentally and financially responsible thing.

    There is just one problem. Instead of finding companies that, well, care for the environment, for society or are for a progressive governance movement, it turns out that the most popular holdings of all those virtue signaling ESG funds are companies such as…. Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon, which one would be hard pressed to explain how their actions do anything that is of benefit for the environment, or whatever the S and G stand for. It gets better: among the other most popular ESG companies are consulting company Accenture (?), Procter & Gamble (??), and… drumroll, JPMorgan (!!?!!!?!).

    Yes, for all those who are speechless by the fact that the latest virtue-signaling investing farce is nothing more than the pure cristalized hypocrisy of Wall Street and America’s most valuable corporations, who have all risen above the $1 trillion market cap bogey because they found a brilliant hook with which to attract the world’s most gullible, bleeding-heart liberals and frankly everybody else into believing they are fixing the world by investing in “ESG” when instead they are just making Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon richer beyond their wildest dreams, here is Credit Suisse’s summary of the 108 most popular ESG funds. Please try hard not to laugh when reading what “socially responsible, environmentally safe, aggressively progressive” companies that one buys when one investing into the “Green”, aka ESG scam.

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    Impossible, you say. Nobody can be that hypocritical… surely Credit Suisse has made an error? Well, no. As confirmation here are the Top 10 Holdings of the purest ESG ETF available: the FlexShares ESGG fund. Below we present, without further commentary, its Top 10 holdings.

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    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 21:52

  • The US Is World Leader In Bio-Weapons Research, Production, & Use Against Mankind
    The US Is World Leader In Bio-Weapons Research, Production, & Use Against Mankind

    Authored by Gary Barnett via LewRockwell.com,

    Those that prevent disease and expose virus creation are heroic, but those that create and purposely spread disease and virus are inhuman.

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    Given the history of the United States government and its military industrial complex concerning biological and germ warfare, the use of these agents against large populations, and the desire to create agents that are race specific strains, these powerful entities have become compassionless purveyors of death to the innocent. Manmade viruses meant for warfare, whether for economic destruction, starvation, or mass death, are the workings of the truly evil among us. Predation at this level is relegated to those in power; a president for example, could give the order to wipe out millions due to his inability to control a problem he caused and perpetuated, and then lay blame on the victims.

    Who would ever have believed that modern warfare could be more brutal, more torturous, more painful, and more harmful to innocents, especially children, than past atrocities committed in war. Memories of millions sent to their deaths fighting in trenches, cities obliterated by atomic bombs, entire countries destroyed, and millions purposely left to starve in order to appease some tyrant or elected “leader.” I once thought that nuclear war would signal the end of life as we know it, but considering modern warfare and technology, I now think that uncontrolled and deadly viruses may consume the world population, as one after another poisons are released as acts of hidden war. There can be no end to this madness, as any retaliation in kind will result in the spread of worldwide disease; all created by man.

    The new Coronavirus, Covid-19, is one in a line of many that were not just likely but most certainly produced by man in laboratories, is affecting almost exclusively the Chinese at this point. This has seemingly opened the floodgates to speculation as to its exact origin. This virus has unique characteristics that have happened before with SARS and MERS, and has genetic material that has never been identified, and is not tied to any animal or human known virus. This should be troubling to all, because if this is manmade, it was manufactured as a weapon of war. So who is responsible for its release in China? It is possible that this virus was created in China and was “accidentally” released into the population, but that does not sound credible at any level. Do any think that the Chinese government would create a Chinese race specific virus and release it in their country?

    Interestingly, in the past, U.S. universities and NGOs went to China specifically to do illegal biological experimentation, and this was so egregious to Chinese officials, that forcible removal of these people was the result. Harvard University, one of the major players in this scandal, stole the DNA samples of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, left China with those samples, and continued illegal bio-research in the U.S. It is thought that the U.S. military, which puts a completely different spin on the conversation, had commissioned the research in China at the time. This is more than suspicious.

    The U.S. has, according to this article at Global Research, had a massive biological warfare program since at least the early 1940s, but has used toxic agents against this country and others since the 1860s. This is no secret, regardless of the propaganda spread by the government and its partners in criminal bio-weapon research and production.

    As of 1999, the U.S. government had deployed its Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) arsenal against the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Haitian boat people, and our neighbor Canada according to this article at Counter Punch. Of course, U.S. citizens have been used as guinea pigs many times as well, and exposed to toxic germ agents and deadly chemicals by government. Keep in mind that this is a short list, as the U.S. is well known for also using proxies to spread its toxic chemicals and germ agents, such as happened in Iraq and Syria. Since 1999 there have been continued incidences of several different viruses, most of which are presumed to be manmade, including the current Coronavirus that is affecting China today.

    There is also much evidence of the research and development of race-specific bio-warfare agents. This is very troubling. One would think, given the idiotic race arguments by post-modern Marxists, that this would consume the mainstream news, and any participants in these atrocious race-specific poisons would be outed at every level. That is not happening, but I believe it is due to obvious reasons, including government cover-up, hypocrisy at all levels, and leftist agenda driven objectives that would not gain ground with the exposure of this government-funded anti-race science.

    I will say that it is not just the U.S. that is developing and producing bio-warfare agents and viruses, but many developed countries around the globe do so as well. But the United States, as is the case in every area of war and killing, is by far the world leader in its inhuman desire to be able to kill entire populations through biological and chemical warfare means. Because these agents are extremely dangerous and uncontrollable, and can spread wildly, the risk to not only isolated populations, but also the entire world is evident. Consider that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be affected in such a scenario?

    All indications point to the fact that the most toxic, poisonous, and deadly viruses ever known are being created in labs around the world. In the U.S. think of Fort Detrick, Maryland, Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, Horn Island, Mississippi, Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Vigo Ordinance Plant, Indiana, and many others. Think of the fascist partnerships between this government and the pharmaceutical industry. Think of the U.S. military installations positioned all around the globe. Nothing good can come from this, as it is not about finding cures for disease, or about discovering vaccines, but is done for one reason only, and that is for the purpose of bio-warfare for mass killing.

    The drive to find biological weapons that will sicken and kill millions at a time is not only a travesty, but is beyond evil. This power is held by the few, but the potential victims of this madness include everyone on earth. How can such insanity at this level be allowed to continue? If any issue could ever unite the masses, governments participating in biological and germ warfare, race-specific killing, and creating viruses with the potential to affect disease and death worldwide, should cause many to stand together against it. The first step is to expose that governments, the most likely culprit being the U.S. government, are planting these viruses purposely to cause great harm. Once that is proven, the unbelievable risk to all will be known, and then people everywhere should put their divisiveness aside, stand together, and stop this assault on mankind.

    “In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies.” ~ George Orwell – 1984

    Additional notes: here, here, here, here, here and here.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 21:30

  • Google Says Apps No Longer Work On New Huawei Phones, Warns Users Not To "Sideload"
    Google Says Apps No Longer Work On New Huawei Phones, Warns Users Not To “Sideload”

    Last year, the U.S. government banned companies in the U.S. from working with Huawei – with Google being one of the notable names that would have to cease and desist, given its popular Android operating system and Google Play app store.

    At the time, Trump had signed “executive order declaring a national emergency banning sales and use of telecom equipment that poses ‘unacceptable’ risks to national security, including critical infrastructure and the online economy,” according to Engadget. Huawei was obviously on that list. China was called the “primary target” of the order. 

    But there’s still confusion about what’s going on and which products are subject to the services ban, according to The Verge. This is mainly due to the fact that there are still updates and services available for older Huawei devices, but that newer phones like the Mate 30 Pro (below), don’t have access to its services. 

    To clarify, Google published a note on its Android forums on Friday, explaining its stance with Huawei phones and reminding its users not to try and “sideload” apps onto a phone where they shouldn’t be. The note from Google says that the company can only work with device models available to the public before May 16,2019:

    “Our focus has been protecting the security of Google users on the millions of existing Huawei devices around the world.  We have continued to work with Huawei, in compliance with government regulations, to provide security updates and updates to Google’s apps and services on existing devices, and we will continue to do so as long as it is permitted. To be clear: US law currently allows Google to only work with Huawei on device models available to the public on or before May 16, 2019.”

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    The note also makes it crystal clear that Google apps and services are simply not available “for preload or sideload” on Huawei’s new devices:

    We have continued to receive a number of questions about new Huawei devices (e.g., new models launching now, or earlier models launched after May 16, 2019 but now becoming available in new regions of the world) and whether Google’s apps and services can be used on these devices.  We wanted to provide clear guidance to those asking these important questions. 

    Due to government restrictions, Google’s apps and services are not available for preload or sideload on new Huawei devices.

    The note says that sideloaded apps on newer devices, despite the warning, “will not work reliably because [Google] does not allow these services to run on uncertified devices where security may be compromised.”

    “Sideloading Google’s apps also carries a high risk of installing an app that has been altered or tampered with in ways that can compromise user security,” the note says. 

    Google also offers users a way to check and verify whether or not their phone is certified for its apps: 

    To check if your device is certified, open the Google Play Store app on your Android phone, tap “Menu” and look for “Settings.” You will see if your device is certified under “Play Protect certification.” You can learn more on android.com/certified.

    While it seems as though Google is trying to sidestep the political implications of these rule changes, it is also stern in reminding its users from using backdoor access to load Google apps onto to Huawei phones. 

    Meanwhile, China has much bigger problems than Huawei on their hands right now. And the U.S.? Perhaps they should consider quarantining not just Huawei, but anything that comes out of China at the moment.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 21:00

  • South Korea Reports 123 New Coronavirus Cases; Italy Declares State Of Emergency: Virus Updates
    South Korea Reports 123 New Coronavirus Cases; Italy Declares State Of Emergency: Virus Updates

    Summary:

    • South Korea reports 123 new cases, 1 new death
    • Italy announces 79 cases, declares “national emergency”; Nothern Italy put on lockdown.
    • Japan cases triple in a week to 121
    • Japan confirms “seriously ill” patient in Tokyo
    • Hubei reports daily numbers
    • Chinese scientists find virus in urine
    • Experts propose 27 day quarantine, say 14 days likely not long enough
    • Cases outside China go exponential
    • 32 UK and European citizens arrive back in UK on evac flight
    • Outbreak reported in South Korean psychiatric ward
    • WHO team visits Wuhan; will give Monday press conference
    • Iran reports 10 new cases, deaths climb to 6
    • San Diego says 200 under ‘medical observation’
    • Young woman infected five relatives without ever showing symptoms
    • South Korea cases surge 8-fold in 4 days to 433; country reports third death

    * * *

    Update (2105ET): China’s National Health Commission has reported 18 new cases of Covid-19 and one new death outside of Hubei province. 

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

    * * *

    Update (2040ET): South Korea has finally released its numbers for Saturday. Authorities recorded an additional death, bringing the total to four, and another 123 confirmed cases, bringing the total to 556.

    Weekend futures took a dive on the news, dropping 40 points. Another 6,039 cases are being tested.

    • S.KOREA REPORTS 123 ADDITIONAL CORONAVIRUS CASES, BRINGING TOTAL TO 556 – YONHAP
    • FOURTH S.KOREAN CORONAVIRUS PATIENT DIES – KOREA’S CDC
    • S.KOREA REPORTS 123 ADDITIONAL CORONAVIRUS CASES, BRINGING TOTAL TO 556 – YONHAP

    Here’s a breakdown of the new data:

    • 123 new cases, 1 new death
    • 75 new cases linked to church
    • 48 others with unknown link
    • Total: 556 cases, 4 deaths
    •  6,039 people being tested

    That’s a more than ten-fold increase in cases in a week…

    * * *

    Update (1940ET): Health officials from two South Korean provinces have reported a total of 28 new cases ahead of a national update, according to BNO.

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    * * *

    Update (1920ET): NHK reports another case of a “seriously ill” patient in Tokyo. The man allegedly traveled to Indonesia – one of the few countries in the region that hasn’t confirmed a single case – while he was sick.

    * * *

    Update (1820ET): Officials in Hubei have reported their latest figures on the outbreak, with the number of new cases doubling compared to yesterday (630 on Saturday new cases vs. 366 on Friday), while the number of confirmed deaths dipped (96 vs 106). 

    Perhaps officials figured they could only fudge the number of new cases by so much since the WHO team was in Wuhan on Saturday. Who knows. But it’s notable that cases doubled, the latest sign that China’s policy of quarantine and containment doesn’t seem to be working. At this point, whatever the numbers coming out of China, they almost are no longer relevant, since nobody believes them anyway.

    • CHINA’S HUBEI PROVINCE, EPICENTRE OF CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK, REPORTS 630 NEW CASES ON FEB 22 VS 366 ON FEB 21
    • CHINA’S HUBEI PROVINCE, EPICENTRE OF CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK, REPORTS 96 NEW DEATHS ON FEB 22 VS 106 ON FEB 21
    • DEATH TOLL FROM CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN CHINA’S HUBEI AT 2,346 AS OF END-FEB 22

    And here’s just one more reason why: In a video recently posted to twitter, a doctor from a hospital in Hunan confirms that he counted 50 new patients the other day and submitted those numbers to health officials. In turn, they included only 1 case in the official count.

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    Mainstream American news organizations including the Washington Post are now questioning China’s numbers, as we noted earlier.

    Meanwhile, it looks like Italian health officials have confirmed 3 new cases, bringing the total to 79.

    * * *

    Update (1730ET): The first offshore coronavirus cluster was the Diamond Offshore cruise ship, where it now appears hundreds of infected passengers mingled with healthy tourists (and it now appears that Japan lied that it had tested passengers) with many returning to their country of origin now that the quarantine has been broken; the second cluster and third clusters are South Korea and Japan; the former has seen cases doubling every day for the past four, hitting 433 on Saturday in an exponential increase in new cases (see chart below), while Japan is said to have hundreds of cases as well.

    And while the recent surge in Iranian cases has put much of the middle east on notice over the possibility that the embargo-crippled nation may have emerged as a middle eastern hub of Coronavirus cases, the latest confirmed offshore cluster to emerge IS Italy, where late on Saturday prime minister Conte announced that a total of 76 cases have been confirmed in 5 regions, declaring the Coronavirus situation a “National Emergency.” The Prime Minister also said that Italy has implemented a law decree to fight the coronavirus, and is committed to limiting the spread of the Coronavirus.

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    And while Conte said that Italy won’t ask for a suspension of the Shengen pact (yet) which allows customs-free travel across Europe, but will adopt a decree to support the economy in certain areas, Italy’s Ansa reported that virtually all of Northern Italy is being put on lockdown and that all schools and universities in the affected areas to be closed until the end of the month.

    • NORTHERN ITALY WHERE CORONAVIRUS CASES REPORTED ON LOCKDOWN – ANSA NEWS
    • ITALY TO BAN TRAVEL FROM CERTAIN VIRUS AFFECTED AREAS: CONTE
    • ALL SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES IN AFFECTED AREAS TO BE CLOSED UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH, SCHOOL TRIPS ABROAD ALSO CANCELLED – ANSA NEWS

    Elsewhere, as the global pandemic spreads, Israel’s Ministry of Health said that it expected soon to close borders for non-residents.

    Meanwhile, on Saturday afternoon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its alert level for travel in Japan to Level 2. That level warns of “sustained community transmission” and calls for “precautions for high-risk travelers,” such as those with chronic medical conditions.

    Though Japan has reported only one death – amid nearly 80,000 cases and almost 2,400 deaths worldwide – it has a relatively large number of cases, 121, largely due to the spread of the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship which it facilitated.

    To summarize, Iran, Italy and South Korea reported new deaths Saturday. In total, there are some 77,000 cases worldwide, with over 2,300 deaths, almost all in China, but that imbalance is set to shift dramatically in the coming days.

    * * *

    Update (1330ET): News reports claim that roughly half of the latest batch of confirmed cases in South Korea which doubled the country’s total confirmed came from a hospital near Daegu in Cheongdo County, where 11 cases were confirmed. 109 of those infected found to be in the psychiatric ward, either as patients or staff, according to the director of the South Korean CDCP. Nine of them were doctors.

    The Blue House has asked South Korean citizens to avoid group activities and assemblies, and recommended that events be replaced with online gatherings. If its guidelines aren’t followed voluntarily, the government warned that it would resort to “strict measures” to contain the outbreak if its guidelines aren’t followed by the public.

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    Medical workers carried a patient infected with coronavirus to a hospital in Chuncheon, South Korea on Saturday.

    In yet another sign of Japan’s shortcomings when attempting to contain the virus, an officer who worked at an airport quarantine in northern Japan has reportedly tested positive for the virus.

    Britain’s Foreign Officer confirmed Saturday that 32 British and European citizens had landed back in the UK, and would soon be quarantined. 

    In Italy, the government has confirmed the first case in Milan, a city of 1.8 million that’s a center of Italian industry and fashion. 

    Iran has reported another death, bringing its total to 6.

    The latest total for Japan puts cases at 738, including some passengers and crew from the “Diamond Princess” as the number of confirmed cases ex-China continues to climb.

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    Just looking at new cases from the top 7 infected countries is alarming:

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    * * *

    Update (1100ET): Italian health officials have confirmed nearly two dozen more cases across Lombardy and Veneto, according to Bloomberg.

    The Lombardy region has 39 coronavirus cases with another 12 cases in the Veneto, regional officials said in a press conference Saturday in Milan. Most of the cases are in the Codogno area, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Milan. A woman who was found dead in her home subsequently tested positive, the health secretary said. Earlier, three tourists in Rome were diagnosed with the virus.

    * * *

    When WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros was asked on Thursday whether the COVID-19 virus was at a tipping point, he replied that the window to stop the outbreak from growing exponentially worse was rapidly closing.

    Though by Friday night, it certainly seemed like that window had slammed shut. In South Korea, cases went exponential, soaring by 70% in one day.

    Overnight, the country reported another rash of confirmed cases, bringing the total to 433, with 352 in Daegu, presumably members of the cult-like church where a ‘super-spreader’ worshipped. That marks an eight-fold increase in cases in just four days for South Korea, as the AP reported.

    SK also reported its third death, a man in his 40s who was found dead in his apartment and posthumously tested.

    South Korean health officials warned they could soon see a rash of deaths as several patients are in serious condition. Virus patients with signs of pneumonia or other serious conditions at the Cheongdo hospital were transferred elsewhere as 17 of them are in critical condition, according to SK Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip told reporters.

    The country has followed China in imposing quarantines (everyone is too terrified to go outside anyway) and they’re hoping to prevent a national outbreak, despite a few cases in Seoul that weren’t immediately traceable to an obvious source, which is sort of discouraging.

    “Although we are beginning to see some more cases nationwide, infections are still sporadic outside of the special management zone of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province,” Kim said during a briefing. He called for maintaining strong border controls to prevent infections from China and elsewhere from entering South Korea.

    In Italy, a seemingly minor outbreak went exponential. By day’s end, Italian health authorities had confirmed their first virus-related fatality, and 12 towns in Lombardy were under strict quarantine orders with residents huddling terrified inside their homes, a tableau that has become all too familiar by now. Another fatality followed overnight, as a couple more towns joined in the lockdown. This marked Italy as the first European country to see its own nationals succumb to the virus, according to Euronews.

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    Across Italy, there are 32 cases in Codogno, Lombardy, and seven in Veneto, according to the AFP and Sky Italia television. Many of the new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion.

    In Iran, 10 more cases, and one more death, were recorded overnight. That brings the total number of confirmed cases to 28, including cases in Qom and Tehran. So far, five Iranians have died.

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    As we await more information out of China, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon reports that the team would hold a press briefing on Monday at 6 am ET.

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    Meanwhile, as we noted yesterday, the team has arrived in Wuhan, where it’s gathering information and observing the situation on the ground.

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    The team has already been to three Chinese provinces, Beijing, Sichuan and Guangdong, but are only now just visiting the city at the heart of the outbreak. Dr. Tedros confirmed the trip during public comments on Saturday, where he once again shared some familiar words.

    “We have to take advantage of the window of opportunity we have, to attack the virus outbreak with a sense of urgency,” Dr. Tedros told the leaders, who had gathered for an emergency meeting on the response to the coronavirus in the continent.

    President Xi said Saturday that the situation in Wuhan remains ‘grim and complex’ – which means the WHO team should be in for an eye-opening experience.

    As of Saturday morning in the US, 1,200 cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed outside China. More than 200 cases have been confirmed in South Korea, more than 30 in Italy, roughly a dozen in Iran, and one in Egypt, the first to be confirmed in Africa. China has reported over 76,000 cases, including over 2,300 deaths.

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    Confirmed cases in Japan rose to 121 on Saturday, having more than tripled in a week.

    Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that health officials and the cruise line are continuing to test crew members aboard the Diamond Princess. So far, 74 crew have been confirmed to have the virus, but they have been included in the toll already.

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    SCMP

    So far, China has reported only 397 new cases Saturday, as the rate of increase continued to decline, but another 109 have died. And even the Washington Post acknowledges that there is a “great deal of skepticism” about China’s numbers, according to a new case study seen by Reuters.

    Cases where patients didn’t show signs of infection for longer than two weeks have prompted some epidemiologists to suggest a 27 day quarantine period instead of just a 14 day. Also on Saturday scientists in China revealed that they had discovered a strain of the virus in a patient’s urine, raising new and uncomfortable questions about the virus’s ability to spread through sewer systems.

    There have also been several new indications that the virus’s incubation period might be longer than the 14 days currently believed. A woman in Wuhan with no symptoms infected five relatives without every showing signs of infection.

    In the US, health officials are scrambling to contain the fallout from the evacuation of 300 Americans from the ‘Diamond Princess’. It appears that the decision to transport 14 infected passengers along with the rest of the group was a disaster. Dozens of others appear to have been infected either during the trip, or shortly before.

    But in San Diego, officials announced that they’re monitoring some 200 cases, none of which had anything to do with the ship.

    After confirmed US cases more than doubled to 34 on Friday, officials in San Diego on Saturday confirmed that more than 200 people are currently being monitored over virus concerns, according to ABC News 10.

    Officials said everyone being monitored had either come in contact with one of the three confirmed cases, or others under suspicion. Health officials didn’t exactly offer specific details.

    They’re among more than 300 people who have been, or are being, ‘monitored’ by the county.

    The 204 people under county supervision include those deemed at risk of having been exposed to the virus due to close contact with confirmed cases or because of travel to China in the past 14 days, the county said.

    Those individuals are monitoring their health under the supervision of county health officials.

    So far, 338 people in all have been monitored by the county, with 134 people completing their time under supervision.

    Health officials say the CDC is conducting screening for those landing at one of 11 U.S. airports from China. From there, if a patient shows no symptoms they are self-quarantined at home for self-monitoring with public health supervision.

    Keep in mind: These individuals aren’t being held in isolation or a mandatory quarantine. Instead, they’ve been asked to self-quarantine, and immediately report any suspicious symptoms.

    San Diego has had two confirmed cases of coronavirus, or COVID-19, among the evacuees who were flown out of Wuhan a few weeks ago. One patient has since recovered from the virus and has been released. The second patient is still receiving care. A third patient, reportedly a child, is still awaiting test results, but has been said to be showing symptoms.

    When they extended a coronavirus-related emergency declaration for another 30 days, officials said there were no signs the virus was spreading around San Diego. But it never hurts to be cautious.

    Before we go, we wanted to remind readers of a chart we first shared a couple of days ago:

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

    Terrifying indeed.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 20:42

  • Who Is Funding The Anti-Bernie Sanders Super PAC?
    Who Is Funding The Anti-Bernie Sanders Super PAC?

    Authored by Ilma Hasan via OpenSecrets.org

    Several outside groups are trying to slow the momentum of current Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) by spending millions on ad buys, as he continues to dominate the polls. 

    The campaign against Sanders originated with hybrid PAC Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel moderate group, that spent over $1.4 million against Sanders. The group spent over $800,000 running ads against the frontrunning Democratic presidential candidate in Iowa and it’s spending $600,000 in Nevada, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. 

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    Sanders campaign file image via Der Spiegel 

    Most of the PAC’s contributors have a clear history of giving money to candidates on both sides of the aisle. Its biggest donor is Stacy Schusterman, CEO of Samson Resources, an oil and gas company, who donated $1 million to the group in 2019. Schusterman has a long history of donating to Democratic candidates, except in 2016 when she contributed almost $130,000 to 25 Republican lawmakers including $2,700 to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

    Venture capitalist Gary Mark Lauder was the second highest donor to the hybrid PAC giving $500,000. New York businessman Milton Cooper was the next highest at $150,000. Active in donating to various Democrats, he also contributed $4,000 to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and $2,000 to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in 2019.

    Ron Zeff, founder and CEO of Carmel Partners, a real estate investment firm, gave the group $100,000. He previously contributed over $70,000 to the GOP. Zeff also donated to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012 against President Barack Obama. 

    The Sanders campaign said it raised $1.3 million within a day of the super PAC ads airing. Of the non-billionaires in the race, Sanders is the only candidate to report substantial cash on hand through January. 

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    On Wednesday, Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, announced the group will no longer be running any ads against Sanders or contribute in the presidential race after its ad buys in Nevada run out. The group will focus on Democratic congressional races instead, Jewish Insider reported. 

    “We will be involved in congressional races and in some cases those are Democrats running against Republican and in some case, those are pro-Israel champions running against anti-Israel challengers,” Mellman reportedly said.

    The pro-Israel super PAC is closely affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and some of it’s largest donors are top members of the group, according to The Intercept.

    While Mellman’s group will be taking a backseat, the committee has been running an anti-Sanders campaign through Facebook ads since last year. It recently came under scrutiny for accusing “radicals” in the Democratic Party of “pushing their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies down the throats of the American people.” The group later apologized for “the ad’s imprecise wording (that) distorted our message and offended many.”

    Another group meant to boost moderates, The Big Tent Project, reportedly has a budget of $1 million to run ads against Sanders. Big Tent has spent $200,000 of the budget running two test ads in Nevada and South Carolina, as both states will hold upcoming primaries. Sanders is projected to win both states according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls. 

    While one ad accuses the frontrunner of dumping waste in Latino communities, the other criticizes his healthcare policy. “The cost? Another four years of Trump,” the ad says. Run by Jonathan Kott, a former top aide to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Big Tent is classified as a 501(c)(4) and is not required to disclose its donors. 

    Sanders has long questioned American policy toward Israel and advocates an approach that addresses both Israeli security and a “pro-Palestinian” perspective. His criticism has made pro-Israel Democrats and supporters anxious, resulting in a surge of anti-Sanders ads. 

    As Sanders is projected to win the upcoming contests, big Democratic donors have concerns about him being the presidential candidate, Politico reported. The concern within democrats is that an anti-Sanders campaign could result in boosting his contributions from an already devoted support base. For others, it’s about Sanders’ possible inability to woo moderate and Republican voters. 


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 20:30

  • Researchers Find 61.5% Of Coronavirus Patients With Severe Pneumonia Won't Survive
    Researchers Find 61.5% Of Coronavirus Patients With Severe Pneumonia Won’t Survive

    Since the Wuhan coronavirus first appeared late last year, researchers have been studying it, though for the first month or so, only Chinese scientists had access to the data.

    But now that China has shared its data with the world, research has been appearing more quickly, with more opportunities for peer review.

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    According to a study published in the Lancet on Friday, patients who are especially vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infections – a group that includes the very old, very young and those with co-occurring conditions – die at a higher rate from COVID-19 than they did from SARS and MERS.

    A study of 52 critically ill adults at Wuhan Jin Yin-tan hospital found that 61.5% of patients requiring hospitalization and intense monitoring ended up becoming “non-survivors”, to borrow some of the researchers’ terminology.

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    The researchers concluded that COVID-19 – or SARS-CoV-2, as they call it – is more lethal for vulnerable patients than SARS or MERS was.

    Like SARS-CoV and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that can be transmitted to humans, and these viruses are all related to high mortality in critically ill patients.12 However, the mortality rate in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection in our cohort is higher than that previously seen in critically ill patients with SARS. In a cohort of 38 critically ill patients with SARS from 13 hospitals in Canada, 29 (76%) patients required mechanical ventilation, 13 (43%) patients had died at 28 days, and six (16%) patients remained on mechanical ventilation. 17 (38%) of 45 patients and 14 (26%) of 54 patients who were critically ill with SARS infection were also reported to have died at 28 days in a Singapore cohort13 and a Hong Kong cohort,14 respectively. The mortality rate in our cohort is likely to be higher than that seen in critically ill patients with MERS infection. In a cohort of 12 patients with MERS from two hospitals in Saudi Arabia, seven (58%) patients had died at 90 days.15 Since the follow-up time is shorter in our cohort, we postulate that the mortality rate would be higher after 28 days than that seen in patients with MERS-CoV.

    Researchers presented their findings in a series of tables which clearly broke down each patient’s symptoms and path to recovery (or death).

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    The mean age of the 52 patients who participated in the study was 59 years old. 35 (67%) were men, 21 (40%) had been diagnosed with some kind of chronic illness, and 51 (98%)were found to have a fever.

    Readers can find the whole article below:

    s 2213260020300795 by Zerohedge on Scribd

    We expect to learn more about the virus when the team of WHO experts, which includes 2 Americans, delivers their press conference on Monday.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 20:00

  • Watch: Turkish-Backed Jihadists Attempt To Down Russian Jet Over Idlib With MANPADS
    Watch: Turkish-Backed Jihadists Attempt To Down Russian Jet Over Idlib With MANPADS

    Via AlmasdarNews.com,

    A new video released on Friday showed the Turkish military and their allied militants attempting to hit a Russian aircraft with an anti-aircraft missile in the Idlib Governorate yesterday.

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    In the short video, the Turkish forces and their allies militants can be seen on the roof of a building, where they later attempted to shoot down the Russian aircraft in the skies of the Idlib Governorate.

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    As shown in the video, however, the anti-aircraft missile fails to hit the Russian aircraft that had just flown over their positions in what is presumably the eastern countryside of Idlib.

    The Russian jet is seen deploying counter-measures seconds after the surface-to-air missile is fired.

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    Prior to the release of this video, another film was released on Thursday that showed the militant forces in the Idlib Governorate trying to shoot down a Russian Su-24 aircraft that had just got done bombing their positions.

    Below is the video that was released on Friday of the attempted downing of the Russian aircraft:


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 19:30

  • 401(k) Millionaires Surge To Record Level Under Trump
    401(k) Millionaires Surge To Record Level Under Trump

    A Fidelity Investments press release on Thursday said the number of customers with more than $1 million in their 409k  401k soared to record levels in 4Q19 fueled by higher savings rates and surging stock markets. 

    There’s a reason why President Trump touted 401k growth during his State of the Union address last week, because balances are increasing, and it will help him win the election. 

    Fidelity noted that 401k millionaires soared last quarter, reaching a record level. Customers with the brokerage house that have over one million dollars in their 401k hit 233,000, up from 200,000 in Q3, a 17% jump M/M. 

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    The number of IRA millionaires increased to 208,000, also a record high and an increase from 182,400 in Q3. 

    All of these new 401k and IRA millionaires were created through President Trump’s pressure on the Federal Reserve to unleash easy money policies to boost the stock market.

    And, of course, as we all know, JPM’s drain of liquidity via Money Markets and reserves parked at the Fed promoted a liquidity crisis that resulted in “Not QE,” which allowed even more liquidity to flow into the stock market starting last September, the same period when all of these investment accounts soared in value. Coincidence? 

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    Kevin Barry, president of Workplace Investing at Fidelity Investments, noted in the release that “growth in savings levels over the last 10 years demonstrates the positive impact of taking a long-term approach to retirement, and recent Fidelity research demonstrates workers who do so have reason to feel increasingly confident about their retirement readiness.”

    “However, as we enter a new decade and continue to see markets rise and fall, it’s more important than ever to remember some of the important elements of a successful retirement strategy – these include maintaining positive savings habits, ensuring your account has the right balance of stocks, bonds, and cash, and continuing to focus on your long-term savings goals,” Barry added.

    Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com recently discussed the topic of soaring investment accounts, called it: “FOMO by executive order I called it.”

    Every chance Trump gets, he tweets or tells everyone that their 409k 401k is performing great. 

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    Raoul Pal of Real Vision had a good take on it:

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    It seems that the Fed’s easy money policies over the last year, juicing markets to all-time highs, could be a vote of confidence by the central bank to get Trump reelected.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 19:00

  • Luongo: We Don't Need A Ministry Of Truth To Protect Us From The Bad People
    Luongo: We Don’t Need A Ministry Of Truth To Protect Us From The Bad People

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns,

    Don’t Be Fooled by the Deplatforming of Facebook

    The push for speech control escalates. There is now a concentration of stories concerning social media companies and their role in shaping political thought.

    We are nine months from a pivotal presidential election in the U.S. and the push is on to ensure that the outcome goes the way those in power want it to.

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    Three times in as many weeks billionaire busybody George Soros has attacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, demanding he be removed because he is working to re-elect Donald Trump.

    This seems like an absurdity. But it isn’t. It’s all part of the game plan.

    Create a controversy that isn’t real to seed a narrative that there’s a problem in need of a solution. Facebook has been the center of this controversy to inflame passions on both sides of the political aisle to ensure the desired outcome.

    They want regulation of all social media companies to create unscalable barriers to entry for new ones while curtailing free speech on the existing ones.

    Warren Buffet would call that a moat. I call it tyranny.

    Enter Attorney General William Barr.

    He weighed in recently that we need to have a conversation about Facebook et.al. in relation to their Section 230 immunity under the Communications Decency Act.

    Section 230 grants immunity to companies like Facebook and Google from prosecution for content hosted on their services as they argue they are not publishers but rather just pass-through entities or platforms of user-generated content.

    Now, it’s pretty clear for the past few years the social media companies have been acting with open editorial bias to deplatform undesirables. They rewrite broadly defined terms of services and EULAs (End-User Licence Agreements) which they use to justify controlling what content they are willing to host.

    And that’s where the Section 230 immunity comes into play. The big tech companies want to have it both ways, be a neutral platform legally but self-define ‘neutrality’ in such a way that benefits them politically, economically and socially while insulating themselves from breaching contracts with their customers.

    What’s clear from Barr’s comments he’s approaching this from a law enforcement perspective.

    “We are concerned that internet services, under the guise of Section 230, can not only block access to law enforcement — even when officials have secured a court-authorized warrant — but also prevent victims from civil recovery,” Barr said. “Giving broad immunity to platforms that purposefully blind themselves — and law enforcers — to illegal conduct on their services does not create incentives to make the online world safer for children.”

    And this clearly doesn’t address the real issue. That’s your sign there’s something wrong here.

    Both political parties are unhappy with the current situation and that should be your red flag that a great stitch-up is in progress. Because the end goal here is government oversight that has bipartisan support.

    That support has to be manufactured from both sides. The left wants protection from ‘fake news’ and ‘Russian meddling’ while the right wants a level playing field to air ideas in the public square.

    Didn’t you all notice how both of these things became issues right after the wrong person won the 2016 presidential election and the British people made the wrong decision about EU Membership?

    I’m sure you noticed the blatant bias exhibited by Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and the rest of these protected platforms and wondered why they were allowed to act so egregiously with seemingly no recourse?

    The big tech companies don’t want more government oversight, they simply want to continue to have their have their editorial take and enforce it too while taking your money and suppressing your voice.

    Government intervention is not the solution here. In fact, it is the goal of the entire exercise.

    I don’t want the government coming in and further defining the rules by which Facebook can deplatform everyone who tells inconvenient truths.

    Because that’s all government does. And then it empowers a bureaucracy to enforce those rules.

    I don’t need a Ministry of Truth to protect me from the bad people. I know where the bad people are and, in your heart, so do you.

    So the question isn’t whether Barr should strip these companies of their Section 230 immunity. Of course he should if they exhibit any kind of editorial behavior.

    But, in typical Swamp fashion, Barr isn’t concerned about that. He’s concerned with using Facebook to track down criminals; the implication being drug runners, murderers, etc.

    That’s a sop to law and order conservatives to get their support politically.

    But the real criminals are in the bowels of the compliance departments and algorithm factories of these social media companies pushing the bounds of indecency by trying to protect us from fake news to control the flow of information.

    They’ve already done a great deal of this, altering search algorithms to ensure only approved news sources show up in the results.

    We know they are all working in cahoots with the intelligence agencies here in the U.S. but no one will admit it publicly. The EU and China are more honest about their tyrannical impulses using their anti-democratic structure to create rules which they force onto these multi-national companies.

    Now Twitter is testing new flagging abilities for verified accounts to act as community censors, creating the illusion of a user-controlled public space. It’ll only be for those that get blue check marks. And that’s a system clearly gamed to reflect a particular ideological bias as no one who dissents from the approved globalist message gets one of those anymore.

    So, only journalists from official news outlets will have this ability to fact-check in real time the pronouncements of important influencers.

    If you don’t think this is simply a means by which to make it seem fair to suppress the king of Twitter, Donald Trump, then you clearly haven’t had your morning coffee.

    For a couple of years now I’ve been warning you that the elites are desperate to regain control over what I call The Wire. What is The Wire?

    The Wire is simply a metaphor for the transmission of information.  The Wire takes many forms.  And if you aren’t sure whether something is The Wire just ask if you have control over it or not.

    The Internet?  The Wire.

    Electricity?  The Wire

    Roads?  The Wire.

    Media?  The Wire.

    Money?  The Wire.

    In short, The Wire is the main conduit through which we communicate with each other.  Money?  Really?  Yes, really.  What are prices if not information about what we are willing to part with your money in exchange for?

    Without The Wire modern society fails.  So, government can’t shut it down but neither can it allow unrenstrained access to it.

    Electricity, commerce, communications, everything, goes over The Wire.  

    Control of The Wire is everything. Soros is desperately trying to hold onto control over the social media companies he’s invested so heavily in to influence their influence.

    And it’s clear we’ve entered the next phase of regaining control over it.

    The solution to the Section 230 Immunity issue for these companies is to remove it and open them up to civil liabilities for their inconsistent enforcement of their own policies.

    Because once you do that they have no protection under commercial contract law.

    Those users that use these platforms for commercial purposes are materially harmed by the ever-changing rules of these platforms.

    They entered into an agreement with YouTube or Facebook in good faith expectation of a certain level of service.

    Facebook’s business is built on the implicit guarantee of that service. In turn, Facebook was built on the backs of those using the platform.

    Unilaterally taking away that access without compensation simply because Facebook said so is a perversion of contract law. Why should Facebook be allowed to do that? Why hasn’t this clear inequity between parties to a contract been addressed by the courts?

    And that’s what we should be addressing here.

    And I’m not just talking about Facebook here. Remember when the social network Gab had its internet access revoked by GoDaddy? How does GoDaddy escape paying damages for unilaterally denying service?

    There is clear opportunity for them to be sued into submission by the millions of users whose businesses and reputations have been destroyed due to arbitrary enforcement of company rules.

    At the end of the day these companies create and use as excuses broad powers which have almost no precedent in contract law. Their EULAs are contracts the user signs which grants them no rights or guarantees of service in any way. They can be abrogated, updated and changed to suit the company’s whim with no redress for the breach of contract from the other party.

    This is outrageous, unacceptable and flies in the face of hundreds of years of contract law.

    And they should be challenged in court and thrown out as illegal Contracts of Adhesion. This is settled contract law.

    If Facebook wants to ban Alex Jones from their platform fine. I have zero problem with that. If they want to act as a private business which is protected under the First Amendment’s protection of Freedom of Association, great!

    I’m all for re-establishing that in this society.

    Let’s open up that can of worms.

    It would finally be an honest conversation. Because we are rapidly approaching the moment of reverse racism, whereby Facebook doesn’t want to host racist or sexist content.

    And I’m fine with that. But I’m also fine then with restaurants not serving black people or people baking wedding cakes for gay couples.

    Freedom OF association is also Freedom FROM association, folks.

    The shit-libs and the oligarchs want it both ways. They want you to be forced to associate with others on their terms but deny you a place in society because you disagree with them.

    That is, in a word, tyrannical.

    So, in a just world, Facebook owes Alex Jones millions for lost revenue and damages to Jones’ business as well as, one could argue, a portion of Facebook’s revenue it generated during the time it hosted Jones’ content which brought the company users, revenue and market share.

    Multiply that lawsuit by ten for the number of platforms Alex Jones has been banned from. Then multiply that number by the millions for everyone else these platforms have materially harmed.

    And then we’ll see what the market cap of the NASDAQ 100 would truly be.

    And that’s one way we should fight this, not by empowering more bureaucrats to police everyone’s speech on Twitter, but to sue Twitter for non-fulfillment of obligations under the reasonable expectation of service they are to provide as a party to a legal contract.

    This is what I wanted to hear William Barr was focusing on in working on. But that is exactly what will not happen.

    The other is to develop technology which resists the centralizing power of these companies to control our speech, democratizing it at the incentive level, through projects like Brave and other blockchain-based systems, which empower the user, not the platform to decide which content has value and which doesn’t.

    *  *  *

    Beware the deplatforming of Facebook, it’s just another brick in the wall.  Join my Patreon if you believe in free and open exchange of ideas.

    Install the Brave Browser if you want to help disempower Google and Facebook from controlling it.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 18:30

  • Libya Asks US To Establish Military Base To Combat Russian Presence
    Libya Asks US To Establish Military Base To Combat Russian Presence

    This is all we need: another American base located smack dab in the middle of yet another civil war we had a big hand in causing in the first place. 

    “Libya’s security chief called on the U.S. to set up a base in the North African country to counter Russia’s expanding influence in Africa,” Bloomberg reports. 

    It appears a desperate effort on the part of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) to gain Washington’s attention after Trump last year seemed to switch his preference to Gen. Khalifa Haftar.

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    File image, US Army/Air Force Magazine

    The US president famously said last Spring that Haftar, who holds dual citizenship after living outside D.C. for two decades and is said to be close to the CIA, is “securing the oil”. 

    Haftar is being politically supported by Moscow, and it should be noted has Russian mercenaries in the ranks of his Libyan National Army, or LNA. 

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    So naturally Tripoli is playing “Russian influence” in Libya card to lure the Trump administration back into the GNA camp.

    The GNA’s interior minister Fathi Bashagha told Bloomberg that “The Russians aren’t in Libya just for Haftar.”

    The top Libyan security chief added of the Russia’s assumed ambitions there, “They have a big strategy in Libya and Africa.”

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    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with LNA commander Khalif Haftar, file image.

    And Bloomberg explains further:

    The oil-rich nation across the Mediterranean from Europe has been one of the main stages for Russia’s push for influence over the past year. More than a thousand mercenaries deployed by a confidant of President Vladimir Putin have backed Haftar’s offensive to capture the capital from the internationally recognized government.

    Bashagha warned that Russia’s backing of Haftar was part of a broader push for influence.

    Pro-Haftar forces have been laying siege to the capital of Tripoli for months now, displacing tens of thousands of civilians, in what’s fast shaping up to be a major North African proxy war, given the UAE, Egypt and Russia have taken Haftar’s side, while Turkey and most major UN countries have stuck by Tripoli under Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.

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    Khalifa Haftar is greeted on a 2017 trip to Russia, via AFP/Getty.

    Though AFRICOM has been expanding rapidly over the past decade across the African continent, it doesn’t look as if the Trump administration is ready to commit any level of American troops to the Libyan War 2.0 any time soon. 


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 18:05

  • The Cost Of Covid-19 Quarantine: Will You Be Financially Prepared?
    The Cost Of Covid-19 Quarantine: Will You Be Financially Prepared?

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    As the world tries frantically to contain a rapidly spreading outbreak of Covid-19, schools, public venues, tourist attractions, and workplaces are being closed in an attempt to keep even more people from contracting the illness. Quarantines and self-isolation protocols are also being instituted across the globe for those who may have been exposed.

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    Of course, everyone knows that millions of people in China have been in lockdown for more than a month. People are told to stay home, many businesses have ceased to operate, and Chinese New Year celebrations simply didn’t happen this year. China’s debts are all coming due now, at the worst possible time as the financial loss for the country has been astronomical. For example, car sales are down 92% and Lunar New Year celebrations and travel that usually earn a billion dollars were canceled.

    And that tourism hit affects far more than just China. In 2017, Chinese outbound tourists spent $258 billion around the world. The airline industry is bracing for a $29 billion dollar hit. All in all, this virus could end up costing the global economy more than 1.1 trillion dollars, a number that is practically unfathomable.

    While the numbers cited here are outrageously large, obviously, these losses aren’t only going to affect “the economy” and “the businesses.” They’re going to have devastating effects on normal folks who just want to go to work, pay their bills, and keep living their lives normally.

    A great deal has been written about the economic hits on a global scale as well as the shortages we could soon expect as production in China grinds to a halt, but what about simply being able to pay your rent when your workplace or business is ordered to shut its doors?

    Something nobody is really talking about is the financial hit that people will be taking during such closures. This is a very real concern, and for families who already live paycheck to paycheck, the loss of income could prove devastating.

    How will containment efforts affect average folks financially?

    All over the world, cities are frantically attempting to contain the virus.

    Yesterday came the news that 10 cities in northern Italy had closed all public venues due to a new cluster of coronavirus patients. The towns, in the Lombardy region, have shuttered restaurants, stores, and schools. Public gatherings like carnival celebrations, church masses, and sporting events have been banned for at least a week. In one town, Casalpusterlengo, an electric sign reads, “Coronavirus: the population is invited to remain indoors as a precaution.” Seventeen people in the region have tested positive for Covid-19, and two have perished there from the illness.

    Millions of people in South Korea have been told to stay at home. Preschools have been closed and public gatherings and demonstrations have been banned.

    Thousands of people in the United States are under voluntary self-quarantine, not to mention the hundreds who have been repatriated and put into mandatory quarantine. Obviously, unless these folks have jobs to which they can telecommute, they’re not working.

    All of these containment measures are certainly wise and in the best interest of peoples’ health. But what about their bank accounts?

    Here’s a scenario that’s seeming less and less farfetched.

    If you’re the owner of a physical business like a store or restaurant, you’re going to have to shut down under any of the kind of mandates mentioned above. When you’re closed, of course, you’re not making money. It’s the same thing with factories (who will be there to produce the goods?) and offices. Your business will grind to a rapid halt.

    And what about employees? Obviously, if you don’t go to work, you’re not going to get paid. And this isn’t just a case of “evil capitalists” who are too stingy to give their employees paid leave. If the business is not running, there is no revenue coming in. That means that even if the business owners were the most generous people alive, they probably couldn’t afford to maintain payrolls for very long.

    So how are you going to pay your bills? It’s safe to expect that the mortgage company, the credit card companies, the utility companies, and all those other businesses with their hands out each month are still going to want their money. And their businesses could potentially carry on to some degree, remotely. That stuff isn’t just going to magically disappear. You’re going to owe that money. Even if companies try to work with folks as they did during the most recent government shutdown, the money will still be owed and you’ll still be unpaid for a week, a month, or however long you were out of work.

    This doesn’t include the cost of food, medication, general expenses, and medical bills – heaven help you if you do get sick.

    What can you do to prepare for this financially?

    Here’s where the situation becomes even more difficult.

    I strongly, adamantly advise getting prepared for being home for a period of time whether that quarantine is official or self-imposed. I advise also that you get prepared for other ramifications of a potential global pandemic, too. And if you aren’t already pretty well-prepped, that is going to cost money.

    That leaves us in a quandary.

    Do you save your money for the possibility of being without work or do you spend your money to feed your family while you’re without work? It’s like a choice between the rock or the hard place.

    If you have an emergency fund, avoid cracking into it for supplies. This will be your cushion for bills if you go for a period of time without work. If you do not have an emergency fund and you’ve been struggling with a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, things will be a lot tougher.

    Temporarily halt your efforts to pay off debt faster. Pay only the minimum payment for a month or two while we see how this plays out. Put that extra money into your savings account and you can build a small emergency cushion. And if things don’t get bad, you can use it for debt later when things settle down. People always like to say I’m wrong when I suggest that paying off debt isn’t your first priority, but in this situation, keeping your utilities on and a roof over your head is more important than paying some extra interest.

    Raise some money. Now’s the time to try and raise a bit of extra money. Do you have anything you can sell for a chunk of change? Is there a possibility of getting a second job temporarily? Put an ad on Craigslist for that exercise bike being used as a clothes-hanger in the basement. Sell a piece of unwanted jewelry. Get rid of the car nobody drives. Use this money for your emergency fund or for supplies. You will have a lot more difficulty selling it after a crisis because then everyone is going to be broke. If you’re going to do it, do it now.

    If you’re flat broke, things will be more difficult. This isn’t news to you if you’re in this situation. Please know I’m not judging – I’ve been there, so broke that I literally cried over a gallon of spilled milk because it was a week until payday and I couldn’t afford to get more for my children. But this isn’t about emotional responses – it’s about practicality. If you have only a limited amount of money, you’re going to have to prioritize where you spend it. Your credit is most likely already shot if things are this tight, so don’t worry about that right now. Keep a roof over your head, utilities on, food in the kitchen, and a car in your driveway if your job depends on it. Credit card debt should be the last thing you pay in a situation like this. Go read this article, How to Survive When You Can’t Pay Your Bills, for more detailed information.

    Prioritize your supply purchases. While people are frantically buying up N95 masks and PPE, spend your money on the things you need to have on hand during a month or more at home. Sure, I think it’s great to have medical supplies for a possible pandemic, but these measures are to be used if you go out into the germy masses. And your goal should be to avoid doing that. Other reasons you’d need these supplies would be if a family member became ill – you’d want to do your best to avoid contracting the illness yourself while you care for them and you’d want to protect your other family members. The more I learn about this virus though, the less convinced I am that gloves and masks are going to be preventative enough if you’re living in close quarters with an infected person. Look at the rapid rates of transmission aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship for more information on that. While of course, it is best to have both medical supplies and food, if you can only get one type of supply or the other, focus most of your money on food and other essentials – not PPE.

    Use some of the money coming in for supplies you need to buy. Think about what you would need if you couldn’t leave your house for a month, two months, etc. (It’s pretty difficult to put a time on something like this. China has had people in some areas locked down for a month with no real end in sight.) Here’s some of the stuff I bought to top up our supplies and be prepared for lockdown. Use my list only as a general guideline – you know what your family needs and it will be different from mine. Be sure to include plenty of nutrients in your supplies – you want your immune system to remain highly functional when you could be at risk of contracting an illness.

    At the same time, go for quantity over quality if money is an issue. Get some stuff that is cheap yet filling as the last resort of your pantry. Remember, you want to be able to stay home and not send someone out to be exposed while trying to acquire food. So if that means some peanut butter and crackers or mac and cheese in the back of your pantry, it’s better than getting sick to go out and seek fresh veggies. (And you most likely wouldn’t even be able to find them – expect the supply chain to break down pretty quickly.)

    Talk to the people to whom you owe money. Contact utility companies, mortgage companies, banks, credit card companies, etc., and let them know about your situation. Everyone will be in a similar boat and these businesses may have some suggestions for you. Mortgage companies may be able to offer you a month of grace, credit card companies may make arrangements with you, etc. Do this early on and it will help you plan where your money is going to go during the crisis.

    Prioritize your bills. You need a place to live (although I doubt they’re going to be running around evicting people during a pandemic, you could lose your house afterward unless you can work something out.). You need to keep your utilities on. You may have some other essential spending, too – this will be very individual. Credit card debt and unsecured loans come dead-last in bill-paying during a crisis like this. Other things that are not essential? Cable, which seems like a great option for whiling away the hours when you’re cooped up in the house, is not a priority. Nobody in your family will die without television although some people may act like they’re going to perish from the very idea of it. Each family member having an operable cell phone? Not a priority. Extreme situations may call for measures that people find less than pleasant. Make these decisions early on. A monthly cable bill of $120 would buy you quite a bit of non-perishable food.

    Be frugal. Let’s assume you’re able to work out a deal with the utility companies to pay your overdue bill a month after the crisis has resolved. These aren’t going to be the only bills you are behind on. It would behoove you to be as frugal as possible with utility usage. Don’t leave on every light in the house, don’t crank your heat or air conditioner, and try to keep your bills low so that the amount you pay when things go back to normal isn’t quite as daunting. Trust me, paying 2-3 electric bills at a time will still be a big chunk of money, regardless of how careful you are. Don’t make it worse by acting like you’re in a hotel where you don’t pay for the power used.

    Be ready for the long haul.

    This is a crisis that could have snowballing repercussions and they could last for a very long time. Hopefully, it gets contained and blows over without affecting us too badly. Hopefully, we get lucky and in a few years, the Covid-19 outbreak warrants the same eye-roll that the 2014 Ebola scare does.

    But if it doesn’t – if the scenario described in this article comes to pass – you need to be prepared for a long-haul. You need to be ready for your lifestyle to change fairly dramatically. A loss of more than a trillion dollars from the global economy isn’t something that we’ll bounce back from with “business as usual.”

    • Jobs will be cut as businesses struggle to stay afloat.

    • Businesses will fail.

    • Properties will not sell.

    • Shortages of food and other supplies will occur.

    • If people are unable to pay back debt, expect a banking crisis that makes 2008 look like a rainy Sunday afternoon.

    The same measures taken to contain the virus can cause these economic effects.

    …experts like Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer, worry that draconian measures that stoke fear in the population do more harm than good.

    “Recessions kill people, in fact will probably kill more people than this virus does,” he told CBC News host Michael Serapio last week…

    …”Our world has become so interconnected,” says Jia Wang, deputy director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute.

    Wang suggests that the next few weeks will be critical, showing whether the epidemic, with its global economic impact, is moderating or getting worse…

    …Fear and government restrictions mean people in China have been staying home, slashing the business of retailers and restaurants. Some reports say property sales are down by more than 80 per cent, affecting a business that represents about one-quarter of China’s gross domestic product.

    Wang says that while the country’s giant companies are big enough to outlast the crisis, especially with government help, a significant and dynamic part of China’s economy is based on much smaller businesses that could disappear, leading to lingering economic effects.

    “If the quarantines and shutdowns of many cities around China continue for a few more months or even just one month, many of the smaller companies may not survive,” she said.

    Wang says there are also worries that the coronavirus and its economic effect will spread outside China. Last Friday, Singapore’s president, Lee Hsien Loong. warned the disease could push that country into recession.

    Putting a figure on the global impact is not easy, and estimates of the damage vary widely. Oxford Economics says global growth will fall to 2.3 percent in 2020, the lowest level in more than 10 years and below the IMF’s global recession level. (source)

    Currently, it’s impossible to predict how far this will spread and how bad it will be. There’s no way to know how long quarantine and containment measures will be put into place, or even if they’ll be necessary.

    But be ready for anything, economically speaking. Covid-19 is the wild card that nobody expected.


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 17:40

  • Girl Who Sued To Stop Biological Males From Running Girls' Track Defeats Trans-Runner For Championship
    Girl Who Sued To Stop Biological Males From Running Girls’ Track Defeats Trans-Runner For Championship

    Now this is a story about actual “girl power”…

    It was only two days after filing a lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) that Chelsea Mitchell made a much bigger statement than one she could have made in the courtroom. 

    She had sued because the CIAC was permitting biological males to compete in women’s sports, leading one trans runner to win “numerous titles” in women’s events, according to The Daily Wire. 

    So Mitchell decided not just to make a statement in court – but also to make one on the track. She defeated trans runner Terry Miller in the Class S 55-meter dash with a time of 7.18 seconds in the state championships.

    “Mitchell also came first in the 300-meter dash, while Miller was 16th, and Mitchell won the long jump,” according to The Daily Mail. 

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    And there didn’t appear to be any pleasantries exchanged between the two runners after the race, either. The Harford Courant stated: “There was no interaction between the two before or after the race.”

    Mitchell didn’t think her win could negatively affect her lawsuit: “I don’t think it could go against, there’s still tons of girls that lose on a daily basis,” she said.

    Mitchell is a senior at Glastonbury High School. Along with another athlete, Alanna Smith, she filed a Federal lawsuit with their families after the CIAC allowed two biological males to compete in girls’ athletic competitions. Those males went on to take a collective 15 women’s state championship titles, formerly held by 9 different girls. The males took more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher level women’s competitions between 2017 and 2019. 

    “The three plaintiffs have competed directly against them, almost always losing to Miller and usually behind Yearwood. Mitchell finished third in the 2019 state championship in the girls 55-meter indoor track competition behind Miller and Yearwood,” The Daily Mail said. 

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    Mitchell is currently ranked the fastest biological girl in Connecticut and had lost four girls’ state championships and two all New England awards to the males.

    She stated: “I knew that I was the fastest girl here, one of the fastest in the state. I remembered all my training and everything I had been taught on how to maximize my performance … I thought of all the times that other girls have lost. I could feel the adrenaline in my blood and hope that wafted from me. That just possibly, I could win this. Then, the gun went off. And I lost.”

    Biological male Miller had stated in 2019: “I have faced discrimination in every aspect of my life and I no longer want to remain silent. I am a girl and I am a runner. I participate in athletics just like my peers to excel, find community, and meaning in my life. It is both unfair and painful that my victories have to be attacked and my hard work ignored.”


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 17:15

  • Bizarro Market: Retail Investors Are Now Crushing Hedge Funds
    Bizarro Market: Retail Investors Are Now Crushing Hedge Funds

    As if financial markets needed one more reason to boycott the “smart money” and stop paying 2 and 20 for the “privilege” of underperforming the free S&P500 for the 10th straight year – an S&P which is now actively managed by central banks who step in any time there is even a modest 5% drop in stock prices  – here it is: Retail investors are now crushing the smartest money on Wall Street.

    Yesterday we reported that 2020 has started off dismally for equity hedge funds, whose short books and unwillingness to chase the rally crippled their YTD performance, which is at the very bottom of asset classes tracked by Goldman…

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    … yet it was the impressive outperformance of the most popular longs, also known as the Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund VIP basket of stocks…

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    … that has saved the day for hedge funds, whose performance would have been far worse had it not been for the handful of stocks owned by most hedge funds.

    During the last few months, the most popular hedge fund positions have enjoyed one of their strongest rallies on record. Our Hedge Fund VIP basket, which tracks the most popular hedge fund long positions has returned 24% since the start of 4Q 2019, sharply outperforming both the S&P 500 (+14%) and our basket of the largest short positions. The basket’s return relative to its realized volatility and its outperformance versus the largest shorts each rank as the strongest in the basket’s history. The outperformance of VIPs has continued in early 2020 (+9% YTD), contributing to a 1% YTD return for the average hedge fund.

    And not just hedge funds have piled into the same small group of mega cap stocks: as we pointed out yesterday, it was retail investors, i.e., the “dumb money” that saved the day for the “smartest guys in the room” as they scrambled  to buy the names most widely held by the hedge fund community.

    Recall that the YTD period has been most notable because after a long absence, retail investors finally stormed back into the market with a bang, buying not just stocks, but call options – highly levered bets typically with a 1 week maturity  – on stocks at a time when nothing seemed like it could go down, in the process creating a self-reinforcing tidal wave of buying that has risen all boats, especially those owned by hedge funds.

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    To be sure, it wasn’t just single-stocks as index and ETF options volumes have also soared to record highs…

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    … but yes, a handful of stocks were the biggest benficiaries.

    Goldman confirmed as much, when Ben Snider and David Kostin said that “the most popular hedge fund stocks have also been bolstered by a surge in retail trading activity. The sharp increase in retail trading has lifted a basket of popular retail stocks by 14% YTD and 25% since the start of 4Q 2019.”

    Which brings us to the most remarkable chart we showed yesterday in our recap of the latest quarterly Goldman Hedge Fund Monitor: retail investors, i.e., the “dumb money” has now trounced the performance of hedge funds, incorrectly known as “the smart money” not only YTD, as the 50 most-popular stocks among retail investors rallied 13% so far in 2020, nearly double the 8.7% return for the hedge fund favorites but since the start of 2018.

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    It’s not just the breadth of returns that has diverged between the two investor classes. Picking up on where we left off yesterday, Bloomberg writes on Saturday morning that retail investors have also been far better pickers of blockbuster stocks in 2020: “Only two of their popular holdings have gained at least 50%: Tesla Inc. and PG&E Corp. By contrast, individual investors scored seven such wins. Besides Tesla and PG&E, they reaped big pay-offs from Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., Plug Power Inc., Sprint Corp., Vivint Solar Inc. and Beyond Meat Inc.”

    These, of course, as the berserker momo names that went parabolic as an army of retail investors staged a call buying spree in one momo name after another, orchestrated out of a peculiar source: the wallstreetbets section on reddit.

    We also know the enabler, of course: the retail investing hordes have the Fed’s QE4 which was launched in October 2019 to thank for the outperformance. It was then that hedge funds had hunkered down and turned short, when Powell instead of allowing the market to drop, injected hundreds of billions in liquidity into the market, bailing out not hedge funds – he did that back in September with the return of repo operations, but retail investors.

    “Retail investors tend to buy what’s just done well, and in a market like we’ve been in the last several years, that’s worked very well,” said Rich Weiss, CIO of multi-asset strategies at American Century Investments told Bloomberg, adding that “if that type of outperformance by the retail basket over the hedge fund basket would persist for another year or longer, that makes quite a statement, if not an indictment, on professional money managers.”

    Rich is right, but only partially: it would make an even bigger statement on the Federal Reserve, which now finds it imperative to intervene in the market to rescue all investors, not just a given wealthy subset.

    But what is worse, is that this intervention by the Fed, and the tremendous outperformance of retail investors over hedge funds, will further bolster optimism among small investors, who are rushing back to the market with the conviction that they are investing geniuses further facilitated after some brokerages eliminated commissions on trades. According to the latest sentiment reading from the Conference Board, the share of respondents expecting stocks to rise in the next year advanced to 43.1% in January, the highest since October 2018.

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    Some additional observations on the two stocks baskets.

    Among the 50 favorite stocks for both hedge funds and retail investors, 13 overlap, with tech giants – Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp – at the top of both lists. That said, retail investors have gravitated more toward smaller companies, with sixteen of the top 50 picks having a market value of less than $10 billion, compared with six for hedge funds.

    Ultimately it all really boils down to the far higher beta of the retail basket compared to the hedge fund VIPs: which means that while retail investors tend to win big, they also lose big when stocks tumble. As Bloomberg notes, seven of the top retail stocks have fallen at least 10% this year, including Chesapeake and Groupon. Meanwhile, all of the hedge funds’ top selections have fared better.

    For those wondering, here is the full list of the Top 50 “VIP” hedge fund names as of Dec. 31…

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    … and the same list for retail investors.

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    And while it is certainly a novelty to see retail investors outperform hedge funds, we doubt this divergence will last long, especially once the Fed is forced to taper its QE4 in the coming months, at which point the retail panic will be a sight to behold, as will be the length of the list of those furious at Chair Powell.

    Which is why the only thing that matters, in our view, is the list of Top 50 most shorted names. As discussed extensively here in the past, it is the 50 or so most shorted – or hated by hedge fund – names that has year after year been and a far better source of alpha (for those who buy them) as they have significantly outperformed the braoder market due to periodic and vicious short squeezes year after year…

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    … especially in this day and age when the link between fundamentals and asset prices has been terminally severed by central banks, something we described most recently in “Going Against The Wall Street Crowd Has Been The Most Profitable In 5 Years.”

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    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 16:50

  • Bernie Tells "Autocrat" & "Thug" Putin To "Stay Out" Of US Elections, But Also Slams WaPo For Hit Job
    Bernie Tells “Autocrat” & “Thug” Putin To “Stay Out” Of US Elections, But Also Slams WaPo For Hit Job

    The newest evidence-free anonymously sourced claims of Russian interference ahead of the 2020 election is a return to and new twist on Trump and Putin’s supposed three-dimensional chess playing, this latest version which goes something like this:

    …the Kremlin wants Trump for four more years, so the best way to do this is elevate Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee — ensuring a Trump win. 

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    Sanders said he’s been briefed on the matter, however, The Washington Post admitted revealingly, “It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken.”

    As we noted earlier this seemingly by design puts the Democratic front-runner in a difficult spot, given he runs the risk of being attacked for disbelieving (even disloyalty to) U.S. intelligence, and, by default, defending the Kremlin.

    Naturally, he had to go full anti-Putin to satisfy the Russia-obsessed Democratic base, warning the “autocrat” and “thug” to “stay out out US elections”. 

    “Mr. Putin is a thug. He is an autocrat. He may be a friend of Donald Trump —  he’s not a friend of mine,” Sanders said while in California.

    “Let me tell Mr. Putin: The American people, whether you’re Republicans, Democrats, independents, are sick and tired of seeing Russia and other countries interfering in our elections.”

    He also took the timing of The Washington Post’s reporting to task. Sanders’ intelligence briefing was about a month ago, but has only been made public a day before the crucial Nevada vote.

    “I’ll let you guess, about one day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out?” he told reporters. “It was The Washington Post? Good friends,” he added sarcastically.

    Sanders had previously questioned of the new allegations, “Show me the proof that Russia is trying to help me” — because, well… zero evidence has actually been presented. Sanders said additionally:

    “I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do. In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020.”

    But his opponents have predictably already seized on what appears a carefully timed and calibrated smear.

    Joe Biden immediately on the heels of the Post report told a Las Vegas crowd that Russia is “engaged again, right now as we speak, trying to affect not only the general election but who becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party.”

    Elizabeth Warren also chimed in, questioning why the “Russian efforts” were not made public earlier, saying further the Russians “continue to have too much influence”. 

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    Though this is all clearly part of the Democratic establishment’s well-documented ongoing war to prevent a Bernie Sanders nomination, it must be remembered that Sanders himself for years added his own fuel to the Russiagate conspiracy fire when it came to Trump and the Republicans.

    It’s now been repackaged and is coming back to bite him. 


    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 02/22/2020 – 16:25

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