- Escobar: The Birth Of The 'Baby Twins' – Russia's Strategic Swing Drives NATOstan Nuts
Escobar: The Birth Of The ‘Baby Twins’ – Russia’s Strategic Swing Drives NATOstan Nuts
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,
History will register that the birth of the baby twins – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – only a few hours before 2/22/22, was simultaneous to the birth of the real, 21st century multipolar world.
As my columns have stressed for a few years now, Vladimir Putin has been carefully nurturing his inner Sun Tzu. And now it’s all in the open: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The thunderbolt was months in the process of being meticulously polished. To paraphrase Lenin, who “created Ukraine” (copyright Putin), we did live many decades in only these past few days. It all started with the detailed demands of security guarantees sent to the Americans, which Moscow knew would be rejected. Then there was the Russia-China joint statement at the start of the Winter Olympics – which codifies not only the strategic partnership but also the key tenets of the multipolar world.
The culmination was a stunning, nearly one hour-long address to the nation by Putin shortly after the Russian Security Council live session deliberating on the request for independence by the DPR and the LPR (here is a condensed version.)
A few hours later, at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya precisely outlined why the recognition of the baby twins does not bury the Minsk agreements.
The baby twins actually declared their independence in May 2014. In 2015 they signed the Minsk agreements as one of the interested parties. Theoretically they could even be back within Ukraine if Kiev would ever decide to respect the agreements, which will never happen because the US has vetoed it since 2015. Moreover, the people of Donbass do not want to be subjected to a regime harboring neo-Nazis.
As Nebenzya outlined, “I would like to remind you that at the time of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, the LPR and DPR had already declared independence. The fact that Russia today recognized it does not change the composition of the parties to the Minsk agreements, since Russia is not one (…) Another thing is that the Minsk agreements have long been openly sabotaged by Ukraine under the auspices of our Western colleagues. Now we see that many colleagues want to sign that the Minsk agreements are dead. But this is not the case (…) We are still open to diplomacy, but we do not intend to allow a new bloody massacre in the Donbass.”
And here’s the clincher, directly addressing imperial support for the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass: “The main task of our decision [on recognizing independence] was to preserve and protect these lives. This is more important than all your threats.”
There you go: Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a concept invented by the Americans to launch wars, used by Russia for preventing one.
That certified nullity, German chancellor Scholz, deriding Putin’s characterization of a genocide in Donbass as “laughable”, was a decisive factor in the birth of the baby wins. Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre: “We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…) And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…) But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”
What about China?
Geopolitically, in Eurasian terms, two huge questions stand out: the role of the CSTO and the response from China.
If we look at the Article 19, Chapter VI of the CSTO charter, we learn that, “any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.”
That would open the door for the baby twins, as soon as they have finalized all the bureaucratic endeavors pertaining to new, independent nations, to request CSTO membership. Incidentally, CSTO secretary-general Pashinian has already gone to Moscow to discuss it.
China is a way more complex proposition. One of the key tenets of Beijing’s foreign policy is the fight against separatism – embedded in the foundation of the SCO. So Beijing cannot possibly recognize the baby twins, or what would amount to Novorossiya – yes, Putin did pronounce the magic word – before Kiev itself does or, a serious possibility, completely disintegrates.
The Foreign Ministry so far has been extremely cautious. Wang Yi has reiterated “China’s long-standing position that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter must be upheld.”
Further on down the road, presumably after some serious exchanges between Wang Yi and Lavrov, China can always find myriad ways to unofficially help the baby twins – including advancing BRI-related connectivity and sustainable development projects.
As for Kiev disintegration, that’s directly linked to Moscow demanding the immediate stop of the mini-blitzkrieg against Donbass, otherwise they will bear full responsibility. Yes, regime stalwarts will be hunted and punished – complete with a possible War Crimes Tribunal. No wonder all sorts of oligarchic/political rats, big and small, are scurrying away, to Lviv, Poland and the UK.
The Munich effect
The intervention of all 12 members at the Security Council session, combined with Putin’s address to the nation was the stuff of gripping geopolitical drama. Putin’s body language and the look in his eyes testified to the immense gravity of the moment – and it all came to the forefront when he embarked in a concise history lesson spanning a century.
Barely containing his anger at the countless ways Russia has been vilified by the West, and taking no prisoners when referring to communism, what mostly stood out was the clear-cut rendition of the insurmountable antagonism between the Anglo-American islands and the civilizational Heartland – or the clash between maritime powers and land powers. That Eurasia classic was the bulk of his exposition: the recognition of the baby twins took less than three minutes.
The Munich Security Conference, this past weekend, had made it all so explicit. Munich, as terrifying as it was in terms of a congregation of headless chickens posing as eagles, at least confirmed everything is in the open.
The enemy is Russia. NATO infinite expansion – to outer space – is against Russia. And then we had a parade of add-on threats: no disarmament in Eastern Europe, cutting off the Russian economy from the EU, end of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine in NATO, world order built on “universal liberal values”.
Munich spelled out No Compromise Whatsoever – which was exactly what Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev and co. expected, the warmongering rhetoric burying any meaningful discussion of migration, inflation, cyber wars, the European energy crisis and, of course, the only thing that matters for the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, as defined by Ray McGovern): let’s milk this Eurotrash lot for untold billions in new contracts, let’s isolate Russia, let’s destroy Nord Stream 2 to sell them our ultra expensive LNG, let’s keep them on a leash – forever.
So actually it’s not even war against Russia: the $30 trillion-indebted Empire with a woke military attached simply could not afford it. Not to mention the certified freak out in case they receive a phone call from Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Zircon : cue to the spectacular Russian display of “military and technical” superiority, hypersonic and otherwise – staged, irony of ironies, in synch with the circus in Munich.
What we have here is so lame: just a lowlife offer-you-can’t-refuse racket to be inflicted on the EU.
The Indivisible Security dance
The rabid Munich “No Compromise” show; the imperially-ordered Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg against Donbass; and the role of the US Lack of Intelligence Community – an Andrei Martyanov-coined howler – altogether sealed the deal for the Security Council deliberations and Putin’s decision.
Considering the ideological stupidity of the current Brussels gang – Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Borrell –, incapable of understanding even basic economics, the fact remains that the EU without Russian energy is doomed. Martyanov stresses the algorithm: Russia can afford the break up with Europe. Europe cannot. The US just wants to collect. And we’re not even talking about the dire, incoming ramifications of the systemic crisis across NATOstan.
Even as Moscow plays a very long, calculated game, as it stands that does not necessarily mean that Russia will be “winning” the baby twins while “losing” Europe. Russia’s strategic swing repeatedly baffles the Atlanticist combo. The US lack of intelligence community was predicting a Russian “aggression” every other day – and still is. Instead they got the baby twins as the latest independent republics of the Global South.
Even before Munich, the Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg, and the recognition of the baby twins, Moscow had again warned it may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the US and NATO blatantly ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead “cherry-picked” issues from a package deal.
Moscow will not let the Americans run away from the by now notorious 10-page Russian response. Putin, addressing the Stavka, had already warned “we are in a situation (…) where we are forced to resolve it.” Which bring us to what John Helmer niftly qualified as Russia’s black box defense. The beauty is no one knows what’s inside the black box.
Enter, once again, the “military-technical measures” that will be “reciprocal” (Putin) to what US and NATOstan are already deploying against Russia. They won’t necessarily be implemented in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, in the airspace above Donbass, even in cyberspace. It could be anywhere – from the Syrian theater to Latin America.
Surprise! That’s what strategic ambivalence, ambiguity, or – let’s get down to the rhythm – swing is all about. You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security? Fine. Now we dictate the security rhythm. You’re not gonna stop deploying nuclear weapons outside your territory? Fine. Here’s some reciprocity. You’re not gonna accept legally binding guarantees of our security? Fine. Meet our “military-technical” measures.
Now dance, suckers.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/23/2022 – 02:00 - Cancelling Richard Gere
Cancelling Richard Gere
Authored by Dinesh D’Souza via The Epoch Times,
Remember Richard Gere? I certainly do. He was a huge star in the 1990s, playing memorable roles in such movies as “Pretty Woman,” “American Gigolo” and, last I recall, “Unfaithful.” Then, Gere largely disappeared. I noticed this, but never wondered why.
Now I know. Gere got cancelled by Hollywood because of his criticism of Chinese regime tyranny.
Richard Gere presents Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, 2013. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
The story of Gere’s cancellation is told in a new book by Erich Schwartzel, titled “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy.” Schwartzel embeds Gere’s story inside a larger account of Hollywood’s larger business plan for China. The lesson of Schwartzel’s book is that when you want access to a market controlled by the Chinese communists, you have to go a long way to do their bidding.
Gere’s hostility to the Chinese regime is certainly not due to the fact that Gere is a right-winger or that he interprets Chinese interests as opposed to those of his own country. Nothing like that. Rather, Gere is a Buddhist and, as such, he’s an admirer and supporter of the Dalai Lama, whom Chinese officials view as an enemy of the Chinese state.
Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama (R) speaks with American actor Richard Gere (L) during a lecture about the International Campaign for Tibet at Ahoy in Rotterdam, on Sept. 16, 2018. (Robin Utrecht/AFP/Getty Images)
In 1993, Gere deviated from his presentation of an art direction award to deplore the “horrendous human-rights situation there is in China, not only towards their own people, but to Tibet as well.” But Gere’s great sin came in 1997 when he made the movie “Red Corner,” a story of a U.S. executive who becomes trapped in and experiences the horrors of the Chinese criminal justice system.
“Red Corner” wasn’t a box office hit; it was sidelined that year by big movies such as “Men in Black” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” So the Chinese didn’t care about it on account of it being seen by huge numbers of people. What they did care about is that Gere went beyond acting in the film. He also championed the film as a cause.
While MGM treated the film as merely a thrilling story, Gere insisted the film could be a “catalyst for change in the world,” because it exposed the horrors of Chinese totalitarianism. Interestingly, Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited America around the same time, seeking more trade deals and closer diplomatic ties with the Clinton administration. While President Bill Clinton held a state dinner for Jiang, Gere organized a “stateless dinner” across the street on the rooftop of a posh hotel, inviting fellow celebrities Uma Thurman and Sharon Stone.
Schwartzel documents that as Gere continued to champion the cause of Tibet, and castigate China for its human rights abuses, Hollywood became more and more uncomfortable with his public advocacy. The late 1990s and early 2000s corresponded with a period in which the American movie market was flattening out, and Hollywood studios increasingly looked to expand in China.
China, after all, has more than a billion people. It didn’t escape the attention of studio executives in California that tens of millions of Chinese were moving from the rural areas to the cities, and they were becoming avid consumers of Western products. Hollywood salivated at the prospect of tapping this market for American movies.
Of course, the Hollywood executives understood they were dealing with a communist regime that didn’t hesitate to censor the films that were allowed into China. They were quite willing to accommodate the Chinese on this point. Schwartzel points out that the in 2006, “Mission: Impossible 3” edited out scenes the Chinese objected to, and in 2012, the producers of the James Bond film “Skyfall” removed a scene involving the killing of a Chinese security guard, because the Chinese censors felt it made the Chinese look weak.
In this atmosphere of Hollywood courtship of the Chinese communist regime, Schwartzel reports that “Gere was too radioactive to hire.” His mere presence in the credits might mean the film would not be approved for release in China. At this point, Gere became persona non grata, at least as far as the big studios were concerned. He would have to be content appearing in independent, modest-budget feature films such as “Arbitrage” and “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
Susan Sarandon as the loyal wife of a troubled hedge-fund magnate played by Richard Gere (R) in the dramatic thriller “Arbitrage.” (Myles Aronowitz/Lionsgate)
In the 1950s, Hollywood maintained a blacklist of actors who supposedly had communist associations and therefore were deemed too controversial to play in big movies. How ironic that today, once again, Hollywood maintains a blacklist, only this time it’s for apostates like Richard Gere who are apparently not sufficiently friendly and deferential to the Chinese communist regime.
Gere has been surprisingly quiet about his blacklisting. In June 2020, however, Gere did testify before Congress (pdf) in favor of a bill to give the United States better access to the cashmere market in Mongolia. Gere argued that the bill would bolster Mongolia’s economy and make it less dependent on China, since dependency in that region quickly translates into Chinese control.
At one point, Gere brought up the movie that seems to have gotten him off the Hollywood A-list, “Red Corner.” Gere speculated about whether Hollywood would make a movie like that today.
“It simply would not happen,” he confessed.
The cancellation of a star of the magnitude of Gere shows how bad the problem is, how much in bed Hollywood is today with its grim partners in the East.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 23:40 - Breaking Down The Cost Of An EV Battery Cell
Breaking Down The Cost Of An EV Battery Cell
As electric vehicle (EV) battery prices keep dropping, the global supply of EVs and demand for their batteries are ramping up.
As Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada details below, since 2010, the average price of a lithium-ion (Li-ion) EV battery pack has fallen from $1,200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to just $132/kWh in 2021.
Inside each EV battery pack are multiple interconnected modules made up of tens to hundreds of rechargeable Li-ion cells. Collectively, these cells make up roughly 77% of the total cost of an average battery pack, or about $101/kWh.
So, what drives the cost of these individual battery cells?
The Cost of a Battery Cell
According to data from BloombergNEF, the cost of each cell’s cathode adds up to more than half of the overall cell cost.
Why Are Cathodes so Expensive?
The cathode is the positively charged electrode of the battery. When a battery is discharged, both electrons and positively-charged molecules (the eponymous lithium ions) flow from the anode to the cathode, which stores both until the battery is charged again.
That means that cathodes effectively determine the performance, range, and thermal safety of a battery, and therefore of an EV itself, making them one of the most important components.
They are composed of various metals (in refined forms) depending on cell chemistry, typically including lithium and nickel. Common cathode compositions in modern use include:
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Lithium iron phosphate (LFP)
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Lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC)
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Lithium nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA)
The battery metals that make up the cathode are in high demand, with automakers like Tesla rushing to secure supplies as EV sales charge ahead. In fact, the commodities in the cathode, along with those in other parts of the cell, account for roughly 40% of the overall cell cost.
Other EV Battery Cell Components
Components outside of the cathode make up the other 49% of a cell’s cost.
The manufacturing process, which involves producing the electrodes, assembling the different components, and finishing the cell, makes up 24% of the total cost.
The anode is another significant component of the battery, and it makes up 12% of the total cost—around one-fourth of the cathode’s share. The anode in a Li-ion cell is typically made of natural or synthetic graphite, which tends to be less expensive than other battery commodities.
Although battery costs have been declining since 2010, the recent surge in prices of key battery metals like lithium has cast a shadow of doubt over their future. How will EV battery prices evolve going forward?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 23:20 -
- Buchanan: Are Democrats Kicking Away Their Future?
Buchanan: Are Democrats Kicking Away Their Future?
Not so long ago, Democrats seemed the party of the future.
“Inevitable!” predicted some pundits, for demography is destiny.
Moreover, in 2020, Democrats, who had won the popular vote six times in seven presidential elections, swept the popular vote again, by 6 million ballots. And they captured both houses of Congress.
The future did seem to be theirs.
Progressives dominated the major culture-forming institutions of society — academia, the media, Hollywood — not to mention the vast bureaucracy of America’s national administrative state.
Their core constituencies — women, the young, Blacks, Hispanics — were growing as a share of the electorate, while the core Republican constituencies — white males, seniors — were shrinking.
One sensed a confidence among Democrats that one or two more elections and the nation, like the California of Ronald Reagan, would turn irretrievably blue.
What happened to the dream?
First, President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, after 20 years of war, had about it the aspect of Saigon ’75.
The rout of our Afghan allies and humiliation of our departure delivered an irretrievable blow to Biden’s reputation for competence.
There followed the visible failure of the administration to defend and secure America’s southern border as 2 million migrants from all over the world poured across in Biden’s first year.
Then came a surge in crimes of violence, shootings and murders in major cities. And people recalled that our media and political elites who had cheered on the Black Lives Matter protests and excused the riots after George Floyd’s death had echoed the BLM-antifa calls to “defund the police!”
Also, suddenly, an inflation rate not seen in 40 years was back, driving up the price of gasoline and groceries and everything else at a rate of 7.5%.
Then came news that the U.S. trade deficit, which helped to propel former President Donald Trump into the White House, was at an all-time record of over $1 trillion, and the national debt had crossed the $30 trillion mark, exceeding the entire U.S. GDP.
Late in Biden’s first year, COVID-19 reached its omicron stage with infections, hospitalizations and deaths suddenly exploding again to record numbers in a pandemic deep into its second year.
Then, there were the manifestations of cognitive decline in the president, seemingly with each new televised appearance.
Unable to defend America’s borders, control the surge in violent crime or cope with an inflation unseen in 40 years, Biden began a steady slide in the polls to where, currently, all have him underwater and some put his approval below 40%.
That a crisis for the party may be in the cards for this fall has not been lost on Democratic leaders. Fully 30 members of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s majority in the House have announced that they will be retiring and will not run again in 2022.
The latest bad news came out of the Golden State, where three progressives on San Francisco’s school board were recalled in an election where more than 7 in 10 voters cast ballots to be rid of them.
The problem for Democrats is that the issues for which the three were recalled are the issues dividing communities all across America:
Are America’s elite schools whose student bodies are chosen by academic performance and test scores consistent with the progressives’ concept of racial equity? Or should student bodies of those elite schools be mandated to mirror the ethnic and racial composition of the communities they serve?
How are issues of race, morality, sexuality and history to be taught in the public schools? Who decides what is to be taught?
The issue was elevated in Virginia last fall when former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a favorite for reelection, blurted out during a debate with Republican Glenn Youngkin, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Virginia’s parents buried McAuliffe’s hopes.
The San Francisco school board also plunged into the culture wars by attempting to re-name 44 high schools, while purging the names of all four presidents on Mount Rushmore — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt — as well as Paul Revere and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
San Francisco’s Lowell High School is one of the elite high schools that selects its student body on academic performance and test scores. And that student body has been heavily Asian American, who make up a far higher share of the student population than of the city itself.
This issue of Asians being overrepresented in elite high schools is replicated at Northern Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High, and in New York City at Stuyvesant and the Bronx School of Science.
Who gets into these schools and who does not and who decides pits the leaders of Black communities against those of Asian American communities and divides the Democratic Party on the lines of ethnicity and race.
Among other issues that have gone national are critical race theory, which teaches that, due to the systemic racism in American society, all whites are born oppressors, while Black Americans are from birth among the oppressed.
Critical race theory, too, divides the Democrats.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 23:00 - South Korean Man Sentenced To 3 Years For Swapping Patient's Hospital IV With Bathroom Cleaner
South Korean Man Sentenced To 3 Years For Swapping Patient’s Hospital IV With Bathroom Cleaner
If you’ve heard one “bathroom cleaner in the IV” story, you’ve heard them all – so forgive us for clogging up your daily newsfeed with yet another story about the ubiquitous phenomenon.
A 32 year old man in Daejeon, South Korea has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for “putting liquid bathroom cleaner into the intravenous drip line of another patient”, Yonhap reported over the long weekend.
His motives were “unclear”, the report says. The incident took place at a hospital about 160km south of Seoul about a year ago. The victim complained of “chest pains” after the infusion, resulting his nurse changing his IV solution.
However, the assailant – who was reportedly drunk at the time – changed the patient’s IV line a second time, resulting the victim suffering from “chest pain, substance poisoning and dysfunction of multiple organs”.
The perpetrator reportedly said that “disinfectant can clean blood vessels” as part of his justification for taking the action. He has a record of crimes including breaking and entering, all while under the influence of alcohol, dating back to 2020.
The Daejeon District Court remarked: “The defendant should be sternly punished for committing bizarre crimes like poisoning the sleeping victim by mixing the disinfectant with the victim’s IV solution.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 22:40 - Mike Rowe Scholarship Highlights The Lost Virtues Of Hard Work And Sweat
Mike Rowe Scholarship Highlights The Lost Virtues Of Hard Work And Sweat
Authored by Salena Zito via The Epoch Times,
Tracy Wilson is sitting in the cutest little ranch house in this Calvert County town. It is her dream house—literally her dream house, she explains, as she has had the image of this very home in her mind, down to the color scheme of the exterior.
It is 4 in the afternoon, and the single mother of two just got home from another dream—her job. She spends her days working as an instrumentation technician in the flight test program at Boeing.
“I get to spend my days working on F-18s,” she exclaims several times during the interview. She says it with such joy that her appreciation for her craft becomes infectious.
Life wasn’t always this balanced for the Exeter, Pennsylvania, native. In her senior year of high school, she underwent open-heart surgery for a hole in her heart after the healthy basketball athlete suffered a stroke. “The stroke temporarily took my speech and my handwriting,” she said. “So I was freaking out because I was so ready to start the next part of my life after high school.”
She recovered but found her life directionless after high school. Wilson explains that she wanted to go to college, but without any clarity on what she should pursue and little money to attend, she bounced from career to career, trying to find her greater purpose.
In between, she married, had two boys, divorced. She found herself still searching, still wanting to better herself, still deeply committed to the work ethic her parents had taught her, yet living on the edge of poverty, cleaning houses, exhausted and still struggling to put food on the table.
“One day, I was sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself, watching TV, and I—this commercial came on for York Technical Institute, and something about it clicked in my brain. I went to their website, and the electrician program caught my eye,” Wilson explained.
“I’ve always loved working with my hands,” she told me.
“I was always in my dad’s little workshop doing whatever I could, hooking up wires. I saw it was a nine-month program and called and took a tour of the school. I ended up being more intrigued by their electronics engineering technology program, and I turned to the counselor and said, ‘Sign me up.’”
Wilson said she still had to clean houses to bring an income in.
“I remember I had about 10 dollars in my checking account that day,” she said.
Several months into her education, Wilson found out about the Work Ethic Scholarship Program from the Mike Rowe WORKS Foundation. The program provides financial support to students enrolled in trade school training programs who have demonstrated a continuing commitment to personal responsibility, a positive attitude, and a strong work ethic.
“I was like, ‘Hey, I am a huge ‘Dirty Jobs’ fan,’” she said of Rowe’s wildly popular Discovery Channel show, in which he does every trade job created that makes the clocks, trains, planes, and automobiles run on time and keeps your toilet flushing, too. Rowe made a reality show out of unglamorous yet essential jobs that make everyone’s lives safer and more comfortable. He brought to the forefront not just their existence but also the value these jobs have for the people who do them.
Rowe said in an interview that he was inspired to create the scholarship fund in the summer of 2008.
“‘Dirty Jobs’ was a runaway hit, the country was entering a recession, unemployment was headline news,” he said.
“But everywhere I went on ‘Dirty Jobs,’ I saw ‘Help Wanted’ signs. It slowly dawned on me that high unemployment did not necessarily stem from a lack of opportunity. I remember being surprised to learn that 2.3 million jobs were open when the unemployment rate surpassed 10 percent.”
When a financial reporter at the Wall Street Journal asked his take on how such a skills gap could exist during times of high unemployment, Rowe shared his theory.
“Much of society had waged a war on work,” he said.
“And I talked at length about the stigmas and stereotypes that surrounded many of the jobs we featured on the show, along with the myths and misperceptions that keep so many people from exploring a career in the trades.”
The reporter printed Rowe’s thoughts, word for word, and the next day, his phone started ringing off the hook. Companies and organizations wanted to partner with him to make a more persuasive case for the jobs in their industries.
“That’s what convinced me to do something; something to help the industries that had allowed me to get and keep ‘Dirty Jobs’ on the air,” he said. “That led me to launch an informal PR campaign for unloved jobs that required skill, and not a four-year degree. I called it mikeroweWORKS and launched it on Labor Day of 2008.”
That led to an Online Trade Resource Center built by fans of the show—a job board of sorts for skilled trade workers.
“Today, we’re primarily a scholarship fund with an advocacy arm—which is me,” said Rowe.
Applicants must earn the scholarship, much like they would get a job through merit. “You have to provide a video and essay explaining why you believe you deserve the scholarship,” said Wilson. She also noted that applicants must take the S.W.E.A.T. pledge (it stands for “skill & work ethic aren’t taboo”) to keep up a hardworking mindset. “And then, you have to submit a video essay to discuss your thoughts on that topic,” Wilson said.
When she got the scholarship, Wilson said, she did a cartwheel. The process not only prepared her for a successful mindset, but it also taught her a lot about herself.
“Before I applied, I really underestimated myself. I came out of it more confident and realized I was smarter than I was giving myself credit for. I had more grit than I thought I had.”
For generations, high schools have geared young people to apply to universities and colleges. They have largely ignored and dismissed trades as either beneath them or not part of achieving the American dream.
As a result, many young people obtained expensive degrees that have few job prospects, and their debt lasts them well into their 40s. This has also created a culture that has lost its connection with the value and appreciation of skilled labor and the joy of getting your hands dirty.
On Feb. 23, Rowe’s scholarship application process opens for 2022. Across the country, there are thousands of Tracy Wilsons out there attending community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs, eager to show their value, even when so many do not acknowledge it. Wilson encourages anyone who is even remotely considering applying to do it.
“Not just for the money—which was nice by the way—but because you also get to experience expressing and understanding the importance of work,” she says. “It is a virtue we don’t value enough in society, but we can change that one job at a time.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 22:20 - Kolanovic Warns Of "Non-linear Commodity Price Increases"
Kolanovic Warns Of “Non-linear Commodity Price Increases”
Gone is the Marko Kolanovic who, week after week after week would tell clients to buy the dip – and that’s just in 2022 – as the S&P finally entered a correction earlier today after the latest plunge in stocks, and in his place we had a brief glimpse of this strange, crticial-thinking and skeptical creature that we haven’t seen since some time in 2017 when the Croatian quant last dared to ask unpleasant questions or deliver non-goalseeked narratives that not all is well in an artificial market propped up thanks to trillions in liquidity injections.
Unlike his most recent note, when he told clients that “small caps are already in a recession” so it’s time to buy the dip – just as stocks tumbled anew thanks to soaring rate hikes and the Ukraine crisis – in the latest JPMorgan view published this morning, Kolanovic writes that “geopolitical escalation over the last few days materially increased the risk of further aggravating the energy and commodity crisis developing over the past 2 years” a crisis which as recently as November Kolanovic said didn’t exist, because as he calculated in November, for oil to be considered expensive, it “would need to be trading at ~$115/bbl (we say this is conservative because we have excluded “expensive assets” such as central bank balance sheets and Nasdaq, which would imply a median oil price in the $300-$500/bbl range).” Apparently, three months later oil is suddenly expensive again.
In any case, in taking a page out of the Kolanovic playbook of old where one could actually learn something instead of merely be bombarded with childish BTFD sermons that always skirted around the major risk factors and accentuated whatever the conventional wisdom bull thesis du jour war, today the JPM quant writes that “potential trade disruptions of oil, gas, grains and metals is now a significant risk for investments and the real economy” and that “portfolio managers should hedge this risk by increasing allocations to commodities, energy and materials. These allocations would serve as a hedge to inflation, geopolitical risks, and COVID reopening in what we see as a continued cycle of economic expansion. Although commodity inventories have contracted sharply, China’s share is abundant.” Some more details:
The world is short Commodities. China is not. Global tradeable commodity inventories have contracted sharply over the past six months, declining in aggregate by 25% from 64 days of consumption at the peak in April 2020 to 48 today, a five year low. This drove the BCOM up 85% during the same period, to a multi-year high. While tradeable commodity stocks are critically low, it is important to acknowledge the abundance of available inventories in leading commodity consumer and importer China, to draw upon as required, which can influence import demand. China currently holds an estimated 84% of global copper, 70% of corn, 51% of wheat, 40% of soybeans, 26% of crude oil and 22% of aluminum inventories, according to our sources. Inclusive of China, global commodity inventories are at about 62 days of consumption, down 18% since the April 2020 peak
Yes China’s share may be abundant, but the US is not China, where “low levels of tradable inventories have left us with few shock absorbers, which could drive nonlinear commodity price increases, particularly in light of our base case of a further rise in geopolitical tensions.” Wait… when did that become the base case?
We don’t expect an answer, nor do we expect Kolanovic to remain bearish – especially since JPMorgan is one of the few banks left with a 5000+ S&P price target now that even Goldman has capitulated – because after regaling clients with what may be his bearish take in years, the head of global markets strategy at JPM reverts back to his permabullish self (after all he is no high enough in the JPM org chart to be a member of the policy team having left analysis behind), and writes that “if geopolitical risks fade, we see big upside potential for Russian equities given their dislocation with oil prices”, or in other words, precisely the opposite view of his nemesis, Wall Street’s biggest bear, Michael Wilson, who earlier today wrote that if geopolitical risks fade, the market may bounce but will still tumble as low as 3,800 by the end of March as the late-2018 playbook repeats.
So how does Kolanovic gloss over the elephant in the room – the Fed’s tightening into a slowdown/recession – to give clients a carte blanche to buy just as soon as Biden somehow teaches Putin a lesson? Well, he says that, “while equities are down ytd due to rising rates” – to which we would also add a slowing economy and collapsing earnings guidance – he notes that “historically the initial volatility around rate liftoff didn’t last and equities made new all-time highs 2-4 quarters out.” Which may be true, but the Fed has only raised rates with stocks more overvalued just one time: that was in June of 1999. Everyone remembers what happened next…
… everyone, expect apparently Marko, who decides to keep digging and argues that “the start of policy tightening is usually a confirmation that the cycle has legs, rather than the signal of its end”, which again is incorrect, because as we showed earlier, never before has the curve been this flat before the Fed hiked rates even once!
So how does Kolanovic address the all too real risk that the curve will invert – something his own colleague Nick Panigirtzoglou spent his last “Flows and Liquidity” discussing? Why, he doesn’t and instead like any good politician simply ignores the topic saying instead that “as we don’t see the yield curve inverting or real yields reaching problematic levels this year, it is premature to talk about end-of-cycle worries.”
Of course, ending on with yet another BTFD chorus would make even JPM’s clients openly mock the strategist, so he had to caveat his bullish outlook somewhat, concluding that “that said, there is cause for caution as the path for optimal monetary policy is narrow in the current backdrop.”
In other words, it only took trillions in lost market cap, a correction for the S&P500 and a bear market for the Nasdaq for Marko to admit that there actually are risks.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 22:00 - Bill Maher Slams US-Born Eileen Gu For Representing A "Totalitarian Police State Over America" At Olympics
Bill Maher Slams US-Born Eileen Gu For Representing A “Totalitarian Police State Over America” At Olympics
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,
Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu. Lebron James and the NBA. Hollywood stars John Cena and Tom Cruise. Google. HBO host Bill Maher slammed these names during the latest episode of his show, criticizing them for choosing to support the Chinese regime.
In a monologue on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher started by leveling criticism against Gu, a San Francisco Bay Area-born freestyle skier who chose to represent China over the United States in the 2022 Winter Games.
So far, Gu has refused to comment whether she had given up her U.S. citizenship to be on the Chinese national team.
“Is that cool now, to choose to represent a totalitarian police state over America?” Maher asked.
“And by choosing Team China, Eileen Gu became a living symbol of China’s triumph over the West, which wouldn’t bother me so much if I thought China had triumphed over us in the ways that really matter. But they haven’t,” he added.
Gu has earned millions in endorsement deals from international and Chinese companies. According to Chinese media, her Chinese endorsers include at least three state-run companies—China Mobile, Bank of China, and People’s Insurance Company of China.
Gold medallist Eileen Gu of Team China poses with her medal during the Women’s Freeski Halfpipe medal ceremony on Day 14 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games in Zhangjiakou, China, on Feb. 18, 2022. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times has come to Gu’s defense over her decision to represent China. In one opinion article published this month, the outlet accused “U.S. media and American people” of having “adopted a zero-sum mentality” in their criticism of Gu. Another article said such criticism showed that the United States “betrays its own founding spirit.”
Maher admitted that the United States has its own human rights issues, but noted that America is still “a democracy based on freedom,” whereas China is “an authoritarian surveillance state” that can make people “disappear for a few months” and has “basically jailed an ethnic minority,” in reference to the Uyghurs.
More than 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s far-western Xinjiang are currently being detained in internment camps, where they are known to be subjected to abuses, including torture, forced labor, and forced sterilization. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have designated Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”
“It’s a cynical dodge to pretend China’s sins should be overlooked because we all do it. No,” Maher said.
TV Host Bill Maher speaks during the HBO portion of the 2011 Summer TCA Tour held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on July 28, 2011. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
NBA, Google, and Hollywood
Maher then turned his attention to the NBA and Lebron James, pointing to the 2019 incident when the Houston Rockets’ then-general manager Daryl Morey voiced support for Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in a Twitter post.
In response, the NBA issued an apologetic statement, saying that Morey’s tweet was “regrettable” and “deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China.” However, the league did not bow to Chinese pressure to discipline or fire Morey. But James criticized Morey, saying that he was “either misinformed or not really educated on the situation.”
“In America, we’re supposed to root for democratic government, not apologize for it,” Maher said, bringing attention to the fact that the NBA has a partnership deal worth $1.5 billion with Chinese tech giant Tencent.
He then brought up James’ response and quipped that “the situation” the NBA superstar was referring to was “I got some shoes to sell.”
“‘Kowtow’ is a Chinese word, but boy, Americans have gotten good at it,” Maher said.
“That’s the deal China offers American companies and celebrities, ‘We’ll give you access to our billion-plus consumers as long as you shut up about the whole police-state-genocide thing.’”
Maher slammed Google, claiming that the U.S. search giant abandons its “don’t be evil” motto, in favor of “maybe a little evil,” by agreeing to work with China’s censors.
Google once embarked on a secret project named “Dragonfly,” a censored search engine specifically for the Chinese market. Though the controversial project has been scrapped, the search giant has also been criticized for choosing to work with China’s Tsinghua University, a school with ties to the Chinese military.
Maher rounded out his criticism by lashing out at Cena, who stars in the latest “Fast & Furious” movie, and Cruise, the star in the “Top Gun” franchise.
Given’s China’s enormous box office, Maher said Cena decided he “needed to get some reeducation,” like the Uyghurs.
“You see, John referred to Taiwan as a country as if it was a separate country from China, which it is,” Maher continued.
The incident Maher described happened in May 2021, when Cena called Taiwan a country during an interview with Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS. He later apologized to Chinese fans in Mandarin after he was excoriated by the China’s state-run media for his remark.
John Cena attends Paramount Pictures’ Beijing press conference for ‘Bumblebee’ in Beijing on Dec. 14, 2018. (Yanshan Zhang/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees Taiwan as a part of its territory to be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. However, the self-governing island is a de facto independent state with its own military, constitution, and currency.
“China would like to do to Taiwan what it did to Tibet and what it’s now doing to Hong Kong,” he said.
Maher also took exception to the fact that Taiwan’s flag was missing on the jacket worn by Cruise’s character, naval aviator Peter “Maverick” Mitchell, when the “Top Gun” sequel released its trailer in 2019. The jacket’s navy patch showed a Taiwanese flag in the first installment.
“Well, he used to be a maverick; now he does whatever China says,” Maher said.
“Top Gun: Maverick,” scheduled to be released in May, was partly produced by Tencent Pictures, the film unit of Tencent.
Wokeism
“So can you really blame 18-year-old Eileen Gu, who has already made over $31 million as the face of 23 brand products in China, for following in the footsteps of other American celebrities?” Maher asked.
The HBO host said the problem with the Chinese regime lies with modern-day wokeism.
“The definition of ‘woke’ was supposed to be being alert to injustice in society. But because the ‘woke’ now see race first and everything else never, fear of being accused of racism has given a free pass on human rights abuses to China and any other places that are perceived as non-white,” Maher explained.
Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” previously told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that China is using wokeism to erode U.S. democracy. He also said the current wokeism has borne resemblance to old school Chinese communist politics.
“Sorry, Uyghurs. Someone has to tell me where we got this rule that you can’t criticize China because I suspect we got it from China. Because, after all, it’s where we get everything else,” Maher concluded.
Gu’s agent, Tom Yaps, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Watch the full Maher monologue here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 21:40 - Trans "Woman" Gets Cocky About Reduced Sentence For Molesting Child
Trans “Woman” Gets Cocky About Reduced Sentence For Molesting Child
In another example of woke people in authority, George Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon let a 26yo transgender “woman” off with a slap-on-the-wrist sentence last month for sexually assaulting a 10yo in 2014, according to Fox News.
Hannah Tubbs, the trans child molester, who at the time was a male named James Tubbs, was just two weeks away from turning 18 when he attacked a 10yo girl in a women’s bathroom at Denny’s restaurant. Tubbs was arrested in 2019 for an unrelated crime and was only connected to the sexual assault then. Since being jailed, Tubbs has identified as a female.
While in jail, Tubbs became ‘cocky’ to “her” father in phone conversations that he’ll plea out (in the hope of getting a reduced sentence) and won’t have to register as a sex offender.
“I’m gonna plead out to it, plead guilty,” Tubbs said in one call. “They’re gonna stick me on probation, and it’s gonna be dropped, it’s gonna be done. I won’t have to register [as a sex offender], won’t have to do nothing.”
EXCLUSIVE: In in-custody phone calls, 26 y/o transgender child molester Hannah Tubbs boasts about not having to serve prison time or register as a sex offender before being sentenced to 2 yrs in a juvenile facility after LA DA @GeorgeGascon refused to prosecute Tubbs as an adult. pic.twitter.com/n9KesabvXE
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) February 21, 2022
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After receiving a two-year sentence last month in a juvenile facility, Tubbs’ prediction was correct because Gascon’s office refused to transfer the case to an adult court. Fox News said he might only serve as little as six months and won’t have to register as a sex offender.
Live w/ @TuckerCarlson tonight discussing in-custody calls I obtained from transgender child molester Hannah Tubbs, who boasts about the light sentence he received after DA George Gascon refused to prosecute Tubbs as an adult, and makes crude, sexual comments about 10 y/o victim. pic.twitter.com/LUsTuW7HXc
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) February 22, 2022
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Tubbs’ victim spoke to Fox News about Gascon’s handling of the case, calling it an “insult” and “unfair” to her.
“The things he did to me and made me do that day was beyond horrible for a ten-year-old girl to have to go through,” she said. “I want him tried as an adult for the crimes he committed against me.”
She said the light sentence delivered “no true justice.”
“I’ve also heard that my attacker goes by she/them pronouns now,” she added. “I see it also unfair to try him as a woman as well, seeing how he clearly didn’t act like one on Jan. 1 of 2014.”
The outcome of this case comes as no surprise, considering billionaire activist George Soros funded the campaign to help elect Gascon.
“We do not always get it right, as no one can, but we do believe that our fundamental beliefs are the right ones,” Gascon said.
This is just another disturbing example of woke people in authority destroying the country. It seems innocent people will suffer as a result of woke stupidity.
And due to a new liberal experiment as of Jan. 1, Democrats’ “Equality Act” bill has allowed people to be treated according to their gender identity, not biological sex, which means they must be housed in a jail facility consistent with their gender identity, regardless of their anatomy.
California is leading the way towards stupidity and will only backfire.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 21:20 - Biden Administration Misses Big Chance To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs
Biden Administration Misses Big Chance To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs
Authored by Carl Schmid via RealClear Health (emphasis ours),
President Biden has repeatedly promised to make health care more affordable. And his administration has taken some important steps. But sadly, officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just passed up an opportunity to save patients millions at the pharmacy.
In December, CMS released a draft of its annual rule regulating how private insurance plans must operate in the year ahead.
Some of what CMS has proposed will certainly benefit many patients. For example, the new rule requires insurers who operate on the federal health exchange to include among their offerings standardized plans that include fixed-dollar-amount “copays” rather than “coinsurance.” With coinsurance, beneficiaries pay a percentage of the cost of the medication — a potentially steep financial burden for patients who need the latest, greatest (usually expensive) treatments. Under the new rule, a Gold-level plan would have a copay of $15 for a 30-day supply of generic medications, $30 for brand-name drugs and $250 for a specialty drug. Such a plan could potentially save patients thousands of dollars in coinsurance payments.
The proposed rule also warns insurers against requiring high coinsurance rates for all of the medications prescribed to treat a particular health condition. It clearly states that insurers cannot discriminate against beneficiaries based on their health condition and expected health needs. And it requires formulary decisions to be based on clinical guidelines for treatment, not merely cost considerations.
But in one key area, the proposed rule falls short — in a way that would be easy for CMS to rectify with a small revision when the rule is finalized.
The problem concerns how insurers treat the financial assistance that drug makers often provide directly to patients. This assistance totaled $14 billion in 2019 — reducing patients’ costs and thus helping them afford their prescriptions and follow their doctors’ orders.
The proposed rule, however, allows insurers not to count this patient assistance toward a policyholder’s annual out-of-pocket maximum. That’s an option more and more insurers are taking advantage of — nearly 25% of healthcare plans provided by medium and large businesses, for example, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
To understand how unfair this is, consider a hypothetical. If a working-class patient receives $1,000 from a relative, or a local charity, to help cover a copay or coinsurance, insurers would count that spending towards her out-of-pocket maximum. But if the patient receives the same $1,000 from a drug company, those insurers wouldn’t count it.
By refusing to do so, insurance companies both collect the $1,000 in financial assistance from the drug manufacturer while at the same time requiring the patient to pay that amount out-of-pocket. That’s double-dipping. In its effect on the patients’ pocketbook, the out-of-pocket maximum for which they are responsible increases by the amount of the financial assistance.
The issue of how to treat this copay assistance isn’t an arcane accounting question — it directly impacts patients’ health.
If taken properly, prescription drugs keep patients healthy and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices. But when patients fail to take their medicines due to cost concerns, they end up sicker, often requiring expensive hospital care. In fact, about one in every ten hospitalizations results from prescription non-adherence.
Co-pay assistance can boost drug adherence and thus lower overall health spending — but only if patients can actually realize the savings.
Twelve states and Puerto Rico have already passed laws requiring insurers to count manufacturer copay assistance toward beneficiaries’ annual out-of-pocket maximums. Others are looking to follow suit on this matter of basic fairness.
But it’s a national problem and needs a national solution. In Congress, Reps. Donald McEachin (D-VA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) have introduced a bipartisan bill, HR 5808, to address it directly by law. In the meantime, the Biden administration could easily solve it by revising the final rule – a big step toward fulfilling its promise to make drugs more affordable.
Carl Schmid is executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, which promotes high-quality, affordable health care for people living with or at risk of HIV, hepatitis, and other serious and chronic health conditions. Follow the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute on Twitter: @HIVHep
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 21:00 - "I'm Stunned": Beijing Olympics Was Total Ratings Disaster
“I’m Stunned”: Beijing Olympics Was Total Ratings Disaster
Between half-empty stands, Russian figure skaters berated on TV, announcers covering games from Connecticut, and a backdrop of serious human rights abuses, China’s ‘oppression’ Olympics earned dismal ratings for NBC.
Kamila Valieva, of the Russian Olympic Committee, falls in the women’s free skate program during the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue) According to Fox News, NBC’s $7.75 billion investment in 2014 which gave the network exclusive rights to the Games through 2032 is not paying off.
Through Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, an average of 12.2 million watched the Olympics in primetime on NBC, cable, or its Peacock streaming service, a 42-percent dip from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Only 10 million watched NBC alone, a 47-percent drop from 2018, and through early last week, it was down 57 percent in the critical 25-54 age demographic from the Pyeongchang games. That was even taking into account the Super Bowl viewership boost NBC got from airing the Olympics directly after the network aired the game on Feb. 13. –Fox News
“These Olympics were a disaster for the network: a buzz-free, hermetically-sealed event in an authoritarian country a half-day’s time zone away, where the enduring images will be the emotional meltdown of Russian teen-agers after a drug-tainted figure skating competition and a bereft Mikaela Shiffrin, sitting on a ski slope wondering what went wrong,” wrote the Associated Press.
“Viewers stayed away in alarming numbers, and NBC has to wonder whether it was extraordinarily bad luck or if the brand of a once-unifying event for tens of millions of people is permanently tainted.”
That said, AP noted that NBC had a significant increase in streaming viewership, going from 2.2 billion in 2018 to 3.5 billion – however as Slate pointed out: “to note that the reach of YouTube and TikTok is extending NBC’s viewership into the hundreds of millions might unintentionally send the network’s more lucrative broadcast audience into the sea of on-demand digital video consumption, where their value would be diluted.”
NBC’s unfortunate ratings comes after the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games were also a flop – averaging 12.9 million primetime viewers, the smallest Summer audience since the network began airing them in 1988 – and a drop of 49% over the Rio Olympics in 2016, and 58% vs. the 2012 London Games.
Amid a U.S. diplomatic boycott, the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping thumbed its nose at the world as it exulted in Beijing being the first city to host both the Summer and Winter games.
China used a Uyghur athlete to deliver the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony – NBC’s Savannah Guthrie called it an “in your face response” to the West – despite its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the minority and first-person accounts of systemic rape, torture, and sterilization. It also used a Chinese military commander, who was involved in deadly clashes with Indian border forces in 2020, as a torchbearer in a move that angered India. -Fox News
Perhaps a few more Uyghurs in the opening ceremony would have helped?
“The media for the most part is still skittish when it comes to talking about Beijing’s acts in Xinjiang and other places,” author and prominent Chinese government critic Gordon Chang told Fox News Digital. “It’s not alleged human rights violations. They are atrocities. There’s genocide, as determined by both the Trump and Biden administrations. They’re crimes against humanity, and the coverage, and this is not just the U.S media, it’s around the world that you see there is an unwillingness to call it out for what it actually is.”
Chang says that as an Olympics fan who skipped watching the games this year out of protest, NBC shouldn’t have broadcast them at all.
“Normally I am totally glued, excluding all else, watching Olympics, but I didn’t this year at all, and the reason is I thought it was wrong to have the Games in China,” he said. “It was wrong for NBC to broadcast them … I’m surprised the ratings were so low. As a matter of fact, I’m stunned. And the reason is I thought these Games would attract an abnormally high viewership because it’s in China and because of all the things that go with that, including the atrocities.”
“”I think part of it is because people just have made a decision that China is too atrocious to deal with, so therefore they didn’t watch,” Chang continued, saying he was happy at the crappy ratings.
“There is karma in the world.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 20:40 - "What-Aboutism" – Ruling Against Trump Leaves More Questions Than Answers On Free Speech
“What-Aboutism” – Ruling Against Trump Leaves More Questions Than Answers On Free Speech
Below is my column in the Hill on the decision in Thompson v. Trump, the case brought by Democratic members and Capitol police officers against President Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and others for injuries (physical or emotional) related to the January 6th riot. The lawsuits against three out of four of the speakers from the rally on that day were dismissed but the motion on behalf of former President Donald Trump was denied. He could well prevail on appeal and there remain unanswered questions over the free speech protections that should be accorded such speeches.
Here is the column:
A “one-of-a-kind case.” Judge Amit Mehta‘s description of the litigation against four principal speakers at the Jan. 6 Trump rally may have been as much a prayer as a portrayal. As famed Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Hard cases make bad law” — and the litigation against President Trump and his associates is a hard case that just proved Holmes right.
In consolidated cases brought by Democratic members of Congress and Capitol Police officers, Judge Mehta ruled on motions to dismiss by the former president, his son Donald Jr., former Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), as well as several extremist groups like the Oath Keepers. The judge dismissed the claims of a violent conspiracy against Trump Jr. and Giuliani, and he invited Brooks to file a motion to dismiss on the same grounds. He rejected arguments that their speeches at the rally caused the subsequent rioting in the Capitol. Yet, while admitting that the case raised difficult constitutional questions, he declined to dismiss the claim against Trump.
The ruling will now allow a long-awaited appeal on core constitutional questions, including the protections for inflammatory speech.
Most analysts expected that groups like the Oath Keepers would likely remain in the lawsuit, given their active role in the rioting and the recent charges of seditious conspiracy filed against them. The most controversial parties were the speakers at the rally near the White House before the riot.
The judge’s 112-page opinion makes easy work of dismissing the claims against the other speakers. These speeches were reckless but constitutionally protected. Giuliani’s declaration — “Let’s have trial by combat” — has been cited by some critics as a clear incitement to an insurrection, but the judge found such arguments were implausible and that Giuliani’s words “were not likely” to cause a riot. He also found that Trump Jr.’s comments on the election were “protected speech,” and he rejected claims that Brooks urging Trump’s supporters to “start taking names and kicking ass” could be the basis for liability.
I previously wrote that the claims against these four Jan. 6 speakers might find “a sympathetic trial judge” but that “they will likely fail on appeal, even if they survive the trial level litigation.” All but one of those claims are now dismissed on the trial level. Moreover, Judge Mehta’s opinion seems to reinforce the view that Trump’s speech was protected, too.
The judge could well be reversed on the threshold question of immunity, raised by Trump, that presidents cannot be sued for speaking on matters of public interest. Mehta was honest in saying that “this is not an easy issue” and that “the alleged facts of this case are without precedent.” Yet, he offered a detailed explanation of why he believes such immunity should not extend to a speech contesting election results — the strongest portion of his decision. In so holding, Mehta is making new law — and some jurists on appeal, particularly on the Supreme Court, are likely to be concerned over the implications of such liability for a sitting president.
However, it is the free speech issue that is most concerning. My concern is not based on any agreement with Trump’s view of the election or Congress’s certification of it; I criticized his speech as he gave it and later called for Congress to censure him; nevertheless, his remarks fall well short of the high standard set for criminal or civil liability for speech.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected such liability despite the use of inflammatory or even violent words.
In 1969, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that even a Ku Klux Klan leader calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” In Hess v. Indiana, the court rejected the prosecution of a protester declaring an intention to take over the streets because “at worst, (the words) amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time.” In a third case, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the court overturned a judgment against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after one of its officials promised to break the necks of opponents.
Although Trump pumped up his Jan. 6 supporters with allegations of election fraud and calls to “fight like hell,” Judge Mehta acknowledged that Trump also told the crowd that “everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” His comments were consistent with a protest in saying that “we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
In fairness to the court, it is merely saying that the case’s plaintiffs could possibly prove a conspiracy between Trump and some Jan. 6 groups. But he cites little support for such a conspiracy beyond facts like Trump’s earlier controversial statement in a debate that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.” The court’s careful, meticulous analysis on the earlier claims seems to break down over Trump’s status; it struggles to ignore the clear weight of prior case law and countervailing interpretations of Trump’s words.
Despite a lengthy, detailed discussion of issues like presidential immunity, Mehta becomes more curt and cursory over Trump’s constitutional claims. When Trump’s lawyers said his language was largely indistinguishable from that of many Democrats like Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Mehta chided them for playing “a game of what-aboutism.”
That “what-aboutism,” however, is precisely the point.
The selective imposition of liability for speech is the very thing that the First Amendment is designed to prevent.
As rioting raged in Brooklyn Center, Minn. and nationwide in 2020, Congresswoman Waters went to Minnesota and told protesters there that they “gotta stay on the street” and “get more confrontational.” Others have used language very similar to Trump’s in declaring elections to be invalid (including Hillary Clinton calling Trump an “illegitimate president“) or urging supporters to “fight” or “battle” against Republicans; Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) once said, “There needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.”
All of those statements arguably were reckless but clearly protected speech.
Free speech demands bright lines. While this is a “one-of-a-kind case,” Trump’s comments were hardly unique. And Judge Mehta does not clearly establish why Giuliani’s “trial by combat” remark or Brooks’ “taking names and kicking ass” exhortation are not calls for imminent violence or lawlessness — but Trump’s “fight like hell” would be.
With three of the four speakers now dismissed from the case, only Trump remains. Along with him remains the most looming question: whether the Jan. 6 speech, which was central to his impeachment, was protected under the Constitution. If Trump prevails on appeal, he may claim a degree of vindication thanks to some of his fiercest opponents.
What the court dismisses as “a game of what-aboutism” is all about free speech.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 20:20 - "Bronco Ice Mountain": Thousands Of Ford Broncos Are Stacking Up In A Michigan Lot
“Bronco Ice Mountain”: Thousands Of Ford Broncos Are Stacking Up In A Michigan Lot
“Thousands” of Ford Broncos have been piling up in a Michigan lot – held up for sale by the ongoing semiconductor shortage that has stung the automotive industry over the last 2 years and that shows little sign of letting up.
Demand for the new Bronco has been robust since Ford re-did its design and re-introduced it years ago. But it appears that Ford is having trouble meeting that demand thanks to “two years of industry disruptions”, Autoblog pointed out over the long weekend.
Buyers had started to sign up to purchase the revamped Bronco as far back as 2020. But after dealing with issues like defective tops last summer, and now dealing with additional chip shortage roadblocks, it appears the supply sieve has yet to truly open.
As a result, trucks are now “stacking up in a lot outside the Michigan Assembly Plant”, Autoblog reports.
“All we can do at this point is scale as fast as we can and break the constraints and communicate to (buyers) what’s realistic,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said last week.
“I do think they could be communicating better,” one potential Bronco buyer said to Autoblog. The report noted that Ford’s distribution strategy of Broncos to dealerships remains dynamic and has not only customers – but also dealers – confused:
Dealers and reservation holders thought Bronco orders would be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis. Instead, Ford decided 50% of production would be for reservation holders, 25% would factor in dealer location, the final 25% would consider a dealer’s historic sales figures. That weighted half the formula in favor of dealers in large markets. Then Ford changed the calculus to factor in Bronco Sport sales as well. Then Ford lowered the threshold for the percentage of Broncos a dealer needed provide to reservation holders out of the allocation, the result being that “four out of 10 new Broncos can go to a walk-in customer or the highest bidder.”
Here is a video of what the lot outside the Michigan Plant currently looks like:
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 20:00 - How The Pandemic Has Propelled Maritime Tech Deals To New Peaks
How The Pandemic Has Propelled Maritime Tech Deals To New Peaks
By Greg Miller of FreightWaves
Maritime tech has never seen anything like the past 12 months: a whirlwind of deals that may be just the beginning.
“Clearly, there is an influx of capital, especially over the last year, and the pace is just continuing to increase,” said Evan Efstathiou, founder of consultancy SkySail Advisors. “Shipping is in the spotlight. The volume and velocity [of deals] is on a different trajectory than we’ve ever seen before. The enthusiasm is frothy.”
According to Marina Hadjipateras, co-founder of TMV, a VC firm with funds that invest in transportation, “There is money flowing in — more than ever — so there is an opportunity for shipping and supply chain tech. Valuations are very strong and they’re continuing to rise, especially as investors are paying more and more attention to this market.”
Shipping and supply chain is “a hot topic now, as hot as health care over the past few decades,” Hadjipateras told American Shipper. “It’s trending.”
Positions of container ships, bulkers and tankers as of Thursday Funding, company sales, IPOs
Among the many maritime tech companies getting funded in 2021: project44, $201 million; Sofar Ocean, $39 million; Xeneta, $28.5 million; NYSHEX, $15 million; DeepSea Technologies, $9.1 million; Voyager Portal, $8.4 million; Wave BL, $8 million; K4 Mobility, $5.7 million; Vizion, $3.25 million; Portcast, $3.2 million; and Greywing, $2.5 million.
The flow of new money continues in 2022. Flexport raised $935 million this month in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing Flexport at over $8 billion. Project44, which has a significant ocean presence, raised $240 million last month from investors including TPG and Goldman Sachs, at a valuation of $2.2 billion — a billion more than its valuation just eight months before.
There has also been an unprecedented number of company acquisitions involving maritime tech.
Last year, Alfa Laval bought StormGeo for $410 million; Kpler bought Clipper Data; ZeroNorth acquired Propulsion Dynamics; Lloyd’s Register acquired Greenstream; Spire bought exactEarth; Veson Nautical took over Oceanbolt; Accel-KKR bought Navis; FourKites built out its ocean offerings by buying Haven; and project44 acquired ocean platforms Clear Metal and Ocean Insights.
The acquisitions keep coming in 2022. In January, ZeroNorth bought Clearlynx and VesselsValue acquired Viamar. Informa is in the process of selling its maritime data and intelligence unit.
There have been public listings, as well. In August, Spire Global (NYSE: SPIR) began trading after a reverse merger with a SPAC; its current market cap is $437 million. In December, Windward sold $47 million of stock and listed in London (current market cap: $174 million).
Cargo and market visibility
Why the higher deal flow for shipping tech in 2021-22?
On the funding side of the equation, massive pools of money have been searching for returns in an era of historically low interest rates. According to CB Insights, startups overall received $620 billion in funding last year, by far the highest annual total ever and more than double the $294 billion recorded in 2020.
More of this money is finding its way to maritime tech because the three largest (and partially overlapping) categories of pitches — visibility, digitalization and decarbonization — are all hitting the mark simultaneously.
Visibility, as in “Where’s my cargo?,” is largely associated with container shipping. But all vessel types, including tankers and bulkers, are covered by the broader category of market visibility and ship tracking (by companies such as MarineTraffic, Kpler and CargoMetrics), with market intelligence used for decision-making, chartering, trading and investing.
Cargo visibility has received enormous attention in the COVID era, after pandemic disruptions created historic congestion and delays — and brought images of offshore traffic jams to the front page and the nightly news. From the Ever Given accident in the Suez Canal to over 100 ships waiting off Los Angeles/Long Beach to unfounded fears that the supply chain crisis would ruin Christmas, shipping has never been more in the public eye — and, in turn, the eyes of tech founders and investors, not to mention tech giants like Google.
On Wednesday, Google Cloud and Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB) announced a 10-year strategic partnership, with its first priority being “to solve the increasing challenge of managing supply chain risk.” Dun & Bradstreet will be the founding partner of Google Cloud’s Supply Chain Twin, and new solutions will be developed to “improve end-to-end supply chain visibility.”
Crunchbase called 2021 “a banner year for VC-backed supply chain management companies” and said that “funding shows no signs of breaking down.” Crunchbase data showed that $11.3 billion in funding was provided to supply chain companies, nearly double 2020 levels and 24% above the previous record year of 2019.
Chart: American Shipper based on data from Crunchbase As more money flows toward the supply chain, more goes to the ocean sector.
During the Hellenic/Norwegian American Chambers of Commerce (HACC/NACC) shipping forum on Feb. 8, Nikos Petrakakos of Ursus Maritime Capital explained, “What has brought the initial interest in the shipping world from people who aren’t in shipping is that they realize, through these disruptions in the supply chain, that having investments in trucking and rail doesn’t necessarily alleviate everything — if one cog is not working, the whole supply chain is not working. They realize that there’s a lot of untapped opportunity in the cargo visibility side of things in the maritime industry.
“The initial attention is coming from later-stage VCs that are almost like a PE [private equity firm] looking for bigger companies and [to pay] bigger checks, whether it’s project44 or Navis, that kind of stuff. And then you also have increasing attention from the earlier-stage investors, like what Marina [Hadjipateras] is doing. There’s still a lot of different opportunities there. It’s a lot more nascent.”
“Supply visibility is huge,” said Hadjipateras. “Shipping is in the news more. People want to invest in tech that’s going to make the industry more efficient. It’s not just the niche shipping funds now. It’s also the top-tier venture funds that are focusing on this.”
Digitalization
On the increased momentum for maritime tech, Petrakakos said, “It seems to be a mix of various causes but COVID certainly has triggered some of these changes … [although] many of these things were already in motion before.”
The second big maritime tech pitch is digitalization: using technology to improve business processes and decision-making. As with visibility, COVID has acted as an accelerant.
Efstathiou told American Shipper: “Because of COVID and people working from home, companies have been forced to work differently. They’ve realized that certain processes that worked just fine when everyone was in the office weren’t working so well in a distributed workforce environment.”
Petrakakos said during the HACC/NACC event, “All the work from home has driven the digitalization side of things in shipping.”
The supply chain squeeze is yet another COVID-era driver of accelerated digitalization. Disruptions to the supply chain laid bare the need for more efficient and nimbler networks, whether cargo was on land or sea (a goal that overlaps with cargo visibility).
As Glasswing founder Rudina Seseri told Crunchbase, the supply chain industry had already realized before the pandemic that it was “going to get left behind” if it didn’t move on from pen and paper, “then COVID came and made it incredibly obvious and accelerated the adoption.”
Decarbonization
The third big pitch for shipping tech focuses on fuel efficiency and decarbonization. It spans all vessel types and provides potential for tech solutions to scale.
The push to decarbonize shipping has been ongoing for years albeit progressing at a snail’s pace. The transition will require switching to a new fuel at some point in the future, and in the interim, reducing carbon emissions from the use of existing fuels — i.e., increasing fuel efficiency.
This interim requirement appeals all around: to startup investors, founders and employees looking to advance decarbonization, and on the other side, to ship operators looking to improve environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials and, regardless of environmental concerns, reduce their fuel costs and thereby increase their profits.
Zero-carbon targets may be decades out, but new ship efficiency rules (the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index, EEXI, and Carbon Intensity Index, CII) come into play next year, as does shipping’s inclusion in the EU Emission Trading System. Even more immediately, the price of ship fuel is now on the verge of breaching all-time highs set in 2011 and 2008.
Nautilus Labs is a prime example of a tech startup targeting emissions by reducing fuel consumption; it raised $11 million in Series A funding in 2019 from investors including Microsoft’s M12 and Hadjipateras’ TMS. “Nautilus’ Series A was great for the industry and they’re going to continue to do larger rounds. They will be funded again, I’m sure,” affirmed Hadjipateras.
Regarding shipping’s overall appeal to sustainability investors, she said: “A lot of people outside the shipping world look at shipping as almost the opposite of sustainability, and it’s true that inefficiencies are causing ships to emit more emissions. But shipping is integral to the world, and if investors think about the fact that they can actually do something good for the environment [by investing in platforms that reduce shipping emissions], that’s a whole different pool of money that will come in, along with the people who are experts in transportation.”
Decarbonization-COVID connection?
For visibility and digitalization, COVID’s accelerant role is clear. Whether the pandemic played a similar role in decarbonization investment is open to debate.
Tuomas Riski of Norsepower Oy said during the HACC/NACC event that the “rapid uptake right now in emission-reduction technology” in shipping has four drivers: higher-than-ever fuel prices, expectations of future carbon pricing, compliance-based demand (related to the EEXI and CII regs) and the increasing importance of ESG to companies. “This all happened in the COVID period, but I don’t think COVID has been the real catalyst behind it. These things are just happening at the same time,” said Riski.
On the other hand, if COVID-era policies push funds toward riskier bets amid a low-yield environment, and if incentives push money toward climate-aligned investments, there could be a timing connection between COVID and climate-aligned VC investing in shipping.
There might also be business sentiment and psychological links between COVID and decarbonization. Hadjipateras noted, “There was a moment in COVID [during lockdowns] when air pollution was down and everything [with emissions] was so much better and we all sort of scratched our heads and thought: We need to change things and be more efficient.”
Back in April 2020, when the Western world was in lockdown, shipping consultant Basil Karatzas told American Shipper, “Maybe COVID-19 increases people’s awareness of what’s truly important in society.”
And in July 2020, JP Morgan published a report that posited an explicit connection between the pandemic and ESG. JP Morgan maintained that the pandemic could be a “major turning point for ESG investing,” because “as a result of the radical impact COVID-19 has had on global economies in such a short space of time, many policymakers and investors are viewing the crisis as a wake-up call” and “we believe that pandemics and environmental risks are viewed as similar in terms of impact,” ergo COVID “has renewed the focus on climate change.”
What’s next?
Despite the heavy deal flow in 2021-22, maritime is still relatively untrampled territory for technology investors compared to other industries. Even when it comes to the supply chain overall, the share of total funding remains small.
Commenting on what’s next, Petrakakos said, “There’s still a lot of fragmentation in the industry so I would say there’s still a lot of consolidation that’s going to happen in the future, which will probably attract that next step of investors.” In other words, the high pace of shipping tech company sales seen in the past 12 months should continue.
Petrakakos also believes that “using the data is the next step. So far, we’re just collecting data. The next step is actually using machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] to give us actionable KPIs [key performance indicators].”
AI prospects were likewise highlighted by DeepSea Technologies founder Roberto Coustas in recent comments to Tradewinds. AI is the key selling point for London-listed Windward, and the Google Cloud-Dun & Bradstreet partnership also pointed to AI and machine learning. Efstathiou highlighted AI and machine learning potential, too. “I think people in shipping are picking up on this more,” he said.
In general, Efstathiou said of maritime tech’s prospects: “All of the stars are aligned on the money side, so the question is: Who’s going to come out with the innovation?” The further challenge is: “How do you scale up in shipping? You still come back to that question. It’s not an easy one to answer.”
Efstathiou also sees the potential for a lot more company acquisitions, including the possibility of larger funds deploying very large amounts of cash for major maritime tech acquisitions, then using those buys as a base to continue to roll up other maritime tech companies.
Hadjipateras predicted a lot of action ahead. She sees more IPOs, although she believes this option depends on “if a company can verticalize into different forms of transportation. It’s about how big the total addressable market is.”
She also expects more company acquisitions — driven more by tech platform buyers — and even more investments flowing to startups.
“I see more funding going into all of the platforms that exist. Funding and scaling is going to happen throughout all of this year. A lot of companies are going out now [to raise money], and there’s going to be a lot more funding for the industry over the next year, which is great.”
Companies are included in the SkySail landscape if they have been screened by SkySail, verify they are commercialized, and have product-market fit. Photo: SkySail Advisors Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 19:40 - Shooting Erupts At Popular Mexican Beach Resort Again As Cartel Turf-War Escalates
Shooting Erupts At Popular Mexican Beach Resort Again As Cartel Turf-War Escalates
Tourists at a restaurant in the popular Mexican beach resort of Tulum were caught in the crossfire when a terrifying shootout interrupted their vacations.
According to local news Riviera Maya News, two people were killed and a third wounded at the luxurious Art Beach restaurant on Saturday night shortly after 2100 local time. Two young men were killed, and another was injured.
“The two murdered people were suspected drug traffickers,” La Política Online said.
Readers have been well aware of the uncontrolled violence that affects the Quintana Roo state, which includes Cancun, Cozumel, and Tulum. Shootings are occurring increasingly in tourist areas where some have been killed.
Last month, two Canadians were shot dead by an unknown gunman at a ritzy resort near Cancun. In November last year at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera hotel, south of Cancun, hundreds of tourists witnessed a shootout between rival drug gangs. The frequency of attacks comes as drug cartels try to secure turf in popular resort towns to pedal drugs to tourists.
As early April 2021, readers may recall, we reported “”Crisis In Paradise” – Mexican Tourist Mecca Descends Into Chaos As Cartels Wage War During Spring Break,” documented the rapid deterioration in the resort areas as cartels waged war on one another with tourists in the crossfire.
Here’s more of what has happened in the tropical warzone in the last year:
- Tropical Warzone: Gunmen On Jet Skis Open Fire At Cancun Beach Resort
- Cancun Chaos Leaves Two Dead As Cartel Beach Gun Battle Erupts
- Mexican Tourist Mecca Is Spiraling Out Of Control As Cartels Wage War
- Mexican National Guard Deploys 1,500 Troops To Cancun Amid Cartel Chaos
We usually don’t give out travel advice, but maybe skip out on popular Mexican beach towns for now until the chaos settles.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 19:20 - Critical Race Theory Makes Its Way Into Mandatory Trainings At Top US Medical Schools, New Database Shows
Critical Race Theory Makes Its Way Into Mandatory Trainings At Top US Medical Schools, New Database Shows
By Bill Pan of The Epoch Times
Almost all of the nation’s top 25 medical schools are incorporating ideas related to critical race theory (CRT) into mandatory training programs for students and staff, warned a watchdog website documenting leftist indoctrination in K-12 and higher education.
Critical Race Training in Education, a project founded by Cornell University law professor William Jacobson, has recently put online a new database on America’s most prestigious medical schools. The database finds that 23 of those 25 institutions maintain some form of mandatory student training or coursework related to CRT doctrines.
“The trainings can be targeted, such as a new requirement for a major or a department, or school-wide,” the website states, noting that the subjects of those trainings and coursework may be worded differently at individual schools, but usually use terms including “anti-racism,” “cultural competency,” “equity,” “implicit bias,” “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)” and critical race theory.
The database also observes that 17 schools have mandatory CRT training for employees. For example, Cornell’s Weill Medical College requires all faculty and staff to complete “anti-bias training” on an annual basis while it works to “introduce additional educational content related to racism, social injustice, and social determinants of health into the medical curriculum.”
In addition, 21 of the 25 listed institutions have offered their students materials such as books, talks, and articles by Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, two authors celebrated among proponents of CRT for their works on “anti-racism” and “white fragility.”
Inspired by CRT, which interprets American society through the lens of a power struggle between white and non-white people, the self-styled “anti-racists” believe that racism is woven into every aspect of American life and must be identified and confronted with “anti-racist” actions. In her 2010 paper (pdf) titled “Addressing Whiteness in Nursing Education,” DiAngelo argued that the question “is not ‘Did racism take place?’ but rather, ‘In which ways did racism manifest in this specific context?’”
“The direction of power between white people and people of color is historic, traditional, normalized, and deeply embedded in the fabric of US society,” DiAngelo wrote. “A key aspect of this emancipatory education process is to ‘raise the consciousness’ of white people about what racism is, and how it works.”
A long-time critic of CRT and the so-called “woke” movement, Jacobson said this leads to a dangerous path for medical education.
“The mantra of the so-called ‘anti-racism’ movement has no place in medicine. Current racial discrimination in order to remedy past racial discrimination is wrong generally, but is downright dangerous in medicine,” the professor told Fox News Digital, referencing a quote from “How To Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi.
“When a patient presents for treatment, that person needs to be treated as an individual, not just as a member of some larger racial or ethnic group,” Jacobson added.
Last year, the American Medical Association (AMA), the largest national organization representing physicians and medical students, pledged to dump its long-held concept of meritocracy and embrace “racial justice” and “health equity.”
In an 86-page strategic plan, the AMA set out a three-year road map detailing how the advocacy group will use its influence to dismantle “structural and institutional racism” and advance “social and racial justice” in America’s health care system.
Part of its plan is to “expand medical school and physician education to include equity, anti-racism, structural competency, public health and social sciences, critical race theory and historical basis of disease,” reads the document, which is loaded with CRT vocabulary.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 19:00 - Watch: Two More Black Hawks Down In Utah
Watch: Two More Black Hawks Down In Utah
Two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters belonging to the Utah National Guard crashed during a field training exercise Tuesday at Mineral Basin, just outside of the Snowbird Ski Resort, according to Salt Lake City-based KUTV News.
Aviation Public Affairs Officer Jared Jones said both Black Hawks were conducting a winter mountain training exercise around 0930 local time when they touched down in an approved landing zone. As the one helicopter landed, both experienced white-out conditions, and that was when the main rotor blade from one of the helicopters struck the other.
Breaking: We can confirm that two Utah National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were involved in a training accident at approx. 9:30 a.m. near Mineral Basin. No crew members were injured in the accident. Both UH-60s were damaged. The incident is under investigation.
— Utah National Guard (@UTNationalGuard) February 22, 2022
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“We are grateful that no one was seriously injured thanks to the quick reaction and training of both command pilots,” said Maj. Matthew Green, commander 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion. “Right now, our top priority is taking care of both crews.”
The landing zone was near Snowbird Ski Resort. No skiers in the area were injured at the time of the incident.
A video of the incident was posted on Twitter while skiers stood in disbelief hundreds of yards away. Both helicopters can be seen landing, as the downforce of their main rotor blades created enough downforce to produce white-out conditions. Then a loud bang could be heard as it appears both main rotors of the helicopters touched. It’s hard to tell which helicopter caused the accident due to white-out conditions.
Incredible video of the crash shared with us by Garet Marsh : https://t.co/tviyF3ppvc @KUTV2News pic.twitter.com/kxyWZ4Jqvm
— Jeremy Harris (@JeremyHarrisTV) February 22, 2022
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Pictures of the aftermath show debris littered the ski area as both helicopters appeared damaged.
Here’s a video of the helicopters, on approach, moments before landing in the approved landing zone.
He also shared this video which appears to show them flying into the Mineral Basin area. @KUTV2News pic.twitter.com/UK9rXDiEZa
— Jeremy Harris (@JeremyHarrisTV) February 22, 2022
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Maybe the Utah National Guard has some more winter survivability training to complete. Clearly, they’re not ready for war with Russia if all breaks out in Ukraine.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 18:40 - Ivy League Parents Fearful To Speak Out Publicly As Lia Thomas Dominates Their Daughters
Ivy League Parents Fearful To Speak Out Publicly As Lia Thomas Dominates Their Daughters
Authored by Margaret Kelly via TheCollegeFix.com,
Lia Thomas, the transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer who has smashed college women’s records since early December, was the high-point scorer and the only swimmer to win three individual events at the Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championship last weekend.
Suzy Weiss, writing for Bari Weiss’s “Common Sense” Substack newsletter, reported suppressed ambivalence from the sidelines.
🥇🥈
Lia Thomas is the @IvyLeague champion in the 500 free. Her time of 4:37.32 is a new pool record.
Catherine Buroker finishes in second.#FightOnPenn pic.twitter.com/ki2SQdxn6Q
— Penn Swimming & Diving (@PennSwimDive) February 17, 2022
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Thomas is “a totem in the culture wars,” Weiss wrote, embodying abstract and divisive debates about the meaning of male and female. Parents who wish to support minority rights — or simply align with the progressive elite — reached the limits of their liberalism as Thomas dominated their Ivy League daughters.
These parents helped get their children into the most competitive colleges in the world.
“They have opinions about everything,” Weiss wrote. “They will explain how there’s a $400 swimsuit that you can only wear once, but that might be worth it for the tenth of a second.”
“But as history unfolds in front of their noses,” Weiss stated, “they refuse to comment.”
One anonymous Penn dad at the competition addressed the issue directly:
“No amount of hormone suppression will ever roll back the advantages Lia possesses because of male puberty.”
He and his wife said their daughters have received “veiled threats” from the university to discourage them from speaking out.
Says another Penn mother,
“They haven’t asked our girls how they feel about any of this.”
Other parents tried to withhold more than their names. One mother said she was pleased for Thomas — and then asked Weiss to delete the recording of their interview.
Another Penn mom said her own daughter told her not to comment.
“She’s worried about getting into grad school,” the mom told Weiss, “and she doesn’t want my name or hers to come up on Google attached to this.”
After speaking to another dad, Weiss was contacted by his wife, who implored her to take his name off the record.
“Please don’t hurt my child!” she texted.
Parents on the sidelines fear more than the defeat of their daughters this time around — they worry about permanent setbacks for biological women.
“The parents’ longer-run fear is that college coaches will start recruiting trans athletes, and that female athletes who have worked tirelessly in high school won’t get a fair shot,” Weiss wrote.
“They say their daughters can’t reasonably train harder, lift more, or do anything to overcome the biological facts that make Thomas impossible for them to beat.”
“The NCAA and Ivy League are essentially telling their daughters, they say, to set their hopes on second place.”
Weiss wrote that she thinks that Weiss’s own parents, watching from the sidelines, must “want everyone to leave their kid alone.”
And the parents don’t seem to bear a personal grudge against Lia, Weiss said. Most said they’d accept Thomas swimming with males or in some other, independent category.
Another anonymous Penn father, whose daughter swims against Thomas, said he blames the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Organization, a nonprofit that regulates student athletes from North American institutions. The mom added that the organization “has done biological women, and [Lia], wrong, and they need to fix it.”
An unnamed Princeton dad frames the issue more starkly: “Either the people supporting this are on the wrong side of history, or it’s the end of women’s swimming.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 18:20 - Market Sentiment Has Never Been Worse And Everyone Is Hedging For A Crash
Market Sentiment Has Never Been Worse And Everyone Is Hedging For A Crash
Back in 2007, Jim Cramer famously screamed at Erin Burnett that the Fed “has no idea how bad it is out there… They know Nothing!” Today’s market would agree with Cramer.
While stocks have been hammered by a relentless, furious pounding for much of 2022 which culminated today with the S&P officially entering a 10% correction from its all time highs…
… a better look at market sentiment comes from the latest AAII bull minus bear index, which shows that trader sentiment has rarely been worse.
The latest Morgan Stanley Prime Brokerage report (available to professional subscribers) showed just how broken bullish sentiment has become. According to the bank’s PB group, in the last week, net leverage across long/short funds had fallen to just 48%, the lowest level seen since June 2020, as hedge funds piled into shorts.
As the bank further details, last week’s selling “was largely concentrated within N. America, though HFs did also skew towards selling EU equities as well. Most of the selling on Thursday came on the short side, with short additions in N. Am in line with some of the largest levels we have seen YTD.”
But besides just aggressive shorting of stocks – one which would need just one word of hope from the Fed to spark a massive squeeze – increasingly bearish traders have been expressing their outlook by taking out record downside hedges, which as Bloomberg notes today, “may be one reason the worst has so far been avoided.”
As we first noted several weeks ago, when we showed the record amount of puts being purchased which according to Goldman have recently averaged to roughly $1 trillion per day…
Everyone is hedged for a crash: “we have been averaging $1 Trillion worth of puts per day. Largest on record.” – GS pic.twitter.com/zRrpCgbJYZ
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 31, 2022
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… Bloomberg today picks up on this, noting that traders have been steadily boosting bets against equities, “shaking off a reluctance to short tracing to last year’s meme stock upheaval.” As a result, not only have bearish bets on the SPY ETF surged, but put open interest on bond-focused products has also risen to historic levels. Meanwhile, professional managers have been hedging their credit exposures.
It is this unprecedented downside protection that has allowed markets to remain relatively resilient overnight, shaking off a decline in futures that at one point reached nearly 3% on the Nasdaq 100 Index.
“When markets are at record highs, there’s a lot of room for downside movement,” Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab, said by phone. “I would think that might diminish the impact of this.”
So just how pervasive is bearish sentiment? According to Bloomberg data, short interest as a percentage of SPY float has doubled since the start of the year, last week reaching the highest since December 2020, according to data from IHS Markit Ltd. More than 6% of the fund is now out on loan.
But while some are shorting the SPY, others are just buying puts, with SPY open interest last week climbed to a two-month high, and a Cboe put-to-call ratio that tracks the volume of options tied to everything from single stocks to indexes, including the S&P 500 and the VIX fear gauge, has also spiked. Among Russia-centric securities, open interest for bearish put contracts on the $1.4 billion VanEck Russia ETF (RSX) — which primarily tracks Russian energy and mining stocks — surged to the highest level since April 2018 last week.
It is this “frantic hedging” that is helping buffer any decline, said Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co, preventing the market from flushing to the downside, a process which many way will be necessary for risk sentiment to truly bottom.
“It’s very similar to when a stock with very high short-interest gets some bad news. The decline tends to be much more orderly as those shorts starting taking profits and cover their positions,” he said.
Meanwhile, as we first pointed out two weeks ago, a similar story has been playing out in the corporate-bond space as the Fed ramped up rhetoric. Put open interest for both the largest High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) and its Investment Grade peer (LQD) has surged to near records.
“HYG and LQD have been a clear focus with more consistent hedging in those products than we have ever seen,” said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna.
A similar dynamic was observed by Goldman’s Prime Broker which found that shorts on credit ETFs have increased by 29% this year, outpacing the overall short-book for U.S. exchange-traded funds, which has risen by 5% in the same stretch. Overall, hedge funds tracked by the bank had at the start of February boosted short positions in every week but one since early November.
Even before the Ukraine shock, Investors were already hedging because of the Fed’s hawkish tilt, said Schwab’s Frederick. And while the case can be made the bearish buildups are a view on the market continuing to sell off, traders buy protection not because they want to have the chance to use it but because they’re hoping not to. It also help the market sell off in a much more orderly manner.
“It’s like an insurance policy. When you buy an insurance policy on a car, it’s not because you hope you crash — it’s because you know it might happen,” he said.
Still, as Bloomberg notes, while it’s possible that all of the protective stockpiles could make downside moves less violent, “it could also be the case that the market is still misunderstanding what the macro implications of a Ukraine conflict are”, according to Peter Chatwell, head of multi-asset strategy at Mizuho International.
Sanctions on Russia could push up inflation “and therefore ratchet up the central bank hawkishness even further. As such, rates products are unlikely to perform as a safe haven,” he said. “And when the rates products fail to act as a hedge, that will in turn generate more selling of risk assets.”
Which is true, unless of course, commodities surge so high they spark a global recession, similar to what we saw in the summer of 2008. In that case all those puts will certainly come in handy. They will also come in very handy if Morgan Stanley is right, and we are now reliving the late 2018 playbook, which will send the S&P tumbling down to 3,800 by the end of March…
… a collapse which most agree will finally trigger the Fed put because while Biden may be terrified about inflation, just wait until he finds out what a market crash will do to his approval ratings.
And as investors are ramping up their bets for a market apocalypse, the bulls are quietly going extinct. While stocks are not dropping nearly as fast as they would if downside hedges weren’t in place, they are still falling, and as noted above, the S&P 500 is now more than 10% from its record high at the start of the year, signaling a technical correction. The drop has also pushed the index below its 200-day moving average in recent days, a bearish omen suggesting it could slide toward a much lower floor.
The S&P 500 is “living on the edge of support” around the 4,300 level, according to Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler. A breach below that “would validate a lower low following a lower high, checking the classification box for a downtrend and forcing us to reevaluate our bull market thesis,” he wrote. Though he’s sticking with his 5,150 year-end price target for now, he says “the technical backdrop is deteriorating quickly along with our confidence in our year-end price objective.”
Among the bulls who conviction is fading by the day, and who say the price action itself convinces them the market is in trouble, is Evercore ISI technical strategist Richard Ross who said that his work continues to suggest the S&P 500 is headed toward a deep drop. He predicts a break below 4,200 could take the index to 3,600 – roughly in line with Morgan Stanley’s forecast – a decline of roughly 16% from where it closed Tuesday.
“While ephemeral relief rallies will occur as the conflict ebbs and flows, the seeds of the current decline were planted by policy and the pandemic long before troops massed on the border,” he wrote in a note. He said he urged clients to fight the temptation to buy brief rallies given “the ominous specter of the highest inflation in 40 years and more hikes than meetings to combat said inflation.”
Another among the reformer bears is Bloomberg Intelligence’s Gina Martin Adams, who noted that the S&P 500 is testing critical support levels that, if broken, suggest another 10% correction is ahead. The key level to watch is 4,280, and “even though the pattern may only emerge if the S&P 500 closes below that key support, a combination of weakening internals, rising interest rates, slowing growth and inflation pressure may result in a head-and-shoulders topping formation for the index,” she wrote in a note titled “Commodities May Be the Only Thing Keeping S&P 500 Above Water.”
Finally, chartist Katie Stockton said stock indexes saw short-term momentum turn negative last week following a brief rally off January’s lows. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 are “at a proving ground” as they approach those January lows once again.
“There are no signs of downside exhaustion yet, suggesting these levels will be tested in the days ahead,” she wrote, and she is right: as long as the market continues to drift lower and fails to flush, dragging the once invincible “market generals” along with it, stocks will not bottom, a sentiment encapsulated by the old Baron Rothschild maxim: “buy when there is blood on the streets.”
We are not there just yet, but as literal blood starts flowing in the streets, not even the record put overhang will prevent what’s coming.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 02/22/2022 – 18:00
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