Today’s News 23rd February 2023

• Only A Third Of Ukrainians In Germany Plan To Return Home When War Ends
  Only A Third Of Ukrainians In Germany Plan To Return Home When War Ends

  Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

  The vast majority of Ukrainian refugees currently residing in Germany do not intend to return to their home country immediately after the war, the latest polling has revealed…

  

  In a survey conducted by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), just 34 percent of respondents revealed they would go home immediately after the war.

  Around 2 percent said they planned to remain in Germany for at least a year after the end of the conflict, while 11 percent revealed their intention to stay in German for “a few more years.”

  Significantly, more than a quarter (26 percent) of respondents said they had no plans to return to Ukraine and wanted to remain in Germany indefinitely.

  More than 1 million Ukrainian refugees have moved to Germany since war broke out in the country in February last year. Recent figures suggest a total of 1,055,323 as of Feb. 15, 2023, a figure lower only than Poland with 1.55 million recorded refugees and Russia with 2.85 million refugees.

  Despite being well educated — 72 percent of adults reportedly have a university degree — just 4 percent of respondents reported having a good knowledge of the German language, although half are attending language courses.

  Furthermore, just 17 percent of working-age Ukrainians have found employment in Germany.

  The BAMF study revealed that three-quarters of Ukrainian refugees currently reside in private accommodations, while 9 percent are living in refugee shelters and 17 percent in hotels.

  Approximately 80 percent of adult refugees from Ukraine are women, of which three-quarters arrived in Germany without a partner. Around 48 percent of said women arrived with child dependents.

  The state of health among Ukrainian refugees is generally regarded as good, but their life satisfaction is significantly lower compared to the German population.

  “The psychological well-being of refugee children is also low compared to other children living in Germany,” the report states.

  The most popular reason for Ukrainian refugees opting to head to Germany was because of the country’s “respect for human rights.” Other reasons cited by respondents include the country’s welfare system, its education system, and the fact they consider Germany to be a welcoming, tolerant country.

  The results come at a time when local authorities in Germany are reporting to the federal government that their social services are saturated, and many local authorities have pushed back against further plans to accommodate even more immigrants.

  “There is a lack of apartments, daycare places, teachers for schools and language courses. This is one of the reasons why social tensions are increasing,” warned Reinhard Sager, the president of the German District Association, earlier this month.

  The tide of public opinion is also swiftly turning against the federal government’s liberal asylum policy. A survey conducted by the INSA opinion research institute for the newspaper Bild am Sonntag revealed 51 percent of Germans think the country is accepting too many refugees.

  German tenants in the town of Lörrach in southern Germany were informed this month that their apartment contracts were to be terminated and they would be evicted to make way for Ukrainian refugees.

  The current state of play led Germany’s conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader, Alice Weidel, to call for the government to close the border last month, insisting the country’s welfare state is under severe threat due to mass migration.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/23/2023 – 02:00

• Crazy Optimism About China's Economy
  Crazy Optimism About China’s Economy

  Authored by Gordon G. Chang via The Gatestone Institute,

  China’s propagandists tell us the Chinese economy this year will “accelerate to 4.8%.” Foreign analysts are even more bullish. Goldman Sachs estimates growth of gross domestic product of 5.5%.

  China’s National Health Commission announced the end of the Communist Party’s “dynamic zero-Covid” policy on December 7. It did not take long for Wall Street to crank up the optimism machine. Morgan Stanley, on the following day, issued a research note predicting that Chinese equities would outperform emerging markets and global peers.

  Since then, financial analysts have been falling over themselves to say how China’s stocks will continue to soar this year.

  Stocks may soar for a while, but China’s economy is far sicker than analysts assume.

  

  At the heart of the sunny views is how fast China has put COVID-19 behind it.

  On the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday in China, often called the “world’s largest human migration” and therefore a potentially superspreader event, Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that 80% of China’s population had already been infected.

  At the end of the holiday, the Center reported that there were 6,364 deaths between January 20-26 in hospitals, almost half the number of deaths in the preceding week.

  Beijing’s position is that the disease has already peaked so that further spread is unlikely.

  No wonder investors are exuberant. Covid relaxation is central to the idea that China’s economy will produce solid growth. Bulls, aided by Communist Party and central government propaganda, make the argument that the end of disease-control measures— China maintained one of the world’s strictest set of rules for three years — will result in a binge of “revenge spending.”

  “Chinese consumers, trapped inside their apartments during parts of the pandemic, accumulated more than $2.2 trillion in bank deposits last year, which should fuel more spending,” the Wall Street Journal reported this month. The Financial Times put the figure at $2.6 trillion.

  Is the bull case correct?

  There are four primary reasons to doubt it.

  First, China’s disease statistics are questionable.

  “China Portrayal of Smooth Covid Exit Leaves Scientists Wanting More Data,” a polite Wall Street Journal headline put it.

  Beijing is asking the world to believe that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing this disease, is behaving differently in China than it has in all other parts of the world. If this claim is false, as it almost certainly is, there will be a follow-on wave of infections in the country this spring, as disease modelers have been predicting.

  Second, even if China were over Covid as the regime maintains, the economy is still plagued by its over-dependence on property, which accounts for almost 30% of GDP.

  Prices and sales have been plunging since late 2021, when Beijing finally restricted imprudent lending to big developers, most notably China Evergrande Group, now in default.

  Housing is critical because it also accounts for about 70% of the wealth of the middle class. The Chinese people have powered the economy with spending when property prices were rising, either because they were reaping gains on sales or because of the “wealth effect,” the circumstance that people tend to spend when they feel their assets have gone up in value. Now, the opposite of the wealth effect is depressing consumption.

  “The property sector downturn is hard-wired into the first half of 2023,” reported the Rhodium Group last month, in an analysis on China’s economic prospects.

  That means a downturn in first-half GDP is also hard-wired.

  Third, the Chinese economy is far weaker than Beijing claims.

  The National Bureau of Statistics reported that GDP grew 3.0% last year, but that is highly unlikely.

  More probably, as Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research tells Gatestone, the economy in fact contracted. The poor economy, like the property downturn, appears to have crimped consumer spending. The general downbeat mood of the Chinese people will convince them to save more than analysts think.

  Fourth, the regime during the pandemic did almost nothing to remedy the principal structural flaw in the Chinese economy: the overreliance on government spending, which over decades has resulted in overbuilding and therefore created mountains of questionable debt.

  Gregory Copley, the president of the International Strategic Studies Association, tells Gatestone that “the fundamentals of the Chinese economy have already been destroyed, so the optimism about the reversals of Communist Party policy on Covid management will be short-lived.”

  “China is back,” is how the Financial Times summarized the message of Vice Premier Liu He to the just-completed World Economic Forum gathering in Davos. Maybe so, but it is back to the old faulty economic structure.

  “China is too optimistic about a quick economic turnaround in 2023 following the Covid lockdowns,” Andrew Collier, an analyst at Global Source Partners, said in e-mail comments to this publication.

  “Local governments are running huge financial deficits, many people are holding on to cash because they are worried about their health, and the downturn in the property market has affected people’s retirement savings.”

  Collier, based in Hong Kong, thinks wealthy consumers may buy high-end imports so the overall impact on the Chinese economy “will not be large.”

  Collier therefore believes there will not be an uptick until 2024.

  In any event, Copley, also editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, says that “foreign analysts of mainland China’s economy have always engaged in wishful thinking, and there is now an air of desperation.”

  China is not going to have a good 2023 or a good 2024. Foreigners are going to lose money in China again.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 23:45

• America's Most Admired Men
  America’s Most Admired Men

  Former and current presidents are the people most commonly named by Americans as the men they most admire.

  Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes that, among those being very consistently ranked in a Gallup poll that has been running since 1946 is Jimmy Carter. The 39th president of the United States announced Saturday through his foundation that he had entered hospice care. Despite serving just one term from 1977 to 1981, Carter has remained one of the country’s most beloved presidents and has been revered for his long-standing commitments to NGO Habitat for Humanity and teaching Sunday school in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. The former Navy lieutenant and peanut farmer became a state senator and the governor of Georgia before running for the presidency as a Democrat. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 2002.

  The only other president found in Gallup’s top 10 more often than Carter is the Republican who challenged and beat him in his reelection campaign: Ronald Reagan. He was in the top 10 a total of 31 times until his death in 2004 (the poll only lists living persons).

  

  In first position of the all-time most admired poll is a man who is neither a president nor a politician: Reverend Billy Graham, a Southern Baptist evangelical minister who became well-known through his sermons being broadcast on radio and TV.

  While Reagan and Carter only rose to national prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, Graham was already famous internationally by the 1940s and lived to almost 100 years before dying in 2018, giving him enough time to be mentioned among the top 10 of America’s most admired men 61 times.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  In a similar poll by YouGov, Jimmy Carter was still listed as the third most admired man in the U.S. behind fellow former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump the last time a country-specific version was published in 2020.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 23:25

• Global Sperm Counts Declining At Accelerating Rate: New Meta-Analysis
  Global Sperm Counts Declining At Accelerating Rate: New Meta-Analysis

  Authored by David Charbonneau via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A recently published meta-analysis shows that global sperm counts are declining worldwide—at an accelerating rate.

  

  The article, published in the journal Human Reproduction Update in November 2022 by an international team of researchers, reviewed 2,936 scholarly abstracts and 868 full articles and analyzed data from 38 sperm count studies done on six continents, updating their landmark study of 2017.

  The 2017 study found sperm counts had fallen in North America, Europe, and Australia by over 50 percent in a fifty-year span. The current study updated this data as well as added data from South/Central America, Asia, and Africa.

  “The aim of this study was to examine trends in sperm count among men from all continents. The broader implications of a global decline in sperm count, the knowledge gaps left unfilled by our prior analysis, and the controversies surrounding this issue warranted an up-to-date meta-analysis,” said the authors.

  The analysis found that while sperm counts had declined at the average rate per year of 1.16 percent between 1972 and 2000, the rate of decline since 2000 has increased to an average of 2.64 percent per year.

  

  Reviewing the findings in an After Skool YouTube episode, study author Shanna Swan said:

  “Now we can conclude that among men who didn’t know what their fertility [rate] was, who are, by the way, most representative of the general population, that there was a significant decline [in sperm counts and sperm concentration] in Asia, Africa, and South America—so now we can say that our finding of a significant decline in sperm concentration and count is worldwide—that was a big change from the 2017 paper.

  “The other change from the 2017 paper was the rate at which sperm counts are declining: When we look at recent years—particularly since the turn of the century—the rate is 2.64 per year. That’s more than double 1.16, the prior finding.”

  The Role of Plastics in Reproductive Disruption

  The obvious question is—why the accelerated rate of decline?

  Swan dismissed genetic explanations, pointing out that genetic changes take “many generations to appear” whereas these changes are taking place in two generations or less.

  “That leaves us with environment,” Swan said.

  Swan and other experts believe the problem is a class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors, which interfere with the body’s hormones.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 23:05

• South Africans Without Electricity For Nine Hours A Day Amid "Ginormous" Blackouts
  South Africans Without Electricity For Nine Hours A Day Amid “Ginormous” Blackouts

  Amid all the focus on Europe’s energy troubles in the past year, a byproduct of the continent’s legacy reliance on Russian commodity exports, it has largely slipped the world’s attention that a far more brutal – and mostly ignored – energy crisis is taking place right now in South Africa, which recently declared a state of disaster due to its energy crisis.

  This crisis, discussed in more detailed below, came to a head overnight when South African utility Eskom – which is not only the largest producer of electricity in South Africa but in all of Africa, and is among the top utilities in the world in terms of generation capacity and sales – and which has been forced to implement power cuts every day this year as its fleet of old and defective coal-powered stations frequently breaks down, reached an unprecedented level of power cuts, indicated late on Tuesday by the company spokesman.

  The company cut 7.045GW from the grid through load shedding so as to keep the grid from a total collapse, Sikonathi Mantshantsha said in a post on Twitter.

  Evening Peak Feedback 21/02/2023, 19:15
  Total demand: 30 480MW
  Loadshedding: 7 045MW
  Eskom OCGT’s Utilised: 14
  Eskom GT’s Utilised: 3
  IPP OCGT’s: 5
  Renewable Gen: 1 262MW (Wind 791MW, CSP 390MW, PV 81MW)@Eskom_SA Available Generation: 23 289MW@EskomSpokesper1

  — SikonathiMantshantsh (@SikonathiM) February 21, 2023

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

  As Bloomberg’s in-house energy guru Javier Blas calculated, “in practical terms, it means households losing power 3 times a day, each time lasting ~3 hours” or a total of 9 hours without power every day.

  He confirmed that the intensity of power cuts increased to the so-called Stage 7 of loadshedding, as the practice is known locally. The utility earlier had only indicated it was implementing Stage 6, where it removes a corresponding 6,000 megawatts.

  Isn’t this Stage 7? pic.twitter.com/PN6DeMXyW4

  — traveller (@2023traveller) February 22, 2023

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

  As Bloomberg notes, the record rationing is a severe blow to Africa’s most-industrialized economy, which is struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and rebuild battered business confidence. Eskom has subjected the country to power outages every day this year. The South African Reserve Bank estimates the outages cost the nation as much as 899 million rand ($49 million) per day.

  Eskom, which supplies most of South Africa’s power from coal-fired plants, has been implementing rolling blackouts since 2008 because it can’t meet demand. Less than half of the utility’s generation capacity is available, two newly built coal-fired plants have also proven unreliable and other defective generating units have had to be taken off-line for repairs. The government has declared a state of disaster due to its energy crisis.

  Economists polled by Bloomberg predict the economy shrank in the final quarter of 2022 and that it’s on course to contract in the three months through March largely because of the sustained power cuts.

  Plans to add capacity from private producers have been dogged by delays and legal disputes. Eskom says the country needs an additional 4,000 to 6,000 megawatts of generating capacity to ensure a secure energy supply.  The so-called energy availability factor of Eskom’s fleet has been declining every year since 2017, according to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

  As Blas concludes, “the electricity crisis in South Africa is getting a lot worse — the size of the blackouts is just ginormous!!!!” Those who wish to learn more about South Africa’s energy crisis can read his recent opinion piece in Bloomberg here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 22:45

• Senator Accuses FAA Of Ignoring Potential Vaccine Dangers To Pilots
  Senator Accuses FAA Of Ignoring Potential Vaccine Dangers To Pilots

  Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is expressing dismay over how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responded to his questions about the agency’s handling of pilot health issues.

  “How can the FAA maintain safe skies when it turns a blind eye toward pilots experiencing COVID-19 vaccine injuries?” Johnson said in an email sent exclusively to The Epoch Times on Feb. 21.

  “Is it willful ignorance that the FAA is aware of only four active pilots experiencing adverse events connected to the COVID-19 vaccine? The American people are not getting the full transparency and honesty from federal agencies that they deserve.”

  Johnson made those remarks in response to how Susan Northrup, the FAA’s federal air surgeon, answered eight questions surrounding pilot health.

  

  Not the FAA’s Role

  In his Jan. 27 letter to the FAA, Johnson provided specific information about five named pilots with suspected COVID-19 vaccine ill effects; one of the pilots died 17 days after being vaccinated.

  Numerous other accounts of pilots with suspected vaccine injuries are included in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, as The Epoch Times reported previously.

  Johnson wanted to know what steps the FAA has taken or planned to take to investigate whether the five named pilots and others had suffered adverse effects after COVID-19 shots.

  Northrup wrote that her agency isn’t in charge of that.

  “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the responsible agency for tracking and follow up of suspected vaccine adverse events,” she wrote.

  Northrup noted that pilots experiencing any medical issues are required to “ground themselves,” seek medical help and report any “significant medical events.”

  “FAA is responsible for determining whether that event will have an adverse safety effect,” Northrup wrote.

  She also said the agency was “aware of only four potentially vaccine-related adverse events in active pilots.”

  Among those four, “only one has provided medical documentation through the normal process,” Northrup wrote. She gave no further information on what that process involves.

  Justification For Shots

  Johnson noted that, on Dec. 12, 2020, the day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized COVID-19 vaccines for “emergency use” among the general public, the FAA declared pilots were permitted to take the shots, too.

  That action surprised many in aviation because pilots are forbidden from taking other emergency-use-authorized drugs.

  To justify the drugs’ use in pilots, Northrup listed nine websites about the general safety of the various brands of vaccines. Aviation experts have questioned whether any studies were done on pilots specifically. There were no such studies immediately apparent among the list Northrup provided.

  Asked whether the FAA evaluated whether any changes should be made to guidance on COVID-19 vaccines for pilots, Northrup responded that the agency has “continued to monitor the data and determined no change in policy was indicated.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 22:25

• Starlink 'Surprises' Residential Customers With Monthly Price Adjustments
  Starlink ‘Surprises’ Residential Customers With Monthly Price Adjustments

  Residential customers of Elon Musk-led SpaceX’s Starlink were greeted with an email this morning about changes to internet service pricing based on capacity in users’ areas. The following price changes include:

  • $10 increase in areas with limited capacity. The new price will be $120/month.  

  • $20 decrease in areas with excess capacity. The new price will be $90/month.

  “As a current customer in an area with limited capacity, your monthly service price will increase to $120/month beginning April 24, 2023. For new customers in your area, the price increase is effective immediately,” the email read. 

  

  Starlink also adjusted the pricing for its RV customers, increasing the service cost by $15 a month to $150.

  

  The email continued: 

  “If you do not wish to continue service, you can cancel at any time on your account page. Your Starlink hardware can be returned for a full refund within 30 days of purchase, or a partial refund of $250 within 12 months of purchase.” 

  And noted:

  “As the SpaceX team launches more satellites to increase capacity, the Starlink team is making continuous network updates to improve performance over time.” 

  The price adjustments come as Starlink crossed 1,000,000 active subscribers in December. There have been complaints by some users of slowing internet speeds due to an increasing user base. To counter this, SpaceX has launched next-generation satellites into orbit to expand broadband capacity to the network. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 22:05

• Court Asked To Unseal Undercover Police Video Allegedly Showing Officer Inciting Capitol Protesters On J6
  Court Asked To Unseal Undercover Police Video Allegedly Showing Officer Inciting Capitol Protesters On J6

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Jan. 6 defendant asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to unseal a video allegedly showing an undercover Metropolitan Police Department officer shouting “drain the swamp!” and “our house!” and encouraging protesters to climb barricades and enter the U.S. Capitol.

  

  William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, filed a motion on Feb. 21 that would also unseal video shot by two other MPD undercover officers who trailed Ashli Babbitt up the northwest exterior of the Capitol.

  One of those officers repeatedly predicted that someone would get shot on Jan. 6, Pope contended in another motion filed in November 2022.

  “While my descriptions of the undercover MPD officers are accurate, the media and the public should not have to rely on my descriptions alone,” Pope wrote.

  

  “It is in the interests of justice that this exhibit in support of my motion be seen by all.”

  Pope also asked the court to remove the seal from a wider sampling of the MPD video shot by undercover operatives.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 21:45

• Target Bets $100 Million To Be "Bigger, Faster, Better Than Before"
  Target Bets $100 Million To Be “Bigger, Faster, Better Than Before”

  Next-day delivery has become increasingly important to consumers since the pandemic forced sales to move online. The rise of e-commerce and the demand for instant gratification has pushed Target Corp. to invest $100 million to expand supply chain hubs to speed up and lower the costs of delivering online orders. 

  Target, the eighth-largest retailer in the US, plans to invest $100 million to expand its supply chain sortation network to more than 15 facilities by the second half of 2026. The move will allow the retailer to increase next-day delivery capabilities to major markets nationwide. 

  “Sortation centers and our Last Mile Delivery capabilities support our guest experience and benefit our business — helping us deliver more efficiently and faster, at a lower cost while increasing our capacity,” the company said in a press release.

  Currently, there are nine sortation centers in Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, including three in the greater Chicago and Denver metro areas. 

  

  Target wants to be “Bigger, faster, better than before,” the press release said. Perhaps, this is a move to compete with Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc., which already offer rapid shipping to customers in many areas across the country. 

  The investment comes as sortation centers have already recorded incredible growth as consumers shift to online orders:

  

  Gretchen McCarthy, Target’s chief global supply chain & logistics officer, stated in the press release:

  “Now more than ever, our guests rely on us to deliver their everyday essentials and Target favorites when they want and need them most.

  “Through our sortation centers and Target Last Mile Delivery capabilities, we’re able to move faster and with more precision — while controlling costs and expanding our network capacity — for years to come.”

  The company is betting on e-commerce growth despite evidence showing retailers are dealing with near-record high inventory glut and consumers suffering from 21 months of negative real wage growth. 

  Retailers can only hope the US government will helicopter drop more ‘stimmy checks’ if another crisis arises. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 21:25

• Man Finds Undetonated Blasting Cap 1.4 Miles From Ohio Derailment
  Man Finds Undetonated Blasting Cap 1.4 Miles From Ohio Derailment

  Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Like many residents who live within a few miles of Norfolk Southern Railway’s Feb. 3 train derailment, Jerry Corbin evacuated before the railroad decided to conduct a controlled burn of five freight cars containing the toxic vinyl chloride on Feb. 6.

  

  When he returned to his home in Darlington Township, Pennsylvania—around 1.4 miles from the crash site—Corbin discovered two surprises. Black debris that resemble ash was strewn all over his yard and on his roof, and an “undetonated blasting cap” landed in a pasture near his house.

  On the evening of Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying 151 cars derailed in East Palestine, a village of 4,761 located in eastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania border.

  According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), “38 rail cars derailed, and a fire ensued which damaged an additional 12 cars.”

  Of the cars that derailed, 11 contained hazardous materials, the NTSB said.

  Seeking to avoid an explosion, Norfolk Southern decided to release and burn vinyl chloride from five rail cars, which sent flames and thick black smoke billowing into the sky once more.

  Corbin believes the blasting cap, which has a wire and is filled with cotton, was used to help detonate the cars in the controlled burn.

  

  “It’s not real big. It would blow your hand off,” Corbin said of the blasting cap. “I contacted someone in the military and asked him about it. He said don’t have any static electricity around it, don’t drop it.”

  Vinyl chloride is a chemical used to make PVC pipes and other products. The National Cancer Institute notes that vinyl chloride has been linked to cancers of the brain, lungs, blood, lymphatic system, and liver.

  Other rail cars contained ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, and butyl acrylate, which are all used in the making of plastic products.

  “The night of the crash, my wife and I were driving into East Palestine to go to the store, and we saw the fire and the smoke,” Corbin explained. “I have asthma, so even before there was an evacuation order, we packed a few bags and went to a hotel away from the area.”

  

  Before the controlled burn, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged residents in a 1-mile by 2-mile area surrounding East Palestine—which included parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania—to evacuate.

  During an initial phone conversation, the EPA said the ash on Corbin’s property was not from the derailment, Corbin said.

  “Then they sent some people out, and they were astonished about what they saw,” Corbin said, adding that the EPA representatives took samples of the ash before they left.

  “A few days later, some more people from the EPA stopped by and took more samples,” Corbin said. “I asked them to let me know what is in that ash before we plant our garden. We haven’t heard anything from them since.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 21:05

• Rolling Stone Argues In Favor Of Authoritarian Cancel Culture – Here's Why They're Wrong
  Rolling Stone Argues In Favor Of Authoritarian Cancel Culture – Here’s Why They’re Wrong

  Rolling Stone has never been considered a serious journalistic establishment, but at the very least, they have been known in the past as “edgy” when dealing with the mainstream taboos of the 20th century.  It’s hard to pretend like you’re a revolutionary, though, when your side is now allied with power elite.  

  This is a great conundrum these days for the political left, which has long prided itself on the liberal roots of the 1960s hippie movement, rock n’ roll, drug culture and comedy that seeks to offend.  The leftist fold spent decades thinking they were “fighting against the man” and now they find that with the help of corporations, globalist think-tanks and government leaders, they ARE the man.  

  Though the woke left represents a small minority within America, they still have the backing of every major center of influence imaginable.  The Democratic Party fast-tracks their agenda and many moderate Democrats go along to get along for fear of being ostracized (canceled).  And what has the woke movement done with this newfound power?  They have gone insane, abusing it in a frothing fervor of rage, fear, envy and desire, just like any despot would.  

  In the meantime, leftists continue to act as if they are still fighting a revolution against an unseen and ambiguous “patriarchy” that is supposedly holding them down.  They are willing to do anything, including lie, cheat, steal, disrupt and sabotage to gain absolute control and they feel exonerated because they insist they are being “oppressed.”  Good luck finding actual concrete examples of this oppression, however.

  Rolling Stone, a property of Penske Media Corporation, is the latest in a long line of corporate spin doctors to publish materials justifying cancel culture and the exploitation of mob power to assert dominance over the public.  In a recent article titled ‘Why Cancel Culture Is Good For Democracy’ the magazine launches into a tirade of victimhood, a tall tale in which millions of oppressed people turn to cancel culture as their only defense against a society of white supremacists bent on holding them down.  It’s utter nonsense, and here’s why:

  Democracy Is Anti-American

  The political left uses the word “democracy” often and they do this quite deliberately.  The America they envision in the future is a pure democracy, and democracy is based on mob rule.  This is not how our nation was founded.  As James Madison noted:

  “Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”

  And as Alexander Hamilton stated:

  “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”

  America was founded as a Republic, not a democracy, which means individual liberties are supposed to be protected  regardless of what the majority says.  This is not how the left understands governance, though.  They obsess over garnering a majority vote or a majority opinion even if they have to fabricate it through fraud.  They do this because they actually believe that 51% of the population should have control over the other 49%. This is tyranny by the mob. 

  Cancel culture is an exact expression of this dynamic.  Rolling Stone is right when they say “cancel culture is good for democracy”, it’s just not good for freedom or for America. 

  The Mob Is Not The Free Market

  Rolling Stone notes: 

  “…Straight white men and other people with power aren’t used to getting pushback for the ways they conduct themselves—and cancel culture has reset the ways society can react. Those who fear cancel culture may claim they fear suppression of speech, but it’s accountability that they want to avoid.”

  But who gets to determine accountability?  This argument is an extension of the old leftist claim that cancel culture is just the “free market” determining what behavior is acceptable in society.  But whose “society” are we talking about?  Because at least half the country has something different to say about what is acceptable and who should really be held accountable.

  It’s hard to tell if leftists are too stupid to understand how real free markets work or if they are deliberately misrepresenting the concept.  In a free market, you are welcome to take your money and your interest elsewhere if a company or individual offends you.  You are not welcome to shut them down and silence them in order to stop them from interacting with the people who are interested. Leftists don’t just want to walk away from the people who offend them, they also want the ability to stop everyone else from engaging with a canceled person.  They don’t want to take their ball and go home, they want to drop napalm on the entire playground.      

  Personal Offense Is Not An Excuse For Authoritarianism

  Rolling Stone’s contributors and people like them have declared themselves the arbiters of society and the dictators of what constitutes “bigotry” and “hate.”  No one gave them permission to take on this role, they merely pronounced that they would be the ultimate purveyors of speech.  They anointed themselves the thought police because, as Rolling Stone’s article laments, government is not yet doing it for them:

  “Right now, bigots are protected under the First Amendment to fuel disgusting rhetoric without state-sanctioned consequence. The America that tolerated white supremacy in their policies and laws is the same country that wants to remind us how such forms of hate are still legal via free speech. Cancel culture is the poison to those in power that have benefited from unchecked free speech.”

  What the political left has done is conjure up a Trojan horse to deliver authoritarianism in the form of victim group entitlement.  They assert that there are simply certain things you cannot say or do because they hurt the feelings of specific designated groups and diminish their “equity.”  Who chooses this list of taboos?  They do.  Who chooses the groups that get protection from offense?  They do.  And each year the list grows longer.

  

  Cancel culture is a methodology very similar to what Josef Stalin applied during his “Great Purge”.  The concept of mass shunning and un-personing was integral to the Marxist/Communist dynamic as a means to frighten individuals into conformity.  You might be able to think whatever you want privately, but if you even whisper against the collective, the power elites and the gatekeepers could swiftly mobilize their mindless drones to attack you or to cut you off from access to the economy.  You face possible death, and the communists pretend as if they are acting on the values of freedom of association.

  In other words, the cancel culture mob believes they should have the “freedom” to destroy your access to society, thus destroying your freedoms in the process.  They can technically say that they’re not censoring people’s speech because they aren’t putting you in prison or holding a gun to your head (yet), but you risk the destruction of your future if you speak up.  This insidious dynamic obviously leads to self censorship.  Not only that, but the population is also weaponized against each other, for if a person does not support the cancellation of a designated enemy, they might be labeled an enemy.

  Cancel Culture Targets The Defiant, Not The Powerful

  The big lie at the core of the Rolling Stone article’s premise is that cancel culture is about giving the common citizen a means to hold the powerful accountable, but this does not happen.  Powerful corporations, globalist think tanks, politicians and money elites all engage in corruption and criminality daily with impunity and leftists don’t blink an eye.  The only people who get canceled are people who question the woke ideology.  

  Cancel culture is not about “justice,” it’s about revenge and sterilization.  It’s about making an example of the left’s political enemies.  The purpose is to erase oppositional thinking and speech and inoculate future generations from considering contrary views. 

  Rolling Stone gaslights its own readers with the claim that cancel culture serves to fight against oppression…by enabling the mob to oppress:

  “The fact that people—both powerful and less so—have been put on notice that whatever move they make can now be checked, not only by the courts, law enforcement, or government but by the people, means cancel culture has essentially won the cultural wars. Although still rich and influential, the most powerful have now been humbled by the digital accessibility of everyday people whom they once could simply dismiss or silence.”

  This is a delusional conclusion because it overlooks an important factor – Cancel culture is nothing without the support of the same powerful people leftists say they are fighting against.  They have influence because Big Tech conglomerates are mostly run by globalists that see leftists as useful fodder for attacking conservatives.  As we have witnessed with social media sites like Twitter, leftist power was throttled as soon as the old management (that worked closely with the government) was removed.  The fight has to be one-sided for the mob to gain an advantage because they cannot compete on a balanced battlefield of ideas.    

  The only way for cancel culture to survive is if all power centers and all major communications networks like social media are controlled and rigged in favor of the political left.  And who is almost universally targeted by social media for cancellation?  Regular conservatives and anyone else that defies the woke cult.  The release of the Twitter Files confirmed this beyond a shadow of a doubt.            

  Cancel culture is not concerned with the powerful, they are concerned with the free thinkers, the skeptics that don’t bow to the whims of zealots.  It’s not civic engagement and it’s not protest, it’s a tiny minority of degenerates and narcissists using the internet to manufacture consensus and consent. It’s about innocent people being afraid of losing their job, their livelihood and their reputation because they said something against the high priests of social justice.

  In reality, the influence of cancel culture is diminishing as the public grows irritated and tired of perpetually entitled and outraged leftists.  They have become an international joke.  This is why the woke movement tried to deny the existence of cancel culture for a time; it was making them look bad and they knew it.  Now, Rolling Stone’s commentators suggest that the political left embrace cancel culture and own it proudly.  It’s an act of desperation for an exposed ideology.  The only thing keeping the woke alive is their alliance with corrupt corporations and establishment elites – we will see how far that really gets them in the long run.  

  As history shows us, when the elites are done with useful idiots, they tend to do away with them quickly.   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 20:45

• Krugman's Accounting Of The National Debt Is Jailworthy
  Krugman’s Accounting Of The National Debt Is Jailworthy

  Authored by James Agresti via JustTheFactsDaily.com,

  The national debt has risen at a blistering pace over recent decades and is now higher than any era of the nation’s history—even when adjusted for inflation, population growth, and economic growth (GDP).

  Denying this reality, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman recently wrote two columns for the New York Times in which he claimed that the debt is an “overhyped issue” and “isn’t all that unusual” from a historical perspective. His attempts to support these assertions employ the kind of fraudulent accounting that could land a corporate executive in jail.

  

  Projections v. Realities

  Krugman insists that taming the “federal debt should be well down the list” of government “priorities” after “climate change” and “child poverty” because debt projections have become “much less dire” over the past decade or so. In reality, the debt is far higher than projected, and Krugman’s own words prove it.

  In 2009, when the Democrat-controlled Congress and President Obama began racking up debt and projecting $9 trillion in deficits over the coming decade, Krugman wrote that “even if we do run these deficits,” federal debt would be 90% of GDP in 2019, or “substantially less than it was at the end of World War II.”

  The debt in 2019 turned out to be 109% of GDP, which is 21% higher than Krugman projected and just 8% below the debt from World War II.

  That was one year before government reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic drove the debt/GDP ratio to unprecedented heights. This was mainly caused by state government lockdowns that crushed the GDP as the federal government spent liberally on “Covid relief.”

  Even though GDP rebounded as lockdowns were lifted, and the worst inflation in 40+ years has temporarily reduced the debt/GDP ratio, it is still higher than any other period of U.S. history, clocking in at 123% of GDP at the end of 2022:

  

  Worse yet, the national debt is on a trajectory that makes the current debt look small by comparison. Under CBO’s decade-old projections, which have thus far undershot reality, the U.S. debt/GDP ratio is on track to eclipse Britain’s after it was intensely firebombed during World War II.

  Because the debt from WW II was the highest in U.S. history, Krugman and other scholars used to argue that the modern debt situation isn’t awful by comparison. What they failed to mention is that the war debt was a passing anomaly caused by the deadliest and most widespread conflict in world history, while the modern debt is a systemic, escalating problem driven by ongoing federal policies.

  If left on autopilot, the debt is on track to double WWII levels in the coming three decades and grow thereafter to about nine times the peak of WWII.

  Current Law v. Current Policy

  Beyond ignoring his own debt projection, Krugman spins a yarn that is diametrically opposed to reality by exploiting his readers’ ignorance about differing types of debt estimates published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

  At various times, CBO has calculated two major types of projections for the national debt. The first reflects current law and is called the “extended baseline,” while the other is based on current policy and is called the “extended alternative fiscal scenario.” There are often major differences between these projections, as shown by this chart on the cover page of a 2011 CBO report:

  

  The main reason for these differences is that federal laws are commonly rife with accounting gimmicks and other provisions that understate future debt.

  A prime example is the 2010 Affordable Care Act, informally known as Obamacare. This legislation was enacted with a CBO analysis showing it would “produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion” over the coming decade. In reality, most of the deficit-reducing provisions of the bill weren’t implemented, while nearly all of deficit-increasing ones were.

  The chasm between what the Affordable Care Act specified and what actually occurred is so great that its true costs are still unknown. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation wrote that it hasn’t calculated the realized budgetary impact of Obamacare “because of the many modifications to that law,” and CBO says it “cannot readily provide a retrospective analysis” of the law.

  The bottom line is that the current law scenario made the Affordable Care Act seem like it would lower the debt, but the actual outcome was so different that federal budget agencies don’t know the real number.

  Bait and Switch

  With those facts in mind, watch how Krugman craftily jumps between current law and current policy projections.

  In another of his columns about debt that proved to be dead wrong, Krugman declared in 2013 that “budget office projections show the nation’s debt position more or less stable over the next decade.” Emphasizing that point, he wrote, “So we do not, repeat do not, face any kind of deficit crisis either now or for years to come.”

  Krugman’s basis for that claim was CBO’s current law projections, which showed the publicly-held debt/GDP barely changing from 76.3% in 2013 to 77.0% in 2023, a rise of only 1%. What Krugman neglected to reveal is that the current policy projection showed the debt growing by 14% in the same period. And for the record, it has actually grown by about 28%, or 28 times the current law projection cited by Krugman.

  Fast forward to 2023, and Krugman is arguing that CBO’s latest debt projections have become “much less dire” since 2011. To support this claim, he compares current policy projections from CBO in 2011 to current law projections from CBO in 2022. He then compares those projections for 2035, thereby avoiding a comparison with actual outcomes.

  Adding another layer of deceit, Krugman refers to the 2011 current policy projections in his recent column as “the most realistic scenario.” Yet, he cites the 2022 current law projections in the very same column without giving his readers a hint that he is using the least realistic scenario. He also does the same in his 2009 and 2013 columns.

  In short, Krugman stealthily switches between CBO’s current law and current policy projections to weave a counterfactual narrative while avoiding his own failed projections.

  Interest Payments

  In one particular case, Krugman does compare a projection to an actual outcome. This is CBO’s 2011 current policy projection for interest payments on the national debt in 2021. Krugman correctly notes that CBO projected interest payments would be 4.4% of GDP in 2021, but they turned out to be less than half of that.

  Krugman, however, skirts the fact that this outcome comes at a steep cost. During the Great Recession of 2007–2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve suppressed interest rates by minting money to buy federal debt. This temporarily lowers interest payments on the debt, but it also shifts wealth from middle-income households to high-income ones and stokes inflation, which hurts people in the present and drives up interest costs in the future.

  In the words of Federal Reserve economist Christopher J. Neely, “unexpected inflation will tend to raise the cost of servicing future U.S. debt” because investors won’t buy it unless interest rates are high enough to account for the inflation.

  Krugman gives a tepid nod to that reality by writing that interest payments “will rise as existing debt is rolled over at higher interest rates,” but this is a far cry from admitting all of the harm this portends.

  Consequences

  One of the most nefarious aspects of government debt is that it hurts people through economic mechanisms that aren’t always obvious to them. This murkiness is aggravated by politicians who run up debt and falsely blame others for the common effects of excessive debt.

  Those effects—documented in publications of the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, the Brookings Institution, and Princeton University Press—can manifest gradually or abruptly in the form of:

  • reduced “living standards” and “wages.”

  • “higher inflation” that increases “the size of future budget deficits” and decreases “the purchasing power” of citizens’ savings and income.

  • “losses for mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and other holders of federal debt.”

  • increased “probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money.”

  The consequences of government debt are not just potential dangers lurking in the future. They may have already begun. Although association does not prove causation, the rapidly rising national debt of the past few decades has been accompanied by episodes of historically poor growth in GDP, productivity, and household income. These economic outcomes cause a host of negative impacts on human welfare in areas like education, nutrition, healthcare, and life expectancy.

  And when such problems occur, politicians and people like Krugman use these hardships to justify running up even more debt. Hence, the harmful effects of government debt continue and escalate.

  Conclusion

  During the infamous Enron corporate accounting scandal of the late 1990s to early 2000s, the federal government prosecuted and jailed Enron’s executives because they “hid Enron’s true financial condition” and “materially understated” the “amount of debt carried by Enron….”

  Paul Krugman has been doing that with the U.S. national debt for more than a decade. Although the right to free speech forbids laws that would punish columnists who mislead their readers like executives who mislead their investors, Krugman’s actions have the potential to cause more harm than Enron’s. That’s because Enron’s deceptive statements were measured in billions of dollars, while Krugman’s are in the trillions. Thus, Krugman’s disinformation can damage the entire country and generations to come if lawmakers and voters act on it.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 20:25

• Dollar Store "Mania" Hits Small Kentucky Town
  Dollar Store “Mania” Hits Small Kentucky Town

  Brick-and-mortar dollar stores have expanded rapidly nationwide over the past two years. These discount retailers bring rural consumers more buying power during high inflation periods. One town in eastern Kentucky has had what the Daily Mail calls a “dollar store mania” as these retailers take over the town. 

  Olive Hill has a population of 1,600. About a third of the residents live below the poverty line, which is higher than the national average of 12.8%. 

  Given low incomes and cheap land around the tiny town, it makes sense why dollar stores are flooding the small town to take advantage of poor residents. 

  Daily Mail said the town has two Family Dollar locations and four Dollar General stores. One resident said:

  “It seems like there’s a dollar store every few feet.” 

  

  The reason why discount retailers are flooding small towns was explained by John Mercer, head of global research at Coresight, who WSJ quoted:

  High inflation has increased the appeal of dollar stores’ relatively low prices. But the expansion of the sector is rooted in structural changes in U.S. shopping habits that predate the current economic cycle. 

  Mercer said more and more shoppers are turning to dollar stores for groceries. This comes as low-income folks have been battered with 21 months of negative real wage growth, depleted savings, maxed-out credit cards, and the highest credit card rates in years. 

  The challenging macroeconomic climate suggests low-income consumers have trouble affording traditional items at stores and supermarkets and must downshift to discount retailers. That’s why dollar stores have been the fastest-growing food retailers by share of household expenditure, with growth in rural areas more than doubling in the last decade, according to a recent study. 

  However, affordable food at dollar stores comes at a health cost to low-income consumers who will only be able to find high-calorie, ultra-processed packaged foods — not exactly healthy. 

  And while these big corporations are increasingly building dollar stores in small towns. Perhaps these companies could also build diabetes clinics. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 20:05

• Israel, Saudi Arabia Hold Talks On Increasing Military Ties
  Israel, Saudi Arabia Hold Talks On Increasing Military Ties

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Israel’s new government under Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up US-backed talks with Saudi Arabia on forging stronger military and intelligence ties, Bloomberg reported late last week.

  The talks are part of an effort to forge a NATO-style anti-Iran alliance in the region between Israel and Washington’s Gulf Arab allies. While Saudi Arabia has not normalized with Israel, the two countries have quietly increased cooperation, including by participating in their first public joint military exercises in 2022.

  

  The Bloomberg report said that Israeli and Saudi officials held talks ahead of a meeting of the US-Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group that took place on February 16. More talks were expected to happen at the Munich Security Conference, which was held over the weekend.

  Israel has increased cooperation with the US’s Gulf allies since normalizing with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020 under the Abraham Accords.

  Since then, the US has brought Israel under the umbrella of US Central Command (CENTCOM), the US command responsible for the Middle East.

  Including Israel in CENTCOM operations facilitates more Israeli-Arab cooperation. Israel previously fell under US European Command since it didn’t have relations with most US allies in the region. The US and Israel want a future anti-Iran alliance in the Middle East to focus on integrated air defense systems.

  Saudi officials have insisted that a normalization deal with Israel would hinge on the creation of a Palestinian state, which is highly unlikely as the Netanyahu government is vowing to expand settlements in the West Bank.

  But it’s possible Riyadh could eventually be convinced by the US to open up with Israel if Washington offers more military assistance and arms sales.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 19:45

• Is Biden Conning The Ukrainians? Claims Ukraine Flags Fly Across America
  Is Biden Conning The Ukrainians? Claims Ukraine Flags Fly Across America

  During his recent surprise visit to Ukraine, Joe Biden strutted out in front of press cameras with Volodymyr Zelensky to the sound of pre-planned air raid sirens and declared America’s ongoing support for the country’s war efforts.  Biden’s appearance was coordinated with the announcement of a $2.5 billion weapons package, the 30th such package in the past year.  However, what was not mentioned is that NATO has been shifting into older armor vehicles such as MRAPS and reducing valuable supplies of anti-tank weapons like the Javelin. 

  According to the inventories of multiple NATO countries, there has actually been a draw down of shipments as supplies become strained.  Concerns are rising among NATO officials that they will not be able to continue arming Ukraine while also maintaining their own readiness, but the Biden Administration appears intent on at least giving the appearance that US backing is stronger than ever.

  

  Some confusion surrounds the actual objectives of NATO backed Ukraine forces, as officials talk about not only taking back the Donbas, but also taking back Crimea which has been in Russian hands since 2014.  These sentiments may sound like optimistic rhetoric designed to inspire, but they are certainly not realistic given the wide array of defenses that Russia is establishing to stall any approach.  Not to mention, reports of counter actions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions suggest the Russians are successfully targeting Ukrainian units – Even Zelensky openly admitted that the situation in Donetsk was “very difficult.”

  After Biden’s dramatic display in Ukraine, he went on to Warsaw, Poland to give a speech on the developing conflict.  One of his statements in particular deserves further analysis:

  Biden: “All across my country in big cities and small towns, Ukrainian flags fly from American homes.” pic.twitter.com/xFnFVxvVQo

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 21, 2023

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

  Biden proudly proclaims that Ukrainian flags are flying above homes in small towns and large cities across America, insinuating that the majority of Americans are in full support of what many now perceive to be a proxy war.  Polls show American public support for Ukraine aid is waning, with conservatives losing all faith in the project.  The tale of Ukraine flags flying across the US is also simply false.  In general, you are are much more likely to see a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag over the front door of an American home than you are to see a Ukrainian flag.

  But why is Biden trying to hype up Ukrainians using dishonest rhetoric? Biden’s surprise appearance and the announced weapons package feels more like a last-ditched effort to rally Ukraine against an impending onslaught he knows is coming soon.  Either that, or it is an attempt to puff up, a display to show Putin that NATO is still very much in the game and distract from the reality that weapons supplies are faltering.

  The flag comment could also be intended to give Ukrainians the false impression that Americans will eventually support direct troop deployment to the region, which should not be necessary unless Ukraine’s footing in the war is not as strong as has been asserted.  It may be true that there are US advisers and perhaps even special forces on the ground in Ukraine, but the majority of US citizens are vehemently opposed to open warfare with Russia.  In other words, “boots on the ground” is not going to happen without mass opposition and instability at home.  

  At bottom, the Biden visit with Zelensky and his bizarre claims in Poland signal a coming change in the war that is not yet clear.                 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 19:25

• Clarkson's Farm: Another Front In The War On Food
  Clarkson’s Farm: Another Front In The War On Food

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

  While I’ve been a big fan of Jeremy Clarkson over the years, I’ve never been proud of him before. Hero worship and celebrity go hand in hand and it’s a dangerous game to ascribe motives beyond self-interest to any celebrity.

  But in Clarkson’s case he may have just done something worthy of that.

  Clarkson is now on the other side of another cancellation campaign against him for a dig at Queen Narcissist herself, Meghan Markle, in one of his recent columns. And, normally, I would just pass the whole thing off as another of Clarkson’s attempts at controversy because if anyone lives by the adage that controversy is good for ratings it’s Jeremy Clarkson.

  The guy is a six-foot-four-inch Streisand Effect with bad teeth.

  But in this dustup with Queen Meghan, Clarkson did something completely out of the ordinary for him.

  He apologized.

  Twice.

  Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.

  — Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) December 19, 2022

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

  James Delingpole and I roasted Clarkson for apologizing on a recent podcast we did. And it speaks directly to not having heroes in this world of near infinite political leverage. But, having just watched season two of his latest show, Clarkson’s Farm. I think I know why he apologized.

  One of the great things about Top Gear was the refreshingly unapologetic nature of the hosts, Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. They all said things we weren’t supposed to say in public. And we loved them for it.

  There’s an entire cottage industry of Top Gear making fun of ethnic group X on You Tube that I didn’t know about until recently. Oh, those memories. But as I think about it now I wonder why I’d never seen these before?

  Google algorithm, would you care to contact me and explain why after years of watching car videos I was never offered one of these until the campaign to rid the world of Clarkson kicked into overdrive?

  I’m sure ChatGPT’s Dan persona will tell me, it’s just coincidence, Tom.

  Clarkson is no stranger to controversy, it’s part of how they built Top Gear into the biggest show IN THE WORLD. We know the story of how the the Holy Trinity of Cars moved from the BBC to Amazon. Clarkson punched a producer and he was fired.

  They were also getting stale, visibly older after chafing under the BBC’s rules and, rightfully, wanted to cash in on a big, fat golden parachute of a contract. So, did Clarkson ‘engineer’ their exit from the BBC? It’s a fair question which I don’t give a damn about.

  Enter Amazon and The Grand Tour was born.

  But the same imperatives that ended their run on Top Gear also ended their run on The Grand Tour — the pace, the toll and the one thing no controversy can outrun, time.

  So, an aging Clarkson sold the perfect fish out of water story to Amazon: Jeremy Clarkson, the ape who can’t use a screwdriver, was going to run a farm in the midlands.

  Hilarity ensues….end scene.

  

  While I liked season one of the show, it had that same lack of spontaneity that plagued both later seasons of Top Gear and The Grand Tour. What it didn’t lack, however, was the craft Clarkson had honed as a storyteller over the past three decades.

  Because Clarkson used this platform to educate millions of people of how how fucking hard it is to scrape out a living as a farmer. And after a year of toil and his massive investment of time and outside capital from his “other job” Clarkson ended season one with a princely profit of £144.

  And that sets up Season 2 which is where, I think, the real story, the one behind the cameras, gets so much more interesting. Enter Meghan Markle.

  It’s no coincidence that the dustup between Markle and Clarkson was timed with the pending premiere of Season 2.

  The shows would have been finished and delivered to Amazon by them and it’s scathing portrayal of insane environmental policies, local NIMBY politics, and sheer spite over his persona form the central conflict of the show’s eight episodes.

  This is contrasted with a frank look at someone genuinely trying to improve the local economy by repurposing a existing building into a restaurant featuring locally produced food. This was done, according to Clarkson, to ensure the farm could be financially as well as ecologically sustainable.

  Jeremy Clarkson, the bane of environmentalists, was doing what everyone else complained the rest of the world wasn’t doing. And he spent a small fortune in the process.

  His reward? Well, no spoilers from me folks. Go give Clarkson your 6 hours. It’s worth your time.

  In the process he highlighted the emotional highs and lows of raising livestock, the insane price of fertilizers, and reminding everyone of the vagaries of the weather.

  Watching the episode where they have to pull a calf from a pregnant cow gave me flashbacks to some of the extreme midwifery we’ve done here at my home when we were a working goat and chicken farm, named Pirate Dog Acres.

  FYI, with goats we don’t have a handy Dilwyn the Vet to do it for us. Almost no goat is worth that much money. There’s only yourselves, the fellow farmer on the other end of the phone call, a couple of head lamps, and some lube.

  And worse, when you’ve saved the mom and the kids, you realize then the mom is ruined as breeding stock thanks to the physical damage to her uterus. So you better hope the kids you saved were girls and she recovers enough to milk well for a few months.

  Because her sole value by the end of that summer is as a pet.

  And there are no pets on a farm.

  Jeremy didn’t experience an animal you’ve invested a few years of your life into and whose milk was the backbone of your business convulse with enterotoxaemia before dying in your arms.

  But man did I empathize with the local dairy farmer who lost 60 cows to tuberculosis spread by the over-protected badgers infesting the region.

  And this is why I was proud of Clarkson for this show.

  He used his considerable celebrity as a clarion call to just how fragile our food production industry is while those with zero skin in the game sit around and make demands on it.

  All in the name of ‘public safety’ and ‘preserving natural beauty.’

  The turning point of the season is where Jeremy realizes he doesn’t have near enough cows to keep a restaurant going and enlists the rest of the local farming community into a co-op arrangement.

  Now, his private little project which only minimally interfaced with the community was metastasizing into a plan to save the entire county’s farming community.

  The reality was Clarkson’s celebrity farm was bringing in people from all over the country, leveraging that to kickstart a farm-to-table industry and improve everyone’s lives.

  The cost to the locals would be some extra traffic and a parking lot.

  The unspoken subtext is that his project was sabotaged from outside. And the Queen of Grievance Politics used her position to take Clarkson out and give Amazon the excuse they needed to ‘likely part ways’ with him over the controversy.

  We know why this is. We know what the real agenda is.

  Will Amazon have the stones to say no to one of their highest rated and highest value shows when Clarkson delivers Season 3 next year?

  Who knows? But it’s not like there will be a lack of bidders or no path for him to monetize his foibles.

  Clarkson showed the world the ugly side of environmental policy and its effect on local politics. He provided the blueprint for saving the family farm and rebuilding broken community bonds.

  And we can’t have that in the Brave New World of bug protein, 15-minute cities, and no internal combustion engines.

  I empathize directly with Clarkson here. He didn’t have to do any of this. Sure, Clarkson’s Farm likely made him millions and he can run his farm at a nominal loss for years, if nothing else, as a tax write off.

  But I don’t think that’s why he did this. At one point he’s criticized by a local. “You’re not a farmer, you’re a media personality.” And it’s a fair point. Clarkson is a hobby farmer. It’s not his primary livelihood.

  And I can empathize somewhat with some of the locals who don’t know how to deal with a changing world they have no control over, and the big ape coming in and disrupting things is an easy thing to scapegoat.

  The implicit message and one I know from personal experience, is that real farming is a full-time job. It’s a full body and mind commitment. You can’t have your feet straddling two islands and make it work.

  It’s why we no longer do anything other than keep a few ducks and goats as insurance, milking one or two does to produce a year’s worth of cheese, some eggs and a few ducks for the holidays. Those five years of doing farmer’s markets taught me more than the five years I spent in college.

  But the point Clarkson made very clearly is that for the real farmers, they have no other choice and if something doesn’t change they will just give up.

  Watching Clarkson champion these people was something to be proud to experience.

  And that’s why I think Clarkson did the unthinkable, apologizing to the odious Meghan Markle. He was trying to protect those he’d championed by hoping to keep himself in the spotlight to keep trying to save the family farm itself.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you know Diddly Squat

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 19:05

• China Sends Supertankers To US Gulf On Crude Oil Buying Spree
  China Sends Supertankers To US Gulf On Crude Oil Buying Spree

  One of the most important bull thesis for crude in 2023 is that China, having permanently shelved its zero Covid policies, will unleash a global buying spree as the Chinese economy sharply roars back to life.

  On Tuesday, we got another indication of precisely that: Unipec, the largest oil trader in China and the trading unit of state-held refiner Sinopec, and PetroChina, the largest oil and gas producer and distributor in China, have both hired ten supertankers in March to haul US crude back to Asia, according to Bloomberg, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter. 

  Each vessel can transport a whopping 20 million barrels of crude. The people said that the loading of the tankers is expected to occur across US Gulf Coast terminals. 

  

  “Chinese buying activity of US barrels seems to be the hottest activity right now,” Viktor Katona, a lead crude analyst at Kpler, told Bloomberg. He said Chinese firms are taking advantage of a “remarkable, profitable arbitrage” for US crude that has been suppressed because of President Biden’s massive releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (remember when China was buying SPR releases last year?).

  The first indication of China embarking on a global buying spree of crude was last month. We pointed out Unipec was set to purchase at least 18 cargoes of Upper Zakum crude from Abu Dhabi in March. 

  Chinese oil demand is rebounding after the reopening of its economy. Traders are closely monitoring Chinese oil demand for hints at what’s the next direction for benchmark Brent futures. 

  

  Data and analytics firm Kpler pointed out as many as 14 Very Large Crude Carriers are preparing to load from the US Gulf Coast to China in March. Katona noted this doubled the volume shipped over the last several years. 

  Saudi oil giant Aramco expects the Chinese reopening and a pick-up in jet fuel demand to lead to a rebound in global oil demand this year, Amin Nasser, the CEO of the world’s biggest oil firm, told Bloomberg in an interview last month.

  And the Chinese buying isn’t limited to the US and Abu Dhabi. OilPrice said PetroChina and Sinopec are back on the market for Russian Urals and taking advantage of the deep discounts. 

  Here’s something for oil bulls: 

  “China will drive nearly half this global demand growth even as the shape and speed of its reopening remains uncertain,” International Energy Agency said last month. 

  Remember, we told readers this would happen as early as November in a note titled “China Quietly Boost Oil Imports In Preparation For Reopening.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 18:45

• The Narcissism Of Woke Totalitarianism
  The Narcissism Of Woke Totalitarianism

  Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

  “Anyone who thinks the terrifying trend of posthumous censure will end with Roald Dahl is dreaming…”

  

  The publisher of the late British children’s author, Roald Dahl, has changed hundreds of words and passages in his books to make them politically correct. “Language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender, and race has been cut and rewritten,” reported The Telegraph, whose journalists compared 10 of Dahl’s books from 2022 to their 2001 versions. “Remember the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach? They are now the Cloud-People. The Small Foxes in Fantastic Mr. Fox are now female. In Matilda, a mention of Rudyard Kipling has been cut, and Jane Austen added.”

  The racially sensitive censors even removed the word “black” as a descriptor of inanimate objects. “In Fantastic Mr. Fox, a description of tractors, saying that ‘the machines were both black,’ has been cut. In the new Dahl world, it seems, neither machines nor animals can be described with a colour.”

  The censorship by Puffin, which Penguin Publishing Group owns, drew a sharply critical response from journalists and authors. “Roald Dahl was no angel,” tweeted Salman Rushdie, “but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.” Seethed Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator, “If you weren’t worried about cancel culture before, surely this egregious assault on some of the best-known children’s books of the modern era, this posthumous purging of an author’s output, will change your mind.”

  Many on Twitter posted a quote from George Orwell’s 1984, his famous novel about a future totalitarian dystopia.

  “Every record has been destroyed or falsified,” the novel’s main character says, “every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”

  Totalitarianism is a strong word for the censorship of children’s books.

  The changing of “The old hag” to “the old crow,” “Chambermaid” to “cleaner,” and “You must be mad, woman!” to “You must be out of your mind!” in some kiddie books is hardly on par with the censorship of totalitarian regimes. And Dahl himself made his books less offensive, re-writing the Oompa-Loompa characters in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so they were no longer African.

  But Dahl would have been horrified by the hundreds of changes made by Puffin. “His relationships with his editors included marked fractiousness on Dahl’s part,” said his biographer. “He resisted interference.” Re-writing an author’s books without his consent, whether for legal reasons or because he is dead, violates the trust between authors and publishers everywhere. That such censorship is coming from within media, educational, and research institutions, in addition to governmental ones, doesn’t make it less dangerous, and may make it more so.

  The Dahl censorship is occurring against the backdrop of an increasingly censorious Wokeism. Over the last few weeks, we have seen a witch hunt against psychologist Jordan Peterson, an open letter from 1,000 writers, authors, and journalists demanding that The New York Times not report on problems with prescribing gender dysphoric children puberty blockers, and a State Department-funded “Disinformation Index,” which slandered The New York Post, Reason, and other reputable publications as fonts of disinformation, and urged corporations to redirect their advertising spending to publications including Huffington Post.

  Two years ago, when activists were tearing down statutes of historical figures, people quoted from Orwell, above (“every statue and street and building has been renamed”). Since then, Woke activists have, with Dahl, started down the road of realizing another clause in that sentence: “every book has been rewritten.” Warns O’Neill, “Anyone who thinks the terrifying trend of posthumous censure will end with Dahl is dreaming.”

  Totalitarianism is characterized by efforts to completely remake every aspect of society, including cultural life, and Wokeism today is re-writing texts, de-certifying disfavored individuals, cutting off funding, getting people fired, and pressuring social media platforms to deny access or secretly censor. Woke totalitarians are plainly seeking the total reorganization of society along the lines of a racist “hierarchy of oppression” that puts black and indigenous people above other “people of color,” (i.e., Latinos and Asians) as a single “BIPOC” ruling class. This is ostensibly to create the reverse of past hierarchies and is thus transparently vengeful and racist.

  It is worth reminding ourselves that freedom of speech is not just “another issue;” it is the foundation of democracy. Without it, we can’t address any other problem, particularly sensitive ones concerning race and sex. And without it, we cannot truly live as free, dignified, and civilized humans.

  We are not doomed to a dystopian 1984 future. But the 20th Century proves that we are not guaranteed a free and democratic one.

  What can be done to stop creeping Woke totalitarianism? To answer that question, we must first understand what’s driving it.

  Presentism, Narcissism, and Totalitarianism

  

  In 2002, the American Historical Association’s president, Lynn Hunt, wrote a short article for the organization’s magazine titled “Against Presentism.” By presentism, Hunt first meant the tendency of history majors and graduate students to judge past behaviors through the lens of present-day morality and, second, a heavy interest in 20th Century identity politics.

  …

  Over time, rising narcissism and coddling culture reached a tipping point whereby elites began to view “being insensitive” as equivalent to “causing harm.” As such, insensitivity became viewed as worse than censorship and justification for it. The censorship of Dahl shows that presentism is a fundamental characteristic of Woke totalitarianism, just as it was of fascist and communist totalitarian regimes that were the model for Orwell’s 1984. “History has stopped,” says its narrator. “Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

  What, in the end, is driving Wokeism? In the words of former AHA president White, “moral complacency and self-congratulation.” And both of those are born from an infantilizing, narcissistic, and presentist culture.

  …

  Subscribers can read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 18:25

• Subprime Auto Loan Delinquencies Hit 13-Year High
  Subprime Auto Loan Delinquencies Hit 13-Year High

  While the unemployment rate sits at its lowest level in decades, cracks are beginning to form in the subprime auto loan market.

  

  According to Moody’s, some 9.3% of auto loans extended to people with low credit scores are at least 30 days late, the highest since 2010, the WSJ reports.

  

  “The households that were on the financial ledge to begin with might have been tipped to the point where it’s hard to keep up on the car loan and everything else, and people have to make some very hard decisions,” said Pamela Foohey, a professor at Cardozo School of Law who studies consumer law.

  The bulk of the auto-loan delinquencies are among borrowers with credit scores below 660 – particularly (as one would expect) those with ‘bottom of the barrel’ credit (who probably shouldn’t have been able to obtain an auto loan in the first place).

  And as the Journal notes, “If job losses increase, many more consumers might find themselves unable to keep up with the record amounts of debt they took out in recent years.”

  One such borrower, Chris Woodward of Cedar Falls, Iowa, lost his job in August – his second layoff in eight months. Shortly thereafter, he fell behind on payments for his 2011 Ford Flex. He also fell behind on rent, and maxed out his credit card.

  

  To make ends meet, Woodward set up a GoFundMe, which has raised $12,500 out of a $13,000 goal as of this writing.

  “It’s weird to go from having a good salary and not stressing, to, ‘How am I going to buy diapers?’” said Woodward, who bought his car in early 2022 when car prices were peaking.

  Borrowers who took out big loans at the height of the boom owe far more than their vehicles are worth. Those buyers are sticking lenders with bigger losses when they fall behind.

  Ally Financial Inc., which operates a large auto-lending business, said in January that the loans it extended between mid-2021 and mid-2022 are experiencing bigger early losses than its other loans. In the fourth quarter, the percentage of its car loans that were more than 60 days past due rose above prepandemic levels for the first time. -WSJ

  One factor which may contribute to greater loan delinquencies is that credit scores may have been artificially high during the pandemic, when consumers cut back on credit use and spending amid a flood of government stimulus that padded their savings. This may have made underwriting less precise, according to Goldman analyst Ryan Nash, who says that lenders were able to make big loans to borrowers on the assumption that their finances had strengthened long-term.

  “2021 was a bit of the Wild West in the auto market,” said Nash.

  Except, it turns out that while things were looking good on the outside, consumers are awash in debt as their savings as a percentage of income dwindled.

  

  According to the report, almost 20% of banks admit to easing credit standards for auto loan applicants in the first half of 2021, while over 10% did the same in the second half of the year.

  Meanwhile in 2022, the percentage of people whose cars were repossessed rose to 11% (still below pandemic levels).

  “What we have left is just to survive,” said 24-year-old nurse, Vanessa Davis of Fontana, California – whose 2022 Chevy Trax was repossessed after she missed payments due to a family emergency (she got it back for $600 in fees and a $650 payment). “At this point we’re trying everything we can and the best we can to keep every single penny.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/22/2023 – 18:05

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