Jan 23

Today’s News 23rd January 2019

  • France And Germany Take Major Step Toward EU Army To Protect "Europe Threatened By Nationalism"

    French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for what he previously called “a real European army” got a big boost on Tuesday amid France and Germany signing an updated historic treaty reaffirming their close ties and commitment to support each other during a ceremony in the city of Aachen, a border town connected to Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. But the timing for the renewal of the two countries’ 1963 post-war reconciliation accord is what’s most interesting, given both the rise of eurosceptic nationalism, the uncertainty of Brexit, and just as massive ‘Yellow Vests’ protests rage across France for a tenth week. 

    Macron addressed this trend specifically at the signing ceremony with the words, “At a time when Europe is threatened by nationalism, which is growing from within… Germany and France must assume their responsibility and show the way forward.”

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a signing of a new agreement on bilateral cooperation and integration, known as Treaty of Aachen. Image via Reuters

    Germany’s Angela Merkel agreed, adding in her own remarks: “We are doing this because we live in special times and because in these times we need resolute, distinct, clear, forward-looking answers.” The agreement, which is being described as sparse on specifics or detail, focuses on foreign policy and defense ties between Berlin and Paris. 

    “Populism and nationalism are strengthening in all of our countries,” Merkel EU officials at the ceremony. “Seventy-four years – a single human lifetime – after the end of the second world war, what seems self-evident is being called into question once more.”

    Macron said those “who forget the value of Franco-German reconciliation are making themselves accomplices of the crimes of the past. Those who… spread lies are hurting the same people they are pretending to defend, by seeking to repeat history.”

    And in remarks that formed another affirmation that the two leaders are seeking to form an “EU army” Merkel said just before signing the treaty: “The fourth article of the treaty says we, Germany and France, are obliged to support and help each other, including through military force, in case of an attack on our sovereignty.” 

    The text of the updated treaty includes the aim of a “German-French economic area with common rules” and a “common military culture” that Merkel asserted could “contribute to the creation of a European army”.

    Later before a press pool, Merkel endorsed the idea of a joint European army further:

    We have taken major steps in the field of military cooperation, this is good and largely supported in this house. But I also have to say, seeing the developments of the recent years, that we have to work on a vision to establish a real European army one day.

    She clarified that the new military organization wouldn’t exist as a counterpart to or in competition with NATO, similar to prior comments she made before European parliament.

    Previously in November she had assured, “This is not an army against NATO, it can be a good complement to NATO.” This was also in support of Macron’s early November statements wherein he said of the proposed EU army, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the US” — words that were issued on the heels President Trump’s initial announcement that the US would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

    Despite such such assurances analysts say the natural and long term by-product of a “real European army” — as Macron and Merkel suggesting — would be the slow eroding and demise of US power in the region, which would no doubt weaken the NATO alliance. 

    The closest thing to a current “EU army” that does exist (if it can be called even that) – the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – is generally perceived as more of a civil and emergency response joint EU member mechanism that would be ineffectual under the threat of an actual military invasion or major event. 

    Meanwhile perhaps a prototype EU army is already in action on the streets of Paris, revealing what critics fear it may actually be used for in the future…

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    The expected push back came swiftly and fiercely as Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Rally party, slammed the updated Aachen treaty as “an act that borders on treason”, while others worried this is an attempt to create a “super EU” within the bloc.

    Alexander Gauland of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), for example, warned:

    As populists, we insist that one first takes care of one’s own country… We don’t want Macron to renovate his country with German money … The EU is deeply divided. A special Franco-German relationship will alienate us even further.

    Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, warned earlier this month that his country could seek an “Italian-Polish axis” to challenge the whole premise of a “Franco-German motor” that drives European centralization.

    Also notable of Tuesday’s signing is that the Aachen document prioritizes Germany being eventually accepted as permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which it mandates as a priority for French-German diplomacy. Such a future scenario on the security council would shift power significantly in favor of a western bloc of allies the US, Britain, and France, which Germany would vote alongside.  

  • Dismantling The Doomsday Machines

    Authored by John Walsh via The Unz Review,

    “From a technical point of view, he (Stanley Kubrick) anticipated many things… Since that time, little has changed, honestly. The only difference is that modern weapons systems have become more sophisticated, more complex. But this idea of a retaliatory strike and the inability to manage these systems, yes, all of these things are relevant today. It (controlling the systems) will become even more difficult and more dangerous.” (Emphasis, jw)

    Vladimir Putin commenting on the film, Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, in an interview with Oliver Stone, May 11, 2016. Putin had not seen the movie and did not know of it before Stone showed it to him.

    The Doomsday Machine, the title of Daniel Ellsberg’s superb book is not simply an imaginary contraption from a movie masterpiece. A Doomsday Machine uncannily like the one described in Dr. Strangeloveexists right now. In fact, there are two such machines, one in US hands and one in Russia’s. The US seeks to hide its version, but Ellsberg has revealed that it has existed since the 1950s. Russia has quietly admitted that it has one, named it formally, “Perimetr,” and also tagged it with a frighteningly apt nickname “Dead Hand.” Because the US and Russia are the only nations with Doomsday Machines to date we shall restrict this discussion to them.

    The Doomsday Machine was published just a little more than a year ago, but its terrifying message has failed to provoke action. And Daniel Ellsberg is a man who knows whereof he speaks; the subtitle of the book is “Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner,” which is how Ellsberg spent the early part of his career. What follows on this first anniversary of the book’s publication is a brief restatement of the main argument of the book and then a summary of Ellsberg’s plan of action. (Not included are memoirs and personal experiences of this remarkable, very intelligent and moral man, which are found in the book and which I recommend to flesh out the line of thought presented herein.) Ellsberg’s plan is to be considered a stop gap measure to remove the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads and allow time to move to total abolition of nuclear weapons, a much more arduous task. Hopefully this essay will serve as a reminder of Ellsberg’s warnings and as a call to act on them.

    How Do the Doomsday Machines Work? – Two components:

    What is the essence of a “Doomsday Machine”? The first component is a mechanism of launching nuclear weapons that is on hair trigger alert and not always in the hands of the Presidents of Russia or the US. The fact well concealed from the US public is that the US President or those in the line of Constitutional succession are not the only ones with a finger on the nuclear button, and the same is true in Russia. The second component of a Doomsday Machine is a weapon of such destructive force that it can kill billions in the immediate aftermath of an attack and then the entire human race and perhaps all animal life on earth.

    The Launch Mechanism – Command and Control

    Russia and the US each have a First Strike capability, that is the ability to strike the other with great force, destroy the other’s cities and industrial and military base – and knock out the other’s nuclear deterrent. The essence of a First Strike capacity is this ability to wipe out the deterrent of the other side or weaken it sufficiently that the remaining force could be intercepted for the most part. How can a targeted nation prevent the use of a First Strike? It must convince the adversary that such a strike is futile and will not destroy the deterrent of the targeted nation. The attacker must understand that he will not escape retribution, because the nuclear force of the targeted nation, its nuclear deterrent, will survive.

    Launch on Warning – Hair Trigger Alert. The first measure to prevent the loss of deterrence in the event of a First Strike is to put the nuclear force on Launch on Warning or Hair Trigger Alert status. Most of us have heard about this, but we ought to quake in our boots every time the thought of it crosses our minds. Since the time to respond to a First Strike is only tens of minutes for an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) attack, which takes about 30 minutes to travel between the US and Russia, and even less time for a short or intermediate range missile, a targeted country must have its nuclear force loaded onto delivery vehicles and capable of being launched on warning of a nuclear attack. The weapons must be ready to go and launched before the country is struck. This is called “Launch on Warning” and the weapons are sometimes said to be on “Hair Trigger Alert.” (There is some imprecision to the terminology surrounding nuclear weapons, partly due the obfuscation used by the US in negotiations. Steven Starr gives an account of this imprecision and a brief glossary here. I will use terms that are easily understood and common sensical. And I will define them when necessary.)

    Nuclear warheads that are loaded onto delivery vehicles are said to be “deployed,” and there were roughly 1600 such warheads loaded onto long range delivery vehicles, each, in Russian and U.S. hands in 2018. They are ready to be launched in minutes. (There are several thousand more warheads in reserve on each side but not “deployed.”) It is easy to see the danger inherent in this situation. The decision to launch must be made in minutes to prevent destruction of the nuclear deterrent and it would be hard to decide with certainty whether the warning of an attack was genuine or due to a technical malfunction. In fact, the signal that an attack is coming is always likely to be ambiguous. Even if the attack is real, the attacker will seek to hide it and so even then the signal will be ambiguous. Thus, even an ambiguous warning caused due to a technical malfunction must always be treated with seriousness and a decision to respond made within minutes.

    That a decision of such moment must be made so quickly, under the gun if you will, is a disaster waiting to happen. A mistake is bound to occur with the passage of sufficient time. And it nearly did during the Cuban Missile crisis and again in 1983 when the Soviets detected an attack coming from the United States. According to established protocol the warning was sufficient for the Soviet officer in charge to inform the leadership that a nuclear attack on the U.S. should be ordered. But that officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stefan Petrov, refused to follow protocol and instead interpreted the warning of an attack as a false alarm, which it was. So, a launch of Soviet weapons did not occur. In Russia, Stefan Petrov who died recently is hailed as “the man who saved the world.” This is the nuclear powder keg on which we all sit.

    Decapitation and Delegation – Unknowns have their finger on “the button.” The second measure to prevent loss of deterrence is Delegation. This is not widely known or understood. One aspect of a First Strike would be an attempt to knock out known command centers so that a retaliatory strike could not be ordered. This is known as Decapitation. The antidote to Decapitation is Delegation, that is others besides the Presidents and their immediate successors are authorized to press “the button.” It works this way. These “others” are located in secret command centers far from Washington or the Strategic Air Command Base in Colorado, both of which will be targeted in a Decapitation strike. If these secret centers find themselves cut off from communication with Washington or Moscow, then the assumption is made that a decapitating nuclear strike has occurred. In that event these “others” removed from the centers of power are authorized to the press the nuclear button!! (One can see why the Russians call their system of delegation, Perimetr.) These others are not elected officials and in fact we do not know who they are! What Ellsberg discovered is that some of these “others,” military men, were concerned that they too could be hit in a decapitating strike. So they had delegated authority to still others!! In fact, no one, perhaps not even the President and his circle of advisors, knows who can send off the nuclear weapons. Is it possible that one of them might be like the fictional General Jack D. Ripper, the psychotic and delusional man who gives the launch order in Dr. Strangelove – or a similar individual lusting after the Rapture?

    It does not take much imagination to see the multiple ways in which things could go wrong; a launch due to a false alarm of attack and a lack of time to make a thoughtful check and decision; a failure of communication that puts the perimeter out of touch with the center although no decapitation has in fact occurred; or a mad man or woman or a crazed ideologue who becomes one of the Delegated. A terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon on Moscow or Washington could also mimic a Decapitating attack and set in motion the fast Delegation to the delegatee. The appropriateness of the term “Dead Hand” for this arrangement is striking.

    It is true that so far as we know the probability of a mistake or a rogue element gaining control of nuclear weapons is small. (But the fact is we do not know what the situation is – it is hidden from us and perhaps even from elected officials.) The weapons are protected from rogue use by safety locks called Permissive Action Links (PALs) but these are not perfect, and they must be capable of activation by someone in the “perimeter” in the event of Delegation. And they are no protection against a false alarm of an attack. Despite how low the probability of an error might be, the dice are thrown every moment of every day, and with the passage of time, inevitably something will go wrong.

    In summary, First Strike Capability is the source of the problem. It leads to Launch on Warning and Delegation by a targeted nation. The U.S. pioneered and maintains a First Strike Capability and refuses to adopt a “No First Strike” policy. Another response to a first strike capability is that the targeted nation will build up the numbers in its nuclear force so that some will always survive an attack. That is precisely what happened in the first Cold War until it reached insane levels as shown graphically here.

    The Nuclear Weapon. The First Strike Arsenal.

    Obliteration of Russia and the U.S. The second component of a Doomsday Machine is the weapon itself. What is the destructive power of the ensemble of nuclear weapons as used in a First Strike? I know of no such quantitative estimates released by the Pentagon for the present day. They are badly needed. But in 1961 when Ellsberg was among those working on nuclear war fighting strategy for the Kennedy administration, he asked for an estimate from the Pentagon of the deaths due to a First Strike as the generals and their civilian war planners had mapped it out at the time. To his surprise the estimate came back at once – the Pentagon had made it and kept it hidden. Launching of the nuclear weapons planned for use in a First Strike by the U.S. would result in the deaths of 1.2 billion from explosions, radiation and fire. That number was the number of deaths and did not include injuries. And it was only the result of US weapons; it did not include deaths from a response from the Soviet side if they managed one. 1.2 billion people was the toll at a time when the population of the earth was about 3 billion! (Note that this toll does NOT include the effects of nuclear winter which was unknown at that time. More on that below.) And of course, such deaths would be concentrated in the targeted countries which in these times would be the US and Russia. Ellsberg was stunned to learn that the Pentagon would coolly make plans for such a gargantuan and immediate genocide. And so should we all be. What kind of mindset, what kind of ethics, what kind of morality has allowed for such a thing!

    Nuclear Winter and the Destruction of Humanity. But the damage does not stop there. This is the surprise that the Pentagon did not understand at the time. The ash from the fires of burning cities would be cast up into the stratosphere so high that it would not be rained out. There it would remain for at least a decade, blocking enough sunlight that no crops would grow for ten years. That is sufficient to cause total starvation and wipe out the entire human race with only a handful at most able to survive. This is Nuclear Winter. It is eerily reminiscent of Kubrick’s Doomsday Machine which resulted in a cloud of radioactivity circling the earth and wiping out all life. Nuclear Winter was first understood in the 1980s, but at that time careful assessment of the existing computer models seemed to indicate that it was not likely and so many “stopped worrying.” Now with the interest in Global Warming, new and better computer models have been developed. When the results of a nuclear first strike are put into these models, Nuclear Winter again makes its appearance as Brian Toon, Alan Robock and others have shown. The TED talks of Toon and of Robockdescribing their findings are worth watching; they are brief and well-illustrated. We are confronted with a genocide of all or nearly all humanity, an “Omnicide.”

    The launch of the 1600 “deployed” warheads of either the US or Russia is sufficient to give us nuclear winter. So we in the US have put in place a weapon system on hair trigger alert commanded by we know not whom which can kill virtually all Americans – along with most everyone else on the planet. We have on hair trigger alert a weapon which is in fact suicidal. Use the weapon and we lose our very existence. We should also be clear that even if we prescind from the effects of nuclear winter, the nuclear attacks would be concentrated on Russia and the US. So most of us would be consumed. Thus MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) is replaced with SAD (Self-Assured Destruction).

    Disarming the Doomsday Machine

    What is Ellsberg’s plan to disarm the Doomsday Machines? He does not suggest total abolition of nuclear weapons, a worthy and ultimate goal, as a first step. He suggests intermediate steps, which can be accomplished much more quickly and remove the present danger.

    From what was said above, it is clear that the Doomsday Machine with its massive nuclear force, Launch On Warning and system of Delegation all grows out of a need to protect from a First Strike. The solution to the problem does not demand giving up all nukes or even a deterrent which many are loathe to do. And that is not hard to understand when we compare the fate of Kim Jong-un to that of Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. Nor is it difficult to understand in the U.S. given the current intense Russophobia, or in Russia given the alarm caused by NATO’s drive to the East. This is one reason that total abolition of nuclear weapons or even abolition of a nuclear deterrent will be quite difficult. However, dismantling the Doomsday Machines, the immediate danger to humanity, does not demand giving up nuclear deterrence.

    Abandoning First Strike Policy and Capacity. Dismantling the Doomsday Machine with its Hair Trigger Alert and Delegation does mean abandoning a First Strike policy and capacity. And right now, only two countries have such First Strike capacity and only one, the U.S., refuses to take the right to use it “off the table” even when not under attack. What does the elimination of First Strike Capacity mean in practice; how can it be achieved? This turns out to involve two basic steps for the US.

    Dismantling the Minuteman III. First, the land-based ICBMs, the Minuteman III, must be entirely dismantled, not refurbished as is currently being undertaken at enormous cost. These missiles, the land-based part of the Strategic Triad, are highly accurate but fixed in place, “sitting ducks”; they are only good for a First Strike, for they will be destroyed in a successful First Strike by an adversary. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry and James E. Cartwright, formerly head of the Strategic Air Command and Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have both called fordismantling the Minuteman III. We would thereby also save a lot of money.

    Reducing the SLBM Force. The second step in dismantling the First Strike capacity is to reduce the Trident Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) force to the level where it cannot destroy the entire Russian land-based missile force. With these two measures in place the US would no longer have a First Strike Capability, and so Launch on Warning and Delegation upon apparent Decapitation would both be unnecessary. It is that simple.

    Of course, the Russians would also need to take similar measures that take into account the specifics of its arsenal. And that is where negotiations, treaties and verification come in. That in turn cannot take place in the current atmosphere of Russiagate and Russophobia, which is why both are existential threats and must be surmounted. We must talk despite our differences, real or perceived.

    However, were the US and Russia to abandon their First Strike capacity, a reasonable deterrent could be preserved. Such a deterrent should be far below the threshold for a nuclear winter. When Herbert York, one of the original nuclear war planners and strategists, was asked how many nuclear weapons it would take to guarantee deterrence, he suggested somewhere between one and one hundred, closer to one, perhaps ten. Of course, such a small number demands giving up on a missile defense system which has been a will-o’-the-wisp since the 1950s. But would a leader of any nation, even one equipped with an Anti-Ballistic Missile system, when confronted with 100 nuclear warheads facing him or her, be willing to risk ten getting through and demolishing 10 cities?

    But there is a deep problem here. The US at least has not built its nuclear forces with the simple object of deterrence. It has had the policy of being able to strike first and destroy or sufficiently degrade the Russian force so that there would be no retaliation. Ellsberg establishes that definitively based on his own experience in his days as a nuclear war planner. But this is also a will-o’-the-wisp. With Launch on Warning and Delegation both sides would be destroyed. So, this path must be abandoned. However, it is a path that has been trod for a long time. It has acquired many adherents and become embedded in the thinking of our “strategic war planners.” It will be hard to abandon this way of thinking which is what will make the simple steps outlined above politically difficult although technically and logistically quite simple. Moreover, in the mind of the public there is no clear distinction between First Strike and simple deterrence. And many favor a nuclear deterrent. So the movement for total abolition of nuclear weapons has a long way to go to reach its destination.

    An additional measure – Eliminating launch on warning, aka “hair trigger alert,” that is, “De-alerting.” An additional measure has also been proposed. All nuclear warheads should be removed from deployed status by Russia and the US. (The oft-used term for this is “De-alerting.”). That is, the warheads should be removed from their delivery vehicles and stored in a way that would take days or even weeks to deploy – that is to remount. This has been proposed by the Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction which says of itself:

    As world leaders descended on the United Nations in New York for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, the Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction — led by former U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James E. Cartwright and comprised of international military experts — issued a bold call for ending the Cold War-era practice of keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

    The Commission’s extensive report calls for (1) an urgent agreement between the United States and Russia to immediately eliminate “launch-on-warning” from their operational strategy, and to initiate a phased stand down of their high-alert strategic forces….; and (2) a longer-term global agreement requiring all nuclear weapons countries to refrain from putting their nuclear weapons on high alert.

    Urgent action is needed, according to the Commission, because of heightened tensions between the United States and Russia, ongoing geopolitical and territorial disputes involving other nuclear countries that could escalate, and an emerging global trend toward placing nuclear weapons on high alert.

    The proposal, backed by more than 75 former senior political officials, national security experts and top military commanders, makes the case that a multinational de-alerting agreement could greatly mitigate the many risks of nuclear weapons use, including from computer error, cyber launch, accidental detonations, unauthorized “insider” launch, false warning of enemy attack, and rushed nuclear decision-making.

    The full report is here.

    Such an arrangement must be solidly negotiated and verifiable. It would seem that the US President could do this by executive order and at little cost. For submarines the nuclear warheads would be stored on shore in a way that makes it impossible to reload for the period of delay that is negotiated. This arrangement means that no decisions about nuclear warfare need be taken at a moment’s notice, no launch on warning is possible or even relevant any longer and the possibility of Decapitation and the consequent necessity of Delegation disappear. And when either nuclear state feels existentially threatened by conventional forces, its first response need not be to fire a nuclear weapon. Its first response could be to deploy its warheads (that is, reload the launch vehicles) while it negotiates over the threat. That along with Ellsberg’s suggestions would greatly stabilize the world and lessen to almost zero the probability of nuclear war based on misjudgment or accident. From there the work on ever greater levels of reduction leading eventually to total abolition of nuclear weapons could go forward.

    The Work Ahead to Win Support for Dismantling the Doomsday Machines

    To be able to get Congress or the Executive to move toward these changes, a number of things will be necessary. First is information. As a very basic example, Ellsberg learned in 1961 that a US First Strike at that time would produce 1.2 billion deaths as an immediate result of Nuclear War, excluding any effects of nuclear winter and excluding a Soviet response. We deserve to know what those numbers are now. Here, Ellsberg argues, both public pressure and the work of whistle blowers will be needed. As another example, we need to know from the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences whether the result of a US First Strike of the magnitude now on hair trigger alert would lead to nuclear winter – as it seems almost certain it would.

    But far more than that would be needed. There must be some form of pressure to wake up the politicians and force them to dismantle the Doomsday Machines. But this is missing. In part with the end of the First Cold War, many thought that the danger had disappeared. Clearly it has not. A movement to abolish the Doomsday Machine is a threat to the Military Industrial Complex and so the MIC and its media acolytes would prefer silence or opposition to such efforts. It may be that the generations which lived through the first Cold War and went through its terrors, from “duck and cover” drills to mushroom cloud nightmares, to the Cuban Missile Crisis may have a special role to play. Their psyches have been most affected by nuclear horrors and they may be the best ones to convince succeeding generations of the dangers. But the strategy and tactics for such an effort have yet to be outlined. It is a task that lies before us.

    The first step to sanity is to eliminate ‘launch on warning’ and the second step would be to rid ourselves and the Russians of a ‘First Strike policy’ and capacity and negotiate a stable deterrent, small enough that it does not threaten nuclear winter. That is something that the nuclear powers and the broad public can easily accept despite the opposition of a small number of nuclear war fighters. Here the idea of negotiations is not to make the other side more vulnerable but to give the “adversary” and oneself a small, stable nuclear deterrent. Such a win-win approach to negotiations is in fact necessary for survival while we take the more difficult road to total nuclear abolition.

    Total abolition should be the ultimate goal because no human hand should be allowed to wield species-destroying power. But it seems that an intermediate goal is not only needed to give us the breathing space to get to zero nuclear weapons. An intermediate and readily achievable goal can call attention to the problem and motivate large numbers of people. The Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s is a very successful example of this sort of effort; it played a big role in making the Reagan-Gorbachev accords possible. The effort to kill the Doomsday Machines might well be called something like Step Away From Doomsday or simply Step Away. The time may be ripe for such an effort. Getting to zero will require a breakthrough in the way countries deal with one another, especially nuclear armed countries! Let us give ourselves the breathing space to accomplish that.

  • No One Wants To Buy Superyacht Seized In The 1MDB Scandal 

    Malaysia is finding it very hard to sell Equanimity, a 300-foot superyacht linked to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. The vessel is among $1.7 billion in assets bought by fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, with funds that were siphoned off from 1MDB –  the source of so many headaches for Goldman Sachs in recent months.

    Burgess, a yacht brokerage firm, was appointed as the exclusive worldwide Central Agent by the High Courts in Malaysia to assist with the judicial sale of the vessel. Bidding on the superyacht started in early November, however, by the end of the month, the yacht failed to attract bidders and remains docked at a naval base near Kuala Lumpur.

    Johnathan Beckett, chief executive officer of Burgess, who is overseeing the sale, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that it is difficult to get buyers to travel to Malaysia to examine the yacht.

    “It’s a challenge to persuade a buyer in Monaco to even travel as far as the Italian port of Genoa to see yachts…never mind Malaysia,” Beckett said.

    At a price of $130 million, Equanimity is the largest yacht listed on Burgess’s website. The vessel can accommodate up to 22 guests and 31 crew, with amenities that include a beach club, health center with gym, massage room, sauna, hammam, plunge pool and beauty salon. Other amenities and equipment include a hospital, a helipad (certified for an Airbus EC-135 or equivalent), and a circular swimming pool. Just last year it had a price tag of approximately $250 million.

    While there has been some interest from local and foreign buyers, all of the offers have been too low, Beckett said last week at a Superyachts.com event in London.

    The Malaysian government is attempting to quickly dispose of the vessel, which was built in 2014 and costs the government $729,000 per month to maintain.

    Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is trying to recover the $4.5 billion of 1MDB funds that had been stolen before he took office. With a Malaysian court declining all bids from the prior auction, the vessel is now being offered through a conventional sale in March. 

  • Eight Wall Prototypes: None Meet Operational Standards Or Trump's Cost Estimate

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

    There are now 8 wall prototypes of varying cost and beauty. None meet operational standards or Trump’s purported cost.

    Trump’s Slat Steel Barrier

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    Standoff

    A standoff over funding for President Donald Trump’s long-promised border wall has resulted in the longest-ever shutdown of the US government.

    Trump wants $5.7 billion to build a beautiful wall to stop the “humanitarian and security crisis”.

    House speaker Nancy Pelosi says no. So here we are. Let’s ponder designs and costs as described in Trump Wall – All You Need to Know.

    No New Additions

    ​

    Before Mr Trump took office, there were 654 miles of barrier along the southern border – made up of 354 miles of barriers to stop pedestrians and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing.

    Trump wants a 2,000 mile wall.

    Estimated Cost for Trump’s Wall

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously estimated a wall spanning half the border would cost up to $25 billion, but it has now said it is still looking at options to determine the price tag.

    US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) says that, on average, it costs approximately $6.5 million per mile to construct a new border wall or replace existing legacy fence.

    Assuming the current 654 miles are all usable, the math is simple enough. (2000 – 654) * $6.5 Million= $8,749,000,000. That is well under their estimate. If one assumes that the entire wall will be replaced, we arrive at $13 billion.

    I do not believe these estimate include land cost, and they are also likely low-ball estimates. One can likely toss Senator McCaskill’s estimate out the window as well.

    Eight Prototypes

    ​

    Officials at the US Customs and Border Protection agency have said none of the Trump administration prototypes tested in 2017 met its operational requirements.

    However, they did provide “valuable data” to help select design elements in the future, they added.

    Illegal Immigration From Canada

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    Most illegal immigration is from visa ‘overstayers’, not people crossing the border. Although the number of overstayers overall dropped to around 420,000 in May 2018 – it was still more than the number of people arrested trying to enter illegally via the Mexico-US border.

    Land Seizures Continue

    The Texas Tribune reports feds moving ahead with land seizures for South Texas border wall.

    As a national debate raged about family separations at the border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a group of South Texas officials earlier this week that the federal government plans to move forward with private land seizures in the Rio Grande Valley to build sections of President Donald Trump’s border wall.

    An investigation last year by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that the federal government invoked a little-known Great Depression-era law that allowed it to swiftly seize land to build the barrier and compensate landowners later. Dozens of landowners whose property was taken for the barrier still haven’t received compensation as lawsuits over the fair value of the seized land linger in court.

    The investigation also found that during the process the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cut unfair real estate deals, secretly waived legal safeguards for property owners and ultimately abused the government’s extraordinary power to take land from private citizens.

    You may also wish to consider Trump’s border wall threatens to end Texas family’s 250 years of ranching on Rio Grande.

    It’s easy to support the wall as long as it isn’t your property being seized, and your cattle’s access to water shut off.

    And for what? It is unlikely to stop the flow of humans or drugs. If by some chance it stops drugs, prices will go up, and so will the number of crimes committed to pay for drugs.

    Death Wall Might Work

    If you want to build a wall that works, make it a double wall each 6 feet tall, with 40 yards separating the walls.

    Shoot anything with two legs that enters the zone. After a few deaths and huge public outcry, the illegal entries from Mexico would stop.

    That is not a serious suggestion, I am merely stating a wall plan that would be cheaper and arguably work better.

    How badly do we want to protect our borders?

    A Better Wall

    Alternatively, and better yet, enforce e-Verify, place stiff penalties on companies that violate it, and shut off all benefits for illegals.

    In the grand scheme of things, $6 billion for a wall or even $20 billion is not a lot of money.

    Were it not for the odious land grab, and threats of property ending up on the wrong side of the fence (it has happened already), one might conclude “it’s a small price to pay”.

    However, people who make such rationalizations are seldom the ones paying the “small price”.

  • China Starts "Debt Shaming": New App Warns Users If They Are Walking Near Someone In Debt

    Authorities in the northern Chinese province of Hebei have rolled out an app over WeChat which can tell people if they’re walking near someone in debt, according to China Daily. 

    The program, aptly named “map of deadbeat debtors,” flashes a warning if someone in debt is within a 500-meter radius – showing their exact location according to a screenshot of the app. 

    Whether the app reveals the debtors’ names or photos is unknown, nor does China Daily mention how much money is owed or to whom – but according to paper the app allows people to “whistle-blow on debtors capable of paying their debts.”

    “It’s a part of our measures to enforce our rulings and create a socially credible environment,” said a spokesman for the Higher People’s Court of Hebei – which is behind the app. 

    The “map of deadbeat debtors” is yet the latest in China’s push towards a shame-based “social credit score” system which has already been deployed in several parts of the country. According to a November report, Beijing has an ambitious plan to control China’s citizens through a system of social scoring that punishes behavior it does not approve. 

    Some critics warn the new system is fraught with risks and could reduce humans to little more than a report card, said Bloomberg. 

    Hangzhou, the capital city of China’s Zhejiang province, rolled out its social credit system earlier this year, rewarding “pro-social behaviors” such as blood donations, healthy lifestyles, and volunteer work while punishing those who violate traffic laws, smoke and drink, and speak poorly about government. 

    By mid-Q2, China had blocked more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips for people who had poor social credit scores, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

    According to the Beijing plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every resident’s interactions across a multitude of financial and social platforms. 

    In March, we reported that China had rolled out an advanced facial recognition system over 16 provinces, cities and autonomous regions ominously called “SkyNet” for the “security and protection” of the country, reports Workers’ Daily. 

    “The system is able to identify 40 facial features, regardless of angles and lighting, at an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent,” reported the People’s Daily. “It can also scan faces and compare them with its database of criminal suspects at large at a speed of 3 billion times a second, indicating that all Chinese people can be compared in the system within only one second.”

    Between debt-shaming and skynet, China’s future is looking more and more dystopian as time goes on. 

  • Food Cart Lady At Women's March Denies Service To Man… Because He's A Man

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    In the America of today social justice warriors virtue signaling their tolerance for others have been repeatedly and quite often exposed for the bigots, sexists, and racists that they really are.

    Take, for example, the following video provided by Brandon Farley via his Twitter page, in which a food cart lady parked at the PDX Women’s March in the hyper-tolerant city of Portland this past weekend refused service to an individual requesting a meal reportedly based on the fact that he is a male.

    Tolerance at its finest.

    You won’t see this one in the mainstream media because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

    Misandrists – or man haters – are not vilified or abhorred like a teenage kid with a red hat smiling during the drumming of a traditional Native America tune, but rather, are defended and raised to 15-minute celebrity status among the very peers who call for death sentences against anyone who disagrees with their oft extreme and skewed personal belief systems.

    This, right here, is the hypocrisy of the modern day social justice warrior, and though we don’t see the complete incident because the preceding moments have not been made available, it sure does appear to be a case of refusal of service based on a bias on the part of the lady working the cart:

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    If we’re not mistaken, it is against Federal Law to discriminate against a person because of their race or sex.

  • Workers' Paradise? Employees In China Crawl Through Streets After Missing Sales Targets

    Video of employees from a Chinese company specializing in beauty products who were forced by their bosses to crawl a long distance on a busy street went viral last week, sparking global outrage at the appalling display, which further happened to involve a nearly all female staff.

    Screenshots of the viral video showing corporal punishment for employees in Shandong province. 

    The workers were literally forced to crawl on all fours after reportedly failing to reach their annual sales targets in the busy traffic of Tengzhou — a city in Shandong province in the country’s east. The group was filmed being driven on by a male supervisor bearing a flag with the name of the firm, which reportedly disrupted traffic.

    Onlookers called the police, which soon arrived on the scene and warned the boss it must cease the punishment, as China has laws forbidding corporal punishment or acts of intentional public humiliation for workers; however, in recent years there’s been an observable trend that companies are increasing such bizarre tactics, which has involved everything from whipping to forced worm eating to caning. 

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

    Examples chronicled by the Daily Mail include the following:

    Last month, workers at a Chinese hair salon were forced to slap themselves in the face 100 times, eat raw chillies and run 10km because their work performance hadn’t reached their boss’s expectation.

    In November, employees at a home improvement firm in Zunyi, Guizhou province, were whipped with belts, forced to drink urine and eat insects after failing to reach their targets.

    But few such shocking acts have been filmed (with some notable exceptions), which has led some skeptics online to suggest this week’s forced crawling spectacle could have been a PR stunt. But if so it appears to have backfired as the company has reportedly been temporarily shut down. 

    One of the women forced to crawl the long distance confirmed to police it was a “self-discipline measure” for missing end-of-year targets, according to reports.

    In a similar incident last May — though perhaps less public as it wasn’t in the middle of a busy intersection — video emerged from a monthly appraisal session in Yichand in central Hubei province.

    The South China Morning Post reported at the time that a female boss slapped six male workers multiple times in what appeared a bizarre ritual to boost lagging morale. 

    At the close of the ordeal, the employees were all forced to clap. During that event, as well as this week’s abuse incident, the companies claimed that staff members were willing participants in their punishment. 

  • The Generation That Will Save The World?

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    Eighty-four percent of millennials admit that they don’t know how to change a lightbulb. When asked what they do if one goes out, most either said that they call the landlord to fix it, or just accept having less light in future.

    Readers of this publication will be savvy enough to know that a crisis of biblical proportions is on the way. It will begin as an economic crisis, but will quickly morph into a political and social crisis as well.

    There can be no doubt that my generation (the baby boomers) have done more to create this crisis than any other. So, who will be the ones that will have to deal with the crisis, once it’s under way?

    Well, that always falls to the young, strong, energetic segment of the population. The twenty-to-forty group would be the ones who would need to roll up their sleeves and bail out the sinking rowboat.

    That means that, by the time we’re in crisis mode, the generation that will inherit the job of fixing the mammoth problem will be the millennials.

    Uh-oh.

    The “depression generation” were known for hard work and self-reliance. Their children – the boomers – were their spoiled children, who became the yuppies. They sought to live luxuriously, with a minimum of responsibility. The next generation – the millennials – have, so far, proven to be a generation that not only does not wish to take on responsibility, they are literally unable to do so.

    With notable exceptions, it’s a generation of people who blindly expect that their parents, the government and perhaps the tooth fairy, have the full responsibility to take away all of their problems and inconveniences. This has reached the perverse degree that students at even the best universities have “safe spaces,” where no one may say anything that upsets them. Harvard now has rooms where students who are feeling stressed can play with Play-doh. Rules are established based not upon what is practical or workable, but on “How I feel at the moment.”

    This is not just a generation that’s a bit spoiled and needs a shot of hard reality to aid their maturing process. This, tragically, is a generation that is simply unable to cope with responsibility of any kind – a generation that, literally does not know where to begin if a task as simple as changing a light bulb occurs.

    Those from older generations tend to say, vaguely, “Well I suppose they’ll just have to grow up. If there’s a crisis, they’ll just have to get on with it.”

    Well, no, unfortunately, neither the mindset nor the skillset exists for millennials to take on the job. At best they will fail to act. Just as they now accept darkness rather than figure out how to change a lightbulb, they’ll fail to roll up their sleeves to rebuild a working market during and after a crisis. But, at worst, they’ll have meltdowns, resorting to violence in the belief that, “This shouldn’t be happening to me!”

    So, if this is the case, who, then, will be the saviours of the rather large portion of the world that will be self-destructing?

    Well, historically, these developments tend to be generational, as described above. So, to understand how the crisis will play out, we might look at countries that are further along on the same curve. After all, boom and bust patterns are perennial; it’s just that, whilst one nation is in boom mode, there’s always another that’s is in bust mode.

    France fell apart around 1800 and Russia did so around 1900. But we have a more recent example, right in the western hemisphere – Cuba.

    In 1959, the Cuban government had become so corrupt and so oppressive that a small band of ne’er-do-wells was able to take over, with very little bloodshed.

    Cubans from my generation were so pleased to have the fearsome Battista removed that they were prepared to accept whatever jury-rigged government the Castro brothers might dish up. Fidel Castro was no communist, but he quickly adopted communism when the Soviet Union agreed to pay him three times the going price for Cuban sugar, and they would take all he could produce.

    Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union went bust and the flow of unrealistically high revenue came to a grinding halt. Cuba was thrust into dire poverty. (It was so extreme that, during that period, I recall never seeing a dog or cat on the streets of Havana, as they had all gone to the stewpot.)

    Then, in the late nineties, Hugo Chavez began to pour money into Cuba and the country began to recover. At that same time, Raul Castro began to create a capitalist society within the communist framework. Private businesses were not only allowed, but encouraged. In time, the taxes that these businesses paid to the government refloated it and created the beginnings of prosperity. This year, Cuba will decide on changes to its constitution that will include a major shift toward a free market. Cuba, although most of the world does not yet understand it, is one of the emerging capitalist countries.

    So, let’s have a look at how this has played out on the street level. How have the people of Cuba dealt with this over the last sixty years?

    Well, for more than half the population, life is measurably better. For some, say 20%, there is genuine prosperity. Plenty of food, lots of private restaurants, nicer, newer clothes and new Hyundai SUV’s to replace the rusting Russian Ladas.

    But, psychologically, what changes have taken place? Well, interestingly, almost no change has occurred, other than a generational one. Those old enough to remember the days of the revolution still talk on the park benches about the hope that that period created and wish that those days would return. They won’t. The generation that came after them, now in their forties, pine for the days of Russian largesse, vainly hoping that another Russia will come along and put bread on their tables. That won’t happen either.

    However, those Cubans in their twenties have only known the post-Russian collapse period. They thoroughly understand that the government is never going to deliver on their promises of free stuff for all, sufficient to sustain life. They know, first hand, that there’s only one solution – go out and work.

    Today, a twenty-something waiter in a Havana restaurant will say, “If I work ten hours a day, I’ll be able to buy a flat screen TV. If I work twelve, I’ll also be the first in my family to have an air conditioner.”

    An entire generation in Cuba is figuring out the simple equation that work = prosperity. Cuba is only in the formative stages of this understanding, but their future is promising.

    Concurrently, in the US, Canada and Europe, the generation that will be tasked with digging their countries out of depression will be the millennials. They will fail utterly at their task and they won’t reprogramme their brains to understand what’s necessary, any more than the last two generations of Cubans have. The task will fall to the next generation. It will be their children who take on the task and rebuild.

    What this means is that the Greater Depression will not be brief. A recovery is likely to take twenty-five years, since another generation after the millennials will need to mature before a recovery can be effected.

    And during that time, those jurisdictions will be quite a bit less than ideal as places of domicile.

    *  *  *

    Clearly, there are many strange things afoot in the world. Distortions of markets, distortions of culture. It’s wise to wonder what’s going to happen, and to take advantage of growth while also being prepared for crisis. How will you protect yourself in the next crisis? See our PDF guide that will show you exactly how. Click here to download it now.

  • For Silicon Valley's Startups, The Bill Is Finally Coming Due

    Silicon Valley startups like Hustle, an ad-messaging company that spent lavishly on things like on-tap kombucha and arcade games for employees, are learning the hard way that party is coming to an end and the bill is finally due. Earlier this month, the company announced mass layoffs according to the WSJ . This depressing scene is now playing out across countless Silicon Valley startups, which sprung up like mushrooms when the money was easy and which are now starting to fold as the decade-long credit cycle tests the limits of the current bubble. 

    Startup investors and company founders warn that the unchecked growth of the past several years—which by some metrics exceeded heights from the dot-com boom—is hitting a limit. A rout of publicly traded technology companies is fostering newfound restraint for investors in Silicon Valley, especially for younger, cash-strapped startups like Hustle.

    Startup investor Sunny Dhillon told the WSJ: “The unbridled optimism that inhabits our world is getting a shot of realism.”

    To be sure, the warning signs were easy to spot, starting with the shrinking number of seed deals, which fell to just 882 in Q4 versus more than 1500 that took place three years ago. 

    Because VCs have a tendency to follow technology stocks, the NASDAQ’s recent 12% pullback from its Sept 2018 highs put pressure on many startups: scooter companies Bird Rides and Lime both had to lower their valuation targets in order to raise capital during their last funding round. Other startups are failing outright, like Munchery, a meal kit service that had raised more than $100 million from VCs.

    Even far more developed companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX have suffered from the rising pressure on startups to deliver. After failing to meet recent fundraising targets, the company had to lay off 600 employees and stated publicly that it had “extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead.”

    Perhaps the most prominent recent example of a major investor – one that has been spending liberally over the past 10 years – suddenly getting cold feet, is Softbank which had to slash 88% of its planned $16 billion investment in WeWork after the bank’s backers objected to the deal. 

    Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital summarized the attitude in the VC world of changing from “’fear of missing out’ [to] ’shame of being suckered’.”

    The sudden change in sentiment comes after a bumper year: U.S. VC backed companies raised a record $131 billion last year – eclipsed only by the previous record of $105 billion in the year 2000. And not all companies appear to be stuck – Uber and Airbnb are both still eyeing IPOs to help early investors cash out. 

    Blockchain VC investor Christian Ferris said that he has served on the board of three companies that have shut down this year. He said: “Last year, they were flying you in business class. This year, they can barely afford coach.”

    Hustle, which placed two video games costing $12,995 in its headquarters, still has a pulse, albeit with a much smaller spending footprint. Hustle even went as far as to rip its espresso machine out of the kitchen at the company’s headquarters.

    Hustle was hiring new employees recently, despite having fallen short of revenue goals for the quarter and year, people familiar with the matter said. Investors were uninterested in putting in new money after Hustle failed to reach targets in areas such as signing up new corporate clients, meaning it’s only a matter of time before the plug is pulled.

    Its CEO and founder, Roddy Lindsay, said in a company disclosure about its recent layoffs: “I made the rookie misstep of not watching our growth closely enough, and we ended up overbuilding our team beyond our means.”

    Another way of saying that” money was very easy… and then it no longer was.

    Looks like it’s back to Folgers for the remaining employees, who will have a job for at least a few more months.

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