- Coronavirus Traveled Nearly 30 Feet At German Slaughterhouse Where 1,500 Employees Contracted Virus
Coronavirus Traveled Nearly 30 Feet At German Slaughterhouse Where 1,500 Employees Contracted Virus
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/24/2020 – 02:45COVID-19 particles traveled 26 feet across a German slaughterhouse where approximtely 1,500 workers contracted the virus, according to researchers who reconstructed the likely cause of the outbreak at the Toennies Groups slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck.
According to Bloomberg, a combination of cold, stale air allowed the virus to spread over such a long distance, raising concerns that the same might happen at meat plants worldwide.
And while the virus is significantly less deadly than originally thought, it can lead to significant disruptions, as it takes between two weeks and several months to recover. Some patients still report symptoms, though how contagious they are is yet to be seen.
Similar conditions at plants globally are a reason they’ve become virus epicenters, according to the report from groups including the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research.
Meat plants from the U.S. to the U.K. and South America have seen the rapid spread of the virus, infecting thousands of employees who often work in close proximity on processing lines. Dozens of workers have died, and labor advocates have said that a lack of social distancing could continue to put people at risk. Outbreaks also forced American meat plants to close earlier this year, sparking some protein shortages. –Bloomberg
The Tonnies outbreak is believed to have been caused in May by a single employee who infected the rest of their co-workers in the plant’s dismantling area, where temperatures hover around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Adam Grundhoff, co-author of the study, chilly air circulated without frequent changes, combined with a strenuous work environment, helped move virus particles long distances.
“It is very likely that these factors generally play a crucial role in the global outbreaks in meat or fish processing plants,” said Grundhoff, a research group leader at the Heinrich Pette Institute, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology. He added that distances of 1.5 to 3 meters (5 to 10 feet) is insufficient to prevent transmission.
The Toennies plant — Germany’s largest pork abattoir — reopened last week after a month-long closure and plans to gradually ramp up output. The company, which posted a link to the research report on Twitter, also recently released a 25-point plan detailing measures it’s making to prevent further outbreaks. They include testing employees twice a week, hiring workers directly and overhauling ventilation.
The report’s findings show that no factory worldwide was built for such a crisis, and the company has invested in air filters and other mechanisms to protect employees, a Toennies spokesman said by email. –Bloomberg
The workers’ housing conditions were not found to play a significant role in the outbreaks.
“The important question now is under what conditions transmission events over longer distances are possible in other areas of life,” said Helmholtz center research group leader Melanie Brinkmann.
The results of the German meat plant study put COVID-19’s reach at just under twice that observed by a team of Chinese government epidemiologists, who found that aerosolized coronavirus can hang in the air for at least 30 minutes and travel up to 14 feet.
As we noted in March, the study, conducted by a team of Chinese government epidemiologists from Hunan province, also found that the virus can survive for days on a surface where respiratory droplets land.
The length of time it lasts on the surface depends on factors such as temperature and the type of surface, for example at around 37C (98F), it can survive for two to three days on glass, fabric, metal, plastic or paper.
These findings, from a group of official researchers from Hunan province investigating a cluster case, challenge the advice from health authorities around the world that people should remain apart at a “safe distance” of one to two metres (three to six and a half feet). –SCMP
The researchers warned that the virus could survive over five days in human feces or bodily fluids, and that it could remain floating in the air after a carrier had left a public bus.
“It can be confirmed that in a closed environment with air-conditioning, the transmission distance of the new coronavirus will exceed the commonly recognised safe distance,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published in peer-reviewed journal, Practical Preventive Medicine.
“Our advice is to wear a face mask all the way [through the bus ride],” the researchers recommended.
- Cold Wars & Profit
Cold Wars & Profit
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/24/2020 – 02:00Authored by Craig Murray via ConsortiumNews.com,
If an asteroid runs into the earth, any surviving press will blame it on Russia…
The Guardian a few days ago carried a very strange piece [which has since been removed] under the heading “Stamps celebrating Ukrainian resistance in pictures.” The first image displayed a stamp bearing the name of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
The UPA was, without any shadow of a doubt, responsible for the slaughter of at least 200,000 Polish civilians; they liquidated whole Polish communities in Volhynia and Galicia, including the women and children. The current Polish government, which is as anti-Russian and pro-NATO as they come, nevertheless has declared this a genocide.
It certainly was an extremely brutal ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt either that at times between 1942 and 1944 the UPA collaborated with the Nazis and collaborated in the destruction of Jews and Gypsies. It is simplistic to describe the UPA as fascist or an extension of the Nazi regime; at times they fought the Nazis, though they collaborated more often.
There is a real sense in which they operated at the level of medieval peasants, simply seizing local opportunities to exterminate rural populations and seize their land and assets, be they Polish, Jew or Gypsy. But on balance any reasonable person would have to conclude that the UPA was an utterly deplorable phenomenon. To publish a celebration of it, disguised as a graphic art piece, without any of this context, is no more defensible than a display of Nazi art with no context.
In fact, The Guardian’s very brief text was still worse than no context.
“Ukrainian photographer Oleksandr Kosmach collects 20th-century stamps issued by Ukrainian groups in exile during the Soviet era.
Artists and exiles around the world would use stamps to communicate the horrors of Soviet oppression. “These stamps show us the ideas and values of these people, who they really were and what they were fighting for,” Kosmach says.”
That is so misleadingly partial as a description of the art glorifying the UPA movement as to be deeply reprehensible. It does however fit with the anything- goes stoking of Russophobia, which is the mainstay of government and media discourse at the moment. Even at the height of the Cold War, we never saw such a barrage of unprovable accusations leveled at Russia through the media by “security service sources.”
Attack on UK Vaccine Research
A whole slew of these were rehearsed by Andrew Marr on his flagship BBC1 morning show. The latest is the accusation that Russia is responsible for a cyber attack on Covid-19 vaccination research. This is another totally evidence-free accusation. But it misses the point anyway.
Andrew Marr, center, in 2014. (Financial Times, Flickr)
The alleged cyber attack, if it happened, was a hack not an attack — the allegation is that there was an effort to obtain the results of research, not to disrupt research. It is appalling that the U.K. is trying to keep its research results secret rather than share them freely with the world scientific community.
As I have reported before, the U.K. and the USA have been preventing the WHO from implementing a common research and common vaccine solution for Covid-19, insisting instead on a profit driven approach to benefit the big pharmaceutical companies (and disadvantage the global poor).
What makes the accusation that Russia tried to hack the research even more dubious is the fact that Russia had just bought the very research specified. You don’t steal things you already own.
Evidence of CIA Hacks
If anybody had indeed hacked the research, we all know it is impossible to trace with certainty the whereabouts of hackers. My VPNs [virtual private networks] are habitually set to India, Australia or South Africa depending on where I am trying to watch the cricket, dodging broadcasting restrictions.
More pertinently, WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 release of CIA material showed the specific programs for the CIA in how to leave clues to make a leak look like it came from Russia. This irrefutable evidence that the CIA do computer hacks with apparent Russian “fingerprints” deliberately left, like little bits of Cyrillic script, is an absolutely classic example of a fact that everybody working in the mainstream media knows to be true, but which they all contrive never to mention.
Thus when last week’s “Russian hacking” story was briefed by the security services —that former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn deployed secret documents on U.K./U.S. trade talks which had been posted on Reddit, after being stolen by an evil Russian who left his name of Grigor in his Reddit handle —there was no questioning in the media of this narrative. Instead, we had another round of McCarthyite witch-hunt aimed at the rather tired looking Corbyn.
Personally, if the Russians had been responsible for revealing that the Tories are prepared to open up the NHS “market” to big American companies, including ending or raising caps on pharmaceutical prices, I should be very grateful to the Russians for telling us. Just as the world would owe the Russians a favor if it were indeed them who leaked evidence of just how systematically the DNC rigged the 2016 primaries against Bernie Sanders.
But as it happens, it was not the Russians. The latter case was a leak by a disgusted insider, and I very much suspect the NHS U.S. trade deal link was also from a disgusted insider.
When governments do appalling things, very often somebody manages to blow the whistle.
Crowdstrike’s Quiet Admission
If you can delay even the most startling truth for several years, it loses much of its political bite. If you can announce it during a health crisis, it loses still more. The world therefore did not shudder to a halt when the CEO of Crowdstrike admitted there had never been any evidence of a Russian hack of the DNC servers.
Crowdstrike’s Shawn Henry presenting at the International Security Forum in Vancouver, 2009.
(Hubert K, Flickr)You will recall the near incredible fact that, even through the Mueller investigation, the FBI never inspected the DNC servers themselves but simply relied on a technical report from Crowdstrike, the Hillary Clinton-related IT security consultant for the DNC.
It is now known for sure that Crowdstrike had been peddling fake news for Hillary. In fact, Crowdstrike had no record of any internet hack at all. There was no evidence of the email material being exported over the internet. What they claimed did exist was evidence that the files had been organized preparatory to export.
Remember the entire “Russian hacking” story was based ONLY on Crowdstrike’s say so. There is literally no other evidence of Russian involvement in the DNC emails, which is unsurprising as I have been telling you for four years from my own direct sources that Russia was not involved. Yet finally declassified congressional testimony revealed that Shawn Henry stated on oath that “we did not have concrete evidence” and “There’s circumstantial evidence , but no evidence they were actually exfiltrated.”
This testimony fits with what I was told by Bill Binney, a former technical director of the National Security Agency (NSA), who told me that it was impossible that any large amount of data should be moved across the internet from the USA, without the NSA both seeing it happen in real time and recording it. If there really had been a Russian hack, the NSA would have been able to give the time of it to a millisecond.
That the NSA did not have that information was proof the transfer had never happened, according to Binney. What had happened, Binney deduced, was that the files had been downloaded locally, probably to a thumb drive.
Bill Binney. (Miquel Taverna / CCCB via Flickr)
So arguably the biggest news story of the past four years — the claim that Putin effectively interfered to have Donald Trump elected U.S. president —turns out indeed to be utterly baseless. Has the mainstream media, acting on security service behest, done anything to row back from the false impression it created? No it has doubled down.
Anti-Russia Theme
The “Russian hacking” theme keeps being brought back related to whatever is the big story of the day.
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Brexit? Russian hacking.
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U.K. general election 2019? Russian hacking
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Covid-19 vaccine? Russian hacking.
Then we have those continual security service briefings. Two weeks ago we had unnamed security service sources telling The New York Times that Russia had offered the Taliban a bounty for killing American soldiers. This information had allegedly come from interrogation of captured Taliban in Afghanistan, which would almost certainly mean it was obtained under torture.
It is a wildly improbable tale. The Afghans have never needed that kind of incentivization to kill foreign invaders on their soil. It is also a fascinating throwback of an accusation – the British did indeed offer Afghans money for, quite literally, the heads of Afghan resistance leaders during the first Afghan War in 1841, as I detail in my book “Sikunder Burnes.”
Taliban in Herat, Afghanistan, 2001. (Wikipedia)
You do not have to look back that far to realize the gross hypocrisy of the accusation. In the 1980s the West was quite openly paying, arming and training the Taliban — including Osama bin Laden – to kill Russian and other Soviet conscripts in their thousands. That is just one example of the hypocrisy.
The U.S. and U.K. security services both cultivate and bribe senior political and other figures abroad in order to influence policy all of the time. We work to manipulate the result of elections — I have done it personally in my former role as a U.K. diplomat. A great deal of the behavior over which Western governments and media are creating this new McCarthyite anti-Russian witch hunt, is standard diplomatic practice.
My own view is that there are malign Russian forces attempting to act on government in the U.K. and the USA, but they are not nearly as powerful as the malign British and American forces acting on their own governments.
The truth is that the world is under the increasing control of a global elite of billionaires, to whom nationality is irrelevant and national governments are tools to be manipulated. Russia is not attempting to buy corrupt political influence on behalf of the Russian people, who are decent folk every bit as exploited by the ultra-wealthy as you or I. Russian billionaires are, just like billionaires everywhere, attempting to game global political, commercial and social structures in their personal interest.
The other extreme point of hypocrisy lies in human rights. So many Western media commentators are suddenly interested in China and the Uighurs or in restrictions on the LBGT community in Russia, yet turn a completely blind eye to the abuse committed by Western “allies” such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
As somebody who was campaigning about the human rights of both the Uighurs and of gay people in Russia a good decade before it became fashionable, I am disgusted by how the term “human rights” has become weaponized for deployment only against those countries designated as enemy by the Western elite.
Finally, do not forget that there is a massive armaments industry and a massive security industry all dependent on having an “enemy.” Powerful people make money from this Russophobia. Expect much more of it. There is money in a Cold War.
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- Whitehead: The Federal Coup To Overthrow The States And Nix The 10th Amendment Is Underway
Whitehead: The Federal Coup To Overthrow The States And Nix The 10th Amendment Is Underway
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 23:50Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
– Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s defense of the Trump Administration’s deployment of militarized federal police to address civil unrest in the states
This is a wake-up call.
What is unfolding before our very eyes—with police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic unrest—could very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.
At a minimum, this is an attack on the Tenth Amendment, which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a bulwark against overreach and power grabs by the federal government.
If you’re still deluding yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state, you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This is a turning point.
Unless we take back the reins—and soon—looking back on this time years from now, historians may well point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to America’s short-lived experiment in self-government.
The government’s recent actions in Portland, Oregon—when unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off the streets and detaining them without formally arresting them or offering any explanation of why they’re being held—is just a foretaste of what’s to come.
One of those detainees was a 53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the “secret” police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed
Another peaceful protester was reportedly shot in the head with an impact weapon by this federal goon squad.
The Trump Administration has already announced its plans to deploy these border patrol agents to other cities across the country (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding concerns by state and local government officials to Trump’s plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only provoke more violence and unrest.
We’ve been set up.
Under the guise of protecting federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has formed a task force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in unmarked vehicles, snatching citizens off the streets, whether or not they’ve been engaged in illegal activities.
As the Guardian reports, “The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush, where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s happening in downtown Portland.”
The so-called racial justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played right into the government’s hands
They have delivered all of us into the police state’s hands.
There’s a reason Trump has tapped the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including legal citizens.
Indeed, it was only a matter of time before these roving bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond the nation’s borders and exercising their right to disregard the Constitution at every turn.
Except these border patrol cops aren’t just disregarding the Constitution.
They’re trampling all over the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless searches and seizures without probable cause.
As part of the government’s so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking, its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of the borderlands.
That so-called border, once a thin borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and deeper inside the country.
Now, with this latest salvo by the Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power and “we the people” have none.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP), with its more than 60,000 employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies.
As journalist Todd Miller explains:
In these vast domains, Homeland Security authorities can institute roving patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates. There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the international boundary, CBP agents can enter a person’s private property without a warrant.
Just about every nefarious deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.
As Miller points out, the government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of borderland residents have become the targets of continual surveillance.”
In much the same way that police across the country have been schooled in the art of sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in the art of “anything goes” in the name of national security.
In fact, according to FOIA documents shared with The Intercept, border cops even have a checklist of “possible behaviors” that warrant overriding the Constitution and subjecting individuals—including American citizens—to stops, searches, seizures, interrogations and even arrests.
For instance, if you’re driving a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual in some way, you can be stopped. If your passengers look dirty or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers avoid looking at a cop, you can be stopped. If you or your passengers look too long at a cop, you can be stopped.
If you’re anywhere near a border (near being within 100 miles of a border, or in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and asked to prove you’re legally allowed to be in the country. If you’re traveling on a public road that smugglers and other criminals may have traveled, you can be stopped.
If you’re not driving in the same direction as other cars, you can be stopped. If you appear to be avoiding a police checkpoint, you can be stopped. If your car appears to be weighed down, you can be stopped. If your vehicle is from out of town, wherever that might be, you can be stopped. If you’re driving a make of car that criminal-types have also driven, you can be stopped.
If your car appears to have been altered or modified, you can be stopped. If the cargo area in your vehicle is covered, you can be stopped.
If you’re driving during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious, you can be stopped. If you’re driving when border cops are changing shifts, you can be stopped. If you’re driving in a motorcade or with another vehicle, you can be stopped. If your car appears dusty, you can be stopped.
If people with you are trying to avoid being seen, or exhibiting “unusual” behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow down after seeing a cop, you can be stopped.
In Portland, which is 400 miles from the border, protesters didn’t even have to be near federal buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.
Are you starting to get the picture yet?
This was never about illegal aliens and border crossings at all. It’s been a test to see how far “we the people” will allow the government to push the limits of the Constitution.
We’ve been failing this particular test for a long time now.
It was 1798 when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with France, failed to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized anti-government speech, empowered the government to deport “dangerous” non-citizens and made it harder for immigrants to vote.
During the Civil War, Americans went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus (the right to a speedy trial) and authorized government officials to spy on Americans’ mail.
During World War I, Americans took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to interfere with the war effort and criminalized any speech critical of war.
By World War II, Americans were marching in lockstep with the government’s expanding war powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps, censor mail, and lay the groundwork for the future surveillance state.
Fast-forward to the Cold War’s Red Scares, the McCarthy era’s hearings on un-American activities, and the government’s surveillance of Civil Rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.—all done in the name of national security.
By the time 9/11 rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American citizens in order to keep America safe.
The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.
Barack Obama continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so far as to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial, all in the name of keeping America safe.
Despite the fact that the breadth of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Then Donald Trump took office, claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower the military to “assist” with border control.
That so-called immigration crisis has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government is eager to use in order to expand its powers.
Yet as we’ve learned the hard way, once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers (to spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds, to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it does not voluntarily relinquish them
This is the slippery slope on which we’ve been traveling for far too long.
As Yale historian Timothy Snyder explains, “This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire. The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Sure, it’s the Trump Administration calling the shots right now, but it’s government agents armed with totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution and all it represents.
Whether it’s Trump or Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from now, the damage has been done: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we have allowed the president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any moment.
There’s a reason the Trump Administration is consulting with John Yoo, the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. They’re not looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the Constitution. Rather, they’re desperately seeking ways to thwart the Constitution.
As Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe recognizes, “The dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.
This is how it begins.
This is how it always begins.
Don’t be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next election rolls around.
- "Meat Of The Future" – KFC Is 3D-Printing Chicken Nuggets
“Meat Of The Future” – KFC Is 3D-Printing Chicken Nuggets
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 23:30Fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) debuted the “restaurant of the future” last month in Moscow. The US fast-food chain unveiled a storefront dominated by automation and food lockers, a move that would allow for a contactless environment to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
KFC Moscow Besides reinventing the frontend of the store with robots and artificial intelligence, the backend is getting revamped as well. According to a recent company press release, 3D printing technology will be used to produce chicken nuggets.
KFC partnered with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create cell-based “chicken meat” in labs that will be as “close as possible in both taste and appearance to the original KFC product,” with product testing expected this fall.
3D Bioprinting Solutions is developing additive bioprinting technology using chicken cells and plant material, allowing it to reproduce the taste and texture of chicken meat almost without involving animals in the process. KFC will provide its partner with all of the necessary ingredients, such as breading and spices, to achieve the signature KFC taste. At the moment, there are no other methods available on the market that could allow the creation of such complex products from animal cells. – the press release said
KFC said using 3D printing to produce the “meat of the future” has its advantages:
The bioprinting method has several advantages. Biomeat has exactly the same microelements as the original product, while excluding various additives that are used in traditional farming and animal husbandry, creating a cleaner final product. Cell-based meat products are also more ethical – the production process does not cause any harm to animals. Along with that, KFC remains committed to continuous improvement in animal welfare from the farm and through all aspects of our supply chain, including raising, handling, transportation and processing.
Also, according to a study by the American Environmental Science & Technology Journal, the technology of growing meat from cells has minimal negative impact on the environment, allowing energy consumption to be cut by more than half, greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 25 fold and 100 times less land to be used than traditional farm-based meat production. – the release said
“At KFC, we are closely monitoring all of the latest trends and innovations and doing our best to keep up with the times by introducing advanced technologies to our restaurant networks,” said Raisa Polyakova, General Manager of KFC Russia & CIS.
KFC unveiling and testing futuristic meat comes as plant-based burgers have been developed by Beyond Meat and are sold at major supermarkets and fast-food chains.
A post-coronavirus world appears to be filled with automation, artificial intelligence, and now fake meat.
- Scientists Say A Supermassive Black Hole Glitched, Inexplicably Turning Off and On Again
Scientists Say A Supermassive Black Hole Glitched, Inexplicably Turning Off and On Again
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 23:10Authored by Jake Anderson via TheMindUnleashed.com,
Supermassive black holes are already recognized as some of the most bizarre objects in the universe. Past their high-energy coronas, inside the event horizons, the known laws of physics seem to shut down.
But recently, astronomers observed something happening to a black hole that seemed impossible even by the object’s own outlandish standards.
About 100 million light-years away, the super hot, ultrabright corona at the center of a supermassive black hole (1ES 1927+654) abruptly disappeared and then reformed, essentially turning the black hole off and then starting up again, as though it had glitched. It is the first time such a phenomenon has ever been documented.
Lead author of the study, Claudio Ricci, remarked,
“It was so strange that at first we thought maybe there was something wrong with the data. When we saw it was real, it was very exciting. But we also had no idea what we were dealing with; no one we talked to had seen anything like this.”
Ricci and the other MIT astronomers studying the event believe a rogue star may have caused a massive “tidal disruption,” that may have acted like “a pebble tossed into a gearbox,” which subsequently caused the entire corona of highly charged particles to come collapsing into the black hole.
As a result, the black hole’s brightness diminished precipitously, dimming by a factor of 10,000 in under a year.
“We expect that luminosity changes this big should vary on timescales of many thousands to millions of years,” Erin Kara, assistant professor of physics at MIT and co-lead on the study, explained.
“But in this object, we saw it change by 10,000 over a year, and it even changed by a factor of 100 in eight hours, which is just totally unheard of and really mind-boggling.”
So, from the point of view of scientists on Earth, the black hole seemed to just eat itself, close up shop, and disappear from radar, something corroborated by multiple telescopes and observed in X-ray, optical, and ultraviolet wave bands. But that wasn’t the end. Since the core singularity of the black hole still existed, it began to gobble up particles again and spin up a new accretion disk, re-generating its old luminosity in only months.
The MIT team first discovered the anomaly in March 2018, when they recorded an active galactic nucleus (AGN) using ASSASN, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Super-Novae. They also observed the black hole with NASA’s NICER, an X-ray telescope mounted to the International Space Station.
“This seems to be the first time we’ve ever seen a corona first of all disappear, but then also rebuild itself, and we’re watching this in real-time,” Kara recalls.
“This will be really important to understanding how a black hole’s corona is heated and powered in the first place.”
Kara and her co-authors believe the sudden “glitch” could be caused by the accretion disk’s magnetic field lines collapsing. They published their findings in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
- Major Hollywood Studio Orders "AI-Driven" Face-Mask Detection Robots
Major Hollywood Studio Orders “AI-Driven” Face-Mask Detection Robots
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 22:50A major Hollywood studio ordered face mask detection robots this week that mount on walls in public areas.
Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions, Inc., published a press release Wednesday morning, revealing a major studio in the Holywood area (whose name cannot be disclosed due to non-disclosure agreements in place) purchased two Robotic Observation Security Apparatus Units (ROSA) from its wholly-owned subsidiary Robotic Assistance Devices’ (RAD) dealer GSG Protective Services, Inc. in Los Angeles.
ROSA According to RAD, ROSA is an “AI-driven security system including both human and vehicle detection, license plate recognition, and complete integration with the RAD Software suite notification and response library.”
Described as the “ultimate autonomous response device,” ROSA uses powerful AI software and sensors in “a 180° field of view” to enforce mask-wearing.
“This is a game-changer for us,” said Corey English, COO of GSG Protective Services, the RAD dealer who sold both ROSA devices.
“Face mask enforcement in this environment is challenging, and the RAD lineup allows reinforcement of critical regulations that are in place for everyone’s safety – without bias and without confrontation,” English said.
Steve Reinharz, Founder and CEO of RAD, said ROSA records violators and repeat offenders of those who fail to wear masks.
“The ability to record violators, and particularly repeat violators, gives high profile end-users such as this one options for enforcement and general security,” said Reinharz. “It’s great to see the first order specifically for this technology come within a very short period of time from when we announced it.”
As ROSA gains popularity in Hollywood, a much wider release of the wall robot is expected, due mostly because half of the country is now under mask requirement orders as virus cases and deaths soar.
Corporations and local authorities cannot dedicate their time to mask-wearing enforcement as hot pockets of social unrest continue around the country. That is why elites will resort to AI technology to monitor Americans, and in some cases, make sure they’re wearing masks.
The press release didn’t state if there were any consequences for mask offenders at the studio.
- After 30 Years, Did The Disabilities Act Work?
After 30 Years, Did The Disabilities Act Work?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 22:30Authored by James Bovard via The American Institute for Economic Research,
Thirty years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed [7/26/1990] the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was supposed to create a new era of equality and justice.
Instead, the ADA often turns disabilities into assets, encouraging far more people to claim to be disabled to receive special treatment or privileges.
The ADA’s breadth and vagueness have spurred a deluge of absurd federal decrees and more than half a million lawsuits that risk stigmatizing people the law sought to assist.
The ADA is essentially a federal command for people to treat certain other people “nice”- with harsh penalties for any behavior considered not nice – and with niceness defined on a case-by-case basis through endless court cases and complaint settlements. Anyone who is disabled acquires a legal right to request accommodations from employers and others, with the federal government and private lawyers waiting to sue anyone who fails to “accommodate.” Congress defined “disability” far more broadly than most Americans recognize, including anyone who claims they have significant trouble standing, lifting, bending, reading, concentrating, or thinking.
The ADA is known as “Attorney’s Dreams Answered.” According to lawyer Mark Pulliam, the ADA “may be the most widely-abused law in our history…. Nationwide, a cottage industry has developed among a bottom-feeding element of the plaintiffs’ bar that specializes in bringing a high volume of cookie-cutter lawsuits against small businesses for technical violations of the ADA, and extorting quick settlements of several thousand dollars each.” Federal judges have characterized mass-produced ADA lawsuits as a “sham” and “an ongoing scheme to bilk attorneys’ fees from the defendant.”
Hundreds of Florida businesses were hit with cookie-cutter ADA access lawsuits in 2016 and 2019 complaining that “the pipes in the bathrooms weren’t properly wrapped” and similar grave perils. The Florida News-Press reported that “some of the harshest critics of these suits come from people who are disabled or advocate on behalf of people with disabilities.” Kevin Berry, co-chairman of the Southwest Florida ADA Council, complained that the lawsuit surge “has the reverse effect. If someone comes in with a wheelchair or an obvious disability, the (business owner) is saying, ‘Here comes a lawsuit.’”
One federal judge denounced a lawyer filing such lawsuits for behaving like “a parasite disguised as a social engineer.” But the legal carpet-bombing continues. Late last year, four law firms filed “more than 100 putative class actions charging that retailers are violating the ADA by marketing gift cards that do not include Braille versions,” as the Cato Institute’s Walter Olson, one of the ADA’s most persistent and perceptive critics, reported.
“You snooze, you lose — you sue,” was the New York Post’s summary of the latest ADA lawsuit trend for sleep apnea sufferers. An obese New York hospital employee sued her former employer for $10 million in 2018 because she was fired after twice falling asleep at her job as an ambulance dispatcher. Her lawyer told the New York Post: “Helen didn’t have a job where it was critical that she be awake 100 percent of the time.” A Kansas policeman who repeatedly fell asleep in his patrol car received almost a million dollars in a jury verdict.
An ex-policeman in the Chicago suburbs filed a lawsuit seeking $75,000 in damages because he was fired after driving drunk, hitting and badly injuring a pedestrian, and leaving the scene of the accident. The ex-policeman claims his firing violates the ADA because he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The ADA is increasingly derailing the Internet. University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein observed, “The ability to work and shop online at one’s own pace offers a set of dazzling technological improvements that have done more to help the disabled than the massive expenditures under the ADA.” Lawyers are increasingly suing colleges, companies, and other targets because their websites are not accessible to the blind, claiming that web pages are “places of public accommodations.” The University of California at Berkeley created a vast offering of free online lectures but threats from the Justice Department resulted in its shutdown in 2016.”
The Justice Department promised to provide clear compliance guidelines for ADA online access but abandoned the task after issuing conflicting guidance. A tidal wave of litigation resulted, including more than two thousand federal lawsuits on Internet access in 2018 – three times as many as in 2017. Domino’s Pizza was successfully sued by a blind person who claimed he was denied “full and equal enjoyment” of its pizza offerings on its website and app – even though Domino’s offered 13 other ways to place an order for a pizza. Yaroslav Suris, a deaf man, recently sued Pornhub and similar websites claiming that they violated the ADA. Suris complained that, because of lack of closed captioning, he was unable to comprehend the action in “Hot Step Aunt Babysits Disobedient Nephew.”
The ADA is roiling schools and colleges by incentivizing disability claims by students seeking privileges. Three times as many college students now consider themselves mentally ill compared to the 1980s. The ADA compels schools to provide “reasonable” accommodations” to students who claim to be disabled – and a doctor’s note is all the proof they need. Up to 25% of students at top colleges “are now classified as disabled, largely because of mental-health issues such as depression or anxiety, entitling them to a widening array of special accommodations like longer time to take exams,” the Wall Street Journal reported in 2018. Lawyer Miriam Kurtzig Freedman observed that giving extra time on tests to people claiming disabilities is “like lowering the basket from 10 feet to eight feet; you’re changing the game.”
Catch-all federal disability definitions have spawned “Noah’s Ark in the air.” The federal Department of Transportation entitled almost anyone who asserts they have an emotional or mental disorder to bring “emotional support animals” on airplanes. The result is a million cats, kangaroos, squirrels, peacocks, pigs, monkeys, miniature horses, and untrained dogs brought onboard flights each year. Uncontrolled animals have engaged in wholesale “urinating, defecating, and biting” passengers, according to a recent Federal Register notice. The only thing necessary to qualify to bring your pets onboard is to spend $99 for an “emotional support animal letter” from one of the many dubious websites offering to certify people’s disorders.
The ADA has also been a disaster at helping the disabled find work and become financially self-reliant. The percentage of disabled who are employed has fallen sharply since the ADA was enacted. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study concluded that the ADA reduced employment “of disabled men of all working ages and all disabled women under age 40.” Between 1991 and 2010, the percentage of disabled who were employed fell from 50% to 41.% The Census Bureau reported earlier this year that only 19% of persons with a disability were employed in 2019, compared to 66% of people without a disability.
The ADA sought to achieve progress by maximizing the number of lawsuits, as if average citizens and businesses must be endlessly scourged into decency. The ADA’s absurdities and ritualized legal racketeering are occurring in an era when Americans have become far more humane, rational, and compassionate towards the disabled.
It is time to end the flying kangaroos, college testing scams, and torpedoed websites and to finally curb the parasite lawyers.
- Democratic Ex-Congressman Charged With Rigging Votes, Bribery, Falsifying Records And Obstruction
Democratic Ex-Congressman Charged With Rigging Votes, Bribery, Falsifying Records And Obstruction
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 22:11A federal grand jury has indicted former Pennsylvania Senator Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers on charges that the Philadelphia Democrat committed election fraud for his alleged role in a ballot box-stuffing scheme in 2014, 2015 and 2016, according to CBS Philly.
Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers (D) Myers, 77, is charged with conspiring with and bribing another Democrat – former Judge Domenick J. DeMuro, who pleaded guilty in May to accepting the money in the ballot box scheme while he served as a judge of elections. DeMuro’s responsibilities included overseeing a polling place during voting.
DeMuro, 73, charged between $300 and $5,000 per election to rig the votes for Myers, who in turn charged his clients “consulting fees” which were used to pay off multiple Election Board Officials. The disgraced judge would illegally add votes for certain candidates – many of whom paid for the votes, and others who Myers favored for other reasons. According to this week’s indictment.
“Free and fair elections are the hallmark of our system of government,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the DOJ’s Criminal Division. “The Department of Justice has zero tolerance for corruption of the electoral process, and we will spare no effort in investigating and prosecuting those who would seek an unfair advantage at the polls by bribing state and local officials responsible for ensuring the fairness of our elections.”
In a Thursday statement, US Attorney William M. McSwain said “If only one vote has been illegally rung up or fraudulently stuffed into a ballot box, the integrity of that entire election is undermined,” adding “Votes are not things to be purchased and democracy is not for sale.”
Myers had previously been convicted of bribery and conspiracy for taking money from FBI agents who posed as Arab sheiks in the 1970s “Abscam” scandal, according to CBS Philly.
A former ward leader and former cargo checker on the Philly waterfront, he was captured on tape saying a $15,000 bribe was not sufficient.
Myers was expelled from Congress in 1980 and served more than a year in federal prison before his release in 1985. –CBS Philly
DeMuro faces up to 15 years at his September sentencing.
- Watch AI Robo-Barber Cut Hair In Post-COVID World
Watch AI Robo-Barber Cut Hair In Post-COVID World
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 22:10There were several problems people encountered during the virus pandemic. The first, if you couldn’t afford a private barber to make an at-home visit – well, there were no barbershops opened because state governments deemed these businesses non-essential. The second issue, as economies reopened, allowing barbershop to resume operations, people who seriously needed a trim, were still fearful of stepping inside a commercial setting, nevertheless, having a stranger hover over them and touch their head for 15-30 minutes.
The pandemic has undoubtedly created a confidence crisis in barbershops. To solve this issue, one millennial during the epidemic built an impressive robot that cuts hair.
Shane Wighton of the YouTube channel Stuff Made Here built what appears to be a robo-barber using AI.
“There are no buzzers or trimmer involved, just a pair of scissors. And a whole lot of engineering and programming skills,” said Nerdist.
Here’s the general gist of how it works. The cutting mechanism, attached to an adjustable lever, rotates around the head of the “customer.” The machine then selects hair and measures how far away it is from the person’s scalp. That way it won’t accidentally cut them. Then, a vacuum grabs the hair and sucks it up. The hair is pulled tight, just like a human would do, while a small section of locks is portioned off. Then the attached scissors snip away the exposed hair at the correct angle. The entire device is attached to a computer program that allows the user to select the haircut of their choice.
Ultimately it was successful. The built-in safety mechanisms worked, as Wighton was never harmed, and he got a passable haircut. Passable. But there were some issues. A math error made the haircut take four times longer than it should have. The protective mechanism also stopped the machine from cutting hair near his ears. -Nerdist
Wighton explains in the video how the robot works. There’s also a demonstration of the robot cutting the inventor’s hair.
While robo-barbers could instill confidence among consumers in a post-corona world – the more significant issue will be permanent job loss as the virus has forced corporations to adopt automation and AI at hyperspeed.
- Levine: Reading The Market's Postmodern Mind
Levine: Reading The Market’s Postmodern Mind
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 21:50Authored by Seth Levine via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
No matter how you slice it, markets are human. This even applies to the “algos” as it’s we who write their mechanistic marching orders. Thus, understanding human behavior can be helpful in assessing and anticipating market moves. There’s no choice in the fact that we all need a philosophy to live. The same holds for investing. Thus, understanding the dominant market philosophies can potentially give us an investing edge. We can thank Tony Greer, the editor of the Morning Navigator, for doing just this.
In a recent Hidden Forces interview, Greer casually states the following:
“I’ve been calling it financial postmodernism, Demetri (emphasis added).
And I call it that because we just came out of a scenario where as we were getting the actual read on what the lockdown did to the economy and those literally ghoulish economic data numbers, the stock market was putting in massive upside rallies, right? And it was rallying off of the lows and it was rallying off of a spike low. So, it looked even more obnoxious that Wall Street is celebrating while Main Street is getting crushed. And that was sort of the new dichotomy that happened right through, jeez, I guess through April, May, and right into June. Where you’re getting an economic data point on Friday of 9 million people unemployed and nonfarm payrolls and you’re getting the S&P up 6% in the same day against the headlines of Dow up 1,000 on CNBC.
And people are like, ‘What the hell is going on here? What? Does Wall Street not care? Does the market not care?’”
Tony Greer, Hidden Forces Episode 142
Greer’s characterization of today’s investment markets as financial postmodernism is as genius as it is obscure. Since mentioning it, I see parallels between today’s investment markets and the postmodern philosophy everywhere. Perhaps teasing out Greer’s identification can help make better sense of these seemingly insane investment conditions.
What is Postmodernism
Only recently did I stumble upon postmodernism. I never heard the term before and suspect few outside the halls of academia have either. While largely unknown, it’s hard to escape postmodernism’s effect on the culture. Investment markets are just one manifestation.
Postmodernism is an intellectual movement with roots dating back to the 1950s in America. It’s a mixture of philosophy and history that underpins much of the modern culture, and especially the political Left. While postmodernism’s intellectual leaders may not be household names, many postmodern ideas are unfortunately commonplace. These include the beliefs that the U.S. is fundamentally racist, sexist, and shallowly materialistic; that Christopher Columbus is a villain; that one’s ethnicity or race define one’s politics; that Western nations exploit the less developed, and; that humans are a scourge destroying the planet.
My introduction to postmodernism came via Stephen Hicks. Hicks is a philosophy professor and author. His book Explaining Postmodernism masterfully does just that. It both outlines postmodernism’s core tenets and maps its historical lineage from the end of the Enlightenment up to the present day.
According to Hicks:
“Postmodernism’s essentials are the opposite of modernism’s.
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Instead of natural reality—anti-realism.
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Instead of experience and reason—linguistic social subjectivism.
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Instead of individual identity and autonomy—various race, sex, and class group-isms.
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Instead of human interests as fundamentally harmonious and tending toward mutually-beneficial interaction—conflict and oppression.
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Instead of valuing individualism in values, markets, and politics—calls for communalism, solidarity, and egalitarian restraints.
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Instead of prizing the achievement of science and technology—suspicion tending toward outright hostility.”
Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism
The following chart compares postmodernism’s perspectives with preceding philosophies’. Note that Hicks uses “modernism” synonymously with Enlightenment ideas and ascribes “pre-modernism” to the dominant intellectual framework from 400 to 1300 CE.
Source: Explaining Postmodernism
Hicks’s summaries are heavy, even for those steeped in philosophy. Nonetheless, the above is a useful framework for examining the zeitgeist of the financial markets. Let’s take it one step at a time to tease out postmodernism’s various influences.
Metaphysics
Metaphysics sits at the base of all philosophic systems. It describes the nature of existence (the “meta” moniker is not ironic). For example, are things simply as they appear (A is A in Aristotelian parlance), or can supernatural forces alter the natural world that we perceive? Hicks describes the postmodern view as:
“… anti-realist, holding that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about an independently existing reality. Postmodernism substitutes instead a social-linguistic, constructionist account of reality.”
Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism
To me, anti-realism is the perfect description for today’s markets. Many people assume that markets must continue to rise. That’s what they’ve always done so that’s what they’ll always do. It’s just the way the world works. The underlying causes and possibilities for change are almost ignored. Then there are those who see markets as distorted and disconnected from economic realities. Central banks and covert “plunge protection teams” are backstopping the equity markets to ensure that they never decline. There’s no other explanation for their behavior given the mess the economy is in.
To be honest, I see partial truths in both arguments. There’s plenty of evidence for there being a “Fed put” and Donald Trump does make every attempt to pump the stock market. However, human prosperity continues to advance and there could be other potential reasons for the stock market’s unrelenting rise (i.e. financial asset creation is lagging wealth’s).
Regardless, the market simply is; it is an immutable fact. Treating it as such is a realist perspective. Rather than looking to conspiracies or a long term trend line that ignores the path dependency of returns, this perspective should simply try to uncover the current market drivers and probabilities for change. To contest its state is to contest reality. It is an anti-realist stance.
Epistemology
Epistemology is another philosophy concept that I needed to look up two or three hundred times before I grasped its meaning. It’s the science of knowledge formation. In other words, epistemology examines how we uncover truths about the world. Do we learn by using the scientific method or do we receive wisdom from revelations; and is there even such a thing as truth to begin with?!
“To say that we should drop the idea of truth as out there waiting to be discovered is not to say that we have discovered that, out there, there is no truth. It is to say that our purpose would be served best by ceasing to see truth as a deep matter, as a topic of philosophic interest, or ‘true’ as a term which repays ‘analysis.’ ‘The nature of truth’ is an unprofitable topic, resembling in this respect ‘the nature of man’ and ‘the nature of God’ …”
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
According to postmodernism, there is no such thing as “truth.” Knowledge comes from consensus. Thus, reality can be whatever we want it to be, so long as enough people believe it.
How true this rings in today’s world of endless market interventions. Central banks have adopted zero and negative interest rate policies, and are voraciously buying sovereign bonds, mortgage bonds, corporate bonds, “junk bonds”, exchange traded funds, and even equities outright (as of this writing, the Swiss National Bank is a top 30 shareholder of Apple according to Bloomberg). What’s the reason for all these drastic actions? Well, because this misplaced concept of inflation is apparently undershooting some arbitrary target of course! (Huh?)
Sadly, there is little concern for the separation of governments from the capital markets. This feature is conveniently ignored as if it were an accident. So long as we believe these interventions produce prosperity it must be so. Never mind that monetary policy is just another price control with predictable effects; or that any attempt to tip the scale of markets only acts to destroy them and the immense prosperity they produce. We simply wish it were different so it must be so. Truth shmuth. This is the essence of social subjectivism.
Human Nature
We can even see hints of Postmodernism in how we view markets themselves. According to Hicks, postmodernism sees humans as pertaining to different groups that are in constant conflict. There are no individuals acting according to their own mind or for mutual benefit. Life is merely a zero-sum, social construction made up of competing teams.
“Postmodern accounts of human nature are consistently collectivist, holding that individuals’ identities are constructed largely by the social-linguistic groups that they are part of, those groups varying radically across the dimensions of sex, race, ethnicity, and wealth. Postmodern accounts of human nature also consistently emphasize relations of conflict between those groups; and given the de-emphasized or eliminated role of reason, postmodern accounts hold that those conflicts are resolved primarily by the use of force, whether masked or naked; the use of force in turn leads to relations of dominance, submission, and oppression.”
Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism
This collectivism and conflict have analogues in financial markets. We rarely describe them as beneficial methods for allocating capital to individual companies, countries, and entities. They are more commonly considered ways to disperse wealth among competing interests. The characterization takes various forms such as profits vs. wages, shareholders vs. other “stakeholders”, Wall Street vs. Main Street, “labor” vs. “capital”, and so on. Furthermore, only governments (i.e. force) can possibly arbiter these perceived conflicts. We must breakup “Big Tech” monopolies, regulate business, and “nudge” people in the direction of the “common good.” Left to his/her own devices, the free human would destroy financial markets, modern economies, and the planet. Thus, the intellectual elite, who somehow lack these intrinsic faults, must plan every action.
Ethics
Ethics is the science that studies how we should act. Our defined purpose for living frames the context for these decisions. Thus, you will come to a different moral code by making your own happiness paramount than by putting all others’ first (and your’s last).
Hicks describes the postmodern take on ethics as egalitarianism. Here, the belief in equality does not mean political equality, but rather a metaphysical equality. In other words, it’s not that we’re unique individuals who should be treated equally under the law; it’s that we’re literally all the same: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We differ only by our various group identities (but are interchangeable within our belonged tribes). Individual values are a myth.
In my view, there’s a parallel to passive investing. Today’s investing context is quite small. Only returns and price fluctuations (i.e. volatility) matter. What’s your Sharpe ratio? If its worse than passive indices with higher fees, watch out, outflows will likely follow.
While maximizing returns is a key investment goal, it is not the only one. The value of investing cannot be divorced from the investor. Investing—like all actions—serves a purpose to an entity (person, pensioners, etc.). These needs are individualized. Why should every portfolio maximize its Sharpe ratio? To be sure volatility is a admirable attempt to quantify investment risk. However, there’s a whole host of other attributes like liquidity, governance, and political environments that may also suit an investor’s preferences. While I’m sympathetic to the case for passive investing, I take issue with its limited dimensionality. It paints everyone’s financial values with the same brush. This is the spirit of egalitarianism.
Politics and Economics
Politics describes the appropriate rules for governing human social systems. Thus, it follows from one’s deeper philosophic principles; politics do not stand on their own. Capitalism is the application of individualism in ethics to a group setting. Collectivism (socialism, communism, fascism, etc.) results from viewing people as parts of various factions. In other words, what we think of the goose dictates our prescriptions for the gander.
According to Hicks, postmodernists are rationalizing socialists. Their world views logically lead them to collectivism. However, the postmodernists have a problem. Socialism’s historical record is disastrous. Whenever (and to the extent) it’s been implemented, misery, poverty, death, and destruction have followed. Furthermore, not only have dire predictions for capitalism failed to materialize as postmodernists expect, but it created unimaginable prosperity.
What’s a postmodernist to do when his/her beliefs are in such stark conflict with reality? Simple, just ignore facts and invent a good narrative. After all, there is no truth, so go spin a good story and exercise some power.
“Postmodernism, Frank Lentricchia explains, ‘seeks not to find the foundation and the conditions of truth but to exercise power for the purpose of social change.”
Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism
What could be more postmodern than Mario Draghi’s “whatever it takes” speech. Given in a July 2012 address at the Global Investment Conference in London, the serving President of the European Central Bank (ECB) stated the following with respect to the European Union:
“When people talk about the fragility of the Euro … very often non-Euro area member states or leaders, underestimate the amount of political capital that is being invested in the Euro. … Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the Euro (emphasis added). And believe me, it will be enough.”
Mario Draghi
Draghi’s comment is laughable. Maintaining the Euro is well beyond the ECB’s power to control. However, it’s a clear instance of rhetoric trumping facts. There are plenty more. Take quantitative easing (QE) for example. It’s failed to deliver on its original promise and only resulted in more. How about Japan’s monetary policies? They are the model for most major central banks, yet the Bank of Japan’s efficacy is wholly ignored. It’s as if central banks throughout the Western world are simply competing to one-up the next. There’s no evidence that their theories are correct. Yet, they remain popular.
There are other ways too. Failure is not tolerated. In policy, it’s ignored. In industry and markets, pain is collectivized for the greater good of “the economy”, or “the workers”, or “the nation”, or pick your group. Bailouts are now commonplace. Policymakers and central banks reflexively act to prop up all markets, as one. We’re a far cry from capitalism.
When and Where
Just as postmodernism got its start in the late 20th century, so too did the current market’s philosophy. While Alan Greenspan’s reign as Fed governor may seem like its origin—after all, he’s the father of the “Fed put” due to his attempts to prop up investment markets—I believe Richard Nixon’s presidency is a better starting point.
It was Nixon who ushered in the modern era of fiat currency. By removing the dollar’s objective standard of value, its worth became completely subjective. We now must rely upon official releases riddled with vague adjustments to gauge its purchasing power. We can’t ascertain it ourselves. The dollar became a social construct! This lack of objectivity, self-reliance, and autonomy has postmodernism’s fingerprints all over it.
Our Postmodern Markets
The financial postmodernism that Greer astutely notes is merely a reflection of the culture. Many of the philosophy’s absurd beliefs have parallels in the investment markets. This manifests in heavy-handed regulations, endless interventions, and a neurotic obsession with markets’ continual rise to name a few. The investment markets are a far cry from a capitalist utopia—no surprise given our world views.
As investors, identifying the dominant ideas being expressed in the economy can be a useful edge. After all, markets are nothing more than an aggregation of human interactions. Understanding how an investment culture behaves might allow us to better anticipate how investors will integrate new information into price movements. These fluctuations may differ whether pre-modernist, modernist, or postmodernist principles are dominant. Greer’s anecdote illustrates this perfectly. The equity market rise following “literally ghoulish economic data” surprised many.
To be sure, this is a complex research topic worthy of deep exploration. We merely scratched the surface in this article. Hopefully though, we uncovered some ideas that can help us better read the market’s mind, see around corners, and grow our p&ls.
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- Nearly 75% Of Adults Say Social Media Companies Wield Too Much Power And Influence Over Politics: Pew
Nearly 75% Of Adults Say Social Media Companies Wield Too Much Power And Influence Over Politics: Pew
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 21:30A new poll from Pew Research finds that 72% of American adults think social media companies wield too much power and influence over politics.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg According to a survey conducted last week, just 22% of Americans believe Silicon Valley technocrats hold the ‘right amount’ of political power, while just 6% believe it’s ‘not enough.’
Nearly 9 out of 10 ‘conservative Republicans’ (89%) feel social media platforms have too much power vs. 74% of ‘moderate or liberal Republicans,’ while liberal Democrats are slightly more likely than moderate or conservative Democrats to agree (68% vs. 60%).
Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats believe social media companies wield too much power, but Republicans are particularly likely to express this view. Roughly eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (82%) think these companies have too much power and influence in politics, compared with 63% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely than Republicans to say these companies have about the right amount of power and influence in politics (28% vs. 13%). Small shares in both parties believe these companies do not have enough power. –Pew Research
The results echoed a similar 2018 Center survey which found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to believe social media platforms censor political content, and are biased towards liberal views.
On July 27, CEOs of Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google will appear together in front of Congress for the first time to testify before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, which has spent the last year investigating competition within the tech industry.
Beyond debates about fair business practices, the tech industry has also come under fire in recent months from a host of critics – from President Donald Trump to civil rights advocates and even tech companies’ own employees.
Amid these concerns, Americans favor more, not less, regulation of major technology companies, according to the Center’s recent survey. Some 47% of the public thinks the government should be regulating major technology companies more than they are now, while just 11% think they should be regulated less. About four-in-ten (39%) believe regulation should stay at its current level. –Pew Research
Will lawmakers push for oversight so that Silicon Valley tech platforms stop discriminating along party lines?
- The COVID Panic Is A Lesson In Using Statistics To Get Your Way In Politics
The COVID Panic Is A Lesson In Using Statistics To Get Your Way In Politics
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 21:10Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
It is unlikely that pundits, politicians, and the general public have ever been so obsessed with numbers as they are right now. I speak, of course, of the numbers surrounding deaths and illnesses attributed to COVID-19.
For months now, every new day has brought new headlines about total COVID-19 infections, total deaths, and estimates put out by models claiming to predict how many deaths will soon occur.
These numbers have become the focal points of many politicians’ careers. This is especially true for state governors and other politicians in executive positions who now in this time of “emergency” essentially rule by decree. New edicts are regularly issued by policymakers, allegedly based on an assessment of the all-important numbers. These decrees may unilaterally close businesses, cut people off from important medical procedures, ban religious gatherings, or even attempt to confine people to their homes. Those who refuse to comply may have their livelihoods destroyed.
“The Number” becomes the standard by which all behavior is judged. Will Activity X increase The Number or decrease it? For those who wish to engage in Activity Z, they must first prove that it will not increase The Number. Nothing shall be allowed that doesn’t have a good effect on The Number.
But there’s a problem with this way of doing things: the number in question only tells us about the one thing being measured. If we only have a number for that one thing, then we tend to ignore all the other things that aren’t being assigned a number.
Focusing on One Number, Ignoring Others
Things get even more lopsided if one number is being continually updated in real time, while other numbers are updated only occasionally.
We can certainly see all of this this at work in the COVID-19 debate. During March 2020 much of the population suddenly became very interested in the latest COVID-19 totals. Johns Hopkins University created a web site to show the spread of the disease, and Worldometer — a site normally only useful for checking the population of, say, Bolivia — began publishing continually updated numbers on total COVID-19 cases and deaths. Models predicting the future course of the disease began to spring up. The ever-rising total deaths number then was compared against the predictions of the models — such as the Imperial College London model predicting more than 2 million deaths in the United States.
This immediately changed the terms of the debate over what measures to take in response to COVID-19. Faced with rising COVID-19 numbers at Worldometer and related sites, and accompanied by news stories asserting hospitals everywhere will soon run out of room, panicky voters began to demand action from politicians.
“Look at that terrible number!” was essentially the “argument.” This was followed by the phrase “do something!” Seeing that their opportunity to seize vast new powers had arrived, health bureaucrats were quick to pounce: “quarantine everyone!” they demanded. “there’s no time to consider the downside.”
Ignoring the Costs of COVID-19 Shutdowns
Nearly overnight, the only numbers that mattered anymore were the COVID-19 numbers.
When the advocates for coerced “lockdowns” business closures and stay-at-home orders finally prevailed, a minority nonetheless asked: what are the negative effects of these measures?
These people were thoroughly ignored. They didn’t have any continually-updating, media-friendly, easy-to-access numbers on their side.
In fact, the numbers that illustrated the dark side of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders only began to trickle out, any without any online ticker to announce every new case.
For instance, in April, doctors began to report they were seeing more cases of severe child abuse (both sexual and non-sexual) than before the lockdowns. The lockdowns cut children off from relatives and settings that offered an escape from abuse. Moreover, the likelihood for abuse increased as the lockdown put more financial and emotional stress on families. But did child abuse receive much media attention? Certainly not. Child abuse victims have no dedicated website with a number that’s posted daily at CNN or The Drudge Report.
We encounter a similar problem with suicides and drug overdoses . Although there is much evidence that suicides, drug overdoses, and other “deaths of despair ” have increased as a result of lockdowns, these threats to life and limb have received little attention by politicians and media outlets looking to maximize fears of COVID-19. Once again, suicides and drug overdoses have no “daily death toll” relentlessly featured in media stories. These deaths aren’t counted in real time.
Even worse, perhaps, are the measures adopted by state governors that reduce access to essential medical care. As a result of this widespread effort to deny basic medical care to non-COVID patients, hundreds of doctors in May, organized by Dr. Simone Gold, published an open letter to Donald Trump calling for action to end the medical lockdowns. The letter states that the Americans denied treatment under COVID lockdowns includes
150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse. Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.
Further complicating matters is the fact many of the negative repercussions of lockdowns and business closures lead to long-term costs. We know that unemployment brings higher mortality due to a wide variety of ailments, long after the initial period of unemployment began.
It’s Easy to Ignore What You Don’t Measure
Yet the impact of unemployment on mortality and mental health was almost entirely ignored. This was partly due to the fact that unemployment numbers are not updated daily, as COVID-19 numbers are. The fact 40 million Americans lost their jobs during the lockdowns — and more than 20 million remain unemployed today — continues to be treated as a minor affair. Any increased mortality that results will be labeled simply as a “heart attack.” No connection will be made to the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Thus, the Gold letter continues:
The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.
In other words, there will be no media-friendly web site listing the long and lingering effects of the lockdowns. There will be no list of abused children, the destitute, the suicides, and the victims of drug abuse who couldn’t get the help they needed. There will be no list of cancer patients denied care because their states’ governors decided cancer diagnostics were “elective” medical procedures.
Indeed, so unimportant are the deaths and illnesses uncounted in any any government tally, that politicians are now talking about another round of stay-at-home orders and lockdowns. Los Angeles city officials are threatening to impose new lockdown measures, and at least one county in Texas has implemented a stay-at-home order.
Those who support these measures need only point to the official statistics: “see, we must do something to keep this COVID-19 number from getting bigger!” The number will be there for all to see.
But the child abuse, the suicides, and the cancer deaths? There’s no Worldometer number to point to.
There’s an important lesson here. Since the nineteenth century, government bureaucrats, politicians, and other advocates for more government action have long sought greater use of government statistics as a means of justifying government interventions in the marketplace. In this way of thinking, that which is measured is that which merits government planning.
It’s simply another illustration of Frederic Bastiat’s lesson of “the seen” versus “the unseen.” As with most government interventions, the public is only interested in the easily seen “benefits” of government intervention. All the unseen costs of that intervention are simply ignored. Paying government workers to provide a “service” that almost nobody wants? That “creates jobs.” That can easily be seen and measured. The lost wealth that results from such a pointless endeavor? That’s hard to measure, and can be ignored.
But we’re now learning that, in order to be counted among the “seen,” it’s not enough to just have an occasionally updated statistic. If we want our statistic to receive a lot of attention, it must be easily-found by the public, and be easy for journalists—most of whom lack the skills to engage in serious research—to use. A daily-updated COVID-19 death number, will beat an an annual estimate of drug overdoses any day.
This is partly why the pandemics of 1958 and 1969 received so much less attention – even though the 1958 pandemic remains deadlier than the current pandemic. Those pandemics had no web site, and no concerted media effort to maximize attention paid to a daily-mounting death toll.
- Home Prices Surge In Hamptons As Wealthy New Yorkers Flee City
Home Prices Surge In Hamptons As Wealthy New Yorkers Flee City
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 20:50The Hamptons housing market is booming. But how? Isn’t the economy in shambles and the recovery stalling?
Well, yes, but as we’ve discussed over the last several weeks, those who still have the economic mobility are fleeing cities for rural communities and towns, such as the one on eastern Long Island’s South Fork.
For the same price as a multi-million dollar 5 bedroom Manhattan condo, one can easily afford a mansion, with a few acres, garden, tennis court, and maybe even a pool in the Hamptons. If lockdowns come again, instead of being cooped up in a building with no yard, one can have a relaxing cocktail on the back patio while remote working and enjoying the sounds of nature.
A new report via Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman (seen by CNBC), outlines how Hampton home prices have hit a new record high due to the influx of New Yorkers permanently leaving the city for the beach town.
The median price of a single-family home in the luxurious beach town hit $1.1 million in 2Q20, a 25% increase YoY. The average sale price of a home in the Hamptons during the quarter was up 21% to about $2.1 million, which is relatively cheap, considering how much Manhattan condos cost.
After a couple of years of weakness, Hamptons real estate appears to be bouncing back. The weekenders who have shown up to the beach town for holidays are now becoming permanent residents as city life, considering today’s unprecedented challenges, just doesn’t make sense anymore.
“These aren’t weekenders, or people just here from Memorial Day to Labor Day,” said Gary DePersia, a top broker in the Hamptons with Corcoran. “They plan to be here full time for the duration.”
DePersia said one of his buyers now works remotely and doesn’t need to be in the city anymore.
Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, said 2Q sales in the Hamptons slumped 15% over last year because of the virus pandemic, but it was nothing like the 54% crash in Manhattan. He said once lockdowns in the city ended in June, sales in the Hamptons “exploded.”
Miller said wealthy families would on longer spend their days in the city, even after a vaccine is developed. Folks are quickly renovating or buying more year-round homes in the Hamptons.
“I call it ‘co-primary’ residences,” he said. “It’s not just using the Hamptons for summers and occasional weekends. It’s equal to their Manhattan residence.”
Miller said the virus pandemic has given Hamptons real estate a bump, adding that, “the pandemic may have started the trend, but it’s the technology, and the acceptance of working from home now, that will make it more lasting.”
And it’s not just wealthy folks abandoning the city, Wall Street firms are leaving as well…
- Harvard Faces Demands To Rename "Board Of Overseers" Over Slavery Ties
Harvard Faces Demands To Rename “Board Of Overseers” Over Slavery Ties
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 20:30Authored by James Ferguson via Campus Reform,
The Harvard University Board of Overseers is under pressure to alter its name due to the term having ties to slavery.
The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard is calling for the board to drop the title “overseer,” as the term was also used to refer to individuals who managed plantations. The alumni organization Harvard Forward brought attention to the“Board of Overseers” name in a series of tweets.
“Today, on the 237th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, we join the @harvarddiverse Coalition in calling to #RenameTheOverseers,” Harvard Forward tweeted July 8.
Sources:https://t.co/LgjxefnQNghttps://t.co/Io4pMRPI0mhttps://t.co/6tcgSu0PRzhttps://t.co/tpzghrazm0https://t.co/ZKW40JdXq4
— Harvard Forward (@HarvardForward) July 9, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“‘Overseer’ also refers to men hired by plantation owners during that same time period to violently control and abuse enslaved people. Plantation overseers were paid to elicit the most work out of enslaved people, and they often resorted to violent disciplinary tactics and brutal torture. Narratives from enslaved people are filled with accounts of mutilations, burnings, & whippings at the hands of overseers,” the group stated, claiming that “the term ‘overseer’ cannot be separated from its historical context and connotations.”
“The continued use of a word characterized by such deep-rooted racism is a testament to Harvard’s failure to confront our country’s history.”
The group began its campaign to change the name of Harvard’s “second-highest governing body” in 2017, as the Harvard Crimson reported.
The board itself consists of 30 alumni and has the power to appoint the university president.
In June, the University of Louisville scrapped the title “overseer” from its student government bodies, saying the term “hearkens back to American slavery and reminds us of the brutality of the conditions and treatment of black people during this time,” University of Louisville President Neeli Bendapudi.
Harvard’s Board of Overseers is not the first organization to come under scrutiny at the Ivy League institution. A petition in June to rename the Mather House, named for Increase Mather, a Harvard president and slave owner who attended the university in 1656.
The university’s board elections began July 1. The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard has backed five candidates who have endorsed altering the name “overseer” as part of their election platform, the Crimson reported. One of the candidates, John E. Betty said it was difficult for the noun “overseer” to be “divorced” from connections with slavery, saying “we need to change” and further stated that the Board of Overseers “is a bit of a relic around Harvard history and linguistics.”
The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard did not respond to Campus Reform’s request for comment.
- COVID-19 And The Pandemic Of Surveillance
COVID-19 And The Pandemic Of Surveillance
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 19:50Authored by J.D.Tuccille via Reason.com,
Americans are increasingly monitored, and COVID-19 health concerns aren’t improving the situation…
Pandemic maps are all the rage, these days, but the latest one from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a little different; instead of viral hotspots, it displays a plague of official snoopiness, arranged by location and sortable by technology. While it documents intrusions that predate the current crisis, the Atlas of Surveillance is all too relevant to the age of coronavirus. Concerns about curtailing contagion help to normalize detailed scrutiny of people’s lives and drive us toward a pervasive surveillance state.
“The Atlas of Surveillance database, containing several thousand data points on over 3,000 city and local police departments and sheriffs’ offices nationwide, allows citizens, journalists, and academics to review details about the technologies police are deploying, and provides a resource to check what devices and systems have been purchased locally,” EFF announced on July 13.
Users can click on the map to see what surveillance technologies are used in specified localities. If you want to see what’s going on in your area, the map is searchable by the name of a city, county, or state. The map can also be filtered according to technologies such as body-worn cameras, drones, and automated license plate readers.
The nearest entry to me is in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where the police department is among the hundreds that have partnered with Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell-camera company.
The Ring partnerships don’t give police live feeds, but they can request video recordings regarding a specific time and area. While participation by Ring customers is voluntary, the partnerships are “a clever workaround for the development of a wholly new surveillance network, without the kind of scrutiny that would happen if it was coming from the police or government,” warns Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law and author of The Rise of Big Data Policing.
Researchers find few crimes solved by the voluntary surveillance partnerships, but the home-security marketing of the Ring arrangement nudges the culture toward an easier acceptance of a panopticon that operates outside of the full range of civil liberties protections.
Also easing America’s slide toward a full surveillance state is fear of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health officials who, just months ago, fretted about overcoming privacy concerns with regard to contact-tracing schemes have turned to governments’ usual solution: threatening harsh penalties for noncompliance.
“Travelers from certain states landing at New York airports starting Tuesday could face a $2,000 fine for failing to fill out a form that state officials will use to track travelers and ensure they’re following quarantine restrictions,” AP reported this week.
Mandatory tracking forms for travelers to New York follow on Rockland County’s earlier efforts to compel cooperation with contact tracers.
“Commissioner of Health Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert urged residents to comply with the Department of Health’s contact tracing efforts and threatened those who do not comply with subpoenas and $2,000 per day fines,” the county announced on July 1.
We can hope that health-related snooping into people’s movements and activities will come to an end when the pandemic passes, but these things have a way of getting embedded in the culture as people become accustomed to them. In the name of controlling infection, many private companies are now closely monitoring employees, including their proximity to one another in the workplace.
“Privacy advocates warn the tracing apps are a slippery slope toward ‘normalizing’ an unprecedented new level of employer surveillance,” notes Politico.
“Aggressive expansion of surveillance programs without adequate checks could normalize privacy intrusions and create systems that may later be used for various forms of political and social repression,” frets Freedom House.
That novel invasions of privacy which might once have set off alarms can become the new normal is clear from public-private surveillance partnerships of the sort that Ring developed with police departments. After the Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant to access cellphone location data in Carpenter v. United States (2018), law enforcement quickly started purchasing data from private marketing firms.
“The Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement,” the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year.
“Experts say the information amounts to one of the largest known troves of bulk data being deployed by law enforcement in the U.S.—and that the use appears to be on firm legal footing because the government buys access to it from a commercial vendor.”
In a growing trend, other agencies, including the FBI and the IRS, have also turned to private sources to monitor social media posts and track cellphone movements. The new surveillance technique is quickly becoming widely established.
Likewise, even after COVID-19 fades to an unpleasant memory, we may find that it has left a legacy of intrusive monitoring of our whereabouts and social connections—all for our own good, we’ll be told.
For now, the growing incidence of public health surveillance is too new and low-tech to be included in the Atlas of Surveillance, which is plenty full as it is.
Selecting “automated license plate readers” reveals dense clusters in California, and in urban areas and along major highways elsewhere.
Clicking on “drones” reveals that they monitor much of the country—especially east of the Mississippi River and along the West Coast—from the sky.
A look at “face recognition technology” shows that it is especially popular in Florida and around Washington, D.C.
As thoroughly monitored as the atlas reveals the country to be, it’s far from complete and EFF invites volunteers to assist in collecting data. As new information trickles in, that map will undoubtedly fill in with new jurisdictions and surveillance efforts as time goes on.
The Atlas of Surveillance will probably fill in with new monitoring technologies, too, including some driven by public health concerns. For officials looking for reasons to poke their noses into other people’s business, the pandemic is as good an excuse as any.
- Visualizing The Impact Of COVID-19 Shutdowns On The Gold Supply Chain
Visualizing The Impact Of COVID-19 Shutdowns On The Gold Supply Chain
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 19:30Chains are only as strong as their weakest link – and, as Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan notes in detail below, recent COVID-19 shutdowns have affected every link in the gold supply chain, from producers to end-users.
Increased investor demand for gold coupled with a constrained supply has led to high prices and a bullish market, which has been operating despite these pressures on the supply chain.
Today’s infographic comes to us from Sprott Physical Bullion Trust and it outlines the gold supply chain and the impacts COVID shutdowns have had on the gold market.
The Ripple Effect: Stalling a Supply Chain
Disruptions to the gold supply chain have rippled all the way from the mine to the investor:
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Production
Some gold mines halted production due to the high-risk to COVID-19 exposure, reducing the supply of gold. In many nations, operations had to shut down as a result of COVID-19 based legal restrictions. -
Delivery
Strict travel regulations restricted the shipment of gold and increased the costs of delivery as less air routes were available and medical supplies were prioritized. -
Refinery
Refineries depend on gold production for input. A reduction in incoming gold and the suspension of labor work shortened the supply of refined gold. -
Metal Traders
Towards the other end of the gold supply chain, traders have faced both constrained supply and increased cost of delivery. These increased costs have translated over to end-users. -
The End Users
Higher demand, lower supply, and increased costs have resulted in higher prices for buyers of gold.
Gold: A Safe Haven for Investors
As the virus spread around the world threatening populations and economies, investors turned to safe-haven investments such as gold to hedge against an economic lockdown.
This increase in investor demand affected the four primary financial markets for gold:
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Futures Contracts:
A futures contract is an agreement for the delivery of gold at a fixed price in the future. These contracts are standardized by futures exchanges such as COMEX. During the initial periods of the pandemic, the price of gold futures spiked to reach a high of US$70 above the spot price. -
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs):
An ETF is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges. ETFs hold assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities such as gold. From the beginning of 2020 to June, the amount of gold held by ETFs massively increased, from 83 million oz to 103 million oz. The SPDR Gold Trust is a great example of how the surge in ETF demand for gold has played out—the organization was forced to lease gold from the Bank of England when it couldn’t buy enough from suppliers. -
Physical Gold for Commerce and Finance:
The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is a market where gold is physically traded over-the-counter. The LBMA recorded 6,573 transfers of gold amounting to 29.2 million oz ($46.4 billion)—all in March 2020. This was the largest amount of monthly transfers since 1996. -
Coins and Small Bars:
One ounce American Gold Eagle coins serve as a good proxy for the demand for physical gold from retail investors. The COINGEAG Index, which tracks the premium price of 1 oz. Gold Eagles, spiked during the early stages of the lockdown.
Each one of these markets requires access to physical gold. COVID-19 restrictions have disrupted shipping and delivery options, making it harder to access gold. The market for gold has been functioning nonetheless.
So how does gold get to customers during a time of crisis?
Gold’s Journey: From the Ground to the Vault
Gold ore goes through several stages before being ready for the market.
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Processing:
Gold must be released from other minerals to produce a doré bar—a semi-pure alloy of gold that needs further purification to meet investment standards. Doré bars are typically produced at mine sites and transported to refiners. -
Refining:
Refineries are responsible for turning semi-pure gold alloys into refined, pure, gold. In addition to reprocessing doré bars from mines, refiners also recycle gold from scrap materials. Although gold mining is geographically diverse and occurs in all continents except Antarctica, there are only a handful of gold refineries around the world. -
Transportation:
Once it’s refined, gold is transported to financial hubs around the world. There are three main ways gold travels the world, each with their own costs and benefits:-
Commercial Flights:
Cheapest of the three options, commercial flights are useful in transporting gold over established passenger routes. However, the volume of gold carried by a commercial flight is typically small and subject to spacing priorities. -
Cargo Planes:
At a relatively moderate cost, cargo planes carry medium to large amounts of gold along established trade routes. The space dedicated to cargo determines the cost, with higher volumes leading to higher shipping prices. -
Chartered Airlines:
Chartered airlines offer a wider range of travel routes with dedicated shipping space and services tailored to customer demand. However, they charge a high price for these conveniences.
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After reaching its destination via air, armored trucks with security personnel move the gold to vaults and customers in financial hubs around the world.
The World’s Biggest Gold Hubs
The U.K.’s bullion banks hold the world’s biggest commercial stockpiles of gold, equal to 10 months of global gold mine output. London is the largest gold hub, with numerous vaults dedicated to gold and other precious metals.
Four of the largest gold refineries in the world are located in Switzerland, making it an important part of the gold supply chain. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai are surprising additions and remain significant traders of gold despite having no mines within their borders.
COVID-19: The Perfect Storm for Gold?
As countries took stringent safety measures such as travel restrictions and border closures, the number of commercial flights dropped exponentially across the world. For the few commercial airlines that still operated, gold was a low-priority cargo as space was dedicated to medical supplies.
This impeded the flow of gold through the supply chain, increasing the cost of delivery and the price of gold. However, thanks to the diverse geography of gold mining, some countries did not halt production—this helped avoid a complete stall in the supply of gold.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the perfect storm for gold by disrupting the global supply chain while investor demand for gold exploded. Despite heightened delivery risks and disruptions, the gold market has managed to continue operating thus far.
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- So You Learned To Code: What Jobs Can You Get After A Developer Bootcamp?
So You Learned To Code: What Jobs Can You Get After A Developer Bootcamp?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 19:10With university campuses closed across America and the fall quarter still uncertain, many current and prospective students are balking at the idea of paying $40,000 a year for what might simply end up being an online education. Students from established institutions like Stanford and Wharton have requested tuition refunds for Spring, and even if some colleges say they will open in August, it could all change by September.
Because of this disruption, some students are choosing to defer their higher education and are looking for an alternative that is both economical and able to get them into the workforce more quickly.
Coding bootcamps, which are intensive, accelerated programs that teach job-ready skills, offer an appealing option. These bootcamps are an effective, efficient, and affordable way to expand someone’s practical skills and career potential.
Coding bootcamps have strong success rates. According to a variety of surveys conducted over the past few years, both students and employers have favorable views of coding bootcamps. Indeed found that, “72% of employers think that bootcamp graduates are just as prepared and likely to be high performers as candidates with computer science degrees.” While bootcamps differ from a computer science degree, they are a lower-cost option that teaches foundational and practical skills that are in-demand in today’s job marketplace. Bootcamps also take less time than a traditional degree, which holds an appeal for many students.
To help prospective students make informed decisions about tech bootcamps and whether it’s the right choice for them, we analyzed our bootcamp review data1 to answer questions like “what kind of jobs are students getting after graduating from these coding bootcamps?” and “how do bootcamp alumni feel about their experience?”
On our site, we found:
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The most common job title held by reviewers is “Software Developer,” which makes up 19.3% of all reviews.
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The top 25 job titles reviewers hold after graduation are overwhelmingly technical and make up 64.7% percent of all reviews.
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Most reviewers rated their bootcamp experience highly, although reviewers who noted they were “Unemployed” or found themselves in non-technical roles like “Marketing Manager” rated their experiences lower.
Below, we broke things down further to answer questions about satisfaction, what kind of jobs you can get after coding bootcamp, and what can make the bootcamp experience better.
How satisfied is the typical reviewer with their technology bootcamp?
The majority of people who attended coding bootcamps and left reviews are very satisfied with the experience. 86.9% of reviewers gave their bootcamp a 5-star review, and 96.2% percent of reviewers rated their programs either 4 or 5 stars.
Chart 1 shows the distribution of scores with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
Chart 1: Percentage of reviews by rating score. (E.g. 86.9% of reviewers gave an average overall rating of 5.)After attending a coding bootcamp, what kind of jobs do people have? The top job title held by bootcamp reviewers upon graduation is Software Developer, which makes up 19.3% of the reviews. The top 5 positions are each some variation of a developer, and combined, they comprise 41.8% of the reviews. Among reviewers, there is a high concentration among certain job titles; the top 25 positions make up 64.7% of all job titles among graduates.
Chart 2 shows the most common job titles of people who review the bootcamp they attended:
Chart 2: Most popular post-bootcamp job titles. Based on percentage of reviews left on Switchup.org. Who is satisfied with their bootcamp education?
Graduates who have secured technical positions or become entrepreneurs report the highest satisfaction levels with their bootcamps. The most satisfied bootcamp reviewers are JavaScript Developers, which are followed closely by Senior Developers. Job titles associated with entrepreneurship such as Founder and CEO make up a small percentage of reviewers but also rate highly, as does the Freelance Developer Position.
Unsurprisingly, the least satisfied set of bootcamp reviewers are ones who were unemployed at the time of their review. While comprising just 0.3% of total reviews, they rate their experience 2.1 stars on average. Other job titles that report lower satisfaction with their bootcamp experience are Business Developer and Marketing Manager, which are both non-technical positions. However, they still rate at an average of 3.9 out of 5, which means they likely felt their bootcamp experience provided some value.
Chart 3 shows the job titles with the most and least average satisfaction with their programs:
Chart 3: Average rating of bootcamp by job title. Taking a Closer Look at Bootcamp Satisfaction: What Made the Bootcamp Experience Better?
In addition to scoring their overall experience, bootcamp reviewers rated the bootcamp’s job support and curriculum. These factors influenced their bootcamp experience and whether it was satisfactory.
As part of their programs, bootcamps often offer mentorship, mock interviews, resume help, and more in order to increase graduates’ chances of landing a job. Graduates have gotten hired at notable companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
Again, reviewers who have obtained technical or entrepreneurial positions upon graduation report the highest satisfaction with the career assistance provided by their bootcamps.
Chart 4 shows the average job support satisfaction rating by job title, segmented by those that are most and least satisfied:
Chart 4: Average job support rating by job title. We also found a correlation between curriculum and satisfaction. Again, those who rated their bootcamp experience highly also felt positively about the curriculum. For example, JavaScript Developers were the most satisfied with their experiences overall and with their curriculum.
However, looking at the chart, bootcamp alumni rated the curriculum highly across the board. Most students rated their program’s curriculum an average of 4.6 stars or higher, except those who were unemployed or were marketing managers or designers.
Bootcamps pride themselves on having a comprehensive curriculum that teaches students in-demand skills. One student who took a Java course said, “Java technologies are such a wide environment that you can easily get lost by yourself…But CodingNomads has a great curriculum that gives you the essential technical skill to develop and deploy a Java project. Most valuable is you will have the ability to learn and master any technology you want by yourself!”
Another reviewer, who is now a data scientist, shared about Galvanize’s Data Science program, saying “The curriculum covered a great breadth of data science topics, but we still went into the depth of the math behind algorithms which I felt gave us good grounding on the justification of what we were learning. I also enjoyed the collaborative atmosphere of the daily assignments and group projects. Most importantly though, I really appreciated the career services they offered throughout the program, up to the final weeks, and even past graduation. I felt they really prepared me for navigating the job search and connecting with people.”
Chart 5 shows which job titles are most and least satisfied with the curriculum and what they learned in bootcamp:
Chart 5: Average bootcamp curriculum rating by job title. Bootcamps: Overall Impressions
Our data indicates that bootcamp graduates are satisfied with their experiences. Those most satisfied also felt the curriculum and job search support were beneficial. Reviewers who gave high ratings ended up in the tech field in jobs that resulted from the skills they learned in bootcamps.
Jobs you can get after a coding bootcamp include developer, associate engineer, data scientist, UX designer, project manager, and application developer. Other bootcamps can lead to jobs in digital marketing, cyber security, marketing, and web design. There is always the option to go freelance or become an entrepreneur.
Our conclusions also confirm how important it is to enroll in a bootcamp that meets your needs and build skills in the field you’re interested in. You can do this by asking yourself what your goals surrounding bootcamps are, and which type of bootcamp will be right for you.
A good way to select a coding bootcamp is by looking at what programming languages you want to learn based on the career you’re interested in. Some bootcamps will cover several programming languages, while others will have a more singular focus. Another thing to consider is whether curriculum offers career support, which may include how to search and apply for a job, write a resume, build a portfolio, or have interview practice.
Its essential to do your research when making a bootcamp decision. Here is a list of resources we’ve put together to help you get started:
- Are coding bootcamps worth it?
- Rankings of the best coding, online, data science, web design, and cyber security bootcamps.
- How to Choose the Right Bootcamp
All in all, attending a technology bootcamp is a great alternative as we navigate these uncharted waters. They have the great potential to equip you with in-demand skills, boost your career potential, and lead to many positive job outcomes.
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- "V-Shaped" Recovery? – NYC's Live Camera Feed & Real-Time Traffic Data Suggest Otherwise
“V-Shaped” Recovery? – NYC’s Live Camera Feed & Real-Time Traffic Data Suggest Otherwise
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 18:50New York City’s Phase 4 reopening should be a turning point for the area, hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. However, it’s not…
On Wednesday morning (around 8:00 ET), EarthCam’s live feeds of the Charging Bull statue in the Financial District of Manhattan to Times Square to Broadway reveal a continued ghost town. Similar to what we showed last week.
Charging Bull
Times Square
Times Square (street cam)
Times Square (another view)
Times Square (south view)
Broadway
Traffic data from New York City (provided by TomTom Traffic Index) show despite lockdowns easing in early June, congestion in the city is not returning to pre-virus levels.
Apple mobility data shows walking and transit remain significantly below pre-virus levels. Driving, on the other hand, reverted to baseline in June, but data is questionable considering Tom Tom’s traffic data, and Earthcam feeds, suggesting otherwise.
The “V-shaped” recovery pitched by the White House, the same folks who are desperately in need of another round of stimulus to avoid a fiscal cliff that would undoubtedly crash consumption, is touting the greatest ever economic revival. However, it’s non-existent in New York City, America’s largest metro area in terms of GDP contribution, in July.
- US Passes 4 Million Coronavirus Cases As Florida Suffers Another Record Jump In Deaths: Live Updates
US Passes 4 Million Coronavirus Cases As Florida Suffers Another Record Jump In Deaths: Live Updates
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/23/2020 – 18:36Summary:
- Texas reports 9,507 new cases
- US cases pass 4 million
- Greater Houston ICUs at 108% capacity
- California reports jump in new cases, deaths
- Alabama reports COVID-19 record
- CDC says US could see 175k deaths by Aug. 15
- All AMC theaters will stay closed until August
- Cuomo holds press briefing at 1130ET
- Florida reports more than 10k cases, record 173 deaths
- 9-year-old dies in Florida
- DeSantis says teachers eager to get back to classroom
- Dr. Fauci says reopening schools should be a “goal”
- Iran suffers record daily deaths
- Australia suffers 2nd highest daily total in Victoria
- Barcelona hear of latest Spanish outbreak
- India reports record jump in new cases
- South Africa now has fifth biggest outbreak
* * *
Update (1826ET): Texas reported another 9,507 new cases on Thursday, which is critically below the 10k threshold, bringing the statewide total to 361,125.
Texas also reported another 173 deaths, the state’s third-highest total on record since the beginning of the pandemic. It brought the state’s death toll to 4,521.
Texas’ positivity rate is 11.4%. There are 10,893 confirmed COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, but this number is incomplete.
Before we go, here’s a snapshot of mSightly’s “Major Indicators” for the US, as of 0630ET.
* * *
Update (1540ET): As we await today’s Texas numbers, it appears the total number of coronavirus cases reported in the US has finally passed its latest milestone: The US surpassed 4 million confirmed cases on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins, as well as other tallies maintained by Reuters, Worldometer and the AP.
It took the US 98 days to reach 1 million cases, but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million. The average number of new US cases is now rising by more than 2,600 every hour, the highest rate in the world.
On Thursday, Florida reported a record jump in COVID-19 deaths, with 173 lives lost. Alabama reported a record increase in cases for the fourth time this month.
* * *
Update (1450ET): According to figures released Thursday afternoon, ICUs in the Greater Houston Area have hit 108% capacity. Here are a few of the latest slides from Texas Medical Center.
* * *
Update (1408ET): Following the latest record daily death tally in Florida, California reported its latest figures, with another daily jump in new cases and deaths. The state reported 12,040 cases and 157 additional deaths.
California is reporting another massive jump in #COVID19 cases in the last 24 hours. There are 12,040 new cases. Hot zone counties:
1. Los Angeles 3,037
2. Kern 1,515
3. San Bernardino 1,497
4. Riverside 862
5. Orange 691
10. Alameda 288
11. Santa Clara 277#WearAMask 😷— Aaron Pero (@AaronPeroTV) July 23, 2020
California’s positivity rate climbed to 7.6% from 7.4%.
The CDC, meanwhile, reported 1,078 new deaths for Thursday across the US, with the total climbing to 142,755 deaths vs. 141,677. COVID-19 cases came in at 70,106 new cases across the US, bringing the official total to 3,952,273 cases. The agency added that it’s currently penciling in 160k to 175k COVID-19 deaths by August.
* * *
Update (1120ET): Arizona has reported 2,335 new COVD-19 cases, 89 new deaths.
The state’s ICU capacity has receded back to 87%. It’s total positivity rate, as the chart above shows, was 12.5%, roughly even with yesterday.
* * *
Update (1107ET): AMC will wait until August to reopen its movie theaters in the US., the company said Thursday.
The largest theater chain in the US had planned to reopen in July, a few weeks before the release of Warner Bros. “Tenet” and Disney’s “Mulan.”
However, after Tenet was delayed for a third time, the chain decided to change its strategy.
Other big movie theater chains could also delay their July openings.
AMC struck a deal earlier this month to help the company – American’s largest theater chain – remain solvent until 2021. All of its locations in the US have been shuttered since mid-March. I
* * *
Update (1100ET): New York hasn’t released today’s COVID-119 data yet. That’s likely because Gov Andrew Cuomo is planning to hold another press briefing at 11300 on Thursday.
* * *
Update (1020ET): Even more so than the record 7-day death tolls Florida has recently seen, the state reported on Thursday a startling headline: A 9-year-old girl from Fla’s Putnam County is now the youngest person in the state to have succumbed to the virus.
She’s not the first child to died from SARS-CoV-2: Florida has also seen an 11-year-old boy in Miami-Dade County, an 11-year-old girl in Broward County, a 16-year-old girl in Lee County and a 17-year-old boy in Pasco County, among the minors who have passed due to the virus.
Meanwhile, Fla. Gov Ron DeSantis has insisted that teachers in his state are eager to get back in the classroom, while Dr. Fauci insisted that reopening schools next months should be a goal, but that local leaders shouldn’t hesitate to keep kids home if returning to school would be too great a risk.
The City of Miami has issued 115 tickets for face mask violations this week, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said during his Thursday briefing.
“We have written 115 tickets,” Suarez said. The breakdown for tickets issues includes, “59 warnings, 41 $50 tickets, 15 $100 tickets and we have closed 15 businesses, 10 for 24 hours and five for 10 hours,” Suarez added.
Health authorities in the state released the latest numbers at around 1030ET Thursday, with the virus total in the state climbing to 389,868 COVID-19 cases, an increase of 10,249 from the day before. Additionally, the state reported 173 deaths, a record single-day total, bringing the statewide tally to 5,632.
Testing was down about 9k from the previous days’ report, so unsurprisingly the percentage of positive of new cases went up: 12.31%.
* * *
Yesterday, as California and Texas set new records for daily COVID-19 cases and deaths, Brazil reported more than 60k cases in a day. There hasn’t been much in the way of major COVID-19 headlines this morning, but there have been a few notable reports from around the world, particularly in Asia.
Australia, for example, reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in three months as new infections continued to climb in Australia’s second-most-populous state. Victoria state said it had confirmed another 403 infections, while five people had died from the virus in the last 24 hours. The daily death toll was Australia’s biggest since April. Tokyo also reported 366 new cases on Thursday, its latest record-breaking number.
In Iran, officials confirmed 221 new deaths from the virus, bringing the nationwide death toll to 15,074, according to the Health Ministry. Another 2,621 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the overall count to 284,034, according to a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry.
As its outbreak continues to worsen, India just reported an all-time high of nearly 45,600 new infections over the last day, as the spread of the virus accelerates in the world’s second most populous country. India’s confirmed coronavirus caseload has now risen to 1.2 million, 28,890 of whom have died. The country also reported a record high of 1,120 deaths in the same period. However, the tally also included the addition of more than 444 earlier coronavirus deaths in the southern State of Tamil Nadu that were not previously attributed to the virus.
Northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region reported 721 new cases on Wednesday, with 3/4ths of these found in the Greater Barcelona Area.
Russia reported 5,848 new cases, pushing its national tally to 795,038, still the fourth-largest in the world. More than 12,700 deaths have been recorded to date and more than 570,000 have recovered. SA has roughly half of total cases in South Africa.
South Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases are rapidly closing in on 400,000 as the country suffers a new daily high of 572 deaths. In terms of reported cases, SA is now the world’s fifth worst-hit county.
South Africa is now one of the world’s top five countries in terms of reported virus cases, and it makes up more than half of the cases on the African continent with 394,948. Deaths are at 5,940.
Public hospitals are struggling as patient numbers climb, and more than 5,000 health workers have been infected.
Finally, China’s National Health Commission has reported 22 new cases of the virus on the mainland on Thursday, with most of them discovered in the far western region of Xinjiang where mass testing, and a strict lockdown, is under way.
Urumqi, capital of NW China’s #Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is carrying out free nucleic acid tests for all residents and people who are visiting the city, in a bid to screen for novel #coronavirus infections and reduce the risk of the epidemic spread. #Covid_19 pic.twitter.com/d55Dvf3GAy
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) July 23, 2020
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