Today’s News 24th September 2021

• Lithuania Tells People To Throw Away Chinese Smartphones Due To "Cybersecurity Risks"
  Lithuania Tells People To Throw Away Chinese Smartphones Due To “Cybersecurity Risks”

  Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre (NKSC) released a new report Thursday urging consumers to throw away their Chinese smartphones due to cybersecurity and censorship risks. 

  NKSC, which is part of the Defense Ministry, found that Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi had built-in censorship tools to detect and censor phrases such as “Free Tibet,” “Long live Taiwan independence,” “People’s daily newspaper,” and “democracy movement,” among others. It noted Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G phones had the software turned off for European customers, but the report stressed the tools could be remotely turned on at any time. 

  

  “This is important not only to Lithuania but to all countries which use Xiaomi equipment,” NKSC said in the report.

  Besides Xiaomi’s Mi 10T 5G, the security assessment examined Huawei’s P40 5G3 and found cybersecurity risks to users. There was no mention of risks for OnePlus’s 8T 5G. 

  

  Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius said consumers should discard these mobile devices and purchase new ones that are not from Chinese companies: 

  “We strongly recommend that state and public institutions not use those devices and plan to initiate legislation which regulates acquiring certain devices for the ministries and various state agencies,” Abukevicius said. 

  NKSC said the security assessment is intended “to ensure the safe use of 5G mobile devices sold in our country and the software they contain.” 

  When it came to Huawei’s P40 5G phone, the report found risks of cyber-security breaches: 

  “The official Huawei application store AppGallery directs users to third-party e-stores where some of the applications have been assessed by anti-virus programs as malicious or infected with viruses.”

  It’s crucial to note relations between NATO ally Lithuania and China have deteriorated as of recent. The Baltic country approved Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius, the capital, and be named the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania later this year. Beijing soured over the word “Taiwanese” in the name of the office because it contradicts the “One China” policy that Europe and the US follow. 

  The growing rift between Lithuania and China is a wake-up call for other European countries. 

  * * *

  Here’s the full report: 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 02:45

• The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global
  The European Energy Crisis Is About To Go Global

  Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

  It was only a matter of time, really. In a globalized world, energy crunches can hardly remain regionally contained for very long, especially in a context of damaged supply chains and a rush to cut investment in fossil fuels. The energy crunch that began in Europe earlier this month may now be on its way to America. For now, all is well with one of the world’s top gas producers. U.S. gas exporters have enjoyed a solid increase in demand from Asia and Europe as the recovery in economic activity pushed demand for electricity higher. According to a recent Financial Times report, there is a veritable bidding war for U.S. cargos of liquefied natural gas between Asian and European buyers—and the Asians are winning.

  

  Coal exports are on the rise, too, and have been for a while now, especially after a political spat had China shun Australian coal. But supply is tightening, Argus reported earlier this month. In July, according to the report, U.S. coking coal exports dropped by as much as 20.3 percent from June. The report noted supply was constrained by producers’ limited access to funding and a labor shortage that has plagued many industries amid the pandemic.

  All this should be good news for U.S. producers of fossil fuels. But it may easily become bad news as winter approaches. The Wall Street Journal’s Jinjoo Lee wrote earlier this week high energy prices could be the next hot import for the United States. Lee cited data showing gas inventory replenishment was running below average rates for this season, and gas in storage in early September was 7.4 percent below the five-year average.

  Coal inventories are also running low because of stronger exports, with prices for thermal coal three times higher than they were a year ago. According to calculations from the Energy Information Administration cited in the WSJ report, coal inventories in the United States could fall to less than half last year’s inventory levels by the end of the year. Last year, energy demand was depressed because of the pandemic. This year, the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders once again. 

  No wonder electricity prices are already going up.

  In a way, the events in Europe could be seen as a trailer of what might happen in the United States. It is a trailer because it shows all the worst bits. The United States is much more energy independent than, say, the UK, and that’s a big plus. Yet exports bring in revenues, and it would require government intervention to make gas producers cut exports.

  In an alarming move, such intervention was requested last week by a manufacturing industry group. Industrial Energy Consumers of America, an organization representing companies producing chemicals, food, and materials, asked the Department of Energy to institute limits on the exports of liquefied natural gas in order to avoid soaring prices and gas shortages during the winter, Reuters reported on Friday.

  Opinions seem to differ on whether rising LNG exports are in fact hurting U.S. consumers. But the fact is that gas prices are already double what they were a year ago. According to the IECA, they are not, however, high enough to motivate a ramp-up in natural gas production. Therefore, in order to stockpile enough gas for the winter, the U.S. government must force a reduction in exports.

  The LNG industry is, of course, against this. The executive director of Center for Liquefied Natural Gas told Reuters most LNG exports are shipped under long-term fixed-price contracts that have no relation to benchmark gas prices and their movements. Yet some cargos are sold on the spot market.

  “Buyers of LNG who compete for natural gas with U.S. consumers are state-owned enterprises and foreign government-controlled utilities with automatic cost pass through,” Paul Cicio, president of IECA, said, as quoted by Reuters. “U.S. manufacturers cannot compete with them on prices.”

  Traders are already getting jittery, and this will likely contribute to price uncertainty; regardless of how the fundamentals situation develops. Again, Europe is at the heart of the uncertainty – or rather the certainty that prices have higher to climb. But now, China has added to concern about gas supply and the potential for shortages.

  For now, China’s biggest problem seems to be coal rather than gas. A recent Bloomberg report said that China coal power plant operators are struggling to buy enough coal to keep their plants running, and some are being forced to shut down their boilers because of insufficient coal supply. This, however, might lead to stronger gas demand to ensure enough electricity and heating for the winter. This will further exacerbate the difference between global demand and supply.

  The European energy crunch is spilling over into other regions. The blame game has begun with culprits ranging from years of underinvestment in local gas production to a Gazprom scheme to get Nord Stream 2 approved by Germany. For now, it is still unclear how much of the price surge is due to a gap between demand and supply and how much of it is due to market nervousness, at least according to RBC commodity strategist Christopher Louney, as quoted by the WSJ’s Lee. This question is less important than another, however, and it is a scary one:

  Just how bad could things get this winter?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/24/2021 – 02:00

• Brandon Smith: Organizing Patriots In The Face Of Government Informants And False Flags
  Brandon Smith: Organizing Patriots In The Face Of Government Informants And False Flags

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  There is a simple fact that must be understood when it comes to the fight for liberty: Such a fight cannot be won by lone individuals. Freedom requires organized resistance and it does not matter how many millions of people stand against an authoritarian regime, if they are completely isolated from each other they WILL lose. It’s a guarantee.

  

  This is why a considerable portion of establishment money, energy and propaganda is directed at defusing or sabotaging any semblance of conservative organization. This includes engineering false flag events and creating potential terror attacks from thin air so that they can be blamed on constitutionally minded groups. The strategy is called “4th Generation Warfare” and it is not conspiracy theory, this is conspiracy fact.

  For example, as we now know according to court documentation, the supposed scheme by a Michigan “militia” made up of anarchists to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and “try her as a tyrant” was heavily infiltrated by at least a dozen FBI agents and informants. The group was so infiltrated, in fact, that the entire plot for the kidnapping was essentially planned out by the FBI. This is the very definition of a false flag. The corruption and entrapment involved in the operation was so egregious that even the leftist media has reported on it.

  I recall a very similar situation occurred during the Malheur incident when Ammon Bundy (son of Cliven Bundy) and a group of patriots decided to annex the wildlife refuge and its obscure ranger buildings as a launching point for a revolution. Though I was a supporter of the efforts at Bundy Ranch, I was vehemently against Malheur because the whole situation seemed grossly suspect. The strategy made no sense, the rationale made no sense, the site of the standoff made no sense and the public optics were terrible. It was an anti-Bundy Ranch; a situation in which all of the dynamics were in favor of the feds and against the liberty movement.

  And, not surprisingly, Malhuer had also been influenced and in some cases was arranged by federal informants and agents. These people were whispering in the ear of Ammon Bundy the entire time while the FBI authorized them to commit criminal acts. There were so many paid employees of the FBI at Malheur that jurors decided to drop all charges against most of the defendants involved.

  And what about the latest “J6” rally in Washington DC, which was planned by a virtually unknown former Trump aid and was quickly exposed as a potential “honeypot” designed to lure in conservatives? The army of plain clothes undercover feds was so prevalent that riot cops accidentally arrested an armed FBI agent thinking he was a protester.

  Now, there are many people in the alternative media that are breathing a sigh of relief that almost no one showed up for the J6 protest or “fell into the trap”. In fact, there were far more reporters and feds there than actual activists. However, I think we need to look at the bigger picture of why the government is staging such events in the first place, and it’s not just to entrap a few conservatives .

  If you think about it, the entire strategy is high cost/minimum reward if we only look at it in terms of actual arrests. If the idea is to catch and prosecute patriots, then they could infiltrate groups and engineer criminal actions for decades and achieve little to nothing. Obviously, this is not the purpose of informants. Rather, the strategy is not to invade groups unnoticed; the strategy is to BE NOTICED, to make sure the whole of the liberty movement believe that if they ever try to organize in any way the feds will be there to set them up. In other words, the primary goal of the FBI is to instill paranoia and fear among patriots and ensure they never effectively organize to resist.

  When we cheer the “failure” of J6, we need to keep in mind that the establishment does not care. Getting people to show up was not their main intent; making people afraid to show up for any other events in the future is what they want.

  The issue presents a Catch-22. If conservatives organize there is the chance that some groups will be infiltrated or set up and used to make the entire movement look bad. If we don’t organize, then we have lost the fight. It will be over before it even truly begins (and no, the real fight has not started yet). So what is the solution?

  I think it’s odd but maybe not surprising that the standoff at Bundy Ranch has been memory-holed by the media and is rarely mentioned even among conservative activists these days. Yet, it was probably one of the most successful patriot actions in the past couple of decades. There are a number of reasons for this:

  1) The action was spontaneous, not pre-planned and was in response to criminal activity by the FBI (including assaulting women that were protesting and the use of sniper positions to surround the Bundy property similar to Ruby Ridge). The movement took action to remedy a government trespass rather than creating a standoff out of nothing.

  2) There was no single person in charge. Groups showed up from all over the country; some of them squared away and some of them screw-ups. This might sound like a bad thing, but in terms of rebellion it is often better to avoid streamlined top-down leadership. Frankly, I am usually suspicious of anyone that tries to anoint themselves the “leader” of the liberty movement or the sole leader of a protest action. Cult of personality is the most useless thing I can think of when it comes to battling tyranny, and top-down leadership can be easily manipulated or controlled.

  3) Because of the decentralized nature of the response to Bundy Ranch, the feds had no way to influence or predict the outcome, and they really hate that. Without informants in key positions, the feds did not have the ability to adapt to the quickly changing circumstances. Contrast this with Malheur, where the feds were basically in control from the very beginning. The site itself was so isolated and ill conceived that the FBI was able to dictate every movement of patriots in and out of the area. It was pointless for any militia to occupy it, but it was a great spot for the feds.

  4) Patriots arrived at Bundy Ranch peacefully, but with the will to fight if necessary. The Bundy Ranch response had a clear objective – To stop the FBI from harming the Bundy family and to retrieve the stolen cattle if possible. Both of these objectives were accomplished and with no shots fired. A complete success. The group was motivated and unified by the objective, NOT a singular leadership. Without a clear objective there is no purpose to any action.

  It is important to understand the difference between a Lexington Bridge moment and a Fort Sumter moment – During Lexington Bridge, the revolutionaries took action to stop a British detachment from arresting colonial leaders and confiscating rifles and powder stores. The British were in the midst of an undeniable attempt to disarm and snuff out the resistance. At Fort Sumter, the Confederate attack was in response to an attempted resupply of the fort itself; which made sense strategically but looked like an act of pure aggression to the wider public. The concept of states rights (more prominent in the minds of the confederates than the issue of slavery) fell by the wayside.

  Eventually tyranny has to put boots on the ground. A totalitarian system can function for a time on color of law and implied threats, but it will crumble unless it is able to establish a physical presence of force. Once those jackboots touch soil in a visible way and the agents of the state try to expand oppressive measures, rebels then have a free hand to disrupt them or bring them down. But this only works if there are objectives and enough decentralization to prevent misdirection of the movement.

  Some organization is essential. It cannot be avoided. All the “Gray Men” and secret squirrel preppers out there that think they are going to simply weather the storm in isolation and pop out of their bug-out locations to rebuild are suffering from serious delusions. I can’t help but think of that moment in ‘Lord Of The Rings’ when the Ents refuse to organize to fight against the invading orcs. Pippen suggests to Merry that the problem is too big for them and that they should go back to the Shire to wait out the war. Merry laments:

  “The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone. There won’t be a Shire, Pippin.”

  If this fight is not pursued now, there will be no world worth coming back to, even if one was able to successfully hide from it. There will be a “new world order” as the globalists like to call it. There will be nothing left of freedom.

  So, organization must be accomplished, and it should be built at the local level. This is far more important than any dreams of a national organization, at least for now. There is no one we can trust to lead such a nationwide revolt, and that includes political leaders like Donald Trump.

  Will federal intrusions happen? Of course, but at the local level it is much easier to vet people according to their behaviors and root out bad actors. Hold your local meetings to discuss current events and create a place for people to network and get to know each other. Talk to local businesses or your county sheriff to see where they stand on issues like the vaccine passports and Biden mandates. Put things in motion now or you will regret it later when your community is completely disjointed and paralyzed by fear during crisis or government subjugation.

  And, what about the first guy at your meetings that starts talking about building bombs, drafting “kill lists” or kidnapping governors? Kick his ass out promptly and make sure everyone knows why you did it. Most likely he is a fed or he is on an informant payroll. As our national composure breaks down and the manure hits the fan, fed informants and agents will suddenly disappear from these groups without a trace. They are not going to stick around for what happens next; the government doesn’t pay them enough for that. And knowing who the patriots are will not help the federal government if the patriots are organized to defend themselves. This is the reality which they do not want us to wake up to.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:40

• France: "Time & Action" Needed To Restore US Ties; PM Morrison Says Macron Giving "Cold Shoulder"
  France: “Time & Action” Needed To Restore US Ties; PM Morrison Says Macron Giving “Cold Shoulder”

  Following the tense Wednesday phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden wherein the two agreed to try and “restore trust” following the severe rift over the AUKUS defense pact which led Paris to pull its ambassador to Washington (which France has since vowed to restore), Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Thursday with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. 

  Suggesting that prior good relations have been strained if not broken, Le Drian said “time and actions” are needed to “fully” restore ties between the two typically close allies. He underscored:

  The way out of a diplomatic crisis between France and the US over a mega submarine deal will “take time and require actions”…

  

  A French government statement indicated the two met at the United Nations in New York to go through the “terms and main issues” to be addressed in upcoming consultations.

  The White House summary of the Blinken meeting indicated a big top of discussion was France’s recent charges that the US-Australia submarine pact supplanting a French deal worth at least $66 billion ultimately was a blow to France’s strategic cooperation with allies in the Indo-Pacific to counter China.

  In the Wednesday Biden-Macron phone call, the White House said the two leaders and NATO allies have agreed to meet by the end of October in Europe.

  “They discussed the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, which the United States welcomes, and the need for close cooperation with France and other European allies and partners active in the region,” the readout said.

  While communications are apparently open between Paris and Washington, it’s not so with Canberra: 

  Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he is being given the cold shoulder by Macron after the scrapping of the submarine deal, but vowed to be “patient” in repairing frayed relations.

  Speaking in Washington late Wednesday, Morrison said he had tried to reach the French leader but the call had “not yet” happened.

  Meanwhile @LeDrien says they want to restore trust (…) that the crisis between FR and US will take time to fix (i.e.after US duped France’s €52 billion “deal of the century”).
  130 characters simply aren’t enough to paint over the facts. https://t.co/gLl62rVBZE pic.twitter.com/ePx6cSdL4P

  — Beth 🌺 (@m_beth) September 23, 2021

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

  This “cold shoulder” persists as France has even threatened to torpedo EU-Australia trade negotiations, which were scheduled to resume later this fall.

  * * * 

  According to Rabobank’s commentary…

  US President Biden and French President Macron are attempting to build bridges burned over AUKUS. The French ambassador is now to return to DC, and Biden to come to Europe for talks next month. However, word on the street is that France, and French agriculture, now have the excuse to kick the planned Australia – EU FTA into the long grass even if the rest of the EU is in favour. The UK has also been sent scuttling from any thoughts of joining the USMCA.

  However, geopolitics leads and trade usually follows in today’s atmosphere. Japan’s outgoing PM Suga has also been exceptionally forthright, stating China’s rapidly growing military influence and unilateral changing of the status quo could present a risk to Japan. That’s ahead of a first in-person Quad meeting to be held on Friday at the White House.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:20

• Freedom From Fear: Stop Playing The Government's Mind Games
  Freedom From Fear: Stop Playing The Government’s Mind Games

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”

  – Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist

  America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.

  The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.

  Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.

  This plague on our nation – one that has been spreading like wildfire – is a potent mix of fear coupled with unhealthy doses of paranoia and intolerance, tragic hallmarks of the post-9/11 America in which we live and the constantly shifting crises that keep the populace in a state of high alert.

  Everywhere you turn, those on both the left- and right-wing are fomenting distrust and division. You can’t escape it.

  We’re being fed a constant diet of fear: fear of a virus, fear of the unmasked, fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants, fear of people who are too religious, fear of people who are not religious enough, fear of extremists, fear of the government, fear of those who fear the government. The list goes on and on.

  The strategy is simple yet effective: the best way to control a populace is through fear and discord.

  Fear makes people stupid.

  

  Confound them, distract them with mindless news chatter and entertainment, pit them against one another by turning minor disagreements into major skirmishes, and tie them up in knots over matters lacking in national significance.

  Most importantly, divide the people into factions, persuade them to see each other as the enemy and keep them screaming at each other so that they drown out all other sounds. In this way, they will never reach consensus about anything and will be too distracted to notice the police state closing in on them until the final crushing curtain falls.

  This is how free people enslave themselves and allow tyrants to prevail.

  This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology, endless wars, COVID-19 mandates, etc., hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes.

  All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

  Turn on the TV or flip open the newspaper on any given day, and you will find yourself accosted by reports of government corruption, corporate malfeasance, militarized police, marauding SWAT teams, and egregious assaults on the rights of the citizenry.

  America has already entered a new phase, one in which communities are locked down, employees are forced to choose between keeping their jobs or exercising their freedoms, children are arrested in schools, military veterans are forcibly detained by government agents, and law-abiding Americans are finding their movements tracked, their financial transactions documented and their communications monitored.

  These threats are not to be underestimated.

  Yet even more dangerous than these violations of our basic rights is the language in which they are couched: the language of fear. It is a language spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure.

  Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government.

  So far, these tactics are working.

  An atmosphere of fear permeates modern America.

  Each successive crisis in recent years (a COVID-19 pandemic, terrorism, etc.)—manufactured or legitimate—has succeeded in reducing the American people to what commentator Dan Sanchez refers to as “herd-minded hundreds of millions [who] will stampede to the State for security, bleating to please, please be shorn of their remaining liberties.”

  Sanchez continues:

  “I am not terrified of the terrorists; i.e., I am not, myself, terrorized. Rather, I am terrified of the terrorized; terrified of the bovine masses who are so easily manipulated by terrorists, governments, and the terror-amplifying media into allowing our country to slip toward totalitarianism and total war…

  “I do not irrationally and disproportionately fear Muslim bomb-wielding jihadists or white, gun-toting nutcases. But I rationally and proportionately fear those who do, and the regimes such terror empowers. History demonstrates that governments are capable of mass murder and enslavement far beyond what rogue militants can muster. Industrial-scale terrorists are the ones who wear ties, chevrons, and badges. But such terrorists are a powerless few without the supine acquiescence of the terrorized many. There is nothing to fear but the fearful themselves…

  “Stop swallowing the overblown scaremongering of the government and its corporate media cronies. Stop letting them use hysteria over small menaces to drive you into the arms of tyranny, which is the greatest menace of all.”

  As history makes clear, fear leads to fascistic, totalitarian regimes.

  It’s a simple enough formula. National crises, global pandemics, reported terrorist attacks, and sporadic shootings leave us in a constant state of fear. Fear prevents us from thinking. The emotional panic that accompanies fear actually shuts down the prefrontal cortex or the rational thinking part of our brains. In other words, when we are consumed by fear, we stop thinking.

  A populace that stops thinking for themselves is a populace that is easily led, easily manipulated and easily controlled.

  The following are a few of the necessary ingredients for a fascist state:

  • The government is managed by a powerful leader (even if he or she assumes office by way of the electoral process). This is the fascistic leadership principle (or father figure).

  • The government assumes it is not restrained in its power. This is authoritarianism, which eventually evolves into totalitarianism.

  • The government ostensibly operates under a capitalist system while being undergirded by an immense bureaucracy.

  • The government through its politicians emits powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

  • The government has an obsession with national security while constantly invoking terrifying internal and external enemies.

  • The government establishes a domestic and invasive surveillance system and develops a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the citizenry.

  • The government and its various agencies (federal, state, and local) develop an obsession with crime and punishment. This is overcriminalization.

  • The government becomes increasingly centralized while aligning closely with corporate powers to control all aspects of the country’s social, economic, military, and governmental structures.

  • The government uses militarism as a center point of its economic and taxing structure.

  • The government is increasingly imperialistic in order to maintain the military-industrial corporate forces.

  The parallels to modern America are impossible to ignore.

  “Every industry is regulated. Every profession is classified and organized,” writes Jeffrey Tucker.

  “Every good or service is taxed. Endless debt accumulation is preserved. Immense doesn’t begin to describe the bureaucracy. Military preparedness never stops, and war with some evil foreign foe, remains a daily prospect.”

  For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary. In times of “crisis,” expediency is upheld as the central principle—that is, in order to keep us safe and secure, the government must militarize the police, strip us of basic constitutional rights and criminalize virtually every form of behavior.

  Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring.

  It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences.

  For example, neuroscientists have observed how quickly fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports:

  In the experiment, researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling.

  The conclusion? “A newborn mouse pup, seemingly innocent to the workings of the world, may actually harbor generations’ worth of information passed down by its ancestors.”

  Now consider the ramifications of inherited generations of fears and experiences on human beings. As the Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, fear, trauma and compliance can be passed down through the generations.

  Fear has been a critical tool in past fascistic regimes, and it now operates in our contemporary world—all of which raises fundamental questions about us as human beings and what we will give up in order to perpetuate the illusions of safety and security.

  In the words of psychologist Erich Fromm:

  [C]an human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love—that is to say, can man forget he is human? Or does human nature have a dynamism which will react to the violation of these basic human needs by attempting to change an inhuman society into a human one?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 23:00

• Five B-21 Raider Stealth Bombers Are Now In Final Production
  Five B-21 Raider Stealth Bombers Are Now In Final Production

  The B-21 Raider – the US Air Force’s secretive, next-generation, long-range stealth bomber is allegedly in final assembly, with the debut expected in early 2022. 

  According to The Drive, there are five Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bombers in the final assembly. This was confirmed by the Air Force Association’s Air, Space, & Cyber Conference, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, who said the five Raiders are being built at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. 

  

  There are no known images of the Raider in the public domain except for computer renderings. The first glimpses of the new stealth bomber could come as early as 2022. Test flights are expected in late spring or early summer. 

  In July, we noted the most recent rendering of the bomber was featured in a USAF tear-off sheet. It was the third official rendering of the B-21. The rendering showed a previously unseen cockpit windscreen configuration as the bomber takes off from Edwards Air Force Base, California. We noted several years ago that the bomber would be tested at Edwards AFB. 

  

  Officials have described the B-21 as the most advanced bomber to date, with complex nuclear long-range missions built into its airframe. It may even be able to carry hypersonic weapons. 

  “Nuclear modernization is a top priority for the Department of Defense and the Air Force, and B-21 is key to that plan,” Randall Walden, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office director, said in a recent press release.

  Senior Air Force officials have testified before Congress that the service is desperate for new stealth bombers that would increase global competitiveness as China and Russia race to develop new bombers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:40

• Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied To Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme To Co-Opt CIA/FBI To Tar Trump
  Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied To Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme To Co-Opt CIA/FBI To Tar Trump

  Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

  White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan figures prominently in a grand jury investigation run by Special Counsel John Durham into an alleged 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign scheme to use both the FBI and CIA to tar Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia, according to people familiar with the criminal probe, which they say has broadened into a conspiracy case.

  

  Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as Clinton campaign adviser for the 2016 election. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File

  Sullivan is facing scrutiny, sources say, over potentially false statements he made about his involvement in the effort, which continued after the election and into 2017. As a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, Sullivan spearheaded what was known inside her campaign as a “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the agencies, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

  Last week, Michael A. Sussmann, a partner in Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements to the FBI about his clients and their motives behind planting the rumor, at the highest levels of the FBI, of a secret Trump-Russia server. After a months-long investigation, the FBI found no merit to the rumor.

  The grand jury indicated in its lengthy indictment that several people were involved in the alleged conspiracy to mislead the FBI and trigger an investigation of the Republican presidential candidate — including Sullivan, who was described by his campaign position but not identified by name.

  The Clinton campaign project, these sources say, also involved compiling a “digital dossier” on several Trump campaign officials – including Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page. This effort exploited highly sensitive, nonpublic Internet data related to their personal email communications and web-browsing, known as Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses.

  

  Alleged targets: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page. YouTube/CNN/FNC/RCP

  To mine the data, the Clinton campaign enlisted a team of Beltway computer contractors as well as university researchers with security clearance who often collaborate with the FBI and the intelligence community. They worked from a five-page campaign document called the “Trump Associates List.”

  The tech group also pulled logs purportedly from servers for a Russian bank and Trump Tower, and the campaign provided the data to the FBI on two thumb drives, along with three “white papers” that claimed the data indicated the Trump campaign was secretly communicating with Moscow through a server in Trump Tower and the Alfa Bank in Russia. Based on the material, the FBI opened at least one investigation, adding to several others it had already initiated targeting the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.

  

  Michael Sussmann: Indicted former Clinton campaign lawyer allegedly coordinated with Jake Sullivan on dubious materials provided to the FBI and media. perkinscoie.com

  The indictment states that Sussmann, as well as the cyber experts recruited for the operation, “coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign with regard to the data and written materials that Sussmann gave to the FBI and the media.”

  One of those campaign agents was Sullivan, according to emails Durham obtained. On Sept. 15, 2016 – just four days before Sussmann handed off the materials to the FBI – Marc Elias, his law partner and fellow Democratic Party operative, “exchanged emails with the Clinton campaign’s foreign policy adviser concerning the Russian bank allegations,” as well as with other top campaign officials, the indictment states.

  The sources close to the case confirmed the “foreign policy adviser” referenced by title is Sullivan. They say he was briefed on the development of the opposition-research materials tying Trump to Alfa Bank, and was aware of the participants in the project. These included the Washington opposition-research group Fusion GPS, which worked for the Clinton campaign as a paid agent and helped gather dirt on Alfa Bank and draft the materials Elias discussed with Sullivan, the materials Sussmann would later submit to the FBI. Fusion researchers were in regular contact with both Sussmann and Elias about the project in the summer and fall of 2016. Sullivan also personally met with Elias, who briefed him on Fusion’s opposition research, according to the sources.

  Sullivan maintained in congressional testimony in December 2017 that he didn’t know of Fusion’s involvement in the Alfa Bank opposition research. In the same closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, he also denied knowing anything about Fusion in 2016 or who was conducting the opposition research for the campaign.

  “Marc [Elias] … would occasionally give us updates on the opposition research they were conducting, but I didn’t know what the nature of that effort was – inside effort, outside effort, who was funding it, who was doing it, anything like that,” Sullivan stated under oath.

  

  Jake Sullivan’s December 2017 House testimony may put him in perjury jeopardy.  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

  Sullivan also testified he didn’t know that Perkins Coie, the law firm where Elias and Sussmann were partners, was working for the Clinton campaign until October 2017, when it was reported in the media as part of stories revealing the campaign’s contract with Fusion, which also produced the so-called Steele dossier. Sullivan maintained he didn’t even know that the politically prominent Elias worked for Perkins Coie, a well-known Democratic law firm. Major media stories from 2016 routinely identified Elias as “general counsel for the Clinton campaign” and a “partner at Perkins Coie.”

  “To be honest with you, Marc wears a tremendous number of hats, so I wasn’t sure who he was representing,” Sullivan testified.

  “I sort of thought he was, you know, just talking to us as, you know, a fellow traveler in this — in this campaign effort.”

  Although he acknowledged knowing Elias and his partner were marshaling opposition researchers for a campaign project targeting Trump, Sullivan insisted, “They didn’t do something with it.” In truth, they used the research to instigate a full-blown investigation at the FBI and seed a number of stories in the Washington media, which Elias discussed in emails.

  

  Marc Elias: Prominent Democrat lawyer allegedly also coordinated with Sullivan. Sullivan would later plead ignorance under oath about Elias’s role. Perkins Coie

  Lying to Congress is a felony. Though the offense is rarely prosecuted, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller won convictions of two of Trump’s associates on charges of that very offense.

  An attorney for Sullivan did not respond to questions, while a spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined comment. After the 2016 election, Sullivan continued to participate in the anti-Trump effort, which enlisted no fewer than three Internet companies and two university computer researchers, who persisted in exploiting nonpublic Internet data to conjure up “derogatory information on Trump” and his associates, according to the indictment.

  Prosecutors say the operation ran through at least February 2017, when Sullivan met with another central figure in the plot to plant the anti-Trump smear at the FBI. But now the goal was to compel agents to continue investigating the false rumors in the wake of the election, thereby keeping Trump’s presidency under an ethical cloud.

  

  Daniel Jones: One of the lead figures in helping resurrect the Trump-Russia collusion narrative after Trump’s election, Jones coordinated with Sullivan in hatching the effort. McCain Institute/YouTube

  On Feb. 10, 2017, Sullivan huddled with two Fusion operatives and their partner Daniel Jones, a former FBI analyst and Democratic staffer on the Hill, to hatch the post-election plan to resurrect rumors Trump was a tool of the Kremlin. As RealClearInvestigations first reported, the meeting, which lasted about an hour and took place in a Washington office building, also included former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The group discussed raising money to finance a multimillion-dollar opposition research project headed by Jones to target the new president. In effect, Jones’ operation would replace the Clinton campaign’s operation, continuing the effort to undermine Trump.

  It’s not clear if Sussmann attended the Feb. 10 meeting, but he was apparently still involved in the operation, along with his crew of data miners. The day before the meeting attended by Sullivan, Sussmann paid a visit to the CIA’s Langley headquarters to peddle the disinformation about the secret server – this time to top officials there, according to the sources familiar with Durham’s investigation. During a roughly 90-minute meeting, Sussmann provided two officials at the intelligence headquarters “updated” documents and data he’d provided the FBI before the election, RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively.

  Then, on March 28, 2017, Jones met with the FBI to pass on supposedly fresh leads he and the cyber researchers had learned about the Alfa Bank server and Trump, and the FBI looked into the new leads after having closed its investigation a month earlier. That same month, FBI Director James Comey publicly announced the bureau was investigating possible “coordination” between Moscow and the newly sworn-in president’s campaign.

  Despite the renewed push by Jones, the FBI debunked the tip of a nefarious Russian back channel. Agents learned the email server in question wasn’t even controlled by the Trump Organization. “It wasn’t true,” Mueller confirmed in 2019 testimony.

  It turns out that the supposed “secret server” was housed in the small Pennsylvania town of Lititz, and not  Trump Tower in New York City, and it was operated by a marketing firm based in Florida called Cendyn that routinely blasts out emails promoting multiple hotel chains. Simply put, the third-party server sent spam to Alfa Bank employees who used Trump hotels. The bank had maintained a New York office since 2001.

  “The FBI’s investigation revealed that the email server at issue was not owned or operated by the Trump Organization but, rather, had been administrated by a mass-marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients,” Durham wrote in his indictment.

  Nonetheless, Jones and Sullivan kept promoting the canard as true.

  

  Democrat Senators Mark Warner and Ron Wyden: Conduits for TDIP’s Trump-Russia material. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

  With help from Sullivan and Podesta in 2017, Jones launched a nonprofit group called The Democracy Integrity Project, which raised some $7 million mainly from Silicon Valley tech executives. TDIP hired computer researchers, as well as Fusion opposition researchers and Christopher Steele, the British author of the now-discredited Steele dossier, to “prove” the rumors in the dossier. As they sought new dirt on Trump, they fed their information to media outlets, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee (namely Sens. Mark Warner and Ron Wyden), and the FBI. Jones previously worked on the Senate intelligence panel, which had launched a major investigation of Trump and Russia, and he provided a pipeline of information for the committee, according to the sources.

  As RCI first reported, Jones emailed a daily news bulletin known as “TDIP Research” to prominent Beltway journalists to keep the Trump-Russia “collusion” rumor-mill going, including the debunked rumor about the “secret server.” Durham has subpoenaed Jones to testify before his grand jury hearing the case, along with computer experts and researchers recruited by Sussmann for the Clinton campaign project, persons close to the investigation said. Attempts to reach Jones for comment were unsuccessful.

  In a statement, Durham said his investigation “is ongoing.”

  

  Special Counsel John Durham: Lengthy single count “speaking” indictment of Sussmann suggests a broader conspiracy case in the works. AP

  Indictments for a single-count process crime such as making a false statement normally run a page or two. But Durham’s filing charging Sussmann spans 27 pages and is packed with detail. FBI veterans say the 40-year prosecutor used the indictment to outline a broader conspiracy case he’s building that invokes several other federal statutes.

  “That is what we call a ‘speaking indictment,’ meaning it is far more detailed than is required for a simple indictment under [federal statute] 1001,” which outlaws making false statements and representations to federal investigators, former assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker said in an interview with RealClearInvestigations.

  “It is damning,” he added.

  “And I see it as a placeholder for additional indictments, such as government grant and contract fraud, computer intrusion, the Privacy Act and other laws against dissemination of personally identifiable information, and mail fraud and wire fraud – not to mention conspiracy to commit those offenses.”

  

  Chris Swecker: The Sussmann indictment “is damning,” and “I definitely see more to come,” says the ex-top FBI investigator. Miller & Martin

  “I definitely see more [indictments] to come,” emphasized Swecker, who knows Durham personally and worked with him on prior investigations. The sources close to the case said former FBI general counsel James Baker, who accepted the sketchy materials from Sussmann and passed them on to agents for investigation, is cooperating with Durham’s investigation, along with former FBI counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap, who has provided prosecutors contemporaneous notes about what led the bureau to open an investigation into the allegations Trump used Alfa Bank as a conduit between his campaign and Russian President Vladimir Putin to steal the election.

  According to the sources, Durham also has found evidence Sussmann misled the CIA, another front in the scandal being reported here for the first time. In December 2016, the sources say Sussmann phoned the general counsel at the agency and told her the same story about the supposed secret server – at the same time the CIA was compiling a national intelligence report that accused Putin of meddling in the election to help Trump win.

  Sussmann told Caroline Krass, then the agency’s top attorney, that he had information that may help her with a review President Obama had ordered of all intelligence related to the election and Russia, known as the Intelligence Community Assessment. The review ended up including an annex with several unfounded and since-debunked allegations against Trump developed by the Clinton campaign.

  It’s not clear if the two-page annex, which claimed the allegations were “consistent with the judgments in this assessment,” included the Alfa Bank canard. Before it was made public, several sections had been redacted. But after Sussmann conveyed the information to Krass, an Obama appointee, she told him she would consider it for the intelligence review of Russian interference, which tracks with Sussmann’s 2017 closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. (Krass’ name is blacked out in the declassified transcript, but sources familiar with Sussmann’s testimony confirmed that he identified her as his CIA contact.)

  

  Caroline Krass: Michael Sussmann also gave  Trump-Russia material to this CIA lawyer. CIA/Wikipedia

  “We’re interested,” said Krass, who left the agency several months later. “We’re doing this review and I’ll speak to someone here.”

  It’s not known if Sussmann failed to inform the top CIA lawyer that he was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign, as he’s alleged to have done at the FBI. Attempts to reach Krass, who now serves as Biden’s top lawyer at the Pentagon, were unsuccessful.

  But in his return trip to the CIA after the election, Sussmann “stated falsely – as he previously had stated to the FBI general counsel – that he was ‘not representing a particular client,’ ” according to the Durham indictment, which cites a contemporaneous memo drafted by two agency officials with whom Sussmann met that memorializes their meeting. (The document refers to the CIA by the pseudonym “Agency-2.” Sources confirm Agency-2 is the CIA.)

  Remarkably, the CIA did not ask for the source of Sussmann’s walk-in tip, including where he got several data files he gave the agency. The FBI exhibited a similar lack of curiosity when Sussmann told it about the false Trump/Alfa Bank connection.

  Attempts to reach Sussmann to get his side to the additional CIA allegations leveled by Durham were unsuccessful. The 57-year-old attorney pleaded not guilty to a single felony count and was released on a $100,000 bond Friday. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.

  The prominent Washington lawyer quietly resigned from Perkins Coie, which has scrubbed all references to him from its website. And late last month, as rumors of the indictment swirled, the powerhouse law firm divested its entire Political Law Group formerly headed by Marc Elias – who commissioned the Steele dossier. Elias, who worked closely with Sussmann on the Trump-Alfa Bank project, also is no longer employed by the firm.

  Jake Sullivan’s Golf Cart Rounds

  In late July 2016, during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the CIA picked up Russian chatter about a Clinton foreign policy adviser who was trying to develop allegations to “vilify” Trump. The intercepts said Clinton herself had approved a “plan” to “stir up a scandal” against Trump by tying him to Putin. According to hand-written notes, then-CIA chief John Brennan warned President Obama that Moscow had intercepted information about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump.” That summer, Brennan had personally briefed Democrats, including then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, on the Alfa Bank-Trump server rumors, according to congressional reports. Reid fired off a letter to Comey demanding that the FBI do more to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia.

  During that convention, Sullivan drove a golf cart from one TV-network news tent in the parking lot to another, pitching producers and anchors a story that Trump was conspiring with Putin to steal the election. CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News, as well as Chris Wallace of Fox News, all gave him airtime to spin the Clinton campaign’s unfounded theories. Sullivan also gave off-camera background briefings to reporters.

  “We were on a mission,” Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri later admitted in a Washington Post column. “We wanted to raise the alarm.”

  Then, on the eve of the election, Sullivan claimed in a written campaign statement that Trump and the Russians had set up a “secret hotline” through Alfa Bank, and he suggested “federal authorities” were investigating “this direct connection between Trump and Russia.” He portrayed the shocking discovery as the work of independent experts — “computer scientists” — without disclosing their attachment to the campaign.

  “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan claimed.

  Clinton teed up his statement in an Oct. 31, 2016, tweet, which quickly went viral. Also that day, Clinton tweeted, “It’s time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia,” while attaching a meme that read: “Donald Trump has a secret server. It was set up to communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank called Alfa Bank.”

  

  The Clinton campaign played up the bogus Trump-Alfa Bank story on the eve of the 2016 election. Twitter/@HillaryClinton

  It’s not immediately apparent if then-Vice President Joe Biden was briefed about the Alfa Bank tale or other Trump-Russia rumors and investigations.

  Biden has never been questioned about his own role in the investigation of Trump. However, it was the former vice president who introduced the idea of prosecuting Trump’s national security adviser appointee, Gen. Flynn, under the Logan Act of 1799, a dead-letter statute that prohibits private citizens from interfering in U.S. foreign policy and which hasn’t been used to prosecute anyone in modern times. According to notes taken by then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who attended a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting with Obama and Biden, in which Trump, Flynn and Russia were discussed, Biden raised the idea: “VP: Logan Act,” the notes read.

  Although he’s not an attorney, Sullivan has argued in congressional testimony and elsewhere that Flynn violated the Logan Act, raising suspicions he may have put the idea in Biden’s head. Sullivan had advised the vice president before joining the Clinton campaign.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:20

• This Has To Be A Mistake
  This Has To Be A Mistake

  While we were digging through the data for today’s household net worth report we stumbled upon something that seem beyond ridiculous: the ratio of Household Net Worth to Disposable Net Income. At 786% in the latest quarter, the chart at first appears to be a mistake but we triple checked it, and… well, here it is.

  

  The latest, all-time high print is an increase from 698% in Q1 and also represents the biggest quarterly increase in history!

  

  This number is so ridiculous, it is almost 50% higher than the long-term average of 540%. More importantly, it means that the total net worth number we reported earlier today, which in Q2 hit a record high of $142 trillion, is massively inflated on the back of what is obviously the biggest asset bubble on record.

  

  It also means that if one were to strip away the asset bubble, and net worth was purely a reasonable function of disposable income, then total net worth worth be haircut by 31%, or some $43 trillion, which incidentally, is equivalent to the net worth of the top 1% of US society…

  

  … and which as we showed earlier today is a record 32% of total household net worth.

  

  As an aside, the fact that the top 1% have gained $10 trillion in wealth since the covid pandemic outbreak, is probably just a coincidence, and yet…

  Covid has been the best thing ever to happen to the wealthy and powerful. No wonder they don’t want it to end

  — Hipster (@Hipster_Trader) September 23, 2021

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

  As for the chart which clearly has to be a mistake, we are sad to report that it isn’t, and as politicians of both the Democrat and Republican party pretend to fight for the common man, all they are doing is enabling and accelerating the greatest wealth transfer in the world but not for nothing: they too want to be in the top 1%.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 22:00

• FOMC Voting Rotation Matters More Than A Hawkish Dot Shift
  FOMC Voting Rotation Matters More Than A Hawkish Dot Shift

  As excerpted from Michael Read, Bloomberg Markets Live Reporter and Commentator

  The hawkish dot plot should be treated with an even greater degree of skepticism than usual.

  Firstly, dots are individual projections, do not distinguish between voting and non-voting members and likely reflect views from policy makers whose terms will come to an end over the dot horizon. They aren’t really summary forecasts or a promise of action and are most certainly not fungible by any means.

  

  Secondly, while we undoubtedly had a technical shift in the 2022 median dot and 2023 snapping up to 1.5 hikes (we can put the new 2024 dot on the bench for the time being) the key point here is exactly who is going to do the voting. We can spend the next few weeks and months playing guess-the-dot, or we can look at the voting rotation on the FOMC to analyse the balance of power.

  In 2022, four hawkish regional Fed Presidents rejoin the voting roll (Bullard, George, Mester, Rosengren) with two doves (Evans, Daly) dropping off. The “year of the hawks“ gives the 2022 hawkish shift more credibility assuming the Fed’s accelerated tapering is completed mid-2022 with few hiccups along the way.

  Beyond that it gets a bit messy. In 2023, the FOMC voting bias is flipped on its head. Two hawks rejoin (Harker/Kaplan) but a broad range of the current hawkish contingent are benched as a flock of doves, including Evans/Kashkari assume voting positions… all while dots (currently) point to three hikes.

  

  Plausible? Sure. Probable? Less so.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:40

• "Hyperinflation" Tops List Of Fears For UBS Clients
  “Hyperinflation” Tops List Of Fears For UBS Clients

  With Democrats in Washington pushing for a $3.5 trillion ‘social infrastructure’ stimulus package and Speaker Pelosi perhaps hinting at the removal of the debt ceiling altogether for the US, it is perhaps no surprise that some are ‘worried’ that the idea of consequences is absent from any discussions.

  Pelosi called the debt ceiling vote a “tradition,” adding that there is some back and forth about whether they need to do it, before she dropped this bombshell: “There’s some doubt as to whether that should be the case.”

  Well no debt ceiling would certainly enable MMT – as long as The Fed can keep monetizing that malarkey – and perhaps that’s why USA sovereign risk is spiking…

  

  While US’s sovereign risk has been considerably higher than this before (like in 2013 during that debt ceiling debacle), the velocity of the move suggests more than a few investors are considering the chance of a US default.

  Who can blame anyone for at least considering that when US debt is literally exploding – with no signs of it abating…

  

  …and the Fed’s balance sheet having gone vertical…

  

  With Central Bankers constantly reassuring that there is nothing to fear here – some even pointing to Japan as proof that this can go on much longer before the pin is pulled from the global reserve currency’s grenade – it appears that, back in the real-world, real-life human beings investing their own hard-earned money are much more worried about Washington’s largesse.

  Specifically, clients of UBS Group AG are wondering whether central banks’ massive stimulus could trigger hyperinflation, according to a list of their top economic concerns…

  

  As Bloomberg notes, the concerns highlight the conundrum facing central banks as they continue to provide ultra-accommodative policy to help economies recover from the crisis.

  Commodity prices have spiked and other inputs are facing severe supply constraints, driving up inflation rates from Europe to the U.S.

  And remember “nothing lasts forever” in fiat make-believed-land…

  

  With the world now seemingly convinced The Fed is on its way to normalization (tapering into mid-2022, then rate-liftoff by end-2022) and a Democrat-run socialist utopia lies aheadwhere the rich pay “their fair share” of taxes and the citizenry gets to sit at home being “artistic” and “creative” thanks to our UBI (as long as we comply with vaccine mandates); some more pragmatic market-watchers – like the UBS clients – see a path that is a little less optimistic (think Mad Max).

  Peter Schiff warned that even if the Fed does begin to taper, it will eventually reverse course and ultimately expand QE.

  “It knows the only foundation this bubble economy has is the Fed’s easy money policies. And I don’t think they have any actual plans to taper. And even if they just kind of feign the process by beginning it, they’ll never complete it because soon after they start the taper, again, if they even ever start, they’re going to have to reverse the process. Because ultimately, the Fed Fed is going to expand the QE program and start to buy a lot more government Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities in the future than it’s doing right now.”

  They’re going to be tired of a boy crying wolf over and over and over again, and a wolf never actually showing up.

  At some point, the markets are going to figure this out, understand the Fed’s predicament, and then it’s going to hit the fan.”

  Perhaps that is why gold and crypto has soared so much…

  

  Remember the strength/weakness of the ‘dollar’ only exists relative to other fiat frauds – to truly comprehend its ‘weakness’ one needs to compare to ‘stores of wealth’.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:20

• Australian Government Shuts Down Melbourne Construction Sites Amid Protests Over Vaccine Mandates
  Australian Government Shuts Down Melbourne Construction Sites Amid Protests Over Vaccine Mandates

  By Jennifer Goodman of Construction Dive,

  Construction sites in and around Melbourne, Australia, have been shut down for two weeks after hundreds of construction workers and other protestors gathered Monday at the site of a union building, throwing bottles and damaging equipment.

  

  They were protesting the Victorian government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for construction workers that begins Thursday.

  Riot police used rubber bullets and pepper spray to disperse crowds, the BBC reported, and the headquarters building for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union was damaged. Several people were arrested.

  The union released a statement saying it condemned the protests and the “mindless acts of violence” perpetrated by members of the crowd. The statement said that many protesters were not construction workers but members of neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist groups.

  “It is clear that a minority of those who participated were actual union members,” it said.

  Protests continued on Tuesday in Melbourne, with the crowd growing into the thousands and encompassing anti-vaccine activists and other types of workers. 

  Up to 2,000 protesters descended into the city’s central business district, according to The New York Times, which also reported that protesters threw bottles at the police and set off flares, while officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and used pepper spray.

  Worker protests began last week when “tea rooms” where tradespeople congregate during breaks were shut down amid the rising delta surge and the government banned workers from consuming food or drink indoors. That prompted construction workers to take their lunch breaks outside in protest.

  They set up tables and plastic chairs in multiple intersections in central Melbourne, blocking roads and holding up traffic, according to NPR.

  Public health measures

  Following the protests, construction and state officials announced that jobsites in Melbourne and other areas in the region will be closed for at least two weeks beginning Tuesday. It cited Monday’s unrest and the increase in COVID-19 cases in the building and construction industry as the reasons.

  Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that multiple outbreaks — as high as 13% of all cases, according to local media reports — have been linked to construction sites.

  Construction has been among the few industries that have largely stayed open throughout the pandemic in Victoria.

  “Construction workers are a mobile workforce who may work across multiple sites and travel longer distances to work than other permitted workers,” Andrews said in a statement. “Concerns have also been raised, and remain, about the sector’s compliance with public health measures and directions.”

  Minister for Industrial Relations Tim Pallas was even more forceful, saying that his office has seen widespread non-compliance across the industry.

  “We’ve been clear: if you don’t follow the rules, we won’t hesitate to take action,” he said in the statement.

  Workers will be required to show proof of at least one vaccine dose when sites reopen on Oct. 5, he added.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 21:00

• Taiwan Seeks Entry Into Key Trade Pact Before China, Says Simultaneous Bid "Quite Risky"
  Taiwan Seeks Entry Into Key Trade Pact Before China, Says Simultaneous Bid “Quite Risky”

  China and Taiwan are increasingly entering a war of words as both are within the last week seeking to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. The Pacific trade pact involves Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and others among 11 total countries, which began in 2018 – though previous to that it was known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and ironically was long deemed a crucial economic counterweight to China’s regional influence. 

  On Wednesday, merely less than a week after Beijing announced its own bid for formal membership, Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Chen Chern-chyi unveiled the application in a press conference while Cabinet spokesperson Lo Ping-cheng said, “Applying to join the CPTPP is an important economic and trade policy that the government has worked hard to promote for a long time.”

  Taiwan’s chief trade negotiator John Deng admitted on the same day that “it will pose a major obstacle for Taiwan to join the trade bloc if Beijing joins it first.” Beijing’s ‘One China’ policy has attempted to aggressively enforce the idea that Taiwan can’t join international trade pacts and institutions. 

  

  Deng followed up in Thursday statements by pointing out that China consistently attempts to obstruct Taiwan’s participation in global trade and entities, underscoring that, “So if China joins first, Taiwan’s membership case should be quite risky. This is quite obvious.”

  “I stress that Taiwan is an sovereign, independent nation. It has its own name. But for trade deals the name we have used for years is the least controversial,” Deng added. He explained further:

  But Taiwan has a different “system” from China, Deng added, pointing to Taiwan’s democracy, rule of law, transparent laws and respect for personal property.

  However he said there was no direct connection between Taiwan’s decision to apply and China’s, which has yet to comment on Taiwan’s application.

  “How mainland China comments on this is a matter for them,” Deng said.

  He added that Taiwan, a major semiconductor producer, has applied to join under the name it uses in the World Trade Organization (WTO) — the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Taiwan is a member of the WTO and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.

  Last week Chinese state-run media hailed the Beijing’s own application application as affirming China’s leading role in global trade and success in resisting Washington pressures. For example Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times had this to say in a prior op-ed just hours after the announcement:

  The late-night announcement aims to cement China’s leadership role in global trade, while piling pressure on the US that has thus far stayed away from rejoining the revised version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a regional trade pact initiated by the US under former President Barack Obama that was widely believed to be aimed at containing China’s rise, experts said. 

  GT took further swipes, suggesting China represents multilateralism in the face of Washington bullying as follows:

  China is hoping for the CPTPP to put global trade and economic cooperation back on track, underscoring the need for multilateralism, thereby reviving both the Chinese economy and the global economy in the post-COVID-19 era.

  More importantly, watchers of international affairs stressed that China’s latest step that is set to steady its partnership with CPTPP members, would inevitably subject the US to what could be overwhelming pressure.

  So without doubt, officials in Beijing will see Taiwan’s bid for CPTPP membership as but yet more Washington meddling with a US ‘hidden hand’ challenging One China.

  On Thursday outspoken GT editor Hu Xijin weighed in with the following…

  Taiwan applied to join the CPTPP. If Taiwan wants to use this process to reinforce its impact on the one-China policy, I can say with certainty that it cannot enter the CPTPP.

  — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) September 23, 2021

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

  Currently Japan has the foremost visible leadership role in the CPTPP, which could further complicate things in terms of both China and Taiwan applying at the same time, given current rising Japan-China tensions are centered precisely on Tokyo’s recent willingness to take a pro-Washington line on the matter.

  Meanwhile, Britain began negotiations to enter the trans-Pacific trade pact in June, and its own case is front and center, said to be proceeding the fastest at the moment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:40

• Unbiased, Mobility-Enabling, Open, Global Network: How Crypto Enables Economic Freedom
  Unbiased, Mobility-Enabling, Open, Global Network: How Crypto Enables Economic Freedom

  Authored by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase,

  The following is an internal memo that I shared with Coinbase employees this week and would also like to share publicly to help people see how we’re working toward our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world.

  Tl;dr: Our core thesis is that greater adoption and usage of cryptocurrency will increase economic freedom in the world, because crypto solves many of the shortcomings of the current financial system that hinder economic freedom.

  

  Team,

  Every quarter at our company All Hands, we review our Mission (what we’re trying to achieve) and our Strategy (how we’re going to get there). One question I often hear from employees is: “How does cryptocurrency create more economic freedom in the world?” This is a great question, so I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you.

  First, a refresher: Economic freedom is a composite measure of 12 factors.

  It quantifies the rights of people to control their own labor and property in each country and globally. Economic freedom varies dramatically across the world, and while our economy is increasingly global, the government of any single country has significant control over the financial and economic freedoms of its people. Low economic freedom in a given country isn’t always due to malicious activity (e.g, fraud, oppression, etc) — it’s often due to mismanagement (poor monetary and fiscal policy) or simply bad infrastructure.

  Crypto and economic freedom

  The question to ask is: How can we build a global economy where anyone with an internet connection can participate, where property rights are enforced, and where money preserves its value? Crypto is the solution. Crypto can’t directly improve every facet of economic freedom (e.g., tax policies and government spending), but it can improve most of the underlying drivers (see below).

  

  Read more about each of the factors here.

  Why is crypto so uniquely positioned to increase economic freedom? Because it has these inherent properties:

  Crypto is an open, global network

  Crypto networks are open, removing the barriers of borders. It allows every person in the world to transact on shared networks, in the same way they communicate on a shared network (the internet). More importantly these networks themselves are not controlled by governments that can use their monetary systems to hinder economic freedom (and prosperity). This design principle leads to more open markets and increases trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and monetary freedom.

  Crypto enforces property rights

  Property rights allow people to save their income, grow their wealth, and plan for the long term because they know the fruits of their labor are safe from unfair seizure or theft. Before crypto, your confidence in property rights was a function of the trust you had in your government and its respect for the rule of law. With crypto, anyone can acquire and grow their wealth without intervention from trusted 3rd parties like a government or a bank, or fear that their wealth could easily be seized. Property rights are also about the ability to enter contractual agreements. In some areas around the world, a contract has little value, because you can’t be confident in its enforcement. Smart contracts move enforcement from the courts to the blockchain, enabling gains from specialization and commercial exchange.

  Crypto is unbiased

  Crypto networks are often pseudonymous (or even anonymous). They don’t care where you live, what your race or gender is, or who you voted for in the last election. Unlike the current financial system they are inherently open and unbiased. Anyone with an internet connection can create a wallet, get paid in crypto, spend in crypto and accrue wealth in crypto. Service providers like Coinbase do have compliance programs as required by law, but we don’t control access to all crypto and we don’t own the network. Anyone can access crypto networks through other providers if we make a bad decision, or are forced into bad regulation. In addition, self custody wallets like Coinbase Wallet provide an ever greater degree of freedom when it comes to financial inclusion.

  Crypto enables mobility

  As I mentioned above, there are important components of economic freedom that cryptocurrency can’t directly benefit (e.g., government integrity, tax policies, fiscal health, etc.). However, cryptocurrency does provide the conditions for mobility by reducing switching costs, allowing people to both accrue wealth and bring it across borders. Cryptocurrency is the ultimate embodiment of the power of the individual, by significantly reducing the barriers to emigration / exit, and thus increasing economic freedom.

  Conclusion

  As you can see, cryptocurrency can impact many of the factors that lead to more economic freedom. It can both help build better-functioning economies in countries with less economic freedom, and make it easier to emigrate to a better life. This is why our core thesis as a company is that greater adoption and usage of cryptocurrency will increase economic freedom in the world.

  Technology is the longest lever we can pull to improve the human condition. At its core, cryptocurrency is a technology breakthrough that allows us to build a more free and open financial system that enables the rights of people to control their own labor and property. It is the best tool that exists to advance our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world.

  What does this mean for Coinbase? Crypto is in many ways still nascent. It’s still hard to use, crypto networks are plagued with scaling challenges, and the economy built on top of crypto infrastructure is in its early days. Our strategy and roadmap is geared towards solving these challenges: We’re focused on building easy-to-use products that abstract away the complexity of blockchains, and we’re building the primitives of a functioning financial system. We still have a long way to go, but the future is bright.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:20

• US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves
  US Meat Prices To Remain Elevated Amid Depleted Reserves

  Beef, pork, and chicken in US cold storage warehouses have yet to recover from pandemic lows and could continue to support higher prices. 

  New United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data shows beef reserves dropped 7.7% from a year ago in August, poultry supplies fell 20%, and pork plunged 44% to their lowest levels since 2017, according to Bloomberg. 

  

  Jim Sullivan, commercial director for Stable USA, said low meat inventories would suggest meat prices will stay elevated. 

  “Prices remain very elevated compared to seasonal expectations,” Sullivan said. 

  Soaring supermarket prices have been on the radar of the Biden administration as working-poor families allocate a high percentage of their incomes to basic and essential items. Higher food inflation eats away their wages and is why Biden recently increased SNAP benefits by a quarter. 

  Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally addressed inflation as a concern but didn’t blame the trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary policies and labor shortages on increased food inflation but instead placed responsibility on meatpackers. 

  White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said “pandemic profiteering” food companies are driving up supermarket costs for Americans. This is nothing more than a blame game and failed government policies that have not just increased food prices but have left supply chains reeling due to stimulus checks that disincentivized workers from working. 

  New data of low meat supply at US cold storage facility is more bad news for the Biden administration, who will have to develop a new narrative about why meat prices aren’t going down. If food inflation remains elevated into early next year, Americans might vote with their wallets during next year’s midterms. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 20:00

• "Ghost Guns": Why The Government Desperately Wants To Ban 3D-Printed Weapons
  “Ghost Guns”: Why The Government Desperately Wants To Ban 3D-Printed Weapons

  Authored by Aden Tate (Author of The Faithful Prepper and Zombie Choices) via The Organic Prepper,

  Nobody loves controlling others more than the government, so it’s no surprise that they’re desperate to ban 3-d printed guns. Right now, the US legislature has introduced two separate yet identical bills that would outright ban the creation of 3D-printed guns or the dissemination of the code for doing so.

  HR 4225 was introduced to the House Committee on the Judiciary on June 29 of this year by Representative Ted Deutsch (D-FL). A few short days later, an identical bill, S.2319, was introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) in the Senate. [Source]

  Officially, S.2319 is referred to as the 3-D Printed Gun Safety Act of 2021.

  They’re ready to take gun control to a whole new level with this.

  

  But you may know it as its mainstream media coined term: The Ghost Gun Ban

  According to the US government, the stated intention of S.2319 is “to amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the distribution of 3D printer plans for the printing of firearms, and for other purposes.” After the bill was introduced, 27 Senators throughout the US – all Democrat (with the exception of stated Independent, Bernie Sanders) – jumped on board to sign it. They are:

  •   Sen. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ]  

  •   Sen. Reed, John [D-RI]

  •   Sen. Schatz, Brian [D-HI]

  •   Sen. Casey, Bob [D-PA]

  •   Sen. Feinstein, Dianne [D-CA]

  •   Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR]

  •   Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT]

  •   Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR]

  •   Sen. Whitehouse, Sheldon [D-RI]

  •   Sen. Duckworth, Tammy [D-IL]

  •   Sen. Durbin, Richard [D-IL]

  •   Sen. Sanders, Bernard [I-VT]

  •   Sen. Padilla, Alex [D-CA]

  •   Sen. Murphy, Christopher [D-CT]

  •   Sen. Van Hollen, Chris [D-MD]

  •   Sen. Smith, Tina [D-MN]

  •   Sen. Leahy, Patrick [D-VT]

  •   Sen. Kaine, Timothy [D-VA]

  •   Sen. Cardin, Ben [D-MD]

  •   Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]

  •   Sen. Baldwin, Tammy [D-WI]

  •   Sen. Booker, Cory [D-NJ]

  •   Sen. Coons, Christopher [D-DE]

  •   Sen. Hirono, Mazie [D-HI]

  •   Sen. Gillibrand, Kirsten [D-NY]

  •   Sen. Brown, Sherrod [D-OH]

  •   Sen. Murray, Patty [D-WA]

   [source] 

  All these folks can’t wait to ban 3-d printed guns.

  What does this mean for aficionados if they ban 3-D printed guns ?

  Should this bill be passed to ban 3-D printed guns, it likely means that tens of thousands (if not more) of Americans would instantly become criminals overnight.  (This is nothing new for gun control aficionados in the government.) What was once legal for any free man would become criminal and likely result in the ATF being sent to the scene. 

  If you’ve purchased a 3D printer in the past, this bill could easily result in additional policies decreeing your need to register your printers, filaments, and other 3D printer-associated tools.

  Furthermore, this bill would make even posting the schematics for 3D printed guns online illegal. This is something that’s never been done before in American history.

  What do I mean by this?

  One has always been able to find gun blueprints in America. The United States has a long history of “backyard gunsmiths,” if you will, and it’s never been illegal before. Firearm schematics are readily available for those with a metal lathe, machining equipment, and the desire to craft their own weapon.

  But now that more people can engage in the act, it’s been decided it needs to be made illegal. Hence, it isn’t enough to ban 3D-printed guns alone. They must also ban all online 3D printed gun plans.

  Here’s the problem, though:

  3-D printed gun plans are free speech

  The founder of 3D printed guns, Cody Wilson, actually settled a hefty court case with the US State Department after successfully arguing that code is free speech and thus, he’d done nothing wrong by disseminating his code to the world. [source] 

  If such were made illegal, what type of code would follow?

  Would any form of encrypted messengers, such as Signal, soon be determined to be a ‘threat’ and thus made illegal? (Don’t think that can’t happen. It’s already been discussed.)  If you discussed how to reload ammunition online in a forum with a reloading newcomer, could you later be the subject of legislative action?

  What if you just taught a friend how to shoot at your farm? What if you teach your son how to hunt? In both cases, you’ve used words to instruct somebody else on how to use a firearm? Could that be subject to legislation down the road should this bill be passed? A similar bill about instructing others that was allegedly meant to discourage informal militias was brought up in Virginia back in 2020.

  Couldn’t every firearm book in existence that teaches people how to reload, shoot, clean a gun, etc., fall under the jurisdiction of such a decision?

  The Constitution has been forsaken

  We’ve already seen that the American justice system has a long history of resorting to case law rather than Constitutional law. The passing of this bill would only make the arguing for further infringements of human freedom even easier for these people. 

  Further examples would be how this bill could open the door for every conceivable firearm part or accessory out there now needing to be registered. Diagrams for any such part – say for something as simple as a pair of flip-up sights – could be rendered illegal overnight. Now, millions of Americans would be deemed criminals in need of punishment.

  What would this mean for the gunsmith industry?

  Would you be able to continue practicing your trade? Within the world of firearms, prices would reach such exorbitant levels that nobody would be able to afford guns or ammunition.

  Why is this?

  Well, if every firearm component has to be stamped and registered, you’re talking about forcing every manufacturer out there to invest money in stamping equipment. You’re talking about a considerable expense, extra employees, and extra training. The registration process would require additional time, likely include a tax of some sort, and would create a host of legal hoops to jump through. And nobody’s just going to eat that cost. They will send it directly to the consumer.

  The adjustable AR-15 stock you once bought for $60 could now easily be $100. The AK-47 you’ve had your eyes on could now be selling for 4x higher than in prior years. This would effectively mean that only those with enough disposable income, along with the capability and wherewithal to jump through a circus ring of obstacles, would be able to defend themselves.

  Single mothers, fresh college grads, and anybody running on hard times financially (such as those brought about by government-instituted lockdowns) would no longer be able to afford the weapons, ammunition, or training needed to defend themselves.

  Do you think the government will succeed in its efforts to ban 3-D printed guns?

  When the rights to free speech and self-defense are simultaneously attacked, the only thing coming down the road is slavery.

  But hey, F-15 jets, Blackhawk helicopters, and 600,000 rifles given away in Afghanistan?  [source]

  No big deal.

  Do you agree that these regulations would be an infringement on your Constitutional rights?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:40

• Evergrande Auto Hasn't Sold A Single Car, But Has Enriched Its Founder And His Friends Plenty
  Evergrande Auto Hasn’t Sold A Single Car, But Has Enriched Its Founder And His Friends Plenty

  While everyone has been focusing on Evergrande as a property developer, few know the story about how Evergrande Auto became worth $86.6 billion at one point without selling a single car. The company now trades at a fraction, about 4%, of its all time high. While shareholders were wiped out for the most part, insiders made out well. 

  On Tuesday of this week, the company did what it does best. No, not make vehicles: pay insiders. Evergrande Auto “granted 323.72 million share options worth HK$1.26 billion to three directors and around 3,180 employees of the company,” a new report from Caixin notes.

  Founder Hui Ka Yan and “friends” in his circle have made out the best from the fallen company. How well have they done? One “friend” of the founder bought 80 million shares in the company before it was renamed as Evergrande Auto for HK$0.30 each. They then sold them all for HK$50 per share, netting the friend more than HK$4 billion.

  Hey, it’s great work if you can get it. 

  Caixin reports that the primary purpose of Evergrande Auto was to raise capital for the group company Evergrande. While the parent company claimed it was investing some 47 billion yuan into the auto company, analysts are starting to wonder if the market funded these investments instead. 

  One analyst told Caixin: “Evergrande Auto had raised 30 billion yuan in two rounds, which means that the company mostly used investors’ money — instead of its own capital — to invest, and it managed to gain a high market value (for the auto company). Consequently, with its shares (in the auto company) at high price, it could use them as collateral to raise even more money.”

  The company focused more on M&A than it did on making cars, the report says. For example, it bought a major stake in Xinjiang Guanghui Industry Investment Group Co. Ltd. for 14.5 billion yuan in 2018. As Caixin notes, that company is a stakeholder in China Grand Automotive Services Group Co. Ltd., which is one of the largest auto dealers in the country.

  

  The stake was later sold off in 2019 when Evergrande needed cash. 

  In 2019, Evergrande Auto’s predecessor bought a 51% stake in National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB (NEVS) for $930 million, the report notes. Evergrande’s stock price rose as a result. 

  Part of the mechanics that helped Evergrande Auto’s predecessor rocket higher included the fact that 18 shareholders owned 19.83% of the company’s shares. When combined with the 74.99% of the issued shares held by the company, that only left 5.18% of Evergrande shares to be traded freely. 

  Evergrande also acquired a 51% equity stake in Fangchebao Group Co. Ltd. using its shares. Fangchebao then brought in 17 investors in March 2021 that helped it raise capital at a valuation of HK$163.5 billion. Evergrande made HK$8.175 billion upon selling its shares.

  Analysts, however, were baffled as to how Evergrande was able to bring in investors at the elevated valuation. The secret lied in a promise of a buyback from Evergrande.

  One investor told Caixin: “What we valued was its valuation adjustment mechanism (对赌协议). If Fangchebao failed to go public within a year, Evergrande would buy back our shares at a 15% premium to the prevailing market price. At least, through this mechanism, we could get out money back.”

  Those investors thought Evergrande could continue to push up Fangchebao’s valuation and that Evergrande wouldn’t fail within a year.

  Another investor said: “However, Fangchebao was a relatively poor quality company, much worse than Evergrande Property Services. In Fangchebao’s case, it was better not to go public. It would be more troublesome after the listing because its poor performance would become public knowledge.”

  Then there’s the question of who truly benefitted from Evergrande’s financial wheeling and dealing over the years. While investors and shareholders now suffer the consequences of the company’s poor decision making, Hui Ka Yan’s personal assets are now mysteriously being “transferred to new ownership”, the report says. In fact, Hui was easily the single biggest beneficiary of the dividends paid by Evergrande from 2011 to 2020. 53 billion yuan of the 69 billion yuan that Evergrande has paid in dividends since it listed have gone to Hui.

  You can read Caixin’s detailed report here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:20

• Tropical Storm Sam Forms In Atlantic Basin, Expected To Become Major Hurricane This Weekend
  Tropical Storm Sam Forms In Atlantic Basin, Expected To Become Major Hurricane This Weekend

  Tropical Storm Sam, the 18th named storm of the season, formed Thursday in the Atlantic Basin, is forecasted to become a major hurricane by the end of this weekend or early next week, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). 

  NHC said Sam formed Thursday morning from Tropical Depression Eighteen and is about 1,745 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands and moving west at 16 mph. 

  “Intensification is expected through the rest of this week and into the weekend, and Sam is expected to become a hurricane late Friday or Friday night,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller said.

  The storm is expected to take a west-northwest track across the central Atlantic over the weekend, Accuweather said. It’s still uncertain whether it makes landfall, but NHC has urged caution for the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the US East Coast. 

  “Sam could approach the northern Leeward Islands by Tuesday of next week as a major hurricane,” Miller said, indicating this would mean the storm would have maximum sustained winds of more than 100 mph.

  

  Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach tweeted that this hurricane season has had 18 named storms, and there was only one other time that this happened by Sept. 23, which was last year. 

  Tropical Storm #Sam has formed in the eastern tropical Atlantic – the 18th named storm of the 2021 Atlantic #hurricane season to date. Only 1 season on record has had 18+ Atlantic named storms by 23 September: 2020. 2020 had 23 named storms by 23 September. pic.twitter.com/AGFg37ljxw

  — Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) September 23, 2021

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

  On Sept. 10, Klotzbach called the “climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season,” indicating the number of named storms is well above average. 

  

  It’s still too early to tell Sam’s exact trajectory, but a better understanding of its path will be established in the coming days. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 19:00

• Pelosi Vows To Avert Shutdown As Dems Reportedly Cave To "Republican Blockade"
  Pelosi Vows To Avert Shutdown As Dems Reportedly Cave To “Republican Blockade”

  Yesterday, when we laid out the dynamics behind Biden’s game of debt limit chicken, we quoted Rabobank which explained why the stand-off between Democrats and Republicans ahead of the debt ceiling Drop Dead Date (the date when all emergency funding measures are exhausted and which falls some time in late October) is so precarious: unlike previous occasions, neither side has to back down due to political or ideological purposes. In fact the side that is seen as conceding first  will likely be punished by its electorate; it’s also why Goldman has repeatedly warned that the odds of a catastrophic outcome are especially high.

  Worse, the closer we get to the Drop Dead Date without a deal, the more likely a freefall outcome becomes as the two sides dig in with the only hope then becoming a deal after the fact.

  However, today a ray of hope emerged when Bloomberg reported that Nancy Pelosi signaled Democrats will avert a government shutdown by passing a stopgap spending bill without a debt ceiling increase in it, amid Republican opposition to linking the two measures.

  “Whatever it is, we will have a CR that passes both houses by September 30,” Pelosi said at a press briefing Thursday, referring to the continuing resolution that will be needed to fund the federal government at the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

  The House passed a stopgap spending measure this week that would keep the government open until Dec. 3 and suspend the debt ceiling until Dec. 16, 2022, but that measure is dead in the Senate where it needs 60 votes to move ahead and Republicans are expected block it in.

  At a news conference that included Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Pelosi said that the conversation on the debt limit would continue. Schumer separately announced that Democrats have a “framework” for a deal to pay for President Joe Biden’s economic plan, though neither he nor Pelosi provided any details.

  Adding to the confusion, due to the irregularity of Treasury revenues and outlayws, it is not yet clear when the US Treasury could be on the brink of a default, adding uncertainty to how quickly Congress has to act. Yellen has said the government will probably exhaust its ability to avoid breaching the limit at some point in October, which is in line with Goldman’s estimate of D-Date falling around October 27.

  

  Meanwhile, confirming that Senate republicans won’t touch the debt limit vote, top senate republican Mitch McConnell said Democrats have plenty of time to use a partisan approach to raise the debt ceiling without Republican votes.  He also said that it would take Democrats “about a week or a little more” to use the budget reconciliation procedure to raise the debt limit (reconciliation bills bypass the filibuster, removing the need for GOP votes in the 50-50 Senate, but have required procedures that take time to go through).

  Senate Democrats have so far resisted deploying that tactic, saying that the effort should be bipartisan as Democrats realize that raising the debt ceiling on their own could hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2022, so they prefer sharing the blame with the Republicans by forcing them to support a suspension of the debt limit. In .

  “This may inconvenient for them, but it is totally possible,” McConnell said. “This Democratic government must not manufacture an avoidable crisis.”

  For once he was actually right: as Rabobank explained, “the Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling and adopt a spending patch, through budget reconciliation, without any Republican vote. Therefore it will be difficult to blame a government shutdown or even a default on the Republicans. The mainstream media may try to do so anyway, but conservative media – which are relevant to Republican voters – will explain the realities to their audience. Therefore, there is no electoral need for the Republicans to blink. If they have the stomach for it, they can win this game and force the Democrats to “own” their spending spree. What’s more, if the Democrats fail to stick together under pressure, Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda could dissolve in October.”

  McConnell’s comments challenge House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth, who said Wednesday that Democrats probably do not have enough time to raise the U.S. debt ceiling on their own using the fast-track budget process before the default date. Actually they do – here is a calendar of fiscal policy deadlines courtesy of Rabo:

  

  An impartial budget expert agreed with McConnell’s view of the timetable: “They could do it in less than two weeks,” said former Senate Budget Committee staff director Bill Hoagland, now with the Bipartisan Policy Center. “It would be tight but I believe they could do it.”

  To be sure, not all Democrats are opposed to using the partisan path to raising the debt limit. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal said in an interview with CNN he’d be open to using reconciliation.

  “If we had to do it, I would do that,” Neal said, according to CNN. “I mean that the idea that America would default on debt is so far removed from everything I’ve ever entertained or thought of since I’ve been here.”

  Other Democrats on Thursday suggested the same: “I don’t draw lines in the sand. I want to get this done,” Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin said.

  Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said Democratic leadership is exploring alternatives for the debt limit. “I’m not going to let the government default,” Kaine said, adding that Democrats have voted under Republican presidents to suspend the debt ceiling. “But if they’re not going to be responsible, we still will be,” he added.

  Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said he expects “at the end of the day” the Senate will pass a stopgap government funding bill that doesn’t have a debt limit increase on it and that Democrats will move the debt-limit increase through reconciliation.

  Yet not everyone is confident that a debt ceiling deal will be reached on time, starting first and foremost with the market, where today’s 4-week and 8-week Bill auctions showed a dramatic preference for the latter at the expense of the former, which mature right around the Drop Dead Date and may suffer repayment complications if the US is in technical default. As shown below, the discount rate on the 4-Week Bills came 1.5bps higher than the 8-Week Bill, the widest differential since the March 2020 covid crisis.

  

  Additionally, there was a collapse in Indirect demand for 4-week bills, with Indirects taking down just 21.3% while taking home a much higher 67.3% of the eight-week offering, the most since June 17.

  Finally, one reason why Pelosi may be less than credible is because earlier today, WaPo reported that the White House budget office (OMB) told federal agencies on Thursday to begin preparations for the first shutdown of the U.S. government since the pandemic began.

  While administration officials stressed the request is in line with traditional procedures seven days ahead of a shutdown and not a commentary on the likelihood of a congressional deal, the market did not seem to accept that explanation. Both Democrats and Republicans have made clear they intend to fund the government before its funding expires on Sept. 30, but time is running out and lawmakers are aiming to resolve an enormous set of tasks to in a matter of weeks.

  More importantly, WaPo confirmed Bloomberg’s report reporting that privately Democrats also began to acknowledge they are unlikely to prevail in the face of what the Washington Post called, a Republican blockade: “Democrats have started discussing the mechanics of how to sidestep Republicans as soon as next week, according to lawmakers and aides, as they maintain they will not allow the government to shut down in a pandemic or the country to default for the first time in history.”

  In a sign of the early scramble to avoid a shutdown, the Senate’s two top appropriators — Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and top Republican Richard C. Shelby (Ala.) — are set to huddle at a meeting later Thursday to discuss issues potentially including a short-term agreement to keep the government funded. Such a measure could be moved independently of an increase in the debt ceiling, since Republicans including McConnell have an expressed an openness to supporting such a solution.

  Meanwhile Bill Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, pointed out that parts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health would be closed as part of the government shutdown. Hoagland said a very brief shutdown may occur but said he doubted it would go on for “any length of time.”

  “This would be the first shutdown during a declaration of national emergency,” Hoagland said. “In the midst of an ongoing pandemic and non-resolved issues related to the delta virus, to have a shutdown of some of the major federal agencies would add unbelievable complications to our ability to recover.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 18:40

• North Carolina Hospital System Suspends Hundreds Of Employees After COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
  North Carolina Hospital System Suspends Hundreds Of Employees After COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  A North Carolina health care system said it suspended hundreds of its employees after the firm implemented a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, adding that workers who refuse to get vaccinated after five days will be fired.

  “Beginning this week, approximately 375 team members—across 15 hospitals, 800 clinics and hundreds of outpatient facilities—have been confirmed to be non-compliant and are not able to report to work,” stated a press release from Novant Health, which is based in North Carolina but operates in other states.

  “They will have an opportunity to comply over a five day, unpaid suspension period,” the release said.

  “If a team member remains non-compliant after this suspension period, he or she will have their employment with Novant Health terminated.”

  The firm then claimed that about 98.5 percent of its workforce are compliant with the policy, meaning they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Workers who started a two-dose vaccine series have until Oct. 15 to get the second shot, Novant said.

  

  Employees who have an exemption are required to get weekly COVID-19 testing, as well as wear N95 masks and eye protection, it added.

  In a similar move, 125 workers with Indiana University Health, the biggest hospital system in the state, parted ways with the company, according to a news release issued last week. Those workers, it said, did not comply with the firm’s vaccine mandate.

  “Indiana University Health has put the safety and well-being of patients and team members first by requiring employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Sept. 1,” the company said in a Sept. 16 statement. “After a two-week unpaid suspension period ending Sept. 14, a total of 125 employees, the equivalent of 61 full-time employees, chose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and have left the organization.”

  It comes as President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced he would direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to penalize companies with 100 or more employees if they do not comply with his administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Under the mandate, details of which have not been released, private-sector workers would have to either get the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing.

  The president also said he would mandate that all health care workers who are employed at facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding get vaccinated.

  Republican leaders, as well as some union bosses, have criticized Biden for the announcement and said it’s tantamount to federal overreach. Some governors and state attorneys general have threatened to file lawsuits against the mandate.

  What happened to “heroes!”?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/23/2021 – 18:20

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