Today’s News 25th August 2021

• Glasgow Landlord Tries Renting Their "Sh*tter Out As A Micro-Office"
  Glasgow Landlord Tries Renting Their “Sh*tter Out As A Micro-Office”

  A landlord in central Glasgow has converted a bathroom into a “micro-office” that offers a toilet, a mini-fridge, a desk and lamp, and a window for rent, according to Daily Mail. 

  The compact office space or what appears to be a bathroom, is listed on the British-based online classified advertisement website “Gumtree” for $70 per week, or about $280 per month.

  The ad reads:

  “Small and compact space ideal for solo working. 

  “Located on the 1st floor of a tenement building in Partick, the space has its own private entrance. 

  “Included is fibre broadband connection, 2 x desks, mini fridge, toilet and sink, underfloor heating, lamps, mains supply, kettle. 

  “It’s a nice quiet spot and was recently converted.  

  “Available from 8am to 6pm Mon to Fri and would provide keys to longer term renters.”

  

  Since the listing was posted on Gumtree more than a month ago it has received nothing but harsh comments on social media. 

  “Someone in Partick is renting their s***er out as an office,” one person wrote in response to the ad.

  Another joked: “Zoom calls on the throne”.

  “Kay where is the shower? What about wet paperwork? There is a claim there waiting to happen,” a third questioned.

  The micro-office located in a bathroom comes to light after social media users were outraged when another landlord in Glasgow attempted to rent out a two-bedroom apartment for around $1350 per month with a missing kitchen. 

  Landlordism is certainly peaking as rents in a post-COVID world are soaring in big cities, not just in the UK but across the Western world. In one of the hottest real estate markets, a landlord in Vancouver converted a bathroom into a “micro-studio” for $680 per month.  

  Ponzi scheme master Bernie Madoff’s jail cell was bigger than the micro-office – and his rent was free. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/25/2021 – 02:45

• Spain's Supreme Court Rules Against Using Vaccine Passports To Restrict Access To Public Spaces
  Spain’s Supreme Court Rules Against Using Vaccine Passports To Restrict Access To Public Spaces

  Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

  It’s the first time a high court of a European Member State has challenged the use of vaccine passports domestically. 

  

  Spain’s Supreme Court made waves last week by becoming the first judicial authority in Europe to rule against the use of covid passports to restrict access to public spaces — specifically hospitality businesses (bars, restaurants and nightclubs). It is not the first Spanish court to come out against vaccine passports but it is the most important. So far, only five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions – the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, Andalusia, Cantabria and Galicia – have proposed using vaccine passports to restrict access to public spaces. And all have been rejected by local judges.

  The EU’s Green Pass is a one-piece QR-code document that can be issued to a traveller in both paper and digital format. It is intended to prove that the holder has either received one of the four vaccines authorised by the European Medicine Agency (BioNTech-Pfizer’s, Moderna’s, AztraZeneca’s and Johnson &Johnson’s), has tested negative for Covid-19 in the last 48 hours or has been infected with Covid in the last six months and therefore has natural immunity. However, some countries such as France have chosen only to allow entry to travellers that are fully vaccinated.

  Many government are also using the documents to limit access for unvaccinated citizens to public spaces and services with their own countries. But so far Spanish judges have challenged this trend, on the grounds that it would infringe on certain constitutionally recognised individual rights, such as the right to physical integrity and privacy, while also having limited impact on public health. The Supreme Courts of Andalusia and Ceuta and Melilla said the measures were also discriminatory. When the Supreme Court of Andalusia sided with local hospitality businesses in their appeal against the region’s proposed vaccine passport measures, the regional authority took the case to the national Supreme Court. And lost.

  Economic considerations may have also played a part in the courts’ decision. Spain’s hospitality sector generates a huge amount of money and a huge number of jobs, especially during the peak tourist season (i.e., right now). The sector has already been through the grinder of last year’s three-month national lockdown as well as sporadic regional lockdowns. Even with the introduction of vaccine passports, overseas visitors continue to arrive in dribs and drabs. As was the case last year, it’s domestic demand that is keeping many businesses alive. And limiting that demand is likely to create even more economic pain. 

  Constitutional Clashes

  But this is not the first time that Spain’s government and regional authorities have clashed with the judiciary over the management of the public health crisis. Since Spain ended its state of alarm on May 9th, the high courts in the Valencia region, the Balearic islands, Catalonia, the Canary Islands and other parts of Spain have prevented regional authorities from applying a range of anti-Covid restrictions, including curfews and limits on social gatherings, on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional to breach fundamental rights when there’s no longer a state of alarm.

  Then, on July 14, Spain’s top judicial body, the Constitutional Court, delivered another hammer blow, by ruling that Spain’s coronavirus state of alarm had been unconstitutional all along. The government, it said, should instead have called for a state of emergency – which requires prior parliamentary approval – to curtail fundamental rights for the nationwide lockdown.

  In its August 18 ruling, against using the Digital Covid Certificate to grant or deny access to nightlife venues, the Supreme Court said there wasn’t enough “substantial justification” for the requirement of a health pass in bars and nightclubs across the entire region of Andalusia, seeing it more as a “preventative measure” rather than a necessary action. Instead, it said the measure “restrictively affects basic elements of freedom of movement and the right of assembly.”

  Interestingly, the Supreme Court also said that using vaccine passports to control access to public spaces and services may not even help prevent infections. In fact, it may exacerbate them, given that recent research has shown that people who have been vaccinated or previously infected with Covid-19 can still catch and spread the virus. As such, implementing a vaccine passport system does not protect others from infection, including those who gain access to a public space by presenting a negative result of a PCR test. Such a document, the court said, “only proves that at the time of the test these people were not carrying the active virus”.

  By now it is clear, as Yves laid out meticulously on Friday, that the vaccines are not what they were cracked up to be. Their efficacy fades quickly and is particularly depleted against the Delta variant. Research has also shown that the virus loads of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are almost identical with regard to the Delta variant. As such, if a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person have roughly the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus, particularly in its Delta form, what difference does implementing a vaccination passport, certificate or ID actually make to the spread of the virus?

  This is a question that many of the people who attended the Boardmasters’ Music Festival in the UK may now be asking themselves. To attend the event they needed to prove, with their NHS Pass, a recent negative test, full vaccination or Covid infection in the past 180 days — in other words, almost exactly the same conditions required by the EU’s Green Pass. The event’s organizers seem to have done everything by the book yet roughly one week after the festival, almost 5,000 Covid cases had been potentially linked to the event. The city where it was held, Newquay, became England’s “Covid capital”, registering up to 1,110 cases per 100,000 people in the week ending August 14 — nearly four times the average rate in the country. 

  Fierce Public Opposition

  In the wake of the Spanish Supreme Court’s ruling there is probably little point in any of Spain’s 17 regional governments even trying to use Covid health passes in their territories for any purpose other than travel abroad. If such measures were introduced, they would only be in force for a brief period before a court shelved them.

  It’s a very different story across the rest of the EU. Even as the evidence grows that the current crop of vaccines are not very effective at limiting the spread of the Delta variant and that so-called “breakthrough cases” are not nearly as rare as the term would suggest, most governments are accelerating and expanding their use of vaccine passports and mandates. Twenty-two out of 27 EU Member States already require hospitality green passes or similar health passports to enter restaurants, bars, museums, libraries and other public places.

  In France those without a pass are banned from the outside terraces of cafes, bars and restaurants. They are not even allowed to enter hospitals, apart from for emergency procedures. By the end of August many private-sector workers who serve the public have to be vaccinated. The jab will also become mandatory for all French health workers by Sept. 15. The government insists the pass is necessary to encourage vaccination uptake and avoid a fourth national lockdown. But for many protesters the new legislation represents everything a constitutional republic like France should stand against: authoritarian control, discrimination, denial of access to basic freedoms and services, education and healthcare.

  Opposition among the vaccine hesitant remains fierce. For a sixth straight Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people turned out in towns and cities across France to vent their fury at the government’s increasingly repressive vaccine laws. If anything, the demonstrations are likely to intensify in the coming weeks, as students — often a vital cog in French protest movements — return to university and vaccine-reluctant public workers begin to contemplate life without an income.

  Large demonstrations have also taken place in Italy, Greece and Germany. In Latvia’s capital, Riga, 5,000 people took to the streets on Wednesday night to protest government plans to make vaccination mandatory for certain professions and allow employers to fire workers who refuse to get jabbed. It was reported to be the largest demonstration in Latvia since 2009.

  A Kafkaesque Twist

  In Spain, meanwhile, everything is rather quiet. There are few protests against the vaccine passports, since their impact on daily life has not been felt. Most people over the age of 30 are quite happy to get vaccinated — so much so that Spain, with 67% of its population fully vaccinated, places fourth on Oxford University’s Our World in Data’s ranking of the world’s most vaccinated countries. What’s more, Spain is yet to see its vaccine campaign stall, as has already happened in countries such as the US, Israel, Germany and France.

  Given that Spanish residents are getting vaccinated in such large numbers, there’s arguably even less need to use vaccine passports domestically. Fernando García López, the president of the Research Ethics Committee at the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid, argues that is better to “convince rather than coerce, something that can polarize,” adding that in Spain, “there is no major anti-vaccination group against which we need to fight, as is happening in other places.

  But that hasn’t stopped the passports from already creating a Kafkaesque nightmare for thousands of Spanish residents. During the latest wave of the virus, the country’s primary care service became so swamped that doctors and nurses in many parts of the country began using the much faster (and much cheaper) antigen tests to check patients for infection. The only problem is that to qualify for the EU’s health certificate on the grounds of natural infection, you need to have had a positive PCR test; the results of antigen tests are not recognised.

  And that means there are now thousands of people in Spain who are in limbo. They have all had a recent Covid infection, which means they should have natural immunity. And that means they should qualify for the EU’s Green Pass. But because Spain’s health authorities used the wrong test on them (presumably by mistake), they don’t. According to the EU these people never had Covid. Unless Brussels makes an exception for them, which is looking pretty unlikely, they will now have more difficulty travelling to other parts of Europe.

  It’s just one example of how arbitrary life can become in the “new normality” taking shape around us. As governments exert greater power and authority over our lives, all it takes is a simple administrative mistake for members of the public to suddenly find themselves unable to enter other European countries or even access public places and basic services in their home town. And as we’ve repeatedly seen since this pandemic began, governments and public authorities are prone to making mistakes pretty regularly.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/25/2021 – 02:00

• The Dangers Of Going Back To School After A Year Of COVID-19 Lockdowns
  The Dangers Of Going Back To School After A Year Of COVID-19 Lockdowns

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

  “Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”

  – Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes

  Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way and out of trouble.

  

  Those were the good old days, before the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a whole new level of Nanny State authoritarianism to our daily lives, locking down communities, forcing kids out of the schoolroom and into virtual classrooms, leaving vast swaths of the work force dependent on government welfare, while pushing other segments into a work-from-home model, and generally subjecting us to an increasingly obnoxious level of intrusion by the government into our private lives.

  Now, after almost 18 months away from a physical classroom, students are heading back to school.

  Here’s what they can expect.

  From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:

  • draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,

  • overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,

  • school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,

  • standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,

  • politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,

  • and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

  Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.

  Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

  Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.

  Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.

  Not even good deeds go unpunished.

  One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

  In South Carolina, where it’s against the law to “disturb” a school, more than a thousand students a year—some as young as 7 years old—“face criminal charges for not following directions, loitering, cursing, or the vague allegation of acting ‘obnoxiously.’ If charged as adults, they can be held in jail for up to 90 days.”

  These outrageous incidents are exactly what you’ll see more of now that in-person school is back in session, especially once you add COVID-19 mandates to the mix.

  Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.

  Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.

  Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

  Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers (SRO) have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.

  In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”

  The horror stories are legion.

  One SRO was accused of punching a 13-year-old student in the face for cutting the cafeteria line.

  That same cop put another student in a chokehold a week later, allegedly knocking the student unconscious and causing a brain injury.

  In Pennsylvania, a student was tasered after ignoring an order to put his cell phone away.

  When 13-year-old Kevens Jean Baptiste failed to follow a school bus driver’s direction to keep the bus windows closed (Kevens, who suffers from asthma, opened the window after a fellow student sprayed perfume, causing him to cough and wheeze), he was handcuffed by police, removed from the bus, and while still handcuffed, had his legs swept out from under him by an officer, causing him to crash to the ground.

  Young Alex Stone didn’t even make it past the first week of school before he became a victim of the police state. Directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses, Stone wrote, “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business.” Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.

  What followed is par for the course in schools today: students were locked down in their classrooms while armed police searched the 16-year-old’s locker and bookbag, handcuffed him, charged him with disorderly conduct disturbing the school, arrested him, detained him, and then he was suspended from school.

  Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.

  On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

  In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.

  Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

  Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.

  This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.

  Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.

  For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).

  Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.

  These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.

  The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.

  Unfortunately, advocates for such harsh police tactics and weaponry like to trot out the line that school safety should be our first priority lest we find ourselves with another school shooting. What they will not tell you is that such shootings are rare.

  As one congressional report found, the schools are, generally speaking, safe places for children.

  There can be no avoiding the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills and school-wide lockdowns to incidents in which children engaging in typically childlike behavior are suspended (for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate), handcuffed (for being disruptive at school), arrested (for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank), and even tasered (for not obeying instructions).

  Instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters—which one would hope would be the objective of the schools—government officials seem determined to churn out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

  So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?

  How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

  Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

  As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.

  For starters, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if you want a nation of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals.

  If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.

  If, on the other hand, you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums.

  Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state penitentiary.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 08/25/2021 – 00:05

• Taliban Captures US Military Biometric Devices
  Taliban Captures US Military Biometric Devices

  The Taliban’s latest offensives have been nothing short of impressive, acquiring 600,000 weapons, 75,000 vehicles, and 200 aircraft, transforming the terrorist group into a rogue military power overnight. One military device Taliban forces have sized is the U.S. military’s biometrics database that has sounded alarm bells with U.S. officials. 

  

  Called the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE), it was seized last week during the Taliban’s offensive, according to The Intercept, who spoke with current and former military officials. The sensitive data, now in Taliban hands, contains a biological database on the Afghan population. Some sensitive data include thousands of Afghan civilians who worked alongside U.S. Army Special Forces as interpreters. 

  

  We noted Sunday that stranded Afghans, some of whom worked for the U.S. military, are quickly deleting their social media profiles and covering up their internet presence to protect their privacy from the Taliban. 

  Taliban forces have been on a crusade to hunt and kill Afghans who worked with the U.S. military. Ever since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan two decades ago, thousands of Afghan interpreters have been hired. Since 2014, at least 300 of them and or family members have been killed. With the Taliban governing the country – many are fleeing for their lives, pleading with the U.S. military to rescue them. 

  The acquisition of HIIDE could make the Taliban’s hunt for Afghan interpreters even easier since their biometric data such as iris scans and fingerprints are in the system. 

  

  An Army Special Operations veteran, told The Intercept that Taliban computer gurus need additional computer processing to analyze HIIDE data but said Pakistan would gladly assist with this effort. “The Taliban doesn’t have the gear to use the data but the ISI do,” the former Special Operations official said, referring to Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. 

  Welton Chang, chief technology officer for Human Rights First, a former Army intelligence officer, said, “I don’t think anyone ever thought about data privacy or what to do in the event the [HIIDE] system fell into the wrong hands.” 

  “Moving forward, the U.S. military and diplomatic apparatus should think carefully about whether to deploy these systems again in situations as tenuous as Afghanistan,” Chang said. 

  The security risks posed by the abandoned biometrics database are just one of the numerous consequences of a sloppy U.S. withdrawal by the Biden administration. A proper withdraw would’ve been to wipe the databases clean and destroy all devices. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 23:45

• Democratic Bill Would Ban 3D Printing Firearm Schematics
  Democratic Bill Would Ban 3D Printing Firearm Schematics

  Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

  Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-Mass.) little-known 3D Printed Gun Safety Act (S. 2319) would criminalize sharing firearm schematics for 3D printers online.

  

  3D printing describes a process that allows people to “print” 3D models for various items. These models range from small tools, art projects, and shapes up to functional firearms. Critics of the practice have called these 3D-printed firearms “ghost guns” because they lack serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement to trace.

  Despite their relative novelty, 3D-printed firearms have a rich legal history.

  In 2018, Congress passed the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA), a foreign policy bill designed to restrict enemies’ access to U.S.-made munitions.

  In March 2020, 22 states argued that 3D firearm schematics violated ECRA because they were accessible to foreign enemies. They brought suit against Defense Distributed (D.D.), a firm that provided schematics for 3D firearms. The plaintiffs argued that these schematics would cause them “irreparable injury.” Seattle District Judge Robert Lasnik agreed and issued an injunction against D.D. (pdf).

  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case again this year on Apr. 27. The panel concluded in a split decision that courts had no say in the matter, asserting that “Congress expressly precluded judicial review … here,” and overturned the injunction against D.D. (pdf).

  After this decision, the Justice Department proposed new regulations on 3D-printed guns. First, retailers would be required to run a background check on customers before selling kits containing necessary materials to print a firearm. Second, kits would be required to include a serial number on the frame or the receiver to make them more traceable. Finally, firearms dealers would be mandated to add a serial number to any guns they bought that did not have one.

  Markey’s S.2319 would concretize federal rules against the distribution of 3D gun files. The bill alleges that these schematics “increase the risk that … felons, domestic abusers, and other people prohibited from possessing firearms under Federal law, will obtain a firearm through 3D printing.” Because these 3D guns are not traceable, S.2319 says, they are appealing to criminals.

  S.2319 goes on to warn that such schematics “threaten to undermine the entire Federal firearms regulatory scheme and to endanger public safety and national security.” To address this alleged risk, the bill would make it “unlawful for any person to intentionally distribute … code that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished frame or receiver.”

  Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) joined Markey in introducing the bill in the Senate. In a press release, Markey said of the bill:

  “With no background check required, untraceable and undetectable 3D printed guns serve as the ultimate gun-acquisition loophole. With the click of a mouse, anyone can download a computer file and use a 3D printer to manufacture a semi-automatic weapon. We cannot allow the online availability of downloadable firearms to add fuel to the fire that already is a massive gun violence public safety crisis.”

  Menendez expressed the same concerns, saying: “With the click of a mouse, anyone with an internet connection and a 3D printer essentially has a license to print, shoot and kill. Undetectable and untraceable 3D-printed guns allow criminals to circumvent law enforcement and commit crimes. That’s why we must close the ‘3D Gun Loophole’ that allows dangerous individuals to exploit gaps in existing law to manufacture firearms at home they cannot otherwise legally obtain.”

  s.2319 currently has 27 Democrat co-sponsors in the Senate. As of Monday, it remains in the Judiciary Committee. Still, with so many sponsors in the Senate, it is possible that Democrats may try to move the little-known bill out of committee for floor debate at some point. Even with the numerical Democratic majority, it would face a tough battle. Earlier this year, moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) said that he opposed Democratic gun control legislation in the House. If Manchin were to defect and join Republicans, then the bill would not pass without a Republican taking Manchin’s place and joining Democrats.

  However, passing Congress would only be the first step for S.2319. Afterward, it would doubtless face legal challenges from D.D. and gun rights advocacy groups like Gun Owners of America.

  In an interview with The Epoch Times, a spokesman for the Libertarian Party criticized the bill as impractical. He asked, “How would [the government] even enforce this law?” Later, he answered his own question, saying that “It would require Soviet- and CCP- levels of control [over citizens’ lives].” He also referenced litigation revolving around the issue of 3D schematics and doubted in the wake of this litigation that the bill could survive the courts. He referenced several cases and government settlements revolving around the issue.

  In August 2017, D.D. sued the State Department and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case against it. D.D. claimed that the State Department barring their right to distribute 3D schematics online constituted a violation of the First Amendment. Though the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the State Department eventually reached a settlement with D.D. that gave the firm a license to publish the schematics and a cash payment of $40,000. Heather Nauert, a spokesman for the State Department, said in a press conference that the agency agreed to this decision because “We were informed that we … have likely lost this case in court … on First Amendment grounds.”

  In 1996, the Ninth Circuit Appellate Court ruled that source code was protected under the First Amendment (Bernstein v. U.S.). Because schematics like those provided by D.D. are a type of source code, standing U.S. law would prohibit restrictions like those found in S.2319.

  Thus, the law would raise criticisms as a violation of the First Amendment. And indeed, the law’s authors had a preconception of this risk. The final clause in Sec. 3 of the bill says that “by making illegal the distribution of certain computer code that can be used … [to] create firearms … Congress seeks not to regulate the rights of computer programmers under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, but rather to curb the pernicious effects of untraceable … firearms.”

  Though the Supreme Court has refused to take the case in the past, it’s almost inevitable that S.2319 would go before the highest court if this legislation were passed. The result would be a huge landmark for gun control advocates if the Supreme Court upheld the law and a huge landmark for gun rights groups if the law were struck down. Either way, the legislation will have long-lasting national consequences if it is passed by Congress and signed into law.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 23:25

• Hedge Funds Dumped Chinese Stocks At A Record Pace, Setting Stage For A Furious Rebound
  Hedge Funds Dumped Chinese Stocks At A Record Pace, Setting Stage For A Furious Rebound

  Late last week, when observing the stunning collapse in the most popular “hedge fund VIP” basket, whose 6 month performance now matches its worst stretch on record following the Lehman bankruptcy…

  

  … we pointed to Chinese stocks one of the key culprits, with Goldman noting that one third of hedge funds in Goldman’s analysis held a China ADR in their long portfolio at the start of 3Q, contributing to the recent headwinds against hedge fund returns. Specifically, since the middle of February, a basket of China ADRs (GSXUCADR) has declined by 55%, with all but one of the stocks generating a negative return (UXIN being the exception) and 40 of the 46 stocks declining by more than 20%.

  

  Naturally, with Chinese stocks continuing to slide, many were curious if hedge funds retained their Chinese exposure.

  Well, courtesy of Goldman’s Prime Brokerage we now know the answer, and it is a decisive no. But first, some weekly performance stats from Goldman prime focusing on Asia hedge fund exposure:

  Performance Estimates (WoW as of 20th August 2021): Steep performance drawdowns last week as well as for the MTD period amid continued regulatory concerns

  Asia Fundamental LS -2.4% vs. MXAP -4.4%

  • Asia managers were down -2.4% last week as MXAP was down -4.4%. Along with beta, the main drivers of negative returns were Asset selection, Volatility, country tilts (China) and Concentrated Longs.
  • MTD -1.3% vs. MXAP -3.1%.
  • YTD -1.6% vs. MXAP -3.3%.

  China Fundamental LS -3.2% vs. MSCI China -7.8%

  After a few relatively calm weeks at the beginning of the month, China managers experienced steep negative performance of -3.2% as MSCI China was down -7.8% last week. Main Drivers of negative performance were beta, Volatility, Concentrated and Crowded Longs and short term momentum.

  • MTD -3.9% vs. MSCI China -7.6%.
  • YTD -5.1% vs. MSCI China -19.0%.

  

  In light of these massive drawdowns, it is then hardly surprising that trading flows were striking, and according to Goldman, last week saw the second highest weekly net selling for Asian equities in over 5 years, the highest ever selling for EM Asia, while Asian equities in total, saw record weekly net selling flows last week.

  • Asia was net sold WoW (-2.7 SD) with long sells exceeding short sells marginally in a ratio of 1.1 to 1.
  • DM Asia was net sold (-1.1 SD) driven by short sells exceeding long buys significantly
  • The record selling activity in EM Asia (-2.7 SD) was driven by long sells exceeding short sells in a ratio of 2.6 to 1.
  • 10 out of 11 sectors were net sold last week – only Utilities was marginally net bought. The most net sold sectors were Consumer Discretionary, Communication Services and Info Tech.
  • MTD Flows for August also point to record monthly selling flows in the region with risk off activity in EM Asia.
  • Charts below focus on Chinese equities and show the cumulative trading flows by leg and type. Selling flows in the MTD period have been driven significantly more by ADRs, followed by A-shares and then by H shares.

  

  With flows a one-way street of selling, it is only logical that exposure likewise saw a major hit, with continued reduction in Gross and Net leverages for Asia fundamental managers, resulting current levels last seen in April 2020.

  The numbers for the Asia Client Book (Delta-Adjusted) according to GS prime:

  • Leverage: Gross -0.6 pts to 220.8% (42nd percentile three-year), Net -4.6 pts to 71.7% (51st percentile three-year)
  • Long/Short ratio (MV) -4.3% to 1.962 (49th percentile three-year)

  Asia Fundamental L/S

  • Both Gross and Net Leverages for Asia Fundamental managers continue on downward trend as seen in the recent past and are now at levels last seen in April 2020.
  • Net Leverage and L/S Ratios are at 24th and 20th percentile respectively for three year periods.
  • Leverage: Gross -5.4 pts to 175.6% (48th percentile three-year), Net -3.5 pts to 50.3% (24th percentile three-year)
  • Long/Short ratio (MV) -2.3% to 1.804 (20th percentile three-year)

  

  In short, last week is when hedge funds finally – and fully – capitulated in their Chinese (and Asian) exposure. And with little to no liquidation pressure left, it was obvious that Chinese stocks would ramp higher and on Wednesday equities stormed higher in Hong Kong, after the local Hang Seng index slid into to a bear market last Friday, surging for a third day while Chinese tech stocks also rebounded.

  

  One of the more iconic casualties of the crackdowns — the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index – soared 8% overnight, after solid results from JD.com lured investors including Cathie Wood.

  In fact, so furious is the rebound in Chinese tech that as Bloomberg’s Sofia Horta e Costa observed, investors are turning into speculative call-buying WSB daytraders, and are piling into bullish derivatives. To wit, sixteen of the company’s 20 most-traded Hong Kong stock options on Tuesday were calls, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

  One such contract, expiring Aug. 30 with a strike price of HK$200, jumped 400% on Tuesday (when Alibaba closed at HK$166.50 ) and saw another 120% of upside so far on Wednesday. 

  

  It was similar in the U.S., where about 700,000 call options changed hands, the most this year and more than double the volume of bearish puts. The trading activity follows a 21%, nine-day rout that dragged Alibaba to the lowest price since its 2019 Hong Kong listing, exacerbated by the abovementioned redemptions from China-focused funds.

  Bottom line: with nobody left to sell, look for much more upside in Chinese tech names at least until Beijing pulls another shocker out of its sleeve and the liquidation returns with a vengeance.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 23:05

• Dozens Of Veterans Groups Livid Over Botched Afghanistan Pullout, 'Urgently' Demand Meeting With Biden
  Dozens Of Veterans Groups Livid Over Botched Afghanistan Pullout, ‘Urgently’ Demand Meeting With Biden

  Authored by Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  On Monday, a group of nearly four dozen veteran organizations requested a meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss the evacuation of U.S. partners in Afghanistan and “fulfilling our commitment to our Afghan allies.”

  “Failing to meet our obligations to these Afghans would not only be a national security risk – harming America’s reputation abroad and eroding the trust in our armed forces that is critical for future operations – it would also condemn veterans and survivors of the conflict in Afghanistan to a lifetime of moral injury,” the group wrote in their letter to Biden.

  

  Forty-five organizations signed a letter to Biden, urging him to agree to a virtual meeting. The coalition wants to ensure there is a comprehensive plan to get all citizens and allies out of the country and say they want to assist in every way possible. In addition, the group wants Biden to ensure that all allies are granted emergency status to enter the United States and have access to resettlement benefits.

  The Taliban seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Aug. 15 as the Afghan government collapsed and top government officials fled the country, prompting a frenzied evacuation of U.S. diplomats, citizens, and allies from the country.

  After the closure of Bagram Airbase and withdrawal of all U.S. military troops, Biden was forced to deploy 6,000 troops to help secure the Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans flooded the airport to flee Taliban rule. Biden has faced sharp bipartisan criticism for his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

  Many, including veteran groups, have urged Biden to spare no resources to evacuate U.S. citizens and allies who supported the United States’ effort in Afghanistan. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden’s top administration officials have reached out to the organizers of the letter and will meet with the coalition.

  “We’ve been in regular contact with a wide range of veterans groups on Afghanistan and will continue to be, and we’re in touch with the organizers of this letter to arrange a meeting with senior White House officials to discuss this letter,” said Psaki, adding, “The VA [Veterans Affairs] is also working with VSOs and outside advocates on how to assist SIV [Special Immigrant Visa] applicants, which I know is a primary concern to a number of these groups, as it is to us.”

  National security adviser Jake Sullivan told a reporter during the same press briefing Monday that the United States is working around the clock to get people out of Afghanistan.

  “They [the U.S. military] have now facilitated the evacuation of more than 37,000 people out of the country since Aug. 14—American citizens, third-country nationals, our Afghan allies, and Afghans at risk of persecution or worse. In the last 24 hours alone, 28 U.S. military flights have evacuated approximately 10,400 people from Kabul.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 22:45

• Supreme Court Rules Biden Admin Must Resume Trump's "Remain In Mexico" Policy
  Supreme Court Rules Biden Admin Must Resume Trump’s “Remain In Mexico” Policy

  The Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday against the Biden administration, upholding a lower court’s ruling to order the resumption of the “Remain in Mexico” policy implemented by the Trump administration,which requires people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico until their case is heard.

  

  In a 6-3 vote, with the three liberal justices (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer) dissenting, the court rejected the administration’s plea to block the reinstatement of the program, which requires immigrants seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their applications are pending.

  The order stated the Biden administration acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner when the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program (the official name of the ‘Remain In Mexico’ program) was rescinded.

  

  The Biden administration formally repealed the policy in June despite the crisis at the border (but in theory the policy ended the moment Biden entered The White House), and today’s Supreme Court decision rejected the administration’s bid to block U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling that revived the enforcement of the policy.

  In a memorandum (pdf) to top immigration officials in June, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said a review determined the policy “does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program’s extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls.”

  

  The Justice Department had asked the court last week to suspend the lower court’s order, saying the MPP “has been formally suspended for seven months and largely dormant for nearly nine months before that.”

  As we detailed earlier in August, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, found The Department of Homeland Security “failed to consider several critical factors” before axing the Trump era “Remain in Mexico” policy.

  That included ignoring how the program was beginning to lead to some immigrants with asylum claims that lacked merit voluntarily returning home, he wrote in a 53-page ruling.

  Kacsmaryk said the policy must be reinstated until it was “lawfully rescinded” and the administration had the capacity to hold all migrants.

  Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, another Republican, described the ruling as a “huge win for border security and the rule of law.”

  As a reminder, The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber notes that the Trump administration established MPP in 2019 to deal with a surge in illegal immigration. Former President Donald Trump successfully partnered with Mexico to start the program, which saw the U.S. send some asylum seekers back to Mexico until their claims were heard.

  Kirstjen Nielsen, who served as Homeland Security secretary during the Trump administration, said when the program was first implemented that it was in response to “a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border.”

  “MPP will help restore a safe and orderly immigration process, decrease the number of those taking advantage of the immigration system, and the ability of smugglers and traffickers to prey on vulnerable populations, and reduce threats to life, national security, and public safety, while ensuring that vulnerable populations receive the protections they need,” she said in a statement at the time.

  Biden and top officials this year have reversed or altered a number of key Trump-era immigration policies. The United States has seen a leap in illegal border crossings, culminating in a new 21-year-high in July.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 22:25

• "Puzzle Pieces All Laid Out" – How ATF Has Plan To Classify Semi-Automatic Rifles As "Machine Guns" 
  “Puzzle Pieces All Laid Out” – How ATF Has Plan To Classify Semi-Automatic Rifles As “Machine Guns” 

  Op-Ed via The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN). 

  What is Going on With Gun Control Right Now in 2021?

  Just a general warning. The statements presented may start to sound like a conspiracy theory, but I promise you, dear reader, it is not.

  There’s been much talk at the range recently about the new proposed gun control by the Biden Administration. Many people are perplexed. We get a ton of questions, emails, and phone calls asking, “Will this affect me?”, “What can I do?”, “Why are they doing this?” among others.

  

  I want to answer these questions as best as I can. We’ve been in the firearms industry here at TMGN since 2013 and have had a shop & range since 2015, so we’ve seen tons of changes from different administrations. There is a clear agenda here, and I’m reasonably sure most gun owners are going to be a little unhappy with the information I’m about to deliver.

  So, I guess the main question to answer first would be, how did we get here? Right now, we’re looking at two (maybe more, who knows what the future holds) rule changes coming from the Biden DOJ and the ATF. These rule changes are an example of the Biden Admin governing by executive fiat, as they know they don’t have the votes in the Senate to pass any of their gun control agenda. But let’s unpack this. This situation is a culmination of events starting way back.

  Also, before we start, for the sake of those new to firearms (statistics show 9 million people bought their first gun in 2020 alone), many more in 2021. To those of you, we say welcome!) Let me do some quick-term definitions and give some critical context.

  NFA (National Firearms Act): The National Firearms Act of 1936. The NFA was the first major federal gun control act in American history. The NFA created a tax and registry for Suppressors (sometimes called silencers), Short Barrel Rifles & Shotguns (referred to as SBRs / SBSs respectively), and Machine Guns. If you wanted to own any of these items, you’d have to submit to a lengthy background check and pay a $200 tax. (Equivalent to $4400 in 1934) In return, you’d receive what’s known as a “tax stamp” showing that you were approved to own any of these “NFA items”.

  FFL: Federal Firearms License, shortened to FFL is used interchangeably to refer to a Firearms licensee aka a Dealer, or the physical License that is given by the federal government for the ability to manufacture firearms and/or to sell them. FFLs are overseen by the ATF.

  ATF Form 4473: The main form that people are required to fill out when purchasing a firearm. FFLs are required to hold this form on site for 20 years. The forms are used in the event a firearm is used in a crime, the ATF can “run a trace” on that firearm and figure out who it was last transferred to.

  NICS: The National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The NICS conducts background checks on people who want to own a firearm or explosive, as required by law. When a person tries to buy a firearm, the seller, known as a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL), contacts NICS electronically or by phone. The prospective buyer fills out the ATF form 4473, and the FFL relays that information to the NICS. The NICS staff performs a background check on the buyer. That background check verifies the buyer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligible to purchase or own a firearm.

  1968 Gun Control Act: The creation of the system that we all know today. The GCA created the FFL system, banned mail-order guns, and more. This law has been updated a few times, most notably in 1993 with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which created the NICS system we use today. The GCA replaced and updated the Federal Firearms Act, an older provision enacted in 1938.

  2008 Heller Decision: In DC V Heller, the supreme court ruled that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, and use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes. Before this, gun control advocates argued that the 2nd Amendment had more to do with state militias than individual firearm ownership. With this decision, the Supreme court said that view was incorrect.

  Stabilizing Brace: Sometimes called a pistol brace. A Device designed to help shooters with limited mobility stabilize their firearm more easily. Attached to the rear of a gun, usually equipped with straps or some way to allow the shooter to use their forearm to help stabilize the firearm while shooting.

  Bump Stock: Bump fire stocks are gun stocks that are specially designed to make bump firing easier, which assist semi-automatic firearms with somewhat mimicking the firing motion of fully automatic weapons but does not make the firearm automatic. Essentially, bump stocks assist rapid fire by “bumping” the trigger against one’s finger (as opposed to one’s finger pulling on the trigger) thus allowing the firearm’s recoil, plus constant forward pressure by the non-shooting arm, to actuate the trigger.

  Ghost Gun: Made up term to make “homemade firearm.” It’s made to sound scary to those with little firearms knowledge. It has been common practice for people to build their guns. It’s also perfectly legal to do and has been for years, contrary to what corporate media outlets would like you to believe. If you make a firearm in your house for personal use, it’s legal and does not have to be serialized or registered. Although it still must conform to Federal firearms law and not violate the NFA.

  So, where do we start?

  The United States has a long history of gun control. But let’s not be complete pessimists here. On the bright side, the ability to carry a pistol concealed for self-defense has been significantly expanded in recent years and has been trending towards fewer restrictions nationwide since 1976 when Georgia established the “Shall issue” process we have today. (Shall issue is when you are guaranteed a permit should you complete the state’s process for acquiring said permit. whether that means taking a class or paying a fee. Inversely, States like Maryland and California use a process called “May Issue” where even if you complete the requirements for obtaining a permit, the state must still deem your “reason” for having said permit to be permissible. This has been declared unconstitutional in D.C. but that’s a story for a different time.)

  What is ironic here is that if you were to look at crime statistics, most crimes committed with a firearm, said firearm is a handgun. Why? It’s simple. Criminals prefer smaller, more concealable firearms. It’s hard to conceal an AR15, regardless of barrel length. Ironically when anti pistol legislation is proposed, it’s much harder for the government to pass. So, the anti-gun lobby has (for now) given up on the issue. Instead, they’ve targeted the scary-looking modern sporting rifles of today. Most notably, the AR15. However, their aim does extend to most semi-automatic rifles that accept a detachable box magazine.

  

  Now that we’ve established what they’re after, let’s talk about the events leading up to today.

  On the evening of October 1st, 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire upon the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. He killed 60 people and wounded 411. It was the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Paddock was able to achieve high rates of fire with a device known as a bump stock.

  President Donald Trump ordered his Justice Department to find a way to ban the bump stock. The DOJ decided to classify the bump stock device as a machine gun in December of 2018, going into effect in March 2019. Since the only legal way to own a machine gun is to have a registered one on the NFA before 1986, bump stocks were effectively made illegal, and anyone in possession of one would be subject to 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

  The problem here is that a bump stock isn’t a machine gun. It’s not even a firearm at all. It’s a piece of molded plastic that uses the gun’s recoil, discharging a round to “bump” the trigger. It does not guarantee automatic fire, nor does it modify a semi-automatic rifle and “convert” it to full auto. The firearm itself would remain semi-automatic, and the bump stock would allow the user to fire faster, using the force of the recoil.

  Most gun owners weren’t up in arms over the bump stock ban. Public opinion of the ban was positive. More comments supported the proposed rule change on the federal register than opposed it—a rare thing for gun control. Many gun owners viewed bump stocks as a novelty and wrote it off entirely. The issue, though, was much more complex. It had little to do with the bump stock itself and much more to do with reclassifying an item that was not a firearm itself under the NFA and effectively banning it with no recourse for gun owners.

  Fast forward to 2020. In May, the ATF announced it was changing its 4473 form. The form change would go into effect in November of 2020. Most gun owners are familiar with this form, even if they don’t know it by name. It’s the form that is filled out anytime that you purchase a firearm from a firearms dealer. It holds all the information of the individual looking to buy a gun before the FFL performs a background check through the federal NICS system.

  “Why is a simple form change relevant?” you might ask. Well, the ATF did update the form itself. But the ATF also changed the layout of the form dramatically. Before the change, the ATF had all the personal information for the individual filling out the form on the first page. The firearm information was located on a separate page. The change moved the buyer’s information and the firearm information (serial number, make, model, and more) to the first page. Here’s where we get into speculation a bit, but I promise, there’s a reason for it.

  I believe that the ATF is setting up for eventually keeping a digital database of 4473s. They are currently forbidden to do this by law. The only way that they’re legally allowed to keep physical 4473 forms is at one of their facilities in Martinsburg, WV. That facility is so full of paperwork that recently, the floor just caved in.

  What’s also important to know is that 4473 forms can (and should) be destroyed by dealers after 20 years. That means that the ATF will never keep those forms on file. Good FFLs do this. The only way for the ATF to acquire 4473 documents is if an FFL goes out of business, closes, or loses their license, they will need to turn over the forms that have not yet hit the 20 year mark. The ATF doesn’t like this. So eventually, I’m sure we’ll see a push for the ATF to digitize their data collection (hence the change to the 4473 form, as digitizing forms becomes much easier with all critical data on the first page).

  A quick side note here is that the government should never know what firearms you own. It’s your constitutional right to own firearms. The same way it’s your constitutional right to speak your mind. You wouldn’t want the FBI to keep a database of your text messages, would you? Same concept. We also know from history that keeping a database of firearms owner information eventually leads to a registry. Gun registries ALWAYS precede confiscation. If you look at history, this is always the case. It’s better to not allow for a registry so that confiscation cannot occur because doing even light research on what happens to disarmed populations is a scary thing.

  So let’s continue with what’s going on currently.

  In Nov. of 2020, Joe Biden won the Presidential election. During his campaign, he had been known for extra inflammatory statements on gun control. Saying, “Yes, I’m coming for your assault weapon” and associating himself with Robert-Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, promising to nominate him as Gun Czar. Robert-Francis had famously said during a debate, “Hell yes, we’re coming for your AR15.” When speaking to union workers at a campaign stop, he told a worker who asked him about his gun control plans: “we’ll take your AR14s away”.

  On December 18th, 2020, the ATF announced that it was planning to treat pistol braces as stocks and felt that they were being used to skirt the NFA and create unregistered Short Barrel Rifles. Gun owners came out in droves to comment on the Federal Register. A mere five days later, the ATF withdrew the pending rule change.

  In 2021 things were quiet for the start of the year, President Biden primarily focusing on infrastructure, coronavirus, and taxes. That is until April 7th, 2021, when he held a press conference, announcing six actions that Biden is taking on gun control.

  1. The Justice Dept. will make a rule to “help stop the proliferation of ghost guns.”
  2. The DOJ will, after that, issue a rule about stabilizing braces.
  3. The DOJ will publish model “Red Flag” legislation for states.
  4. Biden will nominate David Chipman to serve as the Director of the ATF.
  5. The DOJ will issue an annual report on firearms trafficking.
  6. The Biden admin is investing in “evidence-based” community violence interventions.

  At that moment, there was little information about any of the incoming rules. The only clear thing was that Biden’s nominee for the ATF would be David Chipman. David Chipman is a current gun-control activist and ex-ATF agent for those of you who don’t know. For all the Biden campaign sloganeering on “Healing a Divided Nation,” David Chipman has turned out to be one of the most divisive nominees yet, and one who has a clear ideological bias.

  We know that David Chipman has a bias because during his confirmation hearings in May of 2021, He stated that he “supports a ban on AR15 style rifles.” He also has written numerous articles and made many public statements on his opposition to Americans owning firearms.

  One of the most important things to know about David Chipman is that in 2017 he wrote an article for Giffords called “Legal and Lethal – 9 Products That Could Be the Next Bump Stock“. In the article, he speaks about how Congress must take action and ban things like High-Capacity Shotguns, AK & AR Style pistols, AR Pistol Arm Braces, 50 Caliber Rifles, Muzzleloaders, and more.

  Shortly after David Chipman’s hearing, the DOJ announced its rule on “Ghost Guns.” Of course, It covers more than just people making firearms in their homes. The ATF decided firearm parts now need to be classified as firearms. Therefore, those parts need to have their background check done at the time of purchase. Their reason is that the gun control act of 1968 hasn’t been updated. At the time of writing, the GCA didn’t account for all the different parts that citizens could purchase separately. It’s estimated that if you took the average AR15 and applied this rule, the AR15 would have 12 or more regulated parts that would require a background check. Meaning that if you buy an AR15, under this new rule, you’d be buying 12 different legal firearms built into one legal firearm. Make sense? I don’t think so.

  If you know anything about the history of the 1968 GCA, you know this is a total fabrication. A law prior called the Federal Firearms Act, which DID regulate parts, was replaced by the 1968 GCA. Congress found regulating firearm parts to be an “unworkable solution” and decided to regulate firearms by “frame or receiver,” not multiple parts.

  The ATF is also looking to classify items that they feel are “readily assembled” into firearms themselves. The definition of this is extremely unclear. My guess is that they are targeting 80% kits. 80% Kits are uncompleted firearm receivers in an 80% done state, meaning that legally they aren’t considered firearms. The purchaser can complete these firearms themselves at home with some significant work, depending upon the kit and type of receiver. These kits are typically popular with hobbyists, not so much with criminals.

  Lastly, this little lost detail that may be the most important of all: 4473 forms must be held INDEFINITELY by FFL holders, which means that FFLs can no longer destroy 4473 forms after 20 years.

  Now here we are at the latest announcement, the ATF’s proposed rule on stabilizing braces.

  On June 7th, 2021, the ATF announced its proposed rule change for “factoring criteria for firearms with attached stabilizing braces.” What they’ve done is create an overly complicated worksheet to ban all firearms with braces attached to them.

  The proposed rule change goes like this: If your handgun has a brace on it, the ATF has a worksheet that determines if that brace, in its configuration on your pistol, creates a “short barrel rifle.” (Defined as a firearm with a stock and a barrel length of under 16 inches.) Essentially, the ATF thinks that people are using braces to skirt the NFA and create short barrel rifles without paying the tax and registering their guns on the NFA registry. So, they’ve made the most complicated worksheet imaginable, named Worksheet 4999, to figure this out. The worksheet takes things into account like weight, length of pull, optic or scope on your pistol, and use two hands to fire the gun (which all people do even when shooting non-braced firearms) many more criteria if you score too high, oops! You have an illegal firearm.

  Probably the most egregious thing about Worksheet 4999 and the proposed rule change is that at the top of the sheet, there’s a disclaimer that essentially allows the ATF agent to deem your firearm as an illegal SBR regardless of if you pass the worksheet criteria and they feel that you are trying to circumvent the NFA. So even if you pass the worksheet, your agent may decide they feel like you’ve violated the law, and unfortunately, this rule change gives them the power to do so.

  So, where does this all come together?

  It’s obvious when you look at what’s happened and what’s been proposed where the Biden admin is headed for gun control. They are testing the waters right now with these two proposed rule changes, but I guarantee this is not the end. These current ideas have been taken right from the David Chipman “Legal and Lethal” playbook. There’s a part where Chipman writes this about semi-automatic rifles:

  “The danger posed by firearms that enable shooters to continue firing in this manner is the same reason Congress chose to include machine guns in the NFA when it was originally enacted: these weapons enable a shooter to fire many bullets very quickly. Semi-automatic firearms equipped with large-capacity magazines do not, however, fall under the NFA. The NFA refers to machine guns as those firearms that discharge more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Firearms developed since the NFA and equipped with large capacity magazines rarely require manual reloading, but they can expel a lot of ammunition in a brief period. They do so by allowing a trigger to be pulled many times very easy and ensuring that there is almost always another bullet ready to go. Despite this, large-capacity magazines and semi-automatic firearms equipped with them (sometimes called “assault weapons”) are not regulated under the NFA, even though they pose an incredible danger to our communities.”

  Take note here of Chipman’s idea that any semi-automatic rifle that can accept a “high-capacity magazine,” which I would assume is a magazine above ten rounds, is essentially a machine gun because they don’t need to be reloaded as often.

  We should look to this article as essentially the playbook that the ATF will take in the future. They are words right from the potential Director’s own thoughts.

  What potentially makes this situation more sinister is that they have the legal precedence to do so because of the bump stock ban. On top of that, the ATF’s next move of indefinite holds on 4473s, and the eventual argument for moving to a digital system means that you can bet that there will at some point be a push for a registry of who owns what.

  As I said, it sounds like a conspiracy. The puzzle pieces are all laid out in front of you. It’s our duty as gun owners to fight back and secure our rights. We all need to leave comments on both proposed rule changes. Even if you’re a defeatist that doesn’t think that the comments will dissuade the ATF from stomping on your rights, keep in mind that groups will use your comments like Firearms Policy Coalition and Gun Owners of America to sue the ATF immediately should these changes take place.

  This article has been a longer piece than usual, but I hope it’s helped you understand where we are today with gun rights. In the time it took you to read this article, you could have commented on both proposed rule changes, so please make your way to regulations.gov and make your voice heard!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 22:05

• Here's How Afghanistan's Economy Changed During 20 Years Of War
  Here’s How Afghanistan’s Economy Changed During 20 Years Of War

  Amateur and professional bean counters are starting to take stock of what, exactly has changed during 20 years of war between the US and the Taliban. And while as China and Russia prepare to strengthen economic ties with the Taliban, the FT has published a mildly comprehensive rundown of how Afghanistan’s economic situation has changed since the US invasion began in 2001.

  

  Speaking to the FT for a story about Afghanistan’s economic development, Gareth Price, senior research fellow at think-tank Chatham House, said that while Afghanistan had “changed dramatically” in social terms, “none of the main domestic generators of growth — notably mineral reserves — have been significantly tapped, aside from illegal mining”.

  In other words, the Taliban has plenty of natural resources to plunder, and an eager buyer with China already making entrees to the Taliban (despite their obvious ideological conflict, just another example of China’s unyielding commitment to “true” socialism).

  Living standards saw solid improvement during the early years of the US occupation, but the pace of improvement leveled off around 2010, when corruption in graft within the new Afghan government started getting really out of control.

  

  One of the biggest contributing factors:  Aid flows fell from about 100% of GDP in 2009 to 42.9% in 2020 according to the World Bank, sending living standards lower as the services sector’s growth was constrained.

  

  While services growth has remained somewhat stagnant, the country’s economy has continued to depend largely on agriculture. As of 2021, roughly half of its official exports are composed of grapes and other fresh fruit, although it’s importance has declined somewhat.

  

  However, as one analyst pointed out, most of these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, since the illegal opium trade comprises a major portion of Afghanistan’s economy, along with other black-market trades from energy, to methamphetamine and other drugs.

  While the Taliban are only just assuming control of much of Afghanistan’s legitimate economy, an editorial published last week in the NYT by a pair of Afghanistan experts alleged that the group has long controlled much of the country’s illegitimate, smuggling-based economy.

  With this in mind, the Taliban’s advance has forced neighbors to confront a dilemma: They could either continue to trade, giving the Taliban more power and legitimacy, or deny themselves trade revenues and accept the financial pain. As pressure from China, Pakistan and Russia mounts, more countries will have little choice but to accept the status quo, with the Taliban returned to power in Kabul.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 21:45

• We Are Witnessing Incompetence On A Colossal Scale Throughout Our Society
  We Are Witnessing Incompetence On A Colossal Scale Throughout Our Society

  Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

  These days, it is a surprise when someone actually does something competently.  It is often said that if you want something done right you have got to do it yourself, and today that is more true than ever.  Just think about it.  How often have you had a delivery delayed or messed up?  How often have you had someone supposedly “fix” something but it isn’t actually fixed?  How often have you purchased something that breaks shortly thereafter?  And don’t even get me started on the complete and utter incompetence that we see in the tech industry.  How hard could it possibly be to release a piece of software that is not riddled with all sorts of nightmarish bugs that need to be “patched” as soon as possible?

  

  Sadly, in our upside down society some of the most incompetent people that you can imagine end up running entire organizations, and if you are particularly corrupt and useless you may get to be a politician.

  By now, you are probably thinking that I am going to talk about Joe Biden in this article, and you are right.

  In this era of extreme incompetence, it somehow seems appropriate that sleepy Joe is presiding over our “idiocracy”.

  Barack Obama knew that this could happen.  According to Politico, he once said that nobody should “underestimate Joe’s ability to **** things up”.

  Everything that Biden touches seems to turn into a failure.  Just look at the crisis on the border.  It is the worst that it has ever been in our entire history, and we are being told that “morale is in the toilet” among our Border Patrol agents…

  “Morale is in the toilet,” Jon Anfinsen, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s union, told the Washington Examiner. “Morale is low because agents aren’t allowed to do their job — if our job is to be out patrolling the border in between the ports of entry and actively searching for people who have crossed illegally, but we’re not allowed to go do that job, it basically creates this defeated feeling in everyone.”

  Thanks to Biden’s wonderful new policies, our Border Patrol agents have their hands tied and are not able to do their jobs, and as a result many of them show up to work “sort of downtrodden, almost dead inside”…

  “Everyone shows up to work sort of downtrodden, almost dead inside, for lack of a better term,” Anfinsen stated. “They’re not allowed to [do] the job, and they know that people are getting away every single day, every hour.”

  Of course it isn’t just on the border where Biden is completely and utterly failing.

  He is doing such a “great job” with the economy that the term “Bidenflation” has been coined less than a year into his presidency.

  And his response to the COVID pandemic has been a nightmare of historic proportions.  If I were to tell you how I really feel about the decisions that he has been making during this pandemic, I would get censored into oblivion by the social media companies.

  Right now, what everyone is talking about is how incompetent the Biden administration has been in handling the situation in Afghanistan.

  The fall of Saigon in 1975 and the Iranian hostage crisis during the Carter administration both made America look really weak, but we have never seen anything like the debacle at the airport in Kabul.

  The “terrorists” that we went it to destroy in 2001 now have us surrounded and cornered in half an airport, and there are still countless numbers of people that can’t get to the evacuation planes.

  In fact, staff members that worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul feel like they have been completely betrayed by our government at this point…

  Local staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are “deeply disheartened” by U.S. evacuation efforts and have expressed a sense of betrayal and distrust in the U.S. government, according to a State Department diplomatic cable obtained by NBC News.

  The cable, which was sent Saturday, said memos were sent Wednesday inviting Afghan staff members at the embassy to head to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It told them to take food and to prepare for difficult conditions.

  When staffers went to the airport in response to that cable, they quickly found themselves in the middle of a nightmare…

  Staffers reported being jostled, hit, spat on and cursed at by Taliban fighters at checkpoints near the airport, it said, adding that criminals were taking advantage of the chaos while the U.S. military tried to maintain order “in an extremely physical situation.”

  Some staff members reported that they were almost separated from their children, while others collapsed in a crush of people and had to be taken to hospitals with injuries, the cable said. Others said they had collapsed on the road because of heat exhaustion, it said.

  British forces have been leaving the airport and bringing back people that need to be evacuated, but for some reason the U.S. hasn’t done the same thing.

  There are still thousands of Americans inside the country, and time is running out, because the Taliban won’t move the August 31 deadline…

  The White House repeatedly refused to address the Taliban’s August 31 deadline to get US troops out of Afghanistan on Monday, dodging questions on the subject and snapping at reporters who asked how the government planned to save the remaining Americans stuck in Kabul.

  The Taliban’s spokesman issued the sternest threat yet to Biden on Monday morning, saying there will be ‘consequences’ if US troops – who are holed up at the airport in Kabul evacuating tens of thousands of people and fending off an increasingly desperate crowd – don’t leave in the next eight days.

  Biden should immediately resign, but he will never do that.

  Of course there are others that also should share in the blame.

  Just like much of the rest of our society, the brass at the Pentagon has been getting increasingly incompetent over the years, but up until recently it hasn’t been talked about too much.

  But now that our failures in Afghanistan have been exposed for the whole world to see, the mainstream media is having a field day mocking them.  For example, the following comes from the New York Post…

  To the surprise of only the Biden administration and its top brass, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last week after 20 years of frivolous American adventurism. It was a spectacular failure of American diplomacy, statecraft, intelligence and, most of all, military capability. In short, mission very much not accomplished.

  But that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for the nearly useless behemoth called the Pentagon, which hasn’t won a war since the kinder, gentler American government changed its name from the War Department to the Defense Department shortly after World War II.

  So why don’t any of our top military officials ever get fired?

  As Darren Beattie has pointed out, NFL head coaches are held to a much higher standard than our generals and admirals are…

  Is the head coach always the problem with a bad NFL team? Obviously not. But a head coach is the highly-compensated captain of a $200 million operation, and his job is to win. Coaches who don’t win get fired, because being a perpetual, complacent loser is unacceptable.

  The ongoing collapse of the U.S.-backed regime in Afghanistan is the geopolitical equivalent of an NFL team going 0-16 twenty seasons in a row. Perhaps it’s worse than that, in fact. The Afghanistan disaster is the equivalent of an NFL All-Pro team taking on a Division III liberal arts college, being shut out, and then crashing the team bus into a ditch.

  If we were to start holding military officials accountable for their performance, firing Mark Milley would be a really good start.

  I have absolutely no idea how someone like that got to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Personally, I would not even trust him to mop the floors of the local Dairy Queen.

  What is even more tragic is that millions upon millions of Americans unquestionably accept whatever our incompetent leaders tell them to believe without taking the time and effort to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

  The blind are truly leading the blind, and we are steamrolling down a highway that doesn’t lead anywhere good.

  Every great society throughout history has crumbled eventually, and now our society is crumbling too.

  I suppose that it was probably inevitable, but do we really have to look so completely and utterly incompetent in the process?

  *  *  *

  It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 21:25

• Forget The Fed And Jackson Hole: Treasury Is About To Unleash $500 Billion Quantitative Tightening
  Forget The Fed And Jackson Hole: Treasury Is About To Unleash $500 Billion Quantitative Tightening

  Three weeks ago, moments after the Treasury released its latest Treasury issuance Sources and Uses report which virtually nobody on Wall Street pays attention to, we confirmed  something we first observed months earlier: stealth QE – which as we explained early this year is how the Treasury injected $1.5 trillion of liquidity into the market in the past 12 months bypassing the Fed entirely – was not only over but was about to go into reverse as the US Treasury was set to unleash several hundred billion of quantitative tightening.

  The reason: after dropping to a post-covid low of $450 billion, the Treasury’s cash balance would first drop to $300 billion, and then continue declining for the duration of the debt ceiling negotiations (which will conclude successfully at some point in the next 2 months despite days of theatrical posturing as the US will not default) before surging to $800 billion by year end.

  

  To be sure, the specifics of the upcoming Quantitative Tightening are still in flux and depend on when the US debt ceiling (which as a reminder was hit on July 31) and will be raised or extended: for all intents and purposes this is expected to take place some time “in October or November” which is when the debt limit deadline hits according to the CBO (that’s when the various emergency measures to extend the debt ceiling expire).

  But while some last minute fireworks are assured, absent a compete collapse in the political process we expect another can-kicking extension in the debt ceiling some time in October or early November. To be sure, that means that the Treasury’s benign Sept 30 forecast of $750BN will not be met and instead Treasury cash levels will continue to shrink from current levels until there is some resolution.

  Which brings us to another question: what are current cash levels at the Treasury? Well, after rising as high as $1.8 trillion last July, the cash held at the Treasury General Account has plunged to just $309 billion, the lowest level since the covid pandemic. This is largely due to the borrowing cap which has prompted the government to cut bill issuance and draw down its cash pile, while also putting tremendous downward pressure on short-term rates, pushing repo rates into negative territory, and breaching the Fed’s reverse repo 0.05% “floor” level as both Bills and overnight GC repo now trade below this level as discussed yesterday.

  

  This means also that in the past 14 months, the Treasury – completely independent of the Fed – has injected a massive $1.5 trillion in liquidity into the market while soaking up massive amount of collateral, and is one of the reasons why today’s reverse repo print will be a record $1.2 trillion (on its way to $2 trillion or more by year end).

  

  But now comes the reversal, and with Treasury cash dropping to its pre-covid levels the next move is higher, and sharply so once the debt ceiling is resolved.

  Why do we bring this up? Because while most ignore this analyses when we posted it first in May and then again in early August, the financial experts are starting to wake up to the fact that the Treasury’s Quantitative Tightening is going to be a far greater factor for market liquidity in the near term than what happens at Jackson Hole.

  First, an aside on Friday’s main event: as we have discussed ad nauseam, at 10am on Friday Powell may unveil that the Fed will begin tapering in September… or he may not. As Goldman noted yesterday, “there is a 45% chance that the formal announcement will come in November, a 35% chance that it will come in December, and 20%chance that it will be delayed until 2022.” The bank also said it expects the Fed to “taper at a pace of $15bn per meeting, split between $10bn in UST and $5bn in MBS.”

  Bottom line: whether Powell reveals the taper or he doesn’t, the reality is that QE will still be with  us for a long, long time even if the Fed starts shrinking its purchases in Q1 of next year, as the next Goldman chart shows. 

  

  But while the Fed’s tapering just means QE will still persist until mid- to late-2022, it is the Treasury’s QT that will be a far greater swing factor for market liquidity, especially once the debt ceiling is resolved and the Treasury starts draining liquidity at a furious pace by issuing debt – primarily in the form of Bills.

  Why do we bring all of this up?

  Because after ignoring the Treasury’s upcoming stealth QT, for months, Wall Street has finally woken up to the real threat to risk assets and as Bloomberg writes this morning, “Man Group last week wrote that because this implies the Treasury will be issuing more than spending, it’s effectively a form of quantitative tightening” just as we said in early August.

  This, according to Man Group “could prompt investors to start cutting their rates positions eventually, though there’s usually a six-week lag between changes in the Treasury cash pile and the impact on longer-dated bond yields.” And since stocks, especially high duration tech names trade as a treasury proxy, once the selling in rates begins, it will quickly spillover to the FAAMGs which just happen to be the handful of generals propping up the entire market.

  Below we republish the Man note, which while covering a topic we have discussed extensively, is something to keep an eye on as we believe many more traders will soon realize that Jackson Hole – and the taper in general – is just a distraction from the far greater QT coming up at the hands of the US Treasury which is about to unleash a massive Quantitative Tightening in the coming months, draining a whopping $500 billion in liquidity by year-end – assuming there is no further drain in Treasury cash which however is unlikely – and potentially as much as $800 billion should the Treasury cash drop to approximately $0 by November as the debt ceiling negotiations extend until the last possible moment, at which point the Treasury scrambles to refill its cash balance with a flood of Bill issuance

  

  From Man Group

  Do Treasury Cash Levels Imply Quantitative Tightening?

  At the time of writing, it’s all but certain that Congress is unlikely to raise the US debt ceiling before the Senate leaves for summer recess. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount the US government can borrow to meet its financial obligations. When the ceiling is reached, the Treasury cannot issue any more bills, bonds, or notes. It can only pay bills through tax revenues, or by dipping into its savings (i.e., the cash balance) at the Treasury.

  At the end of July, the Treasury’s cash balance was only USD442 billion, a relatively low level. For context, between the end of June and end of July, the cash balance fell by USD398 billion [ZH: it has since dropped to $309 billion]

  In a ‘normal’ world (where the debt ceiling isn’t an issue), the US Treasury would not have tapped into its cash balance. Instead, it would have issued enough debt to match its spending needs. Net net, this would have no impact on markets – the amount the Treasury spends (which is like a cash injection into the US economy) would be offset by the amount of debt issuance (this would take liquidity out of the system as investors would be using their cash to buy US Treasury instruments).

  However, in the last few months, the US Treasury has slowed down issuance because of the debt ceiling. This, in turn, has forced the Treasury to tap into their ‘rainy day’ fund and deplete its cash balance. Because it hasn’t done much issuance to take out liquidity, net net, these actions by the US Treasury have acted like substantial quantitative easing (i.e., cash injection without the offsetting liquidity withdrawal from issuance).

  Separately, the Treasury has indicated that once the debt ceiling is increased, it plans to run the cash balance at USD750 billion. This would imply that the Treasury is taking more out of the system via issuance than it is putting back into the system via spending, because it is replenishing its rainy-day fund. This acts like quantitative tightening.

  In addition, there is a roughly 6-week lag between changes in the Treasury cash account and the impact on longer-dated Treasury yields (Figure 1). As such, it is possible that Treasury yields may fall further or remain at the current low levels for another six weeks or so.

  

  If private sector market participants still have any ability to anticipate future developments, then we are likely near the point where investors begin to reduce their rates positions to make room for the increased issuance that would take place the moment the debt ceiling rollover happens. In due time, this should have an impact on asset prices that depend on long-term yields.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 21:15

• El Salvador Installs 200 Bitcoin ATMs As Crypto Set To Become Legal Tender
  El Salvador Installs 200 Bitcoin ATMs As Crypto Set To Become Legal Tender

  Back in June, we reported that El Salvador, the tiny Central American nation known as the home country of many of the migrants who wind up asking for amnesty at the southern border of the US, would become the first country in the world to recognize bitcoin as an official legal tender.

  That was weeks ago. Now, the El Salvadoran government is preparing for its new era of relying on bitcoin as its primary means of transacting by installing 200 bitcoin ATMs – which are already popular in the US and in Europe.

  

  President Nayib Bukele shared his plans for the bitcoin rollout via social media on Sunday.

  Bukele, who is the principal figure behind the country’s push to adopt bitcoin, said El Salvadorans will soon be able to convert their bitcoin to US dollars immediately once bitcoin is recognized as legal tender. To help facilitate this, there will be 200 bitcoin ATMs and also 50 bank branches capable of allowing them to swap their crypto for fiat, and vice-versa.

  The “Chivo ATMs” (named after the government’s official bitcoin wallet, also called “chivo”, which is a slang term for “cool”) will eventually be “everywhere” Bukele said, allowing El Salvadorans to withdraw cash or make deposits 24 hours a day without paying commissions or paying any fees. The app will also allow Salvadorans abroad to send money – both dollars and bitcoin instantly to their relatives in El Salvador, saving them the hefty commissions that companies like Western Union demand. Fee-free remittances are expected to save the country some $400MM per year.

  Transactions will be commission free, he said, adding that there will also be 50 financial branches across the country for withdrawing or depositing money.

  Those who refuse to use bitcoin will still have the option of using the US dollar, which will become the country’s other official currency.

  “What if someone doesn’t want to use Bitcoin?” said Bukele. “Don’t download the [Chivo] app and continue living your normal life. Nobody is going to take your dollars…Someone can always queue up at Western Union and pay a commission.”

  Bukele first announced his plans to make bitcoin legal tender at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. The bill swiftly passed through the country’s legislative assembly, and is now slated to take effect on Sept. 7.

  On that day, Salvadorans will be able to download the government-backed Chivo digital wallet, and enter their ID number and receive $30 in bitcoin, according to comments from Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya, who delivered an interview on a local TV station Monday. The government has also created a $150MM fund to back Bitcoin-to-dollar conversions, he said.

  To help further strengthen El Salvador’s crypto economy, Bukele has also asked a state-owned geothermal power company to make its facilities available to bitcoin miners.

  With crypto prices back on the rise, might the start of El Salvador’s big experiment have an impact on crypto markets? Or will Salvadorans overwhelmingly prefer transacting in US dollars instead of the digital currency?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 21:05

• 6 California Companies Convicted For Scheme Avoiding $1.8 Billion In Customs Duties On China Imports
  6 California Companies Convicted For Scheme Avoiding $1.8 Billion In Customs Duties On China Imports

  Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times,

  A federal jury in Los Angeles on Aug. 23 convicted six southern California companies for taking part in a large-scale conspiracy to avoid paying $1.8 billion in customs duties by disguising aluminum imports as pallets.

  

  China Zhongwang Holdings Chairman Liu Zhongtian poses for pictures just after traiding had started at the stock exchange in Hong Kong on May 8, 2009. (Mike Clarke/AFP via Getty Images)

  The conspirators then sold the pallets to entities disguised to look like real customers with the intent of fraudulently inflating the value of China Zhongwang, the largest manufacturer of aluminum extrusions in Asia.

  The six California companies, two aluminum firms, and four warehousing businesses were all related to each other. The jury found all six guilty of “one count of conspiracy, nine counts of wire fraud, and seven counts of passing false and fraudulent papers through a customhouse,” according to a press release from the Department of Justice.

  “The aluminum sold to United States-based companies controlled by [Zhongtian] Liu was simply aluminum extrusions that were spot-welded together to make them appear to be functional pallets,” the DOJ said.

  “In fact, there were no customers for the 2.2 million pallets imported by the Liu-controlled companies between 2011 and 2014, and no pallets were ever sold.”

  Instead, two of the defendants in the case, China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd. and Liu, the company’s former president, stockpiled the pallets on nearly two million square feet of space owned by the defendant’s warehouse businesses: Scuderia Development LLC in Riverside; 1001 Doubleday LLC in Ontario; Von Karman—Main Street LLC in Irvine, and 10681 Production Avenue LLC in Fontana.

  Since there was no demand for the pallets, Liu and China Zhongwang began to build and acquire facilities that could melt down the aluminum and turn it into a marketable commodity.

  “The defendants facilitated their schemes by laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through shell companies to the U.S.-based aluminum companies controlled by Liu,” the DOJ said in the press release.

  “The funds were then transferred to China Zhongwang and the other shell companies as payments for the aluminum.”

  

  (L-R) China’s Liaoning province Deputy Governor Liu Guoqiang (L), China Zhongwang Holdings Chairman Liu Zhongtian and Hong Kong Stock Exchange Chairman Ronald Arculli (R) toast just after trading had started at the stock exchange in Hong Kong on May 8, 2009. (Mike Clarke/AFP via Getty Images)

  China Zhongwang raised $1.26 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in 2009 on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Liu was the majority owner of China Zhongwang at the time of the IPO.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 20:45

• Ford Is Again Hiking Its Production Targets For Its F-150 Lightning
  Ford Is Again Hiking Its Production Targets For Its F-150 Lightning

  While GM is dealing with nothing short of a total disaster with its Chevy Bolt and Tesla is focused on humanoid robots, Ford has been quietly garnering significant interest in its electric F-150 lightning.

  In fact, interest has risen so much that Ford has doubled its production target for the vehicle ahead of its launch, which is supposed to be in 2022, according to Reuters. Ford is doling out $850 million to help it meet its launch target. 

  The company is going to attempt annual production of more than 80,000 vehicles in 2024, the report says, double its previous target of more than 40,000. 

  One source told Reuters: “They were pleasantly surprised by the demand for the Lightning.” 

  While Ford’s commercial customers were expected to push toward the shift to EVs, the company was uncertain as to whether or not individual customers would abandon their gas powered pickups for electric powered ones.

  

  “We are excited with customer demand for the F-150 Lightning and already have 120,000 customer reservations, and we will continue to look for ways to break constraints and meet customer demand,” the company said in a statement. 

  Ford is planning on building about 15,000 of the model next year after its launch, and about 55,000 of the model in 2023, in a ramp up to its 2024 target. 

  Ford had already upped its production targets by 50% last November. This increase comes on top of that one. 

  Some, on Ford’s supply chain, are worried about whether or not the demand will truly meet Ford’s expectations. “It really puts suppliers in a dicey situation if the volume doesn’t come true,” one supplier told Reuters.

  But hey, there’s only one way to find out…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 20:25

• Who Benefits From Cancelling Achievement Standards?
  Who Benefits From Cancelling Achievement Standards?

  Authored by Philip Carl Salzman via The Epoch Times,

  In 2021 there’s an outright holy war against scholastic achievement.

  

  Oregon has passed a bill that suspends the requirement that students must be able to read, write, and do math to graduate from high school.

  Mathematics should be replaced, we are told, by “social justice” mathematics, in which there are no correct answers, and students must not be asked to show the calculations that led to their conclusions.

  Standard American English should no longer be the standard, and students should not be judged on the quality of their writing. And recruitment of future scientists and science teachers and researchers should no longer be based on achievement, merit, and potential, but on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

  Even before the year and a half of schoolwork lost to the pandemic, the performance of American school students fell far behind many countries that are America’s competitors and threatening enemies. According to a 2017 Pew report on Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development figures, the United States is 24th in science, 38th in mathematics, and 24th in reading, outstripped by many East Asian and Western European countries, and even Canada. You might have thought that these facts would be motivating political and educational authorities to improve the education of American children.

  But, no, American political and educational authorities are devoting themselves to undermining achievement in science, math, and reading. Advanced programs in science and math are being closed down. Specialized high schools in New York City may no longer admit applicants based on academic merit. Classic literature is outlawed. Standardized tests are rejected. And new “subjects,” such as critical race theory, are being imported into schools to replace science, math, and reading.

  What problem is this fundamental transformation of education intended to solve?

  It’s not directed at individuals, and not intended to ensure that individuals are treated with fairness, according to universalistic criteria of achievement, merit, and potential. Rather, this transformation is aimed at gender, racial, sexuality, ableness, and economic class collective categories. The justification of this attack on education is a claimed concern for “marginalized,” “racialized,” and “underserved” minority populations who are allegedly discriminated against and victimized.

  The alleged evidence for discrimination and victimization is statistical disparities among the massive census categories. For example, there’s the well-documented achievement gap among racial groups. In academic and professional achievement, the average among racial groups varies, with Asian Americans achieving an A, white Americans getting a B, Hispanics receiving a C, and African Americans getting a D.

  Ibram X Kendi, America’s new prophet of “antiracism,” says that there are racist and anti-racist explanations for these disparities. The racist explanation attributes responsibility for the results to the members of the category themselves, and thus would say that there’s an achievement problem among African Americans. The anti-racist explanation is that the disparate results arise from systemic racism and discrimination. The solution, therefore, according to Kendi, is discrimination, now and in the future, in favor of African Americans.

  Kendi may not have noticed that, since President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Executive Order 10925 mandating “affirmative action,” discrimination in favor of African Americans has been official American policy for 60 years. This program has been reinforced by the new trinity, “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which requires the same outcomes for all categories. In this program, results are detached from performance, and in principle, all must receive the same trophies, although in practice members of preferred categories received more trophies. In university admission, in university and business hiring, and in every field, African Americans have been sought and given preference and special benefits, at the direct expense of whites and Asian Americans. Yet the disparities have not disappeared.

  Alternative explanations to racism and discrimination would examine in all racial categories such things as family structure, community support and safety, and community culture. To suggest that the reasons for weak achievement among African Americans has something to do with the prevalence of around 75 percent single-parent families and the lack of strong male figures in African American communities, the lack of a strong educational orientation in community culture, and high level of crime, including street gangs, in African American communities, would be, according to Kendi, a racist explanation.

  Ideas of “colorblind” achievement, merit, and potential have been labelled “white supremacism” and jettisoned in favor of “social justice,” defined as unending preferences to preferred minorities and the exclusion of members of unpreferred categories, plus the ginning up of race hate. Now, as we see in Washington state, scholastic achievement has been cancelled. The idea is, apparently, if African Americans are not achieving at the same level as other racial groups, there’s something unnecessary and wrong about achievement.

  If African Americans cannot get the correct answer in math, there must no longer be right answers in math.

  Brooklyn College math education professor Laurie Rubel asserted last year that “along with the ‘of course math is neutral because 2+2=4’ trope are the related (and creepy) ‘math is pure’ and ‘protect math.’ Reeks of white supremacist patriarchy. I’d rather think on nurturing people & protecting the planet (with math in service of them goals).” We might find, if we’re planning to take reality into account, that “service of them goals” might require correct mathematics with correct answers. Let’s hope that engineers, of whatever race, planning buildings, bridges, and aircraft still believe that math has correct answers.

  If African Americans write poorly, then quality of writing must not be considered. As Walter E. Williams describes it:

  “Just when we thought colleges could not spout loonier ideas, we have a new one from American University. They hired a professor to teach other professors to grade students based on their ‘labor’ rather than their writing ability. The professor that American University hired to teach that nonsense is Asao B. Inoue, who is a professor at the University of Washington in Tacoma in interdisciplinary arts and sciences. He is also the director of the university’s writing center. Inoue believes that a person’s writing ability should not be assessed, in order to promote ‘anti-racist’ objectives. Inoue taught American University’s faculty members that their previous practices of grading writing promoted white language supremacy. Inoue thinks that students should be graded on the effort they put into a project.”

  Will this new plan suit businesses and professions?

  Educational elites, including university professors and administrators, state and local departments of education and teachers’ unions, and local, regional, and national politicians are in a constant competition for prestige, status, and power that leads to innovation of ideas and policies ever more extreme and detached from reality. Their continued and intensified assaults on scholastic and academic achievement, and Western culture generally, are laying waste to education and to American society.

  A good example is the adoption of the discredited Black Lives Matter Marxist and racist propaganda. The College Fix reports that

  “The University of San Diego is offering faculty $600 to take a five-week Black Lives Matter course.

  ‘Heeding the call of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and global network, this course joins the nationwide effort to deconstruct anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy, center Black resistance, and build solidarity movements that support the wellness and self-determination of Black communities,’ its description states.

  ‘… It is our intention to reorient canon to recognize Black contribution; to learn about Black networks across the world and throughout history; and to imagine futures that support Black excellence.’”

  USD law professor Gail Heriot responded: “Could a course description be any clearer that it is about inculcating and supporting a fringe ideology? The course description literally states that the course is part of a ‘nationwide effort to deconstruct anti-Blackness [and] dismantle white supremacy.’ The problem is that you couldn’t find a white supremacist in these parts if your life depended on it. These folks are barking mad.”

  What do Americans generally think about these policies? Opinion polling shows that a supermajority of Americans, including every racial minority group, oppose using racial and gender preferences in university admissions, and were opposed to the Supreme Court decision that conditionally allowed such preferences. Recent referendum initiatives in Washington state and in California, supported by educational and political elites, to institute racial preferences in university admissions were voted down by citizens in those states.

  The Oregon elimination of requirements for achievement in reading, writing, and math has received an F from Americans:

  “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 81% of American Adults would oppose a law in their state that says high school students do not need to be proficient in reading, writing and mathematics to graduate. Only 12% favor such a law in their state.”

  Thinking about and organizing people in terms of their race, rather than as complex and highly variable individuals, is going down an extremely dangerous road. 

  This is the very definition of racism. We have tried to leave this behind, as a violation of human rights, but it has re-emerged as “critical race theory” and “anti-racism.” Where these have taken us is clear from the angry denunciations of “whiteness,” the revivification of widespread antisemitism, and the violent attacks on Asian Americans and Jews. As usual, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  Our education and political elites have allowed themselves to be carried away by extreme racist ideology. The damage that they’re doing in incalculable, and not least to those on whose behalf they claim to be acting. They should be replaced by people who have not lost their minds and who would represent the views of the citizens they’re supposed to represent.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 20:05

• Largest US Food Distributor Having Trouble Keeping Shelves Stocked; Price Shock Imminent
  Largest US Food Distributor Having Trouble Keeping Shelves Stocked; Price Shock Imminent

  One of the defining features of the early phases of the covid pandemic, when public fear was rampant and when few wanted to take chances that supply chains would remain viable, is that for a brief period US supermarkets resembled those of the USSR circa the late 1980s: many items were in short supply, and some – notably toilet paper, clorox, and perishables such as milk – were out of stock for weeks.

  

  Fast forward to today when fears about the Delta strain are being fanned by the liberal media, the US may be facing a similar shortage of key products… only this time for a very different reason: not a surge in demand, but rather a drop in supply.

  According to Bloomberg, some of the largest U.S. food distributors are “reporting difficulties in fulfilling orders as a lack of workers weighs on the supply chain.” Take distribution giant Sysco, North America’s largest wholesale food distributor, which is turning away customers in some areas where demand is exceeding capacity.

  Worse, food inflation is about to soar: the company said prices for key goods such as chicken, pork and paper products for takeout packaging are climbing amid tight supplies. In particular, production has slowed for high-demand, labor-intensive cuts like bacon, ribs, wings and tenders, Sysco said. And if intermediate and final wholesale prices are “rising”, just wait until they emerge on the consumer side.

  The culprit for the coming price shock? Biden’s catastrophic stimmies and universal basic income which has unleashed havoc on the US job market and led to historic labor shortages:

  “There are certain areas across the country that are more challenged by the labor shortage and our volume of orders is regularly exceeding our capacity,” Sysco Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hourican said in a letter to clients earlier this month. “This has, unfortunately, led to service disruptions for some of our customers.”

  Hourican’s troubling observations were confirmed by an analysis from DecaData, which tracks retailer transactions with shoppers and manufacturers; it showed that retailers are bumping up against manufacturer capacity as they stockpile ahead of the holiday season. In July, the incidence of suppliers limiting or putting a cap on orders from customers was more than double what it was in January, its data show.

  Another major distributor, United Natural Foods is having trouble getting food to stores on time. The company blamed not just labor shortages, but also delays in the procurement of some imported goods like cheese, coconut water and spices, as causing the problems.

  “We anticipate additional supplier challenges in the short term with gradual improvement through the fall and winter,” a United Natural Foods representative said. The company’s top priority is to support customers “by working diligently to recover and bring their shelves back to normal inventory levels as quickly as possible.”

  Translation: it’s about to get bad as the double whammy of insufficient workers and snarled supply chains leads to shortages of key perishables and, logically, must higher prices.

  U.S. companies across industries are reporting a dearth of workers amid sweetened unemployment benefits, stimulus payments and a pandemic that has reduced the appeal of in-person employment. Houston-based Sysco is aggressively hiring warehouse workers and truck drivers and offering referral and sign-on bonuses along with retention money for current staff.

  The entire food sector is seeing “massive labor shortages,” Benjamin Walker, senior vice president of sales, marketing and merchandising at Baldor Specialty Foods told Bloomberg. “Service levels are the lowest I’ve seen in my 16-year career, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going away anytime soon.” Finding truck drivers is “next to impossible,” he said, while freight costs are rising daily. The company’s orders are arriving late and consequently facing delays in being sent to customers. On the outbound side, on-time deliveries are still above 50% but have fallen from the usual rate of more than 90%.

  “We all thought it would be over by now. It’s just one thing after another,” he said.

  “This is going to be the norm for a while.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 19:45

• How Will The Taliban Finance Afghanistan?
  How Will The Taliban Finance Afghanistan?

  Via Safehaven.com,

  Once the excitement of taking over a country settles, such as checking out the presidential gym and enjoying some fun on bumper cars, Afghanistan’s new Taliban authorities will face the same issues any other government will: how to finance the country.

  

  Following the Taliban’s takeover of the country last weekend, many international financial institutions have blacklisted the new government, and the currency is in freefall. 

  On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided that Afghanistan would no longer be able to access its resources.

  The lender said that resources of over $370 million had been set to arrive later this month. The funds were approved last November and intended to support Afghanistan’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, anchor economic reforms, and spur donor financing.

  An IMF spokesperson said it was due to “lack of clarity within the international community” over recognizing a government in Afghanistan.

  The IMF’s decision follows a letter of more than a dozen GOP lawmakers to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressing alarm over IMF funds heading to the Taliban.

  “The potential of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation to provide nearly half a billion dollars in unconditional liquidity to a regime with a history of supporting terrorist actions against the United States and her allies is extremely concerning,” they wrote.

  Earlier this week, the Biden administration also announced that central bank assets the Afghan government has in the U.S. would not be made available to the Taliban, who remain on the Treasury Department’s sanctions designation list in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

  According to the media, the U.S. has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipments of cash there.

  Reuters cited an Afghanistan official saying that the country’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) is thought to hold foreign currency, gold and other treasures in its vaults–most of which is said to be held outside Afghanistan.

  In addition to that, Western Union has also suspended money transfer services to Afghanistan “until further notice”.

  According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the country’s currency Afghani has fallen as much as 4.6% to 86.0625 per dollar on its fourth day of decline. 

  The Taliban won’t be able to easily finance Afghanistan on its time-honored trade of opium poppy farming, which it has pledged to ban. Afghanistan is estimated to be responsible for around 80% of global opium and heroin supplies. 

  According to a UN report from June,  the “primary sources of Taliban financing remain criminal activities,” including “drug trafficking and opium poppy production, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, mineral exploitation and revenues from tax collection in areas under Taliban control or influence.”

  But the alleged new and improved Taliban have promised not to be a drug dealing cartel any longer (along with pledges to respect women’s rights to some extent and to cease retaliatory violence). It would hardly behoove the IMF to fund the world’s biggest heroin operation.

  Following this week’s IMF and U.S. financial intervention, and considering that some 75% of public spending is financed through international aid grants, many believe that without opium, the Taliban can’t survive.

  So far, there is no evidence of any change of heart.

  Dozens of reports have emerged claiming that those failing to comply with Sharia law or Taliban “virtues” are being beaten up and tortured, mostly women and those who cooperated with U.S. forces in the country.

  The United Nations has warned that the Taliban are searching for people who worked with U.S. and NATO forces and are going “door to door” to find them.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 19:25

• Container Ship Movement At Suspended Port Terminal In China Signals Imminent Reopening
  Container Ship Movement At Suspended Port Terminal In China Signals Imminent Reopening

  Container ships resumed berthing operations after a two-week shutdown at one of the world’s busiest ports in China, according to Bloomberg. 

  The two-week closure of the Meishan Terminal in Ningbo, China, was due to a COVID infection at the port earlier this month. Chinese authorities suspended operations at the terminal, causing massive shipping delays and container backlogs. 

  The Meishan terminal handles about a quarter of the port’s volume and caused severe vessel congestion at the terminal and other surrounding ports. We noted this in a recent shipping note titled “China’s Top Port Shuttered For Seventh Day As Congestion Crisis Spreads.” 

  Shipping data compiled by Bloomberg shows five container ships have left the Meishan terminal in the past few days after berthing. Ningbo-Zhoushan port office released a notice Monday outlining the terminal was still closed. Still, the good news is the movement of vessels around the terminal has sparked optimism among shippers that full capacity could imminently return as long as there are no new COVID infections. 

  

  Shipping line CMA CGM SA told customers that Meishan terminal resumed partial operations on Aug. 18 and expected full operations by mid-September. Two of the French company’s ships, Rivoli and the Samson, were being loaded and would depart from the terminal “very soon,” the shipper said. Bloomberg data already shows the two vessels have already left the Ningbo region. 

  Ningbo port’s container throughput has been slashed by a quarter since Aug. 11, and congestion at other major Chinese ports has soared. Here is some data on the congestion in Asia from last week. 

  

  Throughput at the port will likely increase in the coming days in stages to whittle down the backlog of containers, with a full resumption of operations by mid-September. 

  However, increasing throughput at Ningbo could be bad news if departed vessels are headed for US West Coasts due to port congestion is at record highs. 

  The global supply chain remains an utter mess. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 08/24/2021 – 19:05

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