- Poland's Disgraceful Denial Over Holocaust Commemoration
Poland’s Disgraceful Denial Over Holocaust Commemoration
Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
There was good reason why Polish President Andrzej Duda was prevented from addressing the Holocaust memorial event in Israel this week. The organizers anticipated he would use the event to make ugly and foolish accusations against Russia for having alleged complicity in the Nazi genocide.
On being refused the opportunity to make such a speech, Duda then decided to cancel his attendance altogether. Such is the thin-skin of Polish sensitivity.
Nearly 50 world leaders participated in the fifth World Holocaust Forum held at the Yad Vashem remembrance center in Jerusalem. This year’s event had added significance because it coincided with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
Lest we forget, it was the Soviet Red Army which liberated Auschwitz and the other main Nazi extermination camps, which were all predominantly located in Poland.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was among a handful of leaders who were given the privilege to address the forum. Other speakers included U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince Charles and Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
By what presumption did the Polish leader think he had a right to speak at the forum over the dozens of other dignitaries who were not given the privilege to make an address? Not being indulged by the organizers, President Duda went into an infantile huff.
The background to this spat was the furious reaction from Poland’s nationalist politicians after President Putin reminded the country last month that it has a certain share of blame along with Germany’s Nazi regime for having perpetrated the Holocaust during the World War II.
In his speech at the Holocaust forum this week, Putin did not mention Poland by name, but he reiterated the indisputable fact that European countries – at least sections of their political class – had collaborated with the German Third Reich in carrying out the Final Solution which led to millions of deaths among Jews, Slavs, Roma and Soviet citizens.
To be sure, millions of Polish Jews and non-Jews were exterminated by the Nazi genocidal machine. And, yes, thousands of Polish citizens heroically resisted the Nazi occupiers.
Nevertheless, the Polish political leadership during the 1930s flirted with Hitler and his regime right up to the start of the war on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The Polish leadership also concurred with the anti-Semitic policies of the Third Reich. Anti-Jewish pogroms were rife in Poland during the late 1930s.
Poland has always been apt to deny its involvement in Nazi crimes. But in recent years, under the ruling nationalist party, the habit of denial has become frenzied. In 2018, the Warsaw government introduced a new law which forbade anyone accusing Poland of past complicity in the Nazi Holocaust. That move sparked international criticism for what many saw as an attempt to launder Poland’s dirty past.
Last year, the Polish government launched sharp criticism at the U.S. media company Netflix over a film about the Nazi death camps. The Poles objected to the depiction of the camps being situated in Poland, insisting that the territory was not Polish at the time but rather “Nazi-occupied Poland”. That’s absurd hairsplitting to avoid reality.
At least when France’s President Macron addressed the Holocaust forum this week, he acknowledged the shameful role his country played under the collaborationist Vichy regime in transporting tens of thousands of French Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz.
There is no way that the current Polish leadership would ever have the integrity or maturity to make similar acknowledgement. Because these vain Polish nationalists are too obsessed with a mental affliction of Russophobia and the need to re-write history in order to burnish their country’s sordid past.
In a recent opinion article, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had the effrontery to accuse Russia of falsifying history. He disparaged “Soviet history” which, he said, claims the Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz and the death camps, as well as the rest of Poland from Nazi oppression.
That’s not “Soviet history”. It is objective, documented history.
Morawiecki wrote: “In reality, it was the alliance between Nazi Germany and the USSR in 1939 that paved the way for the start of World War II. The Third Reich would not have been able to rebuild German military capability without the Soviet supply of natural resources and military cooperation. It would not have been able to defeat Poland and France so easily, nor would it have had so much freedom in preparing the devastating machinery of the Holocaust.”
What this refers to is the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact which was signed on August 23, 1939. Moscow did so, expediently and under duress, in order to keep the Nazi war machine at bay while it built up its defenses. The Soviet Union was all the more forced into such a tactical expedience of non-aggression because the other European powers had for years constantly rebuffed appeals from Moscow for a wider security pact against Nazi Germany. Britain, France and Poland had all entered into non-aggression pacts with Hitler long before the Soviets did. The Europeans permitted Nazi Germany to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, annex Austria in the same year, and invade Czechoslovakia in 1938. It was a policy of collusion, giving Hitler a “free hand” to go on the rampage across Europe. Arguably, they wanted Nazi Germany to attack the dreaded Communist Soviet Union.
However, what the Polish premier is claiming in his opinion piece is that the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression deal signed one week before the start of the World War II allowed the Third Reich to “rebuild German military capability”. He then says this enabled Hitler to “defeat Poland and France so easily”. That’s quite an achievement for an ad hoc pact that was only one week old.
More preposterously, Morawiecki goes on to claim that the inchoate Soviet dalliance with Nazi Germany prepared the “devastating machinery of the Holocaust”.
The Final Solution carried out in the Polish death centers only got underway after the January 1942 Wannsee Conference near Berlin chaired by Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler. By that time, Nazi Germany was already six months into its war against the Soviet Union – a war that resulted in up to 27 million Soviet deaths.
How Polish leaders can make out that the Soviet Union was involved in enabling the Holocaust is a feat of intellectual dishonesty and immense historical corruption.
Remembering the Holocaust, the World War II and its causes is of crucial importance. It was a product of fascism, European collusion and cynical appeasement. If we can’t accurately delineate and learn from the causes of history, then we are at the mercy of repeating the same mistakes and horrors.
The irrational anti-Russia sentiments of Poland’s nationalist politicians, as well as their desire to sanitize the past, make their revisionism a disgrace and a danger to the present world.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 23:45 - U.S. Presidential Partisan Divide Hits Record High
U.S. Presidential Partisan Divide Hits Record High
With an 89 percent approval rating from Republicans and 7 percent approval rating from Democrats, President Trump has set a new high for partisan divide in 2019 with an 82-point gap between Republican and Democrat approval, according to Gallup.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The new record in polarization beats Trump’s 2018 partisan approval gap by three points, with other scores from former President Obama’s 2012 and 2016 years and George W. Bush in 2004 rounding out the top five.
There’s no question Trump’s latest partisan divide is greatly influenced by his ongoing impeachment trial, which began in the Senate on Tuesday. Those in favor of impeaching Trump fall almost exactly in line with his approval ratings, with 89 percent of Democrats and only 8 percent of Republicans believing he should be removed from office, according to a recent CNN poll.
The approval rating divide highlights a decades-long trend in increasing polarization. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each averaged approval ratings from the opposite party of 23 percent and 27 percent, respectively, which were both the first time in modern history a president had under 30 percent. Barack Obama averaged 13 percent among Republicans, making him the first to average under 20 percent. Now, Donald Trump has averaged just under 8 percent among Democrats in his first three years, which would make him the first president under 10 percent approval rating with the opposition party.
As Jonathan Turley notes, this leaves us in truly uncharted territory that defies conventional political analysis. Indeed, that may be the most lasting legacy of this president in reframing our political equations and understandings.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 23:25 - How China Overtook The US As The World's Major Trading Partner
How China Overtook The US As The World’s Major Trading Partner
Authored by Iman Ghosh via VisualCapitalist.com,
In 2018, trade accounted for 59% of global GDP, up nearly 1.5 times since 1980.
Over this timeframe, international trade has transformed significantly – not just in terms of volume and composition, but also in terms of the countries that the rest of the world leans on for their most important trade relationships.
Now, a critical shift is occurring in the landscape, and it may surprise you to learn that China has already usurped the U.S. as the world’s most dominant trading partner.
Trading Places: A Global Shift
Today’s animation comes from the Lowy Institute, and it pulls data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) database on bilateral trade flows, to determine whether the U.S. or China is a bigger trading partner for each country from 1980 to 2018.
The results are stark: before 2000, the U.S. was at the helm of global trade, as over 80% of countries traded with the U.S. more than they did with China. By 2018, that number had dropped sharply to just 30%, as China swiftly took top position in 128 of 190 countries.
The researchers pinpoint China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization as a major turning point in China’s international trade relationships. The dramatic shift that followed is clearly demonstrated in the visualization above—between 2005 and 2010, a number of countries tipped towards Chinese influence, especially in Africa and Asia.
Over time, China’s dominance has grown dramatically. It’s no wonder then, that China and the U.S. have a contentious trade relationship themselves, as both nations battle it out for first place.
A Tale of Two Economies
The United States and China are competitors in many ways, but to be successful they must rely on each other for mutually beneficial trade. However, it’s also the major issue on which they are struggling to reach a common ground.
The U.S. has been vocal about negotiating more balanced trade agreements with China. In fact, a mid-2018 poll shows that 62% of Americans consider their trade relationship with China to be unfair.
Since 2018, both parties have faced a fraught relationship, imposing major tariffs on consumer and industrial goods—and retaliations are reaching greater and greater heights:
While a delicate truce has been reached at the moment, the trade war has caused a significant drag on global growth, and the World Bank estimates it will continue to have an effect into 2021.
At the same time, China’s sphere of influence continues to grow.
One Belt, One Road, One Trade Direction?
China seems to have a finger in every pie. The nation is financing a flurry of megaprojects across Asia and Africa—but one broader initiative stands above the rest.
China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) Initiative, planned for a 2049 completion, is advancing at a furious pace. In 2019 alone, Chinese companies signed contracts worth up to $128 billion to start Chinese large-scale infrastructure projects in various countries.
While building new highways and ports abroad is beneficial for Chinese financiers, OBOR is also about creating new markets and trade routes for Chinese goods in Asia. Recent research found that the OBOR program’s infrastructure expansion and logistics performance improvements led to positive effects on China’s exports.
Nevertheless, it’s clear the new infrastructure network is already transforming global trade, possibly cementing China’s position as the world’s major trading partner for years to come.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 23:05 - Students Suffer "Separation Anxiety" After Schools Take Smartphones During Class
Students Suffer “Separation Anxiety” After Schools Take Smartphones During Class
Smartphones continue to be one of the biggest distractions that teachers of all levels have to deal with in the classroom.
Now, according to the WSJ, teachers are dealing with a consequence that nobody ever could have imagined when taking kids phones in order to provide a distraction-free learning environment: separation anxiety.
Teachers across the US are comparing notes on what the best ways to manage this anxiety are. Some of them allow students to physically hold their phones in pouches that they can’t open during class. Others let students charge their phones at stations in class instead of having to leave them alone in their lockers.
Some teachers even offer extra credit to students for being able to part with their phones during class.
South Bronx Early College Academy Charter School had to find a way to stop students from sneaking out of class to their locker to check their phones. They took the route of buying foamlike pouches that won’t unlock without a special magnet.
The school lets students decorate their pouches and personalize them to “make them as cool as humanly possible for something that’s restricting them from their device,” according to the school’s principal, Brian Blough.
Blough says students were “fiending” the first few weeks waiting to have their pouches unlocked after the school day.
Other students tried to pry open and cut their pouches open. Eighth-grader Olamide Oladitan simply said: “It didn’t work.”
He eventually gave up on trying to figure out a way to open his pouch. “I didn’t like it because I really wanted to get to my phone, but at the same time I didn’t hate it because it helped me get better grades,” he admitted, likely begrudgingly.
YouTube eve shows some “hacks” to try and get the pouches open, including one video that shows people lighting the pouches on fire.
Other schools, like High Point Academy Fort Worth in Texas, use apps that track how much students touch their phone during school hours. Students can earn points and rewards for not touching their phones during school hours, including Starbucks drinks and credits that allow them to drop their worst test scores.
Teacher Jayne Lawrence says the app works better than taking the phone. “The quickest way here to burn a relationship is to take something from them,” she commented.
Joseph Riffle in Fairborn, Ohio took a different approach with his students. The school allows them to make their own policy when it comes to phones, so he set up a charging station in the front of the room that allows his students to look at his phones from afar.
“The expectation was you turn in and you plug in,” he said.
But other schools say confiscating phones at the beginning of the school day is the only way to block all phone related distractions. Some schools threaten to put their students’ phones in a locked “cell block” to try and get students to comply with school policies.
At DREAM Charter School in New York, the school ditched collecting every phone in favor of a reward system that allows students to hold their phone instead of keeping it in a locked pouch. The students earn credits for good grades and “persisting through challenges”.
Roosevelt High School in Seattle saw a positive response from parents when it said it was going to require students to lock their cell phones away from the day. Parents sent the school “thank you notes and e-mails” after the policy change.
Delaney Ruston, a parent who once made a film about families and screen time called “Screenagers” said: “Some teachers were feeling like the bad guy and others were feeling like it was a free-for-all.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 22:45 - OPCW Investigator Testifies At UN That No Chemical Attack Took Place In Douma, Syria
OPCW Investigator Testifies At UN That No Chemical Attack Took Place In Douma, Syria
Authored by Ben Borton via TheGrayZone.com,
In testimony before the United Nations Security Council, former OPCW inspection team leader and engineering expert Ian Henderson stated that their investigation in Douma, Syria suggested no chemical attack took place. But their findings were suppressed.
A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.
The dissenter, Ian Henderson, worked for 12 years at the international watchdog organization, serving as an inspection team leader and engineering expert. Among his most consequential jobs was assisting the international body’s fact-finding mission (FFM) on the ground in Douma.
He told a UN Security Council session convened on January 20 by Russia’s delegation that OPCW management had rejected his group’s scientific research, dismissed the team, and produced another report that totally contradicted their initial findings.
“We had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred,” Henderson said, referring to the FFM team in Douma.
The former OPCW inspector added that he had compiled evidence through months of research that “provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.”
A former OPCW inspection team leader and engineering expert told the UN Security Council that their investigation in Douma, Syria suggested no chemical attack took place. But their findings were suppressed and reversed
Read more here: https://t.co/HI028MZl0k
via @BenjaminNorton pic.twitter.com/rmaSzWzs5Z
— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) January 22, 2020
Western airstrikes based on unsubstantiated allegations by foreign-backed jihadists
Foreign-backed Islamist militants and the Western government-funded regime-change influence operation known as the White Helmets accused the Syrian government of dropping gas cylinders and killing dozens of people in the city of Douma on April 7, 2018. Damascus rejected the accusation, claiming the incident was staged by the insurgents.
At the time, Douma was controlled by the extremist Salafi-jihadist militia Jaysh al-Islam, which was created and funded by Saudi Arabia and formerly allied with Syria’s powerful al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.
The governments of the United States, Britain, and France responded to the allegations of a chemical attack by launching airstrikes against the Syrian government on April 14. The military assault was illegal under international law, as the countries did not have UN authorization.
Numerous OPCW whistleblowers and leaks challenge Western government claims
In May 2019, an internal OPCW engineering assessment was leaked to the public. The document, authored by Ian Henderson, said the “dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders” in Douma “were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder having been delivered from an aircraft,” adding that there is “a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.”
After reviewing the leaked report, MIT professor emeritus of Science, Technology and International Security Theodore Postol told The Grayzone, “The evidence is overwhelming that the gas attacks were staged.” Postol also accused OPCW leadership of overseeing “compromised reporting” and ignoring scientific evidence.
In November, a second OPCW whistleblower came forward and accused the organization’s leadership of suppressing countervailing evidence, under pressure by three US government officials.
WikiLeaks has published numerous internal emails from the OPCW that reveal allegations that the body’s management staff doctored the Douma report.
As the evidence of internal suppression grew, the OPCW’s first director-general, José Bustani, decided to speak out. “The convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had,” Bustani stated.
“I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing,” the former OPCW head concluded.
OPCW whistleblower testimony at UN Security Council meeting on Douma
On January 20, 2020, Ian Henderson delivered his first in-person testimony, alleging suppression by OPCW leadership. He spoke at a UN Security Council Arria-Formula meeting on the fact-finding mission report on Douma.
(Video of the session follows at the bottom of this article, along with a full transcript of Henderson’s testimony.)
China’s mission to the UN invited Ian Henderson to testify in person at the Security Council session. Henderson said in his testimony that he had planned to attend, but was unable to get a visa waiver from the US government. (The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked access to the UN for representatives from countries that do not kowtow to its interests, turning UN visas into a political weapon in blatant violation of the international body’s headquarters agreement.)
Henderson told the Security Council in a pre-recorded video message that he was not the only OPCW inspector to question the leadership’s treatment of the Douma investigation.
“My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report,” Henderson explained.
Soon after the alleged incident in Douma in April 2018, the OPCW FFM team had deployed to the ground to carry out an investigation, which it noted included environmental samples, interviews with witnesses, and data collection.
In July 2018, the FFM published its interim report, stating that it found no evidence of chemical weapons use in Douma. (“The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties,” the report indicated.)
“By the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred,” Henderson told the Security Council.
After this inspection that led to the interim report, however, Henderson said the OPCW leadership decided to create a new team, “the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis.”
Then in March 2019, this new OPCW team released a final report, in which it claimed that chemical weapons had been used in Douma.
“The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments,” Henderson remarked at the UN session.
“The report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma [FFM] team, in July 2018,” Henderson stated.
The former OPCW expert added, “I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.”
US government pressure on the OPCW
The US government responded to this historic testimony at the UN session by attacking Russia, which sponsored the Arria-Formula meeting.
Acting US representative Cherith Norman Chalet praised the OPCW, aggressively condemned the “Assad regime,” and told the UN that the “United States is proud to support the vital, life-saving work of the White Helmets” – a US and UK-backed organization that collaborated extensively with ISIS and al-Qaeda and have been involved in numerous executions in Syrian territory occupied by Islamist extremists.
The US government has a long history of pressuring and manipulating the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration threatened José Bustani, the first director of the OPCW, and pressured him to resign.
In 2002, as the Bush White House was preparing to wage a war on Iraq, Bustani made an agreement with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein that would have permitted OPCW inspectors to come to the country unannounced for weapons investigations. This infuriated the US government.
Then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Bustani in 2002 that US Vice President Dick “Cheney wants you out.” Bolton threatened the OPCW director-general, stating, “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you… We know where your kids live.”
Attacking the credibility of Ian Henderson
While OPCW managers have kept curiously silent amid the scandal over their Douma report, an interventionist media outlet called Bellingcat has functioned as an outsourced press shop, aggressively defending the official narrative and attacking its most prominent critics, including Ian Henderson.
Bellingcat is funded by the US government’s regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and is part of an initiative bankrolled by the British Foreign Office.
Following Henderson’s testimony, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins tried to besmirch the former OPCW engineer’s credibility by implying he was being used by Russia. Until 2019, Higgins worked at the Atlantic Council, a pro-war think tank financed by the American and British governments, as well as by NATO.
Supporters of the OPCW’s apparently doctored final report have relied heavily on Bellingcat to try to discredit the whistleblowers and growing leaks. Scientific expert Theodor Postol, who debated Higgins, has noted that Bellingcat “have no scientific credibility at any level.” Postol says he even suspects that OPCW management may have relied on Bellingcat’s highly dubious claims in its own compromised reporting.
Higgins has no expertise or scientific credentials, and even The New York Times acknowledged in a highly sympathetic piece that “Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.”
In his testimony before the UN Security Council, Ian Henderson stressed that he was speaking out in line with his duties as a scientific expert.
Henderson said he does not even like the term whistleblower and would not use it to describe himself, because, “I’m a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns.”
Russia’s UN representative added that Moscow had also invited the OPCW director-general and representatives of the organization’s Technical Secretariat, but they chose not to participate in the session.
* * *
Video of the UN Security Council session on the OPCW’s Douma report
Ian Henderson’s testimony begins at 57:30 in this official UN video:
Transcript: Testimony by OPCW whistleblower Ian Henderson at the UN Security Council
“My name is Ian Henderson. I’m a former OPCW inspection team leader, having served for about 12 years. I heard about this meeting and I was invited by the minister, councilor of the Chinese mission to the UN. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances around my ESTA visa waiver status, I was not able to travel. I thus submitted a written statement, to which I will now add a short introduction.
I need to point out at the outset that I’m not a whistleblower; I don’t like that term. I’m a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns.
Secondly, I must point out that I hold the OPCW in the highest regard, as well as the professionalism of the staff members who work there. The organization is not broken; I must stress that. However the concern I have does relate to some specific management practices in certain sensitive missions.
The concern of course relates to the FFM investigation into the alleged chemical attack on the 7th of April in Douma, in Syria. My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report.
There were two teams deployed; one team, which I joined shortly after the start of field deployments, was to Douma in Syria; the other team deployed to country X.
The main concern relates to the announcement in July 2018 of a new concept, the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis.
The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments. And by the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.
What the final FFM report does not make clear, and thus does not reflect the views of the team members who deployed to Douma — in which case I really can only speak for myself at this stage — the report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma team, in July 2018.
In my case, I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.
This needs to be properly resolved, we believe through the rigors of science and engineering. In my situation, it’s not a political debate. I’m very aware that there is a political debate surrounding this.
Perhaps a closing comment from my side is that I was also the inspection team leader who developed and launched the inspections, the highly intrusive inspections, of the Barzah SSRC facility, just outside Damascus. And I did the inspections and wrote the reports for the two inspections prior to, and the inspection after the chemical facility, or the laboratory complex at Barzah SSRC, had been destroyed by the missile strike.
That, however, is another story altogether, and I shall now close. Thank you.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 22:25 - Palm Beach Real Estate Is On Fire…Except Homes Around Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort
Palm Beach Real Estate Is On Fire…Except Homes Around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Resort
Luxury homes in South Florida have been selling like hot cakes – mostly because mansion taxes and the capping of SALT deductions have pushed many from Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states to the tax-friendly environment of Florida.
“I’ve been selling real estate for 34 years,” said real estate broker Rob Thomson, a Mar-a-Lago club member and the owner of Waterfront Properties & Club Communities, who spoke with Bloomberg. “This is the longest bull run of my career.”
He said mansions, small homes, and empty lots have been in high demand, thanks to the state’s income tax rate of 0%, along with the region’s vast amount of wealth.
Thomson said while the Miami Metropolitan Area, from Miami to West Palm Beach/Palm Beach, is booming – there’s a section of residential real estate — within a ½ mile of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club that has gone cold.
Ten homes remain unsold within a four-block radius of Mar-a-Lago have been sitting on the market for an extended period.
One of the properties is located at 1090 South Ocean Blvd. has been listed since 2016; with a listing price of $6.95 million, according to Zillow, down 26.5% from an initial $9.5 million. Four other listings have been sitting on the market since 2018; seven have already seen significant reductions in price.
There’s certainly a cloud of negativity over properties close to Mar-a-Lago – it’s a massive contrast to the eight luxury Palm Beach homes that sold in 4Q19, with an average listing time of 191 days, said Douglas Elliman Realty LLC.
“The fact that they’re all being marketed at the same time, nearby, is not natural,” said Jonathan Miller, the CEO of Miller Samuel. “A cluster of listings, especially at the high end, is not likely to reflect a positive condition” in the market.
Brokers in Palm Beach had different explanations for the unsold homes around the resort, and all said it did not correlate with the president.
Paulette Koch, a broker with Corcoran Group, said the listed homes around the resort are “all coincidental,” adding that, “you can get a group of people who all want to sell [at once] for varying reasons.”
One broker said Trump’s constant appearance at his resort is nothing but positivity for the region. Jeff Cloninger, a broker for Sotheby’s, said the benefits of the president in Palm Beach is the added security.
Another pointed out that homes around Mar-a-Lago are directly under a flight path of planes, and noise is so loud, it has deterred many from buying houses near the resort.
Miller has a different explanation for the unsold homes: “It’s not uncommon to have clusters of people around a celebrity or notable name trying to cash in. In other words, Trump might not be a deterrent, but he also might not be the draw they think he is. It’s more about these listings being overpriced.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 22:05 - Don't Mess With The U.S. (Financially)
Don’t Mess With The U.S. (Financially)
Authored by Jim Rickards via The Daily Reckoning blog,
I’ve been documenting financial warfare in my articles for years, but it still doesn’t get the mainstream attention it deserves.
Because as you’ll see below, it can directly impact your wealth.
Financial warfare tools include account seizures and freezes, expulsion from global payment systems, secondary fines and penalties on banks that do business with targeted entities, embargoes, tariffs and many other impositions.
These tools are amplified by the unique role of the U.S. dollar, which is the currency behind 60% of global reserves, 80% of global payments and almost 100% of transactions in oil.
The U.S. controls the banks and payments systems that process dollar transactions. This leaves the U.S. well positioned to impose dollar-related sanctions.
Much has been made of the recent killing of Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani. Many say it was an act of war. But guess what, folks?
We’ve been in a full-scale war with Iran for two years now. It’s just that most people don’t realize it.
It’s not a kinetic war with troops, missiles and ships (except Iran’s use of terrorist bombs and the U.S.’ use of drones). And it’s severely damaged the Iranian economy, which has led to protests against the regime.
From the U.S. side, it’s a financial war. People need to stop thinking about financial sanctions as an extension of trade policy, for example.
This is warfare. It’s just a different form of warfare.
It’s critical to understand that financial war is not a sideshow. It may actually be the main event in today’s deeply connected and computerized world.
North Korea is also the current target of a U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign, where harsh sanctions are applied to a wide range of banks, companies and individuals.
As with Iran, sanctions have been instrumental in destabilizing the regime and bringing North Korea to the bargaining table to discuss its nuclear weapons programs.
Now, Iraq is the latest country to feel the sting of U.S. dollar sanctions.
Following the killing of Soleimani on Iraqi soil, Iraq threatened to expel all U.S. troops from Iraq. Trump answered in two parts.
He said U.S. troops would not leave until Iraq repaid the U.S. for building bases and other infrastructure in Iraq. Trump also warned that Iraq’s access to its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York could be terminated.
That would make it impossible for Iraq to purchase and sell oil in dollars. It could also cause Iraq to lose access to about $3 billion currently held in that account.
Iraq has heard the U.S. threats loud and clear. As of now, U.S. troops are still in Iraq and not planning to leave anytime soon.
The fact that Iraqi policy could be conditioned without a shot being fired shows the raw power of financial warfare.
The trouble is private businesses and investors can get caught in the crossfire of financial warfare.
According to one survey, last year saw a 42% increase in cyberattacks on private companies around the world (attributable to foreign governments).
About 20% of businesses reported daily attacks, many in the banking and financial services sectors. Only 6% of businesses in the survey claimed they weren’t targeted by a cyberattack in 2019.
You as an investor trying to mind your own business or build wealth or expand your portfolio may get caught in the crossfire of a financial war. So you have to take that into account in your portfolio allocations and risk management.
In today’s world, everyone’s a potential casualty of financial warfare.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 21:45 - The Once Dead Art Of Flower-Arranging Re-Ignites So Gen Z Can "Impress Their Instagram Followers"
The Once Dead Art Of Flower-Arranging Re-Ignites So Gen Z Can “Impress Their Instagram Followers”
Flower arranging, outside of traditional florists, used to just be limited to housewives in the 1950s. Now, thanks to Instagram, the practice is coming back in style, attracting a younger crowd that seeks to impress their social media followers.
For instance, Sage, a flower shop in South London, has seen a “huge increase” in interest from young people since they’ve opened, according to The Guardian. The shop offers monthly bouquet and vase arranging classes.
The shop’s co-founder, Iona Matheison said: “It’s young people in their mid-20s to mid-30s that are coming. It’s super popular and they’re fully booked.”
Helena Willcocks is the 31 year old founder of The Allotment Florist, which hosts arranging workshops in West Yorkshire and London for about 60 pounds, per person, per hour and a half. She said: “It’s definitely becoming more popular, especially with younger people. In the last year we have seen a 30% increase in the number of people coming. It’s a trendy thing to do. It’s obvious by who is booking them.”
The reigniting of arranging’s popularity could be coming from two places. First, there’s the recent pride in being a “plant parent” that we have written about here on Zero Hedge before. Also, there’s the desire to impress ones Instagram followers.
Emma Weaver, founder of Palais, said: “Flower arranging is so colourful and immediate and that’s how we’re seeing life these days, in these bright coloured squares.”
George Plumptre, chief executive of the National Garden Scheme said: “Flower arranging can be hugely therapeutic and creative. It provides a wonderful sense of wellbeing.”
Willcocks echoed Weaver’s sentiments: “Is Instagram a factor? Oh yeah, 100%, depressingly. People want to photograph their work, in fact they want to photograph the whole way through,” she says. “I try to encourage them to not be on their phones but be surrounded by flowers.”
But not all attendees are social media attention seekers. Amy Montague, a 33 year old from Nottingham, said: “It’s a creative outlet from my work in online consultancy and it’s relaxing.”
Arranging now incorporates numerous materials other than flowers and the new wave of floristry is said to be more artistic and less boring than traditional bouquets. Weaver commented: “It’s very sculptural. We use anything from melted plastics to bespoke metal frames and do a lot of carpentry alongside more traditional flower arranging. We are putting the two together and making it more of an art form.”
“This is art through the medium of flowers, as opposed to the old grandma thing.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 21:25 - Are The Underlying Mechanics Of The Largest Gold ETF A Cause For Concern
Are The Underlying Mechanics Of The Largest Gold ETF A Cause For Concern
Submitted by Jan Nieuwenhuijs from Voima Insights,
Are the underlying mechanics of the largest gold ETF a cause for concern?
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are an important element in the global gold market. The largest gold ETF is the “SPDR Gold Trust,” which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange Arca (NYSE Arca) under the symbol “GLD.” In this article, we will examine how GLD works to understand its role in the gold market and its impact on the gold price.
Introduction
In general, ETFs are funds that hold and track the price of assets like a commodity or stock market index. But unlike normal funds, ETFs are conveniently traded on stock exchanges. ETF securities represent shares of ownership in the fund. In the case of GLD, shareholders own a segment of the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the fund, which mainly holds physical gold. So, owners of GLD shares don’t own the gold itself, but a slice of the fund. As with other derivatives, GLD provides exposure to the price of the underlying asset.
The stock exchange is referred to as the secondary market. Here, existing shares of an ETF can be traded by all types of investors. In the primary market, ETF shares are created and redeemed by “Participating Dealers.” It’s mainly through the creation and redemption process of shares that the ETF price tracks the price of the associated asset. Let us have a look at how this works with GLD.
The Mechanics Of GLD
Primary market participants for GLD include (from the prospectus dated August 9, 2019):
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The Trustee BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, which is responsible for the day-to-day administration of “the Trust” (the Fund).
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The Custodian HSBC Bank plc (there can be sub-custodians), which stores Good Delivery gold bars for the Trust in London.
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The Sponsor World Gold Trust Services, LLC, a subsidiary of the World Gold Council, which oversees the performance of the Trustee and the Custodian.
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The Authorized Participants, which are the institutions authorized to create and redeem GLD shares at the Trustee. (With other ETFs, these are called the Participating Dealers.) At this moment, the Authorized Participants are Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Goldman Sachs & Co., Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, RBC Capital Markets, LLC, UBS Securities LLC, and Virtu Financial BD LLC.
One GLD share represents 0.1 ounce of gold. (Put differently, the value of one GLD share is equal to the value of 0.1 ounce of gold. And actually, at the time of writing, it’s a little less than 0.1 ounce, for reasons to be explained below.)
The price of GLD is set by supply and demand on the exchange where it’s traded (NYSE Arca), just like the gold price is set by supply and demand of gold in the London Bullion Market. For this article, when I mention the gold price, I refer to the spot gold price in London.
The GLD share price tracks the gold price, mainly through arbitrage. When, for example, the price of GLD trades at a premium to the gold price, an Authorised Participant (AP) can collect a profit. The AP can buy gold, deposit the gold at the Trustee, which creates shares in return for the AP, who can sell these on the stock market. This process will drive up the gold price and lower the price of GLD. APs will jump the arbitrage opportunity until the gap is closed. Naturally, the arbitrage works the other way around when GLD trades at a discount to the gold price. In this situation, APs will redeem shares at the Trustee to get gold out that they can sell in the London Bullion Market.
Below you can see a simplified graph I have made of the creation and redemption process of GLD shares.
GLD securities can only be created or redeemed in a “Basket” of 100,000 shares. Because one share represents 0.1 ounce, 10,000 fine troy ounces (about 25 Good Delivery bars) are required for creating 100,000 shares of the Trust. Vice versa, 100,000 shares are required for redeeming (withdrawing) 10,000 fine troy ounces from the Trust.
Over time small amounts of the Trust’s gold are sold to pay for the Custodian’s storage fees and the Trustee’s expenses. This gradual selling is the reason why one GLD share represents less than 0.1 ounce of gold, and this amount continuously declines. The day GLD was launched, one share represented 0.1 ounce; at the time of writing, one share represents 0.094 ounce. As a consequence, currently, APs need to deposit less than 10,000 ounces at the Trustee in order to create 100,000 shares and will receive less than 10,000 ounces when redeeming 100,000 shares.
In the chart above, you can see that the gold price and the level of GLD inventory are correlated. The chart suggests that buyers and sellers of GLD contribute to the directional trend of the gold price. Consider, for example, when the spot gold price went up and at the same time GLD inventory swelled. The APs must have been buying gold and creating shares. Their incentive for creating shares was likely that the GLD price (occasionally) was trading at a premium to the spot gold price.
However, the prospectus reads that the APs can also “act for their own accounts or as agents for broker-dealers, custodians and other securities market participants that wish to create or redeem Baskets.” And, “Shareholders who are not Authorized Participants will only be able to redeem their Shares through an Authorized Participant.” Implying, if you own less than 100,000 GLD shares, you can’t redeem for gold. But, if you are well connected to one of the APs, and you own a Basket of 100,000 shares or a multitude of that, you can redeem for gold.
In many countries, certain investment funds are not allowed to own commodities outright but are allowed to own regulated securities like GLD. These funds might be forced to buy GLD or a similar ETF if they want some exposure to the gold price. These funds can be sizable, and GLD’s secondary market might, therefore, be illiquid for them. On request, APs can buy or sell (create or redeem) shares for such clients in the primary market. To give you an idea of the gold trade’s extent, observe that in 2019 the average daily gold trading volume in the London Bullion Market was $45 billion. For comparison, the average daily trading volume in GLD at NYSE Arca was $1 billion.
Whether it’s arbitrage, or providing liquidity for institutional clients, when APs create (redeem) shares, this gives upward (downward) pressure on the spot gold price, and increases (decreases) GLD inventory.
Myths and Risks
There is always much hyperbole in the gold space, and when it comes to GLD, it’s no different. For years, rumors have been circulating that GLD isn’t backed by physical gold. Although the bar list of GLD is online, and twice a year, a highly respected auditor inspects the gold (click here to the view most recent audit report). Chances are very slim that the gold isn’t there.
Furthermore, the prospectus reads, “Creation of Baskets may only be made after the requisite gold is deposited in the allocated account of the Trust. … All of the Trust’s gold is fully allocated at the end of each business day.” According to my analysis, the gold is there.
Still, I wouldn’t buy GLD if I didn’t have to. When it comes to owning gold, one significant rationale is that gold is the only universally accepted financial asset without counterparty risk. Gold protects your purchasing power and offers insurance on your savings because it’s a physical element. As such, it can’t be printed out of thin air (inflate) or be late with its payments (default).
Gold is truly independent of the financial system. Every insurance product created by the financial system—whether that be a sovereign bond, a fiduciary currency, a futures contract, a credit default swap, etc.—has counterparty risk. Since all major financial institutions are nowadays connected, risk contagion is guaranteed. An insurance against the financial system is, therefore, ideally to be found outside the financial system, namely, in gold.
As financial expert Simon Mikhailovich puts it:
Buying an insurance policy against failure of the insurance industry from an insurance company is nonsense. If the insured event occurred, the company that sold the policy would fail and the policy would be worthless.
So why would you own GLD? Sure, it offers exposure to the spot gold price. But when things go haywire, GLD exposes you to many counterparties, which would be BNY Mellon Asset Servicing (Trustee), which is a division of The Bank of New York Mellon, HSBC (Custodian), potential sub-custodians (The Bank of England, ICBC Standard Bank, JPMorgan, Scotiabank, and UBS), NYSE Arca, and the Authorized Participants. Owning GLD is like owning a gold derivative with as much counterparty risk as possible.
Not surprisingly, the GLD prospectus reads like an endless disclaimer. On page 11, it states, “the Custodian will not be liable for any delay in performance … of any of its obligations … beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God…”. And on page 13, “In the event of the insolvency of the Custodian, a liquidator may seek to freeze access to the gold held in all of the accounts held by the Custodian, including the Trust Allocated Account.”
The problem with all the counterparties involved with GLD is that they don’t primarily deal with gold. These are the biggest banks in the world, and if any branch of these banks fails, it can have consequences for the entire entity, and GLD will potentially suffer too. In my view, it’s best to store gold outside of the financial system.
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The views expressed on Voima Insight are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official views or position of Voima Gold. Stay up to date, subscribe to Voima Insight—click here
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 21:05 -
- "No, No America" – Mass Protests Erupt In Baghdad Demanding U.S. Troops Withdraw
“No, No America” – Mass Protests Erupt In Baghdad Demanding U.S. Troops Withdraw
Al Jazeera English is reporting that thousands of Iraqi protesters have hit the street in Baghdad after the influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for a “million-strong” march to demand the withdraw of U.S. coalition forces from the country.
NBC News Tehran Bureau Chief & correspondent Ali Arouzi said hundreds of thousands of protesters marched across Baghdad on Friday, demanding U.S. troops leave the country and close all military bases and embassies.
100’s of thousands protest in Baghdad, calling for all US troops to leave Iraq, close all bases & embassies, if they don’t they will be considered an occupying force. pic.twitter.com/C3CqBqpxyD
— Ali Arouzi (@aliarouzi) January 24, 2020
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Protestors held signs that read “no, no to America” and “no, no to occupation” amid a sea of nationalism and anti-Americanism erupting across the country’s capital.
Others were heard on loudspeakers blasting the phrase: “Death to America. Death to Israel.”
The presence of U.S. coalition forces in the country has become a hot subject since President Trump launched a drone attack on Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killing both, earlier this month near Baghdad International Airport.
The Green Zone, the International Zone of Baghdad and home of the U.S. embassy, has been peppered with rocket attacks since the killing of Soleimani.
Iraq’s parliament voted to expel all foreign troops, including 5,000 U.S. forces from the country, and asked the government to cancel assistance from the U.S.-led coalition that has been working with the Iraqi Army in the eradication of ISIS.
A senior U.S. official said Thursday that the Trump administration has yet to hold talks with Iraq about U.S. troops exiting the country.
Several weeks ago, President Trump threatened severe sanctions against Iraq if its parliament enforced a law that would expel U.S. troops from the country.
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase, that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” Trump told reporters.
Twitter users have documented Friday’s massive protest, and Aurora Intel said: “the main street being used in #Baghdad, #Iraq for the protests) and using 4 people per m2 this meets a rough estimate of 600000 people able to be at this protest, if i’ve got the right location.”
Going on the premise that this photo is from Al-Janadriyah (I believe this is the main street being used in #Baghdad, #Iraq for the protests) and using 4 people per m2 this meets a rough estimate of 600000 people able to be at this protest, if i’ve got the right location. pic.twitter.com/Kp4hwILRaQ
— Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) January 24, 2020
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Here are other social media accounts detailing the protest:
You want a miracle? This is a Million-Man miracle for the largest human gathering in #iraqi history.this morning in the capital, Baghdad, struck by a two-million human-flood in a demonstration to expel American troops and to end their bases in #Iraq.#iraqProtest pic.twitter.com/8Ae7apmk1X
— روح اللہ مجلسی (@R_majlisi110) January 24, 2020
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#Millions are protesting in #Iraq to call on #US forces to leave #Itaq peacefully or the resistance ( pro #Iranian militias) will force them out .#IraqProtest was called for by Muqtada al-Sadr.
“Get out American ” is the themes of the protests
pic.twitter.com/AOZ6itidoJ— World OSINT (@OsintWorld) January 24, 2020
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HAPPENING NOW: People attend an anti-government demonstration in Baghdad’s Jadriyah area in Iraq.
At least 12 people have died in protests this week pic.twitter.com/UaL9nboQKT
— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) January 24, 2020
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 20:45 - Professors Donate To Democrats Over Republicans By A 95:1 Ratio, New Study Finds
Professors Donate To Democrats Over Republicans By A 95:1 Ratio, New Study Finds
Diversity in hiring is the top priority of most colleges and universities. However, the effort to hire more women, minorities, and LGBT individuals notably lacks one group: ideological diversity.
It is well-known that most faculty are composed of an overwhelming majority of liberal and democratic members. However, this view, while generally accepted, is largely anecdotal. Now a new study by Heterodox Academy Director of Research Sean Stevens and Brooklyn College Professor Mitchell Langbert claims to have put hard numbers on that lack of diversity.
In reviewing records with the Federal Election Commission, they say that they found that professors gave to Democrats over Republicans by a 95:1 ratio.
The researchers looked at 2,301 political donations and found that 2,081 went to Democrats while just 22 went to Republicans. Only nine professors gave to both parties.
An earlier study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 10:4 ratio. Business Management Associate Professor Mitchell Langbert reviewed the party affiliations of 8,688 professors at 51 of the top 60 liberal arts colleges listed in U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 rankings.
These studies magnify concerns for those of us who have objected to increasing speech regulation on campuses — restrictions that have seem to be more often applied to conservative students and speakers. Indeed, academics have at times been at the heart of such attacks on the free speech rights of conservatives on campus. In one incident at the California State University where assistant professor of public health professor Greg Thatcher is shown on a videotape wiping out the pro-life statements written in chalk by members of Fresno State Students for Life.
Perhaps the most unnerving controversy involved the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. She was convicted and sentenced for the crime. Despite the shocking conduct of Miller-Young and the clear violation of the most fundamental values for all academics in guaranteeing free speech and associational rights, the faculty overwhelmingly supported Miller-Young and the university decided not to impose any meaningful discipline. Faculty and student defenders attacked the pro-life advocates and one even referred to them as “terrorists” who did not deserve free speech. Miller-Young should have been fired but was instead lionized by faculty and students.
A recent study found at Harvard found that only 35 percent of conservative students felt free to share their views on campuses. That chilling effect is the result of not just open hostility to conservative voices on campus but a striking lack of diversity among academics in terms of ideology.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 20:25 - Asia Panics: Virus Masks Sell Out As Prices Skyrocket Amid Coronavirus Fears
Asia Panics: Virus Masks Sell Out As Prices Skyrocket Amid Coronavirus Fears
We mentioned on Thursday how worldwide internet search volumes for “virus mask” had erupted this week as the spread of coronavirus becomes uncontrollable across Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has yet to declare an international virus alarm as the evolution of the epidemic broadens.
New reports suggest virus masks and hand sanitizers are in short supply in some regions of Asia, reported the South China Morning Post.
Pharmacies across Hong Kong on Friday afternoon sold out of masks that prevent the wearer from contracting the deadly virus.
The most popular respirator is the 3M N95 Medical Mask that has sold out in many pharmacies across Hong Kong. Any remaining N95 masks have been sold for as much as HK$60 (about $7.75) per unit, a massive +700% mark, considering the masks usually sell for less than HK$7.77 ($1).
Taiwan this week banned the export of masks for the next month while the government stockpiles reserves.
Taiwan’s premier Su Tseng-chang @eballgogogo (**Eballgogogo????) said the island would halt export of surgical masks and N95 masks for a month from today.
Su said Taiwan produces 1.88 million to 2.44 million masks a day, and the normal domestic demand is 1.3 million. pic.twitter.com/ONGhdDmwuU— Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 (@XinqiSu) January 24, 2020
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Across Macao, residents have been hit with mask rations; only ten per customer is allowed who can present pharmacies with a valid government ID card.
WATCH: (1/2) Wuhan in an *unprecedented* lockdown to slow the spread of the deadly #coronavirus. @CBSNews flew out just in time! Filmed this at the airport Wednesday night. Everyone had a mask on. Felt I was living through SARS 2003 all over again. @CBSThisMorning @CBSEveningNews pic.twitter.com/mVbtQqcnnZ
— Ramy Inocencio 英若明 (@RamyInocencio) January 22, 2020
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So far, more than 900 cases have been confirmed with 26 dead. China has restricted travel for +40 million people. The spread of the virus has broadened from China, now seen in the U.S., Australia, Russia, Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macao, India, Japan, and South Korea.
As we noted Thursday, Americans started googling “virus mask” after the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Seattle earlier this week. People in Washington, Hawaii, California, District of Columbia, and Massachusetts googled it the most.
Americans also searched “n95 mask,” and were also curious where they could purchase these respirators. Many searched “n95 mask cvs,” “n95 mask home depot,” and “n95 mask target.”
And already, some N95 masks have sold out on Amazon. It seems as the virus continues to spread around the world at an alarming rate – virus masks, especially the N95 – are becoming a hot commodity. Bullish on virus mask.
As far as world epidemics and the global stock market performance, here’s a chart showing what could happen next:
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 20:05 - Guggenheim: 10 Macro Themes To Watch In 2020
Guggenheim: 10 Macro Themes To Watch In 2020
Scott Minerd, Chairman of Investments and Global CIO, and Guggenheim’s Macroeconomic and Investment Research Group analyze the 10 macroeconomic trends likely to shape monetary policy and investment performance this year.
Among their major themes:
1. Household net worth gains will continue to support consumption, the main driver of growth for the U.S. economy, even with business investment contracting and the manufacturing sector experiencing a recession.
2. The housing market will contribute positively to U.S. economic growth. Mortgage rates have come down a full percentage point over the past year, helping home sales and construction recover, a trend which will continue into 2020.
3. We forecast the Federal Reserve balance sheet, which has been a key driver of markets in recent years, will grow at a much slower pace in 2020, which could undercut the “QE-lite” market narrative.
4. A tight labor market will further depress corporate profit margins in 2020. In an environment of limited pricing power, businesses are struggling to pass on higher labor costs, resulting in declining profitability that should weigh on hiring and investment plans.
5. Corporate defaults will rise as debt burdens weigh on the credit markets. In today’s corporate credit markets, which include more below-investment grade-rated debt and more BBB-rated debt (the lowest IG rating) than ever before, it is unsustainable for firms to operate with historically high leverage without a rise in defaults.
6. Credit rating downgrades will add headwinds to business investment. Weak earnings growth and a continued increase in leverage has resulted in more credits being downgraded than upgraded by the ratings agencies. Lower ratings will make it costlier to take on additional debt curtail business hiring and investment.
7. The Fed’s “soft-landing” may prove elusive, as momentum in the labor market will fade as the pool of unemployed workers continues to shrink and economic growth cools. Historically, once the two-year change in the unemployment rate turns positive, the economy enters a recession.
8. Consumer confidence will hinge on the health of the labor market. For confidence to rise from here, the economy will need to somehow create jobs at a faster pace in 2020, which seems like a tall order given an unemployment rate at a 50-year low.
9. Historically high wealth and income inequality will fuel popular support for economically disruptive policies such as a wealth tax, higher corporate tax rates, universal basic income, and Medicare for all, increasing policy uncertainty.
10. The 2020 election will be more consequential for the economy than any election in the past. Spurred by social media, 24-hour cable news, and high political polarization, consumers are making economic decisions based on political developments.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 19:45 - Lindsey Graham Attacks, Then Protects Bidens – Will Oppose Any Attempts To Call As Impeachment Witnesses
Lindsey Graham Attacks, Then Protects Bidens – Will Oppose Any Attempts To Call As Impeachment Witnesses
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spent a good portion of Thursday and Friday theatrically railing against the Bidens and their relationships in Ukraine – only to staunchly oppose any efforts to call them as impeachment witnesses during the ongoing Senate trial of President Trump, stating “this needs to end.”
“I don’t want to call Hunter Biden. I don’t want to call Joe Biden. I want someone to look at this when this is done,” said Graham, adding “To my Republican friends, you may be upset about what happened in the Ukraine with the Bidens but this is not the venue to litigate that.“
“I don’t think it’s wrong for us to look at the Biden connection in the Ukraine, the $3 million given to the vice president’s son by the most corrupt company in the Ukraine,” he said, adding “To my Republican friends, you may be upset about what happened in the Ukraine with the Bidens but this is not the venue to litigate that.”
(See comments at 16:57 and 19:44)
“I feel pretty confident, though I don’t know it for a fact, that the defense team is going to want to call its witnesses, including but not limited to the Bidens, [and] as a fact witness the whistleblower,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), meanwhile, has left the door open to calling the Bidens to appear, saying “When you get to that issue, I can’t imagine that only the witnesses that our Democratic colleagues would want to call would be called.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 19:25 - Tankers Idle At Libyan Ports As Oil Exports Dry Up
Tankers Idle At Libyan Ports As Oil Exports Dry Up
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
Ten oil tankers capable of carrying some 8 million barrels of oil are idling near some of Libya’s oil export terminals, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Thursday, as the Libyan port blockade entered an ugly sixth day.
Groups loyal to eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar blocked virtually all exports from the African oil producer, and when storage reaches maximum capacity, it will result in a complete loss of all of Libya’s 1.2 million barrels per day of oil production and exports.
“Shutdown of all affected oil fields will result in a loss of crude oil production of 1.2 million b/d and daily financial losses of approximately $77 million,” Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Monday, confirming that nearly all of the OPEC member’s production will be lost due to the blockade.
File image of oil tanker at Ras Lanuf, Libya. Source: Reuters This is the largest outage on the oil market since the September attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, yet it has failed to move oil prices higher.
Market participants are largely ignoring the Libyan outage and are focused on the prospects of global oil demand growth this year and the pace of supply increase from non-OPEC producers, primarily the United States, Brazil, Guyana, and Norway.
In addition, the new fear on the market, the outbreak of a coronavirus in China, could cut oil demand and push oil prices down by nearly $3 a barrel, Goldman Sachs said earlier this week.
“However while markets are obsessing over virus developments, they seem to be ignoring a number of oil supply risks in the market, which in aggregate would far outweigh the demand impact from the Wuhan virus,” ING strategists said on Thursday.
According to ING’s estimates, the current outages around the world sum up to around 1.4 million bpd, “which would be more than enough to shift the global market into deficit over 1H20,” said Warren Patterson, ING’s Head of Commodities Strategy and Senior Commodities Strategist Wenyu Yao.
“While the market may shrug at supply losses from Libya, it would be more difficult for the market to ignore large Iraqi supply losses if they became a reality, as Iraq is OPEC’s second-largest producer,” they noted.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 19:05 - San Francisco's First Transgender Halfway House Opens
San Francisco’s First Transgender Halfway House Opens
The city of San Francisco opened its first low-income transgender and gender non-conforming halfway house as part of the city’s Our Trans Home SF program, which offers help with case management, rental subsidies and finding affordable housing, according to the Bay Area Reporter
Jane Cordova cleans the windowsill in her new room at the Trans Home SF apartment, which overlooks the cable car route. Photo: Rick Gerharter (via the Bay Area Reporter). Funded with a $2.3 million allocation from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and the Office of Transgender Initiatives, the ‘Trans Home’ on Washington Street will provide a ‘safe shelter and supportive services for 13 new residents, who will share a three-story building with 13 bedrooms, three kitchens and a common living space,’ according to the report.
The apartments, which have mirror floor plans, feature wood floors throughout and original moldings and other decorative details. In the second-floor flat, the right side front room has a covered over tile fireplace and mantel, while the back room features a built-in wall cabinet with glass-paneled doors.
Each bedroom will have a locked door for the privacy of the residents. They will be asked to abide by a set of rules appropriated from the ones Larkin Street uses with its youth tenants. After three violations, the residents will be asked to leave, said Newman. –Bay Area Reporter
Residents will be allowed to live in the house rent-free for a year while receiving assistance with finding a longer-term place to live, according to the report.
“I think it is great. I love the location,” said Trans Home’s first resident, 60-year-old Jane Cordova, adding “I like to cook … I am the mother of the house.”
Come February Jane Cordova will move out of a shelter for LGBT adults in San Francisco’s Mission district for her own room in a Chinatown apartment. The scalloped windows in her bedroom will look out onto the city’s famed cable car line, which stops mere feet away.
Cordova, 60, a transgender woman, is the first resident selected for the Trans Home SF on Washington Street, the city’s first transitional housing program for transgender and gender-nonconforming adults. The program aims to provide apartments for 12 individuals age 25 and older who will be able to live rent-free for a year as they receive support in landing a job, enrolling in school, and saving money to move into their own apartment. –Bay Area Reporter
“Housing affordability and homelessness continue to impact our most marginalized communities, including our trans community members, who are 18 times more likely to experience homelessness,” said Mayor London Breed in a Thursday ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Increasing housing and ensuring equity across our City is my top priority, which is why I am so proud to open San Francisco’s first Trans Home on Washington Street. This new program will provide trans people with the safety and support they as they find a permanent home in San Francisco,” she added.
While there are some shelters across the nation who serve the homeless LGBTQ community, temporary housing for members of the community can be especially difficult.
Even in San Francisco — a city historically seen as a place where trans people would converge — one of every two trans San Franciscans have experienced homelessness.
The space is part of the Our Trans Home SF program, an initiative that supports hundreds of members of the TGNC community by offering help with case management, rental subsidies and housing navigation. –NY Daily News
Transgender respondents surveyed in 2015 revealed that 70% feel they have been mistreated in some form or another because of their gender orientation – including being evicted from shelters, physically attacked, verbally harassed or sexually assaulted.
“The new program in San Francisco is clearly filling a void that exists in in safe and affirming spaces for transgender people,” said Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign national press secretary in a statement to the Daily News, adding “For far too many transgender people who are struggling with housing insecurity, safe and affirming-shelter remains out of reach.”
McBride is “absolutely hopeful” that other cities will follow suit.
“There are a number of different steps that hat can and should be taken to address both housing and security for the trans community, and also the specific fear around discrimination in short-term living shelters,” she said, adding “And that includes the need for cities, states and our federal government to pass clear protections from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in employment, housing, public spaces and government funding.”
Eight residents have already been selected to live in Trans House, while five more will join once the third-floor units are open.
In October, the city awarded $1.15 million to two nonprofits to provide direct rental subsidies to transgender and gender-nonconforming people in their homes or to help them find housing.
“The ongoing housing crisis in our city continues to impact our most marginalized communities including our trans community,” read a statement from Breed. “Meanwhile the community continues to be under constant attack by the federal administration who is attempting to legalize discrimination and erase transgender people. The Our Trans Home SF program is a vital step forward in assuring our trans community is housed, safe, and can thrive in San Francisco.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 18:45 - The Richmond Rally Is A Perfect Example Why You Can't Trust The Media To Provide Reliable Intel
The Richmond Rally Is A Perfect Example Why You Can’t Trust The Media To Provide Reliable Intel
Authored by Terry Trahan via The Organic Prepper blog,
If you’ve been watching the news in the last few days, you are sure to be aware of the Gun Rights Rally held in Richmond, VA. And, depending on which news you watch, your ideas of what happened, who attended, what the rally was about, and how it proceeded could be radically different than the person next to you at work.
On one side, it was a show of force or terrorism by ‘white nationalists’, militias, supremacists, etc…
And on the other, it was a diverse and peaceful rally to show the state government of the Commonwealth of VA to not intrude further on Constitutional Rights.
And while I definitely fall on the side of the latter, I cannot think of a better real-time example of the value of not just information, but trusting the sources, evaluating bias, and the value of collecting information from other, opposing sources and viewpoints in order to make good decisions for your survival in the urban area.
The value of good intelligence
In the USE&E approach, information and intelligence (in the military sense, not the intellectual sense) are some of the most valuable things we can have. It helps us make decisions, lets us see what may be happening in our world that we need to prepare for, and gives us a view of enemies, allies, neutral parties, resources, and other things to make our lives better.
The first rule of intelligence gathering is to listen to it all, but believe none of it until you can verify it independently. This is especially true when you are inclined to trust the source.
A popular saying in old journalism schools is; “If your mother says she loves you, verify it with three sources.” This goes double for life-saving or actionable intel. As much as you might like a radio host, you should take their information at face value until you can get it from a few different sources.
There are a few reasons why.
What is the reason for the information?
In a mass media endeavor, information is not the prime reason for a show. Advertisers are.
There is a certain alternative host that is known as the greatest water filter salesman in history, and this is for a reason. No matter what knowledge he puts out, his primary job is delivering for advertisers.
It doesn’t mean his information is wrong or right, it means you need to take it for what it is, and get other, corroborating stories that will either prove or disprove it.
Look out for willful disinformation and propaganda
The next category is watching out for willful disinformation. This is probably the most common and rampant occurrence when seeking sources. The cause is usually easy to see if you can maintain a neutral viewpoint as you are consuming the news or information.
Mostly, it is doled out as half-truths dressed up as the full truth in order to advance an agenda, make someone look good or bad, or distract you from seeing the whole picture. The worst of it plays into your biases to keep you docile, or even worse, thinking that you are doing something worthwhile when in reality, you are just being kept busy and out of the way.
A nasty side effect is that you will usually share the disinformation, thus spreading it to different people, and roping them into that loop. This takes advantage of the normal human instinct to share what we find important and helpful with those close to us.
On a smaller scale, like work, for example, most of us have experience with the coworker that will half-lie for their own benefit, file false HR grievances to sabotage the competition, or various other acts using information as a weapon. This is the same thing I was talking about above, just on a different scale.
The final category is outright propaganda used to steer a population or a person into a false belief or false action.
We can see examples of this all around us, and the mainstream media’s behavior over the last few years can be used as a model to learn about this.
Why you have to watch out for bad intel
Now, after all of that, here is why I find it important to talk about this. As mentioned above, information is a currency all it’s own. It enables us to make proper decisions and act when needed.
But there are other reasons that looking at these things is important. Time is the most valuable resource we have. We need to spend our time wisely, and wasting it on false information is dangerous. It takes our time away from things that will really help us in the world we live in and makes us waste even more time worrying about things that do not matter. Neither of these things makes our lives better or our prepping worthwhile.
Another reason is that we need to watch against being guided or steered into harmful action, or inaction that benefits others but not ourselves.
The main reason, however, is the need to make the decisions for the lives we live now, and the lives we want to live in the future. If we continuously follow rabbit trails, swallow unproven conspiracies, let media inflame and enrage us, we are not living and preparing for our lives. We are reacting to others and living for them.
In the end, prepping and surviving requires us to act in our own best interest. We cannot do that if we do not have clear sight and a calm mind. We cannot help others if we do not know what is actually happening.
We cannot make allies and find helpers if we have a false picture of who to trust or believe.
In this case, we can become our own worst enemies. We are the only ones that can deceive ourselves to the point of danger. The more information we can trust, the less we can be susceptible to fooling ourselves based on what others try to shovel us.
Be skeptical.
Sometimes it is obvious that we are seeing a piece of disinformation, and sometimes it plays on a blindspot we have. Many of the false “be aware of this” viral posts on Facebook take advantage of our lack of knowledge of criminal behavior. Like the posts recently warning women about the zip tying of windshield wipers as a prelude to being abducted. If you don’t know how this actually happens, you will be worried about a false problem, and not looking for real danger signs, thus making you less safe.
In the future, I will be talking about warning networks, neighborhood networks, how to set up varying networks locally, and things to pay attention to in an urban environment to stay safe and prepared. We will also discuss various tricks of the trade and ways to get by. But none of that information will help if you cannot trust the sources you receive your information from.
Be skeptical.
Be realistic.
Trust your gut.
Be discerning.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 18:25 - UK Researcher Predicts Over 250,000 Chinese Will Have Coronavirus In Ten Days
UK Researcher Predicts Over 250,000 Chinese Will Have Coronavirus In Ten Days
When it comes to estimating the human capital and potential fallout from a highly contagious epidemic, arguably the most important variable is the R0 (“R-naught”) value of the disease, which represents the average number of secondary cases arising from an average primary case in a entirely susceptible population. That’s the technical definition, a simpler one is that the R0, or basic reproductive number, of a contagious disease is the number of cases that a case of the disease generates over the course of its infectious period in a susceptible population. The higher this number, the more dangerous the disease, the more lethal the outcome.
Some indicative R0s are 0.9 – 2.1 for the common flu while the 1918-1919 pandemic-causing Spanish flu was estimated to have ranged from 1.4 – 2.8, with a mean of 2. Some other notable R0s are shown below, and note that SARS was between 2 and 5:
So what about the R0 of 2019-nCoV, also known as the coronavirus that has claimed over three dozen lives in China and infected (at least) 1,000 people? Naturally, since the disease is most active in China which is notoriously opaque especially when it comes to matters that can cause a mass panic, the best one can do is guess, and that’s what the World Health Organization did yesterday when it issued a statement on the coronavirus epidemic with the following projection:
Human-to-human transmission is occurring and a preliminary R0 estimate of 1.4-2.5 was presented. Amplification has occurred in one health care facility. Of confirmed cases, 25% are reported to be severe. The source is still unknown (most likely an animal reservoir) and the extent of human-to-human transmission is still not clear.
Needless to say, while 2.5 is quite high, and in line with that of the Spanish flu epidemic which infected about half a billion people back in 1918, killing as many as 100 million before it eventually fizzled out, the real coronavirus R0 number may end up being far higher. That is the working hypothesis of Jonathan Read, a UK expert on the transmission and evolutionary dynamics of infectious diseases, who has published a paper with four colleagues that estimates transmission parameters for the Wuhan coronavirus, calculates that the R0 of 2019-nCoV to be between 3.6-4.0 or roughly the same as SARS, and reaches a conclusion about spread of the coronavirus epidemic that is frankly terrifying.
In “Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic predictions“, Reed et al, write that with an R0 of between 3.6 and 4.0, roughly 72-75% of transmissions “must be prevented by control measures for infections to stop increasing.”
This is a major problem because Reed estimates that only 5.1% of infections in Wuhan are identified (as of Jan 24), “indicating a large number of infections in the community, and also reflecting the difficulty in detecting cases of this new disease.” Furthermore, since all of this is happening in China which is not known for making the most socially-beneficial decisions under pressure, there is an ominous possibility that Reed is actually overly optimistic.
Huge public hygiene crisis seems to have erupted in #Wuhan. This video clip was once posted on Weibo but now deleted. The lady in the clip says dead bodies were left at hospital aisles untreated whereas doctors are taking care of other patients alongside them. #WuhanPneumonia pic.twitter.com/8ARaEHDbXC
— Ezra Cheung (@ezracheungtoto) January 24, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Reed wastes no time to get to his terrifying conclusion which is that if no change in control or transmission happens, then further outbreaks will occur in other Chinese cities, “and that infections will continue to be exported to international destinations at an increasing rate.”
As a result, in 10 days time, or by February 4, 2020, Reed‘s model predicts the number of infected people in Wuhan to be greater than 250 thousand (with an prediction interval, 164,602 to 351,396);
Epidemic predictions for (A) Wuhan, (B) selected Chinese cities and (C) selected countries. Estimated detected cases are also plotted for Wuhan. After Wuhan, the cities with the largest outbreaks elsewhere in China are expected to be Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu.
Predicted epidemic sizes (number of currently infected individuals) in selected cities on 4 February 2020 assuming no change in transmissibility from current time to 4 February. Reed also predicts that by 4 Feb 2020, the countries at greatest risk of importing infections through air travel are Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Vietnam. In short: much of Asia will infected, and from there, the rest of the world awaits.
Connectivity of Wuhan to other cities and provinces in mainland China, based on total commercial airline traffic from Wuhan in January 2017. Critically, Reed’s model alleges that Beijing was woefully late in its response and that recently imposed “travel restrictions from and to Wuhan city are unlikely to be effective in halting transmission across China; with a 99% effective reduction in travel, the size of the epidemic outside of Wuhan may only be reduced by 24.9% on 4 February.”
Effect of imposing travel restrictions from/to Wuhan on 23 Jan 2020 onwards on the number of infections in other Chinese cities Reed’s prediction is in line with other modelling studies of travel restrictions, which find that reducing travel only serves to delay the epidemic reaching other locations, rather than suppressing the spread entirely. Still, it is important to note that his model only considered air travel, and did not consider the potential impact of travel restrictions relating to land transportation.
That said, Reed admits there is a chance that he is wrong, largely due to using flawed assumptions:
Our findings are critically dependent on the assumptions underpinning our model, and the timing and reporting of confirmed cases, and there is considerable uncertainty associated with the outbreak at this early stage.
Yet even with these caveats in mind, Reed’s work suggests that a basic reproductive number for this 2019-nCoV outbreak is materially, perhaps catastrophically higher compared to other emergent coronaviruses, “suggesting that containment or control of this pathogen may be substantially more difficult.”
Even assuming that most of Reed’s assumptions are overly harsh and pessimistic, his summary leaves little hope that the Coronavirus epidemic will be contained any time soon:
“We are still in the early days of this outbreak and there is much uncertainty in both the scale of the outbreak, as well as key epidemiological information regarding transmission. However, the rapidity of the growth of cases since the recognition of the outbreak is much greater than that observed in outbreaks of either SARS or MERS-CoV. This is consistent with our higher estimates of the reproductive number for this outbreak compared to these other emergent coronaviruses, suggesting that containment or control of this pathogen may be substantially more difficult.”
Finally, while Reed makes no observations on the potential mortality associated with nCoV, one can make a broad observation: late on Friday, China’s Hubei province reported 15 additional coronavirus deaths, which added to the previously reported 26 casualties, bringing the total to 41. And with roughly 1,100 confirmed cases, this means that the mortality rate of the diseases has just jumped from roughly 2.5% to 4%. Which means that if Reed is correct, and if 250,000 people in Hubei alone will be infected by February 4, no less than 10,000 Chinese people will be dead in the next 2-3 weeks.
What happens after that – with China effectively paralyzed by fear and the economy grinding to a halt as nobody leave their home – is anyone’s guess.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 18:12 - Absurdistan: MO Librarians Face Year In Jail For Not Banning "Prurient" Books
Absurdistan: MO Librarians Face Year In Jail For Not Banning “Prurient” Books
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.
Which specific body parts can women expose before being sex offenders?
After installing fiberglass insulation, Tilli Buchanan and her husband stripped off their shirts in the garage for safety reasons.
They didn’t want to track any of the debris into the house. While walking topless to the shower, Tilli’s stepchildren saw her bare chested.
Two years later, the children’s biological mother reported the incident to authorities.
Tilli was charged with “child sex abuse” under Utah criminal code 76-9-702.5(2)(a)(ii)(B) for exposing “the female breast below the top of the areola. . .”
Rather than argue that this specific incident was not sexual, Tilli opted to challenge the entire law.
She claimed that the law is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. She and her husband were in the exact same state of undress, but she was charged with a crime, and he was not.
What has unfolded in the courts is a lengthy and ridiculous discussion about male and female body parts, and what constitutes lewdness.
Unfortunately for Tilli, the judge ruled against her, and she could face prison time, plus ten years on the sex offender registry.
Click here to read the full ruling.
* * *
Missouri bill proposes imprisonment for librarians who don’t ban books
A Missouri bill would create “community oversight boards,” (i.e. censorship boards) to decide what books are appropriate for certain ages.
The bill says children should not have access to any book which includes descriptions of sexual content that “appeals to the prurient interest of minors.”
And according to the bill, sexual content includes even mere mentions of nudity.
Bear in mind– we’re not just talking about the Game of Thrones books, which are pretty clearly intended for adult audiences.
This applies to even classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and of course, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
There are dozens more.
The ban would be in effect at all town libraries across the state. And if librarians don’t aggressively enforce the book ban, they could face a year in prison.
Just imagine A YEAR IN PRISON because some eighth grader was reading Shakespeare.
What’s even more interesting is that the bill doesn’t seem to think violence is inappropriate.
So the murder of two children in Lord of the Flies would be fine, but not the innocent skinny-dipping in the lagoon.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
County threatens to demolish Amish homes for code violations
Amish people are exercising their religious freedom to live a simple life without any technology. And most state and local governments tend to leave them alone.
But for some reason, a Michigan county decided to pick a fight with the local Amish community.
County officials posted notices on several Amish houses that their homes were unfit for human occupation because they did not have modern plumbing.
The county says unless they are brought up to code, the houses will be demolished.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
12 years in prison for possession of phone
Willie Nash was booked on a misdemeanor charge and spent some time in a Mississippi jail.
During the booking process, the jail staff failed to take the man’s phone.
Willie clearly didn’t know that there was a ban on phones, or else didn’t think it was a huge deal, because he asked a jailer to charge the phone for him.
The jailer confiscated the phone, reported the incident, and Willie was charged with possession of a phone in jail.
In Mississippi, the possession of a phone while in jail carries a prison sentence of 3 to 15 YEARS.
The judge, feeling especially lenient, magnanimously opted to sentence the man to a patry TWELVE years instead of the maximum fifteen.
For having a phone. Because the jail staff’s failure during booking.
Willie appealed, and the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the twelve year sentence was perfectly reasonable.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2020 – 17:45
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