Jan 25

Today’s News 25th January 2022

  • Over 120 Killed After ISIS Mass Prison Break In US-Occupied Northeast Syria
    Over 120 Killed After ISIS Mass Prison Break In US-Occupied Northeast Syria

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    At least 120 people have been killed in clashes between ISIS and the US-backed Kurdish SDF in northeast Syria, Al Jazeera reported Sunday.

    The clashes are still ongoing and were touched off Thursday night by an ISIS attack on a prison in Hasakeh, Syria. The SDF initially said they thwarted the prison break but later said some inmates took over parts of the prison.

    ISIS prisoners in northeast Syria. Source: The Defense Post

    On Saturday, with US support, the SDF brought more fighters into Hasakeh to retake parts of the prison. Parts of Hasakeh are controlled by the Syrian government, and the governor of Hasakeh said about 4,000 civilians fled to those areas as the fighting escalated.

    The SDF said Sunday that it recaptured about 104 prisoners, but it’s not clear how many escaped. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 77 ISIS fighters, 39 Kurdish fighters, and seven civilians have been killed in the clashes.

    Though ISIS has long been in retreat, it reportedly still has “sleeper cells” across eastern Syria and western Iraq: 

    The SDF’s top military commander, Mazloum Abadi, said on Friday ISIL had mobilized “most of its sleeper cells” to organize the prison break.

    The US Pentagon confirmed the coalition against ISIL carried out air attacks in support of the SDF as it sought to end the prison break.

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    The US has been giving the SDF air support in its fight against ISIS in Hasakeh. The clashes come amid intense scrutiny over the enormous number of civilian casualties during the US air war against ISIS in Iraq in Syria.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/25/2022 – 02:00

  • Large, Peer-Reviewed Research Study Proves Ivermectin Works Against COVID-19
    Large, Peer-Reviewed Research Study Proves Ivermectin Works Against COVID-19

    Via FLCCC Alliance,

    The results are in from the world’s largest study of ivermectin for COVID-19.

    Brazil has had over 23 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with a 97% recovery rate.

    Researchers in Brazil found that regular use of ivermectin as a prophylactic agent was associated with significantly reduced COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and mortality rates.

    The study was conducted in Itajaí, a port city in the state of Santa Catarina, between July and December 2020. Study authors include FLCCC physicians Dr. Flavio Cadegiani and Dr. Pierre Kory. Lead author Dr. Lucy Kerr was approached by the mayor of Itajaí, after the city began to experience a severe outbreak of COVID.

    The entire population of Itajaí was invited to participate in the program, which involved a medical visit to compile baseline, personal, demographic, and medical information. In the absence of contraindications, ivermectin was offered as a preventative treatment, to be taken for two consecutive days every 15 days at a dose of 0.2 mg/kg/day.

    Of the 223,128 citizens of Itajaí considered for the study, a total of 159,561 subjects elected to participate: over 70% opted to take ivermectin, and 23% chose not to.

    Reduced infection and hospitalization rates

    The study found a 44% reduction in COVID-19 infection rate in favor of the group that took ivermectin (3.5% versus 8.2%).

    In cases where a participating citizen of Itajaí became ill with COVID-19, they were recommended not to use ivermectin or any other medication in early outpatient treatment. Of those who did become infected, two equal-sized, highly matched groups (one that used ivermectin as a prophylaxis and one that did not) were compared. The regular use of preventative ivermectin led to a 68% reduction in COVID-19 mortality (0.8% versus 2.6%), and a 56% reduction in hospitalization rate (1.6% versus 3.3%).

    The regular use of preventative ivermectin led to a reduction in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and mortality.

    Study methods

    Since vaccines were not available at the time, and few prophylactic alternatives existed in the absence of vaccines, Itajaí initiated a population-wide government program for COVID-19 prophylaxis. This was a prospective observational study that allowed subjects to self-select between treatment vs. non-treatment. The use of ivermectin was optional and based on patients’ preferences, given its benefits as a preventative agent was unproven.

    To ensure the safety of the population, a computer program was developed to compile and maintain all relevant demographic and clinical data. All subjects were weighed to be able to accurately calculate the correct dose of ivermectin. In addition, a brief medical evaluation was conducted to record past medical history, comorbidities, use of medications and contraindications to drugs.

    The following variables were analyzed and adjusted as confounding factors or used for balancing and matching groups for propensity score matching:

    • Age

    • Sex

    • Previous diseases (myocardial infarction and stroke)

    • Pre-existing comorbidities (type 2 diabetes, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular diseases, cancer [any type], and other pulmonary diseases)

    • Smoking

    Patients who presented signs or the diagnosis of COVID-19 before July 7, 2020, were excluded from the sample. Other exclusion criteria included contraindications to ivermectin and age (subjects below 18 years of age were excluded).

    During the study, subjects who were diagnosed with COVID-19 underwent a specific medical visit to assess clinical manifestations and disease severity. All subjects with symptoms were recommended not to use ivermectin, nitazoxanide, hydroxychloroquine, spironolactone, or any other drug claimed to be effective against COVID-19. The city did not provide or support any specific pharmacological outpatient treatment for subjects infected with COVID-19.

    Intriguing findings

    Interestingly, the group who self-selected to take ivermectin was older and had more comorbidities than the group who opted for no treatment. These results show that prophylactic ivermectin may be a mitigating factor in groups with higher risk of morbidity.

    The results show prophylactic ivermectin may be a mitigating factor for high-risk groups.

    The belief that preventative and early treatment therapies would cause people to relax their caution of remaining socially distanced, leading to more COVID-19-related infections, is not supported here.

    The data demonstrate that using preventative ivermectin significantly lowers the infection rate, and that benefits outweigh the speculated increased risk of changes in social behaviors.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 23:50

  • The US Bombed A Vital Dam In Syria, Lied About It, & Called Anyone Who Reported The Truth "Crazy"
    The US Bombed A Vital Dam In Syria, Lied About It, & Called Anyone Who Reported The Truth “Crazy”

    Many years too late, it appears The New York Times has suddenly discovered that the United States has been committing war crimes in Syria, coming long after it was clear Washington was pursuing regime change in Damascus. With Assad still in control of most of the country, US efforts have turned to far-reach sanctions of late, which have greatly increased the sufferings of common Syrians. Like with Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq before, the Times was the foremost cheerleader for that war, laundering Pentagon and admin propaganda, and only many years later admitting the truth that it was all based on lies… so now it seems to be going with Syria.

    In its latest reporting, the NY Times has “uncovered” that an elite US military unit intentionally targeted and destroyed a large dam which was vital to the daily life and survival of tens of thousands of people near a vital Euphrates River reservoir. When the 2017 bombing of the Tabqa Dam (or al-Thawra Dam as it’s also called) was first reported, a top American general labeled those accusing the US of being behind it as “crazy”. Like much mainstream media reporting on Syria, those who had it right in real time – many from independent and alternative media – were dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” and loons, but now this…

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    The fresh NY Times reporting begins, “Near the height of the war against the Islamic State in Syria, a sudden riot of explosions rocked the country’s largest dam, a towering, 18-story structure on the Euphrates River that held back a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where hundreds of thousands of people lived.”

    The US had quickly dismissed those accusing the US of being behind the attack. And since Russia was among them, it was easy for the Pentagon to bat it down as but the “propaganda” of America’s enemies in the region…

    The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”

    “The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.

    Multiple Syrians had been killed and wounded in the attack, including dam workers and engineers who had rushed to the scene to save it. 

    Apparently there was proof that the US did it right way, yet it seems this fact remained buried (or perhaps suppressed) in Western media reporting for years, given that as NYT details, “After the strikes, dam workers stumbled on an ominous piece of good fortune: Five floors deep in the dam’s control tower, an American BLU-109 bunker-buster lay on its side, scorched but intact — a dud. If it had exploded, experts say, the whole dam might have failed.”

    As the Times now reveals, it was an elite Pentagon unit behind the attack on vital civilian infrastracture, responsible for other mass atrocities in Syria:

    In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb designed to destroy thick concrete structures, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 23:30

  • China Builds 27 Empty New York Cities
    China Builds 27 Empty New York Cities

    Commentary by James Dale Davidson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As of 2016, China’s empty apartment units could house New York City 27 times over.

    Skyline of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, China, in this undated photo. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)

    What does this mean to you? There are a lot of carry-on effects from wasting so many resources. As you delve into a thought exercise to get more acquainted with the ruinous consequences of credit bubbles, be grateful that you don’t really have to worry about malicious genies magically tagging you with mortgaged deeds.

    That could be scary. Imagine that some cruel genie took a perverse dislike to you. What worse instance of malevolent magic could the genie perform than to present you with deeds to the astonishing inventory of 70 million empty apartments structures accumulating dust throughout China.

    You might think it would make you a billionaire, a real estate magnate on par with Donald Trump. But think again.

    This may be a good moment to retell an uncharacteristically charming story Trump told on himself, dating to the savings and loan crisis (S&L crisis) of the late 1980s and early 1990s. That was a time when 1,043 out of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States failed as they tried to digest billions in over-mortgaged real estate properties.

    At that time, Trump found himself walking the streets of the Upper East Side of Manhattan one evening with his girlfriend of the moment. As they walked, they came upon a bum in a tattered peacoat lying on a grate. Trump remarked to his companion, “That guy has $1 billion more than I do.” She responded, “But he doesn’t look like he has a penny.” Trump replied, “He doesn’t.”

    When he said that, Trump’s fortune was hostage to the banks to which he owed about a billion dollars more than his properties would have realized in a fire sale. I describe this “as an uncharacteristically charming story” because Trump is hardly famous for making jokes at his own expense. Nonetheless, he confirmed to me in a conversation that the above account I share with you is valid. It shows Trump humorously acknowledging the implications of double-entry bookkeeping at his best.

    With that in mind, how could you afford to pay the construction mortgages on 70 million apartment units with no residents deeded to you by the evil genie? A challenging question. You would have to do some fast talking with the Chinese banks of the sort Trump managed with New York banks decades ago during the S&L crisis.

    Your only hope of avoiding being sucked into a black hole of debt defaults would be to hire some creative scoundrels disguised as accountants to help you persuade the banks to lend you additional billions (or more probably, trillions) to postpone the day of reckoning. Note that the extent to which you could succeed would only worsen the ultimate malinvestment problem. Your assets would not be enhanced in any way by being encumbered with additional debt. They would just become more costly.

    Could you keep kiting the debt?

    A $36.4 Trillion Question?

    That is at least a $36.4 trillion question. Maybe a $45.9 trillion, or possibly even a $116.6 trillion question. The correct answer depends on China’s actual debt level. Unlike Trump’s challenge of three decades ago when the systemic debt issue was denominated in billions of dollars, the Chinese bad debt problem is 1,000 times worse.

    Forbes reports the estimate of Professor Victor Shih of the University of California San Diego. Shih believes that Chinese official debt figures have proven woefully inadequate.

    A $45.9 Trillion Question?

    In 2017, Shih put total Chinese debt at 328 percent of GDP (reported at $14 trillion), therefore $45.9 trillion. According to Shih, “total interest payments from June 2016 to June 2017 exceeded the incremental increase in nominal GDP by roughly 8 trillion RMB.”

    If so, that hints that the end is near. However, as rough as that sounds, the actual situation may be even worse.

    Or a $116.6 Trillion Question?

    If you are a connoisseur of forbidden truths, as I am, you don’t take official figures at face value. You keep digging for tells that reveal the real story. I am convinced that Chinese government statistics are as bogus as those in the United States. And more so.

    An aerial view shows the Evergrande Changqing community in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Sept. 26, 2021. (Getty Images)

    Professor Christopher Balding of HSBC Business School, Peking University, an authority with good sources in the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) Financial Stability Board, recently did some subversive arithmetic combining “on balance sheet assets” with “off-balance sheet assets.” Remember, while debts are liabilities to the borrowers, they are assets to the lenders.

    He concludes that total debt in China is a breathtaking 833 percent of GDP. That means a debt of roughly $116.6 trillion.

    Wow. Just wow!

    The actual debt level could be three and a half times higher than suggested by official figures. The National Development and Reform Commission says Chinese debt amounts to 260 percent of GDP ($36.4 trillion). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) accepts a lower official estimate of 230 percent. But suppose Balding’s report of 833 percent is correct. In that case, this is a matter of capital importance to the world economy and your investments.

    Annual Interest Payments of 29 Percent of GDP?

    Remember, interest rates in China are not as minuscule as those in the United States or negative as those in Europe and Japan. Assume the average interest rate paid equals the short-term interbank deposit rate of 3.5 percent. Balding observes, “this would imply financial services costs to the economy of 29% nominal GDP.” A large nut to crack. Even Chinese growth rates would not come close to covering annual carrying costs of 29 percent.

    Is it possible that Balding is right?

    Yes. I see several hints that he is.

    Are Official Financial Figures Wildly Wrong?

    For one thing, almost every Chinese bankruptcy case brings evidence of undisclosed liabilities of individual companies. Balding observes, “it is common to find enormous amounts of undisclosed debts or (Enron-like) asset management products in Chinese bankruptcies or defaults.”

    This underscores the suspicion that the actual level of debt has been low-balled. In Balding’s words, it also means that “official on balance sheet financial figures are wildly wrong with disastrous consequences.” He warns, “This implies that we need to rethink the entire story of Chinese development and finance since probably about 2000.”

    Balding continues: “Excessive indebtedness is distributed in virtually every sector of the economy. Before, if there was a shock to the corporate sector, householders and the government could step in and help. However, virtually no sector of the Chinese economy does not have an enormous indebtedness. Distributing it throughout simply lowers the capacity to handle a shock.”

    ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’

    Speaking of “shocks,” you should not be shocked to learn that Balding was fired from his post at Peking University after discussing his conclusion—based on PBOC data—that total debt in China has surged to 833 percent of nominal GDP.

    In a corrupt world, where people have trillions of reasons to lie about the economy (and some have no doubt lost their lives for failing to heed them), the firing of Professor Balding is as close as you can expect to come to official confirmation that his numbers are correct.

    A way of restating Balding’s revelations is that no one knows who owes what to whom or how much can be settled before the whole Chinese house of cards collapses. Estimates of bad debt in the Chinese banking system run as high as 50 percent of GDP—or about $7 trillion. Far more than enough to make the banking system insolvent.

    A collapse of China’s asset bubble lies ahead. I doubt any Chinese tycoons are strolling the streets of Shanghai with their girlfriends, making jokes about street people being a trillion yuan richer than they are. That underscores a problem when the government of a country enlarges debt to magnitudes beyond the scale of assets held by even the wealthiest persons. That makes it all the more unlikely that mortgaged assets can be redeemed from hock while encumbered by anything like their current level of debt.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 23:10

  • OpenSea Bug Allows Hackers To Steal More Than $1 Million In NFTs
    OpenSea Bug Allows Hackers To Steal More Than $1 Million In NFTs

    Premier NFT marketplace OpenSea may have successfully leveraged the NFT boom for a monster $13 billion valuation, but it’s system is still riddled with security flaws, one of which was just successfully exploited by hackers, resulting in the theft of $1M in digital assets.

    Elliptic reports that a bug on OpenSea’s marketplace has played a role in at least three attacks. Hackers managed to use the bug to purchase at least 8 NFTs for much less than what was considered their “fair market value”. All three incidents had occurred within a day of the report.

    One of the attackers paid just $133K for seven NFTs by exploiting the bug – only to turn around and sell them immediately for $934K.

    In another example, an NFT belonging to the Bored Ape Yacht Club series was bought for just 0.77 ETH (just $1,800 as of Monday morning). Many other members of the family have sold for around $200K.

    The sale of that BAYC member caught the attention of other niche sources of crypto-related news and gossip.

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    As of 1000ET on Monday, the attacks appear to be ongoing.

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    This means OpenSea users might want to think twice before listing one of their precious blockchain gifs for sale, lest it be snatched up by a hacker for far less than you paid for it.

    One Twitter user created a step by step breakdown of how the hacks unfolded:

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    And Novum Insights has produced an explanation describing how the bug works.

    Here’s how the bug works:

    When users delist an NFT for sale, they are supposed to pay a ‘gas-fee’ to return the token to the owner’s wallet. Recently, users discovered that by transferring their NFT to another ETH address, the NFT would seemingly be delisted without paying gas. However, this only removes the NFT listing from the platform’s front-end (the user-interface of the marketplace).

    Opportunists were quick to discover that if the NFT in question was ever sent back to the original ETH wallet, it would still be purchasable on Rarible as the delisting gas-fee was never paid on OpenSea. More importantly, the bug causes OpenSea’s contract to scrape the NFT’s original listing price as the current listing price – this is what caused the BAYC NFT mentioned above to be purchased for less than $2,000.

    On Saturday (22 January), OpenSea added a new feature that asks users to confirm whether they are sure they want to proceed when a listing is made far below the floor price of a collection. While this does not directly address the bug, it does lower the likelihood of NFTs being sold by mistake.

    Unfortunately, even this didn’t fix the problem. The world is still waiting to hear from OpenSea about the issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 22:50

  • Did Biden Finally Admit His Anti-Gun Agenda's True Goal?
    Did Biden Finally Admit His Anti-Gun Agenda’s True Goal?

    Submitted by NRA-ILA.,

    Last weekend, when four hostages were taken at Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, countless people remained transfixed on their televisions and computers, awaiting the outcome. Fortunately, the hostages were able to free themselves. After they had managed to escape, law enforcement moved in, and the attacker, who was armed with at least one handgun, was shot and killed by the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team.

    As the investigation into this attack on a Jewish house of worship has unfolded, we have learned that the perpetrator was a British national with a criminal history, and his brother reported that he had “mental health issues.” We also know that he entered this country about two weeks ago, apparently without any close scrutiny, and that has raised questions from U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

    While it may take some time to figure out all of the details involved in what the FBI eventually identified as a terrorist attack “in which the Jewish community was targeted,” we do know the man responsible had at least one gun, but not how he acquired it.

    Usually, a high-profile crime involving a firearm would lead to endless proclamations from the Biden Administration intended to exploit the event to promote its anti-gun agenda. But in an early, brief appearance before the media to comment on the events in Texas, Biden admitted what NRA and Second Amendment supporters have always known.

    Gun control laws do not stop criminals.

    When asked a question that seemed to be directed at addressing if the synagogue attack might positively impact Biden’s push for more gun control (the White House transcript is unclear as to what the exact question was), the president offered his usual rambling, confusing response.

    “Well, no—well, it does but it also doesn’t,” Biden said.

    If that wasn’t unclear enough, he went on to state, “The guns are—we should be—the idea of background checks are critical. But you can’t stop something like this if someone is on the street buying something from somebody else on the street. Except that there’s too—there’s so many guns that have been sold of late; it’s just ridiculous.”

    Trying to decipher Biden’s inarticulate word-salad responses is always difficult. He seems to be saying that nothing would have stopped this man from illegally acquiring a firearm and taking hostages, but he still wants to promote attacks on the Second Amendment in response to the crime.

    Biden says he wants to focus his efforts “on gun purchases, gun sales, ghost guns, and a whole range of things that I’m trying to do.” But he just admitted that none of those issues would have stopped what happened in Texas. The mention of “ghost guns” seems particularly irrelevant, but it is clearly just one of his go-to topics whenever he talks about restrictions on our right to keep and bear arms.

    We would not be surprised if Biden has been regularly coached to offer up “ghost guns” whenever he is discussing his anti-gun agenda, regardless of whether it is even remotely connected.

    But his comment about the number of guns sold in recent years is particularly telling. In 2020, we saw a record number of firearms sold in America, and 2021 was not far behind that mark. These numbers are based on National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data, so his concern over “so many guns that have been sold of late” should be negated by the fact that they went through the “background checks” he calls “critical.”

    We can only surmise that this exposes his true goal, which is not going after the criminal misuse of firearms, but suppressing law-abiding citizens from purchasing firearms. It even appears he tried to catch himself from being too open about his desire to see fewer lawfully-owned firearms in America, as he seemed to stop himself from saying there are “too many guns” that have been sold to law-abiding citizens, and clumsily pivoted to the less-judgemental phrasing of “so many guns.”

    Whether or not Biden and the anti-gun extremists that support his attacks on the Second Amendment will try to exploit the Texas synagogue attack to promote their radical agenda remains to be seen. But Biden was recently dealt another blow to his hope of ramming anti-gun legislation through Congress when the Senate rejected efforts, supported by Biden, to rewrite Senate rules and dramatically change how the filibuster would operate.

    While the proposed change was targeted at efforts to federalize certain voting regulations, and remove state control, had it been successful, we are certain one of the next steps from Biden and his supporters would be to use the same strategy to make it easier for anti-gun legislation to be forced through the Senate. In that sense, Biden’s filibuster setback was likely a good thing for those who support the Second Amendment, even if our right to keep and bear arms was not part of the discussion…this time.

    So, Biden’s ultimate goal of diminishing the rights of law-abiding gun owners, both current and future, is clearly exposed. Fortunately, it also remains clearly stalled.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 22:30

  • Panasonic Eyes "Mass Production" Of New Battery For Tesla With 20% Higher Range
    Panasonic Eyes “Mass Production” Of New Battery For Tesla With 20% Higher Range

    Longtime Tesla partner Panasonic looks once again to be slated to produce new lithium-ion batteries for the EV automaker.

    The company is going to be entering into “mass production” by 2023 in order to try and keep up with battery makers from China and South Korea. The new Panasonic batteries are expected to boost the range of EVs by 20% by 2023, according to a new report from Nikkei. 

    In Tesla’s Model S, range is expected to rise to ~750km from ~650km.

    Panasonic had started developing its 4680 battery cells after a request from Tesla, the report says. Tesla CEO Elon Musk had previously said it wanted to make its own batteries to supplement supply and vertically integrate. Battery cost is currently about 30% of the total cost of all EVs, Nikkei reported. 

    The new battery is expected to be “twice as big as older versions”, but will offer a “fivefold increase in capacity”. The cost of the new batteries is expected to be 10% to 20% less than current batteries. 

    Meanwhile, Tesla (and Panasonic) may still find itself playing “catch up”, as Mercedes “plans to start mass production of a new model this year that can travel 1,000 km on a single charge”. Those batteries are being manufactured by China’s CATL. 

    Panasonic will be expanding its Wakayama factory to a capacity that’s expected to keep up with 150,000 EVs per year. 

    Panasonic is expected to invest $700 million into the project and its production facilities in Japan. 

    Panasonic said in a statement to Reuters: “We are studying various options for mass production, including a test production line we are establishing this business year. We don’t, however, have anything to announce at this time.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 22:10

  • California Bill Would Let Children Get COVID-19 Jab Without Parental Approval
    California Bill Would Let Children Get COVID-19 Jab Without Parental Approval

    Authored by Allen Zhong via The Epoch Times,

    California Democrat lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow children to be administered with COVID-19 vaccines without parental consent.

    Senate Bill 866, also known as the Teens Choose Vaccines Act, has been introduced by state Senators Scott Wiener and Richard Pan, who intended to add a new section to the California Family Code.

    “A minor 12 years of age or older may consent to a vaccine that is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration and meets the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACIP) without the consent of the parent or guardian of the minor,” read the proposal.

    The bill doesn’t mention COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, but refers to human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B vaccines instead.

    However, Wiener said COVID-19 vaccination for children is an apparent goal of the bill.

    “With the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread availability of highly effective and safe vaccines to treat serious COVID-19 illness, it’s more important than ever that young adults be able to access vaccines,” he said in a statement.

    Current California law requires parental consent for children ages 12 to 17 to be vaccinated unless the vaccine specifically targets a sexually transmitted disease.

    Besides Wiener and Pan, the bill has eight coauthors, including seven assembly members and one senator.

    It’s unclear how widely the bill was received in the state legislature, controlled by the Democratic Party in both the upper and lower house in The Golden State.

    California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon refused to comment on the bill, saying the bill hasn’t yet reached the Assembly floor.

    The Epoch Times reached out to California Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg for comment.

    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky speaks during a hearing in Washington on Nov. 4, 2021. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends everyone ages 5 years and older get a COVID-19 vaccine, saying vaccines are safe for children and teens.

    The agency also recommended children 12 years and older get a Pfizer-BioNTech booster.

    However, some prominent epidemiologists have reservations about vaccinating children.

    Dr. Peter McCullough, a leading cardiologist and epidemiologist, said that healthy children should not be given the COVID-19 vaccine because the percentage of those children that die from the virus is minuscule, but the adverse effects from the vaccines in that age group are of great concern.

    Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and immunologist who has contributed significantly to the technology of mRNA vaccines, shares the same viewpoint.

    “There’s a good chance that if your child takes the vaccine, they won’t be damaged, they won’t show clinical symptoms—[but] they may have subclinical damage,” Malone told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program in an interview. “But the question is, do you want to take that chance with your child? Because if you draw the short straw and your child was damaged, most of these things, if not all of them, are irreversible. There is no way to fix it.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 21:50

  • New Study Finds CFA Charterholders Are Actually Worse At Investing
    New Study Finds CFA Charterholders Are Actually Worse At Investing

    We have some good news for the thousands of candidates who failed the Level 1 CFA exam last year, when the notoriously difficult test saw a record-low pass rate of just 25%: turns out, the credential doesn’t really have any bearing on an individual’s competence as an investor.

    On Monday, Bloomberg reported on a new study from researchers with two British business schools which purported to show that, contrary to popular belief, the CFA credential – once seen as a reliable path toward advancement on Wall Street – is actually correlated with worse performance. The researchers arrived at this conclusion after examining the careers of more than 6,000 fund managers.

    Researchers from Bayes and Cork University Business School examined 6,291 US equity mutual fund managers’ careers, tracking their performance across various funds and companies as well as examining factors such as gender, qualifications and whether the manager was invested in the fund. Previous similar studies have looked mostly at managers’ performance while working for particular funds.

    The research found that experience in the market was more closely correlated with investing success; on the whole, managers who had a CFA actually underperformed their non-charterholder peers. Although, as the researchers acknowledged, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

    “Some of the more experienced guys probably don’t have the CFA designation because they’re older,” Andrew Clare, a professor at Bayes Business School, City University of London, said in an interview. “So you could imagine that CFA designation is kind of a proxy for, not inexperienced, but less experienced managers.”

    The research offered little to recommend the CFA, although the study ultimately found more persistent outperformance among managers who came from universities with more stringent entry requirements, as well as among those who studied more technical fields like physics and math.

    In a sign of the CFA Institute’s injured pride, a spokesman for the institute insisted that other research arrived at the opposite conclusion.

    “The CFA Program represents a demonstrated and proven pathway to a successful career in investment management,” a spokesperson for the institute that oversees the qualification said. “Other pieces of academic research have arrived at the opposite conclusion to this study.”

    It’s been said that the average student studies for 300 hours before taking each of the three CFA exams, often taking about 4 years to complete the process. And if pass rates continue to plunge, more people might start to question whether the whole ordeal is truly worthwhile.

    Especially when traders who YOLO’d Gamestop calls and sh*tcoin crypto plays still outperformed many of the market’s most esteemed investors last year.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 21:30

  • Australian Authorities Say Draconian Vaccine Passports Could Last For "Years"
    Australian Authorities Say Draconian Vaccine Passports Could Last For “Years”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Authorities in Western Australia say their draconian new vaccine passport scheme, which bars the unvaccinated from most public places, is likely to be in place for “years.”

    Premier Mark McGowan announced the new measures, which will go into effect from the end of the month, as “the broadest proof of vaccination requirements in the nation.”

    The vaccine passport mandate will now cover “a wider range of venues.”

    “From Monday, January 31, 2022, the vaccine passport mandates will cover cafes, restaurants, dine-in fast food joints, pubs, bars, taverns, clubs, nightclubs, and “all hospitality venues,” as well as private and public hospitals and aged-care facilities,” writes Ken Macon.

    Entertainment venues such as “play centers, gaming and gambling, theaters, concert halls, museums, cinemas, and live music venues,” will also be off limits for the unjabbbed.

    “Life will become very difficult for the unvaccinated…no pubs, no bottle-shops, no gym, no yoga classes, no gigs, no dance floors, no hospital or aged care visits,” said McGowan, adding that the unvaccinated must be “protected from themselves.”

    He added that the rules, which will soon only count people who have had three doses as “fully vaccinated,” will ensure the public is “confident in these public settings, and that they are only mixing with other vaccinated people.”

    The restrictions “will not be removed anytime soon” and could be in place “for years.”

    Australia has become notorious for becoming the developed world leader in inflicting the most draconian COVID control measures on its population.

    As we highlighted last month, Australia’s chief pharmacist Trent Twomey says the public “just need to accept” they will have to take regular vaccine booster shots every six months and continue wearing masks for “many years” to come.

    Australia is also building COVID quarantine camps for “ongoing operations,” with one facility at Wellcamp Airport outside Toowoomba not even set to be completed until March.

    Citing new strains of COVID and people “who have not had access to vaccination,” Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles told the media outlet, “We anticipate there to be a continuing need for quarantine facilities.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 21:10

  • How "Workless" Men Are Driving America's Labor Crisis
    How “Workless” Men Are Driving America’s Labor Crisis

    While Goldman’s equity analysts chose to lecture their clients about margin compression following a flurry of S&P 500 stalwarts lowering their earnings guidance, the investment bank’s economists also warned Monday that stubborn wage pressures are making them “more concerned about the inflationary outlook.”

    Wage growth is still running at an annualized pace of 5-6% months after generous pandemic-inspired unemployment benefits expired, a stubbornness that has surprised many on Wall Street. Partly as a result, they expect their inflation dashboard to continue to highlight lingering supply chain woes, hot wage growth, strong rent growth, very high year-on-very core PCE and especially core CPI inflation, and very high short-term inflation expectations.”

    Goldman’s team produced charts showing how COVID case numbers have coincided with a rise in the CPI and PCE, two popular gauges of headline inflation, while also breaking down how the costs of “other services” (the most wage-sensitive category) have been the biggest individual driver of price pressures.

    Goldman’s team aren’t the only ones on Wall Street who are growing increasingly worried about wage inflation. Even the WSJ offered some thoughts on the subject this weekend when it published a lengthy “Weekend Interview” by Mene Ukueberuwa purporting to examine the “Underside of the Great Resignation”. As Ukueberuwa quickly points out, the labor-force participation rate in the US has been stuck at 61.9%, 1.5 points below its pre-pandemic level, since August 2020.

    Is it perhaps too early to start to question whether the post-COVID “Great Resignation” narrative simply isn’t enough? While some bankers might disagree, a growing number of academics and experts have started to question whether structural factors in the US economy might become major impediments in the recovery of the labor market.

    For years now, the growing percentage of women in the workforce (women now outnumber men on college campuses, too), and a confluence of other factors like the opioid pandemic and the advent of video-game slacker culture, and the stigmatization of jobs like construction, which require a strong back, but few academic smarts, have caused more and more men to drop out of the workforce. We have been talking about this phenomenon since as far back as 2017.

    Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, was one of the primary proponents of this structural argument in the WSJ essay, which cited his 2016 book “Men Without Book”. As he explains, overall labor force pariticpation rate has been declining since 2000, when it peaked at about 67%.

    As the rate has fallen, many blamed a growing number of retirees as the Baby Boom generation leaves the workforce. But declines have also been persistent in the population of prime-age people – 25 to 54 – in the workplace.

    Eberstadt believes that if the US had maintained the ratio of employment-to-population from 2000, we would have 13M more people working today, more than enough to fill the record number of open jobs.

    So, if they’re not working, where are all these working-age men and what are they doing? Are they volunteering or channeling their energies into worship or civil society? Not at all. From all we can tell, it looks like they’re mostly sitting at home. “By and large, nonworking men don’t ‘do’ civil society,” Eberstadt says. “Their time spent helping in the home, their time spent in worship—a whole range of activities, they just aren’t doing.” For a source on this, Eberstadt pointed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, which compiles respondents’ self-reported habits.

    Turns out, working age men were increasingly “staying at home a lot” even before the pandemic. Suddenly, the pandemic has given many who may have been working part-time menial jobs to simply sit home. And inflated asset prices have helped to justify it. Still, there is something “fundamentally degrading” about the workless men of contemporary American society.

    “This is not what Marx would have called the ‘higher pursuits’ of leisure,” Eberstadt said. “There’s something fundamentally degrading about this.”

    Amazingly, Eberstadt also pointed to the fact that the number of working-age Americans receiving federal disability payments has doubled over the past 50 years, rising from 2.2% in 1977 to 4.3% last year.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 20:50

  • Thank This Mystery Put Seller For Today's Historic Market Reversal
    Thank This Mystery Put Seller For Today’s Historic Market Reversal

    Heading into today’s rollercoaster session, we were – perhaps naively – confident that Friday’s massive $3.1 trillion opex would also mark the bottom for stocks (an option expiration which we correctly said would be surrounded by massive volatility, as explained last Tuesday).

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    And – in a roundabout way – it did, because after plunging more than 4%, stocks staged a furious rally the likes of which have been seen only on a handful of occasions, before closing green. Putting today’s historic reversal in context, this was only the sixth time since 1988 that the Nasdaq reversed a 4%+ intraday drop to close higher. The other days were 10/28/97, 10/26/00, 7/15/02, 10/10/08, and 11/13/08. As for the S&P, this was the biggest intraday comeback since November 2008 when the US was in the middle of the biggest financial crisis in recent history.

    To be fair, while we did expect the market to bottom, we did not anticipate an early plunge as furious as the one that took place today (before it was replaced with an even more furious bounce). We did however expect the market to recover from the post op-ex “hangover”, because as SpotGamma notes, the lows in the market during the December 2018 and March 2020 crashes both took place the day after options expirations.

    And while this time it was a January opex, what was remarkable about this particular event, is that we had a record amount of puts selling heading into Friday’s event, some of which expired, some of which did not.

    We bring this up because as SpotGamma explains in its post-mortem, it was the previously discussed massive negative gamma expiration that was responsible for today’s unprecedented volatility, but also it was a burst in option-linked activity that emerged around noon – just after the European close – that catalyzed the historic market reversal.

    As shown in the chart below, which in addition to the S&P in black also shows put (blue) and call (orange) deltas, a massive put seller suddenly appeared (which via the negative gamma feedback loop also means dealers suddenly reverse from selling S&P futures to buying) just around noon, that was responsible for the slowdown in dealer selling and subsequent reversal, as a huge short squeeze kicked in and sent stocks sharply higher for the rest of the day.

    Then from 12pm until roughly 3pm, the deltas in put options became increasingly positive dragging the market with them, as dealers scrambled to cover their long put hedges. At that point the reflexive pathway of put selling that also sent the VIX sharply lower (the VIX collapsed from 39 at the highs to 29 at the lows a few hours later driven in big part by this acceleration in put selling during the afternoon) had activated and prompted countless vol-targeting funds to join the buying frenzy.

    Who was the put seller? Was it some contrarian dealer who had finally had enough of the waterfall selling, or was it some major hedge fund with little to lose, or perhaps it was the infamous plunge protection team? We don’t know, but we do know the mechanism by which the reversal happened, and courtesy of SpotGamma you too can keep track of such major market inflation points as they explain in the video below.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 20:31

  • TSA Backtracks On Allowing Illegal Immigrants To Use Arrest Warrants As ID To Fly
    TSA Backtracks On Allowing Illegal Immigrants To Use Arrest Warrants As ID To Fly

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Friday acknowledged it was allowing illegal immigrants to present arrest warrants as identification to get on airplanes but said it was ending the practice.

    “For non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals who do not otherwise have acceptable forms of ID for presentation at security checkpoints, TSA may also accept certain DHS-issued forms, including ICE Form I-200 (Warrant for Arrest of an Alien),” a spokesman for the agency told The Epoch Times in an email.

    The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

    Later in the day, though, the same spokesman indicated the policy had been changed.

    “To confirm the identity of an individual and ensure they are not on the no-fly list or pose a known threat to public safety or national security, TSA verifies the identity of every traveler before they are permitted to enter the secure area of an airport. Noncitizens without a standard form of identification may instead present certain DHS-issued forms to a TSA officer. These forms are civil immigration violation documents, do not include criminal arrest warrants, and are not indicative of a threat to public safety or national security,” he said.

    The TSA says it confirms the identity of each individual by verifying information found on the forms using data from Customs and Border Protection.

    The Biden administration letting illegal immigrants present arrest warrants was first reported by the Daily Caller.

    The change in policy came after an outcry over the unusual practice.

    “President [Joe] Biden is putting millions of Americans at risk by allowing known criminals and potential terrorists to fly on U.S. airlines. A criminal alien shouldn’t be allowed to board a plane after presenting a warrant for their arrest. They should be detained and brought before a judge,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), who said he went to the U.S.-Mexico border and witnessed illegal immigrants boarding planes without proper identification, said on Fox & Friends this week.

    Matthew Tragesser, spokesperson at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told The Epoch Times in an email before the change that the guidance was “an affront to American citizens, and greatly jeopardizes our national security.”

    “In no way, shape, or form would an American citizen be allowed to board a U.S. flight simply by flashing an arrest warrant. If anything, that would cause immediate concern for law enforcement officials. This unconscionable move by the Biden administration aids and abets criminal behavior. Rather than facilitate illegal immigration deep into the interior, the administration should look to deter it as more than 2 million individuals attempted to enter the country unlawfully during its first year in office–an all-time record,” he added.

    Under Biden, the United States set records for the most illegal immigrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border for both a fiscal year and a calendar year.

    Biden, a Democrat, and top officials in his administration have dramatically altered or ended key Trump-era policies since taking office, including stopping construction of the border wall and curtailing the use of health emergency powers to expel illegal aliens.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 20:30

  • 13 Million Chinese Finally Freed After 1-Month Lockdown In Xi'an As New Outbreak Detected In Shanghai
    13 Million Chinese Finally Freed After 1-Month Lockdown In Xi’an As New Outbreak Detected In Shanghai

    Finally, after a month of living with a brutal, Wuhan-style lockdown, the 13 million residents of Xi’an, the provincial capital of Shanxxi, are finally free to go about their business. The CCP announced over the weekend that it would end the lockdown after  a month, having officially triumphed over the virus yet again (although other outbreaks are vexing authorities in Beijing and elsewhere).

    On Monday, meanwhile, health authorities confirmed the first new confirmed case of COVID in Shanghai since the start of the latest round of outbreaks. While it’s only one case for now (at least, according to what the CCP is willing to tell the public), COVID cases follow the cockroach theory: where there’s one, there are more.

    According to official sources, a worker at a cargo terminal in Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport tested positive for COVID. While the case has been categorized as mild, Shanghai authorities have upgraded the risk level on a residential compound in the Fengxian district, leaving its residents to face tighter restrictions and mandatory testing. Authorities in Shanghai are also “encouraging” residents to remain in the city during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.

    China also reported four cases of COVID among incoming travelers for the Winter Olympics (which starts Feb. 4). One infection involved an individual identified as an “athlete” and three identified as “stakeholders” by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympics, in a statement.

    As authorities in Beijing continue to tighten restrictions ahead of the start of the Winter Games, the Chinese government has started to use its panopticon of surveillance to discreetly track people who buy cough medicine or anything else that might be used to alleviate the symptoms of COVID, according to Bloomberg.

    Beijing residents who purchase antipyretics, antivirals and drugs that target coughs and sore throats will get an alert on the mobile app China uses for contact tracing and which is frequently checked to allow entry to public venues. The buyer will then need to take a Covid test within 72 hours or face movement restrictions, the Beijing Municipal Health Commission said on Sunday.

    With the US and some of its western allies boycotting the Olympics, many diplomats simply don’t need to worry about traveling to Beijing this year. But those who are face some pretty stiff anti-COVID restrictions. Some might be forced to quarantine for a total of 21 days if they are ever deemed to be “close contacts” of anybody found to be positive.

    That’s bad news for any diplomat who doesn’t want to risk being detained in a Chinese quarantine facility just so they can attend the Winter Olympics.

    Already, Chinese authorities have discovered 78 cases among travelers associated with the Games since Jan. 4. So, in the hopes of avoiding further embarrassment, the CCP has decided to lower the testing threshold for what’s considered a positive case. Perhaps they have seen our reporting on the COVID “casedemic” and how to address it.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 20:10

  • F-35 Stealth Jet Crashes On US Carrier In South China Sea, 7 Injured
    F-35 Stealth Jet Crashes On US Carrier In South China Sea, 7 Injured

    An F-35C Stealth fighter jet has crash landed aboard the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea on Monday, the US Navy announced, inuring seven, including the pilot who successfully ejected and was recovered in the sea by a military helicopter. 

    “An F-35C Lightning II, assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, had a landing mishap on deck while USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) was conducting routine flight operations in the South China Sea, Jan. 24, 2022,” a military statement said.

    US Navy file: An F-35C takes off from the USS Carl Vinson.

    The six others had been injured on the carrier’s deck, and three were airlifted to a hospital in Manila, Philippines, with all now said to be in stable condition.

    The cause of the crash is under investigation, with the preliminary statement calling it an “inflight mishap”. 

    The F-35 stealth manufacturer Lockheed Martin had announced last August when the USS Vinson had departed San Diego, “This deployment marks the first time in U.S. naval aviation history that a stealth strike fighter has been deployed operationally on an aircraft carrier.”

    One prominent China state media pundit in the West was quick to weigh in on the accident, saying the United States “should not be there in the first place”…

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    The pilot is reportedly among those in stable condition, with the Navy statement citing that he “safely ejected”.

    Last November, a British F-35 stealth jet has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea during what was described at the time as routine flying operations from the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. F-35 fighters are an estimated 135 million dollars, with cutting-edge stealth technology and radar.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 19:58

  • Wisconsin Judge Amazingly Rules 7 Health Care Workers Cannot Switch Jobs
    Wisconsin Judge Amazingly Rules 7 Health Care Workers Cannot Switch Jobs

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Telling people they cannot quit for a better opportunity is blatantly unconstitutional. But that just happened in Wisconsin…

    The Appleton, Wisconsin Post-Crescent reports Fox Valley Health Care Workers Now Playing Out in Court.

    The seven workers quit ThedaCare, applied for positions at Ascension, and received job offers.

    The seven did not have contracts or obligations at ThedaCare nor did Ascension recruit those workers. 

    Nonetheless, ThedaCare filed a lawsuit seeking to block the move. 

    Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis granted ThedaCare’s request and until at least Monday. 

    In the complaint, lawyers for ThedaCare wrote that Ascension had “shockingly” chosen to “poach” the employees during a stressful time for health care. More COVID-19 patients are hospitalized in the Fox Valley now than at any other time during the pandemic, according to Wisconsin Hospital Association data, and ThedaCare has canceled non-emergency surgeries to make space. 

    ThedaCare-Neenah is a Level II Trauma Center, part of which means they have specialists like interventional radiologists available regularly to treat patients. Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital, a Level III Trauma Center, can provide initial support to trauma patients and is able to transfer them to ThedaCare-Neenah for more care, according to definitions from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.  

    Ascension says it did not recruit the workers and that ThedaCare had an opportunity to make counter-offers but didn’t.

    Timothy Breister, one of applicants in the dispute said the pay, the benefits, and the life-style options offered by Ascension were better.

    Its “not just in pay but also a better work/life balance,” said Breister. 

    After approaching ThedaCare with the chance to match the offers they’d been given, Breister wrote that they were told “the long term expense to ThedaCare was not worth the short term cost,” and no counter-offer would be made. 

    You Can’t Quit

    Effectively the judge ruled the workers cannot quit. Wow. 

    This is an open and shut case if the facts are even close to those presented.

    If I was Breister, I would consider showing up at Ascension as well as filing a recall petition for Judge Mark McGinnis. 

    Wisconsin judges may be removed in one of four ways: By the Wisconsin Supreme Court, by recall, by legislative impeachment and by an obscure mechanism called address, which is similar to impeachment.

    Irony

    The irony in this ridiculous ruling by judge McGinnis is that the seven workers will not be at work for either ThedaCare or Ascension next week unless the workers ignore the restraining order.

    McGinnis wants the parties to work it out. But there is nothing to work out.

    Telling people they cannot quit for a better opportunity is blatantly unconstitutional. 

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 19:50

  • How Rate Hikes May Trigger A Recession (Or Market Crash)
    How Rate Hikes May Trigger A Recession (Or Market Crash)

    Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

    The history of economic development cannot be understood without the importance of recession periods. Recessions are often the result of the excess accumulated in previous years. Creative destruction after a period of excess used to drive a stronger recovery and continued economic development. That was until risky assets became the biggest concern for policymakers.

    From the late seventies and early eighties US housing slump and automobile industry crisis to the technology and housing bubble burst there is a clear process of causation created by interest rate policy. Constant decreases in interest rates lead to excessive risk-taking, complacency and accumulation of exposure to increasingly expensive assets under the perception that there is no risk. Bubbles become larger and more dangerous because interest rates are kept abnormally low for a prolonged period and it disguises risk, clouding citizens’ and investors’ perception of danger in elevated valuations. Cheap money leads to generalized and dangerous risk exposure.

    After every recession, central banks keep rates too low for too long even in growth periods because policymakers’ fear asset price corrections, and this leads to complacency and the creation of bubbles everywhere. Once policymakers decide to raise rates, they often cause a recession because the amount of risk taken by even the most conservative investor or household is simply too high. By the time that central banks decide to finally raise rates the bubbles are already more than a market headline, but a dangerous and widespread accumulation of risk that negatively affects millions of unsuspecting citizens.

    The question is what is worse, the rate cuts or the rate hikes?

    Rate hikes tend to trigger recessions, as Jesse Colombo or Lance Roberts have shown in numerous charts, but what causes them is previous extraordinary levels of accumulated risks throughout the economy.

    The boom-and-bust cycle is more severe and frequent, as we have seen since the late seventies. That is why central banks never truly normalize policy, rates remain in negative territory in real terms. And investors know it.

    That is why there is a perverse incentive for households, businesses, and investors to buy any correction.

    The fear of interest rate hikes allows us to analyse what has happened in other similar periods.

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    Between 1985 and 1990 the Fed raised rates 325 basis points and the S&P 500 rose 45%.

    The rate hike cycle drove emerging economies like Mexico to the ground and states like California went bankrupt.

    Between 1993 and 2000 the Fed also raised rates by 325 basis points and the US stock market shot up 225%.

    In that period, we saw the Tech bubble burst and the early 2000s recession. In the 2003 to 2007 period the Fed raised rates by 375 basis points and the market rose 30%. It brought the great financial crisis and the housing bubble burst.

    Between 2015 and 2020, rates rose 200 basis points and the US index advanced 65%.

    In that period, in 2018, we saw the Fed change its rate-hike course rapidly after a market correction.

    Will the Federal Reserve change its rate hike plan this time?

    History shows us that central banks care much more about risky assets – stocks and bonds – than they say and certainly a lot more than they do about inflation.

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    At the beginning of 2016, faced with a cycle of expected rate hikes, the S&P500 corrected 11.3% until January 20th. The Federal Reserve ended up raising rates just once that year despite announcing four hikes. Why did they change? “Geopolitical risk and weakening financial conditions”. Exactly what is happening now.

    In December 2018, after years of a bull market, the US stock market fell by 9%, and on January 3rd, 2019, it corrected another 3.5%. The next day, the Federal Reserve announced that it was “going to be patient” and stopped its rate hike path on its tracks.

    It is true that inflation was not 7% ​​then and the Federal Reserve may probably be more tolerant of a market correction than when the US CPI was 3%, but we cannot forget that history shows us that central banks always maintain looser conditions than it seems from their messages and headlines.

    The evidence of the United States economic slowdown is everywhere. Retail sales, job creation, stagnant labor force participation, declining real wages and slowing capital expenditure. To all this we must add the continued rise in energy commodities due to the Ukraine tensions.

    The Federal Reserve is aware of the “bubble of everything” created in recent years and the elevated levels of debt throughout the economy.

    Unfortunately, the Fed has already left rates low, and asset purchases high, for too long to prevent an inevitable negative economic effect. Even worse, the solution will likely be to repeat the same policies that created the conditions for excess.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 19:10

  • Truckers Head To Ottawa In 'Freedom Rally' Against Vaccine Mandate
    Truckers Head To Ottawa In ‘Freedom Rally’ Against Vaccine Mandate

    The cross-border vaccine mandates for truckers in/out of Canada have caused a stir among the trucking community. By Sunday, truckers from around the country embarked in several convoys headed to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to protest a federal vaccine mandate, according to CBC News. 

    Called the “Freedom Rally” against the federal mandate for cross-border truckers, Canadian truck drivers are furious with the Jan. 15 order to force unvaxxed drivers into two-week quarantine and COVID-19 testing before crossing into Canada. 

    At least 26,000 out of the 160,000 (16.3%) drivers who make frequent trips, hauling goods across the Canada-US will be sidelined. The convoy began one day after the US required truck drivers at border crossings with Canada to be fully vaccinated. 

    A GoFundMe has been set up to help drivers participating in the rally cover expenses like fuel and food. By Monday, over 40,500 people donated to the cause, raising more than CAD 3 million. 

    Organizers of the rally said, “to our fellow Canadians, the time for political over reach is over.” 

    Our current government is implementing rules and mandates that are destroying the foundation of our businesses, industries and livelihoods. Canadians have been integral to the fabric of humanity in many ways that have shaped the planet.

    We are a peaceful country that has helped protect nations across the globe from tyrannical governments who oppressed their people, and now it seems it is happening here. We are taking our fight to the doorsteps of our Federal Government and demanding that they cease all mandates against its people. Small businesses are being destroyed, homes are being destroyed, and people are being mistreated and denied fundamental necessities to survive. It’s our duty as Canadians to put an end to these mandates. It is imperative that this happens because if we don’t, our country will no longer be the country we have come to love. We are doing this for our future Generations and to regain our lives back.

    We are asking for donations to help with the costs of fuel first, and hopefully food and lodgings to help ease the pressures of this arduous task.

    It’s a small price to pay for our freedoms. We thank you all for your Donations and know that you are helping reshape this once beautiful country back to the way it was.

    In order for your generous donations to flow smoothly, the good people at Go Fund Me will be sending donations directly to our bulk fuel supplier and are working out the details now which means your hard-earned money is going to straight to who it was meant for and need not flow through anyone else. Any leftover donations will be donated to a credible Veterans organization which will be chosen by the donors.

    The goal of the convoy is to arrive in Ottawa later this week and create a large enough presence to demand lawmakers to put an end to the mandate. 

    Sidelining truckers on the Canada-US border has been a perfect storm for already stressed supply chains. Some supermarkets are already reporting rising food inflation and shortages of certain products. 

    Undoubtedly, this will bring more pressure in terms of bottlenecks and the availability of truck drivers to traverse the border as the number of eligible drivers shrinks due to the mandate. 

    Here are some views from the ground of the convoy rolling down highways to Ottawa.

    We still don’t know how bad the disruption will be. Still, considering a significant amount of fresh fruits and vegetables flow across North American borders, it could be a logistics nightmare if the mandates on both sides of the border aren’t repealed. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 18:50

  • The Emergency Must Be Ended, Now
    The Emergency Must Be Ended, Now

    Op-ed authored by Harvey Risch, Paul E. Alexander and Jay Bhattacharya via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The time has come to terminate the pandemic state of emergency. It’s time to end the controls, the closures, the restrictions, the plexiglass, the stickers, the exhortations, the panic-mongering, the distancing announcements, the ubiquitous commercials, the forced masking, the vaccine mandates.

    A voter stands on a social distance marker outside the Washington County Election Center in Hagerstown, Md., on Oct. 26, 2020, for the first day of in-person early voting. (Colleen McGrath/The Herald-Mail via AP)

    We don’t mean that the virus is gone—Omicron is still spreading wildly, and the virus may circulate forever. But with a normal focus on protecting the vulnerable, we can treat the virus as a medical rather than a social matter and manage it in ordinary ways. A declared emergency needs continuous justification, and that’s now lacking.

    Over the last six weeks in the United States, the Delta variant strain—the most recent aggressive version of the infection—has according to the CDC been declining in both the proportion of infections (60 percent on Dec. 18 to 0.5 percent on Jan. 15) and the number of daily infected people (95,000 to 2,100). During the next two weeks, Delta will decline to the point that it essentially disappears like the strains before it.

    Omicron is mild enough that most people, even many high-risk people, can adequately cope with the infection. Omicron infection is no more severe than seasonal flu, and generally less so. A large portion of the vulnerable population in the developed world is already vaccinated and protected against severe disease. We have learned much about the utility of inexpensive supplements like Vitamin D to reduce disease risk, and there’s a host of good therapeutics available to prevent hospitalization and death should a vulnerable patient become infected. And for younger people, the risk of severe disease—already low before Omicron—is minuscule.

    Even in places with strict lockdown measures, there are hundreds of thousands of newly registered Omicron cases daily and countless unregistered positives from home testing. Measures like mandatory masking and distancing have had negligible or at most small effects on transmission. Large-scale population quarantines only delay the inevitable. Vaccination and boosters have not halted Omicron disease spread; heavily vaccinated nations like Israel and Australia have more daily cases per capita than any place on earth at the moment. This wave will run its course despite all of the emergency measures.

    Until Omicron, recovery from COVID provided substantial protection against subsequent infection. While the Omicron variant can reinfect patients recovered from infection by previous strains, such reinfection tends to produce mild disease. Future variants, whether evolved from Omicron or not, are unlikely to evade the immunity provided by Omicron infection for a long while. With the universal spread of Omicron worldwide, new strains will likely have more difficulty finding a hospitable environment because of the protection provided to the population by Omicron’s widespread natural immunity.

    It’s true that—despite emergency measures—hospitalization counts and COVID-associated mortality have risen. Since mortality tends to trail symptomatic infection by about 3–4 weeks, we’re still seeing the Delta strain’s remaining effects and the waning of vaccine immunity against serious outcomes at 6–8 months after vaccination. These cases should decline over time as Delta finally says goodbye. It’s too late to alter their course with lockdowns (if that were ever possible).

    Given that Omicron, with its mild infection, is running its course to the end, there’s no justification for maintaining emergency status. The lockdowns, personnel firings, and shortages and school disruptions have done at least as much damage to the population’s health and welfare as the virus.

    The state of emergency isn’t justified now, and it can’t be justified by fears of a hypothetical recurrence of some more severe infection at some unknown point in the future. If such a severe new variant were to occur—and it seems unlikely from Omicron—then that would be the time to discuss a declaration of emergency.

    Americans have sacrificed enough of their human rights and of their livelihoods for two years in the service of protecting the general public health. Omicron is circulating but it’s not an emergency. The emergency is over. The current emergency declaration must be canceled. It’s time.

    From the Brownstone Institute

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 01/24/2022 – 18:30

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