- 10 Reflections On Ukraine After Its Latest Independence Day Celebrations
10 Reflections On Ukraine After Its Latest Independence Day Celebrations
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
Ukraine celebrated its 33rd Independence Day on Saturday, during which time Zelensky made a hyper-aggressive speech boasting about his forces’ ongoing invasion of Kursk. So much has happened in the over 900 days since the latest phase of this already decade-long conflict began that many have forgotten how everything got to this point.
The one-third of a century since Ukraine declared its independence from the USSR is therefore a fitting time to share some reflections about this country:
1. A Country That Grew Out Of A Concept
“Ukraine” means “borderland”, but it used to be the heartland of Kievan Rus. It was only after that civilization’s destruction by the Mongols, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s subsequent control over its central-western remnants, and then that polity’s merger with Poland that the borderland concept began to take shape once what’s nowadays Ukraine became the frontier between their Commonwealth and Russia. This centuries-long process led to the creation of a distinct identity and eventually a country.
2. National Identity Remains Contentious
Two schools of thought arose with regards to national identity: the radical one obsesses over their differences with Russia and fiercely hates it while the moderate one is more focused on socio-economic development and won’t rule out cooperation with Russia. The struggle between these two has defined the Ukrainian national movement since its inception. The radicals are predominant right now, but they’re nervous that the moderates might make a comeback, ergo why they continue persecuting them.
3. Socio-Economic Collapse Was Avoidable
Ukraine had over 50 million people at the time of independence and a rich Soviet industrial inheritance that was then fueled by generously subsidized Russian resources, all of which could have turned it into one of the most prosperous countries in Europe, but the opportunity was squandered. Its population is now estimated to be 36 million people and its non-stop deindustrialization made it the poorest country in Europe. All credible forecasts suggest that Ukraine’s socio-economic collapse will further worsen.
4. Incorrigible Corruption Killed The Country
The abovementioned collapse was caused by Ukraine’s incorrigible corruption since competing oligarchic cliques cared more about their personal economic interests than the nation’s objective ones. Different ones came to control different Ukrainian leaders, and with time, these cliques and their politicians came to be influenced – and in some cases outright controlled – by foreign forces too. Widespread awareness of this systemic problem gave rise to well-intentioned protest movements that were also later co-opted.
5. Color Revolutions Were Never The Solution
Many Ukrainians sincerely thought that the Color Revolutions of 2004-2005 and 2013-2014 would liberate their country from corrupt oligarchs and finally give them the future they deserved since 1991, but that was never the solution since these were really weaponized protests orchestrated by the West. The whole point was to co-opt the public’s anger by capitalizing upon legitimate grievances in order to aid their allied oligarchic factions in a coup de grace against Russia’s as part of a geopolitical power play.
6. Hegemonic Goals Predetermined The Proxy War
“EuroMaidan” was a ploy to pivot Ukraine towards the US at Russia’s expense by turning it into NATO’s easternmost vanguard. This hegemonic goal aimed to coerce Russia into a series of incessant concessions that would ultimately neutralize its sovereignty and was influenced by Brzezinski’s precept that Russia ceases to be an “empire” without Ukraine in its sphere of influence. The largest conflict in Europe since World War II would never have broken out had it not been for the US’ pursuit of this.
7. From Faux Democracy To Actual Dictatorship
Ukraine was a faux democracy before “EuroMaidan”, but it wasn’t until that Western-backed Color Revolution that it finally became a dictatorship. Additionally, the US ensured that the radical school of thought on Ukrainian national identity became the country’s de facto ideology, which coupled with the newly imposed dictatorship to prevent their Russian-friendly moderate rivals from ever returning to power. Ukraine is now much less politically free today than it was a decade ago.
8. Burning Europe’s Land Bridge To China
Regional military and domestic political changes in post-“EuroMaidan” Ukraine were also accompanied by broader geo-economic ones with regard to ruining the possibility of Ukraine ever functioning as Europe’s bridge to China. Western-encouraged Russian-Ukrainian tensions precluded the possibility of them cooperating along the “Eurasian Land Bridge”, thus advancing the US’ grand strategic goal of “decoupling” the EU from Russia and China.
9. The Western Elite’s Neoliberal Playground
Ukraine’s accelerated socio-economic collapse from “EuroMaidan” onward led to the logical culmination of its dictatorial oligarchic regime after the country sold itself out over the past two and a half years to become the Western elite’s neoliberal playground. The G7 countries, BlackRock, foreign agricultural investors, and others now control strategic sectors of the economy. Ukraine’s sovereignty has thus become nominal since it’ll likely never be able to regain national control over those industries.
10. Are Ukrainians Approaching Their Breaking Point?
Ukrainians have experienced such devastation and disappointment since independence that one can’t help but wonder whether they’ll ever reach a breaking point. They hadn’t hitherto since they weren’t literally dying for their dictatorial oligarchic regime, but growing resistance to its forcible conscription policy suggests that some folks have finally decided to fight back. It’s unclear whether this could evolve into a full-fledged revolt, however, since the secret police brutally suppress all forms of opposition.
Post-independence Ukraine failed to fulfill its initially promising socio-economic potential due to incorrigible corruption, and when people finally began to protest this systemic problem, their movements were co-opted by the West as part of a geopolitical power play against Russia.
The country is now a shell of its former self after having surrendered its sovereignty, sold out its industries, and descended into an oligarchic dictatorship that’s obsessed with its role as the anti-Russia.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 08/26/2024 – 02:00 - Fascism 2.0, Part 3: Feudalism 2.0
Fascism 2.0, Part 3: Feudalism 2.0
Authored by Paul Lancefield via Off-Guardian.org,
Read parts 1 and 2 HERE and HERE
Now in this third article in the series, I want to link this back to what we started out discussing. How our closed and controlled Social Media services are now processing every post with an LLM.
My point today is not to prove linkages and corruption of the narrative being fed to the masses via Social Media. Such an investigation could be the subject of an entire book in itself.
Rather today, I would like to plant a seed.
Many reading this will already be in agreement with my belief we are entered into and age of Fascism 2.0. But if you are not yet aware, if you haven’t yet recognised the pervasive and consistent propaganda, my hope is you will start to notice.
My hope is that you will start to see our newspapers only carry the stories which support narratives furthering the globalist desire to fix policy-driven markets. Never the stories that contradict them. And Social Media (less so X now) similarly down regulate posts when they are critical of the policies sought. But for good measure, let me give two examples of recent news suppression matching this pattern.
Across Europe, farmers have been demonstrating. The demonstrations relate generally to costs and economic pressures on farming. And at the heart of the ill feeling we find another policy benefiting globalist within one of their subjects of interest.
Fertiliser, criticised for its carbon-intensive production, is now heavily taxed by the EU, driving up costs for farmers. As a result, many are being forced out of business, and their land is being snapped up by globalist billionaires and investment funds.
Anyone who has seen the Amazon series Clarkson’s farm will be aware just how much the farming business is currently under the cosh. But which group of people, is snapping up land from farmers all over Europe who can no longer afford to stay in business? Globalist Billionaires, and the globalist investment funds of course. The fertiliser tax alone threatens to put many farmers out of business. It forms a significant part of their outlay and is a major item on the list of reasons Farmers are demonstrating.
According to presidential candidate RFK Jr, Blackrock (via their holdings DuPont, Cargill and Monsanto) now own 30% of all agriculture land in Ukraine. Read that again. But Blackrock also push an ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) scoring system used throughout the finance industry to “weight” companies for how “ethical” they are.
To get a high score businesses need to have, for example, active Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies in place, have low impact on the environment etc. (Blackrock chair many of the main ESG scoring committees). Indeed this is another of the factors driving increased farming costs. Obtaining a “good” ESG score costs money and agriculture supplies in general are seeing cost increases because of it.
But do you think Blackrock the very company pushing these ESG scores, are volunteering to pay the increased fertiliser taxes in relation to their agriculture holdings in Ukraine? You hardly need guess the answer. They aren’t. So really, as far as the globalists are concerned, this has nothing to do with environmentalism or ethics.
I would suggest, instead, it is being used as a tool, to take everything the farmers have got. Whether this mechanism was mapped out ten years ago as part of a grand plan in a backroom in Blackrock’s boardroom can of course be debated. MacDonalds almost surely didn’t start out in business consciously aiming to make fast food addictive. But it is the system that has evolved nevertheless. And in this case it is on the back of a power imbalance, and the revenues that power welding side of the system wields is so great the outcome is only going one way.
Indeed these people are extremely well versed in how to make it go one-way. And notice how news coverage of the farmer protests and the damage being done to farming by the agriculture taxes has been minimal. The farmers protests have been substantial. The issues are profound, historic even. Tractors converging on mass on cities Europe over. Yet they are getting scant television and press coverage. Why is that?
Consider another glaring example of news suppression. This one relating to the Covid vaccines. It’s extremely significant news that the mRNA vaccines have shown a terrible safety profile. Yet those covering this had their Social Media accounts banned. Many were experienced scientists who were well regarded, well published, and who had no conflicts of interest. As the Twitter files have conclusively shown, they were rounded on, and subject to de-boosting, shadow banned or outright banned.
I’ve encountered this firsthand. I’m a lifelong conservative, and Telegraph reader, yet I have been banned from commenting on the Telegraph because I continually, politely but firmly, pointed out their hypocrisy in relation to the mRNA vaccines, and the fact The Telegraph were receiving sponsorship from the Gates Foundation. They have consistently dragged their feet on publishing verified truths about vaccine harms, despite the fact such stories are the very hight of public interest.
Attitude surveys of the public show trust in the mRNA vaccines has fallen to an extremely low level, so it’s not as though the Telegraph’s readership aren’t aware. Yet still, set against the fact their readership no longer believe the narrative, the press say next to nothing.
Lastly from early 2021 there has been a widely circulated video of a Zoom call between Dr. Andrew Hill and Dr. Tess Lawrie, which exposes, from the inside the very corruption of the scientific process that confirms how the system suppressed positive results regarding the efficacy of Ivermectin. Under US law mRNA vaccines could not have obtained the Emergency Use Authorisation required for “Operation Warp Speed” (The Trump administrations project to speed up vaccine delivery) if it could be shown an effective alternative treatment for Covid was available. The Zoom video call shows the end-to-end story. But the source of that corruption is a Gates Foundation subsidiary, and no major news outlet has touched the story.
The video in question is damning of Dr Hill by any objective measure. It’s authenticity is clear to anyone who watches it, and it provides primary, “from the horses mouth” evidence so can in no way be painted as a conspiracy theory or misinformation. By all objective measures it should have been seen by the press as a major scoop.
After all, mRNA vaccines have now been injected into a majority of the population in Europe and the US and subterfuge has been used to get them authorised. Yet all mainstream news regarding Ivermectin’s efficacy has been suppressed despite the now overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I’ve given two or three examples news that in my opinion were clear candidates for page reporting. Countless other examples exist, and in each and every case the bias falls in one direction. If the story can undermine the narrative supporting globalisms preferred policy based revenues, it simply doesn’t get published.
All-in-all the policy interventions relating to the globalist list of subjects of interest are akin to a firehose having been attached siphon-like to the pockets of the poor, the middle classes and small and medium sized businesses throughout the West.
I hope people will become aware that we have for some time in fact been living in the age of global Fascism 2.0. And unlike Fascism as it was earlier in the 20th century, Fascism 2.0 is pushed by corporate interests co-opting national government rather than national government co-opting corporate interests.
And the battle we are in right now is to stop Fascism 2.0 before we enter a new age of Feudalism 2.0. Because that is where we are headed, and rather quickly.
Earlier in this article, I referred to how LLMs are used by Social Media Firms to police content and how the monitoring capacity of LLMs is ripe for integration with external agencies. There can be little doubt plans are afoot to do this. You can be sure these plans will be dressed up in nice language filled with “caring words”.
The sentiment will be “we are worried for you because your thoughts are wrong and they’re harming you.”
So I will finish by pointing out an article in the BMJ, published this January, on how LLMs can be used to combat vaccine hesitancy. The article is set in the context of the WHO having designated such vaccine hesitancy as one of the “top 10 global health threats” (global health security, remember, being on the Globalist subject list):
“Vaccine hesitancy is a state of indecision before accepting or refusing a vaccination. It is a dynamic and context specific challenge that varies across time, place, and vaccine type. It is […] challenging to predict and harder to tackle. Additionally, the emergence of misinformation in public health, notably during crises such as the covid-19 pandemic, calls for rapid, data driven responses.”
We should not be conspiratorial. Not everything about this initiative is necessarily be bad. Paul Lancefield of four years ago would have taken it at face value and would have found little sinister about it. And indeed I’m sure there is nothing sinister about the authors – though I fear they may be a little blind to the real threat.
But for me today, it is illustrative of the role LLMs will increasingly shape our communication, influenced by the power structures that determine their messaging. The power structures that will be hooking into a Derren Brown like capacity to apply suggestion on mass scale. Some might find that comforting. In the world we live in today, I personally find the thought terrifying.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 23:20 - University Of Nebraska-Lincoln Shuts Down DEI Office, Eliminates $320k Vice Chancellor Position
University Of Nebraska-Lincoln Shuts Down DEI Office, Eliminates $320k Vice Chancellor Position
By Adam Sabes of Campus Reform
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has closed its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office and eliminated its vice chancellor position.
In an email, UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett said to the campus community on Tuesday that the Office of Diversity and Inclusion will be closing, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star.
The change also means the university’s vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion position, held by Marco Barker, will be eliminated come December. Including benefits, Barker’s salary is almost $320,000.
$750,000 will also go back into the university’s overall budget, which was previously allocated for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
”I fully grasp the weight of this decision and its implications,” Bennett wrote, adding that “a centralized approach to this work is no longer right for our institution.”
Bennett told the Lincoln Journal-Star that a recent trend of establishing DEI offices at colleges and universities has “shifted.”
”I think during that period, perhaps, a goal was met and those offices have served the campuses well,” Bennett said.
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s five employees can apply for other positions across the university.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 22:45 - CBP's Migrant App Faces Tech Glitches, Security Flaws: Report
CBP’s Migrant App Faces Tech Glitches, Security Flaws: Report
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,
The official app which allows illegal immigrants to schedule appointments with the agency at U.S. ports of entry is plagued with technical issues and security vulnerabilities, according to a new report by the Homeland Security watchdog.
The report into the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) phone appointment app known as CBP One was published on Aug. 19 and sent to Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) report examined whether or not CBP adequately planned and implemented the phone app to process migrants who arrive at the southwest border seeking entry into the United States.
The OIG found that while CBP initially addressed weaknesses in the app after its implementation, the agency failed to formally assess and mitigate the “technological risks involved with expanding the application” to allow immigrants to schedule appointments to present themselves for processing at the Southwest Border.”
“We found that CBP did not initially consider critical factors such as the design of the CBP One Genuine Presence functionality, adequacy of supporting application infrastructure, sufficiency of language translations, and equity of appointment distribution,” the report states.
“As a result, noncitizens initially using the new feature experienced application crashes, received frequent error messages, faced language barriers, and may not have always had an equal opportunity to secure an appointment,” it continues.
CBP’s One phone app was created in 2020 to serve as a single portal for various CBP services.
However, it was expanded in January 2023 under President Joe Biden’s administration to allow immigrants seeking to enter the United States to submit information and schedule appointments before arriving at one of eight points of entry along the southwest border.
The expansion was part of the administration’s efforts to discourage illegal border crossings by providing legal pathways.
According to a July press release from CBP, the app has “increased CBP’s capacity to process immigrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants.”
In July alone, the federal agency processed over 38,000 individuals with appointments at ports of entry through the app.
Since the app’s appointment-scheduling function was introduced in January 2023 through the end of July 2024, more than 765,000 individuals have “successfully scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry instead of risking their lives in the hands of smugglers,” CBP said.
Security Vulnerabilities, Identical Address Claims
However, the OIG said it found CBP may also be failing to use information submitted to the app by immigrants before they arrive at the border to improve pre-arrival vetting procedures.
While the agency uses biographic and biometric information submitted into the app in advance to determine whether arriving migrants have “derogatory records,” it “does not leverage the information to identify suspicious trends as part of its pre-arrival vetting procedures,” according to the report.
Elsewhere, the OIG said it had identified potentially unrelated immigrants who repeatedly claimed identical intended U.S. residences.
“CBP currently does not have a mechanism to routinely analyze CBP One data submitted across the eligible POEs [points of entry] for trends, which may be useful intelligence to help guide front-line CBP officers when interviewing noncitizens during appointment processing,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the OIG report found security vulnerabilities within the application and its supporting infrastructure operating systems.
“Without a process to ensure all corrective security patches are timely implemented and assets are properly configured, data on the app may be susceptible to exploitation or cyber-attacks,” the report found.
“This process is especially important as CBP continues to update the application,” it added.
In concluding its report, the OIG recommended that CBP develop and implement a formalized risk assessment process when developing, expanding, or modifying mobile applications.
It also recommended that it introduce a mechanism to analyze the app’s advanced information for trends and patterns of fraudulent behaviors by users and communicate those results to the eight ports of entry that process appointments booked through the app.
The OIG further recommended that CBP introduce a mechanism to routinely assess CBP applications and supporting infrastructure operating systems for vulnerabilities and ensure corrective actions are undertaken in a timely manner.
CBP concurred with all three recommendations and promised to take corrective actions, according to the report.
The Epoch Times has contacted CBP for comment.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 22:10 - Are We Headed For Another Great Depression?
Are We Headed For Another Great Depression?
Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World,
Today’s economy is like that of the late 1920s…
Today, there is great wage and wealth disparity, just as there was in the late 1920s. Recent energy consumption growth has been low, just as it was in the 1920s. A significant difference today is that the debt level of the US government is already at an extraordinarily high level. Adding more debt now is fraught with peril.
Figure 1. US Gross Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP, based on data of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Unsafe level above 90% of GDP is based on an analysis by Reinhart and Rogoff.
Where could the economy go from here? In this post, I look at some historical relationships to understand better where the economy has been and where it could be headed. While debt levels and interest rates are important to the economy, a growing supply of suitable inexpensive energy products is just as important.
At the end, I speculate a little regarding where the US, Canada, and Europe could be headed. Division of current economies into parts could be ahead. While the problems of the late 1920s eventually led to World War II, it may be possible for the parts that are better supplied with energy resources to avoid getting into another major war, at least for a while.
[1] Government regulators have been using interest rates and debt availability for a very long time to try to regulate how the economy operates.
I have chosen to analyze US data because the US is the world’s largest economy. The US is also the holder of the world’s “reserve currency,” allowing demand for the US dollar (really US debt) to stay high because of its demand for use in international trade.
Figure 2. Secondary market interest rates on 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year US Treasury Securities, based on data accessed through the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Amounts for 1940 through 2023 are annual averages. Amount for 2024 YTD is average of January to July 2024 amounts.
Comparing Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is clear that there is a close relationship between the charts. In particular, the highest interest rate in 1981 on Figure 2 corresponds to the lowest ratio of US government debt to GDP on Figure 1.
Up until 1981, the changes in interest rates were either imposed by market forces (“You can’t borrow that much without paying a higher rate”) or else as part of an attempt by the US Federal Reserve to slow an economy that was growing too fast for the available labor supply. After 1981, the same market dynamics no doubt took place, but the overall attempt at intervention by the US Federal Reserve seems to have been in the direction of speeding up an economy that wasn’t growing as fast as desired.
In Figure 2, the 3-month interest rates correspond fairly closely to government target interest rates. The 10-year interest rates tend to move on their own, perhaps somewhat influenced by Quantitative Easing (QE), in which the US government buys back some of its own debt to try to hold down longer-term interest rates. These longer-term interest rates influence US long-term mortgage interest rates.
Recent monthly data show that 10-year interest rates started rising very quickly after reaching a minimum following the Covid response in early 2020. The lowest 10-year average rates took place in July 2020, and rates started moving up in August 2020.
Figure 3. Monthly average secondary market interest rates on 3-month US Treasury Bills and 10-year US Treasury Securities, based on data accessed through the Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
This suggests to me that market forces play a significant role in 10-year interest rates. As soon as people started borrowing money to remodel or to move to a new suburban location, 10-year interest rates, and likely the related mortgage rates, started to drift upward again. If this observation is correct, the Federal Reserve has some control over interest rates, but it cannot adjust the 10-year interest rates underlying mortgages and other long-term debt by as much as it might like.
The apparent inability of the Federal Reserve to adjust longer-term interest rates to as low a level as it would like is concerning because the US government debt level is very high now (Figure 1). Being forced to pay 4% (or more) on long-term debt that rolls over could create a huge cash flow issue for the US government. More debt could be required simply to pay interest on existing debt!
[2] An analysis of actual growth in US GDP over time shows how successful the changing strategies in Figures 1 and 2 have been.
Figure 4. Three-year average US inflation-adjusted GDP growth rates based on data of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In the 1930s, the US and much of the rest of the world were in the Great Depression. Interest rates were close to 0% (not shown on Figure 2, but available from the same data). Various versions of the New Deal under President Roosevelt were started in 1933 to 1945. Social Security was added in 1935. Figure 4 shows that these programs temporarily increased GDP, but they did not entirely solve the problem that had been caused by defaulting debt and failing banks.
Entering World War II was a huge success for increasing US GDP (Figure 4). Many more women were added to the workforce, making munitions and taking over jobs that men had held before they were drafted into the army.
After the war was over, the total number of jobs available dropped greatly. Somehow, private sector growth needed to be ramped, using debt of some kind, to provide jobs for the returning soldiers and others left without work. An abundant supply of fossil fuels was available, if debt-based demand could be put into place to pull the economy along. Programs were put into place to get factories running again making goods for the civilian economy. Additional jobs and energy demand were created by upgrading the electrical grid, increasing pipeline infrastructure, and (in 1956) starting work on an interstate highway system.
During the period between 1950 to 2023, the average growth rate of the US economy gradually stepped downward, despite all of the debt-based stimulus that was being added after 1981, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Average annual US GDP growth rates based on data of the US Bureau of Economic Activity.
[3] While growing debt is important for pulling an economy forward, a growing supply of energy is essential to actually produce physical goods and services.
Economic growth involves producing physical goods and services. The laws of physics tell us that energy supplies of the right types, in the right quantities, are necessary to make the goods and services that the physical economy depends upon.
The rate of growth of world energy supply has been stepping down over the years, as the easiest (and cheapest) to extract fossil fuels tend to get extracted first. The average rate of increase of all energy supply (not just fossil fuels) is shown in Figure 6:
Figure 6. Annual rate of increase in energy consumption growth for the earliest grouping is based on data provided by Vaclav Smil in the Appendix to Energy Transitions. Average rates of increase for later periods are calculated from data of the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy, by the Energy Institute.
Comparing Figures 5 and 6, we can see that average annual US GDP growth approximately matched growth in world energy supplies in the first two periods: 1950-1970 and 1971-1980.
In the period 1981-2007, average US GDP growth (of 3.2%) soared above world energy consumption growth (of 2.1%). I would attribute this primarily to outsourcing a significant share of the US’s industrial production as the economy shifted to becoming more of a service economy. There were multiple advantages to moving to a service economy. US oil supply had become restricted, and a service economy would use less oil. Also, the costs of imported goods would be much lower than those made in the US for several reasons, including more efficient newly built factories, lower-wage workers, and the use of inexpensive coal as a fuel instead of oil.
The encouragement of increased use of “leverage” under Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK no doubt added to the effect of using more debt shown in Figure 1. The US government started borrowing more money, rather than increasing taxes. Businesses became larger and more complex. International trade started playing a larger role.
Recent low growth in energy supplies has created an economic problem that added debt has only partially been able to hide. (In the latest period (2008-2023), both US average GDP growth (at 1.8%) and world energy consumption growth (at 1.5%) were very low.) Figure 1 shows that the US added huge amounts of debt, both after the 2008 financial crisis, and at the time of the Covid response in 2020. If it weren’t for these huge debt infusions, US GDP growth would no doubt have been much lower. GDP counts the quantity of goods and services produced, not whether added debt has been used to manufacture these goods, or whether customers have used debt to purchase these goods.
[4] In some ways, the world economy today is like the economy of the 1920s.
The 1920s were characterized by both the rising use of debt (especially consumer credit), and wide wage and wealth disparities. This was a time of innovation. Some farmers had modern new equipment that greatly enhanced efficiency, while most farmers could not afford this equipment.
Figure 7 shows a pattern of wage disparity that operates in precisely the opposite direction from the interest rate pattern shown in Figure 2. The lower the interest rates, the more the concentration of wealth among a very small portion of the population. The higher the interest rates, the more evenly wage and wealth is divided.
Figure 7. U. S. Income Shares of Top 1% and Top 0.1%, Wikipedia exhibit by Piketty and Saez.
A comparison of Figure 7 with Figure 6 and Figure 5 shows that (at least for the years since 1950), faster energy consumption growth seems to lead to faster economic growth. With faster economic growth, the economy can support higher interest rates and higher wages for lower-paid workers. There is less push for “complexity” to try to replace workers with machines.
When energy consumption growth is low, the economy tends to grow more slowly. The interest rates that corporations and individuals can afford to pay are relatively low. With low interest rates, asset prices of all kinds soar because monthly payments to buy these assets fall. The prices of stocks, bonds, homes, and farms tend to soar. The already rich become richer and richer, as the poor are increasingly squeezed out of the economy.
Physicist Francois Roddier has said that physics dictates the outcome of widely diverging incomes when energy supply is low. It takes much less energy to supply an economy of a few rich people and many poor people than it takes to support an economy with relatively equal incomes. The vast majority of the supposed wealth of the rich exists as promises that can only be fulfilled in the future if there is enough energy of the right kinds to fulfill these promises. Their promised future wealth does not affect today’s energy use. While the energy use of rich people is somewhat higher than that of poor people, much of the difference disappears when a person considers the fact that much of their wealth is essentially “paper wealth” that may or may not actually be present as the future actually unfolds.
Both the 1920s and the latest period (2008-2023) are very low energy-growth periods. The fact that (2008-2023) is a low energy growth period (at 1.5% per year) can be seen on Figure 6. Energy supply was growing even slightly more slowly in the 1920s (based on data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions). Population was growing by 1.1% per year in both the 1920s and in the latest period (2008-2023.) Net energy consumption per capita growth was slightly negative (-0.1%) in the 1920s and only a very small positive percentage (0.4%) in the 2008-2023 period. Per capita consumption had been growing much more quickly between 1950 and 1980.
[5] The economy becomes very fragile when the growth of energy supply is low, compared to the growth of the world’s population.
Hidden beneath the surface is the problem that there is not enough energy to go around. This problem doesn’t manifest itself in high prices; it manifests itself in unusually large wage disparities. Very rich individuals (such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk) gain excessive influence. Special interests and their drive for profits also become important. At times, this drive for profits can come ahead of the well-being of citizens.
Citizens become more quarrelsome. Differences between and within political parties become greater. Political candidates no longer treat other candidates with the respect we would have expected in the past. The problem is, in some sense, the problem of a game of musical chairs.
Figure 8. Chairs arranged for Musical Chairs Source: Fund Raising Auctioneer
Initially, the game has as many players as chairs. The players walk around the outside of the group of chairs as the music plays. In each round, one chair is removed and the players must scramble for the remaining chairs. The person who does not get a chair is eliminated from the game.
[6] It seems to me that major parts of the world economy are transitioning from a growth mode to a mode of shrinkage.
Figure 9 gives a representation of how the world’s growing economy can be visualized, and how it may change in the future.
Figure 9. Representation of an economy that is growing up until not long after 2020, and shrinking thereafter, by Gail Tverberg.
The fact that growth in the consumption of fossil fuel energy supplies has been retreating to lower levels should be of concern (Figure 6). At some point, the world economy will be in a situation in which the amount of fossil fuels we can extract is falling. While we have some add-ons to the fossil fuel system (including hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar), they are all manufactured using the fossil fuel system and repaired using the fossil fuel system. These add-ons would stop producing not long after the fossil fuel system stops producing. They need fossil fuels to make replacement parts, among other problems.
The amount of growth in energy supply determines the growth in physical goods and services that can be produced. In periods of rapid growth, borrowing from the future, even at a high interest rate, makes sense. In periods of low growth, only loans with a very low interest rate are feasible. When the economy is shrinking, very few investments can repay loans requiring interest.
Needless to say, repaying debt with interest becomes much more difficult in a shrinking economy. In the US, our underlying problem is that since 1981, the US’s financial policy has been “throw every tool in the tool box” at stimulating the economy. We are now running out of tools to stimulate the economy to grow faster. Adding more debt isn’t likely to work very well, or for very long.
At this point, the many government-funded investments aimed at providing green energy and offering transportation by electricity are not paying back well. Citizens are repeatedly being told that there is a need to move away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change. But world CO2 emissions continue to rise. They simply moved to a different part of the world.
Figure 10. Carbon dioxide emissions for Advanced Economies (members of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development) versus all others, based on data of the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy published by the Energy Institute.
[7] What does history since 1920 say may be ahead?
It is hard to see that things will turn out well, but we do know that historical civilizations have collapsed over a period of many years. We can hope that if we are facing the collapse of at least part of the world’s economy, this collapse will also be slow. Some intermediate steps along the line likely include the following:
(a) Stock market collapses. After excessive speculation in the stock market in the late 1920s, the stock market collapsed on October 29, 1929, starting the Great Depression. Another major crash occurred in 2008, during the Great Recession. Both of these speculative bubbles seem to have been fueled by low short-term interest rates.
(b) Drops in the prices of homes, farms, and other assets. The Great Depression is noted for major drops in the prices of farms. The Great Recession is known for major drops in the prices of homes. We are now facing a situation with far too much Commercial Real Estate. Its price logically should fall. Farmers are also having difficulty because wholesale food prices are too low relative to the various costs involved, including interest payments relating to equipment purchases and mortgages. The problem is especially acute if farm property has been purchased at currently inflated prices. The prices of farms logically should fall, also.
(c) Debt defaults, related to asset price drops. Banks, insurance companies, pension plans and many individuals owning bonds will be badly affected if defaults on loans or bonds start increasing. (In fact, even if the market interest rates simply rise, the carrying value on financial statements is likely to fall.) If commercial real estate or a farm is sold and the sales price is less than the outstanding debt, the bank issuing the loan will be left with a loss. This debt is often resold, with credit rating agencies falling short in indicating how risky the debt really is.
(d) Failing banks, failing insurance companies, and failing pension plans. Even bankrupt governments defaulting on their loans.
With failing banks, there is less money in circulation. The tendency is for commodity prices to fall very low, putting farmers in worse financial shape than before. They cut back on production. Food production and transport use considerable amounts of oil. Reduced food production leads to less need for oil consumption and thus, falling oil prices. With low oil prices, production tends to fall.
(e) If a government survives, it may try to issue much more debt-based money to try to raise prices. This might work if the country is able to produce all goods locally. But the huge amount of new money (and debt) will not be honored by other countries. The result is likely to be hyperinflation, and still no goods to buy.
(f) Persecution of the wealthier people blamed for society’s problems. If people are poor, and there aren’t enough goods to go around, there is a tendency to find someone to blame for the problem. In Europe, prior to World War II, the Nazis persecuted the Jews. The Jews were often rich and worked in finance or the jewelry business.
(g) War. War gives the possibility of obtaining resources elsewhere. Figure 4 shows that going to war can greatly ramp up GDP. It is a way of putting laid-off workers back to work. It is an age-old solution to not-enough-resources-to-go-around.
[8] Can any political approach put off the bad impacts suggested in Section [7] above?
A country that can provide complete supply chains based on its own resources, completely within its own borders can be somewhat insulated from these problems, as long as its resources are adequate for its population. I don’t think that any of the Advanced Countries (members of the OECD, which is similar to the US and its allies) can do that today. The US is closer to this ideal than Europe, but it is still a long way away. The central and southern part of the US, which is where Donald Trump’s support is strong, is closer to this ideal than elsewhere.
Trump is advocating adding tariffs on imported goods. Such tariffs would work in the direction of independence from China, India, and other industrialized nations. Trump also seems to advocate staying out of wars, wherever possible. If an area is doing well in terms of energy supply (including food supply), this would be a good strategy.
Kamala Harris is advocating capping today’s food prices. This would please city-dwellers, but it would encourage farmers to quit farming. Capping today’s food prices would also discourage the importation of food from elsewhere, leaving many empty shelves in grocery stores. Indirectly, it would also have an adverse impact on the world’s oil production and the quantity of food grown elsewhere.
Giving more money to poor people would almost certainly lead to more government debt. If countries in Europe were to do this, it would almost certainly devalue their currencies. They would find it harder to import goods from anywhere else in the world.
In fact, the US would likely also encounter difficulty in importing as many goods from elsewhere, if it chooses to give more money to poor people (and fund this generosity through more debt). China and Russia would have even more motivation to abandon the US dollar for trading purposes than they do today. The US, Europe, and other Advanced Economies would increasingly find imported goods unavailable.
Wind, solar, and electric vehicles are not fixing the economy now. Adding more debt to subsidize these efforts would likely have the same bad effects as adding more debt to subsidize poor people.
[9] A guess as to what could be ahead for the US, Canada, and Europe.
Donald Trump is suggesting tariffs and other policies that might be helpful for the parts of the US, Canada, and Mexico that think they might have enough resources to more or less get along on their own in the near future. This includes much of the central and southern part of the US. Central Canada would fit into this pattern, as well. Mexico is connected by pipeline to this area, too. At least in the US, Trump is favored in these areas.
In the highly populated areas along both US coasts, the debt-based policies of Kamala Harris will seem more reasonable because these sections have limited resources to rely on, but lots of population. The only solution they can imagine is more debt. I expect that Europe and the coasts of Canada will follow Kamala Harris’s strategies, but with their own leaders.
I can imagine a scenario in which after the US election, the US will break apart into two sections: a Trump section in the center of the US, and a Harris portion consisting mostly of the two coasts, and perhaps a few northern states. The Trump section will band together with Central Canada and Mexico and try to keep operating for some years longer. The Harris portion will join together with the coasts of Canada and most of Europe to get into war with Russia and China. The Harris portion will issue lots more debt. The Harris group will forget that their areas cannot really make many armaments without a huge amount of international trade. As a result, the Harris group will have great difficulty in being successful at war.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 21:35 - Pennsylvania Judge Rules Cornel West Can't Appear On Ballot In Key Swing State
Pennsylvania Judge Rules Cornel West Can’t Appear On Ballot In Key Swing State
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A court in Pennsylvania on Aug. 23 ruled that independent presidential candidate Cornel West cannot appear on the presidential ballot in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that determines the 2024 election.
Cornel West speaks during a protest for a Gaza ceasefire in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 22, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times In a 15-page ruling, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer sided with the Secretary of State’s office under Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in rejecting West’s candidacy paperwork.
The Secretary of State’s office said West and his running mate, activist Melina Abdullah, lacked the required affidavits for 14 of West’s 19 presidential electors. The court agreed with the office’s arguments.
Jubelirer, a Republican, agreed with the Secretary of State’s office that minor-party presidential electors are to be considered candidates for office who must file affidavits, even if major-party presidential electors are not.
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State office, the court ruled, “is required to certify the ballot in time for county boards to print and mail those ballots to military electors who are serving overseas or in isolated areas ‘not later than [70] days prior’ to a general election.’”
If the court sided with West, it would make “it nearly impossible for [the Secretary of State’s office] and county boards to, respectively, timely certify, print, and mail the absentee ballots as contemplated by the Election Code, and removing almost two weeks from that timeframe almost guarantees the inability to act within those timeframes,” the judge wrote.
For that reason and others, the court found that West “failed to exercise due diligence” and barred him from appearing on the ballot.
Matthew Haverstick, West’s lawyer, had said that he saw “no good reason for Mr. West to be kept off the ballot or Pennsylvanians otherwise prevented from voting for him.” It’s not clear whether he will appeal the court’s decision.
Also Friday, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the court in a filing that he will withdraw from Pennsylvania’s ballot. In a speech in Phoenix, Kennedy said he is suspending his presidential bid, backing former President Donald Trump and planning to remain on ballots in states where he is unlikely to sway the outcome.
Kennedy later appeared at a rally with Trump, with the former president declaring he will “have a huge influence on this campaign.”
The Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Party’s Chase Oliver submitted petitions to get on Pennsylvania’s presidential ballot without being challenged, while the Party for Socialism and Liberation has said it will appeal a judge’s decision to order its presidential candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, off Pennsylvania’s ballot.
The Nov. 5 election in Pennsylvania is forecast to be close, with the Cook Political Report rating it as a “toss up” between Trump and the Democrat Party’s candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. In the 2020 race, Pennsylvania state officials called the race in favor of then-candidate Joe Biden over Trump, who then filed several post-election legal challenges in the Keystone State.
Some polls have shown that West and Stein, who have both campaigned on ending the conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group, could take votes away from the Democratic Party in the upcoming election.
West, however, notched a legal victory in another potential battleground state last week after a Michigan judge ruled last week that he must appear on the ballot. Like Pennsylvania, Michigan, which has 15 electoral votes, is also expected to be close and was rated as a “toss up” by Cook.
“Victory in Michigan! We brought thousands of voices to the table, and the court listened, rejecting the Democrats’ technical challenges,” wrote West, a former Harvard University and Yale University professor, on the social media platform X. “This is a win for democracy and for every person fighting for truth, justice, and love. Onward!”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 20:25 - Five Ways That Ukraine's Invasion Of Kursk Actually Harms American Interests
Five Ways That Ukraine’s Invasion Of Kursk Actually Harms American Interests
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
Nobody should get their hopes up about the US forcing Ukraine to withdraw though.
The Washington Post cited unnamed administration sources to report that “U.S. debates support for Ukraine’s surprise offensive into Russia”, which suggests that some policymakers doubt that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk advances American interests. To be sure, the US knew about this move ahead of time (if not actively participated in its planning) but didn’t thwart it, thus tacitly approving it. Nevertheless, five arguments exist for why this actually harms American interests, and they are as follows:
1. Russia Might More Easily Gain Ground In Donbass
One of the reasons why Ukraine invaded Kursk was to force Russia to divert some of its forces from Donbass to this new front, yet that hasn’t happened. Instead, Ukraine diverted some of its own highly trained forces from there to Kursk, which could make it easier for Russia to gain ground in Donbass. The optics of Russia continuing to advance are already bad enough for the US’ soft power interests, but they might also adversely affect the Democrats’ electoral plans if this trend accelerates before November.
2. A Diplomatic Solution Is Now Much More Difficult
Whatever faint hopes might have previously existed of diplomatically resolving this conflict were shattered by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it prompted Putin to rule out the resumption of peace talks. Some American policymakers want to “Pivot (back) to Asia” sooner rather than later in order to more muscularly contain China, ergo their interest in some sort of compromise with Russia, but that’s not possible as long as Ukraine continues occupying Russia’s universally recognized territory.
3. Ukraine Might Feel Emboldened To Expand The Conflict
Regardless of the degree to which the US might have helped plan Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, the very fact that nothing was done to stop this despite the US obviously knowing about it in advance could embolden Kiev to further expand the conflict into Belarus, Moldova, and/or other Russian regions. It now knows that the US will go along with whatever it does regardless of some policymakers’ fear of tensions with Russia spiraling out of control, and therein lies the supreme danger.
4. Russian-US Tensions Risk Spiraling Out Of Control
Putin won’t radically respond to Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk since it hasn’t yet crossed any of his non-negotiable red lines, but in the event that it does (such as if Kiev captures more territory or expands the conflict), then Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control depending upon what he does. That scenario will remain as long as the invasion lasts, plus it raises the chances that Putin might start listening to “hardliners” and consider a radical response without any of the aforesaid lines being crossed.
5. Other US Client States Could Follow Ukraine’s Lead
The last way in which Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk actually harms American interests is that other client states might follow Ukraine’s lead by striking or invading their neighbors with whom they’re feuding in order to create a fait accompli in the expectation that the US will then feel pressured to back them up. The US doesn’t want conflicts breaking out unless it’s able to control the dynamics to a large degree, which it would struggle to do if a client state like Somalia suddenly sparked one.
Despite the five arguments above about why Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk doesn’t advance American interests, nobody should get their hopes up about the US forcing its proxy to withdraw. Ukraine could also refuse any such hypothetical demand, publicly expose it to embarrass the US, and possibly expand the conflict out of spite in an attempt to provoke World War III. For these reasons, the US is unlikely to do what’s needed to end to this operation, and even Trump might think twice about it if he wins.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 19:50 - Pope Francis Condemns Ukraine's Ban On Country's Largest Orthodox Church
Pope Francis Condemns Ukraine’s Ban On Country’s Largest Orthodox Church
Pope Francis has condemned the Ukrainian government’s move to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) which maintains communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.
His Sunday remarks emphasized that “churches are not to be touched” and come the day after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed parliament’s newly passed bill into law identified as Bill 8371.
Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in 2016, via AP. “In thinking of the law recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the liberty of those who pray,” the pope said. He explained that the state must not be involved in religion.
“One does not commit evil by praying. If someone commits harm against their people, they will be guilty of that, but they cannot have done harm because they prayed,” Pope Francis said following a Sunday service.
“Let those who wish to pray in what they consider their Church be allowed to do so,” Francis added.
Throughout the war Pope Francis has consistently called for the two sides to immediately enter peace negotiations, while saying that ultimately the winners are the arms manufacturers and those who don’t care about the suffering of innocent people.
He has come under criticism, including from Kiev officials, for not just condemning one side (the Russians) like the West does.
As for Christianity in Ukriane, Orthodox clergy members have seen jail time or have been placed under house arrest, or else harassment by mobs of far-right Ukrainian nationalists, for merely calling for peace between the two countries.
According to Ukrainian media:
Over 100 UOC-MP clergy members have come under criminal investigation since the outbreak of the full-scale war, the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) press service told the Kyiv Independent.
Almost 50 of them have been charged, and sentences have been issued in 26 cases, the SBU said.
Likely these numbers are about to be a lot higher, as the new law targeting the UOC is expected to enter force 30 days after its publication.
The UOC is being pressured (and now forced) to join a state-sponsored church approved by Zelensky, despite the fact that the majority of the population is loyal to the UOC.
☦️ The faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church came in a procession to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra.
The day before, Zelensky signed a law allowing the UOC to be banned. The document has already been condemned by Pope Francis. pic.twitter.com/Pv60eXSBpf
— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) August 25, 2024
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Even a remote or potential ‘Russian connection’ – be it related to culture, music, language, or religion – has put ordinary Ukrainians under the suspicion of the state and the military of late. This despite that some one-third of the country has always spoken Russian as their first language, especially in the east and parts of the south. All of this has also gone hand in hand with the Zelensky government’s efforts to eliminate the Russian language altogether from public life.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 18:05 - Judge Clears Former Police Officers Of Key Felony Charges In Breonna Taylor's Death
Judge Clears Former Police Officers Of Key Felony Charges In Breonna Taylor’s Death
Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,
A federal judge has dismissed the most serious charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of falsifying the search warrant that played a key role in a sequence of events culminating in the fatal shooting of Louisville resident Breonna Taylor in her apartment in 2020.
(Left) Louisville Police Det. Joshua Jaynes. (Right) Sgt. Kyle Meany of the Louisville Metro Police Department testifies in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 23, 2022. Louisville Police via AP; Timothy D. Easley/Pool via AP Photo
U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson ruled on Aug. 22 to eliminate a key part of count one of the indictments against former Louisville Police Detective Joshua Jaynes and Louisville Sgt. Kyle Meany, which accused them of depriving Taylor of her constitutional protections against unreasonable search—Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law (18 U.S.C. § 242)—with an enhancement alleging the use of a dangerous weapon causing death.
Jaynes and Meany were both accused of knowingly providing or endorsing false information in an application for a “no-knock” warrant to search Taylor’s home, a move that set in motion the events leading to her death.
The deprivation-of-rights charge normally carries a fine of up to a year in prison, but the enhancement—a sentence in the indictment stating that “the offense involved the use of a dangerous weapon and resulted in Taylor’s death”—elevated the charge to a felony punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty.
Simpson’s decision to strike down the enhancement was based on the finding that the most direct, and legal, cause of Taylor’s death was her boyfriend’s decision to fire at the officers conducting the raid, prompting them to return fire, killing Taylor.
Taylor, a 26-year-old medical worker, was shot and killed by police in March 2020 during a raid at her apartment. Officers were investigating a man suspected of drug trafficking who had previously dated Taylor. Police believed the man was using Taylor’s apartment to receive illicit packages, although no drugs were found at her home.
During the raid, Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot that struck one of the officers in the leg. Walker said he fired his handgun because he believed intruders were breaking in. Two officers returned fire, with several bullets striking and killing Taylor.
The judge wrote in his order that, “while the indictment alleges that Jaynes and Meany set off a series of events that ended in Taylor’s death, it also alleges that [Walker] disrupted those events when he decided to open fire.”
Simpson concluded that Walker’s actions, rather than the falsification of the search warrant, became the “proximate, or legal, cause of Taylor’s death.”
While he struck down the felony charge that could have led to life in prison for the two defendants, the judge kept the remainder of the deprivation-of-rights charge against both Jaynes and Meany, who now both face up to one year in prison on that count.
However, Jaynes could still spend a total of up to 26 years in prison—if convicted and if the judge imposes consecutive sentencing. That’s because he faces a conspiracy to falsify records and witness tampering charge (up to five years) and a falsification of records in a federal investigation charge (up to 20 years), in addition to the reduced deprivation of rights charge (up to one year).
Meany faces a false statement to federal investigators charge (up to five years) and the reduced deprivation of rights charge (one year), for a total of up to six years if convicted and if the judge orders consecutive sentencing.
Two other detectives—Brett Hankison and Kelly Goodlett—were charged in the case.
Goodlett pleaded guilty to two federal crimes—conspiring with another detective to falsify an affidavit to obtain the search warrant, and conspiring to cover up the false warrant by lying to criminal investigators after Taylor’s death.
Goodlett is awaiting sentencing, Hankison’s trial is slated for October, while no trial date has been set for Jaynes and Meaney.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Justice with a request for comment about its next steps in the case.
Taylor’s family told The Associated Press in a written statement that they disagree with the ruling.
“Obviously we are devastated at the moment by the judge’s ruling with which we disagree and are just trying to process everything,” reads the statement, per the outlet.
“The only thing we can do at this point is continue to be patient … we will continue to fight until we get full justice for Breonna Taylor.”
Roughly six months after Taylor was killed, officials in Louisville agreed to pay $12 million to her family to settle a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that police officers had no probable cause or legal basis to enter and search her home.
The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.
Walker was initially charged with attempted murder for firing at officers, who said they knocked and announced themselves before entering the apartment. Walker said he did not hear officers identify themselves and believed intruders were breaking into the home.
Charges against Walker were eventually dropped and, after filing several lawsuits against the City of Louisville and individual officers involved in obtaining the search warrant, he reached a $2 million settlement.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 17:30 - Netanyahu Vows More 'Surprising Blows' After Preemptive Hezbollah Attack: "Not The End"
Netanyahu Vows More ‘Surprising Blows’ After Preemptive Hezbollah Attack: “Not The End”
“What happened today is not the end of the story,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement posted on X. Early morning ‘preemptive’ strikes included over 100 Israeli fighter jets simultaneously attacking thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers and drone sites across southern Lebanon.
“We are hitting Hezbollah with surprising blows. Three weeks ago we eliminated their chief of staff and today we thwarted their attack,” Netanyahu said further.
IAF jet in action over southern Lebanon on Sunday, AFP/Getty Images The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said Hezbollah had launched 210 rockets and some 20 drones on northern and central Israel.
In follow-up IDF Spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari announced that at least six Hezbollah operatives were killed in Sunday’s major preemptive operation. This brings the tally to 30 Hezbollah operatives killed in just the last week.
Hagari declared Sunday’s operation to be a success: “Contrary to Hezbollah’s claims, there were no impacts in IDF bases, not in the north and not in the center [of the country],” he said, rejecting claims made by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Interestingly, Israel has disclosed that it gave Washington a warning ahead of the major escalation. The Times of Israel details:
Israel gave the Americans “considerable” advance notice of its pre-dawn preemptive strike on Hezbollah’s rocket and missile launchers, Channel 2 news reports.
It says the US administration gave its backing to the attack, but warned both before and after it took place that Israel should be careful to avoid escalating the conflict toward all-out war.
The TV report said the message from the US was conveyed in several interactions with Jerusalem and broadly stated: “We support the operation to avert the specific threat, but be careful in your actions; don’t do anything that is likely to lead to a regional war.”
So far, there doesn’t appear to be runaway escalation as a result of Sunday’s exchange of fresh fire.
Incredible photos by AFP’s Jalaa Marey of a Hezbollah drone being shot down over northern Israel. pic.twitter.com/3gs79tlT79
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) August 25, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah was some of the most severe in months, resulting several fatalities in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry. However, within hours after the fight began, both sides appeared to de-escalate, with Hezbollah declaring its military operations “finished for the day.”
In a further indication that the situation was stabilizing, Israel, which shuttered Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv earlier, reopened the airport later on Sunday.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 16:55 - Rare Mosquito-Borne Disease Triggers Voluntary Curfew In Massachusetts Towns
Rare Mosquito-Borne Disease Triggers Voluntary Curfew In Massachusetts Towns
Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,
Four towns in central Massachusetts are advising residents to stay indoors at night to avoid contracting a rare but potentially deadly mosquito-borne virus.
The voluntary curfew notice was issued after the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Aug. 16 announced the first confirmed human case of Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) in the state since 2020, when five people contracted the virus and one died.
State officials didn’t report how the current patient, a man in his 80s in Worcester County, was exposed to the virus or the details of his current condition.
The disease, described by the public health department as “rare but serious,” is caused by a virus transmitted through mosquito bites. Symptoms typically appear 5 to 10 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito and include high fever, stiff neck, headache, and fatigue.
There are no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat EEE. In 2019, twelve Massachusetts residents contracted EEE, resulting in six deaths.
“EEE is a rare but serious disease and a public health concern,” said Massachusetts’ public health chief Dr. Robbie Goldstein.
“We want to remind residents of the need to protect themselves from mosquito bites, especially in areas of the state where we are seeing EEE activity.”
Four towns—Douglas, Sutton, Webster, and Oxford—are designated as being at “critical” risk level. Town officials are urging people to use precautions, including avoiding going outside from dusk to dawn, when many mosquito species are most active.
Specifically, they advise finishing outdoor activities before 6 p.m. through September and 5 p.m. thereafter until the first hard frost. While outside, residents are recommended to use a repellent and wear clothing that reduces skin exposure, like long sleeves and socks.
At home, residents are recommended to drain or discard items that collect water, such as buckets, tires, flowerpots, and birdbaths, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in standing water. They are also reminded to install or repair window screens.
There is no enforcement for those who do not comply with the recommendations, town officials said.
Meanwhile, in Oxford, a 6 p.m. curfew is in place for outdoor activities on town property, and people must show proof of insurance and sign an indemnification form before they can use town fields during those hours.
Nationwide, an average of 11 cases of EEE infections are reported each year, mostly in Eastern or Gulf Coast states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Persons over 50 years of age and under 15 years of age seem to be at greatest risk for developing severe disease when infected with EEE virus,” the agency said on its website.
Humans and other animals that contract the virus are considered “dead-end hosts,” which means there is no subsequent human-to-human, animal-to-human, or human-to-animal transmission.
Many people who recover from EEE are left with long-term physical or mental problems, the CDC said. These can range from mild to severe intellectual disability, personality disorders, seizures, paralysis, and cranial nerve dysfunction. Survivors with severe disease and ongoing disabilities often require long-term care and die within a few years.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 16:20 - Does It Matter To The Market Who Wins The White House?
Does It Matter To The Market Who Wins The White House?
During election years, the focus is on the political horse race.
However, after the final poll closes, how have the market and the economy performed under both Democrat and Republican presidents?
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist partnered with New York Life Investments to explore stock market performance, consumer outcomes, and corporate sentiment across each presidential party.
Democrats vs. Republicans: Stock Market Performance
History shows that the S&P 500 does not favor a clear “winner” when it comes to the political party of sitting presidents.
The mean compounded average annual growth rate (CAGR) with Democratic presidents is slightly higher than with Republican presidents. Median performance, however, is higher under Republican presidents.
To date, former President Clinton (D) (+15.2% CAGR) and former President Trump (R) (+14.1% CAGR) have seen the largest stock market gains among past presidents on record.
Democrats vs. Republicans: Consumer Outcomes
Like the S&P 500’s performance, presidential leadership has not been a key factor in determining the inflation rate and unemployment rate in the U.S. since the late-1940s.
The sum of the nation’s inflation rate and unemployment rate together provide a measure of consumer “pain” in the economy.
The average sum with a Democratic president over the last 70+ years is +9.0% versus +9.5% for Republicans.
Democrats vs. Republicans: Corporate Sentiment
As with their consumer-related counterparts, corporate sentiment has also remained consistent regardless of the presidential party, on average.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) provides a measure of business sentiment in the economy. A score of below 50 represents deteriorating sentiment and a score of above 50 means sentiment is improving.
The average PMI under Republican presidents since 2000 is 54.3 versus 54.9 for Democrats—nearly identical and both in expansion terrain.
Informed Investing
Looking at past presidents, both Democrat and Republican, there have been roughly consistent market and economic track records. This highlights the importance of looking beyond the political noise and maintaining a diversified portfolio.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 15:45 - The Social Recession Is Accelerating
The Social Recession Is Accelerating
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Did wages rise 10-fold to match the 10-fold rise in the cost of a modest house? No. That is social recession in a nutshell.
A reader asked about the term social recession which he’d noted in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. Here is the paragraph:
“Stagnation in opportunities to work and earn (i.e. a financial recession) leads to social recession, a loss of opportunities for adulthood: a rewarding career, family, and a home of one’s own. In a social recession, unemployed young people may be mired in adolescent narcissism, eschewing ambitions not just in work but in romance and marriage.”
The reader asked if I could recommend any further reading on social recession and I replied that I could not, as the topic is not well-recognized or studied.
In my analysis, social recession refers to the narrowing of opportunities to marry and raise a family, own a home and have a secure livelihood from the vast majority of the populace to an elite selected by fierce competition–a competition few have the means to win, as the winners tend to win by choosing their parents wisely.
In the purely financial / economic terms of growth of GDP, household income, corporate profits and the value of assets, the US has only been in an economic recession for a few months in 2008-09 and at the start of the pandemic lockdown. But when measured by the ability of just about anyone willing to work hard and practice basic frugality to buy a house and start a family, the US has been in a social recession since 2009.
Demographics / economics analyst Chris H., who tweets as CH @economica, recently posted charts which reflect this social recession, most strikingly in the collapse of the US birthrate that started in 2009. He asked: “The largest childbearing population in US history has gone on strike…maybe we should know why?”
Some might argue that this decline in births is coincidental to the Global Financial Crisis , but since social recession has its roots firmly in the economic opportunities available to the average worker, that argument is specious.
The social recession began as a direct result of policy responses to the Global Financial Meltdown in 2008-09, policies that favored capital and those who already owned assets, at the expense of everyone who did not inherit wealth/assets or was too young to buy assets such as houses when they were still affordable to average workers.
As a result, those who bought assets a generation or two ago now own most of the nation’s wealth:
As I have often discussed in blog posts, aggregate measures of financial expansion (GDP and household net worth) mask the perverse consequence of favoring capital and the already-wealthy: an unprecedented widening of the gap between the top 10% and the bottom 90%, and the concentration of assets in the top 10%.
The spectrum of wealth and income asymmetry has become increasingly asymmetric: the top 01% have pulled away from the top 0.1%, the top 0.1% have pulled away from the top 1%, who have pulled away from the next 9%, and so on. By any measure, the top 20% have left the bottom 80% in the dust, and the bottom 60%’s share of the nation’s wealth is negligible.
As many readers point out to me, education was the key for the post World War II generation on the GI Bill, and it continued to be a critical ladder to higher, more secure incomes from the 1960s to the 1990s. But the premium granted those with any 4-year college diploma has decayed in an inverse relationship with the skyrocketing cost of that diploma.
The diploma by itself has little value outside STEM / medical / legal professions and bureaucracies that use the diploma as a screening mechanism to limit the pool of applicants. Many professions such as law are oversupplied with applicants holding law degrees, and so entry wages outside elite firms are lower than those offered to experienced welders. As the premium on a diploma has eroded, the demands on workers have risen sharply across the entire spectrum of paid work.
As I often note, average wages have stagnated for the past 45 years. This stagnation was tolerable as long as the cost of a house, childcare and healthcare insurance remained somewhat affordable to average workers, but once the engines of financialization transformed the US economy into a Bubble Economy of soaring real estate / stock valuations that then inevitably crash, triggering an even larger bailout / stimulus response that inflates an even greater bubble, the costs of home ownership, childcare and healthcare soared out of reach of all but the top 20% unless family wealth and connections gave younger workers a boost.
Another aspect of social recession is the decay of pensions and the resulting rise of insecurity. Government and government-funded sectors such as healthcare are the only employers that still offer a pension that isn’t the responsibility of the worker to partially or totally fund and manage.
Japan is held up as an example of social and economic stability, but those who know a wide spectrum of Japanese people (i.e. not just academics and corporate leaders) know that Japan has been in a social recession since its bubble burst in 1989-90. The decay is visible but since it’s embarrassing, it’s not covered in the media: abandoned vehicles littering the countryside, Hikikomori (extreme voluntary social isolation), falling rates of marriage and births, the estrangement of family members, pensioners openly shoplifting to get arrested so they can get the full meals and healthcare offered the imprisoned, to name a few manifestations of social recession.
The fact that none of this is visible in the bustling districts of Tokyo and Kyoto doesn’t mean the social recession isn’t real. Japan has managed its decline well, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in social recession.
One aspect of social recession I have discussed is social defeat: when people give up on dreams and goals that are unreachable and so they give up trying.
Many readers share their own experiences of pursuing extreme frugality and hard work back in the day, as evidence that similar efforts will result in the same stability and security they now enjoy. I have recounted my own story of working my way through university, building our own house with our own hands, etc., but when I do a statistical analysis of costs today, I see an unbridgeable chasm between what I could earn 25 years ago and what I could buy with my earnings / savings 25 years ago, and what I can earn and buy today.
I say this as someone who never earned a lot of money; more often than not, I earned far less than the average annual pay of average workers. Having been self-employed most of my working life, I have financial records and clear memories of wages, prices and costs over the past 50 years.
I can state as a fact that two part-time city librarians could still buy a modest home in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s, and afford to have two children. This is no longer the case–not even close. No amount of frugality can close the gap when the house they bought for $135,000 now costs $1.35 million, and childcare and healthcare have become equally unaffordable.
Did wages rise 10-fold to match the 10-fold rise in the cost of a modest house? No. That is social recession in a nutshell. When this fact is raised in conversation, those in the top 10% protest, but their protest rings hollow, for what they’re really saying is: since I’m doing great and all my friends are doing great, everyone’s doing great. There’s a word for this: denial. Denial cannot solve problems, it can only make them worse.
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Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 15:10 - "Musk Should Be Nervous" – Deep State Lackey Admits Real Target Following Telegram Founder's Arrest
“Musk Should Be Nervous” – Deep State Lackey Admits Real Target Following Telegram Founder’s Arrest
Russia is demanding answers following the arrest Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram. He was detained by French authorities at the Bourget airport outside of Paris Saturday evening after arriving in his private jet.
The Russian embassy in Paris has demanded that the French government explain itself, and has so far said that French authorities are being uncooperative. The latest reports say Durov is expected to appear before a judge Sunday evening.
The embassy said of the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire that “as soon as the news of Durov’s arrest broke, we immediately addressed the French authorities for clarification on the reasons for it and demanded that they ensure the protection of his rights and provide consular access to him.”
He not only has Russian citizenship by virtue of his birth there, but also holds dual citizenship in France and the UAE.
Russian diplomats say there has been no reply from Paris: “The French side has so far been avoiding cooperation on this issue,” a statement said. Russian lawmakers have gone so far as to say he is now a “political prisoner”.
Russian member of parliament Maria Butina said on Sunday, “Pavel Durov is a political prisoner – a victim of a witch-hunt by the West.
“The arrest of Pavel Durov means there is no freedom of speech – it means that freedom of speech in Europe is dead,” she continued. “Now basically they have a hostage and they will try to blackmail Russia, they will try to blackmail all the users of Telegram and not only try to get control but also try to block the network here in Russia.”
Additionally, deputy speaker of Russian parliament, Vladislav Davankov, described that the tech entrepreneur’s arrest “could be politically motivated and used to gain access to the personal information of Telegram users.”
And Dmitry Medvedev, who is the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said Durov is being targeted because he’s Russian. “He miscalculated,” Medvedev said. “For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous.” Medvedev asserted, “Durov should finally realize that one cannot chose one’s the fatherland.”
One interesting angle is that the app, well-known for being highly secure as it provides end-to-end encryption, is widely used among the Russian military, as well as the common population.
One little-known feature of this war is that the Ukrainian military largely communicates via Signal and the Russian military via Telegram.
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) August 24, 2024
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Durov was detained by the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF), over the alleged facilitation of various crimes including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud. “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of offences and crimes to be committed, for which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate,” a source told TF1 TV.
The arrest was characterized by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom as part of the “crackdown against free speech.”
Other prominent figures have voiced alarm over what this means for free speech, or even the question of who is next to be targeted by Western governments…
Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member,… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024
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I’m a little late to this, but for good reason — I’ve just safely departed from Europe.
France has threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech.
Rumble will not stand for this behavior and…
— Chris Pavlovski (@chrispavlovski) August 25, 2024
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And Elon Musk has been highlighting the implications of Durov’s arrest through Sunday…
POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme https://t.co/OkZ6YS3u2P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2024
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“Liberté Liberté! Liberté?” Musk added in another post. “Dangerous times.”
Musk added a “FreePavel” hashtag when he shared a video of Durov praising Musk and his pro-free-speech outlook during an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this year.
“It is vital to the support of free speech that you forward X posts to people you know, especially in censorship-heavy countries,” Musk wrote on X on Sunday.
And in case you wondered, none other than deep state bagman Alexander Vindman makes it clear who the real target is…
While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter. There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be… https://t.co/GyPMquKtKV
— Alexander S. Vindman ❎ (@AVindman) August 25, 2024
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There are some reports saying that given the potential charges stacked against him, Durov could possibly be facing up to 20 years in prison. But there still remains many unknowns, as well as confusion, surrounding his detention.
Edward Snowden has also weighed in…
The arrest of @Durov is an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association. I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 25, 2024
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Ironically, back in 2014 Durov left Russia after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has since sold. He now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is based.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 14:35 - U Of Tampa RA Training Includes Scenario Of Student Feeling "Threatened" By Conservative Roommate With MAGA Flag
U Of Tampa RA Training Includes Scenario Of Student Feeling “Threatened” By Conservative Roommate With MAGA Flag
By Brendan McDonald of CampusReform
The University of Tampa’s resident advisor (RA) training featured a hypothetical scenario in which a student complained about feeling “unsafe” because a roommate hung a “Make America Great Again” flag and was a member of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).
Affiliated with the Young America’s Foundation, YAF chapters organize conservative speakers and trainings for students on campuses around the country. A picture of the University of Tampa slide was obtained and shared by the group on Friday, Aug. 16.
“You just returned from class and one of your residents asks to speak with you,” the training slide reads. “He states that he feels unsafe in his room and needs an immediate room change. He goes on to state that he feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and that he is a member of YAF.”
Slide from the University of Tampa RA training on how to handle a resident who “feels unsafe and threatened because his roommate put up a ‘Make America Great Again’ flag in the room and…is a member of YAF.” pic.twitter.com/OdB3ZxcVKR
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) August 16, 2024
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On the YAF website, University of Tampa YAF Chair Nicole Gillis criticized the slide as the most recent example of colleges and universities attempting to indoctrinate their students.
“This is the unfortunate state of higher education in America right now,” she said. “Universities are indoctrinating students by painting conservatives as evil. This seemingly small example in an RA training at UT implies they think that conservatives are dangerous and that students should be afraid of people with conservative ideas.”
The Young America’s Foundation Chief Office Spencer Brown pointed out what he sees as the contrast between how school administrators treat conservative students versus how they treat liberal ones.
“The demonizing of conservative students and infantilizing coddling of fragile leftists who outrageously claim to feel physically threatened by intellectual diversity does a disservice to students and ought to be roundly mocked,” he said. “A school such as the University of Tampa — or any with wildly biased trainings like this — has no business calling itself an institution of ‘higher’ learning. Clearly, University of Tampa administrators and student employees need some mandatory tolerance training.”
Conservative students regularly feel isolated and discriminated against by their universities. Three self-identified conservative students from two different schools spoke in a Fox News interview last month about they feel silenced in and out of the classroom, with one saying she has been “yelled at” by professors.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 14:00 - Dems Scramble To Walk Back Harris' Price Control Scheme
Dems Scramble To Walk Back Harris’ Price Control Scheme
Democrats are in damage control mode after Kamala Harris’ communist price control scheme received a harsh rebuke – including from the Washington Post, which characterized it as “populist gimmicks.“
Facing pressure to defend the plan, Democratic lawmakers are downplaying it as a pipe dream that has no chance of passing Congress, Politico reports.
The plan, unveiled as part of Harris’ first big economic policy speech, has become a focal talking point for Donald Trump and allies, who continue to frame it as “communist price controls.” Meanwhile, food industry officials and some left-of-center economists have warned that price controls could be detrimental, according to the report.
Central to the plan is a call for congress to pass the first-ever federal price gouging ban on food and grocery stores – mirroring legislation reintroduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) earlier this year, for which Warren was taken to task by CNBC‘s Joe Kernen.
CNBC Host Becomes Distraught After Elizabeth Warren Talks Past His Argument Against Her Price Gouging Position pic.twitter.com/Z8IHsLtVlD
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 23, 2024
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Now, six Congressional Democrats and five Democratic aides tell Politico that they’ve been privately telling critics that the plan isn’t viable – and is instead a messaging tactic to to divert blame over inflation from the Biden-Harris administration.
Even many Democrats remain skeptical, or at least uncertain about how Harris would carry out her proposal, if elected. They’re still working on getting details, but many have left that for after the DNC. -Politico
“It’s clear to me these are very general, very lofty goals,” said one of the Democratic lawmakers.
“I honestly still don’t know how this would work,” said a second Democratic lawmaker.
According to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, “I think people are reading too much into what has been put out there,” adding that the proposal was intended to address the issue in “broad strokes.”
Harris has been under pressure to provide more detail on her policy priorities, after four years largely toeing the line set by President Joe Biden and his aides. The rollout of her plan to combat food inflation, however, has sparked concerns among business leaders over which economic advisers are driving her policy decisions. Pieces of her plan, like increasing competition in the meat sector, are straight from the Biden playbook under his former top economic adviser Brian Deese — who is now advising Harris’ campaign. But the broad price gouging language that’s triggered so much backlash signals a more progressive agenda.
That backlash has tempered Harris allies’ initial push to paint the proposal as a bold, progressive idea. Since introducing the price gouging plan, her advisers have sought to soften criticism of the proposal by downplaying its overall impact on the market — and emphasizing that the goal is simply to target a small cohort of potential “bad actors,” rather than generate the kind of sweeping overhaul suggested by the plan’s initial rollout. -Politico
Harris’ plan does have its defenders, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).
Top Harris economic adviser Brian Nelson told reporters at the DNC in Chicago that the plan was ‘simply’ aimed at matching federal standards with so-called price gouging guardrails that already exist in 37 states – something Warren attempted to argue with Kernen.
That said, the existing rules only apply during emergencies such as the COVID pandemic.
“She’s going to work with Congress to ensure that it is directed at bad actors, bad activity,” said Nelson. “It’s not meant to set prices or price levels or anything like that. And that is not the way current state laws around price gouging are.”
When pressed during a Bloomberg News roundtable to elaborate, Nelson failed to provide any specific examples of price gouging – and deflected by describing Harris as simply trying to outline her own principles on the issue.
“One of the principles is really to make sure that the federal legislation aligns with those state laws,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Grocers Association – an industry group that represents the independent supermarket sector, called Harris’ plans “a solution in search of a problem.”
“Rather than proposing new legislation far-off in the future,” the government should focus on enforcing antitrust laws already on the books, the group said.
“I’m sure it polls well,” said one food industry official granted anonymity. “But it’s an obvious effort to deflect blame from her administration on inflation.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 13:25 - Heads I'm Smart, Tails I'm Stupid
Heads I’m Smart, Tails I’m Stupid
By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities
That is how this week felt on many levels. Maybe it was because I was travelling, so I wasn’t staring at my screens every minute of the day, but I think it was more than that.
There was no shortage of opportunities to feel smart or stupid as the days went by (unless you are on Twitter selling your trading signals, in which case you apparently nailed every move).
While we discussed Catalysts and Landings last weekend, this market had some peculiar takes on the headlines, and often flip-flopped on the assessment (or at least what market prices focused on).
What Did We Really Learn?
For me, there are two key takeaways:
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Liquidity is abysmal. While the news flow was interesting, it didn’t seem to justify so many moves of 0.5% or greater! Especially some of the large reversals that happened within an hour. Every reasonably large flow (program trade) seemed to be able to move the market disproportionately more than one should expect. Add to that, the fact that “the rebalancing of leveraged ETFs” has become a common discussion as traders try to push markets creating larger “sell at the close” orders on down days, or “buy at the close” orders on up days. Since I wasn’t paying minute by minute attention to the screens, I cannot be certain, but I’d bet that 0 day to expiration options were a “weapon of choice” when trying to push markets into the close. For those not overly familiar with leveraged ETFs, those that say deliver 2X the daily return of some index (or increasingly, of some individual stock), they need to buy more shares on the close of up days and sell shares on the close of down days to deliver 2X the next day (assuming no inflows or outflows). This adds to volatility and creates a “path dependent” drag on these types of ETFs.
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We can now talk about the terminal rate on Fed Funds and the path to getting there. While we argued that the Fed should have cut rates in July, it seems inevitable that the Fed will cut in September. The only “question” around September is whether it will be 25 or 50. The market is pricing in a 35% chance of 50 bps. Since my preferred path was 25 or even 50 in July with a pause in September, I should probably lean towards 50 bps. But I cannot. I did hear someone suggest 50, with a dissent (someone who would have only done 25), which seems like an interesting path. However, with inflation still well above 2% (the lowering of this number is an election issue), and lots of griping (largely legitimate) that for many items official inflation figures are well below experienced inflation for the past couple of years, 50 would require very weak jobs data across the board.
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We now have cuts priced in for the next 8 meetings. The first time we have “doubt” about the potential for a cut is regarding the 50% chance of whether or not we get it next September. The market is pricing in 8 cuts, or 200 bps, over the next 8 meetings (it is almost doing it in 7 meetings). Will the data be so steady that the Fed can proceed without pauses, or even doing one or two of 50? That seems too “optimistic” for markets to be pricing in (or too pessimistic on the economy). Though, somewhat surprisingly, given Powell gave the go-ahead, the probabilities didn’t move that much from last Friday.
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What Else Did We Learn?
The two things above (abysmal liquidity and that the conversation can now move to the time to reach terminal value) were the two most important things. But we’ve learned some other things as well:
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The earnings season is longer than ever. Earnings season used to get boring once the vast majority of companies (and many of the bellwether companies) had posted earnings. I am not sure if NVDA is the last company, but it is certainly not the least. NVDA comes out after the close on Wednesday. Those earnings seem highly likely to be a major catalyst for this market. We are hearing more from companies attributing some of their success to their use of AI, which is really encouraging. However, that might be more important for lifting the valuations of users than providers, given the run-up of stocks for companies involved in the AI provider space – anything from chips, to cloud, to data centers, to utilities.
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As a side note, I have to admit (once again) that I never would have thought you could generate a $50 million a year run-rate by just launching an ETF leveraged to a single stock, which NVDL has accomplished. Which likely explains the launch of MSTX (a MSTR leveraged ETF) that has already accumulated AUM of $127 million at a 1.29% expense ratio). I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to reference any songs today, but I cannot get the Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing” out of my head. I really fail to understand the need (or really, the appeal) of ETFs leveraged to a single stock, but clearly I’m just wrong on the demand!
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Data Disbelief. After the much larger-than-normal annual revision to the NFP Establishment Data (beyond the already large monthly downward revisions), will anyone ever trust this job report? The discrepancies and lack of consistency in data have been long-running themes in the T-Report. The concept of Garbage In, Garbage Out is why we spend so much time examining the data. No matter how good your model is at taking data and correctly predicting outcomes, it requires good data. We will continue to examine data as we always have, but we think that we will have more people doing it alongside us, as many of us (including, apparently the Fed Chair – see Revisions & Jackson Hole) are now struggling to articulate the “labor is strong” narrative. Again, I feel sorry for the economists who missed the original numbers by 100,000 or more. After monthly revisions and the annual revision, they probably turned out to be pretty darn close! And it does seem that we should all pay more attention to ADP.
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Rapid Oscillation. The AAII Investment Sentiment Survey is just below the July 17th reading (which I think was the highest this year). The bearish side is almost as low as it has been. Those are typically contrarian signals. While the size is not what it was in its heyday, the inverse ETPs like SVIX and SVXY saw massive inflows (close to tripling their shares outstanding). It is far from clear that the “pain trade” is lower equity prices.
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No one cares about the big bad Japanese yen carry trade. The yen closed Friday at 144.37, just above the low of 144.18 on August 5th, when people still cared about that trade! While we thought it was overdone and would be shocked if anyone reloaded on that trade, it seems like we should pay some attention because the Bank of Japan cannot tie their monetary policy (which points to needing to be restricted) to the Fed’s (which is clearly heading in the other direction).
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We can start buying the beneficiaries of lower rates. The Russell 2000 did very well this week (up 3.6%), but the KBW Regional Bank Index was up even more (5%). Commercial real estate should be stable and could once again be a big opportunity for investors. The last “bounce in small caps and value stocks” felt like a massive unwind of QQQ vs IWM (Nasdaq 100 versus Russell 2000) but this seemed more calm, orderly, and rational.
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Markets agree with us that it is too early to price in election “results.” While we continue to hear some chatter about the “Trump” trade or the “Harris” trade, it seems like the markets are not consistently pricing in anything. I know this because:
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We have another 10 weeks of this stuff, and a lot can change.
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It is too early to even tell what campaign promises the candidates are serious about (we are still in the pandering and trial balloon stage) let alone what might have a remote chance of turning into legislation.
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Bottom Line
Good luck and expect more volatility. If I’m an issuer of debt, I’m selling what I can, because despite my inbox starting to get flooded with warnings about the deficit, the 10-year yield is at 3.8% and spreads are still attractive.
The Fed can do a lot, and likely will, but I still expect the Fed to Plod Along, meaning that they will be slow to react to changing economic conditions (when they point to more easing). Additionally, both stocks and bonds got ahead of themselves, because they are pricing in a Fed put to occur sooner (or more easily) than it is likely to occur (when and if needed).
If this is what we are getting during the slow summer, I can hardly wait to see what September and October look like!
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 12:50 -
- Visualizing How The G20 Generates Electricity
Visualizing How The G20 Generates Electricity
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows how much electricity is generated from renewable sources among G20 countries.
The data is based on Ember’s yearly and monthly electricity reports as of 2023. Data for Saudi Arabia is not available.
Brazil Leading in Renewable Energy
The global average for renewable electricity is 30%, but nearly half of the G20 countries fall below this average.
Brazil leads the G20 in renewable electricity, with 89% of its power generated from renewables in 2023. The country’s high share of renewables is due to its robust hydroelectric base and rapid expansion of solar and wind energy.
Canada, in second place, generates 66% of its electricity from renewables, primarily hydropower.
Germany, in third place, has the highest proportion of wind and solar in its energy mix.
G20 Economies Past the Peak of Fossil Power
The majority of G20 economies are at least five years past their peak power sector emissions.
At the top of our list, Brazil’s power sector emissions peaked in 2014 at 114 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2). By 2023, nine years after the peak, its power sector emissions were 38% below 2014 levels, at 70 MtCO2.
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic showing emission reduction targets by country in 2024.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 12:15 - Why State Enforcement Of "Fairness" Is Wrong
Why State Enforcement Of “Fairness” Is Wrong
Authored by Wanjiru Njoya via The Mises Institute,
There is a popular perception that the role of the state is to uphold and enforce “fairness” much like a playground monitor ensures that children are not bullying each other, and that everyone is getting a fair chance to be included in the game. The fear is that if teachers do not monitor the schoolyard it might descend into the Lord of the Flies. Likewise, the state is said to have a moral duty to ensure fairness and goodwill among all citizens in their interactions with each other.
In Freedom in Chains James Bovard criticizes the trend towards seeing the state as the fountain of fairness, depicting it as “the nationalization of fairness.” In the US context, he traces the origins of nationalizing fairness back to the New Deal, when President Roosevelt’s administration sought to establish “fair” prices, “fair” wages, and “fair” competition, by mandating regulations which Roosevelt said would counter “the forces of selfishness.” Bovard highlights the example of promises made by the National Industrial Recovery Act to “provide for the machinery necessary for a great co-operative movement throughout all industry in order to obtain wide re-employment, to shorten the working week, to pay a decent wage for the shorter week and to prevent unfair competition and disastrous overproduction.”
Unfair competition was criminalized under the National Recovery Administration, and Bovard cites the example of a New Jersey tailor “jailed for ‘charging thirty-five cents for pressing a suit,’ in violation of the NRA code that mandated a 40-cent charge.” The administration arbitrarily decided that while a 40-cent charge would be fair, a 35-cent charge would be unfair and proceeded to impose criminal penalties.
Bovard criticizes the idea that the government has some sort of magical ability to produce morality and fairness in all human interactions: “modern morality is based on ‘push-button fairness: the government announces a new regulation, enforcers twist arms, and – voila! – fairness triumphs.” Yet over time people have come to want and expect precisely this from the state. Bovard highlights the shift from seeing the function of the state as that of building roads and bridges and providing police and fire services, to its current role where it purports to stand against selfishness, greed, racial discrimination, and other perceived moral vices.
Bovard highlights the same arbitrary determination of fairness in civil rights policies. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attempts to ensure fairness by eradicating disparities or performance gaps and as Bovard argues, “for all practical purposes, “fairness” is whatever EEOC officials choose to impose.” Although quotas are officially prohibited, Bovard points out that “by the late 1960s, the EEOC had intentionally subverted the law by establishing a definition of discrimination that was the opposite of the one that Congress had specified.” The EEOC investigates discrimination by reference to numbers and proportions of different groups and measures its success by an improvement in the numbers. Bovard terms this “fairness by the numbers.”
“Fairness by the numbers” is also the driving force of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion polices. These policies measure DEI by reference to the proportionate numbers of different races, sexes and genders. They set up a measure of fairness that is only achieved when the proportion of people in any institution reflects their demographic representation.
There are many ethical problems with fairness by the numbers, not least that it erodes contractual freedom, freedom of association and free speech. Further, in schools and colleges it relies on indoctrination through the only ideology in which fairness by the numbers is deemed to be a worthy goal: critical race theories. This is why Alabama has enacted a new law, 2024 Ala. Act 34, which bans the divisive concepts promoted by critical race theories, namely:
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That any race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.
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That individuals should be discriminated against or adversely treated because of their race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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That the moral character of an individual is determined by his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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That, by virtue of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, the individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.
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That individuals, by virtue of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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That fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to members of a race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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That any individual should accept, acknowledge, affirm, or assent to a sense of guilt, complicity, or a need to apologize on the basis of his or her race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.
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That meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist.
The reasoning behind this Alabama initiative, as stated by State Senator Will Barfoot, is that “education must return to its essential foundations of academic integrity and the pursuit of knowledge instead of being corrupted by destructive ideologies.” As State Representative Ed Oliver expressed it, DEI policies only “deepen divisions, set up race-exclusionary programs and indoctrinate students into a far-left political ideology.”
The Alabama ban on DEI is an important step in the right direction. Ultimately, no state has a legitimate role in indoctrinating school or university students in how they ought to understand their racial identity, or how they ought to understand their religion or their sex. These are matters of individual liberty and personal conscience, not state edicts.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/25/2024 – 11:40 -
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