- An End To The World As We Know It?
An End To The World As We Know It?
Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Unz Review,
At the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston stated what he thought was obvious, that “England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests.” Palmerston was saying that national interests should drive the relationships with foreigners. A nation will have amicable relations most of the time with some countries and difficult relations with some others, but the bottom line should always be what is beneficial for one’s own country and people.
If Palmerston were alive today and observing the relationship of the United States of America with the rest of the world, he might well find Washington to be an exception to his rule. The U.S., to be sure, has been adept at turning adversaries into enemies and disappointing friends, and it is all done with a glib assurance that doing so will somehow bring democracy and freedom to all.
Indeed, either neoliberal democracy promotion or the neoconservative version of the same have been seen as an overriding and compelling interest during the past twenty years even though the policies themselves have been disastrous and have only damaged the real interests of the American people.
The U.S. relationship with Israel is, for example, driven by a powerful and wealthy domestic lobby rather than by any common interests at all yet it is regularly falsely touted as being between two “close allies” and “best friends.” It has cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for the Jewish state and Israeli influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East region has led to catastrophic military interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Mogadishu and Libya. Currently, Israel is agitating for U.S. action against the nonexistent Iranian “threat” while also unleashing its lobby in the United States to make illegal criticism of any of its war crimes, effectively curtailing freedom of speech and association for all Americans.
Far more dangerous is the continued excoriation of the Kremlin over the largely mythical Russiagate narrative. Congress has recently approved a bill that would give to Ukraine $300 million in supplementary military assistance to use against Russia. The money and authorization appear in the House of Representatives version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA) that passed last week.
The bill is a renewal of the controversial Ukraine Security Assistance Initiativethat Donald Trump allegedly manipulated to bring about an investigation of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The new version expands on the former assistance package to include coastal defense cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles as offensive weapons that are acceptable for export to Kiev. It also authorizes an additional $50 million in military assistance on top of the $250 million congress had granted in last year’s bill, “of which $100 million would be available only for lethal assistance.”
Ukraine sought the money and arms to counter Russian naval dominance in the Black Sea through its base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. One year ago the Russian navy captured three Ukrainian warships and Kiev was unable to push back against Moscow because it lacked weapons designed to attack ships. Now it will have them and presumably it will use them. How Russia will react is unknowable.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, has been in Washington lobbying for the additional military assistance. He has had considerable success, particularly as there is bipartisan support in Congress for aid to Kiev and also because the Trump Departments of Defense and State as well as the National Security Council are all on board in countering the “Russian threat” in the Black Sea. President Trump signed the NDAA last week, which completed the process.
Far more ominously, Kuleba and his interlocutors in the administration and congress have been revisiting a proposal first surfaced under Bill Clinton, that Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted to the NATO alliance. Like the $300 million in military aid, there appears to be considerable bipartisan support for such a move. NATO already has a major presence on the Black Sea with Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all members. Adding Ukraine and Georgia would completely isolate the Russian presence and Moscow would undoubtedly see it as an existential threat.
The NDAA also provides seed money to initiate the so-called Space Force, which President Trump inaugurated by describing it as “the world’s newest war-fighting domain. Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. We’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough, but very shortly we’ll be leading by a lot. The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground.”
If that isn’t bad enough, the new defense budget ominously also requires the Trump administration to impose sanctions “with respect to provision of certain vessels for the construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines.” Last week the House of Representatives and Senate approved specific sanctions relating to the companies and governments that are collaborating on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will cross the Baltic Sea from Vyborg to Greifswald to connect Germany with Russian natural gas. President Trump has signed off on the legislation.
The United States has opposed the project ever since it was first mooted, claiming that it will make Europe “hostage” to Russian energy, will enrich the Russian government, and will also empower Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more aggressive. Engineering companies that will be providing services such as pipe-laying will be targeted by Washington as the Trump administration tries to halt the completion of the $10.5 billion project.
Now that the NDAA has been signed, the Trump administration has 60 days to identify companies, individuals and even foreign governments that have in some way provided services or assistance to the pipeline project. Sanctions would block individuals from travel to the United States and would freeze bank accounts and other tangible property that would be identified by the U.S. Treasury. One company that will definitely be targeted for sanctions is the Switzerland-based Allseas, which has been contracted with by Russia’s Gazprom to build the offshore section of pipeline. It has suspended work on the project while it examines the implications of the sanctions.
Bear in mind that Nord Stream 2 is a peaceful commercial project between two countries that have friendly relations, making the threats implicit in the U.S. reaction more than somewhat inappropriate. Increased U.S. sanctions against Russia itself are also believed to be a possibility and there has even been some suggestion that the German government and its energy ministry might be sanctioned. This has predictably resulted in pushback from Germany, normally a country that is inclined to go along with any and all American initiatives. Last week German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas asked Congress not to meddle in European energy policy, saying “We think this is unacceptable, because it is ultimately a move to influence autonomous decisions that are made in Europe. European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S.”
German Bundestag member Andreas Nick warned that “It’s an issue of national sovereignty, and it is potentially a liability for trans-Atlantic relations.” That Trump is needlessly alienating important countries like Germany that are genuine allies, unlike Israel and Saudi Arabia, over an issue that is not an actual American interest is unfortunate. It makes one think that the wheels have definitely come off the cart in Washington.
The point is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Mike Esper (admittedly too many Mikes) wouldn’t know a national interest if it hit them in the face. Their politicization of policy to “win in 2020” promoting apocalyptic nonsense like war in space has also reinforced an existing tunnel vision on what Russia under Vladimir Putin is all about that is extremely dangerous. Admittedly, Team Trump throws out sanctions in all directions with reckless abandon, mostly aimed at Russia, Iran, North Korea and, the current favorite, Venezuela. No one is immune. But the escalation going from sanctions to arming the Kremlin’s enemies is both reckless and pointless. Russia will definitely strike back if it is attacked, make no mistake about that, and war could easily escalate with tragic consequences for all of us. That war is perhaps becoming thinkable is in itself deplorable, with Business Insider running a recent piece on surviving a nuclear attack. New homes in target America will likely soon come equipped with bomb shelters, just like in the 1950s.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/26/2019 – 00:00 - Large, Non-Government Drones Flying In Mysterious Grid Pattern Over Colorado
Large, Non-Government Drones Flying In Mysterious Grid Pattern Over Colorado
Several of large, non-government drones have been flying in what the Denver Post describes as a ‘nighttime search pattern’ over northeast Colorado.
With estimated wingspans of six-feet, the aircraft have been covering 25-square-mile plots of Phillips and Yuma counties every night between 7 – 10 p.m. for around a week, Phillips County Sheriff Thomas Elliott said Monday, adding that they have received nine calls about the drones since last week.
“They’ve been doing a grid search, a grid pattern,” he said “They fly one square and then they fly another square.
Nobody knows who’s flying them
Several agencies, including the sheriff’s office, the Army, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), say they have no knowledge of the mysterious aircraft or who is operating them, however Undersheriff William Meyers suggested that “The estimated size and number of drones makes it unlikely that they’re being flown by hobbyists.”
Drone pilots aren’t required to submit flight plans unless planning to operate in controlled airspace, such as an airport.
UAV and Drone Solutions monitoring aircraft (via AOPA.org) Meyers says he watched eight of the large drones flying along the Yuma County border, while a single drone was spotted simultaneously hovering around 25 miles away over the town of Paoli. According to the report “it didn’t move all night, just hovered over the town,” while eight more drones flew 10 miles away over the town of Haxtun, Meyers added.
“Overhead they were probably doing 30, 40 mph,” he said. “They weren’t racing or flying around with speed.”
One resident who spotted a drone last week gave chase, Elliott said, driving behind it at about 50 mph, but lost the drone when he ran out of gas in Washington County.
The machines fly too high to be heard from the ground but can be seen by their strobing white lights along with red, blue and green lights, Myers said.
Myers suspects the drones might be operated by a private company, although the machines haven’t targeted any obvious landmarks or features — sometimes they fly over towns, other times over empty fields.
“They do not seem to be malicious,” Elliott said. “They don’t seem to be doing anything that would indicate criminal activity.” –Denver Post
Denver-based commercial photographer Vic Moss, a drone pilot and owner of an online drone school (Drone U), said on Monday he thinks either a company or government agency is behind the flights.
“We have a number of drone companies here in Colorado, and they’re very innovative,” said Moss, adding “So maybe they’re testing something of theirs out in that area because it is very rural. But everyone that I know of, they coordinate all that stuff with local authorities to prevent this very situation. They all very much want people to understand drones and not cause this kind of hysteria.”
Moss suggests that the grid pattern may indicate some type of mapping or searching operation, adding that perhaps they are flying at night in order to use infrared cameras – which are sometimes used to examine crops.
He also says that the pilots are unlikely to be breaking any laws, as “The way Colorado law is written, none of the statutes fit for harassment or trespassing.”
“Colorado hasn’t gotten on board with identifying the airspace around your property as the actual premises, so we don’t have anything we could charge.”
The FAA does say that drones weighing under 55 lbs must be flown during daylight hours, within sight of the pilot, under 400 feet, and not directly over people. Pilots can apply for waivers.
It’s also not clear whether the drones over Phillips and Yuma counties would be governed by those regulations. A drone the size of the ones spotted over the counties likely would weigh more than 55 pounds, Moss said. That means the drone operator would be flying commercially and would likely need to be a “manned aviator” — an actual pilot, Moss said.
Chuck Adams, CEO of 1Up Aerial Drone Services in Golden, said that he wasn’t sure who might be flying the drones, but said his company does offer “drone defense” systems that can help people on the ground discover where drones are being flown from. –Denver Post
“It’s something we put up with radio frequency and acoustics, and you can tell where the operator is and where the drones are,” said Adams. “We can’t take them out of the sky, but we can give awareness.”
And according to Sheriff Elliott, people can stop calling about the drones.
“We just want to know if one lands, if we can get our hands on it, or if they see someone operating them, that’s what we’re looking for now,” he said. “We know they exist.“
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 23:15 - Mary And Joseph's Battle Against The State
Mary And Joseph's Battle Against The State
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,
The story of Christmas begins with a 90-mile trek in a dangerous world of robbers both private and public. It was the first imposition of a head tax in that generation, by the tyrannical Caesar Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire from 27 BC until AD 14.
And you know he had major ego issues. He changed the name of the month Sextillia to name it after himself: August. The calendar still pays him homage.
His major ambition in his reign was to restore a centralized empire. Raising revenue was a major priority of the regime, and this tax was a means of accomplishing that goal.
Few people give voluntarily to any state. The state must rely on enforcement via coercion, including beatings and imprisonment. A state needs a standard by which to judge compliance, which means that taxation always and everywhere begins with accounting for all the people, their income and jobs.
It was precisely this with the Edict of Caesar Augustus.
Eugene W. Seraphin, writing for The Catholic Biblical Quarterly (January, 1945) explains as follows:
In the days of the Republic, no one had ever tried to settle how much money was needed to carry on the government, and how much of this sum each province ought justly to pay in the form of taxes. Augustus proceeded to put together huge census lists and property assessments, by which to determine the population and the total value of the property in each province
Suidas, a Greek lexicographer of the tenth century, wrote that
Augustus, having become the sole master, chose twenty men distinguished for integrity and probity, and sent them through all the earth subject to him, to make a census of persons and goods, in order to apportion justly the contributions which should be paid into the public treasury. This was the first census. That which had preceded The Edict of Caesar Augustus was sort of a spoliation of the rich, as though the state regarded the possession of property as a public crime.
The entire process was incredibly invasive and reminds us that state surveillance is nothing new. The emperor wanted the name, age, profession, and an accounting of the personal wealth of every person over the age of 14. All this was recorded in official records.
Getting revenue always and everywhere begins with accounting for all the people, their income and jobs. For every Roman, compliance meant registering in the town in which he or she lived.
For Jews, it was different. They had to return to their home of heritage, which in the case of Joseph was Bethlehem, the “land of the Jews.” Thus began the journey with his bride-to-be Mary who was already very much with child. To be clear, this was not a trip they undertook willingly; it was forced on them by the state. Augustus was effectively drafting people into his taxing regime.
And here too we see an early implementation of identity politics. Joseph and Mary were not just counted and taxed; they were counted and taxed as Jews. The state in these pre-liberal days considered it public business to assign everyone a tribe – a collective identity whether or not he or she felt an attachment to that tribe. No one could escape. They were forced to return to a homeland that the state defined for them.
Joseph had to leave his business behind. Mary, who should have been resting in bed, risked her life and that of a child to travel on dangerous roads for days, to comply with the edict.
As the couple arrived in Bethlehem, we are told that they were unable to find a place to stay, which today we render as some kind of discrimination. This is ridiculous. There were no commercial hotels in Bethlehem. There were only places to stay based on the kindness of strangers in exchange for small gifts. The whole place was overcrowded because everyone was rushing to avoid the penalties of law.
It was typical in those days, scholars tell us, that the living quarters of places were above where the animals stayed so that the animals could be a source of heat for the house. Mary and Joseph were generously given a place on the lower floor.
The actions of the “innkeeper” here were generous and benevolent in a way in which the state that was bludgeoning these travelers was not. The state dragged an expecting woman and her plus one, based on their Jewishness, across dangerous terrain for three days solely so they could be counted and taxed. Meanwhile, the private sector provided them with shelter, safety, and love.
What a paradigm of truth here! The story of Mary and Joseph on their journey sets up the essential conflict of our own time: compulsion vs choice, the former being the brutal, something we all must deal with and work around in service to the state, and the latter being the compassionate and loving, enabling new life and light to be born into the world.
As the story continues, recall that they were not safe there either. Face with a murderous order from King Herod, they had to leave again, this time for Eygpt.
Think about this story as you contemplate the surveillance, the identity politics, the impending internal passports, and the demographic controls of modern statism. These are tools of oppression. And think too of the beautiful opportunities afforded to us today by the benevolent hands of commerce and private charity. These are truly the saviors of the world.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 22:30 - US Sends 4 Spy Planes Over N.Korea, But Ominous Christmas 'Gift' Didn't Come
US Sends 4 Spy Planes Over N.Korea, But Ominous Christmas 'Gift' Didn't Come
Given it’s now Dec. 26 in Korea, it looks like Kim Jong Un’s promised “Christmas gift” — or what many thought would be a long-range missile test — never arrived. Perhaps this was the actual gift in the most optimistic scenario: a softening of tensions and willingness to back down in the hope that nuclear talks would warm in this holiday season headed into 2020.
However, it’s not too late for some kind of “late present” brought by ‘Santa Kim’ given the following provocative US action on Christmas Day no less, as the Pentagon was likely closely monitoring to see if a ‘gift’ was being readied on the ground, via The Hill:
The United States flew four surveillance planes over the Korean peninsula Wednesday, according to an aviation tracker, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
…The U.S. flew four aircraft, the RC-135W Rivet Joint, E-8C, RQ-4 Global Hawk and RC-135S Cobra Ball, over the country between Tuesday and early Wednesday. The planes were believed to have carried out missions in and around the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap reported.
USAF Rivet Joint surveillance plane. Yonhap further called the flyovers “unusual” and said it shows Washington took Pyongyang’s threatened Christmas “surprise” seriously.
Per the report:
Military sources confirmed to the news outlet that South Korea and the U.S. have strengthened efforts against the possibility of North Korea firing an ICBM or other weapons.
“We’re keeping a close watch over military moves in North Korea,” said one of the sources, who the outlet declined to name.
On Tuesday just ahead of Christmas celebrations at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump held out hope the ‘gift’ could turn out to be something positive.
“Let’s see what happens. Everybody’s got surprises for me, but let’s see what happens. I handle them as they come along,” Trump told reporters.
Illustration via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists “We’ll see what happens,” Trump added. “Maybe it’s a nice present. maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test.”
But who knows just how North Korea will interpret the Christmas Day spy plane flyover? Perhaps Kim will take it as a sign of bad faith and will determine a potential belated holiday gift accordingly.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 21:45 - A Farewell To Paper Money?
A Farewell To Paper Money?
Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,
A decade or more ago, I began to discuss with associates the possibility of governments and banks colluding to eliminate physical cash. Back then, the idea struck most everyone as poppycock, that governments could never get away with it.
I didn’t write on the subject until 2015, when several countries had begun to limit the amount of money a depositor could extract from his bank account. At that point, the prospect that central banks might conceivably eliminate cash was looking less like an alarmist fantasy, and it became possible to write on the nascent issue.
In a nutshell, today, in most of the world’s most prominent countries, the people who control banking are the same people who pull the strings in government. A cashless system therefore seemed to me to be a natural, as it dramatically increased both profit and power for both banking and government – an opportunity that can’t be passed up.
The Benefit to Banking
Some banks have been delving into negative interest rates, which is a euphemism for charging you to keep your money in the bank, so that they can loan it out for their own profit. You actually lose money annually by having it on deposit.
Of course, some people accept negative interest rates in order to retain the imagined safety of having their cash in a bank vault, rather than at home. Others tolerate it because they value the convenience of using ATMs and chequing.
But anyone else may simply decide to store their money at home and save the “reverse interest” charges.
But what if cash were eliminated? No one would have a choice. They’d have to have a bank account and use it for all transactions, or they couldn’t purchase goods or pay bills.
Once everyone accepted the concept that bankers had total control of transactions, that this was “normal,” banks would be in the catbird seat. They could raise the transaction fees considerably over time and the depositors would be unable to exit the system.
The Benefit to Governments
Governments would thoroughly endorse the idea, because it would mean that, for the first time, they’d have access to all information on your economic activity. The necessity of allowing people to file for income tax would vanish. In future, they could assess your annual tax themselves and take it from your account by direct debit. They could also begin taxing you monthly rather than annually, “for your convenience.”
And in the bargain, we could anticipate that the charges would be numerous, confusingly worded on the monthly statement and difficult to figure out. That would allow both the banks and the government to periodically effect incremental increases.
Once all your transactions were monitored, those that are “suspect” could be noted and even refused. Purchases at gun shops could be classified as “terrorist-related.” A transfer to a realtor in Panama could be classified as “money-laundering.”
Since the War on Cash has become recognized in the last few years, many people have turned to cryptocurrencies as a means of retaining monetary freedom.
However, as the future of financially pillaging the populace depends on ensuring that the populace have no option other than banks, will governments allow cryptos to flourish?
Not if they can stop it. But can they?
It’s been my contention that banks will at some point, launch their own cryptos, whilst doing all they can to discredit non-central bank cryptos as being potentially criminal.
The Bank of Canada is now considering launching a digital currency that it says would help it combat the “direct threat” of cryptocurrencies. It would initially coexist with paper money, but would eventually replace it completely.
They state further that banknotes are becoming obsolete as a means of payment, creating problems for the banking system as a whole: “The time may come that merchants/banks find it too costly to accept banknotes.”
Translate that to mean that, if you insist on using banknotes, the bank will have no choice but to charge you a premium for their use.
This has come on the heels of the plan by Facebook to release libra, its own cryptocurrency. The Bank of Canada states that “Facebook’s digital offering is losing key backers and facing scrutiny from regulators worldwide, including the Bank of Canada.”
It suggests that central bank digital currencies allow banks to collect more information on Canadians than is possible when people use cash. “Personal details not shared with payee, but could be shared with police or tax authorities.”
And if there are any remaining uncertainties to the benefits of non-central bank cryptos, they added, “Cryptocurrencies may become a direct threat to our ability to implement monetary policy and lender of last resort role.”
On the surface, the statement from Bank of Canada appears to be an announcement of banking progress, for the betterment of depositors. But it’s the first report, to my knowledge, in which a bank declares bitcoin and other non-central bank cryptos as a “direct threat.”
The above statement is a forerunner to declaring non-bank cryptos to be criminal in nature. Cryptos offer the hope of monetary freedom and that can’t be allowed.
At some point, we can expect banks to disallow any payment for cryptos such as bitcoin through central bank cryptos and refuse accounts to anyone who has a history of dealing in non-central bank cryptos. The objective will be to eliminate the possibility that your grocer or gas station, along with any other bank depositor, might accept bitcoin. The intent will be to send bitcoin to the crypto graveyard.
Unlike gold, bitcoin is intangible and cannot simply be stuffed in the mattress until such time as it regains its acceptance for convertibility, as gold has in the past. It doesn’t exist in physical form and only has a perceived value if another party is prepared to accept it in payment.
The War on Cash is a war on your economic freedom. At present, most people still retain the ability to remove their wealth from the system, move it to a more wealth-friendly jurisdiction and hold it to forms that will retain value in the future.
That window may close sooner, rather than later.
* * *
It’s no secret that governments are eager to eliminate cash. Part of the reason is that it would enable them to devalue their currencies faster. That’s precisely why, as the calls to eliminate cash grow louder, we’ve seen a massive increase in currency creation and inflation all around the world. It’s created an economic situation unlike we’ve ever seen before, and it’s all building up to a severe crisis on multiple fronts. That’s exactly why NY Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent report on how to survive and thrive during an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 21:00 - Colleges Track Hundreds Of Thousands Of Students Using Their Phones
Colleges Track Hundreds Of Thousands Of Students Using Their Phones
“Graduates will be well prepared … to embrace 24/7 government tracking and social credit systems.”
An app created to track the attendance of ‘less academically inclined’ college athletes is under fire, after over 40 schools have begun using the technology to monitor students campus-wide, according to the Washington Post.
Syracuse professor Jeff Rubin says his lectures have never been so full Developed by former college basketball coach Rick Carter (who is currently under a restraining order by DePaul University for allegedly threatening the athletic director and head basketball coach), the Chicago-based SpotterEDU app uses Bluetooth beacons to ping a student’s smartphone once they enter a lecture hall. About the size of a deck of cards, they are installed in covert locations on walls and ceilings.
School officials give SpotterEDU the students’ full schedules, and the system can email a professor or adviser automatically if a student skips class or walks in more than two minutes late. The app records a full timeline of the students’ presence so advisers can see whether they left early or stepped out for a break. –Washington Post
Syracuse University IT instructor Jeff Rubin uses the app to encourage his students to attend lectures – awarding “attendance points” to those who show up. Rubin is also notified when students skip classes.
“They want those points,” said Rubin. “They know I’m watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change.“
According to Rubin, his 340-student lecture has never been so full at around 90% attendance.
Double Secret Dystopia
Understandably, not everyone is thrilled with the intrusive new technology, which many argue breaches students’ privacy rights on a massive scale.
“We’re adults. Do we really need to be tracked?” said sophomore Robby Pfeifer, a student at Commonwealth University in Richmond, which recently began using the campus’ WiFi network to track students. “Why is this necessary? How does this benefit us? … And is it just going to keep progressing until we’re micromanaged every second of the day?“
School and company officials, on the other hand, argue that monitoring students is a powerful motivator and will encourage students to adopt habits geared towards success.
“If they know more about where students are going, they argue, they can intervene before problems arise,” according to the Post.
That said, some schools have taken things further – assigning “risk scores” to students based on factors such as whether they are going to the library enough.
The dream of some administrators is a university where every student is a model student, adhering to disciplined patterns of behavior that are intimately quantified, surveilled and analyzed.
But some educators say this move toward heightened educational vigilance threatens to undermine students’ independence and prevents them from pursuing interests beyond the classroom because they feel they might be watched.
“These administrators have made a justification for surveilling a student population because it serves their interests, in terms of the scholarships that come out of their budget, the reputation of their programs, the statistics for the school,” said Kyle M. L. Jones, an Indiana University assistant professor who researches student privacy.
“What’s to say that the institution doesn’t change their eye of surveillance and start focusing on minority populations, or anyone else?” he added. Students “should have all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that an adult has. So why do we treat them so differently?” –Washington Post
“It embodies a very cynical view of education — that it’s something we need to enforce on students, almost against their will,” said UCSD digital scholarship librarian Erin Rose Glass. “We’re reinforcing this sense of powerlessness … when we could be asking harder questions, like: Why are we creating institutions where students don’t want to show up?“
Hilariously, creators of the dystopian surveillance app have tried to make things ‘more fun,’ by ‘gamifying students’ schedules with colorful Bitmoji or digital multiday streaks.’
That said, “the real value may be for school officials, who Carter said can split students into groups, such as “students of color” or “out-of-state students,” for further review.”
When asked why an official would want to segregate out data on students of color, Carter said many colleges already do so, looking for patterns in academic retention and performance, adding that it “can provide important data for retention. Even the first few months of recorded data on class attendance and performance can help predict how likely a group of students is to” stay enrolled.
Students’ attendance and tardiness are scored into a point system that some professors use for grading, Carter said, and schools can use the data to “take action” against truant students, such as grabbing back scholarship funds. –Washington Post
Meanwhile, another app from Austin-based start-up Degree Analytics uses WiFi check-ins to track around 200,000 students across 19 state universities, private colleges and other schools, according to the Post.
Founded in 2017 by data scientist Aaron Benz, the company claims that every student can graduate with “a proper environment and perhaps a few nudges along the way.”
According to Benz, his system can solve “a real lack of understanding about the student experience” by using campus WiFi data to measure and analyze 98% of students.
But the company also claims to see much more than just attendance. By logging the time a student spends in different parts of the campus, Benz said, his team has found a way to identify signs of personal anguish: A student avoiding the cafeteria might suffer from food insecurity or an eating disorder; a student skipping class might be grievously depressed. The data isn’t conclusive, Benz said, but it can “shine a light on where people can investigate, so students don’t slip through the cracks.”
To help find these students, he said, his team designed algorithms to look for patterns in a student’s “behavioral state” and automatically flag when their habits change. He calls it scaffolding — a temporary support used to build up a student, removed when they can stand on their own.
At a Silicon Valley summit in April, Benz outlined a recent real-life case: that of Student ID 106033, a depressed and “extremely isolated” student he called Sasha whom the system had flagged as “highly at-risk” because she only left her dorm to eat. “At every school, there are lots of Sashas,” he said. “And the bigger you are, the more Sashas that you have.” –Washington Post
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 20:15 - Israel's Military Chief Outlines Strategy For "Coming War" With Iran & Its Allies
Israel's Military Chief Outlines Strategy For "Coming War" With Iran & Its Allies
The Chief-of-Staff for the Israeli Armed Forces, Aviv Kochavi, said on Wednesday that Israel cannot allow Iran to station militarily in Iraq. According to Ynet News, Kochavi stated on the seventh anniversary of the death of the former Chief-of-Staff, Amnon Lipkin Shahak, that the Israeli army would never allow Iran to be stationed in Iraq.
“The Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraq… transfer advanced weapons there monthly. We cannot leave this situation without interference,” he said.
File image: Iranian Revolutionary Guard members attend a ceremony in Tehran. Furthermore Kochavi said that “there is an opportunity in the Gaza Strip, after the results of the ‘Black Belt’ operation, to develop a secure reality and make it more stable.”
“In the coming war, we will have to attack with great force in populated areas and also target the state structure or the entity that allows terrorism to act against us,” Kochavi continued.
The Israeli military official said that “in the coming war with Lebanon or with Hamas, the internal front in Israel will be subject to major rocket attacks, most of which are inaccurate, but will have an impact,” adding that “Israel will target everything that helps in combat operations, such as electricity, fuel, bridges, if the state of Lebanon, Syria or Hamas and others allow terrorism from its lands to be used against us.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi (right), via Ynet News. Israel has accused Iran of transferring long-range weapons and missiles to Iraq, and from there to Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd Al-Shaabi) came under attack in July after a suspected Israeli drone carried out a devastating assault on a base in the Salaheddine Governorate.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 19:30 - Wave Of Chinese Restaurants Close Across America
Wave Of Chinese Restaurants Close Across America
According to The New York Times, citing data from Yelp, the share of Chinese restaurants has dramatically fallen across major US metropolitan areas in the last five years.
Yelp data shows the share of Chinese restaurants in the top 20 metros has been in free fall since about 2014.
Five years ago, 7.3% of all restaurants in the top 20 metros were Chinese, compared with 6.5% today. The declining trend has resulted in over 1,200 fewer Chinese restaurants while these metros added over 15,000 more restaurants.
The Times notes that the oldest Chinatown in the US is located in San Francisco, and even there, the share of Chinese restaurants shrank to 8.8% from 10% in 2014.
Mass closings of Chinese restaurants show no signs of abating, Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese restaurants continue to hold a steady market share or increase nationwide.
One big reason for the rash of closings “seems to be the economic mobility of the second generation,” said The Times.
“It’s a success that these restaurants are closing,” said Jennifer 8. Lee, a former New York Times journalist. “These people came to cook so their children wouldn’t have to, and now their children don’t have to.”
The children of Chinese immigrants have integrated into the economy and are less likely to take over their parent’s restaurant.
While the wave of closings has been underway for at least a half-decade, some restaurants, instead of closing, are selling operations to incoming first-generation immigrants who want the chance to cook Kung pow chicken to an overweight baby boomer.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 18:45 - Colorado Man Robs Bank, Throws Cash In The Air Yelling "Merry Christmas!"
Colorado Man Robs Bank, Throws Cash In The Air Yelling "Merry Christmas!"
Authored by Emma Fiala via TheMindUnleashed.com,
The holiday season has a way of bringing out both the best and the worst in people. As holiday consumption increases, unfortunately theft does as well from a host of places like porches, donation bins, stores, and even banks.
But it isn’t often that the stolen goods are immediately redistributed in such an extremely noticeable fashion.
Just after noon on Monday, a 65-year-old man walked into a downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado bank and stole thousands of dollars before running outside and tossing the cash up into the air while yelling “Merry Christmas!”
“He robbed the bank, came out, threw the money all over the place,” Dion Pascale, a witness of the strange ordeal, told KKTV.
“He started throwing money out of the bag and then said, ‘Merry Christmas!’”
According to Pascale, when the robber was done tossing the cash in the air, he walked from outside of the Academy Bank and onto the patio of a nearby Starbucks, sat down, and waited for police to arrive and arrest him. He reportedly did not order a drink.
The man, David Wayne Oliver, was arrested without incident. Police didn’t find a weapon on the man despite his having claimed that he was armed during the robbery.
According to witnesses, bystanders retrieved some of the money and returned it to the bank but The Denver Post quoted police as saying “thousands of dollars” remained unaccounted for.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 18:00 - "Like Watching A Car Crash In Slow Motion": Turkey Balks At US Sanction Threat, Warns It May Evict US Forces From Military Bases
"Like Watching A Car Crash In Slow Motion": Turkey Balks At US Sanction Threat, Warns It May Evict US Forces From Military Bases
Despite mounting political and diplomatic pressure by the US and its NATO allies, Turkey has again balked at US attempts of intimidation and dug into its refusal to abandon a new Russian missile defense, saying it won’t bow to the threat of crippling US sanctions or trade the S-400s for an American system.
“They said they would not sell Patriots unless we get rid of the S-400s. It is out of question for us to accept such a precondition,” said Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, late on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting, quoted by Bloomberg.
Parts of Russian S-400 defense system unloaded from a Russian plane at Murted Airport near Ankara in August; Photo: Turkish Defense Ministry “An irrational anti-Turkish sentiment has prevailed in the Congress and it is not good for Turkish-American relations,” Kalin added, noting that Congress “should know that such language of threat would push Turkey exactly toward places that they don’t want it turn to.” Namely, right into the hands of Vladimir Putin, who is on even better terms with Erdogan than Trump, despite Turkey taking down a Russian fighter jet over its territory several years back.
Separately, as the WSJ reported this morning, Erdogan once again warned that he would evict U.S. forces from two military bases in his country if Washington imposes new sanctions on his government, creating a bitter quandary for NATO as it seeks to cope with Ankara’s deepening ties to Russia.
In a television interview this month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said if the U.S. punishes Turkey for its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, then, “if necessary, we may close Incirlik and Kureci,” installations where the U.S. keeps approximately 50 B61 nuclear weapons, and operates critical radar.
Erdogan’s declaration elicited an anxious reaction from U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who said it raised questions about Turkey’s dedication to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: “They have that inherent right to house or to not house NATO bases or foreign troops,” Esper said. “But again, I think this becomes an alliance matter, your commitment to the alliance, if indeed they are serious about what they are saying.”
“It feels like watching a car crash in slow motion,” a Western diplomat in Turkey told the WSJ.
The main bone of contention is Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 system, which the Pentagon views as a security threat to NATO. The U.S. has suspended deliveries of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Turkey and excluded Turkish aerospace companies from a contract to supply fuselage and other parts, saying Russia could use the system’s radar to spy on and assess the stealthy aircraft’s capabilities.
As has been duly covered here for the past two years, US Congress has been pushing for sanctions against Turkey, which has NATO’s second biggest standing army after the US, over the country’s purchase of the Russian S-400 despite the objection of President Donald Trump, who has developed a particularly close relationship with Turkey’s Erdogan in the past year, and who says such a move could drive Turkey closer to Moscow.
And just to make sure Congress is really furious, Turkey intends to purchase a second Russian S-400 battery and pursue a joint-development agreement with Moscow in order to be able to produce its own sophisticated ballistic missiles, a move that will spark chaos among NATO member nations; as a reminder, NATO only exists to feed the US military-industrial complex with organic customers for advanced weapon systems. By using Russia for its most advanced military needs, Turkey has taken that old maxim and flipped it on its head.
The Trump administration has sought to cajole Erdogan in a bid to prevent Ankara from knitting closer ties with Moscow amid concerns that treating him like a pariah would push Turkey further into Russia’s orbit, U.S. officials said. But Trump has had to contend with angry U.S. lawmakers, who have voted through a string of bills aimed at punishing Turkey.
The US president has so far refrained from using a piece of legislation that allows the U.S. president to slap sanctions on any country that makes a sizable arms purchase from Russia. But a Senate committee recently approved a bill that would enforce the legislation, which could freeze Turkish assets in the U.S., restrict visas and limit access to credit.
In response to growing Western anger, Turkish officials proposed setting up an expert committee with the U.S., or under NATO supervision, to look into the S-400 issue and propose remedies. But US officials told the WSJ, Washington would rather pay substantial compensation than deliver a single F-35 to Turkey and jeopardize the integrity of the multibillion-dollar program.
Highlighting the impasse, Turkey carried out a test of the S-400 system, deployed at an airbase near Ankara, against U.S.-made F-16 jets in late November, and it said it might order Russian combat aircraft if the F-35 delivery ban wasn’t lifted.
“Turkish national-security interests must be regarded as one of the primary issues for the U.S. and NATO,” said Ahmet Berat Conkar, a Turkish lawmaker affiliated with Mr. Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, and the deputy head of Turkey’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. “If this cannot be openly guaranteed and maintained by concrete action for Turkey, new cracks may open inside the NATO alliance.”
The biggest irony is that in effecting its de facto breach from NATO, Turkey is also exposing the hypocrisy that runs through the heart of the military alliance. As the Journal notes, “some European allies bristle that NATO uses language similar to Turkey’s, which says that its invasion of northern Syria is for national security interests, and voice concerns that the West’s alliance gave Turkey too much leeway to expand its military partnership with Russia.”
Turkey, which is already coordinating with Russia in northern Syria, is now also seeking to cooperate with Russia in war-torn Libya.
“Turkey is playing a showdown and it is winning,” a senior European diplomat at NATO said.
It is indeed, and the only recourse the West has is to slap crippling sanctions on its economy in hopes of forcing Erdogan to realign his attitude. As Bloomberg reminds us, the last time the U.S. sanctioned Turkey last summery, to pressure it to release a detained U.S. pastor, the lira crashed and sent the Turkish economy into a recession from which it is still recovering.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 17:15 - All I Want For Christmas Is An Unmanipulated Market
All I Want For Christmas Is An Unmanipulated Market
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
The irony, of course, is that only those punters who sold on the way up will escape the devastation of the collapse into a bidless “market.”
All I want for Christmas is an unmanipulated market, because manipulated markets always crash big and crash hard. Virtually every market in America is heavily manipulated by the Federal Reserve, which creates currency out of thin air to either buy assets (outright market manipulation) or distribute to financiers, banks and corporations, which then manipulate the markets with their own profiteering (stock buybacks, leveraged buyouts, derivatives, etc.).
The Fed decided long ago that the housing and stock markets were too critical as signals that all is well to remain real markets, because real markets fluctuate and on occasion crash, especially if participants are playing fast and loose with debt, leverage and speculative bets placed with zero collateral (or fake collateral, which is the same thing).
To make sure no decline could ever collapse the happy-happy euphoria of ever-rising markets, the Fed turned markets into simulations of real markets, controlled “markets” masquerading as real markets in which price and value are set by participants, not central banks and proxies of central banks.
The key characteristics of markets are price discovery and the free flow of information about prices, supply, demand, quality, cost of credit, creditworthiness of buyers, etc.
Without a free flow of information and transparent-to-all-participants bids and asks (the price being offered by buyers and sellers), the market can’t discover the price (value) of credit, goods, services, collateral, assets, etc.
Once markets have been stripped of the ability to discover price, nobody can trust the values being presented as “real” are actually based on reality. In the current simulacrum of a real market, the “price” is set by the Fed or its proxies, and there is a purposeful / profitable information asymmetry between high frequency traders and other insiders and everyone outside the inner circles who are kept in the dark while insiders skim billions in no-risk profits from the victims of this information asymmetry.
Right now market participants are euphorically confident that value no longer matters; the only thing that matters is the Fed wants stocks and housing to move higher, and they can move markets at will with their firehouse of trillions of dollars.
In other words, participants are confident the Fed is the market, but it’s no longer a market at all. This mirage market has worked splendidly for the Fed, since it continues to signal all is well by rising year after year.
But manipulated markets are a mile wide and an inch deep. Everyone thinks selling won’t happen or can’t happen because the Fed is essentially guaranteeing that “buy the dips” will reward buyers. This was precisely what happened in 2008: The Fed reckoned the system had plenty enough liquidity to absorb any selling, but the liquidity was only an inch deep; once real selling hit the “market,” it collapsed, as buyers dried up and blew away.
Manipulating markets into “signaling” mechanisms insures the eventual crash will not be stopped by applying the same manipulations that destroyed price discovery and trust. Everyone knows the price has lost connection with reality, and so every punter and algo is one second away from hitting “sell” and locking in the gains from a manipulated bubble.
The irony, of course, is that only those punters who sold on the way up will escape the devastation of the collapse into a bidless “market.”
As the Fed will discover, providing “liquidity” isn’t the same as conning buyers to get wiped out when the selling tsunami hits.
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 16:45 - Iran Again Blocks Internet & Mobile Service Ahead Of Protesters' Funerals
Iran Again Blocks Internet & Mobile Service Ahead Of Protesters' Funerals
Fearing the potential for renewed protests and violent clashes with police, Iran has again blocked internet and mobile access to broad section of the country on Wednesday.
This as several funerals will be held over the coming days for protesters killed last month amid a severe government crackdown, which also witness an unprecedented nationwide internet blockage which lasted for a week or more in some provinces.
Citing Iranian state media, Bloomberg reports, “The mourning services are scheduled to begin on Thursday. The independent Shargh newspaper said five unidentified provinces will be subject to the blackout, while ILNA said internet users in those areas will have access to a limited number of state-approved Iran websites and applications.”
Protesters last month torched gas stations and banks, angry at a sudden massive gas price hike, which turned anti-government, via The Guardian. Government authorities are reportedly acting in response to relatives of some among the killed who have posted to social media calling for renewed protests to be held on Thursday in conjunction with ceremonies commemorating the victims (various estimates put those killed from the November protests ranging from 200 to over 300, with the US State Dept. claiming multiple times that number).
The US as well as various human rights organizations have accused Tehran authorities of quelling protests — initially sparked by a huge gas price hike when subsidies were slashed — with live ammunition and other brutal tactics.
Thus it appears the government is making a move to prevent large-scale protests before they gain momentum. State-run ILNA said of the mobile and internet blockage: “According to this source, it is possible that more provinces will be affected by the shutdown of mobile international connectivity,” after it appeared to spread on Wednesday.
Confirmed: Evidence of mobile internet disruption in parts of #Iran beginning ~6:30 a.m. (03:00 UTC); real-time network data show two distinct drops in connectivity this morning amid reports of regional outages; incident ongoing 📉 #Internet4Iran
📰https://t.co/BNTPP9wEyt pic.twitter.com/1l1ZkLnQKJ
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) December 25, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
And internet blockage observatory NetBlocks said, according to Reuters: “Confirmed: Evidence of mobile internet disruption in parts of #Iran …real-time network data show two distinct drops in connectivity this morning amid reports of regional outages; incident ongoing.”
Washington has condemned such attempts to dramatically restrict communications; however, Iran’s leadership has said it is taking efforts to thwart external US-Saudi-Israeli regime change efforts to hijack and guide the protests.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 16:15 - Local Moms Furious About Las Vegas Strip Club's Decision To Hand Out Tents To The Homeless
Local Moms Furious About Las Vegas Strip Club's Decision To Hand Out Tents To The Homeless
Like they say: No good deed goes unpunished.
A Las Vegas strip club has created a furor in the community after it handed out tents and clothing to the homeless bearing the club’s name and logo.
Club Deja Vu, which advertises itself as the “No. 1 topless strip club in the US,” decided to spend $50,000 on the merchandise and hand it out to the homeless in what appears to be a kind of political statement: The city recently passed an ordinance making it illegal for people to camp out on the sidewalk if there are still beds available in city shelters.
That Vegas wants to crack down on homeless encampments is hardly surprising – just look at what’s happening in San Francisco.
But it appears the club’s true aim in all of this is to try and exploit the homelessness crisis in Vegas for a bit of publicity.
The club, on the other hand, tried to spin its decision to hand out tents and clothes as an act of compassion.
“While some seem to think that the solution is a camping ban, we think that the solution is one that includes decency and kindness,” the club said in a statement to a local TV station.
“This just seems like the right thing to do during the holidays.”
Police will start enforcing the new city ordinance on Feb. 2.
Several community members complained to KTNV Las Vegas about the inappropriate strip club merchandise. One local mother said her small children asked about the tents after driving by.
The woman said she was surprised by the sight of the “disgusting” and “immoral” tents.
Fortunately for Deja Vu, it looks like that $50,000 it spent on merchandise was marketing money well spent. Because according to another old saying: there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
In fact, we imagine the club was deliberately courting this kind of controversy when it decided on the campaign.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 15:45 - Is The TRACED Act "The Best Thing To Come Out Of Washington This Decade"?
Is The TRACED Act "The Best Thing To Come Out Of Washington This Decade"?
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
Recent legislation to halt unwanted robocalls may be the best thing to come out of Washington in over a decade. This is providing it proves effective in stopping or at least substantially reducing those annoying calls that cause our phones to ring several times a week. The House of Representatives approved the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or the TRACED Act, earlier this month. Now with the Senate voting unanimously to pass it, the bill is on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature.
The TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act)was sponsored by Senators John Thune (R-SD), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). Its purpose is to combat robocalls with stronger deterrents. As the volume of illegal calls has increased, so has the attention of regulators. They are especially concerned about calls from scammers who target vulnerable people, such as the elderly, to steal their personal information.
Nobody Wants These Call!
In a piece titled; “Nobody Wants Your Robocall, Louie! – Stop Calling Me!” published in the middle of 2017 I bashed Washington for not taking action to end the robocall assault on the American people. Like many people, after being constantly bothered by nuisance calls and machine-generated messages I was past angry. Even a lying politician would have difficulty presenting an argument giving any merit to allowing people’s lives to be disrupted by such calls. Adding injury to insult is the fact is that we are paying for this intrusion into our lives every time we pay our phone bill.
This legislation placing as much $10,000 per call.fine upon those behind what are obviously unwanted robocalls will reduce the incentive for companies to widely cast upon society their self-serving agenda. Before I declare this a significant win for consumers I want to see whether the Federal Communications Commission will or can actually enforce this law and get the job done.
The TRACED Act requires phone companies to block robocalls at no charge to customers. They must also adopt call authentication technologies so carriers can verify that incoming calls are legitimate before they reach consumers’ phones. This builds on preventative measures taken by the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai, who recently announced that the commission would move to criminalize international robocalls and spam texts.
You would think that even a few high profile convictions would reduce the number of unwanted calls generated by machines. These calls are designed not to inform but to benefit a few at the expense of the many. Like many Americans, I have found that even being registered on the “no-call list” has proven ineffective in halting this intrusion into my life. I sill continue to get annoying recordings from Heather, Sara, or Rachael claiming she represents a credit card service center or inquiring about my student loan that doesn’t exist.
After spending hundreds of billions of dollar on agencies such as the NSA it is difficult to think America does not have in place the expertise and apparatus to track down and identify the perpetrators of these calls. Considering Washington is filled with elected officials that do little but annoy, debate, pander, and suck the blood out of us, trying to stop these calls is the least they can do. We should remember that both politicians and those who support them have used robocalls as a way to get their message to a public who they see as only a phone call away. Here, I’m referring to the calls during elections that sport political campaign messages.
I find little comfort in knowing I’m not the only person suffering this barrage of unwanted calls. On average, about 167 million robocalls per day were made from January to November of this year, according to the YouMail Robocall Index. That totals more than 50 billion robocalls. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “This bill represents a unique legislative effort that is not only bipartisan at its core, but it’s nearly unanimously supported in Congress.” Please forgive me if I remain dubious of whether anything will change. I will consider this legislation successful only after the calls have stopped. My question is why in the hell did it take so long to write such legislation and get it passed?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 15:15 - China's Imports Of US Soy Soar To 20 Month High As Food Inflation Explodes
China's Imports Of US Soy Soar To 20 Month High As Food Inflation Explodes
One year after China did not import even one ounce of US soybeans as the trade feud was escalating at the end of 2018, in November 2019, China – which has found itself roiled by soaring food prices – saw its imports of US soybeans surge to the highest in 20 months after more American cargoes cleared customs ahead of the alleged signing of the Phase One trade deal in January.
According to data from China’s Customs Administration, China’s inbound shipments from the U.S. more than doubled to 2.6 million tons, the highest since March 2018, and up from about 1.1 million tons in October. As noted above, in November of 2018 – when the trade war between the two nations was escalating rapidly – China imported no U.S. soybeans.
As Bloomberg notes, citing USDA data, China’s total commitments in the current marketing year hit 10.5 million tons, compared with just 2 million tons the previous year.
That said, the surge in US soybean imports was not some trade war concession aimed at the US because as US imports jumped, so did China’s imports from its top Latin American markets: specifically, in November, China bought bought 3.9 million tons of soybeans from Brazil, Beijing’s largest supplier, up from 3.8 million tons in October and 5.1 million tons in November last year; imports from Argentina also rose from 959,936 tons in October to 1.4 million tons, and up from a tiny 36,119 tons in November last year.
According to China’s National Grain and Oils Information Center, December imports may climb to about 9 million tons following more shipments from U.S., which could ease supply shortages at some crushers.
And while China is unlikely to order less soybean from either Brazil or Argentina any time soon as the two nations have emerged as the two key supply chain alternatives to the US, where any trade goodwill may be undone with stroke of a tweet, Bloomberg notes that Chinese companies are likely to continue purchasing American soybeans especially if the two countries sign the partial trade deal in early January, in line with the market’s expectations.
There is also China’s desperation to repopulate its decimated pig population and to do that, Beijing needs access to all the soybeans it can get. It explains why China has been issuing regular tariff waivers (which cover 30% of the retaliatory tariffs on US soybeans) for domestic firms to buy U.S. soybeans.
That said, China was quick to pretend like the surge in US soybean purchases was in fact some concession, and shortly after the news of the import jump hit, China’s infamous twitter troll, Global Times editor Hu Xijin, tweeted “congrats to US farmers” adding a tacit threat that US farmers should “prod” the US government to sign the Phase One deal if they want China’s vital goodwill to continue, to wit: “meanwhile please prod the US government, making sure the two countries can sign phase one deal smoothly and the next trade talks continue to make progress. This is vital to stabilize China’s purchase of US farm products.”
Congrats to US farmers. Meanwhile please prod the US government, making sure the two countries can sign phase one deal smoothly and the next trade talks continue to make progress. This is vital to stabilize China’s purchase of US farm products. https://t.co/cPycSBlNSQ
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) December 25, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
What he really meant was that China, where we will soon need a bigger chart to show soaring food hyperinflation (and middle-class anger at surging good prices) is desperate to buy US agricultural products to keep prices lower, and with every passing months, Trump’s negotiating leverage rises in lockstep with Chinese food inflation.
He also really meant “congrats to Chinese farmers” for procuring the soybeans they so urgently need if they are to have any hope of restocking China’s most popular protein: pork.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 14:45 - A Majority Of US Adults Say 'Die Hard' Is Not A Christmas Movie
A Majority Of US Adults Say 'Die Hard' Is Not A Christmas Movie
For some movie buffs, it’s an argument that arises every holiday season: Is “Die Hard” starring Bruce Willis a Christmas movie?
After all, it takes place during a holiday office party, there’s Christmas music and it snows at the end. But then again, as Statista’s Maria Vultaggio notes, “Die Hard” is an action movie, was released as a summer blockbuster and centers around an extremist who was recently excommunicated from a West German political terrorist group.
According to a poll by YouGov, barely 20 percent of people polled said “Die Hard” was a Christmas movie. The survey, conducted December 15, 2017, questioned 4,340 U.S. adults.
You will find more infographics at Statista
As far as the stars are concerned, Willis said the film wasn’t a Christmas movie during a Comedy Central Roast in 2018, while screenwriter Steven E. de Souza tweeted the opposite in 2017.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 14:15 - The Wealth Redistribution Scam that Is "Inflation"
The Wealth Redistribution Scam that Is "Inflation"
Authored by Thortsen Polleit via The Mises Institute,
The world over people are told that central banks pursue “price stability” by making sure that consumer goods prices do not rise by more than 2 percent per annum. This is, of course, a big sham. If the prices of goods rise over time, it does not take that much to understand that prices do not remain stable. And if the prices of goods increase over time, it necessarily means that the purchasing power of the money unit declines.
As money loses its purchasing power, income and wealth are stealthily redistributed. Some individuals and groups of people are enriched at the expense of others. Savers and workers are swindled out of their deserved income and retirement benefits, while those who own goods that rise in value or who borrow money typically reap a windfall profit. Clearly, the banking industry is a major beneficiary of monetary debasement.
“Inflation” Is a Rise in the Quantity of Money
Central banks are the very source of the phenomenon that all prices of goods tend to rise over time. They hold the money production monopoly and increase — in close cooperation with commercial banks — the outstanding quantity of money through credit expansion, an increase in the supply of credit that is not backed by real savings. It goes without saying that it is rather profitable to be active in the money-production business.
The increase in the quantity of money results, and necessarily so, in higher prices compared to a situation in which the quantity of money has not been increased. This is no arbitrary assertion but stems from logical reasoning: a rise in people’s money holding lowers the marginal utility of the additional money unit, meaning that the marginal utility of other goods that can be exchanged against money rises.
Consider the case in which the quantity of money in the hands of market agents rises. People will then exchange money balances (which have, from the viewpoint of the money holder, lost in marginal utility) against other vendible items (which have gone up in marginal utility). As people exchange money units against other goods, money prices go up (compared to a situation in which the quantity of money has not been increased).
The Mainstream Explanation and Its Problems
Of course, in real life additional factors (such as, for instance, demand changes, market introduction of new products, etc.) interfere with the link between the increase in the quantity of money and the rising prices of goods. This, however, by no means refutes the economic insight that a rise in the quantity of money in the economy leads to goods prices that will be higher than if the quantity of money not been increased.
The increase in the quantity of money is what deserves to be called inflation; rising prices are just a possible symptom of an increase in the quantity of money. However, mainstream economists typically define inflation as rising consumer goods prices. This, however, is problematic for at least two reasons. First, by equating inflation with rising prices, the real reason for higher prices, namely the rise in the quantity of money, is obscured.
This, in turn, gives rise to arbitrary explanations of why goods prices may go up: sheikhs who force up oil prices, unions that cause wages to rise, an overall buoyant economy that creates shortages in production factors, and so forth. All these pseudo-explanations deflect from the real culprit — the central bank, in cooperation with commercial banks, which issues new money, so that people no longer understand who, in fact, harms them.
Asset Price Inflation
Second, changes in consumer goods prices do not tell us the entire story, for they do not take into account asset prices such as, for instance, stock prices, housing prices, and land prices. However, the newly injected money can be expected to not only push up consumer goods prices, but also drive up asset prices. And like rising consumer prices, rising asset prices diminish the purchasing power of money.
In other words: asset price inflation destroys the purchasing power of money in the same way that price inflation of consumer goods does. Take, for instance, stock market prices. If prices rise from, say, $100 to $200, the purchasing power of the money unit would drop by 50 percent. The owner of the stock becomes richer, while the holder of dollars become poorer. In fact, this is precisely what has been happening in the last decades.
For illustrative purposes, let us take a look at the chart above. It shows the development of the US quantity of money, nominal GDP, and stock prices from 1996 to autumn 2019. In the period under review, the US nominal GDP increased by 4.3 percent per annum on average. The quantity of money rose by 6.1 percent, while stock prices expanded by 8.1 percent. To the attentive observer, these numbers contain an important message.
The increase in the money supply does not only raise prices of consumer goods, but also tends to raise all prices. For instance, in the period under review, on average, the real GDP in the US rose around 1.9 percent per year while prices of goods and services that are included in US GDP went up by 2.4 percent. The remaining “excess money” obviously pushed up stock prices and other asset prices such as for instance, housing prices.
Don’t Put Your Trust in Today’s (Fiat) Money
The lessons to learn are these: always think of inflation as a rise in the quantity of money. Be aware that central banks and commercial banks provide a kind of money that does not keep its purchasing power — that most people suffer losses when holding it for the purpose of storing wealth. Better not to put your trust in today’s money and keep your transaction balances as small as possible. Don’t be taken in by the inflation sham.
The insights outlined above should encourage all of us to join the call for better, sound money — money that lives up to the highest economic and ethical standards. This can be achieved by simply creating a free market in money, where people are free to choose the kind of money they would like to use, and where entrepreneurial spirits are free to make their fellow people sound-money offers.
A free market in money — which would be tantamount to putting an end to central banks’ money production monopolies — is actually easy to establish. Just strip the official currency of its privileged “legal tender” status and remove all capital gain and sales taxes on all media that stand an excellent chance to compete for becoming currency — most notably gold and silver but potentially also crypto units.
A free market in money will work wonders. Many of the evils that haunt our world today — be they chronic price inflation, financial and economic crises, boom-and-bust cycles, and even over-funded governments and aggressive wars, would be greatly reduced. One of the biggest challenges of our time is to reform our money. The solution is to open up the market in money.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 13:30 - Watch Rapper Make It Rain On Skid Row Homeless – An Important Lesson For The Fed
Watch Rapper Make It Rain On Skid Row Homeless – An Important Lesson For The Fed
The Federal Reserve might want to take some pointers from Rapper Blueface of how to preform helicopter drops in low-income neighborhoods ahead of the next downturn.
The 22-year old rapper was seen standing on top of a black Mercedes-Benz G-Class in the middle of Los Angeles’ Skid Row, injecting money into the local economy via a direct transfer to low-income folks and the homeless.
The rapper was seen in the video throwing wads of cash into the air, with dozens of people scouring around the vehicle to collect as many bills as they could.
According to RT News, it wasn’t entirely clear what domination the bills were and or how much cash the rapper gave away in the helicopter drop.
The video first surfaced on Blueface’s Twitter account on Dec. 23.
The season of giving 💰 pic.twitter.com/paGrYB6WKo
— blueface (@bluefacebleedem) December 23, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The video received mixed reviews with one Twitter user saying, “Way to demean them. You could have handed it out in a decent way that wasn’t so dehumanizing. Someone could have been seriously injured because of your stunt.”
Another user said, “damn bruh you could’ve made it look a little less ghetto.”
One user said, “Handing them the money wasn’t an option? Instead, you literally stand on top of them and throw it at them and make them scavenge for it….bro your buggin.”
Apparently, it’s the season of giving, something the Fed will be doing once the next recession strikes. They will be financing People’s Quantitative Easing in the form of direct transfers to citizens that will hopefully thwart a Hong Kong-style revolt against elites.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 12:45 - How Economics Can Ruin Christmas, In A Good Way
How Economics Can Ruin Christmas, In A Good Way
Authored by Art Carden via The American Institute for Economic Research,
Some time ago, I resigned myself to the fact that economists are the wet blankets of the world. We can ruin almost any proposal and almost any situation with just a couple of analytical tools and the words “unintended consequences.” Rent control? It causes shortages and hurts poor people. Minimum wages? They reduce employment and hurt poor people. Laws against “price gouging?” They also cause shortages and hurt poor people. Interventions, regulations, and subsidies that were supposed to make housing and higher education more affordable and thereby make the world a kinder, gentler, more prosperous place? We’re seeing how that’s working out right now. You get the idea: the list of dreams that have been dashed upon the rocks of the principles of economics is long indeed.
Not content to ruin the dreams of a few idealists, economists turned their attention to Christmas a few years ago. Here are a few thoughts from the Dismal Science that rain on the holiday parade.
1. You Shouldn’t Have. No, Really. You Shouldn’t Have.
The classic salvo in the literature on the economics of Christmas is Joel Waldfogel’s “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas,” which provides a bit of evidence that people would be happier if you gave them cash instead of an equally-expensive present. Yes, it’s the thought that counts, but how many of us have given (or gotten) gifts that have ended up in an end-of-year Goodwill donation or a Spring yard sale?Today In: Business
We learned this first-hand at a family holiday party that involved a white elephant gift exchange. Everyone went home happy, but one participant (an Alabama fan) opened a box of Auburn stuff, another (an Auburn fan) opened Alabama stuff, and one of the gifts I (an Alabama fan) opened was an LSU cap. Again, everything worked out in the end, but the initial distribution was incredibly inefficient.
The spectacular wealth we enjoy today has created the epitome of a first-world problem: over-gifting. It used to be that giving a gift required a meaningful material sacrifice. Today, baubles are so cheap that our problem isn’t a lack of generosity. It’s poorly-channeled generosity. You have probably heard people joke that kids are usually more interested in the boxes the toys come in than the toys themselves.
You might have seen this Wired article listing “the 5 best toys of all time:” boxes, string, cardboard tubes, sticks, and dirt. As a father of a three-year-old and an 18-month-old, I can attest that this is most definitely true. At the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch learns that Christmas doesn’t come from a store. The Grinch learns that Christmas means a little bit more. As we head down the Christmas stretch, it’s a lesson we should take to heart.
2. Your Church or Civic Organization Should Probably Cancel Next Year’s Holiday Food and Toy Drives.
In a post that made my economist’s heart grow three sizes, Matt Yglesias explains “Why food drives are a terrible idea.” Most importantly, there’s no free lunch. Actually going out and getting the food is itself costly, sorting it is costly, and distributing it is costly. As Yglesias explains, charities can probably alleviate a lot more hunger if you give them $20 in cash rather than $20 worth of creamed corn.
Throughout his research, F.A. Hayek emphasized the knowledge problem and explained how markets utilize and disperse knowledge that can’t be known or articulated by a single mind. Collecting and distributing canned comfort and joy runs into the same problem. People know their own preferences better than you do. The creamed corn might be a nice gesture, but what if the recipient is allergic to corn?
3. Economics is Like The Transformers: There’s More Than Meets the Eye.
No doubt, someone reading this is and saying “well, if you looked in the eyes of the people who are being helped, you would understand.” Hear me out, though. Economics emphasizes the unintended and unseen consequences of different actions. Suppose you could feed two hungry children with the same effort you’re currently using to feed one. Would you want to know how?
If we’re honest with ourselves, we will see some of the ways in which Christmas lays bare our hypocrisy. You’ve probably heard someone say “don’t give until it hurts; give until it feels good,” and again, I think that if we’re really honest with ourselves a lot of our charitable endeavors have less to do helping the least of these among us than with showing that we’re the kind of people who care about the least of these among us. I’ve written before that “let not your left hand know what your right is doing” is not merely a sound Biblical injunction regarding our giving. It’s also excellent economics. If you haven’t read about people anonymously paying off others’ layaway accounts at Kmarts around the country, it’s an excellent example of what I’m talking about.
4. That Impulse Purchase won’t “Help the Economy.”
We consume about two-thirds of national output every year, and it is true that production takes place with the goal of generating goods and services that make people happy. At the same time, consumption per se does not create sustainable economic growth. “Spend more” is an intuitive-but-wrong prescription for what ails the American economy. While purchasing a greater assortment of trinkets and baubles might pad retailers’ and manufacturers’ bottom line in the short run, they leave us with fewer unconsumed resources with which to build the economy of tomorrow.*
5. Peace on Earth and Goodwill To Men Can Be Enjoyed and Deployed More Effectively.
Intending to help people isn’t the same as actually helping people. Good intentions and a few dollars will get you a cup of coffee, if you’re lucky: “good intentions” channeled through pathological institutions might leave you saddled with a body count. In one of the most provocative books I read this year, Timothy Keller explains how Generous Justice is more than just giving stuff away. It’s a lifestyle decision that requires getting meaningfully involved in the lives of others. Over the long run, this is likely to be far more effective than simply bunching all of our benevolence into a few frenzied weeks.
As a mentor has told me, economics shows us that it is very difficult to be charitable in ways that actually benefit the people we’re trying to help. Some people might find this sad–dismal, even. I actually think it’s kind of liberating because it suggests that–at the risk of being dramatic–a better world is possible. A new paradigm for charity and justice will require a lot of thinking outside the donation box. With Christmas 2019 and a brand new year right around the corner, it’s a challenge I look forward to meeting head-on.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/25/2019 – 12:10
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