May 26

Today’s News 26th May 2021

  • Visualizing The Copper Intensity Of Renewable Energy
    Visualizing The Copper Intensity Of Renewable Energy

    The world is moving away from fossil fuels, towards large-scale adoption of clean energy technologies.

    Building these technologies is a mineral-intensive process. From aluminum and chromium to rare earths and cobalt, as Visual Capitalist details below, the energy transition is creating massive demand for a range of minerals.

    Copper is one such mineral, which stands out due to its critical role in building both the technologies as well as the infrastructure that allows us to harness their power.

    The above infographic from Trilogy Metals highlights the role of copper in renewable energy, and how the adoption of wind and solar energy will affect its demand going forward.

    Copper’s Role in Renewable Energy

    Copper has one of the highest thermal and electrical conductivity of all metals. As a result, it’s the most widely-used mineral among energy technologies and is essential for all electricity-related infrastructure.

    According to Navigant Research, here’s how much copper wind and solar farms use per megawatt:

    Solar photovoltaics (PV) primarily rely on copper for cabling, wiring, and heat exchange due to its efficiency in conducting heat and electricity. Wind energy technologies make use of the red metal in their turbines, cables, and transformers. Offshore wind farms typically use larger amounts because they are connected to land via long undersea cables that are made of copper.

    In addition, copper is also a key part of the grid networks that transmit electricity from power plants to our homes. With the increasing adoption of renewable energy, the demand for copper will only grow.

    Copper Intensity of the Energy Transition

    According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), solar and wind energy installations need to scale up significantly under their REmap scenario, in which efforts are made to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees by 2050.

    Based on the copper content figures from Navigant Research and IRENA’s required capacity projections, here are the copper requirements for annual solar and wind installations in 2020 and 2050:

    Copper content figures were calculated by multiplying copper content per MW in tonnes with annual installed capacities in 2020 and 2050.

    Relative to 2020 levels, annual copper demand from solar PV installations could more than double by 2030, and almost triple by 2050. The largest percentage increase in copper requirements comes from offshore wind farms. IRENA’s REmap scenario requires 45,000 MW of annual offshore wind installations in 2050, which translates into 432,000 tonnes of copper—a 648% increase from 2020 levels.

    By 2050, annual copper demand from wind and solar technologies could exceed 3 million tonnes or around 15% of 2020 copper production. However, it isn’t clear whether we will have enough supply of copper to meet this growing demand.

    Will Supply Meet Demand?

    According to Citigroup, the global copper market is expected to be in a 521,000 tonne deficit in 2021—and the transition to renewables is still in its early stages.

    While the demand for copper comes from a range of industries, the majority of its supply comes from a few regions, making the supply chain susceptible to disruptions. Mine shutdowns in 2020 exemplified this, as copper production fell by around 500,000 tonnes.

    Additionally, average ore grades in Chile, the largest producer of copper, have fallen by 30% over the last 15 years, making it more difficult to mine copper.

    Although copper is available in abundance, declining ore grades and concentrated production are a cause for concern, especially as demand rises. Therefore, new sources of copper will be valuable in meeting the growing material needs of the clean energy transition.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/26/2021 – 02:45

  • Alternative Version Of Who May Be Behind The Minsk Special Operation
    Alternative Version Of Who May Be Behind The Minsk Special Operation

    Via South Front,

    On May 23, a plane of RyanAir airlines flying from the Athens to Vilnius carried out an emergency landing at the Minsk airport, following a bomb alert. This is widely claimed to be a special operation ordered by President Alexandr Lukashenko aimed at arrest of one of opposition figures Roman Pratasevich, who was on board. However, a closer look at the incident and the newly-released data prove that other forces could be behind this ‘special operation’.

    Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) and his Belarus’ counterpart Alexander Lukashenko walk in as they attend a session of the Supreme State Council of the Union State at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 3, 2015. AFP PHOTO / POOL / SERGEI KARPUKHIN (Photo credit should read SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP/Getty Images)

    Reports about the explosive device on board were not confirmed. Passengers took another flight. Everyone except Protasevich, his girlfriend to whom he handed his personal belongings, including a laptop and a phone, and four Russian citizens, “who were GRU officers for sure “.

    Roman Protasevich is one of the main figures of Belarus opposition, a co-founder of the Telegram channel Nexta that was used for coordination of mass protests since August 2020.

    One of the main proofs that the incident was a planned operation of Belarus special forces is the publication on his Telegram channel of his private message, where cautious Protasevich described a suspicious Russian man, who tried to take a photo of his documents before landing. The authors of the channel consider this as proof that Roman Protasevich began to be followed back in Athens.

    “I was silent, and he turned to me in Russian with some stupid question,” – Protasevich wrote to his friends.

    “Such a middle-aged, fit, with a bald head. In one T-shirt, in light-colored pants and a leather case.”

    A closer look at the chronology of events casts doubts on the claims of a “special operation” of special forces.

    The crew commander of the aircraft of the RyanAir company informed Minsk about the mining on May 23, at 12:50 local time. At that moment the plane was already near the Lituanian border, but the pilots decided to act in accordance with the international security instructions and requested a landing in Minsk.

    A recording of the pilots’ call with the dispatcher has been recently published online. It confirmed that it was pilots’ decision to land in Minsk. At this moment, Minsk airport received an e-mail about the bomb on board. The crew’s decision to land in Minsk was also confirmed by reports from the communications department of the Lithuanian International Airport.

    Immediately after the call, the information was reported to President Lukashenko, who gave the command to take measures and secure the landing. The air forces of Belarus reacted to the emergency in according with international standards. The MIG-29 was following the aircraft in order to provide assistance if necessary.

    As soon as the plane landed, passengers were evacuated, after which sappers and rescue services were deployed. At the same time, passengers were screened in accordance with safety standards.

    Exactly at that moment, a photo of Protasevich appeared online with reports about his arrest. It was published by the assistant of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on his Twitter account. According to reports, the photo was allegedly sent to the “opposition team” by Protasevich’s girlfriend, who was flying with him, for internal use, but they rushed to post it on the Internet even before official reports of his arrest.

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    Meanwhile, the so-called ‘special operation’ was carried out right on the eve of the first offline European Summit, where the European diplomats are going to have a strategic debate on Russia. What a coincidence!

    The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, following the results of the EU summit on May 24, will have to prepare a report on relations with Russia.

    Hype in global media platforms based on accusations of Lukashenko in neglecting international norms and in ‘international terrorism’, is aimed to have an impact on the results of the summit. European countries were going to discuss new restrictions against Minsk before the incident, but after an international scandal, this topic may become the main one on the forum’s agenda.

    The European Union is considering the closure of not only air, but also ground communication with Belarus in response to the actions of President Lukashenko, Bloomberg reported, citing a senior European official close to negotiations on new EU sanctions against Belarus…

    Read the rest of the ‘alternative version’ here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/26/2021 – 02:00

  • CJ Hopkins: Greetings From "New Normal" Germany!
    CJ Hopkins: Greetings From “New Normal” Germany!

    Authored (mostly satirically-ish) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    On April 1, 1933, shortly after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the Nazis staged a boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany. Members of the Storm Troopers (“die Sturmabteilung,” or the “Storm Department,” as I like to think of them) stood around outside of Jewish-owned stores with Gothic-lettered placards reading “Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!”

    The boycott itself was a total disaster — most Germans ignored it and just went on with their lives — but it was the beginning of the official persecution of the Jews and totalitarianism in Nazi Germany.

    Last week, here in “New Normal” Germany, the government (which, it goes without saying, bears no resemblance to the Nazi regime, or any other totalitarian regime) implemented a social-segregation system that bans anyone who refuses to publicly conform to the official “New Normal” ideology from participating in German society. From now on, only those who have an official “vaccination pass” or proof of a negative PCR test are allowed to sit down and eat at restaurants, shop at a “non-essential” stores, or go to bars, or the cinema, or wherever.

    Here’s a notice from the website of Prater, a popular beer garden in Berlin:

    Of course, there is absolutely no valid comparison to be made between these two events, or between Nazi Germany and “New Normal” Germany, nor would I ever imply that there was. That would be illegal in “New Normal” Germany, as it would be considered “relativizing the Holocaust,” not to mention being “anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security,” or whatever. Plus, it’s not like there are SA goons standing outside shops and restaurants with signs reading “Germans! Defend yourselves! Don’t sell to the Unvaccinated and Untested!” It’s just that it’s now illegal to do that, i.e., sell anything to those of us whom the media and the government have systematically stigmatized as “Covid deniers” because we haven’t converted to the new official ideology and submitted to being “vaccinated” or “tested.”

    Protesting the new official ideology is also illegal in “New Normal” Germany. OK, I think I should probably rephrase that. I certainly don’t want to misinform anyone. Protesting the “New Normal” isn’t outlawed per se. You’re totally allowed to apply for a permit to protest against the “Covid restrictions” on the condition that everyone taking part in your protest wears a medical-looking N95 mask and maintains a distance of 1.5 meters from every other medical-masked protester … which is kind of like permitting anti-racism protests as long as the protesters all wear Ku Klux Klan robes and perform a choreographed karaoke of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama.

    Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humor?

    I don’t mean to single out the Germans. There is nothing inherently totalitarian, or fascist, or robotically authoritarian and hyper-conformist about the Germans, as a people. The fact that the vast majority of Germans clicked their heels and started mindlessly following orders, like they did in Nazi Germany, the moment the “New Normal” was introduced last year doesn’t mean that all Germans are fascists by nature. Most Americans did the same thing. So did the British, the Australians, the Spanish, the French, the Canadians, and a long list of others. It’s just that, well, I happen to live here, so I’ve watched as Germany has been transformed into “New Normal Germany” up close and personal, and it has definitely made an impression on me.

    The ease with which the German authorities implemented the new official ideology, and how fanatically it has been embraced by the majority of Germans, came as something of a shock. I had naively believed that, in light of their history, the Germans would be among the first to recognize a nascent totalitarian movement predicated on textbook Goebbelsian Big Lies (i.e., manipulated Covid “case” and “death” statistics), and would resist it en masse, or at least take a moment to question the lies their leaders were hysterically barking at them.

    I couldn’t have been more wrong.

    Here we are, over a year later, and waiters and shop clerks are “checking papers” to enforce compliance with the new official ideology. (And, yes, the “New Normal” is an official ideology. When you strip away the illusion of an apocalyptic plague, there isn’t any other description for it). Perfectly healthy, medical-masked people are lining up in the streets to be experimentally “vaccinated.” Lockdown-bankrupted shops and restaurants have been converted into walk-in “PCR-test stations.” The government is debating mandatory “vaccination” of children in kindergarten. Goon squads are arresting octogenarians for picnicking on the sidewalk without permission. And so on. At this point, I’m just sitting here waiting for the news that mass “disinfection camps” are being set up to solve the “Unvaccinated Question.”

    Whoops … there I go again, “relativizing the Holocaust.” I really need to stop doing that. The Germans take this stuff very seriously, especially with Israel under relentless attack by the desperately impoverished people it has locked inside an enormous walled ghetto, and is self-defensively ethnically cleansing.

    But, seriously, there is no similarity whatsoever between Nazi Germany and “New Normal” Germany.

    Sure, both systems suspended the constitution, declared a national “state of emergency” enabling the government to rule by decree, inundated the masses with insane propaganda and manipulated “scientific facts,” outlawed protests, criminalized dissent, implemented a variety of public rituals, and symbols, and a social segregation system, to enforce compliance with their official ideologies, and demonized anyone who refused to comply … but, other than that, there’s no similarity, and anyone who suggests there is is a dangerous social-deviant extremist who probably needs to be quarantined somewhere, or perhaps dealt with in some other “special” way.

    Plus, the two ideologies are completely different.

    One was a fanatical totalitarian ideology based on imaginary racial superiority and the other is a fanatical totalitarian ideology based on an imaginary “apocalyptic plague” … so what the hell am I even talking about? On top of which, no swastikas, right? No swastikas, no totalitarianism! And nobody’s mass murdering the Jews, that I know of, and that’s the critical thing, after all!

    So, never mind. Just ignore all that crazy stuff I just told you about “New Normal” Germany. Don’t worry about “New Normal” America, either. Or “New Normal” Great Britain. Or “New Normal” wherever.

    Get experimentally “vaccinated.” Experimentally “vaccinate” your kids. Prove your loyalty to the Reich … sorry, I meant to global capitalism. Ignore those reports of people dying and suffering horrible adverse effects. Wear your mask. Wear it forever. God knows what other viruses are out there, just waiting to defile your bodily fluids and cause you to experience a flu-like illness, or cut you down in the prime of your seventies or eighties … and, Jesus, I almost forgot “long Covid.” That in itself is certainly enough to justify radically restructuring society so that it resembles an upscale hospital theme park staffed by paranoid, smiley-faced fascists in fanciful designer Hazmat suits.

    Oh, and keep your “vaccination papers” in order. You never know when you’re going to have to show them to some official at the airport, or a shop, or restaurant, or to your boss, or your landlord, or the police, or your bank, or your ISP, or your Tinder date … or some other “New Normal” authority figure.

    I mean, you don’t want to be mistaken for a “Covid denier,” or an “anti-vaxxer,” or a “conspiracy theorist,” or some other type of ideological deviant, and be banished from society, do you?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 05/26/2021 – 00:05

  • Eating Meat Is The Norm Almost Everywhere
    Eating Meat Is The Norm Almost Everywhere

    On average, 86 percent of people surveyed for the Statista Global Consumer Survey in 39 countries said that their diet contained meat – highlighting, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, that despite the trend around meat substitutes and plant-based products, eating meat remains the norm almost everywhere in the world.

    In only five out of the 39 countries – Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, China and India – fewer than 80 percent of respondents said that they ate meat.

    The latter country had the lowest score at 43 percent meat eaters. China, which had the second-lowest result in the survey, still counted 75 percent of respondents saying they ate meat.

    Infographic: Eating Meat Is the Norm Almost Everywhere | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    India’s penchant for vegetarian fare is connected to Brahmanism or Vedic religion, a belief system connected to the caste of Brahmans, which are highly regarded in the Indian caste system, making vegetarianism equally desirable.

    In Western countries, vegetarianism is more often tied to environmental concerns or concerns over unethical practices in meat production.

    To satisfy the hunger for meat, 333 million tons of meat were produced worldwide in 2020. Because meat consumption typically increases as countries grow wealthier, that number has been rising.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 23:45

  • Fusion GPS Is Losing The Fight To Keep Its Records Secret
    Fusion GPS Is Losing The Fight To Keep Its Records Secret

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

    There’s a fight brewing in a DC federal court over Fusion GPS’s internal correspondence and records. And they’re losing.

    Background

    In 2017, the owners of Alfa Bank (we’ll call them Alfa Bank for the purposes of this article) sued Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson for their publication of false statements accusing Alfa Bank of “bribery, extortion, and interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.”

    Now, the Alfa Bank is on offense. They have filed a motion to compel, asking the Court to require Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson to produce nearly 500 critically important documents improperly withheld as privileged.

    Fusion/Simpson have fought the production of the documents, arguing that they are subject to the “attorney-client privilege” and otherwise privileged and not subject to production.

    These are weak legal arguments – and the attorneys for Alfa Bank recognize it. First, Fusion/Simpson previously admitted the purpose of their work was political, and not for the purposes of any ongoing litigation.

    Alfa Bank further observes that Glenn Simpson has even testified that the purpose of his work was pure politics, saying his goal was to “to expose an opponent’s vulnerabilities, provide source material for the media, and feed attack ads.”

    As their motion argues:

    Perkins Coie did not engage Defendants to perform legal or litigation-focused work; rather, Defendants have admitted (and publicly boasted) that Perkins Coie engaged Defendants in a “political context” to perform “political work.”

    Second, even if these 500 documents were subject to the attorney-client privilege (and they most certainly are not), that privilege was waived when Simpson/Fusion leaked their research to third parties, including the media and government officials.

    One has to be curious about exactly why Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson are putting up such a fight to keep these 500 documents hidden. We think it’s because thus far, the public hasn’t seen the communications between Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS/Glenn Simpson or the internal Fusion GPS correspondence.

    What are they hiding? Let’s take a look.

    During the Alfa Bank litigation, attorneys for Fusion/Simpson have filed “privilege logs,” which give brief explanations on the type of document and the privilege that prevents its disclosure.

    By their very nature, privilege logs don’t reveal much information.

    What we see in the latest court filings, however, is that Fusion/Simpson want to keep secret e-mails and attachments that include their ongoing research and likely their internal observations about strategy and the veracity of their work/sources.

    For example, recall that Christopher Steele was the source of a Mother Jones article titled “A Veteran Spy has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump.”

    The David Corn article (which led to the FBI’s “termination” of Steele as an “official” source) was a cause of a lengthy e-mail chain (excerpt below) at Fusion GPS. This discussion even included the obtuse anti-Trump/Barr writer Lloyd Green. (Not that Lloyd Green is important, but more that the outsider included in the e-mails defeats their privilege argument.)

    The privilege log further reveals Fusion GPS correspondence on August 30, 2016 regarding the Alfa Bank/Trump allegations. Internal Fusion GPS e-mails mention the“Alfa Playbook.” Two months later, Slate would run the false allegations that a Trump server having nefarious communications with Alfa Bank servers.  

    The Slate article would become a popular topic within Fusion GPS.

    Additionally, the privilege logs reveal the existence of May 2016 correspondence among Fusion GPS employees/principals, including Glenn Simpson, regarding their early work on Trump/Russia.

    Fusion/Simpson are also keeping secret the communications from January 11, 2016 between Fusion GPS and Michael Sussman of Perkins Coie, which would reveal the history of the relationship – and possibly any prior work – that Fusion GPS did on behalf of the DNC’s law firm.

    The privilege logs show us the early work on the Carter Page research from late July 2016. (This was after the FBI met with Christopher Steele in early July 2016 and before the FBI “officially” opened Crossfire Hurricane.)

    Other Info

    Documents filed in support of Alfa Bank’s efforts to compel production of the Fusion GPS records show a timeline of the Fusion leaks to reporters. (Much of this info on the leaks is public knowledge.) This was provided by the attorneys for Fusion/Simpson.

    Final Thoughts

    We find it highly likely that Alfa Bank gets their hands on most of the 500 documents they believe to be critically important. The Fusion/Simpson privilege arguments are rather weak.

    We’ll continue to follow this case closely. If Fusin/Simpson are required to produce these documents, there’s no telling if Alfa Bank will file them with the court or otherwise release them. But we’ll be publishing them if they do.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 23:25

  • Pilots Tell Israeli News Channel They Flattened Gaza Buildings To "Vent Frustration"
    Pilots Tell Israeli News Channel They Flattened Gaza Buildings To “Vent Frustration”

    According to a report in Israel’s prominent Channel 12 news outlet, multiple Israeli pilots which were engaged in bombing operations over Gaza during this month’s eleven days of fighting voiced that they often leveled entire buildings to “vent frustration”. 

    A series of pilots were interviewed under anonymity so they’d be willing to speak more freely on things like the controversial ‘roof tapping’ procedure which warns residents in buildings to get out minutes before they are pummeled, as well as the air force’s techniques for entirely flattening buildings. 

    Al-Sharouk tower collapses, via AFP/Getty

    A total of nine high-rise buildings had essentially collapsed in their own footprints during the bombardment, including the al-Jalaa media building which housed Associated Press and Al Jazeera offices. This would often involve a series of precision strikes at specific angles aimed at a structure’s base. Additionally multiple hospitals and other health facilities had also been hit during the aerial campaign which in all took 248 Palestinian lives, among these 66 children, and wounding close to 2,000 more. 

    One Israeli pilot, identified only as “Major D” in the Channel 12 report, stunned by saying he sought to intentionally level entire towers as “a way to vent frustration” over Hamas’ rocket fire and attacks on Jewish Israelis. 

    “I went on a mission to carry out air strikes with a feeling that destroying the towers is a way to vent frustration over what is happening to us and over the success of the groups in Gaza,” the pilot explained according to a translation in Middle East Eye. Major D added: “We failed to stop the rocket fire and to harm the leadership of these groups, so we destroyed the towers.”

    The report further detailed that Israel’s military says the intent of such tower-leveling actions is “to damage Hamas assets” but also “to deter the terrorist organizations in Gaza from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli cities.”

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    As for the rocket count from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Israel’s defense ministry has tallied nearly 4,000 rockets over the period between May 10 and May 21 – after which the current ceasefire (which is over 5 days in) took effect.

    While many of these rockets were brought down by the Iron Dome anti-air system, which the US has committed to replenishing for its closest Mideast ally, an unprecedented number scored hits in urban and residential areas, killing 12 civilians and injuring hundreds. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 23:05

  • Bhandari: Inside India's "Hunger Games"
    Bhandari: Inside India’s “Hunger Games”

    Authored by Jayant Bhandari via Acting-Man.com,

    Scavengers Out in Full Force

    I have just returned from a visit to my family in India. It was hard to escape. To get to the US from India, I needed a COVID test. The Indian government has seriously restricted who can provide COVID testing, treatment, and vaccination. Private doctors and hospitals that are not approved face brutal legal consequences if they provide COVID treatment.

    India’s experience with the COVID pandemic was particularly unpleasant… [PT]

    Emergency powers were centralized early last year in the hands of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. He gave himself direct control over the bureaucrats of the states, making local governments largely impotent and dependent on him.

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    In their supreme wisdom, government bureaucrats concluded that because the prefix “COVID-” exists in treatment, vaccination, and testing, they must all be performed at the same place. For my test, I sat in a petri dish of COVID, with those coming out positive sitting right next to me. Desperate, vulnerable old people, who merely wanted to get their jabs, sat among us. Those who were sick for reasons other than COVID were among us too, for the government has required everyone who is sick to be tested for COVID first .

    A microcosm of how everything is done in India, the tests were given haphazardly, with samples getting mixed up, nurses spending most of their time fighting among themselves, and — lacking a lineup system — people crowded together, pushing and breathing into the mouths of one another.

    A few days earlier, the government had given notice of the rate of tests and further restricted where they could be performed. A bribe-taking system would have been my preference to bypass government restrictions, but no such system has evolved yet. Nevertheless, corruption has exploded, and self-centeredness, apathy, a dog-eat-dog environment has come to the surface. You see this everywhere; the scavengers are out in full force.

    I went to a private COVID hospital. The situation in government hospitals is far worse, beyond my capacity to cope with it.

    The World’s Worst Lockdown

    Yet the story of COVID in India is hardly about COVID as such, which is nothing more than a trigger. More than twice as many people died of fairly easily treatable tuberculosis in 2020 than of COVID. Instead, this is a story of foolish rulers, completely hollowed out institutions, and a pathetically irrational and tribal society.

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    The lockdown that India declared in March 2020 was the world’s most atrocious. It was a nationwide curfew, with no-one allowed to leave home, not even to shop for groceries. The police destroyed grocery shops that dared to open. It took the government a couple of days to realize that people needed to buy food — the original decision had been a shot from the hip, completely bereft of any effort to think things through. During the four-month curfew, the police ruthlessly beat up people, particularly those who looked poor. Trains, flights, and all transportation had come to a complete, grinding halt.

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    Many people relished to no end that they were allowed to restrict and abuse others, doing so by masquerading as do-gooders with the support of the law, inflicting pain on those who did not resist and taking the appalling results in stride. They then experienced elevated, sadistic, perhaps even sexual pleasure. As always, the exploiters and the exploited were two sides of the same coin, though forever interchangeable — the reason why India never finds an escape from its drudgery.

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    When people were allowed to go out grocery shopping, the government required shops to open for limited hours each day, as if the virus were more dangerous at other hours. This led to overcrowding — so the opening hours were restricted further! Soon shops were instructed to open only for a limited number of days each week. After a year of this policy, the government is still unsure why crowding has continued to worsen.

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    The country has actually been barricaded, making it look like a war zone, with many roads and highways entirely closed off. The remaining streets have only one side open for two-way traffic, leading to numerous head-on collisions. The barricades are not fluorescent, a technology that Indian safety experts have yet to appreciate.

    Train services are minimal, and only a very limited number of security lineups is open at airports. The government believes this promotes social distancing. Wherever one is permitted to go, one is facing neck-to-neck over-crowding.

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    With the city barricaded, it took me forever to get to the airport. To protect politicians (from COVID and increasingly from irate citizens), large areas where they live have been completely closed off. Sick people cannot find a way to get to the hospital, although only those keen on dying should actually go there.

    Shortages Everywhere

    No hospital that is allowed to dispense COVID treatment has the beds, oxygen, or medicine available. Not one. A single dose of critical medicine, otherwise sold for $10, is selling for as much as $1,000. I even heard a price of $7,000. Oxygen cylinders, usually priced at around $10, today go for as much as $1,000, if you can find them. It is worth remembering that more than 80% of Indians live on less than $2 a day.

    While people are desperately looking for oxygen cylinders, those savvy enough have stockpiled them and medicines at home. What would have been a slight shortage has snowballed into a complete disappearance from the market. So bad is the situation that people in top political positions are pleading for them on social media. One person I know had to get the governor of his state to let his relative be given priority in cremation.

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    Getting an ambulance (which is no more than a broken taxi with a metallic stretcher) for a short ride, can cost many hundreds of dollars, in some cases running into thousands. Those who haven’t lived in India may find it hard to imagine, but this is not unique to these COVID days. India has never had a functioning ambulance system. That is why hundreds of thousands lacking help to get to the hospital die in the streets every year.

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    But this is not a compassionate country. I was brought up in India, but I learned the meaning of “compassion” only when I left the country. During the past year, the police have brutalized many people in India, but not one Indian court has taken a suo motu interest in charging the police. Justice is merely some words scribbled on parchment.

    Early this year, when Indian COVID cases were falling rapidly, there were talks about how the use of turmeric in Indian food, cow urine and dung in “treatment,” the “goodness of Indian genes,” and India’s “ancient, spiritual civilization” were behind the success. India was advertising itself as the savior of the world.

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    In fact – if facts mean anything –  the Indian diet is among the worst in the world, full of carbohydrates, sugar and oil, and poor in nutrients and proteins. It is the kind of diet that makes one susceptible to chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. And a year of lockdown has seriously reduced the health of everyone. Those who could afford to sit at home gained weight, lost general immunity, and did not exercise. Poor people became much poorer, victims of massive unemployment and relatively high inflation. The beggars on the street remind one of the impoverished 1980s.

    Hospitals Are For Dying

    India has 0.5 hospital beds per 1,000 people, a fraction of what is required — only 5% of hospital beds are in ICUs. Even before COVID hit, Indian hospitals were overflowing with patients. They occupied every single bed, often with more than one person in every bed, and the space in corridors and between the gate and the buildings. I have never seen this any other way.

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    Doctors and nurses are very ill-trained, lack competence, and are arrogant and heavy-handed. It is natural selection; the better ones tend to leave for the West. I have never been to a hospital — not even a private one — where work flowed correctly. My earliest memory of visiting a hospital is of two nurses giggling when one had given a wrong injection to a patient.

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    Many years ago, someone I was helping out ended up in a government hospital. The doctor wanted to amputate his hand, for it was the easiest thing to do. We had to smuggle him out by bribing the policeman to a private hospital where his bones, with some work, could be set in place. Also, many years back, my granddad died, struggling for oxygen. He had gone to a private hospital, in his scooter, for a minor checkup. They ended up doing a few operations on him. While he struggled, the two doctors argued about how the pressure difference provided oxygen and drained urine.

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    The Indian medical system is one big orgy of doctors exchanging commissions for cross-referring to each other and getting laboratory tests done, making it the most corrupt sector of Indian society, worse than the government itself. Organ harvesting is not unknown. You go to an Indian hospital to die — and absolutely every Indian has stories to tell about this.

    Lacking a functioning legal system, killer hospitals and doctors face no consequences. Today, given the new rules, COVID patients are removed from the sight of their families, ensuring that apathetic medical workers can do whatever they want.

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    Oxygen is very easy and cheap to produce, but even that has been in shortage forever. The sight of patients sitting outside hospitals with their oxygen cylinders is common and always has been. One must have government approvals to run, operate, and supply oxygen. Indian hospitals — even the big ones — do not have oxygen-producing plants.

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    Merchants of Death and Grotesquely Stupid Rulers

    India, of course, doesn’t have a clue what crisis management is about, which is the primary reason behind today’s crisis. COVID is merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Lacking a crisis management unit or reflective thought, “managers” miss the fact that a slight shortage of critically needed items can create massive deficits as people start hoarding these essentials. Indians who are sane are ensuring that they keep their sick relatives outside the hospital system and are setting up improvised ICUs at home.

    A few years ago there was a lot of talk about India providing medical tourism. Then it disappeared from the map, for those who did go to India for treatment realized that they were taking huge risks with their lives. Indian government hospitals exist only in name; Indian private hospitals are cesspits of corruption, incompetence, and utter apathy. I know no Indian who does not have a close relative who died because of the mess Indian hospitals are in. But they still cost a fortune to use, bankrupting millions of Indians every year. The COVID crisis is minting money for the merchants of death, leaving millions in desperate financial situations.

    Let us do some simple math. India has approximately 700,000 hospital beds, very few of which are in ICUs, and a large number of which are reserved for politically connected people. For beds that are available, oxygen supply and doctor availability have always been a problem. With 400,000 new COVID cases happening every day, the system had to fall apart, regardless of the fact that only a tiny proportion of the population required hospitalization.

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    The problem isn’t the number of cases, which is negligible as a proportion of the population, but the shiver of fear that the nonexistent medical infrastructure has sent down the spine of society. The country is drowning in fear and mourning, and this crisis can hardly be blamed on COVID. It must be blamed on the grotesque — almost incomprehensible — stupidity of its rulers. The government has no plans. Worse, it is doing the exact opposite of what should be done.

    Modi centralized everything in precisely the opposite way from what he should have done. After a year, he still has no clue that limiting opening hours of grocery stores does not decrease crowding but increases it. Similarly, he doesn’t know that it makes no sense to send those looking for vaccination and testing to places where COVID patients are. Yet, over a month ago, he declared a win over COVID. He organized massive gatherings for election canvassing — just the thing to celebrate vanquishing an epidemic, right?

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    Merely a Symptom

    About 28,000 Indians die every day. These days, 3,000 people extra people die of COVID, a slight increase in overall deaths. The blame doesn’t go as much to COVID for filling up India’s crematoria as it goes to a lack of excess capacity. People have always waited in line for cremation. While the international media shows how packed crematoria are, this is nothing unusual, except that a 10% increase in cremations has clogged the system.

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    But COVID is real, and there are cases everywhere. Entire families are affected. Many people my family knows have died. The death rate is guaranteed to increase as time goes by. India has stopped treating people for anything other than COVID. People are dying of kidney failures, heart attacks, lack of trauma care, etc. And COVID patients cannot get oxygen.

    Those who get into the hospitals are getting overdosed for COVID by the clueless medical staff. Those who should get expensive medicine get something else instead, while what they paid for gets smuggled out by nurses — when the patients are removed from the sight of their relatives, there is no one to check on what is happening.

    Those lucky enough to find a bed in a private hospital are spending at American rates. But this isn’t just the problem in COVID days. This has always been a problem.

    India’s prime minister,  Narendra “Teflon” Modi – despite his numerous blunders, he has yet to suffer a backlash from voters. In fact, his popularity appears to be perfectly intact so far, which is quite astonishing. [PT]

    Over the last year, Modi spent a lot of time making noise, patting himself on his back, and destroying the economy, sending at least 75 million new people into desperate poverty. But he and his yes-men failed to organize such simple things as oxygen, new beds, and logistics for essential medicine. It would have made a lot more sense to quadruple beds in Indian hospitals rather than destroy at least 10% of the economy, as Modi did in 2020. He should have set up a system to make the medical profession accountable. Had he done these things, the recent COVID spike would not have been much of an event.

    After years of a love affair with Modi, the international media have left him as rats leave a sinking ship. All fingers are now pointing at him, as if India, the biggest democracy in the world, would change course if only he were to be removed. Alas, all this pain and suffering is nothing unusual for India. The West is simply overreacting to the visible aspects of COVID.

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    The Indian government is merely a symptom of India’s tribal culture. Indians vote along the lines of their caste, their religion, a politician’s offer of freebies, etc. They lack moral and social consciousness, thus it is hard to believe that they would elect a government in possession of same — Modi is just a symptom.

    India does not have a COVID crisis. India has a government crisis. More fundamentally, it has a crisis of irrationality. There is never any planning and forward-thinking, neither at the individual nor at the institutional level. The nation is always at the precipice of disaster. Over the past 73 years of so-called independence, Indians have hollowed out the institutions the British left behind. These fragile institutions are now collapsing.

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    India’s population is ten times larger than it was before the British arrived. With all benefits bestowed on India by the British slowly getting neutralized, it does not take great mathematical skills to realize that eventually the Indian population will, without continual help from the West, revert to its former equilibrium, 10% of what it is today. COVID or whatever else will merely be the catalyst.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 22:45

  • Every Nerf Gun Could Be Turned Into "80% Or Greater Receiver" Under New ATF Rule 
    Every Nerf Gun Could Be Turned Into “80% Or Greater Receiver” Under New ATF Rule 

    A Twitter user who appears well rounded with 3D-printing technology tweeted Saturday about the consequences if every “Nerf gun/foam dart gun were to suddenly become an 80% receiver.” 

    Twitter user “00MEAT” said while the Biden administration is going after ghost guns and unserialized weapons. There could be a “list of consequences if every Nerf gun/foam dart gun were to suddenly become an 80% receiver, and if the ATF were to suddenly consider 80% receivers as firearms. I’ll just let you imagine what the below image is.” 

    00MEAT continued: “I mean, think of the children, does the ATF really want to go after every kid once they have an 80% sbr?” 

    With some fiddling around with basic computer-aided drafting software, 00MEAT was able to create the “Nerf .22 adapter,” which could theoretically “make every foam dart gun everywhere into an 80% receiver.” 

    They even built a Nerf .22 adapter and attached it to the child’s play weapon that can easily be bought at Walmart or Amazon. 

    “There we go. Every nerf gun is now an 80% or greater receiver. If you have a kid with a nerf gun, please let the ATF know you don’t want your kid charged with purchasing a firearm while under 21.”

    00MEAT responds to someone asking, “What do I need to make this?” 

    They said: “A 3d printer, a washer, and a nail. I used a little epoxy to glue the nail in and put the new head on the dart. Also 2 small screws. to attach the barrel. The blowback is definitely going to be a problem and I don’t know of the dart will hit it hard enough to set it off.” 

    What it appears is the lower receiver of the Nerf gun fires the dart with a modified firing pin at the bullet in the slightly modified barrel. 

    00MEAT ranted some more:

    “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest FFL of them all? That’s right, it’s Walmart. With aisles full of nerf guns that are “readily convertible to a firing state”. What does that proposed new rule say that FFLs have to do with such devices again? Serialize and record them?” 

    They concluded: “Don’t they also have to do a background check? and also cannot sell to anyone under 21? That’s not good for sales. Somebody with lots of lawyers should do something about this rule, 2021R-05. @Hasbro @Walmart.” 

    The takeaway, in 00MEAT’s view, is that big-box retailers have aisles of Nerf guns that, under ATF’s proposed new rule Definition of “Frame or Receiver” and Identification of Firearms, could be classified as a weapon “readily convertible to a firing state.” 

    Just imagine if the new rule was proposed – would that mean, besides 80% lowers bought online or at gun stores, Nerf guns could also be serialized? That would crush sales of big-box retailers and Amazon and piss off many parents who have kids that all they want to do this summer is play Nerf with their friends with no masks. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 22:25

  • Mystery Gain Makes Chinese Stocks Exciting Again
    Mystery Gain Makes Chinese Stocks Exciting Again

    By Bloomberg reporter and commentator Sofia Horta e Costa

    China’s battle to maintain stability in its financial markets took a surprising shift on Tuesday when stocks surged the most since July, buoyed by record buying via exchange links in Hong Kong. Traders will be keen to see whether the gains extend on Wednesday.

    There were few obvious catalysts for the rally, which came after an almost three-month stretch where the CSI 300 Index appeared stuck in a tight trading range. It may be that investors shifted cash from the commodities market as authorities intensified their efforts to cool price gains in raw materials. Mutual funds may be looking to juice their returns to make up for a lackluster few months. Perhaps traders are betting officials want to see a strong market leading up to the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1.

    Bullish technicals added grease to Tuesday’s gains, with the CSI 300 closing 77 points above its 100-day moving average — a difficult resistance level for the index since March. The CSI 300 last breached that line almost exactly a year ago, just before one of the fastest rallies in Chinese stocks of the past decade. The yuan punched past 6.4 per dollar in offshore trading — also a key level for chart watchers — further enticing overseas buyers of Chinese assets.

    Whatever the trigger — and in China, such outsized gains are often driven by sentiment — the sudden stock rally is another example of how quickly a trading frenzy can start in China. Imported inflation and capital inflows are complicating monetary decisions for the central bank, which has pledged to stick to its tightening path with no “sharp turn” in policy. Endorsing an even stronger yuan to offset inflation — an idea floated by one official before the article was deleted — would be a risky strategy if Beijing wants to avoid one-way bets. Ensuring a “basically stable” currency remains a key priority for financial stability.

    For now, kicking the ball of money into the stock market and away from commodities may be the lesser of two evils. At least higher stock prices won’t pressure inflation, and the wealth effect might even provide a much-needed boost to consumer confidence. For a government obsessed with control, an overheating stock market would be more easily tamed than an overheating economy.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 22:05

  • Jobs Are Only Barely Starting To Trickle Back In New York
    Jobs Are Only Barely Starting To Trickle Back In New York

    Among the hardest hit cities from the Covid pandemic was New York: it was a hotbed for cases early on, much of the city relies on tourism and hospitality for income, and the Mayor – well, he’s the slightest bit in over his head.

    As we move past the one year anniversary of when those in government finally figured out that Covid could be a problem, the country – including New York – is finally starting to re-open. But the pace of that re-opening is modest, at best, the New York Times pointed out this week. 

    While trends are moving in the right direction – for example, New York City’s official unemployment rate declined slightly to 11.4 percent in April, from 11.7 percent in March – the speed with which the recovery has taken hold isn’t accelerating anywhere near as quickly as the city was shut down. 

    Of those additions, 15,000 restaurant jobs came back last month and the city’s restaurants had 3 times as many employees last month as they did in April 2020, during the worst of the shut down. 

    Barbara Byrne Denham, senior economist at Oxford Economics, told the NYT: “For the restaurants, we have two very strong forces at work. Most of them are allowed to reopen, and many people are very eager to eat out.”

    Heading into May, New York has added back about 375,000 of the 900,000 total jobs it lost due to Covid. Economists think it will still take “at least a couple years” for those numbers to go back to normal. James Parrott, an economist with the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, thinks a full recovery may not come until 2023 or 2024. He called April’s gains in New York a “relatively strong rebound”. 

    New York had “been on a decade-long expansion that produced more jobs and lower unemployment than at any time on record” heading into the pandemic. Unemployment was below 4% for 11 straight months and wages were rising at a “robust rate” for several years. 

    But in those two months in 2020, government lockdowns were successful in shuttering all of those gains, and unemployment spiked to 20%.

    Denham continued: “New York City has trailed the rest of the U.S. every single month on every single measure. The city lost more jobs and a higher share of its jobs than any other city did, and only Las Vegas has recovered more slowly than New York.”

    Nationwide, the U.S. added just 266,000 jobs last month. Elena Volovelsky, a labor market analyst for the state Department of Labor, still thinks New York City’s rate of recovery lacks the nationwide pace. “In the next few months, the recovery of jobs in hotels and other business that cater to tourists could become more robust,” she said. “Hotel employment has yet to rebound and remains weak, having lost about 37,000 jobs since last year.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 21:45

  • Pentagon Now Says China Is Top "Pacing Threat" Not Only On Earth But Also Space
    Pentagon Now Says China Is Top “Pacing Threat” Not Only On Earth But Also Space

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The head of US Space Command said Saturday that the “Chinese” are the top “pacing threat” facing the US not only on Earth but also in space. “Our pacing threat is the Chinese, so we are watching how they are growing their space capability,” said Army Gen. James Dickinson said in Tokyo during a visit to US Forces Japan.

    Space Command is different than the military branch known as Space Force. The command integrates other military branches for space operations and would oversee any future wars in space. “The Space Force is responsible for organizing and equipping space forces. We are about warfighting,” Dickinson said, explaining the difference between the two organizations.

    Army Gen. James Dickinson via Space News/USASMDCARSTRAT

    The Pentagon recently identified China as the top “pacing threat” facing the US military, a phrase US military leaders are now repeating.

    Beijing is serving the Pentagon as a reason to justify massive military spending. After President Biden requested an all-time high military budget of $753 billion for 2022, the Pentagon said its share of $715 billion was needed to confront China.

    When it comes to space, competition with China, as well as Russia, is the focus of US Space Command and Space Force leaders to justify the new branch and command’s existence. “Space is very important right now,” Dickinson said.

    “We are seeing what our competitors are doing in space.” Dickinson said the US is watching China’s space program “very closely.”

    US Air Force Space Command, image via US Air Force

    President Biden has made it very clear that China is the foreign policy priority of his administration. In his first address to Congress, Biden said the US is in competition with Beijing to “win the 21st century.” He’s framed the relationship as an ideological battle between “autocracy” and “democracy.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 21:25

  • Zoltan's Latest Shocker: The Taper Will Be Bullish If…
    Zoltan’s Latest Shocker: The Taper Will Be Bullish If…

    Ask around on Wall Street (or any street) what the biggest bogeyman to capital markets is and 11 times out of 10 the answer will be “the taper“, even though the fact that everyone is fully aware of the risks from the Fed’s looming announcement, also means that it is more than fully priced in.

    Which is why, in light of the fact that the market’s true biggest risk is runaway, out-of-control, inflation, we previously suggested that far from being a crash catalyst, the taper may well end up being a trigger for further market gains especially since it would mean that the unprecedented flood of liquidity in the market which has sent the Fed’s reverse repo facility to near record levels…

    … as banks simply no longer have a place where to store all the Fed’s reserves, will finally ease.

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    Incidentally, we are not the first ones to make that argument: back in 2013, just around the time Ben Bernanke spooked the market with the first “Taper Tantrum”, none other than hedge fund titan David Tepper made the same argument:

    Regarding Fed policy, Tepper said investors shouldn’t fret about the central bank tapering its $85 billion monthly bond-buying program. In fact, he hopes the Fed starts pulling back on the stimulus sooner than later.

    “There better be a true [Fed] taper or else you might be back into the last half of 1999,” Tepper said. “…”If the Fed doesn’t taper back, we’re going to get into this hyper-drive market. It’s a backwards argument. To keep the markets going up at a steady pace the Fed has to taper back.”

    Tepper said he expects the central bank to find a “natural” way to ease its way out of its bond buying program. There should be no “hand-wringing” by markets over concern about a tapering, he said.

    “Guys that are short, they better have a shovel to get themselves out of the grave,” Tepper said.

    Fast forward to today when the same logic applies: the longer the Fed does nothing, the more likely it is to lose control of inflation altogether (not to mention flooding the repo system with liquidity beyond repair) and so we expect that within the next few weeks ahead of the Fed’s September “Taper bomb”, the narrative will change accordingly.

    Which brings us to the first indication thereof: in his latest Global Money Dispatch note, repo guru Zoltan Pozsar (formerly the NY Fed’s market plumbing wunderkind and currently at Credit Suisse), the Hungarian provides a rather technical and more nuanced, if altogether similar argument: the taper could well lead to lower rates (i.e., no bond market tantrum when then jumps to stocks) provided that at the same time, the Fed announced the end of Wells Fargo’s asset growth ban, activating some $500 billion in unused balance sheet capacity, or more than enough to offset many months of declining Fed purchases courtesy of a brand new private sector entity.

    For those curious how the groundwork is being set to paint the taper in a positive light, here is the full Pozsar note:

    There is the QE problem, the Wells Fargo problem, and the taper problem…

    The QE problem has to do with the Fed buying way too many mortgages, richening MBS relative to Treasuries. The Fed is buying $40 billion of MBS a month, and Bank of America is providing a tailwind by buying as many MBS as the Fed.

    What will fix this issue is either the Fed buying less MBS and more Treasuries, or Bank of America doing the same – the Fed for “market functioning” reasons and Bank of America for relative value reasons. Either way, fixing the QE problem will require one of these banks to buy more Treasuries before taper commences.

    If you are concerned about the MBS float, the last thing you need is the Fed suddenly lifting Wells Fargo’s asset growth ban. Well Fargo has an unused balance sheet capacity of more than $500 billion, and after years of no growth and a shrinking loan book, it would be stepping into duration markets with force.

    If the QE problem is bad enough for MBS and leads to a bid for Treasuries, the QE problem plus freeing Wells Fargo now would mean MBS trading even richer and, by extension, an even stronger bid for Treasuries. Timing is everything…

    …and getting it right can turn a problem into an opportunity.

    While lifting Wells Fargo’s asset growth ban now would do more harm than good, it could come in handy when the Fed commences taper later this year or next. The market assumes that taper will lead to a sell-off in rates, like in the past – but that need not be the case. The Fed could announce its plans to taper, while at the same time announcing the end of Wells Fargo’s asset growth ban, so that fewer purchases by the Fed would be offset by more purchases by Wells.

    Less buying by the Fed and more buying by Wells Fargo…

    …and rates don’t have to sell off, provided there is coordination at the Fed. The monetary and regulatory arms of the Fed typically do not coordinate, but never say never. Using the Wells Fargo “option” could help the Fed make taper a smoother affair than the 2013 experience, which wasn’t smooth to begin with. It’s one thing to taper against a boring fiscal backdrop like during 2013, and another to taper against a backdrop painted with cumulonimbi of fiscal issuance – given the fiscal outlook, the Fed should be creative with the Wells Fargo option.

    Then there is the consensus problem, which is that everyone expects rates to go up from here, and “if everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking”: the macro reasons for higher rates make sense, but the potential for more Treasury purchases either by the Fed or banks before taper commences, and Wells Fargo deploying $500 billion of balance sheet after taper commences, could set off a rates rally from here. Consider these problems at least as risks…

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 21:11

  • Lumber Firms Applaud, Home Builders Angry As U.S. Moves To Double Canadian Lumber Tariffs
    Lumber Firms Applaud, Home Builders Angry As U.S. Moves To Double Canadian Lumber Tariffs

    by Robert Dalheim of Woodworking Network

    The U.S. Department of Commerce says it will seek to double tariff rates on most Canadian softwood lumber, angering home builders. New rates vary by company. West Fraser goes from 9 percent to 11.4 percent, Canfor from 4.6 to 21 percent, Resolute Forest from 20.3 to 30.2 percent, and J.D. Irving from 4.2 to 15.8 percent.

    The overall increase is from 9 percent to 18.32 percent.

    Home builders, who had been urging for a removal of tariffs, expressed their disappointment.

    “At a time when soaring lumber prices have added nearly $36,000 to the price of a new home and priced millions of middle class households out of the housing market, the Biden administration’s preliminary finding to double the tariffs on Canadian lumber shipments shows the White House does not care about the plight of American home buyers and renters who have been forced to pay much higher costs for housing,” said National Association of Home Builders chairman Chuck Fowke.

    “The administration should be ashamed for casting its lot with special interest groups and abandoning the interests of the American people. It knows that the lumber tariffs are nothing less than a tax on American home buyers, renters and businesses that rely on lumber products and they could not have come at a worse time. Lumber prices are already up more than 300 percent from a year ago. If the administration’s decision to double tariffs is allowed to go into effect, it will further exacerbate the nation’s housing affordability crisis, put even more upward pressure on the price of lumber and force millions of U.S. home buyers and lumber consumers to foot the bill for this ill-conceived protectionist action.

    U.S. lumber producers on the other hand, applauded the decision.

    “A level playing field is a critical element for continued investment and growth for U.S. lumber manufacturing to meet strong building demand to build more American homes,” said Jason Brochu, U.S. Lumber Coalition Co-Chair and Co-President of Pleasant River Lumber Company.  “The U.S. Lumber Coalition applauds the Commerce Department’s continued commitment to strongly enforce the U.S. trade laws against subsidized and unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports.”

    Canada, as one would predict, was also unhappy.

    “U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber products are a tax on the American people,” said Mary Ng, Canadian Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade. “We will keep challenging these unwarranted and damaging duties through all available avenues. We remain confident that a negotiated solution to this long-standing trade issue is not only possible, but in the best interest of both our countries.”

    The decision comes as somewhat of a surprise. Home builders had been lobbying hard for a temporary removal of tariffs. Many Republicans had championed the NAHB’s claims. They had asked trade chief Katherine Tai to eliminate the tariffs.

    It’s unclear how much the new tariffs will affect lumber prices.

    Lumber companies say tariffs hardly make an impact.

    “Lumber only makes up 4 percent of the cost of a new home— with near-zero impact on homebuyers,” the Lumber Coalition wrote in an opinion article published on Woodworking Network. “The NAHB’s claim that import duties cause today’s high lumber prices and therefore drive up the cost of homes is false. Supply and demand, not import duties, cause price fluctuations.”

    The article was controversial, drawing in heavy scrutiny online.

    The NAHB argued back, saying the Coalition was severely and intentionally underrating the cost of lumber in a home.

    “If you walk into a home, you may notice that cabinets, windows, doors, and trusses are also often made of wood. And if you watch a home being built, you will see a lot of plywood and OSB being used for sheathing, flooring underlayment, siding, and interior wall and finishing, just to name a few uses. Also, builders do not in general buy lumber from sawmills, but from an intermediary like a lumber yard that operates with a profit margin.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 20:45

  • Russell Brand In Viral Video Destroys MSM & Silicon Valley For Hiding "Troubling" Hunter Biden News
    Russell Brand In Viral Video Destroys MSM & Silicon Valley For Hiding “Troubling” Hunter Biden News

    In a rare and refreshing interview which on YouTube has garnered 100,000 views in less than 24 hours, British comedian and actor Russell Brand and former Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald teamed up to explain last year’s scandalous coordination by the mainstream media and social media companies to ensure the Hunter Biden laptop story and accompanying revelations over the Hunter-Ukrainian Burisma energy company scandal never reached broader public view. 

    “I’m not a pro-Republican person,” Brand introduced while talking to Greenwald on his YouTube channel. “I don’t see myself that way. I don’t see myself as conservative, or that I’m in a Trump, or Giuliani, or the  kind of media establishments that were reporting on these revelations [about Biden’s family]. They are not my cultural, social, or political allies. That’s certainly not how I see myself.” And then he blasted away: “However, it seems to me — what reason is Hunter Biden sat on the board of an energy company in… Ukraine?” he questioned. “What reason is James Biden sat on the board, or receiving payments from an energy company, in China?”

    Recall that The New York Post among others saw their Twitter account suspended for a whopping 16 days over the news story, while Facebook also aggressively cracked down on users’ ability to share any content related to Burisma, the Biden family’s Ukraine dealings, or the infamous laptop archive. 

    Brand said further in the interview, according to a transcript:

    “We’re talking about sleaze, corruption, financial misdemeanors, and relationships between corporations, big business, and politicians — let’s face it, unless you’re bloody stupid, you know that’s going on all the time.”

    “For me, revelations that there are financial connections between energy companies in… Ukraine, energy companies in China, and the Biden family are troubling. That should be public knowledge.”

    Brand emphasized “That should be public knowledge.” He went on to discuss Silicon Valley’s efforts at controlling and blatantly censoring the political conversation in order to “protect” a crucial election… or rather to outright prevent a Trump victory. 

    “And it’s even more troubling that Twitter, and Facebook and the media at large deliberately kept it out of the news because they didn’t want it to influence the election,” Brand told Greenwald.

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    And more…

    What is democracy then? It suggests to me that democracy is, ‘We want you to vote for this person. We don’t want you to vote for that person.’ 

    As I’ve said, Donald Trump, you know, I don’t think Donald Trump’s the answer, but I’m sad to realize that I can no longer even claim to believe Joe Biden or the Democratic Party might be the answer, because look at how they behave. And look at the relationships between media, social media, and that party.

    Using word choice that clearly denotes his concluding that there was a choreographed plot among big media and big tech to sanitize information before it reached the public, Brand concluded, “They conspired to keep information away from you because it was not convenient to their agenda.”

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    And Greenwald later commented of the new interview with Brand: “US media and tech giants united to bar millions of Americans from hearing this reporting before they voted” – in reference to the Biden Family laptop archive.

    Meanwhile it will be interesting to see how long YouTube actually leaves up the new Brand-Greenwald interview, or whether it gets slapped with a restrictive “warning” label. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 20:25

  • Romney First GOP Senator To Say He Would Back Current Jan. 6 Commission Bill
    Romney First GOP Senator To Say He Would Back Current Jan. 6 Commission Bill

    Authored by Janita Kan via The Epoch Times,

    Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Monday said he was willing to support a Democrat-led bill that was passed by the House to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.

    Romney answered that he “would support the bill” when asked by reporters how he would vote if Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) starts a debate on the House bill, according to multiple congressional reporters. He is the first Republican in the Senate to do so.

    The Utah senator’s comments come on the same day that Schumer vowed to bring the bill for a vote on the Senate floor.

    “I will bring to the Senate floor the legislation passed by the House to create an independent commission to investigate and report on the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” Schumer said in a statement on Twitter.

    Currently, Democrats are short on the 60 votes required to defeat a likely filibuster from Republicans, who have expressed opposition to the bill in its current form.

    During the House vote, most Republicans voted against the measure, with only 35 Republicans crossing the aisle to approve the bill.

    The National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act, also known as HR 3233, is modeled after the investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The proposed measure would create in the legislative branch an independent, 10-member commission to investigate “relevant facts and circumstances relating to the attack on the Capitol,” and “evaluate the causes of and the lessons learned from this attack.”

    The commission must also submit reports of their findings, alongside recommendations to “improve the detection, prevention, preparedness for, and response to targeted violence and domestic terrorism and improve the security posture of the U.S. Capitol Complex.”

    The bill will grant the commission powers such as the authority to hold hearings, receive evidence, and issue subpoenas. It also enables the commission to appoint staff.

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who says she backs the creation of a commission but has reservations, has begun suggesting amendments to the House’s proposal. In an interview on Sunday, Collins said her support is conditional on bipartisan staffing and a report issued no later than by the end of this year.

    “I think that both sides should either jointly appoint the staff or there should be equal numbers of staff appointed by the chairman and the vice-chairman,” Collins told ABC’s “This Week.” She also expresses optimism that Congress would be able to get past the issues.

    In a separate interview, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said he believes Senate Republicans are likely to decide that it’s “too early” to establish a commission. Blunt also said he is opposed the establishment of such a commission over concerns of delays and effectiveness.

    “I’ve actually opposed the idea of a commission from the very first because I think we’ll start waiting for a commission rather than moving forward with what we know we need to do now,” Blunt told Fox News.

    “There’s a bipartisan effort in the Senate with two committees to produce not only a report but also a number of recommendations, and we should be able to do that in the first full week of June, and we haven’t even waited for that to decide what a commission should do,” he added.

    Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would oppose the House-passed bill, characterizing the proposal as a “slanted and unbalanced” study of the Jan. 6 incident.

    “After careful consideration, I’ve made the decision to oppose the House Democrats’ slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of Jan. 6,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on May 19.

    Meanwhile, top Democrat leader House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday issued a statement calling for the Senate to quickly act on the bill, saying that “there is no time to waste or room for partisanship in keeping our Capitol and Country safe.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 20:05

  • Easing Of Vessel Congestion At LA Ports Reverses As More Ships Join Queue
    Easing Of Vessel Congestion At LA Ports Reverses As More Ships Join Queue

    Last week’s good news of easing vessel congestion earlier this month outside the busiest U.S. gateway for trade with Asia showed a glimmer of hope that supply chain disruptions could subside had flipped last week as more containerships join the queue.  

    Bloomberg data shows the number of containerships queuing off the coast of Los Angeles reached the highest in two weeks.

    As of Sunday, 21 containerships were anchored waiting for entry into L.A.-Long Beach, compared with 19 a week earlier. The bottleneck peaked at around 40 vessels in the queue in early February and has steadily declined ever since, but the latest data shows progress could be reversing. 

    Source: Bloomberg

    Shipping data shows another 16 vessels are expected to arrive at L.A.-Long Beach over the next few days, with ten of those scheduled to be moored offshore and join the queue. 

    On Friday, the average waits for berth space, a designated location in a port used for mooring vessels when they are not at sea, was 5.9 days, compared with 6.1 a week earlier. That number peaked in April around eight days.

    Readers may recall the collapse of the trans-pacific supply chains has been among the main reasons for soaring prices. It’s also hardly a secret that the most vulnerable section of supply chains are West Coast ports where congestion remains off the charts (as recently discussed in “It’s About To Get Much Worse”: Supply Chains Implode As “Price Doesn’t Even Matter Anymore” and “Port Of LA Volumes Are “Off The Charts.””) Which is why the first, and most critical step to restoring normalcy in both supply chains – and prices – will come from stabilizing and normalizing shipping congestion and backlog… at some point.

    But as new data suggest, shipping congestion and backlogs are reversing and could result in even higher prices for any product that has to cross the Pacific before ending up in an Amazon warehouse or Walmart store shelf. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 19:45

  • Iran Kicks Off Large-Scale Electronic Warfare And Air Defense Exercise
    Iran Kicks Off Large-Scale Electronic Warfare And Air Defense Exercise

    Via South Front,

    On May 25th, the Iranian Army kicked off a large-scale military drill to practice electronic warfare tactics, this drill on electronic warfare is dubbed ‘Separ-e-Aseman 1400’ (Sky Shield 1400).

    According to a statement, this joint drill is being held by the strategic electronic warfare forces of the four forces of the Army and covers large areas of Iran. Rapid response and electronic warfare units of the Army’s Ground Force, Air Force, Navy and Air Defense are participating in the joint aerial maneuvers, codenamed Sky Shield 1400, whose headquarters will be located in Iran’s central province of Isfahan.

    According to Deputy Chief of Iran’s Army for Coordination Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, the drill is the most practical exercise in the field of military electronic warfare in recent years. He said the Iranian Army is going to use its latest achievements and combat capabilities during the drill, with offensive as well as defensive electronic warfare tactics to be put into practice.

    Sayyari also pointed out the high significance of electronic warfare in both operational and intelligence aspects of present-day military encounters, stressing that the Iranian Army has developed the necessary infrastructure for defense and electronic warfare. Sayyari said aerial interception and cyber defense operations will also be conducted in the drill.

    Participants in the drill practice using electronic defense tactics against small aircraft and intruding drones as well as, perform cyber defense maneuvers and evaluate function by eavesdropping, electronic jamming and target detection systems. During the drill, drones and smart micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) will also strike predetermined targets using electronic warfare cover, he said.

    Accuracy and speed in detection of aircraft will be analyzed, and electronic eavesdropping and jamming systems monitored.

    According to Iranian state media, in recent years, Iranian military experts and technicians have made great progress in indigenously developing and manufacturing a broad range of equipment, making the armed forces self-sufficient in this regard.

    Iran’s Air Defense holds annual war games in order to enhance capabilities to defend the country’s airspace.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 19:25

  • "For Our Health & Safety" – No COVID-Vaccinated Guests Allowed At This Montana Airbnb
    “For Our Health & Safety” – No COVID-Vaccinated Guests Allowed At This Montana Airbnb

    An Airbnb listing hidden deep within western Montana’s woods has been taken down after it discriminated against vaccinated people with “COVID misinformation.” 

    “WE ARE RESTRICTING THE CABIN TO NON-COVID VACCINATED GUESTS ONLY,” the listing read. 

    “For the health and safety of not only other guests but also ourselves, all COVID vaccinated guests are asked to find another vacation rental that allows vaccinated guests,” it said.

    The listing continued: “It has now been scientifically proven and is clearly stated on the vaccine manufacturers web sites, that the MRNA protein in the ingredients SHED through the vaccinated persons skin, breath etc, and will be passed along to non-vaccinated people.” 

    Charlie Warzel, a former reporter at BuzzFeed News, brought attention to the listing on Twitter on Sunday. He direct messaged the owners of the property and asked about their vetting process. The owners replied by saying they abide by the honor system. 

    “We are not able to prove we have not taken the shots so it’s all on the honor system. We just have to all trust each other. If you say you haven’t taken the shots we trust you and you are more than welcome here,” one of the owners told Warzel. But the conversation ended quickly as Warzel believes the owners saw his tweets about the property, which had gone viral. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    An Airbnb spokesperson told BuzzFeed the listing for the Montana cabin was suspended Sunday night “for promoting COVID misinformation in violation of our content policy.”

    The continued canceled movement has reached new levels. Any opposition to vaccines and big tech will censor, suspend, or delete opposition accounts. The division between vaxxed and non-vaxxed continues to grow as the country is more fractured than ever. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 19:05

  • Capitalism Can't Fix An Artificial Labor Shortage
    Capitalism Can’t Fix An Artificial Labor Shortage

    Authored by John Tamny via RealClear Markets (emphasis ours),

    If you want to act in movies or on television in Hollywood, you must be a member of the Screen Actors Guild. That’s why the accession of a “SAG” card is such a momentous achievement for actors. It means they’re Hollywood legal as it were.

    So why does acting professionally require union membership? The answer is very simple: SAG wants to prevent those yearning to be stars from flooding the market, and subsequently bidding starting wages down to zero.

    It’s as old as the hills for actors and actresses to wistfully proclaim that “I just want a chance to show them what I can do.” Since they’re all looking for a break, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that most actors would take next to nothing (or nothing) just to be in a television show or a movie. If it’s all about getting in the door, why not give the labor away for free with the long-term in mind?

    In reality, a wholly free market for actors would likely result in negative wage minimums. Any ambitious entertainer would logically and happily pay Steven Spielberg for the opportunity to act in one of his films. Why not? The exposure achieved in a film directed by someone known to helm blockbusters would be much more valuable than negative wages endured amid production.

    All of this explains why SAG limits the number of actors legal to work, all the while pushing up minimum wage floors for its limited membership. In a figurative sense “everyone” wants to work in movies and television, so SAG erects barriers to supply and price so that excessive supply combined with a willingness to work for “anything” doesn’t push down actor pay. 

    The Screen Actors Guild stands athwart market forces in order to keep entertainment compensation artificially high. Capitalism is not fully at work in the movie business.

    This came to mind while reading a recent piece by New York Times economics writer, David Leonhardt. The columnist believes he’s got an easy answer to the present labor shortage in the U.S.: capitalism. The problem, one not diagnosed by Leonhardt, is that the present labor shortage he’s writing about has nothing to do with capitalism, and everything to do with the fleecing of capitalists.

    To see why, let’s stop and consider why there’s a shortage of labor in the first place. It’s a consequence of a much-too-belated opening of the U.S. economy after over a year of needless lockdowns. With them finally ending, labor-intensive businesses are finding it exceedingly hard to hire workers.

    Leonhardt says the presumed shortages are nonsense, that the “capitalism” he routinely attacks in his column is ready-made for fixing the shortage. In Leonhardt’s words:

    “When a company is struggling to find enough labor, it can solve the problem by offering to pay a higher price for that labor — also known as higher wages. More workers will then enter the labor market. Suddenly, the labor shortage will be no more.”

    Leonhardt’s diagnosis is much more than naive. 

    Stated simply, labor is a price like any other. Just as SAG keeps the price of hiring an actor artificially high by limiting supply, so has government to some degree done the same over the past year. With unemployment benefits abnormally high due to Congress’s generosity with the money of others, the incentive to work isn’t as great as it was before the lockdowns began in March of 2020.

    Put another way, generous unemployment benefits are bidding workers to the sidelines. The able-bodied have a choice right now: they can either resume working again, or they can receive unemployment checks that in all-too-many instances are greater than what they would earn if they were working. In which case capitalists are hit hard in two ways: government intervention has made it artificially expensive to hire, plus that same government is also limiting supply of workers; thus making it more expensive to hire from a shallower pool of labor.

    Leonhardt believes that the labor shortage problem is as simple as businesses offering better pay, that increasing compensation to lure individuals back to work is the capitalist way, but he conveniently ignores that the labor shortage is a direct consequence of a lack of capitalism. Government has intervened in the labor market, and created an artificial shortage. Much more galling about the shortage is that it was created by government taking from the capitalists. 

    Lest readers forget, governments have no resources. They only have spending power and faux swagger insofar as they arrogate to themselves a rising percentage of the production created by capitalistic endeavor. In other words, capitalism is the source of congressional largesse. In 2020, Congress chose to use the wealth extracted from capitalists in order to make hiring quite a bit more expensive for capitalists.

    The mystery about all this is why Leonhardt can’t see the obvious contradiction in his thesis. Government is paying individuals not to work, and more than a few are biting. Labor shortages are the result.

    In short, a lack of capitalism is behind the labor shortages and the higher cost of labor. If Leonhardt doubts this truth, he need only visit left leaning Hollywood. It’s there that unions long ago perfected the art of artificial labor scarcity that Congress is foisting on us now through its own interventions.

    John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, Vice President at FreedomWorks, and a senior economic adviser to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com). His new book is titled When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason. Other books by Tamny include They’re Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America’s Frustrated Independent Thinkers, The End of Work, about the exciting growth of jobs more and more of us love, Who Needs the Fed? and Popular Economics. He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com.  

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/25/2021 – 18:45

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