- Is Trump A "Covert Ally" To The Multipolar Order?
Is Trump A "Covert Ally" To The Multipolar Order?
Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
We are led to understand that the unipolar ‘moment’ of US ascendency is giving way – grudgingly – to a multipolar world: a reversion perhaps to a more nineteenth century ‘concert’ of powers (or, of significant ‘poles’ – since size is not always the prime determinant). And that Trump is trying simply to prolong that hegemonic, US moment – albeit through different means, which is to say, adopting seemingly bizarre, and sometimes counterproductive, acts and language, that infuriate the American foreign policy establishment.
But is this view right? Maybe – Trump is more of a crab. Maybe he needs to proceed towards his ends, crab-like, rather than full-steam straight-ahead, precisely because he is subject to such concerted political attack.
Some in Russia think the very notion of America ‘First’ carries ‘in its belly’ the implication of a letting-go of the globalist ‘Empire’ project, and a return to focus on the internal American situation, and the challenges which the US faces internally (i.e. a return to the type of non-interventionist conservatism which Pat Buchanan represented, but which the US neo-cons loathed, and set out utterly to destroy precisely – because it foreclosed on ‘empire’).
In practical terms, Obama can be viewed, as some in Moscow suggest, as the Gorbachev of the American regime, (i.e. the man who began the retrenchment out from certain of the Empire’s more extended nodes); and Trump then, in this analogy, is the Yeltsin of this regime: (i.e. the president who has re-focused on the internal arena, and on reducing the burdens of the republics that used to constitute parts of the Soviet Union).
The retrenchment-and-rebuild-at-home shift is hard. And it did not turn out well for Russia.
The motives for Trump’s focus on China as a hostile challenger is clear: It serves the need of having a simple popular narrative to account for America’s relative decline (it is all China’s fault – stealing ‘our’ jobs and our intellectual property). It provides too, an unequivocal enemy that culturally threatens ‘our’ way of life – and it offers a solution: ‘We shall take back our economy’.
But what may not be so clear is whether Trump is actually so opposed to the notion (in principle) of a concert of powers. Though bearing in mind the neo-con and liberal interventionist rage at Pat Buchanan’s earlier policy inwardness (and scepticism of intervention), it might be unwise of Trump to admit to such inclinations – even were he to have them. Hence, the crab-like sideways motion towards its destination.
Is then Trump’s outreach toward Russia (whilst China is demonised), simply a Mackinder-ish attempt to divide Russia and China from each other, in order for Trump to be able to triangulate his interests between a (separated) China and Russia – and which therefore is integral to a continuing US hegemonic project – or is it not? Or, does it have another purpose? It is, after all, pretty obvious that such a divide-and-rule ruse will never work, so long as the close personal relationship between Presidents Xi and Putin, holds good. Both leaders understand triangulation, and both view the ‘concert’ of poles initiative – as an existential requirement for their states.
Or, is Trump’s continuous effort at outreach to Russia somehow connected to his understanding of how the US might quietly transition from a moment of overextended empire – to something smaller, within a multi-polar framework?
Why might Trump want – even indirectly and covertly – to encourage such transition? Well, if you were hoping to exit one of empire’s more troublesome nodes, you do not want immediately to be pulled right back-in, through another war, just as you start to pack your bags – the Middle East is one very obvious example.
And by escalating against Iran, Trump both appeals to the globalist ‘realpolitik’ component of the deep state, and to those liberals who support interventions under the ‘moral high ground’ banner, but who implicitly also seek to consolidate globalization. Are Trump’s tactics – berating Iran at every opportunity – somehow an effort at neutralising the globalists (mindful of Pat Buchanan’s fate)?
Trump knows at bottom that his core electoral base is isolationist, and wants an end to ‘forever’ wars. He campaigned precisely on this pledge. Is the ‘maximum pressure’, and threats of war, then precisely meant to substitute for actual war? Whilst, at the same time, appeasing Israel, by effectively taking negotiations with Iran ‘off the table’ (i.e. by undoing Obama’s having putting rapprochement on the table – thus unsettling the sense of security of Israel and the Gulf States?).
Iran seems to think so: both Iranian and Hizbullah leaders have asserted rather emphatically that Iran tensions will not result in war. In such a play, Russia plays a key role: It tries somehow to ‘balance’ between Iran and Israel (at least for now). Is not this exactly how a concert of powers is supposed to work?
So when we speak of Trump’s geo-political ‘strategy’, we mean the meshed strategy of firstly retaining key electoral bases of support: the deplorables, of course, but also AIPAC and the Evangelicals (25% of the electorate claim to be Evangelical, and who are attached to a literal, eschatological view of a Greater Israel, in the context of Redemption); and secondly, of weakening the internal currents in overseas states which support globalism and seek closer relations with the US. This effectively strengthens the sides who not want strong relations with America, and by extension, have a clear interest in a multipolar world.
Wherever you look around the globe, America’s policies have strengthened the sovereigntists: i.e. Iran, Russia and China. Is this simply paradoxical – or deliberate? As one Russian thinker has noted:
“Trump’s conservative tendencies and his deep isolationist predisposition, are placing him in the position of being an objective ally of ours (i.e. Russia and China). One who is facilitating the realisation of our project.”
Is this Iran’s understanding, too? Possibly, but in any event, were it to be so, it would fit well with Iran’s geo-strategy. It would not demand of Iran its compliance with the regional status quo (which it would never agree to).
The seven year Iran-Iraq war had left the revolution intact, but the population war-weary. This war however, taught the Iranian leadership the imperative of preventing another head-to-head conventional war – and instead, to prepare its forces for a new-generation unconventional conflict – mounted ‘far away’ from the homeland, and calibrated carefully, precisely to avoid going head-to-head with a state – or its people, if possible.
And just as the US Evangelicals see the coming into being of Greater Israel as an eschatological necessity, so the founders of the Islamic Republic embraced an eschatology (the Jafari School, named after the Sixth Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq), which names Jerusalem as central to the return of the Mahdi, and to the establishment of Islamic government throughout the world – as promised by the Prophet Mohammed. According to both Sunni and Shia prophecies, the army foreordained to conquer Jerusalem is to be comprised mostly, but not exclusively, of people from the region of Iran, with Iranians having a great and important role in the event. Yes: We have almost exact opposite symmetry between the Hebraic and Islamic eschatologies.
A role for Russia as maintaining the ‘balance’ then, is not surprising. This may be how a concert of powers is supposed to work. But will it? Or will it end as disastrously as Yeltsin’s effort, with the collapse of the US economy?
The shift from a unipolar ‘order’ to a concert of poles (in which Iran, Turkey and India may be expected to feature) is a complicated exercise. Much of the Iranian leadership (though perhaps not President Rouhani), may – in principle – think it an excellent idea, were the US to take a turn inwards, and go away. But this sentiment is definitely not reflected in Israel.
In spite of all the unilateral Trump ‘gifts’ to Israel (Jerusalem as capital, Golan as Israel, the settlements as not illegal, etc.), Israel is feeling an existential fear and loneliness. Thus, it is an exceedingly fragile – and indeed increasingly improbable balance – that Trump is trying to mount (with President Putin’s tacit assistance).
It may well collapse – and with it, Trump’s hope for ‘clean’ exit: leaving the Middle East to stew on its own.
And, as a final speculation: Is this somewhat similar to what has been going on between Trump and Xi (i.e. a play analogous to that with Iran)? Is Trump ramping up the max-pressures, and threats of Cold War against China, to substitute for the military war that some of his deep state might love him to fight, but which Trump has no intention of doing?
Is there some tacit understanding that China collaborates in Trump’s blowing of the stock market bubble in the US (China plays well its part in Trump’s market manipulation – with a trade deal always ‘almost there’), as Trump, in his turn, tries to keeps Hong Kong ‘off the table’? All good ‘concert of power’ type trades?
And is the US Congress – with its bill from both ‘Houses’ aimed at putting Hong Kong right back ‘on the table’ – intent, with this bill, on destroying Trump’s implicit collaboration in the creation of a multipolar order?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 23:45 - The History Of Interest Rates Over 670 Years
The History Of Interest Rates Over 670 Years
Today, we live in a low-interest-rate environment, where the cost of borrowing for governments and institutions is lower than the historical average. It is easy to see that interest rates are at generational lows, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan notes below, did you know that they are also at 670-year lows?
This week’s chart outlines the interest rates attached to loans dating back to the 1350s. Take a look at the diminishing history of the cost of debt—money has never been cheaper for governments to borrow than it is today.
The Birth of an Investing Class
Trade brought many good ideas to Europe, while helping spur the Renaissance and the development of the money economy.
Key European ports and trading nations, such as the Republic of Genoa or the Netherlands during the Renaissance period, help provide a good indication of the cost of borrowing in the early history of interest rates.
The Republic of Genoa: 4-5 year Lending Rate
Genoa became a junior associate of the Spanish Empire, with Genovese bankers financing many of the Spanish crown’s foreign endeavors.
Genovese bankers provided the Spanish royal family with credit and regular income. The Spanish crown also converted unreliable shipments of New World silver into capital for further ventures through bankers in Genoa.
Dutch Perpetual Bonds
A perpetual bond is a bond with no maturity date. Investors can treat this type of bond as an equity, not as debt. Issuers pay a coupon on perpetual bonds forever, and do not have to redeem the principal—much like the dividend from a blue-chip company.
By 1640, there was so much confidence in Holland’s public debt, that it made the refinancing of outstanding debt with a much lower interest rate of 5% possible.
Dutch provincial and municipal borrowers issued three types of debt:
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Promissory notes (Obligatiën): Short-term debt, in the form of bearer bonds, that was readily negotiable
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Redeemable bonds (Losrenten): Paid an annual interest to the holder, whose name appeared in a public-debt ledger until the loan was paid off
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Life annuities (Lijfrenten): Paid interest during the life of the buyer, where death cancels the principal
Unlike other countries where private bankers issued public debt, Holland dealt directly with prospective bondholders. They issued many bonds of small coupons that attracted small savers, like craftsmen and often women.
Rule Britannia: British Consols
In 1752, the British government converted all its outstanding debt into one bond, the Consolidated 3.5% Annuities, in order to reduce the interest rate it paid. Five years later, the annual interest rate on the stock dropped to 3%, adjusting the stock as Consolidated 3% Annuities.
The coupon rate remained at 3% until 1888, when the finance minister converted the Consolidated 3% Annuities, along with Reduced 3% Annuities (1752) and New 3% Annuities (1855), into a new bond─the 2.75% Consolidated Stock. The interest rate was further reduced to 2.5% in 1903.
Interest rates briefly went back up in 1927 when Winston Churchill issued a new government stock, the 4% Consols, as a partial refinancing of WWI war bonds.
American Ascendancy: The U.S. Treasury Notes
The United States Congress passed an act in 1870 authorizing three separate consol issues with redemption privileges after 10, 15, and 30 years. This was the beginning of what became known as Treasury Bills, the modern benchmark for interest rates.
The Great Inflation of the 1970s
In the 1970s, the global stock market was a mess. Over an 18-month period, the market lost 40% of its value. For close to a decade, few people wanted to invest in public markets. Economic growth was weak, resulting in double-digit unemployment rates.
The low interest policies of the Federal Reserve in the early ‘70s encouraged full employment, but also caused high inflation. Under new leadership, the central bank would later reverse its policies, raising interest rates to 20% in an effort to reset capitalism and encourage investment.
Looking Forward: Cheap Money
Since then, interest rates set by government debt have been rapidly declining, while the global economy has rapidly expanded. Further, financial crises have driven interest rates to just above zero in order to spur spending and investment.
It is clear that the arc of lending bends towards ever-decreasing interest rates, but how low can they go?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 23:25 -
- Who Rules The World?
Who Rules The World?
Authored by Bilal Hafeez via MacroHive.com,
Elites. They’re all over the news these days. But who are they and what do we know about them? An excellent new study, Who Rules the World? A Portrait of the Global Leadership Class, takes a systematic approach to answer these questions. At its heart lies a new database, the Global Leadership Project (GLP), which covers 145 nation-states and 38,085 ‘leaders’, each of whom is given biographical information. In total, the database has approximately 1.1 million data points. Academics at several leading institutions, John Gerring, Erzen Oncel, the late Kevin Morrison, and Daniel Pemstein, then sliced and diced this data to arrive at a compelling picture of today’s leadership elite.
Who Are Counted As The Global Elite?
They look at the country’s top political leader, the political executives, cabinet ministers, executive staff, party leaders, assembly leaders, supreme court justices, and members of parliaments. They also include unelected leaders such as monarchs, religious leaders, military leaders, junta leaders, CEOs of important companies, and NGO leaders.
So What Does the Typical Member of the Elite Look Like?
Male (81% of the total), married (91%), and on average 55 years old. They speak roughly two languages, with over one third speaking English. They are normally university educated with almost half educated in the West. Their most common degrees were in Economics/Business/Management or Law. The majority had white collar jobs or political backgrounds before entering the leadership elite. Typically, they earn thirteen times more than national average.
Chart 1: Education of Political Elites
What About the Leader at the Top?
The top political leaders tended to be older (on average 61), and more of them were male (92%) and could speak English (59%). They tend to be educated abroad, rather than domestically. Also, they are likely to have studied Economics/Business/Management (35%) more than any other subject (next is law at 17%). They are as likely to have political backgrounds as white collar backgrounds.
Regional Variations
The variation of gender, marital status, and age was relatively small across regions. Marginally, Europe tended to be more balanced, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) were least balanced. The elite in the Americas and MENA tended to speak the least amount of languages. But the elite in MENA was most educated, while in Africa, they were the least – the variation was small though. The least white collar leaders were in Africa, while the most white collar leaders were in the Americas. Finally, the earnings of the elite in rich countries were only three times the national average while in poor countries it was seventeen. Africa stands out as the region with the highest earning elites – leaders there earn thirty-five times the national average.
Other Observations
After English, French, Spanish, and Arabic were the next most commonly spoken languages. More of the elite have occupational backgrounds in the education sector rather than media or military. The most common political experience of the elite is to work within political parties. Only 7% have no political experience.
Final Words
This new database and study is an important step to understanding the profile of the global elite. It highlights the dominance of men of a certain age often with an economics background. The real question is whether populist events of recent years, which the database doesn’t cover, have changed this picture or not. Time will tell.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 23:05 - These Phones Emit The Most (And Least) Radiation
These Phones Emit The Most (And Least) Radiation
For most people nowadays, their smartphone is within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. It’s in their pocket while they’re at work, it’s in their hand on the train ride home and it’s on their bedside table as they go to sleep. With this level of proximity and usage, many can’t quite shake the niggling feeling that they might be risking damage to themselves in the long run.
While conclusive longitudinal research on the effects of cell phone radiation is still hard to come by, for those looking to hedge their bets, Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographics below, the phones that emit the most (and least) radiation when held to the ear while calling.
The German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz) has a comprehensive database of smartphones – new and old – and the level of radiation they emit.
Following the criteria set for this chart (see footnotes), the smartphones creating the lowest level of radiation are the Samsung Galaxy Note8 and the ZTE Axon Elite – with a specific absorption rate of 0.17 watts per kilogram.
You will find more infographics at Statista
In fact, alongside Nokia, Samsung handsets feature prominently, with eight of the smartphones on this ranking coming from the South Korean company.
This contrasts starkly with their major rival Apple. Two iPhones occupy a place in the list of phones which emit the most radiation, compared to none from Samsung, but, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, the current smartphone creating the highest level of radiation is the Mi A1 from Chinese vendor Xiaomi.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Another Xiaomi phone is in second place – the Mi Max 3. In fact, Chinese companies are represented heavily in this list, accounting for 7 of the top 15 handsets. Premium Apple phones such as the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 are also here to be seen, though, as are the latest Pixel handsets from Google.
While there is no universal guideline for a ‘safe’ level of phone radiation, the German certification for environmental friendliness ‘Der Blaue Engel’ (Blue Angel) only certifies phones which have a specific absorption rate of less than 0.60 watts per kilogram.
All of the phones shown in the second chart above come in at more than double this benchmark.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 22:45 - David Stockman Exposes The Ukrainian Influence-Peddling Rings, Part 3 Of 3
David Stockman Exposes The Ukrainian Influence-Peddling Rings, Part 3 Of 3
Authored by David Stockman via AntiWar.com,
It’s beginning to seem like an assault by the Zulu army of American politics – they just never stop coming.
We are referring to the Russophobic neocon Deep Staters who have trooped before Adam’s Schiff Show to pillory POTUS for daring to look into the Ukrainian stench that engulfs the Imperial City – a rank odor that is owing to their own arrogant meddling in the the internal affairs of that woebegone country.
This time it was Dr. Fiona Hill who sanctimoniously advised the House committee that there is nothing to see on the Ukraine front that involved any legitimate matter of state; it was just the Donald and his tinfoil hat chums jeopardizing the serious business of protecting the national security by injecting electioneering into relations with Ukraine.
She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia’s hands.
“In the course of this investigation,” Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, “I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
Folks, we are getting just plain sick and tired of this drumbeat of lies, misdirection and smug condescension by Washington payrollers like Fiona Hill. No Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election?
Exactly what hay wagon does she think we fell off from?
Or better still, ask Paul Manafort who will spend his golden years in the Big House owing to an August 2016 leak to the New York Times about an alleged “black book” which recorded payments he had received from his work as an advisor to the Ukrainian political party of former president Yanakovych. As we have seen, the latter had been removed from office by a Washington instigated coup in February 2014.
By its own admission, this story came from the Ukrainian government and the purpose was clear as a bell: Namely, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and force Manafort out of his months-old role as campaign chairman – a role that had finally brought some professional management to the Donald’s helter-skelter campaign for the nation’s highest office.
In the event, this well-timed bombshell worked, and in short order Manafort resigned, leaving the disheveled Trump campaign in the lurch:
…… government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort’s name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies….. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Manafort’s involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump’s favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats’ emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort’s activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev.
The bolded lines in the NYT story above tell you exactly where this was coming from. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau had been set up by an outfit called “AntAC”, which was jointly funded by George Soros and the Obama State Department. And there can be little doubt that the Donald’s accurate view at the time – that Crimea’s reunification with Mother Russia after a 60 year hiatus which had been ordered by the former Soviet Union’s Presidium – was unwelcome in Kiev and among the Washington puppeteers who had put it in power.
For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January 11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
…President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race…..
But Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections.
While it’s not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government.
Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president, Yanukovych.
The New York Times, in the August story revealing the ledgers’ existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were “a focus” of an investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.
Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative about the Russian Threat and Putin’s “invasion” of Ukraine alive.
Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed,
Russia today poses a greater foreign policy and security challenge to the United States and its Western allies than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its annexation of Crimea, war in Ukraine’s Donbas region, and military intervention in Syria have upended Western calculations from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Russia’s intervention in Syria, in particular, is a stark reminder that Russia is a multi-regional power…..
There is not a single true assertion in that quotation, of course, but we cite it for a very particular reason. Shifty Schiff & his impeachment tribunal have brought in Hill – and Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Tim Morrison previously – in order to created an echo chamber.
That’s right. The Dems are parroting the neocon lies – whether they believe them or not – in order to propagate the impression that the Donald is undermining national security in his effort to take a different posture on Russia and Ukraine, and is actually bordering on treason.
Thus, Adam Schiff repeated the false neocon narrative virtually word for word at the opening of the public hearings:“In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire.”
That’s pure rubbish. It’s based on the Big Lie that the overwhelming vote of the Russian population of Crimea in March 2014 was done at the gun point of the Russian Army. And that event, in turn, is the lynch-pin of the hoary canard that Putin is seeking to rebuild the Soviet Empire.
So it is necessary to review the truth once again about how Russian Crimea had been temporarily appended to the Ukrainian SSR during Soviet times.
The allegedly “occupied” territory of Crimea, in fact, was actually purchased from the Ottomans by Catherine the Great in 1783, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the Russian Czars for a warm-water port. Over the ages Sevastopol then emerged as a great naval base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the Soviet Union, too.
For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia (until 1954). That span exceeds the 170 years that have elapsed since California was annexed by a similar thrust of “Manifest Destiny” on this continent, thereby providing, incidentally, the United States Navy with its own warm-water port in San Diego.
While no foreign forces subsequently invaded the California coasts, it was most definitely not Ukrainian and Polish rifles, artillery and blood which famously annihilated The Charge Of The Light Brigade at the Crimean city of Balaclava in 1854; they were Russians defending the homeland from Turks, French and Brits.
And the portrait of the Russian “hero” hanging in Putin’s office is that of Czar Nicholas I – whose brutal 30-year reign brought the Russian Empire to its historical zenith. Yet despite his cruelty, Nicholas I is revered in Russian hagiography as the defender of Crimea, even as he lost the 1850s war to the Ottomans and Europeans.
At the end of the day, security of its historic port in Crimea is Russia’s Red Line, not Washington’s. Unlike today’s feather-headed Washington pols, even the enfeebled Franklin Roosevelt at least knew that he was in Soviet Russia when he made port in the Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945.
Maneuvering to cement his control of the Kremlin in the intrigue-ridden struggle for succession after Stalin’s death a few years later, Nikita Khrushchev allegedly spent 15 minutes reviewing his “gift” of Crimea to his subalterns in Kiev.
As it happened, therefore, Crimea became part of the Ukraine only by writ of one of the most vicious and reprehensible states in human history – the former Soviet Union:
On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR…..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR….
That’s right. Washington’s hypocritical and tendentious accusations against Russia’s re-absorption of Crimea imply that the dead-hand of the Soviet presidium must be defended at all costs – as if the security of North Dakota depended upon it!
In fact, the brouhaha about “returning” Crimea is a naked case of the hegemonic arrogance that has overtaken Imperial Washington since the 1991 Soviet demise.
After all, during the long decades of the Cold War, the West did nothing to liberate the “captive nation” of Ukraine – with or without the Crimean appendage bestowed upon it in 1954. Nor did it draw any red lines in the mid-1990’s when a financially desperate Ukraine rented back Sevastopol and the strategic redoubts of the Crimea to an equally pauperized Russia.
In short, in the era before we got our Pacific port in 1848, and even during the 170-year interval since then, America’s national security has depended not one whit on the status of Russian-speaking Crimea. That the local population has now chosen fealty to the Grand Thief in Moscow over the ruffians and rabble who have seized Kiev amounts to a giant: So what!
The truth is, when it comes to Ukraine there really isn’t that much there, there. Its boundaries have been morphing for centuries among the quarreling tribes, peoples, potentates, Patriarchs and pretenders of a small region that is none of Washington’s damn business..
Still, it was this final aggressive drive of Washington and NATO into the internal affairs of Russia’s historic neighbor and vassal, Ukraine, that largely accounts for the demonization of Putin. Likewise, it is virtually the entire source of the false claim that Russia has aggressive, expansionist designs on the former Warsaw Pact states in the Baltics, Poland and beyond.
The latter is a nonsensical fabrication. In fact, it was the neocon meddlers from Washington who crushed Ukraine’s last semblance of civil governance when they enabled ultra-nationalists and crypto-Nazis to gain government positions after the February 2014 putsch.
As we indicated above, in one fell swoop that inexcusable stupidity reopened Ukraine’s blood-soaked modern history. The latter incepted with Stalin’s re-population of the eastern Donbas region with “reliable” Russian workers after his genocidal liquidation of the kulaks in the early 1930s.
It was subsequently exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration by Ukrainian nationalists in the west with the Nazi Wehrmacht as it laid waste to Poles, Jews, gypsies and other “undesirables” on its way to Stalingrad in 1942-43. Thereafter followed an equal and opposite spree of barbaric revenge as the victorious Red Army marched back through Ukraine on its way to Berlin.
So it may be fairly asked. What beltway lame brains did not chance to understand that Washington’s triggering of “regime change” in Kiev would reopen this entire bloody history of sectarian and political strife?
Moreover, once they had opened Pandora’s box, why was it so hard to see that an outright partition of Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbas and Crimea, or even accession to the Russian state from which these communities had originated, would have been a perfectly reasonable resolution?
Certainly that would have been far preferable to dragging all of Europe into the lunacy of the current anti-Putin sanctions and embroiling the Ukrainian factions in a suicidal civil war. The alleged Russian threat to Europe, therefore, was manufactured in Imperial Washington, not the Kremlin.
In fact, in 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion – not even by “one inch,” as then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the Russian border.
So Robert Merry said it well in his excellent piece on the entire neocon Ukraine Scam that is being paraded before the Schiff Show.
NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.
True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine’s internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych’s government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.
Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine’s next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “Yats is our guy,” she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, “Fuck the EU.” She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries.
That’s when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country’s east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the “sham referendum” described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn’t want to be pulled westward.
The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global “heartland,” in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.
But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO’s eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia’s legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.
George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can’t end well.
That is, what is being desperately defended on Capitol Hill is not the rule of law, national security or fidelity to the Constitution of the United States., but a giant Neocon Lie that is needed to keep the Empire in business, and the world moving ever closer to an utterly unnecessary Cold War 2.0 between nation’s each pointing enough nuclear warheads at the other to destroy the planet.
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David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He’s the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back. He also is founder of David Stockman’s Contra Corner and David Stockman’s Bubble Finance Trader.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 22:25 - Uber Helicopter Rides To JFK Cost Less Than Its Car Rides At One Point
Uber Helicopter Rides To JFK Cost Less Than Its Car Rides At One Point
Ah, the wonders of city gridlock, and the gifts it showers upon us…
It turns out that Manhattan is so congested and impossible to drive through that, at one point in time, it actually cost less to take an Uber helicopter to JFK airport from downtown than it did to take a car, according to Bloomberg.
The helicopter ride, which takes about 8 minutes, cost $108.98 at one point, which is almost 33% less than the $163.11 charge a rider would have racked up taking an Uber Black and slightly higher than the $100.35 it cost to take an UberX on the same trip.
The pricing of its helicopter rides varies with demand, location and time of day. Still, it was an odd arbitrage given Uber’s new commitment to slashing rider discounts in order to try and achieve profitability.
The chopper rides usually cost between $200 and $225. The discount was called a temporary offer for “a small, random set of riders,” the company said.
The company declined to talk about how many total chopper rides it has given since it introduced the service this past summer. The company is collecting data from its NYC service, which runs Monday through Friday during afternoon rush hour.
Uber will use the data to try and determine whether or not to expand the service.
The company’s Uber Elevate program – a larger aerial ridesharing initiative – is still set to test flights in Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne next year. The service is set to become available in 2023.
Uber’s expansion into aerial highlights the company’s ambitions of growing, while at the same time targeting becoming a profitable company.
Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said in November that the company would only focus on businesses and markets where it could establish or defend a top leadership position, putting more focus on the company’s quest to stop burning cash.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 22:05 - The Illiberal World Order
The Illiberal World Order
Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
From a big picture perspective, the largest rift in American politics is between those willing to admit reality and those clinging to a dishonest perception of a past that never actually existed. Ironically, those who most frequently use “post-truth” to describe our current era tend to be those with the most distorted view of what was really happening during the Clinton/Bush/Obama reign.
Despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, such people now enthusiastically whitewash the decades preceding Trump to turn it into a paragon of human liberty, justice and economic wonder. You don’t have to look deep to understand that resistance liberals are now actually conservatives, brimming with nostalgia for the days before significant numbers of people became wise to what’s been happening all along.
They want to forget about the bipartisan coverup of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11, all the wars based on lies, and the indisputable imperial crimes disclosed by Wikileaks, Snowden and others. They want to pretend Wall Street crooks weren’t bailed out and made even more powerful by the Bush/Obama tag team, despite ostensible ideological differences between the two. They want to forget Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself.
Lying to yourself about history is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you can’t accept where we’ve been, and that Trump’s election is a symptom of decades of rot as opposed to year zero of a dangerous new world, you’ll never come to any useful conclusions. As such, the most meaningful fracture in American society today is between those who’ve accepted that we’ve been lied to for a very long time, and those who think everything was perfectly fine before Trump. There’s no real room for a productive discussion between such groups because one of them just wants to get rid of orange man, while the other is focused on what’s to come. One side actually believes a liberal world order existed in the recent past, while the other fundamentally recognizes this was mostly propaganda based on myth.
Irrespective of what you think of Bernie Sanders and his policies, you can at least appreciate the fact his supporters focus on policy and real issues. In contrast, resistance liberals just desperately scramble to put up whoever they think can take us back to a make-believe world of the recent past. This distinction is actually everything. It’s the difference between people who’ve at least rejected the status quo and those who want to rewind history and perform a do-over of the past forty years.
A meaningful understanding that unites populists across the ideological spectrum is the basic acceptance that the status quo is pernicious and unsalvageable, while the status quo-promoting opposition focuses on Trump the man while conveniently ignoring the worst of his policies because they’re essentially just a continuation of Bush/Clinton/Obama. It’s the most shortsighted and destructive response to Trump imaginable. It’s also why the Trump-era alliance of corporate, imperialist Democrats and rightwing Bush-era neoconservatives makes perfect sense, as twisted and deranged as it might seem at first. With some minor distinctions, these people share nostalgia for the same thing.
This sort of political environment is extremely unhealthy because it places an intentional and enormous pressure on everyone to choose between dedicating every fiber of your being to removing Trump at all costs or supporting him. This anti-intellectualism promotes an ends justifies the means attitude on all sides. In other words, it turns more and more people into rhinoceroses.
Eugène Ionesco’s masterpiece, Rhinoceros, is about a central European town where the citizens turn, one by one, into rhinoceroses. Once changed, they do what rhinoceroses do, which is rampage through the town, destroying everything in their path. People are a little puzzled at first, what with their fellow citizens just turning into rampaging rhinos out of the blue, but even that slight puzzlement fades quickly enough. Soon it’s just the New Normal. Soon it’s just the way things are … a good thing, even. Only one man resists the siren call of rhinocerosness, and that choice brings nothing but pain and existential doubt, as he is utterly … profoundly … alone.
– Ben Hunt, The Long Now, Pt. 2 – Make, Protect, Teach
A political environment where you’re pressured to choose between some ridiculous binary of “we must remove Trump at all costs” or go gung-ho MAGA, is a rhinoceros generating machine. The only thing that happens when you channel your inner rhinoceros to defeat rhinoceroses, is you get more rhinoceroses. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
The truth of the matter is the U.S. is an illiberal democracy in practice, despite various myths to the contrary.
An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an “open society”. There are many countries “that are categorized as neither ‘free’ nor ‘not free’, but as ‘probably free’, falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes”. This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist.
It’s not a new thing by any means, but it’s getting worse by the day. Though many of us remain in denial, the American response to various crises throughout the 21st century was completely illiberal. As devastating as they were, the attacks of September 11, 2001 did limited damage compared to the destruction caused by our insane response to them. Similarly, any direct damage caused by the election and policies of Donald Trump pales in comparison to the damage being done by the intelligence agency-led “resistance” to him.
“Liberal resistance” since 2016:
– Pussy hats
– Russiagate flop
– Let’s beg the tech giants to censor speech we don’t like.
– Hurray for permanent, unelected government. Such smarties!Worthless. https://t.co/de0JdMm8ee
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 22, 2019
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So are we all rhinoceroses now?
We don’t have to be. Turning into a rhinoceros happens easily if you’re unaware of what’s happening and not grounded in principles, but ultimately it is a choice. The decision to discard ethics and embrace dishonesty in order to achieve political ends is always a choice. As such, the most daunting challenge we face now and in the chaotic years ahead is to become better as others become worse. A new world is undoubtably on the horizon, but we don’t yet know what sort of world it’ll be. It’s either going to be a major improvement, or it’ll go the other way, but one thing’s for certain — it can’t stay the way it is much longer.
If we embrace an ends justifies the means philosophy, it’s going to be game over for a generation. The moment you accept this tactic is the moment you stoop down to the level of your adversaries and become just like them. It then becomes a free-for-all for tyrants where everything is suddenly on the table and no deed is beyond the pale. It’s happened many times before and it can happen again. It’s what happens when everyone turns into rhinoceroses.
* * *
If you enjoyed this, I suggest you check out the following 2017 posts. It’s never been more important to stay conscious and maintain a strong ethical framework.
A five-part series on Spiral Dynamics:
Lost in the Political Wilderness
What is Spiral Dynamics and Why Have I Become So Interested in It?
How a Breakdown in Liberal Ideology Created Trump – Part 1
How a Breakdown in Liberal Ideology Created Trump – Part 2
Why Increased Consciousness is the Only Path Forward
* * *
Liberty Blitzkrieg is an ad-free website. If you enjoyed this post and my work in general, visit the Support Page where you can donate and contribute to my efforts.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 21:45 - Saudi Arabia Arrests At Least 9 'High-Profile' People Despite Jittery IPO Push
Saudi Arabia Arrests At Least 9 'High-Profile' People Despite Jittery IPO Push
Apparently feeling emboldened by the fact that Saudi Arabia suffered zero repercussions over the Oct.3, 2018 state-ordered murder of Jamal Khashoggi, other than crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) briefly being shunned by international elites for a few months, it’s business as usual again in the kingdom of horrors.
In a new breaking report, The Wall Street Journal reveals that “Saudi authorities have arrested several high-profile people in recent days, extending an effort to sideline Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s perceived opponents, despite a push to repair the kingdom’s international image to attract investment.”
Yasser al-Rumayyan, Saudi Aramco’s chairman, via Reuters. The WSJ counts nine people total arrested in a span of a little more than the past week who are not particularly known for being dissidents or any level of explicitly anti-government activists. They include journalists, intellectuals and businessmen detained since Nov. 16.
What additionally makes these detentions particularly brazen on the part of Riyadh authorities is that it comes just in the final stages of the kingdom preparing for the launch of what most see as the biggest listing in history, Saudi Aramco IPO.
The damning WSJ report hit the same day that Aramco executives met with Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) officials in the UAE to discuss investment options and possibilities in the oil giant’s debut share sale, and at a moment the kingdom is desperate to attract a major anchor investor to ensure success.
It appears MbS — no doubt further emboldened by continued support from President Trump even after the Khashoggi affair — realizes a pesky little issue like human rights abuses, including torture of dissidents and continued record pace beheadings and crucifixions, can’t stand in the way.
It also looks as if MbS wants to continue to preempt any future possible criticism from within, given the following:
A person familiar with the matter said all of the people arrested in recent days had been identified by the government for writing or speaking in support of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that toppled a series of Middle Eastern governments.
The ‘Arab Spring’ of some eight years ago left little impact in Saudi Arabia, though there were reports of sporadic intense protests among the country’s restive Shia population in the eastern part of the kingdom. The Saudi military did lend support to the allied Bahraini monarchy by sending tanks across the King Fahd Causeway to crush a popular uprising in the streets there.
Interestingly some among the arrested were intellectuals and human rights organization members who themselves had previously voiced support for and participated in initiatives connected with MbS’ reform initiative.
The WSJ reports of others who don’t fit the profile of dissidents in any clear way: “Another, prominent philosopher Sulaiman al-Saikhan al-Nasser, participated in government-sponsored cultural initiatives… Also arrested in recent days were Fuad al-Farhan and Musab Fuada, who both started a company that offers business skills training… Abdulaziz al-Hais, is a former journalist who now owns a carpentry business…. Abdulrahman Alshehri is a journalist who has written for domestic and international outlets.”
One official with Human Rights Watch (HRW) told the WSJ, “It’s all connected to the same campaign of trying to eliminate independent voices in Saudi society, of going after anyone who could be even mildly critical or independent.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 21:25 - Solar Minimum Madness: Is Thanksgiving's Winter Wonderland A Preview Of Bitterly Cold Winter To Come?
Solar Minimum Madness: Is Thanksgiving's Winter Wonderland A Preview Of Bitterly Cold Winter To Come?
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
This week, three major winter storms will batter most of the country with ice, snow and bitterly cold temperatures just in time for Thanksgiving. It is being projected that 55 million Americans will be traveling this week, and so this bizarre weather comes at a very bad time. But of course we have already seen a series of blizzards roar across the nation in recent weeks and hundreds of record cold temperatures have already been shattered and we are still about a month away from the official start of winter. Normally, it isn’t supposed to be this cold or this snowy yet, but we don’t live in “normal” times.
Scientists tell us that solar activity becomes very quiet during a “solar minimum”, and when solar activity becomes very quiet we tend to have very cold winters. And in recent months solar activity has been very, very low. In fact, we haven’t seen any sunspots at all “since November 2”…
We have not seen any sunspots since November 2, and at that time they were only visible for two days, and prior to that no sunspots since October 2.
Unless things change, and that is not expected to happen, we should prepare for a very cold and very snowy winter. And this upcoming week is likely to be a preview of coming attractions. According to CNN, holiday travelers will have three major winter storms to deal with…
As Thanksgiving week starts, a record number of travelers will be dealing with three storms nationwide that will add to the holiday stress.
One storm will lash the East and will affect travel through Sunday, another one will batter the Midwest on Tuesday and a third one will move through the West on Wednesday.
Forecasters are telling us that Denver could receive a foot of snow, but it isn’t too unusual for Denver to get a lot of snow.
But it is unusual for Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to get snow this time of the year, and apparently it looks like that could happen on Wednesday…
By Wednesday Arizona could see snow, as could New Mexico, the northern Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma Panhandle.
As that storm moves through the Midwest, “winterlike travel” is expected over large portions of the heartland…
“At this time, enough snow to create winterlike travel is anticipated from central and northeastern Colorado to much of Nebraska, northern Kansas, much of Iowa, northwestern Missouri, northwestern Illinois, southeastern Minnesota, central and eastern Wisconsin and northern Michigan,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson said.
Forecasters expect Tuesday into Wednesday to bring the worst conditions in the Midwest, with strong, gusty winds battering such key airports as Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Shortly thereafter, an absolutely massive winter storm is going to hit California really hard, and we are being told that “travel may be impossible” in certain areas…
Winter storm watches have already been issued for the Sierra and the National Weather Service is saying travel may be impossible as snow levels drop which could lead to numerous road closures Wednesday into Thursday.
Several feet is forecast to snow in the mountains. In the lower elevations and along the coast, it will be rain with the possibility of totals reaching 5 inches.
This definitely is not normal.
In some parts of the country, it feels like winter already arrived more than a month ago. This has had a huge impact on harvest season, and unusually cold temperatures could also make things extremely difficult for farmers that plan to grow crops this winter. The following comes from Martin Armstrong…
The BIG FREEZE is upon us. The volatility in weather that our computer has been forecasting on a long-term basis should result in this winter being colder than the last. In Britain, the snow has hit an already flood-ravaged country as temperatures plunged to -7C. This is part of the problem we face. The ground freezes down and this prevents winter crops. During the late 1700s, the ground froze to a depth of 2 feet according to John Adams.
And over in Scotland, it is being projected that this could be “the coldest winter for 10 years”…
SCOTLAND is forecast the coldest winter for 10 years – with -13C lows, snow, ice and travel woes, with a weak sun and Arctic chills blamed.
The worst winter since 2009-10 is due as the sun is at the weakest point of its 11-year cycle of strength, said The Weather Company, the world’s biggest commercial forecaster.
The last time the sun’s power was as low as now, Scotland saw the bitter 2009-10 winter, Britain’s coldest winter since the 1970s, and the 2010 Big Freeze, with the coldest December ever recorded.
We are witnessing bizarrely cold weather all over the northern hemisphere, but most people don’t understand why this is happening.
More than anything else, solar activity determines whether conditions are going to be warmer or colder than normal. So this is why the Farmers’ Almanac and the Old Farmer’s Almanac are both telling us that this winter will be bitterly cold and very snowy…
Not long after the Farmers’ Almanac suggested it would be a “freezing, frigid, and frosty” season, the *other* Farmer’s Almanac has released its annual weather forecast—and it’s equally upsetting.
While the first publication focused on the cold temperatures anticipated this winter, the Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts that excessive snowfall will be the most noteworthy part of the season.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which was founded in 1792, says that the upcoming winter “will be remembered for strong storms” featuring heavy rain, sleet, and a lot of snow. The periodical actually used the word “snow-verload” to describe the conditions we can expect in the coming months.
Scientists are hoping that solar activity will return to normal soon, but there is no guarantee that will happen. In fact, in a recent article I explained that some experts believe that we may have entered a “grand solar minimum” similar to the Maunder Minimum that created a “mini ice age” in the 17th century. The sunspot cycle virtually vanished from 1645 to 1715, and this resulted in bitterly cold temperatures, disastrous harvests and famines that killed millions upon millions of people all over the globe.
Hopefully things will not get that bad any time soon, but without a doubt we live at a time when global weather patterns are going absolutely haywire. We should be hoping for the best, but we should also be preparing for the worst.
This week, the crazy weather will be a major headache for holiday travelers, but that is just a temporary problem. If solar activity does not return to normal over the next few years, we will soon have far larger issues to deal with.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 21:05 - 75% Of Millennials May Never Be Able To Afford Owning A House
75% Of Millennials May Never Be Able To Afford Owning A House
More so than with Gen X and the Baby Boomers, housing has become indelibly tied up with the millennial identity. That’s largely because economic hardship – or at the very least, stagnation and heavy debt – is perhaps the single defining characteristic of the generation that came or age during or just after the financial crisis nearly destroyed the global economy.
And while many had hoped that millennials would find their footing and their economic prospects would improve with time, sadly, that’s just not the case for many millennials.
And in its latest study of millennial attitudes toward the housing market, Apartment List found that a growing percentage of those surveyed said they fully expected to be renters forever. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of respondents who felt that homeownership would be forever out of reach was higher in expensive urban enclaves like NYC, and many cities across the state of California.
But perhaps the most alarming finding from the study stems from the researchers examination of student debt and how the burden of making their monthly loan payments impacts their ability to save for a down payment. At the current savings rate, just 25% of millennial renters will be ready to put down 10% on a median-priced starter home in the next five years (typically, buyers need 20% down to get a mortgage). That means 75% of millennials likely won’t be able to afford a down payment any time soon.
To better understand the barrier created by student debt, Apartment List tried to simulate Bernie Sanders’ proposal to take all student debt payments and apply them to down payments instead. Apartment List found that the effect would be significant: Across the country the percentage of millennials who would soon be able to afford a 10% down payment on a median condo would rise from 25% to 38%.
After more than a decade of decline, the national homeownership rate is finally climbing again. But the Apartment List study is unfortunately just the latest to show that the situation for millennials hasn’t improved. Half of millennials have nothing saved for a downpayment (despite being dangerous close to – or past – the age of 30). If this keeps up, millennials can ditch that tired sobriquet for something more appropriate: Generation Rent.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 20:45 - Ron Paul Exposes The Real Bombshell Of The Impeachment Hearings
Ron Paul Exposes The Real Bombshell Of The Impeachment Hearings
Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
The most shocking thing about the House impeachment hearings to this point is not a “smoking gun” witness providing irrefutable evidence of quid pro quo. It’s not that President Trump may or may not have asked the Ukrainians to look into business deals between then-Vice President Biden’s son and a Ukrainian oligarch.
The most shocking thing to come out of the hearings thus far is confirmation that no matter who is elected President of the United States, the permanent government will not allow a change in our aggressive interventionist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russia.
Even more shocking is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are bothered in the slightest!
Take Lt. Colonel Vindman, who earned high praise in the mainstream media. He did not come forth with first-hand evidence that President Trump had committed any “high crimes” or “misdemeanors.” He brought a complaint against the President because he was worried that Trump was shifting US policy away from providing offensive weapons to the Ukrainian government!
He didn’t think the US president had the right to suspend aid to Ukraine because he supported providing aid to Ukraine.
According to his testimony, Vindman’s was concerned over “influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency.”
“Consensus views of the interagency” is another word for “deep state.”
Vindman continued, “While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined US government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”
Let that sink in for a moment: Vindman did not witness any crimes, he just didn’t think the elected President of the United States had any right to change US policy toward Ukraine or Russia!
Likewise, his boss on the National Security Council Staff, Fiona Hill, sounded more like she had just stepped out of the 1950s with her heated Cold War rhetoric. Citing the controversial 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment” put together by then-CIA director John Brennan’s “hand-picked” analysts, she asserted that, “President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter US foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine.”
And who gets to decide US foreign policy objectives in Europe? Not the US President, according to government bureaucrat Fiona Hill. In fact, Hill told Congress that, “If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention.”
Who was Fiona Hill’s boss? Former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who no doubt agreed that the president has no right to change US foreign policy. Bolton’s the one who “explained” that when Trump said US troops would come home it actually meant troops would stay put.
One by one, the parade of “witnesses” before House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff sang from the same songbook. As US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland put it, “in July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression.”
Meanwhile, both Democrats and Republicans in large majority voted to continue spying on the rest of us by extending the unpatriotic Patriot Act. Authoritarianism is the real bipartisan philosophy in Washington.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 20:25 - Triggered: Mayor de Blasio Threatens To Destroy FedEx Robots Running Around New York
Triggered: Mayor de Blasio Threatens To Destroy FedEx Robots Running Around New York
FedEx’s new package-delivering robots have been spotted on the streets of New York City, according to dozens of city dwellers who posted pictures and videos of the robots onto social media.
The SameDay Bot is expected to enter commercial service in February 2020, and it uses artificial intelligence, sensors, and stair-climbing wheels to traverse the city’s most challenging terrain.
Twitter user @WhatIsNewYork tweeted last week a short video of the robot rolling down Crosby Street near Houston Street.
Wall-E out here flexing all over FedEx delivery drivers #whatisnewyork pic.twitter.com/TOevthTUJQ
— WhatIsNewYork (@whatisny) November 21, 2019
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Upon the sightings of the robot, Mayor de Blasio was triggered on social media, who tweeted, “First of all, @FedEx, never get a robot to do a New Yorker’s job. We have the finest workers in the world.”
Adding that “Second of all, we didn’t grant permission for these to clog up our streets. If we see ANY of these bots, we’ll send them packing.”
First of all, @FedEx, never get a robot to do a New Yorker’s job. We have the finest workers in the world.
Second of all, we didn’t grant permission for these to clog up our streets. If we see ANY of these bots we’ll send them packing. https://t.co/XxJIrIW9vr
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 23, 2019
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City Hall spokesman Will Baskin-Gerwitz told the New York Post that city employees will remove the robots from city streets.
“These large autonomous robots are not allowed on city streets, and they’re a public safety hazard for New Yorkers. We’ll use appropriate methods to remove them immediately,” Baskin-Gerwitz told The Post.
The de Blasio administration’s violent reaction to robots is a typical ‘Ok Boomer’ response to new technology that will displace millions of jobs by 2030.
Automation in New York City could lead to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the coming years, likely to impact industries such as food service, retail, transportation, and warehousing the hardest.
De Blasio knows that the proliferation of robots on the streets of New York City could lead to a large number of job losses and further push wealth inequality to the extreme. This would destroy the social fabric that has kept everyone complacent in the city; any social unrest could unravel his party’s socialist agenda for the city.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 20:05 - Fiona Hill & The Pitfalls Of Being A Pit-Bull Russophobe
Fiona Hill & The Pitfalls Of Being A Pit-Bull Russophobe
Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,
Like so many other glib “Russia experts” with access to Establishment media, Fiona Hill, who testified last week in the impeachment probe, seems three decades out of date…
Fiona Hill’s “Russian-expert” testimony Thursday and her deposition on Oct. 14 to the impeachment inquiry showed that her antennae are acutely tuned to what Russian intelligence services may be up to but, sadly, also displayed a striking naiveté about the machinations of U.S. intelligence.
Hill’s education on Russia came at the knee of the late Professor Richard Pipes, her Harvard mentor and archdeacon of Russophobia. I do not dispute her sincerity in attributing all manner of evil to what President Ronald Reagan called the “Evil Empire.” But, like so many other glib “Russia experts” with access to Establishment media, she seems three decades out of date.
I have been studying the U.S.S.R. and Russia for twice as long as Hill, was chief of CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch during the 1970s, and watched the “Evil Empire” fall apart. She seems to have missed the falling apart part.
Selective Suspicion
Are the Russian intelligence services still very active? Of course. But there is no evidence — other than Hill’s bias — for her extraordinary claim that they were behind the infamous “Steele Dossier,” for example, or that they were the prime mover of Ukraine-gate in an attempt to shift the blame for Russian “meddling” in the 2016 U.S. election onto Ukraine. In recent weeks U.S. intelligence officials were spreading this same tale, lapped up and faithfully reported Friday by The New York Times.
Hill has been conditioned to believe Russian President Vladimir Putin and especially his security services are capable of anything, and thus sees a Russian under every rock — as we used to say of smart know-nothings like former CIA Director William Casey and the malleable “Soviet experts” who bubbled up to the top during his reign (1981 – 1987). Recall that at the very first meeting of Reagan’s cabinet, Casey openly told the president and other cabinet officials: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Were Casey still alive, he would be very pleased and proud of Hill’s performance.
Beyond Dispute?
On Thursday Hill testified:
“The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.” [Emphasis added.]
Ah, yes. “The public conclusion of our intelligence agencies”: the same ones who reported that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would never surrender power peaceably; the same ones who told Secretary of State Colin Powell he could assure the UN Security Council that the WMD evidence given him by our intelligence agencies was “irrefutable and undeniable.” Only Richard-Pipeline-type Russophobia can account for the blinders on someone as smart as Hill and prompt her to take as gospel “the public conclusions of our intelligence agencies.”
A modicum of intellectual curiosity and rudimentary due diligence would have prompted her to look into who was in charge of preparing the (misnomered) “Intelligence Community Assessment” published on Jan. 6, 2017, which provided the lusted-after fodder for the “mainstream” media and others wanting to blame Hillary Clinton’s defeat on the Russians.
Jim, Do a Job on the Russians
President Barack Obama gave the task to his National Intelligence Director James Clapper, whom he had allowed to stay in that job for three and a half years after he had to apologize to Congress for what he later admitted was a “clearly erroneous” response, under oath, to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) on NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. And when Clapper published his memoir last year, Hill would have learned that, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s handpicked appointee to run satellite imagery analysis, Clapper places the blame for the consequential “failure” to find the (non-existent) WMD “where it belongs — squarely on the shoulders of the administration members who were pushing a narrative of a rogue WMD program in Iraq and on the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn’t really there.” [Emphasis added.]
President Barack Obama with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, 2011. (White House/ Pete Souza)
But for Hill, Clapper was a kindred soul: Just eight weeks after she joined the National Security Council staff, Clapper, during an NBC interview on May 28, 2017, recalled “the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique.” Later he added, “It’s in their DNA.” Clapper has claimed that “what the Russians did had a profound impact on the outcome of the election.”
As for the “Intelligence Community Assessment,” the banner headline atop The New York Times on Jan. 7, 2017 set the tone for the next couple of years: “Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says.” During my career as a CIA analyst, as deputy national intelligence officer chairing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), and working on the Intelligence Production Review Board, I had not seen so shabby a piece of faux analysis as the ICA. The writers themselves seemed to be holding their noses. They saw fit to embed in the ICA itself this derriere-covering note: “High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”
Not a Problem
With the help of the Establishment media, Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, were able to pretend that the ICA had been approved by “all 17 intelligence agencies” (as first claimed by Clinton, with Rep. Jim Himes, D-CT, repeating that canard Thursday, alas “without objection).” Himes, too should do his homework. The bogus “all 17 intelligence agencies” claim lasted only a few months before Clapper decided to fess up. With striking naiveté, Clapper asserted that ICA preparers were “handpicked analysts” from only the FBI, CIA and NSA. The criteria Clapper et al. used are not hard to divine. In government as in industry, when you can handpick the analysts, you can handpick the conclusions.
Maybe a Problem After All
“According to several current and former intelligence officers who must remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue,” as the Times says when it prints made-up stuff, there were only two “handpicked analysts.” Clapper picked Brennan; and Brennan picked Clapper. That would help explain the grossly subpar quality of the ICA.
If U.S. Attorney John Durham is allowed to do his job probing the origins of Russiagate, and succeeds in getting access to the “handpicked analysts” — whether there were just two, or more — Hill’s faith in “our intelligence agencies,” may well be dented if not altogether shattered.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 19:45 - China Central Bank Warns Downward Pressure On Economy Increasing
China Central Bank Warns Downward Pressure On Economy Increasing
Several weeks ago, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it would “increase counter-cyclical adjustments” to prevent downward pressure on the economy. Now the PBOC is warning that it might not be able to ward off these downward pressures in the short term, reported Reuters.
The PBOC’s annual financial stability report said China would continue to deploy fiscal and monetary policies to support the economy but warned economic deceleration would continue through year-end.
Policy maneuvering by the PBOC will be limited as it will likely need to cut rates and the amount of money banks put down as reserves to promote credit growth.
The PBOC recognizes the rapid deterioration in the economy, along with the limitations of monetary policy to revive growth.
Likely, credit creation via the PBOC won’t be in magnitude seen in the last ten years used to save the world from escaping several deflationary crashes.
The government will likely stabilize its economy or at least create a softer landing through tax cuts and infrastructure spending, the annual report said.
What this all means is that China’s economy isn’t going to save the world as it has done since 2008. China’s credit impulse has rolled over, the probabilities of a massive global economic rebound in the coming quarters are unlikely as China continues slow.
Fathom Consulting’s China Momentum Indicator 2.0 (CMI 2.0) provides a more in-depth view of China’s economic deceleration through alternative data as there’s no evidence at the moment that would suggest a trough in China’s economy.
China’s economy over the last decade has created 60% of all new global debt. This means with China’s economy in freefall, the PBOC powerless over downside, GDP will likely fall to the 5-handle in early 2020. More importantly, this means a global economic rebound of massive proportions is unlikely to happen early next year.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 19:25 - Two Factors To Upend Oil Markets In 2020
Two Factors To Upend Oil Markets In 2020
Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
The major forecasters see an oil supply surplus next year, but those bearish outlooks largely depend on the health of U.S. shale growth in 2020, an assumption that is looking increasingly fanciful.
Financial struggles are well-known, but the dominoes continue to fall. As Bloomberg reported, some drillers have recently seen their credit lines reduced, limiting their access to fresh capital. Twice a year in the spring and fall, banks reassess their credit lines to shale drillers, and decide how much they will authorize companies to borrow. This time around is expected to be the first time in roughly three years that lenders tighten up lending capacities.
The curtailment in lending comes at a time when scrutiny on shale finances is increasing. Share prices have fallen sharply this year as investors lose interest. The industry continues to burn cash, and lenders and investors shunning the industry.
Of course, if drillers cannot borrow to cover their financing gaps, they may be forced into bankruptcy. The cutting of the borrowing base “can be a good precursor to potential bankruptcy because as capital markets stay closed off for these companies, the borrowing base serves as the only source of liquidity,” Billy Bailey, Saltstone Capital Management LLC portfolio manager, told Bloomberg.
Not every company is entirely cut off from capital markets. As Liam Denning points out, Diamondback Energy was able to issue $3 billion in new bonds at low interest rates, which highlights the case of “haves and have nots” within the industry.
But the financial stress helps explain the slowdown in U.S. oil production this year. The U.S. added about 2 million barrels per day (mb/d) between January 2018 and the end of last year; but output is only up a few hundred thousand barrels per day in 2019 from January through August.
Confusingly, the IEA still forecasts a substantial increase in U.S. oil production in 2020 at 1.2 mb/d, but not everyone agrees with that optimistic outlook. The credit crunch and financial stress in the shale sector could lead to a disappointment in 2020.
It is against this bewildering backdrop that OPEC+ must decide its next move. The IEA says that OPEC+ is in for some trouble as a supply glut looms – in large part because of shale growth. Others agree, to be sure. Commerzbank said that OPEC’s efforts to focus on laggards such as Iraq and Nigeria will be insufficient. “It is a mystery why OPEC should believe that it can avoid this oversupply by making just a few cosmetic adjustments,” the investment bank said. “By early next year at the latest OPEC thus risks being rudely awakened.”
However, at the same time, the physical market is showing some slightly bullish signs. In the oil futures market, front-month contracts for Brent are trading at a premium to longer-dated ones. The six-month premium rose to $3.50 per barrel recently, up from $1.90 last month, Reuters reports. A large premium is typically associated with a tighter market.
Moreover, there is a chance of a thaw in the U.S.-China trade war, which could provide some tailwinds to the global economy. It’s become impossible to trust the daily rumors coming from Washington and Beijing, but the two sides have shown some desire to at least call a truce and not step up the tariffs.
Still, the economy has slowed. The OECD warned that global GDP will decelerate to just 2.9 percent this year, and remain within a 2.9-3.0 percent range through 2021. This is the weakest rate of growth in a decade, and is down sharply from the 3.8 percent seen last year. “Two years of escalating conflict over tariffs, principally between the US and China, has hit trade, is undermining business investment and is putting jobs at risk,” the OECD said.
The U.S. and China, then, have a great deal of influence over the near-term prospects for oil. As mentioned, there is still a wide range of opinions on the magnitude of the oil supply surplus in 2020, but a breakthrough in the trade war would immediately shift growth projections, oil demand trajectories, and, importantly, sentiment. Even the mere expectation of an economic rebound would send oil prices rising, at least for a little while.
On the other hand, the thaw in the trade war is far from inevitable. The two sides have shown little evidence, if any, that they are actually making progress on some of the structural issues at hand. There is still the possibility that the talks fall apart and the trade war marches on, or even grows worse.
Because it is generally assumed that the oil market has already factored in some degree of optimism around tariff reduction, which has likely added a few dollars to the barrel of oil, a reassessment to the downside would surely send oil prices tumbling.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 19:05 - Bombogenesis Could Bring Snow, Rain, And Winds From Northern California To Central US
Bombogenesis Could Bring Snow, Rain, And Winds From Northern California To Central US
A powerful storm will produce snow, rain, and strong wind across southern Oregon and Northern California on Tuesday and will move through the central US by late week through the weekend.
The dangerous storm could develop into a bombogenesis before it strikes Oregon and Northern California on Tuesday.
Forecasting my first “Bomb Cyclone” in the PNW! This storm rapidly intensifies through Tuesday evening. Central pressure drops from 1005mb to 977mb. Heavy snow and strong winds take aim at southern Oregon midweek. More on @KOINNews #bombogenesis pic.twitter.com/fN03wnIU35
— Kelley Bayern (@KelleyKOIN) November 25, 2019
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The storm is expected to track eastward from the West toward the Plains into the late week and through the weekend.
The Weather Channel has already named the system Winter Storm Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is expected to dump snow on elevated areas in Northern California, the Northern Plains and upper Midwest.
On Tuesday, the storm will move inland across southern Oregon and Northern California.
Snowfall is expected in the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, along with higher elevated areas in Northern California.
Rain and wind are expected for much of Northern California, and maybe as far southward as the San Francisco Bay Area.
The storm might prompt Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to cut electricity to some residents in Northern California to avoid sparking wildfires by falling powerlines in windstorms. Though wet conditions are expected, Californians might dodge rolling blackouts.
By Thursday, the storm is expected to spread across the Rockies to Salt Lake City. The storm will then begin dumping snow on the Central Plains.
Snow and wind will increase across the Northern Plains and upper Midwest on Friday and into the weekend.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 18:45 - Trump In Wonderland: Off With His Head?
Trump In Wonderland: Off With His Head?
Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategiuc Culture Foundation,
Donald Trump’s millions of detractors without doubt see him as The Mad Hatter: But, no: He’s Alice. The President of the United States has disappeared down the rabbit hole and he’s in Wonderland – Complete with a Red Queen (Nancy Pelosi) shouting “Off with his head!”
The great mistake foreign observers make observing the latest farce in Washington is assuming that there must be some order, rationality and linear logic behind it. There is none. It is Politics According to the Marx Brothers
This is a show trial – incompetently planned and directed with hundreds of crazed scriptwriters: The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, their staffs and the salivating Mainstream US Media are writing and rewriting the script as they go along.
If one is to believe the Mainstream Media, who avidly take this bizarre cartoon seriously, enough evidence has already been established to clearly convict Trump of seeking to push an inquiry into the prima facie evidence of corruption on the part of the son of a former vice president and the leading Democratic presidential candidate.
Is this supposed to be criminal or shocking? What is Trump even accused of doing? He is accused of cautiously investigating the possibility of corruption in a sensitive and clearly unstable US ally whose government openly tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election (as Russia did NOT!)
Indeed, top Ukrainian government officials before the 2016 vote openly published opinion articles in the most prestigious US outlets viciously attacking candidate Donald Trump and calling for the election of his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Far from endangering the security of Ukraine and withholding US aid, Trump has unwisely approved a flood of lethal US weapons, most especially Javelin missiles for Kiev.
This massive arms transfer gravely increases the potential threat to the breakaway provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk. It therefore also automatically ratchets up the threat of direct war between the United States and Russia – a danger of inconceivable horror that the “Hate Trump!” and “Hate Russia!” fanatics in Washington are insanely blind to.
The metaphor of the Gadarene Swine is repeatedly overused: But only because it works. It is true. The Hate Trump fanatics in the US Congress and in the US Media are stampeding the human race towards an annihilating nuclear war that nobody else remotely wants.
Trump in a very basic way has no one to blame but himself for this horrendous state of affairs in Wonderland. He surrounded himself with Russia-hating Armchair Warriors from Fiona Hill to John Bolton and Kurt Volker. So he should not be surprised that to a man – and woman – they have betrayed him.
Trump did not try to roll back the dark influence of the Deep State, the Jabberwock monster of his Wonderland. So he should not be surprised that now the Deep State Jabberwock is once again trying to eat him.
Former US Ambassador to Kiev Marie Jovanovich and former National Security Council official Alexander Vindman both consistently and relentlessly supported the illegal gangster regime in Kiev which only took power by a violent coup in 2014 by toppling the democratically elected president of the nation.
Yet Jovanovich and Vindman have never been held to account for their double standards and betrayal of their primary loyalty to the government of the United States. They know they are safe: They live in Wonderland, where treason is patriotism and loyalty to the law and Constitution of the Nation is the most unforgivable of crimes.
For it is the Elected President of the United States who sets all foreign policy: Or at least is supposed to. And it is the diplomatic and security apparatus of the United States that is presumed to implement that policy loyally and without questioning it.
Also, all ambassadors explicitly serve at the pleasure of the president and Trump should have fired Jovanovich as soon as he took office. She had been appointed by his predecessor Barack Obama, with the blessing of his own foreign policy guru, Polish-American and Russia-hating former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to implement a policy that Trump was explicitly elected to abandon – reckless, potentially highly dangerous unconditional US support for the unstable coup government in Kiev.
But none of this matters: We are Inside the Beltway and Down the Rabbit Hole. We are in Washington. And Washington is Wonderland. Lewis Carroll and his Alice would have understood immediately.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 18:25 - Biden Bluntly Backpedals On 'Potaway Drug' Marijuana After Vowing To Keep It Illegal
Biden Bluntly Backpedals On 'Potaway Drug' Marijuana After Vowing To Keep It Illegal
Roughly a week after Joe Biden alienated himself from 80% of liberals who want marijuana legalized when he vowed to keep it illegal until science figures out whether it’s a gateway drug, the former Vice President backpedaled so hard on a Monday follow-up question we’d be surprised if he doesn’t have whiplash.
To recap, Biden told a Las Vegas audience on Saturday “The truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug,” adding “It’s a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally. I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it.
Did…did Booker just say he thought Biden was high? 😳 pic.twitter.com/3OaUmnjLrJ
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 21, 2019
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On Monday, Biden flip-flopped, telling the Nevada Independent‘s Megan Messerly whether he thought he was wrong to suggest that marijuana might be a gateway drug: “Well I didn’t. I said some say it’s a potway [sic] drug – or pot was a gateway drug,” adding “what I said was an I’ve been talking about this for some time now, anyone, anyone, first of all it should be totally decriminalized number one, number two, anyone who has been convicted of an offense or using pot, their record should be wiped totally clean, completely clean, so they don[‘t even have to if asked if they’ve ever been arrested, they will not have to say yes.”
Biden continued (we suggest reading slowly):
“With regard to the total legalization of it,” which is somehow different from the phrase “totally decriminalized” he used moments before, “there are some in the medical community who say it needs to be made a Schedule II drug so there can be more studies, as not whether it is a gateway drug but whether or not it when used in other combinations may have a negative impact on people overcoming other problems including in fact on young people in terms of brain development, a whole range of things that are beyond my expertise. Except there are serious medial folks who say we should study it more. Not that we shouldn’t, not that we should make it illegal, that we should be in a position where we criminalize it but where we should just look at it. And you know I constantly am pointing out that Donald Trump, fiction over science, well there’s enough serious scientists who say let’s, give us a little more chance to actually study it. And that’s what I’ve said.”
Here’s @JoeBiden‘s full answer to me on whether he was wrong to suggest pot might be a gateway drug at a recent Las Vegas town hall.
“I don’t think it is a gateway drug. There’s no evidence I’ve seen that suggests that,” he said. pic.twitter.com/DJzM7LutRy
— Megan Messerly (@meganmesserly) November 25, 2019
Wow…
Trump should just quietly prop a mirror on stage, walk away, and let nature take its course. pic.twitter.com/BWvhMgsU4a
— Rachel Deckard (@deckard_rachel) November 25, 2019
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 18:05 - Twenty Crazy Beliefs On Economics And Politics
Twenty Crazy Beliefs On Economics And Politics
Authored by Donald Boudreaux via The American Institute for Economic Research,
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Why do so many American Progressives, fearing that rich people abuse state power, aim to reduce the riches of rich people, instead of the state power that Progressives admit is subject to being abused?
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Why do so many American Progressives wish to put even larger swathes of our lives under political control given their belief that politics is so very easily corrupted by oligarchs and big-money donors?
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Why do so many American Progressives – fearful of corporate power and understandably dismayed by cronyism – support tariffs and export subsidies (such as those dispensed by the U.S. Export-Import Bank)? After all, each tariff and every cent of subsidy is an unearned privilege granted by government to corporations at the expense of consumers, workers, and households – a privilege that creates corporate power and fuels abuse by corporations that would otherwise not arise.
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Why do so many American Progressives, with one breath, criticize free-market economists for allegedly failing to take account of the immense importance that we humans attach to community, cultural identity, and other non-monetary values and features of our existence, and yet with the next breath talk as if the only inequality that matters is inequality of monetary incomes or wealth? (That this “Progressives” criticism of free-market economists is baseless is a subject for another day.)
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And why do so many American Progressives, given their correct understanding that monetary values are not all that matter, treat differences in monetary incomes and wealth as sure evidence of economic malfunction?
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Why do so many American Progressives believe that ordinary Americans are far too incompetent to choose for themselves, each individually, the appropriate levels of safety for their automobiles, workplaces, and pharmaceutical products, but supremely competent to choose which political ‘leaders’ are best for the entire country?
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Why do so many American Progressives revile business people who seek greater wealth by succeeding in commerce, yet revere politicians who seek greater power by succeeding in politics?
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Why do so many Americans Progressives hurl accusations of “greed” at private citizens who wish only to keep for themselves more of the money that they’ve earned, yet celebrate as selfless and noble politicians who wish to take from private citizens money that these politicians did not earn?
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Why do so many American Progressives tout the alleged virtues of locally “sourced” foods and of locally produced goods while incessantly pushing for more and more power over individuals and locales to be exercised in far-away state capitals and in even farther away Washington, DC.?
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Why do large numbers of American conservatives believe that U.S. government tax hikes and other interventions into the American economy are ham-fisted and, hence, harmful to the American economy, yet believe that similar interventions by foreign governments into foreign economies are genius surgical operations that inevitably strengthen those foreign economies?
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Why do these very same conservatives also believe that the U.S. government somehow becomes capable of intervening successfully into the American economy if such intervention is advertised as being a response to foreign-government interventions into foreign economies?
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Why do large numbers of American conservatives oppose taxes but support tariffs? Are these conservatives unaware that the latter is simply one of many different species of taxes?
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Why do so many American conservatives boast about the strength of America and the resilience and greatness of her people but insist also that to allow these same American people to freely purchase goods and services supplied by low-productivity (and, thus, low-wage) foreign workers paves a sure path to America’s impoverishment and demise?
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Why do so many Americans across most of the ideological space think they are offering sound and operational advice when they tell someone who is unhappy with existing government policies to “change” these policies by going to the polls to vote?
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Why do so many Americans across most of the ideological space equate freedom with democracy? Do these Americans not see that oppression by a majority of one’s fellow citizens is oppression no less than is oppression by a minority of one’s fellow citizens?
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Why do so many Americans, across most of the ideological space, who have ever waited in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew a driver’s license or to register a vehicle, or who have suffered long delays in a cavernous passport-control room to reenter the country after traveling abroad, want to turn over to the same institution that is responsible for the inefficiencies regularly on display in those government offices more control over our lives?
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Why does not every American who has ever listened to a speech by a successful 21st century politician, or who has ever attended or tuned in to a “debate” among these office-seekers, come away from such an experience filled with terrible fear at the thought of any of these office-seekers exercising even the tiniest bit of say in the lives of ordinary Americans?
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Why do so few American conservatives who were rightly appalled by Barack Obama’s performance in the Oval Office – and who rightly fear how that office would be abused by a President Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden – wish to reduce the power of the presidency?
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And why do so few American Progressives who are rightly appalled by Donald Trump’s performance in the Oval Office – and who rightly fear an additional four years of Trump’s abuse of that office – wish to reduce the power of the presidency?
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Why does the goal of restraining the power of government in all areas of life have so little political clout given that confidence in government is at historic lows?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 11/25/2019 – 17:45 -
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