Today’s News 26th October 2022

• Escobar: The 'War Of Terror' May Be About To Hit Europe
  Escobar: The ‘War Of Terror’ May Be About To Hit Europe

  Authored by Pepe Escobar,

  Never underestimate a wounded and decaying Empire collapsing in real time…

  Imperial functionaries, even in a “diplomatic” capacity, continue to brazenly declare that their exceptionalist control over the world is mandatory.

  If that’s not the case, competitors may emerge and steal the limelight – monopolized by US oligarchies. That, of course, is absolute anathema.

  The imperial modus operandi against geopolitical and geoeconomic competitors remains the same: avalanche of sanctions, embargos, economic blockades, protectionist measures, cancel culture, military uptick in neighboring nations, and assorted threats. But most of all, warmongering rhetoric – currently elevated to fever pitch.

  The hegemon may be “transparent” at least in this domain because it still controls a massive international network of institutions, financial bodies, politicos, CEOs, propaganda agencies and the pop culture industry. Hence this supposed invulnerability breeding insolence.

  

  Panic in the “garden”

  The blowing up of Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) – everybody knows who did it, but the suspect cannot be named – took to the next level the two-pronged imperial project of cutting off cheap Russian energy from Europe and destroying the German economy.

  From the imperial perspective, the ideal subplot is the emergence of a US-controlled Intermarium – from the Baltic and the Adriatic to the Black Sea – led by Poland, exercising some sort of new hegemony in Europe, on the heels of the Three Seas Initiative.

  But as it stands, that remains a wet dream.

  On the dodgy “investigation” of what really happened to NS and NS2, Sweden was cast as The Cleaner, as if this was a sequel of Quentin Tarantino’s crime thriller Pulp Fiction.

  That’s why the results of the “investigation” cannot be shared with Russia. The Cleaner was there to erase any incriminating evidence.

  As for the Germans, they willingly accepted the role of patsies. Berlin claimed it was sabotage, but would not dare to say by whom.

  This is actually as sinister as it gets, because Sweden, Denmark and Germany, and the whole EU, know that if you really confront the Empire, in public, the Empire will strike back, manufacturing a war on European soil. This is about fear – and not fear of Russia.

  The Empire simply cannot afford to lose the “garden.” And the “garden” elites with an IQ over room temperature know they are dealing with a psychopathic serial killer entity which simply cannot be appeased.

  Meanwhile, the arrival of General Winter in Europe portends a socio-economic descent into a maelstrom of darkness – unimaginable only a few months ago in the supposedly “garden” of humanity, so far away from the rumbles across the “jungle.”

  Well, from now on barbarism begins at home. And Europeans should thank the American “ally” for it, skillfully manipulating fearful, vassalized EU elites.

  Way more dangerous though is a specter that very few are able to identify: the imminent Syrianization of Europe. That will be a direct consequence of the NATO debacle in Ukraine.

  From an imperial perspective, the prospects in the Ukrainian battlefield are gloomy. Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) has seamlessly morphed into a Counter-Terror Operation (CTO): Moscow now openly characterizes Kiev as a terrorist regime.

  The pain dial is incrementally going up, with surgical strikes against Ukrainian power/electricity infrastructure about to totally cripple Kiev’s economy and its military. And by December, there’s the arrival on the front lines and in the rear of a properly trained and highly motivated partial mobilization contingent.

  The only question concerns the timetable. Moscow is now in the process of slowly but surely decapitating the Kiev proxy, and ultimately smashing NATO “unity.”

  The process of torturing the EU economy is relentless. And the real world outside of the collective West – the Global South – is with Russia, from Africa and Latin America to West Asia and even sections of the EU.

  It is Moscow – and significantly not Beijing – that is tearing apart the hegemon-coined “rules-based international order,” supported by its natural resources, the provision of food and reliable security.

  And in coordination with China, Iran and major Eurasian players, Russia is working to eventually decommission all those US-controlled international organizations – as the Global South becomes virtually immune to the spread of NATO psyops.

  The Syrianization of Europe

  In the Ukrainian battlefield, NATO’s crusade against Russia is doomed – even as in several nodes as much as 80 percent of the fighting forces feature NATO personnel. Wunderwaffen such as HIMARS are few and far between. And depending on the result of the US mid-term elections, weaponization will dry out in 2023.

  Ukraine, by the spring of 2023, may be reduced to no more than an impoverished, rump black hole. The imperial Plan A remains  Afghanization: to operate an army of mercenaries capable of targeted destabilization and or/terrorist incursions into the Russian Federation.

  In parallel, Europe is peppered with American military bases.

  All those bases may play the role of major terror bases – very much like in Syria, in al-Tanf and the Eastern Euphrates. The US lost the long proxy war in Syria – where it instrumentalized jihadis – but still has not been expelled.

  In this process of Syrianization of Europe, US military bases may become ideal centers to regiment and/or “train” squads of Eastern Europe émigrés, whose only job opportunity, apart from the drug business and organ trafficking, will be as – what else – imperial mercenaries, fighting whatever focus of civil disobedience emerges across an impoverished EU.

  It goes without saying that this New Model Army will be fully sanctioned by the Brussels EUrocracy – which is merely the public relations arm of NATO.

  A de-industrialized EU enmeshed into several layers of toxic intra-war, where NATO plays its time-tested role of Robocop, is the perfect Mad Max scenario juxtaposed to what would be, at least in the reveries of American Straussians/neo-cons, an island of prosperity: the US economy, the ideal destination for Global Capital, including European Capital.

  The Empire will “lose” its pet project, Ukraine. But it will never accept losing the European “garden.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/26/2022 – 02:00

• Meet The 7 Men Who Will Rule China
  Meet The 7 Men Who Will Rule China

  Authored by Dorothy Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Led by Xi Jinping, the seven men strode on the red carpet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 23, revealing the new generation of China’s ruling elites.

  

  These powerful officials are members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) top decision-making body. Current leader Xi heads the committee again after closed-door meetings at which roughly 370 hand-picked Party representatives rubber-stamped the committee’s members.

  The lineup at the conclusion of the 20th Party Congress demonstrates Xi’s further consolidation of power, with all four newly appointed members being his protégés and allies.

  The following are the members who will run the Party for the next five years.

  Xi Jinping

  

  Xi confirmed his third five-year term as Party general secretary, a feat that no one since Mao has accomplished. Mao ruled the country for 27 years until his death in 1976.

  Xi also retained his position as head of the Central Military Commission and is almost certain to remain the Chinese leader, which will be unveiled after the rubber-stamp legislative meetings next spring. He had already scrapped term limits by revising the constitution in 2018.

  The lack of a possible successor to the 69-year-old leader suggests he may intend to extend his term further, which would normally end in 2027.

  When Xi first joined the Standing Committee in 2007, it was clear from his age and from the makeup of the committee that he would replace then-Party leader Hu Jintao when Hu’s term ended in 2012.

  Now, five of seven of the Standing Committee members, including Xi, are over 65, with Ding Xuexiang, now 60, being the youngest. It means none of them would be young enough to take over the Party’s top position in 2027. The CCP’s decades-long norm is that those who are 68 or older at the time of the Congress would retire.

  Li Qiang

  

   

  Taking over the Party’s No. 2 position is Li Qiang, Shanghai’s Party chief. The financial hub’s most powerful position is often seen as a stepping stone to the CCP’s top decision-making body. Li’s predecessor, Han Zheng, was promoted to the Standing Committee in 2017.

  But earlier this year, speculation abounded that Li’s political career was doomed because of the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai. Confined to their homes for two months, the city’s 25 million residents struggled to obtain food and medicine, which angered the public and provoked numerous small-scale protests.

  The political rise of Li shows “Xi Jinping’s criteria is the connection with him, absolute loyalty to him, and obedience to him,” said Feng Chongyi, a professor of China studies at the University of Technology Sydney.

  The 63-year-old is Xi’s close ally. When Xi was a Party secretary of Zhejiang Province, Li was in charge of Wenzhou, a major city within Zhejiang. In 2004, Li was promoted to secretary-general of Zhejiang, becoming Xi’s right-hand man.

  After Xi took the helm at the 18th National Congress in 2012, he promoted Li to governor of Zhejiang Province. Three years later, Li became Jiangsu Province Party secretary, the top position in the rich, coastal province that abuts Shanghai. In 2017, Li became Party secretary of Shanghai. Now, Li is widely expected to be the next premier.

  Zhao Leji

  

  Anti-corruption czar Zhao Leji is one of two people maintaining their positions on the Standing Committee. Zhao most recently headed the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the driving force behind Xi’s campaign to rid the Party of political enemies—namely officials still loyal to former CCP leader Jiang Zemin.

  The 65-year-old also led the Party’s Organization Department, a powerful body responsible for appointments of senior officials. Zhao helped promote many of Xi’s allies, according to the Brookings Institute.

  Zhao started his political career in the northwestern Qinghai Province, where he was born, and worked his way up in the provincial bureaucracy. He became Qinghai’s Party secretary in 2003. Zhao then served as the Party chief of Shaanxi Province before arriving in Beijing in 2012.

  Wang Huning

  

  Another person who retains a position in the Party’s top governing body is Wang Huning, a veteran theorist.

  The 67-year-old Wang is a rare political figure who has served three Party chiefs amid fierce political infighting and the once-in-five-year reshuffles.

  “He [Wang] is not loyal to any leader,” Feng told The Epoch Times. “He is just a theorist that the Party found useful.”

  The former professor and dean of the law school at Fudan University defined core ideologies for the three leaders, from Jiang Zemin’s Three Representatives, to Hu Jintao’s Scientific View on Development, to Xi Jinping Thoughts.

  “Wang Huning’s presence also indicates to me that the ideological bent of the Party and Xi will continue and even deepen,” Dylan Loh, assistant professor at Nanyang Technology University, told Reuters.

  Cai Qi

  

  A newcomer to the elite standing committee, Cai Qi has known Xi for more than two decades. Cai worked under Xi when he held top posts in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. After Xi took power, Cai was promoted to Beijing before he became the city’s Party boss in 2017. In the same year, he joined the Politburo, despite public anger over his forced eviction of migrant workers on Beijing’s outskirts.

  On Oct. 30, Cai takes over as First Secretary of the Secretariat, overseeing the Party’s propaganda and ideology work.

  Ding Xuexiang

  

  As Xi’s right-hand man, Ding Xuexiang’s elevation to the Standing Committee is no surprise to observers, although he has never been a provincial-level Party secretary.

  Ding’s ties to Xi could date back to 2007. When Xi briefly served as Shanghai’s Party secretary, Ding was the city’s secretary-general and Xi’s top aide. In 2013, just a few months after Xi took office, Ding moved to Beijing first as the deputy director of the General Office, then as leader of the powerful office that manages the top leadership’s administrative affairs.

  The 60-year-old has accompanied Xi on many trips abroad.

  “[Ding] has probably spent more time with Xi Jinping than any other official over the past five years,” Neil Thomas, a senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group, told Reuters.

  Li Xi

  

  Li Xi, Party chief of the southern economic powerhouse Guangdong Province, is also a new face on the Standing Committee. The 66-year-old’s bond to Xi could be traced to indirect links to Xi’s late father, Xi Zhongxun, who was a Party revolutionary, according to the Brookings Institute.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/26/2022 – 00:05

• These Are America's Violent Crime Hotspots
  These Are America’s Violent Crime Hotspots

  The District of Columbia had the highest rates of violent crime in the United States in 2020, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s data.

  “Residents are scared,” said Michael D. Shankle, chair of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in the Chinatown area, after three people were shot one night last month, one fatally, in two separate incidents.

  He added, “They are angry. … We feel like we don’t have enough support.”

  Nearly 1,000 cases of violent crime per 100,000 people were recorded in the state.

  

  Alaska also has a high rate of violent crime, at 838 cases per 100,000 population.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the map below, the south-eastern states of New Mexico, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana also show higher figures than much of the rest of the country.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  At the other end of the spectrum placed Maine (109 per 100,000), New Hampshire (146), and Vermont (173).

  Finally, we note that even with some of the country’s toughest gun laws, the District is awash in firearms.

  Police so far this year have seized 2,249 guns, 815 more than this time last year…

  

  …they seem to be fighting a losing battle as the bad guys just won’t follow their rules!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 23:45

• Multipolar World Order – Part 4
  Multipolar World Order – Part 4

  Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

  Part 1 of this series looked at the various models of world order.

  Part 2 examined how the shift towards the multipolar world order has been led by some surprising characters.

  Part 3 explored the history of the idea of a world ordered as a “balance of power,” or multipolar system. Those who have advocated this model over the generations have consistently sought the same goal: global governance.

  In Part 4 we will consider the theories underpinning the imminent multipolar order, the nature of Russia and China’s public-private oligarchies and the emergence of these two nations’ military power.

  

  THE WIDER CONTEXT OF THE UKRAINE WAR

  There is no evidence to suggest that the war in Ukraine is, in any sense, “fake.” The political and cultural differences among the populace of Ukraine are older than the nation-state, and the current conflict is rooted in long-standing and very real tensions. People are suffering and dying, and they deserve the chance to live in peace.

  Yet, beyond the specific factors that led to and have perpetuated the conflict in Ukraine, there is a wider context that also deserves discussion.

  The so-called leaders in the West and in the East have had ample opportunity and power to bring both sides in the Donbas war to the negotiating table. Their attempts to broker ceasefires and to implement the various Minsk agreements over the years were weak and half-hearted. Both sides, it seems, chose instead to play politics with Ukrainian lives. And both sides ultimately fuelled the conflict.

  The West has done little but exacerbate the situation. And, though it faced a tough economic choice, the Russian government could certainly have leveraged its commanding position in the European energy market to better effect.

  If, that is, avoiding war were the objective.

  Whatever else it is, the war in Ukraine is the fulcrum for a transition in the balance of geopolitic power. Like the pseudopandemic that immediately preceded it, the war is accelerating the polarity shift.

  

  UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was right to observe that the Ukraine war is “a gift to NATO.” Just as the West has delivered the Russian government’s monetary policy to them, so Putin’s administration has rescued NATO from vanishing relevance. Both poles are strengthened, if for different reasons.

  At the same time the European Union (EU) is capitalising on both the war and the sanctions it imposed in order to reinvigorate its push towards EU military unification.

  The UK is involved in this push, even though in 2016 its population elected, via referendum, to leave the EU, specifically because a majority of voters did not want to give “national sovereignty” away to the union leadership.

  But, as we can see, it doesn’t matter what the people vote for or against. Despite having supposedly left the EU, the UK’s newly unelected Prime Minister has just signed up the UK as a “Third State,” bound by Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) agreements, under the direct military command of Brussels. As the UK partly hands its independent defence capability to the EU, it is playing its part in assisting the emergence of another pole.

  The International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS), which has thus far underwritten unipolar domination, is being transformed now that it’s reaching the end of its life cycle. Economic growth is being deliberately stifled in the West via sanctions but encouraged in the East. Energy flows and consumption patterns are being redirected eastward. Simultaneously, effective military power is being “rebalanced.”

  During the pseudopandemic, we saw much evidence of global coordination. Most unusually, almost every government acted in lockstep. China, the US, Russia, Germany, Iran, the UK and many other nations followed the same false narrative. All participated in shutting down global supply chains and limiting world trade. Most countries assiduously heeded the World Economic Forum’s preferred path of global “regionalisation.” The few that resisted were considered international pariahs.

  What has happened since then? We’re told the war in Ukraine has reintroduced the same old East-vs-West division that most of us are more familiar with. Yet in nearly every other significant way nations remain strangely in total agreement. It seems The war in Ukraine is practically the only dispute.

  MULTIPOLAR THEORY

  The proposed multipolar world order does not constitute a defence of the nation-state. We have already discussed how the multipolar model dovetails quite precisely with the “Great Reset” (GR) agenda, so it should come as little surprise that multipolar theory also rejects the suggested Westphalian concept of national sovereignty.

  Russia has numerous think tanks and GONGOs (government organized non-governmental organizations). Just as in the West, these are funded and influenced by both the public and private sectors, working in partnership. As noted by the Swedish Defense Research Agency, Russian think tank funding “part comes from the government and the rest from private actors and clients, usually big business.”

  Katehon is the “independent” think tank established by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofyev (Malofeev), who has been sanctioned by the US since 2014 for his support of Ukrainian Russians, first in Crimea and then in the Donbas. The Katehon board includes Sergey Glazyev, the economist and politician who is the current Commissioner of Macroeconomic Integration for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

  In 2018, Katehon pointed out that, despite all talk to the contrary, multipolarity had largely been defined as opposition to unipolarity. That is, expressed in terms of what it isn’t rather than what it is. Katehon sought to rectify this, offering its Theory of the Multipolar World (TWM):

  Multipolarity does not coincide with the national model of world organization according to the logic of the Westphalian system. [. . .] This Westphalian model assumes full legal equality between all sovereign states. In this model, there are as many poles of foreign policy decisions in the world as there are sovereign states [. . .] and all of international law is based on it. In practice, of course, there is inequality and hierarchical subordination between various sovereign states. [. . .] The multipolar world differs from the classical Westphalian system by the fact that it does not recognize the separate nation-state, legally and formally sovereign, to have the status of a full-fledged pole. This means that the number of poles in a multipolar world should be substantially less than the number of recognized (and therefore, unrecognised) nation-states. Multipolarity is not a system of international relations that insists upon the legal equality of nation-states[.]

  The unipolar world doesn’t protect the nation-state any more than the multipolar model does, Katehon observed. According to Katehon, the Westphalian model, in its application, has always been a myth. We might say it is just another “idea” political leaders peddle to delude us into accepting the policy goals they create. They occasionally exploit “nationalism” because it is useful.

  EURASIANISM

  In their efforts to cast Vladimir Putin as a comic book villain, the Western mainstream media (MSM) has attempted to personally link him to the controversial Russian political-philosopher and strategist Aleksandre Dugin. They have labelled Dugin Putin’s Rasputin or Putin’s “brain” and have alleged that Putin considers Dugin a close ally and his favourite philosopher.

  There was never any foundation to these stories, however. Speaking in 2018, Dugin said

  “I do not hold an official position within the state apparatus. I don’t have a direct line with Putin, I’ve never even met him.”

  In 2022, the Western MSM’s allegations prompted Alain de Benoist, Dugin’s political and philosophical collaborator and friend of more than 30 years, to observe:

  Putin’s “brain!” The fact that Dugin and Putin have never met once face-to-face is a good measure of the seriousness of those who use this expression. [. . .] Dugin undoubtedly knows Putin’s entourage well, but he was never one of his intimates or his “special advisers.” [. . .] The book he wrote a few years ago on Putin is far from being an exercise in admiration: Dugin on the contrary explains both what he approves of in Putin and what he dislikes.

  Although Dugin has no special relationship with the Kremlin, this doesn’t mean his ideas aren’t influential there. He has acted as an advisor to the Chairman of the State Duma, Sergey Naryshkin, and to the Chairman of the State Duma, Gennadiy Seleznyov, so he certainly has political connections and is heard by the Russian political class.

  Dugin is perhaps the leading modern voice for Eurasianism. In a 2014 interview, he explained his interpretation of both Eurasianism and its place within multipolarity this way:

  Eurasianism is based on the multipolar vision and on the rejection of the unipolar vision of the continuation of American hegemony. The pole of this multipolarism is not the national state or the ideological bloc, but rather the great space (Grossraum) strategically united within the borders of a common civilization. The typical great space[s] [are] Europe, the unified USA, Canada and Mexico, or united Latin America, Greater China, Greater India, and in our case Eurasia.[. . .] The multipolar vision recognizes integration on the basis of a common civilization. [. . .] Putin’s foreign policy is centred on multipolarity and the Eurasian integration which is necessary to create a truly solid pole.

  Neither the oligarchs nor the global political class are deluded enough to believe that they can simply commend one political philosophy or another, or one cultural ideology or another, and thereby control the behaviour and beliefs of humanity. There will always be the need for some Machiavellian skulduggery.

  Putin has frequently espoused Eurasianist ideas. Conversely, Dugin is among those who have criticised Putin for his lack of a clear ideology:

  He must translate his individual intuition into a doctrine intended to secure the future order. He just doesn’t have a declared ideology, and that’s becoming more and more problematic. Every Russian feels that Putin’s hyper-individual approach poses a huge risk.

  In 2011, Putin announced his plan to create the Eurasian Union, much to the delight of Dugin and other the Eurasianists like Malofyev and Glazyev. Putin published an accompanying article:

  We suggest a powerful supranational association capable of becoming one of the poles in the modern world and serving as an efficient bridge between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. [. . . .] It is clear today that the 2008 global crisis was structural in nature. We still witness acute reverberations of the crisis that was rooted in accumulated global imbalances. [. . .] Thus, our integration project is moving to a qualitatively new level, opening up broad prospects for economic development and creating additional competitive advantages. This consolidation of efforts will help us establish ourselves within the global economy and trade system and play a real role in decision-making, setting the rules and shaping the future.

  

  Alexander Dugin

  Putin pointed towards a global crisis that led to the claimed need for a supranational body that could act as a pole for decision-making in a global system based upon a balance of power. What he said follows a pattern; all those who extol global governance have used the same rhetorical trick.

  This pattern is currently being repeated again. Irrespective of any other beliefs he may hold, Putin’s commitment to resetting the global polity is clear.

  Eurasianism renders the Russian Federation a “partner” within a wider union. Currently the Eurasian Union only exists in the economic sense, and Russia is overwhelmingly dominant within it. Similarly, Russia’s permanent position in the UN Security Council affords Russia relative dominance within the UN.

  Nonetheless, while the Russian government may hope to benefit from such unions and councils, by forming “poles” in a multipolar system and setting policies influenced by ideas like Eurasianism, it has diluted and declared a plan to eventually cede Russian “national sovereignty” to the union—to the pole. Putin’s pursuit of Eurasianism and multipolarity doesn’t necessarily indicate anything other than pragmatism. Nor does it represent a defence of the Russian nation-state.

  We can only guess, but Putin’s preference for Eurasianism and multipolarity is unlikely to be rooted in any particular ideology. Rather, it serves a purpose, providing his government and its partners a bigger stake in “the game.”

  TIANXIA

  Putin’s notion of “Eurasian integration” jibes with the Chinese ideology of “tianxia,” which can be translated as “everything under heaven.” In Chinese antiquity, tianxia placed the empire at the pinnacle of a global moral hierarchy. Confucian universal care dictates that a civilised state cares for its own, first and foremost, but cannot consider itself civilised if it doesn’t care for others, too.

  Other states are considered civilised if they care for their citizens and barbaric if they don’t. Therefore, all civilised states should care more for the interests of other peaceful and civilised states than they do for the needs or desires of barbaric states. Consequently, bonds are naturally formed between caring states, creating a kind of organic geopolitical order, as each state places its own people at the centre of a network of civilised relationships.

  In tianxia, the practice of Confucian universal care also operates within all institutions that comprise a state. For instance, civilised individuals naturally care for their families and their immediate communities more than they care for people outside those circles. However, no one is to act selfishly at the expense of other citizens, no matter where they reside, without falling into barbarism themselves.

  This is a model of state that is not based upon ethnic or “blood” ties or even national borders, but rather upon a hierarchical system of morality.

  Tianxia has been promoted by a few Western commentators as a “beautiful” idea. Like a philosophical Mandelbrot set it suggests a perfect moral symmetry at both at the micro and the macro scale. The multipolar world order, supposedly with tianxia at its heart, is therefore recommended as a wonderful new model of global governance and is frequently described as “win, win cooperation.”

  Academics like Professors Zhao Tingyang and Xiang Lanxin have said that the global adoption of tianxia would establish a “post-Westphalian world.” This view stems from their assessment that the Westphalian order is ideologically stagnant, limited to nothing more than an expedient balance of power system wherein “might is right.”

  The criticism from these tianxian scholars is not a fair reflection of the moral precepts expressed by the Peace of Westphalia—treaties that extolled the Christian values of forgiveness, tolerance and peaceful cooperation. The scholars’ assessment is, however, a reasonable appraisal of the actual conduct of Western states that only pretend to honour Westphalian principles.

  Professor Lanxin points out that China “has no ontological tradition.” That is, philosophically tianxia doesn’t ask “what is this?” but rather “what path does this suggest?” If tianxia were applied to China’s strategic foreign policy, it would be ambivalent to ideas like national sovereignty.

  Much like the moral foundations of Westphalian international relations, tianxia is professed but not practised. Currently, for example, China is arming the UAE and the Saudi regimes to wage war in Yemen and is also stealing Yemen’s natural resources. Is this tianxia? Where is the “win” for the Yemeni people in China’s behaviour?

  The drawback of noble ideas is that they can be exploited by hard-nosed geostrategists to sell any policy agenda they like. The theories of tianxia and Eurasianism provide a grounding for multipolarity. The philosophy isn’t the problem, it is its exploitation by the engineers of multipolar global governance.

  They don’t care what the intent of an idea is. They care only how they can use that ideology or philosophy to justify their actions if anyone asks. If philosophical thought suggests some useful strategies, all the better.

  When global governance over a multipolar system is the goal, then tianxia, like Eurasianism, certainly is “beautiful.”

  Consider the words of Professor Zhou:

  [Some are] concerned that tianxia would lead to “Pax Sinica” replacing “Pax Americana.” However, this concern is misplaced because under tianxia, there would be no place for a king — the system itself is king. In this sense, it would be a bit like Switzerland, where various language groups (French, German, Italian, Romansh) and local cantons all coexist in a commonwealth of roughly equal parts where the center in Bern is essentially a coordination point with a rotating president whose power is so constrained that some Swiss citizens can’t even name the person occupying the post.

  Tianxia relegates the political voice of the people to an irrelevance. It is multipolar, defining political power as a networked system that is not limited by national sovereignty or unipolar authority but rather operates “constrained” centres of power. For those who manipulate geopolitics covertly, it is perfect: the system itself is king.

  Tianxia may be a serene philosophy, but what really matters is how the theory is applied to policy. The 2017 authorised publication titled Forge Ahead under the Guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Thought on Diplomacy by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi gives us a glimpse of the kind of thing China’s political class and others call “win, win cooperation.”

  Xi Jinping […] puts forward new propositions on security, development and global governance. […] Xi Jinping […] has underscored China’s role and contribution to world peace and development and to upholding the international order. […] China has […] played a leading role in the Asia-Pacific cooperation, the G20’s transformation and the course of economic globalization[.]

  […] China has promoted the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the BRICS New Development Bank, and has taken an active part in the formulation of rules governing such emerging areas as marine and polar affairs, cyberspace, nuclear security and climate change.

  […] The [Belt and Road] initiative has been widely commended for lending impetus to global growth and boosting confidence in economic globalization.

  […] We have taken an active part […] and worked with other countries to tackle global challenges such as terrorism, climate change, cyber security and refugees. […] We advocated the formulation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and became the first country to release its national plan on implementation.

  It turns out that the alleged application of tianxia means upholding the international order, international financial and monetary system reform, Agenda 2030, counterterrorism, controlling human capital, exercising global cybersecurity, economic globalization and, of course, global governance.

  It seems Xi Jinping’s tianxia-inspired “thoughts” are just the same as the thoughts of the Rockefellers, Vladimir Putin, Klaus Schwab and all other members of the multipolar sales team.

  RUSSIA – THE FUSION OF THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE OLIGARCHY

  The Russian government and its think tanks and and oligarchs are not alone in advocating a “regionalized” world of poles. With its five “groups,” a nascent multipolar world order already exists in the form of the G20. The G20’s enthusiasm for a single global tax system demonstrates the intention to move toward a much firmer system of global governance.

  Previously we noted that Putin purged the oligarch collaborators of the West in fairly short succession after becoming President. Much has been written about his war against the “5th columnists.” This often infers that Putin is somehow opposed to the power of oligarchs. That isn’t true at all.

  The Russian government has no problem with people making huge amounts of money and then using it to exercise political power. It is just that political power must promote the Russian government’s aspirations.

  In fact, one of the perks of being in Putin’s circle is the opportunity to become fabulously wealthy. We have already discussed the obscene levels of wealth inequality in Russia, particularly in terms of its concentration in the hands of the oligarchs. Putin hasn’t put an end to this elitism; he has facilitated it on a grand scale.

  To put the matter in perspective: when Putin became President in 1999—that is, “elected” in 2000—there were a handful of Russian billionaires and oligarchs. Today, according to Forbes, there are more than 100.

  Perhaps it is just another coincidence, but the sanctions have provided an impetus for Russian oligarchs living overseas to return to the motherland, a trend that has effectively strengthened the Kremlin’s bond with its oligarch “partners.”

  In 1999, Putin inherited a Russian economy that had been holed out. Between 1999 and 2014, he oversaw a remarkable Russian economic recovery. Living standards improved significantly, GDP rose from $200 billion in 1999 to $2.2 trillion in 2014.

  Putin led Russia from the 20th largest economy in the world to the 7th (now 11th). It seems that luck—or price fixing!—may have played a part in this apparent economic miracle. Russia’s GDP growth tracks the global oil price quite precisely.

  While the Russian people benefited from some of this growth, fuelling a consumer boom, the same period also saw a huge increase in wealth inequality. A new class of Russian oligarchs hoovered up a disproportionate share of Russia’s national wealth. During his 2000 campaign to be formally anointed as President, when a radio journalist asked Putin how he would define “oligarch” and what he thought of them, he said:

  [The] fusion of power and capital — there will be no oligarchs of this kind as a class.

  Once secured in power, though, Putin’s team constructed a crony capitalist regime that is the epitome of the “fusion of power and capital.” He and his entourage effectively inverted the Western model of oligarch control, where capital is converted into political power. In Russia, political power enables the accumulation of capital, creating an almost unique class of oligarchs.

  Gazprom, the world’s largest publicly listed gas company, provides a case study demonstrating how the Russian oligarchy functions.

  Dmitry Medvedev and Alexei Miller worked in St Petersburg alongside Putin during the 1990s. Medvedev was the mayoral campaign manager for Anatoly Sobchak, who subsequently co-authored the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Putin was an advisor and then deputy to Sobchak. Miller served on the mayor’s Committee for External Relations.

  When Putin became President, he gave Medvedev the highest civil service rank in Russia and made Miller the Deputy Minister of Energy.

  Meanwhile, Putin decreed that Gazprom was a “national champion”—meaning a “private” corporation the Russian government considers essential to the Russian economy. Through various funds, the Russian government retained its 50.2% controlling interest in Gazprom, which makes Gazprom a public-private partnership.

  Putin appointed Medvedev and Miller to the Gazprom board. Medvedev acted as chairman until 2008, when he was selected as the nominal President of the Russian Federation, while Putin temporarily acted as Prime Minister for a few years. Miller was appointed as Gazprom CEO in 2001 and is still in that post.

  In 2006, Gazprom released the construction cost of its Altay pipeline from West Siberia to China. The same year it also released the expenditure figures for its Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline. The per-kilometer cost of the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline was four times higher than the comparable Altay pipeline or similar pipelines, such as the OPAL pipeline in Germany.

  In 2008, the Russian firm PiterGaz Engineering estimated the total construction cost of the Sochi pipeline to be $155 million—at the current exchange rate. Yet Gazprom paid the present-day equivalent of $395 million.

  This inflated price prompted the East European Gas Analysis (EEGA) to note:

  Russian pipeline engineering institutions, including the corresponding divisions of Gazprom, give realistic estimations of pipeline construction costs, comparable with those of western projects. However, it looks like, on the way to the top management of Gazprom, these cost estimations get at least tripled. [. . .] Apparently, after getting a realistic cost estimation, Gazprom executives add a generous margin for contractors and brokers, so the total project cost gets 3-4 times higher.

  Such slush funds are found in every sector of the Russian economy, most notably in defence, infrastructure development and healthcare. The proceeds are then doled out to loyal oligarchs.

  They are “oligarchs” in the fullest sense of the word. Their wealth is dependent upon their partnership with the political state. In return, they use their wealth to forward the policies of the state. Their capital couldn’t be more “political.”

  For example, Alexey Mordachov owns the steel giant Servestal that supplies gas pipeline to Gazprom for its development projects, such as the Yakutia-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline (aka the China–Russia East-Route).

  Other oligarchs profiting from the scheme include Putin’s personal friends Gennady Timchenko, who owns the OAO Stroytransgaz construction company, and Arkady Rotenberg, whose Stroygazmontazh (S.G.M. Group) forms Russia’s largest gas pipeline and power grid construction company.

  The oligarchs are profiting from the construction of the Arctic Silk Road.

  They deploy their resources to ensure that the Russian government’s foreign policy objectives are realised. The Russian oligarchs and the Russian political class are in a symbiotic relationship: a public-private partnership constructing the multipolar world order.

  In so doing, they are engaging in the Great Reset, implementing the Rockefellers’ vision and fulfilling the dreams of Carroll Quigley’s Anglo-American network. The Russian state is more than just a public-private partnership. Moving beyond mere contractual arrangements and shared strategic goals, Russia’s government has fused the corporate and the political into a single public-private nation-state.

  Despite the slaughter going on in the Ukraine war and all sides’ refusal to unconditionally negotiate, Russia’s “state-owned” private energy corporation Gazprom has apparently settled its dispute with Ukrainian “state-owned” energy corporation Naftogaz and is pumping 42.4 million cubic meters of natural gas a day through Ukraine to Western Europe energy markets.

  The Russian Federation is paying the Ukrainian government substantial transit fees. It is effectively funding Ukraine’s war effort. The war is only for the little people.

  CHINA – THE FUSION OF THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE OLIGARCHY

  The only major developed economy in the world to have gone further than Russia in fusing the public and private sectors is China. China is a neo-fuedal capitalist state operating as a technocracy under the leadership of an oligarch dynasty.

  The great military and political leaders of Mao Zedong’s revolution who later successfully evaded Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) were collectively referred to as the “eight immortals.”

  When the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission dispatched Henry Kissinger to prepare the ground for US President Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, seven of the immortals decided to throw their collective political weight behind fellow immortal Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms.

  

  Deng Xiaoping

  The process of opening up China’s economy began in earnest following Mao’s death in 1976. Prominent Trilateralists such as then-US President Bill Clinton, global investment firms, Western-based multinational corporations and private investors stepped up foreign direct investment to assist China’s immortals in modernising the country’s economy, financial sector, military, industrial and technological capability. The modernisation enabled the rise of China’s oligarchy.

  For example, the immortal General Wang Zhen supported Deng’s economic liberalism but also sliced off huge chunks of China’s state assets and placed them in trust to his son, Wang Jun.

  Subsequently, Wang Jun collaborated with Deng’s economic advisor, Rong Yiren, to seed his now private capital into Citic Group Corp, which then became China’s “state-owned” investment company.

  Citic Group is a public-private partnership that today has significant influence over China’s financial services, advanced manufacturing technology, production of modern materials and urban development.

  In this way the immortals effectively created a public-private dynasty in China. Their immensely wealthy offspring are now collectively referred to as the “Princelings.”

  The Princelings can broadly be divided into three groups, each influencing important Chinese sectors and industry:

  • political Princelings, such as Xi Jinping, manage the public sector

  • military Princelings manage the defence and national security sectors

  • entrepreneur Princelings manage the private sector.

  As a group, they have huge influence over China’s domestic and foreign policy.

  China is a one-party state but has not abandoned politics. The selection of Xi Jinping as Paramount Leader in 2012 marked an effective power-shift toward the Princelings, who many consider to represent the “elite.”

  They are “opposed” by the “Tuanpai,” whose power base stems from the Communist Youth League movement established by former president Hu Jintao. The Tuanpai are broadly popularist and more focused on the issues of working Chinese people.

  Other factions, such as the “Shangai Gang” and the “Tsinghua Clique,” add to the political mix.

  Technocracy controls citizens through the allocation of resources. China leads on the technocratic aspects of the Great Reset. It is the world’s first operational Technate, wherein the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) oversees the surveillance and control of the population through its social credit system:

  The establishment of a social credit system is an important foundation for comprehensively implementing the scientific viewpoint of development. [. . .] Accelerating and advancing the establishment of the social credit system is an important precondition for promoting the optimized allocation of resources.

  The idea is that citizens can be rewarded for good behaviour and penalised for bad. Speaking to French Television, one of the lead developers of China’s social credit system was asked how French adoption of it might have impacted the Yellow Vest protests in France. Lin Jinyue replied:

  I really hope that we will manage to export it in a capitalist country. [. . .] I believe that France should quickly adopt our system of social credit, to regulate their social movements. [. . .] If you had had the system of social credit, the Yellow Vests would never have been.

  Coincidentally, social credit-style surveillance has been greatly enhanced as a result of the pseudopandemic that began in China. To travel on public transport, enter civic buildings, be admitted to the workplace and so on, it is necessary for China’s citizens to scan their COVID Pass QR code. Green allows them to move freely; Red prevents their free movement.

  Biometric identification via facial recognition scanning is required to register a sim card in China. The biometric data system allows the NDRC to track the movements of every citizen and allows biosecurity to be enforced nationally.

  Covid QR codes, combined with digital ID, means that China’s Technate is on its way to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 and 16.

  SDG 3 reads:

  Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks

  And SDG 16 says:

  By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration

  “Legal identity” is UN code for digital identity.

  The Chinese technocratic oligarchy is also ahead of other countries in its development and implementation of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Bo li recently vacated his position as the Deputy Governor of the Bank of China to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as its Deputy Managing Director.

  Speaking at the IMF’s Central Bank Digital Currencies for Financial Inclusion: Risks and Rewards symposium, Bo Li discussed the claim that CBDC would improve so-called “financial inclusion”:

  CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targetted policy functions. For example[,] welfare payments [. . .], consumptions coupons, [. . .] food stamps. By programming, CBDC money can be precisely targeted [to] what kind of [things] people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised. For example[,] for food. So this potential programmability can help government agencies precisely target their support to those people who need support. So, in that way we can also improve financial inclusion.

  Perhaps so—although the improvement will only be afforded tothe citizen who obeys the”government agencies and private sector players”—the Princelings. Engage in “bad” behaviour and and CBDC will be used to target you for financial “exclusion.”

  With CBDC in place, there would be no need to switch people’s QR code to red to stop them from attending a protest. Simply program their CBDC to prevent train ticket purchases or the use of money more than a mile from home. Physical lockdowns of Covid days are replaced by CBDC lockouts, which are much easier to enforce.

  

  Bo Li speaking at the IMF symposium

  THE MULTIPOLAR MILITARY DIMENSION

  Global economic and financial power is backed up by military force. So if the powers-that-be are serious about building a new system of super-powered poles, they need to have the muscle to hold their respective positions. After all, a multipolar world order cannot be stabilised and enforced unless each pole presents a genuine military threat to the other.

  For most of the post-WWII period, the US-led unipolar NATO alliance possessed the most advanced military technology. Not only did the West dominate monetarily, financially and economically, it had the military advantage to go with it. Yet, just like every other aspect of former Western dominance, that, too, has disappeared, and military power has blossomed elsewhere.

  Suddenly, as if from nowhere, Russia is claiming technological military supremacy. It is now ahead in the arms race. The US has confirmed that Russia used a functioning hypersonic missile in Ukraine, a fact that Joe Biden called “consequential” and frankly admitted “is almost impossible to stop.”

  China, too, has fired a hypersonic missile. It apparently circled the globe. It then dispatched a hypersonic glide missile that struck its target in China. Again, confirmation came from senior US military officials, who called the technological advance “stunning.”

  Now China says it may soon be able to arm its navy with these superior weapons.

  Meanwhile, the West’s dunderheads, who until relatively recently dominated militarily, simply can’t wrap their minds around the ramjet engine technology (or scramjet) that powers this new breed of missiles.

  While China has confirmed global flight tests and pinpoint hypersonic accuracy and Russia has actually used them in the battlefield, the Pentagon and the US Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and its private-sector partners like Raytheon are still fumbling about with limited tests, hoping they might be able to develop the same operational capability sometime soon.

  If you can believe that!

  The British can’t build ships that function in warm water, and their aircraft carriers can’t sail more than a few nautical miles without breaking down.

  The US Navy can’t sail its ships at all.

  And no one in the West can build a fighter aircraft that actually works. Yet Russia has taken submarine technology to a new level, and everyone is pretty sure China has developed AI “intelligentized” fighting capability.

  The West’s sudden inability to stay in, let alone lead, the technological arms race certainly seems to mark a polar shift in the global military balance of power. It is likely that the Western military-industrial complex is kicking itself after spending the last 30 years handing its military technology over to the East.

  Now look what they’ve done!

  

  CONCLUSION

  The Russian government and the Chinese government are not “worse” than the US, the UK or the French government. They are just governments doing what governments do. They represent the interests of those who can keep them in power—or remove them.

  The multipolar world order ends the last vestiges of national sovereignty. It is the geopolitical Great Reset: the culmination of the oligarch’s longstanding plan to establish a system of global governance that affords them dominion over all.

  If the multipolar system proceeds, which seems likely, the 193 nations—give or take—of the world will eventually be incorporated into a few global poles. Who knows how many, but probably no more than half a dozen or so.

  There are some potential benefits to multipolarity. Perhaps tianxia will break out, thus reducing the risk of conflict. A “balance of power” between global poles of states could limit aggression. But if we consider how this might be achieved and who is supposedly leading it, there is reason for concern.

  Assuming that the Pax Americana, Pax Europa, Pax Eurasia and Pax Sinica poles, or whatever, don’t intend to disarm, wouldn’t this logically infer a proliferation of armaments globally, including hypersonic nuclear weapons? How will these poles maintain internal security? What is to stop warfare from breaking out within each pole as disputes emerge? Will other poles have to, or choose to, intervene?

  Let’s be honest. The omens don’t look too encouraging. We are accelerating towards the multipolar world order due in large part to a war currently being waged by one of multipolarity’s leading proponents. Similarly, the activities of the other leading proponent—in places like Yemen, for instance—hardly inspire confidence.

  There is no evidence to suggest that the conduct of either Russia or China is or will be intrinsically “better” than the conduct of the leading nations of the previous “order.”

  By far the most concerning aspect of the multipolar world order is that fewer “poles” will empower global governance. The consistent trajectory, throughout history, toward the centralisation of power hasn’t just happened by accident. The strategy of diminishing the clique of people who exercise control over the global population is a purposeful one. Were it not, it wouldn’t have been engineered in the first place.

  The goal of these technocrats is to possess unopposed power. We know what they desire to do with that power should they ever achieve it:

  • enhanced biosecurity

  • population control

  • population surveillance

  • digital IDs

  • social credit systems

  • AI automated censorship

  • Universal Basic Income

  • control of the food supply, of water, of energy, of housing, of education

  • ultimately, the total control and enslavement of humanity through Central Bank Digital Currency, or some variation of it.

  The nation-states advocating the new multipolar world order don’t reject these control mechanisms. On the contrary, they are leading in of their development. The multipolar system is one giant leap toward global technocratic tyranny, a system they fully endorse.

  In Part 1, we noted that US geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski had identified Eurasia—”extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok”—as the setting for what he called “the game.” He observed:

  America must absolutely take over Ukraine, because Ukraine is the pivot of Russian power in Europe. Once Ukraine is separated from Russia, Russia will no longer be a threat.

  US-led Western powers, having orchestrated the 2014 Euromaidan Coup and having failed to seize control through the Ukrainian ballot box, have since then demonstrated their intent to incorporate Ukraine into the West’s strategic orbit by any means. Conflict of some sort became inevitable from that point onwards. The next eight years saw an escalating proxy conflict unfold, with virtually no serious attempts to stop it, which has led to this entirely predictable Ukraine War.

  The people of Ukraine and the people in the new Russian republics and oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson are viewed as expendable pawns. The conflict is all too real for them, as they fight and die and long to live in peace without the perpetual threat of violence. Yet neither the “great powers” nor their puppet leaders care about the lives of the people beyond their strategic value.

  The war in Ukraine is a deadly tactical ploy. The point is to fight it out, down to the last Ukrainian, if necessary, in order to facilitate the transition to the multipolar world order, thus enabling the abhorrent Great Reset and finally delivering full-blown global governance.

  The vulnerable ones who will freeze to death in Europe this winter—and they could number in the thousands—are mere collateral damage in “the game.”

  Yet war needn’t get in the way of business as usual: Russia continues to supply gas to Europe, if in greatly reduced quantities and at elevated prices, through Ukrainian pipelines.

  The mainstream media and much of the alternative media, in both the West and the East, market the Ukraine war as a battle for “freedom,” “sovereignty” or some such drivel. As the death toll mounts among those forced to fight for their existence, we in the wider international community, taking one side or the other, fall for the same old monstrous lies.

  We plant our little flags, online and off, and argue about our respective delusions, imagining that we are participating in the war, in our own small way. We act like jeering football crowds who cheer on our side to win.

  Globalist think tanks have long considered war a strategic catalyst for change, a point we should have learned from Norman Dodd’s investigation and report for the Reece Committee on Foundations in 1954. We are being hopelessly naive if we imagine the war in Ukraine couldn’t possibly lead to a horrific global conflict. We have no reason to “trust” the lunatics whom we allow to remain in charge.

  Equally, we should recognise that we are being manipulated by tactics designed to produce fear. Nuclear brinkmanship should always be seen in its fear-inducing context.

  The oligarchs of the world are united as they seek to establish a regionalized, multipolar system of global governance that will rule the nation-states we live in.

  Our political leaders, wherever they exert their claimed authority, are wholly complicit with the oligarchs’ agenda. They are selling us all out as they vie for a better seat at the table while breaking our backs in their obsequious desire to polish it.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 23:25

• Just How Big Is America's 'Strategic Cheese Reserve'?
  Just How Big Is America’s ‘Strategic Cheese Reserve’?

  As of August 2022, the U.S. had 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in cold storage across the country. That’s around $3.4 billion worth of cheese.

  Using data from USDA, this graphic looks at just how big the U.S. cheese stockpile has gotten over the last few years, and compares it to notable landmarks to help put things into perspective.

  

  But before diving into the data, Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach and Carmen Ang take a step back to quickly explain why America’s cheese stockpile has gotten so big in the first place.

  Why So Much Cheese?

  Over the last 30 years, milk production in the U.S. has increased by 50%.

  Yet, while milk production has climbed, milk consumption has declined. In 2004, Americans consumed the equivalent of about 0.57 cups of milk per day. By 2018, average milk consumption had dropped to 0.33 cup-equivalents.

  In response to this predicament, the U.S. government and dairy companies have been purchasing the extra milk and storing it as cheese for years.

  So, where does one store such a large amount of cheese? A sizable portion of the stockpile is stored in a massive underground warehouse (a former limestone quarry) outside of Springfield, Missouri.

  The Stockpile Keeps Growing

  Apart from a small dip in 2021 during the global pandemic, America’s stockpile of cheese has increased steadily over the last five years:

  

   

  Between April 2018 and April 2022, U.S. cheese holdings increased by 130 million pounds to reach 1.48 billion pounds. After climbing up to 1.52 billion pounds in July, the stockpile settled once again at 1.48 billion pounds at the end of August 2022.

  Now, the U.S. cheese stockpile weighs more than the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Tower of Pisa, and the Great Sphinx of Giza—combined.

  Is the Cheese Stockpile Here to Stay?

  Attempts have been made to get rid of the cheese stockpile. Over the years, the government has established federal food welfare programs and encouraged milk consumption in schools throughout the country.

  Yet, despite their best efforts to decrease the surplus, America’s cheese stockpile continues to grow.

  As domestic consumers continue to decrease their milk consumption, and switch out their dairy milk for milk alternatives like almond or oat milk, how much bigger will this cheese stockpile get before the government comes up with an alternative solution to deal with its surplus of dairy?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 23:05

• One Bank Makes A Stunning Discovery: The Bank Of Japan's YCC Is Broken And Soon The Entire JGB Market Will Cease To Exist
  One Bank Makes A Stunning Discovery: The Bank Of Japan’s YCC Is Broken And Soon The Entire JGB Market Will Cease To Exist

  Several days ago, around the time of Friday’s historic, largest-ever BOJ intervention in the FX market, we pointed out something which almost nobody had noticed: the BOJ’s Yield Curve Control had already failed on several occasions, with 10Y yields crossing well above the 0.25% Yield-Curve Controlled barrier…

  Everyone was so focused on lettuce and the Fed blowing up the US economy, nobody noticed that YCC has now failed and the grand MMT experiment is hanging by a thread. pic.twitter.com/6MJglr248f

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 21, 2022

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

  … and that Kuroda was valiantly injecting trillions of yen in the financial system to defend a barn door that has already been blown open.

  

  But one person did notice what was quietly going on below the unmoving surface of the JGB market, where the BOJ now owns more than half of the entire Japanese bond market and where days can pass without a single trade crossing: that person is DB’s FX strategist George Saravelos and in his Monday FX blog titled “Broken”, writes that “the below chart shows something striking: the Bank of Japan’s yield curve control policy is, for all intents and purposes, already broken. Only the three 10-year government bond yields that are now eligible for the BoJ’s fixed rate buying operations trade at or below the 25 basis point yield cap. Bonds maturing on either side of the targeted maturity now trade with yields materially higher than the cap.”

  

  Of course, just because YCC is broken doesn’t mean it couldn’t be far worse. Or rather, far, far, far, worse.

  As Saravelos explains  “if it wasn’t for the Bank of Japan’s unlimited fixed rate tenders and broader QE, the entire Japanese yield curve would likely be significantly higher.” But the “broken” curve not only demonstrates the scale of policy distortion but its likely limits too: according to the FX strategist, with the Bank of Japan reaching near-full ownership of those three specific bonds, the time is soon approaching where these bonds will stop trading in their entirety and the market will simply cease to exist.

  Yes, with the BOJ owning all of the fulcrum securities of the JGB bond market, that will be game over for the world’s foremost MMT experiment. At that moment of singularity, there will be no willing seller of ten-year bonds at the Bank of Japan’s designated purchase “price”.

  As for the idiocy that is the BOJ’s continued intervention in the FX market, here Saravelos agrees 100% with us when he says that FX intervention from the Japanese authorities will not work when the move higher in USDJPY is driven by Bank of Japan policy itself!

  Indeed, it is either the BoJ or the broad USD anti-risk parity dynamics that need to shift to change USD/JPY direction. So long as neither is materializing, FX intervention looks completely futile – especially if it ultimately leads to foreign exchange reserve sales which ultimately push global yields even higher.

  The question then becomes: since the JGB market is effectively dead, does it not make sense for the BOJ to formally and fully nationalize the bond market, and to at least allow the yen to trade (somewhat) freely? Of course, with the entire Japanese financial experiment now counting down to extinction, at best Tokyo will buy itself a few months time, but as any terminal cancer patient will attest, those few last months are more valuable than anything.

  While such a revolutionary reassessment may eventually happen, it won’t be tonight because one day after the BOJ unleashed its biggest – and most futile – FX market intervention in history, selling some $50 billion in US reserve to buy worthless funny-money, it also offered to buy more bonds than planned at its regular market operation on Wednesday to continue the Kabuki theater that its YCC is still functioning.

  • BOJ will buy 575b yen of 3-to-5 year notes, vs 475b yen planned
  • BOJ will buy 650b yen of 5-to-10 year debt, vs 550b yen planned
  • BOJ will buy 350b yen of 10-to-25 year bonds, vs 250b yen planned
  • BOJ will buy 150b yen of debt due in 25 years, vs 100b yen planned

  Translation: one day the BOJ does everything in its power to prevent the yen from imploding, the very next day it does, well, precisely the opposite as it unleashes the yen firehose assuring new record lows for the doomed currency.

  Idiocy? Yes. But once you are in the endgame of MMT and helicopter money, that’s all you have left.

  The full DB note is available to pro subs in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 22:47

• Wealthy Chinese Activate Financial "Escape Plans" Terrified Of Xi's Coming Reign Of Terror, And Why This Is Good News For Bitcoin
  Wealthy Chinese Activate Financial “Escape Plans” Terrified Of Xi’s Coming Reign Of Terror, And Why This Is Good News For Bitcoin

  Back in September 2015, more than seven years ago, when bitcoin was trading around $225, and just after China had stunned markets with its (relatively modest) yuan devaluation, we made a modest prediction:

  In summary: while China is doing everything in its power to not give the impression that it is panicking, the truth is that it is one viral capital outflow report away from an outright scramble to enforce the most draconian capital controls in its history, which – as every Cypriot and Greek knows by now – is a self-defeating exercise and assures an ever accelerating decline in the currency, which authorities are trying to both keep stable while also devaluing at a pace of their choosing. Said pace never quite works out.

  So what happens then: well, China’s propensity for gold is well-known. We would not be surprised to see a surge of gold imports into China, only instead of going to the traditional Commodity Financing Deals we have written extensively about before, where gold is merely a commodity used to fund domestic carry trades, it ends up in domestic households. However, while gold has historically been the best store of value in history and has outlasted every currency known to man, it is problematic when it comes to transferring funds in and out of a nation – it tends to show up quite distinctly on X-rays.

  Which is why we would not be surprised to see another push higher in the value of bitcoin: it was earlier this summer when the digital currency, which can bypass capital controls and national borders with the click of a button, surged on Grexit concerns and fears a Drachma return would crush the savings of an entire nation. Since then, BTC has dropped, however if a few hundred million Chinese decide that the time has come to use bitcoin as the capital controls bypassing currency of choice, and decide to invest even a tiny fraction of the $22 trillion in Chinese deposits…

  

  … in bitcoin (whose total market cap at last check was just over $3 billion), sit back and watch as we witness the second coming of the bitcoin bubble, one which could make the previous all time highs in the digital currency, seems like a low print as bitcoin soars past $500, past $1,000 and rises as high as $10,000 or more.

  Well, we got the direction spot on, but not even we could anticipate just how much “or more” bitcoin would soar to some 6 years later when it nearly topped $70,000.

  Of course, far be it for us to claim that Chinese capital outflows were the only driver behind the exponential rise in bitcoin, but they certainly were one of the earliest catalysts behind what would be a truly fantastic, generational wealth-creating meltup, and certainly explains Beijing’s relentless crusade to crush bitcoin (and crypto in general), and to launch its own laughable attempt at a CBDC, which not unexpectedly has been a completely disaster.

  Why do we bring this up? For three reasons:

  First, as we noted yesterday, China is aggressively engaged in stealth devaluation, and while it pretends to be trying to contain the yuan from collapsing, the plunge in the currency has been historic. Even CFR analyst Brad Setser admitted today that “until China proves otherwise, it is effectively engaged in a controlled depreciation” but so far nobody in the US pretends to notice.

  

  Second, back in 2015 total Chinese bank deposits were $22 trillion. Fast forward to today when they are two and a half times larger at $55 trillion, or more than double their US equivalent! That’s a lot of domestic deposits that will need to be quietly ferried offshore once China admits it is aggressively pursuing yuan devaluation (which it is doing right now).

  

  Third, back in September 2015, millions of Chinese rushed to park their savings offshore, terrified that Beijing’s ongoing devaluation wave would wipe out the value of their financial assets. Well, it’s time for another offshore funding scramble because as the FT writes, today, “thousands of wealthy people across China are headed for the exits as President Xi Jinping secures a third term, making him and the ruling Chinese Communist party even stronger than before.”

  Recall that just hours after Xi not only was declared dictator for life but unceremoniously and in full view of the entire world had his centrist, globalist and pro-reform predecessor Hu Zintao escorted out of the building, guaranteeing that the rest of his rule will be a radical departure from heretofore accepted norms, and calling for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” based on revitalizing the CCP’s role as the economic, social, and cultural leader, Chinese stocks cratered to multi-decade lows and the yuan plunged to a record low as the growing realization of the horror that is coming swept across the land.

  As a result, China’s wealthiest were met with market turmoil on Monday when Chinese stocks crashed the most since 2008. According to Bloomberg’s billionaire list, the 13 richest Chinese lost $12.7 billion in just one day after mounting fears about Xi’s consolidation of power. But of course, it wasn’t just them looking terrified at the glowing green color on their screens (as a reminder, in China stock colors are inverted as red means up and green means down): it was everyone.

  In any case, as hundreds of millions of Chinese savers now scramble to move as much of their assets as far away off shore from the lunatic fringe in Beijing as possible, we have been flooded with reports that wealthy families across Hong Kong and China are at a “tipping point” about triggering so-called financial “fire escape plans” to avoid the wrath of Xi and CCP, according to David Lesperance, a Europe-based lawyer who works with elite Chinese businessmen and who spoke with Financial Times. 

  “Now that ‘the chairman’ is firmly in place . . . I have already received three ‘proceed’ instructions from various ultra-high net worth Chinese business families to execute their fire escape plans,” Lesperance said.

  Ahead of the run-up to the 20th Party Congress, there was much concern that if Xi cemented his third term, there would be no pivot to his controversial policies, including the Covid-zero strategy and increased regulatory measures on companies, which have devastated parts of the economy. The actual outcome – in which Xi crowned himself undisputed ruler and surrounded himself with fawning sycophants while threatening a full-blown putch of the upper class – was far worse.

  Kia Meng Loh, a senior partner at Dentons Rodyk bank in Singapore which in the past two decades has emerged as the world’s “Swiss bank account”, or the only place in the world where accounts remain truly anonymous, said that some Chinese elites have been inquiring about setting up “family offices” even before last weekend, as a way to protect wealth from the CCP:

  “The clients I work with saw [Xi’s] third term as a foregone conclusion much earlier than this week,” Loh said, adding many of these families who generally shield wealth in Hong Kong found it less attractive since Beijing now has authority over the territory. 

  Sure enough, new data from Citi Private Bank shows the number of family offices in Singapore soared 5x between 2017 and 2019 and nearly doubled from 400 at the end of 2020 to more than 700 a year later as wealthy Chinese rushed to park their wealth offshore.

  Ryan Lin, director of Bayfront Law, also located in Singapore, said he was contacted by five wealthy Chinese families last week to establish a Singapore family office, and of those, three are quickly moving forward. Lin has helped establish 30 ultra-wealthy family offices in Singapore in the past year, as many of these families hope not just to relocate their money but also family. 

  Lesperance admitted that many of his clients had spent years preparing to exit China, legally moving money to safe offshore places that CCP cannot touch. Some of these families are even applying for citizenship abroad. 

  Xi is expected to unleash a broad range of wealth taxes (under the populist campaign “common prosperity”) that has spooked the wealthy. But hiding wealth could be the least of their worries considering there have been numerous accounts of some billionaires forced into hiding, such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma. Ongoing chaotic lockdowns under the Covid-Zero policy and common prosperity as Xi secured a third term push high-net-worth residents to the exits.

  The obvious question then is how long until China battens down the hatches and makes money transfers to Singapore impossible.

  “The family motto has always been: ‘Keep a fast junk in the harbour with gold bars and a second set of papers’. The modern equivalent would be a private jet, a couple of passports and foreign bank accounts,” Lesperance said. “That is the world we are in . . . it is tough stuff.”

  Of course, to fund said foreign bank accounts, one needs either gold bars to flee China’s infamous financial firewall… or their modern equivalent: bitcoin. And while gold shows up on X-ray, crypto does not, whether it is sent by instant transfer across the blockchain or through unobservable flash drives.

  Indeed, one has to wonder if capital outflows from China are already starting to push Bitcoin higher, as fears of another round of draconian capital controls by Beijing spark outbound money flight…

  

  … and if it was capital flight from China back in 2015 that helped propel bitcoin nearly 100x from $250 to $20,000 during the first Asia-driven bitcoin bubble of 2017/2018, one also has to wonder how high another full-blown Chinese capital flight will push the digital gold this time.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 22:25

• Man Taken Into Custody After Sen. Rubio Reports Canvasser 'Brutally Attacked'
  Man Taken Into Custody After Sen. Rubio Reports Canvasser ‘Brutally Attacked’

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A man has been arrested for allegedly beating a person in Florida, authorities confirmed on Oct. 24.

  

  Javier Jesus Lopez, 22, was taken into custody for beating a man who was walking around the neighborhood “handing out fliers,” according to a Hialeah Police Department report obtained by The Epoch Times.

  Lopez allegedly confronted the man and told him he couldn’t pass by him, to which the man responded by moving across the street.

  But Lopez pursued the man, prompting the man to say he was on public property, authorities said.

  Lopez is accused of slamming the man against the ground and striking him multiple times, causing severe swelling to the man’s face and leaving his right eye completely swollen shut.

  The incident took place on Sunday evening on East 60th Street.

  The 27-year-old victim has not been identified.

  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) posted pictures of the man who was beaten. Rubio said on Twitter that the man was one of his campaign’s canvassers and was canvassing when he was “brutally attacked” by people “who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in #Hialeah.”

  The pictures showed the male victim whose face was badly beaten being transported from the scene in an ambulance.

  The man was wearing a Marco Rubio shirt. Rubio said he was also wearing a Ron DeSantis hat when he was attacked.

  Both Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis are both running for re-election. Both are Republicans.

  The man suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw & will need facial reconstructive surgery,” Rubio said of his supporter.

  Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a Desantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in #Hialeah #Florida

  He suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw & will need facial reconstructive surgery pic.twitter.com/36QpbySg58

  — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) October 24, 2022

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

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 22:05

• Oz Odds Of Winning PA Soar After Historic Fetterman Debate Meltdown
  Oz Odds Of Winning PA Soar After Historic Fetterman Debate Meltdown

  The Fetterman campaign may have just watched what remained of its prospects in Pennsylvania circle the drain after tonight’s sole debate between him and PA Senate candidate Dr. Oz.

  Fetterman, who suffered a severe stroke days before the May primary and cast his vote from a hospital bed, appeared unable to put together nearly a single coherent sentence throughout the entire debate while TV veteran Dr. Oz deftly and “surgically” sliced and diced his way through an hour of questioning, using Fetterman as a lifeless sparring dummy for a majority of the debate. 

  Recovering from his stroke, Fetterman’s answers ranged between somewhat inept and completely incomprehensible. The ugly performance started right from the beginning, with Fetterman bidding viewers “good night” as part of his opening statement. 

  Fetterman opens the debate:

  “Hi. Good night everybody.” pic.twitter.com/mg0X3Iwf5D

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022

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  It only got worse from that point forward. Fetterman was unable to coherently respond to an allegation that he hadn’t paid his taxes:

  [Oz has] said you have not paid your taxes … how do you respond?”

  Fetterman: “It was helping two students 17 years ago to help them buy their own homes. They for and didn’t pay the bills and got are paid and it has never been an issue in any of the campaign before.” pic.twitter.com/hv5M4YWc0a

  — Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 26, 2022

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  He was also unable to provide reasoning for not releasing his medical records, which would be of obvious concern due to the fact that he is recovering from a stroke and PA citizens will likely want to know that their Senate candidate is lucid:

  Mod: “Why haven’t you released your medical records?”

  Fetterman: “My doctors believe I am ready to be served.”

  Mod: “Why won’t you release the records?”

  Fetterman: “My doctor believes I am fit to be serving and I believe that is where I am standing.” pic.twitter.com/kTH88tPH0Q

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022

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  Fetterman also seemed to take an inordinate amount of time in grasping and responding to questions as they were asked:

  Moderator: “Are there any of Biden’s policy positions that you disagree with.”

  *seven Mississippi pause* pic.twitter.com/uAf1iPMcoC

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022

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  He tried to take several “jabs” at Oz – needless to say that none of them landed:

  Fetterman: “Dr. Oz loves free money when it’s a half a million dollar on one of his down on the ranch in Florida and whether it was a $50 tax break you know about his farm in Montgomery County.” pic.twitter.com/LvLFRMb68v

  — Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022

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  The disaster culminated in Fetterman attempting to square statements from 2018 where he said he was against Fracking with statements he made in 2022, where he claimed to be pro-fracking. 

  Oh my god pic.twitter.com/TVAAPNXYiU

  — Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) October 26, 2022

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  His campaign manager similarly had a meltdown in the spin room, dropping the “F” bomb while trying to convince the media that his campaign hadn’t completely melted down. “He took it to Dr. Oz pretty f*cking hard tonight,” he said:

  The spin got a little heated at times.

  For those who don’t like curse words in their feeds skip this video. pic.twitter.com/ccAwjJdEPl

  — Oliver Morrison (@ORMorrison) October 26, 2022

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

  But no amount of spin was able to convince social media that the debate was a success.

  “I can’t impress upon you how much of a disaster this debate is… I’ve never seen anything like it. This race is completely and totally over,” said Clay Travis of Clay and Buck. 

  Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of PA William McSwain commented: “That debate was hard to watch. How in the world — in a country of 330 million people — could John Fetterman be in the running for one of a hundred seats in the world’s greatest deliberative body? This is embarrassing.”

  “Just so we are all clear: that was Fetterman WITH weeks of prep and specialized computer assistance throughout. So what you just saw is the very, very best Fetterman can do. Which is terrifying,” said Senior Advisor to President Trump Stephen Miller. 

  Donald Trump Jr. called it “worse than any of us could have ever imagined”.

  OMG John Fetterman it’s worse than any of us could have ever imagined. At this point the moderator is filibustering to make sure he doesn’t get any more Qs. I think that’s 4 in a row to @DrOz. Even today’s partisan hack media can’t cover for Fetterman being brain dead! #PASen

  — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 26, 2022

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  The reaction in the PredictIt voting market after the debate was stark. As noted by Steven Rattner, the former head of the Obama Auto Task Force, NY Times op-ed author and economic analyst for Morning Joe, the “prediction market quickly moved against Fetterman post debate”. 

  

  Some pundits clearly felt bad for Fetterman’s state:

  I cant believe it’s this bad

  I feel bad for Fetterman

  This is sick

  — Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 26, 2022

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  While others pulled no punches for him continuing:

  I have no sympathy for Fetterman. He could have stepped down and preserved his dignity, but his thirst for power drove him to this. https://t.co/yy3746bYsC

  — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 26, 2022

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

  You can watch a full replay of the debate here and decide for yourself:

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 21:46

• Thanksgiving Dinner Will Cost A Lot More This Year
  Thanksgiving Dinner Will Cost A Lot More This Year

  Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

  It is going to cost more to feast on turkey, ham, and mashed potatoes at this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. 

  

  According to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the typical Thanksgiving dinner includes the staples of a 16-pound turkey, a gallon of milk, potatoes, ham, and dinner rolls.  

  U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data (pdf) show that an 8- to 16-pound turkey costed $1.99 per pound last week, up from $1.15 a year ago. This represents almost a 75 percent increase. 

  Boneless ham has increased 13.6 percent in September from a year ago to $5.50 per pound, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show. White potatoes have spiked 27.7 percent to $1.02 per pound, while white bread has climbed 10.7 percent to $1.75 a pound. A gallon of fresh whole milk has surged 16.6 percent to $4.18. 

  The wide range of miscellaneous ingredients has also increased at a significant rate over the last year, including butter (26.6 percent), flour (24.4 percent), spices and seasoning (13.8 percent), sugar (17.1 percent), sauces and gravies (16.3 percent), and coffee (15.7 percent). 

  Overall, food prices have soared over the last year, with the BLS food index climbing at an annualized pace of 11.2 percent. Grocery store prices spiked 13 percent year-over-year in September, while the cost of visiting a restaurant has risen 8.5 percent compared to the same time a year ago. 

  

  People shop at a grocery store in New York City on May 31, 2022. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

  Soaring food prices have been driven by a broad array of factors, including volatile weather conditions in key growing areas, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, surging energy prices and labor costs, and the Avian flu. 

  Bird Flu 

  The continued Avian outbreak has impacted the price and supply of turkey, chicken, and eggs. The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus usually occurs in the colder months, but commercial turkey producers contended with the bird flu in July. This is the time when farmers begin raising flocks for the coming holiday season.  

  So far this year, nearly 48 million birds have been affected, with the flu identified in 42 states. The only way to limit its spread is to kill entire flocks, which consist of approximately 15,000 birds. 

  The issue is not only widespread in the United States. There are a vast number of bird flu cases being reported in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Millions of birds have been culled as a result.  

  Experts purport that transmission has increased immensely over the last year, and the illness is spreading to mammals at a faster pace. Scientists are unsure why the outbreak is intensifying, but some theories argue that mutations have let the virus infect a variety of bird species, and the mutations have allowed the virus to replicate. 

  “All of us are feeling the pain of higher prices at the grocery store,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall in a statement.

  “HPAI outbreaks in the spring and an uptick in cases in the fall are taking a toll, but farmers remain dedicated to ensuring America’s food supply remains strong.” 

  Meanwhile, another aspect has been the notable 8.1 percent year-over-year increase in turkey feed prices. This is in addition to rising energy, fertilizer, and labor costs that farmers are facing.

  The USDA’s latest Farm Sector Income Forecast anticipates record-high total overall production costs, skyrocketing nearly 18 percent from 2021 to $437.4 billion this year.

  Can Americans Afford Thanksgiving? 

  With the annual inflation rate north of 8 percent, real wage growth (inflation-adjusted) still in negative territory, and consumers exhausting their pandemic-era savings, can Americans afford Thanksgiving this year? 

  According to a recent Personal Capital survey, one-quarter of Americans plan to skip Thanksgiving dinners this year to save money. 

  Others are adjusting their Thanksgiving to adapt to the increasing cost of living. The survey learned that more than one-third of Americans would have smaller dinners, while 88 percent say they will eliminate at least one dish from the dinner table. Another quarter of consumers will budget up to $100 for their 2022 Thanksgiving dinner. 

  “As the holidays creep closer and food prices continue to rise, this year’s food-centered festivities may require an extra focus on finances. Some hosts are tightening their budgets by trimming the guest list, editing the menu, or asking for contributions. Others are skipping the holiday altogether,” the report stated. 

  With the national average price for a gallon of gasoline nearly $4 again, visiting family members for Thanksgiving might also be an exorbitant trip, adding to the growing cost of Thanksgiving.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 21:25

• Visualizing The Largest Public Companies By Market Cap (2000–2022)
  Visualizing The Largest Public Companies By Market Cap (2000–2022)

  The 10 largest public companies in the world had a combined market capitalization of nearly $12 trillion as of July 2022.

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang and Jeff Desjsardins detail below, two decades ago, the players that made up the list of the largest companies by market capitalization were radically different – and as the years ticked by, emerging megatrends and market sentiment have worked to shuffle the deck multiple times.

  This racing bar chart by Truman Du shows how the ranking of the top 10 largest public companies has changed from 2000 to 2022.

  Market Cap vs. Market Value

  Before diving in, it’s worth noting that market capitalization is just one of many metrics that can be used to help value a company.

  Simply put, a company’s market cap measures the combined price of a company’s outstanding shares—in other words, it’s the price someone would pay if they wanted to purchase the company outright at current stock prices (theoretically speaking).

  But while a market cap provides insight into what equity is worth at a given time, calculating the market value is far more complicated and nuanced. After all, a price paid might not reflect the actual value of a business. To get a measure of value, other metrics like a company’s price-to-sales (P/S) ratio, price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, or return-on-equity (ROE) may be considered.

  The Largest Public Companies by Market Cap (2000–2022)

  Over the last two decades, investor sentiment has shifted as different trends have played out, and the types of companies buoyed up by the market have changed as well.

  For instance, tech and telecom companies were big in the very early 2000s, as investors got excited about the seemingly endless potential of the newly-introduced World Wide Web.

  

  In the middle of the Dotcom bubble, investors were pouring money into internet-related tech startups. As PC and internet adoption picked up, investors hoped to “get in early” before these companies started to really turn a profit. This overzealous sentiment is reflected in the market capitalizations of public companies at the time, especially in the tech or telecom companies that were seen as benefitting from the internet boom.

  Of course, the Dotcom bubble was not meant to last, and by January 2004 the top 10 list was looking much more diverse. At this time, Microsoft had lost the top spot to General Electric, which had a market cap of $309 billion. Then in the late 2000s, energy companies such as ExxonMobil, PetroChina, Gazprom, and BP took over the list as oil prices spiked well over $100 per barrel.

  But fast forward to 2022, and we’ve come full circle, with Big Tech back in the limelight again.

  Largest Companies by Market Cap (July 1, 2022)

  

  Four of the five largest companies are in tech, and Tencent also cracks the list. Meanwhile, Tesla is classified as an automotive company, but it is thought of as an “internet of cars” company by many investors.

  Big Picture Trends in the Top 10 by Market Cap List

  

   

  *As of July 1, 2022. Since then, Saudi Aramco has been re-surpassed by Apple due to a reversal in oil prices.

  Trending Downwards?

  Amidst rising interest rates, crippling inflation, and political issues like the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, signs point towards a potential global recession. Tech companies fared well during the COVID-19 pandemic, but will likely not be immune to the impacts of a generalized economic slowdown.

  It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out in 2023, and which companies (if any) will manage to stay on top throughout the turmoil.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 21:05

• China's Congress Is Over: Has PBOC Just Let The Yuan Go?
  China’s Congress Is Over: Has PBOC Just Let The Yuan Go?

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst

  Until Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China had been fighting against yuan depreciation via strong fixings. However, the defense crumbled a bit as soon as the Communist Party Congress was over. The fixing on Tuesday wasn’t as strong as it was in previous sessions, even as the yuan fell to the lowest since 2007.

  Is that a fluke or has the PBOC showed more tolerance for yuan depreciation? Wednesday’s fixing will tell us if the PBOC has indeed decided to “lie flat.”

  In the days before and during the Party Congress, the central bank effectively kept the fixing unchanged around 7.1 per dollar, putting a temporary floor under the currency. The fixing surpassed analysts survey by Bloomberg by a record last Thursday, suggesting a strong willingness to defend the yuan.

  But the depreciation pressure didn’t go away. As a result, traders pushed the yuan almost to the weaker end of its 2% limit relative to the fixing Monday. On Tuesday, the PBOC finally loosened its grip, allowing the reference rate to fall by the most since June. It was still about 5 bps stronger than analysts surveyed, but the deviation was the smallest in a week. As if on cue, the onshore yuan weakened to 7.31 per dollar, the lowest since December 2007, and fell to the lowest against the basket in more than a year. 

  

  That marked a change in the PBOC’s strategy, according to Jens Nordvig, founder of Exante Data. It used to be that the PBOC forced the markets to converge to its fixing. Now, the markets are leading the central bank in dictating the currency’s moves.

  “The fact that they have been trying to create a big gap between fixing and spot, and then have to move to spot, rather than the other way around, is the key,” said Nordvig.  “We are breaking big levels in the process.”

  

  Why such a shift?

  The PBOC is “more out of bullets than in the past,” said Nordvig. The central bank doesn’t want to burn through its foreign reserves, and it cannot raise interest rates to reduce the depreciation pressure. In addition, the authorities have already closed a lot of capital-account holes. In other words, the PBOC is running out of “easy” ways to control the yuan, he said.

  It’s not that the PBOC has completely stopped resisting the depreciation pressure. Right before the PBOC released its fixing on Tuesday, the central bank tweaked a policy to make it easier for companies to seek funding offshore, a move that could potentially add more dollar supply to the onshore market.

  But these are only token measures of support for the currency. Brad Setser,  a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted: “Until China proves otherwise, it is effectively engaged in a controlled depreciation.”

  [ZH: And while all these after-the-fact takes are great, all of this is what we predicted 7 months before it happened]

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 20:45

• Elon Musk Tweeted Neuralink "Show & Tell" Event Delayed
  Elon Musk Tweeted Neuralink “Show & Tell” Event Delayed

  Elon Musk’s Neuralink’s “show & tell” event was initially scheduled for Halloween day but has been pushed back until the end of November for unknown reasons. 

  Musk tweeted Sunday, “Neuralink show & tell now on Nov 30.”

  Neuralink show & tell now on Nov 30

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2022

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

  The delay led some on Twitter to say, “you are a stupid loser and your bad products are going to fail,” while others were excited about possible new developments of Neuralink’s transhumanistic technology. 

  Neuralink, based out of San Francisco, aims to “implant wireless brain-computer interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help cure neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia, and spinal cord injuries and ultimately fuse humankind with artificial intelligence.” 

  

  In 2020 and 2021, the brain-machine interface startup held demonstrations of the chip implant at work in pigs and monkeys, but the SpaceX and Tesla founder has voiced concerns about the slow rate of progress. 

  The billionaire said he is “cautiously optimistic” the chip implant can restore full-body functionality for tetraplegics and quadriplegics and has said human testing could be next. Neuralink’s efforts have yet to receive FDA approval.

  Musk, of course, is neither a doctor nor a scientist… and actual scientists at MIT recently wrote in the MIT Technology Review: 

  “Elon Musk’s livestreamed brain implant event made promises that will be hard to keep.” 

  “None of these advances are close at hand, and some are unlikely to ever come about,” the article stated, calling most of the company’s medical claims “highly speculative.”

  It also points out that – just like with solar panels, electric cars, reusable rockets, and busses on skates in tunnels – that Musk isn’t the first entrant into the space: 

  “Researchers began placing probes in the brains of paralyzed people in the late 1990s in order to show that signals could let them move robot arms or computer cursors. And mice with visual implants really can perceive infrared rays.”

  And let’s hope Musk’s upcoming Neuralink “show & tell” event isn’t “next level cringe-worthy” and a “complete and utter scam” like some said when he revealed the Optimus robot earlier this month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 20:25

• GOP Could Gain Up To 7 Seats In Senate, 50 Seats In House, Gingrich Says
  GOP Could Gain Up To 7 Seats In Senate, 50 Seats In House, Gingrich Says

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Republicans could see large gains in both chambers of Congress in November, according to Epoch Times contributor and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

  “I would say we’ll be between plus three and plus seven … in the Senate; and we’ll be between plus 20 and plus 50 in the House, with the most likely number being plus 44,” Gingrich told The Epoch Times.

  

  The GOP needs to flip five seats to win back House control. In the evenly-divided Senate, Republicans need to win one more seat to claim the majority.

  With the November election day fast approaching, Democratic optimism appears to be fading as GOP candidates close in on key races across the country.

  In New Hampshire, Republican challenger Don Bolduc has narrowed the gap between him and Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan down to 2 points, according to an Oct. 20 poll by GOP pollster Fabrezio, Lee and Associates, well within the 4 percent margin of error. The poll, which was commissioned by Bolduc’s campaign, placed Hassan at 49 percent to Buldoc’s 47 percent.

  In Arizona, the Trump-backed Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters is gaining ground after earlier stumbles. Polling data aggregator RealClearPolitics predicts the state to be a tossup, and gives the Democrat incumbent only a 2.5-point lead.

  In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s double-digit edge has evaporated in recent weeks. A recent AARP Pennsylvania poll conducted by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research showed Fetterman with a 48 percent to 46 percent lead, which is within the margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

  

  In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s lead over the Republican nominee Herschel Walker is sliding too. A recent Landmark Communication poll had the two tied at 46 percent, while an InsiderAdvantage survey showed Warnock only 2 points ahead, within the margin of error of 4.2 percent.

  “Almost everywhere in the country, races are showing the Republicans tightening up,” said Gingrich. And according to him, Democrats have only themselves to blame.

  Key Voter Concerns

  Crime, inflation, border security, and “woke policies,” he said, all “coming together” against Democrats’ favor.

  “When you have sort of insane left-wing Democrats who believe that you don’t need prisons and that things can be dealt with by just being nice to murderers, I think the average person just thinks this is crazy,” he said, pointing to the crime concerns in New York as an example.

  

  For gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who has made crime a campaign focus, the issue hit close to home on Oct. 9 when a shooting wounded two minors outside of his front porch with Zeldin’s two 16-year-old daughters inside the house. Zeldin, who was out campaigning at the time, said that one bullet landed 30 feet away from the kitchen table where his two teenage daughters were doing homework.

  With near-daily press conferences to highlight the city’s crime crisis and his opponent’s failure to address it, Zeldin’s been closing in on Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in the gubernatorial contest, with the gap tightening to low single digits, positioning him for a potential upset victory in a deep blue state.

  Hochul, facing political pressure, on Oct. 22 announced a plan with New York City Mayor Eric Adams to hire another 1,200 officers to address transit crime.

  Inflation, crime, and immigration are Republicans’ key campaign issues. In a handful of recent polls, voters appear to find them their biggest concerns at the moment.

  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Oct. 18 claimed that a New York Times/Siena poll showing that the economy and inflation ranked as voters’ top two concerns was an “outlier,” and that abortion is on top of voters’ minds.

  “I can tell you that women’s concerns about their freedom are very, very much still very significant in terms of how they will vote,” she told MSNBC. “It’s a matter of who turns out to vote,” she said, adding that she feels “pretty good” about her party’s chances.

  Abortion Issue Not Paying Off for Democrats

  The abortion issue, however, is unlikely to help the Democrats as much as Pelosi and other Democratics may think, according to Gingrich.

  “Republicans are actually winning the argument, because it’s a question of who’s the more extreme,” he said.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 20:05

• Watch Live: Oz-Fetterman Pennsylvania Senate Race Debate
  Watch Live: Oz-Fetterman Pennsylvania Senate Race Debate

  One of the most anticipated events leading up to Election Day on Nov. 8 will unfold tonight when Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz take the stage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for their only scheduled debate.

  The 60-minute debate will be televised live and begin at 8 p.m. ET.

  As Jeff Louderbeck write at The Epoch Times, the candidates are vying to replace retiring Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in a race that will help determine which party has control of the chamber in 2023.

  

  Fetterman suffered a severe stroke days before the May primary and cast his vote from a hospital bed. Since then, he has made limited public appearances and conducted a handful of media interviews.

  Fetterman made his first public appearance since his stroke on Aug. 12. Oz immediately challenged him to appear on the debate stage. Oz asked for five debates from Sept. 6 to Oct. 5. Fetterman eventually agreed to one on Oct. 25, two weeks before election day. Early voting started in Pennsylvania on Sept. 19.

  During the debate in Harrisburg, Fetterman is expected to use closed captioning, which he has relied on in interviews and public appearances as he continued to recover.

  According to recent polls, the race is tightly contested and within the margin of error. The high-stakes debate could be a decisive moment in a contentious campaign.

  “I have not spoken to a Democrat in Pennsylvania or in Washington, D.C., who is not concerned about the debate,” a senior Democrat strategist from Pennsylvania told Reuters.

  A Fetterman campaign spokesperson also expressed apprehension about the forum.

  “Even before the stroke, John was not a great debater. Meanwhile, Oz is a showman who spent years in front of a camera, so we know what we are up against,” the Fetterman spokesperson said.

  Oz will likely discuss his plans for fighting crime and talk about Fetterman’s progressive record on criminal justice reform.  On Oct. 24, Oz announced a six-point plan to fight crime. The highlights, according to a press release, include stopping drug crimes, smart sentencing reform, increasing resources for safer streets, prosecuting crime, relief for victims and users, and reducing crime in prisons.

  As Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, Fetterman heads the Board of Pardons.

  Fetterman has bragged that he “conferred more pardons in Pennsylvania than any administration in history” while also saying that one-third of the prisoners in Pennsylvania state prisons could be released and “we wouldn’t be any less safe.”

  Last week, Jahmir Harris surrendered to police in connection to a Philadelphia shooting that killed 50-year-old Charles Gossett after security footage showed he was the alleged getaway driver.

  Harris served eight years in prison for a 2012 first-degree murder before he was exonerated and released last year by Philadelphia’s “Conviction Integrity Unit,” which is led by progressive district attorney Larry Krasner.

  Fetterman has praised the unit for being “crucial” and “truly groundbreaking.”

  In 2021, Fetterman endorsed Krasner, who is facing impeachment as a Pennsylvania House investigates his prosecutorial policies in a city afflicted with rampant crime.

  Fetterman has declined to comment on Krasner’s current issues. In May 2021, he tweeted:

  “[Krasner’s] unwavering commitment to systemic criminal justice reform was resoundingly affirmed with a true mandate. His efforts have literally saved the innocent from dying in prison.

  “His Conviction Integrity Unit model should be mandatory in all of PA’s 67 counties,” Fetterman added.

  Fetterman is endorsed by Brand New Congress and Reclaim Philadelphia. Both groups have called for defunding the police.

  Recently, he told reporters that, “I think we need to be having a better relationship with the police. And making sure that the police feel they feel supported by the DA.”

  In an interview with Fox & Friends last weekend, Oz addressed the Harris case and hinted at what would be discussed in the debate.

  “If you walk through the streets of Philadelphia and most of the large cities in Pennsylvania, it’s the same story,” Oz said. “People feel like the folks in charge value the criminals more than the innocent. The families are in pain. No one seems to care.

  “The fact that Jamir Harris could have been released from prison by this Conviction Integrity Unit, which sounds Orwellian, is shocking to me, and it is to everybody else. But only days ago, John Fetterman praised it, and talked about how it was groundbreaking. It was a beacon of light,” Oz added.

  “He actually said we should have similar mandatory programs in all the counties of Pennsylvania. The parole board that he serves. He wanted to have it do exactly what this conviction integrity unit was doing, which is go back, find people who are guilty, and get them out in the streets.”

  Fetterman’s health is another topic likely to be addressed in the forum.

  He has used a closed captioning system during interviews with reporters. His campaign says it helps compensate for auditory processing challenges. He will use the system on stage during the debate.

  Under frequent scrutiny from Oz and multiple media outlets regarding questions about his health, Fetterman released a letter on Oct. 19 from a doctor who wrote that he “is recovering well from his stroke” and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

  The author—Dr. Clifford Chen—has donated to Fetterman’s campaign at least four times, according to Federal Elections Commission records.

  In September, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board called on Fetterman and Oz to release their medical records in September. Oz agreed, and the results indicated that he was in “excellent health,” according to his doctor.

  Fetterman had repeatedly refused to reveal medical information until the report from Chen.

  The letter was released days after Fetterman stumbled over his words and used a closed-captioning monitor to read questions in an interview with NBC News reporter Dasha Burns that aired on Oct. 11.

  “I hear and understand everything in terms of words, on paper, and understand what I hear, but when we are talking about very specific and heavy things like this, we’re going to need captioning. I need captioning,” Fetterman told reporters earlier this month.

  How Oz addresses Fetterman’s health issues is among the many anticipated parts of the debate. Oz and his campaign have drawn criticism over “mocking” Fetterman’s health conditions.

  After Chen’s letter was published, Oz’s campaign released a statement saying it was “good news that John Fetterman’s doctor gave him a clean bill of health.”

  “The bad news is that John Fetterman still supports releasing convicted murderers out on the streets and has zero explanation for why he didn’t pay his taxes 67 times,” an Oz campaign spokesperson said. “And now that he apparently is healthy, he can debate for 90 minutes, start taking live questions from voters and reporters, and do a second debate now too.”

  Political pundits also believe that Oz will link Fetterman to rising inflation and gas prices, and the overall cost of living increase.

  Fetterman’s campaign has focused on bolstering the working class, battling corporate greed, and supporting abortion rights.

  Fetterman has attacked Oz for his backing of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban.

  On Oct. 24, Fetterman’s campaign released a statement referencing a Rolling Stone article that claims former president Donald Trump is encouraging Pennsylvania lawmakers to repeal a 2019 no-excuse mail-in voting law. The story also alleged that Trump is setting the groundwork to challenge the results of the Pennsylvania Senate race if Oz loses.

  “It’s clear that Donald Trump, Dr. Oz, and the GOP will do whatever it takes to try and steal this race on Election Night. Trump has already said he ‘needs’ people like Oz in office to challenge the 2024 election,” Fetterman spokesperson Joe Calvello said in a statement.

  “Trump is trying to steal the 2022 election for Oz so that Trump can steal the 2024 election for himself.”

  Pennsylvania is considered one of the Democrats’ top chances to at least maintain control of the Senate.

  The current makeup is 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris having the tie-breaking vote.

  A victory in Pennsylvania could offset Democratic party defeats in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 19:55

• North Korea Completes Prep For Nuclear Test, South Korea Warns
  North Korea Completes Prep For Nuclear Test, South Korea Warns

  South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has briefed his parliament on what he described as imminent plans of North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in five years.

  “We assess that it has already completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test,” President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday. He reminded lawmakers that Kim Jong-un has already justified the preemptive use of nuclear weapons, making a test if carried through a severe threat to Seoul’s as well as the broader region’s security. 

  White House national security official John Kirby has also lately reiterated the US intelligence belief that the north “could conduct a nuclear test at any time.”

  

  According to Bloomberg, “The US, South Korea and Japan have all pledged stern and united punishment for a nuclear test, which would be in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.” Likely this would come in the form of more sanctions – though we wonder what is left in North Korea to sanction at this point, in terms of making actual impact on the regime.

  In early August, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began warning that such a test remains imminent. He said at the time in an address to the 10th NPT Review Conference (or Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) at UN headquarters in New York that “The DPRK continues to expand its unlawful nuclear program and continues its ongoing provocations against the region.”

  This week, Foreign Affairs has described Washington’s broader alarm over what a nuclear test could mean for the region: nothing less than a new regional atomic arms race…

  “The fact that North Korea has had nuclear weapons for so long (its first nuclear test was in 2006) has inured analysts and policymakers to the gravity of the threat,” the publication observed. “The North can now credibly threaten the continental United States with nuclear weapons. But the threat goes beyond U.S. domestic security: North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could spark an arms race in northeast Asia.”

  “Kim’s saber rattling has increased public support in South Korea for that country to acquire its own nuclear capability, something that previously would have been regarded as implausible. A South Korean decision to go nuclear would prod China and Japan to augment their own weapon arsenals,” Foreign Affairs continued. With no easy solutions, the Biden administration has failed to articulate a policy response to these developments. It needs to get more engaged to prevent another crisis from spinning out of control.”

  Pyongyang and Washington haven’t had any real communications or honest dialogue since the last two years of the Trump administration, with the Biden White House appearing to not so much as attempt open lines of communication. Instead, there’s been a build-up of joint US-S.Korea military exercises off the peninsula.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 19:45

• Military Whistleblowers Sound Alarm On 'Devastating' Consequences Of Pentagon’s Vaccine Mandate
  Military Whistleblowers Sound Alarm On ‘Devastating’ Consequences Of Pentagon’s Vaccine Mandate

  Authored by J.M. Phelps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Whistleblower service members are speaking out on behalf of thousands of service members whose careers have been jeopardized for objecting to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s 2021 military COVID-19 vaccine mandate. They’ve expressed concern over the vaccine mandate’s legality, as well as its health effects.

  

  Alongside three members of the Armed Forces, attorney and former Marine Corps Capt. Dale Saran participated in a live-streamed military whistleblowers press conference on Oct. 18 to highlight concerns about the military vaccine mandate. The video has garnered more than 40,000 views, to date.

  Saran once defended service members involved in a fight against the Pentagon’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program. He is also challenging the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate in a class-action lawsuit. He noted in the press conference the current case bears striking similarities to the legal battle against the anthrax vaccine program almost 20 years ago.

  Saran said that “at the heart of most of the legal claims” against today’s military COVID-19 vaccine mandate is the fact that “there is no licensed vaccine” available to service members.

  The attorney and many service members argue that the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, which covers “COVID-19 vaccines that receive full licensure from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in accordance with FDA-approved labeling and guidance,” does not apply to any vaccines issued under emergency use authorization (EUA), such as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

  They say that the military has mainly offered service members EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, rather than the FDA-approved Cominarty vaccine, and thus cannot compel personnel to take them. They also argue that a Pentagon policy that says the Cominarty and EUA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are interchangeable is illegal.

  Saran said the continued push to vaccinate service members is “done just to break them.”

  At the press conference, Air Force First Lieutenant John Bowes, an F-16 student pilot, pointed out various reports that have been sent to congress concerning the military vaccine mandate’s effect on military readiness and the health of service members.

  “We were there to advocate for the 80,000 service members who aren’t being heard,” Bowes told The Epoch Times after the conference.

  “We’re making a call for help to both Congress and the American people to stand up for us and give us some protection from the Department of Defense so that we can continue to serve—which is all we want to do,” he said.

  The press conference allowed active-duty service members and “an exceptional lawyer” to speak out against the military vaccine mandate, Bowes said. And according to him, each is risking their career in order to bring awareness to “the absolutely dire problem that we’re facing right now.”

  Like Saran, Bowes considers the current COVID-19 vaccine mandate to be “almost a carbon copy of what happened with anthrax nearly two decades ago.” He added that “anthrax ended up being ruled as a vaccine that couldn’t be forced on service members because it was experimental.”

  “It’s shocking to see this exact same thing happen 20 years later.”

  Bowes added that the whistleblower service members involved in the press conference “will continue to respectfully bring up the devasting consequences [of the vaccine mandate] to both national security and the health and safety of our force at every opportunity they are given.”

  The officer emphasized that his views do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or Air Force.

  Continued Concern

  Navy Cmdr. Olivia Degenkolb, who has served for 20 years, also participated in the press conference.

  Early on, Degenkolb had “significant concerns” regarding the vaccine’s effect on fertility and its carcinogenicity prior to the military vaccine mandate, which she said were dismissed by military medical staff, she told The Epoch Times, emphasizing that her views do not represent those of the Department of Defense or Navy.

  She pointed out that the Comirnaty package insert reads: “COMIRNATY has not been evaluated for the potential to cause carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, or impairment of male fertility. In a developmental toxicity study in rats with COMIRNATY there were no vaccine-related effects on female fertility”.

  In addition to health concerns, Degenkolb also raised concerns with military leadership about the legality of mandating EUA products, as well as the legality of compelling COVID-19 testing, and mask wearing.

  “These EUA products are not formally licensed by the FDA and by federal law, they cannot be mandated,” she said.

  She said the Navy ignored those concerns.

  Degenkolb’s initial religious accommodation request was denied in December 2021, but her appeal is still pending. Her religious and legal objections have resulted in the loss of an assignment in China, denial of leave, loss of training opportunities, lack of access to her family’s belongings, and other family hardships, she said.

  “On top of that, I received a career-ending performance evaluation in August 2022 and have been recommended for a show cause board to terminate my service with the Navy,” Degenkolb said.

  Like others who oppose the vaccine mandate, Degenkolb said that the policy has harmed military readiness, at a time when the United States faces increased threats.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 19:25

• Zelensky Blasts Israel For Turning "A Blind Eye To Russian Terror"
  Zelensky Blasts Israel For Turning “A Blind Eye To Russian Terror”

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has continued urging Israel to help “close the sky” over Ukraine even after statements from the Knesset made clear it will not send military aid to Kiev.

  Zelensky made the repeat appeal in a virtual speech to a conference organized by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Isn’t it time for your state to choose who you are with as well?” he said. That’s when he charged that in refusing to send arms Israel is turning “a blind eye to Russian terror”.

  ⚡️⚡️There would be no alliance between Russia and Iran if Israel helped close the sky | Zelensky pic.twitter.com/o7x4EzjLO5

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) October 24, 2022

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

  “Is it with the democratic world, which is fighting side by side against the existential threat to its existence? Or with those who turn a blind eye to Russian terror, even when the cost of continued terror is the complete destruction of global security,” Zelensky said provocatively of Israel.

  The Ukrainian government has made multiple formal appeals for Israeli defense aid, particularly to obtain the Iron Dome anti-air defense system, since the Russian invasion began in February, after only humanitarian and protective aid has been sent. This limited aid has thus far included items like helmets and bulletproof vests.

  “This is the decision of your governments… not to annoy the Kremlin, which was adopted a long time ago,” Zelensky said. “If we had immediately secured our skies when faced with a missile and drone threat, Russia would not even have a motive now to go to Iran and offer it something in exchange for assistance in terror.”

  In essence Zelensky charged that Israel’s inaction is facilitating Iran’s expanding influence and its moving toward a nuclear weapon, as Axios described of his Monday remarks:  

  The Ukrainian president claimed the alliance between Russia and Iran would not have happened if Israel had made a decision to provide air defense systems to Ukraine when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 — a decision Zelensky said was made under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hasn’t changed under the current Israeli government.

  

  All of this comes at a sensitive moment in which Israel is fully aware of the widespread reports of Iranian drones deployed inside Ukraine by Russian forces.

  Also on Monday Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov spoke by phone. Gantz stressed that Israel stands by Ukraine. But the call readout also stated: “Gantz emphasized the operational limitations faced by the State of Israel. As a result, Israel will not provide weapon systems to Ukraine.”

  These “limitations” are likely a reference to Syria, where Russia needs to maintain a strategic understanding with Russia concerning Iran’s military presence there in support of Syria’s Assad. Russia has in effect given a greenlight for Israel to strike Iranian forces and assets over recent years of the war.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 19:05

• 'Woke' Businesses, Meet The New Republican Congress
  ‘Woke’ Businesses, Meet The New Republican Congress

  Authored by Ron Bonjean & Steve Rochlin via RealClear Wire,

  In a nation bitterly divided between political partisans, corporations face fraught choices. The staying power of the new “woke” will likely face its greatest test if Republicans, as expected, capture a majority in the House of Representatives after the November elections.

  

  For example, CPAC’s Matt Schlapp recently sent a letter to House Republicans warning that his organization won’t endorse any candidate for a leadership race unless they vow to reject meetings with “woke” corporations. “Pledge you will not meet with these CEOs or their leadership teams, especially their Government Affairs staff, who have been hostile to policies that help all Americans, until they change their ways.” 

  Companies increasingly find themselves caught between two intractable forces: a majority of their customers, fueled by social media activism, who expect them to take a stand on issues that are important to them, and a growing backlash from conservatives who say consumer products have no business dictating social and environmental policy. 

  Just look at J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s notable pivot at a hearing on Capitol Hill when he said his bank would not refrain from making new investments in major oil and gas development projects, telling House Democratic members, “Absolutely not, and that would be the road to hell for America.”

  The shift is a harbinger of broader political expectations: an emboldened Republican majority with more populists in its ranks itching to take on companies for a variety of perceived transgressions, including statements and policies that are seen as nods to political correctness, as well as “socially responsible” and environmental investment policies.

  One only has to look at the recent past. When Major League Baseball moved the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to protest Georgia’s voter law, a handful of Republican lawmakers moved to strip the league of its antitrust protections. Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law to abolish Disney World’s self-governing district. He signed another law dubbed the “Stop WOKE Act” to restrict how race is discussed in schools, colleges, and workplaces. Additionally, 19 Republican state attorneys general are calling on BlackRock to justify its ESG policies.

  With risks jumping out from every corner, what’s a conscientious brand leader to do?

  With decades of experience supporting business decisions and communications related to social impact, we can point to a few answers. Our research with Penn State University found that 76% of voters feel that companies should be held accountable for making a positive impact on the communities in which they operate – with the sentiment shared almost equally among Democrats and Republicans. Yet only 37% of companies think they are doing a good job and, what’s worse, the gap between voters’ preferences and political rhetoric seems to be growing. 

  There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for businesses and other brands to turn the ship. The C-suite must identify social risks that may require a response because of their impact on employees, customers, or other key stakeholders – and this requires a self-assessment 

  Specifically, self-assessments to understand a company’s unique position in the marketplace from not only the product perspective but also a reputational one are critical. Paired with an analysis of internal and external stakeholders, as well as a review of the relationship between business lines and relevant external issues, this kind of audit prepares companies to build a framework for response that is cross-functional, aligned to priorities, and authentic. Finally, companies should be prepared to pressure-test their system for responding to external issues to ensure they have considered all potential landmines. 

  These recommendations may seem easier said than done, but for those companies seeking a measured approach that allows them to both act on their values and maintain key relationships with policymakers, avoiding the preparation for a Republican Congress now all but ensures crisis down the road. By assessing the connection between business and brand values and creating structure around their decision-making frameworks, modern brand leaders, too, can emerge from the very different challenges of today with renewed bonds with policymakers, customers, and their communities.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/25/2022 – 18:45

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