- Norwegian Police Apologize After Confronting Citizen Posting Drawings Of Prophet Mohammed Around Town
Norwegian Police Apologize After Confronting Citizen Posting Drawings Of Prophet Mohammed Around Town
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/27/2020 – 02:45In the progress Nordic countries, officials and police are still acting to censor any critical discussion of Islam’s role in European society.
Norwegian police apologized to a man from Kongsberg for showing up at his house last week and demanding him to tear down posters featuring cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, which he hung up across town in response to the grisly beheading of a teacher in France.
According to local broadcaster NRK, the man, 40, went around the Kongsberg town center, mostly in “visible places such as the shopping center, the train station, and the library” and hung 20 of these posters.
The man wanted to remain anonymous, NRK notes, but the man revealed his motive: To highlight the importance of freedom of expression and that “Islam cannot have any special protection in a free society.”
He said: “I want us to have an honest conversation about Islam without people being branded as racists and fascists.”
NRK said the man “wanted to see if he could provoke the police” with posters.
“I had a feeling that if I did this, the police would take it up with me. But it was far worse than I ever thought,” the man said.
The man’s identity was compromised by surveillance camera footage, allowing police to identify him. On the same day, four police officers showed up at the man’s house, requesting him to remove the offensive posters.
Later, police walked back their request and apologized for overstepping the man’s freedoms.
“I regret that the person was approached in this way. It just demands an apology,” Kongsberg police station chief Havard Reva said.
Regional leader Øyvind Aas in the Southeast police district also offered an apology to the man:
“We cannot order him to take them away. We shouldn’t also say anything about statements that are hung up,” Aas said, describing it a “mistake”.
Before Kongsberg, French teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a Chechen refugee on Oct. 16 for showing his students cartoons of Prophet Mohammed as part of a lesson on freedom of expression.
French President Emmanuel Macron characterized the brutal murder as an “Islamist terrorist attack” while urging France to resist such extremism. Macron’s comments did not sit well with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who lashed out at the French president this past weekend, calling for Macron to undergo a mental health check due to his position on Muslims.
And maybe, just maybe, the Western world is starting to wake up and perhaps agree with Macron’s condemnation of Islamic extremist violence. As the Norwegian man said, there needs to be an “honest conversation” about Islam in Europe without being labeled a racist or having their head chopped off.
- "Nobody Believes In Peace": Azerbaijan Attacks Armenian Forces Despite US-Sponsored Ceasefire
“Nobody Believes In Peace”: Azerbaijan Attacks Armenian Forces Despite US-Sponsored Ceasefire
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/27/2020 – 02:00Submitted by SouthFront,
As of October 26, Azerbaijan and Turkey kept their operational initiative in the war with Armenia in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Their forces continue developing their offensive in southern Karabakh by trying to remove Armenian forces from of the Lachin corridor area in order to cut off the link between the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Armenia itself.
Attempts of Armenian forces to retake the initiative and counter—attacks near the Iranian border did not lead to any breakthrough results. In turn, the Armenian Defense Ministry was forced to admit that it in fact has lost the south of Karabakh. Nonetheless, according to its version of events, the towns of Fuzuli and Hadrut are still not controlled by Azerbaijan. This goes contrary to videos from the ground. At the same time, the Azerbaijani advance on the town of Qubadli faced particular difficulties and in fact the town remains contested. Further development of the Azerbaijani forces’ advance poses a direct thereat to the town of Shushi, near the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic capital, Stepankert, and the Lanchin corridor. Both these directions are considered as strategically vital by the Armenian leadership and it will likely contribute every possible effort to prevent this scenario.
On October 25, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Armenia announced that it has factual evidence that numerous operators of Turkish Special Forces took part in clashes in Karabakh. According to the report, since August, Turkish personnel have been training the Azerbaijani military and participating in the conflict. Earlier it became known that after the joint Turkish-Azerbaijani drills in August a large number of Turkish military specialists, service members and equipment remained in Azerbaijan. The presence of Turkish F-16 fighter jets at the airbases of Ganja and Qabala were confirmed by satellite images. The Armenian side insists that the Turkish F-16s were involved in the shooting down of Armenian aircraft and providing air cover for Azerbaijani combat drones bombing Armenian positions in Karabakh. Turkish weapon supplies and the contribution of Turkish intelligence and top officers to the planning and employment the Azerbaijani advance in Karabakh are another open secret. The presence of members of Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups in the combat zone area was also confirmed by photo and video evidence.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev insists that the Turkish military and Syrian militants do not participate in the war while simultaneously making loud statements about victories of Azerbaijani forces. During an operational meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and commanders of units on the front line, Aliyev claimed that his forces eliminated or captured about 300 Armenian battle tanks and destroyed 6 S-300 air defense systems. The Azerbaijani leader also stated that Armenia received modern weapons every day somehow forgetting to mention various Turkish and Israeli weapon systems employed by the Azerbaijani military.
Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met with Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun in Washington and agreed on the establishment of another humanitarian ceasefire, the third one since the start of the war on September 27. Nonetheless, it does not look like it will allow for any strategic breakthrough as the previous two ceasefires collapsed immediately after their formal start. Moreover, the current situation on the frontline does not sit well with the goals of both sides.
The Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc still seeks to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh question by military means dismantling the Armenian republic there and pushing the Armenians out of the region. At the same time, for the Armenians the current configuration of the frontline, even if the conflict is temporarily frozen, will be a source of permanent threat to the vital infrastructure of Karabakh. In these conditions, the resumption of the Azerbaijani advance will be almost inevitable.
The Iranian leadership is also skeptical regarding the diplomatic settlement of the conflict. Iran has deployed large forces to the border with Karabakh and launched large-scale military drills in the area.
- 3 Things Americans Are Doing Amid Election Angst, COVID Chaos, & Economic Entropy
3 Things Americans Are Doing Amid Election Angst, COVID Chaos, & Economic Entropy
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/27/2020 – 00:05Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
Do you remember how crazy things got when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the United States and widespread hoarding caused serious shortages of certain goods all over the United States?
Well, it is starting to happen again.
As we approach the end of 2020, a “perfect storm” of circumstances is causing the anxiety level of many Americans to go through the roof, and millions are preparing for the worst. I have been hearing from so many people that are deeply concerned about what the outcome of this presidential election could mean for our nation, and a lot of them truly believe that we will witness tremendous civil unrest. But as an article in the Washington Post recently noted, that isn’t the only thing we are potentially facing…
Add a frightening pandemic, a burst of protest and anger about racial inequalities, and a sudden economic collapse, and the result is pervasive mistrust, a sense that the world’s most powerful nation can no longer come together in common cause.
“We’re facing a difficult time,” Barkun said. “The threat — the virus — is invisible, and that makes it more frightening. There’s an increasingly widespread belief that authority — scientific, political, informational — is suspect. It can be more comforting to believe in an unpleasant outcome than to embrace uncertainty.”
In modern times, there has never been a year quite like 2020 when we have had to face so many major challenges all at once, and now a lot of people out there are convinced that things could shortly go to an entirely new level.
Many believe that the civil unrest after the election could be even worse than what we saw earlier this year, others believe that the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic lies in the weeks ahead, and our economic problems just seem to keep escalating.
With so much going wrong, many have decided that now is the time to prepare for worst case scenarios. The following are three ways that Americans are preparing for the chaotic months that are in front of us…
#1 The stockpiling has already started
If there are some things that you want to purchase before things get really crazy out there, you may want to do it as soon as possible, because retailers around the country have already been reporting new shortages…
Shoppers and retailers are reporting that certain items are already running low, including liquid hand soap, disinfecting wipes and canning jars (especially lids). Some products have been difficult to find ever since the first wave.
But a wintery second wave could trigger new shortages, as Americans spend even more time indoors. In a panel discussion with doctors from Harvard Medical School in September, White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans should prepare to “hunker down to get through this fall and winter.”
As I write this article, the election is just over a week away. If the outcome of the presidential election causes protests and rioting to erupt in cities all over the nation, that is likely to make the emerging shortages even worse.
#2 Americans are buying lots and lots of guns
We have never seen Americans purchase guns as fast as they have been buying them this year. At one gun shop in Orange County, the owner literally has a hard time keeping any guns on the shelves at all…
At Ade’s Gun Shop in Orange County, owner Emily Atkinson can’t keep up with demand – she’s seeing a run on guns during this pandemic, similar to the run on toilet paper.
“We would put 20 guns out and they would be sold in three hours,” Atkinson said. “We were doing in two weeks what we would do in a quarter.”
And I am being told that in some parts of the country ammunition is in very short supply right now. We have already seen so much senseless violence all over the U.S. so far this year, and a lot of people believe that much more is on the way and they want to be ready to protect their families.
#3 Concern about what is coming has fueled a crazy real estate boom
It is very strange to talk about a massive real estate boom during the midst of an economic depression, but that is precisely what we are witnessing.
In recent months we have seen an unprecedented mass exodus out of our major cities, and “millions of house hunters” have been driving up prices in desirable rural and suburban locations all across the nation…
The COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of millions of jobs, a weaker economy—none of it stopped millions of house hunters from flocking to Zillow, Redfin, and other online platforms to browse, plan their move, and, in many cases, purchase their first home.
Home prices have been climbing steadily over the past few months, and industry players are projecting they are likely to peak in some markets this fall, causing a tempering of the market driven by a decline in supply and a prolonged economic recovery.
I certainly can’t blame anyone that wants to move. If I was living in one of our major cities, I would be looking to get out too.
Coming into this year, I kept warning that we were heading into a “perfect storm”, and that is precisely what has happened. It has just been one thing after another here in 2020, and many believe that 2021 will be even more chaotic.
As for the immediate future, so much depends on the outcome of the election.
If a clear winner is declared shortly after Election Day, that may help to minimize the amount of chaos that we witness in the streets.
But if the results are very close and are bitterly contested for weeks, things could get out of hand very rapidly. And no matter which side ends up winning in that sort of a scenario, there are going to be millions upon millions of people on the other side that will feel like the election was stolen from them.
There are countless numbers of people out there that will never accept a Trump victory under any circumstances, and there are countless numbers of others that will never accept Joe Biden as president.
I feel like we are on the precipice of a really bad chapter in American history, and at this point it is going to take some sort of a miracle to avoid it.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
- China's Top Leaders Meets To Set Policy Direction For The Next 5 Years
China’s Top Leaders Meets To Set Policy Direction For The Next 5 Years
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 23:45Today China’s top leaders represented by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee started the Fifth Plenum of its 19th Party Congress where they will chart the course for the economy’s development for the next 15 years and set the country’s long-term priorities, with are expected to focus on boosting technological self-sufficiency and domestic demand while Xi cements his influence over the party.
The Plenum will run until Thursday, and will conduct the country’s most important exercise in central-planning: drafting the next Five-Year Plan against the backdrop of a worsening global economy and US sanctions (it’s unclear what if any role the recordings China intelligence has of Hunter Biden will play in this exercise). The plenum will also discuss a broad plan for the next 15 years, with goals that are likely to endure for at least the rest of 67-year-old President Xi Jinping’s rule, who as a reminder made himself ruler for life several years ago.
According to the FT, the process to draft a plan typically reveals the biggest worries and priorities for the Chinese leadership, although these are usually for private consumption and rarely officially disclosed to the public. This year’s meeting comes as the deadline for meeting the previous overarching goal of achieving a “moderately prosperous society”, is due to expire in 2021, the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist party.
Beijing has recently hinted it would broaden out its focus on economic growth to include targets for environmental protection, innovation and self-sufficient development — such as in food, energy, and in chips. The Planum will also explain how the government will meet Xi’s target of zero net carbon emissions by 2060, which is ironic since China is the world’s biggest emitter of CO2.
Xi is also expected to use the exercise to consolidate his influence over the party and the party’s influence over governance, said Holly Snape, a fellow in Chinese politics at the University of Glasgow. “It’s useful to understand these broad goals in the context of an expression Xi seems fond of: the party, government, military, people, education, east, west, south, north, and centre — the party leads everything.”
At the end of the meeting, China will release a brief summary of the proposals to describe the broader directions of the 14th Five-Year Plan at a high level, including discussions on “dual circulation” – in which China will develop domestic demand and self-sufficiency as the rest of the world remains stalled by coronavirus – strategy, a focus on technological innovation and a push for factor market reform. However, Goldman does not expect a GDP growth target to be announced in either the proposals or the detailed plan when it is released next March.
Below is a preview from Goldman on what to expect from China’s 14th Five-Year Plan:
Main points
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold the Fifth Plenum of its 19th Party Congress on October 26–29 to discuss the proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan. The finalized proposals from the party will be released to the public shortly afterwards in a brief summary. Over the next several months, the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) will consult specialists and coordinate efforts from other government ministries to prepare a detailed plan draft to be submitted to the National People’s Congress (NPC) for final approval during the “Two Sessions” in March 2021.
Challenging external environment and key domestic development stage
The external environment is likely to get more challenging for China in the next five years, and China’s senior leadership’s view on the external environment has changed significantly. As President Xi has emphasized since the 19th Party Congress, the world is undergoing profound changes , both economically and politically, which are being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, on the economic front, global growth may be low in the coming years, and trade protectionism, which has increased in recent years may continue, with disturbances to the global supply chain.
On the domestic front, the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) will mark the first five years of China’s moves towards its second centenary goal to build a “modern socialist country” after achievement of the first centenary goal of building a “moderately prosperous society”. And as the government has emphasized, China’s development has entered a new stage, focusing more on quality. However, Chinese economic growth has decelerated notably in recent years, with accumulation of many structural issues/imbalances. The contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) to GDP growth has declined notably in recent years. The share of household consumption in China remains low at 39%, compared to 51% for the upper middle income countries and 60% across OECD countries. The share of service sector value-added in GDP has been trending up in recent years to around 54%, but remains below the average level for upper middle income (56%) and OECD (70%) countries. Regional disparity/household income inequality in China has increased or remained large.
Overall, how China can achieve sustainable, balanced and high quality growth in coming years and enter the high income group from the upper middle income group currently is the key long-term question for policymakers in China. Although the Chinese government has been calling for a transition in the development model for a number of years, we think the next five years will be particularly important, both politically and economically.
Growth target expectation
In proposals for prior five-year plans, the government typically mentioned their growth expectation for the next five years, citing “doubling income” goals (except for the 12th five-year plan), and an average GDP growth rate target was included as a key indicator in the detailed plan. These “doubling income” goals were proposed by Deng Xiaoping (for the period between 1980 and 2000) and Jiang Zemin (for the period between 2000 and 2020), with the goal of doubling income between 2010 and 2020 reiterated by President Xi. But for the period beyond 2020, there have been no official comments like these goals so far, and although President Xi mentioned in 19th Party Congress about the second centenary goal beyond 2020, he didn’t make similar numerical remarks on growth.
With the increasing focus on growth quality, we think there is a high chance that the government may not mention growth expectations in the proposals for the 14th five-year plan (and probably the five-year average growth rate indicator could be also missing from the detailed plan released next year). For major indicators in the detailed plan, we think the government may adjust to reflect a focus on quality (there were 25 indicators in the 13th Five-Year Plan, categorized into four groups–economic development, people’s well-being, innovation, resources and environment).
“Dual circulation” strategy to follow in coming years
Against a more challenging external environment, and at a key domestic development stage, recently President Xi has stressed the facilitation of national economic circulation to establish a new development pattern, which takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other. This has been called the “dual circulation” strategy. There has been a lot of discussion on how to interpret “dual circulation”. Based on President Xi’s remarks, we think there are two key elements:
- First, an emphasis on demand and supply being more domestically driven (“internal circulation”). From a demand perspective, this means growth more driven by consumption and investment. This is consistent with the “expanding domestic demand strategy”. From a supply perspective, this could imply production to rely more on domestic technology and supply chains. In our view, this does not mean “external circulation” is not important, but the way China participates in global trade/supply chain and the role it plays could change.
- Second, an emphasis on supply-side structural reform to facilitate economic circulation and to make supply better match demand. As Chinese policymakers have said, currently the major issues with China’s development are on supply side and are structural. On the top of supply-side reform initiated in 2015 focusing on “five major tasks”, in 2018 the government expanded the content and came up with a more comprehensive strategy—reinforcing previous structural adjustments, energizing micro market entities, promoting innovation and supply chain upgrading; and facilitating economic circulation.
Overall, “dual circulation” is about the long-term development landscape Chinese policymakers would likely to achieve, primarily through supply-side structural reform. The key elements are actually not new and have been mentioned previously by policymakers. From an economic perspective, this means boosting total productivity factor and rebalancing economic development across sectors/regions. But given that the broad external and domestic environment has changed, as we mentioned, we think the government should accelerate the pace of relevant reforms. From a high level, we think the government may stress several key broad areas (the table at the end of this report lists some announcements from government authorities related to 14th Five-Year Plan).
Promoting innovation—key for TFP growth
As President Xi recently mentioned, strengthening innovation capacity and achieving breakthroughs in core technologies is key for the “dual circulation” strategy. The Chinese government has been fostering innovation and industrial upgrading (and development of the digital economy) in recent years, but there remains significant room to improve. R&D expenditure in GDP has been rising and reached around 2.2% in 2019, higher than the average level in upper middle income countries but still well below the OECD level (also likely to fall short of the 2.5% target set in 13th five-year plan). The Economic Complexity Index for China, measuring the capability of a country to produce varied and more complex goods has been trending higher persistently, but still has notable gap with the frontier economy Japan.[1] We have seen strong policy support through measures such as the establishment of government supported funds (e.g., national chip funds) and tax incentives, we believe the efforts would ramp up in coming years. In addition to provide financing support/policy incentive, in order to upgrade supply chain, optimizing industrial allocation across regions based on their comparative advantage would be also key, which is also part of coordinated regional development strategy the government has been pushing.
Factor market reform—key for TFP growth and economic rebalancing
The Chinese government has released two important documents this year aiming to accelerate improving the market economy/allocation, particularly in factor markets (e.g., labor, capital, land, technology, data). One source of slowdown in China’s TFP growth in recent years may reflect misallocation. And distortions in the markets have also contributed to economic imbalances. For instance, regarding the relatively low household consumption to GDP ratio in China, in theory, this could potentially be related to several factors—distribution of national income (between labor and capital), income inequality which is also affected by redistribution effects of tax/benefit systems, and consumption/saving propensity. Distortions in the labor market, such as Hukou system and related regional segregation of the social security system (China’s public spending on healthcare and pension benefits is also quite low as a share of GDP based on international comparisons) has negatively affected household consumption.[2] Spatial mismatch of supply/demand in the land market (undersupply in regions with more population inflow) may have also pushed up housing prices and negatively affected household consumption. As a major part of the “new urbanization” strategy, reform on labor market and land market could accelerate in coming years. Existing regulation on interest rates and SOE privilege in credit availability may have distorted capital allocation and contributed to a high investment ratio in China. Recently, the government released an SOE reform plan for the next three years, as a guide to optimize sectoral distribution of SOEs and improve their efficiency. Further pushes in market reform and reducing distortions will be important to mitigate economic imbalances and boost TFP growth, in our view.
Reduce inequality across regions/households
Less inequality across both households and regions is a focus for the government. China’s Gini index, which measures household income inequality, remains at a high level relative to many other countries and has even increased in recent years, and inequality in wealth is higher still.[3] Regional inequality has also trended up in recent years. On the one hand, these may reflect structural issues/distortions in the economy as we mentioned above, and on the other hand, these may worsen economic imbalances. To address this, the government has been trying to reform the personal income tax system, but in China the share of people paying personal income tax is small. Also, the share of GDP that makes up spending on the social assistance that targets the poor and vulnerable is comparatively low. The overall redistribution effect of China’s tax/benefit systems is pretty limited currently. On a regional basis, the Chinese government has implemented a coordinated regional development strategy, which is also related to factor market reform and could help narrow regional disparity.
Environment
Over the past decades, the Chinese economy has expanded at a very fast pace but at the expense of deterioration in environmental conditions. In recent years, the Chinese government has been increasingly strict on environmental regulations. For instance, ten of the 25 indicators in the 13th five-year plan concerned the environment and resources, with the targets for these indicators all required (in contrast, some other targets are just for guidance, e.g., urbanization ratio). As a key element in high quality growth, we think the government will continue to focus on environment protection in coming years. There might be economic costs incurred by environment regulations — in addition to a short-run shock on growth, environmental regulations might lead to lower long-run growth. [4] But innovation and further market-oriented reforms could help offset.
- Welcome To The Corruptocracy
Welcome To The Corruptocracy
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 23:25Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog,
Most political philosophy is just an elaborate justification for theft and fraud.
What’s called the silent majority is really the ignored majority, who for the most part are happy being ignored. Their lives revolve their families, jobs, friends, and community, not the media, publicity, polls, or politics. They’re sick of elections well before they’ve seen their hundredth campaign ad, received their hundredth mailer, or ignored their hundredth telephone call. They know that politicians are phony and corrupt and make jokes about them, but hope that their rulers don’t screw things up too badly, cross their fingers, and vote for the perceived lesser of two evils.
There’s a shortage of blue-ribbon pedigrees, Ivy League degrees, and gold-plated resumés among the ignored majority, but a surfeit of hard-knocks wisdom and common sense. Benjamin Franklin said, “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” Everybody does foolish things, but by and large, the ignored majority learns from the dear school and puts its lessons to good use.
The gilded class denigrates those outside it: Hillary Clinton deploring the “deplorables,” Barack Obama saying working-class voters, “cling to guns or religion,” and Obama telling entrepreneurs, “you didn’t build that.” Yet, it consistently, almost invariably, demonstrates a complete lack of the common-sense street smarts found in abundance among those it disparages.
The quotes’ condescending arrogance rankles, but at a deeper level illustrate the real division in American politics—between the productive class and those it supports. At the intellectual level it’s the irreconcilable difference between those who believe that value can and should be conferred by the government, and those who know it must be created and produced. It’s believing or not believing that something can be had for nothing.
Freeloaders’ delusion stems from psychology, not ignorance. Every human faces a choice. They can produce value or they can beg, borrow, defraud, or steal it from someone else. For every advance humanity has made, there’s always been someone claiming their unfair share. Most of what we call history is merely an account of who’s stealing or defrauding from whom.
Because production is necessary for human survival, not producing anything of value creates a gaping psychological fissure, one not generally recognized or acknowledged. What’s generally accepted is that humans grasp at rationales and justifications for their actions, not just for the audience to which they’re playing, but for themselves. Most political philosophy is just an elaborate justification for theft and fraud. Political systems don’t spring from philosophies, the philosophies spring from the systems’ actual or potential beneficiaries.
Governments can take every scrap of what is produced. They can pledge every scrap of future production as repayment for their debts. The legitimization of unlimited current and future plunder leads to ever-increasing plunder and debt—and ever-diminishing production. Present governments are merely repeating a cycle that’s played out countless times throughout history.
You would think that government rapacity would be curbed when taxes, regulatory extortion, and debt disincentivize and begin reducing legitimate production. Unfortunately, that assumption flies in the face of historical fact; countless regimes have killed their golden geese. The only regimes that haven’t are those that are currently in the process of doing so.
One among many of rulers’ delusions is that the ruled are buying their lies.
Over time the victims see through the propaganda and narrative management. The lies fool the rulers more than the ruled and are essential psychological support for this predatory and parasitic class.
Commentators from the alternative media bemoan the lack of intelligence and awareness of the American people, and the supposed dominance of the mainstream media narrative. Yet, any number of alternative media commentators, YouTubers, and sites routinely receive more readers or viewers than touted mouthpiece media “powerhouses.” More people watch dissident Paul Joseph Watson’s videos than Rachel Maddow’s nightly screeds, but Maddow receives an inordinate amount of attention from the alternative and mainstream alike and Watson virtually none.
The alternative media’s thousands of sites have eclipsed the mouthpiece media, which exists in a bubble of its own creation. It’s a hugely underreported trend—without fanfare millions of people rejecting the mainstream, reading, researching, and coming to their own conclusions. There’s 330 million Americans and many of them are neither stupid nor duped. It’s just that nobody pays attention to them.
The media bubble envelopes the government-centered corruptocracy and allows those within to preserve the self-deception of personal worth. Someone who lives off the corporate-lobbyist-political food chain, shuffles paper in a government bureaucracy, enforces tax or regulatory extortion, or is otherwise supported in a something-for-nothing scheme cannot have the self-respect that comes from producing value. Instead, the predatory and parasitic classes cling to psychological crutches: conceit, arrogance, condescension, delusion, and willful ignorance.
The most intense predator and parasite condescension is directed at the producers who provide their sustenance. This may seem paradoxical but it’s not. Honest production is an obvious moral rebuke to those who live by theft and fraud. Acknowledging either the value of producers or their own dependence on them would undermine the fragile edifice of their rickety substitutes for self-worth.
Disaffected veterans were the core of a group that would grow to millions, their “faith” in government and the people who ran it obliterated by its repeated failures and lies. Revolutions dawn when an appreciable number of the ruled realize their rulers are intellectual and moral inferiors. The mainstream media is filled with vituperative, patronizing, and insulting explanations of what’s “behind” the Trump phenomenon. It all boils down to revulsion with the self-anointed, incompetent, pretentious, hypocritical, corrupt, prevaricating elite that presumes to rule this country. It is, in a word, inferior to the populace on the other side of the yawning chasm, the ones they have patronized and insulted for decades, and the other side knows it.
“Much More Than Trump,” Robert Gore, SLL, March 3, 2016, reposted November 6, 2016
Nothing has changed over the last four years, except that the ranks of disaffected have swollen. Trump gave voice to them in 2016 and he’ll do it again in 2020. Once more it’s the productive businessman outsider against a government hack insider. After Russiagate, the impeachment, the coronavirus power-grab, leftist and Marxists riots, and endless media-driven tempests in teapots, the somethings in this country are far more contemptuous of the nothings who presume to rule them—and farcically, have designs on the whole world—than they were four years ago.
The ultimate farce is the Harris/Biden ticket: a corrupt, doddering, old fool and a nakedly ambitious shrew who even Democrats don’t like, neither with a scintilla of detectable principle, waging the most inept campaign ever in front of face-masked, socially distanced audiences that number in the tens.
If he gets anything approaching an honest vote count Trump will win in a landslide. The “reputable” pollsters have become another arm of the entrenched powers’ narrative management. Like everything else the corruptocrats have tried, this effort will prove inept. The purported double-digit Biden leads will motivate, not discourage, Trump’s voters. By every other indicator—voter registrations, growing black and hispanic support, the crumbling entertainment and sports complex, the crumbling mainstream media, the ascendent alternative media, millions of new gun owners, backlash against the riots, slowly fading coronavirus hysteria, and off-the-charts attendance and enthusiasm at Trump rallies—Trump’s winning by a country mile.
And let’s not forget Hunter Biden’s hard drive, much as the corruptocracy, Twitter, Facebook, and most of the mainstream media would like us to. The revelations are important not because they reveal that the Bidens are a criminal enterprise—we already knew that—but because they further confirm the suspicions of millions of street-smart, disaffected Americans: our country is a corruptocracy.
If Trump wins and quells the Super Tantrum, he’ll have to do more than give voice to the disaffected. He’s forced the corruptocrats from the depths of their swamp, and he may or may not be blackmailing them for his own purposes. But not a drop of swamp has been drained, and if nothing happens the next four years, Trump’s tenure will be nothing more than a feel-good fantasy for his fans.
He’ll have to either blackmail paid up swampsters William Barr and Christopher Wray to do their jobs or get rid of them for people who will. Nothing less than indictments and prosecutions that cuts a wide swath across the corruptocracy— Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Mueller, Page, Strzok, Haspel, the Biden crime family, Obama, the Clintons, many of the listings in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book, and the rest of their insidious ilk—will do. Arresting Hunter and Joe Biden the day after the election would be a good start.
Trump must put up or shut up on draining the swamp before he can proceed to his long list of other unfinished business. The swamp is the inevitable backwash of a government that has arrogated unlimited power to itself, has first claim on everything produced within the United States, issues debt without limit, and maintains a confederated global empire. Power creates corruptocracies. There is a one in a trillion chance that Trump or any other ostensible outsider changes any of this, and a one in a quadrillion chance that the system reforms itself.
Trump or no Trump, the disaffected will get more disaffected, at least until the system collapses, which it will. The failing of all governments is that they can’t produce, only coerce. What they can force their citizens to produce is astonishingly low compared to what those citizens would produce if left to their own devices in free markets. The productive economy is straining under the tax and debt loads it’s being forced to carry. The debt orgy this year is probably the last straw. The shut-down real economy and debt-bloated financial markets will force a reckoning.
That reckoning will be global and governments will get smaller. Not because anyone within them experiences an intellectual conversion towards less government—and consequently less power—but because they are bankrupt and access to credit will be severely limited. Central banks may continue to buy their governments’ debt with their own devalued debt, but that daisy chain will come to an end as well. A bear market in debt of all stripes and a bull market in interest rates loom. The silver lining: long suffering savers (both of them) and creditors will finally be compensated for the credit risks they bear.
With the crumbling of governments will come the crumbling of current political institutions and boundaries. The breakdown of the corrupt and doomed old order presents the opportunity for the establishment of new orders. What seems inconceivable now may occur with astonishing speed. A year ago, who envisioned what’s transpired so far in 2020?
Millions of salt-of-the-earth, common sense Americans have watched in horror as their country has imploded from lockdown insanity and riots. There’s an exodus from urban hellholes to safer and saner locales. The response to those who say breakdown can’t happen is that it’s already begun.
Alasdair Macleod is writing about Europe, but what he says applies to the United States:
The fate of the euro will be shared with the majority — if not all — of other fiat currencies for reasons specific to them. The recovery from the ashes of government incompetence can be swift — a matter of a year or two, so long as successor governments quickly learn that free markets, sound money and minimal interference from government are all required for the restoration of economic progress. Additionally, all socialist policies must be discarded, and the profit motive and individual wealth creation embraced.
“The destruction of the euro,” Alasdair Macleod, goldmoney.com, October 22, 2020
There will be jurisdictions, some borne out of secession or insurrection, that will institute “free markets, sound money, and minimal interference from government,” along with the concomitant essentials: freedom and the protection of individual rights, because they work and have worked throughout history. They are the quickest way to recover from economic and financial devastation. Most importantly, freedom is the only moral system, the only system compatible with productive survival, and the only system that promotes human happiness.
Freedom, rather than Trump, represents the best hope for the righteously disaffected.
- NASA Scientists "Detect Water On Sunlit Surface Of Moon" As Lunar Drilling Begins In 2022
NASA Scientists “Detect Water On Sunlit Surface Of Moon” As Lunar Drilling Begins In 2022
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 23:05NASA scientists used a robotic spacecraft and a Boeing 747SP plane modified with a special telescope to detect water on the Moon’s sunlit surface for the first time. This discovery indicates water could be more widespread than previously thought, and it allows for NASA’s return of humans to the lunar surface via the Artemis program by 2024.
Two studies were published in the journal Nature Astronomy Monday morning, describing how NASA detected “widespread hydration” on the lunar surface. The research is based on data collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as the agency’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy airborne telescope, also known as SOFIA, mounted within a heavily modified Boeing 747.
Boeing 747SP The first study, titled “Molecular water detected on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA,” detected water molecules on the lunar surface.
The second study, titled “Micro cold traps on the Moon,” found “water ice is thought to be trapped in large permanently shadowed regions in the Moon’s polar regions, due to their extremely low temperatures.” Using data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, lead planetary scientist Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado, Boulder, discovered “small-scale shadows in the polar regions, which we term ‘micro cold traps,’ substantially augment the cold-trapping area of the Moon, and may also influence the transport and sequestration of water.”
“Our research shows that a multitude of previously unknown regions of the moon could harbor water ice,” Hayne said, who was quoted by Reuters.”Our results suggest that water could be much more widespread in the moon’s polar regions than previously thought, making it easier to access, extract, and analyze.”
The findings were also released during a NASA press conference that began around lunchtime on Monday.
“For the first time, water has been confirmed to be present on the sunlit surface of the moon,” CNN quoted Hayne at Monday’s press conference.
Findings Are Discussed At NASA’s Press Conference
The water found on the Moon might be challenging to extract. We noted, by 4Q22, NASA is planning to send an ice-mining drill rig to the south pole of the moon to extract “water ice.”
NASA is planning to return humans, or to be politically correct this time, land the first women on the Moon in 2024 as part of its Artemis program.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine released a statement last month, announcing the new mission to put a human back on the lunar surface would be the first time since 1972.
Astronauts’ ability to harvest water on the Moon is essential for their survival as the US prepares to erect a moon base this decade, with the prospects of moon mining rare materials by 2025.
- What 1930 Thought About 1929
What 1930 Thought About 1929
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 22:45By Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research
We recently picked up an original copy of then-NYSE president Edward Simmons’ 1930 report on the 1929 stock market crash. In recognition of that event’s upcoming anniversary, we have a summary of Simmons’ key observations. The comparisons to 2020 are remarkable, ranging from uncertainty on how technology might change business, to questions regarding sustainable corporate earnings, and even a sudden rush of retail investors.
We want to introduce you to Edward Henry Harriman Simmons. Born in 1876, he was the nephew and namesake of the famed US railroad magnate. He trained to be a doctor at Columbia University, but switched from the healing arts to finance in 1900. Simmons became a member of the New York Stock Exchange in that year and was named president of the institution in 1924.
The reason for this introduction is that we recently acquired a copy of Simmons’ May 1930 annual report to the NYSE’s Governing Committee, which includes his detailed analysis of the October 1929 stock market crash. Since we are coming up on the 91st anniversary of the event next week, this week’s story is his near-contemporaneous review of that event.
As a starting point, here is a brief description of what sorts of companies were listed on the NYSE at the time of the October 1929 Crash, as listed in the Appendix to Simmons’ report. At the time there were 821 companies on the Big Board, with 1,261 issues (common, preferred, etc.) between them.
Half of all NYSE stocks were in eight capital-intensive industry sectors:
- Railroads: 11.1 percent of all listed companies
- Autos: 7.1 pct
- Machinery and metals: 6.9 pct
- Foods: 6.3 pct
- Chemicals: 6.0 pct
- Petroleum: 5.8 pct
- Mining: 5.0 pct
- Steel and Iron: 4.1 pct
Despite the Roaring 20’s reputation for rampant consumerism, outsized Wall Street profits, and the growth of innovative technologies like telephony and mass market radio, industries related to these trends were not heavily represented on the NYSE:
- Chain stores/department stores: 6.7 percent combined of all listings
- Finance: 2.9 pct
- Cable, Telegraph, Telephone and Radio: 1.1 pct
This brings us to our first observation: unlike the world today, the stock market of 1929 wasn’t just “the economy”; it represented the highest fixed cost, most operationally levered parts of America’s economic output, employing millions of workers.
Moving on to Simmons’ own thoughts about the 1929 Crash, 3 quotes from his report and our thoughts.
Pages 3 and 4, where he lays out his analysis of what has just occurred in American capital markets:
“… it is particularly difficult to draw comprehensive and at the same time positive conclusions upon the business and financial developments of 1929, for the very fact that the period in American economic history since 1924 or 1925 has so largely been one of almost universal change and flux.”
“In the field of manufacturing, the steady installation of quantity production and standardization methods had in recent years wrought a transformation in industrial earnings power which astonished the economists and business men of the whole world; at the same time, newly invented products superseded old ones so rapidly as to render accurate estimation of corporate earnings power highly speculative.”
“Some students, bewildered by these and other novel changes in business, declared that we were living in a ‘new era’. This phrase … has been much ridiculed after the 1929 stock market collapse… Nevertheless … it is an equally serious error to disregard these momentous changes occurring through American business and economic life.”
Our take: the comparisons to today are clear. Just as now, the 1920s saw dramatic advances in the use of technology. What Simmons failed to appreciate in that upbeat final sentence was that a severe economic contraction could, and did, reverse adoption rates for technologies like the telephone and companies could, and did, cut their workforces in response to economic conditions regardless of technological advancement. Thanks to fiscal and monetary stimulus, the 2020 recession has not created the same negative feedback loop.
Page 21, where Simmons discusses US stock market valuations through the lens of dividend payouts:
“While it seems apparent that low yields in the summer of 1929 constituted an important reason for the readjustment of stock prices the following autumn, at the same time it is not equally certain what should be considered normal share yields, particularly under the many complicated circumstances of that extraordinary financial year.”
“While security buyers should undoubtedly consider this factor of yields more carefully in the future, at the same time dogmatic formulas in this regard are also capable of producing much misunderstanding.”
This is the chart opposite the page where that text appears:
Our take: price earnings ratios and other more modern valuation approaches make no appearance in Simmons’ 112-page analysis, but his thoughts on dividend payouts capture the right message. 1929/1930 saw a large dislocation in the US economy, and he was right to question the validity of using historical yield analysis as it did not capture uncertainty about future cash flows. There is much the same debate about 2021 earnings at the moment, of course.
Page 52, where Simmons outlines an explanation for why the American public suddenly embraced stock investing in the 1920s, which had been considered a rich person’s game before:
“The vast spread of security investment in this country which followed the gigantic Liberty Loans fundamentally altered this situation. Where previously American security buyers had been few and – supposedly at least – fairly well posted as a class in regard to Stock Exchange technique, now millions of small and often quite experienced investors appeared as a permanent factor with which American finance and the American security market must reckon.”
Explanation/Our take: the US issued 4 tranches of Liberty Bonds in 1917/1918 to fund World War I, and the first 3 were partially/fully repaid in the 1920s. These were very large issues, the first 3 amounting to $92/person for every US citizen, or $1,585 in today’s dollars. Simmons’ point is that it was this capital, often held in brokerage accounts, that when redeemed for cash ignited public interest in equity investing. The similarities to 2020’s stimulus checks and the recent increase in retail investing is, needless to say, uncanny.
Summing up: whenever we do one of these historical retrospectives, we can’t help but think there’s literally nothing new under the sun and policy makers in many ways still look at the 1929 Crash and Great Depression as their “don’t do this” playbook. Simmons, as both a member of a powerful family and NYSE Chair, could and should have been ringing the alarm bell in his 1930 review but his report is nothing more than a detailed recitation of fact and figure. He did not see 1929 as a historical turning point. While his name is mostly lost to history now, no policy maker wants to replicate his error. They may end up doing too much (we’ll see if that proves to be the case in 2020), but they never want history to judge them as doing too little.
- Pentagon "Activated" MQ-9 Attack Drone To Fight Wildfires In California
Pentagon “Activated” MQ-9 Attack Drone To Fight Wildfires In California
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 22:25A large military drone, commonly used for classified missions over the Middle East, was recently “activated” by the Department of Defense (DoD) to combat wildfires in California, read an Air Force press release.
“At the request of the National Interagency Fire Center and upon approval by the DoD, U.S. Northern Command activated the 432nd to provide Incident Awareness and Assessment support using the MQ-9 aircraft to aid civil authorities in California,” the release stated.
The release continued, “This is the first time active-duty aircraft from the 432nd have supported in a Defense Support of Civil Authorities capacity.”
The MQ-9’s specialized optical sensors provided the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) with “real-time video to map fire perimeters and alert first responders of the spread and potential impact of the fires, proximity to infrastructure or buildings, and containment,” the Air Force said.
Lt. Gen. Kirk Pierce, commander, First Air Force, Air Forces Northern, said, “The 432nd’s ‘near-real-time’ support to CAL FIRE enhanced both agencies’ ability to move limited resources quickly to protect lives, save property, and be postured for next day operations.”
From Sept. 26 to Oct. 17, the MQ-9 conducted more than 120 hours, providing real-time data on the fire situation. The activation came as devastating wildfires scorched more than 4 million acres so far. The Utility Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) meteorology team warned Friday that some of the strongest winds of the fire season could arrive in Northern California by Sunday.
PG&E said hundreds of thousands of customers might have their electricity shut off Sunday to avoid trees and branches from blowing into power lines and sparking accidental fires.
Besides monitoring wildfires, we noted the federal government used the MQ-9 to monitor social unrest in Minneapolis this past summer. The military drone was also seen flying above other parts of the US.
The proliferation of military drones flying above American skies should be very concerning as it merely suggests the country is diving deeper into a surveillance state.
- Student Newspaper Condemns Harvard Republicans For Endorsing Trump
Student Newspaper Condemns Harvard Republicans For Endorsing Trump
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 22:05Authored by John Hanson and Adam Sabes via Campus Reform,
The Harvard Crimson Editorial Board condemned the Harvard Republican Club in an editorial for endorsing President Donald Trump, drawing a contrast to the Republican club’s position in 2016.
While noting that the group has “every right to endorse the candidate of their choosing,” The Crimson’s editorial board harshly criticized the group for endorsing the president for re-election after the “shameful debate showing” of September 29.
“The Republican Club has every right to endorse the candidate of their choosing; free country and all. But how they could possibly come to this conclusion – the day after Trump’s shameful debate showing, when their predecessors left them a blueprint on how to denounce Trump last election cycle – evades us,” the editorial board wrote.
The board further accused the club of striking a “nerve on campus,” since President Donald Trump failed to denounce the Proud Boys. Because of this, the editorial accuses the Harvard Republican Club of partially endorsing white supremacy.
“Not only is it impossible to separate an endorsement of Trump from tacit approval of white supremacy, it’s impossible not to see this endorsement as a provocation that willfully belittles other students’ identity and disregards their safety,” the editorial reads.
The editorial noted the group’s different stance in the last general election, pointing to a 2016 statement by the Harvard Republican Club where the group chose not to endorse then-candidate Donald Trump because of his “authoritarian tendencies.”
“His authoritarian tendencies and flirtations with fascism are unparalleled in the history of our democracy,” the Republican Club said in a statement to The Harvard Crimson.
“He hopes to divide us by race, by class, and by religion, instilling enough fear and anxiety to propel himself to the White House.”
Based on the group’s endorsement of Trump, the editorial board said that it’s evidence that President Trump is “consolidating his support among young conservatives.”
“Polling evidence suggests that Trump is consolidating his support among young conservatives. 21 percent of 18-29 year olds backed him against Hillary R. Clinton, while 27 percent have backed him this cycle. These trends suggest Trumpism may well persist in elite conservative circles for a good while,” the editorial board wrote.
Harvard’s incoming freshman class was overwhelmingly supportive of Joe Biden, with 90.1% of the class supporting the former Vice President, while just 7.1% of them expressed support for Trump.
Campus Reform reached out to the Harvard College Republicans and the Harvard Crimson but did not receive a response.
- US State Department Halts All Diversity Training After Trump's Exec Order
US State Department Halts All Diversity Training After Trump’s Exec Order
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 21:45A US State Department cable, obtained by Reuters, shows “all training programs for employees related to diversity and inclusion” have been halted after President Trump directed the federal agency in September to end the programs.
“Beginning Friday, October 23, 2020, the Department is temporarily pausing all training programs related to diversity and inclusion in accordance with Executive Order … on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” the cable said.
“The pause will allow time for the Department and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to review program content,” it said.
Reuters said the order comes nearly two months after a White House Office of Management and Budget’s memo advised federal agencies that taxpayer dollars were no longer allowed to fund “un-American propaganda sessions” that taught critical race theory, white privilege, and or “taught that the United States is an inherently racist or evil” country.
The days of taxpayer funded indoctrination trainings that sow division and racism are over. Under the direction of @POTUS we are directing agencies to halt critical race theory trainings immediately.https://t.co/dyMeJka9rt
— Russ Vought (@RussVought45) September 4, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Trump signed the executive order suspending the diversity training program on September 22. The order forbids any teaching by federal agencies of “divisive concepts,” implying that the US is “fundamentally racist or sexist.”
President @realDonaldTrump just signed an Executive Order to prohibit discrimination by Federal contractors through divisive #CriticalRaceTheory. This is another important step that builds off his directive to agencies to stop trainings that push a radical anti-American agenda. https://t.co/vAAYYKO7Hu
— Russ Vought (@RussVought45) September 22, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
And the move to stop the spread of diversity training doesn’t just stop with the Trump administration. The UK’s equalities minister has warned schools against teaching some aspects of critical race theory.
MP Kemi Badenoch said the rise of critical race theory was a “dangerous trend in race relations.”
“We do not want to see teachers teaching their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt,” she said.
“Any school which teaches these elements of critical race theory or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police, without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law.”
Notably, Badendoch also warned against importing the rhetoric on race from America.
“Our history of race is not America’s history of race. Most black British people who have come to our shores were not brought here in chains, but came voluntarily due to their connections to the UK and in search of a better life. I should know. I am one of them.
But, as Tucker Carlson recently discussed, the ideology is nothing but “divisive,” reiterating President Trump’s recent warning that “this ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”
- 'Iraq War Diaries' At Ten Years: Truth Remains Treason
‘Iraq War Diaries’ At Ten Years: Truth Remains Treason
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 21:25Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
The purpose of journalism is to uncover truth – especially uncomfortable truth – and to publish it for the benefit of society. In a free society, we must be informed of the criminal acts carried out by governments in the name of the people. Throughout history, journalists have uncovered the many ways governments lie, cheat, and steal – and the great lengths they will go to keep the people from finding out.
Great journalists like Seymour Hersh, who reported to us the tragedy of the Mai Lai Massacre and the horrors that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, are essential.
Ten years ago last week, Julian Assange’s Wikileaks organization published an exposé of US government wrongdoing on par with the above Hersh bombshell stories.
Publication of the “Iraq War Diaries” showed us all the brutality of the US attack on Iraq. It told us the truth about the US invasion and occupation of that country. This was no war of defense against a nation threatening us with weapons of mass destruction. This was no liberation of the country. We were not “bringing democracy” to Iraq.
No, the release of nearly 400,000 classified US Army field reports showed us in dirty detail that the US attack was a war of aggression, based on lies, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and injured.
We learned that the US military classified anyone they killed in Iraq as “enemy combatants.”
We learned that more than 700 Iraqi civilians were killed for “driving too close” to one of the hundreds of US military checkpoints – including pregnant mothers-to-be rushing to the hospital.
We learned that US military personnel routinely handed “detainees” over to Iraqi security forces where they would be tortured and often killed.
Ten years after Assange’s brave act of journalism changed the world and exposed one of the crimes of the century, he sits alone in solitary confinement in a UK prison. He sits literally fighting for his life, as if he is successfully extradited to the United States he faces 175 years in a “supermax” prison for committing “espionage” against a country of which he is not a citizen.
On the Iraq war we have punished the truth-tellers and rewarded the criminals. People who knowingly lied us into the war like Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, the Beltway neocon “experts,” and most of the media, faced neither punishment nor professional shaming for their acts. In fact, they got off scot free and many even prospered.
Julian Assange explained that he published the Iraq War Diaries because he “hoped to correct some of the attack on truth that occurred before the war, and that continued on since that war officially ended.” We used to praise brave journalists not afraid to take on the “bad guys.” Now we torture and imprison them.
President Trump has made a point of singling out the US attack on Iraq as one of the “stupid wars” that he was committed to ending. But we wouldn’t know half of just how stupid – and evil – it was were it not for the brave actions of Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Journalism should not be a crime and President Trump should pardon Assange immediately.
- Russian Airstrikes Obliterate Turkish-Backed 'Rebel' Camp In Idlib, Killing Over 60
Russian Airstrikes Obliterate Turkish-Backed ‘Rebel’ Camp In Idlib, Killing Over 60
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 21:05Though Syria has long fallen out of featured coverage in international media, it appears the war to take back Idlib province is heating up once again. Recall that on prior occasions over the past few years Washington has threatened some level of military intervention each time Syria and Russia prepared to finally liberate the northwest region from al-Qaeda and Turkish-backed jihadists (especially connected with ‘rebel’ claims of chemical weapons usage by government forces).
On Monday Russian jets pounded a camp full of Turkish-backed militants in Idlib, killing at least 60. Some media sources are reporting possibly over 70 killed and 100+ injured, making it one of the single deadliest airstrikes of the entire almost decade long war.
Russian Ministry file image: Russian jets over Idlib “The strike targeted the group Faylaq al-Sham, whose base is near several refugee camps in the heavily populated province of Idlib,” The New York Times reports.
And further according to the report, it’s likely to escalation tensions with Turkey, given not only Faylaq al-Sham works closely with Turkey’s military and intelligence, but also given the strike happened so near the border:
The fighters’ camp was at Kafr Takharim, near the Turkish border. The attack was the most violent breach of a cease-fire agreement that Russia and Turkey reached in March. Russia has occasionally made smaller strikes on militant groups, but such a large strike so close to the Turkish border is unusual.
The earliest reports put the death toll at over 34, which continued to rise through the day. The NY Times notes further that “Video footage from the scene showed the bodies of at least a dozen fighters wrapped in blankets on the floor of a clinic.”
Update: I’m told the death toll from #Russia‘s strike is now 76, with 100+ injured.
= One of the most deadly single airstrikes in #Syria‘s 9-year conflict. https://t.co/DJ2ZAqtG3t
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) October 26, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Previous Russian-Turkey ceasefire agreements related to Idlib have been conditioned on Turkey rooting out clearly designated terrorist groups. However, groups which Turkey and the West have dubbed “moderate” are often seen by Russia and Damascus as terrorists.
In this case the Western allies that have been covertly involved in Syria have long thought of Faylaq al-Sham as supposedly moderate. Russia clearly thought otherwise.
Currently, some analysts are speculating that Russia could be sending a message to Turkey at a moment Ankara appears to be getting more deeply involved supporting its ally Azerbaijan against Armenia in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.
- NYPD Officer Suspended Without Pay For Blaring "Trump 2020" On Loudspeaker
NYPD Officer Suspended Without Pay For Blaring “Trump 2020” On Loudspeaker
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 20:45The New York Police Department is investigating an incident Saturday evening where a police officer in a patrol cruiser in Brooklyn blared “Trump 2020” through the loudspeaker – and urged bystanders to film it, reported RT News.
“Trump 2020,” the officer said several times. Multiple videos show the incident, which appears to include at least three officers. By Monday morning, the video uploaded to Twitter has a little more than 2 million views, sparking backlash from officials and residents.
Police officer in Brooklyn uses a loudspeaker to say “Trump 2020” while on the job pic.twitter.com/ZujQIfqonH
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) October 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The NYPD tweeted Sunday morning they were aware of the incident and said, “it is under investigation by our Brooklyn South Investigation Unit.”
“Police officers must remain apolitical,” the department said.
We are aware of this video and it is under investigation by our Brooklyn South Investigation Unit.
Police officers must remain apolitical. https://t.co/a3XyWCNceb
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) October 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In another tweet, the NYPD said the officer who used the “vehicle’s loudspeaker for political purposes had been suspended, effective immediately.”
Suspended without pay; The police officer who is under investigation for using a department vehicle’s loud speaker for political purposes has been suspended, effective immediately.
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) October 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
A second video, recorded by a passerby, told the officer in the car to “do it again,” referring him to use the loudspeaker to tout “Trump 2020.” Sure enough, the officer did, blaring “Trump 2020,” causing the passerby, presumably a liberal, to ignite in hate and called the officer a “f**king fascist.”
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said the incident was “one hundred percent unacceptable. Period.”
“Law Enforcement must remain apolitical, it is essential in our role to serve ALL New Yorkers regardless of any political beliefs,” Shea said. “It is essential for New Yorkers to trust their Police.”
One hundred percent unacceptable. Period.
Law Enforcement must remain apolitical, it is essential in our role to serve ALL New Yorkers regardless of any political beliefs.
It is essential for New Yorkers to trust their Police.
Updates to follow after initial investigation. https://t.co/C4zyVYWZvN
— Commissioner Shea (@NYPDShea) October 25, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
While some commend the NYPD for immediately suspending the officer, critics, or mainly liberals, went berserk, saying City Hall and NYPD were not doing enough to enforce division in policing and politics.
“My tax dollars did not pay for NYPD officers to broadcast Trump 2020 from their cruiser,” one resident tweeted.
“Meanwhile, NYPD is using taxpayer dollars to blast ‘Trump 2020’ from their loudspeakers,” activist Matt Sutton said.
This is not the first time a police department has launched a similar investigation. Last week, the Miami Police Department investigated one of its officers wearing a “Trump 2020” face mask while in uniform.
- How The DoJ's Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against Google Could Hammer Apple At A Critical Time
How The DoJ’s Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against Google Could Hammer Apple At A Critical Time
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 20:25The DoJ’s push to punish Google in the first of what’s expected to be a flurry of civil actions against the Big Tech players could have seriously negative repercussions for a third party: Apple.
As the Wall Street Journal highlighted in a recent story highlighting commentary and research recently produced by Toni Sacconaghi, a longtime tech analyst at A.B. Bernstein, Apple and Google have a special link – and it’s one of the elements of Google’s business that’s come under the microscope as a key element of the government’s case.
The government says Google’s arrangement to pay Apple billions of dollars to set Google’s search engine as its default has been essential in maintaining its market dominance, and preventing another rival search engine from rising up to challenge Google.
“There’s a risk, if you play it out, that there actually could be more financial impact to Apple than there is for Google,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst for Bernstein. He estimates that Apple’s stock could fall as much as 20% if the deal with Google were to be eliminated entirely. At the same time, he and others say, any damage could be far less if Apple is able to offset it through other deals involving Google and its competitors, as many investors and analysts say could happen.
The two companies first struck a deal in 2005, when Steve Jobs was still Apple’s CEO, to make Google the default in Apple’s Safari web browser on Mac computers. The deal expanded with the arrival of the iPhone two years later, according to the government’s lawsuit.
But back in 2016, details about the agreement were revealed in an unrelated court battle. It showed Apple received a cool $1 billion in 2014 as part of the deal to default its products to Google’s search engine. When the deal was first struck in 2005, back when Steve Jobs was still CEO, Google paid Apple to default Safari to Google’s search engine. That default setting was later included on iPhones, iPads etc. At that time, Apple booked nearly $200 billion in sales during the 2014 fiscal year.
While $1 billion back then might not have seemed like such a large chunk, Wall Street analysts believe the amount Google has been paying Apple for the privilege has likely expanded significantly, with some projecting that Google might be paying as much as $12 billion annually for the arrangement across all of Apple’s products and services.
Since the costs associated with licensing something like a default browser setting are negligible for the company that controls the browser and the devices, losing out on $12 billion in pure profit would be equivalent to a 20% hit to annual profits (Apple reported $55.26 billion in profits for fiscal 2019).
With so many close links between Google and Apple, disrupting this relationship could also hurt Apple’s service business in other ways, but as another analyst pointed out, there’s more than enough standing to argue that what Apple and Google are doing is no different than every supermarket’s relationship with the brands that it sells.
Apple is expected to report its fiscal 2020 results Thursday. We suspect Tim Cook & Co, will have some more to say about the DoJ/State AG legal antitrust push, which threatens to upend the big tech status quo.
Of course, as Sacconaghi points out, Google has just as much to lose. Should the arrangement unravel, Apple could scoop up a small competitior, say DuckDuckGo, and start to muscle in on Google’s search traffic, which supplies much of the data that the company repackages for resale to its clients.
As far as American courts are concerned, this isn’t the first time a lawsuit or civil action has exposed collusion between the biggest American tech firms in the area of personnel (informal no-poaching agreements). It’s reasonable to expect that while Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook are nominally “competitors”, when it comes to this antitrust action, they’re all in the same boat.
- Judge Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed, Radical Dems Demand "Expand The Court"
Judge Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed, Radical Dems Demand “Expand The Court”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 20:03If you feel like some self-flagellation, you can watch the entire Schumer show before the vote here:
“You may win this vote and Amy Coney Barrett may become a justice on the Supreme Court. But you will never, never get your credibility back,” Mr Schumer said, side-eyeing his GOP colleagues on the Senate floor.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fired back that Democrats would have done the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot.
“The reason we were able to make the decision we did in 2016,” he said, referring to the GOP blocking Mr Garland’s nomination, “is because we had become the majority in 2014. The reason we were able to do what we did in 2016 and 2018 and 2020 is because we had the majority. No rules are broken whatsoever.”
The GOP-controlled Senate has voted on Barrett’s nomination and as widely expected confirmed her as the 115th justice on the nation’s highest court, sealing a 6-3 conservative majority on the panel that has become more and more instrumental in steering the course of US domestic policy in recent decades.
As McConnell punctuated his point earlier on: “Elections have consequences.”
Ms Barrett, 48, who has served on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2017, is the fifth woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and just the second woman appointed by a Republican president.
A senior White House official confirmed that Justice Clarence Thomas will swear in Judge Amy Coney Barrett as an associate justice on the Supreme Court later this evening.
CNN made it clear what they would be focusing on..
as did NBC News…
And all of this happened on Hillary’s birthday!
Happy Birthday, honey… pic.twitter.com/4VMDkhSDkB
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 26, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
So what happens next (apart from an avalanche of whiney, angry press statements from Democratic party leaders)?
After today’s confirmation vote, (and soon to occur, socially-distanced swearing-in-ceremony at The White House), Jonathan Turley details in the following op-ed at The Hill, what he calls ‘the parade of horribles’ proposed by academics for changing the Court to legislatively negate the majority of conservative justices after the addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the Court.
The Radicals are demanding it…
Remember that Republicans have lost 6 of the last 7 popular votes, but have appointed 6 of the last 9 justices.
By expanding the court we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 27, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
We are going to take back the White House & Senate next week with a resounding mandate from the people to fight back against Trump’s illegitimately stacked judiciary. We must expand the Court if we’re serious about the transformational change the people are crying out for.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 27, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The concern is that this is little beyond enablement by commission as Democrats claim license to do lasting harm to one of the most important institutions in our constitutional system.
As Turley explains, the vote on Monday to make Judge Amy Coney Barrett the 115th Supreme Court justice will be more than a confirmation. It will be a dispensation, according to former Vice President Joe Biden and various Democratic senators. They have cited the vote as relieving them of any guilt in fundamentally changing the court to manufacture a liberal majority. Like school kids daring others to step over a line as an excuse to fight, Democrats insist that filling this vacancy will invite changes ranging from “packing” the court to stripping it of authority to rule in certain cases.
The problem is that the line the Senate will step over is set by the Constitution, while the proposals by Democrats would retaliate against the use of a power granted by the Constitution. Democrats are floating a parade of horribles to “reform” the Supreme Court and negate its growing conservative majority. Biden said this week that the court is “out of whack” and, as president, he would assemble a commission of “experts” to explore “a number of alternatives that go well beyond packing.” The commission would report to him 180 days after his inauguration.
Polls show almost 60 percent of Americans oppose the court packing scheme supported by Democrats, including Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris. One person not polled was the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who denounced such a scheme as guaranteeing the court’s destruction.
A New York Times and Siena College poll found only 31 percent favor court packing. That is a familiar figure: For the last four years, the same 30 percent of both parties have supported the most destructive political measures and rhetoric. Those extremes continue to control our politics, while the vast majority of us in the middle watch in disbelief as virtually every Democratic senator embraces one of the most reviled tactics in American history.
Those senators are not alone.
A host of professors (who likely will be on the short list for Biden’s commission) are giving credibility to court packing.
Harvard professor Michael Klarman attacked the foundations of Congress before attacking the foundations of the court. Klarman condemned a “malapportionment” in the Senate that he believes gives Republicans greater power, and referred to their refusal to vote on Obama court nominee Merrick Garland as “stealing a seat.” While controversial (and I was among those calling for a vote on Garland), that decision was clearly constitutional. Yet Klarman illogically calls it “court packing” to justify any act of retaliation: “Democrats are not initiating this spiral. They are simply responding in kind.”
He then says not to worry about Republicans responding with their own court packing when they return to power. He insists Democrats can change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election,” at least not without abandoning their values. Of course, Klarman concedes “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described” so the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur. Here are some of the other wacky ideas to get the court back into “whack.”
Jurisdiction stripping
Several professors argue for a court packing alternative that moves to the opposite approach: If you cannot make the court bigger, then shrink its authority. By using “jurisdiction stripping,” Democrats would bar federal courts from reviewing certain types of legislation. So, faced with a conservative court, a Democratic Congress would make the courts into a nullity to give itself unchecked authority in various areas. Assuming courts would allow such a move, it would create a race to the bottom as more and more legislation was protected from judicial review.
Supermajority voting
Another approach is to leave the Supreme Court at its current size but effectively “pack” the vote by requiring supermajority decisions. A Democratic Congress would enhance the votes of the court’s minority by requiring a two-thirds vote or even unanimity for certain types of cases or laws. It is an ironic idea since, against the advice of many, Democrats got rid of the Senate filibuster for judicial nominations when it held the majority — fundamentally changing longtime protections for a Senate minority. In this case, Democrats would designate favored areas or types of cases protected by supermajority rules, thereby manipulating the court’s votes.
Balanced bench
Pete Buttigieg and some academics have proposed disregarding any pretense of nonpartisan justices. They would convert the court into a kind of judicial Federal Communications Commission, with Democrats and Republicans each picking five justices who would then pick five more from federal appeals courts to serve terms of one year. That would make the Supreme Court a crude reflection of our dysfunctional political times.
Notably, the Supreme Court is reviewing such a partisan court system in Carney versus Adams. The case must be familiar to Biden, since it deals with a moronic Delaware constitutional requirement that the five seats on the state’s Supreme Court be divided between Democrats and Republicans — preventing an independent from becoming a justice. In Delaware, a “balanced court” apparently means you must first establish that you are from the right party before you can mete out justice The proposal would have a continually shifting court and, since the five transient justices would be selected based on party affiliation, they likely would become pawns in a partisan calculation.
Another proposal would “solve” the “problem” of a conservative majority by literally turning every judge into an associate justice. A lottery would be held every two weeks to randomly select nine justices to hear cases, with each panel limited to no more than five judges nominated by a president of the same political party. Senator Bernie Sanders actually endorsed this looney idea. It is akin to the character “Syndrome” in “The Incredibles” explaining he would give everyone superpowers because “when everyone’s super … no one will be.” Most Americans are unlikely to want to replace today’s court with a law by lottery approach.
As someone who proposed expanding the Supreme Court decades ago, I am not opposed to reform. However, Biden’s proposed commission is not about reform. It is about packing, stacking, and stripping schemes to achieve political outcomes on the Supreme Court. Biden is offering up the institution to the 30 percent demanding extreme measures to satiate their anger. Biden once denounced court packing as a “bone headed idea” — but he may now appoint a commission to convert a variety of bone headed ideas into bona fide proposals.
- CDC Reaffirms Warning Against Nonessential Travel, Including Cruises
CDC Reaffirms Warning Against Nonessential Travel, Including Cruises
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 19:50By Evan Gove of Porthole Cruise
The CDC has updated a level 3 warning to avoid nonessential travel, citing cruises in particular as a known spreader of COVID-19.
The update on the CDC website doesn’t leave any room for interpretation:
Cruise passengers are at increased risk of person-to-person spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, and outbreaks of COVID-19 have been reported on several cruise ships.
It goes on to say the following:
Recent reports of COVID-19 on cruises highlight the risk of infections to cruise passengers and crew. Like many other viruses, COVID-19 appears to spread more easily between people in close quarters aboard ships and boats. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, there remains a risk of infected passengers and crew on board cruise ships.
With the CDC’s no-sail order scheduled to end at the conclusion of this month, the updated warnings against traveling by cruise ship send mixed messages about whether or not the agency will truly lift the order in six days time. At the very least, it’s the CDC reaffirming their position that it’s too early for cruising to come back.
According to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the suspension of the industry has cost more than 160,000 jobs and billions in lost revenue since it began in March.
Optimism for 2020 Cruises
At Seatrade Cruise Virtual earlier this month, cruise line brass expressed optimism that America would see ships sailing again by the end of the year. Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald even said he had a 4.9 out of 5 confidence level that it could be done.
Since then, nothing has gone right for an industry relegated to inactivity for the better part of this year. A call scheduled with the Whitehouse Coronavirus Task Force, including Vice President Michael Pence and CDC Director Robert Redfield, had to be postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak among those at the highest levels of government.
While the call did happen a week later, news broke over this past weekend that five people close to the Vice President, including his chief of staff Marc Short, have tested positive for the virus. From a sheer optics standpoint, it looks bad when the head of an infectious disease task force is struggling to protect his own team from said disease.
While we know you want to cruise, public perception around the industry is at an all-time low and that could potentially hamstring any sort of restart for the rest of this year. Many cruise lines have already pushed their start date back well into December with others already looking ahead to 2021.
- Al Qaeda #2 Commander Killed In Secretive Raid In Afghanistan
Al Qaeda #2 Commander Killed In Secretive Raid In Afghanistan
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 19:30A terrorist being described as al-Qaeda’s #2 in central Asia has been killed by Afghan special forces days ago. The national government in Kabul made the announcement Sunday that Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known as Abu Muhsin al-Masri, had been killed in an Afghan special forces raid in Ghazni province which happened last week.
Al-Rauf is listed on the FBI most-wanted list as al-Qaeda’s top propagandist. However, it’s interesting that while a decade or more ago such news as a top Qaeda commander being taken out would have featured central in American media, the successful operation was barely covered on the major networks. This also as foreign policy has essentially been completely dropped from the presidential debates or pre-election coverage.
Husam Abd al-Rauf, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhsin al-Masri, via FBI/AP Few details were immediately released of the classified raid as US and allied Afghan elite forces continue their operations against Islamic State and Qaeda terrorists is the area which lies some 90 miles southwest of Kabul.
Politico reports of the scant details which have been released: “Amanullah Kamrani, the deputy head of Ghazni’s provincial council, told The Associated Press that Afghan special forces led by the intelligence agency raided Kunsaf, which he described as being under Taliban control.”
The report continues: “On the village’s outskirts, they stormed an isolated home and killed seven suspected militants in a firefight, including al-Rauf, Kamrani said.”
The red-headed al-Rauf is an Egyptian national who got his start fighting with the US-backed mujahedeen against the Soviets.
Like other foreign jihadists of the 1980’s this top al-Qaeda commander was initially supported by the CIA and US allies like Pakistan at the end of the Cold War.
By the mid-2000s he was accused of conspiring to kill American citizens and belonging to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
- "Can I Change My Vote": Voter's Remorse Sets In As Searches For Do-Over Spike
“Can I Change My Vote”: Voter’s Remorse Sets In As Searches For Do-Over Spike
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 19:25As politicians pushed the constituents throughout the summer to vote early, and by mail – driving early vote totals to exceed 2016 levels nine days before Election Day, some people are having second thoughts.
According to Google Trends, searches for “can I change my vote” have spiked following the second presidential debate, and the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
“Can I change my vote” surges in Google search after the final debate and Hunter’s Laptop drop. pic.twitter.com/nyjf2av7uF
— The Based Grandma (@TheBasedGrandma) October 26, 2020
The last time searches to change votes surged like this was October 30 – November 5, 2016 – followed by midterms, however the recent search trend suggests longer, more sustained interest in the topic.
By state, West Virginia, New Mexico and Idaho are the top three regions interested in changing votes.
And aside from Florida Republicans crushing Democrats in early voting, Democrats accounted for the lion’s share of some 52 million votes cast so far this year.
- Your Personal Gold Standard
Your Personal Gold Standard
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/26/2020 – 19:10Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
Elites are extremely hostile to the idea that gold should have any role whatsoever in the monetary system. To them, gold is truly a barbarous relic, as John Maynard Keynes was supposed to have said. You might as well propose bringing back the horse and buggy.
Except Keynes never said gold was a barbarous relic.
What he did say was more interesting. In his 1924 book Monetary Reform, Keynes in fact wrote “the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.”
Keynes was discussing not gold, but the gold standard. There might not seem to be a difference, but there is. In the 1924 context, he was right.
The classical gold standard ended in 1914 with the outbreak of WWI. To pay for the war, combatants printed massive amounts of money.
After the war many wanted to return to the pre-war gold standard. In 1925, for example, the British Exchequer was Winston Churchill. He wanted to return to the old gold price, ignoring the fact that the wartime money printing demanded a much higher gold price. He in effect overvalued the pound.
Keynes told Churchill this would be a deflationary disaster. If Britain was to go back on a gold standard, it would have to set the gold price higher. But Churchill ignored his advice.
The result was massive deflation and depression in Great Britain, years before depression struck the rest of the world.
The notoriously flawed gold exchange standard that prevailed until 1939 should never have been adopted, and should have been eliminated before WWII did the job.
These days, there isn’t a central bank in the world that wants to go back to a gold standard. But that’s not the point. The question is whether they will have to.
I’ve had conversations with several Federal Reserve Bank presidents. When you ask them point-blank, “Is there a theoretical limit to the Fed’s balance sheet?” they say no. They say there are policy reasons to make it higher or lower, but that there’s no limit to the amount of money you can print.
That is completely wrong. That’s what they say; that’s how they think; and that’s how they act. But in their heart of hearts, some people at the Fed know it’s wrong. Luckily, people can vote with their feet…
I always tell people who say we’re not on the gold standard that, in a way, we are. You can put yourself on a personal gold standard just by buying gold. In other words, if you think that the value of paper money will be in some jeopardy, or confidence in paper money may be lost, one way to protect yourself is by buying gold. And there’s nothing stopping you.
The typical response is, “What’s the point of owning gold? They’re just going to confiscate it, like Roosevelt did in 1933?” I find that extremely unlikely.
In 1933, we’d just come through four years of the Great Depression, and Roosevelt was new in office. People talk about the first hundred days, but he closed the banks right after he was sworn in. And he confiscated gold only a few weeks later.
And it wasn’t as if Elliot Ness was going door to door, breaking into your house and taking gold. They wanted to get a small number of people who had 400-ounce bars in bank vaults. And they got those people because they were able to close the banks and use them as intermediaries to confiscate that gold.
But now, gold is far more dispersed, and there’s far less trust in government.
If the government tried to confiscate gold today, there would be various forms of resistance. The government knows this. So they wouldn’t issue that order, because they know it couldn’t be enforced, and it might cause various kinds of civil disobedience or pushback.
As long as you can own gold, you can put yourself on your own gold standard by converting paper money to gold. I recommend you do that. I’m not suggesting you convert all your dollars to gold. Not at all.
But I do recommend having 10% of your investable assets in gold for the conservative investor, and maybe 20% for the aggressive investor — no more than that.
Those are very high allocations relative to what people have. Most people own no gold.
If demand spiked suddenly, there’s not enough gold in the world — at current prices — to satisfy that demand. Gold prices would have to rise dramatically to bring them in line with demand.
If some scenarios play out, you are going to see the price of gold rocket to the moon. And it may happen in a very short period of time. You shouldn’t expect a steady, gradual increase. Gold may to drift along sideways, going nowhere for a period. Then you’ll see a spike, then another spike, and then a super-spike. It could happen within months.
At that point, gold becomes a major force. Ultimately I expect gold to reach $10,000-$15,000 an ounce or more. Those figures are not made up. I didn’t come up with them to be provocative. They’re a product of the actual math. They’re the numbers you get when you simply divide the money supply by the amount of gold in the market.
When the super-spike happens, you’re going to have two Americas. You’re going to have one America that was not prepared. Paper savings will be wiped out; 401(k)s will be devalued; pensions, insurance and annuities will be devalued through inflation. That’s because it’s not just the price of gold going up. It’s the dollar going down. Gold is an indicator.
It’s like taking the temperature of a patient with a fever and blaming it on the thermometer when it reads 104. The thermometer’s not to blame for the fever; it’s just telling you what’s going on.
Likewise, the price of gold is not an economic object or aim in itself; it’s a price signal. It tells you what’s going on in the economy. And gold at the levels I’m talking about would mean that you’ve now verged into hyperinflation, or something close to it, because nothing happens in isolation.
It seems unlikely now, but once expectations shift towards inflation, it can be dramatic. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), for example, is now big in Democratic circles. MMT is basically a recipe for massive money printing. If it ever comes into being, expectations could shift dramatically towards inflation.
Still, central banks will never voluntarily return to a gold standard. But if gold is such a barbarous relic, if gold has no role in the monetary system, if gold is a “stupid” investment, then why are the Russians and Chinese stockpiling gold hand over fist? Are they stupid?
Well, I’ve spoken with many of them and I can assure you they’re not stupid.
But if there’s a run on paper currencies (which is entirely possible) or borderline hyperinflation (also possible), central banks may have to go to a gold standard. Not because they want to, but because they find it necessary to calm the markets.
I suggest you buy your gold at current levels — around $1,900 — and ride the wave up to much higher levels. It’ll protect your wealth in the days ahead.
Like every market, it will fluctuate. Nothing goes up in a straight line. But you want to focus on the longer term picture. And it looks very bright for gold.
So I invite you to go on your own personal gold standard. One day, the rest of the world may join you.
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/nasa%20747.jpg?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/russjetsidlibfile.jpg?ssl=1){kind=link}
![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](https://i0.wp.com/www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/aq2.jpg?ssl=1){kind=link}