Sep 27

Today’s News 27th September 2024

  • Portugal Is The Best Country For Wine Tourism
    Portugal Is The Best Country For Wine Tourism

    When it comes to wine tourism, not all destinations are created equal.

    That is, according to Bounce’s Wine Lover’s Index 2023. Based on five indicators – wine consumption in the country, wine production in the country, vineyard area (as a percent of the country), number of tours and tastings, and average cost of a bottle – the index ranks the best destinations for wine and wine tourism.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, in 2023, Portugal topped the list as the world’s best location for wine tourism with a score of 8.83/10.

    Infographic: Portugal Is the Best Country for Wine Tourism | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In second place is Moldova, and while this may seem surprising, the small Eastern European country has a long history of winemaking.

    In fact, its total vineyard area represents almost 2 percent of the world’s total. In third and fourth place came Italy and Spain, respectively, followed by Georgia and France.

    Of the top ten countries, only two are not in Europe, New Zealand (8th) and Chile (10th).

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/27/2024 – 02:45

  • "Immigration Does Not Work, Not Even Economically" – German Govt Needs €10BN More In Welfare Payments Than Initial Forecasts
    “Immigration Does Not Work, Not Even Economically” – German Govt Needs €10BN More In Welfare Payments Than Initial Forecasts

    Via Remix News,

    The German federal government has “miscalculated” billions in welfare payments, known as citizens’ money, with their initial estimate of €36 billion far short of the €46 billion reportedly needed.

    In documents obtained by Bild newspaper, the German labor ministry assumes an average of 2.9 million people are in need of welfare parents in the documents for the “2025 budget,” dated from August 2024. However, this document indicates that the expenditure on standard rates and accommodation costs is expected to total €45.6 billion, which is a far cry from the €36 billion set in the 2025 citizen’s allowance budget.

    The huge discrepancy has sparked outrage, but Hubertus Heil’s (SPD) labor ministry told Bild that the figures published “are not comprehensible and are methodologically based on several false assumptions… For example, a significant portion of the costs of accommodation are to be covered by the municipalities and are therefore not relevant to the federal budget in the amount stated.”

    However, Heil’s denial did not specify how far off Bild’s figures were, and notably, Bild was citing internal documents from the ministry itself.

    The huge sums paid out due to citizens’ money has become a politically explosive subject, first due to the enormous costs it is placing on the German taxpayers, second due to the fact that the German economy is facing a worker shortage, and third due to the huge number of foreigners taking advantage of this welfare system, as half of all recipients are foreigners and many of the others who are German citizens also have a migration background.

    “Immigration doesn’t work, not even economically. And if one were to differentiate between Germans based on their migration background, the picture would be even more devastating,” MEP Maximilian Krah, who is a member of the AfD but remains unaffiliated in the European Parliament, wrote on X. He shared a graph showing how few Germans are actually receiving welfare payments.

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    However, he is not the only one calling into question Heil’s numbers. Most recently, the Federal Audit Office also cast doubt on Heil’s budget, stating that the labor ministry’s figures could only happen as budgeted if “600,000 people entitled to benefits would stop receiving them altogether” in 2025. These experts complained at the time that this was “not very realistic.”

    Other parties are also attacking Heil. CDU’s group vice-chairman Jens Spahn said the matter “bordered on deliberate deception.”

    Meanwhile, budget spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Christian Haase, said: “Heil is deliberately budgeting for false figures in order to conceal the problems with the citizens’ allowance,”

    “This is a scandal,” he added.

    CDU general secretary Carsten Linnemann said the ruling left-liberal government “continues to lie to itself, the budget will blow up in its face.”

    Even the Free Democrats (FDP), who belong to the ruling government, slammed the budget figures. FDP politician Torsten Herbst said he expected “the labor minister to present realistic figures in his draft budget.”

    However, some of the harshest statements came from the AfD, which wrote on social media: “Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) suddenly presents a new budget gap of almost €10 billion in the citizen’s allowance. According to the minister’s documents, his department expects citizen’s allowance costs of almost €46 billion for 2025, although only €36 billion were officially reported.”

    The party is now recommending mass deportations totaling 1.3 million people to plug the budget hole, which it claims would bring the welfare payments back in line with the original sum budgeted.

    “It must be remembered that around half of the citizen’s allowance recipients are foreign citizens! Simply by deporting the approximately one million Syrians (as of the end of 2023) who no longer have a reason to flee, the citizen’s allowance costs could be reduced enormously. The same applies to the approximately 300,000 foreigners who are required to leave the country (as of mid-2024).

    “The Federal Audit Office had already cast doubt on the Minister of Labor’s sugar-coated figures weeks ago, stating that the figures would only be correct if the number of citizens’ allowance recipients fell by around 600,000 in 2025. Either Heil really miscalculated in an amateurish way or – which is much more likely – he deliberately wants to mislead the population. In both cases, such a Minister of Labor is completely unacceptable and underlines that the SPD does not care about our country.”

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/27/2024 – 02:00

  • US Navy Modernizing To Counter China's Military By 2027
    US Navy Modernizing To Counter China’s Military By 2027

    Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Navy has released a document outlining its plans to match and exceed Beijing’s goal of modernizing its military by 2027, aiming to be prepared for a potential conflict with the Chinese regime.

    The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has directed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be fully modernized and prepared for war by 2027, coinciding with the PLA’s 100th anniversary. This timeline has raised concerns about a possible invasion of Taiwan, as Chinese leader Xi Jinping focuses on military reforms to ensure the PLA can deter or win a conflict over the island.

    The CCP’s strategy goes beyond expanding its navy. It incorporates multi-domain precision warfare, dual-use infrastructure (like airfields and maritime militias), and an expanding nuclear arsenal—and it is supported by the world’s largest shipbuilding capacity.

    The U.S. Navy’s 2024 Navigation Plan, led by Adm. Lisa Franchetti, focuses on preparing for a potential conflict with communist China by 2027. Central to this strategy is Project 33, which aims at enhancing the Navy’s long-term advantage and operational readiness. The plan prioritizes modernizing equipment and improving force deployment capabilities, particularly by scaling up the use of robotic and autonomous systems for swift, decisive responses, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.

    Project 33 sets two key goals: achieving 80 percent combat readiness for ships, aircraft, and submarines by 2027, and integrating advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and unmanned systems. These initiatives are designed to strengthen the Navy’s ability to respond effectively to emerging threats, specifically focusing on maintaining superiority in the Indo-Pacific.

    The U.S. Navy aims to develop three key priorities: long-range fires, non-traditional sea denial, and terminal defense. Long-range fires enable the Navy to strike from a safe distance using advanced missiles and precision-guided weapons, enhancing power projection. Non-traditional sea denial employs methods like cyber warfare, drones, and electromagnetic operations to block adversary access to strategic maritime areas. Terminal defense focuses on protecting naval assets with advanced missile and anti-aircraft systems designed to intercept threats in their final phase.

    The U.S. Navy is enhancing its command-and-control capabilities by developing Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs), which are critical for fleet-level warfare. These centers serve as nerve hubs, coordinating naval forces across multi-domain environments, including land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. MOCs are essential for managing real-time information, directing fleet movements, and overseeing key functions like intelligence, logistics, and communications.

    Franchetti stresses the need to mirror China’s military modernization, particularly in integrating technologies like artificial intelligence. To stay competitive in an information-driven battlespace, the Navy is developing MOCs as full-fledged warfighting systems, ensuring they are resilient, adaptable, and ready for decentralized operations. By 2027, the Navy plans to certify MOCs across all fleet headquarters, starting with the Pacific Fleet. These centers will enhance command and control, intelligence, fires, and sustainment functions, boosting decision-making and operational capabilities during crises and conflicts.

    The U.S. Navy is closely studying current global conflicts to shape its approach to future sea control. Ukraine’s effective use of missiles, drones, and digital tools against Russian forces has provided key insights for U.S. military strategies, particularly for potential conflicts in the Indo-Pacific. Additionally, the Navy has observed the role drones and ballistic missiles have played in battles against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, further informing how the Navy prepares for modern warfare. These lessons are crucial for adapting to evolving threats and ensuring readiness in an increasingly complex battlespace.

    Unmanned vehicles and weapons systems have played a crucial role in modern warfare, as seen in both Ukraine and the 2020 Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict. Autonomous and remotely operated systems, like drones, have proven highly effective for reconnaissance, precision strikes, and disrupting enemy logistics, all without risking human lives. Recognizing this shift, Franchetti has prioritized integrating unmanned systems, including naval drones and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), into U.S. Navy operations.

    UUVs are key technologies in modern naval operations. These systems come in two types: autonomous underwater vehicles, which operate independently, and remotely operated vehicles, which an operator controls. Often referred to as naval or underwater drones, UUVs perform tasks like surveillance, mine detection, and environmental monitoring. Franchetti views these robotic systems as the future of warfare, not just for their efficiency but for their ability to free up sailors for other vital tasks. By deploying autonomous systems for missions like surveillance or combat, the Navy can reallocate human personnel to areas where their expertise is most needed, enhancing operational flexibility and overall readiness.

    The U.S. Navy’s plan prioritizes integrating robotic and autonomous systems into routine operations by 2027, ensuring their active use by commanders in carrier and expeditionary strike groups. The focus is on improving coordination between manned and unmanned teams, particularly in areas like surveillance, fires, logistics, and deception. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to enhance command, control, and overall operational effectiveness in complex, multi-domain environments.

    In addition to preparing for a potential conflict over Taiwan, the Navy’s 2024 Navigation Plan prioritizes maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, ensuring critical shipping lanes like the Strait of Malacca and Taiwan Strait remain accessible for global trade.

    Meanwhile, China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy aims to limit the ability of the United States and its allies to operate freely in key areas such as the East and South China Seas, particularly the Taiwan Strait. Central to China’s military doctrine, A2/AD seeks to shift the strategic balance by making it difficult for external forces to intervene in what Beijing considers its sphere of influence. Despite this, the U.S. Navy is rapidly modernizing to meet these challenges and is prepared to counter the CCP’s regional dominance efforts.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 23:25

  • Which Universities Produced The Most Startup Founders?
    Which Universities Produced The Most Startup Founders?

    Starting a successful startup requires a great idea and a huge amount of resilience, but attending the right university – one with a strong reputation, world-class education, and influential connections – can give aspiring founders a crucial advantage.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the top 10 undergraduate and graduate schools ranked by the number of alumni who have founded their own startups.

    Every year, PitchBook ranks universities across the world by the number of alumni entrepreneurs who have raised venture capital in the last decade, by undergraduate, graduate, and MBA programs.

    Only founders whose companies received a round of venture funding between Jan. 1, 2013, and Aug. 1, 2024 were counted, with the data updated as of August 30, 2024. Founders can attend multiple schools and may be counted towards multiple universities.

    Stanford University is a Hotspot for Entrepreneurs

    Below, we show the top 10 undergraduate schools by number of alumni founders.

    This table shows the top 10 graduate schools by number of founders.

    Located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, Stanford University boasts an impressive track record of producing thousands of startup founders over the past 10 years.

    It ranks first in the graduate category, with over 4,000 founders having attended one of its graduate programs—the highest number across all three categories—and second in the undergraduate category.

    Notable founders from Stanford include OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who dropped out of school, and Robinhood co-founder Vladimir Tenev.

    UC Berkeley ranked first overall in the undergraduate category, and was the top-ranked public school in the graduate category, coming in at fifth. DoorDash’s founder and CEO Tony Xu and supply chain management company Flexport founder and CEO Ryan Petersen went to undergrad at Berkeley.

    Both Stanford and UC Berkeley are located in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, which was ranked as the best startup city in the world by PitchBook.

    Among PitchBook’s top 10 undergrad and graduate schools, only three non-American schools make the cut: Israel’s Tel Aviv University, and UK-based University of Cambridge and University of Oxford.

    To learn more about some of the best college institutions, check out this graphic that visualizes America’s top universities as ranked by Forbes.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 23:00

  • Appeals Court Seems Skeptical Of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump
    Appeals Court Seems Skeptical Of New York Civil Fraud Suit Against Trump

    Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Appeals judges in New York fielded multiple questions to the New York Attorney General’s Office on Sept. 26 indicating that they were skeptical of its application of an anti-fraud law to former President Donald Trump’s business practices.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James in New York City on Aug. 3, 2021. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

    The questions came during oral arguments over Trump’s claims that the state Supreme Court erred in handling the civil fraud case, which resulted in a $489 million penalty for the former president.

    Trump’s attorney in the case, D. John Sauer, told a five-judge panel in the court’s appellate division that the judge and prosecutors flouted time limits on the claims involved. He noted that Attorney General Letitia James’s office pressed an overly broad interpretation of legally punishable fraud and that, regardless, the former president hadn’t committed fraud in his dealings with banks and others.

    Some of the judges questioned whether the state was acting within the bounds of its authority or had a legitimate interest in bringing the suit.

    Justice David Friedman pressed New York Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale on whether there was any precedent for the attorney general suing over transactions involving sophisticated parties where neither “lost any money.”

    “Every case that you cite involves damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace. … We don’t have anything like that here,” Friedman said.

    Vale argued that “there was absolutely a public impact and a public interest here.”

    “There are at least four different public harms from the kind of misconduct here,” she said.

    Vale also said that “when risk is injected into the market, that does hurt the counterparties and it does hurt the market as a whole.”

    Justice Peter Moulton asked, “How do we draw a line, or at least [put up] some guardrails to know when the AG is operating well within her broad, admittedly broad sphere of 63(12)?”

    Moulton was referring to New York Executive Law 63(12), which is the statute James used in suing Trump. The statute allows the attorney general to apply for court intervention when “any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business.”

    Part of Sauer’s argument was that the attorney general’s conception of fraud was too loose and noted that no one was victimized by Trump’s conduct.

    At one point, he told the court that under existing precedent, “there has to be a capacity or tendency to deceive, or atmosphere conducive to fraud.”

    “And what we’ve pointed out is that you have a situation where there were no victims, no complaints,” he said, also saying that Trump’s business partners did their due diligence.

    Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick was skeptical that the statute required some kind of harm in order to prove fraudulent activity. She read the relevant portion of the statute and told Vale: “I don’t read harm or threat of harm in that, but the other side is saying that that is to be read into this statute.

    “Are there any cases where the language harm or threat to harm limits the scope of the attorney general?”

    Vale said that there weren’t “as to liability and not in cases like this where what the attorney general is seeking injunctive relief and disgorgement.”

    Trump is currently facing a disgorgement of $489 million with interest accruing by the day.

    During oral arguments, Vale encountered multiple questions about the appropriateness of the disgorgement. Moulton told Vale that the disgorgement amount was “troubling.”

    “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [the] Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here, where the parties left these transactions happy about how things went down?” he asked.

    Vale responded that “disgorgement looks at taking the gain away from the wrongdoer.” Although the amount was high, she said that “there was a lot of fraud … and illegality.”

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 22:35

  • Revealed: Big Brother's Facebook Censorship Dashboard
    Revealed: Big Brother’s Facebook Censorship Dashboard

    On Wednesday, America First Legal (AFL) revealed documents that shed new light on the collaborative efforts between Facebook and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic used to censor free speech.

    The documents, obtained through litigation against the CDC, expose detailed onboarding materials used to train CDC employees on a specially designed Facebook portal aimed at curbing what they labeled “Covid & Vaccine Misinformation.”

    Via AFL:

    These documents reveal how Facebook, on the heels of extreme pressure from the Biden-Harris White House (including from Rob Flaherty, a current senior Harris Campaign staffer) to remove specific posts, responded:

    • Facebook created a new “end-to-end workflow” so that government officials could submit links for removal from Facebook;
    • Facebook only gave access to the portal to approved government and law enforcement personnel;
    • The new portal dramatically increased the efficiency of the censorship machine by allowing up to twenty links at a time to be referred for censoring;
    • By moving from email chains to a Facebook-hosted portal, the new system also made it harder for organizations like AFL to provide oversight to individual censorship requests;
    • Each censorship request automatically generated a ticket number so that the government could track if Facebook complied with its censorship demands;  
    • The documents further show how Facebook explained precisely what content it would remove and what it needed from the CDC in order to censor certain narratives within the bounds of its “community standards.” 

    The documents also highlight the United Kingdom’s role in shaping the Biden-Harris Administration’s approach to online censorship. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg’s admission that Facebook only engaged in censorship after extreme pressure from the Biden-Harris White House underscores the external pressures leading to Facebook’s mass censorship.

    More via AFL:

    Part A: Censorship Made Easy

    The documents expose an onboarding presentation given by Facebook employees to CDC staff on May 19, 2021. Facebook trained CDC staff on how to use the platform’s  “Government Reporting System.” This came in response to profanity-laden demands from senior Biden–Harris White House officials exposed by the House Judiciary Committee. As their “End-to-end workflow” described, if “Government requests,” then “Facebook processes.”

    These slides show how closely the Biden-Harris Administration’s CDC and Big Tech coordinated to censor speech they disagreed with. The onboarding included a “government user experience” demo. As part of the “End–to–end workflow,” Facebook streamlined the process to make it easy for the government to censor the American people.

    Step 1 – Access to Account

    First, Facebook granted “Access to CRS.” These slides showed CDC employees how to sign up, register, and login to the new portal.

    Only “government-issued or law enforcement email address[es]” were allowed to use this system.

    Step 2 – Submit Posts with Links 

    Prior to Facebook creating the portal, the CDC had been sending spreadsheets over email with links for Facebook to remove, but with this portal, post reporting would be standardized and fed into one system. Additionally, moving the censorship requests to a Facebook-hosted portal created a loophole in government recordkeeping requirements. Using this system permits government actors to evade federal law requiring meticulous keeping of federal records, thereby preventing the public from using existing tools like FOIA to see what the government is doing behind the scenes. 

    At this point, CDC employees could select their “Reason for reporting.” These included “COVID Misinformation,” “Vaccine Discouragement,” and “COVID Vaccine Misinformation.”

    Facebook’s system allowed users from “authorized government agencies” to refer up to twenty links at a time for Facebook to remove across its platforms. Users could also submit additional comments. 

    Step 3 – Confirmation and Job Reference Number  

    The third step for the new portal was called “Final landing page: transparency,” where users would get a confirmation message, a ticket or reference number, and be able to access the “Help Center.” 

    The confirmation message read that “you should receive a response shortly,” which reaffirms the initial promise on the first slide: “Government requests … Facebook processes.”

    Part B: Insights into Facebook’s Community Standards 

    The briefing also included a summary of Facebook’s “Community Standards.” They stated that they only removed information deemed “false” by  “public health authorities.” Despite the many, many, examples of these “authorities” later being proven wrong, all it took was a government determination by the Biden-Harris administration for Facebook to begin censoring the American people’s speech.

    Facebook’s policy was to censor statements that made “false claims about masks” (now shown to have been nearly useless), which discouraged “social distancing” (now known to have been fabricated by Dr. Anthony Fauci). If an individual was a “repeat offender” of the government’s ever-shifting determinations on “misinformation,” their account’s reach would be reduced or removed from their site altogether. 

    Facebook bragged that since the beginning of the Pandemic, which began only a year before the presentation, they had removed more than “16 million pieces of content.” 

    Remember — Facebook’s policy was only to remove posts if the government had declared something to be false. 

    The Constitution prohibits the government from censoring the American people, but Facebook and other social media companies went out of their way to make it easy for the Biden–Harris administration to “flag” posts for censoring. With a custom portal allowing the government to submit up to twenty links at a time, the Biden-Harris Administration and Facebook worked together to violate the First Amendment rights of countless Americans. 

    Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Executive Director:

    “These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor the free speech of Americans online. The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental to our national identity, yet in the name of a public health crisis, Biden Administration officials worked with major companies to silence dissent. The American people need to review these documents and understand just how far our leaders in Washington went to violate the First Amendment to our Constitution,” said Gene Hamilton.

    See the full slide deck here.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 22:10

  • Sirens Blare Overnight As Yemeni Houthis Target Tel Aviv With Ballistic Missile
    Sirens Blare Overnight As Yemeni Houthis Target Tel Aviv With Ballistic Missile

    Update(2158ET): Yemen’s Houthis have escalated their action against Israel, in the overnight hours launching at least one ballistic missile which came near Israel. Unconfirmed reports say the missile targeted Tel Aviv. Some independent journalists are claiming some projectiles hit Israel.

    Israel’s military has said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, and explosions were widely heard in the early night hours of Friday (local). “Following the sirens that sounded in central Israel, the surface-to-surface missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted by an ‘Arrow’ interceptor outside of Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement. “There is currently no change to the IDF Defensive guidelines,” it added.

    Inbound ballistic missile from Yemen, via X/TOI

    At the same time, over the last day Israeli sources have said rockets fired from Hezbollah positions in Lebanon have targeted central Israel, a clear sign that Hezbollah is intent on reaching targets much deeper into the country.

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    Some sources are claiming there were successful strikes on the ground, but Israeli reports are emphasizing the intercept. More attacks from Yemen could be on the way.

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    * * *

    Update(1634ET):  Netanyahu’s trip to the United States has quicky proved embarrassing for the Biden administration. The first thing the Israeli prime minister did after landing in the US was quickly walk back a ‘private understanding’ with the Biden administration that he would publicly vouch for the US-proposed 21-day ceasefire plan in Lebanon. But the opposite happened.

    On Thursday Netanyahu made it crystal clear that there will be no ceasefire in Lebanon. Axios has confirmed the walk-back as follows:

    • The prime minister’s change, which comes after public threats by far-right ministers in his government and attacks by Israeli opposition leaders, could increase tensions with the Biden administration.
    • White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “The announcement about the temporary ceasefire in Lebanon was published in coordination with Israel. We don’t believe an all-out war in Lebanon is the answer.”

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    Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute think tank had this to say: “It is not that Netanyahu is playing Biden. It is that Biden lets Netanyahu play him over, and over, and over again.”

    Indeed this has been the constant pattern when it comes to the much touted Gaza truce which has never happened despite Blinken constantly proclaiming the US was “at the goal line” in terms of making it happen. 

    * * * 

    Despite optimistic Wednesday headlines from US media touting a White House push for ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, there proved no substance to the reports, given just a day later Israel has rejected the proposals for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

    “There will be no ceasefire in the north,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced on X. “We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”

    With heavy US diplomatic involvement, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati expressed hope for soon achieving a ceasefire, following the deaths of at least 550 Lebanese. 

    The United States, the EU, France, the UK and other nations have issued a formal call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border. This came out of intense discussions at the United Nations in New York. But this has been quickly shot down as the situation on the ground continues to slide.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that ‘hell is breaking lose in Lebanon’ – according to a Wednesday statement: 

    According to the U.N., nearly 200,000 people in Lebanon had been internally displaced as of yesterday, while more than 60,000 people in northern Israel have also been displaced from their homes.

    “I implore the Council to work in lock-step to help put out this fire,” the U.N. chief told ambassadors as he warned that an all-out war “must be avoided at all costs” and “would surely be an all-out catastrophe.”

    But it increasingly looks like the feared all-out war is already here. Troops of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been rehearsing for a ground invasion.

    All-out war seems already here, given casualty rates and intensity of the exchange of fire:

    The order could come at any moment after Prime Minister Netanyahu said Thursday the military will keep fighting at “full force” – brushing off calls for ceasefire:

    Troops of the IDF’s 7th Armored Brigade have wrapped up a drill simulating a ground offensive in Lebanon, the military says.

    According to the IDF, the drill took place several kilometers from the Lebanon border, and simulated ground operations and combat in “complex and mountainous terrain.” The drill was the latest in a series carried out by the IDF for a potential ground offensive in Lebanon.

    Reuters also confirms of Netanyahu’s commitment on taking the fight to Hezbollah that as he’s heading to New York to address the UN, he “said he had not yet given his response to the truce proposal but had instructed the army to fight on.” Additionally, “Hardliners in his government said Israel should reject any truce and keep hitting Hezbollah until it surrenders.”

    Photo circulating on X of latest Thursday IDF strike on Beirut:

    Currently, Israel says it is hitting Beirut with more ‘precision strikes’. Aerial assaults on the capital have been slowly growing more frequent, as have strikes deep into the Bekaa Valley, where it’s believed Hezbollah stores much ammunition and missiles.

    Several recent attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut have killed multiple Hezbollah high-ranking commanders, but along with them scores of civilians as well. 

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    Below are some of the latest developments in Lebanon and Gaza via Al Jazeera:

    • Israeli army says it has launched strikes on Beirut with sources saying a Hezbollah commander was the target.
    • The Israeli PM’s office has released a statement on Netanyahu’s X page saying the “news about a ceasefire is not true” and he vows to carry on attacks on Lebanon.
    • On Wednesday, 72 people were killed in the attack across Lebanon as the death toll from Israel’s bombings surpassed 620.
    • Israel has continued its assault across Gaza as well, killing at least 15 Palestinians today.
    • At least 41,495 people have been killed and 96,006 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 is at least 1,139, while more than 200 people were taken captive.

    Intense Bekaa Valley strikes…

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 21:58

  • Rudy Giuliani Disbarred In Washington Over 2020 Election Response
    Rudy Giuliani Disbarred In Washington Over 2020 Election Response

    Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

    Rudy Giuliani, the embattled former adviser to former President Donald Trump, has been disbarred in Washington following a disciplinary board’s criticisms of his reactions to the 2020 presidential election.

    A three-judge panel on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered Giuliani’s disbarment on Sept. 26. The brief order noted, among other things, Giuliani’s disbarment in the state of New York, where an appeals court similarly accused Giuliani of making “demonstrably false and misleading statements to the courts, lawmakers, and the public at large.”

    The case came before Judges Eric T. Washington, Roy McLeese, and Joshua Deahl. In June 2023, the District of Columbia Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility issued a report stating that Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it.”

    The board added that while it considered Giuliani’s “conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City,” it said “all of that happened long ago.”

    His conduct during the 2020 presidential election “transcends all his past accomplishments,” the board said, adding, “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect.”

    Legal Battles

    Giuliani’s law licenses in Washington and New York were suspended in 2021. After the New York decision, Giuliani said: “America is not America any longer. We do not live in a free state. We live in a state that’s controlled by the Democrat Party, by [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo, by [New York City Mayor Bill] de Blasio, and the Democrats.”

    Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, called the Sept. 26 appeals court decision “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice.”

    Giuliani has argued that he believed the claims he was making on behalf of the Trump campaign were true.

    “Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision,” Goodman said in a text message.

    Giuliani, 80, is currently facing financial ruin and legal challenges related to the 2020 election.

    He has pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges in the Arizona case alleging he spread false claims of election fraud there after the 2020 election. He has separately been charged in Georgia along with Trump and other allies of the former president with trying to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

    A jury last year awarded two Georgia election workers $148 million in damages in a defamation suit they brought against Giuliani.

    Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official during the Trump administration, similarly faced disciplinary proceedings over his role in the administration’s response to the 2020 election.

    In an Aug. 1 report, a three-member panel of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility said that Clark “attempted dishonesty and did so with truly extraordinary recklessness.”

    Giuliani also reached a last-minute deal in his bankruptcy case in August. After the dismissal of his bankruptcy case in Washington, the two election workers filed a motion seeking control over his assets.

    According to the filing, Giuliani disclosed that his New York apartment was valued at $5.6 million and his Florida condo at $3.5 million. The former Trump adviser also testified that the Trump 2020 campaign and Republican National Committee owed him “about $2 million.”

    The Aug. 30 filing repeatedly noted Giuliani’s refusal to cooperate with court orders.

    In his financial filings, Giuliani said he had about $94,000 cash on hand at the end of May, while his company, Giuliani Communications, had about $237,000 in the bank. A main source of income for the 80-year-old former mayor has been a retirement account with a balance of just over $1 million in May, down from nearly $2.5 million in 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 21:45

  • Afghanistan's Neighbors Seek Stability, Not Another Civil War
    Afghanistan’s Neighbors Seek Stability, Not Another Civil War

    Authored by James Durso via OilPrice.com,

    • Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front, aims to defeat the Taliban.

    • Afghanistan’s neighbors want to avoid civil war and its economic consequences.

    • Afghanistan and Central Asian nations are collaborating on trade, infrastructure, and water management projects, but regional tensions are rising due to Afghanistan’s controversial water diversion projects.

    Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, recently declared he will defeat the Taliban “no matter the odds.” 

    For Massoud to mount a military threat to the Taliban, he would need the cooperation of the Central Asian republics, Iran or Pakistan (among others) to do the job. However, Afghanistan’s neighbors have no interest in another civil war in Afghanistan, as the violence and refugees would spill over their borders and cause economic dislocation and unrest all the way to Europe.

    After two decades of U.S.-sponsored mayhem in the Hindu Kush, all the region wants is to recoup the missed opportunities of the “lost decades” of 2001-2021.  

    None of Afghanistan’s neighbors prefer the Taliban to any other group, and they object to the regime’s unrepresentative government and policies toward women. That said, their leaders must solve today’s problems despite their distaste for the Taliban’s retrograde ways. 

    The republics’ approach to Kabul has long been “neighbors forever” — or, for the pessimists, “captives of geography.” Kazakhstan removed the Taliban from its terrorist list in December 2023; Uzbekistan never declared the Taliban an extremist group, and in 2018 it publicly encouraged the Taliban to start negotiations with the Islamic Republic. Turkmenistan was mum on the topic of the Taliban in line with its policy of?permanent neutrality. In September 2024, the chief of Tajikistan’s security service visited Kabul for talks that were described as “productive,” and the same month the Kyrgyz Republic removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations.   

    Afghanistan and its Central Asian neighbors are collaborating to ease trade and transport; renovate Afghanistan’s roads and railroads; help Afghanistan improve irrigation projects; ship natural gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; build a railroad from Uzbekistan to Pakistan’s seaports; and build a multi-modal transport corridor from Kazakhstan to Pakistan, terminating in the United Arab Emirates.

    Economic growth depends on an adequate supply of water; Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains form the headwaters of the region’s basins.   

    In March 2022, the Taliban launched construction of the 285-km Qosh Tepa canal, which will divert 10 billion cubic meters of water annually from the Amu Darya River, relied on by water-starved Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. They will suffer a 15 percent cut in the current supply. The project will cost $684 million, but it will irrigate 2100 square miles and create 250,000 jobs. Kabul feels it is critical to ensure food security for the emirate.

    Tashkent and Ashgabat are unhappy with the project, but the Uzbeks offered technical assistance to Afghanistan to ensure the construction is “in accordance with international norms.” Now is a good time to consider inviting Afghanistan to join Central Asia’s regional water management organization, the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia.  

    Afghanistan also has unresolved water issues with Iran and Pakistan; those projects would be endangered, or further delayed, by a civil war. 

    According to the United Nations, there are now 7.6 million Afghans in Iran and Pakistan, most of them refugees. In 2023, Pakistan expelled over 540,000 Afghan refugees, and the next phase of the plan may see 800,000 more Afghans deported. Increased violence will likely reverse these flows and burden Iran and Pakistan, who cannot afford to support the refugees they have now.

    China recently warned Pakistan it must get control of the violence that is endangering the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor . More violence north of the Durand Line will further delay the corridor, which may be seen as a strategic “win” in Washington but will hurt Central and South Asia.  

    In April 2022, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation and methamphetamine production. This benefits Iran, which has the highest rate of opium abusers in the world, according to the World Health Organization. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “More than 3,700 national law enforcement officials have been killed and over 12,000 have been maimed in counter-narcotics operations over the last three decades.”   

    That’s good news, but if Afghanistan must fund a war against groups like the National Resistance Front (and its foreign confederates), the ban on drugs may go by the wayside.

    In fact, if the Taliban suspect a foreign hand in an attack, will it encourage al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to strike foreign targets? Sure, that will violate the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, where the Taliban agreed “Afghan soil will not be used against the security of the United States and its allies,” but the Taliban will note the Americans pledged, “The United States and its allies will refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs.”   

    Is the Taliban isolated? No, Seventeen countries, including every country that borders Afghanistan plus the European Union, maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul. Aaron Zelin reports “between August 2021 and February 22, 2024 the Taliban has publicly announced 1,382 diplomatic meetings with at least eighty countries.” China and the United Arab Emirates have accepted the credentials from Taliban ambassador to their capitals.  

    Pragmatism may be winning, regardless what governments or their citizens think of Taliban policies.

    After Shohna ba Shohna (Shoulder to Shoulder) proved weak, it is time for the locals to lead, though Washington and Brussels can help by facilitating diplomatic and economic support of beneficial projects. The Americans, in particular, will need a broad aperture to understand the needs and opportunities of the region instead of obsessing about what might have been.   

    The defeat of the U.S. and NATO may have seen the end of the era of empires in Central Asia and Afghanistan, after the Russian Empire (1713-1917), the British interventions (1839-1919), the Soviet empire (1917-1991), and the American empire (2001-2021).  

    Some questionable characters will make a few bucks along the way, but that’s the price of repairing the damage caused by the crusade to reform Afghan culture as part of Washington’s post 9/11 war on terror, the “first grand global experiment of the twenty first century.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 20:55

  • These Are The Costliest Hurricanes Ever For Insurers
    These Are The Costliest Hurricanes Ever For Insurers

    With insured monetary losses of $65 billion at the time and $102 billion adjusted for 2023 inflation, Hurricane Katrina was the costliest for insurers in U.S. history.

    Apart from Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in 2022 and was the deadliest hurricane in Florida since 1935, insured losses of previous destructive storms like Sandy, Harvey and Maria amounted to around half of Katrina’s each.

    As Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, based on data from Aon published by the Insurance Information Institute, half of the costliest hurricanes for insurance companies took place in the past ten years, with another three occurring in the 2000s. The 2024 edition, which is current as of January 2024, includes “losses sustained by private insurers and government-sponsored programs such as the National Flood Insurance Program”. The latter was excluded up until the 2018 edition of the ranking.

    Looking at overall cost estimations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Katrina was the costliest hurricane to ever hit the U.S., with total economic losses as high as $200 billion in 2023 dollars.

    Only four hurricanes exceeded the $100-billion-dollar mark in inflation-adjusted cost in the country’s history, all of which occurred after the year 2004.

    Infographic: The Costliest Hurricanes to Insurers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While it’s unclear if Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to make landfall this week in Florida as a full-blown hurricane and will likely spread through large parts of the Southeastern U.S. according to CNN reporting, will enter the list of the costliest hurricanes both to insurers and in total, the state of Florida is preparing for the worst: A flood watch has been issued for over 20 million people in the region, both Florida State Guard and Florida National Guard are being activated and evacuation orders are already in place in many of the counties thought to be most affected by Helene.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 20:30

  • What's Changed? What's Different This Time?
    What’s Changed? What’s Different This Time?

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    This raises another question: how will the deflation of the Everything Bubble play out?

    Causes generate effects. As noted in my previous post, if causal conditions have changed, the “guarantee” offered by statistics is empty. This leads to a simple question: what’s changed? Have the causal conditions changed enough to generate different results?

    The status quo assumes the economy never really changes, and so the stimulus that worked last time will work again. This ignores the fundamental reality that change is constant and once causal conditions change, the effects will necessarily change as well.

    So what’s changed in the 42 years since 1982? Why 1982? 1982 marked the end of the stagflationary 1970s and the start of the 40+-year bull market in stocks, real estate, and until recently, bonds.

    1. China was just emerging from the Cultural Revolution. After 40 years of astounding growth, it’s struggling.

    2. Debt levels across all sectors–public, corporate and household–were low compared to the present.

    3. The global Baby Boom was entering peak earning, household formation, home buying, and starting enterprises. Now they’re retiring and entering the phase of selling assets to downsize and fund retirement.

    4. Computer technology entered the mainstream economy and boosted productivity. Now we have AI but its long-term effect on global productivity is unproven.

    5. Diminishing returns are manifesting across the global economy, as what worked so well in the boost phase no longer generates the same results.

    China has changed in many ways. Scale matters. When a company is small and it boosts revenues by $1 billion, the stock rockets to the moon. Once it’s a trillion-dollar company, adding $1 billion no longer has the same effect. In fact, it’s a red flag that growth has slowed. Once profit margins slip, the stock crashes, as the growth story has ended.

    The same causal conditions are present in China, which has reached a vast scale at the top of the S-Curve. China boosted its economy for decades by inflating an unprecedented real estate bubble, which created an enormous wealth effect in its burgeoning middle class. But all bubbles pop, and the concentration of household wealth in real estate means the decline is obliterating the heady sense of confidence generated by soaring assets.

    China has also reached limits in exports and domestic consumption, for a variety of reasons.

    The “never fails” China credit impulse has failed. Every economy that depends on expanding credit for its growth eventually enters a liquidity trap, where lowering interest rates and lending standards no longer boost assets or consumption because 1) households are wary of adding more debt or 2) households cannot afford to add more debt, even at low rates of interest.

    China is also mired in the middle income trap, where the elite holds the majority of wealth and the rural populace is still earning very low incomes.

    China pulled the global economy out of the 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown, that’s not going to happen again. Once causal conditions change, so do the results.

    The astounding expansion of credit/debt globally is an example of how a “solution” generates “problems” that only get worse the more “solution” is applied. Flooding the economy with low-cost credit works wonders when debt levels are low and there is pent-up demand for credit.

    But once an economy is saturated with credit and staggering under the weight of servicing existing credit, adding more debt creates a problem more credit cannot solve: the greater the burdens of debt, the higher the risks of default.

    Global debt has been rising on the shaky foundation of the Everything Bubble: as assets have bubbled higher, they expand the collateral available to borrow against. Once the bubble pops, then the collateral evaporates and the lender is under water: the assets is worth less than the loan amount. There is no escape for either borrower or lender.

    Demographics have changed. The massive global Baby Boom is exiting the workforce and starting to liquidate assets to fund retirement. This transition from buying assets to selling assets raises the question: who will buy all these assets at today’s nosebleed overvaluations? Younger generations lacks the capital and income to buy assets at these levels of overvaluation, and there is nothing on the horizon that could change that asymmetry.

    Selling pushes down asset prices, which then reduces the collateral supporting global debt, which then lights the fuse of a credit crisis that can’t be resolved by lowering credit and lending standards. Diminishing returns are not reversed by doing more of what’s failed–they’re accelerated into unstable crises by doing more of what’s failed.

    As for the hype that AI is going to save us: what we see as causal conditions are stupendous expenses, not gains in productivity. Economists puzzled over the “productivity gap” in the 1980s as new technologies entered the mainstream economy: companies and households were buying the new technologies but productivity wasn’t responding as expected.

    Rosy projections are not causal; real productivity gains take time, and don’t always play out as projected. If AI eventually boosts productivity across the entire economy, is may take a decade to play out. The current credit-asset bubble that’s popping will not be “saved by AI.”

    This raises another question: how will the deflation of the Everything Bubble play out? Richard Bonugli and I discuss this in our new podcast How Asset Deflation Could Play Out (35:37 min).

    There are two basic scenarios, and which one plays out depends on the causal conditions emerging in the present.

    One is a massive deflation in the real-world value of assets hidden behind a stagflationary rise in nominal asset values, per the 1970s. When the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally exceeded its old high around 1,000 in 1982, everyone who had held on through the 1970s cheered: “we’re whole again! We got our money back!” Alas, the purchasing power of the Dow 1,000 stocks had crashed by 57% since the 1973 stock market top of Dow 1,051 and by a staggering 66% since the Dow top in 1966.

    The other scenario is a no-frills crash. I prepared this chart of the Nasdaq stock index based on bubble symmetry. Crashes come in a variety of flavors, but the end result is the same.

    What’s changed? Many things. What will be different about the results? That is unknown, but we do know that statistics drawn from previous sets of causal conditions have no bearing on what happens in the current causal conditions. This time is different isn’t always what we expect; it can also play out with extreme prejudice.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 20:05

  • Robby Starbuck Targets Toyota As Anti-Woke Crusade Expands Across Corporate America 
    Robby Starbuck Targets Toyota As Anti-Woke Crusade Expands Across Corporate America 

    Anti-woke crusader Robby Starbuck has been on the front lines, combating the rise of “wokeism” that has infiltrated the nation, primarily through mega-corporations pushing this far-left sinister agenda to undermine the West. This public/private partnership is being achieved through corporations, governments, and large non-governmental organizations to usher in wokeism, or as some experts suggest, ’21st Century Communism’. Starbucks’ angle of attack has zeroed in on far-left progressives who seized control of managerial positions in corporate America. He has already delivered several notable victories against woke companies, forcing some to nuke their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or at least reverse these disastrous social experiments.

    Starbuck revealed on X that crosshairs have been placed on Toyota, “one of the most trusted brands in America but they’ve gone totally woke.” 

    For a Japanese company, Starbuck and his team were entirely shocked by what they found:

    • Toyota sponsored a drag queen program at a summer camp for kids identifying as LGBTQ+.

    • Toyota opposes laws that ban sex changes for kids and funds groups who work to make sex changes legal for children and they worked with the @HRC to oppose these laws.

    • Toyota openly supports “the equality act” which would allow men into girl’s bathrooms, sports and locker-rooms.

    • Toyota funded the @HRC’s Time To Thrive Summit where they worked with the largest teachers union to push gender ideology into elementary schools.

    • Donated to the HRC, the Trevor Project, Dallas Resource Center and Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Workplace Equality Summit — All supporters of child transitions. The Trevor Project features chat rooms where adults have been caught talking to kids about sexual kinks, how to transition, masturbation and more. They also have a quick exit feature to wipe the browser and hide the website from parents.

    • Funded many “all ages” pride events.

    • Woke DEI trainings.

    • LGBT Chamber of Commerce member.

    • Hosted LGBTQ+ events at corporate.

    • Created custom cars with a trans flag.

    • ERG groups divided by race + sexual orientation.

    • A total commitment to DEI policies.

    • 100/100 CEI score from the HRC for 16 straight years which means that they pay for not only employee transitions but for children of employee’s to transition in states where it’s legal.

    The list of woke activism above is lengthy. After reading it, one wonders if the Japanese automaker is in the business of selling minivans or is now involved in far-left activism. 

    More from Starbuck:

    To put it mildly, Toyota seems to have forgotten who their core customers are. They depend on American families and Japanese families to buy their cars. It’s time to remind them who their customers are.

    I don’t think the values at corporate reflect the values many Toyota/Lexus owners have (with the exception of maybe Prius owners who probably like the woke stuff). Do Toyota/Lexus owners want the money they spend with Toyota to be used later by corporate to push an ideology that’s diametrically opposed to their own values?

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

    Starbucks’ anti-woke crusade effort is against far-left progressives who have seized control of the managerial apparatus of mega-corporations and, instead of focusing on products, have been spreaders of DEI activism. The goal is to infect as many as possible with the woke mind virus across the West. One wonders if the Chinese Communist Party is involved in this push, and or if it is hybrid warfare attempting to undermine the West.

    One commonality with many of these woke companies is that BlackRock and Vanguard are usually in the top ownership spots – able to sway corporate decision-making in the boardroom.

    Hence, Blackrock’s Larry Fink admitted in 2017 that his company would “force behaviors” of inclusion efforts in corporate America.

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

    Here’s Toyota Motor ADR Stock’s top ownership:

    Another anti-woke crusader, James Lindsay of New Discourses, shed light on a disturbing reality that corporate America could be spreading ’21st Century Communism’ across the West.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 19:40

  • "Paper Or Plastic?" How One Market Intervention Requires Another To "Correct" The Original One
    “Paper Or Plastic?” How One Market Intervention Requires Another To “Correct” The Original One

    Authored by Lane Johnson via The Mises Institute,

    The phrase “Paper or plastic?” became part of the language after states and localities, beginning near the mid-2010s, began banning single-use plastic bags. San Francisco was the first US city to ban plastic bags completely, passing an ordinance in 2007. But elsewhere before that, Bangladesh had become the first country in the world to ban plastic bags in 2002, because thin bags there were clogging drains and causing floods.

    In 2014, California—with Senate Bill SB 270—was the first US state to implement a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags distributed at point of sale in grocery and other stores, and a requirement that stores sell more substantial reusable plastic bags made of recycled content or recycled paper bags, for which customers are charged ten cents each. 

    Single-Use Plastic Bags versus Reusable Plastic Bags

    Parenthetically, note that “reusable” bags, by the terms of the 2014 law, must be designed for at least 125 uses (more on that below), and be made of thicker plastic film at least 2.25 mils—or thousandths of an inch—thick. In contrast, the term “single-use” means disposable plastic bags that are intended to be used once and then discarded. These include bags with handles distributed to shoppers at check-out, bags without handles used to protect food items from damage or contamination, bags to contain unwrapped items like bulk foods, and bags designed to be placed over clothing on a hanger, such as dry cleaning bags. 

    Stores keep the ten-cent fee that customers pay for each reusable plastic or paper bag distributed at customer check-out, to compensate them for the greater cost of these bags. The fee also ensures that customers who bring their own bags don’t have to subsidize the cost of other shoppers’ bags. 

    Plastic Bag Saga Continued (2014-2016)

    Complications arose in 2014 after former governor, Jerry Brown, signed the initial statewide plastic bag ban legislation into law. Public backlash prompted a petition to place a referendum—Proposition 67—on the ballot to overturn the original statute. Voters in 2016 upheld the original single-use plastic bag ban, which has been in effect since then.

    California, home to more than 10 percent of the entire US population, is considered a state laboratory—a bellwether of trends across the country. Indeed, this has been the case as statewide plastic bag bans have spread to other states in the years since 2016. By 2024, twelve states have statewide bans in place—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. 

    When these plastic bag bans first appeared, who would have guessed that the simple task of transporting one’s grocery purchases to one’s own pantry would generate a need for more governmental intervention to follow? But—as so often occurs when a governmental policy produces an outcome at odds with the original intention—it is now apparent that consumers have not reused the sturdier reusable plastic bags, and the bags continue to constitute a large part of the waste stream. So much for the required 125 reuse-rate for “reusable” bags, since it appears consumers are not reusing these sturdier bags after all.

    The Plastic Bag Saga Continued Again (2024)

    Single-use plastic bag bans and requirements for the sturdier reusable bags have not entirely satisfied the law’s original intent. A study from US Public Interest Research Group’s Education Fund, Environment America Research and Policy Center and Frontier Group, showed evidence that such bag-ban policies do reduce plastic waste and pollution and encourage reusable bag adoption. On the other hand, a study from the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance, an industry trade association, suggests the ban has negative environmental impact when considering the production footprint and life cycle of alternative bags.

    Now, a decade after the state banned single-use plastic shopping bags, the California Legislature is attempting to pass additional legislation—AB 2236 in the state Assembly and SB1053 in the state Senate—to expand the state’s plastic bag ban to prohibit the reusable recycled-content bags that were first mandated in the original 2014 legislation and upheld by a public referendum, to replace the single-use plastic version.

    This additional plastic bag legislation is now being justified as a necessary effort to close a “loophole” in the original 2014 single-use bag ban, though it is not clear that “loophole” is the correct term to describe what happened. In the words of the CALPIRG’s state director, “…what happened is that plastic bag companies invented these thicker plastic bags that technically meet that definition of reusable but are clearly not being reused and don’t look like reusable bags, which just circumvent the law’s intent.”

    Thus, bag manufacturers and grocery shoppers are portrayed as the culprits in the story, according to environmental groups, taking advantage of the “loophole” in the 2014 legislation that lets consumers purchase sturdier plastic bags that were billed as reusable in theory but not in practice. This implies that the original 2014 legislation contained an improper definition of the term “reusable,” though the corrective legislation seems to imply that plastic bag producers were somehow able to fool the public and invent something that was not really reusable but that met the letter of the law.

    What May Happen Next

    The two new pieces of legislation, if passed and signed into law, would take effect January 1, 2026. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized, “…lawmakers [should] recognize that trying to micromanage consumer choices is harder than it looks and can backfire….But this is California, which really is a Golden State for ill-considered progressive experiments.” So stay tuned if you want to know what lies next for the eternal “Paper or plastic?” question.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 19:15

  • Judge Approves Norfolk Southern's $600 Million East Palestine Settlement For Toxic Train Derailment 
    Judge Approves Norfolk Southern’s $600 Million East Palestine Settlement For Toxic Train Derailment 

    Judge Benita Y. Pearson of the Northern District of Ohio, an Obama appointee, approved a $600 million class-action settlement on Wednesday, requiring Norfolk Southern to pay residents within East Palestine, Ohio, and a 20-mile radius around the town following last year’s toxic train derailment disaster that essentially nuked the small town with thick, black plumes of dangerous chemicals.

    The deal that Judge Pearson signed off on was approved on Wednesday. It covers the February 3, 2023 derailment in the small blue-collar town of about 5,000 people. The settlement was first announced in April. 

    During yesterday’s hearing in Youngstown, the judge called the settlement proposal “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” yet she also authorized $162 million in attorney fees. 

    The lawsuits stem from the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine that led to a controlled burn of tanker cars holding thousands of gallons of vinyl chloride. The burn created toxic plumes of phosgene gas, a chemical weapon used on World War I battlefields.

    Despite continuing concerns about long-term health issues among town residents, health officials, including EPA officials, have assured residents that air and drinking water testing shows everything is safe. Many dispute otherwise.

    AP News spoke with resident Jami Wallace, who explained, “These attorneys were bullying people and telling them they were never going to get any money if they didn’t take this. People felt backed into a corner.” 

    Residents aren’t wrong… 

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

    The payout includes $70,000 per household for property damage plus up to $25,000 per person for health problems within 2 miles of the derailment area. Payments for residents fall as distances from the incident area increase. 

    “This outcome would not have been possible without the resilience and support of the East Palestine community and the broader class of impacted residents and business owners,” the lawyers handling the class action lawsuit said in a statement. 

    They said, “We look forward to beginning the distribution of funds in the coming weeks to help this community rebuild and move forward.”

    The class action is represented by Zoll & Kranz LLC, Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine PC, Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Simmons Hanly Conroy LLP, and Morgan & Morgan PA, among others, according to Bloomberg, adding, Norfolk Southern is represented by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote PC.

    Even though no one was killed or injured during the derailment, long-term health issues are expected to persist for some residents exposed to the harmful chemicals. Many residents are still outraged by the laggard response by the Biden-Harris team, which only ignited a political firestorm. 

    “It seems like everybody kind of just wanted it to be over with. Like the attorneys and obviously Norfolk,” said resident Tamara Lynn Freeze.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 18:50

  • US War Profiteers Bring World To Brink Of Armageddon
    US War Profiteers Bring World To Brink Of Armageddon

    Authored by John Miles,

    “In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

    Such were the words of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate Republican who previously served in the US Army as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. Like Major General Smedley Butler, who served in the armed forces one generation before him, Eisenhower saw the nexus of private profit and military might firsthand. His successive political experience led him to coin his now-famous term for the phenomenon, which in earlier drafts of his farewell address he called the military-industrial-Congressional complex.

    The scourge of war profiteering was already well understood in Eisenhower’s day, with journalists having castigated the merchants of death who armed all sides in World War I and the War of the Pacific, but economic developments since the 1940s have accelerated the trend with military contractors and private mercenaries siphoning off billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.

    The military-industrial complex now threatens not only public investment but human civilization itself, according to author and professor Dr. Ken Hammond.

    The expert in East Asian and Global History joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss how the influence of weapons manufacturers has brought the world to the brink of war with Russia and China.

    “It’s a money laundering scheme in a number of ways,” said Hammond, responding to news that the Biden administration is preparing to ship $567 million in lethal aid to authorities in Taiwan.

    “Stuff that’s laying around in military warehouses – obsolete equipment – they’re going to ship that off to Taiwan as part of the ongoing efforts to poke China in the eye, provoke situations there, create a lot of public consciousness of tension and conflict and fear about the situation between the United States and China.”

    “They’re basically giving away these weapons to Taiwan, and then they’re going to turn around and buy new ones to replace those,” he explained.

    “So that, too, is a giveaway to the defense industry, the so-called defense industry – the war industry, really. It’s part of an ongoing relationship between the military-industrial complex and their control of the American government. So there’s really no surprise here.”

    The United States has committed to recognizing the territory of Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China in at least three formal declarations, including the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué negotiated under former President Richard Nixon and two subsequent agreements in 1979 and 1982. The issue represented an important part of the diplomatic efforts necessary to normalize relations with Beijing, opening the country up to global capital and manufacturing. But the US has increasingly sought to provoke China on the sensitive issue in recent years, shipping arms to Taiwanese authorities and dispatching ships to the Taiwan Strait.

    Beijing has called for the United States to respect Chinese sovereignty and refrain from interfering in the internal matter. China considers Taiwan an inalienable part of its sovereign territory and opposes any official contacts between the island and foreign countries. Beijing has repeatedly said that the One-China principle is a political foundation of China-US relations and that violations by Washington of its own obligations have been jeopardizing cooperation between the two countries, threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

    Moscow has backed China on the issue, reaffirming its commitment to the One-China principle and recognizing Taiwan as an inalienable part of China in a number of official statements.

    “Between these different [arms] shipments… this adds up to about a billion dollars,” said Hammond of recent US guarantees to Taiwanese authorities.

    “What could they be doing with that billion dollars to house people who are living in tents and cardboard boxes on the streets of our cities? What could they do with that billion dollars to improve health care in this country? What could they do with a billion dollars to help out kids in our schools so they get a better education?”

    “This is just pouring good money after bad down the drain of warfare and warmongering that doesn’t serve the interests of the American people and ultimately doesn’t even serve the interests of the people of Taiwan,” he said, claiming the Democratic and Republican parties are in a competition to see “who’s going to be the most warlike in our relationship with China.”
    “[Taiwanese people] don’t want a war… but that’s what the United States is trying to provoke,” noted Hammond.

    The Donbass conflict has provided another major opportunity for arms manufacturers to rake in record profits, transforming Ukraine into a de-facto member of NATO by pumping the country full of Western armaments. Critics claim the US-led bloc has sought to expand for the sake of weapons manufacturers, with each new member state required to upgrade its military equipment to ensure interoperability with its neighbors.

    NATO has grown dramatically since the end of the Cold War, adding 16 more member states from 1999 through 2024. Many new members are former Eastern Bloc countries, threatening both Moscow’s trade relationships and its security as the hostile bloc expands towards Russia’s border. US officials have recognized the destabilizing potential of NATO expansion, but private profit has continued to provide a powerful incentive for the bloc to march eastward.

    “They just blindly charge ahead with this stuff that’s clearly in violation of our own stated policy,” noted Hammond.

    “They don’t care. They’re just doing that. So they can say one thing, but what matters is that they do another. And the thing that they do is directly opposite to this rhetoric.”

    “It’s the same with Gaza. Oh, we wring our hands about the situation in Gaza. They could stop the war tomorrow by cutting off all assistance to Israel, but they will never do that… until a change is made in the way that our country works.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 18:25

  • China Covered Up Sinking Of Newest Cutting Edge Nuclear-Powered Submarine
    China Covered Up Sinking Of Newest Cutting Edge Nuclear-Powered Submarine

    A senior US defense official has said in a Wall Street Journal bombshell report that China’s newest highly touted and cutting edge nuclear-powered submarine has sank at a shipyard near Wuhan. It was to be the newest sub to join China’s fleet of six nuclear-powered attack subs.

    The sinking, which reportedly occurred in either May or early summer, constitutes a serious setback for the People’s Liberation Army which has rapidly sought to expand its naval power and technology. President Xi has for years been overseeing a modernization of the PLA Navy.

    The US official has further said China is seeking to cover up the incident. “It’s not surprising that the PLA Navy would try to conceal the fact that their new first-in-class nuclear-powered attack submarine sank pierside,” the senior US defense official, who remains anonymous, told the WSJ.

    Illustrative: PLA Navy/Bloomberg

    “In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA’s internal accountability and oversight of China’s defense industry — which has long been plagued by corruption,” the official said.

    Satellite photos by Planet Labs appear to confirm that the submarine sank. The WSJ report details further, “The Zhou-class vessel that sank is the first of a new class of Chinese nuclear-powered subs and features a distinctive X-shaped stern, which is designed to make the vessel more maneuverable.”

    “The sub was built by China State Shipbuilding Corp., a state-owned company, and was observed alongside a pier on the Yangtze River in late May when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea,” the report continues.

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

    Large floating cranes have been observed engaged in a salvaging mission at the site. Something else of concern is whether or not it was carrying nuclear fuel at the time of the sinking, with analysts cited in the WSJ saying that yes it was ‘likely’.

    Neither the Chinese government nor the PLA military have commented on the loss of the sub, and are unlikely to.

    Regional tensions have soared given the US has recently inked a controversial defense deal to bolster Australia’s naval defense amidst Western nations’ mounting anxiety over China’s military expansion.

    The agreement centers on the US selling Australia three U.S. Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines, projected to be delivered in 2030s, and two more at a later point if needed.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Beijing has sharply criticized the move, saying it was encouraging an arms race. Increasingly Russia and China have patrolled Pacific regional waters together in order to flex their collective muscle against the US and its allies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 18:00

  • Kamala Harris' Greed Theory Of Inflation And The Cowardice Of Economists
    Kamala Harris’ Greed Theory Of Inflation And The Cowardice Of Economists

    Authored by David Rose via The American Institute for Economioc Research,

    The inflation outlook has improved, but it is still very much in the news. Although the rate of increase has slowed, prices remain more than 20 percent above what they were four years ago. At the same time, most analysts understand that the slow and at times negative growth of the money supply, which has tamed inflation somewhat for now, cannot be sustained.  

    Now that the Fed has announced its 50-basis-point cut in the federal funds rate, it will be opening the money spigot again. To be fair, the increase in the rate of growth of the money supply needed to achieve this reduction in the federal funds rate is modest. But as the Fed continues to reduce rates, the rate of money growth will increase, and so the likelihood of future inflation will rise. Since the Fed has given every indication that many more rate cuts are coming, what either presidential candidate has to say about inflation has never been more important.  

    Several weeks ago, Kamala Harris offered us her Greed Theory of Inflation. In short, people are suffering from high prices today because of greedy corporations. That’s it. As the estimable economist and policy analyst, John Goodman, documented recently (The Greed Theory of Inflation), she is rather alone on this one. Even very liberal economists who vociferously support Democrats do not make this argument, and most will refute it if queried.  

    Harris either believes what she is saying, or she doesn’t. Having an undergraduate degree in economics and exposure to highly educated people for many years in her various roles in government, truly believing what she is saying should be impossible. 

    But if she doesn’t believe what she is saying, then this might go down as one of the most cynical acts of political dishonesty of all time. Even worse than either possibility is that it is a little of both.  

    Economists used to enjoy a very good reputation among ordinary citizens and elected officials. In the popular television show The West Wing, for example, President Jed Bartlet was a Nobel Prize-winning economist, to establish from the beginning that there was no question about his intelligence, academic achievement, and intellectual honesty.  

    Today, economists no longer receive that kind of automatic respect, and for good reason: too many have traded on the respect normally accorded to their discipline to advance their own political views. But a competent professional economist of integrity cannot possibly believe the Harris Greed Theory of Inflation. Competent economists understand that if greed simply means wanting things badly, then by the very structure of their own paradigm everyone is greedy, so the word is useless.  

    In June of 2020, inflation was .6 percent. It then rose to a peak of 9.1 percent in June of 2022. It fell steadily from that peak to 3 percent in June of 2023 and has stayed low ever since (it was 3 percent in June of 2024). By the Harris Greed Theory, corporations became increasingly greedy from June 2020 to June of 2022, and then became less greedy over time.   

    A much better, and very well-known, explanation for our recent whipsaw of inflation is money growth. The Fed was worried about disruption during COVID, so it dramatically increased the money supply. Inflation caused by supply disruptions began rising even more rapidly, precisely as monetary theory predicts, so the Fed hit the brakes hard on money growth; so hard, in fact, that the money supply began to contract (see below). Predictably, inflation then began to come down.  

    If greed and not monetary policy were the culprit, why did the federal government fail to rein in corporate greed at the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, but then successfully do so over the last year? Kamala Harris should be asked this question by the media since she proposed the Greed Theory. Even if that never happens, economists with integrity should not wait to be asked that question. They should call out such nonsense unilaterally.  

    The Trump-Vance ticket is playing the same kind of game with foreign trade policy. But there has been no shortage of economists from every political persuasion raising great objection to increasing tariffs in service to government led industrial planning.  Economists should not be exacting about things they politically disagree with, but generous with things they do. With respect to economics per se, they should call balls and strikes with the utmost of intellectual neutrality.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 17:40

  • Lawmakers Must Pass 'Risky Research' Bill To Prevent Next Pandemic
    Lawmakers Must Pass ‘Risky Research’ Bill To Prevent Next Pandemic

    Authored by Bryce Nickels & Jay Bhattacharya via RealClearPolitics,

    Who should decide whether scientists are allowed to modify viruses to make them more infectious and deadly to humans? The surprising answer, until now, is that scientists and institutions like the National Institutes of Health, which have a vested interest in funding and conducting such “gain of function” research, have been the ones deciding whether to undertake such experiments. A bill called the Risky Research Review Act is currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate, which could finally require independent oversight in determining whether such risks are worth taking.

    In 2014, the Obama administration froze federal funding for such research while studying how best to regulate it. In 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a toothless policy to fund research with oversight from a government body called the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) committee. Since then, the P3CO committee has reviewed only three research applications, and NIH funding for engineering more infectious and deadly viruses, including bat SARS coronaviruses, continued apace.

    The stakes could not be higher: gain of function research on a potential pandemic pathogen likely caused the COVID pandemic, which led to 7 million deaths – 1 million of them in the United States. Unchecked, such research could definitely cause another pandemic.

    In May 2024, after more than a year of deliberation, the White House unveiled its long-awaited proposal for oversight of high-risk scientific research. The response was divided. While some biosafety and biosecurity experts supported it as a small step forward, we found the proposed policy to be a step backward. The proposed policy is complex and convoluted. More importantly, the proposed policy permits scientists and institutions to engineer more infectious and deadly viruses to regulate themselves.

    However, there is reason for hope. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is on the verge of approving the Risky Research Review Act (with bipartisan support from Committee Chairman Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, and Rand Paul, the ranking Republican on the committee). The bill would create an independent advisory panel, the Life Sciences Research Security Board, within the Executive Branch and be charged with reviewing all federally funded research with the potential to increase the transmissibility or virulence of any potential pandemic pathogen.

    Unlike the proposed White House policy, the proposal explicitly lists potential pandemic pathogens covered by the bill. It eliminates the subjective discretion that previous policies provided to funding agency officials like Anthony Fauci. With this discretion, Fauci and others circumvented the P3CO and funded entities like the disgraced EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) – now debarred from federal funding – with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. The EHA used the money to conduct dangerous bat coronavirus research in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    Some critics argue that the legislation would harm biomedical research. These objections come from a tiny fraction of biomedical researchers who engineer more infectious and deadly viruses for a living and whose research would face substantive regulation for the first time. Those gain-of-function researchers and their lobbyists preposterously claim the bill “would jeopardize federal grant-funded research broadly” or that the review process would involve “vast overreach to research with much lower risk.” These claims are false. The bill narrowly focuses on the tiny fraction of biomedical research that risks causing a pandemic. It would have no impact whatsoever on the vast majority of research.

    Even if the Senate passes the measure, there will be no federal regulation of privately funded research with the potential to cause pandemics. How big a concern is this loophole? It’s not merely theoretical. Last year, a media report – subsequently denied – recorded a drug company employee on a hidden camera discussing an apparent research program to make viruses more dangerous. Nevertheless, we believe regulation of federally funded research is the vital issue.

    For private companies, engineering potential pandemic pathogens to make them transmissible or virulent makes no sense. The research has no civilian applications and no medical or commercial value. Moreover, any accident in such research would expose a private company to unlimited liability. For these reasons, no private company likely has pursued or would pursue it. Still, as the bill progresses, lawmakers should consider adding an amendment to cover privately funded labs or introduce separate legislation if necessary.

    The decision on the Risky Research Review Act could be a watershed moment for preventing lab-generated pandemics. The bill also offers a rare opportunity for compromise and bipartisanship. We urge lawmakers from both parties to come together and support this bill, not as a political statement but as a unified effort to mitigate the risk of another lab-caused pandemic.

    Contact your senators to urge them to support the Risky Research Review Act. Remind them the people deserve a voice in experiments that carry such enormous risks. After that, the U.S. should pursue an international agreement to ensure other countries regulate such dangerous research similarly. The life of every human being on the planet is at stake.

    *  *  *

    Bryce Nickels is a professor of genetics at Rutgers University, lab director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and co-founder of the non-profit Biosafety Now.

    Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of health policy at Stanford Medical School, a co-founder of Hillsdale College’s Academy of Science and Freeedom, and Collateral Global, a UK charity devoted to documenting the impacts of lockdowns.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 17:00

  • Taliban Wants To Join BRICS, Seeks Invitation To Russia's Upcoming Summit
    Taliban Wants To Join BRICS, Seeks Invitation To Russia’s Upcoming Summit

    Despite not being formally recognized by any country, the Taliban government of Afghanistan is now seeking to join the BRICS economic forum.

    “Countries with major resources and the world’s biggest economies are associated with the BRICS forum, especially Russia, India, and China,” the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.

    “Currently, we have good economic ties and commercial exchanges with them. We are keen to expand our relations and participate in the economic forums of the BRICS,” he said.

    While the Taliban government has not been formally recognized, China and Russia have come close – given they have both hosted Taliban delegations for talks, and they maintain embassies in Kabul even after the US-NATO pullout of August 2021.

    The Afghanistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has further said it hopes to be invited to the BRICS summit to be held on October 22-24 in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan, but that there’s “no information so far” on whether the Taliban can attend.

    BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and has recently inducted new members Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia.

    China and Russia have remained the two major regional Asian powers who show willingness to invest in Afghanistan, and potentially tap its significant natural resources. Both have also welcomed the Taliban’s fight against rival extremist terror group, the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K).

    But the Afghan Taliban’s formal inclusion in BRICS might prove an embarrassment for the bloc at a moment it is presenting itself as a counterbalance to the unipolar tendencies of the United States.

    Many regional countries have on a de facto level recognized the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan, but have not extended full diplomatic relations in an official capacity.

    Source: RFERL

    The Taliban in BRICS would present Washington with ‘low-hanging fruit’ which could be used to denigrate BRICS on a world stage – especially in light of US anger at growing China, Russia, India cooperation and these countries’ refusal to condemn Russian military action in Ukraine.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/26/2024 – 16:40

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