- Escobar: Can You Smell What The Year Of The Rabbit Is Cooking?
Escobar: Can You Smell What The Year Of The Rabbit Is Cooking?
The New Silk Roads, or BRI, as well as the integration efforts of BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU will be on the forefront of Chinese policy...
Liu He studied economics at Renmin University in China and got a Master’s from Harvard. Since 2018, he’s one of China’s Vice Premiers – along with Han Zheng, Sun Chunlan, and Hu Chunhua. He’s a Director of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and heads the China Financial Stability and Development Committee. Anyone around the world who wants to know what will drive China’s economy in the Year of the Rabbit must pay attention to Liu He.
Davos 2023 has come and gone: an extended exercise in Demented Dystopia with peaks of paroxysm.
At least a measure of reality was offered by Liu He’s address.
A limited but competent analysis of what he said is infinitely more useful than torrents of barely disguised Sinophobic “research” vomited by U.S. Think Tankland.
Liu He pointed to some key numbers for the Chinese economy in 2022. Overall 3% growth may not be groundbreaking; but what matters is value-added for high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing going up by 7.4% and 5.6% respectively. What this means is that Chinese industrial capacity continues to move up the value chain.
Trade, predictably, reigns supreme: the total value of imports and exports reached the equivalent of $6,215 trillion in 2022; that’s an increase of 7.7% over 2021.
Liu He also made it clear that improving the wealth of Chinese citizens remains a key priority, as enounced in the 2022 Party Congress: the number of middle class Chinese, by 2035, should jump from the current 400 million to an astonishing 900 million.
Liu He pointedly explained that everything about Chinese reforms revolves around the notion of establishing “a socialist market economy”. This translates as “let the market play a decisive role in resources allocation, let the government play a better role.” That has absolutely nothing to do with Beijing privileging a planned economy. As Liu He detailed, “we will deepen SOE [State-Owned Enterprises] reform, support the private sector, and promote fair competition, anti-monopoly and entrepreneurship.”
China is reaching the next level, economically: that translates as building, as fast as possible, an innovation-driven commercial base. Specific targets include finance, tech, and greater productivity in industry, as in applying more robotics.
On the fin-tech front, a resurgent Hong Kong is bound to play an extremely important role starting by 2024 – most of it in consequence of several Wealth Management Connect mechanisms.
Enter, or re-enter the key role of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area – one the key development nodes of 21st century China.
What is known as the Greater Bay Area’s Wealth Management Connect is a set up that allows wealthy investors from the nine mainland cities that compose the area to invest in yuan-denominated financial products issued by banks in Hong Kong and Macao – and vice-versa. What this means in practice is opening up mainland China’s financial markets even further.
So expect a new Hong Kong boom by 2025. All those dejected by the collective West’s morass, start making plans.
Dual circulation hits Eurasia
As expected, Liu He also referred to the key Beijing strategy for this decade: “A new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other.”
The dual-circulation strategy reflects the Beijing leadership’s emphasis on simultaneously boosting China’s self-reliance and its vast export market footprint. Virtually every government policy is about dual circulation. When Liu He talks about “spurring of China’s domestic demand” he’s sending a direct message to global exporters – Eastern and Western – focusing on this ever-growing, gigantic mass of Chinese middle class consumers.
On the geopolitical and geoeconomic Big Picture, Liu He was diplomatically circumspect. He just let it filter that “we believe that an equitable international economic order must be preserved by all.”
Translation: the New Silk Roads, or BRI, as well as the integration efforts of BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU will be on the forefront of Chinese policy.
And that brings us to what should become one of the key stories of the Year of the Rabbit: the renewed drive along the New Silk Roads.
Few better than the Chinese, historically, understand that from Samarkand to Venice, from Bukhara to Guangzhou, from Palmyra to Alexandria, from the Karakoram to the Hindu Kush, from deserts that used to engulf caravans to gardens of secluded harems, a formidable pull of economic, political, cultural and religious factors not only linked the extremities of Eurasia – from the Mediterranean to China – but determine and will continue to determine its centuries-old history.
The Ancient Silk Roads were not only about silk but also spices, porcelain, precious tones, fur, gold, tea, glass, slaves, concubines, war, knowledge, plagues – and that’s how they turned into the symbol of Eurasia-wide “people to people exchanges”, as Xi Jinping and the Beijing leadership extol it today.
These processes involve archeology, economics, history, musicology, compared mythology; so, keeping up with the past, the New Silk Roads also mean all manner of exchanges between East and West. The perpetual history of non-stop trade, in this case, is only the material base, a pretext.
Before silk there was lapis lazuli, copper, incense. Even if China may have only opened itself to the outside world on the 2nd century B.C. – because of silk – Chinese tradition, in the oldest Chinese novel, The Chronicle of the Son of Heaven Mu, tells the tale of Emperor Mu visiting the Queen of Sheba already in the 10th century B.C.
The exchanges between Europe and China may have started only in the 1st century B.C. The men who actually traversed the Eurasian immensities were actually few. It’s only in the year 98 that the Chinese ambassadorship of Gan Ying departs for Da Qin – that is, Rome. He never arrived.
In the year 166, the Antoninus Pius ambassadorship, allegedly sent by the Emperor himself, finally hits China; but in fact that’s just an adventurous merchant. For 13 centuries there was a huge exploratory void.
Despite the prodigious advances of Islam and the omnipresence of Muslim merchants since the 7th century, it’s only in the 13th century – at the time of the last Crusades and the Mongol conquest – that Europeans picked up again the road towards the East. And then, on the 15th century, the Ming emperors succeeding the Mongols totally closed China to the outside world.
It’s only due to a certain extent to the Jesuits in the 16th century that a meeting finally happened – 17 centuries too late: Europe finally started to acquire some knowledge of China, even as it dreamed about it over and over again, since chic Roman patricians were enveloped in transparent silk robes.
It’s only around 1600 that Europeans seem to have become aware that Northern China and Southern China are on the same continent. So we may conclude that China really became known in the West only after the “discovery” of the Americas.
Two worlds ignored each other for so long – and still, all along the watchtowers in the middle of the steppes, trade kept moving from one side of Eurasia to another.
Now it’s time for another historical push – even as a discombobulated Europe is kept hostage by a cabal of imperial Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons. Duisburg, in the Rhur valley, the world’s largest inland port, after all remains the key Iron Silk Road hub across BRI, linked by endless railways to Chongqing in China. Wake up, Young German: your future is in the East.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 23:45 - Visualizing Remittance Flows & GDP Impact By Country
Visualizing Remittance Flows & GDP Impact By Country
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the flow of global immigration by 27%.
And, as Visual Capitalist’s Richie Lionell details below, alongside it, travel restrictions, job losses, and mounting health concerns meant that many migrant workers couldn’t send money in the form of remittances back to families in their home countries.
This flow of remittances received by countries dropped by 1.5% to $711 billion globally in 2020. But over the next two years, things quickly turned back around.
As visa approvals restarted and international borders opened, so did international migration and global remittance flows.
In 2021, total global remittances were estimated at $781 billion and have further risen to $794 billion in 2022.
In these images, Richie Lionell uses the World Bank’s KNOMAD data to visualize this increasing flow of money across international borders in 176 countries.
Why Do Remittances Matter?
Remittances contribute to the economy of nations worldwide, especially low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
They have been shown to help alleviate poverty, improve nutrition, and even increase school enrollment rates in these nations. Research has also found that these inflows of income can help recipient households become resilient, especially in the face of disasters.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that these transfers aren’t a silver bullet for recipient nations. In fact, some research shows that overreliance on remittances can cause a vicious cycle that doesn’t translate to consistent economic growth over time.
Countries Receiving the Highest Remittances
For the past 15 years, India has consistently topped the chart of the largest remittance beneficiaries.
With an estimated $100 billion in remittances received, India is said to have reached an all-time high in 2022.
This increasing flow of remittances can be partially attributed to migrant Indians switching to high-skilled jobs in high-income countries—including the U.S., the UK, and Singapore—from low-skilled and low-paying jobs in Gulf countries.
Rank Remittance Inflows by Country 2022 (USD) 1 India $100,000M
2 Mexico $60,300M 3 China $51,000M 4 Philippines $38,000M 5 Egypt, Arab Rep. $32,337M 6 Pakistan $29,000M 7 France $28,520M 8 Bangladesh $21,000M 9 Nigeria $20,945M 10 Vietnam $19,000M 11 Ukraine $18,421M 12 Guatemala $18,112M 13 Germany $18,000M 14 Belgium $13,500M 15 Uzbekistan $13,500M 16 Morocco $11,401M 17 Romania $11,064M 18 Dominican Republic $9,920M 19 Indonesia $9,700M 20 Thailand $9,500M 21 Colombia $9,133M 22 Italy $9,000M 23 Nepal $8,500M 24 Spain $8,500M 25 Honduras $8,284M 26 Poland $8,000M 27 Korea, Rep. $7,877M 28 El Salvador $7,620M 29 Lebanon $6,841M 30 Israel $6,143M 31 United States $6,097M 32 Russian Federation $6,000M 33 Serbia $5,400M 34 Brazil $5,045M 35 Japan $5,000M 36 Portugal $4,694M 37 Ghana $4,664M 38 Jordan $4,646M 39 Czech Republic $4,539M 40 Haiti $4,532M 41 Ecuador $4,468M 42 Georgia $4,100M 43 Kenya $4,091M 44 Croatia $3,701M 45 Peru $3,699M 46 Sri Lanka $3,600M 47 West Bank and Gaza $3,495M 48 Jamaica $3,419M 49 Armenia $3,350M 50 Tajikistan $3,200M 51 Nicaragua $3,126M 52 Kyrgyz Republic $3,050M 53 Senegal $2,711M 54 Austria $2,700M 55 Switzerland $2,631M 56 Sweden $2,565M 57 United Kingdom $2,501M 58 Hungary $2,404M 59 Bosnia and Herzegovina $2,400M 60 Slovak Republic $2,300M 61 Moldova $2,170M 62 Azerbaijan $2,150M 63 Tunisia $2,085M 64 Zimbabwe $2,047M 65 Luxembourg $2,000M 66 Netherlands $2,000M 67 Myanmar $1,900M 68 Algeria $1,829M 69 Albania $1,800M 70 Somalia $1735M 71 Congo, Dem. Rep. $1,664M 72 Malaysia $1,620M 73 Kosovo $1,600M 74 Denmark $1,517M 75 Latvia $1,500M 76 Bolivia $1,403M 77 Belarus $1,350M 78 Cambodia $1,250M 79 Bermuda $1,200M 80 South Sudan $1,187M 81 Uganda $1,131M 82 Mali $1,094M 83 South Africa $1,019M 84 Sudan $1,013M 85 Argentina $966M 86 Montenegro $920M 87 Finland $880M 88 Bulgaria $850M 89 Slovenia $800M 90 Australia $737M 91 Madagascar $718M 92 Turkey $710M 93 Canada $700M 94 Lithuania $700M 95 Togo $668M 96 Greece $665M 97 Costa Rica $654M 98 Estonia $626M 99 Qatar $624M 100 Iraq $624M 101 Gambia, The $615M 102 Tanzania $609M 103 Norway $600M 104 Panama $596M 105 Burkina Faso $589M 106 Hong Kong SAR, China $571M 107 Paraguay $554M 108 Mozambique $545M 109 Niger $534M 110 Cyprus $527M 111 Lesotho $527M 112 Mongolia $500M 113 Rwanda $469M 114 Fiji $450M 115 North Macedonia $450M 116 Guyana $400M 117 Cabo Verde $375M 118 Kazakhstan $370M 119 Cameroon $365M 120 Cote d’Ivoire $360M 121 Liberia $351M 122 Afghanistan $350M 123 Ethiopia $327M 124 Samoa $280M 125 Mauritius $279M 126 Saudi Arabia $273M 127 Malta $271M 128 Malawi $267M 129 Zambia $260M 130 Tonga $250M 131 Comoros $250M 132 Ireland $249M 133 Suriname $221M 134 Benin $209M 135 Lao PDR $200M 136 Timor-Leste $185M 137 Sierra Leone $179M 138 Guinea-Bissau $178M 139 Trinidad and Tobago $172M 140 Mauritania $168M 141 Iceland $164M 142 Eswatini $148M 143 Belize $142M 144 Curacao $131M 145 Uruguay $127M 146 Chile $78M 147 Vanuatu $75M 148 St. Vincent and the Grenadines $70M 149 Grenada $69M 150 Botswana $56M 151 St. Lucia $55M 152 Bhutan $55M 153 Djibouti $55M 154 Dominica $52M 155 Burundi $50M 156 Aruba $44M 157 Namibia $44M 158 Guinea $41M 159 Solomon Islands $40M 160 Oman $39M 161 Antigua and Barbuda $35M 162 St. Kitts and Nevis $33M 163 Marshall Islands $30M 164 Kuwait $27M 165 New Zealand $25M 166 Macao SAR, China $17M 167 Angola $16M 168 Kiribati $15M 169 Cayman Islands $14M 170 Sao Tome and Principe $10M 171 Seychelles $9M 172 Maldives $5M 173 Gabon $4M 174 Palau $2M 175 Papua New Guinea $2M 176 Turkmenistan $1M Total World $794,059M Mexico and China round out the top three remittance-receiving nations, with estimated inbound transfers of $60 billion and $51 billion respectively in 2022.
Impact on National GDP
While India tops the list of countries benefitting from remittances, its $100 billion received amounts to only 2.9% of its 2022 GDP.
Meanwhile, low and middle-income countries around the world heavily rely on this source of income to boost their economies in a more substantive way. In 2022, for example, remittances accounted for over 15% of the GDP of 25 countries.
Rank Remittance Inflows by Country % of GDP (2022) 1 Tonga 49.9% 2 Lebanon 37.8% 3 Samoa 33.7% 4 Tajikistan 32.0% 5 Kyrgyz Republic 31.2% 6 Gambia, The 28.3% 7 Honduras 27.1% 8 South Sudan 24.8% 9 El Salvador 23.8% 10 Haiti 22.4% 11 Nepal 21.7% 12 Jamaica 21.2% 13 Lesotho 21.0% 14 Somalia 20.6% 15 Comoros 20.1% 16 Nicaragua 19.9% 17 Guatemala 19.8% 18 Armenia 18.9% 19 West Bank and Gaza 18.5% 20 Cabo Verde 18.2% 21 Kosovo 17.3% 22 Uzbekistan 17.0% 23 Georgia 16.2% 24 Moldova 15.4% 25 Montenegro 15.0% 26 Ukraine 13.8% 27 Marshall Islands 11.0% 28 Guinea-Bissau 10.9% 29 Bosnia and Herzegovina 10.1% 30 Albania 9.8% 31 Senegal 9.8% 32 Jordan 9.6% 33 Philippines 9.4% 34 Fiji 9.2% 35 Liberia 9.0% 36 Dominican Republic 8.8% 37 Dominica 8.6% 38 Serbia 8.6% 39 Togo 7.9% 40 Morocco 7.9% 41 Pakistan 7.7% 42 Vanuatu 7.6% 43 Timor-Leste 7.5% 44 Suriname 7.3% 45 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 7.3% 46 Kiribati 7.2% 47 Egypt, Arab Rep. 6.8% 48 Ghana 6.1% 49 Mali 5.9% 50 Grenada 5.8% 51 Zimbabwe 5.3% 52 Croatia 5.3% 53 Belize 5.3% 54 Sri Lanka 4.8% 55 Madagascar 4.7% 56 Vietnam 4.5% 57 Bangladesh 4.5% 58 Tunisia 4.5% 59 Cambodia 4.4% 60 Sierra Leone 4.3% 61 Mexico 4.2% 62 Nigeria 4.1% 63 Rwanda 3.8% 64 Ecuador 3.8% 65 Latvia 3.6% 66 Romania 3.6% 67 Niger 3.6% 68 Kenya 3.5% 69 Bolivia 3.2% 70 Burkina Faso 3.2% 71 Myanmar 3.1% 72 North Macedonia 3.1% 73 Mongolia 3.1% 74 Eswatini 3.1% 75 Azerbaijan 3.0% 76 Mozambique 3.0% 77 St. Kitts and Nevis 2.9% 78 India 2.8% 79 St. Lucia 2.7% 80 Guyana 2.6% 81 Colombia 2.6% 82 Congo, Dem. Rep. 2.6% 83 Solomon Islands 2.4% 84 Luxembourg 2.4% 85 Mauritius 2.4% 86 Sudan 2.3% 87 Uganda 2.3% 88 Malawi 2.3% 89 Belgium 2.2% 90 Sao Tome and Principe 2.0% 91 Afghanistan 2.0% 92 Slovak Republic 2.0% 93 Antigua and Barbuda 2.0% 94 Bhutan 2.0% 95 Cyprus 1.9% 96 Portugal 1.8% 97 Thailand 1.7% 98 Belarus 1.6% 99 Mauritania 1.6% 100 Estonia 1.6% 101 Malta 1.5% 102 Peru 1.5% 103 Czech Republic 1.5% 104 Djibouti 1.4% 105 Burundi 1.3% 106 Paraguay 1.3% 107 Hungary 1.3% 108 Slovenia 1.2% 109 Aruba 1.2% 110 Lao PDR 1.2% 111 Benin 1.1% 112 Israel 1.1% 113 Poland 1.1% 114 Lithuania 1.0% 115 France 1.0% 116 Bulgaria 0.9% 117 Algeria 0.9% 118 Zambia 0.9% 119 Costa Rica 0.9% 120 Palau 0.8% 121 Panama 0.8% 122 Cameroon 0.8% 123 Tanzania 0.7% 124 Indonesia 0.7% 125 Spain 0.6% 126 Iceland 0.5% 127 Trinidad and Tobago 0.5% 128 Austria 0.5% 129 Cote d’Ivoire 0.5% 130 Seychelles 0.4% 131 Korea, Rep. 0.4% 132 Italy 0.4% 133 Germany 0.4% 134 Sweden 0.4% 135 Denmark 0.3% 136 Malaysia 0.3% 137 Namibia 0.3% 138 Switzerland 0.3% 139 Finland 0.3% 140 Botswana 0.3% 141 Greece 0.2% 142 Ethiopia 0.2% 143 Qatar 0.2% 144 Russian Federation 0.2% 145 Brazil 0.2% 146 China 0.2% 147 South Africa 0.2% 148 Iraq 0.2% 149 Guinea 0.2% 150 Netherlands 0.2% 151 Uruguay 0.1% 152 Kazakhstan 0.1% 153 Hong Kong SAR, China 0.1% 154 Argentina 0.1% 155 Norway 0.1% 156 Japan 0.1% 157 Maldives 0.08% 158 Turkey 0.08% 159 United Kingdom 0.07% 160 Macao SAR, China 0.07% 161 Ireland 0.05% 162 Australia 0.04% 163 Oman 0.04% 164 Saudi Arabia 0.03% 165 Chile 0.02% 166 United States 0.02% 167 Gabon 0.02% 168 Kuwait 0.01% 169 Angola 0.01% 170 New Zealand 0.01% 171 Papua New Guinea 0.01% 172 Turkmenistan 0.001% Known primarily as a tourist destination, the Polynesian country of Tonga banks on remittance inflows to support its economy. In 2022, the country’s incoming remittance flows were equal to almost 50% of its GDP.
Next on this list is Lebanon. The country received $6.8 billion in remittances in 2022, estimated to equal almost 38% of its GDP and making it a key support to the nation’s shrinking economy.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 23:25 - Canada's Bill C-26: Yet Another Government Power Grab
Canada’s Bill C-26: Yet Another Government Power Grab
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via EasyDNS.com,
Soviet Era Ethos Stomps Privacy and Due-Process
Another doozy from the Canadian government.
Following along several other bills winding their way along the Road to Serfdom…
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Bill C-11 regulates the internet under the CRTC and paves the way toward institutionalized content moderation, the requirement for licenses to publish online, and regulation of user generated content (in Senate)
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Bill C-36 the Online Harms Bill sought to designate political dissent as “hate speech” and invoked penalties for criticizing politicians (not sure where this one is at the moment).
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Bill C-18 throws a funding lifeline to Canada’s flailing agitprop industry (a.k.a the mainsteam media), in that it will require tech platforms to pay licensing fees for content the media outlets post there (passed third reading in November). This bill will reward big media conglomerates like Bell, while freezing out small and independent organizations.
Here comes another one, Bill C-36: An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, which passed first reading last June.
It’s been largely flying under everybody’s radar so far. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been actively raising awareness and Michael Geist had Brenda McPhail, their Director of the Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Program on his podcast last October.
We mentioned C-26 in AxisOfEasy #273 citing Gowling WLG’s coverage of it by Brent Arnold (Brent Arnold sits on the Internet Society Canada Chapter board, as do I, but I am writing this post from my role as easyDNS CEO, and not ISCC.)
The Government Hereby Grants Itself The Following Powers:
The new bill is ostensibly a cyber-security and critical infrastructure bill, but it is riddled with nebulous, open-ended terms, Kafka-esque secrecy provisions, onerous penalties and conspicuously absent of any semblance due process:
It effectively subjects Canada’s telecom and internet sectors to the whim of unelected bureaucrats and political functionaries.
Am I being bombastic? You tell me: given that the legislation that grants them the power to order a telecommunications service provider “to do or stop doing anything“.
“Part 1 amends the Telecommunications Act to add the promotion of the security of the Canadian telecommunications system as an objective of the Canadian telecommunications policy and to authorize the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, that is necessary to secure the Canadian telecommunications system. It also establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme to promote compliance with orders and regulations made by the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to secure the Canadian telecommunications system as well as rules for judicial review of those orders and regulations.”
I guess it all comes down to what you mean by “anything”.
Speaking of anything, the government can deem “any” service or system a vital service or system – which then makes that entity subject to requirements, that…
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to designate any service or system as a vital service or vital system;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to establish classes of operators in respect of a vital service or vital system;
(c) requires designated operators to, among other things, establish and implement cyber security programs, mitigate supply-chain and third-party risks, report cyber security incidents and comply with cyber security directions;
(d) provides for the exchange of information between relevant parties; and
(e) authorizes the enforcement of the obligations under the Act and imposes consequences for non-compliance.
Each one of these bullet points opens a can of worms unto itself, combined they have the potential to effectively nationalize Canada’s information infrastructure.
The penalties for non-compliance are onerous: $1 million per day for individuals and $15 million /day for any other entity.
But wait, there’s more:
Under C-26, orders are filed in secret, telecommunications service providers (TSPs) can be ordered to cut off any user (including another TSP) while being barred from even informing the entity that it’s happening, let alone why.
The contents of said orders are secret and not even divulged to the target. I recommend listening to the Michael Geist / Brenda McPhail podcast above to understand the threat to Canadians’ privacy.
Me, sitting here with my easyDNS hat on, running an internet service provider, I’m dialled in on the due process aspects.
More accurately, the complete absence of due process. We’ve got twenty-five years experience of being told by various governments and their agencies to forgo due process and do things that would otherwise disrupt businesses, individual rights and even the network itself if we listened to them.
Being told to do or stop doing “anything” seems overly broad.
It gets worse:
Similar to previous legislation, there are provisions for warrantless entry into places of business, or private homes, to search, copy or remove anything they deem relevant – including documents or telecommunications equipment.
C-26 also permits the government to share data with foreign entities. Again, this is all done without any of the privacy safeguards most citizens think they have as a constitutional right, because this bill, and this government, mostly ignores that those rights exist.
Non-Hypothetical Example
Last year, around this time, the same government that is introducing this bill arbitrarily enacted bank account seizures, not only against protestors, but also targeting crowdfunded contributions to their fundraisers.
This was done under the aegis of the Emergencies Act, however the seizures started before the EA was even ratified in Parliament, and the list of fundraising contributors was largely sourced from a third-party spreadsheet that was hacked from a foreign crowdfunding platform.
Nevermind that the entire thing went away within a week – rationalized as “mission accomplished” (the reality was the measure sparked a run on banks and nearly blew up the Canadian financial system),
Not much mention of this in the MSM, oddly…
The 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act made it clear that our government is perfectly willing to act unilaterally, without due process, in contravention of basic human rights to unbank people at whim.
Bill C-26 will give them a veneer of Soviet-era legislation to unperson you in the online realm.
What Can You Do?
While I said I’m not speaking with my ISCC hat on today, the Internet Society Canada Chapter is one of the civil society bodies that does its level best to bring informed, rational commentary and input to the policy making process. Membership includes a couple ex-CRTC commissioners and even a recent appointee to the Order of Canada.
Consider signing up as a member today and help us bring a clue to the process, or alternatively, get behind the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
You can also make your views known to your MP. They don’t care if they get your vote or not, so don’t even bother telling them you won’t vote for them. You have speak their language, e.g
“I know you don’t care about my vote – but I feel strongly enough about this issue to make the maximum allowable personal contribution to your opponent, and fund raise for them wherever I can”.
In my case they at least started replying to my emails after that.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 23:05 -
- Thai Rice Prices Jump As Global Food Crisis Reignites
Thai Rice Prices Jump As Global Food Crisis Reignites
Soaring rice prices is the latest example of persistent food inflation. The grain is responsible for feeding billions of people, and prices were relatively stable last year while wheat soared until now.
Since November, Thailand’s white rice prices jumped to two-year highs, up 23% to $523 per ton.
“Strong demand lies at the heart of the rally, with some importers buying more of the grain to replace wheat after the war in Ukraine disrupted supplies. Some consumers have also been stocking up ahead of festivals, while a strengthening Thai currency has helped push up dollar-denominated prices,” Bloomberg explained.
Thailand, the world’s second-largest rice exporter, has seen increasing demand from Indonesia and Iraq, said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
“Iraq has been diligently buying our rice every month,” said Ophaswongse, adding the Middle Eastern country was the largest buyer last year.
However, as Thai rice gets more expensive, buyers in China and Malaysia are swapping for inexpensive alternatives.
Expensive rice will pressure many of the world’s households that rely on the grain. The problem with rice is that it’s a staple, and rising prices could fuel discontent or, worse, food riots.
What’s more alarming is that the Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index, which tracks international prices of the top traded food commodities worldwide, remains at levels associated with triggering the Arab Spring, a series of anti-government protests across the Middle East in the early 2010s.
The good news is that upside momentum in food commodity prices has dramatically slowed, if not reversed, in some cases, though the rise in rice prices is a concern because billions of people rely on the grain for survival.
… and China is shifting into a net food importer that might put upward pressure on food prices this year.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 22:45 - Here's What Happens To Society When The System Fails
Here’s What Happens To Society When The System Fails
Authored by Fabiann Ommar via The Organic Prepper blog,
When the system begins to fail, society can quickly crumble. Two such events have occurred recently…
Let’s reflect on the Brumadinho mining dam disaster and see about the recent cartel attack in Culiacán, Mexico, in order to discuss how these kinds of events can affect our daily lives, particularly during times of crisis.
In his work, Selco explains what occurs to individuals and society as a whole when the system completely fails. He’s unmatched and possibly one of the greatest sources to look at because of how effectively his blunt and honest style is to convey the drama and urgency of the unthinkable.
I haven’t experienced a civil war, but I can speak about other SHTFs, such as Thirdworldization, or crime that occurs when a crisis arises.
The recent events in Mexico serve as the ideal illustration.
The Brazilian uprising of January 8th took place as I was just beginning to write about it, so the immediacy of the situation took priority.
However, here’s the quick rundown:
The Sinaloa Cartel launched a significant offensive against the Mexican government and military in the first week of January in response to the detention of their leader.
“Mexican authorities have captured Ovidio Guzmán, a son of incarcerated drugs kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, prompting a wave of retaliatory attacks from cartel gunmen in the northern city of Culiacán.
After a night of violence, gunmen exchanged fire with security forces, blocking roads with burning vehicles and shooting at army helicopters and police aeroplanes bringing reinforcements to the city.
According to one resident, heavy fighting raged for hours after Guzmán – a key figure in the Sinaloa cartel since the arrest of his father – was arrested in the city early on Thursday.” [source]
(If a few good books about this topic are TLDR, but you still want a broad view on this, I advise watching the Netflix’s original series Narcos. It’s Hollywood, so a little dramatized for entertainment, but it still gives a good outline of the major players and events.)
A well-armed, organized, numerous, and deadly gang of criminals put on a massive and scary exhibition of strength and firepower.
You’ve probably seen the videos making the rounds on social media and in the news, of passengers trying to take cover from the gunfire inside of an airplane, sicarios attempting to take down helicopters, groups firing heavy artillery towards the troops in the streets and avenues, and drug soldiers raiding homes.
An entire region of a democratic nation was in dread as a result of the Sinaloa Cartel offensive to put pressure on the government and force the release of Guzmán. The estimated death toll from the conflict is 19 accused cartel gunmen and 11 members of the military and law enforcement.
I’ve witnessed enough cartel activity to know that there are generally many more ‘unofficial’ victims and collateral in these drug wars, so I’m sure there are more to add to that total. It’s still ongoing, too, I’m sure – just not as openly as it has been.
The fact that such savagery produced significant stir in a populace accustomed to the cartels and their ways says something about the ferocity of the struggle, even though it may startle my first-world colleagues. Not to mention that it all took place not far from the US.
Think of that for a moment: paramilitary criminal groups directly attacking the government of a sizable democratic state.
And this is not unprecedented.
Something similar occurred in Brazil over two decades ago. In May 2006, the PCC – also known as First Command of Capital, a well-known criminal organization – unleashed a wave of violent attacks against the police and government officials and buildings. That happened in São Paulo, the wealthiest state in Brazil and the 16th in the world.
The gang instigated a mutiny in 76 jails to oppose the transfer of more than 700 of its members to highest security prisons. Then, street members were ordered to indiscriminately target police, police stations, state prosecutors, and other authorities. The forces responded by sending out a full contingent to confront the assailants.
Wild rumors and curfew announcements kept the terrified population indoors. Buses did not leave the garages (more than 40 were set on fire), and shops, schools, and businesses remained closed. My city, which has 13 million residents and is the biggest in Brazil, had deserted streets for days. At the end of the attack, there were 60 agents and 500 civilian casualties (PCC members and other suspects), and more than a hundred were injured. In ten days only.
About organized crime.
It’s enormous, it’s all around us, growing in the underground. Most of the time, we only see and hear about it when something of magnitude erupts, or if we investigate it. Some individuals don’t even know it exists, how it functions, how powerful and pervasive, as well as how deadly it can be. They think it’s like in the movies, but it’s very different in reality.
When everything is normal, mafias, cartels and other organized criminal operations stay more or less contained and operating mainly underground. They keep expanding and filtering into civil society through corruption or threats (plata o plomo – silver or lead). But also in more surreptitious, sophisticated, and “official” ways, such as financing everything from the election of local leaderships and politicians to the graduation of lawyers and promotion of DAs.
Tax revenue falls during a slump. Institutions deteriorate as a result of underfunding of the governmental apparatus. Of course, this also applies to the crime-fighting infrastructure. Criminals feel empowered and come out, making the situation worse. Though it has money and power, organized crime is not listed in the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq. That is to say, crime always tends to increase during economic downturns.
Why is this relevant?
If you watched the videos of the sicarios fighting the forces in the streets of Jesús María, Mazatlán or Los Mochis; or if you follow the actions of drug cartels, mafias and other criminal organizations in the real world, you probably know the answer to that question already. If not, let me explain it:
There’s a huge contingent of organized groups out there whose routines are a constant of firearms, violence, deception, and bloodshed. These people practice with guns daily on real targets; their “range” is the city’s streets. The idea that normal people will be dealing with untrained neighbors (or even trained ones) coming solo or in groups to their doors food in case SHTF is a fantasy for the most part.
I’m not referring to regular people turning violent due to hunger or despair or psychopaths wreaking havoc on the broken society. These criminals are all that and more, but they’re also merciless warriors accustomed to a routine of danger, confrontation, and death. It’s not that they’re capable of violence: all they know is violence. For them, it’ll be business as usual whether the system stays up or breaks down.
It’s a constant war for turf, money, narcotics, power, and plenty more.
And this battle is vicious and ferocious, bestial even – a blend of modern warfare, where the most advanced equipment money can buy gets mixed up with medieval tactics. It’s the sicarios trying to knock down a Black Hawk with anti-aircraft 0.50 and M134 miniguns, side-by-side with beheadings, dismemberments, and other horrible activities routinely employed to punish and apply lessons, instill terror on the adversary, or simply display brutality, audacity and savagery. A typical punishment is the “microwave oven”, which consists of putting the snitch or enemy inside a pile of old car tires and set them ablaze.
That may seem overly graphic, but it’s the reality. There are entire populations living on the fringe (of cities, of society) immersed in this. When a group of gangsters raid your house or come for you for whatever, you know it’s hit the fan. You have no options, and no one to ask for help.
Organized crime won’t go away.
It’s a world with very different laws and rules, like any place where the system is failing, from economic, moral, and social decadence, inside the world we all live in. More important, as Thirdworldization pushes on everywhere, the various implications of organized crime will reach closer to the ordinary citizen.
Here’s another example.
January 25th marks the fourth anniversary of the collapse of the Brumadinho mining reject dam in Brazil’s southeastern state of Minas Gerais.
“It felt like being inside a giant blender.”
Alessandra de Souza, 43, was preparing lunch with her family when they heard a loud blast splitting the air. The noise echoed through the valley and was heard by Luiz de Castro while he was working in the mining complex.
“I was twisting and turning uncontrollably and getting crushed by rocks, sticks, cars, parts of houses, and everything that came crashing down, breaking people, animals, and everything in its path.”
Luiz de Castro was installing lamps at the mining complex when he heard a massive bang from a close distance. He thought it was a truck tire popping or something, but his friend knew better.
“No, it’s not that!” the friend said. “Run!”
Dashing up a staircase, caked in mud and pelted by flying rocks, Castro clambered to safety. He watched as a tsunami of mud swallowed and buried alive 157 of his co-workers sitting in the cafeteria. It took rescue workers days to reach them.
The deluge of toxic mud stretched for five miles, crushing everything on its path: homes, offices, animals, and people. (Excerpts from a NYT article by Shasta Darlington, James Glanz, Manuela Andreoni, Matthew Bloch, Sergio Peçanha, Anjali Singhvi, and Troy Griggs.)
A true SHTF and a terrible tragedy, but hardly a surprise.
The mudslide – 11.7 million cubic meters of mining waste, the equivalent of almost 5,000 Olympic swimming pools – advanced quickly through the mine’s offices, resulting in 270 dead (259 officially confirmed and 11 still missing).
Minas Gerais is Brazil’s second-largest producer, and there are almost fifty dams built like the one that failed — enormous reservoirs of mining waste held back by little more than walls of sand and silt. And all but four of the country’s 87 dams have been rated by the government as equally vulnerable or worse.
Even more troubling is the fact that 27 of them are situated upstream above towns or cities with a population of over 100,000. It’s a massive warning sign, yet nobody notices until something bad happens. A similar catastrophe that occurred in 2015 resulted in the deaths of 19 individuals and the contamination of 12 cities along the Rio Doce valley—two significant failures in just three years.
Thirdworldization and the making of SHTF.
A crude and cheaply built reservoir of mining waste sitting upstream of a major community has all the ingredients for an SHTF. The warning indicators of the presence of structural problems that could cause a collapse were ignored by the mining corporations and the authorities, and the monitoring systems had stopped working.
Brazil is a large exporting nation and had been benefiting greatly from the 2000s commodities boom, which saw industrial giants like China devouring critical commodities like metals, grains, and everything they could get their hands on to support a string of two-digit GDP growth.
Mining industries were accelerating their expansion plans and operating at full throttle, without much rigorous oversight or restriction from the part of authorities, while everyone was benefiting from record exports and significant inflows of foreign investment. Brumadinho is yet another tragic illustration of how an undesirable combination of large and powerful (i.e., influential) companies operating in a substandard, inefficient, and corrupt “thirdworldized” environment and can result in disasters with nasty consequences.
The crisis keeps brewing.
The US congress should be debating the debt ceiling yet again about the time this post goes live. Depending on the way this turns, the decisions will have a vast array of consequences, from moderate to severe, now and in the future. This impasse has been recurrent and ever more tense, another sign of financial and political crisis – or more ThirdWorldization.
The US is, in fact, bankrupt. My country is, too. Europe is also in financial trouble. Japan, the United Kingdom, and, very likely China are as well. Everybody is drowning in debt: countries, corporations, businesses, families, and people. Though that hasn’t yet had a significant effect on the system, it has been boiling and showing occasionally.
There are countless levels of “broke,” and I could delve into this subject as I have in the past, but to emphasize that crucial contrast one more time: SHTF never hits the same way everywhere. Said differently, life in a “broke” nation that holds the world’s reserve currency (and a sizable army to back it up), or one with high-speed trains and highways, and stronger institutions will never be the same as in a place without these things.
That doesn’t mean, though, that more developed nations won’t be affected.
They will because: 1) the crisis is global; 2) everything is interconnected; and: 3) there are many ways this can happen. I’ve presented two in this article, but SHTF can also result from things like mass migration, authoritarianism, terrorism, pervasive corruption, a shortage of energy, and more.
I’m not really saying anything new. A major conflict might result from all those crises. That has been the elites’ go-to response in the past, so who knows. Up until that, it will be a steady slide into a situation where institutions get overwhelmed, infrastructure deteriorates, workers cross their arms, and criminals feel empowered.
To be sure, SHTF happens; however, when a crisis is present, it happens more frequently, and the repercussions are typically more serious and widespread. That results from the system becoming increasingly unstable and handicapped. We can talk about ways to prepare and overcome that, but until then, remain vigilant and stay safe.
* * *
Fabian Ommar is the author of Street Survivalism: A Practical Training Guide To Life In The City and The Ultimate Survival Gear Handbook
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 22:25 - Picturing The 'Polycrisis'
Picturing The ‘Polycrisis’
Over the next ten years, climate change and its consequences will pose the greatest risk to the world.
That’s according to more than 1,000 leaders from academia, business and politics, who were asked to evaluate 32 global risks over a two-year and a 10-year horizon for the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Perception Survey.
However, as Statista;s Felix Richter points out, while the experts consider the cost-of-living crisis (i.e. inflation) the most pressing issue over the next two years, they don’t expect rising prices to pose a major threat 10 years from now, when the four most severe risks faced by the world are all predicted to be related to climate change.
The following chart nicely illustrates the difference between what experts consider short-term risks and which challenges will shape the world for years or even decades to come.
You will find more infographics at Statista
The 18th edition of the WEF’s Global Risks Report focuses on the risk of a potential “polycrisis”, which is a cluster of interdependent global risks with compounding effects.
Extreme climate events or geopolitical crises such as the war in Ukraine can for example lead to food, water or energy supply crises, which can in turn have massive ripple effects and eventually lead to political upheaval, social unrest and even mass migration.
“The world’s collective focus is being channeled into the “survival” of today’s crises: cost of living, social and political polarization, food and energy supplies, tepid growth, and geopolitical confrontation, among others,” Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the World Economic Forum finds, warning that “much-needed attention and resources are being diverted from newly emerging or rapidly accelerating risks to natural ecosystems, human health, security, digital rights and economic stability that could become crises and catastrophes in the next decade.”
Translation: Don’t be distracted by your selfish focus on your own family’s heating-and-eating needs; send money, pay your fair share, because we have a world to save from imminent destruction.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 22:05 - Rickards: Has World War III Begun?
Rickards: Has World War III Begun?
Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,
Has World War III already begun?
That’s a serious question and deserves serious consideration by investors. A wave of analysts and commentators have warned that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and escalate into World War III.
One variation on that theme is that the war could escalate into a nuclear war with tactical nuclear weapons deployed. Most point a finger at Russia as the party that will launch a nuclear strike out of desperation at a failing campaign in Ukraine.
Actually, the opposite is true.
The Russian campaign is not failing (it has been on hold for several months awaiting the right conditions to launch a winter offensive). You just don’t hear about it in the mainstream media, which is essentially a propaganda outlet for Ukraine.
And the party most likely to use nuclear weapons first is the U.S. in order to save face and destabilize Russia once Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.
Reality Check
Many people have a hard time believing that. They’ve been told that Putin is the devil incarnate and would probably like to destroy the world. We like to think that in modern times we’re sophisticated and above falling prey to propaganda. Unfortunately, it isn’t true.
The fact is the U.S. did wage the only nuclear war in history from Aug. 6–9, 1945 and had a successful outcome. I’m not getting into the morality of it here, one way or the other. I’m just being objective.
Either way, another nuclear war could not be contained and it would be tantamount to World War III. It amounts to the same thing.
But my point is different. It’s not that we may be headed to World War III; it’s that we’re already there. The issue of when wars in general and world wars in particular begin and end is not as clear cut as many believe. There are many examples.
When Does a War Officially Begin? It’s Complicated
When did World War I begin? There were many precursors including the Agadir Crisis in Morocco (1911), the Italian-Turkish War (1911–12) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913).
Clearly, the First World War was in a countdown phase as early as 1911.
More specifically, did World War I begin with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914? The Austria-Hungary declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914? Germany’s declaration of war on Russia on Aug. 1, 1914?
The fact is the beginning of World War I (then called the Great War) was a series of blunders. There were many other mistakes in addition to those just mentioned. Of course, the U.S. did not enter World War I until April 6, 1917.
The end of World War I was also a muddle. Most students recite Nov. 11, 1918, as the day the war ended. That’s not quite right. That is the day an armistice was signed and the shooting stopped. But an armistice is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The actual Versailles Treaty that ended the war was signed on June 28, 1919.
There’s nothing new about blurry lines on when wars begin and end. The Korean War stopped with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, but it’s still technically not over; there has never been a peace treaty.
The most interesting case (and the one most pertinent to the war in Ukraine) is the beginning of World War II.
When Did World War II Really Begin?
Most Americans reflexively date this from Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That’s the right date for U.S. entry, but of course, the war began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The U.K. and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3.
Yet did World War II actually begin much earlier?
Japan invaded Manchuria on Sept. 18, 1931. They established a puppet regime there called Manchukuo led by Emperor Puyi (the infamous “Last Emperor” of China, and a descendant of the Qing Dynasty). This was followed by a full-scale invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and the horrific Rape of Nanjing in December 1937.
Of course, the European and Pacific theaters of World War II were different and geographically separated, but it is at least arguable that World War II began in China in 1931 or 1937 at the latest. I lean to that view personally.
And let’s not ignore the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) in which Germany bombed Guernica, Russia financed the Popular Front and mercenaries formed the International Brigades, including the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The spectacle of the U.S. and Russia fighting Germany on Spanish soil was a neat preview of World War II.
The influx of foreign fighters to the war in Ukraine offers a modern parallel.
The Case for the Start of World War III
So the case for fuzzy beginnings and endings of wars is clear. What’s the case for saying World War III has already begun based on the situation in Ukraine?
The first point is the number of nations directly involved. It’s nonsense to say that NATO members are cheering on Ukraine from the sidelines. Those countries are directly involved in supplying weapons, intelligence, money, ammunition and boots on the ground.
Polish troops are operating as mercenaries in Ukrainian uniforms. U.S. and U.K. special operators are inside Ukraine supplying intelligence, weapons training and help with logistics. (These special operators are often hired as contractors by the CIA and MI6 to disguise their connections to U.S. and U.K. intelligence.)
Poland and Lithuania are supplying sophisticated Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The U.K. is preparing to supply their most sophisticated tank — the Challenger II, as well. The U.S. is providing Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored vehicles.
The U.S. is also supplying HIMARS (long-distance guided missile artillery) and Patriot anti-missile batteries. The West is providing Ukraine with ammunition, cash, drones, satellite imaging, signals intelligence (SIGINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT).
Russia has been no slouch when it comes to enlisting allies and mercenaries. The Wagner Group, a privately owned mercenary army, has been on the front lines near Soledar and Bakhmut.
Russia is getting drones from Turkey and Iran. Fighters are arriving from Syria. China is providing financial support and offering technology that helps Russia to build its weapons and continue its missile attacks.
Up the Escalation Ladder
Physical warfighting has occurred in Poland (a misguided Ukrainian missile), Belarus (also a misguided Ukrainian missile), Russia (drone attacks on airbases inside Russia with nuclear weapons nearby) and Germany (the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines). There have also been naval battles on the Black Sea.
Of course, a long list of countries is providing support for Ukraine by participating in U.S.- and EU-led financial and economic sanctions.
The countries now directly involved in the war in Ukraine with weapons, money, intelligence, mercenaries or financial sanctions include the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Poland, Lithuania, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Japan, Romania, Belarus and Moldova. These countries span four continents. The economic ramifications are global. If this is not a world war, it’s not clear what is.
The Third World War is here. It may be at the 1937 stage rather than the 1941 stage. Let’s hope that status prevails. It likely will not.
Importantly for investors, this war is not close to a conclusion. It is far more likely to expand in terms of affected nations, financial sanctions and kinetic warfare.
The danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange is real and growing. Will anyone stop it before it’s too late?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 21:45 - The Most Egregious Mistake
The Most Egregious Mistake
Authored by Alastair Crooke,
The U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood…
It is the miscalculation of this era – one that may begin the collapse of dollar primacy, and therefore, global compliance with U.S. political demands, too. But its most grievous content is that it corners the U.S. into promoting dangerous Ukrainian escalation against Russia directly (i.e. Crimea).
Washington dares not – indeed cannot – yield on dollar primacy, the ultimate signifier for ‘American decline’. And so the U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood.
The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it.
Yet it has become an existential issue for the U.S. precisely because of this egregious initial miscalculation that has been subsequently levered-up into a preposterous narrative of a floundering, at any moment ‘collapsing’ Russia.
What then is this ‘Great Surprise’ – the almost completely unforeseen event of recent geo-politics that has so shaken U.S. expectations, and which takes the world to the precipice?
It is, in a word, Resilience.
The Resilience displayed by the Russian economy after the West had committed the entire weight of its financial resources to crushing Russia. The West bore down on Russia in every conceivable way – via financial, cultural and psychological war – and with real military war as the follow-through.
Yet, Russia has survived, and survived relatively handsomely. It is doing ‘okay’ – maybe better, even, than many Russia insiders were expecting. The ‘Anglo’ Intelligence services however, had assured EU leaders not to worry; it’s ‘slam dunk’; Putin cannot possibly survive. Rapid financial and political collapse, they promised, was certain under the tsunami of western sanctions.
Their analysis represents an Intelligence failure on a par with the non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But instead of critical re-examination, as events failed to provide confirmation, they doubled down. But two such failures are just ‘too much’ to bear.
So why does this ‘failed expectation’ constitute such a world-shaking moment for our era? It is because the West fears that its miscalculation might well lead to the collapse of its dollar hegemony. But the fear extends well beyond that too – (bad as ‘that’ would be from the U.S. perspective).
Robert Kagan has outlined how external forward motion and the U.S.’ ‘global mission’ is the lifeblood of American internal polity – more than any equivocating nationalism, Professor Paul suggests. From the founding of the country, the U.S. has been an expansionary republican empire; without this forward motion, civic bonds of domestic unity come into question. If Americans are not united for expansionary republican greatness, by what purpose Professor Paul asks, are all these fissiparous races, creeds, and cultures in America, bound together? (Woke culture has proved no solution, being divisive rather than any pole around which unity can be built).
The point here is that Russian Resilience, at a single stroke, shattered the plate-glass floor to western convictions about its ability to ‘manage the world’. After the several western debacles centred on regime-change by military shock-and-awe, even hardened neo-cons – by 2006 – had conceded that a weaponised financial system was the only means to ‘secure the Empire’.
But this conviction has now been upended – and states around the world have taken notice.
This shock of miscalculation is all the greater because the West disdainfully had taken Russia to be a backward economy, with a GDP on a par to that of Spain. In an interview with Le Figaro last week, Professor Emmanuel Todd noted that Russia and Belarus, taken together, constitute only 3.3% of global GDP. The French historian questioned therefore, ‘how then is it possible that these states could have shown such resilience – in the face of the full force of the financial onslaught’?
Well, firstly, as Professor Todd underlined, ‘GDP’ as a measure of economic resilience is wholly “fictional”. Contrary to its name, GDP measures only aggregate expenditures. And that much of what is recorded as ‘production’, such the over-inflated billing for medical treatment in the U.S.’ and (said, tongue in cheek) services such as the hundreds of economists’ and bank analysts’ highly-paid analysis, are not production, per se, but “water vapour”.
Russia’s resilience, Todd attests, is due to the fact that it has a real economy of production. “War is the ultimate test of a political economy”, he notes. “It is the Great Revealer”.
And what is it that has been revealed? It has revealed another quite unexpected and shocking outcome – one that sends western commentators reeling – that Russia has not run out of missiles. ‘An economy the size of Spain, the western media ask, how can such a tiny economy sustain a prolonged war of attrition by NATO without running out of munitions?’.
But, as Todd outlines, Russia has been able to sustain its weapons-supply because it has a real economy of production that has the capacity to maintain a war – and the West no longer does. The West fixated on its misleading metric of GDP – and with its normalcy bias – is shocked that Russia has the capacity to outpace NATO’s arms inventories. Russia was billed by western analysts as a ‘paper tiger’ – a label that now seems more likely to apply to NATO.
The import of the ‘Great Surprise’ – of Russian Resilience – resulting from its real economy of production vis á vis the evident weakness of the hyper-financialised western model scrabbling for sources of munitions has not been lost on the rest of the world.
There is old history here. In the lead-up to WW1, the British Establishment was concerned that they might lose the coming war with Germany: British banks tended to lend short-term, in a ‘pump and dump’ approach, whereas German banks invested directly in long-term real-economy industrial projects – and therefore were thought to be able to better sustain war materiel supply.
Even then, the Anglo élite had a quiet appreciation of the inherent frailty to a heavily financialised system for which they compensated by simply expropriating the resources of a huge Empire to finance preparation for the coming Great War.
The backdrop then, is that the U.S. inherited the Anglo financialising approach which it subsequently turbo-charged when the U.S. was forced off the gold standard by ballooning budget deficits. The U.S. needed to attract the world’s ‘savings’ into the U.S., by which to finance its Vietnam war deficits.
The rest of Europe from the 19th century outset had been wary of Adam Smith’s ‘Anglo-model’. Friedreich List complained that the Anglos assumed that the ultimate measure of a society is always its level of consumption (expenditure – and hence the GDP metric). In the long run, List argued, a society’s well-being and its overall wealth were determined not by what the society can buy, but by what it can make (i.e. value coming from the real, self-sufficient economy).
The German school argued that emphasizing consumption would eventually be self-defeating. It would bias the system away from wealth creation, and ultimately make it impossible to consume as much, or to employ so many. Hindsight suggests List was correct in his analysis.
‘War – is the ultimate test – and Great Revealer’ (per Todd). The roots to an alternative economic view had lingered on in both Germany and Russia (with Sergei Witte), despite the recent preponderance of the hyper-financialised Anglo-model.
And now with the ‘Great Reveal’, the focus on the real economy is seen as a key insight underpinning the New Global Order, differentiating it sharply in terms both of economic systems and philosophy from the western sphere.
The new order is separating from the old, not just in terms of economic system and philosophy, but through a reconfiguring of the neurons through which trade and culture travels. Old trade routes are being bypassed and left to wither – to be replaced by waterways, pipelines and corridors that avoid all the choke points by which the West can physically control commerce.
The north-east Arctic passage, for example, has opened an inter-Asian trade. The untapped oil and gas fields of the Arctic eventually will fill the gaps in supplies resulting from an ideology that seeks to end investment by western oil and gas majors in fossil fuels. The North-South corridor (now open) links St Petersburg to Bombay. Another component links waterways from northern Russia to the Black Sea, the Caspian and from thence to the south. Yet another component is expected to pipe Caspian gas from the Caspian pipeline network south to a Persian Gulf gas ‘hub’.
Look at it in this way, it is as if the neural connectors in the real economic matrix are, as it were, being lifted up from the west, and are being set down in a new location to the East. If Suez was the waterway of the European era, and the Panama Canal represented that of the American Century, then the north-east Arctic waterway, the North-South corridors and the African railway nexus will be that of the Eurasian era.
In essence, the New Order is preparing to sustain a long economic conflict with the West.
Here, we return to the ‘Egregious Miscalculation’. This evolving New Order existentially threatens dollar hegemony – the U.S. created its hegemony through demanding that oil (and other commodities) be priced in dollars, and by facilitating a frenetic financialisation of asset markets in the U.S. It is this demand for dollars which alone has allowed the U.S. to fund its government deficit (and its defence budget) for nothing.
In this respect, this highly financialised dollar paradigm possesses qualities reminiscent of a sophisticated Ponzi scheme: It pulls in ‘new investors’, attracted by zero-cost credit leverage and the promise of ‘assured’ returns (assets pumped ever upwards by Fed liquidity). But the lure of ‘assured returns’ is tacitly underwritten by the inflation of one asset ‘bubble’ after another, in a regular sequence of bubbles – inflated at zero cost – before being finally ‘dumped’. The process then, is ‘rinsed and repeated’ ad seriatim.
Here is the point: Like a true Ponzi, this system relies on constant, and ever more, ‘new’ money coming into the scheme, to offset ‘payments out’ (financing U.S. government expenditure). Which is to say, U.S. hegemony now depends on constant overseas dollar expansion.
And, as with any pure Ponzi, once ‘money in’ falters, or redemptions spike, the scheme collapses.
It was to prevent the world quitting the dollar scheme for a new global trading order that the signal was ordered to be promulgated, via the onslaught on Russia, to warn that to quit the scheme would bring U.S. Treasury sanctions upon you, and to crash you.
But then came TWO game-changing shocks, in close succession: Inflation and interest rates spiralled, devaluing the value of fiat currencies such as the dollar and undermining the promise of ‘assured returns’; and secondly, Russia DID NOT COLLAPSE under financial Armageddon.
The ‘dollar Ponzi’ falls; U.S. markets fall; the dollar falls in value (vis á vis commodities).
This scheme might be felled by Russian Resilience – and by much of the planet peeling away into a separate economic model, no longer dependent on the dollar for its trading needs. (i.e., new ‘money in’ to the dollar ‘Ponzi’ turns negative, just as ‘money out’ explodes, with the U.S. having to finance ever bigger deficits (now domestically)).
Washington clearly made a stratospherically bad error in thinking that sanctions – and the assumed collapse of Russia – would be a ‘slam dunk’ outcome; one so self-evident that it required no rigorous ‘thinking through’.
Team Biden thus has painted the U.S. into a tight Ukraine ‘corner’. But at this stage – realistically – what can the White House do? It cannot withdraw the narrative of Russia’s ‘coming humiliation’ and defeat. They cannot let the narrative go because it has become an existential component to save what it can of the ‘Ponzi’. To admit that Russia ‘has won’ would be akin to saying that the ‘Ponzi’ will have to ‘close the fund’ to further withdrawals (just as Nixon did in 1971, when he shut withdrawals from the Gold window).
Commentator Yves Smith has provocatively argued, ‘What if Russia decisively wins – yet the western press is directed to not notice?’ Presumably, in such a situation, the economic confrontation between the West and New Global Order states must escalate into a wider, longer war.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 21:05 - These Are The Oldest People To Have Ever Lived
These Are The Oldest People To Have Ever Lived
At the grand old age of 118, Lucile Randon died last week, passing on the crown of oldest living person to the U.S.-born Spanish woman Maria Branyas Morera – born in 1907 and now 115 years old.
“Order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people” is what Branyas credits with her longevity, according to the Guinness site.
“I think longevity is also about being lucky,” Branyas said, Guinness officials added. “Luck and good genetics.”
María Branyas Morera was born in California and moved back to Spain when she was eight.
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the Infographic below however, the oldest person to ever live was the French Jeanne Calment who was 122 years and 164 days old when she died in 1997.
You will find more infographics at Statista
A database maintained by the Gerontology Research Group reveals that France and Japan have produced the largest share of the world’s oldest supercentenarians.
Women invariably dominate the top end of the list, too.
The oldest man to have ever lived, Japan‘s Jiroemon Kimura, was 116 when he died in 2013.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 20:45 - Sunshine Might Be Free But Solar Power Is Not Cheap
Sunshine Might Be Free But Solar Power Is Not Cheap
Authored by Isaac Orr via RealClearPolicy.com,
Mississippi residents are consistently told that renewable energy sources, like solar panels, are now the lowest-cost ways to generate electricity, but these claims are based on creative accounting gimmicks that only examine a small portion of the expenses incurred to integrate solar onto the grid while excluding many others.
When these hidden expenses are accounted for, it becomes obvious that solar is much more expensive than Mississippi’s existing coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants and that adding more solar will increase electricity prices for the families and businesses that rely upon it. One of the most common ways of estimating the cost of generating electricity from different types of power plants is a metric called the Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE.
The LCOE is an estimate of the long-term average cost of producing electricity from a power plant. These values are estimated by taking the costs of the plant, such as the money needed to build and operate it, fuel costs, and the cost to borrow money, and dividing them by the amount of electricity generated by the plant (generally megawatt hours) over its useful lifetime.
In other words, LCOE estimates are essentially like calculating the cost of your car on a per-mile-driven basis after accounting for expenses like initial capital investment, loan and insurance payments, fuel costs, and maintenance.
We can estimate the LCOE of new solar facilities in Mississippi by using overnight capital cost estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Electricity Market Module and other state-specific factors. We can then compare the cost of solar to the real-world cost data for the coal and natural gas generators at the Victor J. Daniel Jr. Generating Plant, and the Grand Gulf nuclear power plant using the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 1 database.
The graph below shows that electricity generated by new solar panels would cost $50.67 per megawatt hour when accounting for the fact that monopoly utilities are allowed to increase electricity prices to cover the cost of building any new solar facilities that receive approval from the Mississippi Public Service Commission, plus a ten percent rate of return, shown as “utility profits,” below.
Center of the American Experiment
These cost estimates are, I should point out, for the unsubsidized cost of solar – what you might call the real, or underlying cost of producing it. This matters because the Biden administration’s enormous $370 billion so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” offers massive subsidies for solar, which on the surface seem to reduce the cost of solar. In reality, what the IRA subsidies do is reduce the cost paid by some by passing on the costs to the taxpayer. Subsidy, in other words, does not change the underlying costs of solar, which remain unattractive no matter how many inducements the federal government offers us to go solar.
The most affordable electricity in the state was generated by the combined cycle (CC) natural gas units at the Victor J. Daniel Generating Plant at a cost $30.31 per MWh, based on the 2021 delivered cost of natural gas, which was $3.90 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), and electricity generation. Natural gas prices might have risen recently, but even at these increased prices, natural gas gives Mississippians better value than solar. So, too, does nuclear.
The next most affordable power plant was the Grand Gulf nuclear facility, which generated electricity for $32.10 per MWh, based on 2021 output. Lastly, the coal units at the Victor J. Daniel Generating Plant produced electricity for $43.83 per MWh, based on 2021 delivered coal prices of $2.55 per MMBtu and electricity generation.
But wait, there’s more.
Not only are solar panels more expensive than the existing natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants on Mississippi’s electric grid, but they also provide less value because they don’t provide electricity if the sun isn’t shining, which is most of the time.
Statistics from EIA show solar facilities in Mississippi only generated about 22 percent of their potential output in 2021, which means utility companies would need to install 450 megawatts (MW) of solar to generate 100 MW of electricity, on average, over the course of a year, requiring a huge overbuild of capacity to get the same annual energy output.
Creating an electric grid capable of incorporating all of these extra solar panels will require taking thousands more of acres of land, building more transmission lines to connect these panels to the grid, and moving the power to where it is needed. These costs, including the property taxes associated with the land, the lines, and the other equipment, will be passed along to customers through their electricity rates.
According to the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), these transmission lines routinely cost between $2.5 million and $3.1 million per mile. Despite their enormous price tag, solar advocates don’t usually include these transmission costs in their LCOE calculations because they are inconvenient.
Lastly, it is important to remember that no matter how many solar panels are installed in Mississippi, the electricity needs of the state will still require the use of natural gas power plants or expensive new battery storge facilities to provide electricity when the sun isn’t shining, which happens every night. As a result, Mississippi families and businesses are forced to pay for two electric systems: one that works when the sun is out, and one that works when it isn’t.
The data are clear: when all these costs are added up, we see that solar is much more expensive than using Mississippi’s existing natural gas, coal, or nuclear power plants. Therefore, the Mississippi Public Service Commissioners should protect ratepayers from the unnecessary cost increases that will inevitably result from building more solar facilities in the Magnolia state.
* * *
Isaac Orr is a policy fellow specializing in energy and environmental policy at Center of the American Experiment.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 20:25 - Vegas Hotels Hit With Lawsuit, Claiming Collusion Via Algorithm To Artificially Inflate Hotel Prices
Vegas Hotels Hit With Lawsuit, Claiming Collusion Via Algorithm To Artificially Inflate Hotel Prices
A lawsuit filed in federal court in Nevada alleges hotel operators on the Las Vegas Strip colluded to overcharge visitors for rooms through an algorithm designed to artificially inflate prices above competitive levels, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Caesars Entertainment, Treasure Island, Wynn Resorts Holdings, and MGM Resorts International were named in the suit for allegedly sharing a price algorithm to set hotel rates instead of making “independent pricing and supply decisions,” according to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday.
The operator of the algorithm, Rainmaker Group Unlimited, a revenue management firm owned by Cendyn Group, was also named as a defendant for allowing “algorithmic-driven price-fixing … at the expense of consumers and in violation of antitrust laws.”
Two people, one from Washington state and another in Florida, filed the lawsuit. Both stayed in the defendants’ hotel rooms and claimed the shared pricing data allowed hotel operators to “defy supply and demand dynamics.”
“Our antitrust attorneys have uncovered what appears to be an unlawful agreement in which Rainmaker collects and shares data between Vegas hotel competitors to unlawfully raise prices of hotel rooms,” plaintiffs’ attorney with Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman wrote in a statement.
“What happens in Vegas will no longer stay in Vegas. We intend to expose the under-the-table deals perpetrated by these Vegas hotels, and we intend to hold them accountable,” the attorney continued.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit quoted confidential witnesses, a Rainmaker executive and two former employees, who estimated 90% of Vegas hotels use Rainmaker’s algorithm.
Rainmaker “collects confidential price information from each of the hotel operators, and then tells them, through use of various algorithms, how to price,” the lawsuit alleged.
“The suit is the latest in a growing wave of antitrust cases to take aim at algorithmic models or data brokering services allegedly used to facilitate price coordination across an entire industry. The allegations echo dozens of recently filed suits hitting the country’s top residential landlords with similar claims,” Bloomberg said.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 20:05 - Soaring Food Prices Prompt Eurasian Nations To Ban Food Exports
Soaring Food Prices Prompt Eurasian Nations To Ban Food Exports
Authored by Eurasianet via OilPrice.com,
The harshest winter since 2008 is contributing to shortages of staple vegetables across Central Asia and sending prices north in a region still suffering from COVID-induced food inflation.
In Uzbekistan, record frosts have highlighted the shortcomings of the national energy system as even residents of the capital spent days on end without power. But the cold has also hammered the agriculture sector in the region’s most populous country.
On January 20, the Uzbek agriculture minister announced a four-month ban on exports of onions after prices doubled in three weeks.
The title of the ministry’s press release – “there are reserves of onions in Uzbekistan” – hints at panic.
Once among the cheapest onions produced by former Soviet countries, Uzbek onions are now as expensive as onions from countries like Georgia and Moldova, the ministry said, reaching 6,000-8,000 sum (53-71 cents) per kilo.
While the frosts have ruined part of the onion stock in storage, that is not the only source of pressure on prices. Vast energy deficits have strained logistics, with gas stations shut down and roads covered in ice, the ministry said.
In comments to private news website Gazeta.uz, one resident of Bukhara region gave an account of this perfect storm: “Due to the closure of gas stations, there are problems with public transport. On Tuesday we went to the market and did not see a single bus. The only thing left is taxis. Food prices have gone up. They say that goods are not being brought from Tashkent. There are no sellers at the Kholkhozni bazaar because vegetables and fruits have frozen.”
Potatoes have also jumped in price since the start of the year – by 14 percent, reported specialist agriculture news site East Fruit last week.
Price shifts elsewhere in Central Asia have been less severe, but experts say the true impact of the deep freeze will become apparent in the coming weeks and months.
A consultant for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Tajikistan, Bakhtiyor Abduvokhidov, told East Fruit that carrots could become scarce soon, noting that Tajik farmers tended to store harvested carrots in the ground due to a lack of warmer storage space.
“It is still impossible to say how they [the carrots] endured the frosts – we need to wait for the soil to thaw and the first batches to be dug out to assess the damage,” Abduvokhidov said. “However, since the temperature in the regions where carrots remained in the ground for several days in a row dropped to -15 Celsius at night, it can be assumed that they are damaged.”
Kazakhstan last week followed Uzbekistan’s lead in banning exports of root vegetables.
The Ministry of Trade and Integration on January 22 said that prices for Kazakh onions had risen more than 5 percent in the space of a week.
Minister Serik Zhumangarin told journalists two days later that there are around 150,000 tons of onions in the country – enough for around five months, but less than authorities had previously thought. The reason for onions disappearing, Zhumangarin argued, was surging demand in Uzbekistan and Russia, as well as Pakistan, a major producer that suffered floods last summer and now has a deficit of the vegetable. (In the months before the cold snap, East Fruit reported that Uzbekistan was ramping up onion exports to the South Asian nation.)
Zhumangarin said his ministry is working with officials at the border to prevent smuggling.
Kazakhstan posted Central Asia’s highest figure for food inflation last year, at over 25 percent, partly powered by fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
After deadly unrest last January, authorities are especially anxious about this trend. In one measure to avert price spikes, the trade ministry said it had ordered Kazakhstan’s regions to buy from producers in the agriculture-rich southern Turkestan region.
But there, too, the frosts have wreaked havoc, with Turkestan’s greenhouses – more than two thirds of Kazakhstan’s total – witnessing large scale harvest failures.
Turkestan farmers interviewed by local outlet Otyrar.kz blamed poor-quality coal for the season’s losses, saying the fuel had failed to warm heating pipes inside the structures. One tomato grower told Otyrar that his operation had planned to harvest over 1,200 tons but managed just 250 tons, with the rest of the produce going to waste.
Another initiative that the trade ministry believes will stabilize the local onion market is an agreement to purchase 6,000 tons from Tajikistan.
Authorities in Tajikistan’s Khatlon’s region say they have reached export agreements with Kazakhstan’s ambassador and a delegation of Kazakh businessmen and sounded positive notes on the potential for ramping up agricultural exports to Kazakhstan.
Dushanbe seems ambivalent to the effect that this might have on domestic prices.
According to a report by independent news outlet Asia-Plus, Tajik onion prices have tripled year-on-year to reach around 73 cents per kilogram, measured against the official exchange rate. An agriculture expert quoted by the website said that the most recent onion harvest in Tajikistan had been successful, with only “minor losses.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 19:45 - China Is About To Become The Number 2 Exporter Of Passenger Vehicles In The World
China Is About To Become The Number 2 Exporter Of Passenger Vehicles In The World
It’s bad enough the U.S. relies on China’s productivity for…well, just about everything…but now it appears we’ve also missed the fact that China is reportedly taking over the global automotive industry with their vehicles.
That is, at least according to a new report by Bloomberg, who notes that China is on the verge of becoming the No. 2 exporter of passenger vehicles worldwide, passing both the U.S. and South Korea.
Overseas shipments of vehicles manufactured in China were up 3x since 2020 to 2.5 million vehicles last year according to China Passenger Car Association data. In the Middle East and Latin America, Chinese brands have become “market leaders”, Bloomberg writes.
These vehicles include Chinese-made Tesla, as well as Chinese owned names like Volvo and MG. Home grown automobile companies like Nio and BYD are also on the global come-up, both targeting a global audience as worldwide EV adoption continues.
“Part of this is just Chinese companies are getting better, but some of it is overcapacity in China. This is going to be a pain point. It could generate a really strong reaction in Europe in terms of trade protections,” said Agatha Kratz, a director at Rhodium Group.
And China targets selling 8 million passenger vehicles overseas by 2030, according to Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer at the state-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. This marks nearly twice Japan’s current shipments.
Mercedes-Benz Group AG Chief Executive Officer Ola Kallenius said back in October: “We have to have them on the radar screen, without counting out the usual suspects. The competitive intensity is increasing. It’s the most fun time to work in automotive since 1886, but it’s also the most uncertain time.”
Stellantis NV CEO Carlos Tavares commented last month: “To fight the Chinese, we will have to have comparable cost structures. Alternatively, Europe will have to decide to close its borders at least partially to Chinese rivals. If Europe doesn’t want to put itself in this position, we need to work harder on the competitiveness of what we do.”
One UK car buyer chose a Chinese-made Polestar over a Tesla or Porsche. He told Bloomberg: “It turns a lot of heads, partly due to its color, partly due to people not knowing what it is. I did have some concerns that the build quality may not be the best. Upon test driving, any doubt of quality issues was put to rest.”
Alexander Klose, executive vice president for overseas operations at Aiways Automobiles Co. concluded: “The switch to battery means the motor is no longer a differentiator. It’s created a level playing field.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 19:25 - Democrats Hate Being Held To Their Own Standards: Committee Assignments Edition
Democrats Hate Being Held To Their Own Standards: Committee Assignments Edition
Authored by Guy Benson, op-ed via Townhall.com,
Back in 2016, with a presidential election underway, I made the case that Senate Republicans should force Democrats to live under their own power-hungry rules. They should do so, I said, by applying the Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer standards to the newly-created Supreme Court vacancy, following the death of the late great Justice Antonin Scalia. Then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did precisely that, holding the seat open until after the election, paving the way for President Trump’s trio of superb SCOTUS nominations. The Democrats got red in the face and stomped their feet, but after decades of hyper-partisan, unilateral escalations in the judicial confirmation wars, they were merely getting a taste of their own medicine.
When Democrats attempted to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to fill that seat, I urged Republicans to enact the Harry Reid standard and change the Senate rules to confirm Gorsuch. They did so, thus fulfilling McConnell’s famous prophesy that his colleagues across the aisle would come to rue the day they’d nuked the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, for short-term partisan gain (eliminating a tool of the minority they’d abused for years while it benefited them). In Washington, no one squeals louder than a Democrat held to his or her own standards. A few Democrats mumbled about ‘regrets’ after their GOP colleagues pressed the Reid Rule button, but nearly all Senate Democrats now favor doubling down even further by jettisoning the legislative filibuster, which they’ve called a racist vestige, even as they’ve repeatedly used it themselves. Expect some of them to change their tune if and when they lose the Senate majority in 2024. They never fully learn, which is why the teachable moments need to be clear and painful for them.
Which brings us to the current contretemps over committee assignments in the House of Representatives.
Democrats are hopping mad that Speaker Kevin McCarthy is moving to boot Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee, and that Ilhan Omar may be stripped of her slot on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We’ll see if he has the votes to do so. [ZH: he did and they were stripped of their positions]
In the last Congress, Democrats — then in the majority — stripped two Republicans of their committee assignments, due to offensive statements they’d made. Dozens of House Democrats, led by the Squad, agitated for another GOP member to lose her committees, as well. At the time, nearly every Republican in Washington, including many of those not inclined to defend their sanctioned colleagues, warned that if Pelosi and her party went down this path, the shoe would end up on the other foot. If Democrats wanted break with tradition and wrest certain committee assignment decisions from the minority party, they would be answered in kind at the earliest opportunity. And here we are. In case you missed it, McCarthy was badgered about his decisions on this front by a journalist this week, using George Santos as the hook for her objections. Conservatives quickly started circulating his response, which Julio wrote up yesterday:
Wow. McCarthy responds to a question about removing Schiff and Swalwell from the Intelligence committees and Santos. pic.twitter.com/f00hE2K21K
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) January 25, 2023
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As I said on Fox Business, some of this is the ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’ effect. If Democrats didn’t want Republican leaders to pick and choose which of their members could serve on certain committees, they should have left those decisions to the GOP in the last Congress. Once the die was cast on the other side, it became inevitable that reprisals would follow:
NEW HOUSE RULES: Speaker McCarthy formally kicks Congressman Schiff and Swalwell off Intelligence Committee @guypbenson reacts on @Varneyco #FoxBusiness #McCarthy pic.twitter.com/WbhnkvRhL3
— The Guy Benson Show (@GuyBensonShow) January 25, 2023
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And because politicians will always find justifications for their moves beyond “they asked for it,” there are substantive reasons behind each of these decisions.
Omar is an unrepentant bigot.
Swalwell is a smarmy mud-flinger who ‘became close’ with, and was allegedly compromised by, a Chinese spy. He cites news ‘fact checks’ in his defense, but McCarthy says the FBI briefing he received on the underlying intelligence vindicate his call to keep the California Democrat away from sensitive national secrets.
And Adam Schiff used his top perch on the Intelligence Committee to wage partisan war, including repeatedly lying about Trump-Russia “collusion,” even after that explosive claim had been debunked by the Mueller investigation. Schiff is angry. Maybe he should have lied less, and maybe he should have told his party not to travel down this path, given the guaranteed tit-for-tat that would ensue
If Democrats hadn’t meddled in the House GOP’s affairs last Congress, McCarthy would probably have let things lie, despite the case against all three (would-be) booted members. But Pelosi and company pried open this Pandora’s box, and now they may have to live with the results. Enjoy.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 19:05 - Actions Of FBI, CIA Leave Us In Our Own Truman Show
Actions Of FBI, CIA Leave Us In Our Own Truman Show
Authored by Roger Kimball via TheSpectator.com,
Stepping out into freedom
The FBI and other left-leaning entities have left us in our own Truman Show
Given the fire-hose disgorgement of revelations about the behavior of the FBI, the CIA and their infiltration of the mainstream media, there is ample justification for believing that we are living in some dystopian, distinctly unfunny version of The Truman Show.
In the movie, the gormless Truman Burbank grows up thinking he is living a normal, happy life in a normal, happy town. Only gradually does he realize that something is amiss. Slowly, piece by piece, the awful truth dawns on him: his entire social world is a fabrication, a gigantic product-placement concession with him as the unwitting MacGuffin.
The deception is played for laughs, mostly. There are not many laughs in our Truman Show, the one in which the FBI hatches a fake plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, enlists some pathetic lowlifes to participate, then blows the cover and arrests the saps who joined them. One was just sentenced to sixteen years in the big house, another to nearly twenty.
In our Truman Show, various police and intelligence entities, including the FBI and the CIA, are in cahoots with Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies. We wouldn’t have known much about this except for the courageous action of Elon Musk, who everyone thought overpaid to acquire Twitter — $44 billion of the crispest — but who has been demonstrating almost daily that the deal was cheap at the price.
The journalists he has given access to Twitter’s files — including Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger — have ripped the putrid bandage off a suppurating orifice of deception, lies and politicized interference.
Glenn Greenwald provided a meticulously researched summary of that assault on his internet video show “System Update.” The episode in question exposes the FBI’s “propaganda partnership with Twitter.” Senior Twitter officials, Greenwald shows, met regularly with what amounted to FBI handlers. In the end, they “degraded Twitter into little more than a full-on Democratic Party activist machine, all while lying to the public about its function. This was a massive public fraud and 2020 election interference.”
Swirl that around in your mouth before swallowing: “a massive public fraud and 2020 election interference.” Forget about people screaming that you are a “conspiracy theorist” disseminating “disinformation.” In truth, you are acting as a documentary reporter.
Greenwald’s show aired on December 20 on the new(ish) video platform Rumble. If you don’t know Rumble, you should. It is the free-speech alternative to YouTube, that thoroughly compromised media outlet that is owned by Google, which itself is part of the surveillance apparatus of the regime.
The FBI emitted a blustering but ultimately pathetic denial that its hand-in-glove work with Twitter and other outlets was anything but normal investigative activity, designed to keep the public safe and free from “foreign influence” and perfidious “misinformation.”
The public centerpiece of this sorry development was the all-hands-on-deck effort — a successful effort — to bury the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just weeks before the 2020 election. The FBI was there, leaning on Twitter (which didn’t require much pressure) to shove the potentially catastrophic revelation into the oubliette of pseudo-national-security censorship.
The story was first reported by the New York Post, the nation’s oldest newspaper and still its fourth largest. That didn’t matter. Twitter suspended the Post’s account and the deep state, abetted by its agents in the FBI, went to work to discredit the story. Presto, that regime media lapdog Politico pumped out a story about how more than fifty — count ’em! — senior intelligence officials dismissed the story as “Russian disinformation.”
But it wasn’t disinformation. And it had nothing to do with Russia. On the contrary, its sordid revelations were not just about Hunter Biden and his whores and drug use, but — far more damaging — Joe Biden’s possible role as “the big guy” receiving his 10 percent cut from Hunter’s business deals in China, Ukraine and elsewhere. Those deals, by the way, were secured only because Hunter was able to trade successfully on his father’s name as vice-president. Absent that suppression, there is a very good chance that Donald Trump would have been acclaimed president in 2020.
I understand there is a sense in which this is old and familiar news. If Hillary Clinton were in the room, I would expect to her to ask, “What difference at this point does it make?”
The answer is “a lot.” Yes, we’ve had warnings about what is happening now at least since Dwight Eisenhower, who in his farewell address, warned about the rise of a “military-industrial complex” whose unprecedented size and technological power could “endanger our liberties” and democracy.
Greenwald touched on Eisenhower’s warning in his video. He also mentions Senator Frank Church, who in the 1970s warned that “the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny” on American society.
We’re past the point where stage lights are falling out of the sky and landing at Truman Burbank’s feet. The question is: will we muster the wit and the courage to step out into freedom?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 18:26 - Watch: Paul Pelosi Hammer Attack Bodycam Video Released
Watch: Paul Pelosi Hammer Attack Bodycam Video Released
San Francisco Superior Court on Friday released a video of the 2 a.m. Paul Pelosi hammer attack by David DePape.
Fast forward to around 30 seconds.
🚨BREAKING: The Paul Pelosi bodycam video has been released.
Here is the full video. pic.twitter.com/Z254Q8NGIM
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023
After 30 minutes of DePape being in the house, Pelosi was holding some type of beverage when he answered the door for police.
The footage comes after a San Francisco judge ordered the DA to release evidence related to the attack – including 911 audio calls, home surveillance video, and police body camera footage from the attack on Pelosi.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stephen Murphy also ruled that audio recordings of a police interview with the suspected assailant, David DePape, must be made public. It is unclear when the evidence will be unsealed.
Adam Lipson, DePape’s defense attorney, objected to the release of the evidence, arguing that it might impair his client’s ability to get a fair trial, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
DePape stands accused of breaking into Pelosi’s home on Oct. 28 and carrying out a brutal hammer attack against the 82-year-old husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Interestingly, the new video more or less matches what still-missing NBC News correspondent Miguel Almaguer reported in November, who reported that “After a ‘knock and announce,’ the front door was opened by Mr. Pelosi. The 82-year-old did not immediately declare an emergency or try to leave his home,” reports NBC. Instead, Pelosi “began walking several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police.”
Pelosi and DePape were reportedly alone for 30 minutes.
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NBC Report Contradicts Federal Charging Statement in Paul Pelosi Attack – And Paul Pelosi’s Actions
NBC reporter Miguel Almaguer reported on the Today Show that accused attacker David DePape and Paul Pelosi were alone in the Pelosi home for thirty minutes, #PaulPelosi pic.twitter.com/X6RURvSMYJ— Vlemx4u (@vlemx4u) November 4, 2022
Meanwhile, a neighbor living across from the Pelosis who was awake when the assault took place didn’t hear an alarm or anything unusual.
“No, not a thing, and you know we were awake at that hour in the morning; my husband was awake. We didn’t even hear sirens,” neighbor Sally McNulty told The Epoch Times.
McNulty, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said everything was quiet around the time of the 2 a.m. attack on Oct. 28.
“This is one of the quietest streets in the city,” she said. “You can hear a pin drop at night.”
McNulty said she doesn’t recall ever hearing the Pelosis’ alarm go off in the past, though she has occasionally heard others in the neighborhood.
She said that Paul Pelosi had no enemies she knew of and was well-liked.
Other neighbors declined to comment.
Marjorie Campbell, a former neighbor of the Pelosis for 10 years, told the Daily Mail she recalled fleets of black SUVs surrounding the house around the clock when she stayed there.
Everyone in the neighborhood has alarms on their windows, and if glass were smashed, an alarm would sound, she told the publication. Campbell recalled her computers getting scrambled by alleged security measures to protect the congresswoman.
Nancy Pelosi was at her Pacific Heights home, the site of the attack, on Nov. 2 while several dark SUVs were parked outside. Capitol Police were present, too, as were multiple San Francisco Police Department cars.
Paul Pelosi had surgery to address a skull fracture and other injuries at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, after 42-year-old David DePape allegedly fractured his skull with a hammer on Oct. 28.
DePape pleaded not guilty to an attempted murder charge during a brief appearance in San Francisco Superior Court on Nov. 1. -Epoch Times
Curiouser and curiouser.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:45 - India's Low Coal Stocks Threaten Electricity Supply
India’s Low Coal Stocks Threaten Electricity Supply
By John Kemp, Senior Market Analyst at Reuters
India’s power generators have struggled to rebuild coal stocks so far this winter because consumption is rising faster than the rail network can deliver more fuel from the mines.
Fuel stocks are only slightly higher than this time last year, when inadequate coal supplies coupled with higher than normal temperatures in March and April contributed to widespread blackouts.
Stocks at power producers are equivalent to less than 12 days of consumption, up from 9 days this time last year but much leaner than 18 days in 2021 and 19 days in 2020.
Inventories normally accumulate from October to March, when air-conditioning and refrigeration demand is lower, and deplete from April to September, when cooling demand is high and mine output is disrupted by monsoon rains.
But stocks have increased by only 2.3 days since September 2022, leaving generators poorly positioned to meet higher demand when temperatures climb from March and April onwards.
Thermal generation, mostly from coal, rose by 19 billion kilowatt hours or 7.3% between October and December 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.
Mine output was up by around 18 million tonnes or 9% over the same period.
But the coal actually despatched to power producers by the railways increased by just 1 million tonnes or less than 1%.
The number of coal trains (rakes) despatched to power producers averaged 258 per day between October and December 2022, insignificantly higher than 256 per day in the same period in 2021.
The number of trains despatched in October was particularly low and the system proved unable to recover lost deliveries in November and December.
“Although coal supply has increased during the fourth quarter, it is not adequate to meet the unprecedented increase in the demand for electricity,” the Ministry of Power said in a memorandum dated Jan. 9.
Similarly, efforts have been made to address logistics constraints on the rail network, but it will take some time to resolve them fully, the ministry said.
As a result, the amount of coal consumed by power generators has exceeded the amount arriving from domestic mines by between 100,000 and 300,000 tonnes per day.
To avert shortages, the ministry has directed generators to import more coal to blend with domestic output (“India to boost coal imports to cope with harsh weather, freight snags”, Reuters, January 17).
Resolving railway bottlenecks and accelerating imports will be critical to ensuring there is enough fuel in the pre-monsoon (March-May) and post-monsoon (September-October) periods when power supplies are most stretched.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:45 - Dear Tech Execs, ChatGPT Won't "Compose Memo Announcing Massive Layoffs"
Dear Tech Execs, ChatGPT Won’t “Compose Memo Announcing Massive Layoffs”
Tech layoff announcements continue to rise by the week. The latest notable firms to slash headcount to survive tightening monetary conditions and increasing risk of recession include Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon. After every announcement, either leaked onto Twitter or published on the company’s website is a copy of the layoff memo from the CEO to staff.
Over the last several quarters, we’ve read dozens of layoff memos from tech CEOs. We notice CEOs are usually blunt and to the point about firings in the first paragraph or draw out the inevitable to the very end.
So far, 219 tech companies have fired 68,149 workers, according to the latest data from the layoff tracker website Layoffs.fyi. Last year, 1,040 tech companies fired 160,000 employees.
With every firing comes a memo to staff. And we wonder just how many corporate execs tried to use OpenAI’s text generator ChatGPT to compose a layoff letter — after all, the AI-powered tool can write college essays, pass exams, and even apply for jobs. So how easy could writing a one-pager about firing employees be?
We tested this and asked ChatGPT to “compose a memo announcing massive layoffs.”
And it didn’t deliver:
“I’m sorry, I am not able to compose a memo announcing massive layoffs as it would not be appropriate and could be considered insensitive. Instead, I suggest seeking guidance from a human resources professional or management team to ensure that any communication regarding layoffs is handled in a sensitive and professional manner.”
Here’s a screenshot of the response.
We couldn’t help think of how this worked out before…
It appears ChatGPT’s AI trainers might have censored such a response. The question is why, well, perhaps it’s to protect the view of AI development. If fired employees found out their CEO sent a layoff notice written by AI, that would be negative press for the company and the technology.
This means all those tech execs who are about to fire thousands of more workers in the months ahead might have to actually put some thought into writing such a letter.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:25 - Truckers' Positive Drug Tests Up 18% In 2022
Truckers’ Positive Drug Tests Up 18% In 2022
By John Gallagher of FreightWaves,
The latest data from the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse reveals that drug use among commercial drivers may be at its highest level since the federal repository was set up in 2019 — but more are being cleared to drive again as well.
Total drug violations reported into the clearinghouse in 2022, including positive tests and refusals to take a drug test, increased 18% to 69,668 compared with last year’s 59,011, according to the most recent statistics released this week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That rate almost doubled the 9.2% annual increase in drug violations reported in 2021.
Much of the increase can be attributed to violations related to marijuana, the substance identified most in positive tests. Marijuana violations increased 31.6% in 2022 compared with 2021, to 40,916. That compares to a 5.3% increase between 2020 and 2021.
In fact, positive drug tests reported into the clearinghouse in 2022 increased in 12 of 14 substances tracked by the database, with only hydrocodone and heroin showing decreases.
Some of the increase in total violations can be attributed to the fact that completed registrations from drivers, employers and third-party organizations have been added each year since the clearinghouse began accepting registrations in September 2019. However, the number of registrations added annually has steadily declined since 2020 as the database gradually fills with all FMCSA-regulated registrants.
Regarding marijuana specifically, there has been speculation that increasingly liberal state marijuana laws could also be a factor — even though federal law preempts state law regarding the use of both medicinal and recreational marijuana by commercial drivers.
“While the numbers are a little jarring, it is clear the clearinghouse is working as intended,” P. Sean Garney, co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, which specializes in truck safety, regulations and compliance, told FreightWaves.
Garney pointed to data in the report showing that there were double the number of positive tests for preemployment screening versus positive tests taken randomly from drivers last year.
“It’s far more common for a driver to test positive in a preemployment environment, and before the clearinghouse, carriers had no way to know if a driver they were considering was prohibited from operating a [commercial motor vehicle] based on that test,” Garney said. “[This data] shows me the system works.”
In addition, the data shows that more drivers are getting rehabilitated and reentering the trucking workforce, he said. At the end of 2020, only 12.5% of drivers who had tested positive had been cleared to drive again. In 2021 that number increased to 22.7%, and it increased again in 2022 to 27.6%.
Garney also noted that starting on Jan. 6 — after three full years of clearinghouse operation — motor carriers were no longer required to query a driver’s previous employer to request drug and alcohol testing histories, because they are now able to go back three years within the clearinghouse.
“Some carriers have been nervous that eliminating the previous employer inquiry might cause them to miss important information about a driver’s drug testing history,” he said.
However, with more than 3 million drivers and over 443,000 employers registered, “the clearinghouse is operating at full tilt and as intended, making it a great source of truth for this information. This should make wary carriers feel better about streamlining their procedures by using the clearinghouse.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/27/2023 – 17:05
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