Today’s News 28th May 2022

• Mass Shootings: The Vicious Cycle Fueled By America's Toxic Cult Of Violence
  Mass Shootings: The Vicious Cycle Fueled By America’s Toxic Cult Of Violence

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Mass shootings have become routine in the United States and speak to a society that relies on violence to feed the coffers of the merchants of death. Given the profits made by arms manufacturers, the defense industry, gun dealers and the lobbyists who represent them in Congress, it comes as no surprise that the culture of violence cannot be abstracted from either the culture of business or the corruption of politics.”

  – Professor Henry A. Giroux

  We are caught in a vicious cycle.

  

  With alarming regularity, the nation is being subjected to a heartbreaking spate of violence that terrorizes the populace, fractures communities, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

  Mass shootings have taken place in schools, on college campuses, movie theaters, nightclubs, grocery stores, concert venues, bars, workplaces, churches, on military bases, and in government offices. In almost every instance, the shooters were dressed in military-style gear and armed with military-style weapons.

  Take the latest shooting that took place in Uvalde, Texas, when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, wearing body armor and carrying a rifle, walked into Robb Elementary School and opened fire, leaving at least 19 children and two teachers dead.

  This Uvalde shooting took place ten days after another 18-year-old man, heavily armed and wearing tactical gear (including a tactical helmet and plated armor), opened fire in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y, killing 10 people.

  In 2018, a 19-year-old former student armed with a gas mask, smoke grenades, magazines of ammunition, and an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle opened fire on students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., leaving 17 people dead.

  Ten years ago, 20-year-old Adam Lanza—wearing body armor and black clothing, and armed with military-style weapons—opened fire on students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., leaving 26 dead. Prior to the shooting, Lanza reportedly spent his days “playing violent video games amid posters showcasing military equipment.”

  According to an FBI report issued the day before the Uvalde shooting, these kinds of “active shooter attacks” have doubled in recent years.

  As expected in the wake of such tragedies, there has been a vocal outcry for enacting more strident gun control measures, more mental health checks, and heightened security measures.

  Yet surely there’s more to these shootings than just easy access to weapons and mental illness.

  Ask yourself: Why do these mass shootings keep happening? Who are these shooters modelling themselves after? Where are they finding the inspiration for their weaponry and tactics? Whose stance and techniques are they mirroring?

  When you start to connect the dots, they lead right back to the American police state and the war-drenched, violence-imbued, profit-driven military industrial complex, both of which continue to dominate, dictate and shape almost every aspect of our lives.

  The United States is the number one consumer, exporter and perpetrator of violence and violent weapons in the world.

  Violence has become America’s calling card.

  We are a military culture engaged in continuous warfare.

  We have been a nation at war for most of our existence.

  We are a nation that makes a living from killing through defense contracts, weapons manufacturing and endless wars.

  We are being fed a steady diet of violence through our entertainment, news, sports and politics.

  All of the military equipment featured in blockbuster movies is provided—at taxpayer expense—in exchange for carefully placed promotional spots aimed at boosting civic pride in the military, recruiting for the military, and churning out profit-driven propaganda for the military industrial complex. Even reality TV shows have gotten in on the gig.

  It’s estimated that U.S. military intelligence agencies (including the NSA) have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows.

  Then there are the growing number of violent video games, a number of which are engineered by or created for the military as recruitment tools, which have accustomed players to interactive war play through military simulations and first-person shooter scenarios. As Esther J. Cepeda writes for The Washington Post, “Violent video games alone do not cause people to go off the rails, arm themselves and open fire on innocent people in public places. But there’s also no question that there is something wrong with a multibillion-dollar video game industry that sells to young men the ability to virtually assassinate a foe as an escape from real life.”

  The media, eager to score higher ratings, has been equally complicit in making (real) war more palatable to the public by packaging it as TV friendly.

  The military has also been firmly entrenched in the nation’s sports spectacles, having co-opted football, basketball, even NASCAR, “tying the symbols of sports with the symbols of war.”

  This is how you acclimate a population to war.

  This is how you cultivate loyalty to a war machine.

  This is how, to borrow from the subtitle to the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, you teach a nation to “stop worrying and love the bomb.”

  This is how you sustain the nation’s appetite for war.

  As journalist David Sirota writes for Salon, to those who profit from war, it is “a ‘product’ to be sold via pop culture products that sanitize war and, in the process, boost recruitment numbers.”

  No wonder entertainment violence is the hottest selling ticket at the box office. As professor Henry Giroux points out, “Popular culture not only trades in violence as entertainment, but also it delivers violence to a society addicted to a pleasure principle steeped in graphic and extreme images of human suffering, mayhem and torture.”

  No wonder the government continues to whet the nation’s appetite for violence and war through paid propaganda programs (seeded throughout sports entertainment, Hollywood blockbusters and video games)—what professor Roger Stahl refers to as “militainment“—that glorify the military and serve as recruiting tools for America’s expanding military empire.

  No wonder Americans from a very young age are being groomed to enlist as foot soldiers—even virtual ones—in America’s Army (coincidentally, that’s also the name of a first-person shooter video game that was produced by the military and used as a pivotal recruiting tool for 20 years).

  Explorer scouts, for example, have been one of the most popular recruiting tools for the military and its civilian counterparts (law enforcement, Border Patrol, and the FBI). Writing for The Atlantic, a former Explorer scout described the highlight of the program: monthly weekend maneuvers with the National Guard where scouts “got to fire live rounds from M16s, M60 machine guns, and M203 grenade launchers… we would have urban firefights (shooting blanks, of course) in Combat Town, a warren of concrete buildings designed for just that purpose. The exercise always devolved into a free-for-all, with all of us weekend warriors emptying clip after clip of blanks until we couldn’t see past the end of our rifles for all the smoke in the air.”

  No wonder America spends more money on war than the combined military budgets of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil. America polices the globe, with 800 military bases and troops stationed in 160 countries. Moreover, the war hawks have turned the American homeland into a quasi-battlefield with military gear, weapons and tactics. In turn, domestic police forces have become roving extensions of the military—a standing army.

  You want to stop the gun violence?

  • Stop the worship of violence that permeates our culture.

  • Stop treating guns and war as entertainment fodder in movies, music, video games, toys, amusement parks, reality TV, sports and more.

  • Stop distributing weapons of war (weapons that have no business being anywhere but on a battlefield) to the local police and transforming police into extensions of the military.

  • Stop exposing young people to the military industrial complex’s pervasive propaganda.

  • Stop falling for the military industrial complex’s psychological war games.

  Salvador Ramos may have pulled the trigger that resulted in the mayhem in Uvalde, Tex., but something else is driving the madness.

  We’ve got to do more than react in a knee-jerk fashion.

  Those who want safety at all costs will clamor for more gun control measures, widespread mental health screening of the general population and greater scrutiny of military veterans, more threat assessments and behavioral sensing warnings, more CCTV cameras with facial recognition capabilities, more “See Something, Say Something” programs aimed at turning Americans into snitches and spies, more metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices at soft targets, more roaming squads of militarized police empowered to do random bag searches, more fusion centers to centralize and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies, and more surveillance of what Americans say and do, where they go, what they buy and how they spend their time.

  Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, all of these measures play into the government’s hands by locking down the nation without doing anything to address the underlying causes of this madness.

  What we need is a thoughtful, measured, apolitical response to these shootings that takes aim at the violence plaguing our nation by lowering the levels of violence here and abroad, whether it’s violence we export to other countries, violence we glorify in entertainment, or violence we revel in when it’s leveled at our so-called enemies, politically or otherwise.

  Our prolonged exposure to the toxic culture of the American police state is deadly.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 23:40

• These Are The 10 Largest Gold-Mines In The World
  These Are The 10 Largest Gold-Mines In The World

  Gold mining is a global business, with hundreds of mining companies digging for the precious metal in dozens of countries.

  But where exactly are the largest gold mines in the world?

  As Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte shows in the infographic below, using data compiled from S&P Global Market Intelligence and company reports, the top 10 gold-producing mines in 2021 were very geographically diverse.

  

  Editor’s Note: The article uses publicly available global production data from the World Gold Council to calculate the production share of each mine. The percentages slightly differ from those calculated by S&P.

  The Top Gold Mines in 2021

  The 10 largest gold mines are located across nine different countries in North America, Oceania, Africa, and Asia.

  Together, they accounted for around 13 million ounces or 12% of global gold production in 2021.

  

  In 2019, the world’s two largest gold miners—Barrick Gold and Newmont Corporation—announced a historic joint venture combining their operations in Nevada. The resulting joint corporation, Nevada Gold Mines, is now the world’s largest gold mining complex with six mines churning out over 3.3 million ounces annually.

  Uzbekistan’s state-owned Muruntau mine, one of the world’s deepest open-pit operations, produced just under 3 million ounces, making it the second-largest gold mine. Muruntau represents over 80% of Uzbekistan’s overall gold production.

  Only two other mines—Grasberg and Olimpiada—produced more than 1 million ounces of gold in 2021. Grasberg is not only the third-largest gold mine but also one of the largest copper mines in the world. Olimpiada, owned by Russian gold mining giant Polyus, holds around 26 million ounces of gold reserves.

  Polyus was also recently crowned the biggest miner in terms of gold reserves globally, holding over 104 million ounces of proven and probable gold between all deposits.

  How Profitable is Gold Mining?

  The price of gold is up by around 50% since 2016, and it’s hovering near the all-time high of $2,000/oz.

  That’s good news for gold miners, who achieved record-high profit margins in 2020. For every ounce of gold produced in 2020, gold miners pocketed $828 on average, significantly higher than the previous high of $666/oz set in 2011.

  With inflation rates hitting decade-highs in several countries, gold mining could be a sector to watch, especially given gold’s status as a traditional inflation hedge.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 23:20

• Sussmann Trial Exposes Dems' Scandal-Industrial Process
  Sussmann Trial Exposes Dems’ Scandal-Industrial Process

  Commentary by Charles Lipson via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

  Modern political scandals, like Caesar’s Gaul, are divided into three parts. The first is the actual malfeasance. That might be taking bribes, lying to federal agents, leaking classified materials, sexual misconduct, selling political access, whatever. The second part is the hyper-partisan involvement of Congress and, often, federal agencies, all eager to score points for their side. The third part is the media’s role, which goes beyond bias to include active promotion of political goals.

  

  Federal agencies, like all bureaucratic institutions, have always tried to increase their power and preserve their autonomy. What’s different today is that the bureaucrats, and often their entire agencies, are frequently partisan players. That’s disheartening but understandable. One party is clearly the “party of government” and the party of experts. Most educated professionals, including bureaucrats and journalists, identify with that party. Filled with partisan “civil servants,” these agencies routinely tilt investigations (or kill them outright) to advance political goals – the same ones as their favored party. For the same reasons, they leak insider information to friendly media. Predictably, the opposing party tries to score points by attacking them for doing so.

  That brings us to the third element of these scandals: the “friendly media.” Mainstream outlets are not just biased. They often become outright partisans when a potential scandal could hurt conservatives or populists. That bias degrades what was once called “hard news.” Today, neutral reporting is as antiquated as rotary phones, conservative Democrats, and liberal Republicans.

  The media’s bias, both left and right, is amplified by the fragmentation of the digital landscape. That fragmentation encourages each outlet to appeal to its self-selected audience and avoid alienating them with uncomfortable information.

  The trial of Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann illustrates how modern scandals have devolved into this dismal three-ring circus. Last Thursday, the FBI’s former general counsel, James Baker, testified at length that his old friend Sussmann had requested an urgent private meeting and provided the bureau damning, confidential information. Sussmann claimed he did so solely “as a good citizen,” not on behalf of any client. Sussmann made the same claim in a text message to Baker the night before. Baker testified that he was “100% confident” Sussmann had repeated his disclaimer at the beginning of their meeting. (Before Special Counsel John Durham’s team concluded their case on Wednesday, they showed the jury that Sussmann had actually billed the Clinton campaign for that meeting.) Baker’s testimony was especially powerful because he was clearly reluctant to provide it.

  The papers and thumb drives Sussmann gave Baker were designed to show that Donald Trump was secretly communicating with a Kremlin-connected European bank. The implication was that this back-channel communication was part of Vladimir Putin’s effort to elect Trump, a line the Clinton campaign eagerly promoted. Baker testified he was alarmed by the prospect, which is why he immediately briefed his bosses, including FBI Director James Comey. Baker gave the materials Sussmann had provided to the bureau’s cyber experts, who quickly discovered it was rubbish. Their conclusion: Trump was not secretly communicating with Russia’s Alfa Bank.

  Baker’s testimony was followed, on Friday, by that of Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. Mook casually (perhaps inadvertently) dropped a bombshell. Hillary Clinton, he said, had personally approved sharing the Trump-Alfa Bank story with the press. Mook said the campaign wasn’t sure if the story was true but figured the press would look into it. Hillary agreed and approved spreading the false story.

  But Mook cannot be right when he says “the campaign” didn’t know if the Alfa Bank story was true. Mook may not have known, but others in the campaign surely did since they were the ones who created the false story. They expended campaign funds to generate that dishonest “inference and narrative” about Trump and Alfa Bank from internet data, knowing it would fool only naïve FBI agents and reporters. Real cyber experts could – and did – disprove the “inference” almost immediately.

  The Alfa Bank tale wasn’t the Clinton campaign’s only dirty trick. They also commissioned the now-disproven Steele dossier and aggressively shopped it to the FBI, Department of Justice, State Department, and, of course, the press.

  Both the Alfa Bank story and the Steele dossier had the same goals: Smear Donald Trump, generate media reports that the “FBI is investigating,” and distract the media from Hillary’s own problems with her private email server and the classified documents it contained. The obvious goal before November 2016 was to prevent Trump’s election. That’s why Sussmann wanted the late October meeting with Baker so urgently. After Trump was elected, the new goal was to hamstring his presidency by tying him up in investigations. That is presumably why Sussmann later met with the CIA and gave them the same Alfa bank story, plus another fable about secret Russian mobile phones that were always near Trump. Again, pure garbage, based on cherry-picked data and quickly shown to be worthless.

  The Sussmann trial indicates how the media and federal agencies play into the Democrats’ scandal-industrial process. Take Mook’s testimony last Friday. It was a huge story because, for the first time, a Clinton insider directly tied Hillary to the smear campaign. That campaign was the biggest political dirty trick in modern American politics, one the media had actively promoted. Yet, when the bombshell exploded, the mainstream media went silent, both about the news and about their own culpability. On Friday, when the news broke, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC did not mention the Mook bombshell or even the Sussmann trial. Not a peep. Saturday’s New York Times was equally silent. The Washington Post did cover the story but buried the lede – Hillary Clinton’s direct involvement – well down in their report. A Post national correspondent actually ran an “analysis” piece entitled “Again: There’s No Evidence Hillary Clinton Triggered the Russian Probe.”

  Robert Mueller’s prolonged investigation as Special Counsel missed this whole massive scandal. When Mueller testified before Congress, he was asked about Fusion GPS, a central player in Clinton’s smear campaign, and the Special Counsel said he’d never even heard of the firm.

  What about the FBI? How did it treat Sussmann’s information about Trump and Alfa Bank? General Counsel Baker testified that he immediately informed the bureau’s top officials, noting Sussmann’s assurance that he had no client. Although the Alfa Bank story was quickly disproven, that didn’t stop the bureau’s relentless investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia. Two days after Sussmann gave the FBI his (false) information, the head of the bureau’s counter-intelligence division texted a colleague, “People of the 7^th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.” They were so fired up they refused to let agents know Sussmann’s name, referred to him (dishonestly) as the “Department of Justice,” and refused to let agents interview the authors of the cyber data given to Baker.

  The FBI handled the Steele dossier the same way they handled Sussmann’s material – a mixture of incompetence and malign intent, trampling over administrative safeguards and legal rules in an effort to ensnare Donald Trump. Even though the FBI couldn’t verify the dossier’s salacious allegations, it used them to impale the president-elect. Comey briefed Trump on the worst allegations and then secretly told the press that the FBI was investigating them. Over the next month, the bureau conducted lengthy interviews with Steele’s principle source (Igor Danchenko, now indicted himself) and learned the dossier’s allegations were based on bar talk and rumors, as told by a Brookings Institution researcher, not Kremlin insiders. That didn’t stop – or even slow – the government’s pursuit of Trump, and its use of this discredited material.

  The falsity of the Alfa Bank connection and Steele dossier – and the FBI’s knowledge of their falsity – did not stop the bureau from spying on Trump associates for purported “Russian connections.” That surveillance didn’t stop even after field agents said their investigation turned up no evidence and should be closed. Instead, Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, personally kept the investigation open. Since the spying required FISA warrants (from the court overseeing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the FBI omitted or doctored exculpatory information to renew their authorization. Yet another subversion of justice.

  The full scope of this multi-pronged scandal is finally emerging after five years of administrative misconduct, media coverups, partisan reporting, and pervasive deceit by Washington insiders. What is still submerged is any accountability. The media is still burying the story and its own role in promoting those lies. Nobody has returned their dubious Pulitzer Prizes. Senior officials in Comey’s FBI have never been held to account. Congressmen, led by California Democrat Adam Schiff, who continued the smear and leaked their closed-door inquiries to the press, still appear on the Sunday talk shows. Hillary Clinton, who sat atop the conspiracy, was given a quick “all clear” by the FBI on her server and has not been targeted for federal investigation in the subsequent scandals. That Mook’s testimony surprised Durham’s prosecutors indicates they never bothered to probe Hillary’s involvement before the grand jury.

  The Sussmann trial, like all modern political scandals, is part of a three-ring circus, showcasing sleazy political enablers, malfeasance by public officials, and biased reporting. In this circus of deceit, the public has to walk behind the elephants with a huge shovel.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 23:00

• USAF's New Stealth Bomber "Strides Toward Flight Readiness" After Successful Load Test
  USAF’s New Stealth Bomber “Strides Toward Flight Readiness” After Successful Load Test

  Northrop Grumman tweeted Wednesday that its new stealth bomber “made strides toward flight readiness with a successful loads calibration test.” 

  The B-21 Raider is making strides toward flight readiness with a successful loads calibration test. Learn more about the #RiseOfTheRaider: https://t.co/JEoADIshv8 pic.twitter.com/nWTeiMfneG

  — Northrop Grumman (@NGCNews) May 25, 2022

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

  A press release from Northrop Grumman described how the B-21 Raider “completed the first — and most critical — loads calibration test.” The first of three ground test before the aircraft takes to the skies in 2023. 

  The next two tests will be engine testing and low-speed and high-speed taxi tests. Air Force Magazine noted the B-21 was initially supposed to take flight in the second half of this year, though Northrop Grumman has pushed that back to 2023 (cause of delays weren’t cited). 

  “The B-21 test aircraft is the most production-representative aircraft, both structurally and in its mission systems, at this point in a program, that I’ve observed in my career,” Randy Walden, director of the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and program executive officer of the B-21 Raider program, recently said. 

  Northrop Grumman said the stealth bomber would be unveiled later this year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 22:40

• Will The Midterms Be Biden's Last Hurrah?
  Will The Midterms Be Biden’s Last Hurrah?

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  For half a decade now, America’s media elite have been obsessed with former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s conversion to Trumpism.

  Press and TV are daily consumed with his actions and prospects and the future of the party he captured in 2016.

  Perhaps it is time to consider the prospects of President Joe Biden and the political future of his embattled presidency.

  

  What are the odds that Biden, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama before him, will run again in 2024, win reelection, serve out a second term and transfer his office to the 47th president on Jan. 20, 2029?

  My guess: The odds of that happening are roughly the same as the odds that last-minute entry Rich Strike would win the Kentucky Derby, as he left the starting gate at Churchill Downs at 80-1.

  Consider the first hurdle Biden faces on the way to renomination in 2024 — the midterm elections five months off.

  Since the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 reached record highs in January, both have seen eight weeks of wipeouts of trillions of dollars in value as we approached bear-market territory by the end of last week.

  Stock portfolios, pensions and retirement benefit plans have been gutted. These massive market losses are also a lead indicator pointing to a recession right ahead, just as voters pass judgment on a Democratic Party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress.

  But even before we reach recession, Americans have already been living with a Biden inflation of 8% that has lasted for months and affected all the necessities of normal life, such as groceries and gasoline.

  And the worst seems yet to come.

  The Federal Reserve has reversed course from its easy money days and begun to raise interest rates to squeeze the Biden inflation out of the economy. What lies ahead may remind people who were around then of Jimmy Carter’s “stagflation,” where interest rates hit 21% to kill an inflation that reached 13%.

  As for the crisis on the southern border, it is deeper than ever. Some 234,000 migrants were caught illegally entering the U.S. in April alone, with thousands of others evading any contact with U.S. authorities.

  This is an invasion rate of some 3 million illegal migrants a year.

  Shootings, killings, carjackings, criminal assaults, and smash-and-grab robberies in record numbers are the subject of our nightly news.

  And the latest national polls suggest the country is holding Biden responsible. The president’s approval rating is down to 39%, and only 1 in 3 Americans think he is doing a good job handling the economy and that the nation is headed in the right direction.

  Now the omicron variant of COVID-19 is making a comeback; infections are again over 100,000 a day.

  Biden might find consolation from how his predecessors overcame midterm defeats. Clinton in 1994 lost 54 House seats and won reelection easily in 1996. Obama lost 63 House seats in 2010 to come back and win handily over Mitt Romney in 2012.

  Why cannot Biden ride out the anticipated storm in this year’s midterms and come back to win election in 2024, as did Clinton and Obama?

  Age has something to do with it. Clinton was 50 in his reelection year 1996. Obama was 51 in his reelection year 2012. And both were at the peak of their political powers.

  Biden, on election day 2024, will be two weeks shy of his 82nd birthday. Should he serve out a second term, he would not leave the White House until he had turned 86. Biden has been America’s oldest president since the day he took office.

  Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers wrote of “energy in the executive” as being an indispensable attribute of good government.

  Does Biden, with his shuffling gait, regular gaffes, and physical and cognitive decline manifest that attribute of which Hamilton wrote?

  

  The likely scenario for Biden?

  His party sustains a crushing defeat in November comparable to what Clinton and Obama suffered. But the party does not immediately rally around Biden as present and future leader, as it did with Clinton and Obama. Critics inside the Democratic coalition begin to blame Biden for the loss.

  Ambitious Democrats, sensing disaster if Biden tops the ticket in 2024, begin to call for him to stand down and give way to a younger candidate, a new face, in 2024.

  One or two progressives declare for president, and the pressure builds on Biden to avoid a personal and political humiliation in the 2024 primaries by standing down, as Harry Truman did in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson did in 1968.

  By early 2023, Biden will have adopted the line that dealing with the challenge of China and Russia and, at the same time, coping with recession and inflation require his full attention. And these preclude a national political campaign for reelection.

  And then President Joe Biden announces he will not run again.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 22:20

• 50% Of Millennials Think They Only Need $300,000 To Retire
  50% Of Millennials Think They Only Need $300,000 To Retire

  This has got to be one of the all time best forthcoming wakeup calls we’ve ever seen. A new survey published by Acorns last week revealed that half of millennials think they’ll need just $300,000 to “retire comfortably”.

  As the piece notes, this is obviously a fraction of what they will actually need to retire in comfort.

  Gen X and Gen Z had slightly higher estimates, guessing that they would need $500,000 to retire, while boomers have a clearer picture and understand they would need closer to $750,000 to retire.

  Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of the Transamerica Institute, who conducted the study, commented: “The estimated retirement savings for all workers are on the low side. I’m concerned that they’re not thinking big enough in terms of how much somebody should save.”

  

  Instead, as the article notes, people should be targeting about 75% of their pre-retirement income. That would mean that the average millennial earning $68,703 would need to save $1.8 million to retire comfortably by age 67. 

  More than 40% of respondents to the survey said they arrived at their estimates “simply by guessing”. 

  “It’s surprising that people are not taking as much advantage as they can and should of the tools that are available,” Collinson said. 

  Their $750,000 estimate “is much more than they’ve actually saved in all their retirement accounts,” she said about boomers, who have an average retirement account balance of just $200,000. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 22:00

• Baby Formula Shortage Could Persist Until July: FDA Commissioner
  Baby Formula Shortage Could Persist Until July: FDA Commissioner

  By Mimi Nguyen Lu of The Epoch Times

  Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said the severe nationwide shortage of baby formula is expected to be eased within two months. Testifying before a Senate hearing, Califf said that while he cannot give exact dates, his expectation is “that within two months we should be beyond normal and with a plethora” of formula supply.

  “It’s going to be gradual improvement up to probably somewhere around two months until the shelves are replete again,” he told lawmakers at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on the baby formula shortage on Thursday.

  “Due to all the measures being taken, the shortage is going to be getting better and better.”

  

  Califf said that FDA inspectors found unsanitary conditions at the Sturgis facility, including evidence of previous bacterial contamination, roof leaks, and a lack of adequate hygiene. Before it can reopen, the facility has to implement a series of steps to ensure safe production to comply with U.S. food safety standards, he said.

  Supply chain pressures and a shortage of workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been responsible for an ongoing baby formula shortage in the nation, but the supply became even more scarce after Abbott Nutrition in February recalled multiple baby formula products, including some Similac products, after four infants fell sick, two of whom died.

  Abbott, which has the largest U.S. market share for infant formula, also temporarily shuttered its formula manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Michigan—where the recalled products were produced—over safety concerns, after an FDA investigation found unsanitary conditions there. The plant is one of three run by Abbott.

  An investigation into suspected bacterial contamination at the facility failed to confirm a link to the recalled products, with the FDA saying the bacterial strains the infants fell sick to did not match the strains at the plant.

  Abbott said the plant is due to resume production on June 4, but previously noted it would take six to eight weeks for the products to arrive in stores. The company said it would prioritize supplying its specialty formula EleCare on or about June 20. The formula would be provided to children in need for free.

  

  On Wednesday, Califf had told House lawmakers that Abbott did not have a contingency plan to produce its specialty formulas that serve as the only source of nutrition for thousands of babies with metabolic disorders. He added that the best option was to enter into a consent decree agreement with Abbott, “where we literally have oversight of every single step” of remediation of problems at the facility to get it back to production as soon as possible.

  The FDA eased import restrictions this month by doing away with various labeling requirements. These rules had contributed to about 98 percent of the pre-crisis baby formula supply being produced domestically by just three companies. The Biden administration sees the easing of restrictions as a temporary measure before the normal supply chain stabilizes.

  Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense is airlifting about 1.5 million 8-ounce bottles of baby formula from Europe, as part of the White House’s recently launched initiative “Operation Fly Formula.” The first lots of formula arrived in Indianapolis, Indiana, from Germany on Sunday.

  The Biden administration also invoked the Defense Production Act to help manufacturers obtain ingredients to produce more baby formula.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 21:40

• TSMC And Intel Are In A Mad Dash To Hire Semiconductor Technicians For Their New Plants In Arizona
  TSMC And Intel Are In A Mad Dash To Hire Semiconductor Technicians For Their New Plants In Arizona

  To solve the semiconductor shortage, companies now have to deal with a labor shortage…

  We have extensively covered how major semiconductor companies have been responding to the global chip shortage over the last couple of years. One of the most notable companies to take action has been TSMC, who is in the process of building a $12 billion chip fab in Arizona, not far from where Intel is expanding their campus. 

  TSMC’s project is racing to come online by 2024, but there remains a major obstacle for both companies: securing labor. “Simply finding enough workers to build the facilities has already proved a challenge,” according to a new report from Nikkei. 

  Over 6,000 workers are currently on site trying to get the facility up and running by its targeted 2024 timeline, the report says. While it was tough to find construction workers, finding the skilled technicians necessary to work at a chip plant is proving even tougher. 

  Kweilin Waller, deputy human services director at the Phoenix Business and Workforce Development Board, commented: “You say ‘semiconductor manufacturing’ [to potential recruits], people look at you like you have two heads. It’s just unfamiliar.”

  

  “I think those students that we are trying to recruit to ultimately become employees don’t know what they don’t know. So even before we give consideration to the seven semiconductor manufacturers that they could work with, they need to understand, ‘What is a semiconductor technician?'” added Daniel Barajas, a careers director at the Maricopa County Community Colleges District.

  Intel is trying to tackle the problem by creating a close relationship with The Schools of Engineering at ASU, which have about 27,000 students enrolled. 

  TSMC doesn’t have the history that Intel does with the university to attract such talent as easily.

  Kyle Squires, the school’s dean, said: “Indeed, it’s more of a challenge [for TSMC to attract students]. The informal networking [among students] starts to really grab on.”

  One associate professor at ASU said: “TSMC recruiters have been very heavily present on campus. TSMC is presently negotiating with the university for some extended collaborations, both in research and in workforce development, and broader training programs.”

  TSMC only had plans of hiring in the U.S. before sending employees to train in Taiwan, but now the company is considering hiring directly from Taiwan, the Nikkei report says. “TSMC is focused on hiring employees, including technicians, locally in the U.S. for our Arizona fab,” a spokesperson said. 

  Jennifer Mellor, chief innovation officer at the Greater Phoenix Chamber, concluded: “I think TSMC is really trying to get their name known in the market, and they’re actually doing a really good job of trying to connect with different education partners.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 21:20

• Watch: Biden Education Secretary Says Biological Males Should Be Allowed To Compete In Girls' Sport
  Watch: Biden Education Secretary Says Biological Males Should Be Allowed To Compete In Girls’ Sport

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Joe Biden’s Education Secretary declared Thursday that he believes biological boys should be allowed to compete against girls in sports, and even accused his questioner, GOP Congressman Jim Banks, of wanting to exclude children by discussing their biological gender.

  

  During a Congressional hearing, Banks questioned Cardona on the administration’s attitude toward “gender identity”.

  Banks told Cardona that “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. However, your department is currently pushing a rule to force every school in America to add non binary as a sex characteristic.”

  “How can the Department of Education enforce sex based discrimination when the very definition of sex is so unclear?” Banks asked.

  “We’re not pushing for that. We are allowing states who have different categories to use those different categories of data collection that they’re already collecting,” Cardona claimed.

  “So you’re not waiting for a rule to add non binary?” Banks further asked Cardona.

  “We’re allowing states to report whatever classifications they have in their states,” Cardona responded.

  Banks then moved to probe on the sports issue, asking “do you believe that biological male athletes competing in women’s sports are in conflict with Title IX protections for female athletes?” 

  After failing to properly answer the question, Banks doubled down, asking “Do you think it’s fair for biological boys to compete against girls in sports?”

  Cardona responded “Sir, I see where your questions are going, and I’m going to be very clear with you – our transgender students need to feel supported, included, and seen,” adding “And, your line of questioning is, even by describing it the way you’re doing it, shows me that you don’t believe that all students should have access to the extracurricular activities that schools provide.”

  Banks told Cardona that “somehow, somewhere you and this administration believe that Title IX somehow protects biological boys for competing against girls and sports. You’re okay with that.”

  Watch:

  NEW: Cardona refused to recognize biological sex, said transgenders should be able to compete against girls and said there are “sensitive issues” where children should feel safe at school when asked if schools should be able to hide a child transitioning from their parents pic.twitter.com/PwUtajlcP1

  — Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) May 26, 2022

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

  The Congressman then asked Cardona three times if he agrees “that school districts should keep a child’s involvement in gender transition a secret from their parents?”

  Cardona again did not properly answer the question, instead referring to such situations as “very sensitive.”

  Watch:

  WATCH: Education Secretary @SecCardona refuses to answer a question by @RepJimBanks about whether or not parents should be kept in the dark if their child is undergoing a gender transition at school. pic.twitter.com/kYMCWZd6Qr

  — Jeremiah Poff (@JJ_Poff) May 26, 2022

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

  Before he took up the position of Education Secretary, Cardona made it clear during his Senate confirmation hearing that he supports biological males competing against girls in sports.

  “I think it’s critically important to respect the rights of all students, including students who are transgender, and that they are afforded the opportunities that every other student has to participate in extracurricular actives,” Cardona said at the time under questioning from Senator Rand Paul, who noted that such a development would “completely destroy girls athletics”.

  Paul told Cardona “A lot of us think that that’s bizarre, you know? Not very fair,” adding “I think most people in the country think it’s bizarre. You know? That it’s just completely bizarre and unfair that people, and you’re gonna run the education? You’ve got no problem with it?”

  “I mean, to think it’s okay that boys would compete with girls in a track meet, and that somehow would be fair,” the Kentucky senator continued, positing “I wonder where feminists are on this. I wonder where the people who supported women’s sports are on this.”

  Watch:

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 21:00

• Made In America: Goods Exports By State
  Made In America: Goods Exports By State

  After China, the U.S. is the next largest exporter of goods in the world, shipping out $1.8 trillion worth of goods in 2021 – an increase of 23% over the previous year.

  Of course, as Visual Capitalist’s Raul Amoros and Jennifer West detail below, that massive number doesn’t tell the whole story. The U.S. economy is multifaceted, with varying levels of trade activity taking place all across the nation.

  Using the latest data on international trade from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, we’ve visualized the value of America’s goods exports by state.

  

  Top 10 Exporter States

  Here are the top 10 American states that exported the highest dollar value worth of goods during 2021. Combined, these export-leading states represent 59.4% of the nation’s total exports.

  

  Texas has been the top exporting state in the U.S. for an incredible 20 years in a row.

  Last year, Texas exported $375 billion worth of goods, which is more than California ($175 billion), New York ($85 billion), and Louisiana ($77 billion) combined. The state’s largest manufacturing export category is petroleum and coal products, but it’s also important to mention that Texas led the nation in tech exports for the ninth straight year.

  California was the second highest exporter of goods in 2021 with a total value of $175 billion, an increase of 12% from the previous year. The state’s main export by value was computer and electronic product manufacturing, representing 17.8% of the total U.S. exports of that industry. California was also second among all states in exports of machinery manufacturing, accounting for 13.9% of the U.S. total.

  What Type of Goods are Exported?

  Here is a breakdown of the biggest U.S. export categories by value in 2021.

  

  These top 10 export categories alone represent almost 70% of America’s total exports.

  The biggest grower among this list is mineral fuels, up by 59% from last year. Pharmaceuticals saw the second biggest one-year increase (45%).

  Top 10 U.S. Exports by Country of Destination

  So who is buying “Made in America” products?

  Unsurprisingly, neighboring countries Canada (17.5%) and Mexico (15.8%) are the two biggest buyers of American goods. Together, they purchase one-third of American exports.

  

  Three Asian countries round out the top five list: China (8.6%), Japan (4.3%), and South Korea (3.7%). Together, the top five countries account for around half of all goods exports.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 20:40

• 12 Groups Behind Protest Of Musk’s Twitter Takeover Have Ties With Gates Foundation, Soros
  12 Groups Behind Protest Of Musk’s Twitter Takeover Have Ties With Gates Foundation, Soros

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

  A dozen liberal groups that pressured Twitter advertisers to boycott the platform in response to Elon Musk’s plans to acquire it received money from entities backed by Bill Gates and George Soros, an analysis of public filings shows.

  

  In early May, a group of 26 organizations penned a public letter claiming that the Tesla CEO’s takeover of Twitter would “be a direct threat to public safety” and turn the platform into “a cesspool of misinformation.” The letter called for Twitter’s top advertisers to “hold [Musk] to account” by committing to “non-negotiable” standards for doing business with the site, one of which is to not restore the accounts of political and public figures banned for “egregious violations of Twitter Rules.” The letter contained the logos of Accountable Tech, Media Matters for America, and UltraViolet Action.

  An analysis of the public filings and records shows that at least 11 of the letter’s signatories or their affiliated groups have taken money from organizations funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. One of the three groups leading the letter has received over $1 million from billionaire financer George Soros’s grant-making network Open Society Foundations, while the two others were founded in part by former staffers for Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

  Eight signatories also collected roughly $10.25 million in federal grants and loans between 2020 and 2021, public records show.

  The New Venture Fund, the recipient of more than $500 million in grants from the Gates Foundation since 2012, in 2020 gave $180,000 in total to two signees, Media Matters for America and Center for Media Justice. Another $11.2 million of the New Venture Fund’s 2020 grant money went to North Fund, a shadowy progressive nonprofit based in Washington that funnels money to a number of other activist groups, including Accountable Tech, which published the letter.

  Accountable Tech’s website shows that two members on its team—its co-founder and digital director—worked for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

  Founded in 2004, Media Matters for America describes itself as a “progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” A key function of the organization is to provide tools for monitoring what it considers to be “conservative misinformation,” which it defines to be “news or commentary that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda.”

  The Center for Media Justice, which in 2019 was rebranded to MediaJustice, aims to promote “racial, economic, and gender justice in a digital age,” its website states.

  

  Tides Foundation, a Gates Foundation grantee since at least 2013, has handed over $2.34 million to eight of the signatories or their affiliates over a three year-period since 2019.

  Among the recipients is Indivisible Project and its nonprofit charitable arm Indivisible Civics that work to “defeat the Trump agenda,” of which the signatory Indivisible Northern Nevada is a local chapter.

  The other seven signatories that received money from Tides Foundation in the past three years are: women’s advocacy group UltraViolet Action; environmentalist groups Union of Concerned Scientists and Friends of the Earth; pro-abortion association NARAL Pro-Choice America; Black Lives Matter South Bend, a local chapter of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation; GLAAD, which monitors media portrayal of LGBTQ groups; and Media Matters Action Network, a partner project of Media Matters for America.

  UltraViolet Action’s board chair and board member Karen Finney was the Democratic National Committee’s first African American spokeswoman and had served as the senior spokesperson for Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to the group’s website. Another board chair, Arisha Hatch, was an organizer for then-candidate Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

  Access Now, which focuses on internet accessibility around the world, in 2021 received funds totalling $1.35 million from the Open Society Foundations that Soros founded and chairs, along with grants from Wikimedia Foundation, Microsoft, governments in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the Netherlands.

  Beginning in 2017, the Open Society Foundation has also awarded three grants with a combined value of 1.625 million to Free Press, a pro-net neutrality group that also signed on to the letter.

  The Microsoft founder last month admitted to having taken a $500 million short position on Tesla shares, according to a leaked text message string between Gates and Musk said that the latter said was authentic.

  

  Musk had reacted to the boycott letter by calling for an investigation of the signatories’ funders.

  “Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” he wrote on Twitter on May 3, adding: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

  He later made note of a report that some signatories received funding from Soros and European governments. “Interesting. I wonder if those funding these organizations are fully aware of what the organizations are doing,” he wrote.

  Twitter in recent years has drawn criticism for censoring and suspending conservative users. Among its list of banned public figures are former President Donald Trump, Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, COVID-19 vaccine critic Dr. Robert Malone, and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

  Musk has called Twitter’s ban of Trump’s account in early 2021 “flat-out stupid.” He said he would reverse the move if he becomes the platform’s new owner.

  At a recent Miami tech conference, Musk also said he would be voting Republican after having “voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.” He described the $44 billion deal as “not some right-wing takeover,” but instead a “moderate take over and an attempt to ensure that people of all political beliefs feel welcome on a digital town square and they can express their beliefs without fear of being banned or shadowbanned.”

  The Gates Foundation connections were first reported by Breitbart. The Epoch Times has reached out to all the named organizations.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 20:20

• Helium Shortage Leaves Dollar Tree And Party City's Balloons Deflated 
  Helium Shortage Leaves Dollar Tree And Party City’s Balloons Deflated 

  Retailers from Dollar Tree to Party City are warning about a helium shortage. There’s even a shortage of the gas, produced when Uranium decays, to fill weather balloons for the National Weather Service (NWS). 

  The US, Qatar, and Algeria are the world’s top helium producers. Due to supply chain disruptions, including production plant closures and the 2017 embargo on Qatar, supplies have tightened.

  Dollar Tree officials warned Thursday that “once again” a helium shortage will impact balloon sales in a quarterly earnings call. 

  “Currently, helium demand is greater than supply, so our stores are finding themselves temporarily out of helium from time to time as they wait for new deliveries. We know this can be tricky when getting ready for a party, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience,” Dollar Tree said in a statement on its website. 

  Earlier this month, Party City CEO Brad Weston told investors on a quarterly earnings call about the shortage of the odorless gas. 

  The shortage has impacted NWS’ ability to launch weather balloons because of its inability to source the gas. Several NWS sites across the country used for weather forecasting have had to limit daily ballon launches because of a contract dispute with a helium supplier. 

  Increasing search trends for “helium shortage” implies that impacts are worsening, or more people are becoming aware of the shortage. 

  

  The shortage has even ended a six-decade tradition at the University of Nebraska, where fans at Huskers football games will no longer release balloons into the sky this fall because of what University of Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts says, “acquiring helium in today’s day and age, given some of the production of it is really challenged and it’s been hard to get.” 

  The world isn’t running out of helium. There’s just an imbalance in the market of too much demand and not enough supply. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 20:00

• State Department Approves $2.6 Billion Helicopter Deal For Egypt
  State Department Approves $2.6 Billion Helicopter Deal For Egypt

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  On Thursday, the Pentagon said the State Department approved a potential sale of CH-47F Chinook helicopters and related equipment to Egypt worth about $2.6 billion.

  The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the sale is for 56 Chinooks, which come with installed M-240 machine guns. The principal contractor for the deal is Boeing.

  

  The Chinook sale is the second arms deal the Biden administration moved forward for Egypt this month. Last week, the State Department approved the sale of over 5,000 TOW 2A anti-tank missiles worth an estimated $691 million.

  The sales to Egypt come despite concerns in Washington over Cairo’s human rights abuses and its harsh treatment of political prisoners. Egypt receives about $1.3 billion in military aid from the US each year, the second-highest of any country except for Israel, although Ukraine has surpassed both nations for 2022.

  Last year, the Biden administration withheld $130 million in military aid from Egypt after pressure from Congress, but many critics said it didn’t go far enough.

  As a candidate, President Biden vowed to take a harder line on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, but the arms sales continued.

  US StateDept. authorizes a proposed Foreign Military Sales for Egypt to purchase up to 23 CH-47F Chinook helicopters and related equipment for an estimated cost of $2.6 billion.
  Already 19 CH-47D in service in EAFhttps://t.co/KgTUubu3k3 pic.twitter.com/KQVlpxwsuV

  — Harry Boone (@Harry_Boone) May 26, 2022

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

  The State Department’s approval of the Chinook deal begins a period where it could potentially be blocked by Congress.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 19:40

• Bankrupt Sri Lanka Takes Russian Crude As Fuel Crisis Depletes Stocks, Mulls Loan From China
  Bankrupt Sri Lanka Takes Russian Crude As Fuel Crisis Depletes Stocks, Mulls Loan From China

  A foreign exchange shortage has resulted in the worst financial crisis Sri Lanka has ever endured, with shortages of everything from food to crude. Fuel supplies are down to just days, food has run out at supermarkets, and social-economic chaos has unfolded across the island country in South Asia.

  However, there’s short-term hope, and somehow the bankrupt country found enough money to pay for a shipment of Russian crude. 

  Bloomberg said Ceylon Petroleum Corp., the country’s only refinery, is set to take shipment of Russian grade Siberian Light on May 28. It will be the first time the refinery has processed crude to produce high-value products such as gasoline and diesel in two months. 

  Fuel supplies on the island nation are so low that the government has told citizens to stop waiting in long lines at filling stations. The government has run out of foreign reserves to pay for essential imports.

  Last week, newly-appointed prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said his government needed $75 million for critical imports such as crude. 

  “At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day. The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives.

  “We must prepare ourselves to make some sacrifices and face the challenges of this period,” Wickremesinghe said. 

  Sapugaskanda Refinery will commence operations for first time since March 20th with a Crude Oil cargo unloading tomo. The refinery will start producing Fuel Oil in 6 days. Stocks on 26 May –
  Diesel 23022 MT, Sup Diesel 2588 MT, 92 Pet 39968 MT, 95 Pet 7112 MT and JETA1 3578 MT

  — Kanchana Wijesekera (@kanchana_wij) May 26, 2022

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

  Ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows the Nissos Delos tanker carrying Siberian Light has moved towards a mooring point where it can begin discharge operations. The vessel loaded up on March 29 at Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea in southern Russia. 

  

  Bloomberg wasn’t exactly sure how Sri Lanka paid for the Russian crude, considering it owes more than $50bn in overseas debt. It’s seeking a $4bn loan from the IMF and has asked China to renegotiate at least $3.5bn in debt.

  China recently offered a few hundred million dollars in lending to help alleviate a shortage of essential goods.

  “It’s quite substantial. It would be a few hundred million dollars,” Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was appointed Sri Lanka’s prime minister this month, told the Financial Times in an interview. 

  “It’ll still help us get hold of essential consumer items, fertilizers. . . the ministry of finance is having discussions on some of the items.”

  Perhaps, that’s how Sri Lanka will pay for the Russian crude.  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 19:20

• Gun Control Advocacy Group Plans Nationwide Protests After Texas School Shooting
  Gun Control Advocacy Group Plans Nationwide Protests After Texas School Shooting

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A student-led gun control advocacy group is planning nationwide protests in the wake of the Texas elementary school shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children this week.

  

  According to its website, March for Our Lives is planning to take to the streets of Washington, D.C. on June 11. The group also has several other marches planned in various parts of the country spanning from San Francisco and Michigan to South Carolina, on a number of dates.

  There will also be a protest at the convention center where the National Rifle Association (NRA) is hosting a conference in Houston, Texas on May 27. The convention center is roughly 300 miles from the scene of the deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.

  Organizers are also calling on activists to join them at Capitol Hill from June 7 to 10 where they will be discussing a push for universal background checks on gun purchasers with lawmakers.

  A bill requiring them, titled the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, or H.R. 8, passed the House in March 2021 but the Republican-controlled Senate has not taken it up.

  “Our message and ask is simple: no longer will we be held hostage by our lawmakers and no longer will we tolerate feeling unsafe in our communities,” the group wrote on the website.

  “Regardless of what party you stand for, if you do not support lifesaving measures like universal background checks, we will pledge to vote against you this fall and in future elections. ”

  March for Our Lives was founded in 2018 following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during which a gunman killed 17 people.

  The group organized one of the largest protests against gun violence in U.S. history.

  March for Our Lives says it believes gun violence across the country is the result of gun glorification, political apathy, poverty, armed supremacy, and a nationwide mental health crisis.

  The group proposes proactively addressing these issues while banning assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and other weapons; and holding the gun industry and lobbyists more accountable. It also advocates policies to disarm gun owners who pose a harm risk, and a national gun buy-back program to reduce the estimated 265–393 million firearms in circulation by at least 30 percent.

  “President [Joe] Biden and all our elected officials must act with a fierce urgency to call this crisis what it is: a national public health emergency,” the group states on its website.

  Biden condemned gun laws in America in a White House address on Wednesday following the Texas school shooting, while advocating for limitations on constitutionally protected gun rights and for lawmakers to “stand up to a very powerful” gun lobby.

  “When in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to, if not completely stop, fundamentally change the amount of the carnage that goes on in this country?” Biden said.

  “While they clearly will not prevent every tragedy, we know certain ones will have a significant impact and have no negative impact on the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is not absolute,” he added. “When it was passed, you couldn’t own … a cannon, you couldn’t own certain kinds of weapons.”

  Salvador Ramos, 18, allegedly shot his grandmother on May 24 before driving toward Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and opening fire on the campus, killing 19 children and two adults.

  The gunman was shot and killed by law enforcement officers.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 19:00

• US, Taiwan Push Forward On Economic Talks Amid China Denunciations
  US, Taiwan Push Forward On Economic Talks Amid China Denunciations

  “Taiwan is part of China,” Chinese military spokesman Col. Shi Yi asserted in response to President Biden’s start of the week remarks pledging US defense for Ukraine in the event of an invasion (comments walked back by the White House). “The theater troops are determined and capable of thwarting any external forces’ interference and separatist attempts to ‘Taiwan independence’, and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and security and regional peace and stability,” he had underscored, speaking of snap PLA live fire drills near the island this week.

  “This is a solemn warning to the recent US-Taiwan collusion activities. It is hypocritical and futile for the US to say one thing and do another on the Taiwan issue, and frequently encourage the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” Yi said.

  A senior Taiwanese official also informed CNN that the country plans to send a delegation to the SelectUSA Summit in June, a meeting to promote foreign investment in the U.S. arranged by the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.

  The U.S. and Taiwan are especially interested in cooperation in sectors related to supply chain resilience and sustainable development.

  A Friday statement from US Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s office suggests the June meeting is indeed in motion: “Ambassador Tai and Minister Deng directed their teams to explore concrete ways to deepen the US-Taiwan trade and investment relationship and to meet again in the coming weeks to discuss the path forward,” it said.

  Beijing has frequently denounced efforts at deepened diplomatic and economic ties, calling the latest trip last month of a group of US lawmakers “deliberately provocative” which has “led to further escalation of tension in the Taiwan Strait.”

  Meanwhile, in a major policy speech given by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday in D.C., the top diplomat charged that it’s Beijing which has engaged in “increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity” threatening the democratic island.

  He stressed in words which China is without doubt going to see as provocative that the Biden administration is working to “shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open and inclusive international system.”

  Suggesting what’s no doubt a top US trade priority and supply chain issue when it comes to Taiwan, a group delegation led by Sen. Menendez last month stated the following: “With Taiwan producing 90 percent of the world’s high-end semiconductor products, it is a country of global significance, consequence and impact, and therefore it should be understood the security of Taiwan has a global impact.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 18:40

• Shouldn't Hillary Clinton Be Banned From Twitter Now?
  Shouldn’t Hillary Clinton Be Banned From Twitter Now?

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News Substack,

  Trial testimony reveals Hillary Clinton personally approved serious election misinformation. Is there an anti-Trump exception to content moderation?

  Last week, in the trial of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis asked ex-campaign manager Robby Mook about the decision to share with a reporter a bogus story about Donald Trump and Russia’s Alfa Bank. Mook answered by giving up his onetime boss. “I discussed it with Hillary,” he said, describing his pitch to the candidate: “Hey, you know, we have this, and we want to share it with a reporter… She agreed to that.”

  In a country with a functioning media system, this would have been a huge story. Obviously this isn’t Watergate, Hillary Clinton was never president, and Sussmann’s trial doesn’t equate to prosecutions of people like Chuck Colson or Gordon Liddy. But as we’ve slowly been learning for years, a massive fraud was perpetrated on the public with Russiagate, and Mook’s testimony added a substantial piece of the picture, implicating one of the country’s most prominent politicians in one of the more ambitious disinformation campaigns we’ve seen.

  There are two reasons the Clinton story isn’t a bigger one in the public consciousness.

  One is admitting the enormity of what took place would require system-wide admissions by the FBI, the CIA, and, as Matt Orfalea’s damning video above shows, virtually every major news media organization in America.

  More importantly, there’s no term for the offense Democrats committed in 2016, though it was similar to Watergate. Instead of a “third-rate burglary” and a bug, Democrats sent schlock research to the FBI, who in turn lied to the secret FISA court and obtained “legal” surveillance authority over former Trump aide Carter Page (which opened doors to searches of everyone connected to Page). Worse, instead of petty “ratfucking” like Donald Segretti’s “Canuck letter,” the Clinton campaign created and fueled a successful, years-long campaign of official harassment and media fraud. They innovated an extraordinary trick, using government connections and press to generate real criminal and counterintelligence investigations of political enemies, mostly all based on what we now know to be self-generated nonsense.

  The Clintons, and especially Hillary, have been baselessly accused of all sorts of things in the past, the murder of Vince Foster being just one example. The “vast right-wing conspiracy” was so successful that the Clintons ended up aligning with and helping fund its chief architect, David Brock, ahead of the 2016 cycle. Along with Perkins Coie and the research agency Fusion-GPS, headed by former Wall Street Journal reporter and current self-admiring sleaze-merchant Glenn Simpson, they engineered three long years of phony “collusion” headlines. No matter what papers like the Washington Post try to argue this week, this was an enormous scandal.

  The world has mostly moved on, since Russiagate was thirty or forty “current things” ago, but the public prosecution of the collusion theory was a daily preoccupation of national media for years. A substantial portion of the population believed the accusations, and expected the story would end with Donald Trump in jail or at least indicted, scrolling for a thousand straight days in desperate expectation of the promised justice. Trump was bounced from Twitter for incitement, but Twitter has a policy against misinformation as well. It includes a prohibition against “misleading” media that is “likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues.”

  I’m not a fan of throwing people off Twitter, but how can knowingly launching thousands of bogus news stories across a period of years, leading millions of people to believe lies and expect news that never arrived, not qualify as causing “widespread confusion on public issues”?

  …

  Keep reading with a 7-day free trial… Subscribe to TK News by Matt Taibbi to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives…

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 18:20

• Wall Street's Most Bearish Analyst Points To Biggest Equity Inflow In 10 Weeks, Remains Bearish: "Fade Rallies"
  Wall Street’s Most Bearish Analyst Points To Biggest Equity Inflow In 10 Weeks, Remains Bearish: “Fade Rallies”

  One week ago, after 7 consecutive weeks of declines for the S&P (and a record 8 weeks for the Dow), One River CIO Eric Peters said that “If We Can’t Bounce After Being Down 7 Weeks In A Row, Something Is Seriously Wrong.“ It was also around that time that BofA’s in house doom and gloomer, Michael Hartnett, issued his latest warning that his new “bull case” for the market is 3,600 and while he would “sell-any-rips”, he warned that “the tape remains very vulnerable to a bear market rally,” a vulnerability which only increased as the bank’s Bull and Bear market indicator swung further into panic territory dropping from 1.5 to 0.6, the lowest level since March 2020.

  

  Well, fast forward to today when we have finally bounce, and yes, the bear market rally finally appeared…

  BofA Bull and Bear Indicator hits 0.6, one of the lowest prints on record.

  Unless the Fed quietly launches a nuke at the US, a big bear market rally is coming pic.twitter.com/aXoJOgrbqh

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 27, 2022

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  … and after briefly dipping into a bear market one week ago, the S&P exploded 6.6% higher this week, its best weekly advance since Nov 2020.

  While this is hardly the end of the bear market, which we expect to resume in earnest shortly. it was enough to give Hartnett a break from his usual weekly fire and brimstone sermon, and instead his latest Flow Show was titled simply enough “It’s Back On” (full note is available to professional subs).

  Picking up where he left off last week, Hartnett writes that the summer rally bandwagon is growing: the number of bears is soaring (see the abovementioned plunge in the BofA Bull & Bear Indicator) add growing speculation of both “peak” inflation and Fed “pause”, and mix in the most oversold stocks relative to 200dma, and you get tradable bounce dynamite.

  Not that this was exactly surprising to investors who clearly were aware of what is coming and as Hartnett notes, citing the latest EPFT data, this week saw $20.6BN in cash piled into to equities, the most in 10 weeks, as well as $0.8bn into gold, 28.2BN to cash, funded by another $5.8BN pulled from bonds.

  

  Some more details from Goldman: net flows into global equity funds turned positive in the week ending May 25n (+$21bn vs -$5bn the prior week), following net outflows over the prior six weeks. The turn reflected greater net purchases for the US market, primarily due to a spike in ETF inflows (although mutual fund flows were also less negative).

  

  Not that this week was some kind of “all clear” – as Goldman notes, net outflows continued for most other markets, mostly at a steady or slightly reduced pace; although mainland China equities saw net inflows on the week.

  

  By sector, the largest net inflows (scaled by AUM) were into telecom, consumer goods, and infrastructure; the largest net outflows were from industrials.

  Some more detailed flow details from BofA, which also highlights the 5th week of outflow from tech ($1.0bn),

  

  8th week outflow from financials ($1.2bn);

  

   Outflows from IG + HY + EM debt continue ($8.3bn);

  Largest 4-week outflow from bank loans since Apr’20 ($0.6bn);

  

  Finally, last week also saw the largest inflow consumer stocks since Dec’21 ($1.2bn).

  In credit, flows into global fixed income funds were negative for the 19th week out of the last 20 (-$7bn vs -$14bn the prior week). Outflows from HY credit products and EM fixed income slowed but remained negative; inflows into government-only funds continued. Money market fund assets increased by $28bn.

  

  So after this week’s ramp has Hartnett’s infamous pessimism eased? Not one bit.

  First, the strategist shows a chart of rolling equity vs commodity returns and notes that “secular 10-year returns from commodities are on the rise (latest 0.7% +ve for 1st time since Nov’14), while those from stocks are peaking (13.7%, down from 16.6% in Sep’21), and those from bonds are already falling (2.7%, lowest since Oct’81).

  

  Next, as he explains when looking at the “tale of the tape”, we saw sneaky new highs in oil (which tarnishes the “peak inflation” argument), crypto continues to see a very limited bid (low speculative animal spirits), but MOVE (Treasury volatility) is off its highs (it served as the epicenter of the risk-off), with biotech trying to hold 2018, 2020 lows (XBI $65) to confirm “peak yields”, and best of all, the IG & HY spread widening halted at 2018 highs, which even Hartnett has to admit is positive for risk…

  

  … but not positive enough for the BofA strategist to say BTFD and instead he concludes that “we fade rallies (e.g. SPX >4200)… but not in rush.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 17:57

• "We Could See A Million Layoffs Or More" – Here Comes The Job Market Shock
  “We Could See A Million Layoffs Or More” – Here Comes The Job Market Shock

  Last weekend we showed something remarkable (or delightful, if one is a stock bull): with the US economy on the verge of recession, with inflation topping, with the housing market about to crack, the last pillar holding up the US economy (and preventing the Fed from continuing its tightening plans beyond the summer), the job market, had just hit a brick wall as revealed by real-time indicators – such as Revello’s measure of total job postings – which plunged by 22.5%, the biggest change on record (we also listed several other labor market metrics confirming that the job market was about to crater).

  

  Fast forward to today when one day after we found that initial jobless claims continue to rise after hitting a generational low in March, and as company after company is warning that it will freeze hiring amid a historic profit margin crunch – if not announce outright layoff plans – Piper Sandler has compiled all the recent company mass layoff announcements. They are, in a word, startling.

  

  Commenting on the surge in layoffs, Piper Sandler’s chief economist Nancy Lazar says that “post-covid rightsizing means that lots more layoffs are coming” and adds that “many companies overhired and overpaid during the Covid crisis.” Lazar also points out the obvious, that “the stay-at-home bubble was a bubble, and not a “new paradigm” of goods consumption” which means that “a right-sizing cycle is coming, with weaker growth in jobs and wages.”

  Here are the stunning implications according to Piper Sandler:

  • We could see a million layoffs or more, as many goods sectors that benefited from the pandemic now realize they added too much capacity (as involuntary admissions make clear).
  • Low-income workers – who enjoyed the hottest wage gains during the crisis – are now most at risk of layoffs, with remaining job holders to see much slower wage growth.
  • Payrolls gains are poised to downshift to just 100k/month on average in the second half of the year, from about 515k/month through April.

  While the above implications are startling for the US economy as a whole, they are especially bad for America’s poorest quintile which, according to Morgan Stanley calculations, now have less “excess cash” than they did pre-covid. In other words, the poorest 20% income quintile is now poorer than it was before Biden’s massive stimmy bonanza. And with every passing month, more quintile will get dragged underneath.

  

  Of course, the US labor market doesn’t need to go into all-out cardiac arrest – a sharp drop in wage growth should do it. And sure enough, according to a Bloomberg report today, after handing out hefty salary increases over the past year, companies are now becoming more cautious with their cash over concern further big payouts will eat into profits, according to staffing companies, business owners and recent surveys.

  “We’ve reached a level of wage inflation where employers are going to say, ‘I’ve done as much as I can,’” said Jonas Prising, chief executive officer of ManpowerGroup Inc., the Milwaukee-based staffing company that serves more than 100,000 clients worldwide. “‘My consumers and customers aren’t going to accept me passing these costs on any further, so we need to start to mitigate them.’”

  Burning Glass Institute Chief Economist Gad Levanon said the US is transitioning from a pandemic-driven job market — where many Americans weren’t actively seeking work due to fears of the virus and related issues — to one that is more traditionally tight because unemployment is low.  “Every company still needs people but they don’t need hundreds of people,” said Tom Gimbel, chief executive officer of Chicago-based employment agency LaSalle Network. “They’re being choosier about who they’re hiring than they were six months ago.”

  Beveridge Well Drilling Inc. is among those feeling the pinch. The Nebraska-based company is offering an hourly wage of $16.50 for manual labor, up from $12 about a year ago. But even with “100%” health care benefits and other generous perks, it can’t fill all the open slots, vice president of construction Brandon Jones said.

  And while the firm could bump up its offers to about $18 an hour, that’s “about as high as we feel we can do” against the backdrop of rising fuel and supply costs, Jones said.

  All of which begs the question: yes, Biden may be terrified about soaring inflation….

  Biden about to find out what polls worse: recession and bear market or runaway inflation.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 20, 2022

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  … but how long will he tolerate an economy (and how long will an economic tolerate him) where millions are not only about to see their wages “revert back to normal” if they are lucky, while many other millions are about to lose their jobs.

  As for the Fed, well with the Citi US Eco surprise index already crashing…

  

  … one can only imagine where it will go not if but when we get a negative payrolls print in one of the coming months, and what that will do to the Fed’s hiking plans.

  Full notes available to professional subs in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/27/2022 – 17:55

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