Today’s News 29th April 2023

• Escobar: De-Dollarization Kicks Into High Gear
  Escobar: De-Dollarization Kicks Into High Gear

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

  The US dollar is essential to US global power projection. But in 2022, the dollar share of reserve currencies slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades…

  

  It is now established that the US dollar’s status as a global reserve currency is eroding. When corporate western media begins to attack the multipolar world’s de-dollarization narrative in earnest, you know the panic in Washington has fully set in.

  The numbers: the dollar share of global reserves was 73 percent in 2001, 55 percent in 2021, and 47 percent in 2022. The key takeaway is that last year, the dollar share slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades.

  Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024, coinciding with the next US presidential election.

  The defining moment – the actual trigger leading to the Fall of the Hegemon – was in February 2022, when over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves were “frozen” by the collective west, and every other country on the planet began fearing for their own dollar stores abroad. There was some comic relief in this absurd move, though: the EU “can’t find” most of it.

  Now cue to some current essential developments on the trading front.

  Over 70 percent of trade deals between Russia and China now use either the ruble or the yuan, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

  Russia and India are trading oil in rupees. Less than four weeks ago, Banco Bocom BBM became the first Latin American bank to sign up as a direct participant of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which is the Chinese alternative to the western-led financial messaging system, SWIFT.

  China’s CNOOC and France’s Total signed their first LNG trade in yuan via the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.

  The deal between Russia and Bangladesh for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear plant will also bypass the US dollar. The first $300 million payment will be in yuan, but Russia will try to switch the next ones to rubles.

  Russia and Bolivia’s bilateral trade now accepts settlements in Boliviano. That’s extremely pertinent, considering Rosatom’s drive to be a crucial part of the development of lithium deposits in Bolivia.

  Notably, many of those trades involve BRICS countries – and beyond. At least 19 nations have already requested to join BRICS+, the extended version of the 21st century’s major multipolar institution, whose founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, then South Africa. The foreign ministers of the original five will start discussing the modalities of accession for new members in an upcoming June summit in Capetown.

  BRICS, as it stands, is already more relevant to the global economy than the G7. The latest IMF figures reveal that the existing five BRICS nations will contribute 32.1 percent to global growth, compared to the G7’s 29.9 percent.

  With Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Mexico as possible new members, it is clear that key Global South players are starting to focus on the quintessential multilateral institution capable of smashing Western hegemony.

  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) are working in total sync as Moscow’s partnership with Riyadh in OPEC+ metastasizes into BRICS+, in parallel to the deepening Russia-Iran strategic partnership.

  MbS has willfully steered Saudi Arabia toward Eurasia’s new power trio Russia-Iran-China (RIC), away from the US. The new game in West Asia is the incoming BRIICSS – featuring, remarkably, both Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose historic reconciliation was brokered by yet another BRICS heavyweight, China.

  Importantly, the evolving Iran-Saudi rapprochement also implies a much closer relationship between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a whole and the Russia-China strategic partnership.

  This will translate into complementary roles – in terms of trade connectivity and payment systems – for the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), linking Russia-Iran-India, and the China-Central-Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor, a key plank of Beijing’s ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

  Today, only Brazil, with its President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva caged by the Americans and an erratic foreign policy, runs the risk of being relegated by the BRICS to the status of a secondary player.

  Beyond BRIICSS

  The de-dollarization train has been propelled to high-speed status by the accumulated effects of Covid-linked supply chain chaos and collective western sanctions on Russia.

  The essential point is this: The BRICS have the commodities, and the G7 controls finance. The latter can’t grow commodities, but the former can create currencies – especially when their value is linked to tangibles like gold, oil, minerals, and other natural resources.

  Arguably the key swing factor is that pricing for oil and gold is already shifting to Russia, China, and West Asia.

  In consequence, demand for dollar-denominated bonds is slowly but surely collapsing. Trillions of US dollars will inevitably start to go back home – shattering the dollar’s purchasing power and its exchange rate.

  The fall of a weaponized currency will end up smashing the whole logic behind the US’ global network of 800+ military bases and their operating budgets.

  Since mid-March, in Moscow, during the Economic Forum of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSI) – one of the key inter-government organizations in Eurasia formed after the fall of the USSR – further integration is being actively discussed between the CSI, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS.

  Eurasian organizations coordinating the counterpunch to the current western-led system, which tramples on international law, was not by accident one of the key themes of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s speech at the UN earlier this week. It is also no accident that four member-states of the CIS – Russia and three Central Asian “stans” – founded the SCO along with China in June 2001.

  The Davos/Great Reset globalist combo, for all practical purposes, declared war on oil immediately after the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. They threatened OPEC+ to isolate Russia – or else, but failed humiliatingly. OPEC+, effectively run by Moscow-Riyadh, now rules the global oil market.

  Western elites are in a panic. Especially after Lula’s bombshell on Chinese soil during his visit with Xi Jinping, when he called on the whole Global South to replace the US dollar with their own currencies in international trade.

  Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), recently told the New York-based Council of Foreign Relations – the heart of the US establishment matrix – that “geopolitical tensions between the US and China could raise inflation by 5 percent and threaten the dominance of the dollar and euro.”

  The monolithic spin across western mainstream media is that BRICS economies trading normally with Russia “creates new problems for the rest of the world.” That’s utter nonsense: it only creates problems for the dollar and the euro.

  The collective west is reaching Desperation Row – now timed with the astonishing announcement of a Biden-Harris US presidential ticket running again in 2024. This means that the US administration’s neo-con handlers will double down on their plan to unleash an industrial war against both Russia and China by 2025.

  The petroyuan cometh

  And that brings us back to de-dollarization and what will replace the hegemonic reserve currency of the world. Today, the GCC represents more than 25 percent of global oil exports (Saudi Arabia stands at 17 percent). More than 25 percent of China’s oil imports come from Riyadh. And China, predictably, is the GCC’s top trading partner.

  The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange went into business in March 2018. Any oil producer, from anywhere, can sell in Shanghai in yuan today. This means that the balance of power in the oil markets is already shifting from the US dollar to the yuan.

  The catch is that most oil producers prefer not to keep large stashes of yuan; after all, everyone is still used to the petrodollar. Cue to Beijing linking crude futures in Shanghai to converting yuan into gold. And all that without touching China’s massive gold reserves.

  This simple process happens via gold exchanges set up in Shanghai and Hong Kong. And not by accident, it lies at the heart of a new currency to bypass the dollar being discussed by the EAEU.

  Dumping the dollar already has a mechanism: making full use of the Shanghai Energy Exchange’s future oil contracts in yuan. That’s the preferred path for the end of the petrodollar.

  US global power projection is fundamentally based on controlling the global currency. Economic control underlies the Pentagon’s ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ doctrine. Yet now, even military projection is in shambles, with Russia maintaining an unreachable advance on hypersonic missiles and Russia-China-Iran able to deploy an array of carrier-killers.

  The Hegemon – clinging to a toxic cocktail of neoliberalism, sanction dementia, and widespread threats – is bleeding from within. De-dollarization is an inevitable response to system collapse. In a Sun Tzu 2.0 environment, it is no wonder the Russia-China strategic partnership exhibits no intention of interrupting the enemy when he is so busy defeating himself.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 23:40

• How Smart Is ChatGPT?
  How Smart Is ChatGPT?

  ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI, has become incredibly popular over the past year due to its ability to generate human-like responses in a wide range of circumstances.

  In fact, ChatGPT has become so competent, that students are now using it to help them with their homework. This has prompted several U.S. school districts to block devices from accessing the model while on their networks.

  So, how smart is ChatGPT?

  In a technical report released on March 27, 2023, OpenAI provided a comprehensive brief on its most recent model, known as GPT-4. Included in this report were a set of exam results, which Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Rosey Eason visualized in the graphic above.

  

  GPT-4 vs. GPT-3.5

  To benchmark the capabilities of ChatGPT, OpenAI simulated test runs of various professional and academic exams. This includes SATs, the bar examination, and various advanced placement (AP) finals.

  Performance was measured in percentiles, which were based on the most recently available score distributions for test takers of each exam type.

  Percentile scoring is a way of ranking one’s performance relative to the performance of others. For instance, if you placed in the 60th percentile on a test, this means that you scored higher than 60% of test-takers.

  The following table lists the results that we visualized in the graphic.

  

  The scores reported above are for GPT-4 with visual inputs enabled. Please see OpenAI’s technical report for more comprehensive results.

  As we can see, GPT-4 (released in March 2023) is much more capable than GPT-3.5 (released March 2022) in the majority of these exams. It was, however, unable to improve in AP English and in competitive programming.

  Regarding AP English (and other exams where written responses were required), ChatGPT’s submissions were graded by “1-2 qualified third-party contractors with relevant work experience grading those essays”. While ChatGPT is certainly capable of producing adequate essays, it may have struggled to comprehend the exam’s prompts.

  For competitive programming, GPT attempted 10 Codeforces contests 100 times each. Codeforces hosts competitive programming contests where participants must solve complex problems. GPT-4’s average Codeforces rating is 392 (below the 5th percentile), while its highest on a single contest was around 1,300. Referencing the Codeforces ratings page, the top-scoring user is jiangly from China with a rating of 3,841.

  What’s Changed With GPT-4?

  Here are some areas where GPT-4 has improved the user experience over GPT-3.5.

  Internet Access and Plugins

  A limiting factor with GPT-3.5 was that it didn’t have access to the internet and was only trained on data up to June 2021.

  With GPT-4, users will have access to various plugins that empower ChatGPT to access the internet, provide more up to date responses, and complete a wider range of tasks. This includes third-party plugins from services such as Expedia which will enable ChatGPT to book an entire vacation for you.

  Visual Inputs

  While GPT-3.5 could only accept text inputs, GPT-4 has the ability to also analyze images. Users will be able to ask ChatGPT to describe a photo, analyze a chart, or even explain a meme.

  Greater Context Length

  Lastly, GPT-4 is able to handle much larger amounts of text and keep conversations going for longer. For reference, GPT-3.5 had a max request value of 4,096 tokens, which is equivalent to roughly 3,000 words. GPT-4 has two variants, one with 8,192 tokens (6,000 words) and another with 32,768 tokens (24,000 words).

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 23:20

• We Should Really Be Having More Kids
  We Should Really Be Having More Kids

  Submitted by Jack Raines via Young Money,

  In 27 BC, Caesar Augustus was crowned the first Roman emperor. Widely considered one of Rome’s greatest leaders, Augustus’s reign marked the beginning of the 200-year Pax Romana.

  One reason that the Roman Empire flourished during this time was its first-class transportation and sewage infrastructure that supported densely-populated cities, with Rome itself boasting an estimated one million residents at its peak.

  However, these population centers were also susceptible to epidemics, disease, and lead poisoning (lead was commonly used in pipes, eating utensils, and even food and drinks), yielding high infant mortality rates and low life expectancies (maximum ~33 years).

  

  Low life expectancy + expansive territories meant that the Roman Empire needed high birth rates to maintain enough soldiers to defend its borders, and Rome struggled to keep its birth rates above the population replacement rate. This issue was so important that Augustus offered tax breaks for large families and cracked down on abortion and adultery because he believed that “too many men spent their energy with prostitutes and concubines and had nothing for their wives, causing population declines.”

  But government efforts never succeeded in meaningfully increasing birth rates.

  At the conclusion of the Pax Romana, low birth rates, combined with plague and war, wreaked havoc on Rome’s population, and the power structure of the empire shifted to the newer Constantinople. Rome never recovered, with the city’s population dwindling from a peak of 1,000,000 residents in the late second century to ~30,000 by 600 AD.

  We humans draw parallels and analogies across time and space because they help us better understand the world around us, and no two Western civilizations have attracted more comparisons than the Roman Empire and the United States of America.

  Both nations experienced explosions of wealth and eras of unprecedented peace, both nations were the dominant global powers of their respective eras, and today, the US faces the same issue that plagued Rome 2,000 years ago: declining birth rates.

  In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway penned this now timeless exchange:

  “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, and then suddenly.”

  Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises

  We worry about global warfare and pandemics because they’re big and scary and sudden and could wipe us out with a sudden BANG! But the real existential threat, declining birth rates, will progress like Mike’s bankruptcy: gradually, and then suddenly.

  Allow me to demonstrate through some basic arithmetic.

  ~2.1 children per woman is the typical population replacement rate in a developed country, and the US currently has a total fertility rate (which measures the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age): of 1.84. This means that (assuming this rate holds constant) every 100 parents will yield 92 children and ~85 grandchildren. And keep in mind, rates have been on a steady decline for years.

  It’s a bear market for babies.

  This isn’t just a US problem. We’re seeing these trends of sub-replacement fertility rates occurring all over the developed world:

  • South Korea: 1.11

  • Spain: 1.29

  • Japan: 1.39

  • China: 1.45

  • Austria: 1.51

  • Canada: 1.57

  • Germany: 1.58

  • United Kingdom: 1.63

  • Sweden: 1.67

  So now you might be thinking, “Okay, declining birth rates ‘sound’ scary, but who cares? Like, why does it matter?”

  At the individual level, it doesn’t matter. You have every right to think, “It’s no one else’s business if I don’t have kids!” But once a critical mass of individuals decides not to have kids, there are societal consequences.

  In her recent piece, Everything’s a Pyramid Scheme, Katie Gatti Tassin highlighted a logical fallacy in the “retire early” movement:

  I’ve long pointed out the fact that financial independence and early retirement cannot exist at scale, because our economic system would cease functioning. If every young person in their thirties or forties achieved financial independence and quit working, the workforce would be limited to those under the age of 35, effectively removing roughly 66% of the current labor force, or the equivalent of about 44 million people…

  Of course, there’s a funny redundancy in the system: If 44 million working-age people retired en masse and ceased most discretionary spending…corporate profits would drop, the stock market would stutter to a halt, and the returns required to support early retirement would vanish, driving everyone back to work.

  Katie Gatti Tassin

  Basically, retiring early works for individuals, but it could never work at scale because our economy would collapse without enough workers to keep it functioning smoothly. The Financially Independent, Retire Early (FIRE) movement only works as long as the majority of society fails to FIRE.

  Now, back to the babies.

  One big reason that our advanced and wealthy societies have become so advanced and wealthy is that growing populations created a growing labor force which, coupled with technological advancements, powered growing economies and widespread wealth creation.

  And now, our advanced, wealthy societies have devised systems that allow folks to retire and live their golden years in relative ease and decadence thanks to a combination of personal savings/investments and social safety nets.

  These social safety nets are supported by taxes, which are funded by taxpayers, aka workers. And our number of workers has been steadily increasing since the Industrial Revolution.

  But now people are having fewer kids, meaning that down the road, we’ll have fewer workers. And when life expectancies are higher than ever while birth rates are lower than ever and everyone still wants to retire on time… well, you see where I’m going with this? The math doesn’t add up.

  (Katie actually made this same observation to highlight the absurdity of individualism).

  So not to be a complete doomer here, but it feels a lot like we’re climbing the initial ascent on a rollercoaster, and we’re about to hit the apex.

  What does the descent look like? I don’t really know, because we haven’t actually seen a large-scale population decline in the modern era, but I imagine it would go something like this:

  • Social programs that we take for granted will no longer be feasible.

  • People will have to work longer (you’re already seeing protests about this in France after the pension reform).

  • Stock and real estate markets will decline as lower populations reduce consumer demand, hurting corporate profits and property values.

  So after considering why declining birth rates matter, I had another question: Why, given the risks associated with birth rate declines, are we still experiencing said declines in developed countries?

  Like, this problem is pretty obvious, so why aren’t we making more babies?

  I have a few hypotheses:

  1) Kids are expensive (both in perception and reality).

  The US Department of Health & Human Services estimates that the average family with infants would need to pay $16,000 per year to cover the true cost of childcare, and half of US households make less than $70,000 per year. That’s a big chunk of cash going to raising a kid each year.

  Besides the real costs, the perceived costs of childcare scale exponentially with one’s social group. Say you’re a high earner, and you and your spouse take home $200k+ per year.

  Do you want your kid to attend a private middle school to improve their chances of gaining acceptance to an elite boarding school to ensure they secure a seat in an Ivy League university which will help them land a coveted job on Wall Street?

  Are they going to play travel sports and take music lessons and eat organic foods and drive a nice car?

  That’s going to cost a lot more than $16,000 per year.

  Even high-earners are hesitant to have children because they don’t know if they can afford their desired lifestyle for their kids.

  2) Widespread contraceptives.

  Thousands of years before Planned Parenthood, the ancient Greeks and Romans discovered this cool plant called Silphium. Silphium had a number of medical uses, but it was most popular for its role as a contraceptive: ingesting a chick-pea-sized dose of Silphium prevented pregnancy.

  There was just one problem with Silphium: it could only be grown in a narrow strip of fertile land in present-day eastern Libya. The Romans loved Silphium so much that they overused the wonder plant, eventually driving it extinct.

  After the disappearance of Silphium, the world didn’t have an effective, safe contraceptive that could be ingested until 1950, when the birth control pill hit the market.

  For the first time in 2,000 years, women controlled when and if they wanted to have children. When we have a high degree of control over the childbirth process, the number of unplanned pregnancies will decline, which means the number of total pregnancies will likely decline too.

  3) Everyone, regardless of their sex, is focused on their careers.

  100 years ago, it was normal for husbands to go to work while their wives took care of the house and/or raised the children. But now? Everyone works. And kids really throw a wrench in climbing the corporate ladder.

  Ambitious women don’t want children to derail their careers, and ambitious men don’t want to step off the fast track to partner to spend a few years as stay-at-home dads. So both sexes delay having kids until they have achieved some threshold of success in their professional lives. But the clock doesn’t stop ticking, and every year spent chasing paper is one year not spent chasing two-year-olds around the house.

  4) The Bored Parent Hypothesis.

  I have this half-baked idea that one’s number of children is inversely related to their availability of fun/interesting alternative activities. If you are a 20-something living on a few dollars a day in an undeveloped country, you don’t really have many things to do (excluding work) besides creating an army of your own miniature genetic replicas.

  But if you live in a developed, first-world country in the Year of Our Lord 2023, you have a lot of ways to spend your time that does not involve making babies. You can enjoy a luxury previously unknown to most of our ancestors: chill with your friends. You can travel for fun, ski, engage in this weird modern phenomenon known as “hobbies,” create art, and learn a foreign language.

  You have options.

  Subconsciously, we know that children mark the end of this period of vast optionality by introducing a really, really big responsibility. This is the first-world problem of all first-world problems, but I do think that some young people in developed countries today are hesitant to have kids because there’s just a ton of fun stuff to do when you don’t have kids.

  Of course, I’m speaking as a young dude in a developed country who thinks there’s a ton of fun stuff that doesn’t involve having kids.

  5) There are literally too many potential partners.

  While birth rates have been steadily declining, the average age of first marriage has been steadily increasing. These two numbers are related: if you get married later, you literally have less time to have kids.

  Something, something, biological clock.

  So why are people getting married later? One reason is that the internet has given us a damn-near-infinite number of potential partners.

  Historically, guy likes girl, girl likes guy (or the parents arrange the marriage without consulting the kids at all), and then guy and girl get married and have kids.

  But now, guy likes girl, girl likes guy, guy refuses to show how much he likes girl while girl plays hard-to-get to keep guy interested, and guy and girl enter a 4-month relationship-adjacent purgatory where they go on dates and sleep together but don’t acknowledge the relationship itself until one party inevitably stops talking to the other party to see what else is out there, and then the whole cycle repeats.

  “Dating” looks the way it does today because everyone is replaceable when the dating pool has millions of options. Instead of working through a road bump in one’s relationship, you can treat every minor inconvenience as an opportunity to look for someone “better.”

  This weird dating carousel can last for years as we take longer and longer to commit, giving us less and less time to have kids.

   

  The irony of this whole thing is that it was our very economic prosperity that created the conditions that could unwind the whole thing:

  • The desire for everyone to “get ahead” has made it really expensive for your kids to get ahead

  • Medical advancements have allowed us to be tactical with our pregnancies

  • Previously unavailable career opportunities have led many folks to put off having children to pursue those opportunities

  • Our abundance of wealth has provided us with near-limitless entertainment and activities that don’t involve having kids

  • And the internet turned the whole world into a potential dating pool, making commitment next to impossible

  And now we face this really weird Prisoner’s Dilemma:

  Any individual person can delay having children to enjoy our abundance of everything, and their world will function just fine. But if every individual person neglects to have kids any time soon, the whole system grinds to a halt. The only way to ensure that everyone wins is by everyone having more kids.

  Maybe society really is just one big pyramid scheme.

  So I guess we should probably start having more kids. Or at least y’all should, anyway. I don’t really want to be part of the solution anytime soon, respectfully.

  – Jack

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 23:00

• Majority Of US States Have 'Stand Your Ground' Laws
  Majority Of US States Have ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws

  After a series of highly publizised shootings in the U.S., Stand Your Ground laws – also called Shoot First laws – are back in the news.

  Data by the Giffords Law Center shows that these type of laws are common across U.S. states.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, they specify that people are allowed to use deadly force if they feel like their life or health is threatened in a public place without needing to try to retreat.

  According to Giffords, U.S. law largely agrees that this is also the case for private property, for example if a homeowner feels threatened by an intruder. In several more states that don’t have Stand Your Ground laws – including California, Illinois, Oregon and Washington – precedents exist that could influence how an assault, manslaughter or murder case goes after a trial has started (while in Stand Your Ground states, police could decide to not bring any charges based on these laws).

  On April 13, Black teenager Ralph Yarl was shot by a homeowner after going to the wrong address in Kansas City and was seriously injured. Andrew D. Lester, a 84-year-old white man, was charged with assault in the first degree.

  On April 17, Kaylin Gillis, a 20-year-old white woman, was fatally shot in upstate New York after the car she was riding in went into a wrong driveway. The shooter, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, was charged with murder.

  In another case where public area Stand Your Ground laws could apply, two cheerleaders were shot and wounded in Texas after one of them accidentally got into the wrong car in a supermarket parking lot after their practice on April 18. However, the subject – 25-year-old Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. – has been charged with deadly conduct, meaning he used a weapon recklessly, threatening, or dangerously.

  While in all three cases, charges have been brought, Stand Your Ground laws as well as laws pertaining to private property – also referred to as Castle Doctrine laws or Make My Day laws – could still influence these cases and could theoretically see charges dropped or cases won for the defendants.

  

  However, in the Kansas City case, the prosecuter has said he does not see the necessary pre-condition of threatening behavior and self-defense fulfilled when Ralph Yarl was shot through the door of the home. In the New York state case, the county’s sheriff was quoted as saying that “there was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened, especially as it appears the vehicle was leaving.” While no such info was available on the third case, the subject is reported to have followed the two women to their car before shooting, likely exceeding the limits of Stand Your Ground legislation. What remains is the question how perceived rights under these types of laws and doctrines influence shooters’ seemingly erratic behavior following what could be considered everyday mix-ups.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 22:40

• Armstrong: Kamala's Affair – Sleeping Her Way To The Top
  Armstrong: Kamala’s Affair – Sleeping Her Way To The Top

  Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

  Since the media is shining a light on Trump’s affair, it is only fair to point out similar actions taken by those on the other side of the aisle. Kamala Harris is not a particularly intelligent or charismatic individual, but she managed to work her way to the top by dating men in positions of power. In the 1990s, 29-year-old Kamala Harris dated married 60-year-old San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Harris was 31 years younger than Brown, who was married with a family at home.

  

  Harris accompanied Brown on his campaign trail and made connections along the way. She cannot deny the affair and claims that it is now “an albatross hanging around my neck.” Clinton used to call Brown “the real Slick Willie” for his playboy ways, which is saying something coming from blue dress Bill. “The measure of his flamboyance is he’ll go to a party with his wife on one arm and his girlfriend on the other,” James Richardson, a reporter for the Sacramento Bee told People Magazine in 1996.

  

  New San Francisco mayor Willie Brown points out his new hat “Da Mayor” as he claimed victory Tuesday night, December 12, 1995, while at his victory party in San Francisco. (CONTRA COSTA TIMES/JON MCNALLY)1995

  Kamala Harris secured a job at the California Medical Assistance Commission through Slick Willie, although she had no medical background.

  He also appointed her to the state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

  She was later appointed as the district attorney in San Francisco in 2004.

  Meanwhile, Slick Willie was under investigation for gifting his friends city contracts. He never came under fire for promoting Harris to positions of power.

  But by then, Harris was on her way to becoming attorney general and did not need the support of her older married boyfriend.

  “His career is over. I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing,” Kamala shrewdly stated.

  Still, Brown assisted her in her 2016 bid for the Senate and spoke favorably of her over the years.

  Harris refuses to acknowledge that her time as Slick Willie’s mistress is what propelled her career.

  

  Brown is not remaining quiet.

  “I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco. I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians. The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I ‘so much as jaywalked’ while she was D.A. That’s politics for ya.”

  But it is (D)ifferent!

  And that, folks, is how the leading world power found its second-in-command with absolutely no qualifications for the job.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 22:20

• JPMorgan, PNC To Buy First Republic After FDIC Seizure First Leaves Taxpayers Holding The Toxic Stuff
  JPMorgan, PNC To Buy First Republic After FDIC Seizure First Leaves Taxpayers Holding The Toxic Stuff

  Update (2210ET):  As the weekend begins, the WSJ reports late on Friday that big banks including JPMorgan and PNC are set to buy First Republic Bank but not in a private, market-arranged deal but rather in a transaction that would follow a government seizure of the troubled lender. A seizure and sale of First Republic, which would wipe out the equity of FRC and potentially impose losses on creditors, could come as soon as this weekend, the WSJ sources said.

  And so JPM, which is already the largest US bank is about to get even bigger, by scooping up all the good FRC assets while leaving US taxpayer holdings on to the toxic ones.

  That said, it wasn’t immediately clear whether the $30 billion in deposits funneled by JPM and other banks into FRC will be treated as insured funds (why should they should be insured?), nor was it clear how a wipeout of this capital, which would spark a systemic crisis simply because the Fed is now running policy of “monetary tightening through bank collapse”, having failed to contain inflation and tighten policy using conventional means.

  * * *

  Update (1640ET): As many expected given the intraday collapse of FRC, Reuters reports after the bell that The FDIC will imminently the bank into receivership.

  First Republic most likely headed for FDIC receivership – CNBC https://t.co/9HT5s9Yoqj pic.twitter.com/FRenLK8juh

  — Reuters (@Reuters) April 28, 2023

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  Shares collapsed to a $1 handle in the after hours trading, down 70% on the day…

  

  FRC was trading at $120 at the start of March… and now it’s trading close to $1.20…

  

  …Aaaaand it’s gone…

  

  *  *  *

  Update (1045ET): First Republic Bank shares are halted for volatility having collapsed 50% back to record lows as hopes of a ‘private’ deal fade…

  

  Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers criticized Washington regulators and US banking giants for not having already figured out a solution for the beleaguered lender First Republic Bank.

  “I’m surprised and disappointed that this situation has continued to linger as long as it has, with the bank’s stock down 95%” and credit gauges deteriorating, Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin.

  “I hope that between the banks, the FDIC, the other public authorities, that the best way forward will be found within the next week or 10 days.”

  “These are things like forest fires, it is much easier to prevent them than it is to contain them after they start to spread,” Summers said.

  He didn’t offer a preference for either an FDIC takeover or “some private sector oriented” workout.

  “But we need to figure out the answer to that question as quickly as possible and move on.”

  Imagine the deposit outflows occurring today!

  ‘The question now is simple – will they make it to the close without the FDIC stepping in?

  *  *  *

  The First Republic farce rolls on…

  After reporting dramatically worse deposit outflows (and aggregate banking system flows suggesting things are getting worse, not better in April), The FT reports that there had been a shift in tone among the First Republic Bank’s advisers compared with Tuesday and Wednesday when First Republic’s shares fell 65 per cent and fears grew that it was close to being taken over by the FDIC.

  The conversations about the bank reportedly remain fraught, and the people cautioned that it was not clear that a solution would be found.

  The banks are reluctant to put their shareholders at risk of losses without some sort of government participation.

  

  Which is notable since Reuters reports that, according to three sources familiar with the situation, US officials are coordinating urgent talks to rescue the beleaguered regional bank as private-sector efforts led by the bank’s advisers have yet to reach a deal.

  The government’s involvement (and presumably some hope of backstopping commitments) is reportedly helping bring more parties, including banks and private equity firms, to the negotiating table, one of the sources added.

  Reuters adds though that it is unclear whether the U.S. government is considering participating in a private-sector rescue of First Republic.

  However, the government’s engagement, however, has emboldened First Republic executives as they scramble to put together a deal that would avoid a takeover by U.S. regulators.

  Specifically, The FT reports that one proposal that may be part of an eventual solution is for some of the banks to buy some of First Republic’s long-dated assets for more than their current market price, allowing the lender to shrink its losses.

  But people familiar with the situation say that this would probably not be enough to stabilize First Republic on its own.

  Bear in mind that the ‘Big Banks’ have $30 billion in deposits at the embattled bank… so the FDIC has a problem already.

  FRC Bonds ain’t buying it at all…

  

  First Republic shares were up around 5% in the pre-market, but have already erased the earlier stronger gains…

  

  Just to put that into context, here’s FRC this week…

  

  Finally, First Republic Bank’s membership in the S&P 500 Index could be in jeopardy after the troubled bank’s stock set a new all-time low on Wednesday that briefly pushed its market capitalization below $1 billion.

  

  At roughly $1.2 billion, FRC has by far the smallest market cap in the S&P 500 after wiping out more than $21 billion in market value. As Bloomberg notes, this is a problem because companies must have a market cap of at least $12.7 billion to be considered for inclusion in the S&P 500.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 22:10

• Trapped Americans In Sudan "Shocked & Disgusted" – Left By Biden To Fend For Themselves
  Trapped Americans In Sudan “Shocked & Disgusted” – Left By Biden To Fend For Themselves

  Update(1302ET): Sudan is continuing to stare into the abyss of full-blown civil war as the battle for control of the capital of Khartoum between two rival generals – now reaching the two week mark – results in a mounting death toll. Currently, dozens of countries have for days been racing to get their citizens out via military transport planes, ships, and via cross-border land routes into Ethiopia and neighboring countries, but not the United States.

  A surprisingly blunt report voicing intense criticism toward the Biden administration has been issued by CNN Friday, which writes, “As the crisis in Sudan continues to unfold, there is mounting anger among Americans who feel abandoned by the US government and left to navigate the complicated and dangerous situation on their own.”

  CNN further points out that robust evacuation efforts are underway by many other countries. As we detailed below, a C-130 evac flight sent by Turkey even took on small arms fire while landing outside the capital. And the Chinese government has said it has successfully evacuated at least 1,300 of its nationals thus far, with state media confirming evacuation operations ongoing by “land and sea”.

  “I am incredibly shocked and disgusted by the American lackluster response to the health and safety of their citizens,” Muna Daoud told CNN, whose parents were forced to exit via Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia. And CNN follows with this: 

  Despite a number of nations evacuating their citizens, the US government has continued to say that the conditions are not conducive to a civilian evacuation. All US government personnel were evacuated in a military operation this weekend. US officials have said they are in “close communication” with US citizens and “actively facilitating” their departure from Sudan.

  However, CNN spoke with multiple people whose family members are among the “dozens” of Americans who want to leave Sudan, and they said the State Department has provided “barely any assistance” since the deadly violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out more than a week ago.

  Another American stuck in Sudan called the embassy and State Department “useless”. “To be honest with you, the State Department was useless, utterly useless throughout this entire period,” a man named Imad said in an interview. “We expected the Department to provide some kind of guidance, but the guidance was the template, just shelter in place, no critical information being provided.”

  

  Already two American have lost their lives. CNN further presents that more are coming close to getting shot in near-miss situations due to the lack of formal US effort to get citizens safely out:

  “The might of our military and resources does not get used to save our lives in war zones,” she said.

  When CNN spoke to Daoud, her 69-year-old father and 66-year-old mother – both of whom are US citizens – were making the “harrowing” nine hour bus journey from Khartoum to Port Sudan.

  “They had to find a bus this morning after waiting outside on the side of the road,” she said. Daoud said that the bus had been stopped three times by RSF soldiers “and at one checkpoint they held my father at gunpoint because they believed he was in the Sudanese Army.”

  “They told all the men to step off the bus and searched and questioned them,” but they kept her father at gunpoint, she described to CNN.

  “My mum believed he was going to be taken or shot. Luckily they decided to let him go,” Daoud said.

  Meanwhile, Chinese media pundits are mocking and gloating…

  Where is he? https://t.co/m3jVxdhWPP pic.twitter.com/Vx7RCGJRJ6

  — Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) April 28, 2023

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  China’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed it is sending the PLA Navy to help evacuate Chinese nationals from Sudan, with defense ministry spokesman Tan Kefei announcing Thursday that that more navy ships are on their way. 

  Already, Chinese evac ships have been spotted at Sudan ports in the Red Sea:

  The Chinese military dispatched naval vessels to evacuate Chinese personnel in #Sudan. Chinese nationals line up for boarding the vessels, some hold Chinese national flag. This is the third time the Chinese navy takes the mission of evacuation of Chinese nationals overseas. pic.twitter.com/OuPxUGEYLb

  — Qingqing_Chen (@qingqingparis) April 26, 2023

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  “Due to the recent continually deteriorating security situation in Sudan, the Chinese army sent naval vessels to Sudan on April 26 to evacuate and transport our citizens to protect the lives and property of Chinese personnel in Sudan,” Tan said, also confirming over 1,300 Chinese citizens have already fled, and that more are exiting through land borders. “So far, more than 1,300 Chinese citizens have been safely transferred, some have left Sudan on Chinese warships and boats, and some are on their way out,” Tan detailed. 

  Germany and other European nations too…

  A German military plane with 101 citizens evacuated from #Khartoum is on its way to Jordan, the armed forces say, with two more aircraft still in #Sudan.https://t.co/qXg3cGp0Fi

  — Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) April 24, 2023

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  Jordan has also been among the countries organizing military transport flights to and from the restive capital.

  It’s funny how the United States can invade countries at drop of a hat.. but rescue citizens? Apparently not. A prime question which remains concerning many of those among the 16,000 Americans (many of them dual nationals no doubt) is: where’s Joe Biden?

  * * *

  Heavy explosions and gunfire have continued to rock parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman despite a ceasefire. At least 500 people have been killed, including reportedly two American citizens, as fighting reaches two weeks amid the power struggle between two rival generals representing Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces.

  “Many areas that saw very active fighting at the beginning have become quieter than before. Yet, I cannot say there is a total ceasefire in those places,” a Khartoum resident told Al Jazeera on Friday. “I don’t think anyone has gone to school in the last 14 days. I don’t think anyone has been to a hospital.”

  

  A massive foreign evacuation effort involving many countries sending military transport planes has continued for the better part of a week. The United States administration, however, has said that it is not conducting a large-scale evacuation operation for the estimated 16,000 US citizens who live in Sudan, many of them dual nationals who have made the country their home. 

  But this international rescue effort appears to now be coming under threat, after new reports that a Turkish evacuation plane came under gunfire while landing at Wadi Seyidna airport outside Khartoum. The aircraft, a C-130, had its fuel supply system damaged by the ground gunfire. 

  The Turkish defense ministry confirmed the damage but without naming a culprit. “Light weapons were fired on our C-130 evacuation plane … Our plane landed safely. Although there are no injuries to our personnel, necessary repairs are being carried out on our aircraft,” it said.

  The national army said the Rapid Support Forces of Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo mounted the attack on the plane as it was landing, but the RSF rejected the accusation as part of the national army “spreading lies”. 

  “Our forces have remained strictly committed to the humanitarian truce that we agreed upon since midnight, and it is not true that we targeted any aircraft in the sky of Wadi Seyidna in Omdurman,” the RSF said. Fighting has been witnessed elsewhere in the country, which could signal a slide toward full-scale civil war, as the AFP is reporting 74 dead in two days of fighting in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina.

  Sudan army and a rival force agree to extend an existing ceasefire even as battles rage.

  Fighter jets have pounded paramilitaries in Khartoum while deadly fighting and looting flared in Darfurhttps://t.co/W2PQp0X2M1 pic.twitter.com/KwpzkAwkSj

  — AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 28, 2023

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  The rival military factions reached an agreement to extend their ceasefire from midnight local time (22:00 GMT on Thursday) for an additional three days, but by many accounts it’s barely holding, if at all.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 22:02

• Biden DOJ: Kids have A Constitutional Right To Puberty Blockers
  Biden DOJ: Kids have A Constitutional Right To Puberty Blockers

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary (emphasis ours),

  The Biden Administration has a new and unhinged constitutional theory: the 14th Amendment protects the right of a child to take puberty blockers. Bans on hormone treatments for children with gender dysphoria, such as the prescription of testosterone to a transgender 12 year-old, violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

  

  That’s the Administration’s position in LW v. Skrmetti, a lawsuit filed in a Nashville, Tennessee federal court by the families of three transgender children – a fifteen year-old transgender daughter (who thought he was transgender at age 12), a fifteen year-old transgender son, and a twelve year-old transgender son. They’re challenging a new Tennessee law that “establishes prohibitions related to the performance on minors of certain medical procedures related to gender identity, creates private causes of action for violations, and establishes additional penalties for violations.”

  The families of these transgender kids allege that the Tennessee law (1) violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by targeting the transgender; (2) violates the right of parental autonomy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment’s due process clause; and (3) that the law is preempted by the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex.”

  All the children are “currently receiving medical care” that would be prohibited by the recent Tennessee legislation.

  What is this medical care? The 15 year-old transgender “girl” – born a male – is currently undergoing estrogen hormone therapy so that his body will “undergo feminine pubertal changes.” The 15 year-old transgender “boy” who was born a girl came out as transgender around the 5th grade. She is on testosterone.

  The 12 year-old transgender “boy” – born a female – was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the second grade, when she then began her transition. This occurred after her mom “contacted a local LGBTQ resource center” who then connected her with a therapist. The young girl’s mom was also a key factor in the biological changes endured by her daughter, having influenced the girl’s decision to start taking puberty blockers.

  The “treatment” (hormones and puberty blockers) received by these children, and similar treatments we see across the country, including surgical genital mutilation, are considered “necessary” to remedy the effects of gender dysphoria (a purported medical condition somehow recognized as legitimate by major medical associations in the US). The Tennessee law at issue does not issue a blanket prohibition of hormone therapy. For example, a male child with a hormone imbalance or a congenital defect may receive testosterone. The prohibition only concerns treatment of gender dysphoria.

  And that’s the objection by the Biden DOJ – that the treatment of gender dysphoria cannot be categorically banned, even if a state’s lawmakers consider the treatment to be dangerous, ineffective, and ultimately harmful. The Biden Administration argues that the law “threatens irreparable injury” to these children and any other “transgender” children in the state of Tennessee. It says that a transgender person, whom it defines as “someone whose gender identity is inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth,” should be a protected class – that “transgender status warrants heightened scrutiny” because it is “immutable” like gender. Thus, laws that target the treatment of gender dysphoria should be given intermediate scrutiny by the courts.

  The Biden Administration’s position that one’s identification as transgender should elevate them to a protected class similar to gender has not been adopted by the Supreme Court or a majority of federal appeal circuits. If this were to be accepted it would cause significant shift in the law and put at risk numerous state laws banning childhood gender mutilation or the administration of puberty blockers to the young. In other words, it’s their way to circumvent the legislative process.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 21:40

• How America's Middle Class Is Shrinking
  How America’s Middle Class Is Shrinking

  America’s middle class has been shrinking for the past 50 years.

  

  While middle class Americans remain the biggest income group by number of people, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, the same can’t be said of the aggregate income earned by them.

  From 1970 to 2021, the share of U.S. aggregate income earned by the middle class shrunk massively, from formerly 62 percent to just 42 percent.

  During the same time, aggregate earnings by high income Americans increased from 29 percent to 50 percent – despite the fact that the high income class is still less than half as big as the middle class in America.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  A report by Pew Research Center includes these numbers and also shows that unmarried women and those in single-earner households are less likely to belong to the middle class.

  The report considers anyone whose household earns between two thirds and double of the U.S. median income to belong to the middle class.

  Both the low income and the high income class have been growing in America – squeezing the middle class from both sides. One especially alarming trend that only pertains to the low income class is that while it has been increasing in size, it has been decreasing in its share of aggregated income. Between 1970 and 2021, earnings of the low income class decreased from an already meager 10 percent to just 8 percent.

  Black and Latino Americans are still much more likely to belong to the low income class – at around 40 percent of each group in this category compared to 24 percent of white people.

  However, the report attests one of the biggest upwards movements for Black Americans and moderate gains for Latinos. Yet, the Black middle class is still barely expanding as some gains seem to have gone straight to the Black high income class, which more than doubled in size in the past 50 years. Over the past half century, the white low income class has been expanding, but it remains much smaller than Black and Latino low income classes in relative terms.

  Looking at people who have experienced a big amount of downwards mobility in America independent of race, it has been those with less educational attainment.

  This includes people with only a high school diploma as well as those who didn’t finish college.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 21:20

• Unease In Israel As US Depletes Reserve Stockpiles To Fuel Ukraine War
  Unease In Israel As US Depletes Reserve Stockpiles To Fuel Ukraine War

  Via The Cradle,

  Officials in Israel have raised concerns about the dwindling stockpile of US munitions stored in the country, as in recent months, Washington has been quietly shipping the armament via the Port of Ashdod to Ukraine.

  “These are Israel’s reserve stockpiles for times of war … The move has had a bigger implication in light of the threats on Israel in multiple theaters,” an unnamed former cabinet minister told Israel Hayom.

  

  “US equipment stored in Israel was handed over to the US armed forces, in accordance with an American request,” the Israeli army said in response to a query by the news outlet.

  A US official also confirmed that “it is still not clear when the reserves will be restocked,” as the US war machine has pivoted from fueling conflict in West Asia to new fronts in Ukraine and Taiwan.

  While Kiev prepares for a critical spring offensive against the Russian army, western states have been scrambling to supply the European nation with enough arsenal to turn back the tide of war, as Ukrainian troops reportedly blow through 90,000 artillery shells per month – twice the rate produced by the US and Europe combined.

  Reports of the US Army tapping into its reserve stockpiles in Israel first surfaced in January.

  “[The Pentagon has drawn from] a vast but little-known stockpile of American ammunition in Israel to help meet Ukraine’s dire need for artillery shells,” the New York Times revealed on 17 January.

  Tel Aviv reportedly agreed to allow the shipments on the condition that the Pentagon replenishes the stockpile, with Washington pledging earlier this year to “immediately ship ammunition in a severe emergency.”

  According to Israel Hayom, the “implicit understanding” between Tel Aviv and Washington has been that munitions stored in US military storage facilities “would be earmarked for Israel in times of emergency if the Jewish state faces a major attack along the scale as the 1973 Yom Kippur War.”

  Unease in the apartheid state has also spiked due to President Joe Biden’s iciness towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ongoing rapprochement between Iran and several Arab states under the auspices of China.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 21:00

• Biden Forgets He Went To Ireland, Tacitly Disowns Grandchild-Via-Stripper
  Biden Forgets He Went To Ireland, Tacitly Disowns Grandchild-Via-Stripper

  On Thursday, we wrote about President Biden being caught with a cheat sheet providing the full text of a question he would be asked by a reporter at a White House press conference. Just hours after we posted that article, Biden demonstrated why his staffers go to great lengths to limit situations where the 80-year-old is asked to think and speak extemporaneously.  

  The Biden communications team has fully tamed the White House press corps, but the same can’t be said of the group of children who visited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday as part of Take Your Child to Work Day. 

  

  Things went off the rails when one of those children asked Biden a simple question — what was the last country the US head of state had visited? 

  “The last country I’ve traveled — I’m trying to think the last one I was in — I, I’ve been to 89 — I’ve met with 89 heads of state so far, so, uh — I’m trying to think. What was the last — Where was the last place I was? It’s hard to keep track. Um, I was — “

  The dark comedy grew richer when it was another child who mercifully bailed Biden out, by shouting “Ireland!”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Ireland,” Biden replied. “That’s where it was. How’d you know that?” Biden this week announced his re-election bid; he would be 86 years old at the end of a hypothetical second term. 

  Joe Biden is asked by a kid the last country he visited and he can’t remember. He was in Ireland last week, which he didn’t remember until a kid told him. Good lord: pic.twitter.com/xpnklgA6sP

  — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 27, 2023

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  Biden spent three days and nights in Ireland, in a trip that ended just 13 days before Thursday’s question. It included what should be a memorable visit to his ancestral home of County Mayo. 

  If this were an episode of Veep, we’d be treated to some poor White House staffer under a withering barrage of profane insults for their child having stumped the president with the simple question.

  Also at Thursday’s event, Biden ventured to name all his grandchildren. He listed six of them, but he omitted Navy Joan Roberts, the 4-year-old daughter of Hunter Biden that was born to former stripper Lunden Roberts, having been conceived while Hunter was still in a relationship with his dead brother Beau’s widow.

  

  “I have six grandchildren and I’m crazy about them, and I speak to them every single day. Not a joke.” Biden told the kids at the White House. After a long-winded description of the six that omitted Hunter’s child, Biden concluded, “And guess what? They’re crazy about me because I pay so much attention to them.”

  Hunter met Roberts when she was a stripper at a DC club. In a child support hearing last week, Roberts asked an Arkansas judge to throw Hunter in jail for having repeatedly failed to turn over financial records as part of the lawsuit’s discovery process. Hunter initially denied his fatherhood, but a paternity test established that fact. 

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 20:40

• Is China Winning, Part Two: "How Do You Stop A Superpower"
  Is China Winning, Part Two: “How Do You Stop A Superpower”

  By Russell Clark, author of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets substack

  How do you stop a country from developing? That is the question that is confronting US policy makers. At the moment, the US is adopting a number of policies including stopping technology transfers, tariffs and other regulatory barriers. The US has used this type of policy against North Korea, Cuba Venezuela and Iran, and these policies have indeed led to economic decline in these nations. The problem with this analysis, is that all of these countries lacked the economic and military heft of the US, so it was a no-brainier decision for the rest of the world to fall in line with sanctions. China is too big to assume the same results.

  

  If we want to analyze a China/US conflict, we have to go back to the Cold War era from some comparisons to think about. In my mind, broadly speaking the US was losing the Cold War during the 1970s. Not only did the US lose the Vietnam War, but Russian influence helped galvanize OPEC to place an oil embargo on exports to the US, which had built it economy around cheap and abundant oil. Hostility in the Middle East to US support for Israel played into Russia’s hands in helping to organize the oil embargo.

  China is obviously aware of this historic episode, and policy in China has been to deliberately favor suppliers of commodities from non-US allies. But when we look at commodities such as corn, iron ore, LNG for example, China is still heavily reliant on the US and Australia for supplies. Could the US enforce a corn, iron ore or LNG embargo? Given the example of Russia, this would seem likely in the face of Chinese invasion of Taiwan, but otherwise unlikely.

  Speaking of Taiwan, China is, like the rest of the world, heavily reliant on Taiwan for high end semiconductors. The obvious bottleneck for semiconductors is the lithography equipment produced by ASML. While I know that R&D needed to produce the EUV equipment was huge and took many years, Chinese competitors have a huge advantage over ASML. They know the technology works – which makes the R&D commitment much easier to justify. After nuclear weapons were developed and used by the US, USSR tested it own bomb 4 years later, and despite aggressive curbs on nuclear proliferation, India, Pakistan, North Korea all have nuclear weapons. I really wonder how long EUV lithography technology can stay contained to ASML.

  However, while economic sanctions such as the oil embargo definitely slowed the US, the 1970s also showed that you can stop economic development more successfully through political means, rather than through trade or technology.

  How did the US defeat the Soviet Union? The received wisdom that the Soviet Union and they eventually bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with the US militarily. But I am going to argue that China and Nixon were the real catalysts for the end of the Soviet Union.

  Prior to and immediately after World War II, China was a close ally to the US, and was reliant on US military aid to battle Japan in Manchuria. The problem with this was that by then the average Chinese person had seen a century of humiliations at the hands of the Great Powers, who had carved out various territories and concessions from the Chinese government. The Opium Wars had seen the British force China to import narcotics, so that the British could export silk, silver and other goods. To put in mildly, Western Imperialism and trade had developed a bad name in China. This is why the Communist Revolution caused so much excitement in China. The ideas behind Communism were anti-imperialism, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-religion and very pro-development. They also included strong land reform element, which also helped in the appeal of communism. It was the appeal of these ideas, and chronic mismanagement of the economy by the Chinese government of the day, that led to the eventual triumph of Chinese Communist Party in 1949.

  With China joining the Soviet Union as communist, you could make a legitimate argument that the world’s ideology was now communism rather than capitalism, particularly as India had fairly strong communist leanings. That is the majority of the world now operated under a planned economy (the famous 5 year plans that China still uses). So how did the US break apart this communist hegemony? Problems began when the Soviet Union had to use force to keep its Eastern European states in line. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was put down by force. To Chinese eyes, this made the Soviet Union just another imperial power, and led China to make a distinct political break from the Soviet Union. This meant there was fissure between the Soviet Union and China that could be opened up by a skilled politician, and it took another 16 years for Nixon to finally visit China, and the US to begin normalizing relations with China.

  It is classic diplomacy – divide and conquer. And it has been practiced everywhere and all the time. So the question to ask, can the US divide and conquer China? The West is trying to apply obvious pressure to areas like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and Tibet where Chinese rule is not universally accepted. India has also been co-opted to help put more pressure on China, and President Trump, in a semi-Nixon style, tried to break Russia away from Chinese influence. From a realpolitik point of view, turning Russia anti-Chinese would have had real repercussions for China, so I understand the logic – but with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I do not see anyway to turn Russia away from China.

  When we look at China today, we again see large income inequality. Property prices are unaffordable for many city dwellers. Politically, China seems ripe for a communist revolution, and I would argue that is exactly what Xi is providing. A reasserting of Communist policy, where economic gains are more decisively directed at the weakest part of society. With large business under control, it is hard to see who exactly would oppose this policy, and the biggest domestic risk to China is more from the failure of these policies rather than their success.

  But here is the rub, is that when I think along these lines, then rather than China being at the risk of failure, I wonder if the West is the one at risk of fracture. It increasingly looks like the next US Presidential Election will be a rerun of the last one, with Trump facing off against Biden. Let’s say that Trump wins, if he follows through on his statements, then the US will reduce support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. If this happens, then NATO is effective dead in the water as a military alliance. Given the real and present threat of Russia to members of the EU, then the EU would have to upgrade itself from an economic grouping to a military grouping, a process that is already gathering pace. It would be hard to not see how this outcome not benefiting China, as a reduced NATO would be less of a counterweight to Chinese economic influence.

  Furthermore, problems with income inequality and excess corporate power exist in the US, and the Biden administration has been acting to reverse some of this. Would a polarizing figure such at Trump be able to follow through? Or would he reverse these policies? The right to bear arms, and the build up of arms within the US makes it in some ways more likely to see civil unrest than the US. The events of January 6, rising levels of gun violence, and an increasingly assertive Supreme Court all make me nervous. What makes me very nervous, is that the political build up to the OPEC oil crisis, made it look inevitable in hindsight, but was ignored in the run up. The break between China and Russia and the normalisation of relations with the US was a huge deal, but again seemed inevitable in hindsight. I keep asking myself which of these events seems hard to believe today, but will seem inevitable once it happens. Is the collapse of the Chinese economy, or breakdown in civil society in the United States more likely? What really scares me as I think the evidence points more to the latter – but is that just because the US is more open? No easy choices – but one thing that does make me lie awake at night is that excessive political power led Japan into World War II – and I do wonder who can curb US corporate power? I struggle to think of anyone.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 20:20

• Jenny Craig "Winding Down Physical Operations", Mulling Bankruptcy
  Jenny Craig “Winding Down Physical Operations”, Mulling Bankruptcy

  Iconic weight loss company Jenny Craig is shedding some pounds of its own, it was reported this week. The company is going to be “winding down physical operations” and is reportedly looking for a buyer, according to NBC News. 

  The company’s employees have been warned about “potential mass layoffs”, the report says, noting that the company says it “has been going through a sales process for the last couple of months.”

  A company FAQ document related to the transition said: “While we had to issue Warn Notices specifically for sites where we had more than 50 people potentially impacted, this will likely impact all employees in some manner.”

  It continued: “We do not know the exact employees/groups whom will be impacted, and if any employees may be retained. As a result, we would suggest that you anticipate that your employment may be impacted and begin to seek other employment.”

  

  The company was founded in 1983 and was recently bought by HIG Capital in April 2019, for an undisclosed amount. At the time it operated 500 stores in the U.S. and Canada, mixed between company-owned and franchised.  

  The company didn’t return requests for comments by NBC. Bloomberg reported separately that the company is considering bankruptcy and that a filing could come “as soon as next week”, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

  CEO and President Mandy Dowson told Bloomberg: “Like many other companies, we’re currently transitioning from a brick-and-mortar retail business to a customer-friendly, e-commerce driven model. We will have more details to share in the coming weeks as our plans are solidified.”

  NBC says it found “dozens” of users on LinkedIn who list Jenny Craig as their employer who are now “open to work”. Severance for its current employees is supposed to be “based on job level and tenure with the company”, according to the FAQ, which then, also states: “However, at this time, it is highly unlikely that these will be paid.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 20:00

• Doug Casey On The US Government Declaring War On Mexican Drug Cartels
  Doug Casey On The US Government Declaring War On Mexican Drug Cartels

  Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

  International Man: There has been a recent push by some US politicians of the neocon variety to use the US military against Mexican drug cartels.

  Senator Lindsay Graham has proposed designating them as “terrorist organizations.”

  Representative Dan Crenshaw introduced an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to target drug cartels inside Mexico.

  What’s your take on this?

  

  Doug Casey: That’s just what the US needs: another war, and this one on the border.

  The people who back the use of military force in Mexico can only be described as thoughtless warmongers with no grasp of either ethics or history. If the war against organizations like the Taliban in Afghanistan was a world-class disaster, would an invasion work out better in Mexico, which has three times the population of Afghanistan, is much richer and much better organized? And they’re right on the border, which is really asking for trouble.

  The solution to the drug cartel problem is to legalize all drugs. The fact is that anybody who wants drugs today can get them easily, even if they’re in high-security prisons. From a practical point of view, making drugs illegal doesn’t work. All it does is greatly increase the price of the drugs in the US and create huge profit margins to import them. Even if you destroyed every cartel in Mexico, people that want drugs will still want them. As long as drugs are illegal, their prices will remain high and new cartels will arise.

  But despite the relaxation of penalties on cannabis, it’s highly unlikely drugs will be legalized. The DEA, one of the most corrupt Federal agencies, is a permanent lobby to keep them illegal. And there’s way, way too much money in keeping them illegal.

  The only solution is to learn a lesson from Prohibition in the 1930s. When they illegalized alcohol in the 1920s, it created the profits that allowed the Mafia to grow. It certainly didn’t cut down the amount of drinking; it just increased the amount of crime. Similarly, the insane War on Drugs is responsible for the success of the cartels.

  They say fentanyl, an important medical drug, kills 50,000 to 100,000 Americans per year. That’s mostly because its quantity and quality are uncertain, a consequence of its illegality. But the real question is ethical: Does government have a right to “protect” people against themselves? My answer is: No. If people like it, it’s their body and their business. Prohibition of alcohol—which is also quite a dangerous drug—was costly, destructive, immoral, and stupid. Fentanyl, the current bete noir of busybodies, is no different.

  If drugs were as easily available as aspirins through pharmacies, users would know what they were getting, and people who want them could get them at a cheap price in known doses.

  Apart from recognizing that you can’t protect people from themselves, it’s important to look at the root of why many people get lost in drugs. The answer, I believe, is that they’re trying to hide from reality and blot it out. Why is that? It’s a subject for another conversation. But the irrationality and coercion caused by State intervention in private lives are part of the answer.

  International Man: Mexican President Obrador has stated he will not allow the US government or military to enter Mexican territory.

  It’s also well known that Mexican cartels have a significant presence inside the US.

  Suppose the US government sends the military into action in Mexico anyways.

  What do you think could happen?

  Doug Casey: It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the US has invaded Mexico.

  In the 1840s, the US basically stole all the territory in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, from Mexico. I know you shouldn’t say that—it sounds unpatriotic. But patriotism should be focused on American values, not necessarily on supporting the actions of politicians in Washington.

  In the Marine Corp’s hymn, one of the lines is “From the Halls of Montezuma” because US forces were actually fighting in Mexico City.

  It happened more recently when during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, Pancho Villa raided across the Rio Grande, and General Pershing’s troops crossed into Mexico to (unsuccessfully) pursue him.

  There’s plenty of precedent for Americans invading Mexico, but perhaps the shoe is on the other foot now. 20 million or more Mexicans live in the US, mostly in the Southwest. Believe it or not, many of them talk about a Reconquista.

  It’s uncertain what effect it will have on the US border if warmongers like the smarmy and foolish little Lindsey Graham succeed in fomenting an invasion of Mexico. It could turn into a counterinvasion, an active shooting war unnecessarily created to quash the Mexican drug business. Which—insofar as it’s even a real problem—is a US problem.

  International Man: No matter what happens with the US military in Mexico, the situation at the border remains a mess.

  What do you think should be done?

  Doug Casey: The violence of the cartels is said to be one of the motivators for migration to the US. There appear to be at least one or two million people—nobody has the exact number—annually migrating from Mexico and other places into the US. Once they arrive, many become wards of the vast US welfare system. It’s a problem.

  The solution, as with so many social ills, is strict observance of property rights. That implies the border should be defended. Why? The migrants usually cross the privately owned land of Americans; they have no right to trespass. Even when the land is owned by the federal or state government, they have no right to trespass. It’s a question of strictly enforcing property rights.

  There’s a sign that often appears out west, “If you’re found here at night, you’ll be found here in the morning.” It’s a justified sentiment.

  Entering the US, or, more importantly, onto anybody’s private property without permission, is a serious offense. Property rights are the basis of all rights.

  It’s hard to know exactly, but I suspect a major attraction to migrants is that they know that once in the country, they’re basically guaranteed free food, medical care, schools, housing, and numerous other forms of welfare. That attracts the wrong kind of people. The immigrants of the 19th century were also penniless but got absolutely nothing when they came to the US. Now migrants get lots of freebies. Part of the answer is to eliminate any and all types of welfare both for Americans and immigrants—as well as strict enforcement of property rights.

  International Man: Renowned trends forecaster Gerald Celente has said, “When all else fails, they take you to war.”

  Do you agree?

  Doug Casey: Gerald is absolutely correct.

  Looking at America’s war history, when the US fought Germany and Japan, those countries were transformed because they were totally flattened, devastated, and dispirited—that made it easy to reform them in the image that the US government wanted.

  In the Korean War, which was really a war fought against China on Korean territory, the US dropped more bombs than in all of World War II. The country was totally flattened, and South Korea also transformed itself in the image that we wanted.

  But Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and for that matter, Vietnam, were more on the order of sport wars against primitive countries. They were all embarrassing disasters.

  What kind of war are we looking at with Mexico?

  Will Washington flatten the country in order to change its government? I question whether the Mexicans will accept that. Or will Washington get involved in a protracted guerrilla war where drug gangs are designated as terrorists? Randolph Bourne was right when he said: “War is the health of the State.” Unfortunately, the average American seems to have lost the power of critical thinking. He robotically equates the health of the State with the health of America.

  Either way, it’s a bad idea for America. But Washington isn’t America. The Deep State will, however, find somebody to fight. Unfortunately, it looks like Russia and China are next on the dance card, although they could certainly add Mexico to the naughty list while further bankrupting and corrupting the US.

  

  International Man: The US government is becoming more desperate and reckless by the day.

  How can the average person protect themselves and profit from this situation?

  Doug Casey: The US government is increasingly designating any real or imagined enemy du jour— whether they’re Mexican drug cartels, the Russians, foreign separatist movements, or various American citizens—as terrorists. Once someone is termed a terrorist, the gloves are off, and it becomes possible to commit any kind of crime to combat him.

  As the US destabilizes in many ways, Washington is finding its real danger lies within the country. What we’re looking at is a war of the US government against numerous and various groups, as well as dissident individual citizens. The FBI, CIA, DEA, and other praetorian agencies are being transformed into domestic secret police forces.

  One way to protect yourself from this is to vacate the premises until it becomes safe to live in the US again.

  Let me emphasize the importance of having a second residency or a second citizenship in case the US goes in the direction of so many countries in the past. And it’s not just the US. Many supposedly free Western countries are becoming quite repressive.

  In fact, it’s dangerous being a US citizen in the US these days, at least if you speak out too loudly. It certainly concerns me personally. Even though I don’t believe it’s possible to change the course of events, I say what I do because it’s right, not because it’s smart.

  That said, you should plan on the US government becoming much more virulent in the future. Washington, not Mexican cartels, is the real danger.

  That’s absolutely the case for the next two years, while genuine Jacobins control the government. But perhaps beyond that. There’s no telling who’s going to be elected or what they’re going to do. Since we’re likely going to be in the middle of a huge financial, economic, political, social, and military crisis, anything is possible. Little of it is good.

  The trend in motion is probably going to stay in motion.

  *  *  *

  It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. Many of which seem to point to an unfortunate decline of the West. That’s precisely why legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team just released this free report, which shows you exactly what’s happening and what you can do about it. Click here to download it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 19:40

• Quiet US Seizure Of Iranian Crude Prompted Iran's Capture Of Houston-Destined Tanker
  Quiet US Seizure Of Iranian Crude Prompted Iran’s Capture Of Houston-Destined Tanker

  When on Thursday the US Navy announced that Iranian commandos had seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, conveniently absent from the narrative was the fact that just days prior the United States seized a ship laden with Iranian crude, identified as the Suez Rajan which was destined for China.

  “US authorities ordered a tanker of Iranian crude oil to redirect towards the US in recent days, in a move officials believe was the trigger for Iran’s decision to capture a US-bound tanker on Thursday,” the FT reports. “Three people briefed on the situation said the US had intervened to summon a ship loaded with Iranian crude, originally destined for China, as Washington looks to step up enforcement of sanctions on Tehran.”

  

  The Thursday seizure of the Advantage Sweet Suezmax crude tanker by the Iranians, which had been chartered by Chevron to move product from Kuwait to Houston, had resulted in swift condemnation by the Biden administration, with the US calling on Iran’s government to immediately release the oil tanker.

  While the Advantage Sweet incident grabbed international headlines, Washington’s action against the Suez Rajan (a Greek tanker carrying Iranian product) was not widely publicized or even known about.

  But US officials are now making the following belated admission: 

  The previously unreported US action towards the Suez Rajan shines a new light on Iran’s decision to capture the Advantage Sweet, a US-bound tanker of Kuwaiti crude that was chartered by Chevron.

  A US official said Thursday’s “seizure appears to be in retaliation for a prior US seizure of Iranian oil, which Iran recently attempted to get back but failed”.

  The ship with Iranian crude had been destined for China, and reportedly the Iranians had tried to pursue it when it was diverted toward the US after a court order from the DOJ. One of the companies involved with the vessel had helped with the US apprehension.

  In recent years the US has seized a number of tankers with Iranian oil for alleged sanctions-busting activities, including recent interventions against vessels headed to highly sanctioned Syria.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 19:20

• House Rejects Rep. Gaetz’s Bill To Withdraw US Troops From Somalia
  House Rejects Rep. Gaetz’s Bill To Withdraw US Troops From Somalia

  Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  The House rejected legislation from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that would require President Joe Biden to withdraw most U.S. troops from Somalia in an April 27 vote.

  Opponents of the legislation said it would hurt national security by making it harder to fight al-Shabaab, designated as a terrorist group by the United States over a decade ago.

  House lawmakers, including its sponsor, claim that 900 U.S. troops in Somalia on an uncertain mission will never bring peace. Despite his claims, the House rejected the legislation, H.Con.Res.30, in a vote of 102-321.

  Gaetz said during a floor discussion that to accept Biden’s decision last year to send soldiers back to Somalia, one would have to believe that 900 U.S. troops are what is going to save a country of 17 million from a hardened group of 7,000.

  “I think that strains not only logic but our understanding of the history of Somalia,” Gaetz said during the floor debate on the bill.

  “The future of Somalia must be determined by Somalia. And to the extent that foreign influences could be helpful, I would argue that the African Union is far better positioned to build a stronger sense of national identity and national unity among clans that have been warring in Somalia for generations than U.S. troops,” he added.

  

  Coup Concerns

  In recent weeks, Gaetz has also claimed that U.S.-trained Somali soldiers had staged coups across Africa. Gaetz questioned U.S. Africa Command Gen. Michael Langley, USMC, why taxpayers should continue paying for this endeavor in March, citing claims that certain U.S.-trained soldiers had led many coups and coup attempts.

  “The American people have extremely low confidence in our military leaders and their ability to assess their own efficacy,” Gaetz said in March when he introduced his resolution.

  “How do they expect Americans to believe their justification for occupying Somalia when they can’t even determine who in their own training programs will lead a violent coup afterward?”

  Terror Group Aligned With al-Qaeda

  Violence in Somalia has continued to be an issue of concern, with al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab seeking to establish an Islamic state through force.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 19:00

• US Sends "Shadowy Unit" Of Atomic Experts To Wire Ukraine With Nuke-Blast-Detecting Sensors
  US Sends “Shadowy Unit” Of Atomic Experts To Wire Ukraine With Nuke-Blast-Detecting Sensors

  The Biden administration is following through in a big way on its past denunciations of nuclear rhetoric and threats coming from Russian leadership of the past months and year. The Kremlin is likely to see it as an ultra-provocative and unnecessary step, revealed in fresh New York Times reporting on Friday…

  “The United States is wiring Ukraine with sensors that can detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker,” the Times report says. The goal, according to the report, is for US officials to be made immediately aware of if a radioactive weapon detonates inside Ukraine, and to be able to identify Russian forces as the culprit.

  

  NYT describes the measure as “the hardest evidence to date that Washington is taking concrete steps to prepare for the worst possible outcomes of the invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s second largest nation.”

  Interestingly, an elite team under an Energy Department organization which the Times calls “shadowy” has been tasked with deploying the sensors with the help of Ukrainian partners on the ground: 

  The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, or NEST, a shadowy unit of atomic experts run by the security agency, is working with Ukraine to deploy the radiation sensors, train personnel, monitor data and warn of deadly radiation.

  In a statement sent to The New York Times in response to a reporter’s question, the agency said the network of atomic sensors was being deployed “throughout the region” and would have the ability “to characterize the size, location and effects of any nuclear explosion.” Additionally, it said the deployed sensors would deny Russia “any opportunity to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine without attribution.”

  Further this would ensure that alternative or less conventional nuclear ‘dirty bomb’ deployment methods such as delivery by truck or boat could conceivably be more traceable (in addition to the more obvious: a mushroom cloud).

  

  Russia last year on multiple occasions alleged the Ukrainians could be planning a small nuclear dirty bomb false flag attack, in order to draw in NATO forces directly into a ground war in Ukraine.

  US officials and the Times report addresses this in saying “For instance, Moscow could falsely claim that Kyiv set off a nuclear blast on the battlefield to try to draw the West into deeper war assistance.” With the sensors in place, officials say, “in theory… Washington would be able to point to its own nuclear attribution analyses to reveal that Moscow was in fact the attacker.”

  So now it seems the US is prepping for the eventually of a false-flag blame game, disturbingly enough. Already last year iodine pills had been widely distributed in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. 

  

  Nuclear Emergency Support Team has meanwhile said in a statement that–

  “If a nuclear emergency were to occur in Ukraine, whether a radiation release from a nuclear reactor or a nuclear weapon detonation, scientific analyses would be rapidly provided to U.S. government authorities and decision-making centers in Ukraine and the region to make actionable, technically informed decisions to protect public health and safety.”

  There’s no way they could be preparing for a false flag. I’m sure they’re just putting the sensors in as a precaution.https://t.co/FYD887xXsd

  — Rich Coupe (@rich_coupe) April 28, 2023

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  But it remains that Moscow says its nuclear doctrine hasn’t changed. This includes the nuclear option in instances where the nation’s survival is deemed under existential threat. The Kremlin has further repeatedly denounce what it calls Western media and officials’ twisting Putin’s words anytime he speaks on the matter of nuclear weapons.

  Russian leadership has also asserted it doesn’t intend to use tactical or strategic nukes in Ukraine; however, Putin’s recently announcing “plans” to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has certainly rattled the West. He described it along with sending nuclear-capable bomber aircraft as a necessary decision in response to the UK giving Ukraine armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 18:40

• Nationwide Support For Assault Weapons Ban Slides, New Poll Finds 
  Nationwide Support For Assault Weapons Ban Slides, New Poll Finds 

  Authored by Stephen Gutowski via The Reload (emphasis ours),

  Americans are less interested than ever in imposing an “assault weapons” ban.

  Those are the results of a Monmouth University poll released on Monday. That poll found 49 percent of Americans opposed a ban on the sale of assault weapons while 46 percent supported one, and six percent were unsure. That marks a nine-point decline in support and a seven-point increase in opposition since Monmouth asked the same question in June 2022.

  “Despite continued incidents of mass shootings, public support for banning assault weapons has dipped,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a press release.

  

  The poll is just the latest to show a decline in support for the policy, which targets guns like the AR-15 and AK-47. It indicates Americans are growing increasingly skeptical of new broad-based restrictions on different kinds of guns, despite their presence in high-profile mass shootings. The deterioration of public opinion toward assault weapons bans may negatively affect the recent renaissance the policy has enjoyed in recent years and may be why several states where Democrats hold complete control, such as Colorado and New Mexico, failed to pass one this year.

  Monmouth’s poll comes a few months after an ABC News/Washington Post survey found a majority of Americans now oppose a ban on the sale of assault weapons, often defined as semi-automatic centerfire guns capable of accepting detachable magazines and featuring banned cosmetics like pistol grips or telescoping stocks. A Quinnipiac University poll from the same time frame found more Americans opposed a ban than supported one. The downward trend in support has persisted even after mass shootings that have captured public attention and House Democrats passing the first proposed federal ban in nearly 20 years.

  A poll from The Economist/YouGov has been one of the only consistent outliers from major polling firms on the issue. It shows support for a ban at over 60 percent. Although, that poll further confuses already-nebulous terminology by asking about a ban on “assault rifles,” which are traditionally defined as being capable of automatic fire–unlike common AR-15s.

  While gun-control advocates and President Joe Biden (D.) have continued to pursue a federal assault weapons ban as their top policy solution for mass shootings, the popularity of the guns they are seeking to remove from store shelves has skyrocketed. Late last month, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll found tens of millions of Americans own an AR-15.

  It isn’t the only estimate that puts the number of legally-owned ARs in the tens of millions.

  The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group, estimated there were over 24.4 million AR-15s and similar rifles in circulation last year. Georgetown professor William English found in his 2021 National Firearms Survey that “30.2% of gun owners, about 24.6 million people, indicated that they have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle.”

  Monmouth’s survey found political affiliation significantly impacted whether a respondent supported banning assault weapons. A majority of Democrats support such a ban, while a majority of Republicans and independents oppose it. Similarly, liberals support a ban, but conservatives and moderates do not.

  Breakdowns along age and racial lines were apparent too. The 55+ age group was the only one to feature majority support for a ban. White Americans were more likely to oppose a ban than support one, while a bare majority of non-White Americans support a ban.

  Support for other gun-control policies fared better in the Monmouth poll, though slight declines were present. 81 percent of adults said they support universal background checks, down two points from 2022 and accompanied by the caveat that only 28 percent believe it should be accomplished through an executive order. Support for a federal “Red Flag” law came in at 72 percent, down three points. The split on requiring permits for those who want to conceal a gun in public remained steady, with 56 percent supporting them and 41 percent opposed.

  Monmouth conducted the poll of a random sample of 805 adults between March 16th and 20th.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 18:20

• Russia Mounts First Large-Scale Air Raids On Ukraine In Nearly 2 Months
  Russia Mounts First Large-Scale Air Raids On Ukraine In Nearly 2 Months

  Russia launched Friday attacks on the central Ukrainian cities of Dnipro Uman – and other locations, marking the first large-scale missile and aerial raids in almost two months, and resulting in a mounting civilian death toll. 

  Ukraine’s defense ministry had previously warned the population it believed that major aerial strikes were imminent. The strikes occurred in the early night hours of Friday, with Ukrainian rescue operations ensuing throughout the day.

  

  Some large residential buildings were reportedly struck in the missile barrage, with Ukrainian rescue and health authorities telling international press that 26 people, including five children, were killed.

  The attack included over 20 cruise missiles and as well as some ‘suicide drones’ at a moment Ukraine is preparing for a spring counteroffensive: 

  Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford reporting from Kyiv said that the attack, according to the Ukrainian government, was executed by one of “23 cruise missiles and so-called kamikaze drones that Russia fired in the early hours of Friday morning. Some were reportedly launched from as far away as the Caspian Sea,” he said.

  The attacks show “Russia’s ability to strike targets across this country whenever and wherever it pleases”, he said.

  A Russian Defense Ministry statement also said it utilized strategic bombers to target Ukrainian army reserve unites, with an aim toward preventing additional troops from reaching the frontlines.

  Russian missile hit residential apartments block in Uman, Cherkasy region of Ukraine.
  Russia launched new massive missile attack against Ukrainian cities this night after weeks-long pause. Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Mykolaiv https://t.co/C4KIVXZPVW pic.twitter.com/N4DS9pIMJL

  — Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) April 28, 2023

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  Russia is also denying that it targeted civilians. “Overnight, the Russian Air Force carried out a collective rocket strike using long-range high-precision weapons targeting temporary deployment sites of Ukrainian army reserve units,” Russian MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov told reporters later in the day.

  “The target of the strike was achieved. All designated facilities were struck. The advance of the enemy’s reserves into combat zones was thwarted,” Konashenkov said.

  

  Ukraine’s military meanwhile claimed its anti-air defenses had intercepted many of the inbound missiles. Given the reported rising high death toll, Kiev is likely to press its Western backers even harder at this point for more advanced anti-air systems.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/28/2023 – 18:00

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