Today’s News 29th February 2024

• War Is Bad For You… And The Economy
  War Is Bad For You… And The Economy

  Authored by William Hartung via Counterpunch.org,

  Joe Biden wants you to believe that spending money on weapons is good for the economy.

  

  That tired old myth – regularly repeated by the political leaders of both parties – could help create an even more militarized economy that could threaten our peace and prosperity for decades to come. Any short-term gains from pumping in more arms spending will be more than offset by the long-term damage caused by crowding out new industries and innovations, while vacuuming up funds needed to address other urgent national priorities.

  The Biden administration’s sales pitch for the purported benefits of military outlays began in earnest last October, when the president gave a rare Oval Office address to promote a $106-billion emergency allocation that included tens of billions of dollars of weaponry for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. MAGA Republicans in Congress had been blocking the funding from going forward and the White House was searching for a new argument to win them over. The president and his advisers settled on an answer that could just as easily have come out of the mouth of Donald Trump: jobs, jobs, jobs. As Joe Biden put it:

  We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores… equipment that defends America and is made in America: Patriot missiles for air defense batteries made in Arizona; artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas; and so much more.

  It should be noted that two of the four states he singled out (Arizona and Pennsylvania) are swing states crucial to his reelection bid, while the other two are red states with Republican senators he’s been trying to win over to vote for another round of military aid to Ukraine.

  Lest you think that Biden’s economic pitch for such aid was a one-off event, Politico reported that, in the wake of his Oval Office speech, administration officials were distributing talking points to members of Congress touting the economic benefits of such aid. Politico dubbed this approach “Bombenomics.” Lobbyists for the administration even handed out a map purporting to show how much money such assistance to Ukraine would distribute to each of the 50 states. And that, by the way, is a tactic companies like Lockheed Martin routinely use to promote the continued funding of costly, flawed weapons systems like the F-35 fighter jet. Still, it should be troubling to see the White House stooping to the same tactics.

  Yes, it’s important to provide Ukraine with the necessary equipment and munitions to defend itself from Russia’s grim invasion, but the case should be made on the merits, not through exaggerated accounts about the economic impact of doing so. Otherwise, the military-industrial complex will have yet another never-ending claim on our scarce national resources.

  Military Keynesianism and Cold War Fallacies

  The official story about military spending and the economy starts like this: the massive buildup for World War II got America out of the Great Depression, sparked the development of key civilian technologies (from computers to the internet), and created a steady flow of well-paying manufacturing jobs that were part of the backbone of America’s industrial economy.

  There is indeed a grain of truth in each of those assertions, but they all ignore one key fact: the opportunity costs of throwing endless trillions of dollars at the military means far less is invested in other crucial American needs, ranging from housing and education to public health and environmental protection. Yes, military spending did indeed help America recover from the Great Depression but not because it was military spending. It helped because it was spending, period. Any kind of spending at the levels devoted to fighting World War II would have revived the economy. While in that era, such military spending was certainly a necessity, today similar spending is more a question of (corporate) politics and priorities than of economics.

  In these years Pentagon spending has soared and the defense budget continues to head toward an annual trillion-dollar mark, while the prospects of tens of millions of Americans have plummeted. More than 140 million of us now fall into poor or low-income categories, including one out of every six children. More than 44 million of us suffer from hunger in any given year. An estimated 183,000 Americans died of poverty-related causes in 2019, more than from homicide, gun violence, diabetes, or obesity. Meanwhile, ever more Americans are living on the streets or in shelters as homeless people hit a record 650,000 in 2022.

  Perhaps most shockingly, the United States now has the lowest life expectancy of any industrialized country, even as the International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that it now accounts for 40% of the world’s — yes, the whole world’s! — military spending. That’s four times more than its closest rival, China. In fact, it’s more than the next 15 countries combined, many of which are U.S. allies. It’s long past time for a reckoning about what kinds of investments truly make Americans safe and economically secure — a bloated military budget or those aimed at meeting people’s basic needs.

  What will it take to get Washington to invest in addressing non-military needs at the levels routinely lavished on the Pentagon? For that, we would need presidential leadership and a new, more forward-looking Congress. That’s a tough, long-term goal to reach, but well worth pursuing. If a shift in budget priorities were to be implemented in Washington, the resulting spending could, for instance, createanywhere from 9% more jobs for wind and solar energy production to three times as many jobs in education.

  As for the much-touted spinoffs from military research, investing directly in civilian activities rather than relying on a spillover from Pentagon spending would produce significantly more useful technologies far more quickly. In fact, for the past few decades, the civilian sector of the economy has been far nimbler and more innovative than Pentagon-funded initiatives, so — don’t be surprised — military spinoffs have greatly diminished. Instead, the Pentagon is desperately seeking to lure high-tech companies and talent back into its orbit, a gambit which, if successful, is likely to undermine the nation’s ability to create useful products that could push the civilian sector forward. Companies and workers who might otherwise be involved in developing vaccines, producing environmentally friendly technologies, or finding new sources of green energy will instead be put to work building a new generation of deadly weapons.

  Diminishing Returns

  In recent years, the Pentagon budget has approached its highest level since World War II: $886 billion and counting. That’s hundreds of billions more than was spent in the peak year of the Vietnam War or at the height of the Cold War. Nonetheless, the actual number of jobs in weapons manufacturing has plummeted dramatically from three million in the mid-1980s to 1.1 million now. Of course, a million jobs is nothing to sneeze at, but the downward trend in arms-related employment is likely to continue as automation and outsourcing grow. The process of reducing arms industry jobs will be accelerated by a greater reliance on software over hardware in the development of new weapons systems that incorporate artificial intelligence. Given the focus on emerging technologies, assembly line jobs will be reduced, while the number of scientists and engineers involved in weapons-related work will only grow.

  In addition, as the journalist Taylor Barnes has pointed out, the arms industry jobs that do remain are likely to pay significantly less than in the past, as unionization rates at the major contractors continue to fall precipitously, while two-tier union contracts deny incoming workers the kind of pay and benefits their predecessors enjoyed. To cite two examples: in 1971, 69% of Lockheed Martin workers were unionized, while in 2022 that number was 19%; at Northrop Grumman today, a mere 4% of its employees are unionized. The very idea that weapons production provides high-paying manufacturing jobs with good benefits is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

  More and better-paying jobs could be created by directing more spending to domestic needs, but that would require a dramatic change in the politics and composition of Congress.

  The Military Is Not an “Anti-Poverty Program”

  Members of Congress and the Washington elite continue to argue that the U.S. military is this country’s most effective anti-poverty program. While the pay, benefits, training, and educational funding available to members of that military have certainly helped some of them improve their lot, that’s hardly the full picture. The potential downside of military service puts the value of any financial benefits in grim perspective.

  Many veterans of America’s disastrous post-9/11 wars, after all, risked their physical and mental health, not to speak of their lives, during their time in the military. After all, 40% of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars have reported service-related disabilities. Physical and mental health problems suffered by veterans range from lost limbs to traumatic brain injuries to post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). They have also been at greater risk of homelessness than the population as a whole. Most tragically, four times as many veterans have committed suicide as the number of military personnel killed by enemy forces in any of the U.S. wars of this century.

  The toll of such disastrous conflicts on veterans is one of many reasons that war should be the exception, not the rule, in U.S. foreign policy.

  And in that context, there can be little doubt that the best way to fight poverty is by doing so directly, not as a side-effect of building an increasingly militarized society. If, to get a leg up in life, people need education and training, it should be provided to civilians and veterans alike.

  Tradeoffs

  Federal efforts to address the problems outlined above have been hamstrung by a combination of overspending on the Pentagon and the unwillingness of Congress to more seriously tax wealthy Americans to address poverty and inequality. (After all, the wealthiest 1% of us are now cumulatively worth more than the 291 million of us in the “bottom” 90%, which represents a massive redistribution of wealth in the last half-century.)

  The tradeoffs are stark. The Pentagon’s annual budget is significantly more than 20 times the $37 billion the government now invests annually in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Meanwhile, spending on weapons production and research alone is more than eight times as high. The Pentagon puts out more each year for one combat aircraft — the overpriced, underperforming F-35 — than the entire budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, one $13 billion aircraft carrier costs more to produce than the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. Similarly, in 2020, Lockheed Martin alone received $75 billion in federal contracts and that’s more than the budgets of the State Department and the Agency for International Development combined. In other words, the sum total of that company’s annual contracts adds up to the equivalent of the entire U.S. budget for diplomacy.

  Simply shifting funds from the Pentagon to domestic programs wouldn’t, of course, be a magical solution to all of America’s economic problems. Just to achieve such a shift in the first place would, of course, be a major political undertaking and the funds being shifted would have to be spent effectively. Furthermore, even cutting the Pentagon budget in half wouldn’t be enough to take into account all of this country’s unmet needs. That would require a comprehensive package, including not just a change in budget priorities but an increase in federal revenues and a crackdown on waste, fraud, and abuse in the outlay of government loans and grants. It would also require the kind of attention and focus now reserved for planning to fund the military.

  One comprehensive plan for remaking the economy to better serve all Americans is the moral budget of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national movement of low-income people inspired by the 1968 initiative of the same name spearheaded by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., before his assassination that April 4th. Its central issues are promoting racial justice, ending poverty, opposing militarism, and supporting environmental restoration. Its moral budget proposes investing more than $1.2 trillion in domestic needs, drawn from both cuts to Pentagon spending and increases in tax revenues from wealthy individuals and corporations. Achieving such a shift in American priorities is, at best, undoubtedly a long-term undertaking, but it does offer a better path forward than continuing to neglect basic needs to feed the war machine.

  If current trends continue, the military economy will only keep on growing at the expense of so much else we need as a society, exacerbating inequality, stifling innovation, and perpetuating a policy of endless war. We can’t allow the illusion — and it is an illusion! — of military-fueled prosperity to allow us to neglect the needs of tens of millions of people or to hinder our ability to envision the kind of world we want to build for future generations. The next time you hear a politician, a Pentagon bureaucrat, or a corporate functionary tell you about the economic wonders of massive military budgets, don’t buy the hype.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 23:40

• Moscow Accuses Zelensky Of Lying After Issuing 'Very Low' Ukraine Troop Death Count
  Moscow Accuses Zelensky Of Lying After Issuing ‘Very Low’ Ukraine Troop Death Count

  Just after the Russia-Ukraine war hit the two-year mark this past weekend, entering a third year and with no end in sight, President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly disclosed Ukraine’s official troop death count for the first time. However it immediately resulted in skepticism among even Western pundits, and charges that he’s ‘lying’.

  “31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war. Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever Putin and his lying circle are saying. But each of these losses is a great loss for us,” he said.

  

  Both sides have kept their casualty count a closely guarded secret, with each country’s media regularly making claims of an immense death toll only on the other side, given it’s an important part of wartime propaganda to keep the enemy in the dark and not let them perceive they could be ‘winning’.

  Zelensky’s claim that Ukrainian troop deaths are in the low tens of thousands, and not in the hundreds of thousands, elicited fierce pushback from Moscow. It marks a rare moment that either side is actually talking specific figures, and really for most outside observers the whole ‘debate’ is grim. 

  Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a briefing before his top generals on Tuesday that Ukraine has actually lost 444,000 servicemen since the war’s start. This is an astounding figure which far surpasses any and all prior speculation by pundits. He said according to a translation by NBC:

  “As a result of the decisive and active actions of our military personnel, the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces is decreasing. On average, since the beginning of the year, the enemy has been losing more than 800 personnel and 120 units of various weapons, including foreign-made ones, every day,” Shoigu claimed.

  “After the collapse of the counteroffensive, the military command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is trying to use the remaining reserves to stabilize the situation and prevent the collapse of the front,” Shoigu added.

  Pentagon officials have recently issued their own estimation of Moscow’s losses, saying that US intelligence believes that some 315,000 Russian troops have been killed.

  What is clear is that Ukrainian forces are currently in rapid retreat, and lack manpower and enough weaponry to keep up resistance along the front line. Ukraine’s military has admitted retreating from several area villages after its collapse in Avdiiivka earlier this month:

  “The Armed Forces have indeed withdrawn from the village of Lastochkyne, which is located immediately west of Avdiivka. There are difficult terrain conditions there, a cascade of small water reservoirs, and this qualifies as stabilizing the defence line, levelling it out to some extent. The enemy continues to attempt offensive actions towards the settlement of Orlivka, conducting them from three fronts, but they are unsuccessful.”

  Meanwhile, there’s been no official progress related to potential ceasefire talks. Zelensky has continued touring Europe, and is even now in Saudi Arabia, trying to get large arms flowing into Kiev again.

  While Russia’s claims are anything but confirmed and are likely exaggerated (as all governments in a time of war tend to do when it comes to enemy losses), some pundits have found it much more credible that Zelensky’s 31,000 figure:

  Zelenskyy lied to his people about the casualty numbers of Ukrainian troops. Russian Defence Minister Shoigu disclosed today that Ukraine lost 444k soldiers so far. Currently 800 Ukrainian soldiers die every day. Obituary data from Ukraine confirms this. pic.twitter.com/v3ZiKBbkhY

  — Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) February 27, 2024

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

  Zelensky is sticking by Ukraine’s own peace formula, which would require that Russia leave all occupied territory, and even give up claims to Crimea. This of course remains a non-starter for Moscow, which remains at an immense advantage both in manpower, artillery, and advanced arms. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 23:20

• From Trucker-Boycotts To Grid-Down – There's Only One Way To Survive A Food Crisis
  From Trucker-Boycotts To Grid-Down – There’s Only One Way To Survive A Food Crisis

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  If there is one reality that Americans need to accept, it’s that every system has a breaking point and there are no exceptions. Human beings are built to adapt and this has given us incredible resilience, but it also means we have a tendency to wait too long to fix the parts of our society that are broken. Instead, we let the problems build and fester until, sadly, the final straw falls and everything comes crashing down.

  

  Sometimes this collapse is by chance and sometimes it’s by design. In either case the catalyst is the same – The public does not prepare and they don’t take action to correct the people creating the crisis until it’s too late.

  In our modern era of invasive technology, economic weakness, nuclear weapons and biowarfare, this is an unsustainable model. We can no longer ignore threats on instability in the hopes that they will go away or that governments will defuse the danger, nor can we simply pick up the pieces over and over again after each calamity. There may come a time when the mess is so big we won’t be able to clean it up. People must plan ahead, and they must stop tolerating the notion of passive involvement in the mechanisms that influence their lives and future.

  I write often about hypothetical trigger events and breakdown scenarios because a large number of people still need to be educated on how fragile the western world truly is right now. For example, any significant disruption to supply chains and logistics at this time would be devastating for a large number of Americans (or Europeans).

  In the past couple weeks alone there has been a rising tide of political discontent among US truckers; the very people that handle over 70% of all freight in our country. They have threatened to boycott a number of Democrat controlled cities (primarily New York City) over a host of issues and complaints including the legal treatment of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.  This boycott may not play out in the near term (watch for talk of boycotts to escalate in November around election time), but the potential is on the table and it’s an important learning moment.  What would happen if the US freight system actually stopped?

  US supply chains operate on a “just in time” freight schedule – Meaning, all the grocery stores in your area will carry just enough backstock to serve normal business operations for about a week, when the next fleet of trucks arrive.

  The just-in-time structure is the lifeblood of the supply chain, and most American cities would fall into chaos after one week without it. Trains and railway networks handle around 28% of total freight and have struggled through a long state of decline. There is no realistic alternative to trucks.

  FEMA and the National Guard could try to field drivers to fill the void, but consider this: There are currently 3.5 million freight drivers in the US today, and that number is at least 80,000 drivers short of what is needed. Do you think the government or the military is going to be able to come up with enough scabs to undermine a trucker strike against blue cities?  There’s no chance.

  I have to say, I’m not opposed the concept of a trucker boycott; its a peaceful redress of grievances and all peaceful measures should be exhausted first. All they have to do is refuse to take on shipments to places like NYC or Washington DC – Many of them are subcontractors that can pick and choose whatever jobs they want.

  However, we need to keep in mind how terrified the Canadian government was during their trucker protests; so terrified that they labeled the truckers as terrorists and started freezing the bank accounts of anyone supporting them. This action was against their own constitutional laws; that’s how effectively frightening a freight shutdown is to politicians.

  Even so, if the US government responded in the same way as Canada, it still wouldn’t do much to stop a boycott. Tensions are extremely high and it’s only a matter of time before conflict erupts in one form or another.  The political left (and their globalist handlers) have offered no indication whatsoever that they intend to back away from their current destructive path. Something has to give.  Why not a trucker protest or red state protest cutting off blue regions from vital resources?

  Unfortunately, there are still a number of conservatives and independents living in these cities that could be negatively affected by a freight shutdown along with their progressive neighbors. Maybe this strike never comes to fruition and everything will continue on as “normal.” Maybe not. The point is, anything can happen and the way our economy and supply chains currently function is not going to pass muster for much longer.

  The average American has around one week’s worth of food in their pantry at any given time. With FEMA response in place a rationing system would be instituted over the course of several weeks, probably using a digital tracking method much like an EBT card. And make no mistake, there will be strings attached to any government rationing program:

  “Do you have the latest covid booster? No ration card until your shots are up to date. We see that you have registered firearms…you need to turn those in before you can get rations. We see that you’ve made problematic comments in your social media history, you may not be eligible.”

  It takes around 7-10 days of zero food supply for panic to set into a population (when people finally realize things are not going back to normal). It takes two weeks for starvation to take a physical toll and three weeks for people to start dying. Riots and looting are inevitable, but that won’t solve the problem if there’s no food to loot.

  Some people will argue that they only need to not be where the shortages are, but there’s no way to predict this. In the case of conservative trucker boycotts, the targeted areas are obvious, but that is only one scenario. There are a host of events that could cause a crippled supply chain in both rural and urban areas, including a mass immigration crisis or a nationwide grid down scenario.

  The only viable solutions is to secure a long term food storage plan, and don’t forget the protein because western governments have become increasingly hostile against animal agriculture these days. (Get your affordable freeze dried beef supply HERE with promo code “market15”)

  Food storage for each family for at least a year is essential. It doesn’t have to start there; even one month of food will give you an edge over most of the population and will ensure you don’t have to go begging to FEMA. But eventually a year’s supply or more is necessary (along with community organization for mutual security). This will give you time to establish a more permanent and sustainable food plan after the worst has happened.

  You can see the storm that a logistical breakdown would cause. In 30 days or less a city like New York could be brought to its knees even with government intervention. On a national scale, regardless of the cause, the result would be about the same. Ultimately there are two kinds of people in the wake of these kinds of events – The people that planned ahead, and everyone else. It’s my hope that through education and encouragement we can convince enough of the populace to prepare so that this large percentage of Americans acts as a redundancy against catastrophe (leftists won’t listen, but maybe the rest of the public will).

  In other words, the goal is to give the public a natural immunity against supply chain collapse, so that when the crisis does strike the effects will be greatly diminished.

  *  *  *

  Food security is one of the most important preparations Americans can make as threats continue to rise. Stock up on Texas-raised long-term storage Ribeye, NY Strip, Tenderloin, and more with Prepper All-Naturals.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 23:00

• "Who Could Be Next": Top Canadian Pension Fund Sells Manhattan Office Tower For $1, Sparking Firesale Panic
  “Who Could Be Next”: Top Canadian Pension Fund Sells Manhattan Office Tower For $1, Sparking Firesale Panic

  New York during the inflationary surge of the late 70s and early 80s was a mythical place where one could purchase a Park avenue penthouse for $1 (while assuming the copious debt, of course). Now, thanks to the brutal bear hug of the highest interest rates in 40 years and the ongoing CRE crisis, those legendary days have made a comeback to the Big Apple, if only in the realm of commercial real estate for now.

  According to Bloomberg, Canadian pension funds – which until recently had been among the world’s most prolific buyers of real estate, starting a revolution that inspired retirement plans around the globe to emulate them because, in the immortal words of Ben Bernanke, Canadian real estate prices never go down…

  

  … are finally realizing that gravity does exist . And so, the largest one among them is taking steps to limit its exposure to the most-beleaguered commercial property type — office buildings.

  Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has recently done three deals at deeply discounted prices, selling its interests in a pair of Vancouver towers, and a business park in Southern California, but it was its Manhattan office tower redevelopment project that shocked the industry: the Canadian asset manager sold its stake for just $1. The worry now is that such firesales will set an example for other major investors seeking a way out of the turmoil too, forcing a wholesale crash in the Manhattan real estate market which until now had managed to avoid real price discovery.

  Indeed, as Goldman wrote earlier this week, while office vacancy rates are expected to keep rising well into the next decade..

  

  … the average price of many nonviable offices has fallen only 11% to $307/sqft since 2019 (left side of Exhibit 6). The bank goes on to note that in the hardest-hit cities, as many as 14-16% of offices may no longer be viable, and their average transaction prices have already declined by 15-35%. However, because of lack of liquidity in this market, these recent transaction prices have not yet started to reflect the current values of many existing offices. Goldman ominously concludes that “alternative valuation methods, like those that are based on repeat-sales and appraisal values, suggest that actual office values may be far lower than the average transaction price.” Well, a $1 dollar price would certainly confirm that actual office values are far, far lower (more in the full Goldman note available to professional subscribers).

  

  And going back to the historic firesale, at the end of last year the Canadian fund sold its 29% stake in Manhattan’s 360 Park Avenue South for $1 to one of its partners, Boston Properties, which also agreed to assume CPPIB’s share of the project’s debt. The investors, along with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte., bought the 20-story building in 2021 with plans to redevelop it into a modern workspace.

  

  “It’s the opposite of a vote of confidence for office,” said John Kim, an analyst tracking real estate companies for BMO Capital Markets. “My question is, who could be next?”

  As office building anxiety has swept the financial world, as the persistence of both remote work and higher borrowing costs undercuts the economic fundamentals that made the properties good investments in the first place, a wave of banks from New York to Tokyo recently conceded that loans they made against offices may never be fully repaid, sending their share prices plunging and prompting fears of a broader credit crunch.

  But the real test will be what price office buildings actually trade for – especially once the hundreds of billions of loan backing the properties mature….

  

  …. and until now there have been precious few examples since interest rates started rising. That’s why industry-watchers see such shocking liquidations like CPPIB’s as a very ominous sign for the market.

  The Manhattan firesale isn’t the pension fund’s first sale: last month, CPPIB sold its 45% stake in Santa Monica Business Park, which the fund also owned with Boston Properties, for $38 million. That’s a discount of almost 75% to what CPPIB paid for its share of the property in 2018. The deal came just after the landlords signed a lease with social media company Snap that required they spend additional capital to improve the campus, Boston Properties Chief Executive Officer Owen Thomas said on a conference call.

  Peter Ballon, CPPIB’s global head of real estate, declined to comment on the recent deals, but said the fund has continued to invest in office buildings, including a recently completed, 37-story tower in Vancouver.

  “Selling is an integral part of our investment process,” Ballon said in an emailed statement. “We exit when the asset has maximized its value and we are able to redeploy proceeds into higher and better returns in other assets, sectors and markets, including office buildings.”

  As Bloomberg notes, the pension fund isn’t actively backing away from offices, but it’s not looking to increase its office holdings either. And where a property requires additional investment, CPPIB might simply look to sell so it can put that cash somewhere it can get higher returns instead, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter.

  CPPIB’s C$590.8 billion ($436.9 billion) fund is one of the world’s largest pools of capital, and its C$41.4 billion portfolio of real estate — stretching from Stockholm to Bengaluru — includes almost every property type, from warehouses, to life sciences complexes, to apartment blocks.

  While that scale would mitigate any potential losses from individual transactions, it also means even a small shift in CPPIB’s office appetite has the power to cause ripple effects in the market.

  While the 360 Park liquidation may be shocking, it’s just the first of many: with hybrid work schedules set to depress demand for office space in the long term, and higher interest rates increasing the cost of the constant upgrades needed to attract and keep tenants, even the best office buildings may not be able to compete with investment opportunities elsewhere.

  “To get even better returns in your office investment you’re going to have to modernize, you’re going to have to put a lot more money into that office,” said Matt Hershey, a partner at real estate capital advisory firm Hodes Weill & Associates. “Sometimes it’s better to just take your losses and reinvest in something that’s going to perform much better.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 22:40

• The Beltway Judge Hearing Trump Cases & Her Anti-Trump, Anti-Kavanaugh Husband
  The Beltway Judge Hearing Trump Cases & Her Anti-Trump, Anti-Kavanaugh Husband

  Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearInvestigations,

  Washington glitterati assembled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October to celebrate federal employees making a difference in government. Hosted by CNN anchor Kate Bolduan, the black-tie affair featured in-person appearances by top Biden White House officials including Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.

  

  Judge Florence Pan, who now has key Trump issues such as presidential immunity before her in court … U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia/Wikimedia

  Midway through the evening’s festivities, Max Stier, president of the group sponsoring the event – the Partnership for Public Service, a $24 million nonprofit based in Washington that recruits individuals to work in the civil service – took the stage to thank his high-profile guests.

  “Great leaders are the heart and soul of effective organizations,” Stier said, “which is why I am so thankful to see so many of our government’s amazing leaders here tonight.”

  Stier also acknowledged one federal employee, his wife, Judge Florence Y. Pan, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Pan would soon need no introduction. Earlier this month she made headlines  by asking Donald Trump’s lawyers whether the presidential immunity he sought in connection with alleged Jan. 6 crimes was absolute.

  “Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival?” Pan asked Trump lawyer John Sauer. “That’s an official act – an order to SEAL Team Six?” she clarified.

  

  … while her husband, Democrat insider Max Stier, continues campaigning against Trump after  emerging as a key accuser of his former Yale classmate and present Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Business Wire

  Although the back and forth between Pan and Sauer was inconclusive as to the question about a president’s criminal liability, many mainstream outlets misconstrued the exchange while lionizing Pan for posing a question that they then used to advance their description of Trump as a lawless menace. The exchange, which Pan prompted when she posed the pre-arranged hypothetical at beginning of the hearing, has raised new questions about the impartiality of judges hearing politically charged cases.

  For months progressives have been insisting that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any case that involves Trump because of his wife Ginni Thomas’ political involvement and participation in the events of Jan. 6. Those same interests have yet to express similar worries about Pan’s objectivity, despite her husband’s longtime political activism and current opposition to another Trump presidency.

  Power couples are the lifeblood of Washington so it’s not unusual for political activists, judges, and White House bigwigs to rub elbows at fancy soirees like the October gala at the Kennedy Center. But Max Stier’s longtime ties to the Democratic Party, his access to key Biden administration officials, and his suggestion that Trump represents a threat to democracy at the same time his wife is handling sensitive matters related to the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the former president should raise questions about her impartiality.

  A member of Bill Clinton’s legal team during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Stier, 57, has been a Democratic Party fixture for nearly three decades. Since 2001, he has run the Partnership for Public Service, which is funded by some of the most generous benefactors of progressive causes including the Gates Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Ford Foundation. In 2020, the Partnership launched an effort tied to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement, pledging to demand what it considers greater diversity in government agencies and institutions.

  In a letter to mark the group’s 20-year anniversary, Stier lamented the country’s democratic “crisis” caused by “a violent insurrection against Congress and growing suspicions about the results of a legitimate election.”

  

  Liberal media and Democrats see big conflicts of interest in conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and his activist wife, Ginni. They seem less concerned about Judge Florence Pan and her Democrat activist husband, Max Stier. MSNBC/YouTube

  Recently, Stier has joined the growing chorus of Beltway voices warning that a second Trump presidency would pose a unique “threat” to the country’s future. Stier and others are particularly concerned with Trump’s promise to convert tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats into political appointees, meaning they could be fired without cause by the president. Such a plan, according to Stier, undermines the Constitution and the law.

  “You wind up with a workforce that is not only going to deliver poor service, but also that is going to be a tool for retribution and actions that are contrary to our democratic system,” Stier said in a December 2023 Politico interview. “If you are selecting people on the basis of their political persuasion or their loyalty as opposed to their expertise and their commitment to the public good, you’re going to wind up with less good service and more risk for the American people.”

  “I don’t think we have a deep state today,” he said. But “the proposals that are on the table would create a deep state, rather than the effective state that we all should be pursuing.”

  Stier is doing more than just discussing the issue in media interviews; he is working directly with Biden officials to prevent Trump from following through on his pledge if he wins in November. Stier has called Trump’s plans to reform so-called “Schedule F” employees “an assault on our civil service, the core to our system of government and democratic institutions.”

  When Republicans threatened to shut down the government last year over disagreements with Democrats on federal spending levels, Stier warned it would sideline what unions estimate as 4 million government employees. “[It] is the equivalent of burning down your own house,” he said of a potential shutdown.

  

  Stier recalled bad things about Kavanaugh, above, decades after their Yale days together in the 1980s. AP

  But Stier is perhaps best known for his involvement in attempting to thwart Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Stier and Kavanaugh attended Yale University together in the mid-1980s. In September 2019, while reporting on a sexual abuse accusation made by another Yale student, Deborah Ramirez, the New York Times disclosed Stier’s account of an incident he allegedly witnessed during their freshman year.

  Two Times reporters, in their first-person-plural “analysis” favoring Kavanaugh’s accusers, wrote:

  

  The New York Times reporting quoted below led to the book above including Stier’s allegations. Amazon.com

  A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier; the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say she does not recall the episode.

  Stier’s still unproven allegations are included in a new documentary, “Justice,” about the Kavanaugh scandal. The film, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, centers on Ramirez and features a recording of Stier’s never-before-heard 2018 call to the FBI tip line detailing what he claimed to have seen and heard. 

  Washington Post entertainment reporter Jada Yuan wrote in January 2023:

  

  Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh accuser: In a 2023 documentary, Stier, also a Yalie, adds support to her questioned account of sexual lewdness. Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence

  In the previously unheard recording, Stier says classmates told him not just that Kavanaugh stuck his penis in Ramirez’s face, but that afterward, Kavanaugh went to the bathroom to make himself erect before allegedly returning to assault her again, hoping to amuse an audience of mutual friends, In the film, Ramirez says she’d suppressed the memory so deeply she couldn’t recall this second incident. … Stier’s message to the FBI also cites another incident involving a different woman, which he says he witnessed “firsthand”: A severely inebriated Kavanaugh, his dorm mate, pulling his pants down at a different party while a group of soccer players forced a drunk female freshman to hold his penis.

  Stier did not appear as an interview subject in the film. Some speculated that Stier’s involvement in the Kavanaugh matter was retaliation against former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing his wife’s earlier nomination as district judge to expire with the end of the Obama administration.

  

  Jack Smith, special counsel: Trump and Jan. 6 issues arising from his work have come before Judge Pan, and she has sided with the government. AP

  Judge Pan, 57, a Taiwanese-American, has longstanding ties to the Democratic Party. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Pan worked for President Clinton’s departments of Justice and Treasury before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in 1999. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to serve as an associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. As his tenure drew to a close, Obama then nominated her unsuccessfully to serve as a United States district judge for the District of Columbia.

  After Trump left office in 2021, Pan became one of President Biden’s first judicial nominees, tapped again to serve as a U.S. district judge in Washington. Less than a year later, Biden promoted her to the D.C. appellate court; in both instances, Pan replaced Ketanji Brown Jackson as she made her way to the Supreme Court. She is the first Asian American to serve on both benches.

  “This is a perfect example of how the Deep State defends its interest,” Russell Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, one of the organizations pushing for the Schedule F reforms told RealClearInvestigations.

  “In and out of government, multiple branches of government, relying on personal networks, even marriages, to defeat President Trump and thereby protect a permanent, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

  During her brief tenure on the appellate court, Pan has found herself on an unusually high number of politically charged cases.

  A panel of three judges initially hears appeals before the full court selected out of 11 sitting judges. Pan has been seated on two such panels regarding cases involving Jan. 6 and Donald Trump. In both cases she provided the key vote in a split, 2-1 decision, that sided with the government. In Fischer v. USA, Pan acknowledged that the government was making a “novel” use of a post-Enron statute that addressed tampering with documents to increase the legal jeopardy of individuals who disrupted the Electoral College Count on Jan. 6.

  “To be sure, outside of the January 6 cases brought in this jurisdiction, there is no precedent for using 1512(c)(2) to prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.”

  Nonetheless, Pan applied a “broad reading of the statute” to allow application of the law.

  Pan reached the same conclusion in Robertson v. USA on the same matter in another 2-1 decision. Her opinion in the Fischer case is now before the Supreme Court; legal observers predict the court might reverse her opinion, essentially overturning how the DOJ has interpreted the statute’s language to charge more than 300 Jan. 6 protesters with the felony count. (This would put Judge Kavanaugh in the unique position of voting against a decision written by the spouse of one of his accusers.)

  Unusual GOP Dissent on Court

  Pan also upheld another controversial lower court ruling that favored the DOJ and worked against Trump, one that recently resulted in a harsh rebuke from some of her colleagues on the circuit court.

  U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, another Obama appointee, in 2023 authorized an application from Special Counsel Jack Smith to obtain a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter data in his Jan. 6 case against the former President. Not only did Howell force the company to produce the records, which included direct messages and draft posts, she signed a nondisclosure order to prevent Twitter – now X and owned by liberal bête noire Elon Musk – from notifying its customer, Trump, about the warrant for 180 days.

  X appealed Howell’s nondisclosure order; Judge Pan backed Howell’s decision and ruled against the company’s appeal, citing the need to “safeguard the security and integrity of the investigation” and “avoid tipping off the former President about the warrant’s existence.”

  But Pan’s conclusions were wrong, four Republican-appointed judges on the D.C. circuit court wrote this month in what legal observers described as an unusual 12-page statement related to the appeal.

  

  Judge Neomi Rao, Trump appointee: She and three other colleagues on the DC circuit court dissented from Pan. AP

  “The Special Counsel’s approach obscured and bypassed any assertion of executive privilege and dodged the careful balance Congress struck in the Presidential Records Act,” Judges Neomi Rao, Justin Walker, Gregory Katsas, and Karen Henderson wrote in an order filed Jan. 16.

  “The district court and this court permitted this arrangement without any consideration of the consequential executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search. We should not have endorsed this gambit. Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege.”

  But it was Pan’s exchange with Trump’s defense attorney during oral arguments related to Trump’s claims of presidential immunity against criminal prosecution that caught the media’s attention. Trump is seeking to dismiss Smith’s Jan. 6 indictment on immunity grounds; Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a landmark ruling in December denying Trump’s motion and concluded that presidents are subject to criminal prosecution.

  Roughly one minute into the Jan. 9 discussion, Pan interrupted Trump lawyer Sauer with her hypothetical question. The exchange went as follows:

  

  D. John Sauer, Trump lawyer: Impeachment conviction before criminal prosecution. AP

  Pan: Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That’s an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six?

  John Sauer: He would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution.

  Pan: But if he weren’t … there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?

  Sauer: Chief Justice’s opinion in Marbury against Madison … and the Impeachment Judgment Clause all clearly presuppose what the Founders were concerned about …

  Pan: I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?

  Sauer: If he were impeached and convicted first.

  Pan: So your answer is … no.

  Sauer: It is a qualified yes.

  Despite Sauer’s answer, figures in major media nonetheless reported that Sauer claimed a president could not be prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political rival. (It was unclear whether Pan suggested the order or the act itself was illegal.) Legal analysts, cable news hosts, and columnists praised Pan regardless of the plausibility of such a scenario.

  Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that “after Judge Pan asked that hypo about SEAL Team Six, Sauer … was a dead man walking. He will lose. He should lose.”

  Writing for the Atlantic, former federal prosecutor and Trump antagonist George Conway described Pan’s hypothetical as a way of setting a “trap” for Team Trump. He further suggested Pan could host “Meet the Press” if she decided to pursue a different career outside the judiciary.

  Conway continued to praise Pan in a CNN interview, calling her SEAL Team Six line of inquiry an “intellectual tour de force.”

  Democrats also seized on Sauer’s response. Rep. Adam Schiff, currently running for the U.S. Senate in California, denounced Trump and his legal team, insisting “there is no immunity for murder.”

  

  Rep. Adam Schiff seized on the Trump lawyer’s response to Judge Pan,  insisting “there is no excuse for murder.” AP

  A reporter asked Trump about the exchange during an appearance on Jan. 11. “Do you agree with your lawyers, what they said on Tuesday, that you should not be prosecuted if you ordered SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent?” Trump replied that presidents “have to have immunity,” otherwise every president would be prosecuted by that leader’s successor of the opposite political party.

  Some pundits took Pan’s hypothetical a step further. MSNBC contributor Elie Mystal misrepresented Sauer’s answer, then proposed that Joe Biden could “launch a preemptive strike on a rebel stronghold at Mar-a-Lago” under Trump’s way of thinking.

  Paul Rozenzweig of the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark wrote that Trump’s reasoning meant Biden could assassinate Trump without any consequences.

  The controversy presumably will continue to swirl until Pan’s panel issues its ruling. It could be weeks until the opinion is filed. Until then, Trump’s March 4 trial date is on hold and looks less likely by the day, which is why Jack Smith asked the court to fast-track the announcement to expedite the process as it inevitably heads toward the Supreme Court. Considering the political composition of the three-judge panel – two judges appointed by Democratic presidents – most observers expect the appellate court to uphold Chutkan’s ruling.

  Meanwhile, Pan’s hypothetical scenario of a presidentially ordered hit likely will figure prominently in any opinion.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 22:20

• Joy Reid Posts Crazed Rant About Alabama IVF Case – Suggests The State Wants Slaves
  Joy Reid Posts Crazed Rant About Alabama IVF Case – Suggests The State Wants Slaves

  Alabama’s Supreme Court has recently ruled on the designation of fertilized embryos held by vitro clinics in the state, giving the embryos legal status as living children. 

  The decision was made in response to lawsuits brought by three couples who were clients of one such clinic, where apparent negligence led to the destruction of embryos which the parents paid to have frozen in preparation for a future pregnancy.

  One of the couples asserted that the destruction of their fertilized embryos should include charges of wrongful death of a minor, and the Alabama Supreme Court agreed.  Alabama issued a ban on the majority of abortions in 2019 and the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade has solidified the standing that states have the right to decide the legality of abortion outside of federal interference.  Keep in mind, the Alabama case was not brought by the state, it was brought by private citizens in a dispute with an IVF clinic, but the decision has sweeping implications.    

  The root legal argument made by abortion advocates is that the Constitution protects life, liberty and property, but it does not specify exactly what the definition of “life” is or when legal personhood begins.  The Alabama decision is terrifying to abortion activists because this is one of the first instances since the Dobbs case in which fertilized embryos are being defined as living human beings.  Such a trend would give constitutional rights to unborn children.

  Conservatives in Alabama including Senator Tommy Tuberville have applauded the court ruling, but leftists are in an uproar.  The fear is palpable in the rantings of MSNBC host Joy Reid, who makes some classic anti-child’s rights arguments along with some new and bizarre assertions about slavery in response to Senator Tuberville’s suggestion that Alabama needs more children.

  “The U.S. has a population of 327 million people… why do we need more kids??”

  Watch the entire clip. MSNBC’s Joy Reid is clinically insane. This might be the most deranged rant I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/mjd7bU2VCW

  — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 26, 2024

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

  Three primary points need to be addressed here:

  1)  Reid applies the old population control argument in a disturbing tangent – “If conservatives are going to stand against illegal immigration, then they must also support abortion.”  

  In other words, she thinks that opposing illegal immigration is the same as opposing higher population in the US and therefore, if conservatives oppose higher population, they should be pro-abortion.  But, this is not the conservative position. 

  First and foremost, pro-life advocates are against what they see as the murder of children.  It’s a moral argument, not an economic debate related to population rates.  The moral argument, not surprisingly, completely escapes Joy Reid’s radar.

  Second, her position is actually backwards.  If Democrats are going to promote and support mass illegal immigration into the US because they think America needs more workers, then why not simply stop abortions and increase the population organically instead?  Why continue subsidizing and incentivizing illegals when children can be born here legally?  Wouldn’t it be preferable to raise a population with American principles and values rather than inviting in millions of unvetted foreigners who immediately take welfare, eat up housing and cause more crime?

  2)  Reid then pursues an unhinged hypothesis, suggesting that Republicans in Alabama might want more children (in place of illegal immigrants) because those children will be “destitute” and easier to “enslave.”  She then compares the notion once again to “The Handmaids Tale,” a poorly written book for mentally deficient readers often cited by the political left as if it’s as valid as Orwell’s 1984.

  Is Reid suggesting that illegal immigrants are used as “slaves” in the US?  And does she think this is preferable to making abortion illegal?  This seems to be her argument. If she actually believes that illegals are being used as slaves, then she should make a stand against open borders and illegal immigration.

  It’s hard to find any example in history of slaves being paid for their work while also receiving government subsidies and welfare as incentives to stay and continue being slaves.  That doesn’t sound so “slavery-ish,” as Reid so eloquently describes it.   

  3)  Finally, Reid insinuates that the Alabama decision might be a ploy to increase the population of white people in the state (and leftists always treat more white people as a bad thing).  But according to her previous argument any children born under the new rules would be destitute and thus used as slaves.  Does this go for the white kids also?  Or, is it only victimization if the children are not white?

  Some people might say that Joy Reid is an irrelevant person and there’s no need to counter her blatherings with any seriousness.  However, her claims represent the thinking of a majority of activists within the woke movement.  It’s important to show how disjointed and irrational this thinking is whenever it arises, otherwise it will continue to spread like a cancer across the country.          

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 22:00

• Illinois Judge Removes Trump From Primary Ballot
  Illinois Judge Removes Trump From Primary Ballot

  By Catherine Yang of Epoch Times

  Ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on whether former President Donald Trump can be disqualified as a candidate by individual states under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, an Illinois judge ruled President Trump ineligible for the ballot.

  Cook County Circuit Court Judge Tracie Porter, following other jurisdictions, stayed her order to remove the former president pending an appeal which he has, and which the Supreme Court has said it will hear. The ruling came a week after the judge heard arguments regarding Illinois statutes.

  “This Order is stayed until March 1, 2024 in anticipation of an appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, or the Illinois Supreme Court. This Order is further stayed if the United States Supreme Court in Anderson v. Griswold enters a decision inconsistent with this Order,” the ruling reads.

  

  On Feb. 8, the day the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding Colorado’s disqualification of President Trump, mail-in ballots were sent out in Illinois with President Trump’s name on them. This puts the state in a position to potentially have to not count votes cast for him.

  If the order is not stayed and reversed, the state elections board will be tasked with removing “Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the General Primary Election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed, according to the procedures within their administrative authority.”

  Much of the judge’s opinion and order dealt with state law and whether the state elections board had the jurisdiction to rule on this matter.

  The judge found that Illinois law allowed petitioners to bring this kind of a challenge and that President Trump was “disqualified by engaging in insurrection,” noting that this finding was echoed by the hearing officer of the state election board and the Colorado Supreme Court.

  “This Court shares the Colorado Supreme Court’s sentiments that did not reach its conclusions lightly. This Court also realizes the magnitude of this decision and it (sic) impact on the upcoming primary Illinois elections,” the order reads.

  Both of those jurisdictions based the “insurrection” conclusion on records that plaintiffs presented drawn largely from the controversial Jan. 6 Select Committee report.

  Judge Porter determined that Section 3 was self-executing, applied to presidents, and could be applied by individual states even in the event of a national election.

  These legal issues are all currently before the Supreme Court, which on Feb. 8 questioned attorneys representing President Trump and six petitioners from Colorado on the ramifications of states applying Section 3 at length and spent little time discussing whether an insurrection occurred.

  Petitioners

  The challenge was brought by five Illinois voters, represented by the activist group “Free Speech for People.”

  Earlier, the bipartisan Illinois State Board of Elections unanimously voted to keep President Trump on the ballot after determining that the board did not have the authority to analyze constitutional issues. The board unanimously voted to keep President Joe Biden on the ballot for similar reasons, in response to two separate challenges brought against the sitting president.

  The challenge to President Trump’s eligibility was then appealed in circuit court, and the parties have indicated that whatever the ruling, it would be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

  Free Speech for People Legal Director Ron Fein declared it a “historic victory.”

  Continue reading at Epoch Times

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 21:59

• US GDP "Grew" $334 Billion In Q4…. That Growth Cost $834 Billion In Debt
  US GDP “Grew” $334 Billion In Q4…. That Growth Cost $834 Billion In Debt

  Moments ago, two things happened: Biden’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released the first revision of Q4 2023 GDP, a number which is completely irrelevant as it looks at the state of the US economy more than 2 months ago as the calendar is now just weeks away from the start of Q2 2024… and bitcoin soared above $60,000, now less than $10k away from a record high. While it may not be immediately obvious, the two events are linked. Let us explain.

  First, according to the Biden admin, in Q4 GDP rose 3.2%, a modest drop from the 3.3% reported in the first estimate one month ago, and below the 3.3% consensus estimate.

  

  While we already know this, the BEA reported that the increase in the fourth quarter primarily reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

  • The increase in consumer spending reflected increases in both services and goods. Within services, the leading contributors were health care, food services and accommodations, and other services (led by international travel). Within goods, the leading contributors to the increase were other nondurable goods (led by pharmaceutical products) as well as recreational goods and vehicles.
  • The increase in exports reflected increases in both goods (led by petroleum) and services (led by financial services).
  • The increase in state and local government spending reflected increases in both investment (led by structures) and consumption expenditures (led by compensation of employees).

  

  Comparing the first estimate with the second, we find several notable items, the first being that Personal Consumption actually rose more than expected, growing a 3.0% QoQ annualized (vs 2.8% in the first estimate), and contributing 2.0% to the bottom line GDP of 3.21%, up from 1.91% in the original estimate. Another increase was seen in fixed investment which contributed 0.43% to the bottom line, up from the 0.31% originally estimated; finally government also saw its contribution boosted, rising to 0.73%, or about a quarter, of the final GDP. These improvement were offset by a notable drop in the change in private inventories which declined from an addition of 0.07% to a subtraction of -0.27%.

  

  Ok, none of this matters: the numbers will be revised again next month but by then all markets will care about will be not so much Q1 GDP but rather Q2 and onward. So very stale.

  But what does that have to do with the bitcoin spike?

  Well, a closer look at the data revealed something stunning: a quick look at the increase in nominal GDP, which rose from $27.61 trillion in Q3 to $27.94 trillion in Q4, shows that the US economy increased some $334.5 billion in absolute nominal dollar terms.

  But where did this growth come from? Why debt of course, and a lot of it. For the answer how much debt, we go to the US Treasury’s Debt to the penny website, where we find that debt on Sept 30, 2023 was $33,167,334,044,723.16 and debt on Dec 31, 2023 was $34,001,493,655,565.48.

  In other words, it cost $834.2 billion in debt during Q3 to grow the US economy by $334.5 billion, or exactly $2.5 in debt for every $1 in GDP “growth.”

  

  Which also brings us back full circle and explains why bitcoin is now trading at $60,000, the highest price since late 2021 and why it will not only surpass its all time high in just a few days, but why it will rise much, much higher, because the US is now well past the point of no return.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 21:45

• Supreme Court Seems Divided Over ATF Bump Stock Regulation
  Supreme Court Seems Divided Over ATF Bump Stock Regulation

  Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

  The Supreme Court seemed divided during oral argument on Feb. 28 over whether it would uphold the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regulation prohibiting ownership of bump stocks.

  

  That regulation came after the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas where a gunman used bump stock-equipped firearms. It reversed years of ATF interpretations allowing non-mechanical bump stocks, or those without a spring.

  In doing so, ATF reinterpreted a post-Prohibition law that banned the use of machine guns. Unlike other gun rights cases, the attorneys in this case—Garland v. Cargill—didn’t talk much about the Second Amendment. Rather, they sought to convince the justices that the phrases “automatically” and “single function of the trigger” within federal law either did or didn’t apply to bump stocks.

  Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote an opinion from 2022 upholding gun rights, peppered the Biden administration with questions focused on teasing out the differences in operating a firearm with or without a bump stock.

  Much of the debate focused on whether bump stocks allowed a single trigger pull to initiate a process by which bullets were rapidly released.

  Jonathan Mitchell, the New Civil Liberties Alliance attorney arguing for Michael Cargill, repeatedly emphasized that bump stocks only allowed one bullet per trigger pull. He also argued that firing with bump stocks didn’t meet the statutory language of “single function of the trigger” due to grammatical reasons and the fact that bump stock users had to apply pressure to maintain accelerated fire.

  Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher and Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson suggested instead that bump stocks allowed users to initiate a process with the bump stock after a single pull of the trigger.

  “Once the shooter presses forward to fire the first shot, the bump stock uses the gun’s recoil energy to create a continuous back-and-forth cycle that fires hundreds of shots per minute,” Mr. Fletcher said.

  Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Mr. Fletcher that she was “entirely sympathetic to your argument,” stating that “this is functioning like a machinegun would.” She questioned, however, why Congress didn’t pass legislation to cover bump stocks “more clearly.”

  The case arose from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which ruled in favor of Mr. Cargill while noting that the legal rule of lenity required they rule against the government when the meaning of a statute was unclear.

  NCLA President Mark Chenoweth told The Epoch Times he thought the Court would rule in favor of Mr. Cargill given its textualist composition.

  “We have a majority of justices who are textualists, and they‘ll look at the text, and they’ll look at the way that the gun functions, and I think that they will decide that the bump stock is on the outside of the machinegun ban.”

  The National Firearms Act

  Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh raised concerns about how ATF’s 2018 regulation would apply to people who later owned bump stocks. But most of the questioning focused on how bump stocks operate, the wording of the National Firearms Act, and Congress’ intent in passing the law in 1934.

  Story continues below advertisement

  The three liberal justices seemed skeptical of Mr. Mitchell’s arguments—particularly Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson, who suggested he was asserting an irrelevant distinction for the federal law involved.

  Both questioned whether the overall thrust of the 1934 law was intended to prevent use of devices like bump stocks.

  “As far as I can tell, the sort of common usage of the word ‘function’ is not its operational design. It’s not the mechanics of the thing. It is what it achieves, what it’s being used for,” Justice Jackson told Mr. Mitchell.

  She added that “weapons with bump stocks have triggers that function in the same way. They—through a single, right, pull of the trigger or touch of the trigger, you achieve the same result of automatic fire.”

  Mr. Mitchell countered that “a single discharge of the trigger produces only one shot. It doesn’t produce a round of automatic fire. The only way you get to repeated shots with a bump stock equipped rifle is for the shooter himself to continually undertake manual action by thrusting the forestock of the rifle forward with his non-shooting hand.”

  Part of the confusion surrounding the statute involves ATF’s contention that “single function of the trigger” under federal law included a “single pull of the trigger.” Both Justice Neil Gorsuch and Mr. Mitchell cast doubt on that interpretation, noting that “function” was a transitive verb.

  “People don’t function things,” Justice Gorsuch said. “They may pull things, they may throw things, but they don’t function things.”

  Justice Kagan suggested that Mr. Mitchell’s interpretation lacked common sense.

  “I view myself as a good textualist,” she said. “I think that that’s the way we should think about statutes. It’s by reading them.”

  “But, you know, textualism is not inconsistent with common sense,” she added. “Like, at some point, you have to apply a little bit of common sense to the way you read a statute and understand that what this statute comprehends is a weapon that fires a multitude of shots with a single human action.”

  “Whether it’s a continuous pressure on a … conventional machinegun, holding the trigger, or a continuous pressure on one of these devices on the barrel … I can’t understand how anybody could think that those two things should be treated differently.”

  Justice Alito asked Mr. Mitchell whether his case was one where “the literal language of the statute had to control even though it’s pretty hard to think that Congress actually meant that to apply in certain situations.”

  Potential Congressional Action

  Justice Gorsuch indicated he thought Congressional action would have been preferable to an ATF rule interpreting prior legislation. He also asked about former Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) criticizing the use of regulation to ban bump stocks.

  Justice Kavanaugh noted that bump stocks didn’t exist around the time of the 1934 law’s passage. He went on to ask Mr. Fletcher: “What’s your explanation, maybe common-sense explanation or some other explanation, for why, when this does become an issue, the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration, Senator Feinstein, all say no?”

  Outside of the Court, Mr. Cargill told The Epoch Times he thought Congress had authority over the issue but didn’t think it should pass a law regulating bump stocks.

  The Epoch Times asked both he and Mr. Mark Chenoweth whether bump stocks were protected by the Second Amendment. “I don’t know,” Mr. Cargill said.

  Mr. Chenoweth similarly said he didn’t know about the Second Amendment question and would have to look at how history did or didn’t support bump stocks’ protection under the Constitution.

  “We look at this as an abuse of administrative power case, not as a Second Amendment case,” he said. “If Congress had passed this law, we wouldn’t be challenging it.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 21:40

• Goldman Says Office Tower Prices Must Plunge 50% For Housing Conversion To Make Sense
  Goldman Says Office Tower Prices Must Plunge 50% For Housing Conversion To Make Sense

  As office tower vacancies continue to rise nationwide, many of these buildings are becoming economically nonviable workspaces, raising the question of what can be done with millions of square feet of underutilized space. Simultaneously, the US housing market faces a severe shortage, leaving investors and lawmakers to ponder whether underutilized office space can be transformed into multifamily buildings. 

  Goldman analyst Jan Hatzius uses a discounted cash flow model to show that the current acquisition costs of office towers are still too high for conversion to multifamily buildings, indicating that offices will likely remain underutilized in the medium term. 

  Hatzius pointed out that the viable point where office tower conversions would make financial sense would be a further price decline of 50%. 

  About 4% of the nation’s office buildings could be slated for conversion projects into housing, with the share expected to jump as the office vacancy rate is forecasted to reach 18% in 2033 from about 14% this year. 

  Many of these nonviable towers are still overvalued and not cheap enough for conversion because of financing costs. Even with San Francisco’s office industry in a meltdown and prices having already tumbled 35% since 2019, these levels are still too high. 

  

  Goldman’s definition of a nonviable office tower is that it must be located in a suburban area or central business district and built before 1990 but has not been renovated since 2000. Each tower must have a vacancy rate above 30%. 

  Based on Goldman’s model, Hatzius’ team suggests “that converting a nonviable office that is priced at the average current level will result in a $164 loss” per square foot, adding, “This means that current office prices would need to fall by that much, to around $154 per [square foot] or by 50%, for the cost to be fully covered by the stream of discounted future revenues.”

  

  With that in mind, a structural downshift in office demand has occurred in recent years because of the widespread adoption of hybrid work, among other factors, including an exodus of cities by companies whose employees no longer feel safe in imploding progressive-controlled metro areas.

  The CRE crisis is far from over (read prior GS report on “heightened CRE risks“). And remember the dominoes began falling last month. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 21:20

• India's Oil Supply From Russia Threatened by New US Sanctions
  India’s Oil Supply From Russia Threatened by New US Sanctions

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  Indian refiners are concerned that the latest U.S. sanctions against Russia could further impact their ability to import cheap Russian crude as freight rates are set to rise and dent refining margins, industry sources in India have told Reuters.

  

  The U.S. levied new sanctions against Russia last week, on the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in response to the death of opposition politician and anticorruption activist Alexey Navalny.

  Among the 500 targets of the new sanctions, the U.S. Treasury and State are targeting Russia’s tanker operator Sovcomflot and more than a dozen crude oil tankers linked to the Russian state firm.

  Refiners in India are now concerned that the new sanctions would make it more difficult to have oil shipped from Russia on non-sanctioned vessels, which would raise shipping costs and eat into the refining margins, according to Reuters’ sources.

  India will still buy crude from Russia but only if it is sold below the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel and is shipped on non-sanctioned vessels, an Indian government source told Reuters.

  Even before the latest U.S. sanctions, Refining margins for India’s biggest state-owned refiners had dropped amid more difficult access to Russian crude and soaring freight rates due to the Red Sea disruption to shipments, analysts and traders told Bloomberg last week.

  For most of 2023, Indian refiners enjoyed high refining margins and profits as they imported cheap Russian crude at $20 a barrel and more below international benchmarks.   

  The decline in refining margins is due to higher costs for Indian refiners because of higher competition for Russian supply in Asia, increased freight costs, and tougher U.S. sanctions enforcement, which has limited India’s access to very low-priced crudes from Russia.

  The tougher enforcement of the G7 sanctions and related payment issues have been holding up Indian purchases of some cargoes of Russian crude oil, with tankers previously headed to India turning back eastwards, tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed early this year.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 21:00

• "I'm Ringing The Alarm Bell, Because Flood Of Illegals Is Crushing The Country!"
  “I’m Ringing The Alarm Bell, Because Flood Of Illegals Is Crushing The Country!”

  Ahead of President Biden’s visit to the southern border on Thursday, with former President Trump planning to visit simultaneously to slam the radicals in the White House for sparking the worst migrant invasion this nation has ever seen, a new graphic released by Bloomberg shows the locations of where illegals have ended up after being bussed through the nation via a shadowy network of taxpayer-funded non-governmental organizations. 

  The latest figure from the US Customs and Border Protection shows a whopping 7.3 million illegals have flooded this nation under Biden’s first term. 

  

  It was already evident that illegals were being transported by bus to major Democratic cities such as New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, Denver, and other urban centers. Now, according to Bloomberg data based on immigration court records, the cities listed above are, in fact, where these folks are being shipped: 

  Much of the angst around the impact of newly arrived migrants to the US has focused on the biggest cities in New York, Illinois and Colorado, and immigration court records suggest that those states are indeed among the most affected by the surge. The data also signal that Texas and Florida, which have long complained about the costs of absorbing newcomers, are still among the top destinations of migrants.

  

  More from Bloomberg:

  The number of migrants listing an address in Illinois for their immigration court cases jumped nine-fold in 2023 compared with just two years earlier; the increase was 7-fold in Colorado and five times in New York—bigger than the increases seen in Texas and Florida. The data also suggest that New York state saw the highest number of migrant arrivals in 2023 on a per capita basis: 1 per 100 residents of the state. New Jersey and Florida were next at 0.9. Texas and Colorado had 0.8, and Illinois ranked eighth at 0.6.

  

  The invasion is happening at such a grand scale that Elon Musk posted on X Tuesday night: “I am ringing the alarm bell, because the flood of illegals is crushing the country!” 

  Dams are bursting all over the country.

  America is only 4% of Earth’s population. If only 1% of the rest of Earth moves here, that would crush all essential services.

  I am ringing the alarm bell, because the flood of illegals is crushing the country! https://t.co/1FoEUsTAw9

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 28, 2024

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  There has already been a flurry of headlines about migrants sparking crime waves nationwide (read: “I Hope Public Is Waking Up”: Border Invasion Sparks Migrant Crime Crisis In Major Cities). 

  Tragically, NYC is on a downward spiral. With unchecked migrant influx, rampant mental illness, and soaring crime rates, the city is bracing for even tougher times. It’s a harsh reality, but one we can’t ignore. pic.twitter.com/eHaLMi25s2

  — Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) February 28, 2024

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  Another day. Another migrant crime.

  This Salvadoran illegal alien has been arrested in Washington, DC for the murder of a 2-year-old child. pic.twitter.com/svzQuUVQRA

  — Karoline Leavitt (@kleavittnh) February 28, 2024

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  Over the past few weeks, New York has been overwhelmed by a wave of crimes committed by illegal immigrants

  The attack on the police in Times Square, the shooting in Manhattan, a series of thefts in Brooklyn – all this is the work of illegal immigrants.

  “What goes on in Third… pic.twitter.com/A3XzsCOd74

  — Charlie ⛳️ 💖🗽 🥳 🏕 🚴‍♀️⛺🐈🐈‍⬛ (@MAGACharlie2024) February 21, 2024

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  15-year-old migrant (Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa), suspected of shooting a tourist and firing at a police officer during a failed robbery in Times Square, was arrested by the US Marshals Joint Regional Fugitive Task Force.

  He is also a suspect in an armed robbery in the Bronx… pic.twitter.com/l0hBRgMIn8

  — Project TABS (@ProjectTabs) February 19, 2024

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  Migrants doing their thing in Brooklyn (NYC). They steal a scooter and then chases the person to beat him up 👀 pic.twitter.com/p21wL9jV2r

  — Crazy Society (Fights, Crazy, Funny, Viral Videos) (@CrazySocietynow) February 20, 2024

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  The latest shitshow is a migrant who murdered a 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus last week. Left-leaning corporate media has been hush-hush about this as well as the Biden administration. 

  .@POTUS @VP @SecMayorkas

  Her name is Laken Riley.

  Say her name ! #RIP pic.twitter.com/qibktTPyyr

  — Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) February 27, 2024

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  These poor sweet kids. Thrown to the wolves by Joe Biden’s reckless border policies. Laken Riley. Say her name. pic.twitter.com/v1g5hluG2W

  — Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) February 27, 2024

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  Laken Riley, who was tragically murdered by an illegal immigrant, is trending thanks to 𝕏 users who refuse to let her be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/UZglyUcdxC

  — TaraBull (@TaraBull808) February 25, 2024

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  The most concerning part is that a tidal wave of violent crime will only accelerate from here. 

  A migrant crime wave is gripping the nation. Biden’s invasion has landed in our cities and the destruction is fully underway.

  — Stephen Miller (@StephenM) February 28, 2024

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  A new Gallup poll shows Americans are becoming increasingly angered by Biden’s migrant crisis. About 28% of respondents said immigration is the top issue in the US. This is up from 20% the month before. 

  

  The border crisis is an epic disaster for Democrats ahead of the November elections. 

  Biden border crisis is killing us. https://t.co/yvk0LOAh9G

  — Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) February 28, 2024

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  Just how bad? Well, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Monday night at a community meeting that the city’s sanctuary laws need to be reversed to deport the illegals. This is a significant shift after the progressive mayor first welcomed unvetted illegals with welcoming arms. 

  Wow.

  NYC Mayor Eric Adams is calling for NYC’s sanctuary city law to be changed so that criminal illegal aliens can be deported.

  Democrats don’t even want to live under their policies. pic.twitter.com/izwPI95NrY

  — Congressman Troy E. Nehls (@RepTroyNehls) February 27, 2024

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  Meanwhile, Democrats are quickly losing the black vote to Republicans because the Biden administration is prioritizing illegals over their own citizens. 

  Among other things, Biden ushering in millions of illegals is disproportionately hurting Black communities

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2024

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

  Also, riddle us this: Why are Biden elites gunning for World War III in Ukraine with Russia while flooding the US with millions of unvetted illegals?

  You have an invasion of 10 million illegal alien invaders, and migrant crime is out of control. The people who are being destroyed are the Black and Hispanic working class in this country. – Steve Bannon.

  Watch today’s live @CPAC coverage: https://t.co/BcOc68wUgP pic.twitter.com/4C7z0zX3JJ

  — Real America’s Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) February 24, 2024

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  This is a recipe for a national security disaster. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 20:44

• "Americans Are Being Lied To About Ukraine" – Tucker Carlson Reflects On Putin, Zelensky, Navalny & Nuclear War
  “Americans Are Being Lied To About Ukraine” – Tucker Carlson Reflects On Putin, Zelensky, Navalny & Nuclear War

  The international attacks on Tucker Carlson, especially from within US mainstream media and NATO-connected circles, have only increased following his hugely controversial eight day visit to Russia earlier this month where he interviewed President Vladimir Putin. Russian state media has even this week claimed authorities uncovered an “assassination plot” – rumored to have been backed by Kiev.

  This week the former FOX prime time host was interviewed about his trip and the whole Putin interview experience in three-hour podcast hosted by Lex Fridman. Tucker Carlson revealed more about what motivated him to do the televised Putin segment, and further discussed his personal take on the Russia-Ukraine war and where it could go from here, now having entered its third year. Interestingly, Carlson’s main critique of the war focused not on Putin or the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine, which of course are not under his control or influence, but on the impact to America.

  Carlson explained that the West’s escalation of the conflict long ago into a full-blown proxy war has not only resulted in more needless Ukrainian deaths, but it has been devastating for the United States. “I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson told Fridman. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.” He also generally characterized the response of the US political class to the conflict, along with the American public which has uncritically followed, as naive.

  

  Carlson emphasized that what would be a cautiously realist approach was utterly abandoned by Washington from the start, as has been typical of the past decades of US interventionism abroad. “It doesn’t even matter what I want to happen… that’s a distortion of what is happening,” Carlson explained, and pointed to Russia having 100 million more people and more defense industry might “than all of NATO combined.”

  He described that a big part of the rationale behind the Putin interview was to bring “more information” to the West so that “people could make their own decisions about whether” escalation of weapons to Kiev and jingoistic rhetoric from Western capitals is a good idea.

  Ultimately, he said, Americans are being lied to:

  “Just to be clear, I have no plans to move to Russia. I think I would probably be arrested if I moved to Russia. Ed Snowden, who is the most famous openness, transparency, advocate in the world, I would say along with Assange, doesn’t want to live in Russia. He’s had problems with the Putin government. He’s attacked Putin. They don’t like it. I get it. I get it. I’m just saying, what are the lessons for us?

  The main lesson is we are being lied to in a way that’s bewildering and very upsetting. I was mad about it all eight days I was there because I feel like I’m better informed than most people because it’s my job to be informed. I’m skeptical of everything and yet I was completely hoodwinked by it.”

  Topics highlighted throughout the long-ranging conversion included Carlson’s personal take on being one-on-one with a seemingly “nervous” Putin, the question of ending the war in Ukraine, the role of the CIA and Western intelligence services, the prospect that the crisis could spiral into nuclear confrontation with the West, the Alexei Navalny saga, as well as a foray into the Israel-Palestine conflict near the end. Watch the full Carlson-Fridman interview below…

  The following are some key excerpts of Tucker Carlson’s words from the interview, selected by ZeroHedge [emphasis ours]…

  * * *

  Carlson On Putin. “I want to know who this guy is.”

  I thought he seemed nervous, and I was very surprised by that. And I thought he seemed like someone who’d overthought it a little bit, who had a plan, and I don’t think that’s the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done a lot of them for a long time, is that it’s better to know what you think, to say as much as you can honestly, so you don’t get confused by your own lies, and just to be yourself. And I thought that he went into it like an over-prepared student, and I kept thinking, “Why is he nervous?” But I guess because he thought a lot of people were going to see it…

  I mean, I asked him as I usually do the most obvious dumbest question ever, which is, “Why’d you do this?” And he had said in a speech that I think is worth reading. I don’t speak Russian, so I haven’t heard it in the original, but he had said at the moment of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians, in which he explained to the fullest extent we have seen so far why he was doing this. And he said in that speech, “I fear that NATO the West, the United States, the Biden administration will preemptively attack us.” And I thought, “Well, that’s interesting.” I can’t evaluate whether that’s a fear rooted in reality or one rooted in paranoia. But I thought, “Well, that’s an answer right there.”

  And so I alluded to that in my question and rather than answering it, he went off on this long from my perspective, kind of tiresome, sort of greatest hits of Russian history. And the implication I thought was, “Well, Ukraine is ours, or Eastern Ukraine is ours already.”…

  I want to know who this guy is. I think a western audience, a global audience, has a right to know more about the guy, and so just let him talk. Because I don’t feel like my reputation’s on the line. People have already drawn conclusions about me, I suppose to the extent they have. I’m not interested really in those conclusions anyway, so just let him talk. And so I calmed down and just let him talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really, really interesting. Whether you agree with it or not, or whether you think it’s relevant to the war in Ukraine or not, that was his answer. And so it’s inherently significant.

  American falsehoods & the Ukraine war

  I mean, I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective, which is a tiny group of dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won’t really explain. And you don’t have a role in it at all as an American citizen, as the person who’s paying for it, whose children might be drafted to fight it. To shut up and obey, I just reject that completely. I think, I guess I’m a child of a different era. I’m a child of participatory democracy to some extent, where your opinion as a citizen is not irrelevant. And I guess the level of lying about it was starting to drive me crazy.

  The idea that Ukraine would inevitably win this war. Now victory was never, as it never is, defined precisely. Nothing’s ever defined precisely, which is always to tell that there’s deception at the heart of the claim. But Ukraine’s on the verge of winning. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m hardly a tactician or military expert. For the fifth time, I’m not an expert on Russia or Ukraine. I just looked at Wikipedia. Russia has a hundred million more people than Ukraine, a hundred million.

  It has much deeper industrial capacity, war material capacity than all of NATO combined. For example, Russia is turning out artillery shells, which are significant in a ground war at a ratio of seven to one compared to all NATO countries combined. That’s all of Europe. Russia is producing seven times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined. What? That’s an amazing fact, and it turns out to be a really significant fact. In fact, the significant fact. But if you ask your average person in this country, even a fairly well-informed person of good faith who’s just trying to understand what’s going on, who’s going to win this war? Well, Ukraine’s going to win. They’re on the right side.

  …And I raised that question in my previous job, and I was denounced as of course a traitor or something. But okay, great, I’m a traitor. What’s the answer? What’s the answer? [Vic]Toria Nuland, who I know, not dumb, hasn’t helped the US in any way, an architect of the Iraq war, architect of this disaster, one of the people who destroyed the US dollar. Okay, fine, but you’re not stupid. So you’re trying to get a war by acting that way, what’s the other explanation? By the way, NATO didn’t want Ukraine because it didn’t meet the criteria for admission. So why would you say that? Because you want a war, that’s why. And that war has enriched a lot of people to the tune of billions. So I don’t care if I sound like some kind of left-wing conspiracy nut, because I’m neither left-wing nor a conspiracy nut. Tell me how I’m wrong.

  On feeling sorry for Zelensky

  If I’m a Russian or a Ukrainian, let’s just be sovereign countries now. We’re not run by the U.S. State Department. We’re just our own countries. I believe in sovereignty, okay? So that’s my view. I also want to say one thing about Zelensky. I attacked him before because I was so offended by his cavalier talk about nuclear exchange because it would kill my family. So I’m really offended by that. Anyone who talks that way I’m offended by. But I do feel for Zelensky. I do. He didn’t run for president to have this happen.

  I think Zelensky’s been completely misused by the State Department, by Toria Nuland, by our Secretary of State, by the policymakers in the U.S. who’ve used Ukraine as a vessel for their ambitions, their geopolitical ambitions, but also the many American businesses who’ve used Ukraine as a way to fleece the American taxpayer, and then by just independent ghouls like Boris Johnson who are hoping to get rich from interviews on it. The whole thing, Zelensky is at the center of this. He’s not driving history. NATO and the United States is driving history. Putin is driving history. There’s this guy, Zelensky. So I do feel for him, and I think he’s in a perilous place.

  The prospect of nuclear war

  Well it’s been what, 80 years? Not even 80 years, 79. And so we haven’t had a world war in 79 years. But one nuclear exchange would of course kill more people than all wars in human history combined.

  I am counting. Because I think it obviously, it’s completely demonic and everyone pretends like it’s great. Nuclear weapons are evil.

  The use of them is evil, and the technology itself is evil. And in my opinion, I mean, it’s like if you can’t, that’s just so obvious. And what I’m saying is I’m not against all technology. I took a shower this morning. It was powered by an electric pump, heated by a water heater. I loved it. I sat in an electric sauna. I’m not against all technology, obviously, but the mindless worship of technology?

  The possibility of Russia-Ukraine Peace: Putin “wants a settlement”

  He [Putin] wants a settlement, he wants a settlement. He doesn’t want to fight with them rhetorically and he just wants to get this done. He made a bunch of offers at the peace deal. We wouldn’t even know this happened if the Israelis hadn’t told us. I’m so grateful that they did that, that Johnson was dispatched by the State Department to stop it. I mean, I think Boris Johnson is a husk of a man. But imagine if you were Boris Johnson and you spend your whole life with Ukraine flag, “I’m for Ukraine,” and then all those kids died because of what you did, and the lines haven’t really moved. It hasn’t been a victory for Ukraine. It’s not going to be a victory for Ukraine. It’s like, how do you feel about yourself if you did that? I mean, I’ve done a lot of shitty things in my life, I feel bad about them, but I’ve never extended a war for no reason. That’s a pretty grave sin in my opinion.

  Well, the U.S. government’s not allowing negotiations. So that for me is the most upsetting part. It’s like in the end, what Russia does, I’m not implicated in that. What Ukraine does, I’m not implicated in that. I’m not Russian or Ukrainian. I’m an American who grew up really believing in my country. I’m supporting my country through my tax dollars. It’s like I really care about what the U.S. government does because they’re doing it in my name, and I care a lot because I’m American. We are the impediment to peace, which is another way of saying we are responsible for all these innocent people getting dragooned out of public parks in Kiev and sent to go die. What? That is not good. I’m ashamed of it.

  On the Alexey Navalny saga

  Well, it’s awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve known a lot of people in prison a lot, including some very good friends of mine. So I felt instantly sad about it. From a geopolitical perspective, I don’t know any more than that. And I laugh at and sort of resent, but mostly find amusing the claims by American politicians, who really are the dumbest politicians in the world actually, “This happened and here’s what it means.” And it’s like, “Actually as a factual matter, we don’t know what happened. We don’t know what happened.” We have no freaking idea what happened. We can say, and I did say, and I will say again, I don’t think you should put opposition figures in prison. I really don’t. I don’t, period. It happens a lot around the world, happens in this country, as you know, and I’m against all of it.

  But do we know how we died? The short answer? No, we don’t. Now, if I had to guess, I would say killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding, maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn’t get that vibe at all. I don’t see it. But maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him in prison, which I’m against. But here’s what I do know is that we don’t know. And so when Chuck Schumer stands up and… Joe Biden reads some card in front of him with lines about Navalny, it’s like, I’m allowed to laugh at that because it’s absurd. You don’t know.

  An interesting CIA anecdote

  I was like, live in foreign countries, see history happen. I’m for that. I applied to the Operations Directorate. They turned me down on the basis of drug use actually. True. But anyway, whatever. I was unsuited for it so I’m glad they turned me down. But the point is I didn’t see CIA as a threat, partly because I was bathing in propaganda about CIA and I didn’t really understand what it was and didn’t want to know. But second, because my impression at the time was it was outwardly focused. It was focused on our enemies. I don’t have a problem with that as much. The fact that CIA is playing in domestic politics and actually has for a long time, was involved in the Kennedy assassination, that’s not speculation. That’s a fact. And I confirmed that from someone who had read their documents that are still not public, it’s shocking.

  You can’t have that. And the reason I’m so mad is I really believe in the idea of representative government. Acknowledging its imperfections, but I should have some say, I live here, I’m a citizen. I pay all your freaking taxes. So the fact that they would be tampering with American democracy is so outrageous to me. And I don’t know why Morning Joe is not outraged. This parade of dummies, highly credentialed dummies they have on Morning Joe every day. That doesn’t bother them at all. How could that not bother you? Why is only Glenn Greenwald mad about it? I mean, it’s confirmed. It’s not like a fever dream. It’s real. They played in the last election domestically, and I guess it shows how dumb I am because they’ve been doing that for many years. I mean, the guy who took out Mosaddegh lived on my street. One of the Roosevelt’s, CIA officer.

  Carlson on the Israel-Palestine conflict

   I mean, it’s not a topic that I get into a lot because I’m a non-expert and because I’m not… Unlike every other American, I’m not emotionally invested in other countries just in general. I mean, I admire them or not, and I love visiting them. I love Jerusalem, probably my favorite city in the world, but I don’t have an emotional attachment to it. So maybe I’ve got more clarity. I don’t know, maybe less. Here’s my view. I believe in sovereignty as mentioned, and I think each country has to make decisions based on its own interest, but also with reference to its own capabilities and its own long-term interest.

  And it’s very unwise for… I’m not a huge fan of treaties. Some are fine, too many bad. But I think US aid, military aid to Israel and the implied security guarantees, some explicit, but many implied, security guarantees of the United States to Israel probably haven’t helped Israel that much long-term. It’s a rich country with a highly capable population. Like every other country, it’s probably best if it makes its decisions based on what it can do by itself. So I would definitely be concerned if I lived in Israel because I think fair or unfair-

  But now it’s not possible. If you had a coalition of countries against Israel, I know Israel has nuclear weapons and has a capable military and all that and the backing of the United States, but it’s a small country, I think I’d be very worried. So there’s that. I don’t see any advantage to the United States. I mean, I think it’s important for each country to make its own decisions.

  * * *

  This week there’s been a curious story to emerge in Russian state media sources involving a bizarre ‘assassination plot’ linked to Kiev, which allegedly was supposed to target Carlson while he was in Russia. Interestingly, the allegations have been picked up in major Indian media outlets, among some other international outlets, though it warrants a high degree of skepticism…

  A man has been arrested by security services here in Moscow for plotting an assassination attempt on Tucker Carlson

  The man is from Podolsk and says he was acting on instructions from Ukraines SBU. He claims he was promised $4,000 for “successfully completing the task” (bombing… pic.twitter.com/SCDSKGgeHS

  — Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) February 26, 2024

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  Would Ukraine be this stupid? I doubt it. 🤷🏻‍♂️ https://t.co/fkZ41v65gC

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 26, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 20:40

• Leftists Argue That Hijacking Planes Is A Legitimate Form Of Protest
  Leftists Argue That Hijacking Planes Is A Legitimate Form Of Protest

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

  Some leftists have now moved on to hysterically claim that hijacking planes is a legitimate form of protest.

  

  No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.

  The controversy started when Mohammed El-Kurd, a pro-Palestine writer based in Jerusalem, posted on X.

  “You can’t protest peacefully. You can’t boycott. You can’t hunger strike. You can’t hijack planes. You can’t block traffic. You can’t throw Molotovs. You can’t self-immolate. You can’t heckle politicians. You can’t march. You can’t riot. You can’t dissent. You just can’t be.”

  You can’t protest peacefully. You can’t boycott. You can’t hunger strike. You can’t hijack planes. You can’t block traffic. You can’t throw Molotovs. You can’t self-immolate. You can’t heckle politicians. You can’t march. You can’t riot. You can’t dissent. You just can’t be.

  — Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) February 26, 2024

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  El-Kurd immediately got ‘community noted’ as it was explained to him that hijacking planes and throwing fire bombs is a from of terrorism, not protest.

  However, despite being utterly roasted and potentially opening himself up to legal ramifications, El-Kurd didn’t delete the tweet.

  His insistence that hijacking planes should be treated as a reasonable form of protest was the echoed by another leftist who describes himself as a “19 y/o white western Maoist”.

  Reminder that plane hijackings used to be perfectly normal and were mostly non-violent. 9/11 was an outlier and the first of its kind https://t.co/g27lKzCXSw

  — Rosedark 📕 (@FreeRosedark) February 27, 2024

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  “Reminder that plane hijackings used to be perfectly normal and were mostly non-violent. 9/11 was an outlier and the first of its kind,” posted a user called Rosedark.

  Community notes stepped in again to remind him that, “Even before 9/11 plane hijackings were very violent and resulted in hundreds of fatalities. More than 400 fatalities were connected to plane hijackings just in the 1980s and 1990s.”

  What’s the world coming to when you can’t even…hijack a plane?

  Both users were on the receiving end of some very forthright and in some cases hilarious responses.

  plane hijackings are the language of the unheard https://t.co/ULilgOzklH

  — Seamus (FreedomToons) (@seamus_coughlin) February 27, 2024

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  “EVERYBODY PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK THIS IS A PLANE HIJACKING!”

  “Oh my God oh my God please don’t hurt me”

  “Wow. Yikes. Racist much? This is a peaceful perfectly normal plane hijacking in support of ending of the genocide in Palestine. IE non-violent. Have a normal one” https://t.co/NsSE0yMzyU pic.twitter.com/kkSj03Rwhp

  — ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 (@kunley_drukpa) February 27, 2024

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  “EVERYBODY PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK THIS IS A PLANE HIJACKING!”

  “Oh my God oh my God please don’t hurt me”

  “Wow. Yikes. Racist much? This is a peaceful perfectly normal plane hijacking in support of ending of the genocide in Palestine. IE non-violent. Have a normal one” https://t.co/NsSE0yMzyU pic.twitter.com/kkSj03Rwhp

  — ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 (@kunley_drukpa) February 27, 2024

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  Damn bro, it’s truly a sign of how oppressed we are when we don’t allow people to *checks notes* hijack airplanes.

  — ᴍᴇᴍᴇ ʜᴇᴀᴅʀᴏᴏᴍ (@memeheadroom) February 27, 2024

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  Put the goat and the lube down, Mohammed.

  — U.S. Ministry of Truth (@USMiniTru) February 27, 2024

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  Wokeness is so out of control they don’t even let you do a 9/11 anymore!!

  — Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma) February 27, 2024

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  You can clearly access the internet to complain though. pic.twitter.com/POgugOVF00

  — IanG 🇬🇧🇮🇱 (@IanGee2023) February 27, 2024

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  I bet all the passengers on those hijacked planes would wholeheartedly agree. Those people just minding their own business with their families probably loved it.

  — ConfusedX (@lattesBL) February 27, 2024

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  “19 y/o white western Maoist” It would be more direct to say “anime porn obessed loser that can not make it in the real world and has zero self esteem” but to be fair that is a little wordy.

  — SGRV19 (@SGRV191) February 27, 2024

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  Yeah … sure 👍🏼 hijackings are peaceful protest and perfectly normal

  TWA Flight 847 (June 1985)**: This Trans World Airlines flight was hijacked by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad members during its flight from Athens to Rome. During the ordeal, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was…

  — Michael Cohen (@NeuroCoachMic) February 27, 2024

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  Anyone who grew up in the 70’s probably hijacked a plane at one time or another . It was very common.

  — ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕗𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕣 𝔻𝕒𝕩𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕖 (@DaxophoneSolo) February 27, 2024

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  ***Air France Flight 8969 has entered the chat

  — PhotographicFloridian (@JackLinFLL) February 27, 2024

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  Mostly peaceful hijackings – here’s your next book title, @Julio_Rosas11.

  — Faye Hausendorff (@FayeH321) February 27, 2024

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  About that lolhttps://t.co/uGuFHXSMI0

  — Jared Blanco🧦🥑 (@BlancoFlaco91) February 27, 2024

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  Define “mostly non-violent”. Being hijacked is not non-violent. Also, here’s a list of hijacking fatalities pre-2001: pic.twitter.com/sMDTPpii25

  — Daniela Oertli (@danielaoertli) February 27, 2024

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  “Non violent “ pic.twitter.com/OzcvDKgdEk

  — Danny ElPaso (@DannyElPaso) February 27, 2024

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  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 20:20

• Army National Guard Hit With "Aviation Safety Stand Down" After Two Crashes
  Army National Guard Hit With “Aviation Safety Stand Down” After Two Crashes

  The director of the Army National Guard ordered an “aviation safety stand down” of all helicopter units until a safety review is completed following two deadly crashes involving rotary wing aircraft. 

  The decision for the grounding came after two crashes of AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, one near Salt Lake City during a training exercise on Feb. 12, killing the two pilots aboard, and the other during a Feb. 23 training exercise in Mississippi, with both pilots surviving. 

  

  The stand-down to “review safety policies and procedures” went into effect on Monday, the National Guard said. 

   “We are a combat force with helicopters training or on mission worldwide every day,” said Lt. Gen. Jon A. Jensen, director of the Army National Guard. 

  Jensen continued: “Safety is always at the top of our minds. We will stand down to ensure all of our crews are prepared as well as possible for whatever they’re asked to do.”

  The causes of both crashes have not been publicly released, but the Army’s Combat Readiness Center is investigating the incidents. 

  One of the deadliest training incidents in the service’s history occurred about one year ago when two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters collided near Fort Campbell, Kentucky. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 20:00

• Mitch McConnell – Longest Serving Senate Leader In US History – To Step Down From Position In November
  Mitch McConnell – Longest Serving Senate Leader In US History – To Step Down From Position In November

  Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who turned 82 last week and has suffered multiple public ‘glitches,’ will step down from his Senate leadership position in November after maintaining power for almost two decades as the longest-serving Senate leader in US history.

  

  McConnell was set to announce his decision on Wednesday in the well of the Senate, AP reports.

  “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said in prepared remarks seen by the outlet. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

  While he’ll no longer be leader, McConnell will serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.”

  McConnell is rated — and has been for some time — Americans’ most disliked political leader. (Obviously he is beloved by DC.) In America, however, his favorability ratings are even worse than Biden’s. https://t.co/vrC0fnLIsH

  — Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 28, 2024

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  “As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” the prepared remarks continue. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

  It also arrived, as noted above, after two major health scares and his party shifting towards anti-war populism ushered in by President Trump.

  BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Mitch McConnell appearing to have another scary episode in the media gaggle in Covington today. Aides had to step in to help him out and repeat questions. He was eventually lead away. We’ll have the full video on @WLWT pic.twitter.com/q9ex5MHxLV

  — Hannah Thomas (@HannahPThomas) August 30, 2023

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  His tenure was not without its critics, especially from the more restive corners of his party, often aligned with Trump’s confrontational style. Yet, McConnell’s grip on his caucus seldom wavered, a testament to his deep understanding of the political undercurrents that shape legislative priorities.

  The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trump’s lie that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the product of fraud.

  But while McConnell’s critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnell’s strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators.

  McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,” McConnell said. –AP

  The impending leadership vacuum raises questions about the direction of the Republican Party. His successor will inherit a party at a crossroads, caught between its traditional conservative roots and the populist wave that has reshaped its identity in recent years.

  When you see McConnell is stepping down but then you remember his replacement (Thune or Cornyn) will be as bad or worse. pic.twitter.com/FxXwM74MlI

  — Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) February 28, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 19:55

• Biden Admin Tax Policy Proposals Hurt US Competitiveness
  Biden Admin Tax Policy Proposals Hurt US Competitiveness

  Authored by Michael Wilkerson via The Epoch Times,

  Usually when someone starts to talk about taxes, the eyelids grow heavy and the attention wanes, so I’ll keep this short. The Biden administration’s tax policy proposals are a disaster for U.S. competitiveness, for families, and the employers who hire them.

  

  While the Biden administration’s tax proposals have often been vague, with details missing, a few key elements are consistent. They rely on increased tax rates on businesses and individuals, and assume that both can be further burdened without damaging the economy. This is a falsehood.

  The Biden administration’s tax proposals have been unrealistic and completely disconnected from the massive growth in expenditure reflected in the administration’s various initiatives, such as the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better plan. The administration claimed that the Build Back Better program would be “fully paid for by the tax proposals,” which was clearly untrue even at first glance. Detailed analysis from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School indicated that the tax proposals would fall short of the administration’s spending plan by nearly $500 billion.

  More relevant for individuals is what Build Back Better means for personal income tax. According to analysis from the Tax Foundation, the nation’s leading independent tax policy nonprofit, under the Build Back Better framework, the “average top tax rate on personal income would reach 57.4 percent, giving the U.S. the highest rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). All 50 states plus the District of Columbia would have top tax rates on personal income exceeding 50 percent.” Under the administration’s plan, the top statutory income tax rate on personal income would be higher than Japan, France, Denmark, Sweden, and each and every one of the 36 OECD nations. State taxes would fall on top of this.

  For example, a top earning tax resident of New York or California would face a marginal tax rate of 66.2 percent and 64.7 percent, respectively.

  For places like Texas or Florida without state income taxes, the top rate would nonetheless be 51.4 percent.

  What will happen to incentives when somewhere between half and two-thirds of income is paid over to the government to pursue policies and programs that most Americans do not support? The effect is predictable. As envisioned, the administration’s proposed tax policies would hinder U.S. competitiveness and reduce incentives to work, save, invest, and innovate.

  More recent budget proposals have fared no better. For example, the Biden administration’s 2024 budget proposals would, according to analysis from the Tax Foundation, add up to “$4.8 trillion in new taxes targeted at businesses and high-income individuals.” The budget was projected to reduce long-term GDP and wages by 1.3 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively, while costing 335,000 jobs.

  The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 was intended to counterbalance China and strengthen the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing sector. The objective was to encourage capital investment in American companies, but requires firms that receive funding under the program share “excess profits,” without clearly defining what that means, with the federal government. This uncertainty is an arbitrary and undefined hidden tax that, rather than strengthening competition and encouraging innovation, will have the opposite effect. It will scare away private sources of funding which will not want to risk invested capital only to see the value created expropriated by the government.

  A sound tax policy has been a mainstay of conservative politics in the United States for generations. Especially since the Reagan administration, the Republican Party has made moderate tax rates a core policy focus. Before the Reagan administration, the maximum federal income tax rate ranged between 60–70 percent throughout most of the postwar era, and as high as 90 percent during the FDR years. President Reagan launched a new era focused on lower taxes as a stimulant for innovation, investment, and growth. The model worked.

  Until the Biden administration, the tax policies and top rates of post-Reagan presidencies of both parties maintained some reasonableness. While Democrats tended toward higher rates and the Republicans somewhat lower, neither sought to move the maximum rate much above 40 percent. And, before President Biden, neither seriously considered imposing an annual wealth tax, a coercive tool used by only a handful of nations around the world. Wealth taxes have been pursued by socialist and communist regimes which sought extreme measures to level wealth inequities in society, but they backfire through widespread manipulations including asset hiding and expatriation. The United States already has an inheritance tax, which is a one-time equivalent tax on estates payable at time of death, and a dozen or so states have similar estate taxes. These are exploitative and punitive against people who are land or asset rich, but cash poor, like many of our farming families in rural America.

  There is a direct link between taxation and inequality. The current U.S. tax code benefits the wealthy, whose primary source of income is capital gains, at the expense of the working and middle classes, whose primary source of gain is ordinary income from their hard work. Fundamentally, if taxes on capital (e.g., dividends, interest, carried interest in private equity) are lower than taxes on labor, inequality will continue to rise. This will, over time, lead to increased social unrest, instability and reduced competitiveness.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 19:40

• Japan's Demographic Implosion: Live Births Crash To Record Low, 12 Years Ahead Of Forecast
  Japan’s Demographic Implosion: Live Births Crash To Record Low, 12 Years Ahead Of Forecast

  When it comes to monetary and fiscal policy, Japan is doomed. Unfortunately it is also doomed demographically.

  Extending what has long been the most dismal trend in Japan’s civilizational history, government data showed that the number of babies born in Japan fell for an eighth straight year to a fresh record low in 2023, underscoring the daunting task the country faces in trying to stem depopulation.

  The number of births in 2023 fell 5.1% from a year earlier to 758,631, while the number of marriages slid 5.9% to 489,281, the first time in 90 years the number fell below 500,000 – the last time the number was this low the US had just dropped the atom bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki – signaling even greater declines in the population as out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan.

  The drop comes more than a decade earlier than the government’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research forecast, which estimated births would decline to below 760,000 in 2035, according to Kyodo news.

  Meanwhile, the number of deaths also hit a record – only in the other direction – rising to 1,590,503, while divorces increased to 187,798, up by 4,695.

  

  As a result, Japan’s population, including foreign residents, fell by 831,872, with deaths outnumbering births by a record 831,872, double where it was just five years ago.

  

  Asked about the latest data, Japan’s top government spokesperson said the government will take “unprecedented steps” to cope with the declining birthrate, such as expanding childcare and promoting wage hikes for younger workers.

  None of those measures have led to any perceptive improvement in Japan’s demographic bust in the past.

  The fast pace of decline in the number of newborns has been attributed to late marriages and people staying single. The administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the period leading up to 2030 “the last chance” to reverse the trend; all Japan has to do is divert the millions of illegal immigrants entering the US every month through the southern border – with the expectation they will all become diligent Democratic voters – and give them a red carpet welcome.

  “The declining birthrate is in a critical situation,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters. “The next six years or so until 2030, when the number of young people will rapidly decline, will be the last chance to reverse the trend.”

  A fall in the number of marriages is clearly followed by a drop in births, said Kanako Amano, a senior researcher at the NLI Research Institute. In order to increase the number of marriages, the government must conduct labor reforms, such as increasing wages in rural areas and eliminating the gender gap, Amano said.

  The government is planning on submitting related legislation, including a bill on boosting child allowances to combat the declining birthrate, to the current session of parliament.

  The number of births has been on a downward trend after hitting a peak in 1973 at around 2.09 million babies. It fell below 1 million in 2016.

  The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is set to release possibly in June population data excluding foreign residents. The revised figure for 2022 showed births falling to 770,747, down about 30,000 from the preliminary figure. If a similar trend continues in 2023, the number of births excluding foreign residents is likely to total around 730,000.

  Mindful of the potential social and economic impact, and the strains on public finances, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the trend the “gravest crisis our country faces”, and unveiled a range of steps to support child-bearing households late last year.

  Japan’s population will likely decline by about 30% to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people aged 65 or older, according to estimates by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 19:20

• Leaked Gaza Ceasefire Proposal Is US 'Psychological Warfare', Hamas Says
  Leaked Gaza Ceasefire Proposal Is US ‘Psychological Warfare’, Hamas Says

  Via The Cradle

  Hamas official Ahmad Abdul Hadi stated Tuesday that a leaked proposal for a ceasefire deal in Gaza is part of a “psychological warfare” campaign being carried out by the US.

  Details of the alleged proposal were leaked to Reuters on Monday, the same day US President Joe Biden said he hoped a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be reached by March 4 (next Monday). 

  

  “My national security adviser tells me that they’re close. They’re close. They’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden claimed during an appearance on a late-night US talk show.

  But Abdul Hadi, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, stated that Hamas is not satisfied with the proposal and will not compromise on any of its demands, particularly “on a ceasefire and reaching an honorable, serious deal.”

  Hamas is seeking a permanent end to the war and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel is seeking the release of the 136 captives held by Hamas in Gaza and a temporary ceasefire that would allow it to resume the war after a pause.

  “We are open to any ideas posed by mediators but are also keen on preserving our key demands,” Abdul Hadi told Al-Mayadeen, adding that Israel is “seeking to hold Hamas accountable for any later failures in talks, planning to use this as an excuse to pave the way for the invasion of Rafah.”

  He said the leaks were not part of the Paris negotiations but a US and Israeli attempt to give the public an illusion that Hamas had approved of them. He reiterated that “everything being shared is not serious, but a ploy to maneuver and press on the Resistance.”

  The proposal leaked to Reuters outlined plans for a 40-day truce during which Hamas would free around 40 captives – including female soldiers, those under 19 or over 50 years old, and the sick – in return for about 400 Palestinians held captive in Israel.

  Israel would withdraw its troops from populated areas of Gaza. Displaced Gaza residents, excluding men of fighting age, would be permitted to return to their homes. Israel would be required to allow additional humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the strip are on the verge of starvation. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also responded to the leaked Paris proposal.

  “The leaks are an attempt to pressure the Palestinians and incite them against the resistance … They are pushing for a ceasefire before Ramadan in anticipation of what might happen in Al-Quds … The enemy believes that it can deceive the resistance with different methods in order to achieve a victory it has failed to achieve on the ground,” PIJ Political Bureau member Ihsan Ataya told Al-Mayadeen.

  In Gaza, residents speaking to Reuters expressed mixed feelings about possible outcomes. “We don’t want a pause, we want a permanent ceasefire, we want an end to the killing,” said Mustafa Basel, a father of five from Gaza City, now displaced in Rafah.

  “Unfortunately, people’s conditions are so grim that some may accept a pause, even [just] during Ramadan,” he said. “They want a permanent end to the war, but the dire conditions make them want a pause even for a month or 40 days in the hope it becomes permanent.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/28/2024 – 19:00

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