Jun 29

Today’s News 29th June 2020

  • 'Party' Drugs Lose Out Because Of COVID-19
    ‘Party’ Drugs Lose Out Because Of COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 06/29/2020 – 02:45

    According to an open online survey with 40,000 participants from twelve countries, the use of party drugs like MDMA and also cocaine has decreased around the world as clubs and other events are on hiatus.

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    Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that research project Global Drug Survey found that while the use of marijuana, alcohol and benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium) was up during the pandemic, a net share of 19 percent of respondent said they were using less cocaine (share of people saying they used it more minus share of people saying they used it less). A net share of 29 percent said they were using less MDMA. To quantify drug use, the survey asked people if they had used the drugs in question on more or less days of the week than usual.

    Infographic: Party Drugs Lose Out Because of COVID-19 | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Out of the twelve countries included in the survey, around 22 percent of Irish people and around 21 percent of Brits and Kiwis said their alcohol consumption during COVID-19 had increased a lot – the highest in the survey. Ireland and New Zealand residents also admitted to binge drinking a lot more (15 and 14 percent said so, respectively), while 47 percent of UK residents indicated they had started to drink earlier than usual. The most common reasons respondents gave for the increase in alcohol consumption were “I have more time to drink” and “I am more bored”.

    Marijuana use increased the most in Australia and the UK with 26 percent and 23 percent saying their consumption increased a lot. Among party drug users, Australian and French respondents were most likely to say their use of MDMA and cocaine decreased significantly.

  • Modern Slavery And Woke Hypocrisy
    Modern Slavery And Woke Hypocrisy

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 06/29/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

    The news has been filled with reports about Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters vandalizing and tearing down statues of slave traders, slave owners, and anyone who they perceive as having been historically involved with slavery. In Bristol, England, a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into the harbor. In Belgium, statues of King Leopold were defaced.

    The actions have caused some local authorities to consider whether all statues perceived as offending current sensibilities should be removed. The London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a commission to examine the future of landmarks, such as statues and street names, in the UK capital.

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    What is not apparent is how attacking old statues of people who have been long dead is supposed to help anyone, especially millions of black and non-black people, who are still enslaved today. It would appear that the woke activists of BLM and their many kneeling supporters do not care about the plight of modern slaves, of which there are an estimated whopping 40 million today. Evidently, it is far easier, and presumably more pleasurable, to destroy Western historical monuments than to embark on the difficult work of actually abolishing modern slavery.

    In the UK itself, there is a shocking range of modern slavery, something that the local wokesters are happy to ignore as they bravely attack statues of stone and metal. According to the UK government’s 2019 Annual Report on Modern Slavery, there are at least 13,000 potential victims of slavery in the UK, although as that number dates back to 2014, it is questionable. According to the 2018 Global Slavery Index, there are an estimated 136,000 people living in modern slavery just in Britain.

    Slavery in the UK takes the form of forced labor, and domestic and sexual exploitation. Albanians and Vietnamese are among the groups that constitute the majority of slaves. British news outlets have run several stories about the estimated thousands of Vietnamese, half under the age of 18, who are kidnapped and trafficked to the UK where they are forced to work as slaves on cannabis farms. There, they form a small part of the “vast criminal machine that supplies Britain’s £2.6bn cannabis black market”. Those who are not forced to work in the cannabis industry are enslaved in “nail bars, brothels and restaurants, or kept in domestic servitude behind the doors of private residences”. In January, BBC news ran a story about a Vietnamese boy named Ba, who was kidnapped by a Chinese gang and trafficked to the UK, where his Chinese boss starved him and beat him whenever one of the cannabis plants failed.

    BLM may not care much about Vietnamese lives in the UK — after all, they are all about black lives, so how about black slaves in Africa? There are currently an estimated 9.2 million men, women and children living in modern slavery in Africa, according to the Global Slavery Index, which includes forced labor, forced sexual exploitation and forced marriage.

    “According to the U.N.’s International Labor Organization (ILO), there are more than three times as many people in forced servitude today as were captured and sold during the 350-year span of the transatlantic slave trade”, Time Magazine reported in March 2019. According to the ILO, modern slavery has seen 25 million people in debt bondage and 15 million in forced marriage.

    Modern slavery earns criminal networks an estimated $150 billion a year, just slightly less than drug smuggling and weapons trafficking. “Modern slavery is far and away more profitable now than at any point in human history,” Siddharth Kara, an economist at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, told Time. According to the 2018 Global Slavery Index, “G-20 countries import some $354 billion worth of products at risk of being produced by modern slavery every year”.

    In 2017, shocking footage emerged from actual slave auctions in Libya: CNN documented an incident in which Arabic-speaking men sold off twelve Nigerians. In 2019, Time Magazine interviewed an African migrant, Iabarot, who had been sold into slavery on his way to Europe:

    “When Iabarot reached Libya’s southern border, he met a seemingly friendly taxi driver who offered to drive him to the capital city, Tripoli, for free. Instead, he was sold to a ‘white Libyan,’ or Arab, for $200. He was forced to work off his ‘debt’ on a construction site, a pattern that repeated each time he was sold and resold.”

    Sex trafficking forms a considerable part of modern slavery. The Nigerian mafia, for instance, according to a 2019 report by the Washington Post, is trafficking women by the tens of thousands:

    “Some experts say that as many as 20,000 Nigerian women, some of them minors, arrived in Sicily between 2016 and 2018, trafficked in cooperation with Nigerians in Italy and back home.”

    According to a July 2017 report by the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM):

    “Over the past three years, IOM Italy has seen an almost 600 per cent increase in the number of potential sex trafficking victims arriving in Italy by sea. This upward trend has continued during the first six months of 2017, with most victims arriving from Nigeria”. In its report, IOM estimated that 80 per cent of girls, often minors, arriving from Nigeria — whose numbers soared dramatically from 1,454 in 2014 to 11,009 in 2016 — were “potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation”.

    In parts of the African continent, especially in the Sahel, slavery is still ingrained in traditional culture, even though, officially, slavery has been outlawed. In countries such as Mali and Mauritania, so-called descent-based slavery or “caste-based” slavery — in which slavery is passed down from generation to generation, so that slaves are born into their predicament — is still practiced by some.

    In 2013, it was estimated that around 250,000 people were living in slave-like conditions in Mali, where slavery is not illegal. One Malian slave, Raichatou, told the Guardian in 2013 that she became a slave at the age of seven when her mother, also a slave, died. “My father could only watch on helplessly as my mother’s master came to claim me and my brothers,” she said. She worked as a servant for the family without pay for nearly 20 years, and was forced into a marriage with another slave whom she didn’t know, so that she could supply her master with more slaves.

    In Mauritania, it is estimated that up to 20% of the population is enslaved, even though slavery was officially outlawed in 1981. The slaves are mostly from the Haratine minority, who are black Africans, as opposed to the nearly half of the population who are Arabs or Berbers. According to a report by the Guardian from 2018:

    “Slavery has a long history in this north African desert nation. For centuries, Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, resulting in a rigid caste system that still exists to this day, with darker-skinned inhabitants beholden to their lighter-skinned “masters”. Slave status is passed down from mother to child, and anti-slavery activists are regularly tortured and detained. Yet the government routinely denies that slavery exists in Mauritania, instead praising itself for eradicating the practice.”

    The report also described a few of the horrific fates of the Haratine slaves:

    “Aichetou Mint M’barack was a slave by descent in the Rosso area. Like her sister, she was taken away from her mother and then given to a member of the master’s family to be a servant. She got married in the home of her masters and had eight children, two of whom were taken away from her to be slaves in other families. In 2010, Aichetou’s older sister was able to free her… after she herself fled her masters when they poured hot embers over her baby, killing it.”

    BLM and the many corporate executives, university professors, media, sports and cultural personalities who are bending their knees to the movement seem totally unconcerned by the fates of the likes of Aichetou. More likely than not, they have never heard of her or her many fellow sufferers. They are apparently black lives that do not matter — to anyone except the courageous people working in the local anti-slavery organizations.

    Instead, BLM and its sycophants endlessly debate changing the names of streets and universities, and removing statues, all of which do not amount to anything more than infantile virtue signaling. They waste time debating whether people who were never themselves slaves, should receive reparations from people who never owned a slave.

    To engage in all this posturing, while ignoring the staggering 40 million current victims of actual slavery, not only represents the immeasurable depths of woke hypocrisy, but constitutes an extreme insult to those who are suffering their slavery in silence, while slowly dying from the physical, sexual and emotional abuse that they are being forced to endure. If anything is “offensive,” it is that.

  • Gun-Toting St. Louis Lawyers Defend Mansion From BLM Protesters In Viral Video
    Gun-Toting St. Louis Lawyers Defend Mansion From BLM Protesters In Viral Video

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 06/29/2020 – 01:48

    A St. Louis couple armed themselves and stood outside their mansion as a group of Black Lives Matter protesters who had broken into their gated community shuffled past while chanting.

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    The couple, identified as attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, engaged in a shouting match with the protesters, waving what appeared to be an AR-15 rifle and a pistol (albeit employing terrible muzzle and trigger discipline and without cover).

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    As the Gateway Pundit‘s Cassandra Fairbanks notes, the BLM protesters can be clearly be seen entering a gate into the McCloskey’s private community.

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    Following the incident people began calling for the McCloskeys to be doxed – resulting in at least one publication removing their address from a 2018 article detailing the extensive renovations they performed on the 1912 mansion.

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    Photo by Alise O’Brien via St. Louis Mag

    Records show the McCloskeys have donated to both Republicans and Democrats over the years, including $4,000 to the Democratic party and at least $2,400 to the Trump campaign.

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    One of those calling for doxing the McCloskeys, ‘anti-racism executive coach‘ Kyle Dennis, restricted his Twitter account after he himself was doxed.  

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    And now – watch the left try their hardest to cancel the McCloskeys for letting the protesters, who had broken into their gated community, that they would not be victims.

    Meanwhile, the memes didn’t take long:

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  • The Old America Is Dead: Three Scenarios For The Way Forward
    The Old America Is Dead: Three Scenarios For The Way Forward

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 06/29/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Wayne Allenswroth via vdare.com,

    “Then who do we shoot?” Like Muley Graves the sharecropper, John Steinbeck’s evocative Okie everyman in John Ford’s 1940 film, many Americans are bewildered by a tidal wave of forces that seem beyond their control. The answer is not easy. But increasingly it seems likely to involve geographical partition.

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    Facing eviction from his dust-bowl farm, Muley confronts a man on a bulldozer who has come to demolish the shack Muley and his family live in. The sharecropper is determined not to give in and threatens the bulldozer operator with a shotgun—only to discover he is a local man, one of Muley’s own people. The bulldozer driver explains it’s not his fault, it’s just a job that he was hired to do. If Muley shoots him, then someone else will come to do the job and Muley will land in jail.

    “Then who do we shoot?” asks Muley. The banker? The people back East who own the bank? Morally disarmed and demoralized, Muley can only watch as the bulldozer man destroys his home.

    Patriotic Americans understand Muley. Our people, our culture, our history, everything we hold dear, is under relentless attack by the Main Stream Media, politicians, “activists,” and kritarchs in the courts, aided and abetted by enemies within, often our own kith and kin, who have internalized the blood-libel Leftist narrative of an irredeemably “racist” America that must be razed to the ground.

    “If you know your enemy,” wrote Sun Tzu, “and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

    Our enemy, in this case is the globalist Blob and its militant would-be Che Guevaras and LARPing Leninists, the MSM, the bureaucracy, the courts, the big corporations, and the education establishment.

    Yet, for the most part, until recently, the Blob has not confronted the Historic American Nation head-on. The Blob has been patient, killing us by the death of a thousand cuts, taking ground steadily through subversion, using propaganda and misinformation, censorship via Tech Totalitarians, and the slow encroachment of what the late Sam Francis called “anarcho-tyranny,” with mass immigration (“the Great Replacement”) as its weapon of mass destruction.

    The Blob is amorphous, a slippery, slimy thing that probes and gropes its way into whatever social-economic-political cracks it can exploit, eventually engulfing its prey like quicksand.

    It is also using “hybrid warfare” tactics that have been used before but have gelled with the expansion of mass communications and can quickly conjure up “flash mobs” and distribute “fake news.”[ Explainer: what is ‘hybrid warfare’ and what is meant by the ‘grey zone’?, The Conversation, June 17, 2019] The scare quote, creative editing, and constant repetition of bald-faced lies, magnified by social media, engulf us in a tidal wave of words and images. We live in a bizarre Twilight Zone that lacks depth and context.

    Give credit where credit is due. Hybrid warfare has worked. The Blob infiltrated and subverted American institutions by exploiting our American sense of Fair Play and decency that made whites a relatively easy mark. As the Blob seeped into our lives, we gradually adjusted to a “new normal” each and every day.

    Then Donald Trump was elected president. The Blob was shocked. Orange Man Bad seemed to threaten its plans to finish off the Historic American Nation. And so, ever since November 8, 2016, the MSM have kept the country in hysterics with one manufactured crisis after another. Fake news via a social media, a hybrid warfare tactic, kicked into high gear: Russiagate, Ukrainegate, the Chinese Virus panic and ensuing lockdown and economic crash, and now the myth of St. George Floyd and blacks being “hunted” by whites that catalyzed the mobs that have looted and burned American cities.

    Using the Chinese Virus and Floyd riots as cover, the Blob and its militant wing—Antifa and Black Lives Matter—ratcheted up anarcho-tyranny to new heights.

    In some American cities, Muley’s question—who do we shoot—has an answer, at least in an immediate sense.

    So what next? Where do we go from here?

    America faces three scenarios.

    • One: Trump is re-elected on a wave of anger over the looting and anarchy unleashed by the “I-Can’t-Breathe” narrative. Trump sends Javanka packing, dispatches the troops to restore order, extends the immigration moratorium, finally builds the wall, and begins mass deportations as the White House protects the dissident Right from deplatforming by the Tech Totalitarians.

    That scenario is most likely a fantasy.

    Even if Trump is re-elected, his past record of bluster and little to no action speaks for itself. The Blob and its executive arm, the Deep State, have boxed him in. Trump and his “team,” if one can call it that, are as easily disarmed by the antiracists as Conservative, Inc.’s operatives. Their immediate and reflexive condemnation of the police after Floyd’s death, like the Beltway Right’s compulsion to apologize for even existing, tells the tale.

    Of course vote for Trump in November. But don’t expect too much. Trump has been, at best, a speedbump, not a roadblock, in the Blob’s path.

    America has survived unrest before, but that was a different country. It had a white, Christian super-majority and a shared history. It had at least a theoretical chance of working out a modus vivendi with its black minority. The language was English and, most of the time, we played by a set of rules to which everyone—liberal conservative, Democrat or Republican—agreed. Elections were not winner-take-all apocalyptic events. Nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court did not occasion brutal, partisan, ideological war. No longer.

    If we bank solely on electoral politics, we will lose, especially as the demographic ring closes. The winners will show no quarter.

    Political life as we knew it in America is over. Again, the America we grew up in and loved is dead. Elections are a holding action at best. It seems highly unlikely that Trump (or anyone else, for that matter) can, for instance, deport and encourage to self-deport tens of millions of illegal aliens, even assuming a desire to do so.

    What’s more, a substantial portion of the dwindling white majority has disavowed its identity—the “flight from white,” as Steve Sailer calls it. Meanwhile, the Blob controls the Deep State and its bureaucracy not only on the federal level but also in too many swing states and major metropolitan areas.

    • Two: Trump loses, and the Blob and its allies triumph. But because this is a country now and not a nation, with no shared sense of common identity and agreed-upon history, culture, beliefs, or language, only a full-blown police state can hold it together.

    Even that might not ensure order in a chaotic post-America, and the diminishing number of whites will surely not enjoy the protection of the state. At some point, white Americans might well be living like white South Africans, ever in fear for their lives.

    If order breaks down, vigilante groups, even criminal gangs, will step into the void, as vigilantes have done in Mexico and Hispanic gangs have done to protect their neighborhoods during the Floyd riots.

    The good news: white men have followed suit when mobs threatened their homes and history. The boys in Fishtown in metropolitan Philadelphia who protected a police station, the heroes who surrounded and protected a statue of Christopher Columbus, and a group of armed Texans who gathered to protect the Alamo,are just three examples.

    Meanwhile, following the “higher number than usual” of Atlanta police officers calling in sick when one of their own was charged with felony murder in the shootingof Rayshard Brooks, Seth Cohen at Forbes wondered whether the “Blue flu” would be “America’s next pandemic.” [As Atlanta Police Protest, Is “Blue Flu” The Next Pandemic? , June 18, 2020]. As calls to “defund the police” mount, that’s a good question.

    And it raises another: what happens if America’s truckers decide not to deliver to cities with no police protection?

    So far, resistance to the Blob is scattered and uncoordinated, but that could change as the American systemic crisis deepens.

    • Three: The country breaks apart, and the Historic American people establish enclaves for themselves and others who love and fondly remember the old America.

    The breakup, indeed, is underway. Blue states and Leftist kritarchs nullify laws they don’t like. Sanctuary cities and even sanctuary states defy immigration laws. Meanwhile, American patriots have answered with Second Amendment sanctuarycounties and even states. Americans in inland California talk of seceding from the “Left coast.” The Left has floated secession talk as well: anarchists have seized and established their own “autonomous zone” in Seattle. West Virginia’s governor, Jim Justice, invited conservative counties in Virginia to secede and join the Mountain State. [West Virginia Republicans encourage conservative Virginia counties to ‘Vexit’ by Kelly Mena, CNN, Sun February 9, 2020] .

    States, counties, and cities that sided with or surrendered to the mob, and the Blob’s intensification of anarcho-tyranny during the recent coronavirus lock down, seem to have sparked a sharp reaction from the American remnant that could provide the bare bones of a Middle American defense movement.

    Someday, “blue” and “red” enclaves, even whole states, might evolve into new polities.

    American patriots are developing their own hybrid warfare with media of their own, effectively following the Left’s example of nullification and internal secession, as well as organizing an alternative cultural network that publishes its own books, educates its children, and tries to carry on despite the threat of Deep State suppression.

    My guess for the future: combination of scenarios two and three. The managerial state tightens its grip, the result on November 3 regardless, but devolution continues.

    The Blob won’t let up. The riots we recently witnessed will continue even if Trump sends in the troops now.

    When that happens, we won’t need to ask Muley’s question.

  • Japan Dominates The World's Top Supercomputers
    Japan Dominates The World’s Top Supercomputers

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 23:30

    Japanese supercomputer Fugaku zipped past all competitors to claim the top spot in the twice-annual ranking of the world’s most powerful computational machines released by research project Top500.

    Infographic: The World's Top Supercomputers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that Fugaku, which was developed by Fujitsu in cooperation with the federal Riken research lab, was able to perform almost three times as many computations per second as former leader of the list, U.S.-based supercomputer Summit.

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    Fugaku has not only topped the ranking in the number of computations per second – so-called TeraFLOPS – but in all four categories that supercomputers are judged on by the project. According to the Riken lab, no other computer had achieved this feat so far. Fugaku also had the most cores of all computers ranked, the highest theoretical peak performance for computations and the highest power capacity.

    Supercomputers are used to run complicated simulations that involve a large number of variables. Common uses include economic and climate modeling, neurological research and nuclear science.

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    In the case of Fugaku, the machine’s power is also used to research the coronavirus, more specifically to run simulations of how respiratory droplets move through the air in different settings like offices or train carriages.

    The list of the top 8 supercomputers in the world includes two Dell and two IBM machines as well as two Chinese supercomputers run by the Chinese government.

  • COVID-19 Hype Is Essential…
    COVID-19 Hype Is Essential…

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by ‘sundance’ via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

    In order to support the most important political objectives of the DNC writ large in the 2020 election, COVID-19 hype is essential:

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    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily achieve ‘mail-in’ voting; which they desperately need in key battleground states in order to control the outcome.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot shut down rallies and political campaigning efforts of President Trump; which they desperate need to do in key battleground states.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot block the campaign contrast between an energetic President Trump and a physically tenuous, mentally compromised, challenger.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have an excuse for cancelling the DNC convention in Milwaukee; thereby blocking Team Bernie Sanders from visible opposition while protecting candidate gibberish from himself.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have a mechanism to keep voters isolated from each-other; limiting communication and national debate adverse to their interests. COVID-19 panic pushes the national conversation into the digital space where Big Tech controls every element of the conversation.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot keep their Blue state economies easily shut-down and continue to block U.S. economic growth.  All thriving economies are against the political interests of Democrats.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily keep club candidate Joe Biden sealed in the basement; where the electorate is not exposed to visible signs of his dementia.

    • Without COVID-19 panic it becomes more difficult for Big Tech to censor voices that would outline the fraud and scheme.  With COVID-19 panic they have a better method and an excuse.

    • Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot advance, influence, or organize their preferred presidential debate format, a ‘virtual presidential debate’ series. [Comrade Gretchen Whitmer knows this plan, hence she cancelled the Michigan venue]

    All of these, and more, strategic outcomes are based on the manufactured weaponization of the COVID-19 virus to achieve a larger political objective.  There is ZERO benefit to anyone other than Democrats for the overwhelming hype surrounding COVID-19.

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    It is not coincidental that all corporate media are all-in to facilitate the demanded fear that Democrats need in order to achieve their objectives.  Thus there is an alignment of all big government institutions and multinationals to support the same.

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    Nothing is coincidental. Everything is political.

  • Satellite Images Suggest Massive Iran 'Mystery' Explosion Was At Secret Missile Site
    Satellite Images Suggest Massive Iran ‘Mystery’ Explosion Was At Secret Missile Site

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 22:30

    It began with Iranian claims of a mere accidental gas pipeline explosion or blast that was the result of gas leak at a civilian storage site in the desert late last week.

    This after multiple videos emerged online showing what appeared a huge fireball and multiple flashes lighting up the night sky at around midnight Thursday. Clearly a massive blast, it prompted Iran’s defense ministry to address it, given it was in the vicinity of a sensitive military site. 

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    NY Times based on eyewitness video accounts: “An explosion turned the skyline east of the capital, Tehran, a bright orange for several seconds.”

    A military spokesperson dismissed it as an accident a gas storage facility in a “public area” of Parchin, about 20 miles southeast of Tehran, in statements to sate TV, but it didn’t take long for analysts in the West to identify the area as being close to alleged secretive missile factories. 

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    This based on satellite images said to pinpoint the blast site: 

    Iran may have been up to more than it claims after mysterious explosions ripped apart an area near secretive missile factories in the hills east of Tehran.

    Images have identified a burned area in the hills near the Khojir Missile Production Complex.

    Regional media is now speculating that something worse may have happened when a massive explosion lit up the night skies over Iran last week. Theories initially pointed to Parchin as the location of the explosion. Iranian media claimed it was just a gas leak at a storage facility.

    Prior explosions at missile and other defense testing sites have previously been covered up or downplayed by the Islamic Republic, reports suggest.

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    Initially on Friday even Iranian media described the explosion, heard and seen for miles, as a mystery blast. “The cause of this sound and light is not yet known, but it was clearly heard in Pardis, in Boumhen and surrounding areas” of the Iranian capital, Mehr news agency had reported.

    Further fueling the speculation is that tensions with Israel and the United States are still soaring, given Iran’s moving forward with developing uranium enrichment capabilities – blowing past caps in place under the JCPOA – which Tehran has all along said is for peaceful nuclear energy.

    But Israel believes Tehran both pursuing warheads and the ability to launch. 

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    Anytime such unexplained ‘explosions in the desert’ happen in Iran, there’s also the question of possible Israeli jet or drone attacks, given Israeli Air Force strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria have become so frequent as to be a near weekly occurrence of late. 

  • Major Mexican Cartels: Drug Wars And Business
    Major Mexican Cartels: Drug Wars And Business

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 22:00

    Submitted by SouthFront,

    A previous report by South Front documented the heavy human, social and material costs of the drug wars in Mexico, which have devastated the country since the mid-2000s. In this report some of the major factors in the rapidly shifting environment of the main cartels over the last ten years, and their frequent formations, disintegrations and reconfigurations, are reviewed.

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    The markets for drugs: key aspects

    Cocaine from Colombia supplies most of the U.S. market, and most of that supply now passes through Mexico, with Mexican drug traffickers the primary wholesalers of cocaine to the United States. According to official estimates, coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia have risen or remained constant over the last couple of years, with the U.S. government estimating that Colombia produced a record 921 metric tons of pure cocaine in 2017. For 2018, the U.S. government reported that Colombia’s coca cultivation dropped slightly to 208,000 hectares and its potential cocaine production declined to an estimated 887 metric tons.

    In its 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) states that Mexican trafficking organizations also dominate heroin and fentanyl exports from the country. Mexico’s heroin traffickers, who traditionally provided black or brown heroin to U.S. cities west of the Mississippi, began in 2012 and 2013 to innovate and changed their opium processing methods to produce white heroin, a purer and more potent product, which they trafficked mainly to the U.S. East Coast and Midwest. DEA seizure data determined in 2017 that 91% of heroin consumed in the United States was sourced to Mexico, and the agency maintains that no other crime groups have a comparable reach to distribute within the United States.

    According to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, Mexico cultivated an estimated 32,000 hectares (ha) of opium poppy in 2016, 44,100 ha in 2017, and 41,800 ha in 2018. The US government estimated that Mexico’s potential production of heroin rose to 106 metric tons in 2018 from 26 metric tons in 2013, suggesting Mexican-sourced heroin is likely to remain dominant in the U.S. market.

    Illicit imports of fentanyl from Mexico involve Chinese fentanyl or fentanyl precursors mostly sourced from China. In addition, these traffickers adulterate fentanyl imported from China and smuggle it into the United States.

    In 2017, Mexico seized 421 metric tons of marijuana and eradicated more than 4,230 hectares of marijuana, according to the State Department. However, it is likely that there will be a significant decline in US demand for Mexican marijuana as more marijuana is grown legally in several states in the United States and Canada, which have either legalized cannabis or made it legal for medical purposes, thus decreasing its value as part of Mexican trafficking organizations’ profit portfolio.

    Mexican-produced methamphetamine has overtaken US sources of the drug and expanded into non-traditional methamphetamine markets inside the United States. According to the State Department, in 2017 Mexico seized 11.3 metric tons of methamphetamine, and as of August 2018, Mexican authorities had seized 130 metric tons of methamphetamine, including the seizure of some 50 metric tons of the drug in Sinaloa. The purity and potency of methamphetamine has driven up overdose deaths in the United States, according to the 2018 NDTA. Most Mexican trafficking organizations include a portion of the methamphetamine business in their trafficking operations and collectively control the wholesale methamphetamine distribution system inside the United States.

    In stark contrast to the vicious life and death battle between the drug cartels, other illegal armed groups and organized crime networks, and the law enforcement officers who must risk their lives for an apparently futile cause, producing armed clashes on a daily basis which have claimed many thousands of lives and inflicted enormous carnage and suffering on the people of Mexico, is the serene and generous treatment of the white collar criminals who have benefitted most from the proceeds of the illicit trade in drugs, mostly from the US and Europe.

    Major banks, such as HSBC and Wells Fargo, have repeatedly been caught laundering many billions of dollars from the drug cartels in Mexico and getting nothing more than a token slap on the wrist from the financial regulators in the form of a fine.

    The entire US financial system is kept afloat by drug money according to some experts (examined in detail by Michael Ruppert and Catherine Austin Fitts, among many others).

    Core features of the cartels’ evolution and structures

    When President Calderón began his term as president in 2006 there were four major cartels: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes Organization (CFO), and the Gulf Cartel. Over the following years there were numerous disputes within and between the cartels and a large number of smaller groups were created, many by former members of the large cartels, others forming as smaller and more localised criminal networks grew and consolidated their activities and organization.

    The territorial and functional boundaries of the groups, as well as their leadership and membership, are not always clear cut. Moreover, they are constantly changing in accordance with changes in the relations between key figures in each organization as well as relations between groups, which can also change rapidly depending on the area and activity involved. Hence, some analysts suggest that there could be as many as 20 major organizations if emerging factions and largely autonomous localised groups are included. In an analysis that is useful for penetrating the confusing proliferation of groups and activities, and appears to accurately identify some of the constant factors amidst the violence, misinformation and mayhem:

    The Stratfor Global Intelligence group contends that the rival crime networks are best understood in regional groupings and that at least three geographic identities emerged by 2015, which essentially endure. Those umbrella groups are Tamaulipas State, Sinaloa State, and Tierra Caliente regional group. This framework also shows several states and regions of Mexico where the activities of these three regional groups mix, as in the eastern state of Veracruz, which is a mix of elements from the Tierra Caliente and the Tamaulipas umbrella groups. LINK

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    Geographic zones of influence of the main cartels in Mexico.By the end of Calderon’s term the US Drug Enforcement Administration identified seven major criminal organizations: Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, and La Familia Michoacana. Of these groups, the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels in particular remain powerful despite the arrest of some of their leaders and losing some of their influence to other groups. The Cartel Jalisco-Nueva Generacion (CJNG) rose to prominence after 2010, particularly between 2013 and 2015, and is currently deemed by many analysts to be the most dangerous and largest Mexican cartel. CJNG has thrived since the demise of the Knights Templar, which was successfully targeted and largely dismantled by the Mexican authorities following the capture in February 2015 of its leader, Servando “La Tuta” Gomez, a former schoolteacher

    In the Pacific Southwest, La Familia Michoacana—originally based in the state of Michoacán and influential in surrounding states—split apart in 2015. Its power steadily declined as a successor group, the Knights Templar, grew in prominence in the region known as the tierra caliente of Michoácan, Guerrero, and in parts of the neighbouring states Colima and Jalisco. As noted above, the Knights Templar group has since declined and has in turn been replaced by other groups in most of its former territories.

    La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar began as a vigilante groups, claiming to protect the residents of Michoacán from other criminal groups. The Knights Templar was known for the trafficking and manufacture of methamphetamine, but the organization was also involved in the shipment of cocaine and marijuana towards the north. Both groups also preached a version of evangelical Christianity and claimed to be committed to social justice, while others attributed them as being responsible for much of the insecurity in Michoacán and surrounding states.

    Up until 2008, the Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) was part of the Sinaloa federation and controlled access to the US border in Mexico’s Sonora state. The Beltrán Leyva brothers developed close ties with Sinaloa head Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán and his family, along with other Sinaloa-based top leadership. Following the arrest of the group’s leader (Alfredo Beltrán Levya) in 2008 the BLO broke off the alliance with the Sinaloa Cartel. Over the following years it lost much of its leadership in a series of operations by Mexico’s security forces and the group fragmented into a number of smaller groups in 2010.

    Several splinter organizations have arisen from the remnants of the BLO since 2010, including the Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos. Los Rojos operates in Guerrero and is reported to be heavily involved in kidnapping and extortion for revenue as well as trafficking cocaine. The Guerreros Unidos is reported to traffic cocaine as far north as Chicago in the United States and is thought to operate primarily in the central and Pacific states of Guerrero, México, and Morelos. According to Mexican authorities, the Guerreros Unidos were responsible for the execution of 43 Mexican teacher trainees, who were handed over to them by local authorities in Iguala, Guerrero in 2014.

    According to the DEA, as of 2018 the BLO comprised a group of factions that work under the umbrella of the BLO name and traffic marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, with specific subgroups relying on alliances with the CJNG, the Juárez Cartel and elements of Los Zetas to move drugs across the border, while maintaining distribution links in the US cities of Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta. Inside Mexico, the groups are thought to remain influential in the states of Morelos, Guerrero, Nayarit, and Sinaloa.

    The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas

    The Gulf Cartel, based in north-eastern Mexico, had a long history of dominance in terms of power and profits, with the height of its power in the early 2000s. However, the Gulf Cartel lost a considerable part of its power and in particular its military capability when its ‘enforcers’ —Los Zetas, who were organized from highly trained former Mexican military personnel (including airborne special forces members) —split to form a separate group and turned against their former employers, engaging in an extremely violent competition for territory and markets. The military training, discipline and weaponry of Los Zetas, combined with their absolute ruthlessness and brutality, brought the cartel violence in Mexico to a new level of destruction, lethality and terror that also had a much more devastating impact on communities where they had a significant presence. According to a report by the US Congressional Research Service:

    “Most reports indicate that the Zetas were created by a group of 30 lieutenants and sub-lieutenants who deserted from the Mexican military’s Special Mobile Force Group (Grupos Aeromóviles de Fuerzas Especiales, GAFES) to join the Gulf Cartel in the late 1990s.” LINK

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    Logo of the Gulf Cartel

    Originally based in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, the Gulf Cartel expanded and eventually controlled operations in other Mexican states along the Gulf of Mexico, becoming a transnational smuggling operation with agents in Central and South America. In the 1980s, its leader, Juan García Abrego, developed ties with Colombia’s Cali Cartel as well as with key personnel within the Mexican federal police. García Abrego was captured in 1996 near Monterrey, Mexico. Nonetheless, the group continued to grow and it was the main competitor challenging the Sinaloa Cartel for trafficking routes in the early 2000s before the violent separation of Los Zetas in 2010 which significantly affected its operations.

    Los Zetas established a significant presence in several Mexican states along the Gulf, and extended their reach to Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua) and several Pacific states, also operating in Central and South America. Unlike many other groups, Los Zetas never attempted to win the support of local populations in the territories where they operated, and they are widely reported to have killed many civilians. They are linked to several particularly gruesome massacres, including the 2011 firebombing of a casino in Monterrey that killed 53 people and the 2011 torture and mass execution of 193 migrants who were traveling through northern Mexico by bus. Los Zetas are reputed to kill those who cannot pay extortion fees or who refuse to work for them, often targeting migrants.

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    Logo of the Los Zetas Cartel

    Los Zetas lost a succession of their most important leaders in joint police/ military operations during 2012-2013, and in 2015 Mexican authorities claimed that more than 30 of the group’s leaders had been arrested or killed. Nonetheless, at least two factions are still in existence, the ‘Old School Zetas’ (Escuela Vieja, or EV) and the Cartel del Noreste (CDN). It is thought that other local gangs have appropriated the Los Zetas ‘brand’ on occasion in an effort to take advantage of their fierce reputation.

    In 2014 Mexican federal police targeted a dozen Gulf and Zeta bosses they believed responsible for the wave of violence in Tamaulipas in 2014, and analysts subsequently reported that the structures of both the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas were decimated by federal operations as well as by disputes between competing factions. Both groups now operate largely as autonomous fragmented cells that often take on new names to disguise their identity and the full scope of their activities.

    From 2014 through 2016, violence continued in the state of Tamaulipas with regular reports of kidnappings, daytime shootings, and burned-down bars and restaurants in towns and cities such as the port city of Tampico. It appears that the remnants of both groups have expanded into other criminal operations, such as fuel theft, kidnapping, human smuggling and widespread extortion. In 2018 the DEA maintained that the Gulf Cartel continued to operate with its main focus on the cocaine and marijuana trade, but also expanding into heroin and methamphetamine, smuggling the majority of its drug shipments into South Texas through the border region between the Rio Grande Valley and South Padre Island.

    The Sinaloa Cartel

    The Sinaloa Cartel also has a long history, with its traditional base of support in western Mexico. The cartel also has a reputation for brutality and fought a long campaign to establish control over transport and distribution routes through the border states of Chihuahua and Baja California and maintain its status as the dominant cartel in the country.

    For many years the group was widely regarded as the most powerful drug trafficking syndicate in the Western Hemisphere; at its peak, the Sinaloa leadership successfully corrupted public officials from the local to the national level both inside Mexico and abroad, and was estimated to have operations in some 50 countries. As one of Mexico’s most prominent and visible (if elusive) criminal organizations, each of its major leaders was designated a ‘kingpin’ by US authorities in the early 2000s. At the top of the hierarchy was Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, listed in 2001, Ismael Zambada Garcia (“El Mayo”), listed in 2002, and Juan Jose “El Azul” Esparragoza Moreno, listed in 2003.

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    Logo of the Sinaloa Cartel

    According to official estimates, the Sinaloa Cartel controlled between 40%-60% of Mexico’s drug trade by 2012 and had annual earnings calculated to be around $3 billion, and for many years it was identified by the DEA as being the primary trafficker of drugs to the United States. In 2008, a federation dominated by the Sinaloa Cartel (which included the Beltrán Leyva organization and the Juárez Cartel) disintegrated, leading to a battle among the former partners that sparked one of the most violent periods in recent Mexican history.

    The Sinaloa Cartel has adopted a more decentralized structure of loosely linked semi-autonomous organizations, which has made it more susceptible to conflict when factions break away under mid-level commanders. However, the decentralized structure has also enabled it to adapt quickly in the highly competitive and unstable environment and withstand the loss of key personnel following its targeting by Mexican and US authorities.

    This was demonstrated in the aftermath of the arrest of the Sinaloa Cartel’s founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2014, who was extradited to the United States on 19 January 2017. The federal operation to capture and detain Guzmán, allegedly with support from US intelligence, was viewed as a major victory for the government of Peña Nieto. Nonetheless, the arrest did not signify any improvement in either the security situation in the country or in the continued dominance of the major cartels over the illegal economy and territorial and social control in many parts of the country.

    Following the arrest of El Chapo and the death of one of his most trusted deputies (“El Azul” Esparragoza Moreno) in 2014, the head of the Sinaloa Cartel was widely assumed to be Guzmán’s partner, Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo”. It is generally thought that he continues in that leadership role, together with at least one of El Chapo’s sons. In accordance with its more decentralized structure, Sinaloa operatives control certain territories through a network of regional bosses who conduct business and violence through alliances with each other and local gangs specializing in specific localities and activities.

    Although El Chapo’s detention didn’t result in the demise of the Sinaloa Cartel or reduce violence and corruption, it does however appear to have encouraged violent competition from the Cartel Jalisco-New Generation (CJNG), which was formed when its leaders split from the Sinaloa Cartel in 2010. During 2016 and 2017 CJNG expanded quickly by displacing or liquidating its competitors in many areas.

    There was a major scandal in October last year when Ovidio Guzmán López, one of El Chapo’s sons, was briefly detained in the town of Culiacán. Upon his arrest, his associates – widely reported as belonging to the Sinaloa Cartel – effectively took the entire town hostage and threatened to unleash a massacre. Faced with the prospect of an extremely bloody showdown, an emergency meeting of the security cabinet of the national government (headed by the Secretaries of National Defence, the Marines, Public Security and Citizen Protection, and the recently created National Guard) decided to release the captive and the armed bandits melted away, leaving the town with thirteen dead and many more wounded. LINK

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    The town of Culiacan after it was held siege by the CJNG for several hours

    The incident demonstrated beyond a doubt that, although the cartel may have declined in power relative to its peak, it still remains a very formidable force.

    Last week the Mexican President provided more details explaining the reasons for the decision to release Ovidio Guzman:

    “The members of the national security cabinet met and closely followed the ongoing developments and made decisions that I completely support because the situation became very difficult. Many citizens, many people, many human beings were at risk and it was decided to protect people’s lives and I agreed because it is not about (creating) massacres.”

    He explained that the operation was carried out by the Mexican Army, based on an arrest warrant for a suspected criminal, but “there was a very violent reaction…”

    The arrest triggered an immediate general mobilization of crime groups throughout the city of Culiacán and they even took control of the toll booths on the main roads and openly deployed their forces in other municipalities in the state, such as El Fuerte.

    Lopez Obrador reaffirmed that his decision was made to protect citizens because “you cannot put out the fire with fire” and reiterated that his government is pursuing a different strategy than that of the previous governments.

    “We do not want more dead, we do not want war, it is difficult to understand for some but the strategy that was being applied previously turned the country into a massive cemetery,” he said of the governments of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2012- 2018), which produced more than 250,000 deaths and 40,000 missing (‘forced disappearances’) from the so-called war on drug trafficking.

    “It is not easy (fighting crime). It is a process, it is not easy because the problem of violence has become entrenched throughout the country and we have to face two mafias, white collar crime and illegal armed groups, that is what we face.”

    The incident in Culiacán has demonstrated the enormous control that the Sinaloa Cartel and its cells still have over the region, which had been relatively calm in the preceding period. LINK

    The Cartel Jalisco-Nueva Generacion (CJNG)

    As described in a previous report, the CJNG is now widely considered to be the most powerful cartel in Mexico. Also known as the Zeta Killers, the CJNG appeared in 2011 with a roadside display of the bodies of 35 alleged members of Los Zetas. The group is based in Jalisco state with operations in central Mexico, including the states of Colima, Michoacán, Mexico State, Guerrero, and Guanajuato, where it has grown to be a dominant force.

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    Logo of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion

    The CJNG reportedly served as an enforcement group for the Sinaloa Cartel until mid-2013, and subsequently entered into fierce competition with its former patrons for territory and markets.

    The group appears to have been able to maintain a high level of cohesion amidst the widespread fragmentation, dispersal and mutation of its rivals, and its undisputed leader is Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, alias ‘El Mencho’.

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    ‘El Mencho’, undisputed leasder of the CJNG

    In 2015 and 2016 it was described by Mexican and US authorities respectively as one of the world’s most prolific and violent drug trafficking organizations, with operations throughout half of Mexico’s territory, along the East Pacific coast from Chile to Canada, as well as possessing significant networks and operations in Europe and Asia.

    According to a 2019 report by the US Congressional Research Service:

    CJNG’s efforts to dominate key ports on both the Pacific and Gulf Coasts have allowed it to consolidate important components of the global narcotics supply chain. In particular, CJNG asserts control over the ports of Veracruz, Mazanillo, and Lázaro Cardenas, which has given the group access to precursor chemicals that flow into Mexico from China and other parts of Latin America. As a result, CJNG has been able to pursue an aggressive growth strategy, underwritten by U.S. demand for Mexican methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl. LINK

    The CJNG recently claimed that there is at least one ‘State Cartel’ operating in Mexico. Although the allegations were extremely vague in many respects, there is no doubt that senior figures in the State have collaborated with one or more cartels, and that this is a common occurrence (as has occurred in Colombia). Indeed, up to 20 former provincial governors are being investigated for varying degrees of cooperation with illegal armed groups; it is certain that a much larger large number of mayors have also been involved in such schemes in some way, given the enormous power of the cartels in many localities – as noted in the previous report by South Front, the 2018 elections in Mexico were the bloodiest on record, with approximately 37 mayors, former mayors or candidates for mayor being assassinated.

    The Mexican cartel “Jalisco New Generation” (CJNG) recently released two short videos with denunciations of the San Luis Potosi government. In the videos, they refer to the State’s government as the ‘Ministerial Cartel’, and further claim that the head of the Federal State police, Jose Guadalupe Castillo Celestino, is the head of the State ‘cartel’.

    The CJNG also asserted that several recent killings in San Luis Potosi were not a result of its activities. To find the guilty party, according to the video statements, authorities had to investigate Castillo Celestino, who struck deals with the cartels of the Northeast, the Gulf and Los Alemanes, ‘selling’ the criminal organizations the right to operate in specific areas and also arranging for the purchase of real estate with drug money.

    The Jalisco cartel also added that it should not be thought that the state governor was not aware of the transactions. The local governments in most of the areas affected are also often either incapable of countering cartel activities, or are on their payroll.

    Although the chief of the Federal Police and at least one provincial governor were specifically mentioned in the two videos released by the CJNG, it remains unclear whether the CJNG is alleging that some State officials are collaborating with other cartels, or whether they have established a specific illegal armed group (or groups) throughout the   country to take advantage of the breakdown in social order, violence and corruption to take over lucrative illegal markets and, perhaps, terrorize and displace rural and Indigenous communities so that political and economic partners can take over their territories and resources.

    Again, any or all of these developments would have precedents and parallels in Colombia, where the Colombian police and US law enforcement and intelligence agencies (primarily the DEA, also probably the CIA) cooperated with the rivals and enemies of the Medellin Cartel, and Pablo Escobar in particular, resulting in the liquidation of the criminal group. However, as with the arrest of El Chapo, the killing of Escobar did absolutely nothing to improve the situation in the country, as the void was rapidly filled by other illegal armed groups. The Colombian military, and to a lesser extent police, have on repeated occasions collaborated with one paramilitary or other illegal armed group in order to take out another group.

    Many aspects of these strategies and interactions between Colombian and US State security forces, military contractors and paramilitary groups are examined in the online book, In Search of Colombia: Social and political fragments and perspectives from the past to the present.

    Community Self-Defence Organizations

    One of the initiatives that has emerged from some of the communities most affected by the violence and predation of the illegal armed groups in rural and remote areas in Michoacán is the creation of community-based self-defence groups. Local business owners, who had grown weary of widespread extortion and violent crime that was ignored by corrupt local and state police, provided seed funding to establish the community-based militias in Michoacán, but authorities were concerned that some of the self-defence groups had extended their search for resources and weapons to competing crime syndicates and might develop more enduring relations with them.

    While the concept is not by any means a panacea, and can cause even more problems for local communities as has been proven in the case of Colombia where they usually served as armed militias and death squads for local political and economic elites and landlords to terrorize and forcibly displace rural and remote communities in collaboration with military and police forces, if carefully implemented on a case-by-case basis under the control and with the full participation of the relevant communities it can at least provide the communities with an opportunity to be able to defend themselves until reinforcements can arrive.

    In early 2014, the Mexican government began to implement a policy of incorporating members of the self-defence groups into legal law enforcement, giving them the option to disarm or register themselves and their weapons as part of the “Rural Police Force,” despite concerns about competing cartels corrupting these forces or the potential for the groups to morph into predatory paramilitary forces, as occurred in Colombia. The federal police and the Rural Police Force had a brief successful period of cooperation, however this ended with the arrests of the two self-defence force leaders (as well as dozens of members) in spring 2014. The arrests caused tension between the self-defence movement and federal police, and contributed to a renewal of high rates of violence in the area.

    The concept has thus far not been incorporated into the new security strategies elaborated by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has created a specialized National Guard in an attempt to eradicate the corrupt elements of the police and military and severe the links that have been developed between many of their personnel and the illegal armed groups, however it is not clear that reorganizing the security forces alone will be able to achieve this as they must inevitably be made of the same basic elements in a new uniform.  The concept also appears not to be favoured by the leadership of the conventional security forces.

    In some areas however the communities themselves have persisted with the initiative after having found themselves confronted by and at the mercy of apparent, and at times obvious, collaboration between illegal armed groups, police (whether federal or municipal) and military personnel (as well as politicians, landlords and corporate developers in more than a few cases). It could be argued that it is the height of cynicism and hypocrisy to deny communities the opportunity to defend themselves with security forces drawn from and selected and overseen by those same communities if they should choose to do so, particularly given the failure of the public security forces to protect them and hunt down and capture the illegal armed groups in their territories. In contrast, moreover, the economically well-off are usually very well attended by the security forces if they request assistance, and generally face very few obstacles to hire as many private security guards as they wish.

    Even during the ‘lockdown’ measures implemented since the outbreak of the Coronavirus, in many cases the illegal armed groups have been able to move around freely to undertake their predatory activities and terrorize local communities in rural and remote areas.

  • Food Bank Lines Reemerge As COVID Paralyzes Households
    Food Bank Lines Reemerge As COVID Paralyzes Households

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 21:30

    Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, food bank lines stretching for miles were seen across the US have come to symbolize the financial destruction of households triggered by an abrupt closing of businesses and unprecedented job losses. 

    Tens of millions of people lost their jobs, and millions more turned to food banks. The demand for food pantries was at record levels as the federal government deployed the National Guard to manage food supply chains to thwart disruptions. 

    In March, April, and May, food bank systems nationwide reported unprecedented demand as millions of hungry, jobless, and broke Americans, with insurmountable debts and no savings, had no meaningful way of putting food on their tables. To be more specific, food security among households in San Antonio, Texas, was a huge issue, resulting in more than 23 million pounds of food, serving 240,000 cars at drive-through distributions and 5,800 home visits – was seen at the San Antonio Food Bank over the three months. 

    During the period, retails sales bounced modestly after a stunning record decline – mostly because a quarter of all personal income was derived from the government. Essentially what this means is that the Trump administration activated the money helicopters to avoid a total collapse of the US economy – via unemployment and emergency benefits, welfare checks, and so on.

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    So here’s the issue explained by Twitter handle The Long View – the account notes the stimulus checks that have “bounced” retail sales “like a rubber band” are “all over in a few weeks & with the new uptick we likely see at least six more weeks of contraction with no plug. The real hit starts now.” 

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    And Maybe, The Long View is right, because, while President Trump has given several press conferences where he declared that the economy is quickly recovering: “We’ve been talking about the V,” the president said. “This is better than a V. This is a rocket ship” – food bank lines could be, once again, reappearing… 

    Twitter handle Alastair Williamson posted a video Sunday shows dozens of vehicles waiting in line at what appears to be a food bank in Baltimore, Maryland. We were able to pinpoint the location via looking at local businesses in the video, able to determine the video was taken on York Road in Lutherville-Timonium, MD, outside the Maryland State Fair. 

    It appears the Maryland State Fair & Agricultural Society, Inc. has been running a food bank out of the fairgrounds for several months. 

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    On Twitter user asked: “How can so many people afford cars and not food?” 

    Williamson replied: “their auto payments likely deferred for a certain period.” 

    Another Twitter user said: “7M US auto owners/borrowers are 90 days + in arrears.”

    What this all suggests is that households remain devastated – President Trump’s helicopter drops of free money are likely wearing off as people are now having difficulty putting food on the table. 

    As a consumption hangover is imminent, the Trump administration will need to unleash more stimulus/socialist checks to broke and jobless Americans – though, as per The Long View, it appears consumption is set to plunge before the next checks arrive. 

    The perfect storm of weak consumption and the emergence of a second coronavirus wave could crush households and businesses in a second-round – food bank lines are becoming the new normal. 

  • Israel Is On Brink Of War With Iran & Hezbollah: Top Israeli Officials
    Israel Is On Brink Of War With Iran & Hezbollah: Top Israeli Officials

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 21:00

    Via AlMasdarNews.com, 

    The former Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said that Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah are pushing Israel to the brink.

    In an interview with Israel’s national Hebrew-language daily newspaper Maariv on Friday, the former Israeli Defense Minister had expressed his concern about Iran possessing enriched uranium, which he said is eight times the permitted amount according to the nuclear agreement, and that a month ago Iran successfully launched a spy satellite into orbit.

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    Former Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, via Reuters.

    Lieberman further charged that Hezbollah is now building a precision missile factory in honor of the late Iranian Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani, which is pushing Israel to the brink, claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no plans to confront them.

    Lieberman said Iran is continuing its ongoing policies in its regular military programs and continues to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad, although Iran faces enormous economic difficulties of its own.

    However, despite Lieberman’s claims, Israel has in fact intensified their attacks against the Iranian forces and allies inside Syria this year, with multiple attacks taking place each month.

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    Last week, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were believed to have bombed not only eastern Hama (Salamiyah District), but also, a number of sites between the Al-Sweida and Deir Ezzor governorates.

  • Nursing Homes Account For 11% Of COVID-19 Cases, 43% Of Deaths In US
    Nursing Homes Account For 11% Of COVID-19 Cases, 43% Of Deaths In US

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 20:30

    43% of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States are residents or employees of nursing homes or other long-term care (LTC) facilities, according to the New York Times (which fails to mention that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered NY nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients from hospitals). Nursing homes, meanwhile, account for just 11% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States.

    To date, just over 125,000 people in the US have died of COVID-19, 54,000 of which were linked to LTC facilities.

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    Via the New York Times

    By state, New Hampshire LTC facilities are at the top of the list – accounting 80% of COVID-19 deaths in the state. Rhode Island and Minnesota are tied at 77%, while Connecticut comes in at 73% of deaths linked to nursing homes.

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    Via the New York Times

    The share of deaths linked to long-term care facilities for older adults is even starker at the state level. In 24 states, the number of residents and workers who have died accounts for either half or more than half of all deaths from the virus.

    Infected people linked to nursing homes also die at a higher rate than the general population. The median case fatality rate — the number of deaths divided by the number of cases — at facilities with reliable data is 17 percent, significantly higher than the 5 percent case fatality rate nationwide. –New York Times

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    Via the New York Times

    And while New York ranks at the bottom of the pack when it comes to LTC facility deaths as a percentage of overall deaths in the state, New York nursing homes come in 2nd on the list after New Jersey in terms of overall deaths in LTC facilities, at 6,432.

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    Via the New York Times

    Perhaps protecting the elderly and those with comorbidities would have been preferable to tanking the economy with months-long lockdowns.

  • Why Gold, And Why Now
    Why Gold, And Why Now

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 20:00

    Submitted by Jan Nieuwenhuijs from Voima Insight.

    For thousands of years gold is the ultimate store of value. Currently, gold is undervalued as there are massive bubbles in asset markets and central banks continue to print money, which supports these bubbles. This is an unsustainable situation; and when the bubbles burst the gold price will rise.

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    Gold is the ultimate store of value, as it’s the only globally accepted financial asset without counterparty risk, and it has preserved its purchasing power throughout history. In the long-term, the stability of gold’s value is unparalleled.

    Because gold is scarce and immutable, it has been used as money for thousands of years. Gold’s first use was for adornments—jewelry, regalia, and prestige goods. As early as the 5th millennium BC gold beads of different sizes and purities were manufactured through serial production in Varna, Bulgaria. The semi-finished products were worn in a necklace, and possibly traded.

    Gold beads from Varna, Bulgaria, 5th millennium BC. Courtesy Leusch, V., Pernicka, E, and Armbruster, B. 2014. Chalcolithic gold from Varna – Provenance, circulation, processing, and function.

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    Around 3000 BC weights and scales were invented, which allowed precise measurement of materials and enhanced trade. Gold developed as a store of value, unit of account, and symbol of wealth. By 600 BC coinage was invented in Lydia, what is now Turkey, which promoted gold to be used as a currency. In many civilizations ever since gold was either officially money, or used as a store of value.

    Since 1971, the World has been on a pure “paper money” standard despite the fact that bank notes are hardly used nowadays. Most of the time, what is used as money are digital book entries. Whether in paper or digital form, money issued by governments is commonly referred to as fiat money.

    The Price of Gold Goes Up

    Because fiat currencies can be created boundlessly, over time their value declines, and thus the price of gold denominated in fiat money goes up.

    In August 1971—when the last remnants of the gold standard were abandoned—the gold price was $41 U.S. dollars per troy ounce. At the end of May 2020, the gold price had reached $1,729 dollars per ounce, an increase of more than 4,100%.

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    Although, the gold price doesn’t go up in a straight line, it has always “caught up.” Over time, the price of gold has always compensated for devaluing fiat currencies. Gold’s purchasing power has remained markedly stable in the long run.

    Gold Preserves its Purchasing Power

    Governments aim for stable prices of consumer goods. But with the seductive ability to “print” money, they always create too much. The printed currency loses value, and prices of consumer goods go up.

    Because the gold price keeps up with prices of consumer goods, gold preserves its purchasing power. Since 1800, gold’s purchasing power in the U.S. has been remarkably stable. It became more volatile after 1971, but has kept trending slightly upwards.

    This is the power of gold: it preserves personal as well as generational wealth.

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    So, while fiat currencies lose their value relative to consumer goods, gold has gained in value relative to consumer goods, and not only in the U.S.

    On the Voima Gold homepage you can see that since the euro was created in 1999, the gold price in euros has gone up by 550%. When corrected for (consumer price) inflation, gold in the eurozone has increased in purchasing power by 350% in 20 years.

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    Gold Keeps up With Other Financial Assets

    Hedge Fund Manager Ray Dalio has compared storing value in gold versus government bills (bonds with a maturity of less than one year), since the classic gold standard has been gradually dismantled (1912). Government bills are thought to be safer than bank deposits, although both have counterparty risk, unlike gold.

    Dalio computed the annual returns in real terms, which is done by subtracting inflation from interest rates. Gold doesn’t have an interest rate—when it’s not lent—it just goes up in price. The result over 100 years is that in major economies the average annual return of government bills was -0.2%, while gold’s return was 2.2%.

    The poor result of the bills is because they are denominated in currencies that have been strongly debased since 1912. The U.S. dollar, for example, lost more than 98% of its value against gold over this time horizon.

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    Compared to stocks and long-term bonds gold’s performance is impressive as well. With dividends reinvested, gold has kept up with the U.S. stock market since 1971, and outperformed it since 1999. Although, gold did worse than the U.S. stock market since 2009.

    With interest reinvested, gold has outperformed U.S. Treasuries (government bonds) since 1971, 1999, and 2009.

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    Performances of all assets in the chart above are measured by their compound annual growth rate, and are not corrected for inflation.

    As you can see, inflation is included in the chart, and “U.S. cash” doesn’t keep up with it. Clearly, the ones that do not own gold, but have a bank savings account, will see their wealth diminish.

    Every Investment Portfolio Needs Gold

    Regularly, when stock markets crash investors flee to gold, causing the gold price to rise. Stocks and gold are often negatively correlated. For investment purposes gold is an excellent diversification. When gold is added to an investment portfolio it lowers volatility and improves performance. Owning gold is for everyone and for all seasons.

    CPM Group calculated that the best risk-return balance of an investment portfolio is reached when it includes 20% of gold (next to an equal share of stocks and bonds).

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    Other studies suggest a different allocation of gold. The sweet spot depends on your time horizon, risk appetite, and the size of your portfolio.

    The Future of Gold

    As mentioned, since 1971 the price of gold hasn’t gone up in a straight line. Naturally, the question arises, is it now a good time to buy gold? I believe it is.

    I expect the gold price to rise going forward, because there are currently huge bubbles in asset markets and central banks continue to print money to support these bubbles. This year alone, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet from $4 trillion to $7 trillion dollars. A whopping $3 trillion dollars have been printed in just 4 months. The stock “price to earnings ratio” has reached record levels. Needless to say, this is a highly unsustainable situation; and when the bubbles burst more investors will turn to gold.

    Currently, the stock market is overvalued versus gold, as can be seen in the chart below. Gold will outperform stocks in the years ahead.

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    Since 1971, instead of gold being the centerpiece of the international monetary system, government bonds have taken its place. Capital has been invested in sovereign bonds based on the (false) belief they are risk-free. Now, the sovereign bond market is in a bubble.

    One sign of the bubble is that debt obligations of many developed nations have a negative interest rate. This reflects these securities are strongly overvalued. Another sign is that the world has never been this much in debt. World debt to GDP is currently well over 330%.

    Over-investing in sovereign bonds—incentivized by central banks—has caused governments to borrow beyond their means. For these countries their debt to GDP levels are skyrocketing, and are unsustainable. In the years ahead, global debt levels can only be lowered through debt restructuring or inflation, and both are bullish for gold.

    Data provided to me by CPM Group, shows that in 1960 gold made up 5% of all global financial assets. At the end of 2019, this percentage was 0.52%. There is ample upside for gold. In nominal terms, and—although to a lesser extent—in real terms, too.

    The Threat of Bank Bail-ins

    Last but not least, a serious threat for people’s fiat savings held at commercial banks, are “bail-ins.” In 2014, the European Union adopted the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive. The implemented rules dictate that when a bank becomes insolvent, the banks’ shareholders and creditors pay the costs through a bail-in mechanism.

    Money held at banks is technically a loan to the bank. This makes depositors “unsecured creditors” of the bank. Under the current rules, when the bank becomes insolvent, deposits will be seized to save the bank. Outside the EU bail-in rules have been implemented as well.

    The reason why people are still holding large sums of fiat money at banks, is because many aren’t aware of the risks.

    Conclusion

    Above is a list of reasons why it makes sense to own gold. Gold is the ultimate store of value, and offers protection from inflation caused by reckless money printing by central banks. Currently, governments want inflation, as politically it’s the easiest way of lowering the debt burden. On May 7, 2020, Ray Dalio wrote, “Printing money is the most expedient, least well-understood, and most common big way of restructuring debts.”

    The stock market is currently overvalued, as economic growth around the world is collapsing due to the corona crisis. Stock indices haven’t corrected yet, because they are high on the newly printed money. On June 24, 2020, Money Manager Jesse Felder wrote (based on calculations), “the current disconnect between stock prices and sustainable profits is, in fact, greater than anything we have seen in modern history.” Hence, I believe gold will perform better than stocks in the years ahead.

    Stay up to date, subscribe to Voima Insight—click here

  • Central Mueller Witness, A Child-Trafficking Pedophile, Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison
    Central Mueller Witness, A Child-Trafficking Pedophile, Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 19:30

    A Lebanese businessman and central witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in January to sex crimes involving minors.

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    Lobbyist George Nader – who had ties to both the Clinton and Trump campaigns during the 2016 US election for Middle Eastern associates (and was later indicted for illegal contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign) – was intercepted at Dulles Airport in January 2018 by agents working for Mueller. A search of his iPhones revealed child pornography, which we imagine was used as leverage to gain his cooperation.

    Three months later, prosecutors filed charges against Nader for the images – however they were filed under seal and kept secret from Nader’s lawyers while he was working with Mueller.

    In July of 2017 – 15 months after Mueller let a serial pedophile roam the streets in the hopes he’d be able to nail Trump, Nader was finally indicted on both the child porn and for sex-trafficking a 14-year-old boy.

    Keep in mind, Mueller knew about Nader’s 1991 conviction on child pornography charges in the US – for which he served only six months in a halfway house thanks to his role in helping to free American hostages in Beirut. He was also convicted in the Czech Republic in 2003 on 10 counts of having sex with underage boys, and eventually received a one-year prison sentence.

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    Months after Nader’s indictment for pedophilia, he was indicted on campaign finance charges in December 2019, along with Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja – a Lebanese-American businessman who has donated to Clinton, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, Chris Coons, Dianne Feinstein and a host of other Democrats who received up to $3 million in campaign funds. He also gave $1 million to Priorities USA, the primary super PAC supporting Clinton, and $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

    Khawaja was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in June of 2018.

    Nader embarked on the scheme in a bid to gain influence in Clinton’s circle while reporting to a foreign official, according to the Justice Department.

    Among his alleged co-conspirators is Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, the CEO of a payments processing company, according to the Justice Department news release announcing the unsealing of the indictment, which was made by a grand jury in the District of Columbia.

    Nader conspired with Khawaja to secretly fund $3.5 million in donations that were made in the name of Khawaja, his wife and his firm, Allied Wallet Inc., according to the indictment. –Politico

    In 2016, Khawaja co-hosted an August fundraiser for Clinton which included a laundry list of high-profile guests, including Univision owner Haim Saban, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and basketball legend Magic Johnson, according to the report. According to the indictment, Khawaja conspired with six other individuals to conceal his excessive contributions. Others who were indicted were also linked to donations to Clinton and other Democrats.

    The indictment quotes an alleged encrypted message that Nader sent an official from Foreign Country A via WhatsApp after Khawaja contributed $275,000 and invited Nader to attend and April 16, 2016, event for presidential Candidate 1.

    “Wonderful meeting with the Big Lady . . . Can’t wait to tell you about it,” Nader allegedly wrote, in an apparent reference to Clinton.

    The indictment noted that political committees that received funding unwittingly submitted false disclosure reports and were presumably victims of the plot. Still, Hillary Clinton apparently attended numerous events, including small gatherings, with Nader, who on July 19, 2016, messaged the foreign official a photograph of him with Candidate 1’s spouse — an apparent reference to Bill Clinton — at Khawaja’s home. –Washington Post

    Nader is also known to have interacted with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, according to The Hill, a well as former strategist Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. He is also reported to have helped arrange Trump’s 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia – interactions which likely piqued Mueller’s interest.

  • The Second Round Of Lockdowns Won't Be As Easy As The First
    The Second Round Of Lockdowns Won’t Be As Easy As The First

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    The pressure is already mounting for state and local governments to move again toward coerced stay at home orders and mandatory business closures.

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    The constant drumbeat of headlines designed to convince people to adopt new draconian government controls is more of less exactly the same as what it was back in March. Arizona “lost control of the epidemic” one headline proclaims, while another insists “ICU beds full.” A government bureaucrat in Texas says the situation is “apocalyptic” and Bloomberg dutifully features the word in its headline. The governor of California is threatening another stay-at-home order. The Texas governor has re-imposed some restrictions. Florida has “paused” its scaling back of lockdown edicts.

    Americans should expect more of this as the year proceeds. Once we arrive at September, hospitalizations due to the usual winter diseases like flu will begin to mount. At that point, the daily headlines about “full” or nearly-full hospitals will be a daily or even hourly occurrence.

    There is no doubt politicians and government “experts” like Anthony Fauci will briefly emerge from their luxury homes and gated communities to demand that middle class and working class Americans be once again forced to abandon their jobs, take pay cuts, and sit at home. (The politicians decreeing lockdowns, of course, will keep collecting their six-figure salaries.)

    But there’s a problem with the politicos’ plans. They assume Americans will comply with the stay-at-home orders to the same degree they did back in March and April.

    This may not be a very prudent assumption. This will be due to at least two reasons.

    First, more Americans now doubt the official narrative on the disease.

    Second, Americans are now in a worse economic position compared to the time of the first lockdown.

    Both of these factors will contribute to more resistance to lockdowns.

    In other words, a second lockdown will be more difficult – both economically and politically – than the first. Economic pain will mount as political doubts grow.

    The Economic Threat

    A second round of lockdowns also poses a very large economic risk to families.

    Advocates of coercive lockdowns have long tried to portray opponents of lockdowns as just “people who want a haircut.”  The reality is a lot more grim than that, however, and the threat to the economic well-being of many families is going to make a second round of lockdowns far worse than the first.

    Many Americans voluntarily complied the first time around because they were starting from a relatively good economic position. The politicians kept assuring them it was all just for “two weeks” or maybe even a month. After all, when the lockdowns began, the economy was at very high levels of employment. The US was in the waning days of the boom phase of a boom-bust cycle. But it was nonetheless still in the boom phase. Since the spring lockdowns began, 40 million Americans have become unemployed. Twenty million of them are still unemployed, and more than 1.3 million Americans became newly unemployed over the past week. Tax revenue has also plummeted reflecting the downward spiral in Americans’ income.

    The bankruptcies are now mounting. In recent weeks, just some of the companies that have declared bankruptcy are J.Crew, Gold’s Gym, Neiman Marcus, Hertz, GNC, and Chuck E. Cheese. Thousands of retail locations for these companies will be closed. Their staffs will be laid off.

    The idea that everyone can just “work from home,” of course, has always been a fantasy of the well-off. The work-from-home myth is especially damaging for lower-income workers and for blacks and Hispanics. Moreover, if school closures remain, many parents who rely on government schools as a type of “free” day care will find themselves without schools as a resource.

    So far, all of this has been cushioned by outlandish fiscal and monetary “stimulus” designed to bailout bankrupted industries, small businesses and households. Households have received stimulus checks as incomes dried up or were reduced.

    The federal budget is likely to top ten trillion this year (well more than double last-year’s budget) as a result of literally trillions of new dollars being created out of thin air to finance the stimulus checks and bailouts.

    If lockdowns are imposed again, expect even more “stimulus,” bringing the federal budget to 12 trillion, or maybe 14 trillion. There will be no end in sight.

    But apparently-endless money printing can’t continue indefinitely. At some point the upward pressure on interest rates, and concerns over the value of the dollar, become so great that even Congress and the Fed fear another round of stimulus. If that comes this year, household finances will immediately collapse. More businesses will go under. Jobs will dry up. 30 percent of Americans already missed their house payments in June. Expect that to get a lot worse if lockdown mandates are tightened again.

    And as economic  turmoil becomes worse expect more of what resulted during the lockdowns of March and April: more child abuse, more suicide, more drug overdoses. Expect more death from non-COVID causes as  “elective” medical care is banned by executive order. 

    The New Lockdowns Will Be Longer

    Also complicating the situation is the fact that if lockdowns are tightened now, the duration of the lockdowns will likely last well beyond the month or two of lockdowns initially promised. Hospitalizations for a wide variety of diseases (not just COVID-19) will only get worse as the northern hemisphere approaches flu season three months from now. At that point, the end of the 2020-21 flu season will still be a long way away.

    If the current plan for the “experts” and the politicians is to impose a six- or eight-month lockdown until next summer, get ready for an economic depression of unprecedented proportions.

    The lockdown advocates have always claimed the economy would survive relatively unscathed because the job losses and closures were just “temporary.” Their narrative claimed workers would only be furloughed for a couple of months and then the recovery would begin.

    But what if they get their wish for an open-ended lockdown that continues from mid-summer through May of next year? After all, that is the reality we’re looking at if rising hospitalizations justify lockdowns. We’ll be looking at month after month of mounting unemployment.

    Compliance Will Be a Problem

    The heightened economic pain means lockdowns will be harder to enforce, and Americans now estimate their risk of severe illness to be much lower now than was the case during the first lockdown.

    Back in March and April, many Americans didn’t know what to expect. The experts and politicians assured us we were all facing a truly apocalyptic scenario. Bodies would be piling up in the streets. Gurneys would be lining the sidewalks as patients died unattended. Americans were concerned: does this disease affect everyone equally? What is my risk level? Many people took a wait-and-see attitude.

    But now that so much more is known than was the case in March, it is clear risk is hardly equal for everyone — 40 percent of deaths were in nursing homes —and it makes little sense to lock down an entire population to protect certain specific populations. States that never enacted lockdowns during the first round, for example, had fewer deaths per capita.

    Since March, the CDC has repeatedly reduced its estimated fatality rate. Many Americans have also gradually become aware, for example, that in the US 40 percent of deaths attributed to COVID-19 occurred in nursing homes. Many now know that among known cases under age 50, the fatality rate is now estimated at well under 1 percent. The CDC estimates that the symptomatic case fatality rate for people younger than 50 is just 0.05 percent, compared to 1.3 percent for people 65 or older and 0.2 percent for 50-to-64-year-olds. Those are just the symptomatic cases. Many who get the disease show no symptoms at all.

    Americans have realized the risk to most Americans is much lower than what is suggested by the over-the-top panic-inducing rhetoric repeatedly employed my media outlets and politicians. Moreover, for many people, COVID-19 news has already receded to the point of becoming background noise. Every day they are bombarded with dire warning of impending death and destruction. Warnings of this sort soon have a diminishing effect.

    Just as Americans long ago made peace with the relatively high risks associated with highway travel, many Americans are likely to do the same with COVID-19. After all, the most dangerous thing most people do every day — by far — is get in a motor vehicle and drive. Yet few people seem to let the risk limit their daily activities. The more the dangers of COVID-19 become just another daily bullet point, the easier the warnings are to ignore.

    Many will also be less likely to comply because of the obvious hypocrisy of government officials over June’s riots and protests. Medical personnel who condemned any sort of gathering — and especially anti-lockdown protests — suddenly decided mass gatherings were perfectly fine so long as the politics behind the protests was to the experts’ liking. People won’t forget that.

    For those who refuse to comply, the politicians will send in the police to enforce their edicts. Police who refused to stop rioters will nonetheless arrest peaceful business owners. This will also be remembered. The resentment will build. The impoverishment will continue. Americans will be going into foreclosure. “Deaths of despair” will mount.

    Politicians will insist it’s all “worth it” and “we’re all in this together.” The longer it goes on, the less the public will agree.

  • 41% Of Businesses On Yelp Have Permanently Closed As V-Shaped Recovery Implodes 
    41% Of Businesses On Yelp Have Permanently Closed As V-Shaped Recovery Implodes 

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 19:00

    President Trump’s economic COVID-19 response, through massive fiscal and monetary stimuli, was expected to generate a V-shaped recovery ahead of the elections. We noted, all along, there was never a snowball’s chance in hell that economic growth would revert to 2019 levels later this year; nevertheless, the labor market would fully recover. 

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    If readers recall, President Trump has given several press conferences where he declared that the economy is quickly recovering: “We’ve been talking about the V,” the president said. “This is better than a V. This is a rocket ship.”

    A new report via Yelp, tilted “Local Economic Impact Report,” debunks the V-shaped narrative and tells a much different story of slow reopenings and widespread permanent closures, all suggesting the economic devastation continues to crush the economy with no recovery in sight. 

    Yelp data shows large swathes of Americans remain in deep recession through mid-June. Since April 19, only 20% of the 175,000 Yelp-registered stores that were closed during lockdowns have reopened. 

    “As of June 15, there were nearly 140,000 total business closures on Yelp since March 1. In April, we reported more than 175,000 business closures, indicating that more than 20% of businesses closed in April have reopened.

    “Las Vegas, NV, endured the highest number of closures relative to the number of businesses in the city (1,921 total closures), while Los Angeles, CA, had the largest total number of closures (11,774 total closures).” 

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    h/t Yelp 

     

    Yelp makes a shocking claim: “Of all business closures on Yelp since March 1, 41% are permanent closures.” 

    “Our data shows the largest spikes of permanent closures occurred in March, followed by May and June, indicating that the businesses that were already struggling had to permanently close right away and the businesses that were trying to hold on, but unable to weather the COVID-19 storm, were forced to shutter in recent months.” 

    Of the businesses that shuttered operations, restaurants and shopping/retail have led with the most permanent closures.  

    “Among those with the highest rate of business closures are shopping and retail (27,663 closed businesses), restaurants (23,981 closed businesses), beauty (15,348 closed businesses) and fitness (5,589 closed businesses).

    “Retail was by far the hardest hit, experiencing the highest number of total closures, with the average daily rate continuing to increase since March. Of all closures on Yelp since March 1, 20% are for retail businesses and 35% of closed retail businesses are indicated as permanent on Yelp.

    “In March, Restaurants had the highest number of business closures, compared to other industries, and have continued to close at high rates. Of the businesses that closed, 17% are restaurants, and 53% of those restaurant closures are indicated as permanent on Yelp. Restaurants run on thin margins and can sometimes take months or even years to break even, resulting in this higher rate of permanent closures.”

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    h/t Yelp 

    What this all means is the recovery is losing steam. Consumer spending is set to plunge again this summer as the Paycheck Protection Program and other stimulus has run its course. With no recovery – more business closures/ likely more permanent closures and increased job losses are ahead.  

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    h/t THE LONG VIEW, @HayekAndKeynes

    To make matters worse, the virus pandemic is re-emerging, resulting in states like Florida, Texas, and California to reverse reopenings, which will further pressure businesses.  

    Readers should review our latest pieces on severe economic damage that is crushing the economy and how recovery might not be seen until 2023: 

    By now, readers should realize the deep economic scarring by COVID-19 will have long-term impacts and a recovery that is years away.  

  • Global Coronavirus Deaths Top 500,000; Dallas Pushes To Revive Lockdown As Cases Hit Record Highs: Live Updates
    Global Coronavirus Deaths Top 500,000; Dallas Pushes To Revive Lockdown As Cases Hit Record Highs: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 18:49

    Summary:

    • US reports 42,161 cases
    • Global deaths top 500k
    • Dallas asks for stay at home order to be reinstated, as Dallas County reports record high in daily cases
    • Cali Gov orders bars in 7 counties to close, while recommending 8 counties do the same
    • Texas Gov warns outbreak taken a dangerous turn
    • DHHS Azar warns window is closing to stop COVID-19
    • Cali sees encouraging drop
    • Mexico reports another ~4,400 cases, ~600 deaths
    • Arizona reports another daily record
    • Miami Beach mayor calls meeting on mask compliance
    • Global total tops 10 mil
    • Deaths near 500k
    • Florida reports record weekly case numbers
    • NY reports just 5 deaths
    • China locks down 500k
    • Philippines surpasses Singapore as worst outbreak in Southeast Asia

    * * *

    Update (2000ET): The Atlantic-housed COVID-19 Tracker project has just published its data for Sunday. With nearly all of the data in, the US has tallied 42,161 new confirmed positives reported on Sunday (keep in mind, all these data are reported with a  24-hour delay).

    Tests didn’t eclipse 600k like they did a few days ago, but Sunday’s total was close to the all-time highs, showing that testing remains pretty persistent through the weekend.

    First the good news: The 7-day average for deaths (which, we imagine, excludes the 2k reported during NJ’s “adjustment” earlier this week) has reached a new low of just 500 for the entire country.

    Florida remains the country’s biggest hotspot.

    The state has continued to refuse to report total hospitalization numbers, for some bizarre reason.

    Once again, the disclaimer: Due to increased testing, the outbreak earlier this year in the northeast was almost certainly more severe than the outbreak in the south and west, a fact underlined by the persistently falling death counts, which have defied warnings about an imminent turnaround (at least, so far), although several trusted officials including Dr. Gottlieb are warning about the risk that deaths could surge if the virus starts getting at the most vulernable among us once again.

    Still, in just under two weeks, the number of cases reported in the south and west have doubled.

    Here’s how today’s total compares with the past few days, and the past 5 Sundays…

    And for some added historical perspective.

    Texas positivity rate hit a new high at 14.3% as positivity rates remained high across the south and west.

    Florida reported another record today as we mentioned earlier.

    But Arizona deserves the mantle of “most intense” outbreak given the positivity rate and “R” rate.

    Georgia also reported a record high of nearly 2,000 new cases Sunday.

    And Nevada more than doubled its previous record high.

    * * *

    Update (1730ET): We have some important updates on the COVID-19 front early this evening. The global death total, which was just 700 shy of the mark when we published our first Sunday morning update, has surpassed 500,000, just as the WHO, and pretty much everybody else who has been paying attention these last few months, expected.

    Over 10 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, according to JHU data. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to uneven testing availability, not to mention suspicions of government interference on both the local and national level in many places. The exact number of deaths as of 1730ET was 500,108. One out of every 4 COVID-19 deaths confirmed around the world is in the US.

    For both cases and deaths, the US is presently the worst-affected country, with more than 2.5 million diagnosed cases and at least 125,747 deaths. Though Brazil is rapidly closing the gap, despite the surge in new US cases.

    Texas followed California on Sunday by reporting a smaller daily case total than the day before. Sunday’s number was also less than the 7-day average.

    Dallas County health officials reported 570 cases and one death Sunday, while Tarrant County reported 393 new cases and one death.

    Health officials reported more than 900 new coronavirus cases in Tarrant and Dallas counties on Sunday, with Dallas reporting a record 570 new cases for the county, a record high since the coronavirus outbreak began. Tarrant reported 393. Dallas County officials, after asking the governor to reinstate a statewide mask order, are now asking for a ‘stay at home’ order to be reimposed for Dallas County.

    * * *

    Update (1530ET): DHHS Secretary Alex Azar underscored the GOP shift toward taking the coronavirus outbreak more seriously, and moving away from a policy of tacitly encouraging Americans who rejected social distancing rules (after a set of polls showed President Trump falling behind Joe Biden, who hasn’t spoken publicly in weeks), when he declared on Sunday that “the window is closing” to stop the spread of the cornavirus in the South and the West before the deaths start to rise once again.

    In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis blamed the resurgence in new cases on 24-34 year olds in South Florida, especially the Miami–area, for  “socializing,” he said during a news briefing Sunday. While Florida’s decision to open bars has led to stories like the 16 friends who all got COVID-19 during their first night out in months, we wonder, what were south florida’s 24-34 year olds doing 2-4 weeks ago?

    DeSantis also blamed a “backlog in tests”, echoing his claim on Friday that a “testing dump” was largely responsible for the jump in new infections.

    Cities in Broward County will follow Miami Dade and close all its beaches for the July 4th weekend, between the 3rd and the 5th.

    In California, Gov Gavin Newsm on Sunday ordered seven counties including LA to immediately close their bars and any their nightlife spots (clubs, etc), and recommended that 8 other counties take these actions on their own without necessitating a state order. That’s roughly a quarter of the state’s 58 counties. He cited the “raid spread of the virus in some parts of the state” as the reason for his decision, according to the LAT.

    The counties facing mandatory closures include: Los Angeles, Fresno, San Joaquin, Kings, Kern, Imperial and Tulare counties. The other eight counties are Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Stanislaus.

    Per the LAT, “…the decision by Newsom stands in contrast to recent decisions to leave more of the decision-making authority to local officials. The governor has said it is possible additional sectors of the state may need to scale back on openings, but has been hesitant to make those decisions in Sacramento.”

    The statewide case total topped 211,000 on Sunday, as the rate of daily cases slowed. Hospitalizations and infection rates are also rising, and officials cite several likely factors including reopenings, people having private social gatherings, and the recent protests over George Floyd’s death while in police custody.

    On Friday, Newsom said he was recommending that Imperial County reinstitute more strict stay-at-home orders, as it continued to see the highest positivity rate and per-capita infection rate in the state, though no actions have yet been taken. In San Bernardino, officials have warned that hospitals are approaching “surge capacity” and are making plans to open “alternate” sites.

    In Latin America, Chile – home of the 3rd biggest outbreak in the region – reported 4,216 new cases of coronavirus and 162 new deaths Sunday, per Chile’s Health Minister Enrique Paris. Paris praised the effort made by the Chilean people to comply with lockdown procedures, but warned that the numbers would likely keep going up.

    In Texas, finally, Gov Greg Abbott warned Sunday during a press briefing in Dallas where he was accompanied by VP Pence that the outbreak in his state had taken a “swift and dangerous” turn.

    Pence added: “I want to commend the governor for your decisive action reopening this economy.”

    * * *

    Update (1320ET): California reported a slowdown in new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, likely due to the typical slowdown in new cases seen over the weekend.

    • CALIFORNIA COVID-19 CASES RISE 2.3% VS 2.8% 7-DAY AVERAGE

    As cases continue to surge in Florida, CNN reports that Miami Beach’s mayor has called for a special commission meeting on Monday to discuss mask usage compliance as millions of Floridians seemingly eschew social distancing requirements.

    Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Sunday that a rise in deaths and hospitalizations is “an appropriate thing” to be concerned about, a sentiment that was echoed by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA Commissioner under Trump who has become a frequent guest on CNBC and other channels. The doctor told CBS Sunday that we’re “likely to see total daily deaths start to go back up again.”

    South of the border, Mexico reported 4,410 new cases, bringing the total case count for the country to 212,802. There were also 602 additional deaths on Saturday, bringing the country’s death toll to 26,381.

    * * *

    Update (1250ET): Arizona just reported 3,858 new cases on Sunday, a new record high, and the 7th time in the past 10 days that the number of new infections has topped 3k. The percent positive rate climbed to 9.6%. The state also reported 9 new deaths.

    Maricopa County, where Phoenix is situated as the county seat, remains the most hard-hit county in the state by far.

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    According to the AP, some Arizona hospitals have started activating their COVID surge plans to make more room for COVID-19 patients as cases and hospitalizations surge, while deaths remain low.

    * * *

    Update (1145ET): Sunday has already brought the US a handful of major coronavirus-related headlines. While Florida’s total newly confirmed cases released Sunday declined slightly from the record number reported the day before, the state as a whole cemented its largest weekly increase yet, with 43,784 new cases reported over the past week, according to an analysis of state data by the Orlando Sentinel.

    Here’s a chart of daily cases including Sunday’s print of 8,530, which is less than Friday’s total of 8,942, and Saturday’s record 9,858.

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    From Sunday to Sunday, Florida recorded 43,784. Only 258 deaths were reported in that time, and 282,909 tests were administered, the most tests administered in a single week.

    The state health department has now counted 141,075 positive cases since the outbreak began, with a death toll of 3,419, up 29 from the day before. It has also tracked 14,244 hospitalizations, up 108 from Saturday’s report.

    The latest statewide update on Sunday showed that 12.4% of those tested came back positive, lower than a record 15.9% recorded earlier this week. The health department tabulates the percent positive figure by taking the number of people who test positive for the first time and dividing that number by the total number tested that day. Critics, including a whistleblower publishing her own alternative set of data, have argued that the state should exclude people who aren’t testing negative for the first time from the total tested. Some nurses and other workers are tested weekly. By refusing to remove these people from the count, the state is artificially lowering its percent positive number, critics say.

    New York State reported another record on Sunday when Gov Cuomo revealed that just five people had died in the past day, a record low.

    Cuomo is still facing a deluge of criticism led by the WSJ editorial board, which claimed over the weekend that NY’s decision to send COVID-19-positive patients back to nursing homes was the single biggest policy blunder of the entire US outbreak.

    * * *

    The global coronavirus total topped 10 million late Saturday night in the US as a handful of Asian nations reported their case totals for Sunday morning, finally pushing the total over the top. To be sure, there are likely millions of cases that have gone uncounted. But reaching the eight-figure mark is certainly an important psychological milestone, particularly since daily totals for new cases continue to climb.

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    Roughly a quarter of these cases have been confirmed in the US, which has seen its case total pass 2.5 million, while US deaths are ~125k. JHU counted 499,342 deaths globally as of 1030ET on Sunday.

    As more Republicans turn on President Trump and press him to step up and “lead”, or risk allowing Joe Biden to win the election without leaving the basement, the Atlantic-run (and Laurene Powell Jobs-funded) COVID-19 Tracking Project has made an interesting point.

    The number of cases confirmed during the outbreak in the northeast represents only a small portion of the total, while the timing of the outbreak in the south and west means more of the actual case total is being captured.

    With that in mind, even when it comes to the number of cases being reported daily, the current outbreak probably isn’t as severe as the outbreaks we saw in New York City and the Greater New York area (and surrounding states), even though the daily US national case totals are ~technically~ at fresh all-time highs.

    The US saw ~43k new cases reported yesterday, a near-record total and the second straight (some say fourth-straight) day of 40k+ cases.

    Another round of rumors about Dr. Fauci being “muzzled” by the White House (despite the fact that he just made another round of interviews) is hitting on Sunday. At this point, the stories are nothing new.

    Testing has remained above 500k tests a day, a sign that testing has continued to improve (perhaps more ‘protesters’ are finally taking Gov Cuomo’s advice and getting tested?) despite President Trump’s remarks about trying to slow testing during the early days of the epidemic (there’s no evidence he did, though the sentiment isn’t exactly encouraging).

    Deaths declined for the fourth day in a row, according to the numbers reported yesterday (which – remember – are reported with a 24-hour delay).

    Florida reported a record jump in cases yesterday, its second record increase in a row, and at least the third in the past five days.

    Outside of the US, perhaps the biggest news overnight arrives from China, where the Xiongan New Area south of Beijing has been locked down on Saturday, with measures including closing villages, communities and buildings to anyone who doesn’t legally reside in the area, . Hebei province surrounds the federally administered capital city of Beijing. More than half a million people have been placed on a strict lockdown due to this latest outbreak.

    Beijing has ramped up coronavirus testing efforts and has tested about one-third of the capital city’s population. It’s believe this outbreak is an extension of the cases stemming from the Xinfadi food market in southwestern Beijing, detected earlier this month.

    As of midnight in the US on Sunday, Beijing had run nearly 8 million tests according to, Zhang Qiang, an official from the Beijing municipal committee.

    The governor Australia’s second-most-populous state said Sunday that his government is considering targeted stay-at-home orders and locking down suburbs to contain coronavirus clusters in Melbourne. Australia reported 53 new cases on Sunday, 49 of them in Victoria, which raised the country’s total to 7,686 cases and 104 deaths. The latest cluster comes as Australia and neighboring New Zealand had mostly eradicated the virus. Victoria, the state which Melbourne serves as the capital, has reported new cases during 5 of the last 6 days, and was regularly reporting 0 cases a day as recently as June 9. About 40k residents of the state have been tested since Friday.

    Iran is also struggling through a rebound in cases, and the hard-hit country is making masks mandatory in public. But the WHO on Sunday declared that the Philippines has seen the fastest increase in COVID-19 cases in the Western Pacific region. According to GMA News Online, between June 16 and 28, the total number of new cases in the Philippines was 9,655; that’s nearly 4x Singapore, which came in second with 2,610 new cases.

  • Futures Slide In Early Trading
    Futures Slide In Early Trading

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 18:33

    In a repeat of last Sunday’s gloomy open (which had fully reversed overnight with futures nice and green by morning), futures slumped after reopening at 6pm with two key catalysts emerging: i) coronavirus deaths around the world topped half a million and infections continued to mount in American states, coupled with ii) concerns about the growing advertiser boycott of Facebook.

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    S&P 500 futures opened below 3,000, just as they did last Sunday, sliding to 2,988, or 0.6% lower, alongside oil and the dollar, while gold rose. However, there was some comfort over the weekend from the latest Chinese “data” which showed local industrial production growth was +6.0% yoy in May compared with -4.3% yoy in April, the first positive year-over-year growth since the virus outbreak as downstream industries continued to see stronger profit growth compared with upstream industries, and overall profit margins widened in May (that said, by now we doubt anyone believes any Chinese reporting).

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    Offsetting this boost to sentiment were growing fears about Facebook’s revenue base as a growing number of advertisers have announced intentions to halt spending on social media, undermining the company’s sales outlook and putting its stock price under further pressure. A partial list of the companies that have said they’re curtailing ad spending on Facebook and its peers is shown below:

    • Unilever
    • Verizon
    • Hershey’s
    • Honda
    • The North Face
    • Ben & Jerry’s
    • REI
    • Patagonia
    • Eddie Bauer
    • Upwork
    • Mozilla
    • Magnolia Pictures
    • Birchbox
    • Dashlane
    • TalkSpace
    • LendingClub

    Bloomberg writes that “as more brands publicize plans to join boycotts or otherwise rein in ad spending, Facebook shares remain under pressure. The stock tumbled 8.3% Friday after Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, said it would halt spending on Facebook properties this year, eliminating $56 billion in market value and shaving the net worth of Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg by more than $7 billion. Shares closed at $216.08 Friday after reaching a record $242.24 the preceding Tuesday.”

    While no single company can significantly dent growth at Facebook, which generated $17.7 billion in revenue last quarter alone, a rising tally adds to pressure on other brands to follow suit, and when combined with a pandemic-fueled economic slowdown, the threat to Facebook deepens.

    “Given the amount of noise this is drawing, this will have significant impact to Facebook’s business,” Wedbush Securities analyst Bradley Gastwirth wrote in a research note. “Facebook needs to address this issue quickly and effectively in order to stop advertising exits from potentially spiraling out of control.”

    Facebook aside, the continued emergence of the coronavirus in several US hotspots has been the dominant theme for short-term sentiment. As of this weekend, global confirmed cases have now topped 10mln worldwide with the death toll nearing 500,000. As such, Amplify Trading writes that “it remains critical to remain vigilant for further updates with the daily US case numbers… now a main feature of the daily calendar. Below is a snaphot of the total cases and deaths in the United States as of 28th June 2020 via the NYTimes.”

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    Amid the growing uncertainty from the rising number of covid infections and fears about Facebook’s tech dominance, last week’s risk-off stance could endure.

    Of course, central banks are on their way: as Bloomberg notes, China’s central bank said it will implement new monetary tools to make sure liquidity reaches the real economy. The People’s Bank of China said it will increase the proportion of smaller company, credit and manufacturing loans, and continue to lower lending rates, while reiterating that it will keep the yuan stable.

    Looking ahead, here are some of the key events and features to keep a close eye on, courtesy of Amplify Trading:

    Payrolls & Powell

    US Markets are closed on Friday due to the July 4th Independence Day holiday. As such, the latest US jobs report will be released on Thursday and I would make a mental note that the week as a whole will be somewhat front-loaded. Recent US economic indicators in the US have continued to surprise to the upside with the Citi Economic Surprise Index standing at a record high.

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    Expectations are that the US has added another 3.074mln jobs in the last month with unemployment expected to decrease once again to 12.3% from 13.3%.

    However, I think it would be unwise to take these figures on face value as with an emerging second wave virus across several of the largest US states, in addition to the methodology quirks that have under reported the true level of unemployment, I think the data will do little to change markets current thinking.

    Analysts at ING also note that average hourly earnings will fall sharply, but this is a statistical effect caused by lots of relatively low earning workers regaining employment, dragging the “average” level of hourly wages lower – therefore, it is meaningless.

    On Tuesday, Fed Chair Powell is scheduled to testify again in Washington with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about the stimulus and lending facilities to support the economy in the pandemic. Although unlikely to be a market moving event it may give some indication as to the timing and appetite towards further stimulus measures from the US government following Trump’s comments last week that he favoured sending Americans another stimulus check..

    Meanwhile, Wednesday night sees the release of the latest FOMC minutes which will be srutinised for any insights as to the risks to the recovery and what methods the central bank may adopt if the situation were to change.

    Is Trump already too far behind Biden?

    This was the headline from the FT’s Big Read this weekend and comes in the context of Biden holding a 9.4 point lead in the Real Clear Politics Average poll of polls.

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    The FT article explains how Trump’s ratings have nosedived as he has been criticised over his handling of the lockdown and the reaction to the killing of George Floyd. This has led to the President hitting the road again holding rallies in Oklahoma and Arizona, the latter being a crucial political pawn given the recent rise in COVID cases and a key battleground in the upcoming election.

    By comparison, Biden has been hunkering down and in a similar tactic in what we saw the former Labour leader Jermey Corbyn deploy against Theresa May during the initial Brexit negotiations, he appears content to let Trump self-harm until these political hot potatoes cool off. The problem comes when, at some point, Biden will need to emerge and confront the combative President and therein lies the problem in my mind.

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    The FT notes that Biden has struggled to excite the Obama coalition of the young and people of colour and that is right where Trump has already been targeting the democrat candidate in numerous jibes and memes.

    Although people are fully aware of Trump’s diversion and deflection tactics on Twitter, I still believe that this direct and unfilered line of communication is as effective as ever for the US President.

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    For now, my view is that the wound of division post the financial crisis never truly healed and the pandemic has only further amplified the underlying inequalities that exist in American society today. Although this should be the catalyst for change, I think it will only polarise the ‘law-and-order’ narrative over the coming months, whether that be against the protestors or the Chinese virus. As a result, I still see Trump winning the election come November, despite what the polls indicate as of today.

    I asked my Twitter followers this weekend what they thought – this was the result:

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    Growing challenges in China

    The Chinese central bank said on Sunday that the country’s economic growth faces challenges from the global coronavirus pandemic, despite signs of improvement amid business re-openings. The cautious observation comes ahead of the official manufacturing PMI data for June scheduled for release on Tuesday, which is expected at 50.6.

    Despite the headline figure reflecting an expansion of the manufacturing sector, many analysts have begun to question the strength of the recent bounce back in confidence as the rest of the world continues to grapple with rising COVID cases and the subsequent impact on orders for Chinese products.

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    Not only this, reports in the SCMP this weekend say that a county in northern China (Anxin) has been “sealed off” with its 400,000 residents placed under tight restrictions after more than a dozen Covid-19 cases were reported – all linked to the Xinfadi market cluster in Beijing.

    CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS via newsquawk

    Monday

    • Data: Japanese Retail Sales, EZ Consumer Confidence (Final), Economic Sentiment, German CPI (Prelim)
    • Speakers: Fed’s Daly, Williams, BoE’s Bailey & Vlieghe, ECB’s Schnabel

    Tuesday

    • Data: Japanese Unemployment, Chinese NB Official Manufacturing PMI, UK GDP, EZ CPI (Flash), Canadian GDP, US Consumer Confidence
    • Speakers: Fed’s Powell & US Treasury’s Mnuchin Testify, Williams & Brainard, BoE’s Haldane & Cunliffe, ECB’s de Guindos, RBA’s Debelle
    • Supply: Germany

    Wednesday

    • Data: Japanese Tankan, Chinese Manufacturing PMI (Final), German Retail Sales, Unemployment & Manufacturing PMI, EZ, UK & US Manufacturing PMI (Final), US ADP & ISM Manufacturing
    • Events: Riksbank Rate Decision, FOMC Minutes
    • Speakers: ECB’s Panetta, BoE’s Haskel
    • Supply: UK

    Thursday

    • Data: US Labour Market Report, Initial Jobless Claims & Factory Orders
    • Speakers: ECB’s Mersch & Schnabel
    • Supply: French & UK

    Friday

    • Data: Australian Retail Sales, Trade Balance, EZ & UK Services & Composite PMIs (Final)
    • Speakers: ECB’s Knot
    • Holiday: US Independence Day

  • Bears Capitulate: Institutions Hammered With 3rd Biggest Short Squeeze In History
    Bears Capitulate: Institutions Hammered With 3rd Biggest Short Squeeze In History

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 18:30

    After three months of relentless contrarian bearishness by institutional investors, even as retail investors first, and hedge funds subsequently (latest HF net leverage is 99%-ile) flooded into stocks, large institutions such as vanilla mutual funds and pensions finally capitulated to the Fed which is now openly pushing stock prices higher. In the CFTC’s latest weekly futures data, the amount of net short covering of Emini futures among non-commercial speculative investors exploded, and was the biggest since 2007 and the third highest on record.

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    As a result, in the week ended June 23, ES net specs surged to -97,078 from -303,305 which was the biggest ES net short position since the Sept 2011 US credit rating downgrade. The collapse in short exposure of more than 206K contracts was the third biggest on record, and was surpassed only by two short-squeezes observed right around the time of the great quant crash in the summer of 2007.

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    Were capitulating institutions the latest to ring the bell at the top of the market? It certainly seems like it: according to Deutsche Bank’s Parag Thatte, both consolidated….

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    … discretionary and systematic strategies, have all turned decidedly more bullish in recent days after mostly ignoring the recent market ramp.

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    That said, Risk Parity funds continue to lag re-entering the market, which means that after suffering substantial losses on the way down, RP funds such as Bridgewater have failed to recover losses on the upside.

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    The same thing appears true for CTAs, which as we reported last week, have been flip-flopping on either side of bullish or bearish in recent months.

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    Curiously, the general chaos and lack of directionality across markets means that CTAs have zero conviction about any assets class, not just stocks, with bonds, USD, gold and oil all at roughly 0% exposure.

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    Incidentally, as MacroCharts showed after we first pointed out this surge in short covering, the last time we observed such a dramatic move higher in net short exposure – which is basically an unwind of downside hedges – the market predictably tumbled. We doubt this time will be different.

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    And what’s worse: at least in 2007 there was liquidity as markets were still markets, not reliant on the Fed to backstop even a modest 5% drop. Now, between HFTs that turn off at the smallest sign of trouble, and asset managers who go bidless the moments there is a -1000 TICK, liquidity is non-existant. Which is why all that would take to trigger the next crash is some concerted selling.

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  • As COVID-19 Cases Spike Nationally, Black Lives Matter Plans More Rallies, Marches
    As COVID-19 Cases Spike Nationally, Black Lives Matter Plans More Rallies, Marches

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/28/2020 – 18:00

    Authored by Daniel Payne via JustTheNews.com,

    Though coronavirus cases are surging in some parts of the United States, many Black Lives Matter activists are nonetheless planning sizable rallies in the near future, defying public health concerns in favor of continuing what has become a month-long streak of aggressive public activism. 

    The surge in coronavirus cases in some parts of the country — especially Texas, Arizona and Florida — has brought with it renewed fears that any form of reopening states after months of lockdowns will bring a new wave of COVID-19 infections.

    The governors of Texas and Florida imposed fresh restrictions on residents this week in response to rising cases in their states, while other governors such as Washington’s Jay Inslee mandated that all state residents must wear face masks while out in public. 

    In spite of those mounting concerns, multiple chapters of Black Lives Matter across the country are still planning rallies and marches, even as officials urge residents to refrain from gathering in large groups. 

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    ‘Community visioning, education, and mobilization’

    One chapter, Black Lives Matter Michigan, is hosting a “protest & rally” at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on Monday. That event promises “community visioning, education, and mobilization to #DefendBlackLives.” Its Facebook page shows nearly 600 confirmed attendees and 2,800 “interested” in attending,

    The event urges attendees to create signs with slogans on them such as “defund the police,” “invest the funds in the Black community,” and “declare racism a public health emergency in Michigan.”

    In Minneapolis, meanwhile, a consortium of groups including the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter, has planned for a July 12 rally called the “National Mother’s March.” The group specifically invites “families (mothers, fathers, grandmothers, Aunts, Uncles, sisters, brothers spouses, significant others anyone) that have lost loved ones to police violence” to attend. 

    An “educational gathering” taking place that weekend will offer participants a host of workshops on subjects such as “the history and role of the police in US society;” “tools for organizing against police violence;” “DO’s and DON’T’s of organizing for families dealing with a more recent loss of a loved one;” and numerous other topics.

    In Philadelphia on Sunday, a “Rally for Political Prisoners” will take place in the city’s Malcolm X Park. That event, which will be co-hosted by Black Lives Matter Philly and six other groups, has just over 200 confirmed attendees, though nearly 1,000 more are “interested” in going. 

    The rally will “center the lives and stories of our Political Prisoners in Pennsylvania and incarcerated people as we struggle to defund the police, dismantle the Fraternal Order Police and Abolish Policing,” the Facebook event states. 

    Citing the recent removal of former Philadelphia mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo, the description continues: “Now that the statue has been brought down, let’s bring home [Rizzo’s] victims.”

    A spokeswoman for Black Lives Matter Philly said the group “ask[s] participant to wear masks at every action we plan.”

    “We actively pass out masks, sanitizer, and wear gloves when we distribute items,” she said. “We’re very aware and cautious about risk with COVID-19.”

    She added that one of the group’s supporters recently mailed the activists 500 masks to pass out to participants at rallies and marches.

    On July 4, meanwhile, Black Lives Matter Boston will host an event called the “Say Her Name March & Rally.”

    Participants will “gather to center and uplift the lives of ALL Black womxn in a march from Nubian Square to Boston Common, followed by a celebratory rally in the Common where we will share music, food, the arts.”

    Nearly 300 participants are scheduled to go, while 2,000 have signaled an interest. 

    ‘Avoid large gatherings’

    The rallies, protests and marches that have rolled throughout the country over the past several weeks broke a months-long moratorium on large public gatherings throughout the United States. Sporting events, concerts, symposiums, conferences and other densely packed affairs were almost entirely cancelled from mid-March onwards, while restaurants and other popular gathering spots were all largely shuttered. 

    Federal, state and local politicians from the start of the outbreak aggressively promoted “social distancing” measures, urging and often mandating that citizens avoid each other, shelter in place and refrain from getting together outside of household family units. 

    Following the emergence of the protests after the police-involved death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, however, political leaders rapidly shifted their rhetoric, coming out in tacit and sometimes outward support of the huge, densely crowded demonstrations that spread throughout the United States.

    That apparent double standard was checked this week in a New York federal court, when a judge declared that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had unfairly discriminated against religious worshippers while giving preferential government sanction to protesters. 

    Though most authorities appear reluctant to criticize the large gatherings, Facebook in its event listings for the upcoming demonstrations still urges potential participants to stay away from them. 

    “It’s up to all of us to slow the spread of COVID-19,” a Facebook warning declares atop each event.

    “Everyone, including young and healthy people, should avoid large gatherings during this time.”

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