Jun 02

Today’s News 2nd June 2018

  • Retired Green Beret: 7 Ways To Stay Alive In A Post-Collapse Society

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via ReadyNutrition.com,

    There have always been times where we inadvertently put ourselves in precarious situations. In this case, your best bet is to trust your gut. If you don’t feel the situation is right, find the nearest exit and leave the area. We covered some of these times in our most recent article regarding attackers and how to handle them individually or en-masse.  In the article, we covered a lot of ground for scenarios that may occur during these “Good Times” prior to a societal collapse or nuclear war.  This article is taking those suggestions and applying them in a collapse environment. Before we begin, you must understand that the biggest difference is that in a post-SHTF scenario there are no rules.

    In a SHTF world, it’s a different story.

    The sad thing with laws and rules is that they only help protect the citizen from the law-abiding citizen: the system focuses on self-discipline and restraint.

    7 Ways To Stay Alive in a Post-Collapse Society

    As is extensively detailed in The Prepper’s Blueprint: How To Survive Any Disaster, life will definitely be different when the SHTF. You will not be able to rely on the law to protect you; however, you will also not be prosecuted under the law for some superficial or superfluous reason: your life and your family’s lives take precedence.  That being said, what do you do?  How do you handle these attackers…people that are intent on taking you down and taking what you have?  Let’s outline some basics that you can use post-SHTF.

    1. Never travel anywhere alone: always go in pairs with one to guard and watch over the other one.

    2. Never go anywhere unarmed: preferably with a rifle or shotgun, a main sidearm (pistol), a backup sidearm/piece, plenty of ammo for all of them, a fixed-blade knife, and a folding (lock-blade) knife at a minimum. Read more about SHTF firearms in this article. Yes, that is a lot of stuff.  Let’s make some further suggestions on these.  Mossberg 500 series 12 gauge shotgun.  .45 ACP main pistol.  .22 cal lr revolver or pistol…suppressor is optional but highly recommended.  Gerber Mark II fixed-blade knife.  Spyderco police model folding knife.

    3. Never travel anywhere without the rest of the family/group knowing where you’re heading: Don’t mess around with this one. If trouble arises, you cannot go off wandering on your own and expect anyone to come to your aid.

    4. Consider all strangers armed and potentially dangerous: If you wish to be the “Good Samaritan/Mister Rogers,” this is your choice. After the SHTF, however, the rules are off, and it is (paraphrasing Jack London) back to the Law of Club and Fang.

    5. Keep your distance when talking to strangers: As President Reagan phrased it so eloquently, “Peace through superior firepower.” Watch their eyes, watch their hands, and conclude your discussion in a businesslike manner.  Don’t waste time: get to the point and then get going. Along those lines, pay attention to the way you carry yourself in public. Your body language can be very telling. Predators normally watch their victims before they strike and look for key indicators.

    6. Meeting strangers: You may wish to have a couple extra people roaming around at a distance to watch for the approach of an ambushing force. Many attacks begin by placing people at ease and using a larger force held in reserve to swoop in when the parlay has begun, and everyone’s guard is down.

    7. Territory: You need to stake it out, post it (warn others), and enforce the fact that it is your territory. Many times, attackers will be “persuaded” to find a softer target: one that is less organized with people not in a readiness stance at all times.

    Related: 10 Ways To Avoid Marauders and Looters After the Collapse

    These Post-Collapse Rules Will Keep You Alive

    There are some rules to follow that are hard rules, but will serve you in good stead.  They apply in a wartime situation, and they will apply equally in a disaster such as an apocalyptic event with societal collapse.

    1. Everybody Wants Something: they aren’t traveling toward your home turf for nothing.  They want something: food, water, clothing, shelter, tools, or interest in the opposite sex.  This last we’ll cover as an “individual item.”  You need to find out what they want, and if they’re willing to trade something for it or if they’re just out scouting to raid (the more likely of the two choices).

    2. Discretion is the Better Part of Valor: Keep a cool head, a steady hand, an unflinching eye, and the ability to go into fighting mode in an instant.  An aggressor will notice these things.  He will want to assess your abilities.  This also means keeping your cool.  It doesn’t mean shutting up and allowing yourself to be verbally bullied into a corner.  The enemy can sense weakness, as well.  Mr. and Mrs. Hallmark?  You’re going to have to step up and do your own dirty work…your own fighting for once.  Better be smart and don’t bite off something that is bigger than you can chew.

    3. Interest in the Opposite Sex:  This is a fact of life.  The primary groups will be groups of men that are correlated directly with ancient hunting parties of old.  These groups of men will no longer have rules they have to follow and they will want your wife, your daughter, or your sister.  They will adhere to no rules or propriety.  They will want children as well: girls or young boys.  Let me be perfectly clear: you will have to kill them when they come for such.

    4. Cannibalism: Yes, cannibalism is always something you may have labeled as a “fluke” event, such as “Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors,” but it is not.  There was an Army study years back that found that 1 human out of 1,000 will actively hunt other humans for food.  I’m here to tell you, that number is grossly underestimated.  Cannibalism begins almost immediately, at least within the first 1 to 2 weeks following a disaster.  There is plenty of history out there to document it, such as the Donner Party, as well as a presentation done by the Discovery Channel.  Be aware of it: they’ll be out there, and you need to be ready for them.

    You need to continuously assess your fighting skills and training.  Assess these realistically, and take into account your shortcomings.  Learn to “pair” your preference with what is most effective.  Although I can more than handle myself in a knife fight, I prefer to meet an attacker carrying a blade with a nice 24” Aluminum T-Ball bat.  I’m here to tell you, when the bat is swinging?  The bat is singing, and the song it’s playing is all mine.  You have to find your own personal weapon of choice for “close encounters” where a firearm may not be able to be used.

    In the end, taking care of yourself is a stance, and when the “S” hits the fan, the rules will disappear: they are as fragile as society itself, as fragile as cobwebs drenched with dew in the summer sun.  A strong wind will blow them away, just as an event will blow down the Hallmark houses made of straw and blow away the thin veneer of civilization masking the underlying, atavistic barbarism along with it.  Now is the time to assess yourself, make your plans, and execute those plans to strengthen your body, mind, and spirit to prepare for the times to come.  JJ out!

  • California Is To The UK, As Montana Is To Uzbekistan…

    The United States is the world’s largest economy, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, sometimes it’s easy to forget just how massive a $19 trillion economy actually is.

    The only comparable economy in size would be China, but unfortunately the incredible scope of China’s economic boom is something that is also difficult for foreigners to wrap their heads around. We’ve tried to do this in the past by showing you the massive cities that no one knows about, ambitious megaprojects that are underway in the region, and the country’s staggering demand for commodities.

    But still, comparing the U.S. to China can be overwhelming – and that’s why it can be more effective to show the U.S. economy as the sum of its parts.

    STATES AS COUNTRIES

    Today’s infographic comes to us from the Carpe Diem blog done by Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    It matches the size of U.S. state economies, based on nominal GDP numbers, with comparable countries around the world. For example, the state of Texas ($1.7 trillion) is roughly the equivalent of Canada ($1.65 trillion), while Maine ($61.4 billion) is closer to Panama ($61.8 billion) in terms of economic output.

    Here’s the full table – courtesy of Carpe Diem – on how each state breaks down:

    SUM OF THE PARTS

    By looking at the United States in this unique way, we really get a better sense of the scale of the country’s economy as a whole.

    Add together just the states of California, Texas, and New York, and you’ve got an economy the size of the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Korea put together. And with each additional state, you’re adding significant economies like Indonesia, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, or Singapore to that mix.

    Impressively, even the more sparsely populated states have country-sized economies. Montana compares to Uzbekistan, North Dakota is similar to Croatia, and so on.

    If you’re interested in seeing other ways to visualize America’s economy, see a previous post using some other Carpe Diem maps here.

  • The Cognitive Dissonance Surrounding Donald Trump

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    In general, it has always been dangerous to put blind faith in human icons of any kind; not to mention, entirely unnecessary. The maxim that one “should never meet their heroes” is something far more people should take to heart when applying elevated status to political leaders in particular. Hero worship of a celebrity is unhealthy, but hero worship of a president can be truly dangerous.

    Why? Because political power relies mostly on “human capital” — the number of people within a society that are willing to support or even fight for a particular change. Swaths of citizenry can be wielded by politicians with ill intent like a weapon to create the illusion of consensus and dramatic reversals in cultural principles. These changes usually tend to involve more control for government and less freedom for the public and can last for generations.

    The cult of celebrity has never been more prominent in politics than it has the past decade. Starting with Barack Obama, something changed in the American view of presidential leadership. With Obama, there was an element of naive adoration that leftists largely embraced. Obama was more than a president — he was an idol.

    Unfortunately, I am also seeing some of the same behavior in elements of the conservative population when it comes to Donald Trump. There are many reasons for this.

    First, Trump is one of the few presidents that was already a celebrity before running for office. His notoriety went far beyond that of someone like Ronald Reagan, who did rank as a kind of known cultural element, but certainly not an icon or idol before becoming president.

    Second, Trump rode the wave of a backlash movement against the far left, which is now by every definition fully invested in cultural Marxism if not economic Marxism. For many people, Trump represents the moment America was “saved” from imminent destruction by an insane ideology. In fact, I would say Trump’s popularity was directly proportional to the moderate public’s disgust with social justice fanatics; people who believe that sabotaging a culture from the inside, breaking it down through deliberate crisis and then replacing its core principles with their own, is an acceptable strategy.

    Third, the election of 2016 was not about Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton – it was about traditional American values versus moral relativism. At least that was how many conservatives viewed it.

    Some people may argue that Trump earned his election win by bravely taking on the establishment and the hard left when no other candidate would. This rebellion remains to be seen, but the notion is powerful and people take it personally. Trump cheerleaders react with disdain when any critical tone is applied to his behavior. In their mind, only evil leftists are critical of Trump, and if you are on the political right, then you better be toeing the line. If you are not with them, you are against them.

    It’s funny; when I was writing analysis on the disturbing nature of the Bush administration, I was called a leftist. When I went after Barack Obama, I was called a “far-right extremist” and a potential racist. Now, when investigating Trump’s odd activities, I’m back to being accused of leftist antics again. I’ve magically come full circle.  When it comes to political bias, reason takes a back seat to team-based psychology.

    Trump’s win, of course, had nothing to do with his validity as a candidate nor did he create his own following. His following was prepackaged. The rage against social justice and leftist absurdity was already vast. Trump was simply used as a focal point for that rage and his rhetoric tapped into the conservative psyche. He said most of the right things during his campaign; whether he actually believes in those things is another matter…

    So far, his track record is not so great. One of his most vital campaign promises which appealed to the largest portion of conservatives was the idea of “draining the swamp.” What is the swamp? Trump defined it himself by going after Hillary Clinton’s contingent of elitist allies from think tank cronies to Goldman Sachs banking ghouls. This is a perfect example where Trump rhetoric does not match reality.

    By Trump’s own definition, he has actually added to “the swamp” rather than draining it. Trump’s cabinet is loaded with an ensemble of elitist freaks that should have been relegated to a carnival side show.

    Goldman Sachs goons like Steve Mnuchin and James Donovan lurk the halls of the White House while other Goldman alumni like Gary Cohn seem to cycle through and are replaced with other equally unsettling characters like Larry Kudlow, a former adviser to the Clintons and John Podesta as well as an economist for the Federal Reserve bank. You have Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State and a rabid supporter of mass surveillance of the American people. There’s Gina Haspel, a CIA director wrapped up in numerous torture scandals. And let’s not forget about John Bolton, National Security Adviser, Council on Foreign Relation member and one of the chief architects behind the aggressive U.S. war policy in the Middle East since George W. Bush’s administration.

    I could go on and on…

    Obviously, the swamp will not be drained anytime soon, if ever. But cognitive dissonance on this issue reigns supreme. Even in the liberty movement there are those that argue that Trump is merely “playing 4-D chess,” and that his introduction of even more elites into his cabinet is somehow part of a grand scheme to “keep his enemies close.” The laughable nature of this delusion aside, the fact that some people are willing to stretch that far in their mental gymnastics to justify continued faith in Trump is a bit frightening.

    I have also witnessed a growing and disturbing trend of leader worship when it comes to Trump’s pursuit of the international trade war.  As I mentioned in my article ‘Trump Trade Wars A Perfect Smokescreen For A Market Crash’, tariffs are not inherently destructive and can actually be very effective in undercutting the imbalances created by globalism; they are a natural part of the conservative methodology.  However, if implemented poorly, and without correct preparations, tariffs can destroy a nation’s economy.

    With all the rah-rah and pom poms from the Trump devout, you would think that America’s economy is virtually invincible under his watch.  I’m sorry to say that this is not the case.  The fiscal instability of the US is still very much a “thing”, and nothing has improved under Trump.  Given, he has not been in office very long, but most of our economic problems cannot be solved by any one president regardless of their time in office. Those problems stem from the power of the Federal Reserve to prop up or sabotage our system at will, and the ongoing presence of elitists within our government.  Trump appears to have no intention of ever going after the Federal Reserve, and as mentioned earlier, he has invited a gang of elitists into the White House.  Fiscal improvement is now impossible

    Beyond the root cancer affecting our nation, Trump has not even taken the more rudimentary steps of giving corporations incentives to bring production back to America BEFORE attempting to enforce trade tariffs.  With America’s dependency on foreign production as well as the elephant in the room – America’s dependency on foreign investment in our debt and the dollar as a world reserve currency, a drawn out trade war will eventually result in severe retaliation.  This means extreme price inflation on most goods due to import dependency or possible scarcity, not to mention the dumping of US Treasury bonds, the end of the petrodollar and the dumping of the dollar in bilateral trade creating even more price inflation.

    America looks rather hypocritical crying foul on unbalanced trade while we benefit from the greatest trade imbalance of all time – the world reserve currency.  If you think that the dollar will not be a target in the trade war, then you are gravely mistaken.

    I’ve heard all the naive arguments before as to why a negative trade war outcome is supposedly impossible and countered each of them in the article linked above.  But, the pressure to support Trump without taking a skeptical position is high.

    I would attribute this to what I consider a psychological game being played by the establishment. As stated earlier, Trump’s political success relies entirely on the existence of continued foreign and domestic threats. As long as foreign economies are seen as receiving unfair trade advantages, and as long as the left keeps acting insane, Trump will receive blind support from many conservatives. Rather than making his administration weaker, the “Russian collusion mania,” for example, only continues to strengthen Trump’s position.

    The idea that the “Deep State” is after Trump is an illusion. On the contrary, without the perception that Trump is under constant attack, Trump becomes superfluous as a leader and conservatives will begin to question his decisions. The establishment actually helps Trump’s image by continuing the Russian farce, just as the constant (but weak) attacks by establishment controlled media made Trump a 24 hour news phenomena and propelled him into a new level of celebrity status during the election.

    One could argue that perhaps the establishment is unaware of this dynamic. I think not. The manner in which they track social trends through web analytics is rather precise. Though I know it will twist the panties of quite a few people, I would suggest that the establishment PREFERS to have a Trump administration in place.

    Look at it this way: Conservatives will cry foul for the remainder of Trump’s first term all based on the false premise that Trump is going to be “impeached” or sabotaged at any given moment. I remember all the claims before the election when I predicted a Trump win that the establishment would never allow him to enter the Oval Office. After his election, the same people argued that he would never make it to the inauguration. Now, they argue that the so-called deep state is going to try to bring Trump down before he reaches the end of his first term. And as long as Trump continues to stick around, there are those that argue that he is “defeating the deep state” with his magnificent strategic prowess. You see, the cognitive dissonance circle is infinite.

    Few people appear to be considering the possibility that Trump is exactly where the establishment wants him to be; that the Trump administration is loaded with the very same swamp creatures he railed against during his campaign and that these elitists are the true power in the White House, not Trump.

    Let me say this as clearly as possible — presidents do not matter. They do not matter in terms of any important change in American society. Those great changes are always made either by a contingent of free people fighting relentlessly for good, or by a contingent of power mongers manipulating the halls of government from behind the scenes. In the end, like most other presidents, Trump is irrelevant, unless you view him as a pied piper leading conservatives down a terrible path.

    The danger of Trump, if followed blindly, is threefold.

    First, the more conservatives tie themselves to his administration, the more they leave themselves vulnerable if and when his administration sinks into infamy. For example, the Federal Reserve has been avidly pulling the plug on its decade long artificial support of stocks and bond markets. Continued interest rate hikes and balance sheet cuts will ultimately crash those markets, and this will happen before the end of Trump’s first term if the Fed continues at its current pace.

    Trump may very well be the next Hoover, as I have warned time and time again since his election. A conservative president presiding over an economic catastrophe that developed long before he ever entered office, but still blamed for the consequences. In the case of Trump, it will be conservative ideals and policies that are demonized most of all, leading to renewed public support for another FDR (i.e., another hardcore communist president).

    Second, Trump’s trade war activities continue to provide perfect cover and distraction on a monthly basis for the Fed’s balance sheet dumps and interest rate hikes.  Every time stocks drop dramatically, very few people blame the fed’s activities and all attention shifts to Trump.  I see a narrative building already, one that hides all central bank guilt in the degradation of the economy.  The more conservatives support a badly planned trade war, the more they will be seen as complicit in an economic crash that actually started over a decade ago.

    Third, if Trump is meant to become a war hawk president as the introduction of John Bolton to his cabinet suggests, then conservatives may very well repeat the mistakes they made years ago when they fervently supported the Bush administration and the Iraq War. This time, though, America will not economically or philosophically survive another unjustified or ill-considered war. Not with Iran, North Korea or any other nation for that matter. Once again, true conservatives could have the tragedies produced by war wrapped around their necks if they do not apply critical thought to Trump as they do with most other issues.

    And this is the solution to the problem. It is very simple; just treat Trump as you would any other politician, remove all bias and examine him under a microscope in the light of day. The more conservatives openly criticize Trump where it is warranted, the less the establishment is able to chain us to any disasters that happen under his watch. With the cabinet of grim elitist figures surrounding him from day to day, it is the only logical recourse.

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  • New Retirement Survey Reveals People Globally Don't Understand Investment Or Inflation

    A new test given as part of the Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey, about the financial literacy of people worldwide, has produced some alarming, yet not that surprising, results. It should be of no surprise that people globally don’t really understand some of the central tenants to global monetary policy, nor do they understand some of the key concepts about retirement. This was revealed in a recent Bloomberg article published today, which states that “Many of the participants failed the quiz, with big potential consequences for their future security.”

    Here’s the quiz in its entirety.

    The first alarming problem is that the average every day investor doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a stock and a mutual fund. When asked which of the two were the riskier financial instrument, only 45% of people around the world knew the answer – that’s less than half. Bloomberg wrote:

    But before we get to that, take a look at this question—only 45 percent of people around the world got right:

    Q. Do you think the following statement is true or false? “Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.” 

    The possible answers? True, false, do not know and refuse to answer. 

    Sixteen percent of people got it wrong. “Do not know” was chosen by 38 percent. In the U.S., 46 percent of workers got it right. Good for you, America. (The answer, in case you were wondering, is false.) 

    Also, it is a little to no surprise that the average middle-class worker doesn’t seem to understand how inflation works or how it affects their ability to purchase goods. This may explain Central Banks’ obsession with manipulating it and using it as a tool to further their spending agendas. The article continued:

    It was an inflation question that had the highest percentage of wrong answers, however. More than 20 percent of workers didn’t grasp how higher inflation hurts their buying power. Given that declining health was the most-cited retirement worry, at 49 percent, and healthcare is an area (in the U.S., especially) with high cost-inflation, well, that makes the subject something older folks should have down cold.

    Despite the lack of understanding, making fiscal sense remains a major concern for people heading toward retirement. The survey also queried participants regarding what their biggest concerns were as they approached retirement. “Running out of money” came in second, only to “declining physical health”. 

    Despite not understanding the core principles of the government’s monetary policy, participants in the survey seemed to be sure that the government benefits offered for retirement were crucial to a comfortable retirement. As the government takes with the hand of inflation, it gave survey participants a warm and comfortable feeling with the other hand that spends on their retirement benefits. 

    The survey asked workers—about 1,000 per country—what global trends would affect their retirement plans. “Reduction in government retirement benefits” was the most popular answer worldwide, chosen by 38 percent globally; in America, it was 26 percent. The countries most worried about cuts to government benefits? Brazil and Hungary, at about 53 percent.

    The reality of trends that will actually impact retirees seemed to go unnoticed, however, according to the survey.

    Across the board, though, workers didn’t seem to recognize the huge impact that basic changes in the labor force, technology and the climate will probably have on their retirement plans, said Catherine Collinson, president of the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies and executive director of The Aegon Center for Longevity and Retirement. 

    Survey participants also seemed to be a little detached from when they would actually stop working, on average. The survey found an alarming number of people who wanted to work to 65 but had to retire early, generally for reasons of declining health or simply “job loss”. The article continued:

    “It makes me wonder about the extent to which people are naive about the magnitude of the disruption in our world, and the level of change that has not only occurred, but is imminent,” said Collinson. “Is it that people don’t see it coming, or is it so overwhelming that people are in denial?”

    Many workers may well be in denial about how long they can actually work. The survey found workers generally plan to retire around age 65. “The sobering reality is that 39 percent of retirees globally retired sooner than planned,” according to the report. “Of those, 30 percent stopped working earlier than they had planned for reasons of ill health, and 26 percent due to unemployment/job loss.”

    As for being kept company during retirement, 20% of Chinese workers believed that robots will be doing the job by the time they retire. 

    The survey asked about “aging friendly modifications or devices” people envisioned having in their homes. Thirty-five percent of workers in India, 34 percent of workers in Turkey and 18 percent in the U.S. figured aging could include video monitoring devices. Then there are the robots, which 20 percent of Chinese workers see coming in retirement, compared with 6 percent of American workers. 

    This comes just a couple months after we released this report detailing the real retirement crisis: elderly people are simply broke. 

    A study released by GoBankingRates reveals that older people planning their retirement have cause for concern. Forty-two percent of Americans are facing their golden years with less than $10,000 in savings. A lack of savings and planning has reduced what should be an enjoyable time in seniors’ lives to a period of stress and worries for many.

    Out-of-pocket expenses for health care is spiraling. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that Americans 65 years of age and older may spend up to $46,000 annually on healthcare. This is not good news for those with only $10,000 on which to fall back on.

    For adults over 50, this should be a call to act now, while there is still time. Only one-third of adults in that age group have savings greater than $10,000. Retirement planning needs to become a priority, as there is little time to waste. Pensions are becoming rarer, and Social Security is becoming less secure than it used to be. Many health needs of seniors are not covered by Medicare. Some experts believe the Social Security system will be depleted by 2030. Adults over the age of 50 need to consider making contributions into 401(k) accounts or similar retirement plans.

    Social Security was never intended to be the sole income of retiring seniors. It was meant to supplement approximately only 40% ofpost-retirement spending. Social security was supposed to enhance seniors’ lives, not support it entirely. However, according to Investopedia.com, 43 percent of unmarried seniors rely on Social Security to cover 90 percent of their basic needs. Almost a quarter of married couples depend on Social Security to meet most of their expenses.

    Some seniors struggling with poverty are able to receive supplemental income (“SPM”), such as food stamps for a bit of additional help. The need is especially high for seniors who are women, African Americans, and Hispanics, and those with ongoing health issues.

    6,400,000 million American seniors are living at poverty level, struggling to meet fundamental needs such as rent and food. 

    So if you are confused as to why more people are not appalled about the state of global economic policy, maybe it’s because they simply don’t understand it. It is only those that know how policy works behind the scenes and can see through the “tricks of the trade” that find themselves speaking out against the way global economic policy is managed.

  • "I Arrived In Brazil In The Middle Of The Zombie Apocalypse…"

    Brain Winter, Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly, has just returned from a week in Brazil, and what he describes is incredible…

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

    The once unthinkable is now becoming normal…

    SÃO PAULO – I arrived here on Sunday in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Or so it seemed. A nationwide truckers’ strike was in its seventh day and 99 percent of São Paulo’s service stations had run out of gasoline. The roads of South America’s biggest city were deserted of cars and people, and the skies were a murky gray. The normally hellish drive from the airport, which often lasts two hours or more, took a disconcerting 23 minutes.

    Up on Avenida Paulista, the city’s closest thing to a public square, things seemed more normal – at first. Huge crowds milled about, vendors were grilling beef and sausage, and girls in hot pink roller skates clomped by. A quadruple amputee was belting out the falsetto ending of Pearl Jam’s “Black” to an enthralled crowd. The sun was out now, and families sat at wooden tables with sweaty buckets of beer, laughing. Of course, I mused, Brazilians are going to make a party out of a bad situation. I bought a can of Skol and decided to join the fun.

    Then I saw it. A huge banner, spanning the entire avenue, carried by a group of protesters:

    “SUPPORT FOR THE TRUCK DRIVERS. MILITARY INTERVENTION! ARMED FORCES, URGENT!”

    And that was the start of a week where I saw and heard things I never believed I would in Brazil.

    The Brazil of mid-2018 is a frightened, leaderless, shockingly pessimistic country. It is a country where four years of scandal, violence and economic destruction have obliterated faith in not just President Michel Temer, not just the political class, but in democracy itself. It is a country where there will be elections in October, but most voters profess little faith in any of the candidates. Given that vacuum, many Brazilians – perhaps 40 percent of them, according to a new private poll circulating among worried politicians – believe the military should somehow act to restore order. Amid this week’s strike, the clamor became so loud that both Temer and a senior military official had to publicly deny the possibility of an imminent coup.

    This was all unquestionably good news for the presidential candidate most identified with the armed forces, retired Army captain Jair Bolsonaro, who was already running first in polls. Many analysts expect him to rise further after this week’s events.

    It’s a red alert for anyone else – foreign investors and ordinary Brazilians alike – with the old-fashioned belief that healthy civilian institutions are the key to long-term prosperity, or who still hold out hope that Brazil’s economy and political outlook might finally stabilize this year.

    When I lived in Brazil as a reporter from 2010 to 2015, I heard hardly anyone defend military rule – at least out loud.

    The last dictatorship, which ran from 1964-85, left behind a legacy of debt, hyperinflation, falling wages and human rights abuses. Yet unlike Chile and Argentina, Brazilian soldiers were never judged for their crimes – and never fell into abject disgrace. So today, with Brazil at the forefront of a global backlash against “elites” and institutions, the military is increasingly perceived as the only credible vehicle for change. Polls show the armed forces are by far the country’s most respected institution (the press is a distant second). A year ago, 38 percent of Brazilians told the Pew Research Center that military rule would be “good for the country.” That number is surely higher now.  

    The truckers’ strike started on May 21 after a government-sanctioned hike in diesel prices, but quickly grew into something much bigger. On WhatsApp groups and elsewhere, striking truckers shared videos and other messages calling for an end to Temer’s government. One cited by Estado de S.Paulo read: “Victory is near! Truckers + the people x legality x legitimacy = the fall of the Brazilian Bastille! Let’s not weaken. Come on, National Security Forces!” On Wednesday, the phrase intervenção militar was being mentioned on Twitter at a pace of 515 times per minute, according to one study. Smelling blood, many truckers continued to block roads even after a deal was truck with Temer to bring diesel prices back down. By this point, supermarkets around the country were running out of basic goods, and half of Brazilians had to change their daily routines because of lack of fuel, according to a Datafolha poll. Yet that same poll showed the strikers had the support of a whopping 87 percent of the population. 

    Why? I spoke to many protesters on Avenida Paulista, and others over the course of the week. Many drew a direct link between the diesel price hike and corruption at Petrobras, the state-owned oil company at the heart of Brazil’s “Car Wash” corruption scandal. “Of course the politicians raise prices so they can steal more money!” one middle-aged woman told me. Virtually everyone thought that anything bad for Temer – the first Brazilian president ever to be charged with a crime while in office, and who has an approval rating of 5 percent – must be good for the country. Still others insisted democracy had proven an ineffective tool to fight street crime, corruption and general disorder. I found myself arguing about this with a salesman in his sixties who had lived through the last military regime.

    “I didn’t like the dictatorship,” he replied, “but right now, come on, não é muita democracia? Don’t we have too much democracy?”     

    Polite society, especially in the big cities, continues to insist such voices are a minority. But I also spent part of the week among politicians, and just beneath their sunny bravado was a dark sentiment I could only describe as “end of days.” One group was discussing how the military commanders weren’t interested in taking power, but the rank-and-file was obviously restless. I heard of one recent instance in which a general approached a well-known politician to urge him to run for president and “save the country.”

    “I don’t think a majority of Brazilians want a coup,” a prominent political analyst told me, “but if it did happen, the people would probably support it.”    

    In truth, a traditional coup with tanks in the streets is almost unthinkable – a “relic of the 20th century,” as one military leader put it this week. In the 21st century, when democracy erodes, it almost always happens via the ballot box. Bolsonaro has vowed if elected to appoint military officials to key cabinet positions, roll back human rights provisions and give security forces “carte blanche” to kill suspected criminals, among other measures. Gen. Joaquim Silva e Luna, whom Temer appointed as Brazil’s first non-civilian defense minister in February, told Bloomberg News last week that he welcomed Bolsonaro’s candidacy. “Brazil is looking for someone with values … and they consider that the armed forces have these attributes,” he said. Why bother with a coup, when there are easier ways to gain power? 

    This week also brought a counterreaction of sorts from elsewhere in Brazilian society: There were signs of the left and some interesting pro-business bedfellows coalescing around Ciro Gomes, a former finance minister and governor. Elsewhere, leaders from the beleaguered center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) were looking carefully at polls to decide whether to abandon Geraldo Alckmin as their presidential candidate and go with an “outsider” figure like João Doria instead. But overall, there was little sign of any political consensus that could bring the difficult reforms and bold investments that Brazil needs to recapture the promise it showed last decade. Instead, society seems entirely focused on tearing down existing structures, without much thought to what comes next. Perhaps surprisingly, the most lucid comment to that effect came from President Temer, at a press conference for foreign journalists.

    “Every 20 or 30 years in Brazil, there’s an attempt to reinvent things … to destroy what is there and build a new order,” he said.

    He’s right. And for that, Brazilian politicians can largely blame themselves. 

  • Calling All Broke Millennials: Vermont Will Give You $10,000 To Move There And Work From Home

    The Governor of Vermont has introduced an unusual law that will pay people who move into the state and work remotely for an out-of-state company – $10,000 over a two year period to cover relocation costs, office equipment, internet, and other work-related expenses.

    Governor Phil Scott approved the legislation on Wednesday (May 30) in hopes to bottom out the rapidly shrinking tax base, and, of course, sucker in those heavily indebted millennials from large cities.

    According to the Vermont House of Representatives, the “Remote Worker Grant Program” will start on January 01, 2019, and will cover a variety of business-related expenses of a worker’s transition to the state, including relocation services, computer software and hardware, broadband access or upgrade, and membership in a co-working or similar space expenses.

    Vermont has found the funds to budget roughly 100 grants for the first three years of the program, and after that, 20 additional workers per year for an unspecified amount of time. An eligible “remote worker” under the program could receive not more than $5,000.00 per year, not to exceed a total of $10,000.00 per individual over two years.

    CNBC said the program operates on a first-come, first-served basis and is only available to new residents who relocate on or after January 01, 2019.

    The new law is designed to catch the falling knife of a rapidly shrinking tax base, along with thwarting an economic crisis that has been sparked by Vermont’s aging population.

    “Vermont continues to age, and age faster than the nation as a whole,” writes Art Woolf for the Burlington Free Press. “Over the past quarter of a century, the median age nationally has increased by almost five years to 37.8 while Vermont’s has increased by 10 years.

    “The most common age in Vermont is 19 years. But that’s because Vermont brings in a lot of college-age students from other states. Ignoring the 18 to 22 year-old college student cohort, the most common age is 55, which is people at the tail end of the baby boom generation. Vermont has a lot more baby boomers, people between 53 and 71, relative to other ages, than the U.S. There are a lot of baby boomers nationally, but the age with the largest number of people nationally is 25 years old, part of the millennial generation.”

    Woolf also said, “our largest age cohort is the baby boomers, not the millennials if you ignore the large number college students – even those who come from out of state – who are counted as Vermont residents.” This trend has made Vermont one of the oldest states in the country, in regards to age.

    “We have about 16,000 fewer workers than we did in 2009. That’s why expanding our workforce is one of the top priorities of my administration,” Governor Scott said in a statement while addressing the need to attract younger working families to the state.

    “We must think outside the box to help more Vermonters enter the labor force and attract more working families and young professionals to Vermont. That’s exactly what the Department of Tourism and Marketing did with this program for out-of-state visitors who may be interested in living full-time in Vermont, and I’m excited to see it move forward.”

    CNBC explains the program will be spread across “four weekends and will be piloted in three communities.” One of those locations will be Brattleboro, Vermont.

    “The one thing we need more of in Vermont is people,” says Adam Grinold, executive director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. “We need more visitors, we need more employees, we need more business owners. We need more people.”

    While a demographic time bomb is looming for Vermont, the recent reactionary efforts by officials to divert taxpayer dollars for programs to attract millennials from other states is merely a short-term solution and will not solve the old age crisis. Expect this trend to increase with other states, as the good ole’ days of easy money, are over.

  • What's A Life Worth In America? Four Bucks? Nope… Four Cents!

    Authored by Abby Zimet via CommonDreams.org,

    In what’s been called “the most racist jury ‘award’ in history,” a Florida jury has decided there was really no problem with cops shooting and killing Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr., 30, in 2014 because he was playing music too loudly in his own garage while drunk. (Need we add, Hill was black?)

    The civil verdict marked the dismal end to a longstanding wrongful death suit filed by Hill’s family in 2016, two years after St. Lucie County sheriff deputies turned up at Hill’s house in Fort Pierce following complaints he’d been playing loud “F.U. music” in his garage as a nearby middle school was letting out for the day.

    When Hill heard the cops knock, he opened the garage door, saw them, and began closing it again, at which point deputy Christopher Newman shot him three times – once in the head, twice in the abdomen – through the door, because everyone knows that according to the impeccable standards of American jurisprudence, getting drunk, playing music and closing a garage door are punishable by death without a trial.

     Police later claimed he’d had a gun they told him to drop – a claim never proved – and then said they’d found a gun (unloaded) in Hill’s back pocket; they also determined his blood alcohol level was almost five times the legal limit for driving, though probably pretty close to that of many people getting drunk in their garage while listening to music.

    Nonetheless, jurors found Newman, who had already cleared by a grand jury of criminal conduct, not guilty of  “unreasonable, negligent and excessive” force under Florida’s black-guys-are-scary law.

    Jurors were also asked to determine the amount of compensation to award Hill’s three children for their loss; the family was seeking $500,000, but jurors instead opted to give them $4 total – $1 to his mother for his funeral expenses, and $1 to each of his children.

    The grievous punchline: The jury unfathomably found Hill 99% liable for his own murder because “under the influence of alcoholic beverages to the extent that his normal faculties were impaired” – that death penalty offense again – thus reducing the family’s award, and law enforcement’s liability, to pennies.

    The family’s attorney called the ruling “punitive”; Hill’s family wants a new trial; his fiancée vowed to “keep fighting until I get some justice.”

    On Facebook, the sheriff’s office declared, “We are pleased to see this difficult and tragic incident come to a conclusion” and wished “everyone involved in the case the best.”

    One concise comment summed up the general response: “Murderers.”

  • Portland Punishes Pay-Gap Extremes: Imposes 25% Tax On Firms With High Relative CEO Pay

    Soaring income inequality – among all the ‘inequalities’ – has become the bete noire of many in America as the financialization of society has led to the rich getting richer at the expense of the masses.

    And now, for the first time, micro details about income inequality are being disclosed, as The Economist reports, according to new filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), America’s largest publicly listed firms (those worth at least $1bn) on average paid their chief executives 130 times more than their typical workers in 2017.

    The figures are being disclosed for the first time as a result of the Dodd-Frank act, a financial-reform law with a provision requiring listed firms to report the annual compensation of their chief executives, that of their median employees, and the ratio of the two.

    So far, interest in the pay ratios among investors has been fairly limited… 

    However, liberal politicians have proved more enthusiastic, and so following Seattle’s decision to “take their fair share” with a ‘head tax’ in an effort to redistribute corporate wealth to the homeless (to ‘solve’ the housing affordability crisis), lawmakers in Portland, Oregon have decided to take on the income inequality miasma – by charging a business-tax on firms with extreme CEO-to-worker pay ratios:

    • 10% Tax on firms with a CEO-to-Worker ratio over 100-to-1; and a

    • 25% Tax on firms with a CEO-to-Worker ratio over 250-to-1.

    As The Economist notes, lawmakers in at least six states, including California, Illinois and Massachusetts, have considered policies of this sort, too.

    But, it appears, the 0.01% have a plan already in place…

    A law such as this would be impossible to implement if the pay-ratio rule is scrapped.

    In October, in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump to review America’s financial regulation, the Treasury called on Congress to do just that, writing that the information is “not material to the reasonable investor for making investment decisions”.

    Of course, as with the recent exodus from many high-tax states, implementation of this kind of relative success punitive taxation will do nothing but reduce overall tax revenues as firms (and CEOs) leave en masse.

     

  • What's With All The False Alarm Warnings From The Emergency Alert System Lately?

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    In 2018, there have been at least 4 false alarms that have drummed up panic for no reason at all.

    It makes you wonder, what’s with all these false alarms? And how can we actually trust an alert that comes to our phone from the Emergency Alert System at all?

    Hawaii – Nukes

    The first, of course, was Hawaii, on January 13th. That one scared me personally since one of my dearest friends lives there and I knew it was a time when she wouldn’t be up yet in the morning. I frantically tried to reach her and finally woke her up to tell her the news. A missile was on the way to Hawaii and it was NOT a drill.

    The message was sent to cell phones and broadcast on TV and radio stations with the chilling message that residents were to take shelter immediately. Warning sirens went off at resorts and hotels.

    It was bedlam in many parts of the island state. Parents were shoving their children into storm drains. After 47 minutes of terror, another alert told the panicked islanders that this had been a false alarm.

    It turns out that an employee “hit the wrong button” and sent out the alert. However, people affected were reasonably furious that it took so long to correct the error.

    Maine – Tsunami

    The false alarm in Hawaii was barely out of the headlines when another inaccurate alert was sent to residents of Maine. The alert warned people in the coastal city of Portland that a tsunami was incoming.

    (source)

    While it’s not impossible for a coastal town to be threatened by a tsunami, it’s incredibly rare on the East Coast and Maine has suffered only minor events historically. The biggest tsunami wave ever recorded there was 10 feet high in 1926. It flooded the harbor but there were no deaths.

    Despite this, residents near the water were quite rightfully alarmed. It turned out that this was a test message that somehow was accidentally sent as a push notification. AccuWeather and the National Weather Service have both pointed the finger for the error to the other agency.

    “Tsunami warnings are handled with the utmost concern by AccuWeather and it has sophisticated algorithms to scan the entire message, not just header words, as from the time of a warning to the actual event can be mere minutes,” the statement said. “AccuWeather was correct in reading the mistaken NWS codes embedded in the warning. The responsibility is on the NWS to properly and consistently code the messages, for only they know if the message is correct or not.”

    …The National Tsunami Warning Center said it did not issue a tsunami warning, watch or advisory for any part of the United States or Canada Tuesday morning. The center, based in Palmer, Alaska, issues monthly tests to regional weather offices.

    Officials said it appeared to be an issue only with the Accuweather app. (source)

    Alaska – Tsunami

    The tsunami warning a few months later in Alaska held a lot more weight since the area is prone to seismic activity and in an area where tsunamis are a more realistic threat.

    In May, a truncated version of a test message was sent in error and broadcast by local radio and TV stations. This one did not go to the phones of local residents but was picked up by the media. Because it was abbreviated, the words “this is a test” did not show up and therefore were not broadcast.

    What makes matters worse is that earlier in the year, when there was actually a threat after a 7.9 earthquake hit the Gulf of Alaska, the tsunami warning that should have gone out to coastal residents was not received by some Alaskan broadcasters and wireless companies.

    Oregon – Civil Emergency

    Then a couple of days ago, the system in Oregon sent out a mysterious message to Salem residents that had them puzzled and alarmed.

    And that was it – no further information was included. Just that there was an emergency and that they should “prepare for action.”

    Andrew Phelps, the head of Oregon’s emergency management agency, apologized for the “glitch.” It turns out that this time there actually was a critical situation of which people needed to be aware.

    Phelps said late Tuesday that a technical glitch had cut off crucial information: that the alert concerned elevated levels of a natural toxin in a local reservoir. Children and people with compromised immune systems have been told not to drink tap water in the Salem, Oregon, area after an algae bloom caused the spike.

    “The integrated public alert warning system inadvertently defaulted to a generic message,” Phelps said in a video posted on the social media by the Office of Emergency Management. “I apologize for the confusion and the anxiety this incomplete message has caused.” (source)

    Of course, this message left people’s minds racing about the nature of the emergency. Some people were afraid to go outside, fearing an active shooter, while others feared a terror attack. And it turns out, even the agency that sent the alert was baffled, taking 31 minutes to follow up with a message that provided some clarity as to the nature of the emergency.

    Confusion surrounded the initial alert even within the emergency management agency, with a spokesperson telling reporters the message had caught them unawares and state police asking residents via a Facebook post not to call 911 about the alert. (source)

    At that point, people were in panic mode. Stores were quickly emptied of their water supplies and chaos was left in shoppers’ wakes. A reader local to the area sent me a message telling of what had ensued.

    I live in Salem Oregon. This evening at 8:30 pm phones across my state went nuts. We received a vague emergency message. A civil emergency is what they called it. You read that and I don’t care who you are, your attention has been grasped.

    With power still running I took to social media. My feed was hot. People were freaking out. No one knew what was going on. Finally, word spread and we discovered our tap water is tainted. With toxic algae! They say safe for adults. (Ummm, no thanks). You can’t boil it away. It’s a firm “don’t give kids under 6, elderly, pets, medically compromised, pregnant, and nursing women any tap water.” Period.

    At 9 pm we received a far more clear emergency text. And the police took to Facebook as evidently 911 was swamped. Its all over the news. Shelves are empty. People are frightened and panicking and it has only been an hour.

    The Emergency Alert System is not working very well.

    The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is overseen by the FCC and can be dispatched locally or even at the national level.

    The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system that requires broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to provide the communications capability to the President to address the American public during a national emergency. The system also may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information, such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to specific areas.

    The FCC, in conjunction with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service (NWS), implements the EAS at the federal level. The President has sole responsibility for determining when the EAS will be activated at the national level, and has delegated this authority to the director of FEMA. FEMA is responsible for implementation of the national-level activation of the EAS, tests, and exercises. The NWS develops emergency weather information to alert the public about imminent dangerous weather conditions. (source)

    The EAS, while a great idea, is sending out so many false alarm warnings that one has to wonder if people will even pay attention in an actual emergency. Theories abound as to why the false alarms are happening, with people pointing fingers toward a wide variety of possibilities:

    • Human error

    • Deliberate manipulation to panic people into being better prepared

    • A cover-up for a system that was hacked

    • In the case of Hawaii, an actual emergency that was quietly diverted

    • Systems errors

    My advice? It’s the same advice I’d give in any situation. If you think there could be a threat, don’t panic, take the appropriate action, and wait to see how things play out.

    But one thing is sure. There are only so many false alarms that can be sent out before the EAS loses all effectiveness. Pretty soon, if not already, people will just roll their eyes and carry on with their days instead of taking action. And if that’s the case, our apathetic society will become even less interested in being prepared for emergencies. There are only so many times you can be spurred to panic for no reason until you’re immune to that particular voice crying “wolf.”

    One day when a real disaster is inbound, nobody will pay attention to what is “probably” just another false alarm.

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