Oct 02

Today’s News 2nd October 2023

  • Excess Deaths From Cardiovascular Diseases Up 44% Last Year Among UK Citizens Aged 15-44: Report
    Excess Deaths From Cardiovascular Diseases Up 44% Last Year Among UK Citizens Aged 15-44: Report

    A new and disturbing analysis reveals that excess deaths from cardiovascular diseases have jumped in the UK over the past several years.

    Using official government data for deaths in England and Wales between 2010 and 2022, former BlackRock portfolio manager Ed Dowd and his partners at Phinance Technologies found that excess death rates from cardiovascular diseases were up 13% in 2020, 30% in 2021, and 44% in 2022, which “point to a worrying picture of an even greater acceleration in coming years of deaths & disabilities.”

    What’s more, they found that “deaths per year from cardiovascular diseases had been trending lower from 2010 to
    2019, with a significant downward slope,” until 2020, when the trend reversed. They also found that in 2022, men began outpacing women in cardiovascular diseases.

    The analysis also found that disabilities are skyrocketing.

    Dowd and co. conclude that: “When looking at excess deaths for cardiovascular diseases, the Z-score in 2020 was around 3, indicating that prior to the start of the vaccinations there was already a signal pointing to an increase in cardiovascular deaths. That trend however accelerated substantially in 2021 and 2022 where we observe Z-scores of around 7.5 and 10.5, respectively. These are extreme events that we believe need a thorough investigation.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/02/2023 – 02:45

  • German Mayor Call Concerns Over Child Safety "Unfounded" Amid Plans To Accomodate 80 Asylum-Seekers At A Primary School
    German Mayor Call Concerns Over Child Safety “Unfounded” Amid Plans To Accomodate 80 Asylum-Seekers At A Primary School

    Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

    Outraged parents have condemned the local mayor’s decision to accommodate up to 80 asylum seekers in containers on the grounds of a primary school in the German town of Monheim am Rhein.

    Dozens of local residents attended a recent question time of the local council to voice their displeasure over the controversial move proposed by Mayor Daniel Zimmerman’s administration and expressed their concerns for child safety, calling the plans both inappropriate and unacceptable.

    Starting next spring, a cohort of migrants will reside in containers located on the school grounds, which are no longer used for educational purposes.

    In response to the protestations of locals, the council cited economic factors as a primary reason for the move, insisting that the estimated €150,000 it would cost to convert the containers into housing was substantially lower than the cost of renting private accommodations, where around 80 percent of the migrants recently received by the municipality currently reside.

    “We simply can’t keep up with renting anymore,” a city press spokesperson told parents at the meeting.

    Concerned parents told the council meeting that the housing of traumatized refugees in the vicinity of young children was wholly irresponsible, and expressed worries of potential conflict between the new arrivals and their children including the danger of rape or abuse.

    However, Zimmerman called these fears “unfounded” and insisted that the migrants are “people like you and me” and are not dangerous.

    “The safety of our children is the primary goal – I personally guarantee that,” the local mayor assured parents.

    He explained that with the municipality receiving significantly more refugees from Ukraine, Syria, and Afghanistan, private accommodation in Monheim has become saturated and the town is reaching its acceptance limits.

    The council therefore needs to resort to alternative measures to accommodate further arrivals.

    The mayor added that while he was open to discussing the matter further with concerned parents in the next few weeks, for instance at parent meetings, such correspondence will not change the city’s decision to repurpose the containers on the school grounds and considered the matter to be closed.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 10/02/2023 – 02:00

  • The Mad Propaganda Push To Normalize War-Profiteering In Ukraine
    The Mad Propaganda Push To Normalize War-Profiteering In Ukraine

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    There’s been an astonishingly brazen propaganda push to normalize war profiteering in Ukraine as Kyiv coordinates with the arms industry and western governments to convert the war-ravaged nation into a major domestic weapons manufacturer, thereby turning Ukrainians into proxies of the military industrial complex as well as the Pentagon.

    At an event in Kyiv which hosted 250 “defense” industry corporations from 30 different countries on Friday, President Zelensky gave a speech urging war profiteers to open factories in Ukraine to cut out the middleman of securing and delivering so many weapons from abroad. This is an investment that the arms industry would ostensibly have plenty of time to set up, given that western officials are now going out of their way to communicate to the public that this war will stretch on for many more years to come.

    Zelensky’s speech twice made use of the phrase “defense-industrial complex”, and used the phrase “arsenal of the free world” no fewer than three times.

    “Ukraine is developing a special economic regime for the defense-industrial complex,” Zelensky said. “To give all the opportunities to realize their potential to every company that works for the sake of defense — in Ukraine and with Ukraine or that wants to come to Ukraine.”

    “Right now, the most powerful military-industrial complexes are being determined, as are their priorities and the global standard of defense. All of this is being determined in Ukraine,” Zelensky tweeted with photos from the event.

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    This move has been accompanied in recent weeks by some of the most appalling mass media headlines that I have ever seen, all geared toward normalizing the military industrial complex in the eyes of the public.

    In an amazingly awful Wall Street Journal op-ed titled titled “In Defense of the Defense Industry” and subtitled “Populists of the right and left attack U.S. companies that make weapons. Who do they think protects us?”, Future of Capitalism’s Ira Stoll argues that the military industrial complex is actually a wonderful thing we should all love and support.

    “The weapons industry protects America and its allies, keeping us safe from ruthless enemies who would otherwise exterminate or enslave us,” Stoll writes. “Raytheon helps make weapons systems that defend Israeli civilians against attacks from Iran-backed terrorist groups. These include the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, SkyHunter interceptor systems and Tamir missiles. Raytheon also produces the Javelin antitank missile that Ukraine has used against Russian armor and the early-warning radars that would detect incoming missiles aimed at the U.S.”

    Stoll does not name the alternate universe he is describing in which the US military is used to keep Americans safe rather than to advance imperial interests abroad.

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    Another recent Wall Street Journal article titled “The War in Ukraine Is Also a Giant Arms Fair” and subtitled “Arms makers are getting orders for weapons being put to the test on the battlefield” glorifies the way war machinery is being field tested on human bodies to the benefit of war profiteers.

    “The Panzerhaubitze howitzer is part of an arsenal of weapons being put to the test in Ukraine in what has become the world’s largest arms fair,” writes WSJ’s Alistair MacDonald. “Companies that make the weapons being used in Ukraine have won orders and resurrected production lines. The deployment of billions of dollars worth of equipment in a major land war has also given manufacturers and militaries a unique opportunity to analyze the battlefield performance of weapons, and learn how best to use them.”

    A Reuters article from two weeks ago titled “At London arms fair, global war fears are good for business” gushes over how much money is being raked in by arms manufacturers as a result of this war, with one unnamed arms industry executive telling Reuters, “War is good for business.”

    Just the other day CNN anchor Erin Burnett followed up some clips of “far right lawmakers” voicing their opposition to funding for the Ukraine proxy war by pausing to explain to her audience that this funding is actually good for Americans, because it goes straight into the US arms industry.

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    “It’s worthwhile with all of this gaining some steam in public perception to be clear on some facts,” Burnett said. “First and foremost, the vast majority of this money is going to American companies and jobs, right, because those are the people that are making the Abrams tanks, the ammo and everything else. And you take Lockheed Martin, which makes the HIMARS, that have been core to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the company announced it’s going to increase its workforce in Camden, Arkansas, by 20 percent, just because of this new demand.”

    “That money is going to America,” Burnett added.

    All this propaganda energy is going into normalizing the act of war profiteering because if you let the idea stand on its own, it would make people scream in horror. The fact that a deliberately-provoked war is being used as a giant field demo to show prospective buyers and investors how effective various weapons systems can be at ripping apart human bodies in order to profit from all this death and destruction is more nightmarish than anything any dystopian novelist has ever come up with.

    Ukraine is a giant advertisement for weapons of mass slaughter, and the cost of that corporate ad is not money but human blood. If you look right at this thing it absolutely chills you to the bone. Which is why so much effort is being poured into making sure people don’t look at it.

    *  *  *

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 23:30

  • Charting The Depths: The World Of Subsea Cables
    Charting The Depths: The World Of Subsea Cables

    Data may be stored in the “cloud,” but when it comes to sending and receiving data, a lot of that action is actually happening along the depths of the ocean floor.

    Hidden beneath the waves, these subsea cables account for approximately 95% of international data transmission.

    As Visual Capitalists’ Bruno Venditti details below, these maps, by Adam Symington, use information from TeleGeography to show the distribution of subsea cables around the planet.

    Wired for Connectivity

    It’s estimated that there are nearly 1.4 million kilometers (0.9 million miles) of submarine cables in service globally. They ensure emails, content, and calls find their way, linking colossal data centers and facilitating worldwide communication.

    Currently, there are 552 active and planned submarine cables:

    Submarine cables harness fiber-optic technology, transmitting information via rapid light pulses through glass fibers. These fibers, thinner than human hair, are protected by plastic or even steel wire layers.

    Cables usually have the diameter of a garden hose, but often with added armor near the shore. Coastal cables are buried under the seabed, hidden from view on the beach, while deep-sea ones rest on the ocean floor.

    Length varies widely, from the 131-kilometer CeltixConnect cable, connecting Dublin, Ireland, and Holyhead, UK, to the sprawling 20,000-kilometer Asia America Gateway cable, connecting San Luis Obispo, California, to Hawaii and Southeast Asia:

    Asia America Gateway. Image: TeleGeography

    With the current technology, cables are designed to last 25 years at least but are often replaced because of damage. Nearly two-thirds of cable damage is caused by fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors.

    The Bottom Line

    Traditionally dominated by telecom carriers, the makeup of the subsea cable market has shifted over more recent decades. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon now heavily invest in new cables.

    With data demand surging, at least $10 billion is expected to be invested in subsea cables worldwide between 2022 and 2024, driven by cloud service providers and content streaming platforms.

    Even with the growth of satellites in telecom, cables still can carry far more data at a much lower cost than satellites. In fact, according to TeleGeography, satellites account for less than 1% of all U.S. international capacity.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 23:00

  • Why Did People Comply?
    Why Did People Comply?

    Authored by Maximilien Lacour via The Brownstone Institute,

    On Monday 16th of March 2020, when Boris Johnson first proclaimed, “You must stay home,” I very meekly said “OK!” And the chances are that you did too. 

    Polling from the time shows that self-reported compliance with the stay-at-home orders was high – a finding broadly corroborated by mobility data, which has the marked advantage of not depending on respondents’ honesty about following the law (Ganslmeier et al. 2022; Jackson and Bradford 2021). 

    In itself, however, this data alone does not tell us why an unprecedented suspension of our civil liberties enjoyed such high levels of compliance.

    There are, however, surveys that do provide some insight (see, for example, Jackson and Bradford 2021; Foad et al. 2021; and Halliday et al. 2022) and amongst their more surprising findings is that instrumental considerations – that is, personal fear of the virus or of coercion by the State – may have been relatively unimportant in driving compliance with the lockdown rules. Instead, they found that, in general, people followed the rules because (1) they were the law and (2) because they provided us with a shared understanding of what was good and right to do, which many of us seem to have internalised (Jackson and Bradford 2021).

    The first of these is not particularly surprising. The law enjoys a ‘reservoir of loyalty’ amongst Brits who are therefore already predisposed to respect its edicts just because they have been made law (Halliday et al. 2022, p.400). 

    This, however, does not explain the second driver of compliance. That is, it does not explain why we bought into lockdown laws and willingly accepted them as the basis of our public morality – to the point that we even often justified our non-compliant behaviours as nonetheless remaining within the ‘spirit of the law’ (Meers et al. 2021). It does not explain why we looked upon the sanitised, terrorised redrawing of society and saw that it was good. It is worth briefly revisiting, with the benefit of cooled heads and hindsight, what exactly this looked like. 

    Over the course of a week or so, our lives and concerns were dyed a COVID monochrome and narrowed down around a single, shared priority – slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, or, in the stock phrases of the time, “flattening the curve” and “bringing R below 1.” And, to achieve this, we were asked to abandon almost every single activity that make up our shared lives and distinguish us from battery-farmed animals, including but not limited to, seeing friends, going to school, shopping, going to the theatre, playing team sports, meeting for romance or sex, and just hanging about (Wagner 2022, p.61). 

    In a way, it also radically simplified our lives. 

    Under the radical, bewildering uncertainty of early 2020, the lockdown rules saved us from having to negotiate the perils and ambiguities of being mortal amongst mortals in time of plague, by telling us what we needed to do in most cases. Want to see Grandma? Simple! You can’t. Want to go shopping? Essentials only and follow taped lines across the floor! Want to continue an affair with the milkman or just see your girlfriend? Well, again, you can’t – and pray that you don’t live in Leicester. 

    Borrowing a term from moral philosophy, the lockdowns introduced a decidability (or, at least, the illusion of it) into our lives that would otherwise have been absent (Taylor 1997). Under its sway, we no longer had to engage with our lives as moral agents tasked with making imperfect judgements about what is right or wrong, as we could assume that those judgments had already been made by a higher authority and were reflected in its rules. Life under lockdown settled all philosophical difficulties and faced with a course of action, one wasn’t to ask, “Is this the right?” but “Does this Flatten The Curve?” 

    This decidability may go some way to explaining why we internalised the lockdown worldview so easily. In his 2005 essay, “Afraid to be Free: Dependency as Desideratum,” James Buchanan identified a widely shared set of expectations that he termed ‘Parental Socialism’ and described as: 

    … paternalism flipped over, so to speak. With paternalism we refer to the attitudes of elitists who seek to impose their own preferred values on others. With parentalism, in contrast, we refer to the attitudes of persons who seek to have values imposed upon them by other persons, by the state or by transcendental forces. (Buchanan 2005)

    Buchanan very loosely defines socialism as the range of political projects that seek to impose some kind of collectivized control over the individual’s liberty of actions and provides a list of its possible sources, which includes parental socialism. Unlike the other sources identified by Buchanan, however (which have to do with the structure and powers of the State), parental socialism concerns the expectations that citizens have of said State. Freedom and agency, observes Buchanan, come with responsibility.

    A free agent is forced to struggle with the complexities and ambiguities of his life and to come to a judgement about what matters – and bears responsibility for both struggle and judgement. This, observes Buchanan, is a heavy burden that many people are simply too afraid to shoulder. Instead, they (i.e. parental socialists or, more simply, us!) demand that the State be an engine of order and certainty in their worlds, much like a parent is in their child’s, and that it make and impose these judgments upon them. Parental socialists want to be told what matters by the State, told what is safe and right and what is risky and wrong, not given the freedom to deliberate themselves. 

    This amounts to demanding the sort of decidability provided by stay-at-home orders and, of course, means compromising on some of one’s freedoms. If Buchanan’s diagnosis is correct, we may have accepted the lockdowns because they fit with a long-standing pattern of expectation that we have of the State. Though the pandemic-management policies themselves were unprecedented and shocking, the role they gave to the State in our lives was not entirely, and thus may help explain why we accepted them so readily. 

    Now, this sits at odds with much of what is written by critics of lockdowns. For many of these (otherwise often insightful) writers, the lockdowns were an essentially top-down phenomenon, primarily driven and maintained by the machinations of politicians, scientific advisors, or some more obscure elite group. Explanations of this sort range from the conventional, like Laurent Mucchielli’s analysis of the French government’s centralising predisposition and the perverse incentives shaping WHO recommendations to the more unorthodox, like Michael P. Senger’s argument that Xi Jinping deliberately shut down the world on the pretext of a benign virus (Mucchielli 2022; Senger 2021). 

    However, if what I wrote above is correct, then, while these theories are not necessarily incorrect per se (well, Mucchielli’s isn’t), they are necessarily limited by their failure to consider the role of bottom-up forces like parental socialism in driving compliance with the lockdowns. They do not do justice to the way that lockdowns were both continuous with and made possible by a set of long-standing, popular expectations that we have of the State.

    This omission risks having deleterious consequences for the project of lockdown critique, assuming that its goals include preventing any future lockdowns. If lockdowns were made possible by popular parentalistic expectations, then legal reform, though obviously welcome, may prove insufficient and powerless against the very real threat of ‘voluntary’ lockdowns, whereby a population complies with a stay-at-home request without needing it to be made a legal requirement. 

    Consider the comments made by David Halpern, a prominent behavioural scientist and Chief Executive of the UK government’s notorious ‘Nudge’ unit, and reported in the Telegraph:

    Britain has been drilled to comply with lockdown under a future pandemic, the chief executive of the ‘nudge unit’ has said.

    Professor David Halpern told the Telegraph that the country had “practised the drill” of wearing face masks and working from home and “could redo it” in a future crisis.

    Speaking on the Lockdown Files podcast, the government adviser Prof Halpern predicted that the country would comply with another ‘stay at home’ order because they “kind of know what the drill is.”

    In an interview given before Mr Hancock’s testimony, the leading behavioural scientist even suggested that the nation’s prior experience made it “much easier to now imagine” the population would accept future local restrictions.

    Having been trained up by a first round of stay-at-home orders, our previously abstract paternalistic expectations of the State have been given a new form: in times of plague, lock down! Though Halpern does not say this explicitly (he still refers to a stay-at-home ‘order’), his remarks nonetheless suggest that future lockdowns may not even need to be legally mandated – we will just know what to do when recommended to by the State or Public Health. 

    The threat of voluntary lockdowns should lead lockdown sceptics to cast their net beyond the institutions of the State and bring them to confront the harder-to-limn, bottom-up drivers of lockdown like parental socialism. They need to find ways of addressing our collective self-infantilisation and to reemphasize the value and importance of free agency. 

    This does not mean rejecting any role for the State in our lives or condemning any socialist scheme (Buchanan himself is quite clear that his critical project remains compatible with aspects of social democracy such as redistribution through taxation). But it does mean trying to foster and perpetuate a popular scepticism of the State in its didactic and moralising functions. Critics of lockdown need to go beyond criticising the public institutions and individuals who designed COVID-19 policy, and to start attacking the popular mindset that made them thinkable and practicable in the first place. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 22:30

  • Putin Is Now Evading Western Sanctions On Almost All Oil Exports, And Using Yuan To Avoid Import Sanctions
    Putin Is Now Evading Western Sanctions On Almost All Oil Exports, And Using Yuan To Avoid Import Sanctions

    When western nations rolled out a grand plan to throttle Russian oil imports and impose sanctions on Kremlin energy exports, we – and many others – laughed: after all, we have repeatedly seen how toothless western sanctions are when seeking to contain “rogue regime” oil profits, from Iran (which is pretty much selling oil to China at max capacity) to Venezuela and onward. One year later, our laughter has been well justified, because as the FT reports, “Russia has succeeded in avoiding G7 sanctions on most of its oil exports”, a shift in trade flows that will boost the Kremlin’s revenues as crude rises towards $100 a barrel, and as Russian Urals prices hit $80, the highest level in over a year.

    According to the report, almost 75% of all seaborne Russian crude flows traveled without western insurance in August, the only lever used to enforce the G7’s $60-a-barrel oil price cap, according to an analysis of shipping and insurance records by the Financial Times. That is up from about about half this spring, according to data from freight analytics company Kpler and insurance companies. The rise implies that Moscow is becoming more adept at circumventing the cap, allowing it to sell more of its oil at prices closer to international market rates.

    More importantly, it means that few if any Russian clients are worried about retaliation by the Biden regime for purchasing Russian oil.

    The FT reports that the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) has estimated that the steady increase in crude prices since July, combined with Russia’s success in reducing the discount on its own oil, means that the country’s oil revenues are likely to be at least $15bn higher for 2023 than they would have been; it is also an indication that for all its talk and posturing the West is content with allowing Putin’s regime to benefit from surging oil prices as the far more draconian alternative of taking all Russian oil off the market, would have sent global oil prices much higher.

    Indeed, as the FT admits, while the EU and US have largely barred imports of Russian oil, the G7 price cap was designed to keep Russian oil flowing into global markets: “The aim was to prevent a squeeze on supplies and an economically and politically damaging jump in prices.”

    Providing western services such as shipping or insurance is allowed under the price cap as long as Russia’s oil is sold for less than $60 a barrel. Russian oil is now selling for $20 more.

    The shift is a double blow for western efforts to restrict Russia’s revenues from oil sales — which make up the biggest part of the Kremlin’s budget — following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Not only is a higher proportion of Russian oil being sold outside the cap, but Moscow’s increasing independence as a seller has coincided with a strong rally in oil prices, which topped $95 a barrel for the first time in 13 months this week.

    Worst of all for Western neocons, while Russia’s oil sector is still facing several challenges, including claims of shortages in its domestic refined fuels market and a dip in export volumes overall, the figures still suggest more oil revenues will be flowing into the Kremlin’s war chest.

    Ben Hilgenstock, an economist at the KSE, said: “Given these shifts in how Russia ships its oil, it may be very difficult to meaningfully enforce the price cap in future. And that makes it even more regrettable that we did not do more to properly enforce it when we had more leverage.”

    Meanwhile, in further weaponization of its commodities (in response to the US weaponization of the US Dollar), Russia this week banned the export of diesel and other fuels, a significant move from one of the biggest global sellers of diesel. The move has raised fears that Russian president Vladimir Putin is trying to disrupt the oil market as he did with natural gas, sparking last year’s energy crisis.

    And while the Kremlin is steamrolling western export sanctions, it is Beijing that is allowing Russia to evade import sanctions.

    A new study has found that Russia is using Chinese currency for at least a fifth of its imports, illustrating both Moscow’s increasing reliance on Beijing and its efforts to evade western sanctions.

    As a reminder, sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU, US and others as a result of its war against Ukraine have made it increasingly difficult for Russia to get hold of large amounts of western imports. It’s also made it more expensive for it to trade using the dollar, euro or other western currencies, especially after Russia was effectively kicked out of SWIFT and its banks can no longer transact in dollars.

    What happened then? Well, by the end of 2022, 20% of Russia’s imports were invoiced in yuan — up from 3% a year previously, according to a research paper published this morning by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the FT reported.

    While some of that increase is owing to increased imports from China itself, the use of yuan to settle imports from third countries rose to 5% from just 1% before the war was launched in February 2022.

    “Yuan is being used as a vehicle currency,” said Beata Javorcik, the EBRD’s chief economist and one of the paper’s authors. “Russia is now the third-largest clearing centre for offshore yuan transactions.”

    Asking trade partners to invoice them in yuan is just one way Moscow is evading sanctions, alongside tactics such as importing products through middleman countries or exporting its oil on tankers that sail without western insurance.

    The EBRD paper makes stark just how much Moscow is avoiding western banks when trying to bypass sanctions: when it comes to sanctioned goods and dual-use equipment, which can be used by civilians but also to make weapons, “the increase in [yuan] invoicing was more pronounced,” the paper found. The research also strikes a warning for any western policymakers who might see the data as a sign that their measures are working.

    “Rising geopolitical tensions in general, and the use of trade sanctions in particular, may reduce the attractiveness of the use of the US dollar as a vehicle currency in international trade,” they write. “This, in turn, might lead to a greater fragmentation of global payment systems.”

    Yet despite all the signs, in a few years there will still be those who are stunned to learn that the dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 22:00

  • China Investors Say Worst Yet To Come For Property
    China Investors Say Worst Yet To Come For Property

    By John Liu and April Ma, Bloomberg Markets Live reporters and strategists

    China’s property sector has yet to see the worst of the crisis that has cast a pall over the nation’s economy and helped drive an exodus of global funds from the world’s second-largest stock market.

    That’s the view from nine of 15 respondents in an informal Bloomberg News survey of analysts and money managers based in Hong Kong and mainland China. Six of them listed housing woes as the biggest risk for equities for the final quarter of 2023, followed by geopolitical tensions.

    The results are a reflection of the worsening malaise in China’s real estate industry, as policymakers appear reluctant to undertake more aggressive stimulus measures lest they may fuel long-term financial risks. Sentiment worsened last week as worries about liquidity and weak housing demand intensified, sending a Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of property stocks to its lowest level in 12 years.

    Pessimism over the property sector aside, the informal survey showed investors have otherwise turned optimistic on the overall market given a series of recent policy support measures and inexpensive valuations. Roughly around 70% of the respondents said they plan to add stock positions both onshore and in Hong Kong.

    “We are in the worst of this cycle and we are not out of woods yet. It’s going to take a long time for the current property crisis to be over,” said Kenny Wen,  head of investment strategy at KGI Asia Ltd. who participated in the informal poll. “Before the property crisis is properly handled, it’s unlikely for the stock market sentiment to recover meaningfully.”

    Investors may be staring at an added level of uncertainty after China Evergrande Group — an indebted real estate conglomerate which sits at the center of the sector’s years-long crisis — said Thursday that its billionaire chairman Hui Ka Yan is suspected of committing crimes. Meantime, Country Garden Holdings Co., formerly China’s biggest developer, continues to fight an uphill battle to avert a public bond default.

    The CSI 300 Index benchmark is down 4.7% so far in 2023, on track for an unprecedented third straight year of losses. That’s dragged the gauge’s valuation to 10.8 times its estimated earnings for the next 12 months, almost two points below the five-year average.

    The CSI 300 is expected to end the year at 4,100, based on the median forecast of the informal poll, implying a potential gain of about 11% from the latest close. The Hang Seng Index is projected to hit 20,500, indicating upside of around 15%, the results showed.

    More than half of the informal survey’s respondents said they see equities as the best investment option at the moment, versus cash or commodities. Nine out of the 15 polled also ruled out the need for state-backed funds to support the market in the fourth quarter.

    Overseas investors sold about 37 billion yuan ($5.1 billion) of mainland China stocks on a net basis in September via trading links with Hong Kong. That’s after a record 90 billion yuan selloff last month, which drove their positioning to the lowest since October 2022, when the nation’s reopening from stringent Covid curbs sparked a sharp rebound over the next three months.

    The continued selling by foreign funds has driven bets that the worst of outflows may be over. Less than a third of those surveyed expected fund flows via the so-called Stock Connect program to turn negative on a net basis for the year.
    “Yuan assets, especially A shares, are currently very cheap and many pockets of the market are oversold,” said Zhu Houzhong, a fund manager at Shanghai Youpu Investment Co. who took part in the informal poll.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 21:30

  • Federal Prosecutors Push For Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks
    Federal Prosecutors Push For Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks

    Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Federal prosecutors have urged the federal judge to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election interference case, citing the “prejudicial extrajudicial statements” he made on social media.

    Former President Donald Trump appears in court at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 4, 2023. (Steven Hirsch/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

    The special counsel team filed the request for a gag order against Mr. Trump on Sept. 15 to restrict him from making “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers, and other people involved in the criminal case.

    Prosecutors said on Sept. 25 that Mr. Trump continued to wage “a sustained campaign of prejudicial public statements regarding witnesses, the court, the district, and prosecutors” even after the proposed order.

    “The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others—whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own—feign retraction,” they said in a court filing (pdf).

    “No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either,” it added.

    They referred to recent posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, including one on Sept. 22 in which Mr. Trump accused departing Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley of committing treason.

    In the post, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Milley’s alleged “treasonous act” could have led to “a war between China and the United States.” He also suggested that Mr. Milley should be executed for his alleged conduct.

    Prosecutors also mentioned a video posted by Mr. Trump’s spokesman claiming that Mr. Trump had bought a Glock gun in South Carolina. The post was later removed, and the spokesman retracted his remarks, saying that Mr. Trump had only indicated his interest in buying the gun.

    Despite the spokesman’s retraction, prosecutors said that Mr. Trump “re-posted a video of the incident” posted by one of his followers with a caption that suggested he had indeed bought the weapon.

    “The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the prosecutors stated.

    Mr. Trump’s lawyers have objected to the request, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday set courtroom arguments for Oct. 16.

    Prosecutors Try to Silence Trump With Gag Order

    Mr. Trump’s lawyers have previously denounced the gag order request as an attempt to “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech. They called the request a “desperate attempt at censorship.”

    “The prosecution would silence President Trump, amid a political campaign where his right to criticize the government is at its zenith, all to avoid a public rebuke of this prosecution,” his lawyers wrote (pdf) on Sept. 25.

    “However, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.

    “The prosecution may not like President’s Trump’s entirely valid criticisms, but neither it nor this Court are the filter for what the public may hear,” they added.

    Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the proposed gag order was “sweepingly broad” and that “many of its terms are undefined.”

    If the order is granted, Mr. Trump would be forced to dramatically limit the type of comments he makes about the case even as he seeks to turn his criminal woes — the Washington prosecution is one of four that he currently faces — to his political advantage while running to reclaim the White House in 2024.

    His attorneys filed court papers on Sept. 27 saying that more time is required to deal with procedures for reviewing classified information in the federal case in which the former president is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

    Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 21:00

  • Morgan Stanley Warns Of A "Chilly Season for Travel" As Middle-Class Consumers Falter
    Morgan Stanley Warns Of A “Chilly Season for Travel” As Middle-Class Consumers Falter

    Morgan Stanley US equity strategist Michelle Weaver joins a growing number of Wall Street analysts warning about deteriorating conditions for consumers. Weaver wrote in a recent note to clients that travel companies exposed to “lower-income consumers” are beginning to experience “demand weakness.” 

    Weaver’s note, published on Sept. 21, follows JPMorgan consumer trader Brian Heavey’s truth bomb on Sept. 20 when he turned extraordinarily negative on the US consumer. Since then, Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer, penned a note about the ‘consumer falling off a cliff.’ 

    “A significant proportion of US Consumers have drawn down their Covid era excess savings and our US Economics team estimates that lower-income households have fully exhausted their excess savings, while middle- and higher-income households are less willing to spend their excess savings on consumption,” Weaver told clients. 

    Her note was published after the Fed’s latest beige book that warned: “Some Districts highlighted reports suggesting consumers may have exhausted their savings and are relying more on borrowing to support spending.” And a period when credit card growth wanes, and the consumer has never been in worse shape. 

    Also, the three-year pause in student loan payments has expired, as some 28 million borrowers are imminently facing a restart in payments. This will add a $15.8 billion monthly headwind – or $190 billion per year – to US consumer spending. 

    Understanding all of this, Weaver’s view is that some of the first impacts of a slowdown will be “travel companies exposed to the lower-income consumer showing indications of demand weakness.” 

    Here’s more from the note:

    • Low-Cost Airlines Slowing. A number of major airlines attended Morgan Stanley’s Industrials Conference last week and there was a marked difference in tone between the Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCCs) and Legacy Airlines. Two high-utilization ULCCs noted that demand has taken a significant, sharp turn down and these companies now expect pre-tax margins to be significantly lower. These companies may have higher exposure to low-income consumers (though we note that some other ULCC carriers with potential exposure to low-income consumers said that demand was trending in line with expectations). Meanwhile, the legacy carriers were much more positive on the demand environment and their primary concern remains higher fuel costs.

    • Hotels Are Showing Signs of Demand Weakening.TheGaming&Lodging industry has also been cooling especially in the economy segment of the market. Overall revenue per available room (RevPAR) for US hotels has been tracking at a lower trajectory for 3Q vs 2Q and hotel occupancy is down vs 2019. Economy RevPAR has been consistently down 3-4% yoy since April. While on the high-end, luxury RevPAR was down 4% in April, then flat to -2% through summer and down -3% MTD for September. Economy and luxury hotel demand is driven by leisure, consumer travel rather than business travel. There has also been weakness in the regional casino space over the past 6 months, which is primarily exposed to lower- and middle- income consumers.

    • Consumers Intend to Shift to Cheaper Modes of Travel. Our most recent AlphaWise Consumer Survey shows that consumers want to keep traveling and 58% of respondents are planning to travel over the next 6 months. Net spending plans for international travel declined from 0% last month to -8% this month, while domestic travel plans without a flight moved higher. This indicates that consumers want to keep traveling but are increasingly looking at taking cheaper trips and are choosing destinations they can drive or take a train to vs having to fly.

    She added:

    Travel has shown signs of cooling, led by areas exposed to low-income consumers. This problem could broaden out crimping company margins and earnings. We believe there could be more downside ahead and are underweight the Consumer Discretionary sector.

    None of this is a surprise, as we’ve already reported in July, “Airline Stocks Hit Turbulence After Alaska Air Signals Slowing Demand,” and last month, “American Airlines Cuts Earnings Forecast As Headwinds Hit Airline Industry.” In mid-July, we said, “Cash-Strapped Consumers Travel By Bus To Destination Hotspots.” 

    Still no recovery in airline stocks. 

    Meanwhile, last week, Personal Consumption data in the latest GDP revision collapsed in a stunning 9-sigma miss to expectations. 

    … and there goes the “strong” Bidenomics economy as “strong” data points only last about a month and then are downgraded. 

    Beware of a faltering consumer. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 20:25

  • For Some, Open Border Chaos Is The Goal
    For Some, Open Border Chaos Is The Goal

    Authored by Pete McGinnis via RealClearPolitics.com,

    Beware, the crisis at the southern border may be much worse than it appears…

    Free Apple watches, bus and plane tickets all across the continental United States, and sophisticated lawyers standing by to counsel migrants on how to best navigate border officials’ scrutiny of asylum on the occasions when they are actually required to defend their asylum claims. These benefits being offered to illegal border crossers have left the public shocked, angry, and in many cases, feeling the issue closer to home than ever before. Many cities and states have also been overwhelmed as the consequences of the crisis have migrated well beyond the southern border states. Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made news when he emphatically declared that the now-regular stream of migrants into the Big Apple “will ruin the City!”

    It’s not just local budgets and social services that are being squeezed to the breaking point, although those are nothing to sneeze at and will have to be addressed. The increase in crime may be the biggest concern. Violent crime rates are up, and violent incidents are prominent on the nightly news. Less visible are the other criminal enterprises causing ripple effects. Human trafficking has gained more attention as its shocking reality is (very) slowly exposed. The recently released independent film, “The Sound of Freedom,” struck a chord for this very reason – human trafficking is striking too close to home for most Americans’ peace of mind. 

    Then there are the drugs. The opioid epidemic has gotten substantially worse in the last few years, with annual overdose deaths, after a slight decline from 2017 through 2019, increasing dramatically in the last several years. As if this isn’t bad enough, the opportunities for smuggling in other illegal contraband have increased as well.

    Experts speculate that the drug cartels have collaborated with hostile actors, including Chinese Communists, to further take advantage of what they (rightly) view as a U.S. government intent on not enforcing the laws at our southern border. Notably, illicit tobacco and vaping products appear to have become a prime fundraising target for the burgeoning Chinese drug cartel alliance. While teenage vaping and flavored tobacco products have become a major concern for federal regulators, it is projected that most vaping products being sold are illegal and that 90% of the vaping products originate in China. Ironically, the reaction of federal authorities and policymakers has been to propose more prohibitions on legal products – overwhelmingly used by adults and lifetime smokers to transition away from cigarettes – rather than addressing the source of the problem: the flood of illegal products through our open border. It’s another example of the dangers that come from a dysfunctional government.

    To elaborate, federal tobacco regulators appear set on using the robust cartel-supported black market in vaping products aimed at kids to further their long-time prohibitionist agenda (and one of Michael Bloomberg’s favorite pet projects). These regulatory efforts have been bolstered by user-fee supported special interest groups who fund splashy ad campaigns highlighting teen vaping use as the basis for their actions. Yet, the regulatory agenda seeks to outlaw a whole host of products used by adults, for which abolition seems certain to offer an even greater market opportunity for the Chinese drug cartel alliance and likely to increase access to illicit products by youth.

    This may be a shocking observation to some, but this example and others indicate that senior government officials may see the lawlessness stemming from the border as a feature rather than a bug. Take Claire Trickler-McNulty, the Biden administration’s assistant director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials like Ms. Trickler-McNulty appear set on turning law enforcement agencies into social services organizations. Before joining the Biden administration, Trickler-McNulty worked for an organization that advocated for the abolition of the agency she now helps lead – in the spirit of the “defund the police” movement. Unsurprisingly, the overrun southern border has given her social service aspirations lots of prospective “clients” seeking federal assistance.

    While Trickler-McNulty has faced criticism for the so-called transition from a traditional law enforcement focus, she appears unfazed. The same could also be said of her former employer, Kids in Need of Defense, a major recipient of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation that has also benefited handsomely from its influential role in the Biden administration’s open border policy with a $13 million contract.

    The ways in which American families and businesses are being harmed by the open border policies could fill volumes. But it’s clear that state budgets, neighborhood safety, and our children’s futures are all being endangered while the drug cartels and our most powerful foreign adversaries become enriched and empowered. Instead of using these tragedies to advance the special interest agendas of Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, perhaps we could all agree that the American chapter on human trafficking, opioids, and open borders should be relegated to the history books.

    Pete McGinnis is director of communications at the Functional Government Initiative.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 19:50

  • Canada To Create Registry Of Podcasters In Potential Censorship Initiative 
    Canada To Create Registry Of Podcasters In Potential Censorship Initiative 

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking Canada down a dangerous path of censorship to regulate streaming services and social media platforms. The next regulation phase comes as some podcasters will soon have to register with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

    The Online Streaming Act, formerly Bill C-11, goes into effect on Nov. 28, meaning any online streaming service that operates in Canada and generates revenue of more than $10 million in a given year will have to register with CRTC. 

    The Canadian government pitches the new rule as a “modern broadcasting framework that can adapt to changing circumstances. To do that, we need broad engagement and robust public records.” It requires those podcasters to register with CRTC ‘only once’ and “collects basic information” from them, such as:

    “First, the CRTC is setting out which online streaming services need to provide information about their activities in Canada.”

    So what’s with the government creating a database of prominent podcasters?

    One potential reason could be for the Liberal government to censor unapproved government narratives quickly. Having a registry of podcasters and the type of content they create makes it much easier for those in the government’s censorship department. 

     “The CRTC now wants to regulate podcasts,” Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley posted on X, adding, “Here is my simple message to them. Go to hell.” 

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    On Sunday morning, Elon Musk chimed in on the conversation, responding to X account Wall Street Silver: “Regulate podcasts!?” 

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    While Trudeau has called everyone under the sun a ‘Nazi,’ from a Jewish member of parliament named Melissa Lantsman to “Freedom Convoy” trucker protesters, the radical leftist prime minister recently applauded a literal Waffen-SS Nazi with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Canada’s Parliament. 

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    Trudeau immediately blamed “Russian disinformation” for applauding the Nazi. 

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    Even though Trudeau eventually apologized for applauding the Nazi, his attempt to distort reality is another sign that the government routinely engages in mass censorship campaigns and further wants to regulate what podcasters have to say. 

    Remember, building a registry makes the job much easier for the government. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 19:15

  • AOC Defends Lawmaker Who Pulled Fire Alarm To 'Open Door' And Totally Not Disrupt The Democratic Process
    AOC Defends Lawmaker Who Pulled Fire Alarm To ‘Open Door’ And Totally Not Disrupt The Democratic Process

    Democratic lawmaker Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) thinks we’re all idiots, after offering an unbelievable excuse after he was caught on CCTV pulling the fire alarm in a House office building while Democrats were trying to delay a House vote on the stopgap bill which eventually passed at the 11th hour.

    Bowman – who founded a school that would have held several fire drills per year, wants us to believe he mistook this fire alarm…

    …for an automatic door opener that he was trying to use to open a clearly marked emergency exit.

    In a Saturday statement, Bowman said “I want to personally clear up confusion surrounding today’s events,” adding “Today, as I was rushing to make a vote, I came to a door that is usually open.” (it’s not)

    “I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door.”

    U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) speaks to reporters in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 22, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    And of course, galaxy brain AOC had to chime in…

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    And now, Bowman has found himself under investigation.

    “Rep (Jamaal) Bowman pulled a fire alarm in Cannon this morning,” said House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), who added that “An investigation into why it was pulled is underway.”

    As the Epoch Times notes; The fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building, often called the “Old House Office Building,” was triggered around noon, leading to an evacuation of the entire building while the House was in session. The building was reopened an hour later, after Capitol Police determined the situation was not a threat.

    Capitol Police said in a statement late Saturday that an “investigation into what happened and why continues.”

    The fire alarms in the Old House Office Building are pull down triggers encased in bright red boxes that read “FIRE.”

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    The Epoch Times has reached out to the Capitol Police for further comment.

    At the time of the evacuation, Democrat lawmakers in the House were working to delay a vote on a 45-day funding bill to keep federal agencies open. They said they needed time to review the 71-page bill that Republicans had just released to avoid a shutdown.

    The stopgap funding bill was ultimately passed in a 335-91 vote. Mr. Bowman and a majority of Democrats voted in support of the bill.

    Lawmakers in the Senate in a vote late Saturday night passed the measure, sending it to President Joe Biden to sign in order to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. President Biden signed the measure late Saturday night.

    After the bill passed the House, a number of Republicans, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), criticized Mr. Bowman for having triggered the fire alarm.

    Mr. McCarthy on Saturday afternoon called for an investigation into Mr. Bowman, telling reporters at a press conference, “I think ethics should look at this.”

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    He noted Mr. Bowman’s action was caught on camera and said it “should not go without punishment.”

    Turley opines

    According to constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley;

    In D.C., this would constitute a criminal misdemeanor. It would also obviously be treated as sanctionable conduct under the House rules. Even without addressing any attempt to cause fear or panic, here is the most obvious crime:

    § 22–1319. False alarms and false reports; hoax weapons.

    (a) It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully or knowingly give a false alarm of fire within the District of Columbia, and any person or persons violating the provisions of this subsection shall, upon conviction, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not more than the amount set forth in § 22-3571.01 or by imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Prosecutions for violation of the provisions of this subsection shall be on information filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

    (a-1) It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully or knowingly use, or allow the use of, the 911 call system to make a false or fictitious report or complaint which initiates a response by District of Columbia emergency personnel or officials when, at the time of the call or transmission, the person knows the report or complaint is false. Any person or persons violating the provisions of this subsection shall, upon conviction, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine not more than the amount set forth in § 22-3571.01 or by imprisonment for not more than 6 months. Prosecutions for violation of the provisions of this subsection shall be on information filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

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    Let’s see if Bowman, who by the transitive properties of bullshit is now an insurrectionist, will face justice.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:55

  • Things Are Going So Well For Biden That…
    Things Are Going So Well For Biden That…

    By Mish Shedlock of Mishtalk

    Let’s count the ways…

    Key Ideas

    • Voters are now more likely to see the Republican Party as capable of governing, tackling big issues and keeping the country safe compared with the Democratic Party.
    • By a 9-point margin, voters also see the Democratic Party as more ideologically extreme than the GOP.
    • The trends against the Democratic Party are largely driven by worsening perceptions among its own voter base, which suggests that the party will have to rely more than ever on negative partisanship to keep control of the White House.

    Those are not my thoughts. That’s what the latest Morning Consult poll shows.

    In a significant reversal from the last presidential election year, U.S. voters are now more likely to see the Republican Party as capable of governing, keeping the country safe and tackling the big issues compared with the Democratic Party. These crossing trend lines provide a stark contrast from the lead-up to 2020, when Morning Consult surveys showed public opinion on the same questions was more static.

    Both parties are also trending in different directions on two other characteristics that voters favored Democrats on in 2020. Voters have become less likely to see the GOP as stale, and more likely to say this descriptor fits the Democratic Party. And over that same time frame, voters increasingly say the GOP is responsible.

    It’s not just that some voters have lost faith in the Democratic Party’s stewardship of the country — they also see the party as moving asymmetrically away from ideological moderation.

    By an almost double-digit margin, voters are now more likely to say the Democratic Party is “too liberal” than they are to say the GOP is “too conservative.” That’s another big change from 2020, when roughly equivalent shares viewed both parties as too ideologically extreme.

    Claim Everything is Working

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    People elected Biden (barely) for two reasons. The first being he wasn’t Trump. The second being they expected him to be a moderate.

    Then instead of bringing the nation together as promised, Biden morphed into the Progressive’s dream candidate stoking inflation with every decision.

    Voters are upset. They want action on the border. They want better schools. They are fearful of inflation.

    They don’t want to give up their gas stove. They don’t want to be forced into a high-priced EV when the infrastructure isn’t ready.

    They did not expect Biden to be like Trump.

    Biden is telling people how great the Bidenomics economy is, how he’s providing the most jobs, that he is best this and the best that, and the economy is humming, and he is bringing inflation down at the fastest pace in history.

    Whatever. It seems so hollow because it is hollow. And voters see right through it.

    Other than being much more polite in his delivery, Biden may as well have said, “I built a wall and Mexico paid for it”.

    Somehow it seems harder to lie and get away with it when you are in power than when you aren’t.

    Bidenomics In a Nutshell

    1. Hand out free money via unwarranted subsidies to ease the pain of stupid regulations
    2. Stoke massive inflation in the process
    3. Brag that it is working.

    Here’s the deal. You can run against Trump once and win if your key message is “I’m not Trump.”

    But can you do it twice with nothing more than inflation and a more polite delivery to back it up?

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:40

  • Michigan Teen Who Clocked Teacher In Head With Metal Chair Arrested On Felony Assault Charges
    Michigan Teen Who Clocked Teacher In Head With Metal Chair Arrested On Felony Assault Charges

    A 15-year-old Michigan teen is two facing felony assault charges after she was caught on video launching a metal chair at her teacher’s head during a heated argument with another student.

    The teacher, who attempted to break up the fight, turned her back to the assailant when the chair was hurled at the educator, striking her in the head and causing her to drop to the floor where she did not move for approximately seven seconds.

    The Genesee County Prosecutor’s office made the arrest following the “unacceptable act of violence,” which went viral last week, ABC 12 reports.

    The teacher was found lying on the ground by the school resource office, who entered the classroom to break up the fight, according to Flint Police Chief Terence Green. 

    Both girls involved in the fight were placed under arrest, while the unnamed teacher was quickly rushed to the hospital. She has since been released and is “doing well.”

    “We are committed to ensuring that our schools are safe and conducive to learning for all scholars, and we take this responsibility very seriously,” wrote the district’s superintendent, who said that the girl who threw the chair will be held accountable.

    As the NY Post notes, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig said “This video perfectly captures the sad state of Education in Michigan – no sense of order or direction, no respect for teachers, and worst of all, NO LEARNING,” adding “Failure to educate young Michiganders is a recipe for increased CRIME, upticks in UNEMPLOYMENT, and SOCIETAL DISORDER. Michiganders deserve better.”

    Craig is planning to run as a Republican in the upcoming Senate race.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 18:05

  • 20th Busload Of Illegal Immigrants Arrives In Downtown Los Angeles
    20th Busload Of Illegal Immigrants Arrives In Downtown Los Angeles

    Via The Epoch Times,

    Yet another bus carrying illegal immigrants arrived in downtown Los Angeles Sept. 30, marking the 20th such arrival since June.

    “One bus with migrants on board from Texas arrived around 1:45 p.m. today at Union Station,” read a statement from Mayor Karen Bass’s office.

    “This is the 20th bus that has arrived. The city has continued to work with city departments, the county, and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year. As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.”

    When three busloads with 109 illegal immigrants arrived Friday, Ms. Bass noted that “Governor [Greg] Abbott continues to put vulnerable lives in jeopardy with limited food and water on multi-day bus journeys to Los Angeles.”

    On X, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) confirmed the arrival of 27 asylum-seekers Saturday with no children. It did not specify from which nations they had come.

    While the collective expected 109 illegal immigrants to arrive Friday, it only assisted 65, citing that some of them may have been picked up by family members or sponsors, or some left immediately upon their arrival at Union Station.

    Of the 65 illegal immigrants, 16 were children and there were 35 family-units, meaning migrants who traveled with a spouse, partner, a child or children. Additionally, 36 were female and 29 were male.

    According to the CHIRLA, which is a member of the L.A. Welcomes Collective, a network of nonprofit, faith groups, and city and county services that respond to the arrival of migrant buses, a third of all illegal immigrants arriving in Los Angeles by bus have been children.

    “When migrants arrive in California—more than 434,000 have arrived in California since 2019—we receive them, integrate them into society, and they in turn contribute positively to our way of life. The Golden State is an immigrant state and that will not change,” CHIRLA wrote on X.

    Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks onstage during EMILYs List’s 2023 Pre-Oscars Breakfast at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 7, 2023. (Araya Doheny/Getty Images for EMILYs List)

    The Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice, another member of the collective, wrote on X they learned of two of Friday’s buses early Friday morning. The lack of information resulted in “stretching our resources for greeting people with dignity and respect, helping them reunite with family and connect with sponsors,” according to CLUE Justice.

    “It is abhorrent and cruel of Gov. Abbott to send human beings who are tired, hungry and yearning for a safe haven on a 30-hour bus ride without regard for their care, journey or destination,” CHIRLA wrote on X.

    “It is clear he is trying to disrupt our efforts, but we will persevere.”

    Jorge-Mario Cabrera, director of communications for CHIRLA, told City News Service since June a third, 35 percent of illegal immigrants arriving on buses from Texas are children, which is one of many reasons the collective condemns Mr. Abbot’s actions.

    Mr. Cabrera also noted some “folks [illegal immigrants] told us that L.A. was not their destination. They were just told to get on that bus.” Many had not eaten in three days, he added.

    The collective usually gets tips hours ahead from volunteers, organizations or from good Samaritans about the arrival of a bus. The route of buses from Brownsville are easier to predict, Mr. Cabrera said, but when they are sent from different cities like Del Rio, it’s “difficult to guess when they’ll arrive.”

    Migrants who have crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2023, enter a Border Patrol vehicle to be taken to a processing facility. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

    Illegal immigrants received a medical check up, and no one was in need of serious medical attention. Mr. Cabrera reiterated the collective will support them with basic needs as they are met by their family or sponsors.

    Mr. Cabrera said he hopes the buses will slow down and stop altogether because Gov. Abbott is using illegal immigrants as “political pawns” without regard to their health. But he knows that is less than likely as the political season takes shape.

    Texas Gov. Abbott has been arranging the trips under Operation Lone Star (OLS), saying Texas’s border region is “overwhelmed” by immigrants crossing the Mexican border. OLS is a joint operation between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department along the southern border between Texas and Mexico.

    In a recent interview with Fox News, Mr. Abbott said “What we’ve seen is when Democrats have to face up to the reality of what Texas has to deal with every single day, they adopt the same approach that Texas has.”

    “We need the president to start enforcing the immigration laws of the United States of America, period,” he added.

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a news conference in Beaumont, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

    Ms. Bass has complained that Mr. Abbott’s office does not share enough information with Los Angeles about the shipments. She told KNX that if Mr. Abbott’s concerns and actions were legitimate and sincere, then “someone in the government and Texas would notify us and coordinate with us.”

    “We hear about the buses headed our way when they’re on the way. We have no idea who’s going to be on the bus, how many people it is or what condition they’re going to be in when they get here,” she said.

    “Sometimes they haven’t had any food, barely had enough water.”

    The Los Angeles City Council approved a motion on June 9 seeking to formally establish the city as a sanctuary city.

    Last month, the council approved a motion calling for the City Attorney’s Office to investigate whether crimes were committed on or before June 14, when Mr. Abbott sent 42 illegal immigrants to Los Angeles in the first of the shipments.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 17:30

  • Trump Receives Cheers From CA Crowd After Arguing In Favor Of Shooting Looters
    Trump Receives Cheers From CA Crowd After Arguing In Favor Of Shooting Looters

    Donald Trump is, if anything, very skilled at reading the room, or in this case reading the overall mood of the country.  In 2015, suggesting that looters become free game for law enforcement and that they should fully expect to be shot while leaving stores might have been the kind of comment that lost him the election.  Or at least it would have garnered a tidal wave of outrage and debates over police overreach.  Today, the public is tired of certain groups of malcontents being allowed to do whatever they please whenever they please without consequences simply because of their supposed victim group status.

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    In this day and age, skipping past the arrest process and shooting looters sounds reasonable even to crowds in Anaheim, California.  The pendulum always swings the other direction, and in some cases it swings hard.

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    With numerous Democrats either lying about the ongoing spike in crime across the country or defending the practice of mass theft as a form of righteous “reparations” or activism, the perception among criminals is that it is now open season, and perhaps they are even justified in their actions.  According to Dems, the criminals are the good guys.

    The perception among conservatives and moderates is that progressives fully intend to let America burn while gaslighting the public about how the fire is not that hot.  Americans are obviously not buying it.  Since 2022, polls show that at least 78% of Americans believe crime is rising across the nation with 56% saying they have seen a direct increase where they live. 

    These poll results led to an extensive corporate media campaign over the course of 2023, in which journalists used faulty and incomplete stats to argue that crime is actually going down.  In reality, a host of Democrat run cities and states are withholding full reports on their crime statistics while the Federal Government adjusts the manner in which they collate the data.  This readjustment conveniently started during the covid lockdowns as crime began to skyrocket. 

    Needless to say, the country is fed up.  However, it should be noted that Trump seems to focus particularly on law enforcement as being held back from doing their jobs while overlooking the reality that property owners in many areas hit with theft are also held back from defending themselves and their businesses.  Fear of targeted prosecution is real, with blue cities aggressively pursuing jail time for people stopping a crime, specifically if a minority happens to be harmed.   

    The first line of defense is not local law enforcement, it is the property owner.  When something bad happens, they will be the first people on the scene.  The question of freeing up police to do their jobs is secondary to the question of the attempted degradation of the right to self defense.  Making shop owners safe to shoot looters regardless of the kinds of politicians and prosecutors that run the cities they live in would more likely have the kind of impact on crime that Trump describes.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 16:55

  • "Who Do Americans Think They Are?" Charles Nenner Warns "It's Over, They Can't Rule The World Anymore"
    “Who Do Americans Think They Are?” Charles Nenner Warns “It’s Over, They Can’t Rule The World Anymore”

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

    Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning his war cycles were turning up. 

    Nenner says, “It happens like clockwork in the second decade of a new century.” 

    Nenner says it’s a lot like the stock market running out of gas, and he warns,

    “It’s like a stock market that is topping.  First, the weak stocks go down.  Then, the indexes are still holding up, and then the big ones go down. 

    Now, you see for instance, Apple also came down, but first, the small stocks came down.  It’s already happening, but you only see the results suddenly when the whole thing crashes…

    Americans seem to have no worries about the war that could be coming. I don’t want people to lose sleep, but the pact is forming. 

    It is China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.  They are going against the United States that does not have a functional army anymore…

    Who do the Americans think they are?  It’s over, they can’t rule the world anymore.  If they are going to fight all these countries, I don’t think it is going to end well.”

    Does Nenner see the American Empire ending?  Nenner says,

    “I think it ended already, but we just don’t know it yet. 

    One of the signals of end of empire is bad education, which we have. 

    Another signal is the lifespan of people is shorter than for the people before. 

    What do you want me to say?  It does not look good, does it? 

    Another signal is your children have it worse than the generation before. 

    So, there is a whole list of signals, and it points to the United States is in trouble…

    I would be short America . . . and I would go long the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India China).

    Nenner says the stock market is on its way to being “substantially lower, but not just yet.” 

    Nenner also sees the cycles for gold, silver, bonds and real estate all going lower from here, but gold and silver will be going back up longer term.  The only thing Nenner likes right now are short-term Treasury bonds.  The dollar will hold up for now, but it is headed much lower in the not-so-distant future.  Nenner also likes energy, but it is cycling down at the moment. 

    Nenner says, “Inflation goes up and down” and warns, “Inflation is starting another up trend.”

    This round of inflation is probably going to be very painful for the common man.

    There is much more in the 41-minute interview.

    Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with renowned cycle analyst and financial expert Charles Nenner for 9.30.23.

    *  *  *

    To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here

    There is free information and analysis on CharlesNenner.com.

    You can also sign up to be a subscriber for Nenner’s cutting edge cycle work with a free trial period by clicking here.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 16:20

  • "Premiums Are Going Nuts Everywhere": Plunging US Supply Sends Oil Prices Around The World Soaring
    “Premiums Are Going Nuts Everywhere”: Plunging US Supply Sends Oil Prices Around The World Soaring

    Buyers of physical oil across the planet are experiencing an acute supply shortage and are facing some of the highest premiums for supplies they’ve seen in months as plunging stocks at the largest US crude storage hub send shockwaves cross markets from Asia to Europe and the Middle East.

    As Bloomberg reports, US crude cargoes on offer in Asia are being offered at the costliest premium this year. The spread between Brent and Middle East oil has jumped to the highest since February while the premium for near-term US supply is close to the highest since July 2022.

    Behind the soaring premiums is Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for benchmark US crude futures, which helps to set the price of oil across the Americas and beyond. As we have noted in recent weeks, inventories at the hub are now sitting just above seasonal lows last seen in 2014, and are effectively at the level known as “tank bottoms” below which inventories are for the most part unusable.

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

    Stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma tumbled below 22 million barrels last week, the lowest since July 2022, and have dropped for seven straight weeks, reaching the lowest level at this time of the year since at least 2018. At these levels, many traders consider inventories to already be at the lowest levels that allow tanks to function normally.

    The situation is forcing some traders to pay up big for last-minute supplies at Cushing. The prompt futures spread, which closely tracks supply and demand at the site, surged above $2 a barrel on Wednesday, the highest since July 2022.

    Meanwhile, the US refinery maintenance season is getting underway, which will prevent the storage hub from draining to absolute lows. Still, exports remain a wild card for balances, given that demand for American oil is high amid OPEC+ supply curbs, meaning domestic users will likely have to pay up to keep barrels in the US.

    Operationally, pulling oil out of tanks when levels fall below the so-called “suction line” is difficult and expensive, and the quality of crude can be compromised by the presence of water and sediment. For now, traders are expecting stockpiles to halt their decline by October and possibly start building up again, depending on how exports shape up. Indeed, this week’s drawdown was less than 1 million barrels — the first time that’s happened since early August.

    Cushing’s role in global oil markets has also diminished in recent years since the US lifted an export ban. Most barrels now flow straight from the prolific oilfields in Texas’ Permian Basin to the coast, where they are shipped to overseas buyers.

    “Cushing can stay at minimum operating operating levels for an extended period of time,” said Scott Shelton, an energy specialist at ICAP. “It’s now a transit point to the US Gulf Coast and a supply point for Cushing-based refiners.”

    The latest surge in US crude spreads also fueled a jump in Brent spreads, with the prompt spread climbing above $2 as well, to the widest in a year.

    All that’s happening just as the world was already facing a tight supply situation with Saudi Arabia and Russia cutting output. In recent months, the US had helped fill a void left in the market, routinely sending more than 4 million barrels every day to sate global appetite. Between overseas shipments and strong domestic demand, stockpiles quickly declined in the US. Now there’s a question of whether those flows will continue.

    “We’re running out of oil – you can see how low storage is at Cushing,” said Gary Ross, a veteran oil consultant turned hedge fund manager at Black Gold Investors LLC. “If we’re running out at Cushing, then we’re running out in Europe, because it relies on US exports. If the US exports less, then where is Europe going to get its oil from?”

    As supplies collapse, cargoes of WTI Midland crude for January delivery to Asia are being offered for sale at premiums of $9 a barrel above benchmark Dubai oil, according to traders who buy and sell the grade. That would be the highest premium seen this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Actual trading will likely start next week, giving more clarity on how much stronger the market for US barrels has gotten.

    Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude also surged against Dubai on the ICE Futures Abu Dhabi exchange. Although spot cargoes of Middle Eastern crude will only begin trading in the coming weeks, the premium of the grade — often compared with WTI Midland — increased to the highest since February/

    In the futures market, the surge is already apparent. The tightness in US supplies narrowed the gap between US crude and international benchmark Brent to under $3 a barrel, the smallest since May last year. Meanwhile, the spread between Brent and Middle East’s Dubai marker — also known as Brent-Dubai EFS — has skyrocketed

    While there’s been a lot of angst over the shrinking US inventories, there are yet to be any concrete signs of a slowdown in American exports.

    “Waterborne exports in October are still likely to come in close to 4 million barrels a day,” said Matt Smith, oil analyst at Kpler. “The lagged impact of the tightening Brent-WTI spread means we may not see the full impact until November’s loadings.”

    For November and beyond, it’s still likely exports will hover around the 4 million barrels a day level, Smith said, citing strong domestic shale production.

    Traders also point to inventories being fairly robust in the Gulf Coast region as a sign that US exports could continue to remain strong for a few weeks. At the same time, heavy seasonal refinery maintenance work in the US alongside turnarounds in Europe should also offer a cushion and free up some supplies.

    Already, prices for WTI in Midland and WTI at Houston are weakening relative to prices at Cushing. If that continues, it could re-open the arbitrage window to ship crude profitably to Asia. It should also help to send more barrels to Cushing.

    Still, there are signs that some European refiners are having to pay up for immediate supplies.

    Angola’s Sonangol sold four cargoes as much as $1.50 a barrel above offer prices over the past week, with three of the shipments likely going to Europe. Those cargoes would usually be destined for Asia — the atypical trade pattern reflects some of the market’s sharp swings this week.

    “The premiums are going nuts everywhere,” Ross said. “The Saudis have tightened this market up dramatically.” Almost as if Saudi Crown Prince MBS doesn’t care much for Joe Biden’s sole election “strategy” of keeping gas prices low – fist bumps notwithstanding…

    … especially now that the US SPR is half-empty and any continued drainage would lead to catastrophic collapse at the salt caverns that hold US emergency inventories, sending oil prices to new record highs.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 15:45

  • Over 277,000 'Vaccinated' COVID-19 Cases Hidden By CDC In 2021: Newly Obtained Files Show
    Over 277,000 ‘Vaccinated’ COVID-19 Cases Hidden By CDC In 2021: Newly Obtained Files Show

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    More than 277,000 COVID-19 cases among people who received COVID-19 vaccines were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2021 but not disclosed to the public, newly obtained files show.

    Some 144,349 cases among partially vaccinated people were reported by 32 jurisdictions to the CDC across three months in 2021, according to some of the files, which were acquired by The Epoch Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

    Partially vaccinated has been defined by the CDC as a person who received at least one dose of a vaccine. People were described as fully vaccinated if at least 14 days had elapsed since they completed a primary series.

    The Moderna and Pfizer primary series consisted of two doses while Johnson & Johnson’s consisted of one dose.

    The cases were recorded in California, Maryland, New York, Texas, and 28 other jurisdictions in April, May, and June 2021 and reported to the CDC.

    The CDC never disclosed the numbers to the public.

    “These data on partially vaccinated persons were not reported publicly but rather, were collected to ensure that that they were being appropriately excluded from the numbers of vaccine breakthrough cases as described as a best practice on the CDC website,” staffers at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases told The Epoch Times in a letter.

    On a webpage advising state and local officials on how to analyze patterns of COVID-19 by vaccination status, the CDC recommends excluding people who only received one Moderna or Pfizer dose or analyzing them separately.

    The exclusion is recommended “because only people that have received all of the recommended primary series doses and have had the required duration of time to form a protective immunological response after vaccination (14 days, per the definition) would be expected to receive the full benefit of the COVID-19 vaccination,” the CDC said. “In general, the immunological response to a primary vaccination series usually takes 2–4 weeks. Only partial protection is provided to partially vaccinated persons.”

    Stopped Reporting

    The CDC stopped reporting post-vaccination infections among the fully vaccinated, or breakthrough cases, in May 2021, after disclosing that 10,262 breakthrough infections were reported to the agency by 46 jurisdictions through April 30, 2021.

    The CDC said that 995 of the cases resulted in hospitalization and 160 resulted in death.

    The CDC said it shifted to only reporting breakthrough cases that resulted in hospitalization or death “to help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance.”

    It’s not clear how many infections in the partially vaccinated that the CDC did not disclose before led to hospitalization or death.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    Changed Definition

    The CDC initially defined a breakthrough case as people who tested positive seven or more days after completing a primary series but changed the definition to testing positive at least 14 days after completion of a primary series after emailing about “vaccine failure,” documents obtained by The Epoch Times showed.

    “CDC made the change to the definition of a breakthrough infection time period due to the most current data that showed that the 14-day period was required for an effective antibody response to the vaccines,” a CDC spokesman told The Epoch Times recently via email.

    The CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases falsely said in the new letter that it never changed the definition.

    “Since COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough surveillance began (January 2021), the definition of a breakthrough infection has been the same,” the center claimed.

    The CDC has not sent a correction as of yet. It has made other false claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which remain uncorrected.

    The CDC also said that some of the partially vaccinated numbers were reported on one of its webpages, but a review of archived versions of that page did not show that to be the case. The page, which has been taken down, said that cases among the partially vaccinated were excluded.

    Hid Other Cases

    Another 133,000 post-vaccination cases occurred among Medicare beneficiaries through September 2021, according to Humetrix, a contractor that analyzed the data. The case count excluded partially vaccinated people.

    Humetrix provided the data to the CDC in August 2021, according to other documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

    The CDC spoke in meetings with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the CDC’s panel of vaccine advisers, and the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after receiving that data but did not present it to either one.

    The meetings resulted in the approval of Pfizer’s vaccine and the authorization of a Pfizer booster. The CDC then recommended both for wide swaths of the U.S. population.

    The CDC declined to comment on withholding the Humetrix data.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 10/01/2023 – 15:10

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