Sep 02

Today’s News 2nd September 2021

  • Watch: Shocking Footage Of NYC, NJ Flooding After Torrential Rain
    Watch: Shocking Footage Of NYC, NJ Flooding After Torrential Rain

    A severe weather system fueled by the remnants of what was Hurrican Ida has struck the Northeast – sending flash floods into New York City subways and multiple tornadoes through New Jersey, causing governors of both states and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to declare state of emergencies.

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    According to Weather.com, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority has suspended some train service due to excessive water entering the tracks between Brooklyn and Manhattan at around 10:30 p.m. Some lines were also suspended in New Jersey.

    New Yorkers and New Jersey residents braving the severe weather have been posting shocking footage on social media of flooded streets, flooded subways, and backflushing toilets which has to be seen to be believed.

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    Stay safe out there.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 23:35

  • Amid Hyperinflation And Economic Ruin, A Humanitarian Crisis Breaks Out In Afghanistan
    Amid Hyperinflation And Economic Ruin, A Humanitarian Crisis Breaks Out In Afghanistan

    Two weeks ago, when the world was still transfixed by the historic US foreign policy failure which allowed the Taliban to overrun Afghanistan in a matter of hours which has made the Biden administration the laughing stock of both the developing and developed worlds, we said that “for all the focus on the humanitarian crisis unfolding at an unprecedented pace in Afghanistan, many are forgetting that an even worse economic disaster awaits the “Islamic Emirate” of Afghanistan now that the Taliban are in charge.”

    So today, as the Taliban were celebrating and parading in their brand new US military hardware, behind the scenes a far more catastrophic scene was unfolding: the economic disaster we warned would happen within weeks.

    As Reuters reports, now that the initial adrenaline rush is gone, Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are struggling to keep the country functioning after the final withdrawal of U.S. forces, with foreign donors alarmed about an impending humanitarian crisis. Indeed, two weeks since the Taliban’s sweep into Kabul brought a chaotic end to 20 years of warfare, the Islamist militants have yet to name a new government or reveal how they intend to rule.

    In the administrative vacuum, prices have soared, the currency has crashed, commercy has ground to a halt, and crowds have gathered at banks to withdraw cash. Meanwhile, as heavily armed fighters imposed control on the capital, Taliban officials were grappling with keeping hospitals and government machinery running following the end of a huge airlift of foreigners and Afghans who had helped Western forces.

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    The new, Taliban-appointed central bank head – who has no formal experience but after all, how difficult can it be to hit CTRL P – has sought to reassure banks the group wants a fully functioning financial system, but has so far given no detail on how it will supply funds for it.

    Amid the chaos, Qatar’s Al Jazeera television reported that Qatari technical experts had arrived at the Taliban’s request to discuss resuming operations at Kabul airport, currently inoperable. The foreign minister of neighbouring Pakistan, which has close ties to the Taliban, said he expected Afghanistan to have a new “consensus government” within days. Then again, this is

    In Washington, where the end of America’s longest war has sparked the biggest crisis of President Joe Biden’s administration, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said the United States is looking at all possible options and routes to continue to help Americans and legal permanent residents leave Afghanistan.

    Washington would keep having conversations with the Taliban that serve U.S. interests, she told reporters, adding the United States would look at how it could give aid to Afghanistan without benefiting any government that it forms. This is the same Victoria Nuland who said “Fuck the EU” during the CIA’s botched Ukraine coup.

    Meanwhile, with the airport now in Taliban hands, people fearful of life under Taliban rule rushed to the borders.  In Panjshir province, members of local militias and remnants of former military units were still holding out under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud. Senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Motaqi called on them to put down weapons and negotiate.

    “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is home for all Afghans,” he said in a speech, apparently forgetting the brutal scenes of murder of Afghani allies just days earlier, and which were caught on video.

    Amusingly, the Taliban have declared an amnesty for all Afghans who worked with foreign forces, calling on Afghans to return home and help rebuild – of course some or all of those gullible enough to believe this call may be killed, and even though the Taliban have promised to protect human rights in an effort to present a more moderate face than their first government, which enforced a strict version of sharia law, including banning women from education and employment, so far this has all been a farce.

    But while rounding up the population under false pretenses will take time, the Talibans’ more immediate concern is staving off economic collapse. Afghanistan desperately needs money, and the Taliban are unlikely to get swift access to the roughly $10 billion in assets mostly held abroad by the Afghan central bank.

    The acting central bank governor, Haji Mohammad Idris, met members of the Afghanistan Banks Association and other financiers this week, said two bankers who attended the meeting. The militant group was working to find solutions for liquidity and rising inflation, they quoted Idris as saying.

    “They were very charming and asked banks what their concerns were,” said one of the bankers who requested anonymity.

    Maybe they should try crypto while they still have some hard currency?

    Until then, however, Afghanistan has hyperinflation to look forward to. Long lines have formed at banks, the currency is sinking, inflation is rising and many offices and shops remain shut. “Everything is expensive now, prices are going up every day,” said Kabul resident Zelgai. Someone should tell him it’s all “transitory.”

    Hilariously, the Taliban have ordered banks to reopen, but strict weekly limits on withdrawals have been imposed. And it’s not like the banks have cash.

    Outside the capital, humanitarian organizations have warned of impending catastrophe as severe drought has hit farmers and forced thousands of rural poor to seek shelter in the cities. But foreign donors are unsure about whom to speak to. Taliban officials have said the problems will ease once a new government is in place, and have urged other countries to maintain economic relations, by which they mean crates of inbound cash. That however is unlikely.

    Some have finally grasped the enormity of the situation – there is simply nobody within the Taliban population who is capable of running a monetary system, let along a country. Bankers outside Afghanistan said it would be impossible to get the financial system running again without the bank specialists who joined the exodus. “I don’t know how they will manage it because all the technical staff, including senior management, has left the country,” one banker said.

    There is the additional problem that many foreign governments view the Taliban as terrorists: the European Union will need to engage with the Talibanbut will not rush into formally recognizing them as the new rulers of Afghanistan, a senior EU official said.

    Meanwhile, more than 123,000 people were evacuated from Kabul in the U.S.-led airlift after the Taliban seized the city in mid-August, but tens of thousands of Afghans at risk remained behind. With Kabul’s airport out of action, efforts to help Afghans fearful of the Taliban focused on arranging safe passage across the borders with Iran, Pakistan and central Asia.

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    At Torkham, a crossing with Pakistan just east of the Khyber Pass, a Pakistani official said: “A large number of people are waiting on the Afghanistan side for the opening of the gate.” Uzbekistan’s border with northern Afghanistan remained shut.

    Britain and India held separate talks with Taliban officials in Doha amid fears that up to half a million Afghans could flee.

    The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Wednesday that Afghans had so far largely stayed within Afghanistan and only small numbers had fled to neighbouring countries.  It called for $300 million in international funding for the humanitarian emergency. 

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    The Taliban said they had surrounded forces in Panjshir, the only province still resisting, and called on them to negotiate a settlement.

    Meanwhile, some Taliban leaders mocked the United States.

    “Your power is gone, your gold is gone,” Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader, said on Twitter, posting a photo of himself holding discarded shackles as he toured Bagram prison, where he was held for years by U.S. forces.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 23:18

  • Greenwald: Ben Rhodes' Book Proves Obama Officials' Lies, And His Own, About Edward Snowden And Russia
    Greenwald: Ben Rhodes’ Book Proves Obama Officials’ Lies, And His Own, About Edward Snowden And Russia

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

    Ever since Edward Snowden received asylum from Russia in 2013, Obama officials have repeatedly maligned his motives and patriotism by citing his “choice” to take up residence there. It has long been clear that this narrative was a lie: Snowden, after meeting with journalists in Hong Kong, intended only to transit through Moscow and then Havana on his way to seek asylum in Latin America. He was purposely prevented from leaving Russia — trapped in the Moscow airport — by the very Obama officials who then cynically weaponized his presence there to imply he was a civil-liberties hypocrite for “choosing” to live in such a repressive country or, even worse, a Kremlin agent or Russian spy.

    Ben Rhodes, then-Deputy National Security Advisor to US President Barack Obama, speaks about the President’s upcoming trip to Cuba during a daily press briefing at the White House February 18, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

    But now we have absolute, definitive proof that Snowden never intended to stay in Russia but was deliberately prevented from leaving by the same Obama officials who exploited the predicament which they created. The proof was supplied unintentionally in the memoir of one of Obama’s senior national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, entitled The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. It is hard to overstate how dispositively Rhodes’ own book proves that Obama officials generally, and Rhodes specifically, lied blatantly and cavalierly to the public about what happened: a level of sustained and conscious lying that can be explained only by sociopathy.

    The memoir of Rhodes, now appropriately an MSNBC contributor, is an incredibly self-serving homage to himself that repeatedly attempts to demonstrate his own importance and accomplishments. The passage about Rhodes’ conduct regarding Snowden is very much aligned with those goals. While repeatedly emphasizing how traumatic the Snowden revelations were for the Obama administrations, Rhodes boasts of the crucial role he played in preventing Snowden from leaving Russia as the NSA whistleblower was desperately attempting to do so — exactly the opposite of what people like Rhodes and Hillary Clinton were telling the public about Snowden.

    It is really beyond words how willing these people are to lie. One chapter of Rhodes’ book is devoted to the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Rhodes explains that the deep distrust between the countries that had endured for decades began to subside due to two events which he helped engineer. The first was the two countries’ agreement to improve the prison conditions for two prisoners: an American imprisoned by Cuba, the other a Cuban imprisoned by the U.S. The second even “more important signal” sent by Cuba showing its genuine desire to improve relations was their capitulation to Rhodes’ threats that they had better withdraw the permission they had granted Snowden to allow him to pass through Havana once he left the Moscow airport as planned, on his way to Latin America where he intended to seek asylum.

    In other words, Rhodes — who has spent years insinuating that Snowden is a Russian spy and traitor given his “choice” to flee to Russia — knew in real time that Snowden never planned to stay even one day in Russia. He had only flown to Moscow from Hong Kong with the intent to immediately fly from Moscow to Havana, and then on to either Ecuador or Bolivia to obtain asylum. Prior to landing in Moscow, Snowden and his representatives had secured a commitment from the Cuban government to allow him safe passage through Havana on his way to South America.

    The only reason Snowden is in Russia is because of the actions of Rhodes and his fellow Obama officials to deliberately trap him there: first by invalidating his passport so that he could not board any international flights, and then by threatening the Cuban government that any chance for normalization with the U.S. would be permanently destroyed unless they withdrew their guarantee to Snowden of safe passage through Havana, which they then did. Here’s Rhodes in his own words, boasting about what he regards as his success:

    There was one other, more important signal. Around the time of our second meeting, Edward Snowden was stuck in the Moscow airport, trying to find someone who would take him in. Reportedly, he wanted to go to Venezuela, transiting through Havana, but I knew that if the Cubans aided Snowden, any rapprochement between our countries would prove impossible. I pulled Alejandro Castro aside and said I had a message that came from President Obama. I reminded him that the Cubans had said they wanted to give Obama “political space” so that he could take steps to improve relations. “If you take in Snowden,” I said, “that political space will be gone.” I never spoke to the Cubans about this issue again. A few days later, back in Washington, I woke up to a news report: “Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden got stuck in the transit zone of a Moscow airport because Havana said it would not let him fly from Russia to Cuba, a Russian newspaper reported.” I took it as a message: The Cubans were serious about improving relations.

    Could this admission be any clearer? From the very beginning, Obama officials including Rhodes knew that Snowden had not traveled to Russia with the intention of staying there, but instead was — in Rhodes’ own words — “stuck in the Moscow airport” and was “trying to find someone who would take him in.” (Leave aside Rhodes’ other lie that Snowden intended to “go to Venezuela”; the NSA whistleblower’s plan was to travel from Moscow through Havana to Bolivia or Ecuador, but Rhodes, knowing how Americans view Caracas, purposely replaced Venezuela as the intended destination to further impugn Snowden’s motives). Rhodes then tells us how proud he is of himself for having successfully bullied Cuba out of allowing Snowden to fly through Havana as he intended, thus — in Rhodes’ own words — causing “Snowden [to] get stuck in the transit zone of a Moscow airport.”

    And yet, countless Obama officials — including, most amazingly, Rhodes himself — have spent years lying to the public by claiming exactly the opposite. Over and over, they impugned Snowden’s patriotism and strongly implied he was a Russian spy and a traitor as evidenced by his “choice” to go to Russia. As but one example, listen to the player embedded below to hear what Rhodes told his fellow former Obama national security official Tommy Vietor in February of 2017, on Vietor’s Pod Save America program (where Rhodes is now also a co-host). For a full hour, Rhodes impugned Snowden’s patriotism and motives, repeatedly citing his choice to flee to Russia as his primary proof (along with the fact that Snowden went to meet with journalists in “China” — by which Rhodes means Hong Kong):

    Cause again like, a whistleblower doesn’t conspicuously pass through China to Russia, you know, reporters are always saying ‘Are you telling me that you know that he was working for the Russians?’, or what have you, I’m like, I’m not, I’m telling you what I see, which is this guy went to China and Russia, the two most adversarial intelligence competitors to the United States; he could’ve gone to some very liberal European country that probably would’ve taken him in, or he could have faced the music here; the choice of those destinations speaks volumes.

    Does lying get any more flagrant or deliberate than this? Rhodes knows for certain that what he’s saying here about Snowden is an absolute lie. He knows that Snowden did not “choose” Russia as his “destination.” He knows that Snowden did exactly what Rhodes said he should have done: sought refuge in other countries. He knows that the only reason Snowden is in Russia is because Rhodes himself trapped him there by preventing him from leaving. We know that Rhodes knows all of this because he boasted about all of it in his book, in the above-quoted passage. And yet, over and over, Rhodes told the public the exact opposite of what he knew to be the truth.

    As indicated, Rhodes was far from alone in knowingly disseminating this lie to the American public. In 2014, Hillary Clinton, in a Guardian interview, condemned Snowden by falsely claiming that he flew from Hong Kong to Russia with the intention of seeking asylum from Putin. Listen to her flagrantly lie:

    From the perspective of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, this may not be the timeliest revelation. But it is only within the last several days that I read Rhodes’ book and could barely believe how clearly he laid out his own lies and those of his Obama administration colleagues. This level of conscious lying — spending years implying that Snowden was a traitor or Russian spy because he fled to Russia when you know that he wanted to leave and did everything possible to do so but it was your actions that trapped him there against his wishes — requires an unlimited willingness to lie the moment one’s interests are served by doing so.

    We do not usually have a case where the evidence of lying is this conclusive — where it is offered by the liars in the first place — but this behavior is far from uncommon. This is what the National Security State of the U.S. breeds, and it is vital always to remember that when listening to these people speak.

    (Our request to Rhodes for comment and an attempt to reconcile with public claims with this passage in his book was not answered at the time of publication; it will be added if one is supplied.)

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 22:55

  • WHO Places 'Mu Variant' Under Close Scrutiny Over Fears Of Vaccine Resistance
    WHO Places ‘Mu Variant’ Under Close Scrutiny Over Fears Of Vaccine Resistance

    As the US prepares to roll out booster shots for its citizens, depriving the developing world of badly needed supplies, scientists have continued to warn about new COVID variants emerging in various corners of the world. Yesterday, we focused our attention on a new variant emerging in South Africa that scientists fear may be capable of surpassing vaccine-produced antibodies.

    But the WHO revealed during its weekly briefing on Tuesday that it’s monitoring a new variant that was first identified in Colombia back in January. Known alternatively as “Mu” and B.1.621, the variant has been classified as a “variant of interest”, according to WHO’s weekly pandemic bulletin, making it one of a small handful of mutant strains that are actually at risk.

    Certain mutations identified in the variant suggest it could be resistant to vaccines and stressed that further studies were needed to better understand it.

    “The Mu variant has a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape,” the bulletin said.

    Concerns about new variants emerging have intensified as infection rates have continued to climb globally, with the highly transmissible delta variant taking hold. Since first emerging in Colombia back in January, the Mu variant has spread to other South American nations, as well as some parts of Europe. Despite adding ‘Mu’ to its monitoring list, the WHO says the strain only has a 0.1% global prevalence among sequenced cases.

    The addition of the Mu strain to the list of ‘variants of interest’ marks the first time a mutated version of the virus has been added to the list since June, when the Lambda mutation – which was also initially detected in South American (this time in Peru) – was added.

    Presently, the WHO has identified four strains as “variants of concern,” including Alpha, which has spread to 193 countries, and Delta, which has fueled a rise in cases across the globe. Five strains, now including Mu, are being monitored as “variants of interest.”

    The WHO currently identifies four Covid-19 variants of concern, including Alpha, which is present in 193 countries, and Delta, present in 170 countries. Five variants, including Mu, are to be monitored.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 22:25

  • The Elites' Battle For The Future America
    The Elites’ Battle For The Future America

    Submitted by Charles Hugh Grant from Of Two Minds

    No nation can produce less of lesser quality, and squander more on infinitely greedy and corrupt elites, all funded by issuing trillions of new units of currency, and imagine that this asymmetry will never have consequences.

    As I have often noted, historian Michael Grant identified profound political disunity in the ruling class as a key cause of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Grant described this dynamic in his excellent account The Fall of the Roman Empire, a book I have been recommending since 2009.

    I’ve been writing about the fractures in America’s ruling elites for many years, as well as the erosion of the foundations of society that lead to systemic collapse, for example, Collapse, Part 2: The Nine Dynamics of Decay (June 2015), Going to War with the Political Elite You Have (May 14, 2007) and The Conflict within the Deep State Just Broke into Open Warfare (March 10, 2017)

    America’s elites are fracturing along multiple tectonic fissures: while the conventional media focuses on the ginned-up bread and circuses of Red and Blue political games (i.e., The Purple Empire), the real conflicts are within the camps running the Red and Blue games, the Imperial Project of global hegemony (a.k.a. The Deep State), the New Nobility of Big Tech attempting to overthrow the Old Nobility, the Nationalists versus the Globalists and the Financial Gamesters versus The New Foundation.

    These are my informal acronyms, of course, but the conflicts are real and intensifying as extreme policies reach new extremes and the risks of breakdown increase.

    The most dangerous elites are the ones clinging to the perverse but compelling faith that the Federal Reserve and Treasury can conjure endless trillions of U.S. dollars without any consequence other than continued global hegemony, the faith that the Federal Reserve has god-like powers to tweak the dials so that 1) the U.S. dollar remains the pre-eminent reserve currency 2) but not so strong that it sinks the emerging market economies and 3) magical enough that there are no limits on how many can be absorbed by global stock, bond, debt, risk and commodity markets and 4) remains the primary method of limiting the global financial leverage of geopolitical rivals. Uh, sure. No problem, the Fed is all-powerful, right?

    The fundamental problem for the Imperial Project is the dollar must serve both the domestic elites profiting from Federal Reserve expansion of asset bubbles and the global markets that rely on a stable dollar for reserves, credit and transactional liquidity. While America’s billionaires are cheering the Fed’s endless largesse to the already wealthy, those tasked with maintaining hegemony are looking ahead and seeing the debauchery of the U.S. dollar as the Fed and Treasury spew trillions, very little of which is actually flowing into productive investments, i.e. the ultimate foundation of hegemony.

    It’s instructive to observe the institutional symmetries between the Federal Reserve and its elite backers and the Soviet agencies which oversaw Chernobyl, a history illuminated in Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe.

    It seems the only agency with a comprehensive grasp of the Soviet nuclear power industry was the KGB, which had sources within every nook and cranny of the state, economy and society. State secrets were protected to the point that even political elites did not have access to the potential for failure and the consequences of failure.

    Just as in the final throes of Imperial collapse in the Soviet Union, nobody seems to be in charge in the U.S. It’s difficult to tell if incompetence is now the default setting everywhere in the American State or if there are a couple of competing chess games being played behind the curtain. When failure is so absolute, incompetence alone doesn’t seem quite up to the task. Perhaps failure received a nudge. After all, the cliff edge is already crumbling and it doesn’t take much to help a rival lose their footing.

    As I have argued recently, inflation is not transitory; the trends have reversed and inflation is now embedded via two fundamental dynamics: the endless trillions being created out of thin air by the Fed and Treasury are not increasing the productivity or resilience of the U.S. economy; rather they are fatally weakening the economy and society by institutionalizing soaring wealth-income-power inequality, and 2) globalization’s increase of global supplies and optimization of global supply chains has reversed; scarcities can no longer be filled by exploiting another developing-economy via neocolonial-neoliberal pillage. That oh-so-profitable game is over, but few believe it’s possible: isn’t there always another place and people to pillage?

    The warring elites will have to choose an economic side soon: either go with the Fed’s plan for an ever-more unequal future America in which inflation stripmines the bottom 90% while the technocrat class and its billionaire owners become ever-wealthier and the world loses confidence in the predictability of the U.S. dollar’s value, or the debt and phantom capital of the Fed’s sand castles are wiped away and the dollar is re-anchored to the nation’s economic foundations of improving productivity via newly enforced competition, transparency and accountability and the resilience of a reshored industrial base.

    Hopefully America’s equivalents of the KGB have an equivalently sound grasp of just how prone to failure America’s financial fantasy has become. No empire can survive the debauchery of its currency, for the empire’s power flows not from hard power (military) or soft power (cultural influence) but from the currency that funds both hard and soft power.

    There is no win-win at this late date: one elite will lose, and America will itself be lost if those debauching the dollar are allowed to win. The rationalizations are as absurd and extreme as the policies: as long as the trillions flow into the assets owned by billionaires, there can’t be any inflation, and so on, an endless spew of excuses by those profiting from the debauchery of the dollar.

    No nation can produce less of lesser quality, and squander more on infinitely greedy and corrupt elites, all funded by issuing trillions of new units of currency, and imagine that this asymmetry will never have consequences.

    It’s not yet clear that there is any leadership left in America. What’s playing on stage are warring camps of self-interested elites fighting to secure their power even as the foundations crumble beneath their feet.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 21:55

  • 'High Steaks' – Scientists In Japan 3D Print Wagyu Beef
    ‘High Steaks’ – Scientists In Japan 3D Print Wagyu Beef

    The ‘carbon neutrality’ of 3D printing food, especially meat, is a fast-moving trend in the culinary world that may be coming to a restaurant near you. The entire process of printing food is pitched as a “sustainable” alternative to commercial farming – which involves significant amounts of land, water, feed, and fossil fuels to operate anything from generators to farm equipment to transport trucks. Then, of course, the slaughterhouse, packaging, and then transport the finished product to supermarkets and restaurant suppliers. 

    Within the next five years, the cost to print 3D meat may have come down to the point at which supermarkets may start carrying lab-grown offerings. Readers may recall we’ve already mentioned 3D printed ribeyes, chicken breasts, and chicken nuggets, among others. 

    Now, Japanese scientists from Osaka University have managed to 3D print wagyu beef, according to a press release. 

    Wagyu is some of the most sought-after and expensive meat globally, known for its marble texture and richness in flavors.

    “Using the histological structure of Wagyu beef as a blueprint, we have developed a 3D-printing method that can produce tailor-made complex structures, like muscle fibers, fat, and blood vessels,” lead scientist Dong-Hee Kang said. The team used two different stem cells from cows, called bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells – and under the right laboratory conditions – researchers then printed artificial Wagyu beef.

    “Individual fibers including muscle, fat, or blood vessels were fabricated from these cells using bioprinting. The fibers were then arranged in 3D, following the histological structure, to reproduce the structure of the real Wagyu meat, which was finally sliced perpendicularly, in a similar way to the traditional Japanese candy Kintaro-ame. This process made the reconstruction of the complex meat tissue structure possible in a customizable manner.”

    Scientists didn’t mention if they partnered with a food producer that could scale the technology to a commercial size or if fake wagyu meat would be less expensive than real wagyu meat. 

    So, while the global elites may hope that the 3D printing revolution will eventually eliminate commercial farming and livestock farming ‘as a path to a more sustainable green future’…

    … if you don’t want to eat lab-grown meat – now is the time to buy some farmland (in a non-drought area) and start raising your own beef cattle. Or locally source beef from mom and pop farms in the countryside. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 21:25

  • Apple Wallet Will Allow Digital Version Of Your Driver's License In These States
    Apple Wallet Will Allow Digital Version Of Your Driver’s License In These States

    The ongoing digital revolution is leading to fundamental transformations in how we may carry our government-issued IDs. Apple announced today it’s working with six states to bring state IDs and driver’s licenses into a mobile app included within the operating system.

    Apple’s iOS 15 will allow users from Arizona and Georgia to be the first states to support digital IDs via the Apple Wallet. Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah will follow shortly.  

    Also, the Transportation Security Administration will allow select airport security checkpoints and lanes to accept the Apple Wallet IDs. Apple didn’t mention which airports. 

    Apple today announced that it is working with several states across the country, which will roll out the ability for their residents to seamlessly and securely add their driver’s license or state ID to Wallet on their iPhone and Apple Watch. Arizona and Georgia will be the first states to introduce this new innovation to their residents, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah to follow. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will enable select airport security checkpoints and lanes in participating airports as the first locations customers can use their driver’s license or state ID in Wallet. Built with privacy at the forefront, Wallet provides a more secure and convenient way for customers to present their driver’s licenses and state IDs on iPhone or Apple Watch.

    Apple said the digitalization of licenses and state IDs in the Apple Wallet would “provide an easy, fast, and more secure way for people to present their driver’s license or state ID using their iPhone or Apple Watch.” 

    Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, had this to say about the march towards digitization of the physical wallet: 

    “The addition of driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet is an important step in our vision of replacing the physical wallet with a secure and easy-to-use mobile wallet,” said Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. “We are excited that the TSA and so many states are already on board to help bring this to life for travelers across the country using only their iPhone and Apple Watch, and we are already in discussions with many more states as we’re working to offer this nationwide in the future.”

    The push behind the digitalization of the physical wallet comes as central banks, governments, and corporations modernize economies through digital currencies. While there are many advantages to digital currencies or programmable money, there are caveats, such as elites will gain more power over the masses. 

    Just imagine a future where elites could automatically suspend your digital license or expire the digital currency in your digital wallet because your social credit score plunged for speaking negatively on social media about politicians. 

    In fact, this system of control is already happening in China. For more on the subject, founder of TrishIntel.com Trish Regan warns: 

    Digital wallets, while in theory sound promising, we’re already seeing the effects in China of how they can be manipulated. 

    The CCP’s goal is to be able to strategically allocate “cash” or liquidity to those that they want to target — the problem is, it’s once again an opportunity for big government (and in the case of China, VERY big government) to pick the winners and losers. While simultaneously quite deliberately injecting immediate cash into the populations that they want to target.

    Not to mention, there’s no privacy. All in all, if not properly safeguarded, digital wallets will continue eroding citizens’ rights. 

    Under the Biden administration, the race to implement a society based on digital wallets and social credit systems is closer than you think. 

    It might already be here… 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 20:55

  • Watch: California Teacher Busted Bribing Students To Attend Antifa Events
    Watch: California Teacher Busted Bribing Students To Attend Antifa Events

    A teacher in Sacramento, California was busted on hidden camera admitting to a Project Veritas journalist that he bribes his students with extra credit if they attend local Antifa events.

    “I’m probably as far left as you can go,” says AP Government Teacher, Gabriel Gipe, who works at Inderkum High School.

    “I have 180 days to turn them [students] into revolutionaries…Scare the f*ck out of them,” he later added.

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    More via Project Veritas:

    Gipe said he keeps track of his students’ political inclinations. He is also perplexed when a student expresses discomfort with the decorations in his public-school classroom.

    “So, they take an ideology quiz and I put [the results] on the [classroom] wall. Every year, they get further and further left…I’m like, ‘These ideologies are considered extreme, right? Extreme times breed extreme ideologies.’ Right? There is a reason why Generation Z, these kids, are becoming further and further left,” he said.

    “I have an Antifa flag on my [classroom] wall and a student complained about that — he said it made him feel uncomfortable. Well, this [Antifa flag] is meant to make fascists feel uncomfortable, so if you feel uncomfortable, I don’t really know what to tell you. Maybe you shouldn’t be aligning with the values that this [Antifa flag] is antithetical to.”

    The public-school teacher went on to suggest that a viable solution for society’s problems is a violent overthrow of the U.S. Government.

    “Like, why aren’t people just taking up arms? Like why can’t we, you know — take up arms against the state? We have historical examples of that happening, and them getting crushed and being martyrs for a cause and it’s like — okay well, it’s slow going because it takes a massive amount of organization,” Gipe said.

    When asked about his views on the Chinese Communist Party, Gipe explained how lessons from China’s disastrous Cultural Revolution could be applied in the United States.

    “You need a two-pronged system, which is exactly what Huey Newton and Fred Hampton [Black Panther Party] understood. You need propaganda of the deed — your economics — and cultural propaganda as well. You need to retrain the way people think. So, the Cultural Revolution in the 60s was fixing the problem that came about after the economic one,” he said.

    “What can we do now to root out this culture that keeps perpetuating hyper-individualism, hyper-competitiveness, capitalist exploitation and consolidation of wealth…I do think that it’s important to understand that as an extension of an economic revolution, they [Chinese Communist Party] were changing the base, and then they went to change the superstructure. You cannot change one without the other. You can’t have cultural shifts without the economic shift, and vice versa,” he said.

    Read the rest of the report here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 20:20

  • Bank Buybacks Hit Record Propelling Stocks To All Time HIgh
    Bank Buybacks Hit Record Propelling Stocks To All Time HIgh

    One week ago, when the S&P was suddenly finding itself sliding lower, we reported that SpotGamma, Nomura and Morgan Stanley all warned that the S&P was on the verge of a very painful drawdown if stocks dipped below the key 4,350 support level, at which point a selling wave could quickly pull the S&P to 4,100 or lower. However that did not happen, preventing what could have been a very painful wipeout, as if some magical force lifted stocks higher on Thursday just as they were set to drop below they key critical.

    And, as we reported, we now know what that “force” was: according to Bank of America, just as the S&P was about to drop the abovementioned critical gamma level, “Financials’ weekly buybacks were the largest on record since 2010 (and near-record as a percent of market cap).”

    And while buybacks saved the market last Friday, they have also done miracles in all of 2021 because as BofA adds, “YTD, trends are already the second highest level on record (since 2010) after 2019’s record, which was 16% higher than today’s.”

    Since that post, stocks have continued their merry meltup hitting a fresh all time high on Monday, and while many have been scratching their heads what was behind this relentless grind higher, we now may have an answer: the same catalyst that averted a painful slide on August 18: even more bank buybacks. Actually scratch that, make that record bank buybacks.

    According to Bank of America’s client flow strategists, while buybacks by corporate clients decelerated slightly vs.the prior week, Financials buybacks accelerated, hitting another record high.

    While the implications are obvious, BofA’s Jill Carey Hall reminds us that she noted last week that “the S&P 500 sector buying back the largest dollar amount in a given week has tended to outperform over the next several months with a >50% hit rate.“

    Expect even more buybacks ahead: as BofA calculates, YTD, corporate client buybacks across sectors are +54% y/y but are still far from
    pre-COVID levels: -13% vs. 2019 at this time, and one of the weakest years postcrisis so far when normalized by market cap.

    Translation: expect many more buyback-driven ramps every time stocks are about to dip below a key support level, as the banks do everything and anything to avoid a gamma wipeout.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 19:58

  • 'I Feel Good': Joe Rogan Contracts Covid, Bounces Back Within Days Using Drug Cocktail Including Ivermectin
    ‘I Feel Good’: Joe Rogan Contracts Covid, Bounces Back Within Days Using Drug Cocktail Including Ivermectin

    Joe Rogan, the popular podcast host and archnemesis of the mainstream media (which has excelled at producing a non-stop stream of hit pieces claiming he’s “losing influence” based on no actual evidence), has just revealed that he has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an announcement on his Instagram page.

    He said in the video that he “immediately threw the kitchen sink at it”, taking several medications including the anti-parasite drug ivermectin. Rogan is vaccinated, though the media will likely still paint him as an anti-vaxxer seeing as he had the temerity to question whether vaccines were really necessary for young patients (turns out they are far more susceptible to serious side effects than the FDA realized)

    On Wednesday, Rogan told his Instagram audience he “got back from the road Saturday night feeling very weary. I had a headache. I felt just run down.”

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

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    His symptoms progressed during the following day, and the next day, he tested positive for COVID-19.

    “So we threw the kitchen sink at it, all kinds of meds,” Rogan said, adding that he took a Z-Pak (aka the antibiotic azithromycin), prednisolone (a corticosteroid used to treat inflammation) and Ivermectin, which is a drug used for decades to treat a wide variety of parasitic and other infections – and more recently, Covid.

    “I did that three days in a row,” he said. “And here we are on Wednesday, and I feel great. I really only had one bad day — Sunday sucked.”

    Rogan also announced that he’s postponing a show he had scheduled for Friday at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The new show date is October 24.

    And for what it’s worth, at least one journalist has declared Rogan’s video to be…appropriate in that he’s not playing up ivermectin while playing down vaccines.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 19:37

  • COVID Hospital Admissions Fall For First Time Since June In Latest Sign Delta Wave Has Peaked
    COVID Hospital Admissions Fall For First Time Since June In Latest Sign Delta Wave Has Peaked

    In recent weeks, we have seen a barrage of evidence that the delta-variant-driven summer COVID “wave” (amplified, as it was, by increased testing)  has finally peaked. First, the CDC pointed to regional data from the south and the northeast to show that the COVID wave had peaked in the original “hotspots”. Then we shared research from BofA analyst Hans Mikkelsen, who showed that the delta of the delta wave had finally dropped into negative territory. And of course, the whole time, Dr. Scott Gottlieb has been sharing projections showing the wave was set to peak in late August or early September.

    But now, as the latest CDC data show, it’s not just cases, but also hospitalizations, that are showing signs of a peak. The latest daily data show hospitalizations declining for the first time since June.

    According to the Epoch Times, hospital admissions for COVID-19 patients in the United States are declining for the first time since late June, suggesting the latest surge has peaked. The seven-day average of new daily hospitalizations with confirmed COVID-19 dropped by 2.4% from a week earlier to about 12,280 – the first such drop since around June 27, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. It comes as fewer hospitalizations are being reported in Florida, Texas, and other Southern states, the agency said.

    If they continue to trend lower at their current rate, the drop in hospitalizations has been roughly in line with BofA’s “optimistic” scenario.

    Meanwhile, here’s a chart of daily case numbers in the US.

    And it’s not just hospitalizations and cases that are showing signs of peaking. The CDC’s COVID-19 tracker shows that the seven-day average for both deaths and cases appears to be leveling out. Previous surges of cases, including in the spring of 2020, in late July to early August 2020, and January 2021, all leveled out and dropped, fitting a similar pattern.

    During prior surges, the COVID-19 death rate appeared to be higher, according to the CDC’s data. For example, on Jan. 13 of this year, which saw the most COVID-19 deaths per day, the number of daily deaths was about 4,169, with about 240K daily cases. Amid the current surge, on Aug. 31 the CDC reported the number of daily deaths (seven-day average) to be about 985, with about 150K daily cases.

    Even though recent studies have showed that vaccines are far from perfect, roughly 74.4% of all US adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. And natural immunity might be even more extensive than previously believed. A new study published in Nature last week revealed that about one-third of all Americans, or more than 100MM people, had likely been infected with COVID-19 by the end of 2020. Officially, about 19.6MM cases of the virus were confirmed across the country.

    A blockbuster study from Israel recently showed that natural immunity confers better protection against the delta variant than vaccine-induced immunity.

    After all this, our biggest question is: why does the mainstream press only report on hospitals kinda-sorta nearing capacity in their ICUs, and the endless parade of cities and states imposing mask mandates and vaccine mandates, or bans on mask and vaccine mandates. Maybe it’s time to cover some ‘good news’ related to COVID for a change?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 19:20

  • Biden Pressured Afghan President To "Create Perception" Taliban Wasn't Winning "Whether It Is True Or Not"
    Biden Pressured Afghan President To “Create Perception” Taliban Wasn’t Winning “Whether It Is True Or Not”

    Despite all evidence to the contrary, President Biden appeared before the American people on Tuesday to try to sell his version of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    With a straight face, Biden half-shouted to the American people about the “extraordinary success” of the evacuation effort – an assessment that seemed completely at odds with the reality of the situation – before trotting out some equally specious stats: the US had successfully evacuated 90% of Americans who wanted to leave Kabul, and Biden committed to doing everything in his power to help those left behind.

    But just as President Biden was delivering his prepared remarks, Reuters was quietly publishing a leaked transcript from the president’s final call with Ashraf Ghani, which took place in late July. The call offers a more realistic picture of a Biden Administration obsessed with the optics of the pullout, who was still pushing the Afghans to focus on an irrelevant strategy shift to try and make it look like they were doing something in the face of Taliban defeat.

    A few weeks later, the Afghan president fled Kabul with sacks full of plundered cash just before the Taliban surrounded the city. He’s now believed to be hiding in the UAE.

    Although Biden seemed aware that the situation on the ground appeared grim, Biden demanded that Ghani project “a different picture” to the press and the international community “whether or not it was true”.

    “I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

    Biden told Ghani that if Afghanistan’s prominent political figures were to give a press conference together, backing a new military strategy, “that will change perception, and that will change an awful lot I think.”

    It’s also clear that Biden knew it was only a matter of time before the Taliban completed its takeover of the country. His main goal was making sure Ghani did everything in his power to try and manage the Afghan Army’s defeat with as little embarrassment as possible.

    Despite probably knowing that details from his final call with Ghani would surface, Biden repeated his claims that nobody could have anticipated the Taliban’s rapid advance.

    During the call, the Afghan president pleaded with Biden for more air support and a raise for Afghan soldiers who hadn’t received one in a decade, Biden offered mostly platitudes.

    “We are going to continue to fight hard, diplomatically, politically, economically, to make sure your government not only survives, but is sustained and grows,” said Biden.

    By the time the two leaders spoke on July 23, roughly 23 days before the fall of Kabul, Taliban insurgents controlled roughly half of Afghanistan’s district centers as the situation in the country rapidly deteriorated. Around this time, Biden insisted that the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban wasn’t inevitable.

    Although the situation in Afghanistan was already dire, and the American forces were withdrawing their air support, Biden continued to push Ghani about holding a press conference to announce a new military “strategy” that was really just window dressing.

    “But I really think, I don’t know whether you’re aware, just how much the perception around the world is that this is looking like a losing proposition, which it is not, not that it necessarily is that, but so the conclusion I’m asking you to consider is to bring together everyone from [Former Vice President Abdul Rashid] Dostum, to [Former President Hamid] Karzai and in between,” he said.

    “If they stand there and say they back the strategy you put together, and put a warrior in charge, you know a military man, Khan in charge of executing that strategy, and that will change perception, and that will change an awful lot I think.”

    Ghani responded by saying Afghanistan was facing not just the Taliban, but their foreign backers.

    “We are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists, predominantly Pakistanis thrown into this.”

    In other words, the problem of defeating the Taliban wasn’t going to be fixed by a press conference. And the new “strategy” of abandoning rural areas to protect population centers was really the last available course of action, since the Taliban dominated the rural districts.

    The bottom line is this: President Biden clearly knew the dissolution of the Afghan government and swift triumph of the Taliban was inevitable, but he was so preoccupied with managing the optics of the pullout, that he neglected to focus on planning for the final stages of the US withdrawal, all while appearing to believe his own BS about changing the strategy on the ground.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 19:15

  • 'Cash For Criminals': San Francisco Will Start Paying People Not To Shoot Each Other
    ‘Cash For Criminals’: San Francisco Will Start Paying People Not To Shoot Each Other

    San Francisco may be best known for its poo and needle-covered streets (requiring six-figure ‘poop patrollers‘), but the liberal stronghold – driven into the ground under decades of Democrat leadership – is about to experiment with yet another ‘fix’ for its self-inflicted wounds…

    …Using taxpayer money to pay criminals not to shoot people.

    In October, San Francisco will begin offering high-risk individuals $300 per month not to shoot anyone, or get shot themselves, according to the San Francisco Examiner. What’s more, participants can earn up to $200 more per month by hitting program milestones – such as landing a job interview, complying with probation, or consistently meeting with a mentor, according to the report.

    Known as the “Dream Keeper Fellowship” (a.k.a. Cash for Criminals), “The initiative will pair participants with newly hired life coaches from the Street Violence Intervention Program, known as SVIP, who will help the them make the right choices and access services.”

    “We know that $500 in San Francisco is not a significant amount of money,” said Sheryl Davis, a proponent of the program and executive director of the Human Rights Commission. “But if it’s enough to get you in to talk to folks, and be able to make a plan for your life, then that’s huge.”

    This isn’t the first time a city has tried to reduce gun violence by offering cash. A similar anti-violence program in Oakland, for instance, offers young adults up to $300 for achieving milestones. What’s new is San Francisco would start people off with a baseline of $300 a month without having to meet any marks.

    The program is modeled, in part, after the nationally watched Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond, which offers similar stipends of up to $1,000. A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Public Health linked the program to a 55% decrease in gun homicides and 43% decline in shootings since it began in 2010.

    It’s also not San Francisco’s first guaranteed-income program. The City recently rolled out similar efforts for pregnant mothers from marginalized communities and artists struggling during the pandemic. -SF Examiner

    The program will start off with just 10 participants in October, and then expand benefits to another 30 high-risk individuals by the end of the year. Officials have already hired two life coaches for the program.

    “What we are actually doing is trying to address the root causes of some of what’s happened,” said Davis. “Six thousand dollars per person, when you look at it annually, is nothing if it helps deter criminal activity compared to the amount of money it costs to incarcerate someone, let alone the impact of the activity itself.”

    The program, funded in part by the Dream Keeper Initiative established by Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton to divert funding from the police, is being rolled out by the Human Rights Commission and Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

    “My desire is to get to them, not to just make an arrest, but to get to them and to try and figure out if they would be willing to work with us on something that is an alternative,” said Breed at a Violence Prevention Summit earlier this month. “We can’t just put them in a program without making sure that they have money, without making sure that they have something to take care of themselves.”

    The effort comes as shootings are soaring in San Francisco, after years of declines. It’s a pattern being seen around the nation during the pandemic, even in cities like Oakland that already have cash incentive programs.

     

    About twice as many people have been shot in San Francisco as of late July compared to either of the prior two years. During the same time period, police data show there were 21 gun homicides in 2021 compared to 15 in 2020 and 14 in 2019. The number of non-fatal shooting victims also rose to 108 from 51 and 50 in the previous two years. 

    Those numbers don’t even include a series of four fatal shootings that erupted within the span of five days earlier this month. (San Francisco has seen 34 homicides so far in 2021, as of August 26, compared to 32 at the same point last year. That number includes killings unrelated to gun violence.) –SF Examiner

    “Providing individuals with resources to survive and increase their options for success is integral in changing the trends of increased violence,” said Walton, adding “This is the perfect time for this strategy.”

    Read the rest of the report here.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 18:55

  • Jessica Simpson Buying Her Name Out Of Bankruptcy For $65 Million
    Jessica Simpson Buying Her Name Out Of Bankruptcy For $65 Million

    On Tuesday, Sequential Brands Group, a company which nobody has heard of and which on its ‘About us‘ page lists the following investment highlight: “Financial Upside: Without the typical risks associated with traditional operating companies” but forgot to mention one particularly large risk, filed for bankruptcy.

    And yet, for at least one washed-out former celeb, the bankruptcy was quite painful: Sequential Brands Group is a holding company which “owns, manages and licenses a large-scale and diversified portfolio of consumer brands across multiple industries.” One of those brands is Jessica Simpson, and Sequential owns the rights to the entire Jessica Simpson fashion collection.

    Or rather owned, because as of Tuesday’s bankruptcy filing, the fate of its various intangible assets is a little blurry and the now insolvent Sequential is hoping to auction off what’s left of its fashion portfolio as part of a liquidation sale.

    Which explains why on Monday, the day before the filing, Sequential made a deal with the Simpson family which offered to buy the former singer-turned-fashion entrepreneur’s brand out of bankruptcy for $65 million, company attorney Joshua Brody told the judge overseeing the Chapter 11 case in Wilmington, Delaware.

    It’s unclear how the “Simpson family” managed to accumulate $65 million or why there is any value in a brand name that an entire generation of Americans has never heard of, but that’s what makes a market.

    According to Bloomberg, Sequential will try to get a final agreement in the coming weeks to have the Simpson family act as a stalking horse bidder at upcoming liquidation auction, Brody said. Two other current partners, Galaxy Active and Centric Brands, have also agreed to serve as lead bidders for other assets, setting a floor price for the brands they are trying to buy.

    Should a judge approve those agreements, Galaxy Active would make a binding initial offer of $333 million for the so-called Active Division; Centric Brands, which holds a long-term license for Joe’s Jeans, would offer $42 million for the denim and sportswear label. With anchor bidders in place, the company then plans to hold an auction to try to attract investors who will bid more for the brands.

    Meanwhile, Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey gave the company permission to borrow as much as $141 million to refinance senior debt and to help cover the costs of the Chapter 11 case; the company will return in the coming weeks to borrow about $9 million more.

    According to Bloomberg, Sequential has a restructuring deal with lenders, including affiliates of Apollo Global and KKR.

    The company blamed its bankruptcy on falling revenue from licensing deals and the pandemic, which began last year just as Sequential was gearing up to restructure. In its Chapter 11 petition, the company listed debts of $435 million and assets of $443 million.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 18:54

  • 25% Of Bosses Say They've Fired Someone For Zoom Meeting Gaffes
    25% Of Bosses Say They’ve Fired Someone For Zoom Meeting Gaffes

    Nearly 25% of bosses have said they have fired someone due to a gaffe during a Zoom meeting.

    Almost all bosses surveyed by Bloomberg recently have also “levied some sort of disciplinary action” for blunders during meetings. And despite countless reports about increased productivity while working from home, bosses don’t “fully trust” a third of their staff to perform well while working remotely. 

    Participants in Zoom calls were up to 300 million per day in April 2020, up from 10 million per day at the end of 2019, the report notes. 

    Often times, participants can have a bad connection, can join calls late, can accidentally share sensitive information and – in the case of Jeffrey Toobin – can be caught masturbating while they’re supposed to be paying attention to a PowerPoint presentation. 

    Despite this, Austin, Texas-based Vyopta said that 75% of executives plan on maintaining or expanding the number of employees working from home.

    Meanwhile, Zoom just posted a quarter that prompted Wall Street to casually shave off about 15% of its market cap in the last 2 trading days. The video sharing program is likely to continue playing a major role in the workplace as employers continue to adopt hybrid work models. Its numbers were impressive; but not impressive enough to justify the company’s high-flying valuation.

    “Zoom reported that revenue was up 54% from a year ago in the quarter. But that’s down sharply from the 355% growth in sales Zoom reported this time last year during the height of Covid-19 fears,” CNN reported.

    And hey, don’t feel bad about the firings over inadvertent screw-ups. While 25% of bosses say they’ve fired employees for gaffes, like The New Yorker did with Jeffrey Toobin, his boss at CNN must have fallen in the 75% of the other bosses…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 18:30

  • Student Shot Dead At North Carolina High School; Suspect In Custody
    Student Shot Dead At North Carolina High School; Suspect In Custody

    Update (1800ET): Police in North Carolina have confirmed that one student was killed in today’s school shooting, and the suspect – another student – has been arrested after a six-hour manhunt.

    * * *

    Update (1400ET): Police say all students are safe except for one student who was wounded during the shooting. A suspect has yet to be apprehended – police say they’re still actively looking.

    * * *

    Now that summer is over and students are returning to classrooms, school shootings are returning to the headlines as well.

    Local police announced that a North Carolina high school is on lockdown after a shooting on school property. Winston-Salem police tweeted shortly after 1300ET on Wednesday that they were investigating a shooting on the grounds of a local high school.

    Police announced that the campus of Mount Tabor High School has been secured and law enforcement “are doing everything possible to keep students safe,” the Winston-Salem Police Department tweeted. At least one individual has been shot, according to media reports.

    “We are actively investigating what happened and will share confirmed information when available,” police added.

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    FBI and ATF agents are also responding to the scene. Students are heading to a local YMCA where they can be reunited with their parents, the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 18:20

  • Citi's Levkovich Admits "Significant" Mistakes In Bearish S&P Call, But Sticks With 4,000 Year-End Target
    Citi’s Levkovich Admits “Significant” Mistakes In Bearish S&P Call, But Sticks With 4,000 Year-End Target

    Last Friday, Powell’s unexpectedly dovish Jackson Hole speech sparked another melt-up in risk assets.

    Ahead of the latest rally, Wall Street’s most bearish strategists such as Citigroup’s top strategist Tobias Levkovich, had issued multiple dire warnings about a euphoria on Wall Street and how markets resemble 1999. His year-end equity call for the S&P 500 is 4,000 but has been forced to acknowledge in a note to clients he’s made “significant” mistakes in his prediction. 

    Levkovich is still holding to his guns and predicting the benchmark will end this year at 4,000 before reaching 4,350 by June 2022. 

    Supporting Levkovich’s bearish views are striking “parallels between current conditions and those of 1999.” 

    As shown in Panic/Euphoria Model – which considers factors including the number of investor positions anticipating a fall in stocks, levels have exceeded the Dot Com period.

    Besides stock market euphoria, stretched valuations, and a planned tax increase will deteriorate corporate profits, there have been other reasons for Levkovich’s bearishness. 

    “Caution that proves to be wrong can cost one a career,” Levkovich told clients in a note last week, quoted by Bloomberg. “Nevertheless, we feel compelled to stand by our analytical process.”

    In term’s of valuations, Levkovich is right – equities are way overvalued compared to historical norms. 

    Levkovich added that crazed retail chasing any stock that moves amid unprecedented Federal Reserve bond-buying, suppressing volatility and enabling high amounts of speculation, could peak when the central bank is poised to rein in its asset purchases. Investors should expect multiples to come back in. 

    “We suspect that these items may not be drivers going forward and other factors including euphoric sentiment and stretched valuation become more impactful, offset to some degree by reinvigorated share repurchase programs,” he said. “The stock market needs to consolidate the past 18 months’ worth of gains and portfolio managers require more visibility into 2022 profits.”

    Mike Wilson, the chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, is in the same camp as Levkovich, who expects a 10%+ S&P 500 correction. Two weeks ago, Wilson reluctantly raised his S&P price target to 4,000 from 3,900. Meanwhile, Goldman’s David Kostin is on the opposite side of the bet, last month hiking his year-end S&P price target from 4300 to 4,700, up about 7% from here, justifying his optimism by unexpectedly low bond yields which traditionally represent a slowing economy. In other words, stocks will rise because the economy will slow from here. Just brilliant.

    Here’s where the equity strategist stand with their S&P 500 year-end targets. 

    And before one mock either of the strategists, it’s worth reminding that this market remains a joke “mystery” to all: as Steve Chiavarone, a portfolio manager and head of multi-asset solutions at Federated Hermes, told Bloomberg last week, “If someone would have told me in March of last year, when Covid was first rearing its ugly head, that 18 months later we would have case counts that are as high—if not higher—than they were on that day, but that the market would have doubled over that 18-month period, I would have laughed at them.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 18:05

  • Rabobank: The Battle That Actually Matters Is Elsewhere
    Rabobank: The Battle That Actually Matters Is Elsewhere

    By Michael Every of Rabobank

    “The operation was a complete success…”

    “…but unfortunately the patient died”, as the old joke goes. The origins of the linked phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’ dates all the way back to antiquity, when in 279BC Pyrrhus of Epirus won a battle against Rome that so decimated his forces he declared: “Ne ego si iterum eodem modo vicero, sine ullo milite Epirum revertar” (If I achieve such a victory again, I shall return to Epirus without any soldier.)

    I mention this today not just because the White House is publicly rallying round what US Allies see as a logistically-shambolic retreat from Afghanistan, where “getting 90% out” also means “leaving 10% behind”. Indeed, if the US retreat generates a “We can ill afford another Klendathu” moment within the DC foreign policy Blob, who is to say that history won’t see it as a genuine pivot point?

    As President Biden noted in a public address yesterday defending his decision: “As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation for the last two decades we have got to learn from our mistakes. To me, there are two that are paramount; first, we set missions with clear, achievable goals, not ones we will never reach, and, second, we will stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America.” Of course, he has already made clear the other condition is the US will only fight for those who will fight with it – and I cannot emphasize enough what a sea-change in the global security architecture this implies. (Or how much further some say the US will have to shift policy –in directions allies, non-allies, and markets alike will find deeply unpleasant– if it truly wishes to act in its long-run national security interests.)

    No, I mentioned Pyrrhus because all around us we see similar ‘victories’.

    “We have beaten Covid with vaccines!” – Oops, Delta! Now we need three shots, not two. Until that doesn’t work either. And yet parts of the world still haven’t had one shot yet.

    “We have economic recovery!” – As China’s services PMI slumps to 47.5, with the new orders index tumbling to a lower level than during the GFC, for example; and as US consumer confidence plunges from 129.1 to 113.8 in a month, and expectations from 108.4 to 91.4.

    “We have beaten inflation!” – Meaning we have beaten demand-pull inflation, which still leaves us cost-push inflation and falling real wages, and so a collapse in consumer confidence.

    “It’s time to taper!” – Say both FOMC members and ECB members, when we have no sign of any Building Back Better being done anywhere except in China, where it comes in a “profoundly revolutionary” wrapper. US stocks went down all of 0.1% yesterday, which was apparently worth mentioning for some press; and bond yields fluctuated on the hilarious notion that a major central bank may actually taper.

    Meanwhile, as the US is now saying in a different policy dimension, the battle that actually matters is elsewhere. In particular, we are getting more details on China’s “profound revolution”:

    First, a threat to shut down e-commerce platforms caught selling fake goods; second, shutting down the American Chamber of Commerce in Chengdu “because reasons”. But, more concretely, official policy to limit urban rent increases to 5% annually along with an announcement that land and home prices “will be stabilized”, while rumors of a potential property tax whirl. This is very, very big. Imagine the same in the US, UK, Australia, NZ, or Europe. It’s just as important in China.

    At the same time, Bloomberg carries an article looking at the province of Zhejiang (population 65m) and its existing pilot experiment with Common Prosperity. What is being seen there is not tax-and-spend or a welfare state: rather it is forcing capital to flow to areas previously starved of it and huge efforts to bring down living costs. Specifically:

    • Targeting inequality (of intra-provincial GDP per capita) directly;
    • Aiming to increase the labour share of GDP to more than 50% (vs. the World Bank 2020 national household share of GDP estimate of 38%, which is a huge ask for obvious reasons – which GDP sector will be dropping by 12 percentage points given we also know there won’t be a swing allowed to a negative-net-exports trade deficit?);
    • More urbanisation;
    • Property taxes (on private housing) and building state-owned rental properties (social housing);
    • Letting people without official hukou residence access state services, which is a genuine revolution;
    • More spending on social services – and “donations” from local billionaires worth $236bn;
    • Lower cost business loans for favoured sectors, including manufacturing and tourism; and
    • SOEs building more infrastructure, even if it generates low returns.

    As such, we get a picture of potentially higher growth, but lower returns; less luxury and more mass-market; and far more regulation. Which sounds like something Western markets don’t understand and won’t like. They prefer lower growth and higher returns; less mass-market and more “premiumisation”; and far less regulation.

    Also important, the Chinese Communist Party has also just announced that it will hold a key plenum in November – though what major policy changes this portends against the current backdrop remains to be seen. One would posit it is unlikely to be small beer.

    But of course, Western markets and politicians stressing the fragility of Western liberal democracy and the ‘rules-based international order’ don’t need to be concerned by policy shifts from Beijing, or it showing how Building Back Better actually needs to be done in practice, not rhetoric, such as via targeting inequality and labor share of GDP, social housing and rent controls. After all, they still have QE (for now), that marvelous magical cure for all social and economic ills! It’s a monetary operation carried out every month that is always a success for markets and asset prices, even if the political-economy patient dies. “Si talem victoriam iterum consequor, sine ulla societate ad normales revertar.”

    Tellingly, Kiwi house prices were up 27% y/y today, when the RBNZ just left rates on hold, surprising markets, despite now having a house-price mandate, and Australia’s Q2 GDP came in at 0.7% q/q vs. 0.4% expected despite everyone locked down at home, while CoreLogic house prices were up 1.5% m/m, so 18% y/y annualized. Marvellous and magical once again.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 17:50

  • CDC Director Tells The Unvaccinated Not To Travel Over Labor Day Weekend – Except What About Natural Immunity?
    CDC Director Tells The Unvaccinated Not To Travel Over Labor Day Weekend – Except What About Natural Immunity?

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is seen during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on May 11, 2021. (Greg Nash/Pool/Getty Images)

    The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 should not travel over the forthcoming Labor Day weekend.

    “Given where we are with disease transmission right now, we would say that people need to take these risks into their own consideration as they think about traveling,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House COVID-19 briefing Tuesday, adding that vaccinated people should wear masks. “If you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling.”

    As with other recommendations from the CDC, Walenksy’s remark has no legal authority.

    The current seven-day average of new COVID-19 infections in the United States is about 149,000 cases per day, according to data provided by the CDC. The number of deaths per seven-day average in the United States, the data shows, is about 985 per day as of Aug. 30.

    Walensky’s comment drew criticism on social media, with some noting that people who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine haven’t listened to the CDC’s recommendations, anyway.

    “No travel for you, bad little children,” wrote Dr. Robert Malone, who has self-identified as a key developer of mRNA vaccine technology, on Twitter after her announcement.

    Walensky’s suggestion that those who are not vaccinated should not travel also appears to tie in with vaccine passport mandates that were handed down in New York City, San Francisco, and other municipalities. Civil liberties groups have flagged such systems as potentially creating a two-tiered society of vaccinated and the unvaccinated.

    Her remarks come as a CDC panel on Monday said that COVID-19 vaccines’ ability to keep people out of the hospital is waning, albeit slightly.

    *  *  *

    ZH: Except, what about those with natural immunity from previous infections?

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    The agency previously estimated that most people being treated for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus are unvaccinated with about 97 percent not having received the shot.

    The CDC panel on Monday noted that the 97 percent figure was based on data that was collected before the spread of the Delta variant. Now, the latest CDC analysis suggests that the vaccines’ effectiveness at keeping people out of the hospital is between 75 percent and 95 percent.

    Individuals older than the age of 75 saw a significant decline, the panel added, noting that the vaccines’ effectiveness dropped from 90 percent in June to 80 percent in July. The agency said that immunity could be weakening over time, namely among older people, the most vulnerable group.

    CDC advisers said during the panel’s briefing, however, that COVID-19 vaccines are still effective at preventing serious illness. Walensky also touted the vaccines’ efficacy at stopping serious illness during the COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday.

    The federal health agency, meanwhile, said it continues to recommend that all eligible people be vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t yet done so.

    COVID-19 is the illness caused by the CCP virus.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 09/01/2021 – 17:30

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