- God is Dead
From the Slope of Hope blog:
That’s something I’ve got in common with Private Pyle: he wants to be different. For whatever reason, I’m a contrarian to the core. Indeed, one of the appeals of messing around with personal computers back in 1980 was that practically nobody else was doing it (in case you hadn’t noticed, the unusualness of microcomputers vanishes decades ago, so that aspect of the appeal is likewise gone).
This contrarian view of the world extends to the “cover curse”, a theory to which I strongly subscribe. Any bold declaration made by a prominent publication seems to invariably mark an inflection point. There’s this cover, for instance, which came out immediately before the demise and near-bankruptcy of Apple:
This cover from The Economist (itself quite famous for its covers being so often dead wrong) when oil was $10 per barrel and was about to explode hundreds of percent higher.
This homoerotic image of the strength of the US dollar, just before it commenced its very steady slide promptly at the start of 2017:
Barron’s decided Facebook was a lousy stock, just before it started a gargantuan run up to “blue chip” stock status, almost exactly to the day……
And, perhaps the most famous of all, Business Week decided just before 1980 began that stocks were doomed, after which time literally trillions of dollars of new wealth were created.
So, time and again, newspapers and magazines get it wrong – – but plenty of other media does too. This book, for instance, was all about the coast-to-coast millionaires in the United States, and it came out June 2007, precisely at the apex of the housing bubble.
So with mountains of other anecdotal evidence, it would seem that only a fool would declare loudly, on a public stage, anything definitive, since major announcements from prominent publications or thought leaders so often represent the collective consciousness at the point that it’s utterly saturated with some particular notion. Even though they say that no one rings a bell at the top, if you look historically at major turning points, there were always bells ringing – – just in a contrarian, hidden form.
Thus, when Trump was elected, inaugurated, and soon thereafter started bragging about the stock market, it seemed like a major reversal signal. After all, this is the President of the United States, and he’s crowing to the world about a stock market for which he gives himself full credit. So that’s bound to be some kind of peak, right? Surely after a tweet like that, the gods above will shame the man, just like they’ve embarrassed anyone showing hubris since the times of the ancient Greeks. Right?
…….Right?.…….
And yet there they are. Tweet after tweet, month after month, about high after high. And yet the market just keeps going higher……….which, let’s face it, is just going to egg the man on even more. It’s one thing for an old biddy like Yellen to yammer on about no more crises in her lifetime. But the POTUS is another matter altogether.
It really wasn’t that long ago that acts of hubris, either in the form of cover stories or political braggadocio, were met with swift reprisal from the universe. The biggest question facing us today – – far greater than where interest rates are going, or what the dollar is going to do, or even whether Kim is ever going to launch any of those missiles he’s so proud of – – is whether market forces………..normal market forces…………..are gone for good. They might just be, and if so, hubris is not only back in style, but it’s going to be here to stay for a long, long time.
- Exposing The Slimy Business Of 'Russia-Gate' (What The Mainstream Media Doesn't Want You To Know)
Authored by Robert Parry via ConsortiumNews.com,
As the U.S. government doles out tens of millions of dollars to 'combat Russian propaganda', one result is a slew of new 'studies' by 'scholars' and 'researchers' auditioning for the loot…
The “Field of Dreams” slogan for America’s NGOs should be: “If you pay for it, we will come.”
And right now, tens of millions of dollars are flowing to non-governmental organizations if they will buttress the thesis of Russian “meddling” in the U.S. democratic process no matter how sloppy the “research” or how absurd the “findings.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
And, if you think the pillars of the U.S. mainstream media – The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and others – will apply some quality controls, you haven’t been paying attention for the past year or so. The MSM is just as unethical as the NGOs are.
So, we are now in a phase of Russia-gate in which NGO “scholars” produce deeply biased reports and their nonsense is treated as front-page news and items for serious discussion across the MSM.
Yet, there’s even an implicit confession about how pathetic some of this “scholarship” is in the hazy phrasing that gets applied to the “findings,” although the weasel words will slip past most unsuspecting Americans and will be dropped for more definitive language when the narrative is summarized in the next day’s newspaper or in a cable-news “crawl.”
For example, a Times front-page story on Thursday reported that “a network of Twitter accounts suspected of links to Russia seized on both sides of the [NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem] issue with hashtags, such as #boycottnfl, #standforouranthem and #takeaknee.”
The story, which fits neatly into the current U.S. propaganda meme that the Russian government somehow is undermining American democracy by stirring up dissent inside the U.S., quickly spread to other news outlets and became the latest “proof” of a Russian “war” against America.
However, before we empty the nuclear silos and exterminate life on the planet, we might take a second to look at the Times phrasing: “a network of Twitter accounts suspected of links to Russia.”
The vague wording doesn’t even say the Russian government was involved but rather presents an unsupported claim that some Twitter accounts are “suspected” of being part of some “network” and that this “network” may have some ill-defined connection – or “links” – to “Russia,” a country of 144 million people.
‘Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon’
It’s like the old game of “six degrees of separation” from Kevin Bacon. Yes, perhaps we are all “linked” to Kevin Bacon somehow but that doesn’t prove that we know Kevin Bacon or are part of a Kevin Bacon “network” that is executing a grand conspiracy to sow discontent by taking opposite sides of issues and then tweeting.
The New York Times building in Manhattan. (Photo credit: Robert Parry)
Yet that is the underlying absurdity of the Times article by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Scott Shane. Still, as silly as the article may be that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. The Times’ high-profile treatment of these gauzy allegations represents a grave danger to the world by fueling a growing hysteria inside the United States about being “at war” with nuclear-armed Russia. At some point, someone might begin to take this alarmist rhetoric seriously.
Yes, I understand that lots of people hate President Trump and see Russia-gate as the golden ticket to his impeachment. But that doesn’t justify making serious allegations with next to no proof, especially when the outcome could be thermonuclear war.
However, with all those millions of dollars sloshing around the NGO world and Western academia – all looking for some “study” to fund that makes Russia look bad – you are sure to get plenty of takers. And, we should now expect that new “findings” like these will fill in for the so-far evidence-free suspicions about Russia and Trump colluding to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton.
If you read more deeply into the Times story, you get a taste of where Russia-gate is headed next and a clue as to who is behind it:
“Since last month, researchers at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan initiative of the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, have been publicly tracking 600 Twitter accounts — human users and suspected bots alike — they have linked to Russian influence operations. Those were the accounts pushing the opposing messages on the N.F.L. and the national anthem.
“Of 80 news stories promoted last week by those accounts, more than 25 percent ‘had a primary theme of anti-Americanism,’ the researchers found. About 15 percent were critical of Hillary Clinton, falsely accusing her of funding left-wing antifa — short for anti-fascist — protesters, tying her to the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and discussing her daughter Chelsea’s use of Twitter. Eleven percent focused on wiretapping in the federal investigation into Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, with most of them treated the news as a vindication for President Trump’s earlier wiretapping claims.”
The Neocons, Again!
So, let’s stop and unpack this Times’ reporting.
First, this Alliance for Securing Democracy is not some neutral truth-seeking organization but a neoconservative-dominated outfit that includes on its advisory board such neocon luminaries as Mike Chertoff, Bill Kristol and former Freedom House president David Kramer along with other anti-Russia hardliners such as former deputy CIA director Michael Morell and former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.
Neoconservative pundit William Kristol. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
How many of these guys, do you think, were assuring us that Iraq was hiding WMDs back in 2003?
This group clearly has an ax to grind, a record of deception, and plenty of patrons in the Military-Industrial Complex who stand to make billions of dollars from the New Cold War.
The neocons also have been targeting Russia for regime change for years because they see Russian President Vladimir Putin as the chief obstacle to their goal of helping Israel achieve its desire for “regime change” in Syria and a chance to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran. Russia-gate has served the neocons well as a very convenient way to pull Democrats, liberals and even progressives into the neocon agenda because Russia-gate is sold as a powerful weapon for the anti-Trump Resistance.
The Times article also might have mentioned that Twitter has 974 million accounts. So, this alarm over 600 accounts is a bit disproportionate for a front-page story in the Times, don’t you think?
And, there’s the definitional problem of what constitutes “anti-Americanism” in a news article. And what does it mean to be “linked to Russian influence operations”? Does that include Americans who may not march in lockstep to the one-sided State Department narratives on the crises in Ukraine and Syria? Any deviation from Official Washington’s groupthink makes you a “Moscow stooge.”
And, is it a crime to be “critical” of Hillary Clinton or to note that the U.S. mainstream media was dismissive of Trump’s claims about being wiretapped only for us to find out later that the FBI apparently was wiretapping his campaign manager?
However, such questions aren’t going to be asked amid what has become a massive Russia-gate groupthink, dominating not just Official Washington, but across much of America’s political landscape and throughout the European Union.
Why the Bias?
Beyond the obvious political motivations for this bias, we also have had the introduction of vast sums of money pouring in from the U.S. government, NATO and European institutions to support the business of “combatting Russian propaganda.”
President Obama in the Oval Office.
For example, last December, President Obama signed into law a $160 million funding mechanism entitled the “Combating Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act.” But that amounts to only a drop in the bucket considering already existing Western propaganda projects targeting Russia.
So, a scramble is on to develop seemingly academic models to “prove” what Western authorities want proven: that Russia is at fault for pretty much every bad thing that happens in the world, particularly the alienation of many working-class people from the Washington-Brussels elites.
The truth cannot be that establishment policies have led to massive income inequality and left the working class struggling to survive and thus are to blame for ugly political manifestations – from Trump to Brexit to the surprising support for Germany’s far-right AfD party. No, it must be Russia! Russia! Russia! And there’s a lot of money on the bed to prove that point.
There’s also the fact that the major Western news media is deeply invested in bashing Russia as well as in the related contempt for Trump and his followers. Those twin prejudices have annihilated all professional standards that would normally be applied to news judgments regarding these flawed “studies.”
On Thursday, The Washington Post ran its own banner-headlined story drawn from the same loose accusations made by that neocon-led Alliance for Securing Democracy, but instead the Post sourced the claims to Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma. The headline read: “Russian trolls are stoking NFL controversy, senator says.”
The “evidence” cited by Lankford’s office was one “Twitter account calling itself Boston Antifa that gives its geolocation as Vladivostok, Russia,” the Post reported.
By Thursday, Twitter had suspended the Boston Antifa account, so I couldn’t send it a question, but earlier this month, Dan Glaun, a reporter for Masslive.com, reported that the people behind Boston Antifa were “a pair of anti-leftist pranksters from Oregon who started Boston Antifa as a parody of actual anti-fascist groups.”
In an email to me on Thursday, Glaun cited an interview that the Boston Antifa pranksters had done with right-wing radio talk show host Gavin McInnes last April.
And, by the way, there are apps that let you manipulate your geolocation data on Twitter. Or, you can choose to believe that the highly professional Russian intelligence agencies didn’t notice that they were telegraphing their location as Vladivostok.
Mindless Russia Bashing
Another example of this mindless Russia bashing appeared just below the Post’s story on Lankford’s remarks. The Post sidebar cited a “study” from researchers at Oxford University’s Project on Computational Propaganda asserting that “junk news” on Twitter “flowed more heavily in a dozen [U.S.] battleground states than in the nation overall in the days immediately before and after the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that a coordinated effort targeted the most pivotal voters.” Cue the spooky Boris and Natasha music!
Boris and Natasha, the evil spies from the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows.
Of course, any Americans living in “battleground states” could tell you that they are inundated with all kinds of election-related “junk,” including negative TV advertising, nasty radio messages, alarmist emails and annoying robo-calls at dinner time. That’s why they’re called “battleground states,” Sherlock.
But what’s particularly offensive about this “study” is that it implies that the powers-that-be must do more to eliminate what these “experts” deem “propaganda” and “junk news.” If you read deeper into the story, you discover that the researchers applied a very subjective definition of what constitutes “junk news,” i.e., information that the researchers don’t like even if it is truthful and newsworthy.
The Post article by Craig Timberg, who apparently is using Russia-gate to work himself off the business pages and onto the national staff, states that “The researchers defined junk news as ‘propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyperpartisan, or conspiratorial political news and information.’
“The researchers also categorized reports from Russia and ones from WikiLeaks – which published embarrassing posts about Democrat Hillary Clinton based on a hack of her campaign chairman’s emails – as ‘polarizing political content’ for the purpose of the analysis.”
So, this “study” lumped together “junk news” with accurate and newsworthy information, i.e., WikiLeaks’ disclosure of genuine emails that contained such valid news as the contents of Clinton’s speeches to Wall Street banks (which she was trying to hide from voters) as well as evidence of the unethical tactics used by the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign.
Also dumped into the researchers’ bin of vile “disinformation” were “reports from Russia,” as if everything that comes out of Russia is, ipso facto, “junk news.”
And, what, pray tell, is “conspiratorial political news”? I would argue that the past year of evidence-lite allegations about “Russian meddling” in the U.S. election accompanied by unsupported suspicions about “collusion” with the Trump campaign would constitute “conspiratorial political news.” Indeed, I would say that this Oxford “research” constitutes “conspiratorial political news” and that Timberg’s article qualifies as “junk news.”
Predictable Outcome
Given the built-in ideological bias of this “research,” it probably won’t surprise you that the report’s author, Philip N. Howard, concludes that “junk news originates from three main sources that the Oxford group has been tracking: Russian operatives, Trump supporters and activists part of the alt-right,” according to the Post.
The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Washington Post)
I suppose that since part of the “methodology” was to define “reports from Russia” as “junk news,” the appearance of “Russian operatives” shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but the whole process reeks of political bias.
Further skewing the results, the report separated out information from “professional news organizations [and] political parties” from “some ‘junk news’ source,” according to the Post. In other words, the “researchers” believe that “professional news organizations” are inherently reliable and that outside-the-mainstream news is “junk” – despite the MSM’s long record of getting major stories wrong.
The real “junk” is this sort of academic or NGO research that starts with a conclusion and packs a “study” in such a way as to guarantee the preordained conclusion. Or as the old saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.”
Yet, it’s also clear that if you generate “research” that feeds the hungry beast of Russia-gate, you will find eager patrons doling out dollars and a very receptive audience in the mainstream media.
In a place like Washington, there are scores if not hundreds of reports generated every day and only a tiny fraction get the attention of the Times, Post, CNN, etc., let alone result in published articles. But “studies” that reinforce today’s anti-Russia narrative are sure winners.
So, if you’re setting up a new NGO or you’re an obscure academic angling for a lucrative government grant as well as some flattering coverage in the MSM, the smart play is to join the new gold rush in decrying “Russian propaganda.”
- Armed Soldiers To Replace Cops On Danish Streets
Even as Europe’s political establishment professes its liberal ideals by accepting – or in the case of the ongoing spat between Brussels and Central Europe, forcing others to accept – as many refugees as humanitarian virtue signalling will require, the true face of Europe is gradually emerging behind the scenes, and according to The Local.de, starting today armed soldiers from the Danish Armed Forces (Forsvaret) will replace police officers at both Denmark’s southern border to Germany and at potential terror targets in Copenhagen.
According to the Danish National Police (Rigspolitiet) and Copenhagen Police, 160 soldiers will patrol the border and take over guard duties at Jewish institutions including the Great Synagogue in central Copenhagen.
The synagogue has been under constant police protection since a Danish-born terrorist of Palestinian descent shot and killed 37-year-old Dan Uzan, a volunteer security guard, outside the building in February 2015. The gunman, Omar El-Hussein, had earlier in the night opened fire with an automatic rifle outside a cultural centre hosting a free speech event, killing 55-year-old Finn Nørgaard and injuring police officers. El-Hussein was later shot and killed by police.
The soldiers’ role at the German border was described as ancillary and will not entail actively checking the IDs of those entering the country. That role will still be filled by police officers and members of the Danish Home Guard (Hjemmeværnet), which has been active in border checks since April 2016.
The plan to put armed military soldiers at the border and potential terror targets has been under discussion for well over a year, or not long after Europe realized the consequences of the great welcome party thrown by Angela Merkel in 2015. The official explanation is that it is being implemented as a way “to ease the workload of an overworked and undermanned police force.” The unofficial, of course, is that the police desperately need help against an ongoing influx of potential terrorists.
The 160 soldiers will relieve the police force of the equivalent of 128 full-time police officers. According to news agency Ritzau, police currently use the equivalent of 456 full-time officers on border controls and patrolling potential terror targets.
Meanwhile, Denmark has long since lost the idealistic illusion it is a noble, humanitarian home welcoming the world’s refugees. As the WaPo wrote last year, “as Europe walls itself off, the continent is left to reckon with what’s become of its long- cherished humanitarian beliefs. And to many in Denmark, the chasm between reputation and reality looks particularly gaping.
“We’re losing respect for the values upon which we built our country and our European Union,” said Andreas Kamm, secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council. “It’s becoming very hard to defend human rights.”
This Scandinavian nation of compulsively friendly people is celebrated by U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as a social-welfare utopia, one that was recently judged the world’s happiest place. Ranking high in the country’s pantheon of heroes are those who protected Jews during the Holocaust or who helped the oppressed escape from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.
But when it came to those fleeing 21st-century conflicts on Europe’s doorstep, Denmark went into overdrive to broadcast its hostility. While Germany continued to welcome asylum seekers, and other European countries such as Sweden held their doors open for as long as they could, Denmark took a hard line almost from the beginning. The government slashed refugees’ benefits, then advertised the cuts in Lebanese newspapers. It enabled police to confiscate refugees’ valuables, including cash and jewelry. And authorities made it far more difficult for those already here to reunite with their families, upping the wait time from one year to three.
And now, just in case the measures were insufficient, heavily armed soliders will be there to make sure there are no more casualties as a result of Angela Merkel’s “shared” generosity.
- "The Fed Is Afraid…"
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Janet Yellen this week cast doubt on the Fed's announced plan to continue Fed rate hikes and reverse its years of "unconventional" monetary policy.
“My colleagues and I may have misjudged the strength of the labor market,” Yellen announced on Tuesday, adding that they'd also misjudged "the degree to which longer-run inflation expectations are consistent with our inflation objective, or even the fundamental forces driving inflation."
Yellen also "noted that the labor market, which historically has been closely linked to inflation, may not be as tight as the low unemployment rate suggests."
In other words, Fed economists are concerned by the fact they've been unable to achieve their arbitrary 2% price-inflation objective, which they believe indicates a healthy level of economic activity.
Moreover, they're concerned the low unemployment rate — which can be deceptive since it can show a "tight" market even in the presence of unemployed discouraged workers and involuntary part-timers — is not telling the whole story.
The end result is that the Fed is not at all sure that it can continue with its promised path of raising the target interest rate as has been the "plan" for the past several years.
As we've noted here at mises.org before, the Fed has a habit of announcing big plans to scale back quantitative easing, and increasing the target rate — only to later backtrack or downplay the extent to which it will "normalize" monetary policy.
Since 2009, the target rate has been at rock-bottom rates. Over the past year, the Fed has raised the target rate from 0.5 percent to 1.25 percent, but this has only gotten the rate back up to where it was when it was attempting to stimulate the economy in the wake of the dot-come bust in 2001. On other words, the Fed is still deep into "stimulative monetary policy" territory.
And now we're being told that the Fed may have overestimated the rate to which it can scale back monetary policy.
Nine Years of Stagnant Incomes
Looming over the latest admission of "miscalculating" the economy's success is the ongoing myth that the Fed and its economists are wisely and carefully steering the economic ship to a safe port.
Actual experience — given that the target rate was kept near zero for eight years — more suggests panic and dismay, rather than the presence of a steady hand.
If we look at the Federal government's own data on incomes through 2016, we find an unimpressive record indeed.
Real median personal income, for example, peaked during the last cycle at $30,821 in 2007. This total was not exceeded again until 2016 when it reached $31,099. That's 0.9 percent growth over a period of nine years.
We see a similar picture with both median family income and median household income.
Median family income grew 2.3 percent from 2007 to 2016. It grew 2.7 percent from 2000 to 2016. Growth was nearly zero from 2000 to 2015, and only began to really surpass old peaks in 2016.
Median household income grew 1.5 percent from 2007 to 2016. It grew 0.6 percent from 2000 to 2016.
(See here and here for more discussion on how demographic changes can affect income growth levels.)
These number by themselves don't prove that real incomes are flat for everyone of course. But, lackluster numbers in employment, and in GDP over the last 20 years — compared to the post-war economy overall — hardly point to a period of economic gain for many ordinary Americans.
The Fed Is Afraid
For years, the Fed has been telling us repeatedly that the economy is moving forward, that growth is "moderately" robust, and that they'll return to more "normal" interest rates and more normal monetary policy. The reality has been eight yeears of no action followed by about 18 months of extremely mild and cautious increases in the target rate.
So the question is this: if we're seeing moderate growth month after month, and year after year, why has the Fed been too afraid to do anything except make only the smallest changes?
The answer, most likely, is that the Fed knows the economy is extremely fragile. This latest admission from Yellen serves to — yet again — manage expectations and tell us to not expect much of anything from the Fed in terms of normalization. Perhaps we'll need another seven or eight years to get the targe rate up to 2 percent.
- Real Estate Company Is Replacing Agents With Robots
With robots slowly but surely taking over every semi-skilled occupation including in a bizarre development, the production of cocaine which may well unleash the era of cocaine deflation upon Wall Street (a welcome development in light of ever-shrinking bonuses), a new – and familiar – industry has emerged as the robots’ next target. According to Newsday, a California real estate technology company that aims to lower the cost of home-selling by using robots and “big data” instead of commission-based real estate agents has recently opened a Long Island office.
The latest potential source of tech-inspired deflation, REX Real Estate Exchange, which charges a selling commission of only 2% instead of the usual 5 to 6%, launched its Long Island operation this summer. The Los Angeles-based company expects to start listing New York-area homes on its website, rexchange.com in the near-term.
Traditional real estate fees “are just crazy high compared with every other industry in the United States,” said Jack Ryan, Rex’s CEO and a former partner at Goldman Sachs. Decades ago, investment brokerages charged 12 cents a share for stock trades, but now they charge less than a penny, he said. By lowering real estate fees, he said, his company is “doing the same thing with residential real estate.” In the process – if successful – it will also put countless people out of work.
According to Newsday, REX, which has raised $16 million from investors, is not the only company seeking to upend the residential real estate sales model. Another new entrant to the housing market is EasyKnock, a Sag Harbor startup that is rolling out a website designed to match sellers with buyers without the intervention of brokers. The company, which has raised $1.2 million in venture capital and plans to go live at any moment, has lowered commissions even more, to just 1.5% and does not list homes on the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, said co-founder and chief executive Jarred Kessler. The MLS is a way for brokers to share information about homes for sale.
“We’re a broker-free ecosystem,” Kessler said.
Among national brokerages, Seattle-based Redfin charges sellers a 1.5 percent listing fee — or 1 percent in a few communities, including Washington, D.C. — though unlike REX and EasyKnock, it also pays a commission to the buyer’s agent.
In a typical home sale, the commission gets split between the seller’s and buyer’s brokerages. If a home sells for $300,000 and the seller pays a 6 percent commission divided equally, each brokerage receives $9,000 and pays out a portion of that to the agents.
Like any threatened ecosystem, long Island real estate brokers expressed skepticism about the tech-focused companies’ prospects for success. “Discount brokers have attempted to be around for many, many years, and they just fall away because it is important to provide good personal services to the seller and to the buyer,” said Joe Moshé, owner of Plainview-based Charles Rutenberg Realty.
To be sure, few home sellers choose to bypass agents. Last year and in 2015, 89 percent of home sellers used a real estate agent, the highest share since at least 1981, said Adam DeSanctis, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors.
Buyers typically start their search online, he said, “but at the end of the day, most people are still relying on the value a real estate agent provides.”
That could change, however, once sellers and buyers discover how much they could save, REX’s Ryan said. For instance, he said, if the seller or buyer of a $500,000 home saves 3 percent on real estate brokerage fees, that adds up to $15,000.
Despite the discount fees, REX will provide full service, he said. The company expects to employ 10 licensed, salaried real estate agents here by the end of the year, and 50 by next year, Ryan said. The agents will guide buyers and sellers through listing and marketing a home and negotiating a sale, but the most sophisticated work will be done by computers, he said.
REX finds likely buyers by doing rigorous analysis of consumers’ income, location, spending habits and other data, and it reaches them through targeted ads on social media and other sites, Ryan said. The company even tracks potential buyers’ browsing on its website, so if a buyer spends time checking out one home’s pool and its zoned schools, that buyer will get more ads for homes with pools and information about schools, he said.
“It’s working brilliantly in southern California,” where the company closed 30 home sales in June, he said.
The company does not list homes on services such as the MLS. Instead, Ryan said, it uses ads and listings on websites such as Zillow.
But rather than relying on commission-based agents to provide information about homes, it is testing a tabletlike “robot” named REX that will be stationed in listed homes, programmed to answer some 75 typical questions. The Alexa-like tabletop box can answer nearly any question a prospective buyer lobs in its direction — from when the roof was last repaired to where the nearest Starbucks is. Since in its current generation, Rex can’t do it all, a human rep is also on site, greeting potential buyers. Rex also employs licensed brokers and salespersons but is paying them salaries rather than commissions.
The AI robot may very well appeal to millennials as they grow to house-buying age. Roughly 8% of sales in 2016 were from For Sale By Owner sites, a National Association of Realtors study found, while 89 percent of the sellers used a broker. Rex is trying to increase that 8 percent number by being super smart. Its research has found that the average buyer for a $500,000 home lives within 12 miles and for a $1 million home lives within 18 miles. But for a $50 million home, the buyer is global and already owns a home worth at least $10 million.
One California home seller said REX provided better service than the traditional agents he had used before in a dozen or so transactions.
Bob Simpson, 62, of Ventura, agreed to be interviewed by Newsday at the request of REX.
Simpson said he liked that his for-sale sign listed a webpage dedicated to his own home, instead of to a brokerage’s website, and that he always got quick responses to his questions.
Moreover, he said, when his home sold for $518,000, “we saved $21,000 by using REX. That’s indelibly inscribed in my head.”
One of REX’s Long Island-based agents, Bryan Starck, 22, who moved from California to Great Neck two months ago, said he has met with 10 to 15 buyers so far. The lower fee “makes a ton of sense” to sellers, and so does the use of technology to identify buyers, Starck said.
“You used to really need a traditional agent to buy a home or sell a home,” Starck said. But now, he said, “there’s an unprecedented amount of information available . . . I really do think this is going to be the company to change the industry.”
If he is right, then your next real estate agent may look like this.
- Every Single Cognitive Bias In One Infographic
The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.
Science has shown that we tend to make all sorts of mental mistakes, called “cognitive biases”, that can affect both our thinking and actions. These biases, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins points out, can lead to us extrapolating information from the wrong sources, seeking to confirm existing beliefs, or failing to remember events the way they actually happened!
To be sure, this is all part of being human – but such cognitive biases can also have a profound effect on our endeavors, investments, and life in general. For this reason, today’s infographic from DesignHacks.co is particularly handy. It shows and groups each of the 188 known confirmation biases in existence.
Courtesy of: Visual CapitalistWHAT IS A COGNITIVE BIAS?
Humans tend to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from making rational judgments.
These tendencies usually arise from:
- Information processing shortcuts
- The limited processing ability of the brain
- Emotional and moral motivations
- Distortions in storing and retrieving memories
- Social influence
Cognitive biases have been studied for decades by academics in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics, but they are especially relevant in today’s information-packed world. They influence the way we think and act, and such irrational mental shortcuts can lead to all kinds of problems in entrepreneurship, investing, or management.
COGNITIVE BIAS EXAMPLES
Here are four examples of how these types of biases can affect people in the business world:
Familiarity Bias: An investor puts her money in “what she knows”, rather than seeking the obvious benefits from portfolio diversification. Just because a certain type of industry or security is familiar doesn’t make it the logical selection.
Self-Attribution Bias: An entrepreneur overly attributes his company’s success to himself, rather than other factors (team, luck, industry trends). When things go bad, he blames these external factors for derailing his progress.
Anchoring Bias: An employee in a salary negotiation is too dependent on the first number mentioned in the negotiations, rather than rationally examining a range of options.
Survivorship Bias: Entrepreneurship looks easy, because there are so many successful entrepreneurs out there. However, this is a cognitive bias: the successful entrepreneurs are the ones still around, while the millions who failed went and did other things.
- Scientists Are Developing A Technique To Control The Weather With Laser-Beams
In a breakthrough that could permanently ameliorate the threat of thinning water supplies in California and much of the western US, a team of scientists says it will soon be able to induce rainfall and lightning storms by firing high-energy laser beams into the heavens.
Express reports that the breakthrough involves manipulating the static electricity present in clouds – which, after all, are just balls of condensation, triggering rainfall, according to experts at the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona.
A six year drought in California was finally declared over this year but the threat for the south-western state as well as other locations in the world remains the same.
But scientists may now be able to induce rain and lightning storms using high energy lasers in a breakthrough that could potentially eradicate droughts throughout the globe.
The possibility of condensation, lightning and storms are ever present in the clouds and are containED through high amounts of static electricity.
Experts from the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona believe that by firing a series of laser beams, they can activate the static electricity and induce rain and storms.
Here’s how it would work: One beam would be fired into the clouds to stimulate rainfall. Then, a second beam would surround the first beam to help sustain it for longer.
“When a laser beam becomes intense enough, it behaves differently than usual – it collapses inward on itself,” said Matthew Mills, a graduate student in the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL).
“The collapse becomes so intense that electrons in the air’s oxygen and nitrogen are ripped off creating plasma – basically a soup of electrons.”
This struggle is known as “filamentation” and creates a “light string” that only lasts for a short time before it disperses – hence the need for the second beam.
However, “because a filament creates excited electrons in its wake as it moves, it artificially seeds the conditions necessary for rain and lightning to occur.”
And, as it turns out, “if you wrap a large, low intensity, doughnut-like ‘dress’ beam around the filament and slowly move it inward, you can provide this arbitrary extension.
“Since we have control over the length of a filament with our method, one could seed the conditions needed for a rainstorm from afar," Mills continued.
“Ultimately, you could artificially control the rain and lightning over a large expanse with such ideas.”
One of the scientists involved with the study appeared on CBS This Morning on Thursday to explain how the technology would work in more detail:
- Airports Systems Just Crashed Globally; Could The Power Grid Be Next?
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Airport computer systems crashed around the globe yesterday. The crash caused passenger delays, angst, and fright among travelers, but a more ominous question has arisen in light of this glitch. Could the next failure be a worldwide power grid outage?
Thousands of travelers were grounded yesterday when a computer glitch took down check-in systems at more than 100 airports worldwide. The crash left passengers waiting in long lines at counters while trying to check-in for their flights. T Amadeus Alta, the company that provides the software, confirmed it is experiencing a “network issue that is causing disruption,” The Telegraph reported.
The glitch affected even massive airports, such London’s Heathrow International Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, and Ronald Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C. “Technical teams are working on the problem, services are gradually being restored,” the software company said. After a few hours, officials at Gatwick and Heathrow airports said their systems were “back up and running” after the “momentary IT glitch,” adding there may be a delay due to the outage.
A statement on the glitch read, “A small number of airlines are currently experiencing intermittent issues with their check-in systems at airports around the world — including at Heathrow.”
It continued, “Passengers will still be able to check-in for their flight, although the process may take slightly longer than usual.”
Passengers took to social media to complain about the crash.
The @Qantas check in system down. Massive queues in Hong Kong. Not sure why they can't get this right pic.twitter.com/lrL5jUzVEN
— Paul Harapin (@paulharapin) September 28, 2017
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What is going on @HeathrowAirport with @ThaiAirways checkin, this is quickly becoming a joke!
— Peter White (@peterwhite1997) September 28, 2017
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According to Fox News, it is still unclear when all the systems will be back up and running, but it begs the question: what if a power grid failure is next?
It isn’t like it’s never happened, but it may only be a matter of time before it occurs on a massive scale.
In December of 2015, 230,000 people in Western Ukraine lost power after 30 substations were mysteriously shut off. Contrary to what most people assumed at the time, this wasn’t an innocuous power outage. The authorities would later admit that the loss of power was caused by a cyber attack, which marked the first time that malware was successfully used to attack a power grid. A similar, albeit more sophisticated cyber attack, occurred one year later just outside of Kiev. Given the current tensions between Russia and Ukraine, it’s widely believed that the Russian government was responsible for these incidents.
However, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. A computer security company has been investigating these attacks, and has discovered the malware that was used to take down the grid. They’ve found that it’s far more dangerous and easier to use than anyone realized before. –Ready Nutrition
It may not necessarily be malicious malware that takes down the grid either. Even solar flares can cause some incredibly intense issues.
Most policy makers have not taken the threat of an earth-directed solar flare seriously, even though a senior member of the Congressional Homeland Security Committee recently warned that there is a 100% Chance of a Severe Geo-Magnetic Event Capable of Crippling Our Electric Grid.
If such an event were to happen Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who has advised people to develop individual preparedness plans based on the threat of massive solar flares or electro-magnetic pulse detonations, says that it would take upwards of 18 months to bring the grid back online because of a decaying national infrastructure. –SHTFPlan
With the crash of the airport system affecting people worldwide, imagine how much chaos would ensue should the power grid go down over most of earth.
- Monitor Releases Simulation Of What Nuclear Strike On North Korea Would Look Like
A scientist tasked with monitoring the proliferation of nuclear weapons has published what he described as a “rough simulation” of what would happen if North Korea follows through with threats to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.
The upshot of the simulation – which was published by Lassina Zerbo, the head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization – is that such an “atmospheric burst” could spread a “radio-isotope cloud” of radiation across the planet, potentially leading to the catastrophic loss of life.
In response to inquiries: Rough simulation (Sept15-29) of #radio-isotope cloud from hypothetical atmospheric burst over Pacific: #CTBT #IMS pic.twitter.com/361ZBkoUy7
— Lassina Zerbo (@SinaZerbo) September 28, 2017
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Simply a rough simulation of potential cloud that cld carry isotopes! In response to specific inquiries and nothing more.
— Lassina Zerbo (@SinaZerbo) September 28, 2017
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To be sure, some criticized the graphic as misleading, arguing that such a test probably wouldn’t lead to a world-wide cataclysm.
This is very misleading. Folks will interpret as cataclysmic. Localized rad levels and global fallout totally different.
— Tucker Murray (@TJM11291) September 28, 2017
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A Harvard PhD professor said that people “will confuse it with the kinds of fallout clouds they are used to reading about” the “shelter in place for two weeks kind.”
They will confuse it with the kinds of fallout clouds they are used to reading about, the "take shelter for 2 weeks" kind. pic.twitter.com/JEvIhbe97L
— Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) September 28, 2017
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US President Donald Trump warned earlier this week, North Korea’s nuclear weapons threaten “the entire world with unthinkable loss of life,” adding that the US has several “devastating” military options to choose from in dealing with North Korea.
Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told the UN General Assembly in New York that the US had effectively “declared war” on North Korea, and that the isolated country wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate with a nuclear strike. Since then, there have been reports that the North could be planning another show of force – and possibly its seventh nuclear test – to coincide with a local holiday next month.
According to Ri, the “most powerful detonation of an H-bomb” would be one of the North’s “highest-level” actions against the US, as Russia Today reports.
“It could be the most powerful detonation of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific,” Ri told Yonhap while in New York. “We have no idea about what actions could be taken, as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un.”
North Korea completed its sixth successful nuclear test earlier this month when it tested what’s believed to have been a hydrogen bomb. However, it’s unclear if the country has developed a thermonuclear warhead small enough to fit inside the tip of one of it’s ICBMs. Monitoring groups estimate the explosion caused by the Sept. 3 test was 16 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Yesterday, China announced that it had ordered all North Korean businesses operating within its borders to close, part of its obligations under the latest round of UN Security Council sanctions that were passed earlier this month.
Ultimately, Russia and China have called on both the US and North Korea to sit down for diplomatic talks. The two countries even proposed a peace plan where North would agree to suspend its nuclear and ballistic missile tests in exchange for the US halting its military drills with the South Koreans. However, neither the US nor North Korea have expressed much interest in talks.
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