Aug 31

Today’s News 31st August 2020

  • Sweden's Conservatives Warn Surging Violent Crime Has Become A "Second Pandemic"
    Sweden’s Conservatives Warn Surging Violent Crime Has Become A “Second Pandemic”

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 02:45

    As the shooting of a man in Portland last night intensifies Americans’ fears about mounting violent crime and the increasingly out of control “protest movement” spawned by the killing of George Floyd, the Financial Times has chosen to write a story about Sweden that could offer some insight into the mindset of the American “silent majority”.

    Now that Sweden has successfully beaten back its coronavirus outbreak, politicians in the country are pivoting to focus on a new issue that has emerged in the aftermath of the economic destruction wrought by the global outbreak. Even though Sweden never locked down its economy, it suffered an even larger economic contraction than its Nordic neighbors.

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    This, combined with years of heightened migration fueled by crises in the Middle East and Africa, has continued to fuel growth in crime across stodgy Sweden.

    When President Trump tweeted about the crime wave in Sweden, the mainstream media dismissed the president’s concerns as simply regurgitating a ‘bogus’ story invented by Fox News, a claim echoed by Sweden’s center-left political establishment. The truth, however, is much more complicated, and much more sensitive, than this denialism might suggest.

    And now that the COVID-19 numbers are down, the country is starting to focus on the rising rates of violent crime, spurred in part by a series of particularly brutal crimes that have taken place in recent weeks. Whether its reports about criminals setting up their own roadblocks in Gothenburg, a 12-year-old girl shot and killed in gang crossfire, or a beating that verged on torture, right-wing politicians, led by a right-wing party called the Sweden Democrats that was mostly shunned until a few months ago, have seized on this latest crime wave as Sweden’s “second pandemic.“

    “There is a big frustration and anger at the developments,” Mattias Karlsson, parliamentary leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, the country’s third-largest political party, told the Financial Times. “Our laws are too soft, the police don’t have the means to investigate this very serious crime.”

    On Friday night, a large riot broke out in an immigrant suburb of Sweden’s third city Malmo after far-right sympathisers burnt a Koran. Ulf Kristersson, head of the main centre-right opposition party, the Moderates, used his summer speech on August 24 to accuse the government of failing to act after more than 200 shootings and 24 deaths this year. “The deadly violence is Sweden’s second pandemic,” he added.

    Interestingly enough, the issue of crime is becoming a bigger political liability for Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats than their handling of the coronavirus. And it’s a natural fit for the ‘anti-migrant’ right because most of the criminal suspects are immigrants.

    The governing Social Democrats had until recently enjoyed a boost in the polls from their handling of the coronavirus pandemic where they have largely followed the recommendations of state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell while ploughing billions of krona into the economy.

    But a nascent conservative bloc – involving Mr Kristersson’s Moderates and the Christian Democrats from the mainstream centre-right, plus the previously shunned Sweden Democrats – is increasingly attacking the government on law and order and migration as many of the suspected criminals are immigrants.

    One academic expert quoted in the FT story said that while the liberal government’s “libertarian” approach to tackling the pandemic had “discombobulated” Swedish conservatives, the crime issue is giving conservatives a rare opportunity to completely turn the tables on their competition.

    Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer in political science at Sodertorn University, said the Swedish right had been “discombobulated” by the country’s COVID-19 strategy where the centre-left suddenly rallied around a “libertarian” approach of not having a formal lockdown. But he argued the resurgence in violence had dented the centre-left hopes that coronavirus could tilt the debate more towards the economy and big government. “The violence is becoming so grotesque it is bound to displace pretty much everything else,” he added.

    The conservative line is pretty straight forward: attempts at integration and open migration were misguided idealism, and these failed policies have led to “segregation and violence”.

    Toward the end of the story, the conservative politician who appeared to be the FT’s main source made an interesting point. In Sweden – as in much of Europe today – the big political disagreements are no longer about economics. They’re about culture.

    Mr Karlsson said that “many people are feeling insecure in their everyday life” and argued that Sweden’s immigration and integration policies had failed, leading to “segregation and violence”.

    He added: “It’s not really economics or taxes that are the main sources of conflict in Swedish politics — values, identity, crime that is where the debate is.”

    And they’re about what kind of society famously open Sweden should become as the world advances further into the 21st Century.

  • The Fatal Attraction Of Techo-Fascism
    The Fatal Attraction Of Techo-Fascism

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Mark Petrakis via Off-Guardian.org,

    “Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.”

    – Cato the Elder

    The enduring beauty of fascism is that it requires so little from us… so little independent thought; just our basic belief and adherence to a limited set of popularly-shared directives and narratives that once fully accepted, relieve us of the need to address stubborn questions or to fret over subtle differences of opinion and feeling.

    Propaganda reassures us that we are complete, that we know all there is to know, that we are rational, pragmatic and pure, that the science has been settled and that we are a part of something special.

    Such a surrender to reductionist narratives cuts across all classes and income brackets. Neither the most educated nor the least uneducated retain any special advantage in the face of powerful consensus-shaping propaganda.

    PROPAGANDA is, of course, the life-blood of fascist control. Maintaining the economic, governmental and scientific frameworks of a technocratic-fascist “operating system” is unthinkable without propaganda and disinformation. When truth is seen as a liability to power, it must always be disallowed, and all instances of it effectively penalized.

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    Radio and television and their constant enabler, popular “science” – operate today as their own religions, reliant for their success upon the devotion of the masses. As McLuhan told us, the experience of electronic media is always more powerful than the specific messaging it contains.

    The currency that we use to pay for the electronic spectacle is our attention, and in such hyper-mediated times as these, the charges mount up exponentially, until we find ourselves saddled with soul-crushing denial and disconnection.

    Three defining historical moments (among many) have defined the confluence of fascism, propaganda and technology.

    1. The fundamental principles of propaganda were first defined 100 years ago by Edward Bernays, often referred to as the father of public relations.

    2. Joseph Goebbels served as Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. The stunning successful lessons of his Nazi propaganda programs were not lost on the world’s political and economic leaders in the post-war era, and in the time since then.

    3. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was founded in 1947, for the expressed purpose of conducting secret intelligence operations that could serve political aims at the same time they generated huge and untraceable profits. The extent of the CIA’s illegal enterprises necessitated the creation and maintenance of a permanent ministry of disinformation, managed by our own taxpayer-funded “Shadow Government” and “Deep State.”

    In retrospect then, it is clear that these propaganda campaigns have proven SO successful, that even today, few of us ever realize how ongoing, vast and wide-spread they are.

    Propaganda’s efficacy is so indisputable, that it is commonly the case that those who are the most certain that they are NOT among the propagandized, are in fact its most overt victims.

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    Corporate media focuses on those stories they are paid to propagate, i.e., those which support the financial and ideological
    agendas of their owners, who themselves are all, without exception, central parts of the larger global ruling oligarchy.

    A key part of the propagandist’s handbook is to simply leave unexplored stories that they are NOT given approval to manage and control; stories which, we might assume, do not generate sufficient advantage for the owners. Such calculated sins of omission are essential to keeping the mass of believers unperturbed by the vagaries of complexity in the delivery of their daily dogmas.

    If an individual were to insist upon learning more about any of these less-discussed stories, they would soon arrive at the realization that while an abundance of relevant facts can easily be found, and often hidden in plain sight, the truth is that most people simply do not WANT to know, think or talk about any such truths that differ from those accepted by their peers, for whom cognitive dissonance causes such literal pain and disorientation, as to keep them docile and compliant to the dictates of the media.

    As McLuhan said:

    “Only the small secrets need to be protected. The large ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”

    Perhaps, the grandest illusion of all, and which must be maintained at all costs, is that both the world and the stories we tell of it, must be made to appear as though they are generated randomly. It must always appear that the media’s coverage and the comments of experts are entirely free from any preconceived manipulation.

    In the terminology of the media, news must always be “Breaking!” – even though in reality, we know the news more closely resembles a cooking show, where ingredients are chopped and sliced before-hand, after which they are mixed and served up live on camera in ways that keep the public hooked on happy hash-slinging and enticingly-scripted recipes.

    Technocratic-Fascism, the advanced fusion of the multinational technology-dominated corporatocracy with the authoritarian global and surveillance state, allows its initiates to believe they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Witness the magical left’s lockstep belief in the pure villainy of Donald Trump, or the magical right’s equally lockstep belief in Trump as a self-sacrificing national hero.

    Clearly both parties to the constant heist of human freedom need each other to better manage their greed for consumer profit and civilian control. Such mental assaults secondarily require that all truthful motives remain hidden and obfuscated in a fog of weaponized storytelling.

    This accounts of course for the abiding value of bullshit, does it not? Bullshit effectively misleads without upsetting the natural order of things, without irreversibly tearing apart the fabric of credibility. Nothing can stand in the way of the constant flow of messaging, profit and growth, which are after all, the primary justifications for all this deceptive disorder.

    This is another aspect of what makes technocratic-fascism so irresistible; in realizing how effective it is at knowing us better than we know ourselves. The assumption is that if we were to know ourselves better than the stories we are told, we would not be seduced by such obvious lies. Since we don’t, our “betters” are left with no choice but to keep up the constant barrage of lies, at least until our thinking eventually locks up and we capitulate and collapse, like a stack of wooden blocks.

    If for example, we did not always obey or give our attention to propaganda, we would soon grow alarmed by the many contradictions that we are told exist, say between the Covid monster and the daily vaporous disease statistics, or between maskers and non-maskers, between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, between crushing economic destruction and the mewling need for safety, between the lunatic left and the lunatic right, between black and whites, between males and females… between one piece of orthogonal bullshit and another equally opposing piece of bullshit.

    ALL of these dichotomies, of course, are at some fundamental level FALSE… every last one of them, each constructed by skilled media professionals and put in place to overwhelm our critical thinking and that of millions of others from seeing what’s really going on in the limitless background.

    In this remarkably cost-efficient way, human energy and intelligence are siphoned off, and directed towards the task of turning us into helplessly confused and easily-controllable “lab rats,” forcibly cut off from each other, lest we experience ourselves as intelligent and sovereign beings. If something like that were to happen, the driving agendas of big business and global governance to keep us marching in lockstep towards a more divided and disempowered fate, would soon disintegrate.

    It is in such a state of debilitating surrender that we are divided one subset “targeted” demographic against another; all herded into a wicked mental trap with one side thinking one thing, while the other side thinks something else – such that half of us hate the other and the other half hate the other right back.

    At this point, and after so many years of unqualified victories for the industries supported by the propaganda industry, the pathetic truth is that propaganda doesn’t even NEED to be that entertaining anymore. Knowing they have the situation in tow, the purveyors of propaganda can save a ton of money by just being sensational, confrontational and redundant in their narratives.

    Recall this quote from the singular Frank Zappa:

    “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

    Once we have learned to carry on absent the need for verifiable truth, or without the need to discern authentic and honest voices from deceitful and manipulative ones, we gradually lose our interest in so-called “truth,” preferring instead to keep splashing about in unsubstantiated speculation, pompous judgments and opinionated fluff.

    Let’s be honest…the only people who might actually CARE what any of us think about the blaring big topics of the day (masks or vaccines or climate change or Black Lives Matter, etc.) are other equally thin-skinned victims of propaganda, who much like the majority of us, still believe that the government cares about them and that the mainstream media is telling them the truth.

    That is why a growing number of people have given up on the media’s crudely fictional depiction of reality, and are instead trying to figure out how to thrive and to reconnect energetically with others – and with truths that can only exist OUTSIDE the reach of the propaganda ‘spectacle.”

    The media, of course, with their sophisticated surveillance tracking tools knows full well when there is an uptick in negative reactions to their toxic narratives, but since it is also aware that it is after all pushing nothing but sugar water bullshit, it is left with little choice but to double-down and turn the levels up even higher… thus ramming even more bullshit at us.

    Whacky Joe Biden, Greedy Green Greta, Covid, Aunt Jemima Race Wars and endless offenses… all come at us so fast and so hard as to leave us bent and broke under the weight of it all, as we stumble around like headless chickens desperately trying to win the approval of our friends by looking like we are at least doing the only “acceptable” thing.

    Arriving at his frenzied point of screwball hyper-polarization, is the essential endgame of Propaganda… locking us into its agenda, at the same time it demands that we think we are making these choices of our own FREE WILL!

    To get us to that point though, they must keep us constantly preoccupied; agitated, offended, attacking each other and defending ourselves against all threats, both real and imagined. The more they can get us ensnared in mind-numbing opinions and outrages, the less energy and attention will be left to notice the deeper more manipulative agendas of techno-fascism.

    Mid 20th Century fascism was woefully limited in its capacities and in what it could extract from its victims… and yet still it worked! The new technocratic-fascism is here to mine the population for all the bio-capital commodification it can. Those who can invent the most efficient and ingenious means of converting human confusion, poverty, crime and illness into impact markets will quickly take their place among the prior generations’ titans of technology.

    Once you step back far enough though to experience the sheer SCALE of this ongoing and unlimited propaganda WAR on us, it grows a bit easier to see why so few are able to escape the media’s influence. Oh, for a while perhaps, you can rise above it… but eventually, you will get pulled back down into the muck. Even if you kill your TV, unplug yourself from your media feeds, and turn off the Wi-Fi, each of us, at some point, will relapse and fall off the wagon.

    This is because propaganda is not just about what’s in the news or in the media. It’s even more importantly about the broadly consensual layers of social hallucination that are created and shared across all of society, which make it difficult for any of us to function socially, absent those commonly shared reference points and signals that we have convinced ourselves are required in order to allay our anxiety, confusion and isolation… all of which are primary raisons d’etres for propaganda in the first place.

    I wish there was one simple way to break propaganda’s voodoo spell. There isn’t. I’m not even sure how to do that for myself, or how I can avoid falling prey to it again, just as I and most of us have done for the great majority of our lives.

    What seems obvious to me now is that propaganda in the service of a transhumanist-centered technology has become so pervasive and insidiously forceful, that in many ways, our thinking has ceased to be entirely our own, and that the portion of our soul that remains recognizable as uniquely us, is shrinking fast.

    The effect of all this leaves our spirits infected, and easily convertible into compliant puppets under the top-down control of truly diabolically puppet masters, who in order to keep us subservient to their untruths, and to doing whatever we are told, have become masterful at pretending to be something they are not.

    This is perfectly exemplified in the character of Bill Gates, who working with his Bain and Co. handlers and account managers, (who previously managed the Iraq War for Dick Cheney) have constructed these elaborate biopharma/ biocapital/ vaccine public health/fear narratives and investment pyramids that are then fed to the media and Wall Street, who reheat and serve them to the public, generating criminal profits while making such that Mr. Gates is always portrayed as an altruistic philanthropist and protector of the public… when any fool can see he is nothing of the sort.

    NOT seeing just how obvious and laughable propaganda campaigns have become in this one-size fits all era, leaves us painfully vulnerable and ready to be further subsumed by more of the same.

    The complexity of today’s master plans for disinformation are unparalleled compared to the past. Looking back to the 1950’s and 60’s, when all the above long-term plans for centralized and technocratic control were slowly being tested, being part of America’s growing middle-class was actually a pretty sweet deal. It is in a return to more bucolic and “normal” times as these that we pin our nostalgic hopes, by the media but especially by politicians.

    “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in, can hope to escape.”

    – William S. Burroughs

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    Looking at our world, we can see that the reach and authority of the transnational global capitalists who run the world’s nation-sized casinos has been cemented. All systems are now in place, up and running LIVE on that criminal syndicate’s vast web of networks. Each one of us has by now been targeted by them for some form of surveillance and financialization – just as “nature” has, just as “disease” has, just as “social justice” has, just as everything will eventually.

    The “A.I. control grids” are all active and expanding. The technocratic agendas are now fully ready for prime-time. We have been gradually “shepherded” by propaganda and psychological torture techniques, just as we have also been physically compromised by toxins in the geo-engineered air and water, by disruptive electromagnetic frequency radiation, by weaponized technologies that include the release of nano-particulates inside our bodies (either by way of inhalation or injection) which are then governed by oxygen-absorbing 5G which at the higher millimeter wave frequency, will bring remote alteration of our very DNA under the “persistent” control of A.I., which will guide the process of transmuting us into commodities, into plunderable assets, into digitally-regulated and genetically modified “livestock.”

    Sadly, this is where decades of constant acquiescence to propaganda and institutional hypnosis has brought us…bent over, staring at our shoes and bracing for the “BIG ONE.”

    I remember in my own youth, being convinced that the evil genius of Hitler and Nazism had somehow transformed the mass of decent German people into BEASTS, possessed by demons, as if in a dark fairy tale… into something less than human.

    We know that once we begin to regard others as LESS than us…as something OTHER than us, it is only a short step to unleashing our hate upon them, even to the point of becoming violent and criminal.

    Needless to say, these very same psychological imperatives are everywhere apparent today; in how we are instructed by propaganda to regard the Chinese, Russians, Muslims, white supremacist Trumpers, deluded depraved liberals, defective racists, misogynist sexists and quivering face-ists (with their acute disdain for anyone who questions the dogma of e-mask-ulation.)

    Same as it ever was, you might say, but as we approach the much-touted singularity with its accompanying convergence of man and machine, how will the media respond in the face of that Huxleyan “solution?” In that light, how might propaganda shift its focus?

    I expect it will change-up the pitch and tell us that THIS time, things will be different. This time won’t be like last time. No, this time, things will have changed, so that we will no longer be “brainwashed” by the media as we were before. No, when the coming big change happens to us, it will not be like that. We will rather be transformed into advanced independent humans augmented by perfectly blended combinations of technology, science and engineering.

    Our DNA will be carefully crafted by brilliant doctors and scientists to enhance only the “preferred” qualities in their human subjects, and under their wise direction, we will gladly do as we are told. For so great a future, we will willingly offer our support and so grow accustomed to our new life, lest we become like those poor unfortunate souls, so lost in their unreason, that they cannot fully appreciate the wisdom that derives from enthusiastically embracing PROGRESS.

    In our leaders inspired and time-tested plans, we will of course have every convenience at our fingertips, such that doors will magically open when we approach. We will be able to download all manner of rich media and data with the blink of an eye. We will be as supermen.

    Our definitions of what is valuable and what is not, will fluidly shift to suit changing circumstances. We will see ourselves as the very picture of modernity, and the envy of the world…just as we have always been. We will be as American as our multi-racial forefathers, even though they lived in unenlightened times…long before today’s great social justice transformation allowed us, their proud descendants, to wake each day into this glistening new world.

    In such a world, when we ask ourselves what we might be grateful for, we will no longer need to struggle for an answer. We will know exactly what is good, true and beautiful and we will commit ourselves to those lofty ideals each and every day.

    Therein too, and most mercilessly, resides the fatal beauty of technocratic-fascism.

  • Trump Dares Biden To Utter 'Antifa' After Feeble Response To Murder And Mayhem
    Trump Dares Biden To Utter ‘Antifa’ After Feeble Response To Murder And Mayhem

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 08/31/2020 – 00:48

    President Trump slammed ‘Slow’ Joe Biden in a series of Sunday night tweets, after the former VP issued a weak statement essentially blaming Trump for inciting national violence which has left at least 30 people dead in the wake of a series of police incidents involving black suspects who died or were injured in custody or in altercations.

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    Instead of condemning violent leftists such as Antifa, Biden instead blamed Trump for “recklessly encouraging violence” and failing to “lower the temperature.”

    Not once did Biden mention Antifa or single out the left for causing the vast majority of the violence gripping the nation. Instead, Biden simply used a broad brush stroke and condemned ‘violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right.’

    Biden’s comments – echoed by his running mate Kamala Harris, come after a suspected self-admitted member of Antifa murdered a Trump supporter Saturday night in Portland.

    Trump wasn’t having it.

    “When is Slow Joe Biden going to criticize the Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators in ANTIFA?” Trump tweeted hours later, adding “When is he going to suggest bringing up the National Guard in BADLY RUN & Crime Infested Democrat Cities & States? Remember, he can’t lose the Crazy Bernie Super Liberal vote!”

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    Earlier in the evening, Trump suggested that Biden was being ‘forced out of the basement’ because his poll numbers are plunging – referring to a Politico report that Biden would be traveling on Monday (but not to Kenosha). Trump added that Biden has an ‘interesting’ problem – namely that “He must always be weak on CRIME because of the Bernie Sanders Radical Left voter. If he loses them, like Crooked Hillary did, he is “toast”, and many will vote for me because of TRADE (Bernie was good on trade). Joe MUST always be weak on crime!”

    We would note that Kamala Harris told Late Show host Stephen Colbert just days ago that the riots are never going to stop, and to beware.

    Harris also raised money last month to bail out Antifa and BLM arrested in the mayhem.

    Meanwhile, Biden’s refusal to condemn Antifa has not gone unnoticed:

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    Now let’s see if Biden can salvage his basement blunder. After all, silence is complicity.

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  • 2020's Economic Destruction Due To The State's COVID Response Will Pale In Comparison To What's Coming!
    2020’s Economic Destruction Due To The State’s COVID Response Will Pale In Comparison To What’s Coming!

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Gary Barnett via LewRockwell.com,

    “It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.”  

    – Ludwig Von Mises (1990). “Economic freedom and interventionism: an anthology of articles and essays”

    Concerning economics in the United States today, the hierarchy begins with the top tier of self-proclaimed elites, those in central and high level banking, those in the large corporate world, those at the top of the ‘healthcare’ pyramid, and those controlling monetary and economic policy above the level of government, including the class running the large tax exempt foundations. While government is below this level, it is nonetheless responsible for the economic carnage because it is the initiator and enforcer of policies meant to enrich the few at the top at the expense of the many. This could never be more evident than it is today.

    This country has gone through hell this year due to policies put into place to combat what has been called a deadly ‘pandemic.’ Considering our history, and current numbers of total death, this ‘pandemic’ has proved to be a fraud. Apparently, that matters not, as the public at large has accepted the propaganda, and has given in to immense draconian measures that have devastated this economy and the natural health of the population. So far, things have gone exactly as planned, and the people have surrendered to the hype to such an extent as to allow the destruction of their natural immune systems and in many cases their livelihoods. This does not bode well for the future if the current trend is not reversed.

    The bloated economic systems worldwide have been inflated by a constant increase in the money supply for at least the past 12 plus years. This year alone, that expansion has exploded exponentially, and with no end in sight, and was of course blamed on a virus outbreak. With this kind of expansion, and the coinciding response of lockdowns, business and travel closures, quarantines, and fear mongering, prices have dramatically escalated and unemployment has skyrocketed. Businesses across the country have been shut down, many permanently, and many have been forced into bankruptcy. These of course are small and medium sized businesses for the most part, the backbone of this country. The unemployment caused by this harsh and unwarranted government response, has been unimaginable, and has led to over 40 million people being out of work. This alone has the potential to destroy the economy of this nation, but this is just the beginning.

    The destruction of the economy is a necessary aspect of the plan to advance global governance. The more people out of work and dependent on government means that they will be much easier to control. Already mass poverty is evident, and with food supplies dwindling, and so many unable to support their families, starvation among a large part of the population is certainly possible if not probable. These are agendas sought by those in the ruling class that need total compliance in order to restructure the global economic system. This economic collapse coming was imminent, but now is being pushed forward at great speed in order to use this virus scare as the scapegoat for a desired economic reset.

    The biggest threat we face now is this coming fall and winter, as this flu season will most likely be much worse than normal due to the purposeful weakening of the immune systems of most Americans. Refusing to bow to state orders, and not accepting any political authority, would certainly stop this onslaught of tyranny in its tracks, even if just a small percentage of the population were to say no to this government response. That has not happened so far, but without that dissent, this country is doomed in my opinion. Imagine what has happened over just the past 6 months, and then double or triple that response. The response seen to date will be dwarfed by the response this winter if the death toll is higher as I predict, and most all those deaths will be blamed on this thing called Covid-19.

    It appears that a manufactured ramp up of the state response is coming very soon, as this has been telegraphed for some time by the government and the state run mainstream media. The warnings have been out in the open, and this is with no knowledge whatsoever of what will occur this season. A set up is in place, and the planned next wave is ready to launch in just the next few weeks. Already around the world, much more brutal and oppressive measures are being advanced for non-compliance of mask wearing, distancing, and quarantine evasiveness. It appears that this is in anticipation of much harsher measures to come, and the rulers need to get the public used to an amplification of enforcement so that necessary changes can be made.

    This fall and winter is the most important time for this country, maybe the most important time in history.

    If mass compliance continues, and if dissent by large numbers of Americans is not forthcoming, life as we know it could end before spring.  The global reset by that time could be advancing at such a pace as to be almost impossible to stop. That would be an untenable situation, as once this reset is in high gear, and even more people are destitute, it will be much more difficult to reverse this totalitarian plot.

    With more lockdowns, more quarantine, more isolation, and more destruction of the economy, unemployment will balloon to unheard of levels, causing even more sickness, death, and tyranny at the hands of the state. In addition, the more deaths that occur, the more draconian the policies will become, and the carnage brought by the evil response to this so-called virus will not relent, it will only get worse. Imagine unemployment at 50%, 60%, or more? Imagine no food on the shelves, and no ability to support or feed your families? Imagine hell on earth.

    This is all leading to a mandatory global vaccine that will be released some time this fall or winter. If most of the masses line up for this vaccine, something that is now looking possible, the resulting effects of these toxins that are unknown at this time will have already been put into play inside the bodies of most of the population. What harm will that bring, and will it be irreversible?

    At this stage, the plan for global governance will have advanced, and we would be on track to establish a cashless society, with all monetary systems becoming digital. This will signal the end of an era that began with freedom, but will end in death, destruction, slavery, and tyranny. This cannot be allowed to happen.

    “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” 

    – Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.101, Vintage

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  • 'Woke' Sex Workers Force Actress Bella Thorne To Apologize After $2MN 'OnlyFans' Debut
    ‘Woke’ Sex Workers Force Actress Bella Thorne To Apologize After $2MN ‘OnlyFans’ Debut

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 23:20

    After breaking the record for most money earned on OnlyFans in a single week, actress Bella Thorne, 22, has been forced by the ‘woke mob’ into apologizing to the ‘sex worker community’ for new restrictions imposed by the app following the former Disney Channel star’s resounding success.

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    Here’s what happened: First, Thorne hyped up her decision to join the app, eliciting a deluge of subscriptions, even though she has pledged not to post any nude or explicit content. Then, an individual posing as Thorne scammed a pack of horny subscribers out of $200 for a “nude” photo that didn’t actually depict Thorne in the nude.

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    After screengrabs of the scammers’ posts wen viral, OnlyFans decided to set new limits on the prices that creators can charge for pay-per-view content, as well as the amount that users can “tip” creators. Pay per view content can no longer be priced above $50, and tips top out at $100.

    Afterwards, the ‘sex workers’ and their ‘woke’ ‘allies’ took to Twitter to hound Thorne and her team into issuing an apology, which she did Saturday afternoon via Twitter.

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    Some of these tweets even verge on inciting violence against Thorne.

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    To be fair, Thorne’s claim that she joined OF not for the money but as a gesture of support to sex workers in an attempt to remove ‘the stigma’ associated with sex work (an obsession of woke feminist sex workers pushing for decriminalization of prostitution across the US).

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    Thorne also claimed she has a meeting booked with OF to find out more about why the company imposed these new restrictions.

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    Unfortunately, the ‘woke mob’ felt her apology was “performative af”.

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    To be fair, even if Thorne does experience some career blow back, at least she has her OF income to carry her through.

  • Robocop Is Here – New "Smart" Police Helmet Scans For COVID-19 & Uses Facial Recognition
    Robocop Is Here – New “Smart” Police Helmet Scans For COVID-19 & Uses Facial Recognition

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:55

    Authored by Jack Burns via The Free Thought Project,

    It took 33 years but Robocop is now here. Well, not exactly, but the rise of the police state fueled by advancements in technology have given birth to a heads up display equipped helmet sure to please the most anxious of peace officers. It’s called a “Smart Helmet” and it can screen airport passengers for the COVID-19 virus as well as provide the scanning officer with other vital records.

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    Public officials in Flint, Michigan cannot provide clean drinking water to their residents but travelers to Bishop International Airport can get a glimpse of the new robotic cop helmets where they’re currently deployed.

    Under the guise of screening passengers for COVID-19, the Smart Helmet, produced by KeyBiz based in Italy, can scan travelers’ body temperatures from over 20 feet away.

    But the Smart Helmet is not limited to temperature body scans which any laser guided thermometer can do, not in the slightest. Facial recognition software is installed which can provide the police officer with information related to outstanding warrants, if an individual is identified on a terror watch list or a no-fly list, and can read license plates for outstanding warrants, stolen vehicle information, criminal histories, etc. Even if you are completely innocent, you will be subject to these scans.

    Temperature scans can be done at a distance of 21 feet or less. The helmets have already been deployed in Italy and elsewhere around the world. Michigan’s ABC12 reports if someone’s temperature is in excess of 100.4 degrees, more investigation into the traveler’s health will be conducted to determine if the passenger is too sick to travel.

    Anyone who isn’t a passenger who registers a temperature above 100.4 degrees will be asked to leave the terminal building after police conduct some limited coronavirus contact tracing to find out what areas of the building may have been exposed.

    We at TFTP have warned our readers for quite some time the COVID-19 pandemic would be used as an onus for a greater invasion of privacy. Some of us here at TFTP are old enough to remember when boarding a plane was a simple as buying a ticket and getting aboard.

    Fast forward nearly 20 years and there are quite a few things which happen the minute your ticket is purchased.

    First, your name, age, and birth date are checked to see if you’ve been added to a terror watch list, a no-fly list or otherwise. Then, when you’re cleared to travel, you must soon possess a “Real ID”. Without it (come October) you won’t be allowed to fly. Upon arrival to the airport, your identification is scanned and further checked in databases for any flags which may arise.

    Afterward, all of your pockets must be emptied, your shoes taken off, your belts, hats, and metal jewelry removed. You’re placed into a sniffing device to check to see if you’re carrying the scent of bomb making materials.

    Next, your entire body image is scanned. Later, a total stranger may pat you down and grope your private parts as you wait for the all clear sign to be given at which time you can retrieve your belongings. But that’s only if the x-ray technician doesn’t think your hand sanitizer has too many ounces in its container.

    Now, it seems Mr. Robocop will take your temperature against your will, search through your criminal history and examine your facial features. All of these things will likely be cataloged in another alphabet agency’s database.

    The entire invasion of privacy will fall under the auspices of fears surrounding a fairly mild pandemic using slogans like “it’s for your health and safety.” And you thought it was about keeping America safe from terrorism. Think again, this makes me long for the good ole days when the only danger in flying was smelling like cigarette smoke from all the puffers aboard.

  • Organized Crime, Drug Cartels, Illegal Hacking and Retaliation: A Tesla Whistleblower Tells All
    Organized Crime, Drug Cartels, Illegal Hacking and Retaliation: A Tesla Whistleblower Tells All

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:30

    In an explosive podcast interview with noted Tesla skeptics @TeslaCharts and @georgia_orwell_, former Tesla employee-turned-whistleblower Karl Hansen makes shocking allegations about what transpired at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory in the spring and summer of 2018. The interview was published earlier today on TC’s Chartcast as a two-part series.

    In Part One, the hosts establish Hansen’s credentials and the scope of his employment at Tesla as a member of their in-house security and investigations team.  Hansen describes his investigations into widespread theft of copper and other raw materials from the Gigafactory, and how Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, focused on the need to keep the existence of this theft out of the media. Hansen then shares how a tip from the Drug Enforcement Agency caused him to develop evidence of a widespread drug cartel operation inside the Gigafactory. As Hansen continued to press his investigation, his access to internal Tesla systems became restricted.

    In Part Two, Hansen alleges that a team of former Uber security experts, hired into Tesla by Musk and reporting to him directly, illegally hacked the personal devices of several employees, including the personal phone of Marty Tripp, another former Tesla employee-turned-whistleblower. Hansen then recounts his own experience as a whistleblower and how he was ultimately confronted by Musk directly after filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    At one point, Hansen collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for several months after leaving Tesla, only to discover that the investigation was killed despite significant evidence of probable cause. The interview ends with a discussion about the devastating impact this has had on Hansen’s life.

  • The Attempt To Overthrow America
    The Attempt To Overthrow America

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 22:05

    Authored by Guy Millière via The Gatestone Institute,

    The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 might appear, looking back, as a pretext for mayhem. His reported killing by a white police officer was immediately followed by a wave of riots during which neighborhoods in several major cities were devastated. Stores were looted, buildings were burned and people were murdered as mayors and other local public officials chose to let the rioters run wild, whip up racial conflict and protect the criminals rather than the citizens being brutalized. The riots quickly appeared to have nothing to do with Floyd’s death and everything to do with groups seeking to overthrow America.

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    In the past, members of the radical organization Antifa had committed acts of violence, but never before had been able to sow terror throughout major cities. This time, they could and they did.

    In addition, the Marxist movement Black Lives Matter (BLM), which seemed to have disappeared since the election of President Donald J. Trump — who, incidentally, did more for the black and Hispanic minority communities in three years than anyone had done for decades — suddenly reappeared, well-funded and well-organized, at the heart of the riots. BLM received further support from the mayors of several major cities and gained even more popularity while attacking first the statues of former slave-owners, such as George Washington, and then those of the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In Washington, DC and New York City, “Black Lives Matter” was painted on avenues in huge yellow letters – in New York by the mayor himself.

    This may have been the first time in US history that a Marxist movement received corporate support: Amazon, Microsoft, Nabisco, Gatorade, Deckers and other large American firms donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, now a major beneficiary of US corporate largesse. Many colleges and universities also joined in backing the movement. The trustees of Princeton University decided to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the university’s school of public policy. They said that they had examined the “long and damaging history of racism in America” and that Wilson’s “racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college”. Calls to “#CancelYale” surged across social media, alleging that Yale’s namesake, Elihu Yale, was a slave-owner and slave-trader, and that the university must change its name, as well. Yale University President, Peter Salovey, however, said that would not be done, explaining that Yale was “relatively unexceptional in his own time.”

    Also for the first time, mayors of many cities and other local officials have deliberately protected criminals over law-abiding citizens and allowed the destruction to take place. Seattle’s Mayor Jenny Durkan abandoned an entire area of ​​the city, dubbed CHAZ (and later CHOP) to rioters and suggested that the police-free zone would create a “summer of love“, then did nothing while rapes, vandalism and murders took place. Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler has allowed for nearly three months an entire district fall prey to rioters. The city councils of New York and Los Angeles, America’s two largest cities, voted to cut the budgets of their police forces drastically. The Minneapolis City Council went even further and voted to disband the city’s police force altogether.

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a seeming surrender to the mob, began referring to the pandemonium in Portland as the “immense power of peaceful protests” and compared federal law enforcement officers trying to defend a federal building against marauding arsonists to Nazi-era “stormtroopers.”

    Former President Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of a civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis, compared President Trump to the segregationist governor of Alabama in the 1960s, George Wallace — who happened to be a Democrat. He spoke of “police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans,” distorting the facts. In Minneapolis, a single policeman had knelt on the neck of a single black American, once. The police officer is in jail, awaiting trial, and his abuse has been severely and universally condemned.

    The idea that the American police are “racist” has been used to justify riots and destruction. Some police officers may well be racist, but accusing all American police officers of racism does not align with the facts. Statistics show that the vast majority of black people killed by police officers are armed and dangerous. Moreover, the police officers involved are sometimes black. Statistics also show that, on average, 94% of the black people killed each year in the US are killed by other black people. But many people who talk about racism do not seem even slightly concerned about those black lives that have been taken. During the riots — in which people were killed by rioters or by looters who used the riots as cover — the main victims were black people, sometimes children.

    Already in 2017, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had worried about the sporadic riots that were breaking out, for instance, when conservative speakers were invited to speak. The United States, he said , “is in the throes of a one-sided cultural civil war…. Surrender or fight – our country is at stake.”

    The situation, in fact, had become “worrying” even before the results of the 2016 presidential election were known.

    As we now can read in the report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the senior levels of government during the Obama Administration were colluding to prevent President Trump from winning the election, and then, after it, to frame him in an attempted coup d’état.

    On the day after the election, people took to the streets with signs saying, “Not my President”: President Trump’s legitimacy was immediately questioned. On the day of his inauguration, in the downtown area of Washington DC, violent riots and acts of vandalism took place.

    During the weeks that followed, President Trump was accused, with no evidence, of “collusion with Russia”. The false charges lasted for more than two years and may well have hampered the management of the country. Former CIA Director John Brennan claimed that President Trump had “worked with Russians” and was “treasonous“. When the accusations turned out to be unfounded, the president’s accusers, in the hope of impeaching him, turned to a telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. President Trump was described as having “endangered the security of the country”. An impeachment procedure, conducted in violation of all of the rules, followed. When law professor Jonathan Turley pointed out that the procedure was violating the rules, he received death threats. Retired Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz said that “For Congress to impeach President Trump for abuse of Congress would be an abuse of power by Congress”. Left-wing members of the House of Representatives went ahead impeaching the president anyway. They failed.

    In the effort to overturn the lawful 2016 election — and to coerce witnesses to “flip” and testify falsely against President Trump — the lives of others were ruined as well.

    Evidence now clearly shows that General Michael Flynn, an outstanding four-star general and war hero, was the victim of an entrapment plot that forced him to resign, ruined him financially, and came close to destroying his life. He is now in the throes of an attempt to entrap him again by a politicized judge, Emmett Sullivan, and a politicized judiciary. Although the prosecutor, the Department of Justice, dropped the case after it was disclosed that vast amounts of exculpatory evidence had been withheld — Judge Sullivan decided, illegally and in the finest tradition of the former Soviet Union, that he would be both the judge and the prosecutor, and continue to try the case that he was supposed to be impartially judging. The trial is still ongoing. Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi were among other innocent citizens who also had their lives upended.

    Attorney General William Barr recently said:

    “I thought things were partisan and tough 30 years ago — nothing compared to today. Things have fundamentally changed… [the left] represents a revolutionary Rousseauian party that believes in tearing down the system… They’re interested in complete political victory. They’re not interested in compromise. They’re not interested in dialectic, exchange of views… It’s a substitute religion. They view their political opponents… as evil because we stand in the way of their progressive utopia that they’re trying to reach…”

    As Barr said recently when testifying at House of Representatives committee: “Since when is it okay to burn down a federal court?”

    Thirty years ago, many things were indeed different. Destructive forces, however, were at work. A few authors attempted to sound an alarm, without success.

    In a book published in 1992, The Devaluing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett quoted prominent Democrat historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.:

    “The bonds of national cohesion in the republic are sufficiently fragile already. Public education should aim to strengthen those bonds not to weaken them… The alternative to integration is disintegration”.

    The same year, policy analyst Martin Anderson published Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future. “They pretend to teach”, he wrote, “they pretend to do original, important work. They do neither. They are impostors in the temple. And from these impostors most of the educational ills of America flow.”

    The same year again, the esteemed economist and social commentator, Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, wrote in his book, Inside American Education:

    “Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels”.

    There is arguably more at work than brainwashing. There is also the long march of the radicals through American institutions described by Roger Kimball in his book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. Now, as those students have graduated, they are now part of the government and large corporations, subverting Western culture from within.

    American author David Horowitz, described what has been happening since November 8, 2016 as “sabotage”, and wrote recently:

    “On the Rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington is inscribed these words: ‘I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.’ This statement by Thomas Jefferson is the heart of the democracy in whose founding he played so central a role. It is why the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment and not the Second, or Fourth, or Fifth.

    “Today our nation is facing the most serious threat to establish such a tyranny in our entire history.”

  • No Al Gore, The Military Won't Remove Trump In Contested Election
    No Al Gore, The Military Won’t Remove Trump In Contested Election

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 21:40

    Last week, former Vice President and failed presidential candidate Al Gore claimed that if President Trump were to declare the results of the 2020 election illegitimate, the military would physically remove him from office.

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    “I hear people saying, ‘Well, would he accept that decision?’ Well, it doesn’t matter because it’s not up to him. Because at noon on January 20th, if a new president is elected… the police force, the Secret Service, the military, all of the executive branch officers, will respond to the command and the direction of the new president,” gore told Reuters EIC Stephen J. Adler in an online interview (via the Daily Beast).

    Not so fast Al…

    According to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, the US armed forces will do no such thing.

    “I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley said in written responses on Friday to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, according to AP.

    “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.“

    Milley’s tone reflects the longstanding views of military leaders who insist that the nation’s military stays out of politics and that troops are sworn to protect the country and uphold the Constitution.

    But the two Congress members, Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, said Friday that Trump’s recent comments and his efforts to use the military to quell protests have fueled their concerns. The two lawmakers released Milley’s answers.

    “These are just prudent questions to be asking given the things that the president has been saying publicly,” said Slotkin, pointing to Trump’s use of the military to clear protesters from Lafayette Square and his suggestions that he may put law enforcement at the polls to make sure voting is conducted professionally. Milley’s answers, she said, “demonstrated that the chairman recognized the military’s role in our elections is to essentially stay out; that the military’s role in the peaceful transition of power is to stay out.” –AP

    Last month President Trump demurred when asked whether he would accept the results of the election, to which he said: ” I have to see. Look … I have to see,” adding “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no.”

    Trump then suggested that the election could be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic which has made it likely that it will take ‘days or weeks’ to tabulate mail-in ballots. The idea was quickly dismissed by congressional GOP, as Congress is the only body that can change the election date.

    When asked if the military would refuse and order from the president if he was trying to score political points instead of for legitimate purposes, Milley said “I will not follow an unlawful order.”

  • College Director: "Every White Person In This Country Is Racist"
    College Director: “Every White Person In This Country Is Racist”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 21:15

    Authored by Jezzamine Wolk via Campus Reform,

    Pacific University staff psychologist Dr. Shirley Ley is hosting a weekly webinar series called “Rising from the Margins.” Ley said the platform is “dedicated to those who have been perceived as inferior or less worthy” due to their background.

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    In Episode 10 “The Intersection of Race, Class, and Disability,” Ley spoke with the Director of Accessible Education at Willamette University Sue Minder. During that episode,  uploaded to the university’s official YouTube channel on July 22, Minder said,

    “Every white person in this country is racist” because they “benefit from the structure of racism.”

    Relevant portion begins around 12:40 

    WATCH:

    When asked to confront privileges, she said that most people usually respond with “I’m not a racist, I would never use a racial slur.” 

    “I think the first step is we get over it,” said Minder of that reaction.

    “Stop trying to pretend we don’t have privileges of some sort, because most of us do have unearned advantages,” said Minder.

    In episode 11 “White Supremacy Work Culture,” Ley talked about the idea that “whiteness is the supreme standard by which all peoples of culture are measured.”

    “It is important for us, particularly racialized peoples, to understand how every single day of our existence is influenced and infiltrated by white supremacy ideals,” said Ley.

    She went on to list three “indicators of white supremacy culture.”  

    1. They are “perfectionism,” which she called “the need to get things done right all the time;”

    2. the “sense of urgency,” which she called “the idea that things should have been done yesterday;”

    3. and “quantity over quality,” which she said is “only focusing on parts of your life that are directed towards producing measurable goals.”

    The webinar currently has more than a dozen episodes. Some other available webinar episodes include “Racial Microaggressions,” “The POC Label,” and “Deconstructing the Model Minority Stereotype.”

  • "It's All One Big Trade"
    “It’s All One Big Trade”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:50

    Following up on our earlier discussions of the myriad of market abnormalities observed in today’s market (here and here), Bank of America’s Research Investment Committee has come up with an alternative, somewhat simpler explanation for some of the most patently absurd events seen in markets in more than one generation.

    According to BofA’s Jared Woodard, the crowded trades – growth vs. value, large vs. small, US vs. EAFE, market cap vs. equal-weight, USD vs. EM FX, Treasury bonds – stay crowded because there is no alternative in a world of shrinking returns on capital.

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    It gets better: BofA contends that in 2020 “Treasuries = tech & Tesla”: plunging discount rates & excess liquidity push the value of long-term cash flows toward infinity. That means that, as the chart below shows, bond yields – currently at all time lows – “have never before explained this much of tech returns.”

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    This unprecedented dependence on ever lower yields is why defensive growth stocks (tech & health care) now account for just 18% of US jobs but now comprise >54% of the S&P 500 market cap (and, if projected at the current pace, 100% by 2024).

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    Meanwhile, the Fed keeps injecting more and more liquidity even as growth is scarcer and scarcer. As a result of this maximum liquidity in a world of scarce growth. the Fed has created an ever larger series of asset bubbles.

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    And when real interest rates are negative as they are now, there is every incentive to chase low-probability, high-impact upside according to Woodard. In short, any vehicle with a chance at large returns becomes a cheap call option.

    Just two examples: in 2020 investors are once again pouring cash into “blank check” IPOs or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, just as they did in the summer of 2007. As we first discussed several weeks ago, SPACs have no operations but simply raise funds for undetermined future acquisitions. At the same time, one bitcoin costs more than $11,000. That’s more than the average US household makes in two months.

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    Despite the asset bubbles observed virtually everywhere, BofA says that economic stagnation remains its base case: “more stimulus and early vaccines at best get us to the 2019 ante of low growth and precarious wages/EPS.” A stagnant world also makes yields more valuable as interest rates everywhere trend toward zero. As such, today a record 79% of the S&P 500 offers dividends greater than the 10-year Treasury yield.

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    In summary, “stagnant GDP, deepening inequality, and the threat of policy failure make us bullish on the things we don’t want to buy (growth, large caps, US) and bearish on the things we want to own (value, small caps, EAFE) because, without an economic transformation, any reversal in the ranks of market winners & losers can only last a season.”

    * * *

    Finally, speaking of things “nobody wants to buy but has to”, and how “it’s all one big trade”, here is an excerpt from the latest Bear Trap report citing a west coast CIO on the recent surge in Tesla:

    “Tesla is the key to this market, all are in Elon’s world, I am ignoring everything else, rates, dollar, etc.. for now. They are truly minor in comparison until Tesla breaks. And vol is underpriced on the upside still in my mind. Tesla’s run likely to end on a blow-off top, 100B volume, we are talking about a 300-400 dollar candle, no way this ends quietly, really think it ends with a flash crash in NDX. I still think October is badly mis-priced to the upside, TSLA can easily see 30% higher before it reverses. Puts are stupidly expensive if you go way out on the wing, you can sell a January $200 put for over 2 bucks, that’s insane. Crypto is the only asset with more convexity than Tesla. Outside bitcoin, TSLA defines parabola in terms of company in the history of stocks with any meaningful market cap. My gut tells me Elon does a massive secondary into SPX add, like $30B. Tesla would come out with the world’s best auto-balance sheet, on par with Toyota.”

  • Futures Hit New Record High After Buffett Reveals 5% Stakes In Five Major Japanese Trading Companies
    Futures Hit New Record High After Buffett Reveals 5% Stakes In Five Major Japanese Trading Companies

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:27

    There were audible gasps across Wall Street on August 15th when the latest Berkshire 13-F revealed that the Oracle of Omaha had cut his stakes in most US banks (and fully sold out of Goldman), while taking a new and unprecedented for Berkshire Hathaway position in Barrick Gold.

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    But while Warren Buffett, who turns 90 today was dumping US banks, he was quietly building up sizable stakes in the five of the largest Japanese trading companies.

    In a press release published late on Sunday, Berkshire Hathaway revealed that it had acquired stakes in Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui and Sumitomo of “slightly more” than 5%, signaling it may increase those holdings in the future. These holdings were acquired over a period of approximately twelve months through regular purchases on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

    According to the statement, Berkshire  Hathaway’s  intention  is  to  hold  its  Japanese  investments  for  the  long  term. “Depending on price, Berkshire Hathaway may increase its holdings up to a maximum of 9.9% in any  of  the  five  investments.  However,  Warren  E.  Buffett,  CEO  of  Berkshire  Hathaway,  has  pledged that the company will make purchases only up to an ownership of 9.9% in any of the five investments.  The  company  will  make  no purchases  beyond  that  point  unless  given specific approval by the investee’s board of directors.

    Buffett expressed his pleasure with the investments:

    “I am delighted to have Berkshire Hathaway participate in the future of Japan and the five companies we have chosen for investment. The five major trading companies have many joint ventures throughout the world and are likely to have  more  of  these  partnerships.  I  hope  that  in  the  future  there  may  be  opportunities  of  mutual  benefit.”

    The release also noted that Berkshire Hathaway has 625.5 billion of yen-denominated bonds outstanding, maturing at various dates beginning in 2023 and ending in 2060. Consequently, the company has only minor exposure to yen/dollar movements.

    Following the report, the five named stocks spiked and Nikkei futures jumped by more than 1%…

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    … while S&P futures were last seen at a new all time high of 3,122.

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    It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Buffett to transition out of US money-center banks whose performance has been dismal in 2020 compared to the surge in tech, and into Japanese traders at a time when the BOJ dominates most capital markets (and was last seen in possession of 80% of all local ETFs), and just as Abe announced his resignation, putting the future of the entire Abenomics platform in question, but we are confident that some bullish spin will be forthcoming.

    On the other hand, the fact that Buffett – who famous has said “never bet against America” – just turned 90 today may be the more accurate explanation.

  • Watch Joe Biden Slam 'Fatherless Predators' While Promoting 1994 Crime Bill That Targeted Blacks
    Watch Joe Biden Slam ‘Fatherless Predators’ While Promoting 1994 Crime Bill That Targeted Blacks

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 20:00

    Joe Biden has quite the history with remarks about race that would make any Republican a non-viable candidate after the MSM was done with them.

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    The former Vice President, who insisted in May that African Americans ‘ain’t black‘ if they don’t vote for him, suggested last year that ‘poor kids are just as smart as white kids,’ and worried in 1977 that desegregation would force his children to grow up in a ‘racial jungle‘ – went on a tirade against minorities in 1993 while sponsoring the Democrats’ 1994 crime bill, which supercharged the mass incarceration of people of color.

    There’s also that clip of Biden speaking fondly of his work with segregationists which his running mate Kamala Harris slammed him for during the primary debates (and later dismissed as nothing more than politics).

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    The crux of Biden’s 1993 argument: It doesn’t matter if minority criminals were “deprived as a youth,” or had a “background that enabled them to become socialized into the fabric of society,” or whether they’re the “victims of society,” they need to be taken off the streets.

    “The end result is, they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe, shoot my sister, beat up my wife, take on my sons,”

    So I don’t wanna ask what made them do this. They must be taken off the street, that’s number one. There’s a consensus on that.

    Unless we do something about the cadre of young people – tens of thousands of them – born out of wedlock without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally have not been socialized. They literally have not had an opportunity. We should focus on them now.

    If we don’t, they will. Or a portion of them will become the predators 15 years from now…. we have predators on our streets that society has in fact in part, because of this neglect, created them. Again, it does not mean that because we created them, that we somehow forgive them or do not take them out of society to protect my family and yours from them.

    They are beyond the pale, many of those people. Beyond the pale. And it’s a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society. And the truth is, we don’t very well know how to rehabilitate them at that point. That’s the sad truth.”

    We must make the streets safer. I don’t care why someone is a malefactor of society. I don’t care why someone is antisocial. I don’t care why they become a sociopath. We have an obligation to cordon them off from the rest of society, try to help them, try to change the behavior – that’s what we do in this bill.

    They are in jail. Away from my mother, your husband, our families. But we would be absolutely stupid as a society if we didn’t recognize the condition that nurtures those folks still exists, and we must deal with that.”

    What would happen if Trump said that in 1993?

    And while Biden has since apologized for his role in the 1994 legislation, it’s hard to imagine the black community taking kindly to his decades-long history of anti-black comments.

    Three years later, Hillary Clinton was calling black criminals ‘super predators.’

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  • DNI Ratcliffe Declassifying More Russia-Collusion-Coup & Media-Leak Documents
    DNI Ratcliffe Declassifying More Russia-Collusion-Coup & Media-Leak Documents

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:54

    John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he has been coordinating with US Attorney John Durham and plans to soon declassify more documents related to the Trump-Russia probe.

    “I pledged to a bipartisan group of senators that I would look at all of the underlying intelligence surrounding the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s interference and this idea of Trump-Russia collusion, but I’m not going to prejudice John Durham’s work in connection with that, so we’ve had to coordinate with his office about the timing of that. But I’m optimistic that I’ll be declassifying additional documents soon.”

    As a reminder, Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into several aspects of the Obama administration’s surveillance activities against Trump associates. Ratcliffe went on, referring to Durham’s review of the investigation:

    “He’s looking at the same documents that I am,”

     “He’s not sharing his findings or the work that he’s doing. But I’m coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work. And what I don’t want to do is declassify something that might prejudice his work. So we’re going to have to coordinate as we go forward with the completion of his work with my ability to declassify documents.”

    Additionally, Ratcliffe, said Sunday he has filed multiple “crimes reports” regarding alleged leaks of classified information to the media.

    “When I become aware of intelligence community information that is disclosed unlawfully, I do what’s called a crimes report. I’ve done that now on a number of occasions, and so those investigations are moving forward.”

    He said that the leaks were “for political purposes” to create what he said is a false narrative “that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China.”

    As Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross notes, Ratcliffe’s decision to limit election-related intelligence briefings prompted outrage from Democrats who say that he is withholding information about Russian meddling to provide political cover for President Donald Trump.

    Watch the full interview here:

  • US Passes 6 Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Live Updates
    US Passes 6 Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:42

    Summary:

    • US tops 6 million COVID cases
    • Universities across US report nearly 9k cases
    • Global cases top 25 million
    • Deaths top 840,000
    • FDA director says vaccine can be fast-tracked
    • Dr. Fauci says vaccines could be proved ‘safe and effective’ by November
    • India tops 3.5 million cases

    * * *

    Update (1930ET): The US has officially surpassed 6 million coronavirus cases. While Brazil’s outbreak has slowed and India’s has accelerated, leaving both countries with roughly 3.5 million cases each (India is on track to surpass Brazil in the coming days), the US remains the undisputed COVID world leader, with a lead of more than 2 million confirmed cases.

    As the NYT points out, it took 22 days for the US to go from 5 million to 6 million coronavirus cases, compared to more than 3 months for the US to reach 1 million cases after reporting its first case on Jan. 21. However, in a sign that the US outbreak truly is slowing, it took 16 days for the number of cases to climb from 4 million to 5 million. And new daily cases have been declining steadily since the end of July.

    At last count, the US has just over 180,000 deaths. While deaths have once again been on the decline, the average number of deaths reported daily doubled in August compared with July.

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    Source: NYT

    In other news, FDA director Hahn’s assertion that the agency would be willing to approve a vaccine before clinical trials are complete – if the agency believed it was “appropriate” to do so – has infuriated the NYT, which is once again accusing Hahn of bowing before the politically expedient demands of the Trump Administration. Though Hahn did insist that “this is not going to be a politically motivated decision.”

    * * *

    By mid-morning on Sunday in the US, the number of confirmed cases reported worldwide surpassed 25 million, a psychologically important milestone, even though millions more cases have likely gone undiagnosed.

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    Deaths, meanwhile, have topped 840,000.

    In other news, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA chief who caught flack, then apologized, for granting emergency-use approval to a blood plasma-focused COVID-19 treatment favored by President Trump, told the FT that he would be willing to “fast track” vaccine approval. This comes just days after he assured Bloomberg reporters that the agency would “stick to the science” and that any approval would be “data based”. Speaking to the Times of London, a different British broadsheet, Dr. Anthony Fauci reiterated his claims that the US should expect a vaccine by the end of the year, possibly sooner, and that we should know whether candidates are “safe and effective” by November.

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    Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this weekend: “The way the pace of the enrollment is going on and the level of the infections that are going on in the United States, it is likely that we’ll get an answer by the end of the year.” He added, “It is conceivable that we would get an answer before that.”

    “I would say a safe bet is at least knowing that you have a safe and effective vaccine by November, December.”

    That’s good news, because America’s colleges have reported one COVID-19 outbreak after the next since the new semester began earlier this month. But as student newspapers castigate universities for “putting students’ lives at risk” (calm down kids), Bloomberg reports that a consensus is building among public health experts that it’s better to keep university students on campus following a COVID-19 outbreak rather than send them home, as many schools are – inexplicably – doing.

    It’s easier to isolate sick or exposed students and trace their contacts if they stay put, said Ravina Kullar, epidemiologist and spokesperson for Infectious Diseases Society of America. Sending them home creates obvious risks of further spread.

    Over in Europe, Germany’s daily infections fell after a streak of rising numbers, but that didn’t stop its transmission rate – or “R” – from rising above the critical threshold of “1”. The Robert Koch Institute reported 709 new cases in the 24 hours through Sunday morning, pushing Germany’s total to 242,835, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

    That’s less than half of Saturday’s increase of 1,555. Germany registered more than 7,000 cases per day during the pandemic’s peak in the spring. Germany’s reproduction rate climbed to 1.04 from 0.94 the prior day.

    After reporting another near-world record of new cases, India officially passed the 3.5-million case mark on Sunday, while its death toll exceeded 63,000. As India’s outbreak worsens, numbers in Brazil and the US continued to fall.

  • Why America's Poor Are Praying For A Market Crash
    Why America’s Poor Are Praying For A Market Crash

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:35

    Last week we showed that following the July 31 “fiscal cliff”, which saw the end of the $600 weekly emergency unemployment benefit and as a result, weekly unemployment insurance benefit payments were cut in half, from $25BN pre-July 31 to just over $10 BN after…

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    … spending among those most reliant on government stimulus – namely Americans who currently receive Unemployment Insurance payments  – had tumbled even as spending by all other social groups continued to recover. Bank of America examined spending trends of the population of card holders who receive UI through ACH (direct deposit) and compared to all other households. What it found was a dramatic divergence as the YOY rate of growth for UI recipients slowed dramatically but increased for the broader population since Aug 1st.

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    The drop in spending was also observed by income bucket: over the first two weeks since July 31, the YOY spending growth rate slowed by 12% for the unemployed cohort (formerly) earning under $50K vs. a roughly 5% drop for the middle and upper income cohorts.

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    Bank of America then reran the analysis one week later and found that total card spending, as measured by BAC aggregated credit and debit card data, continued to grind sideways, running at a 1.4% yoy rate for the 7-day period ending Aug 22nd, just fractionally higher than 2019.

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    However, as was the case one week ago, there were two important distinctions: i) The decline in unemployment insurance continues to impact the lower income population disproportionately, and ii) The decline in UI is affecting discretionary spending.

    Some more details:

    • The decline in UI is impacting the lower income population disproportionately: BofA examined spending trends of the population of card holders who receive unemployment insurance (UI) through ACH (direct deposit) and when comparing that to all other households, saw a decisive differential – since July 31st, the YOY growth rate in total card spending for the UI cohort has declined while it has increased for the rest of the population. This is particularly clear when examining the income level data which shows a 17% slowdown in the yoy growth rate for the cohort earning under $50K – a deterioration from the -12% drop observed a week ago (see above), and a roughly 6% slowdown for the middle/upper income cohorts.

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    The decline in UI is affecting discretionary spending: Looking at the data by sector, the UI recipients cut back the most on clothing and home improvement spending and the least on gas and restaurants/bars (Chart 1). This compares to small increases in the growth rate of spending for the non-ACH UI recipient across these categories with the exception of home improvement.

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    As time goes on, this decoupling in spending between recipients of unemployment benefits and everyone else will only gross, especially once Trump’s stopgap executive order fades away some time in late September, unless of course Congress gets off its ass and passes yet another stimulus package.

    When could that happen? Well, if Democrats get their way, certainly not before the Nov 3 election, but there is one catalyst that could wake Congress from its theatrical stupor and spark legislation much sooner. A market crash. 

    According to a separate note from Bank of America’s derivatives team led by Benjamin Bowler, the market once again finds itself in a Catch 22 – it is being held up by the promise of fiscal and monetary stimulus, which may not be forthcoming without pressure from a market selloff. In other words, for stocks to hit new highs they will have to crash again.

    From the report:

    On the fiscal side, the expiration without replacement of extended unemployment benefits may already be hurting economic and market fundamentals. The importance of this program to the recovery can’t be overstated. Quoting our US economists, “absent government support disposable income would have fallen the most in history; with that support it has risen the most in history.”

    * * *

    As markets continue their steady climb, two key engines of the rally may be running out of steam. The first is fiscal support – the critical but expired unemployment extension is unlikely to be restored soon. The second is the Fed, which stopped growing its balance sheet in June, deemed yield curve control a no-go last week, and faces new chances to step off the gas in Jackson Hole (27-Aug) and the Sep FOMC. Even if the Fed stands ready to act again, it will likely be in response to a market shock, which also looks needed to break the fiscal logjam.

    BofA’s conclusion: “perversely, a [market] shock looks increasingly necessary to force policy measures allowing the market to sustain these levels to begin with.“

    In other words, America’s poorest – those who rely on unemployment insurance to live – are (or should be) praying for a market crash which will force Congress to act. Which begs the question: will those same “poorest” stop killing each other across the US in the name of some ideological fallacy, and will they all finally congregate in front of the Marriner Eccles building and demand full accountability (a very polite way of putting it) from the Fed – the source of most of America’s troubles, as even Rabobank admitted last week.

  • Trump Goes After Failed Democrat-Run Cities As Violence Erupts In Chicago And NYC 
    Trump Goes After Failed Democrat-Run Cities As Violence Erupts In Chicago And NYC 

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 19:10

    President Trump emphasized at the Republican National Convention last week that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is ignoring the surge in violent crime across major US metropolitan areas. 

    “When there is police misconduct, the justice system must hold wrongdoers fully and completely accountable, and it will. But what we can never have in America — and must never allow — is mob rule,” the president said. “In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson, and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York.”

    With 64 days left until the Nov. 3 election, Trump is once again making the implosion of Democrat-run cities a centerpiece of his campaign against Biden. 

    “This election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life, or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it,” Trump said at the convention. 

    The continuing violence seen in Democrat-run cities, like Chicago and New York City, is alarming and explains why city-dwellers are fleeing for suburban life.  

    To Trump’s point, at least 40 people were shot, including ten fatally, during another weekend of soaring gun violence in Chicago, America’s murder capital. 

    The city’s most recent shooting occurred Sunday afternoon at the Lumes Pancake House in the 11600 block of Western Avenue. Five people were injured, and one died after an unidentified person in a white SUV opened fire at diners enjoying a weekend meal at the outdoor restaurant, reported NBC Chicago. 

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    In response, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani tweeted Sunday: “4 police officers shot: 2 in Democrat St. Louis, 2 in Chicago.” 

    Giuliani continued, “@realDonaldTrump has offered both Federal assistance. Hidin’ Biden finally stated his basement. but said nothing about this violence at DNC. “Silence is assent.” (Biden, DNC, 2020.) ” 

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    As for the city formerly governed by Giuliani, New York has yet to release official data of violent crime this weekend, but the union representing 50,000 active and retired NYPD police officers in the city said “25 people were shot from Saturday morning to 7 am today. That makes 58 people shot this week. That’s a 100% increase in shooting victims from the same week last year.” 

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    While the Biden campaign has only just begun to condemn the ongoing violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, the Trump administration’s angle of attack should be very clear to readers: convince American voters Republicans can save imploding Democrat-run cities, just like Giuliani did in the early 1990s when exhausted voters handed him control o Democrat-dominated New York.  

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    So far, it could be working… 

  • Pinterest Pays $89.5 Million To Abandon Upcoming Lease In San Francisco
    Pinterest Pays $89.5 Million To Abandon Upcoming Lease In San Francisco

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 18:45

    Things are going so great in California that Pinterest just paid $89.5 million to cancel its 490,000-square-foot lease at the upcoming 88 Bluxome project in San Francisco. 

    The company blames working from home as a result of the pandemic as the reason for abandoning the lease – but we’re sure the state’s rising taxes, impending real estate market crash and conversion of the property to a temporary homeless shelter in March likely helped contribute to the decision making.

    Either way, Pinterest wanted out of the lease so badly they were willing to fork over a hefty sum to ensure they would not be held to it. The company’s total lease obligations for the property would have amounted to $440 million. 

    Pinterest’s CFO told the San Francisco Chronicle: “As we analyze how our workplace will change in a post-COVID world, we are specifically rethinking where future employees could be based. A more distributed workforce will give us the opportunity to hire people from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences.”

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    Rendering of 88 Bluxome as it would exist years from now. Today, the city has converted the property to a homeless shelter. 

    Pinterest appears to be following in the steps of companies like Facebook, who has also embraced the idea of remote work for its staff. Facebook aims to have half of its company working remotely “within a decade”, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said. 

    To us, it appears to be more of a statement about San Francisco’s real estate market than about Pinterest. After all, the company was the first and only lease commitment “in San Francisco’s 230-acre Central South of Market district, where numerous large commercial and residential projects have been approved after the city raised height limits last year,” the Chronicle said.

    They were to help contribute to 30,000 new jobs and 20,000 new residents in the district, which the city hoped would fuel more than $2 billion in public benefits. The project is “now in doubt”. The proposed 88 Bluxome project was supposed to start construction this year, but current plans for the project are now “unclear”. 

    And in peak San Francisco fashion, the city converted the tennis club currently on the lot to a homeless shelter in March. 

  • It's Time For A Geopolitical Reset
    It’s Time For A Geopolitical Reset

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 08/30/2020 – 18:20

    Authored by José Niño via The Mises Institute,

    Foreign policy seems to have been placed on the back burner in the Trump era. Domestic issues, generic outrage politics, and the present covid-19 pandemic have sucked the oxygen out of American political discourse…

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    The fact that the media opts to cover more sensationalist material does not make foreign policy a trivial matter. If anything, the lack of foreign policy coverage reveals the dilapidated state of contemporary political debate. When the Fourth Estate does bother to broach foreign policy it does so for the most hysterical reasons.

    The ongoing Russian hysteria is the embodiment of the media’s infantile coverage of foreign policy. Although the Cold War has been over for decades, pundits on both the left and right remain convinced that Russia—a country of nearly 145 million and with an economic output smaller than Canada’s—is hell-bent on reenacting its past Cold War aspirations.

    Iran has always been on neoconservatives’ minds as well. Suffering from the trauma of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, neoconservatives and their establishment liberal counterparts have spent decades slapping on sanctions and trying to push for regime change in Iran. Earlier this year, the neoconservative bloodthirst was partially quenched after the US government assassinated Major General Qasem Soleimani at the Baghdad Airport. In a surprising display of restraint, the Trump administration has not escalated any further in Iran and potentially thrust America into another disastrous intervention.

    Had Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush been at the helm, God knows where the US would find itself.

    The global crusading has been cranked up to another level by provoking the Chinese government in the South China Sea and prodding into China’s internal affairs. From its repression of ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang region to its steps to consolidate power over Hong Kong, China’s internal affairs have been subject to scrutiny from the West. Reasonable people can recognize that China, despite making some pragmatic reforms in the 1980s, is still a repressive regime. But does this merit a potential escalation in the South China Sea or worse yet, a full-blown kinetic conflict?

    Based on the fact that both China and the US are nuclear powers, cooler heads will likely prevail. But the fact that policymakers are entertaining the idea of risking a catastrophic conflict shows that politicians’ thirst for war and regime change destabilization has not gone away. Such delusions are the province of an empire in an inebriated state that prevents it from making rational judgments.

    Why American Foreign Policy Is Due for a Correction

    Frankly, it’s time to start talking about a geopolitical reset. A reorientation of American foreign policy priorities is long overdue. There are approximately two hundred thousand American troops in close to eight hundred bases in seventy countries stationed abroad.

    According to American University anthropology professor David Vine, it costs taxpayers $85–100 billion per year to operate overseas military bases. Meanwhile, the decades-long war on terror has cost Americans $5.9 trillion and has led to the deaths of 6,951 American troops and at least 244,000–266,000 civilians in the Middle East. As of 2020, US defense spending stands at more than $732 billion—a figure higher than the next ten countries’ military budgets put together.

    The Unipolar Moment Is Dead

    Thanks to the US’s location and vast nuclear arsenal, it is relatively safe from external threats despite all the fearmongering coming from the interventionist crowd. It’s becoming clear that the missionary model of exporting democracy abroad is a failure.

    Nonetheless, foreign policy hawks have remained adamant about pursuing regime change in Iran through stiff sanctions, saber rattling, and drawing first blood. We shouldn’t forget that US government meddling in the region goes deep. This all started when the CIA and British intelligence launched a successful coup against the populist leader Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, resulting in the installation of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

    Following the shah’s deposition in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the US has seen Iran as one of its primary foes. Increased sanctions starting in the 1980s, combined with additional sanctions imposed in each decade, have only increased tensions. Not to mention the heightened military presence that encircles the country, which has compelled Iran to get crafty in its opposition to US foreign policy. Iran has responded to US regime change attempts not only by filling in the power vacuum that the US left behind after completely decimating Iraq, but also by expanding its operations in Latin America through the establishment of clandestine networks in the region. Though none of the networks pose existential threats to the US, they show the lengths Iran will go to counter US encroachments in its backyard. It is the height of imperial hubris to think that countries will just stand down and let the US steamroll them.

    Additionally, increased US hawkishness toward Iran has created the conditions for it to forge alliances with Russia and China—two countries that have also been hit with sanctions and subject to US bullying in the past decade. These ties have only strengthened amid the current covid-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, Iran won’t go down easily and will seek alliances with countries such as China and Russia, who share similar grievances with the zealous nature of American foreign policy.

    It’s a New World out There

    The world’s emerging multipolarity allows for countries to band together against a common antagonistic hegemon like the US. As the unipolar era of yore becomes a distant memory, the US can’t go throwing its weight around the world without repercussions. Regime change operations in Syria demonstrated that countries such as Iran and Russia are willing to step in to defend their interests regardless of what DC foreign policy wonks think.

    Similarly, subtle machinations in Venezuela have seen countries like China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey respond by propping up the regime of the embattled strongman Nicolás Maduro. Any of the US’s attempts to try to topple governments it doesn’t like will be met with significant pushback. Regime change fanatics in DC can deny this all they want, but it’s part of the global realignment unfolding before our eyes.

    It is amazing what governments can get away with when they have a printing press at their disposal. We are not getting rid of central banking any time soon, but the US’s deluded foreign policy ambitions can still be restrained. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of political will.

    Policymakers should actually consider the costs of their foreign policy adventures before sending young people off to die in some ill-fated campaign and putting taxpayers—present and future—on the hook for such excursions.

    A geopolitical reset that involves scaling back US interventions and its military presence abroad will foster pragmatic foreign policy decisions and the prioritization of actual defense policies. Whether or not American foreign policy leaders will abandon their imperial hubris is another matter.

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