Jul 31

Today’s News 31st July 2019

  • Drug-Resistant Superbug Spreading Throughout European Hospitals

    Antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been spreading in European hospitals, according to the BBC, citing a recent study. 

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    The spread of Klebsiella pneumoniae is “extremely concerning” according to reserarchers with the Sanger Institute, who warn that other bacteria could become similarly resistant to “last resort” drugs known as carbapenems ‘because of the unique way bacteria have sex.’ 

    “The alarming thing is these bacteria are resistant to one of the key last-line antibiotics,” said Dr. Sophia David of the Sanger Institute, adding “The infections are associated with a high mortality rate.” 

    “It’s already worrying that we’re seeing 2,000 deaths in 2015 – but the concern is that if action isn’t taken, then this will continue to rise.”

    It can live completely naturally in the intestines without causing problems for healthy people.

    However, when the body is unwell, it can infect the lungs to cause pneumonia, and the blood, cuts in the skin and the lining of the brain to cause meningitis. –BBC

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    Sanger’s study of carbapenem resistance in K. pneumoniae is the largest to date, with 244 hospitals participating from Ireland to Israel. 

    Researchers analysed the bacterium’s DNA – its genetic code – from samples from infected patients.

    “Our findings imply hospitals are the key facilitator of transmission [and suggest that] the bacteria are spreading from person-to-person primarily within hospitals,” said Dr David.

    “The fact that we see the same high-risk clones in many different hospitals around Europe also shows there’s something special about those strains.” –BBC

    Researchers are concerned that K. pneumoniae will continue to spread, or even worse, pass along its resistance to other species of bacteria. According to the report, “two bacteria can meet up and have bacterial sex – called conjugation – and a short string of genetic information, called a plasmid, is shared between them.” Sanger’s study shows that “the instructions that give K. pneumoniae carbapenem resistance written on to plasmids.”

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    “These have the ability to spread very rapidly through bacterial populations,” said David. 

    What to do?

    “This research emphasises the importance of infection control and ongoing genomic surveillance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to ensure we detect new resistant strains early and act to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance,” said Professor Hajo Grundmann of the University of Freiburg. “We are optimistic that with good hospital hygiene, which includes early identification and isolation of patients carrying these bacteria, we can not only delay the spread of these pathogens, but also successfully control them.“

  • German Swimming Pool Forced To Introduce ID Checks To Stop Harassment By Migrant Youths

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit.news,

    A swimming pool in the German city of Düsseldorf has been forced to introduce mandatory ID card checks in an effort to stop sexual assaults and rowdy behavior by migrant youths that has required the police to be called out on numerous occasions.

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    Following a crisis summit between administrators, the mayor and the police chief, an online ticket system linked to people’s IDs has been established to control who is allowed to enter the pool.

    “In Rheinbad we have introduced an identity card for all visitors,” said Düsseldorf Mayor Thomas Geisel.

    “Those who do not comply, will not be let in. It is absolutely unacceptable and inconceivable that families who want to spend their free time here are harassed by youth gangs.”

    As we reported earlier this month, the pool had to be closed twice after hundreds of male migrants harassed a family, prompting a huge police deployment.

    Last Friday, the pool had to be cleared again as around 60 North African migrants began engaging in aggressive beahvior. Outnumbered, the six security guards on patrol had to call police for backup. 20 officers arrived and the pool was closed.

    “It should be known, that before the migrant crisis, German swimming pools didn’t need six security guards to maintain order. It’s likely that they didn’t need any at all,” comments Voice of Europe.

    It remains to be seen how authorities will prevent the kind of people who cause mayhem from using the pool. They could only really do so by barring people from North African countries, which would set off a nationwide controversy and lead to widespread accusations of racism.

  • US And Italy To Conduct Open Skies Spy Missions Over Russia  

    About a week after a Russian spy plane was spotted over Quebec, a Canadian Province, conducting surveillance operations under the Treaty on Open Skies, a new report specifies the US and Italy are currently flying reconnaissance planes over Russia under the treaty.

    On July 22, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) reported that a modified Russian military Tu-154M-Lk-1 aircraft would be conducting a 3,800-mile surveillance operation between 22 and 28 of July. Red Star said the route had been agreed on with Canadian officials and that officials will be on board to monitor systems that will be taking images of the country’s military sites.

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    With the Russian surveillance operation over Canada wrapped up, a new report from TASS News indicates US and Italian Armed Forces are now conducting Open Skies observation missions over Russia through August 02.

    It has also been reported that Russia will conduct surveillance operations over Norway, Red Star said Monday, citing Acting Chief of the National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center Ruslan Shishin.

    “Russia plans to conduct an observation flight over Norway in accordance with the Open Skies Treaty using an Antonov An-30 survey aircraft. The flight will be carried out from the Bardufoss Open Skies airfield between July 29 and August 2,” the newspaper wrote.

    “At the same time… the United States and Italy will carry out a joint observation mission over Russia from the Kubinka airfield on an OC-135B Open Skies United States Air Force observation aircraft.”

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    In June, we reported that Russia conducted 3,188 miles of surveillance flights with an An-30B observation aircraft under the treaty.

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    Red Star said the flight route was agreed upon by the US government, had US aviation officials onboard the plane to oversee the surveillance equipment and compliance with the provisions of the treaty

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    Thanks to internet sleuths, the specifications of the Russian surveillance equipment for the planes were made public in April. The imagery can be 1.6 miles to 7.4 miles wide, depending on the altitude.

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    In March, a Russian reconnaissance plane snapped pictures of Nellis Test and Training Range — also known as Area 51, per the treaty.

    The surveillance flights are intended at increasing transparency in terms of the party states’ military activities.

    The Treaty on Open Skies entered force in 2002. The treaty includes 34 countries, among them, most NATO members, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden and Finland. The purpose of the treaty is to develop trust between the countries through checks and balances.

    With the world on the brink of a military conflict following escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea and NATO/Russia border, the geopolitical powderkegs are already lit.

  • Escobar: The Dragon Lays Out Its Road-Map, Denies Seeking Hegemony

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

    The key merit of China’s National Defense in the New Era, a white paper released by the State Council in Beijing, is to clear any remaining doubts about where the Middle Kingdom is coming from, and where it’s going to by 2049, the mythical date to, theoretically, be restored as the foremost global power.

    Although not ultra-heavy on specifics, the white paper certainly should be read as the Chinese counterpoint to the US National Security Strategy, as well as the National Defense Strategy.

    It goes without saying that every sentence is being carefully scrutinized by the Pentagon, which regards China as a “malign actor” and “a threat” – the terminology associated with its “Chinese aggression” mantra.

    To cut to the chase, and to the perpetuating delight of China’s supporters and critics, here are the white paper’s essentials.

    What global stability?

    The Beijing leadership openly asserts that as “the US has adjusted its national security and defense strategies, and adopted unilateral policies” that essentially “undermined global strategic stability.” Vast sectors of the Global South would concur.

    The counterpart is the evolution of “the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era,” now playing “a significant role in maintaining global strategic stability.”

    In parallel, Beijing is very careful to praise the “military relationship with the US in accordance with the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.” The “military-to-military relationship” should work as “a stabilizer for the relations between the two countries and hence contribute to the China-US relationship based on coordination, cooperation and stability.”

    Another key counterpart to the US – and NATO – is the increasingly crucial role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is “forging a constructive partnership of non-alliance and non-confrontation that targets no third party, expanding security and defense cooperation and creating a new model for regional security cooperation.”

    The white paper stresses that “the SCO has now grown into a new type of comprehensive regional cooperation organization covering the largest area and population in the world”, something that is factually correct. The latest SCO summit in Bishkek did wonders in featuring some of the group’s much-vaunted qualities, especially “mutual trust,” “consultation,” “respect for diverse civilizations” and “pursuit of common development.”

    On hot spots, contrary to Western skepticism, the white paper asserts that, “the situation of the South China Sea is generally stable,” and that a “balanced, stable, open and inclusive Asian security architecture continues to develop.”

    There should be no illusion regarding Beijing’s position on “Taiwan independence” – which will never deviate from what was set by Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s: “Separatist forces and their actions remain the gravest immediate threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the biggest barrier hindering the peaceful reunification of the country.”

    And the same applies to “external separatist forces for ‘Tibet independence’ and the creation of ‘East Turkestan’.” How Beijing dealt with – and economically developed – Tibet will continue to be the blueprint to deal with, and economically develop, Xinjiang, irrespective of the Western outcry over China’s subjugation of more than a million Uighurs.

    In regard to the turmoil Hong Kong and the degree it reflects interference by “external forces,” the white paper shapes Hong Kong as the model to be followed on the way to Taiwan. “China adheres to the principles of ‘peaceful reunification,’ and ‘one country, two systems,’ promotes peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, and advances peaceful reunification of the country.”

    On the South China Sea, the white paper notes that “countries from outside the region conduct frequent close-in reconnaissance on China by air and sea, and illegally enter China’s territorial waters and the waters and airspace near China’s islands and reefs, undermining China’s national security.”

    So there won’t be any misunderstanding, it says: “The South China Sea islands and Diaoyu Islands are inalienable parts of the Chinese territory.” ASEAN and Japan will have to deal with what Beijing says are facts.

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    Chinese soldiers in the PLA Hong Kong Garrison take part in a drill during an open day on June 30 to mark the 22nd anniversary of the return of the city from Britain to China. Photo: AFP

    No hegemony, ever

    While noting that “great progress has been made in the Revolution in Military Affairs with Chinese characteristics” – the Sino-version of the Pentagon’s – the white paper admits that “the PLA still lags far behind the world’s leading militaries. The commitment is unmistakable to “fully transform the people’s armed forces into world-class forces by the mid-21st century.”

    Special emphasis is placed on China’s relatively quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. “China has played a constructive role in the political settlement of regional hotspots such as the Korean Peninsula issue, the Iranian nuclear issue and Syrian issue.” The corollary could not be more clear-cut. “China opposes hegemony, unilateralism and double standards.”

    Arguably the most important point made by the white paper – in stark contrast with the “Chinese aggression” narrative – is that “Never Seeking Hegemony, Expansion or Spheres of Influence” is qualified as “the distinctive feature of China’s national defense in the new era.”

    This is backed up by what could be defined as the distinctive Chinese approach to international relations – to respect “the rights of all peoples to independently choose their own development path,” and “the settlement of international disputes through equal dialogue, negotiation and consultation. China is opposed to interference in the internal affairs of others, abuse of the weak by the strong, and any attempt to impose one’s will on others.”

    So the road map is on the table for all to see. It will be fascinating to watch reactions from myriad latitudes across the Global South. Let’s see how the “Chinese aggression” system responds.

  • Southeast Asia Is Furious With Millennial "Begpackers"

    Millennials who have delayed marriage, children, and homeownership, have been spending their money not just on servicing their student loans but also on fun adventures throughout Southeast Asia.

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    Some of these youngsters have been backpacking in countries like Hong Kong and Thailand without money, forced onto the streets to beg for money to fund the remainder of their trip, reported The Guardian. 

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    Locals have called western backpackers: “begpackers,” and government officials in several countries have had enough with these pesky white youngsters asking for money from people who are significantly poorer than they’re.

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    To counter begpackers panhandling on the street, Hong Kong implemented new busking laws, banning all street performances due to noise complaints.

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    Thailand has started asking tourist at airports to provide financial information that shows they’ve enough funds to travel.

    Bali, an Indonesian island known for its beaches, is so furious with begpackers that if caught by the police, they will be sent to their respective countries’ embassies.

    “We tend to report these cases to the relevant embassies so that they can oversee their citizens who are on holiday,” authorities from Bali said.

    Begpacking is not limited to countries in Soth East Asia. The trend has recently extended into South Korea, where a video has surfaced online showed a Korean man verbally blasting a begpacker who was begging for money, telling him that he needs to go back to his own country.

    Sometimes millennials use tricks to deceive locals into guilt who are more impoverished than them, often use the excuse that they lost their wallet or passport. Some even sell art, photographs, and trinkets on city streets, asking for tips to fund their travels. In those cases, it’s more difficult for authorities to catch someone for begpacking.

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    Asian countries aren’t the only ones affected, local officials in New Zealand are concerned about the rise of begpacking. 

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  • US Army Major (Ret.): Could President Trump Actually End The Afghan War?

    Authored by Danny Sjursen via TomDispatch.com,

    Could Donald Trump end the Afghan war someday? I don’t know if such a possibility has been on your mind, but it’s certainly been on the mind of this retired U.S. Army major who fought in that land so long ago. And here’s the context in which I’ve been thinking about that very possibility.

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    Back in the previous century, it used to be said that “only Nixon could go to China.” In other words, only a longtime cold warrior and red-baiter like President Richard Nixon had the necessary tough-guy credentials to break with a tradition more than two decades old in February 1972. It was then that he and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger traveled to Beijing and met with Communist leader Mao Zedong. In that way, they began a process of reestablishing relations with China (now again being impaired by Donald Trump) broken when the Communists won a civil war against the American-backed nationalists led by Chiang Kai-Shek and came to power in 1949.

    By the same token, perhaps no one but Nixon could have eventually — after hundreds of thousands more Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and Americans died — extracted the United States from what was then (but is no longer) America’s longest war, the one in Vietnam. After all, in 1973, it was hard to imagine just about any Democrat agreeing to the sort of unseemly concessions at the negotiating table in Paris that resulted in an actual peace accord with a crew of Communists. But Nixon did so.

    After those “peace” talks and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that land, the corrupt, battered U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government barely held on for another two gruesome years before a massive Communist offensive finally took Saigon, the capital of the American-backed half of that country in April 1975. Images of U.S. military helicopters hastily evacuating American diplomats and others from Saigon would prove embarrassing indeed. Yet, in the end, little could have altered the ultimate outcome of that war.

    Nixon, a cynic’s cynic, evidently sensed just that. Yes, he would prolong the war to the tune of more than 20,000 additional U.S. troop deaths and seek to create a politically palatable pause between the withdrawal of American troops and the unavoidable Communist victory to come (at the cost of god knows how many more dead Vietnamese). It was what he called “breathing space.”  In the end, in other words, in the bloodiest way imaginable, he finally accepted both his presidential, and Washington’s, limitations in what was, after all, a Vietnamese civil war. 

    Fellow TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich has referred to such realities as “the limits of power.” As a longtime military man who once carried water for the American empire in both Afghanistan and Iraq, let me assure you that, almost two decades into the twenty-first century, those limits still couldn’t be more real.

    Recently, I got to thinking about Vietnam and Bacevich — himself a veteran of that war — while following the strange pace of the Trump administration’s peace talks with the Taliban. It struck me that the president, his negotiators, and his loyally “deplorable” backers might (gulp!) just be America’s best hope for striking a deal, 18 years late, to conclude the U.S. military’s role in Afghanistan. If so, he would end the war that replaced Vietnam as this country’s longest — and that’s without even counting the first Afghan War Washington fought there against the Red Army of the now-defunct Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989.

    An Unwinnable War

    For someone like me who long ago turned his back on America’s never-ending wars on terror, it’s discomfiting to imagine the process that might finally lead to a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, especially one negotiated by The Donald and his strange team of hawks. Of one thing, rest assured: bad things will happen afterward. Afghans whom Americans are sympathetic to, especially women, will suffer under the heel of the kind of extreme Islamism that will be in command in significant parts of the country. And getting there could be no less grim. After all, President Trump, that self-proclaimed “deal-maker,” has so far shown himself to be anything but impressive in striking deals. Nevertheless, he has, at least, regularly criticized the ill-advised Afghan War for years and his instincts, when it comes to that conflict, though unsophisticated and ill-informed, seem sound.

    In a sense, the situation isn’t complicated: the U.S. war in Afghanistan cannot be won. The Kabul-based government’s gross domestic product can’t even support its own military budget, leaving it endlessly reliant on aid from Washington and its allies. Its security forces have been taking what, last December, the American general about to become the head of U.S. Central Command termed “unsustainable” casualties — 45,000 battle deaths since 2014. Those security forces simply can’t recruit enough new members to replace such massive losses. 

    Today, the U.S.-backed regime controls less of Afghanistan than at any point in the nearly two-decade-long war, despite all the American bombs dropped and troops deployed these past 18 years. Rather than grapple with that inconvenient fact, the U.S. military simply stopped counting how much of the country the Taliban now contests or controls. For these and a plethora of other reasons, that military and its Afghan proxies won’t be able to change the ultimate outcome of the Taliban’s war in Afghanistan. Forgive me, then, for placing some hope in President Trump and his negotiators.

    The disconcerting truth is that the brutal, venal, medieval Taliban movement is popular in the ethnic-Pashtun-dominated south and the mountainous east of Afghanistan. In 2011-2012, as a lowly company commander in a sub-district of Kandahar, the province that birthed the Taliban, I saw firsthand just how much sympathy villagers seemed to have for that Islamist cause. Sure, many — so, at least, they said — were opposed to that movement’s violent campaign to control the province and the country, but culturally and religiously in some fashion many of them seemed to agree with the group’s basic agenda and worldview. 

    Most of the Taliban foot soldiers I faced were little more than impoverished farm boys with guns drawn to the movement as much by patriotic opposition to the American military occupation of their country as by any desire for the application of sharia law. In addition, many in the region were making at least modest sums off Afghanistan’s record-breaking opium trade, something the U.S. was never truly capable of controlling or suppressing. The bottom line: the American war in Afghanistan was essentially over then. It’s over now, a defeat that neither politicians in Washington nor Pentagon officials have been able to accept to date.

    A Brief Litany of Messy Wars and Their Endings Since 1945

    The certainty of imperial failure in anticolonial and counterinsurgency conflicts has defined the era of war making since at least 1945. So it shall be in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it’s worth considering some of those oft-forgotten conflicts.

    In the favored American version of war, endings involve unconditional surrender by a defeated enemy, whether Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 or imperial Japanese officials on the deck of the USSMissouri in 1945. But such moments, historically speaking, couldn’t be more rare in “the American century.” After World War II, as the last colonial wars of the European powers ended in defeat or the withdrawal of imperial forces, the U.S. military went to war globally with Third World “Communism” — and victory became a thoroughly outmoded word. In the Korean War (1950-1953), which never officially ended, the U.S. finally settled for a status quo truce with its North Korean and Chinese opponents. Tens of thousands of American troops and millions of Koreans died in what essentially amounted to a negotiated draw. Vietnam, as noted, ended in the negotiated version of an outright defeat.

    Meanwhile, the French, already booted out of Vietnam in the First Indochina War (1954-1962), tried to torture and kill their way to victory in colonial Algeria before accepting defeat there, too. (A coup attempt by disgruntled right-wing military officers during that counterinsurgency almost cost France its democracy.) Nor could a declining Great Britain kill its way out of the last of its colonial wars, the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland (1969-1998). That 30-year war with the quasi-socialist, nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) only ended when London demonstrated a willingness to negotiate with that group and draw it into electoral politics. Not only was there no military victory to be had, but Britons had to swallow the embarrassing spectacle of former IRA bombers being released from prison and onetime IRA commanders entering parliament at Westminster.

    In smaller conflicts and interventions, the American military withdrew from Lebanon in 1983 after some 220 Marines (and 20 other service personnel) were killed in a suicide bombing and the until-then hawkish President Ronald Reagan realized he’d stepped into an unwinnable morass. In 1994, President Bill Clinton did the same in Somalia after 18 U.S. troops were killed in a chaotic shootout the previous year with a warlord militia in a local civil war. (Twenty-five years later, however, U.S. drones and special operators are still battling it out in that chronically war-ravaged society.)

    One lesson to draw from such an abbreviated version of American and allied morasses and military defeats at the hands of nationalist militants, left and right, is that suppressing people’s movements has historically proven difficult indeed. Most of the insurgencies of the long Cold War era were led by vaguely Marxist or, at least, leftist groups. In this century, however, similar insurgencies are led by right-wing Islamist groups. Either way the results have generally been the same. The insurgents, not the governments the U.S. imposed and/or backed, are almost invariably seen by local populations as the more popular, legitimate fighting forces. 

    Marxism (and its Soviet communist variant) ran its course in local societies as the Cold War wound to its conclusion, but such movements were never truly defeated by the U.S. military and its brutal right-wing proxies, even in the Americas (as in Nicaragua in the 1980s). Islamist theocracy is undoubtedly abhorrent, but it, too, must run its course and (hopefully) sooner or later be defeated by forces within the societies where it’s now conducting its terror wars. Just as in Vietnam, the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan in this century has only served as an accelerant for what might be thought of as political and military arson.

    A Messy End

    Predictions are tricky when it comes to war, but here’s a safe enough bet: in the wake of any Trump administration “peace” deal with the Taliban, like the South Vietnamese government of the Nixon era, a corrupt, scarcely legitimate U.S.-backed Afghan government and its badly battered security forces will, sooner or later, find themselves back at war. And they will be fighting an ever more confident Taliban. The Kabul-based regime could perhaps hold onto the biggest cities (except possibly Kandahar) and significant parts of the country’s north and west where there are Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara minority enclaves long opposed to the Islamist insurgents. The Taliban would then dominate much of the south and east, leaving Afghanistan divided and still violent indeed until, perhaps, like the South Vietnamese government, the one in Kabul collapsed.

    Still, it’s unlikely the Taliban will ever again risk harboring large numbers of transnational terrorists or stand by as a bin Laden-style attack is planned in Afghanistan’s mountains or valleys. After all, its goals have always been Afghan-centric, not global. What’s more, it appears that its negotiators have tacitly promised not to protect or ally with al-Qaeda or its newer offshoot, the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan (which, in any case, is anything but a prospective ally of theirs).

    Of course, transnational terrorists have never needed Afghanistan to hatch attacks on the West. Much of the planning and logistics for the actual 9/11 attacks occurred in Germany and even in the United States itself. In addition, partially thanks to America’s never-ending war on terror, there are increasing numbers of ungoverned spaces and tumultuous regions in dozens of countries in a band stretching from West Africa to Central Asia. Should the U.S. military really station tens of thousands of troops in all those locales? Of course not. Among other things, leaving aside the expense of it to the American taxpayer, U.S. soldiers would only inflame local passions and empower local terror outfits.

    So here we are knowing there is little the U.S. can do to change the ultimate outcome in Afghanistan. The only question of consequence is: Could Donald Trump be the twenty-first century’s Richard Nixon? Could he do what no one in his position over the last 18 years has had the political courage to do and end — his phrase — a “stupid” war that has come to seem eternal? If “only Nixon could go to China,” is it possible that only Trump can extract the U.S. military from Afghanistan? God help us, but that seems conceivable.

    Now, some in the foreign policy establishment will balk at any eventual Trumpian peace agreement. Army General Mark Milley, the president’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for instance, recently bucked his boss during confirmation hearings. He told senators that withdrawing from Afghanistan “too soon,” according to the New York Times, would be a “strategic mistake.” Likewise, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a typical Washington foreign policy pundit, has already complained that the current U.S. peace talks with the Taliban in Doha will only lead to a Vietnam-style denouement where U.S. negotiators use a negotiated agreement as a fig leaf to save face, declaring “victory,” while essentially accepting future defeat. And, in this case, O’Hanlon is probably right on the mark, even if wrong to reject such an approach.

    Count on this: the end of the American military mission in Afghanistan will be unfulfilling and likely tragic. Still — and here’s where O’Hanlon and his ilk couldn’t be more off the mark — like Vietnam before it, the Afghan war should never have been fought for these last almost 18 years, never could have been won, never will be won, and should be ended in some fashion, even a Trumpian one, as soon as possible.

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    Danny Sjursen, a TomDispatch regular, is a retired U.S. Army major and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir of the Iraq War, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. 

  • Smog Alert: Dirty Air Kills 30,000 Americans Each Year, New Study Claims

    New findings from the Imperial College London estimate that air pollution causes heart attacks, strokes, and lung disease that kill over 30,000 Americans each year, which is about the same number of deaths from car accidents each year.

    The study, published last week in the journal PLOS Medicine, found a connection between cardio-respiratory and excess particulate matter pollution, known as PM2.5, is about 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair — comes from automotive, power generation, and industrial engines.

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    Millions of Americans are inhaling PM2.5 daily, which build up in small blood vessels in the lungs, and over an extended period, can cause lung disease. These dangerous particles also are absorbed into the bloodstream that can increase the risk of heart disease, the researchers suggested.

    Researchers noted that PM2.5 levels have dropped in the last two decades, but in some areas around the country – the levels remain seriously high.

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    Los Angeles remained one of the worst cities for PM2.5 along with several regions in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama. 

    Inner cities deemed low-income areas across the US also had dangerous levels of PM2.5.

    Researchers said this “inequality in mortality burden” occurred because of the low-income population was already prone to higher rates of preexisting medical conditions.

    “I think the big conclusion is that lowering the limits of air pollution could delay in the US, all together, tens of thousands of deaths each year,” Majid Ezzati, the study’s lead author and a professor of global environmental health told CNN.

    Air quality data between 1999 and 2015 at over 750 monitoring stations across the US were cross-referenced with death records for cardiovascular-related diseases to determine the dangers of PM2.5, the researchers noted.

    The governments acceptable PM2.5 level is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (ug/m3).

    In 1999, Fresno County, California, recorded 22.1 ug/m3; by 2015, the level was at 13.2 ug/m3 for Tulare County, a region 20 miles from Fresno.

    In the last several years, the Trump administration has rolled back a wide variety of regulations that protect the air we breathe.

  • The Fed's Unnecessary Rate Cut

    Authored by Danielle Lacalle,

    If there is something that is evident is that the United States does not need a rate cut.

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    With the economy growing at 2.1%, unemployment at 3.6%, creating 170,000 jobs per month, and estimated underlying core inflation of 2%, no objective data justifies cutting rates that are already artificially low. Wages are rising by 3% and credit growth for companies and families is solid.

    There is also no public sector financing problem. The 10-year US bond trades at a 2.05% yield, consistent with the country’s growth and inflation. In real terms, the United States borrows at almost no cost and without Federal Reserve support, as all bond demand comes from the secondary market.

    If the Federal Reserve cuts rates it can be for two reasons:

    • One, because it expects a drastic and abrupt worsening of the economy, but that is apparently not the case, as the Fed itself talks of a “solid” economy.

    • The second reason would be more concerning. The Federal Reserve would cut rates as a reactive measure against the monetary assault of the ECB (eurozone), the PBOC (China) and the BOJ (Japan).  That is because it is recognizing in a veiled way that we are in a dangerous bubble inflated by central banks, and that we are heading for a currency war. It is no surprise that the dollar index (the DXY) has risen despite expectations of lower rates and even repurchase of bonds via reinvestment of interests in the United States. When all major economies “copy” the Fed without having the financial balance, economic dynamism and global reserve currency of the United States, they are basically implicitly saying “buy dollars”.

    Constant easing has created major imbalances, from asset bubbles to rising zombie companies (“Asset Bubbles to Zombie Companies: The Dark Side of Rate Cuts”).

    In the eurozone, there is a similar case. There is no need to cut rates and launch another stimulus, which by the way has never been abandoned, by the way, since all expirations are repurchased). The excess liquidity in the ECB exceeds 1.79 billion euros, rates are already negative and the eurozone governments issue debt at negative and artificially low yields. The credit market shows the risk of dangerous bubbles when the spread between junk and high-quality bonds has fallen to historic lows.

    The problem of stagnation of the eurozone and other economies has nothing to do with rates. Businesses and consumers are not going to take more credit or invest more due to a 0.5% change in already artificially depressed rates. The problem of stagnation in many economies is not due to lack of monetary stimulus but its excess. Zombie debt is perpetuated, overcapacity is maintained and malinvestment in high risk and low productivity sectors is encouraged.

    The risk to markets is that investors fall again into the trap of betting on “the worse, the better”, that is, taking more risk despite the fact that the earnings’ season and macro data are disappointing, with traders betting it all on new liquidity injections.

    The Fed and the ECB face the devil’s alternative. If they normalize monetary policy, they risk an abrupt and widespread correction in risky asset prices, and if they do not normalize, they lose tools to face a true cycle change. The Federal Reserve still has some tools, but the ECB is already in diminishing return territory in monetary policy.

    The United States does not need a rate cut, but it probably will. Reducing exposure to the most cyclical part of portfolios may be a good idea because the race towards negative rates of the global economy has only one result: secular stagnation. Central banks will keep risky asset prices high, but we cannot forget collateral damages. When high productivity is fiscally penalized and monetary policy is rewarding the most inefficient and indebted parts of the economy, growth suffers and bubbles reach systemic size.

  • 2008 Economic Crisis Has Resulted In A Generation Of Millennial Renters  

    Millennials will tell anyone – the “greatest economy ever” is a hoax. That is because many young adults aren’t just priced out of the housing market; they have never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis.

    The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigated several trends that have transformed millennials into a generation of renters. The Journal’s latest report is an eye-opener into the shaky finances of the next generation that will take over the entire U.S. workforce by 2024.

    Alex Ruiz, 29, and his wife, Stephanie Johnson, spoke to WSJ about insurmountable student debt, little savings, rising rents, the affordable housing crisis, and the bleak outlook on life.

    The couple is located in Asheville, N.C., where residential real estate markets have jumped 70% post the financial crisis, making it unaffordable for the pair to buy a home. Rising rents and student loans have drained every last penny out of the two, who are unable to save for a downpayment.

    “Day to day we’re OK generally,” said Mr. Ruiz, a case manager at a government-funded agency.

    “But the depressing part is when we take a hard look at the possibility of our future.”

    For many generations, homeownership was a pillar of the American dream. Since the dream died shortly after the 2008 crisis, many are rethinking what that new dream could be.

    Millennial homeownership rates have crashed over the last decade. The median age of a home buyer is 46, the oldest since the National Association of Realtors began keeping records in 1981. The trend is expected to accelerate into 2020.

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    Millennials who became young adults in the stock market and real estate crash a decade ago, came out in the aftermath with “no bargaining power when they entered the job market, crimping their earnings ever since,” said The Journal. They watched their families get obliterated with financial hardships, determined that owning a house wasn’t in their interest.

    Now that millennials are generally at an age where it’s accustomed to settling down: buy a home, get married, and have children — many are rethinking the American dream because they cannot afford it.

    From 2012 to 2018, the average price of lower-priced homes jumped 64%, according to mortgage-data tracker CoreLogic, while the price of higher-end homes increased just 40%. During the same period, wage growth for average workers remained depressed.

    A study earlier this year showed that six out of ten millennials don’t have $500 to cover their rent or food expenses; in the event, they lose their jobs in the next downturn.

    The effects of poor financial health have forced many millennials to live in their parents’ basements, according to census data. This means many can’t even afford rising rents in many of the Case-Shiller 20-Cities.

    “Lower homeownership for young adults means lower economic growth,” said Sam Khater, chief economist of mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

    The millennial homeownership rate is at the lowest levels in three decades. About 40% of young adults, ages 25 to 34, were homeowners in 2018, according to Freddie Mac. That is down from 48% in 2001 when Gen X-ers were young adults.

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    Stagnate wage growth is the crux of the problem. Home prices have dangerously outpaced wage gains over the last decade. From about the end of 2000 to the end of 2017, median home prices increased 21% after adjusting for inflation, while median household income grew 2%.

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    The median net worth for millennial households crashed by a third from 2001 to 2016 after adjusting for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve.

    Even if millennials start purchasing homes this year through earlier 2020 – they’re likely buying the top of the market.

    The effects of not buying, or buying late, should become more evident through the early 2020s as millennials settle down. The median family net worth of homeowners is $230,000 compared with just $5,000 for renters.

    Without home equity, millennials are screwed in the next economic downturn.

    And several decades from now, around 2040, millennials will keep working through their retirement years.

    Which leaves us to today, as the 2020 U.S. presidential election is around the corner, many Democratic presidential candidates are offering student loan debt forgiveness and universal income to struggling millennials.

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    Could millennials, who are over 75 million strong, have a much more significant impact on the election than previously thought?

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