Today’s News 3rd June 2022

• Europe's Ban On Russian Energy Will Only Trigger More Inflation Pain In The West
  Europe’s Ban On Russian Energy Will Only Trigger More Inflation Pain In The West

  Europe’s extreme dependency on Russian energy products from oil to natural gas is made clear recently from the manner in which they have approached sanctions – with incrementalism, slowly sinking back into the bushes.

  The latest agreement among member nations on export bans targeting Russia is largely oil focused, not natural gas focused, with the union demanding an immediate 70% decrease in Russian oil transferred BY SHIP. Oil transferred by pipeline will continue to flow into the EU for now. The ban is intended to expand to 90% of all shipborne Russian oil by the end of this year. Natural gas imports from Russia will also continue.

  While some European nations are more dependent on Russian energy than others, overall 40% of the EU’s needs are supplied by the country’s industry. It is not surprising that they are seeking an incremental approach to sanctions, they simply would not be able to survive another winter if they were to go cold turkey and block Russian imports completely. Of course, this does not mean that Russia has to operate on Europe’s timetable.

  Russia is already reducing exports of natural gas to multiple EU countries, with Denmark, Netherlands and Germany being the latest to see losses. The EU’s ban was oil and ship focused because they cannot find an alternative source for natural gas that would resolve shortages if they banned everything. Germany in particular would be destroyed by the loss of natural gas supplies from Russia with its 42% dependency.

  The solutions offered by governments and in the mainstream media neglect certain realities. Namely, they claim that output can be increased or diverted to Europe to fill the gap. Joe Biden has suggested that the US is a “net exporter” of oil (this advantage has swiftly declined since he entered the White House according to the IEA) and that the US could help alleviate European demand. The IEA and OPEC members like Saudi Arabia have offered to increase market availability and output of oil if Russian exports are hit with sanctions.

  The problem is that increased production is a fantasy stifled by the realities of labor shortages, increased drilling costs due to inflation and shortages in raw materials caused by supply chain disruptions. There is little chance that production capacity will ever be able to match EU demands, according to experts in the drilling industry.

  

  So what does this mean?

  It means that in order for Europe to fulfill its energy needs while banning its primary import source, the union will have to leach existing supplies from the global market. In other words, supplies will be greatly reduced in the West and prices are about to spike exponentially in order to feed the EU.

  Despite all of this economic bluster, Russia has shown considerable resilience to sanctions on oil as both China and India have increased purchases in tandem with Europe’s bans. The wider implication of this being that Europe and the West will be facing reduced global oil supplies and paying a premium while countries like China and India will be enjoying increased supplies and lower prices from Russia. The East grows stronger while the West gets weaker

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/03/2022 – 02:45

• The Decline And Fall Of Davos Man
  The Decline And Fall Of Davos Man

  Authored by Mark Leonard via Project Syndicate,

  Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine loomed large at this year’s annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, where political and business leaders once gathered to celebrate globalization and pursue more of it. Now, the world has entered a new phase of history in which geopolitics will predominate…

  

  “Davos Man” has had a grim 14 years. The late Harvard University political scientist Samuel P. Huntington popularized the term in 2004 to describe a new overclass of evangelists for globalization. Davos Man, he claimed, wanted to see national borders disappear and the logic of politics superseded by that of the market.

  But since the 2008 global financial crisis, politics has increasingly trumped economics, a trend that reached its apotheosis in 2016 with Donald Trump’s election in the United States and the Brexit referendum. Both events represented a backlash against Davos Man’s vision of a frictionless world governed (not run) as efficiently as possible by “multi-stakeholder processes.”

  Moreover, at this year’s annual gathering in Davos, attendees had to confront an even bigger challenge than national politics: the return of geopolitics. The World Economic Forum’s theme was “History at a Turning Point,” in recognition of the fact that we have reached the end of the “end of history.” Although the WEF’s ethos is to promote cooperation in the pursuit of “one world,” the new agenda is necessarily focused on conflict and division.

  Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression on Ukraine obviously loomed large at this year’s meeting. To open the event, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – appearing virtually in his now familiar military fatigues – spoke of a world split along the fault lines of fundamental values. And Russia House, the facility where Russian delegations hosted parties and networking events in years past, was transformed by Ukrainian activists and donors into the Russian War Crimes House, with an exhibition calling attention to Russian atrocities in Ukraine.

  After browsing this year’s program, it soon became clear that not a single aspect of globalization has been spared from the fallout of new geopolitical conflicts – between Russia and the West, China and the West, China and its neighbors, and so forth. Instead of panels discussing free-trade agreements, there were multiple sessions on economic warfare.

  Political and business leaders grappled with the fact that we now live in a world where central-bank reserves can be confiscated, commercial banks can be summarily disconnected from the SWIFT international payments system, and private assets can potentially be seized to pay for a country’s reconstruction.

  The sessions on climate change, meanwhile, looked beyond the Paris climate agreement’s decarbonization targets to focus on the links between the war in Ukraine, the current global energy crisis, food shortages, and inflation. For example, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck held a panel with India’s petroleum and gas minister and the CEO of an oil company to discuss whether Europe and India can end their use of Russian oil and gas without setting back their economic goals.

  A panel on migration dealt not with the question of skills training – as would have been the case in previous years – but rather with the weaponization of refugees. As a Ukrainian MP warned, Putin is aiming to “turn migration into a ‘hybrid war 2.0,’ in the hope that driving millions of Ukrainians from their homes could lead to the collapse of Europe.”

  At a panel on the future of technology, a senior Japanese policymaker discussed how geopolitics is transforming the relationship between the market and the state. In the old days, innovations like the internet were initially developed by the state and then picked up by private companies. But today, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, drones, and other technologies are being developed by the private sector and then weaponized by the state. Export controls and restrictions on technology transfers thus have become essential elements of national security.

  But the most anxious of all sessions were those focusing on the fear of a new cold war, which would spell the end of the globalized world. Many leaders from outside Europe and North America sympathized with Ukraine but refused to see the war as a global conflict about values. They worried that Putin’s aggression, and the countermeasures taken against Russia, would accelerate the fragmentation of an already divided world through rising energy prices, mass starvation, and the politicization of markets.

  Moreover, they did not buy into the notion, heavily promoted by the Biden administration, that we are in a battle between democracy and autocracy. That framing, they feared, would lead to a world even more deeply divided along ideological lines. Representatives from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia repeatedly expressed fears of having to choose between China and America, describing that prospect as an “existential threat.”

  This year’s Davos gathering was totally unrecognizable from the conference I started attending 15 years ago. It is now clear that while Davos Man was not interested in geopolitics, geopolitics has become very interested in him. The weaponization of interdependence has reshaped every aspect of his life. The geopolitical takeover of globalization is almost complete, and its primacy will almost certainly outlast the war in Ukraine.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 06/03/2022 – 02:00

• Recent Events Only Reinforce Our Need For Gun Rights And Community Militias
  Recent Events Only Reinforce Our Need For Gun Rights And Community Militias

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  I want to stress a very important point first and foremost, because I don’t think the political left and the average gun grabber understands the gravity of the situation and they need to be educated:

  Liberty advocates will NEVER give up their guns. It’s not going to happen. We have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and we are not going to move, not even an inch. It does not matter what legislation or executive orders Joe Biden promotes, and it does not matter if there are future criminal events involving firearms. There is no scenario in which we are going to hand over our ability to defend ourselves and rely on the government alone. All the indignant wailing and preaching from anti-gun leftists is for naught; they will get nothing.

  

  Gun rights are integral to a free society because they act as a deterrent to potential government over-reach and authoritarianism. Tyrants might infiltrate politics and take over governments, and they might even THINK they have the ability to oppress the public, but they will never be quite sure they can get away with it as long as the public has the means to “reach out and touch them” from a distance. They will always have doubts and this is vital for freedom – When tyrants have doubts, liberty prevails.

  I covered the issue of incoming gun bans in the latest issue of my newsletter, The Wild Bunch Dispatch, but I wanted to examine here the wider implications of disarmament; including what the consequences will be if we were to comply, and what the establishment should fear when most of us don’t.

  I have said for many years now that I am certain that anti-gun interests WILL try to disarm the American people before 2030, simply because they must. They cannot achieve the implementation of the “Great Reset” or the “New World Order” (their terminology from their own mouths) without first taking away our ability to fight back. They know that if they do not disarm Americans they will eventually fail. It’s really that easy to understand; if we keep our guns we will win. If we let our guns be taken, we will lose.

  One thing must be made abundantly clear in this debate: Gun crimes are irrelevant to gun rights. They do not matter in terms of the constitution, nor should they matter. Our rights supersede the potential for abuse by bad people, and they supersede the whims of government.

  The political left seems to think that gun crime is all that matters. They obsess over every single tragedy not because they actually care about the victims or the families involved, but because they assume that each gun crime is a kind of currency that they can use to pay for the eventual purchase of the 2nd Amendment. They think they can buy the option to erase our gun rights using the lives of shooting victims as a trade.

  I’m sorry I have to inform them, but that’s not how it works. That’s not how it will EVER work. And if they think they can force the issue, then there are millions of us in the liberty movement that will teach them a painful lesson in humility. There will come a day when they’ll wish they had been more reasonable and not turned to authoritarianism.

  In the meantime, they will try every trick in the book to con the public into thinking that incremental measures or executive orders are needed as a means to save lives. They won’t save lives, they’ll only lead to the disarmament of the population, making it easier to subjugate us and eliminate resistance. The key to understanding gun control laws is to accept the reality that gun grabbers have NO INTENTION of staying satisfied with “common sense” gun control; they will only be satisfied with gun confiscation. This is why no quarter can be given to them. No compromises. No diplomacy. Nothing.

  It’s important to clarify where gun rights advocates are coming from, because leftists don’t get it. They are perfectly willing to give up their freedoms in exchange for false security. Let me put it this way:

  History shows us that disarmament of any population or subset of a population is eventually followed by the oppression and often genocide of that same population. Statistically, disarmament has led to some of the worst mass murders in the history of humanity. We risk losing far more lives by giving up our guns than we risk by keeping our guns.

  By extension, a common argument among gun grabbers is that other western nations have extensive gun restrictions and they don’t have tyranny. I beg to differ. As we recently witnessed with the covid mandates and the attempted vaccine passports, many governments from the EU to Australia and New Zealand took the mask off (pun intended) and showed their true totalitarian colors to the point that they even created covid camps where people were locked up without due process.

  I would argue that had it not been for the growing opposition among conservatives in the US and in parts of Canada, the covid mandate agenda would still be active today and most of our freedoms would be erased. The opposition in the US is the reason why medical tyranny was scrapped through most of the world. For if we can be free despite the existence of covid, then so can everyone else.

  And how were conservatives able to defeat the mandates? Ultimately, it’s because we have guns.

  But what about the deaths of children in Uvalde and elsewhere? Don’t they matter? Of course they do, and every pro-gun person out there agrees. What we don’t agree on is the idea that government should have a monopoly on security and on force. When government has a monopoly on force, millions of people die instead of dozens.

  In reality, the events in Uvalde prove once again that defenders of the 2nd Amendment are right. Reports from the scene of the shooting now indicate that police actually failed to stop the shooter (Salvador Ramos) from entering Robb Elementary School and they were ordered to stay outside and do nothing as the shooter moved freely for over an hour. Ramos was finally stopped by a single Border Patrol agent who went in on his own.

  Adding insult to injury, police used force to prevent parents and community members from going in and doing the job they refused to do. I want to point out that the fact that the police were “ordered” to stay out and keep people out is no excuse – Some orders should be ignored and if you don’t ignore them then you are partly responsible for the consequences.

  I suggest that two simple solutions could have saved lives in Uvalde without erasing our constitutional rights.

  • First, if public schools removed their “gun free zone” status and allowed teachers to conceal carry, then Ramos likely would have been dead before harming a single child. Or, he would have at least faced opposition and been cornered.

  • Second, if community militias still existed in the US as the Constitution demands, then parents could have organized a much faster response and walked right over any police that refused to go in and do what needed to be done. Parents are allowed to risk their lives for their children, and anyone that says otherwise should be ignored or trampled.

  The answer to crime of all kinds (not just crimes that involve guns) is more community involvement and a visible armed presence. We need more people to be armed and more individual responsibility for the security of those that cannot defend themselves.

  A gun ban will not protect us from crime, it only encourages tyranny. It also doesn’t matter because there’s nothing that Biden or the political left can do to take our guns anyway. Other solutions need to be tried, and there is a reason why gun grabbers refuse to acknowledge any alternatives – Because they don’t care about protecting the innocent, they only care about eliminating a portion of the constitution that has long prevented them from gaining more power.

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, further encroachments on the 2nd Amendment will lead to war. Leftists might welcome this in the assumption that they have the government and the military on their side. They may not realize that many in the military are also gun rights supporters. They also might have forgotten the results of asymmetric wars in places like Afghanistan, and frankly, many Americans have far better gear and much better training than the Taliban. This will not end well for anti-gun authoritarians.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 23:40

• Tip Poorly? 80% Of Delivery Drivers Admit To Stealing Customer's Food 
  Tip Poorly? 80% Of Delivery Drivers Admit To Stealing Customer’s Food 

  The smell of mouthwatering food is hard to ignore for a delivery driver. At least that’s the suggestion of a new study that found a shocking amount of drivers are snacking on a customer’s food. 

  The survey was conducted by Circuit Route Planner, a mobile navigation app for drivers, that gathered information from more than 500 delivery drivers. The study didn’t say if the delivery drivers worked for DoorDash, Postmates, Grubhub, and UberEats.

  Of the drivers surveyed, 80% admitted to eating customers’ deliveries, while 23% purposely damaged packages, 17% stole food, and 17% resealed boxes. 

  Circuit Route Planner said the study’s key takeaway is that “delivery drivers are not all angels on the job, with some admitting to damaging packages and having inappropriate communication with customers.” 

  Perhaps the reasoning behind delivery drivers taking a slice of the customer’s meal is in response to poor tipping and or the customer being rude. 

  

  Other delivery drivers said tip bating (a practice where customers change their tip amount after the delivery is complete) and wrong addresses were most annoying. 

  

  Poor tipping was the most common response for why delivery drivers might not like their customers. Beyond tipping, over half of the respondents encountered a “Karen” at least once a month. 

  

  The next time you order food, tip well and be polite because you never know what the delivery driver will do to your food. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 23:20

• Five GOP Senators Seek Info From NIH Acting Director On Royalty Payments To Feds
  Five GOP Senators Seek Info From NIH Acting Director On Royalty Payments To Feds

  Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Five Republican senators have asked National Institutes of Health (NIH) Acting Director Lawrence Tabak for a comprehensive accounting of every royalty payment by an outside source to an employee of the federal agency since 2009.

  “We believe that the American taxpayer deserves to know 1) the degree to which government doctors and researchers have a financial interest in drugs and products they support, and 2) whether any relationship exists between federal grants awarded by NIH and royalty payments received by NIH personnel,” the senators told Tabak in a letter that was made public on June 1.

  “Additionally, Americans deserve greater transparency in how the hundreds of millions in royalty payments NIH receives are distributed, and the degree to which NIH’s leadership—already among the highest-paid individuals in the federal bureaucracy—has benefited from this ‘hidden’ revenue stream.”

  

  The five senators are Rand Paul of Kentucky, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Rick Scott of Florida. Tabak has been acting NIH chief since his predecessor, Dr. Francis Collins, resigned in December after leading the agency for a dozen years.

  The GOP senators’ letter was prompted by revelations first reported by The Epoch Times based on information obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submitted to NIH by Open the Books, an Illinois-based nonprofit government watchdog.

  “We estimate that up to $350 million in royalties from third parties were paid to NIH scientists during the fiscal years between 2010 and 2020,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski said in a telephone news conference on May 9.

  “We draw that conclusion because, in the first five years, there has been $134 million that we have been able to quantify of top-line numbers that flowed from third-party payers—meaning pharmaceutical companies or other payers—to NIH scientists.”

  The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, constitute 40 percent of the total, he said.

  “We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” he said.

  Collins received 14 payments while serving as NIH director, according to the information obtained by Open the Books. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments, and his deputy, Clifford Lane, got eight payments during the period.

  Tabak conceded during a recent congressional hearing that the payments “have the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Republicans have since been vocal in demanding that NIH be more forthcoming about the royalty payments, while Democrats have been unusually quiet.

  Open the Books received the data on the royalty payments only after suing in federal court, and even then, the information provided was heavily redacted so that the specific amounts of individual payments to recipients and the names of payers were concealed.

  The GOP senators took note of that fact in their letter to Tabak.

  “Each year, NIH awards tens of billions of dollars in the form of federal grants, and under 401.10 of the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments (Bayh–Dole) Act, federal agencies and employees may receive royalty payments for products and inventions when listed as an inventor or ‘co-inventor’ on a product’s patent,” the senators told Tabak.

  “A 2020 study conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) showed that, in total, 93 NIH patents contributed to 34 FDA-approved prescription drugs, generating roughly $2 billion in royalty payments to the agency between 1991-2019. In 2004 alone, some 900 NIH scientists earned approximately $8.9 million in royalties for drugs and inventions they discovered while working for the government.”

  The senators said NIH has in the past been substantially more transparent about the payments.

  “In 2005, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented a policy requiring its employees to disclose these royalty payments on the consent forms for clinical trial participants; however, the agency has taken no action to disclose such payments to the public at large,” the letter states.

  “In fact, even after the nonprofit organization Open the Books submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to disclose royalty payments made between 2009 and 2020, the agency only provided the names of the employees receiving the payments and the number of payments they received between 2009 and 2014; the amounts of the individual payments, the innovation in question, and the names of the third-party payers were redacted by NIH.”

  Andrzejewski told The Epoch Times on May 31 that his nonprofit shouldn’t have had to take NIH to court to get the information the five senators are now demanding.

  “The production of an estimated $350 million in third-party royalty payments to NIH and 1,700 of its scientists is so heavily redacted that it’s nearly impossible to follow the money. NIH is violating the spirit if not the letter of open records law,” Andrzejewski said.

  “It shouldn’t take our lawsuit or congressional action to force NIH to comply with basic open government rules. We applaud the actions of the senators on the Homeland Security committee as they remind these unelected career bureaucrats that they work on behalf of the American people.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 23:00

• Universal Basic Income? IMF Calls For Governments To Subsidize Food And Energy
  Universal Basic Income? IMF Calls For Governments To Subsidize Food And Energy

  Inflationary and stagflationary crisis events open up a lot of doors and create a lot of convenient opportunities for globalists obsessed with the ideology of total centralization. A key aspect of the “Shared Economy” agenda put forward by the WEF is the concept of UBI (Universal Basic Income). If the government becomes the primary pillar of the economy and the primary source of necessities for a large portion of the population, then this makes public defiance of government mandates much less likely.

  When the government becomes our nursemaid, how many people will be willing to bite the hand that feeds them?

  

  UBI gives political elites incredible power in exchange for nothing more than currency, paper or digital, created from thin air. This is why it is concerning that so many global organizations have become aggressively vocal about government subsidies of necessities the past couple of years.

  International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva recently made statements calling for governments to be more active in subsidizing food and energy costs to their citizens in the wake of the inflationary crisis. Such subsidies would of course be the beginning stage of an inevitable push for UBI.

  We saw some of the effects of UBI in a limited way during the covid lockdowns, which resulted in over $6 trillion in stimulus measures in a single year and helicopter money being funneled directly into the US economy. This momentary UBI led to mass labor shortages across the country. The temporary jump in retail demand has now faltered, but it did result in increased supply chain woes and added to the already existing inflation problems. Overall, covid stimulus policies have been a disaster for the US.

  Another reason for the IMF to co-opt the discussion on solutions is to also divert blame for the problem. It is the very central banking policies that the IMF promoted for years that led directly to the inflation crisis we are dealing with today. Georgieva continues to promote the lie that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a main factor causing global inflation, even though inflation was hitting 40 years highs in the US well before the war ever started, and has been a constant weakness within Europe and other parts of the world for years.

  While sanctions on Russian oil and gas will certainly add to instability in the future, it was central banking policy that created the bulk of this disaster in the first place.

  The latest statement from the IMF may also reveal the expectations of globalists on the inflation front going forward. With multiple institutions from the WEF, World Bank, the UN, the IMF and the BIS all predicting worldwide food shortages this year, it’s clear that inflation is going to get far worse. Georgieva’s recommendations for subsidies on food and energy should act as a warning signal; the IMF would not be suggesting UBI-like measures unless they thought the economic crisis would be dangerous enough to compel the public to demand government monetary intervention on such a comprehensive scale. It might not seem like it, but a large number of people are fully aware that stimulus measures and government spending only lead to higher prices. They would have to be extremely desperate to ask for more of the same while hoping for different results.

  Anyone still not prepared for a bottleneck in the supply chain and even higher costs needs to take the threat seriously. The globalists are telling you what is about to happen, and if you hope to remain free, UBI is not an option.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 22:40

• Texas Governor Orders Random School Inspections In Bid To Ensure 'Culture Of Constant Vigilance'
  Texas Governor Orders Random School Inspections In Bid To Ensure ‘Culture Of Constant Vigilance’

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has instructed state officials to start carrying out random inspections at schools in the state.

  

  The Republican governor directed the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC) to coordinate with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to “develop and implement a plan to conduct random inspections to assess access control measures of Texas school districts.”

  “Among other reviews, your team should begin conducting in-person, unannounced, random intruder detection audits on school districts,” Abbott said in a letter (pdf) to the state’s school security officials.

  “Staff should approach campuses to find weak points and how quickly they can penetrate buildings without being stopped,” he said.

  “This will help determine if schools are prepared to implement and follow the [Emergency Operations Plans] they have already submitted to the state,” he added. “This will improve accountability and ensure school districts are following the plans they create.”

  The order comes after a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. An 18-year-old shooter had entered the school via a back door that was unlocked, according to the latest account of the situation by officials.

  

  In his letter to Kathy Martinez-Prather, the director of the TxSSC, Abbott said more needs to be done after the tragic massacre. He also outlined several measures to “ensure that a culture of constant vigilance is engrained in every campus and in every school district employee across the state.”

  State law requires school districts to create school security committees that are required to meet three times a year. Abbott asked Martinez-Prather to contact every school district to let them know they are expected to meet once this coming summer and to carry out several safety measures before the start of the 2022-2023 school year—specifically by Sept. 1, 2022, and report to the TxSSC by Sept. 9, 2022.

  The measures include ensuring their security committee reviews their plans in cases of emergency and active threats. It also includes ensuring that all staff and substitute teachers are trained on the safety procedures of their specific campus and that all drills are scheduled before the start of the next school year.

  Furthermore, the officials must also carry out “an assessment of their access control procedures, such as single access points, locked instruction room doors, visitor check-in procedures, exterior door locks, etc.”

  A TxSSC spokesperson told the Texas Tribune that it is “designing a program and action items to specifically address the governor’s directives within the prescribed timelines.”

  On the same day, Abbott sent a letter (pdf) to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state House Speaker Dade Phelan requesting them to each convene a special legislative committee to review a series of topics in order to prevent future school shootings: school safety, mental health, social media, police training, and firearm safety. The committees would make recommendations to the state’s legislature and the executive branch over what meaningful actions can be taken.

  Abbott also said in his letter to Martinez-Prather that the TxSSC should “immediately begin” working with his office and the state legislature on recommendations to improve current school security systems and decide on the funding needed to continue that work.

  “This issue will no doubt be at the forefront of the next Legislative Session. You have my full support to make recommendations for consideration by the Legislature,” Abbott wrote.

  The Epoch Times has reached out to Martinez-Prather for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 22:20

• Amundi CIO Warns That Some Parts Of Private Equity Look Like "Ponzi Schemes"
  Amundi CIO Warns That Some Parts Of Private Equity Look Like “Ponzi Schemes”

  Despite the market’s tumult over the last few months, credit markets have mostly held up well. At least, well enough to keep the the Fed from changing their tune for the time being (though we’re sure that’ll change).

  But Amundi Asset Management’s chief investment officer Vincent Mortier is saying what a lot of us have been thinking about some of the darker, less transparent parts of the market. Namely, he said that some parts of the private equity industry are like a “ponzi scheme” that will “face a reckoning” in coming years, FT reported. 

  In a presentation given this week, Mortier said: “Some parts of private equity look like a pyramid scheme in a way. You know you can sell [assets] to another private equity firm for 20 or 30 times earnings. That’s why you can talk about a Ponzi. It’s a circular thing.”

  As the piece notes, private equity locks up investor capital and is highly reliant on marking investments to market instead of allowing public markets to determine their price. 

  Over the last decade, private equity vehicles selling private assets to other private equity companies has come under scrutiny, since assets can be shuffled around at prices that outside public markets aren’t privy to (and may not reflect the asset’s actual value). 

  

  Mortier argued that PE companies have incentive to keep shuffling assets at inflated prices. He continued: “Just because there’s no mark to market doesn’t mean there’s no risk. There are some very, very good opportunities, but there are no miracles. Eventually there will be casualties, but that might not be for three, four, or five years.”

  And the firms have been very busy, as FT notes:

  Private equity firms have been flush with cash in recent years as they have been able to borrow at low interest rates, giving them enormous firepower to snap up companies. Globally, the private equity industry has more than $6tn in assets under management, according to a McKinsey report published in March.

  They enjoyed their strongest ever start to a year in 2022 as they deployed vast cash piles accumulated during the pandemic. Buyout groups backed $288bn worth of deals in the first quarter, a 17 per cent rise compared with the first three months of 2021.

  Mortier concluded: “It’s really concerning. Banks are less and less doing their role of market making.” In part, that is because of regulation, which has tightened up since the 2008 financial crisis. “But as well, banks and traders are greedy. Regulators should probably have a look at this” as it could produce market accidents, he said.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 22:00

• Aussie Primary School Sees "Microchips In Student's Brains" In 10 Years
  Aussie Primary School Sees “Microchips In Student’s Brains” In 10 Years

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  An Australian primary school predicted “microchips in student’s brains” within 10 years before subsequently deleting the newsletter that contained the creepy prophecy.

  

  The bizarre entry was featured in the May 26 edition of the Preston West Primary school’s newsletter, which listed a number of prosaic things the school envisages will be helpful to educating children in a decade.

  They include “more mental health awareness,” “more buildings and development,” as well as “technological advances for teachers and students.”

  However, also included on this list is “microchips in student’s brains to promote intelligence and memory.”

  

  Although the newsletter was deleted by the school (it appears all their newsletters have been wiped), proof it was originally posted can be seen via the Google search cache below.

  

  As we have previously highlighted, implantable microchips are moving closer to becoming commonplace, particularly as countries embrace the digital ID and a cashless society.

  The BBC recently reported on people getting implanted with microchips in their arms in order to make purchases in a more convenient way.

  We also highlighted how people in Sweden are willingly having COVID vaccine passports placed onto implantable microchips in their hands.

  Cartoon villain and World Economic Forum chief Klaus Schwab wrote in his book ‘The Great Reset’ that the fourth industrial revolution would “lead to a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity,” which in his book he clarifies is implantable microchips that can read your thoughts.

  During last week’s Davos meeting of global elitists, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explained to Schwab how soon there would be “ingestible pills” – a pill with a tiny microchip chip that would send a wireless signal to relevant authorities when the pharmaceutical has been consumed.

  “Imagine the compliance,” said Bourla.

  Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla explains Pfizer’s new tech to Davos crowd: “ingestible pills” – a pill with a tiny chip that send a wireless signal to relevant authorities when the pharmaceutical has been digested. “Imagine the compliance,” he says pic.twitter.com/uYapKJGDJx

  — Jeremy Loffredo (@loffredojeremy) May 20, 2022

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  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 21:40

• May Payrolls Preview: Non-Trivial Odds Of A Negative Print
  May Payrolls Preview: Non-Trivial Odds Of A Negative Print

  If there is one thing that can stop the Fed dead in its tracks from hiking rates by 50 bps for the foreseeable future, it’s a negative one million (or slightly better) print in monthly payrolls. While we won’t get a print that ugly tomorrow, it is almost certain that will get a big drop on Friday morning followed by negative print in the coming months, especially when considering the plunge in new job postings…

  

  … and the mass corporate layoff announcements which have yet to be captured by government data (as we discussed last week in “We Could See A Million Layoffs Or More” – Here Comes The Job Market Shock).

  

  So what should one expect tomorrow? As Newsquawk writes in its May NFP preview, headline measures of payroll additions are expected to continue deteriorating in May. The jobless rate likely fell back to pre-pandemic levels (consensus 3.5%, down from 3.6%), while the participation rate may inch upwards, which would be an encouraging development. However, the focus will be on wages – assuming there is no shockingly bad payrolls print which will steal the show – to see how employment compensation is faring amid surging consumer prices; the expectation is that the annual rates of pay growth eased, but the monthly rate may pick-up relative to April’s data (consensus expects a 0.4% increase in average hourly earnings, up from 0.3%).

  While the May jobs data will only have a limited impact on near-term Fed policy, given that the central bank is widely expected to lift rates by 50bps in both June and July, any signs of moderation in wages may support the argument that the Fed could slow or pause the increments of rate rises in September. Of course, a huge negative outlier and all bets are off.

  Some more details on what to expect:

  Headline:

  • Nonfarm payrolls: consensus expects 325k jobs (Goldman is below consensus at 225K) to be added to the US economy in May (down from April’s 428k), as the pace cools relative to recent trend rates (three-month average 523k, six- and 12-month averages both at 552k). Yesterday’s surprisingly ugly ADP print, driven by a decline in small-business jobs is not helping. Furthermore, as shown below, there is a non-trivial chance of a negative print tomorrow, in line with what big data indicators suggest.
  • Average Hourly Earnings M/M: exp. 0.4%, up from 0.3% in April
  • Average Hourly Earnings Y/Y: exp. 5.2%, down from 5.5% in April
  • Average Hourly Earnings all employees: exp. 34.6, unch from April
  • Unemployment Rate: exp. 3.5%, down from 3.6% in April
  • Underemployment Rate: no consensus, was 7.0% in April
  • Labor Force Participation Rate: exp. 62.3%, up from 62.2% in April

  Initial jobless claims for the week that coincides with the BLS’ survey window for the jobs data showed a pickup to 218k from 185k going into the April report, although continuing claims for the week eased to 1.346mln from 1.403mln. Pantheon Macroeconomics said the trend in claims is probably rising slowly, but still remains at very low levels historically, and a long way from signalling any sort of distress in the labour market.

  Unemployment:

  The unemployment rate is expected to fall by one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.5% in May, a level not seen since before the pandemic in February 2020. It would be even more encouraging if the participation rate also rose from the prior 62.2% in combination with the unemployment rate falling, as some economists expect, as workers continue to return. If the jobless rate fell to the level that the consensus expects, it will be where the FOMC had projected it would fall to by the end of this year, while the central bank also sees unemployment remaining at these levels through 2023 too. That is consistent with its thesis that the labor market is virtually at maximum employment.

  Accordingly, it is not the headline payrolls number or the jobless rate that is likely to influence Fed policy in the near- term (absent major shocks in either direction), but wage measures given the central bank’s concerns about runaway inflation and the potential for second round effects. Currently, the market expects the Fed to raise rates by 50bps at both the June and July meetings; what happens after that point in September (does the Fed continue with aggressive larger hikes, move to lower increments of around 25bps, or even pause) is assumed to be a function of how the incoming data on price pressures evolves.

  Wages:

  The street is modelling average earnings to increase by 0.4% M/M, which would represent a quicker pace than the +0.3% in April, but in line with the average pace seen over the last year. The annual rate of average hourly earnings, however, is seen easing from 5.5% Y/Y to 5.2%. With core PCE prices – the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation – running at 4.9% Y/Y in April, wages would (quantitatively at the headline level, at least) offset the diminished purchasing power as a result of persistent inflation (NOTE: headline PCE is running at a rate of 6.3% Y/Y, above the level of annual average hourly earnings).

  Given that the May jobs data will only have a limited impact on influencing near-term monetary policy, the debate may refocus onto whether employment compensation gains have peaked, much like the debate with regards to headline inflation, which has been coming off annual peaks recently.

  Capital Economics says that the combination of cooling labor demand and a gradual recovery in labor supply suggests that wage growth is close to a peak, with the survey evidence pointing to a stabilization in labor shortages, and says that surveys of compensation plans – like the NFIB’s Compensation Plans Index as well as the average hourly earnings – point to a slight decline in pay growth. Even so, a monthly rate of wage growth similar to April would still be well above levels consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target, it says.

  Arguing for a weaker-than-expected report

  • Labor supply constraints. As Goldman shows in the chart below, when the labor market is tight, job growth tends to slow during the spring hiring season, particularly in May. This reflects the combination of a fewer available workers and the high seasonal hurdle – the BLS adjustment factors historically assume over 0.5mn of net seasonal hiring in May. The arrival of the youth summer labor force tends to ease these constraints in June and July, consistent with a peak drag on job growth in the May report. For example, payroll growth slowed to +75k in May 2019 from +263k in April on a first-reported basis.

  

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market generally indicate weakness in May employment, with the four indicators Goldman track consistent with a below-consensus report. The Census Household Pulse Survey is an outlier to the downside; however, that series has been much more volatile than nonfarm payrolls recently, rising or falling by at least 3mn in each of the previous four months.

  

  • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by only 128k in May, far below consensus expectations. Goldman believes that statistical inputs likely weighed on the ADP print, and expects a firmer gain in nonfarm payrolls this month. We think that there is a non-trivial chance of a negative print tomorrow.
  • Employer surveys. The employment components of business surveys generally decreased in May. Goldman’s services survey employment tracker decreased by 0.3pt to 54.5 and its manufacturing survey employment tracker decreased 0.6pt to 56.1.

  Arguing for a stronger-than-expected report

  • Reopening. While covid infections have risen further, hospitalizations remain near the lows of last summer, and domestic business activity has not been significantly impacted. For example, as shown below, dining activity has been relatively stable at pre-pandemic levels since March. Our forecast assumes a roughly 50k rise in leisure-sector payrolls in tomorrow’s report (mom sa).

  

  • Evolution of the seasonal factors. The May seasonal factors have evolved favorably in recent years, with a hurdle of 499k in May 2021 compared to the 605k May average for 2017-19 (mom basis). This lower seasonal hurdle represents a tailwind of roughly 100k, other things equal. However, May seasonality remains a net negative factor due to binding constraints on labor supply during a rehiring month.
  • Education seasonality. Education payrolls remains 0.4mn below pre-pandemic levels—in part due to labor supply constraints and related shortages of janitors and support staff. Many of these support staff typically stop working for the May survey period, implying a seasonally adjusted gain in education payrolls in tomorrow’s report (GS assumes +75k, public and private). For reference, education payrolls rose 112k in May 2021.
  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas decreased by 32% month-over-month in May, after increasing by 6% in April (SA by GS)

  Neutral/mixed factors:

  • Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—decreased by 5.4pt to +39.3. JOLTS job openings decreased by 455k in April to 11.4mn. Despite the sequential weakness, the level of labor demand remains very high, but these prints are dated. As shown above, real-time indicators shows a record plunge in new job postings.
  • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims increased from very low levels during the May payroll month, averaging 200k per week vs. 175k in April. Continuing claims in regular state programs decreased 60k from survey week to survey week.

  Finally, and perhaps the clearest indication that tomorrow’s report will be a big disappointment, comes from the White House itself, which said that it is not expecting to see big increases in jobs data every month as the economy transitions to a new period of more stable growth.

  According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “as we transition to this new period of stable, steady growth, we aren’t looking to see blockbuster job reports month after month, like we have over the last year,” she said. “But that’s a good thing. That’s the sign of a healthy economy with steady job growth, rising wages for working America, everyday costs easing up and a shrinking deficit.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 21:20

• US Engaged In "Offensive" Cyber Ops Against Russia In Ukraine: NSA Director
  US Engaged In “Offensive” Cyber Ops Against Russia In Ukraine: NSA Director

  The US military has issued a stunning but perhaps not entirely unexpected admission that it has been conducting offensive cyber operations in support of Ukraine. It marks the first ever such acknowledgement, and suggests – as many observers have long suspected – a deeper Pentagon and US intelligence role in Ukraine against the Russian military than previously thought.

  National Security Agency (NSA) and US Cyber Command Director Gen. Paul Nakasone told the UK’s Sky News on Wednesday, “We’ve conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum: offensive, defensive, [and] information operations.” This includes “offensive hacking operations” he said.

  

  Without offering specific details, he continued, “My job is to provide a series of options to the secretary of Defense and the president, and so that’s what I do.” Importantly, Gen. Nakasone gave the interview from allied Baltic country Estonia, from which other supporting operations including weapons transfers for Ukraine have come.

  He spoke of major attempts of the Russians to launch infrastructurally devastating cyberattacks on Ukraine, saying, “And we’ve seen this with regards to the attack on their satellite systems, wiper attacks that have been ongoing, disruptive attacks against their government processes.”

  “This is kind of the piece that I think sometimes is missed by the public. It isn’t like they haven’t been very busy, they have been incredibly busy. And I think, you know, their resilience is perhaps the story that is most intriguing to all of us,” he said, describing the Ukrainian response.

  As for support the US has given Ukraine in the lead-up to the Russian invasion, the NSA director referenced the following:

  Nakasone previously said his agency deployed a “hunt forward” team in December to help Ukraine shore up its cyber defenses and networks against active threats. But his latest remarks appear to be the first time that a U.S. official said publicly that the U.S. has been involved in offensive cyber operations in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

  And like any powerful deep state insider of the intelligence community, he referenced alleged Kremlin attempts to influence US elections. “We had an opportunity to start talking about what particularly the Russians were trying to do in our midterm elections. We saw it again in 2020, as we talked about what the Russians and Iranians were going to do, but this was on a smaller scale.”

  “The ability for us to share that information, being able to ensure it’s accurate and it’s timely and it’s actionable on a broader scale has been very, very powerful in this crisis,” he added in the interview.

  US Cyber Command specialists were deployed to Ukraine and conducted offensive operations against Russia, its commander and NSA Director General Paul Nakasone said on Wednesday.

  — CatoTheYounger (@catoletters) June 1, 2022

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  Despite the whole Russian military and intelligence machine being currently entrenched and busy executing the over 3-month war in Ukraine, the American public is further being told Moscow is now eyeing ‘interference’ in the upcoming midterms next Fall.

  According to The Hill: “Experts have warned that Russia will likely deploy its cyber operations in the 2022 midterm elections, which may take different forms, including disinformation campaigns and election hacking. The experts also said that Russia’s playbook is to divide the U.S. along party lines and suppress voter turnout.” However, it’s laughable to think that somehow it takes a foreign actor to “divide” the US “along party lines” – as if this is some new phenomenon.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 21:11

• Politicizing Mass Shootings Only Guarantees There Will Be More Of Them
  Politicizing Mass Shootings Only Guarantees There Will Be More Of Them

  Authored by William Anderson via The Mises Institute,

  American life is thoroughly politicized, to the point where there seems to be a talking points template to discuss anything that occurs. Thus, in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the same script is replayed in the media that was replayed from the shooting in Buffalo, which was replayed from the shooting in…

  

  Each political tribe has its own script, with the assumption being that because these awful events are being politicized, a political solution exists (along with a political cause). For example, in Texas, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke crashed a press conference on the Uvalde shooting led by Republican governor of Texas Greg Abbott, for example.

  At one level, we can dismiss the actions of both men, as each was trying to score political points. However, we cannot dismiss the accusation O’Rourke levied at Abbott: “This one’s on you.” He added:

  The time to stop the next shooting is right now and you are doing nothing. You said this is not predictable. This is totally predictable. This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.

  O’Rourke’s self-style “solution” is to ban the AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle that often has been used in mass killings, such as Uvalde, Buffalo, and the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, with the assumption, one supposes, that once that particular semiautomatic rifle no longer is commercially available, no mass shootings will occur, a heroic assumption at best.

  During his brief run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, O’Rourke, who ran on a platform of taking away tax exemptions from churches and religious organizations whose theology does not match the Democratic Party’s current position on the Sexual Revolution, told an audience when asked about gun control:

  Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.

  Progressive Christian college professor John Fea, while praising O’Rourke, also echoed the standard progressive line that stopping mass shooting is a relatively simple political matter in which legislators ban certain kinds of guns and place other restrictions on gun owners. Christian writer David French, while agreeing with conservatives that gun restrictions likely will not prevent mass shootings, has placed his faith in so-called red flag laws, which attempt to identify people who might commit such shootings. One does not have to be an old-line American Civil Liberties Union advocate to see the legal and moral pitfalls of such a policy, no matter how well intended it might be. Furthermore, the police will be very effective at enforcing the “red flag” provisions against people who probably are not real threats to the public.

  There is also another aspect of mass shootings that will not be mentioned in the mass media or in the latest political response: mass shootings provide progressive politicians with opportunities not only to promote their anti–gun ownership proposals, but also to take a swipe at political opponents. Every shooting provides these groups the opportunity to demonstrate both their moral outrage and their moral superiority to the Great Unwashed who are not willing to turn in their legally owned firearms, along with the politicians that support gun ownership. 

  In short, mass shootings, although truly awful events, are good for progressive politicians and their media advocates.

  • First, they give progressives the opportunity to engage in cost-free virtue signaling. The mainstream press universally supports gun control measures—the more draconian, the better—and even an obviously grandstanding Beto O’Rourke is going to get the best press possible and be treated as the righteous, outraged private citizen just being an advocate for little kids put in mortal danger by gun owners.

  • Second, it is important to keep the progressive political goals in mind, and that means understanding what progressive politicians and the media want to achieve. Announcing one supports draconian gun control measures sends the signal to others that not only is one horrified and angered, but also is determined to do something to stop the killing. That the proposed measures won’t stop a single shooting is irrelevant; it the show of virtue that matters.

  Take President Joe Biden’s response to the Uvalde shooting, in which he presented himself as fed up with these killings and claimed his determination to “do something.” Reported Zeke Miller and Chris Megerian of the Associated Press:

  It was much too early to tell if the latest violent outbreak could break the political logjam around tightening the nation’s gun laws, after so many others—including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 26, including 20 children—have failed.

  “The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,” Biden said. He has previously called for a ban on assault-style weapons, as well as tougher federal background check requirements and “red flag” laws that are meant to keep guns out of the hands of those with mental health problems.

  Late Tuesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer set in motion possible action on two House-passed bills to expand federally required background checks for gun purchases, but no votes have been scheduled.

  Biden, Schumer, and most likely the journalists that wrote this account all know that the legislative measures mentioned here most likely would not prevent someone from targeting children at a school. Yet all of them present this material as though readers automatically would understand that if this proposed legislation were put into law, then mass shootings would go away.

  No one in Congress, the White House, or the media overtly makes those causal connections, but these legislative measures are presented as the correct response to a mass shooting, which implies that they really would work as advertised. But whether or not these measures would stop a single shooting is unimportant. What is politically relevant is what the mainstream media choose to present to the reading and listening public and how it is presented. Furthermore, anyone who questions the effectiveness of these measures is portrayed in the progressive media as someone who wants people to die in mass shootings.

  That is why politicians that support private ownership of guns never will receive good press following a mass shooting unless they do a John McCain and play the role of the “maverick” Republican calling for new gun control measures. (One doubts that the “mavericks” actually believe their newfound rhetoric, but they do know how to get at least temporary favorable press.) Progressives hold to a core belief that no one but state-approved agents should own guns, with every new gun control measure being a positive step forward, toward the final goal of gun confiscation.

  One has to remember that in the age of politicized progressive media, all that matters are the optics of something. Facts don’t matter; even the truth doesn’t matter, only staged appearances. Paul Krugman recently took things a step further in a recent New York Times column, claiming that the ultimate upshot of the 1981 tax cuts authored by the Ronald Reagan administration was the mass shooting in Buffalo. (One has to read the article to pick through Krugman logic, but it exposes the mentality of modern progressives.)

  A politicized world looks like this, a world of the big lie, and the bigger the lie, the more effective it is. This is a world that provides no solutions, only more problems.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 21:00

• 36% Of Americans Making $250,000 Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck
  36% Of Americans Making $250,000 Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck

  Over a third of Americans who make at least $250,000 per year say they’re living paycheck to paycheck, which Bloomberg suggests underscores how inflation is ‘taking a bigger bite out of Americans’ budgets at all ends of the pay spectrum.’

  

  Another interpretation is that Americans makig at least $250,000 – placing them in the top 5% of earners in the country – have horrendous financial literacy.

  According to a survey by Pymnts.com and LendingClub, some 36% of households who make at least $250k – nearly 4x the median US salary – devote almost all their income to household expenses. Higher-income households are also more likely to put expenses on credit cards, though they’re also more likely to be able to pay off their balance in full.

  The most squeezed people in the high-income category are millennials – those in their mid-20s to early 40s. Over half of top earners in that generation report having very little left at the end of each month.

  

  That said, LendingClub is quick to note that paycheck-to-paycheck doesn’t necessarily mean hardship – in fact, only 10% of high earners reported issues covering all their household expenses in April – but it does mean they would have to radically adjust their lifestyle in the event their income suddenly goes away.

  Housing expenses, which typically take up large chunks of the budgets of wealthier people, have skyrocketed during the pandemic. For example in Orange County, California, a top-tier home cost $1.7 million in April, up from $1.2 million in February 2020, based on Zillow Group Inc. data. A mortgage on that house, assuming a 20% down payment, would cost about $100,000 per year. That’s 40% of a $250,000 annual pre-tax income.

  Top earners, even those struggling to pay the bills, are of course much better off than the rest of the nation, which is facing soaring prices for everything from food to gas and electricity. -Bloomberg

  Aside from high-earners, 61.3% of all consumers surveyed reported living paycheck-to-paycheck, up 9% from a year earlier, as US consumer borrowing has soared. In March, credit-card balances spiked by the most on record, and non-revolving credit jumped as well.

  

  Meanwhile, 25% of Americans are delaying retirement due to inflation, a new survey by BMO has found.

  Putting off retirement plans is mostly due to disrupted savings from increased prices, the survey found. Thirty-six percent of survey respondents have reduced their savings and 21% are putting away less for retirement in order to keep up with growing costs, according to the survey. –CNBC

  “We haven’t seen this level of inflation in a very long time, and it’s very daunting,” said Paul Dilda, head of consumer strategy at BMO Harris Bank, who added that many people who are either retired or are nearing retirement didn’t factor in surging expenses.

  Inflation has affected younger Americans the most – with over 60% of those between 18 and 34 years of age reporting that they had to pull back on their savings contributions in order to offset the rising costs.

  What are people doing to combat inflation? Americans are dining out less, being more careful at the store, driving less, and canceling or spending less on vacations.

  

  “We’re seeing a lot of people taking those actions so that they can continue to enjoy the life they want and at the same time be able to save or manage their budget accordingly,” according to Dilda.

  When is this country going to start teaching financial literacy?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 20:40

• Harvard Won't Say If It Supports Diversity Of Thought
  Harvard Won’t Say If It Supports Diversity Of Thought

  Authored by Albert Eisenberg via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

  In the summer of 2020, after the sensationalized killing of George Floyd burned the words “Black Lives Matter” onto America’s streets and television screens, American institutions of higher learning turned to their offices of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to pledge loyalty to the African American community with cookie-cutter press releases and affirmations. Harvard University, known as the beacon of American higher education, led the way.

  “Our community stands united in doing everything we can … to be agents of anti-racist social transformation,” wrote the dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health. The dean of Harvard College echoed that sentiment: “We stand with our Black alumni(ae), our Black faculty, our Black staff, our Black students, and other[s] … we unequivocally state our belief that Black Lives Matter.”

  

  But when it came to supporting one key black voice – somebody with something to teach the American public, and whose background and credentials could not be questioned – Harvard’s actions didn’t match its rhetoric.

  Just as the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining national prominence, a witch hunt-style cancellation of Harvard’s most prominent and promising black professor was taking place. Harvard’s suppression of Professor Roland Fryer, newly exposed in a 2022 film by documentarian Rob Montz and a score of articles from prominent thinkers such as Glenn Loury and Stuart Taylor (who wrote about this issue at RealClearEducation and appears in Montz’s documentary), is an egregious example of hypocrisy at work.

  Montz’s documentary was screened this month at the Old Parkland Conference in Dallas, where scores of black academics, including Fryer himself, gathered to discuss social mobility, race in America, and other pressing issues.

  The story must be seen to be believed, because Fryer is exactly the type of academic whom elite institutions claim to champion. Abandoned by his mother shortly after birth and raised by his alcoholic father, his arrival and accomplishments at Harvard are an incredible success story.

  Fryer built a storied career using quantitative social science and common sense to investigate societal shibboleths such as the social effect of “acting white” among black students (it’s real) and the impact of racial bias in police shootings (you might be surprised – as Fryer himself was). His work on America’s most hot-button issues earned him headlines, and accolades: a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, honoree status from Time magazine, and the Clark Medal, making him the first African American to win it. 

  By the late 2010s, Fryer was an academic star, a generational voice at Harvard who pushed the boundaries of academic research to the benefit of the least advantaged Americans, and one who represented the true manifestation of the American dream. It was a long way from the housing projects of Daytona Beach, Florida. But his research upset the political apple cart – and Harvard would soon find occasion to muzzle him.

  University administrators, including Dean of Harvard’s Faculty Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay and Dean of Social Sciences Larry Bobo, were less than enchanted with Fryer’s findings and regularly attacked his work. Gay and Bobo were among his foremost critics when Fryer’s lab found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings, concluding that, statistically, police officers were less likely to shoot black suspects than white ones.

  In 2018, a former research assistant came forward with accusations of sexual harassment against Fryer. Most of her claims were dismissed by a neutral investigating committee, which recommended training for Fryer. But a small committee, including Deans Gay and Bobo, instead took the step of removing Fryer from the classroom for two years and shutting down his research lab. Dean Gay even lobbied Harvard’s president to revoke Fryer’s tenure – something that hadn’t been done at Harvard since the Civil War.

  Another former research assistant, Tanaya Devi, calls the sidelining of Fryer “the most cold-blooded murder I’ve ever seen.”

  I asked Harvard if there was any other example in the university’s history of a tenured professor being removed from the classroom and having his research shut down. The university refused to comment. Harvard also refused repeated requests for comment as to whether the university supports diversity of thought.

  Fryer’s case is a cautionary tale at the Ivies. Just last week, Princeton University took the extraordinary step of firing an eminent tenured classics professor, Joshua Katz, after a similar witch hunt led by campus bureaucrats. Princeton’s pretext is similar to Harvard’s, related to a years-old consensual relationship between Katz and a student. But it’s obvious to any neutral observer that the repeated inquiries and unusual punishments are due to the professor’s opinions on race politics, not their workplace behavior.

  The Harvard Crimson reports that as of 2021, Fryer had served his two-year suspension and was back in the classroom – but his research and academic life are under the direct supervision of Dean Gay, who had made her opposition to Fryer’s work clear.

  Such a hostile working environment calls to mind the company boss from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” who was “obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That was it!” The message from Harvard is that Fryer should feel unease in his current position, for any misstep could land him back in academic jail. The chill of this potential punishment must affect the research Fryer is now conducting – robbing his students, and the American public, of an opportunity to learn more about our most complex social problems.

  Harvard is not alone in this campus censoriousness. But the institution is symbolic because it is America’s foremost center of learning and research. The university has suppressed its most prominent economist and now refuses to say whether it supports diversity of thought. Donors and alumni should take note.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 20:20

• 40,000 Factories At Risk Of Closing In Pakistan's Commercial Capital Amid Fuel Crisis 
  40,000 Factories At Risk Of Closing In Pakistan’s Commercial Capital Amid Fuel Crisis 

  Pakistan faces potential economic collapse as inflation jumps and widespread civil unrest could be nearing. The latest sign the South Asian country is spiraling into the abyss is rising electricity costs that threaten to close tens of thousands of businesses.

  Bloomberg reports that as many as 40,000 factories in Karachi, the country’s commercial capital, are being slapped with high power costs that make operating near impossible. 

  

  Rising power costs are so severe that nine business groups in Karachi told the government that an immediate plan needs to be formulated to lower power costs or face economic disaster. 

  Any shuttering of factories and mass layoffs could trigger social unrest in the commercial capital, home to more than 16 million people.

  Discontent among businesses and households is already soaring with an official inflation rate of over 13.37% (double the official CPI to get a more accurate picture of true price inflation), the 2nd fastest-rising rate in Asia. 

  On top of high power costs, Karachi’s power utility — K-Electric Ltd. — warned customers of widespread power cuts for the first time in over a decade if power generation continues to struggle because of high fuel costs and supply shortages. 

  “These current conditions are severely hindering KE’s ability to procure fuel, causing a permanent curtailment of power generation” that translates to as much as 10 hours of planned blackouts for some parts of the city, said Sadia Dada, a spokesperson for K-Electric. 

  Pakistan is also a nuclear power — political elites may stoke a conflict with neighboring India to distract public anger from domestic financial pain. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 20:00

• Philadelphia District Attorney Krasner Erases History
  Philadelphia District Attorney Krasner Erases History

  Authored by Tom Hogan via RealClear Pennsylvania,

  Whether it is Russia trying to hide the people who disappeared into the gulags, China ignoring the dissidents erased in the Cultural Revolution, or the Khmer Rouge pretending that the Cambodian genocide never happened, a leader trying to rewrite history is seldom a good idea. Now Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is attempting this dubious feat, erasing four homicides from the city’s history as if the victims were never killed.

  

  On a spring day in 2009, defendants Donta Craddock and Ivan Rodriguez were out cruising on the streets of Philadelphia in a Pontiac Grand Prix. The two decided to steal a motorcycle at gunpoint, a felony. Rodriguez drove off on the stolen motorcycle. Craddock took off in the Grand Prix, almost instantly pursued by Philadelphia police who were alerted by a witness. Fleeing from the lights and sirens of the police, Craddock rammed into a crowd on the sidewalk in North Philadelphia, killing four people: Aaliyah Griffin, 6; Gina Marie Rosario, 7; Latoya Smith, 22; and her daughter, not even one-year-old Rimanee. The scene was horrific, with the children splattered over the street and neighbors weeping. The victims were black and Latino.

  The Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office did not hesitate. Craddock and Rodriguez were charged with second-degree murder because the killings of the innocent victims took place during the course of a felony – the robbery of the motorcycle. Also known as felony murder, this crime category has existed under the law for longer than the United States has existed as a country. If five guys rob a bank and one kills a security guard during the robbery, all five defendants are charged with felony murder because their unlawful conduct resulted in the death. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in Pennsylvania.

  Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy, an experienced homicide prosecutor, led the case against Rodriguez and Craddock. Jurors and witnesses cried during the trial as they heard about the children who were killed. The defendants were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The defendants appealed, but the courts upheld the convictions.

  The victims’ families found some solace in the convictions. Janice Brown, the mother of Latoya Smith and grandmother of Rimanee Smith, said, “Justice has been served.” Aaliyah Griffin’s mother remained devastated: “It’s still hard. That’s my first daughter – she’s the one that made me a mom. She’s my best friend and they took it away from me. I’ll never get to see her with kids; I won’t see her in college; I won’t see her get married.”

  Unfortunately for the families of these murder victims, Larry Krasner was elected district attorney of Philadelphia in 2017. And Krasner does not like the doctrine of second-degree murder. Under his leadership, as new murders were committed, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has been reducing cases from first- or second-degree murder to third-degree murder or manslaughter, vastly cutting the amount of time these defendants will spend in jail. And Krasner has had plenty of opportunities to go light on murderers, since Philadelphia set a new all-time record for homicides in 2021, with 562 killings. Other prosecutors, including former Philadelphia district attorney and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, have been sharply critical of Krasner for his practice of downgrading homicides.

  Still, while future homicides might be punished less severely in Philadelphia, the families of murder victims from prior years, before Krasner became district attorney, assumed that they would be safe from Krasner’s light touch on killers. They were wrong – as the families of the victims murdered by Craddock and Rodriguez recently found out.

  Krasner recently decided to let Rodriguez walk out of prison. He switched the murder conviction to a guilty plea to robbery and agreed to a sentence of 10–20 years, allowing Rodriguez to go free based on the amount of time he already has served. The conviction was not reversed on appeal. No new evidence was introduced. According to Krasner’s spokesperson, the deal was cut simply because Krasner believes that the mandatory life sentence for second-degree murder is excessive, an “extreme punishment,” as Krasner’s press office puts it.

  Tammy Torres, whose seven-year-old daughter was killed in the crime, lashed out at Krasner. “I’m not sure how the DA came to the conclusion that this murderer should walk free,” she said. “[Rodriguez] was what started this series of events, this whole nightmare.” Neatly summarizing the concept of felony murder, Torres explained: “Had he and his codefendant not decided to steal that motorcycle, none of this would have happened. He is just as guilty as the person driving the car that murdered three children and one mother.”

  In deciding to wipe out the murder conviction for Rodriguez, Krasner is effectively erasing certain people from history: the legislature of Pennsylvania, which duly enacted the law of second-degree murder; the police officers who worked on the investigation; the prosecutor, Jude Conroy, who worked so hard for the conviction and remains a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office; the trial judge who oversaw the proceedings and the appellate judges who upheld the convictions; the jury, who considered the facts and the law in reaching a just verdict. And most importantly, Krasner is erasing the victims and their families, pretending that four people were not killed through the conduct of this criminal.

  Who weeps for the victims of crimes? Their mothers, fathers, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and friends. But not Larry Krasner. He weeps only for criminals.   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 19:40

• Watch Live: Biden Addresses Gun Violence, Following Spate Of Mass Shootings 
  Watch Live: Biden Addresses Gun Violence, Following Spate Of Mass Shootings 

  President Biden will talk tough on guns from the White House on Thursday evening and urge Congress to act fast to pass new restrictions to combat the epidemic of mass shootings. 

  Biden is expected to deliver a prime-time address on guns at 1930 ET. The White House said the president’s speech will be related to “the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day.”

  

  The speech comes as the House Judiciary Committee is considering eight pieces of gun control legislation, such as raising age limits from 18 to 21 to purchase a semiautomatic rifle, illegal to transfer or possess a large-capacity magazine, new requirements for firearm storage, a ban on bump stocks and gun attachments that make rapid-fire easier, and apply current firearms regulations on ghost guns, among other legislation under consideration. 

  The new legislation, which will be packaged up as the “Protecting Our Kids Act,” responds to the mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo, an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a hospital shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

  “When we think about the children in Uvalde, 9- and 10-year-olds just a few days short of their summer vacations, let us think about the whole world that was snuffed out when each of them died.

  “Let us remember that there are no perfect solutions. We are painfully aware that we cannot do enough today to save all of these lives,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), referring to the Uvalde shooting, told WSJ. 

  The legislation is a wish list of gun new laws by House Democrats that stand an uphill battle passing in a divided Senate, with many Republicans unwilling to support new restrictions. 

  There’s a missing element to the legislation that Democrats leave out, addressing the mental health crisis that plagues the country. 

  Watch President Biden talk tough on guns.  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 19:20

• Peter Schiff: Why Shouldn't You Give Up On Gold And Silver?
  Peter Schiff: Why Shouldn’t You Give Up On Gold And Silver?

  Via SchiffGold.com,

  A lot of investors wonder about the lack of movement in gold and silver, especially given rampant inflation. Why haven’t we seen a big rally in precious metals as many expected? Why shouldn’t you just give up on gold and silver?

  Peter Schiff answers these questions in this video.

  You bought gold and silver betting on inflation. You bet right. But you haven’t seen a big move up in metals – at least not yet.

  All the people who said there was no inflation to worry about – they were wrong. Yet it’s very frustrating that even though we were right, we’re not getting rewarded for being right in the price of our gold and silver that should be much higher.”

  But there are reasons why gold and silver haven’t rallied yet, as Peter lays out in the video. And he is certain they will rally, once the markets catch on to what’s really going on.

  First, Peter reminds us that inflation isn’t new. It has been with us for more than a decade. When the Federal Reserve responded to the 2008 financial crisis with quantitative easing — that was inflation. But due to the way those early rounds of QE entered the economy, it primarily showed up in asset prices, not consumer prices.

  A lot of asset prices went up, and when that happened, a lot of Americans who owned those assets felt richer. Therefore, they weren’t upset that the cost of living was also going up because their wealth was going up a lot faster, at least on paper.”

  And of course, all along the government was understating the amount the cost of living was going up through a rigged CPI formula.

  The policy response to COVID-19 kicked inflation into high gear. At the onset of the lockdowns, the Fed launched QE infinity.

  While we cranked up the printing presses like never before, we basically ordered people to stop working. We told them to go home, and not produce goods and services, but just cash government checks. We wanted to replace the lost incomes with a printing press. So, people weren’t earning money anymore, but the Federal Reserve was printing money so people could buy things they were no longer producing.”

  Peter called this the perfect storm of inflation.

  But the question remains — why hasn’t the price of gold and silver responded to all of this inflation?

  At times, it feels like the price of everything is going is going up – is going way up – except gold and silver, which doesn’t make sense, Gold and silver should be particularly sensitive not only to today’s inflation, but tomorrow’s inflation.”

  By its very nature, the price of gold can discount the price of all the future inflation.

  And that leads us to the first problem.

  Even though we have a lot of inflation today, investors still think we won’t have inflation tomorrow.”

  So, why aren’t investors worried about future inflation?

  Because the Federal Reserve is promising to solve the problem. The conventional wisdom is that you don’t need to buy gold and silver to hedge against future inflation because there won’t be any. The Fed is on the job. Powell & Company will make it go away. They have the tools to get inflation back to 2%.

  Rather than fearing inflation, they’re fearing the fight against inflation. Because how is the Fed going to fight inflation? It’s going to jack up interest rates. It’s going to have a tight monetary policy. In fact, it’s even going to start shrinking the balance sheet. It’s going to start taking money out of circulation — quantitative tightening. It’s going to reverse all of that inflation. It’s going to suck up that liquidity. And that is what is scaring investors out of buying gold and silver. They still have confidence in the Federal Reserve.”

  Peter said that confidence is going to be lost.

  He goes on to remind us of all the things the Fed has gotten wrong in the past – from “there is no problem in the housing market” in 2006 and 2007, to “inflation is transitory.” Now, Jerome Powell is saying it can slay inflation. And he’s confident he can do it because the economy is strong. The entire Fed policy is predicated on a strong economy.

  Peter said, “That is completely wrong.” In fact, we may well already be in a recession.

  I think that when the Fed ultimately has to admit – again – that it was wrong on the US economy and it overestimated the strength of the economy just like it underestimated inflation the Fed is going to lose its credibility.”

  And when the Fed turns its attention to a tanking economy, inflation is going to get worse. Government deficits will explode again. The central bank will have to print even more money to monetize the debt. The balance sheet will explode.

  And the cost of living is going to keep going up.

  All of that inflation that started out in financial assets has now permanently migrated into consumer goods. … So, this is not a temporary situation. This is permanent. Inflation is going to get much, much worse. But the economy is going to get weaker. It’s stagflation.”

  When the markets come to terms with this reality, everybody will come rushing into gold and silver.

  In the meantime, it’s important not to give up on the gold and silver you already own. Furthermore, this is an opportunity to buy gold and buy silver while most investors remain clueless about what’s actually going on.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 19:00

• Texas Electricity Demand To Soar As State Bakes In Heat Wave Next Week
  Texas Electricity Demand To Soar As State Bakes In Heat Wave Next Week

  Following an early-season heat wave searing parts of Texas in May, scorching hot weather returns with a vengeance early next week, resulting in power demand forecasts that are at levels not seen in a few years as households and businesses are expected to crank up their air conditioners. 

  Houston-based energy firm Criterion Research reports Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Texas’ main grid operator, could see daily average power demand soar to 2019/20 highs on Monday as maximum temperatures across the state are likely to be in the low triple digits. 

  ERCOT’s seven-day power load forecast for next week is extremely high for this early summer, with the ISO forecasting demand near 59.5 gigawatts on Monday. If that outlook materializes, it would be on par with the 2019/2020 highs in late July/August of those years. – Criterion Research

  

  On the bright side, wind generation within Texas will be helping out during the peak of the heat, with ERCOT expecting wind output to reach 15 gigawatts on Monday and then 18-19 gigawatts after that. However, even that range for wind is below the highs of >20 gigawatts that we sometimes see for installed wind capacity. – Criterion Research

  

  Regional fossil fuel generation will remain above 30 gigawatts through the current 7-day outlook, but the weak renewables showing for today (<10 gigawatts) should equate to very high fossil fuel use to close out this week. So it seems that the grid should have some spare fossil fuel capacity to leverage during the peak demand period. – Criterion Research

  

  In terms of hourly/peak rate, Bloomberg says power usage on Monday could climb as high as 75 gigawatts, a record-high. 

  Weather models show maximum high temperatures across the state will rise above 90 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend and then touch at least 100s degrees Fahrenheit between Monday and Tuesday. Maximum temps will decline to the high 80s by June 11 and make another run for triple digits by the 20th. 

  

  Texans should be prepared for grid strain and soaring power prices. Power grids in the westernmost states warned last month that power-generating capacity might struggle to keep up with demand amid threats of heat waves this summer, resulting in possible rolling blackouts. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/02/2022 – 18:40

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