Today’s News 3rd September 2021

• Aluminum Prices Hit Fresh Decade High As China Pledges More Support For Ailing Economy
  Aluminum Prices Hit Fresh Decade High As China Pledges More Support For Ailing Economy

  Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchanges reached fresh decade highs on Wednesday after the Chinese government pledged more support to keep the economy from slumping, according to Bloomberg. 

  The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is expected to expand credit to small- and medium-sized businesses and allocate credit to other parts of the economy to prevent a downturn. The latest news of credit expansion to cushion the economy was released in a statement by the State Council. 

  PBoC’s credit expansion scheme comes as no surprise that the country’s all-important credit impulse turned negative earlier this year. On a laggard basis, we suggested China was set to unleash a deflationary wave across the world…

  

  According to the country’s economic surprise index, economic data in China has been missing to the downside all year and eventually went negative in April. 

  

  This week, China’s official Services (non-manufacturing) PMI Index collapsed, an ominous sign the economy is slowing. 

  Many are perplexed why Beijing is taking so long to address the sharp slowdown in its economy. But while the latest China credit – and now PMI – data is flashing a bright red alarm light that the global reflationary wave may be over or about to reverse. However, Beijing has come to the rescue with new pledges to aid their ailing economy. 

  Of course, this means that stimulus-fueled demand will boost commodity prices and will be a boon for industrial metals – however temporary and misallocated that may eventually become.

  Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets, told clients the latest “credit support would boost near term financial market sentiment towards commodity exposure in China. But we expect the impact on underlying physical demand to be more of an H1 2022 story.” 

  Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange rose at 1.7% to $2,734.50 per ton, the highest level in more than a decade. Besides government support for the floundering economy, investors have been piling into the metal because of supply woes that may develop as China reduces power to smelters to cut carbon emissions. 

  

  The Bloomberg Industrial Metals Index has also reached decade highs. 

  

  China unleashing more credit, stoking what could be another round of commodity inflation, may further dent the Federal Reserve’s narrative that inflation is “transitory.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 02:45

• Germany Interior Minister Warns Of New Wave Of Migrants Incentivized To Reach Europe
  Germany Interior Minister Warns Of New Wave Of Migrants Incentivized To Reach Europe

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Germany’s interior minister has warned that putting a number on the amount of Afghan refugees Europe should accept will incentivize more waves of migrants to attempt to reach the continent.

  

  Following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, untold numbers of economic migrants are trying to blend in with genuine refugees in an effort to reach the welfare havens of Europe.

  The UK even announced that it wouldn’t be checking identity documents of Afghans entering the country despite the glaring security risk that such a policy entails.

  While British authorities have pledged to settle at least 20,000 “refugees,” despite record numbers of migrants already arriving illegally on boats, EU countries have been more careful in avoiding putting a figure on how many they will take in.

  Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, warns that signaling borders are open once again will act as an incentive for large numbers of migrants to flood into Europe.

  “I don’t think it’s wise if we talk about numbers here, because numbers obviously trigger a pull effect and we don’t want that,” he said.

  The previous refugee crisis, which saw over a million migrants from North Africa and the Middle East flood into Europe, led directly to huge spikes in violent crime, sexual assaults and numerous mass casualty terror attacks carried out by jihadists who exploited the refugee wave to enter European countries.

  Given the debacle that happened in 2015, the prospect of Germany accepting a significant number of refugees is unlikely to be welcomed by conservative voters ahead of a national election on September 26.

  Angela Merkel has said that Germany will help resettle between 10,000 and 40,000 Afghans who have family ties to Germany or worked with German military or aid organizations.

  When humanitarian development worker Sybille Schnehage asked Afghan migrants why they didn’t go to nearer Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, most of them responded by saying, “No – Germany is better.”

  As we previously highlighted, a top diplomat in Kabul warned that “not even tanks” can stop a potentially large wave of Afghan refugees heading to the continent.

  A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also cautioned that the 2021 Afghan refugee crisis could make the 2015 refugee crisis look like a “geopolitical walk in the park” in comparison.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 02:00

• Luongo: The Unintended Consequences Of COVID-9/11
  Luongo: The Unintended Consequences Of COVID-9/11

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  One of the fundamental problems of central planning of any kind is what we systemic thinkers call the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences.’ It’s not really a law but it should be.

  You know you’re dealing with an ‘unintended consequence’ of a policy when the politicians, bankers, regulators and their apologists in the media say something like, “well, you know, no one could have foreseen {fill in the blank}.”

  Some of those blanks are:

  • The Housing Bubble of 2005-07 which caused the financial crisis of 2008.

  • The election of Donald Trump after decades of offering false choices to the American Electorate.

  • Most recently the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban and the U.S.’s ignominious retreat.

  These are all events, and there are dozens more in your everyday life if you just begin looking for them, which nobody in charge would ever admit to having considered possible when they embarked on a particular policy but in hindsight were inevitable.

  Policies of collective action under the rubric of the State, defined as that entity with the power to point guns at people to enforce their edicts, always result in these unintended consequences. But it’s not because those outcomes weren’t predictable but rather because they weren’t important to the people who implemented them in the first place.

  They weighed the benefits as absolute and ignored the costs as trivial things they could, like a bad movie producer, fix in post-production.

  So, with that in mind and looking at the saturation of fear porn and relentless march towards a locked-down, totally-controlled and regimented society as a result of COVID-9/11, I give you this note the other day from TASS, the Russian State’s news service.

  Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Public’s attitude to globalization underwent shift during pandemic

  People’s attitude to free trade and globalization has changed a lot since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Support for barrier-free trade has considerably declined. Russia is one of the global leaders in terms of people’s negative view of globalization, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes, citing a poll conducted by the Ipsos company and the World Economic Forum. Only 48% of those surveyed in 25 countries agree that globalization is good for their countries. In Russia, one in three people stated that they reject the notion that globalization facilitates an effective economic policy.

  Experts are not surprised by the declining interest in globalization. “People in large economic powers can see their daily expenses increase. Consumer prices used to be more stable before globalization began and free-trade zones were created,” economist Andrei Loboda said, pointing out that the change of sentiment had been sparked by rising inflation affecting economies worldwide.

  Globalization has reached its limits and stopped boosting economic growth, BCS Chief Investment Strategist Maxim Shein pointed out. “The population’s income is falling, hence the decline in support [for globalization idea],” he said.
  “A high level of consumption, easy access to any goods at relatively low prices, good wages, high pensions and access for businesses to foreign markets – all this used to be associated with globalization. However, in the late 20th and early 21st century, the global economy started to face crises, rising unemployment, a decline in the middle class and increasing income inequality. All these issues are also directly related to globalization,” Associate Professor with Department of Enterprise and Logistics at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics Igor Stroganov emphasized. Besides, large transnational companies and retail chains enter foreign markets, destroying small and medium-sized businesses and local agriculture. “In addition, labor migration increases competition on the labor market. People in many countries feel that way,” the economist stressed.

  While we are bombarded daily by new polls suggesting that a majority of Americans love their mask or believe their neighbors should be held down and forcibly injected with an experimental gene therapy, the Russians have looked upon the face of the New Normal and rejected it.

  This is the unintended consequence of pushing for Globalism, people see it for what it is and reject it.

  The big question is why and to answer that I want to discuss what’s not discussed in the TASS note.

  

  The Toxic Spread Trade

  What’s not covered here is the role that central banking and the Cantillion Effect have on prices. The Cantillion Effect is where price rises from monetary inflation have a delayed effect as the new money spreads out through the society. Those that receive the money first get to spend that money at today’s prices which, over time, raises everyone else’s bid for the good or service that money then procures.

  In reality, government is only in control of that first spend — from its coffers to the supplier. After that they money flow is chaotic based on the marginal utility needs of the person who receives it. But, what you can be assured of is no matter what, those closest to the source of the money have a massive advantage over those at the economic fringes.

  This is why I find all the hand-wringing modern Progressives do over government spending so thoroughly repulsive. They argue for the very thing to help ‘poor people’ which impoverished them in the first place.

  Their argument is instead of giving the money to the banks or the corporations but directly to the people then that would equalize the previous theft, a kind of reparations for past monetary sins. Of course, this is patent nonsense. Giving people money rather than just stop stealing from them is not the way back to a moral and sustainable economy.

  But it is their path to more permanent power. Ah Ha!

  So, the effect of central banks around the world printing money is to create a constant Cantillion effect at the national level. In the case of the U.S., The Fed gives the U.S. government and its member banks preferred access to capital at the lowest costs to borrow, while you get access at the highest cost, i.e. higher interest rates.

  This subsidizes overseas investment while overstating the strength of the U.S. dollar, because those dollars can be spent to more effectively procure overseas labor and property than buying those same things here.

  This exports the monetary inflation overseas while keeping a lid on domestic prices at home. It’s why it’s also so disingenuous of economic commentators to use domestic CPI as a measure of inflation to invalidate the Quantity Theory of Money, which I’ve written about before. If the money goes overseas, something’s price is getting inflated, just not that thing we’re measuring.

  Using the CPI to measure inflation is like trying to measure a board with a stopwatch. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

  As the Fed pushes and pulls the money supply through ‘monetary policy’ over time it greatly exaggerates the natural boom and bust cycle of the economy.

  Now let’s take this one step further and think on the arguments made by Jeff Snider at Alhambra Partners who argues that with the creation of the offshore Eurodollar shadow banking system, the Fed itself isn’t even in control of its own monetary policy, those markets are.

  This is another example of unintended consequences of major policy changes, turning over the role of new money creation to a central bank, versus basing it on a hard reserve asset like gold. It spawns a rough beast the central bank can’t control anymore than the government can control how you spend the money it pays you.

  So, when those titanic forces want to enter into new markets through cheap money they demand it from the Fed and eventually the Fed accommodates them lest it get blamed for causing a global depression… sound familiar?

  I’m simplifying Jeff’s arguments here, but the fundamental point he makes is valid.

  At the same time it’s also irrelevant to the current argument because it doesn’t matter if the Fed or the Eurodollar depositors control the rate of new money creation. The Cantillion Effect of how that new money spreads globalism is the same, only the points of origin are different.

  The Imperial Marsh

  Large scale producers take advantage of the situation by investing overseas during the busts and repatriating their capital during the booms. In effect, they are reloading and waiting for the next Fed-induced cycle to commence. As those closest to the Fed, if not telling the Fed what to do, then they will also be best prepared when the policy shifts to take advantage of it.

  This dynamic has played out at an accelerating pace during the 21st century as these boom/bust cycles become more and more erratic and the ‘monetary policy’ employed to support them more and more reckless.

  In the end, it is the countries that begin rejecting this scheme by de-dollarizing that are the ones who insulate themselves from the effects of this capital in-and-out flow.  That’s why I’ve been bullish on Russia since 2013, ignoring people calling it a ‘value trap’ early on because of low equity market multiples.

  Putin rejected globalism as an economic weapon and, in effect, turned globalism on itself by doing this. At the same time, he maneuvered Russia to control the marginal barrel of oil produced in the world.  This gave Russia the unique position of inserting the ruble into global trade while improving its regional relevance as the rebirth of central Asia can now commence with the collapse of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and the final nail in the coffin of the remnants of the British Empire.

  From here the ruble’s fortunes look bright as long as the Bank of Russia doesn’t revert to its old ways.

  Rejecting globalism is a real problem now for the Great Reset as individual countries can now move to regain control over transnationals who were told they would be allowed to run the world. Martin Armstrong has banged his shoe on the table about Big Tech getting the roles of the money-center banks for nearly two years.

  Today I see the signs of the titanic struggle between the central banks and the shadow banking system complicating the plans of The Davos Crowd’s Great Reset everywhere as Big Tech makes good on its promises assist in the COVID-9/11 operation to destroy and remake the world.

  In recent months, the clear policy from Premier Xi Jinping is for China to move rapidly to lockdown its domestic economy, cut down its tallest poppies, and send foreign capital packing. It never gave the Western banks the access they wanted. It was always globalism on China’s terms, not the West’s.

  Now that Xi is making his moves, Davos is making theirs, attempting to blame them for COVID-9/11 and turn Americans into raving anti-China hawks willing to salve a bruised national ego by blowing shit up in China’s backyard.

  Let’s hope this is the one aspect of the Great Reset that fails to materialize completely.

  Rejecting western Globalists was Russia’s sin as well. Putin’s biggest challenge in his 20+ years in power has been to gain control over his central bank and the Russian financial system such that their inherent corruption worked for Russia and not for Davos. Russia, out of necessity, is much farther along in its quest to reverse/arrest globalism than China is.  

  You can clearly see the hand of Davos at the legislative level trying to keep forcing this to work. The EU still enters trade negotiations demanding a country give it veto power over its “partner’s” local governments in bilateral trade…. and notice how many of these deals they’ve signed in the past couple of years.

  Zero.

  Globo-Homo-Economicus

  COVID-9/11 is globalism’s last stand. It’s goal is explicitly to burn the world down to ‘build back better.’ I’m sure Davos asked both Xi and Putin many times to join the big club for the big win and they both said, “No.” This is where culture and history asserts itself.

  Seriously, do these people have no memory of how Europe and the U.K. have treated China and Russia?

  So, the WEF is now accelerating its scorched earth strategy. It’s clearly using what leverage it has in U.S. institutions to expend the last of the U.S.’s political capital with diplomatic and geopolitical ‘gaffes’ that even an amateur wouldn’t make. When you see government policy an order of magnitude more incompetent than can be explained by internal squabbling and petty corruption, you are dealing with something willful.

  This is always what I’ve envisioned the ‘failure’ of the Great Reset to look like whenever I’ve invoked that idea.  They’ve taken their shot at it.  Where they have the most control and favorable laws/infrastructure — i.e. the English Commonwealth, France, Italy, Germany, Spain — they are ramping up the tyranny.

  In the U.S. they are moving rapidly to liquidate as much of the U.S. as possible after having already reversed most of the good things done under Trump.  Pelosi first moved back the deadline on the Budget/Infrastructure/Debt Ceiling until October. Now she’s really twisting arms behind the scenes while Afghanistan takes all the attention trying to shoehorn them all through in the confusion.

  If she can’t get that done then the House and Senate could get quickly bogged down in Afghanistan hearings, if not impeachment/25th Amendment talks. This is part of the reason why I think Powell was surprisingly dovish the other day at Jackson Hole. He’s got to stay on D.C.’s good side to get re-confirmed. He can afford, right now, to let the pressure off the global financial system until another funding crisis emerges in the domestic money markets.

  So, the USDX falls a little, the euro backs away from oblivion and we look ahead at the German elections and the next FOMC meeting.

  None of this is good news for globalists and globalism since they need that nearly $5 trillion to complete their takeover of the U.S. financial and political system.  You don’t have to be a dog to smell the rising fear.  It’s palpable now.

  Pelosi needs these bills passed or her leadership of the Dems will collapse. The Squad is barking about getting rid of Powell while Pelosi begins to realize the whole administration is collapsing faster than Biden’s cognitive function.

  The globalists need perpetual war in ‘shitholes’ around the world to keep laundering the easy Fed Funny Bucks to keep the entire Ponzi Scheme alive. With Afghanistan now off the table, where are we sending the military next to export inflation democracy?

  But Powell, like the rest of them, know that globalism is failing and pushing any further for it will only accelerate the creation of what Vaclav Havel called “parallel systems.” Systems that exist outside of their control. So, I think he’s treading carefully here with monetary policy on purpose.

  It’s Davos that is getting desperate. The more they grasp for total control the easier it becomes to see the Law of Unintended Consequences rearing its head as new solutions to age-old problems proliferate.

  Don’t believe me?

  The best and brightest in the U.S. stopped being engineers and scientists two generations ago when we stopped ‘building things.’ They became financiers and lawyers. This was an unintended consequence of the money flowing from D.C. and The Fed to those jobs to feed the growing regulatory state. Their kids learned to code because that’s where the growth was as the cheap money was funneled to subsidize the creation of today’s Big Data and AI systems they believe they will use to control the flow of everything the world over.

  Today, however, those best and brightest have left Google and Facebook and are working in crypto to solve the very problem which started all this pernicious globalism in the first place. I’m not the only one seeing it. It’s clear where the innovation is and what these people’s motivations are — to reverse the Cantillion effect of privilege granted to those close to the King and let capital flow to where the people need it not where the tyrants do.

  The Russians may be leading the way, if the polls are correct. Reject empire and ‘greatness,’ they are telling us. Our leadership is trying to shame us over Afghanistan. Don’t let them. Be contrite but internalize the lesson of humility and get back to work rebuilding what’s been lost. Opportunities for new systems abound.

  Because the final consequence of Cantillion’s observations about prices is that eventually you run out of ways to squeeze people through fear and inflation. When that happens they squeeze back. 

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 09/03/2021 – 00:00

• President Xi Announces New Stock Exchange For SMEs In Beijing
  President Xi Announces New Stock Exchange For SMEs In Beijing

  As Beijing pressures domestic companies to launch their IPOs on domestic exchanges instead of New York or Hong Kong, Beijing announced Thursday that it’s preparing to open a new stock exchange in Beijing that will host shares of “innovation-focused” small and medium-sized industries.

  The new exchange will join China’s other exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzen. Reuters first reported that a new exchange was being discussed as a strategy to strengthen China’s capital markets, as financial authorities are being forced to rein in debt levels and shift their focus to equity financing instead.

  

  President Xi announced the new exchange during a video address at the China International Fair for Trade in Services on Thursday. In other comments he pledged that China would “create more possibilities for cooperation by scaling up support for the growth of the services sector in Belt and Road countries.”

  He plans to accomplish this “by deepening the reform of the New Third Board and setting up the Beijing stock exchange as the primary platform serving innovation-oriented SMEs.'”

  Following Xi’s statement, China’s securities regulator issued a statement affirming that a stock exchange in Beijing would help deepen financial supply-side structural reforms and improve capital market systems. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said its leadership was “excited” at the prospect, would study the president’s proposal in depth and resolutely implement it. “Small and medium-sized enterprises can do great things,” the CSRC said.

  The announcement comes at a time when the future of Chinese firms listing in the US is in doubt. The SEC has paused all applications from Chinese firms until they agree to meet heightened American auditing standards which Beijing has adamantly opposed, per the FT.

  The launch of the new exchange comes as President Xi’s government has rolled out a series of regulatory and policy reforms in recent weeks. A crackdown that initially targeted fintech lending and antitrust and personal data abuses has expanded to embroil companies across the economy, from education and gaming to ride-hailing and food deliveries. During his speech, Xi also focused on his plans to benefit the “common prosperity”, which benefited from a $15 billion pledge from Alibaba. This is the refocus on the “redistribution of wealth” that President Xi is rolling out (supposedly) to boost the numbers of China’s middle class.

  They are Communists, after all.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:40

• The Orwellian Vaccine Passport Agenda Relies On The Lie Of The "Social Contract"
  The Orwellian Vaccine Passport Agenda Relies On The Lie Of The “Social Contract”

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  There is a fundamental question that needs to be asked when examining the vaccine passport issue, and what I find is that almost no one in the mainstream is tackling it directly. The question is this:

  Is it legally and morally acceptable to constrict the rights and economic access of people in order to force them to submit to an experimental “vaccine”, or any other medical procedure for that matter?

  

  Furthermore, who gets to decide what medical procedures are acceptable to enforce? Who gets to be the all powerful and benevolent overseer of every human being’s health path. I ask this because I don’t think many people realize the future repercussions of allowing governments or corporations (the same thing these days) to dictate covid vaccinations. It doesn’t stop there; in fact, we have no idea where this stops once the Pandora’s box is opened.

  For example, the primary argument of the covid cult and the establishment in favor of vaccine passports is the “social contract” fantasy. They claim that because we “live in a society”, everything we do affects everyone else in some way, and because we are all interconnected in our “collective” we are thus beholden to the collective. In other words, the collective has the “right” to micro-manage the life of the individual because if the individual is allowed to make his/her own decisions they might potentially cause harm to the whole group.

  In case you are not familiar with this philosophy it is an extension of socialism and cultural Marxism, and it stands at the very core of vaccine passport propaganda. I have actually had public debates with pro-socialist people in the past who have tried to defend the merits of socialism and every single time the argument comes down to one singular disconnect – I say that if a group of people want to go off and start their own little socialist community they have every right to…as long as it is VOLUNTARY. Then if it fails and collapses it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect me or anyone else who did not want to participate.

  The problem is that these Socialists/communists/Marxists/collectivists simply do not grasp the notion of voluntarism. They believe that people need to be forced into doing the right thing or helping others, and they are the people that get to decide what the right thing is and who gets the help. They are the people that get to decide what freedoms are acceptable and what freedoms are inconvenient to their agenda. When they say “We live in a society…”, what they really mean is “You live in OUR society, and WE will determine what is best for you.”

  When I argue that a socialist community should be voluntary, they inevitably argue that people will not commit to such a system voluntarily so they must be forced to do what is best for the “greater good”.

  In terms of vaccine passports, the collectivist social contract is a key element. They claim that being unvaxxed is not a personal freedom because the unvaxxed are a risk to the lives of everyone else. The social contract is therefore violated because by making a personal life choice you are endangering the rights of others.

  It’s interesting though how the covid cult is made up of people that do not apply the same logic to other health issues like abortion. I mean, there is zero substantiated evidence to support the claim that unvaccinated people are any more of a threat to the lives of others than vaccinated people are, and we will get into that in just a moment. But, when we talk about an abortion, we are talking about a personal medical decision that leads to the direct and observable death of another innocent human being with his/her own rights. Abortions end the lives of over 800,000 unborn people per year in the US, far more than covid supposedly does.

  “My body my choice” apparently only applies to killing babies, but not to people who do not want to become guinea pigs for a mRNA cocktail with no long term testing to prove its safety.

  Imagine though if we reversed the scenario and applied the broad social contract argument to something like children and population? A collectivist/leftist member of the global warming cult could also argue that abortion should be legally mandated, because having a child or “too many children” increases carbon emissions and this puts society “at risk” even further (again, with no proof to support the claim). By allowing the social contract narrative to go unchecked, we open the door to horrific new oppressive measures and a complete erasure of our autonomy.

  I think it’s safe to say that the “social contract” ideology is highly selective and hypocritical. The covid cult does not care about saving lives, they only care about their ideological narrative and the power to make people submit to it. But let’s dig even further into the reasoning behind the social contract claim. Who is actually dying because of unvaccinated individuals, which according to state vax statistics make up around 50% of the US population?

  The average Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of covid is a mere 0.26% according to dozens of studies and the government’s own numbers. Meaning, unvaxxed people are not even a remote threat to 99.7% of the population. Around 40% of all covid deaths are made up of people in nursing homes with preexisting conditions, which means that we do not know if they actually died of covid or due to the health problems they were already suffering from. The pool of people who might be affected by the unvaxxed grows smaller and smaller…

  And what about the ridiculous contradiction that arises when we talk about the mandate narrative verses the passport narrative? If masks and vaccines actually work, then how is an unvaxxed or unmasked person a threat to a vaxxed person? If the vaccines and masks don’t work, then why use them at all, and why demand forced vaccinations through passport measures?

  Mainstream propaganda asserts that the unvaxxed will somehow become petri dishes for new mutations that will harm vaccinated people. There is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, there is more evidence that suggests it is vaccinated people that will trigger mutations and variants. The media says that this is not cause for any concern, but if it’s not then neither should we be concerned about mutations that gestate in the unvaxxed population, if there are any.

  The fact of the matter is that more and more scientific evidence is proving that the experimental vaccines are NOT effective and that the unvaxxed are actually safer from covid regardless of the variant or mutation.

  The true infection numbers within the US are impossible to know because up to 59% of people that catch covid and spread it are asymptomatic according to the CDC. They never know that they have it so they are unlikely to test for it. That said, it is clear that many millions of Americans have dealt with the virus and now have a natural immunity to it (I happen to be one of them). Establishment elitists like Anthony Fauci refuse to acknowledge natural immunity as a factor, and they say that ONLY people who are vaccinated are qualified to receive a passport. Why?

  Multiple studies are being released from countries with high vaccination rates like Israel that completely contradict Fauci’s narrative on natural immunity. Israel has a vax rate of around 63% according to government stats, but scientific evidence they have released shows that vaccinated people are 13-27 times more likely to contract covid and 8 times more likely to be hospitalized when compared with people who have natural immunity. It almost appears as if the mRNA vaccines make people MORE susceptible to the virus rather than less susceptible.

  Recent data released from the state of Massachusetts supports this concern. In the month of July, MA reported at least 5100 covid infections, all people who were fully vaccinated. Over 80 of them died, which is a much higher death rate than among the unvaccinated. In my county of 20,000 people, which has a low vaccination rate and no mask mandates, there were only 17 total covid deaths in the first year year of the pandemic.

  This begs the question: Why take the mRNA cocktail at all? What is there to gain? Well, there is nothing to gain in terms of health safety. Even if you happen to be part of the 0.26% of people at risk from covid, you are better off in the long run taking your chances with natural immunity than getting the jab.

  The answer to the question is not about health, but about denial of access. Government’s and their corporate partners are trying to make it so you MUST take the vaccine in order to participate in normal social activities, or even to keep a job. Not only that, but the process goes on forever because every year there will be new variants and new booster shots. The only reason to take the vaccine is to keep at least a handful of your freedoms and to avoid poverty and starvation.

  Here is where we must go back to the original query presented at the beginning of this article:

  Is it legally and morally acceptable to constrict the rights and economic access of people in order to force them to submit to an experimental “vaccine”?

  The covid cult will say that private business rights trump individual rights so companies should be allowed to discriminate against employees based on their vaccination status. But then again, what we are facing in most cases are NOT private businesses but conglomerates that are funded by government bailouts and that are colluding directing with governments to enforce the passport agenda. So I would have to say no, these businesses do not have a legal right to feed on public tax dollars and then claim they are private entities that have the freedom to invade the medical privacy of employees and customers.

  And since when do collectivists actually care about private business rights, anyway? More hypocrisy…

  If we are talking about small and medium business with no government stimulus then the issue gets more tricky. In many states and other countries the businesses are only enforcing passports because if they don’t they will be punished by the government. In this case the private business rights argument goes out the window. The covid cult respects business independence only when it suits them.

  Frankly, it is small businesses that are being hurt the most by the covid mandates and the extra costs involved just in enforcing the passports in their own establishments is going to bury them. Any small business owner that voluntarily supports the passport rules must have a financial death wish.

  In terms of government, the covid cult will claim that there are Supreme Court precedents for legal enforcement of vaccinations. Honestly, I don’t care, and neither do millions of other Americans. A bunch of high priests in black robes do not get to dictate my independent health decisions; I make those decisions and there’s nothing that they can do about it. This is where we have to come to terms with the morals and principles involved – The lives of others are in no way affected by my decision to refuse to comply with vaccine passports. And just because a group of people have irrational fears about the threat of covid does not mean people with more discernment about the facts should be required to make them “feel better” or feel safer.

  The bottom line is this: Our freedoms are more important than your paranoid fears, and we will not comply. We do not subscribe to your false social contract, and you are in no position to dictate the terms of our “society”. Don’t like it? You are more than welcome to leave the country and start a vaccinated Utopia somewhere else. We’ll see how that works out for you in the long run.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:20

• California Nurse Shortage Reaches "Crisis Level" As Vaccine Mandate Wards Off Traveling Nurses
  California Nurse Shortage Reaches “Crisis Level” As Vaccine Mandate Wards Off Traveling Nurses

  As America’s hospital beds have again filled with sick COVID  patients, nurses and other healthcare workers have been quitting at the fastest rate since the early days of the pandemic, when nurses in some NYC hospitals were using garbage bags instead of PPE. Across the Internet, on subreddits and in Facebook groups, nurses have gathered to commiserate.

  

  But it’s not just remote areas of Arkansas and Mississippi that are having problems. Local media in California have reported that across the Golden State, low staffing levels have reached a “crisis point”.

  According to a story published by a newspaper in Bakersfield, in the past month, no fewer than four emergency room nurses have quit at one Eureka hospital.

  And aside from the burnout and the pressure and the stress, nurses have also cited California’s mandatory vaccination rule as one reason they’re thinking about leaving the state. Traveling nurses have been turning down assignments in the Golden State at record rates  because they don’t want to get vaccinated – and the mandate hasn’t even taken effect yet.

  Cole of Scripps Health said the state’s testing requirement, imposed last week, already has discouraged some out-of-state, traveling nurses from taking temporary jobs at California hospitals.

  “If they don’t want to get vaccinated, they are turning down California assignments,” he said.

  Here’s more according to Bakersfield.com:

  Hospitals are struggling to comply with the state’s nurse staffing requirements as pandemic-induced burnout has exacerbated an already chronic nursing shortage nationwide.

  But burnout isn’t the only thing compounding California’s nursing shortage: The state’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers is already causing headaches for understaffed hospitals before it is even implemented. Some traveling nurses – who are in high demand nationwide – are turning down California assignments because they don’t want to get vaccinated.

   With more people coming in for routine care that can’t be delayed any longer, hospitals are nearing a “crisis point” as the staffing shortages leave them in danger of not meeting the state’s legal minimum staffing requirements.

  Hospitals say they are reaching a crisis point, straining under the dual forces of more people seeking routine care and surging COVID-19 hospitalizations driven by the Delta variant.

  “Oftentimes at hospitals there are long waits and long delays,” said Dr. Tom Sugarman, an emergency physician in the East Bay and senior director of government affairs at Vituity, a physicians’ group. “There’s not enough staff to keep beds open, and patients can languish waiting.”

  Nursing shortages were common in California even before the pandemic. But now resources are nearing “the breaking point”. Every time case numbers seem like they’re finally about to subside, a new wave of cases rises up.

  Emotional and physical exhaustion is the primary reason nurses are fleeing the bedside, experts say. It has been a long and brutal 18 months.

  “We thought the pandemic would be over soon and could take time later to deal with our emotions,” said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, president of National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the country, which has more than 100,000 members in its California association. “Then the second surge hit, and the third and now it’s the fourth.”

  Mary Lynn Briggs, an ICU nurse in Bakersfield, said of the dozens of COVID-19 patients she has treated since the pandemic began, only three have survived.

  “Some days coming home from the hospital I yell at God, I yell at myself, I yell at COVID and cry. And that’s all before I pull into my driveway,” Briggs said.

  A surprising number of nurses are wary of the vaccines, so Gov. Newsom’s requirement that nurses and hospital staff must get vaccinated could end up being the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  Hospital administrators worry that the state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, which goes into effect Sept. 30, could drive some of their workers out. Already, some report resistance among employees.

  “One hospital told us they had 474 unvaccinated employees. They did a big education and incentive push. Only 12 people signed up,” said Richardson, the hospital association’s attorney.

  Administrators are particularly concerned about low vaccination rates among support staff like janitors and food service workers. However, some nurses also are wary of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some nurses with large social media followings have participated in protests in Southern California, arguing that the mandates violate their personal freedom.

  With staffing levels low across the US, traveling nurses working in temporary roles have been critical to help shore up hospital staff. But they’re also allowing nurses who don’t want to comply with vaccine mandates to simply pick up and leave. One expert said traveling nurses in Texas and Florida might be coming from California.

  Nationwide more than 52,000 temporary health care jobs are posted, and Aya is only able to fill about 3,000 per week, she said.
  “In the 16 years I’ve been in this space, I have never seen this high a need,” Morris said.

  That need is creating intense competition for a limited pool of nurses nationwide.

  “Nurses are getting paid premiums to work in Texas and Florida where it’s surging right now,” Sugarman said. “Those nurses have to come from somewhere, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some are coming from California.”

  In short: vaccine mandates for health-care workers (most of whom have already been infected with COVID) are probably doing more harm than good as far as creating a safe and stable health-care system in the Golden State. Maybe Gov. Newsom (or his successor) should give it a rethink?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 23:00

• BOJ's "Turbo Kuroda" Calls For Even More QE And Even More Negative Rates
  BOJ’s “Turbo Kuroda” Calls For Even More QE And Even More Negative Rates

  Imagine you are a central bank which has done QE for 30 years, kept rates negative for almost a decade, purchased more than 100% of the country’s GDP in bonds, and is actively propping up the stock market by buying billions in ETFs and REITs, and still your economy remains stagnant? Well, if you are Kuroda you stay the course and hope for a miracle, but if you are Goushi Kataoka, the BOJ governor who is rapidly emerging as Turbo-Kuroda and perhaps angling to be the next head of the Japanese central bank, the answer is simple: you do even moar.

  Speaking in a briefing Kataoka, who joined the BOJ in 2017, said on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic may weigh on the economy – which had never managed to stabilize ever since Kuroda unleashed monetary hell in 2012 – longer than initially expected, warning of heightened risks to the central bank’s forecast of a moderate, export-driven recovery. Kataoka also stressed the BOJ’s readiness to ramp up stimulus if needed, reinforcing market expectations Japan would lag other countries in exiting crisis-mode policies.

  “Given recent domestic and global economic developments, the need for bolder steps is heightening,” Kataoka said.

  In a speech, Kataoka said Japan’s economic outlook was bound with uncertainty with consumption seen remaining in a “severe state” due to state of emergency curbs to combat the pandemic. “Risks to consumption are heightening,” with a spike in Delta variant cases forcing Japan to maintain curbs on economic activity, he said. “There’s a good chance the impact of the pandemic may last longer than expected.”

  Underscoring the likelihood the Japan may soon see even more monetary easing, Fumio Kishida – who is challenging Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to become ruling party chief – said Japan must “not fall behind” other countries in supporting their economies with expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.

  An advocate of aggressive monetary easing, Kataoka has been a consistent, sole dissenter to the BOJ’s decision to keep its interest rate targets unchanged, saying the bank needs to improve its credibility by showing a stronger commitment to achieving its 2% inflation target, i.e., even moar QE, ETF buying, even more negative rates, etc.

  “It’s desirable to cut negative interest rates further and lower long-term rates through bond buying,” Kataoka told reporters Thursday, adding that the bank will be watching climate change issues, while making efforts to hit its price goal. As a reminder, “climate change” in addition to “covid” have become the two scapegoats by central bankers giving them a green light to do whatever they want to boost their asset buying in the name of higher inflation, even when inflation is already soaring.

  “Personally, I believe the BOJ must strengthen monetary easing” as inflation will remain distant from the bank’s 2% target for years even if the economy were to recover, he said.

  His calls for bolder monetary easing steps have not gained support from the rest of the board at the BOJ’s policy meetings.

  Under a policy dubbed yield curve control, the BOJ guides short-term interest rates at -0.1% and 10-year bond yields around 0% through massive asset purchases.

  While inflation remains well below its 2% target, the rising cost of prolonged easing has forced the BOJ to steadily slow bond buying and focus on measures to mitigate the hit to bank profits from years of ultra-low interest rates.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:20

• Australia Could Force Citizens To Report Their Location On-Demand Via Government Tracking App
  Australia Could Force Citizens To Report Their Location On-Demand Via Government Tracking App

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  The government of South Australia is running a trial for a system that could eventually force citizens to take a photo of themselves via a government app to report their location on demand within 15 minutes of authorities requesting it, or face a police investigation.

  

  Yes, really.

  The revelation was highlighted in an Atlantic piece by Conor Friedersdorf which questions whether Australia can still call itself a liberal democracy in light of the crippling restrictions it has placed on its own population.

  With no end in sight for the lifting of the country’s brutal lockdown, Aussies could face even more invasive state intrusion into their private lives under the justification of stopping the spread of the virus.

  The South Australian government is preparing to roll out an app that “will contact people at random asking them to provide proof of their location within 15 minutes,” according to reports.

  If people refuse to report their location or are unable to do so, police are then dispatched to hunt them down.

  “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” said Premier Steven Marshall.

  This is barely much different from literally fitting people with electronic ankle bracelets that track their every movement like prisoners under home arrest, a policy that was actually considered by Australian authorities earlier this year.

  No matter your views of COVID, what’s happening in Australia is alarming, extreme and dangerous. https://t.co/Ep7fOqiHUJ

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 2, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “No matter your views of COVID, what’s happening in Australia is alarming, extreme and dangerous,” remarked journalist Glenn Greenwald.

  As we have exhaustively highlighted, Australia has enforced one of the most draconian lockdowns in the world in an effort to pursue a disastrous ‘zero COVID’ strategy.

  Last month, the Premier of Victoria asserted that authorities “won’t hesitate” to go “door-to-door” to carry out mandatory COVID tests on Australians.

  Aussies were also ordered not to talk to each other, even while wearing masks, while people who merely post anti-lockdown information online could also face fines of up to $11,000 dollars under an absurdly authoritarian new law.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:20

• Our 20-Year War In Afghanistan Comes To An Ignominious End
  Our 20-Year War In Afghanistan Comes To An Ignominious End

  Authored by Buck Sexton via American Consequences,

  They didn’t even wait until their August 31 deadline was up…

  And the Biden team still left Americans behind.

  The U.S. military is no longer in Afghanistan, and we are left to wonder: How did our final hours in America’s longest war turn into such a debacle?

  Despite the frenzied nature of the exit, the Biden White House is surely just relieved that a weeks-long news cycle focused on their extreme incompetence is over.

  It was impossible to put a proper public-relations spin on the unbelievably fast collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces after Biden said they were 300,000-plus strong and as well-equipped as any army in the world (also not true).

  The American people saw one of the biggest intelligence and policy failures in living memory unfold in real time… And the mythology of Biden as the steady hand who could steer America through tough times evaporated with it.

  In July, Biden’s team thought they would have many more months to plan for the U.S. to exit Afghanistan – in reality, it was just days.

  Without any way to explain the stunningly inept withdrawal plan, Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, gave a speech on Monday, August 30 at the State Department, officially declaring that the U.S. evacuation of Kabul had finished ahead of schedule:

  Now U.S. military flights have ended. And our troops have departed Afghanistan. A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over.

  Maj Gen Chris Donahue was the last man out? No, Americans were left behind Afghan allies were left behind Military & other working dogs were left behind (even many dogs left at the airport)Shame on the communist Democrats pic.twitter.com/QfTOrIojwn

  — 🇺🇸Trump47U.S.Code § 230 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@DrPol7) August 31, 2021

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Americans Abandoned 

  But there’s one glaring problem… While the withdrawal mission was accomplished, there are still Americans stuck in Afghanistan, left to the mercy of the Taliban. Secretary Blinken insists the number is low, and not to worry – there will be continued efforts to get them out of the country:

  We believe there are still a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave. We’re trying to determine exactly how many. We’re going through manifests and calling and texting through our lists, and we will have more details to share as soon as possible.

  What is said much more quietly in policy circles is that the evacuation of these remaining Americans will be up to the Taliban’s consent. It has not yet turned into a full-blown hostage crisis, but it very well could.

  The Taliban’s new leadership could easily decide to leverage the remaining Americans for concessions on our side. To deepen America’s humiliation at leaving behind our own on a foreign battlefield, the Taliban could even demand an exorbitant “exfiltration” fee for any American whom it allows to escape.

  GOP lawmakers have since blasted Biden and his administration for withdrawing troops despite not having all Americans evacuated… Sen. Ben Sasse called the evacuation a “national disgrace” and a “direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence.”

  Sen. Bill Hagerty also said that Biden “will forever be remembered for leaving American citizens and U.S. legal permanent residents behind and in harm’s way in Afghanistan.”

  Joe Biden: Jimmy Carter, But Worse

  The optics here would certainly strengthen the comparisons already being made between Biden and Jimmy Carter – though they are becoming increasingly unfair to Jimmy Carter, who for all his shortcomings was smarter and more capable than Biden has ever shown himself to be.

  Another major challenge for the Biden team is going to be the ramifications of arming and equipping what is now the largest terrorist army in the world.

  The Taliban has seized billions of dollars of military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, armored Humvees, attack planes, and even some C-130 cargo aircraft. They have enough small arms to equip a military several times larger than their current standing force.

  To say it’s an embarrassment for the U.S. taxpayer to have armed up our terrorist foes is a gross understatement…

  Will the Taliban end up playing host again to major international Jihadist entities like Al Qaeda? That’s the critical question right now for which no one can offer a clear answer.

  That the Taliban recently hanged someone from a Black Hawk helicopter in broad daylight flying over Kabul is a pretty strong indicator that they are not some kinder, gentler terrorist group. There are also plenty of early reports of gruesome reprisal killings against any Afghan who worked with the U.S. military.

  Whether the Biden administration pays a political price for the debacle of the drawdown remains to be seen…

  Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb just wrote in The National Interest magazine:

  Perhaps we should look at the calamitous blunderings in Afghanistan as an opportunity to demand a true turning point. Americans know that a great deal of our governmental process is now either institutionally corrupt or calcified… The military itself is increasingly being used by leftist activists as a social laboratory to advance extreme political agendas.

  Recent polling puts the president’s approval rating in the low 40s, but the midterms are still more than a year away… That’s plenty of time to change, lie, misdirect, and alter public perception of Joe’s Afghan calamity.

  And the perfidious media will go into overdrive to help him…

  Give it a week or two, and the Democrat corporate journalists will be talking about Biden’s “genius” in ending the war and the amazing improvisation his team showed under pressure – and they will look at anyone who questions this Soviet-style rewriting of recent history like they’re the crazy one.

  * * * 

  Read our latest issues of American Consequences.

  Love us? Hate us? Let us know at feedback@americanconsequences.com.

  * * * 

  … and a reminder to the completely botched withdraw of Afghanistan by the Biden administration, encrypted text messages between an Army colonel and a former Special Forces soldier working on a private effort to extricate stranded Americans from Afghanistan reveal that the US evacuation was anything but the ‘extraordinary success’ President Biden declared on Tuesday.

  “We are fucking abandoning American citizens,” said an Army colonel assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in an encrypted Sunday text message to Michael Yon, who revealed the message to Just the News.

  Yon told Just the News that a group of Americans were abandoned at the Kabul airport, pleading for help as military officials told them they were finished with evacuations.

  “We had them out there waving their passport screaming, ‘I’m American,'” Yon said Tuesday while appearing on the John Solomon Reports podcast. -Just The News

  “People were turned away from the gate by our own Army,” said Yon, the former Special Forces soldier and war correspondent.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 22:00

• China Warns US "Wrongdoings" Will Imperil Climate Cooperation
  China Warns US “Wrongdoings” Will Imperil Climate Cooperation

  Despite the US long wanting ‘climate diplomacy’ to remain a separate issue apart from its wider disputes with China, such as on trade and human rights, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is now warning deteriorating ties threaten joint efforts to tackle global warming and climate change.

  Wang informed Biden’s US climate envoy John Kerry during the latter’s visit to the Chinese city of Tianjin on Thursday that “climate cooperation cannot be separated from the wider environment” of US-China relations.

  

  The Chinese top diplomat likened the potential for close US-China cooperation on climate to an “oasis” and explained, “But surrounding the oasis is a desert, and the oasis could be desertified very soon.”

  That’s when he concluded while speaking by video-link: “China-U.S. climate co-operation cannot be separated from the wider environment of China-U.S. relations.”

  “Everyone who met with you will have to spend two weeks in quarantine, but we’re willing to pay that price, to discuss co-operation with the U.S. on affairs of mutual concerns,” he was quoted further as saying.

  It’s widely perceived that if one side or the other links climate with the broader tensions besetting US-China relations, it would greatly slow any substantive climate action.

  

  According to Reuters:

  Though Wang warned that climate change could now be tied to other diplomatic issues, China has said its efforts to cut emissions and adopt cleaner forms of energy are vital to its ambitious domestic agenda.

  “Chinese leaders have long said they are engaged in climate action not because of outside pressure, but because it benefits China and the world at large,” said Alex Wang, a climate expert and professor at UCLA.

  And additionally Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission called on the US to “correct its wrongdoings” and make efforts to “bring bilateral ties back on the right track.”

  On the US side, Kerry urged China to do more while also vowing willingness to improve communication with China.

  “Secretary Kerry affirmed that the United States remains committed to co-operating with the world to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands, and encouraged the PRC to take additional steps to reduce emissions,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:40

• Federal Use Of Facial Recognition Technology Expanding: GAO Report
  Federal Use Of Facial Recognition Technology Expanding: GAO Report

  Authored by Ken Silva via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  

  A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey shows that at least 10 federal agencies have plans to expand their use of facial recognition technology over the next two years—a prospect that alarms privacy advocates who worry about a lack of oversight.

  The GAO released the results of a survey of 24 federal agencies, finding that 18 of them use facial recognition technology. Fourteen of those agencies use the tech for routine activity, such as unlocking agency-issued smartphones, while six reported using facial recognition software for criminal investigations and five others use the technology for surveillance, the Aug. 24 report found.

  “For example, [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] reported that it used an FRT system (AnyVision) to monitor its facilities by searching live camera feeds in real-time for individuals on watchlists or suspected of criminal activity, which reduces the need for security guards to memorize these individuals’ faces,” the GAO said. “This system automatically alerts personnel when an individual on a watchlist is present.”

  According to the GAO, at least 10 government agencies plan to expand their use of facial recognition technology through 2023. To do so, many agencies are turning to the private sector.

  For example, “[the] U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations reported it began an operational pilot using Clearview AI in June 2020, which supports the agency’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations,” the GAO said.

  “The agency reported it already collects facial images with mobile devices to search national databases and plans to enhance searches by accessing Clearview AI’s large repository of facial images from open sources to search for matches.”

  The GAO’s Aug. 24 report follows June research that focused specifically on law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The GAO’s June report revealed the vast troves of data held by federal law enforcement, including 836 million images held by the Department of Homeland Security alone.

  The June report also revealed the lack of oversight regarding facial recognition technology. According to the report, 13 of the 20 federal law enforcement agencies that use the technology didn’t know what systems they use.

  “For example, when we requested information from one of the agencies about its use of non-federal systems, agency officials told us they had to poll field division personnel because the information was not maintained by the agency,” the report said.

  “These agency officials also told us that the field division personnel had to work from their memory about their past use of non-federal systems and that they could not ensure we were provided comprehensive information about the agency’s use of non-federal systems.”

  The lack of oversight of the government’s use of surveillance technology is an issue that has drawn the attention of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. Democrats have largely focused on the racial disparities in the accuracy of facial recognition, while some Republicans have expressed concerns about domestic surveillance.

  Michigan resident Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongly arrested in January after Detroit police incorrectly identified him as a felon based on shoddy facial recognition technology, testified about such problems at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing.

  “Why is law enforcement even allowed to use such technology when it obviously doesn’t work?” Williams said to lawmakers July 13. “I get angry when I hear companies, politicians, and police talk about how this technology isn’t dangerous or flawed or say that they only use it as an investigative tool.

  “If any of that was true, I wouldn’t have been arrested.”

  Williams said he supports the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which would halt the use of facial recognition technology by federal agencies until that use was authorized by Congress. However, little action has been taken on the measure—though Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) reintroduced the legislation in June.

  With inaction on the federal level, states and localities have taken to curbing the use of facial recognition technology.

  The state of Washington enacted a law in March 2020 that requires government agencies to obtain a warrant to run facial recognition scans. Local jurisdictions such as Oakland, San Francisco, and King County, Washington, have also banned government use of the technology.

  Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) support such efforts, arguing that the expansion of facial recognition technology must be halted until lawmakers can enact safeguards.

  Others have cautioned against banning useful technology in the zeal to protect privacy.

  “Critics miss the fact that the benefits of law enforcement use of facial recognition are well-proven—they are used today to help solve crimes, identify victims, and find witnesses—and most of the concerns about the technology remain hypothetical,” the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a largely pro-tech industry think tank, stated.

  “In fact, critics of the technology almost always make a ‘slippery slope’ argument about the potential threat of expanding police surveillance, rather than pointing to specific instances of harm. Banning the technology now would do more harm than good.”

  Ken Silva covers national security issues for The Epoch Times. His reporting background also includes cybersecurity, crime and offshore finance – including three years as a reporter in the British Virgin Islands and two years in the Cayman Islands. Contact him at ken.silva@epochtimes.us

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:20

• August Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Miss, The Question Is How Big
  August Payrolls Preview: It Will Be A Miss, The Question Is How Big

  Summary: The consensus looks for the pace of hiring to cool in August, especially after Wednesday’s disastrous ADP report, although the short-term trend rates are still likely to improve; if the consensus is correct, it may offer further accumulated evidence that the labor market is making progress towards the Fed’s ‘substantial’ threshold where it will feel comfortable in scaling back its asset purchases, according to Newsquawk..

  Key expectations:

  • Headline non-farm payrolls are expected to print 725k (prev. 943k).
  • The unemployment rate is expected to decline by 0.2% to 5.2%, although this figure may not give a true reflection of the labor market;
  • Analysts will be focused on the participation rate (which rose to 61.7% in July from 61.6% in June vs 63.2% pre-pandemic), the U6 measure of underemployment (which fell to 9.2% in July from 9.8% in June vs 7.0% pre-pandemic), and the employment-population ratio (which rose to 58.4% in July from 58.0% in June vs 61.1% pre-pandemic).
  • Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.3% M/M, down from 0.4% in July, and 4.0% Y/Y.

  Labor market gauges have been mixed in August: while ADP’s private payrolls disappointed expectations (again), the weekly initial jobless claims and continuing claims fell to a new post-pandemic low. Other metrics, however, offer a gloomier assessment: the ISM and Markit manufacturing surveys allude to a cooling in labor market conditions, with the Delta variant being cited as a reason for the softer pace of hiring. Given that the jobs data will be framed within the context of the Fed’s policy reaction, many analysts have been suggesting a ‘good data is bad for the prospects of further accommodation’ playbook, and vice versa; however, this strategy was not seen in wake of the disappointing ADP data this week. Many argue that the market has already moved on from the timing of the taper announcement – assumed to be in Q4 before implementation late this year or early next – and focus is on the pace of the reductions and the duration of the taper, and the August jobs data is not likely to inform the latter two meaningfully.

  While Consensus remains surprisingly bullish, Goldman’s forecast was recently slashed to just 500K, about a third lower than consensus of 725K. As the bank explains, “while the seasonal hurdle is relatively low in August, the monthly pace and cross-section of Big Data employment indicators are consistent with a sizeable drag from the Delta variant.” Specifically, the bank notes that high-frequency data on the labor market were disappointing between the July and August survey weeks with all of the indicators we track consistent with a slowdown from the 943k July pace. Only one of the five measures Goldman tracks indicated an underlying job gain in excess of consensus (Census Small Business Pulse, +0.8mn). On the positive side, Goldman expects the reopening of schools to boost job growth by around 150k in tomorrow’s report.

  POLICY FOCUS: Many Fed officials want to see further accumulated evidence that the labor market is progressing towards its ‘substantial further progress’ threshold for tapering asset purchases before they commit to a timeline for scaling back these purchases, as well as the modalities of how the taper will look. The August jobs data will be eyed within this context, with analysts suggesting that a weak reading will allow the Fed more time to shape its views, while a stronger-than-expected report will add urgency to a process that some Fed officials want wrapped-up by mid-2022. The Fed has been framing the post-pandemic upside in inflation as transitory, although not everyone is convinced.

  SLACK: Headline non-farm payrolls are expected to print 728k (prev. 943k) in August; private payrolls are seen at 665k (prev. 703k), and government payrolls are seen at 25k (prev. 27k). The unemployment rate is expected to decline to 5.2% from 5.4%; many officials do not think that the headline unemployment rate is truly indicative of the health of the labour market, and in recent months, have been monitoring measures like the participation rate (which rose to 61.7% in July from 61.6% in June vs 63.2% pre-pandemic), the U6 measure of underemployment (which fell to 9.2% in July from 9.8% in June vs 7.0% pre-pandemic), and the employment-population ratio (which rose to 58.4% in July from 58.0% in June vs 61.1% pre-pandemic) which all offer better insight into the progress being made in eroding the slack seen since the pandemic.

  TREND RATES: There are still 5.7mln fewer Americans in employment compared to pre-pandemic levels in February 2020. The Fed does not specifically quantify what ‘substantial further progress’ means; market participants have argued that, at minimum, it should mean a continuation of current trends, if not an improving trend rate. The short-term trends improved in the July data; the 3-month trend rate stood at 832k in July (vs 607k trend in the 3-months through June); the 6-month trend rate stood at 681k in July (vs the 563k in the 3-months through June); but the 12-month trend rate was 605k in July (vs 670k in the 12-months through June). If the August consensus expectation of 728k was realised, the 3- month and 6-month trend rates would improve again, possibly giving Fed officials evidence of accumulated progress towards the ‘substantial further progress’ threshold.

  WAGES: Average hourly earnings are seen rising +0.3% M/M (prev. +0.4% M/M), though the annualized measure is seen unchanged at 4.0% Y/Y; the average workweek is expected to be unchanged at 34.8hrs. Analysts will be carefully monitoring the average hourly earnings measures; the argument is that higher prices may stoke consumer inflation expectations, as seen in recent consumer confidence reports, and will result in higher compensation as workers demand more cash amid rising prices; analysts say that this would add to evidence that inflation is more persistent than the Fed is currently admitting to.

  ADP: The private payrolls survey by ADP disappointed expectations, showing just 374k jobs were added to the US economy in August; analysts were expecting 613k, following the (also) disappointing 326k it reported in July. ADP attributed the weak August report to the Delta variant; Moody’s Analytics said “the Delta variant appears to have dented the job market recovery,” but “job growth remains strong, but well-off the pace of recent months, and job growth remains inextricably tied to the path of the pandemic.” Fed officials have recently been more sanguine on the impact of Delta, although some officials have argued that the Fed is still capable of tweaking policy if the pandemic once again became more persistent. NOTE: The ADP data uses previous official BLS data within its methodology; that July BLS data was strong relative to expectations, so does allude to a more tepid pace of hiring in August, although desks continue to note the tenuous relationship that the ADP data has in signalling the official BLS data; last month, for instance, the ADP flagged a weaker jobs report, although the official data surprised to the upside.

  INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: Weekly claims data that coincides with the traditional BLS survey window showed claims falling to a post-pandemic low at 349k; the four-week moving average also declined relative to the July survey window, both boding well for the official jobs report. The continuing claims data which coincides with the traditional BLS survey window also fell to a post-pandemic low at 2.862mln (vs 3.296mln heading into the July jobs data). Pantheon Macroeconomics said that the claims numbers are now finally free of the distortions caused by the automakers’ retooling shutdowns and the trend is still falling, which suggests that the surge in COVID cases had not yet triggered an increase in layoffs. “These data, however, tell us nothing about the pace of gross hiring, and it’s entirely possible that firms’  first reaction to the Delta wave has been to slow the pace of recruitment, before taking the more difficult decision to let go existing staff,” Pantheon said, “still, these data are encouraging.” Other desks also point out that the claims data only gives insight into workers being laid off (and is essentially corroborated by Challenger’s lay-offs data, which fell to the lowest since June 1997), whereas some argue that the labour market weakness seen of late is likely a function of slowing hiring amid the spread of the Delta variant, which is more reflected in surveys.

  BUSINESS SURVEYS: The business survey data only offers a partial glimpse of the labour market this month, given that the Services ISM and Markit’s Final Services PMI for August are both set for release after the jobs report (NOTE: the flash services data from Markit showed employment falling by 2.5 points to 50.8). The ISM manufacturing report saw its employment sub-index tumble by almost 4 points into contractionary territory at 49.0, with the survey noting that new surges of COVID-19 were adding to pandemic-related issues, like worker absenteeism, short-term shutdowns due to parts shortages, as well as difficulties in filling open positions and overseas supply chain problems. That said, the report also said that companies were still struggling to meet labour-management plans, but despite a contracting index, there were positive signs compared to recent months, partly mitigating the gloom implied by the index itself. Meanwhile, Markit’s manufacturing PMI alluded to employment growth easing as firms struggled to retain staff and find suitable candidates for current vacancies.

  ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:

  • Delta variant. Unlike in the first month of the covid resurgence, the Delta variant now appears to be affecting services consumption and the labor market. The revival of the CDC’s mask recommendation on July 27 occurred after the July payroll survey week had ended, which would be consistent with a drag in tomorrow’s report despite the strong gains in the previous one. As shown in the left panel of Exhibit 1, restaurant seatings on Open Table pulled back at the turn of the month, falling to 89% of their 2019 levels during the August survey week, compared to 95% in the July survey week. This would argue for a pause or pullback in US leisure and hospitality employment in tomorrow’s report. Additionally, as shown in the right panel, rising infection rates were associated with weaker employment growth in the state cross-section of the Homebase dataset, consistent with a negative Delta impact on labor demand, labor supply, or both.

  

  • Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market were disappointing between the July and August survey weeks (see Exhibit 2), with all of the indicators we track consistent with a slowdown from the 943k July pace. Only one of the five measures we track indicates an underlying job gain in excess of consensus (Census Small Business Pulse, +0.8mn), though we acknowledge that the track record for Big Data indicators during the crisis has been mixed.

  

  • ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 374k in August, below consensus expectations for a 625k gain. Because the statistical inputs to the ADP model probably boosted their jobs estimate, we believe the underlying ADP sample showed only modest gains in the month.

  ARGUING FOR A STRONGER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT

  • School reopening. We expect a roughly 150k boost from the reopening of schools, as many teachers and support staff return for the fall school year (some of whom were not working at the end of the prior one). While a pace of reopening similar to August 2020would contribute nearly 300k jobs (mom sa), the level of education employment is 600khigher a year later, and we believe some janitors and support staff did not return due to capacity restrictions and hybrid teaching models.
  • Wind-down of Top-ups. The expiration of federal benefits in some states has boosted labor supply and job-finding rates. Federal benefits were partially or fully curtailed in half of US states (representing 29% of the outstanding job losses since the start of the pandemic) in June and early July. And encouragingly, continuing claims have continued to decline more quickly in these states (by roughly 150k relative to the trend in all other states in the August payroll month).
  • Seasonality. The August seasonal hurdle is relatively low: the BLS adjustment factors generally assume a 100-200k decline in private payrolls (which exclude public schools),compared to +0.5mn over the previous four months.
  • 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 1.3pt to +42.8 in August but remains at a high level. Additionally, job openings increased by 590k to a record high in June, according to the JOLTS report.
  • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims edged down during the August payroll month,averaging 355k per week vs. 393k in July. Continuing claims also decreased, averaging2,840k in August vs. 3,140k in July. Across all employee programs including emergency benefits, continuing claims remained roughly unchanged between the payroll survey weeks.

  

  NEUTRAL/MIXED FACTORS:

  • Employer surveys. The employment component of the ISM Manufacturing Index fell into contractionary territory (-3.9pt to 49.0). The employment component of our manufacturing survey tracker also decreased (-0.8pt to 58.3), but the employment component of our services survey tracker increased (+0.1pt to 54.9). The employment component of the GSAI increased by 2.8pt to 70.0.
  • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas decreased by1% in August after decreasing by 13% in July (mom, SA by GS). Layoffs were at the lowest level since 1993.

  

  REACTION: Citi argues that given still net-long broader USD positions, any miss relative to the consensus may buoy Treasuries (as traders reason that the Fed would remain accommodative for longer), and any decline in yields would likely accelerate the Dollar’s recent underperformance. “A ‘goldilocks’ release that entails a slight miss would be most ideal for risk assets heading into an extended weekend,” but the bigger picture Citi says is that “the broader taper narrative will not have long-lasting market implications given broad expectations for a Q4 conclusion; nonetheless, the interim run-up will see taper talk as a persistent albeit fading influence on market moves.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 21:00

• Quantitative Brainwashing
  Quantitative Brainwashing

  Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

  We’re all familiar with the term, “quantitative easing.” It’s described as meaning, “A monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.”

  Well, that sounds reasonable… even beneficial. But, unfortunately, that’s not really the whole story.

  

  When QE was implemented, the purchasing power was weak and both government and personal debt had become so great that further borrowing would not solve the problem; it would only postpone it and, in the end, exacerbate it. Effectively, QE is not a solution to an economic problem, it’s a bonus of epic proportions, given to banks by governments, at the expense of the taxpayer.

  But, of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that governments have passed off a massive redistribution of wealth from the taxpayer to their pals in the banking sector with such clever terms. Governments of today have become extremely adept at creating euphemisms for their misdeeds in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace.

  At this point, we cannot turn on the daily news without being fed a full meal of carefully-worded mumbo jumbo, designed to further overwhelm whatever small voices of truth may be out there.

  Let’s put this in perspective for a moment.

  For millennia, political leaders have been in the practice of altering, confusing and even obliterating the truth, when possible. And it’s probably safe to say that, for as long as there have been media, there have been political leaders doing their best to control them.

  During times of war, political leaders have serially restricted the media from simply telling the truth. During the American civil war, President Lincoln shut down some 300 newspapers and arrested some 14,000 journalists who had the audacity to contradict his statements to the public.

  As extreme as that may sound, this practice has been more the rule in history than the exception.

  In most countries, in most eras, some publications go against the official story line and may very well pay a price for doing so. But, other publications go along with the official story line to a greater or lesser degree and are often rewarded for doing so.

  It should come as no surprise, then, that media outlets often come to report the news in a less than accurate manner.

  Mark Twain is claimed to have said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” Quite so.

  Still, only fifty years ago, much of the then “Free World” enjoyed a relatively objective Press. Even on television, reporters such as Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc. presented the news in a bland manner. It wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was relatively balanced and, to this day, most people who were around then still have no idea as to whether reporters like Walter Cronkite were liberal or conservative. Although he was a committed Democrat, he never allowed that to significantly colour his reporting.

  But today, we have a very different corporate structure as regards the media. The same six corporations hold the controlling interest of over 80% of the media. And those same corporations also own a controlling interest in the military industrial complex, Wall Street, the major banks, Big Pharma, etc.

  What we’re witnessing today is media having been transformed into something more akin to a three-ring circus than journalism of old. This is no accident.

  The present travesty that is the 21st century media, is journalism in name only.

  So, why should this be so?

  Well, as it happens, people tend not to like governments dominating their lives – simple as that.

  And yet, the primary objective of any government is to increase its size and power as rapidly as the populace will tolerate it. The only reason that they rarely do this quickly, is that they can’t get away with it. Like boiling a frog, it takes time to lull the populace into submission, bit by bit.

  Once having had enough time to do so, there comes a point at which the government becomes woefully top-heavy, as well as unworkably autocratic. At such times, all that’s necessary to make people rebel is an economic crisis.

  Such is the case in much of the world today – the EU, the US, Canada, etc.. Even in their arrogance, the powers that be have to be aware that they’re right at the tipping point. An economic crisis would almost certainly push the situation over the edge.

  When truth threatens to undermine machinations for self-aggrandizement, individuals tend to obfuscate in order to delay the inevitable fallout. Governments are no different.

  So it was that, in 1999, the largest banks entered into a massive lending scam that would most certainly collapse within a decade. However, before putting the scam in place, they arranged for a “bailout” by the government, which would effectively pass the bill to the taxpayer, while the banks themselves simply increased their own wealth massively.

  Of course, QE, as massive as it was, was a mere Band-Aid solution. All those involved (big business and the government) understood that it would hang like a sword of Damocles over the economy until it inevitably came crashing down – a fate far worse than if QE had never been implemented.

  And so, for those entities to have invested into the domination of the media was, in fact, essential. Had they not done so, it’s entirely likely that, with a free press, the man on the street would, by now, have figured out that he’d been hoodwinked.

  Thus do we see the journalistic equivalent of Quantitative Brainwashing, in which the inevitable realization is delayed for as long as possible.

  And, in order to make sure that the public do not figure out what’s been done to them, the news reporting becomes Orwellian in its endless repetition of a false narrative.

  It is, however, true that, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Eventually, the Band-Aid peels back to reveal an infection that’s far beyond what had been generally perceived. It then falls away in layers, as increasing numbers of people become aware that they’ve been scammed – that the media is entirely corrupt and that the media’s owners – big business – have, with the enthusiastic compliance of the government, robbed them on a wholesale basis.

  Historically, that’s when the jig is up. What happens then is a matter of historic record.

  *  *  *

  It’s clear the Fed’s money printing is about to go into overdrive. The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. We’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s precisely why bestselling author and legendary speculator Doug Casey just released this urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:40

• Tesla Halted Production In China For 4 Days In August Due To The Semiconductor Shortage
  Tesla Halted Production In China For 4 Days In August Due To The Semiconductor Shortage

  Production output for Tesla in China has reportedly once again been halted and is being (once again) blamed on the global semiconductor shortage.

  Short of the pandemic, the semi shortage has become a very convenient scapegoat, especially for the auto industry, for numerous manufacturers who have shut down production temporarily and idled plants throughout 2021.

  Tesla’s Shanghai plant was halted “for about four days” in August, according to a new report from Reuters. 

  Production is reportedly now “back to normal” and the halt was blamed on shortages with the availability of electronic control units, mainly for the company’s Model Y.

  

  In China, Tesla sold 32,968 China-made vehicles in July – this includes vehicles sold in China and vehicles exported – according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). This was below the 33,155 vehicles sold in June; a number that we pointed out could have been a sign that the ship had steadied between Tesla and China – and that demand was once again rising.

  But July’s numbers seem to indicate little, if any, growth in demand between June and July. 

  Shipments of locally made vehicles sold in China plunged, to 8,621 cars from 28,138 in June. There is generally cyclicality for automaker sales wherein the beginning of a quarter (July) comes in markedly lower than the end of the previous quarter (June).

  

  24,347 of the 32,968 cars made in China were manufactured for export. 

  Tesla fell between BYD, who sold 50,387 China-made EVs and GM/SAIC, who sold 27.347 EVs.

  Recall, other automakers have slowed production due to the semi shortage, too. We reported last month that Toyota had slashed global production for September by 40% from its previous outlook. The production cut will reduce Toyota’s global production for September from 900,000 automobiles to 500,000.

  As a result, Toyota’s global production for the month will be below that of last September, when demand was beginning to recover from the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic and Toyota turned out 840,000 units.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:20

• Stakeholder Capitalism Is A Trojan Horse For China
  Stakeholder Capitalism Is A Trojan Horse For China

  Authored by Vivek Ramaswamy via Common Sense with Bari Weiss (emphasis ours),

  “Stakeholder capitalism” may not be a phrase you are intimately familiar with, or it may be a phrase that makes your eyes glaze over. But it’s definitely something you’ve witnessed.

  

  Let me give you an example:

  This May, when the actor John Cena was promoting the latest movie in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, he called Taiwan a country. This, needless to say, displeased China — and Cena offered a groveling apology. “I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very very sorry for my mistake,” he said in Mandarin on Chinese social media. 

  Here’s another:

  Last summer, while Uber was putting out soaring statements about becoming an anti-racist company — it promised, among other pledges, to implement anti-racism education for riders and drivers in California — the company was pushing for Prop 22, which allowed the company to continue to classify its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

  So “stakeholder capitalism” is the kind of gauzy expression that suggests a freer, fairer, more diverse, environmentally and LGBTQ-friendly world. But in reality it is something far different. It looks, in the case of Cena, like an American movie star doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. In the case of Uber, assurances about “antiracism” allowed the company to distract the public from a political issue with real economic stakes.

  This corporate hustle is the subject of a new, bestselling book called Woke Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam by biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy makes the compelling case that “stakeholder capitalism” sounds like a good thing, but is in fact deeply damaging our democracy. He explains why in the essay below. — BW

  ---

  There is nothing more important to progressives today than to apologize: Antiracists apologizing for being racist. Electric-vehicle drivers apologizing for having polluted the planet. And devotees of “stakeholder capitalism” saying sorry for, well, capitalism.

  Joe Biden has called conventional, or shareholder, capitalism a “farce,” saying corporations “have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.” Elizabeth Warren’s “accountable capitalism” calls for higher wages, and greater employee involvement in selecting boards of directors and making political contributions. Al Gore has said that, as the value of socially conscious capitalism gains traction, “investors who fail to take it into account may be at risk of violating their fiduciary duty to their clients” — and, presumably, vulnerable to a lawsuit.

  Nor is stakeholder capitalism limited to politicians or progressive activists: America’s most powerful CEOs have embraced it. In late 2019, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group representing the country’s biggest corporations, announced it was revising its statement of purpose with an eye toward “stakeholders.” Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan and the chairman of the Business Roundtable, wrote in a follow-up article in Time: “Capitalism has been the most successful economic system in history. But we can improve upon it to help solve society’s problems and lift up more people.”

  Here’s what “stakeholder capitalists” miss: Once corporations become vehicles to further an agenda other than shareholder value, they become vehicles to advance any agenda, including those of foreign adversaries. 

  Case in point: In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has become a key stakeholder of many American multinationals — from Nike to Visa to BlackRock. It’s now flexing its muscle in ways that — no surprise — strengthens China’s interests at the expense of American ones.

  The case of Airbnb is illuminating. 

  In May 2019, the Silicon Valley darling hired Sean Joyce, a former FBI deputy director, to be its first chief trust officer. Joyce’s job was to protect users’ safety — limiting data breaches, fraud and the many risks, online and off, that come with hundreds of millions of users spread across 5.6 million rental properties in 100,000 cities worldwide.

  By October of that year, Joyce had left Airbnb. According to The Wall Street Journal, Joyce quit because he was concerned that Airbnb was secretly sharing data on millions of guests and hosts — who, presumably, are among Airbnb’s most important “stakeholders” — with Chinese officials. This data included phone numbers, email addresses and the content of messages between users and the company. After authorities in Beijing asked Airbnb for even more “real-time data” — which, Joyce feared, would enhance the regime’s surveillance of minority ethnic groups — Joyce took his concerns to Airbnb’s CEO, Brian Chesky, among other senior executives. Nathan Blecharczyk, the company’s chief strategy officer, reportedly told Joyce: “We’re not here to promote American values.”

  Soon after, Joyce resigned, citing “a difference in values.”

  Three months later, Airbnb announced, with great fanfare, that it had embraced a new philosophy of doing business. “Serving all stakeholders is the best way to build a highly valuable business and it’s the right thing to do for society,” a January 2020 blog post from the company declared. Instead of the conventional shareholders’ meeting, Airbnb would now hold Stakeholder Day, and it would even change its pay structure, linking bonuses to key social targets and creating a “stakeholder committee” on the board of directors. The blog post added: “The stakeholders who make up the Airbnb community are Guests, Hosts, Communities, Shareholders, and Employees.” It did not mention the Chinese Communist Party.

  The stakeholder rebrand isn’t just a sideshow; it’s an essential tool for powerful companies. Airbnb has amassed a huge millennial user base in no small part by portraying itself as a forward-looking, stakeholder-oriented company — one that embraces diversity, equity and inclusion, and proudly aligns itself with #BlackLivesMatter while quietly allowing Chinese users to discriminate against ethnic minorities. (According to Wired, many Airbnb listings in China contain language meant to ward off Uighurs, Tibetans and other minority groups. One such listening read: “We do not have the permission of the police station” to host Uighurs, so “please do not book.”)

  So Airbnb gets credit for being “progressive” while turning a blind eye toward real repression. 

  No doubt, more traditional, “shareholder” corporations do all kinds of terrible things to curry favor with unsavory, foreign regimes. Consider pretty much every international energy company that has tapped into Russia’s massive oil and gas reserves. But those companies aren’t trading on their reputation for being forward-looking or right-minded or stakeholder-ish. Airbnb is.

  Nor is this just about Airbnb or any other American corporation. It’s also about the countries those companies do business in.

  The net effect of companies like Airbnb bemoaning every microaggression committed against every black, brown or trans person in the United States while staying silent when it comes to genuine human-rights atrocities in China — cramming more than one million Uighurs into concentration camps; forcibly sterilizing them; and criminalizing the practice of Islam — is to create the impression that China is our equal when it comes to civil liberties.

  Sure enough, when E.U. officials, in late 2020, pressed Xi Jinping about human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, the home to most of China’s Uighurs, Xi shot back that the very existence of Black Lives Matter is proof that the United States is no better than China. When State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus criticized Beijing for its crackdown on Hong Kong demonstrators, in late May 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted: “I can’t breathe,” a not so subtle allusion to Black Lives Matter. In March, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, lambasted the United States for “slaughtering” black Americans, adding that China hopes America will do better on human rights. 

  Disney, too, has bent over backward to avoid doing anything that might ruffle Chinese officials.

  In 2019 Disney’s CEO that it would be “very difficult” for Disney to film movies in any state in the United States that restricts abortion access. But the company’s respect for women’s rights did not prohibit it from filming “Mulan” in Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities have embarked on a program of systemic rape — part of an effort to dissolve ancient family and communal bonds, and transform Uighurs into what Beijing regards as full-fledged, non-Muslim Chinese. Not only that: In the credits of “Mulan,” Disney gave “special thanks” to those same authorities.

  Then there was the Ancient One, a character in Disney’s 2016 hit “Dr. Strange.” The Ancient One was supposed to be a Tibetan monk, but this upset Beijing, which, no doubt, worried audiences might think Disney was saying something good about another Tibetan monk: the Dalai Lama. So Disney made the monk white. Progressives, in the United States, howled that Disney had replaced an Asian character with a white one. So Disney did what it had to do to assuage the progressives: It made the monk a woman. This did the trick. White-woman-washing the Ancient One was good for China and Disney. Not so much for Tibet.

  Consider Apple. The $2 trillion giant now hides the Taiwanese flag emoji from users in Hong Kong and Macau. It has removed songs from iTunes that refer to Tiananmen Square. All the while, it relentlessly scolds America for its “systemic racism.”

  Then there’s the NBA, considered the wokest professional sports league in America. When Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted, in October 2019, from his personal account, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” and the Chinese consulate in Houston denounced Morey, the Rockets’ owner followed suit, nearly firing him. Rockets star James Harden publicly apologized to China. LeBron James suggested Morey had abused his First Amendment rights: “I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke, and so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”

  To make sure Chinese authorities knew that it, too, was very upset with the Rockets, Nike pulled its Rockets gear from stores in China. In June, during a call with Wall Street analysts, CEO John Donahoe told investors, “Nike is a brand that is of China and for China.” Donahoe did not mention that some Chinese Uighurs serve as forced labor in factories employed by Nike. This from the same company that, in 2019, canceled its Betsy Ross Flag sneaker ahead of the July Fourth holiday after Colin Kaepernick declared that the flag was linked to nation’s history of slavery.

  China may be the most prominent example of stakeholder capitalism gone awry, but it is hardly alone.

  Any number of American corporations now lavishing untold sums of capital on diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives in the United States are eager to do business in countries with reprehensible human-rights records: Citigroup, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where extrajudicial killings and violence against women are rampant; Hilton, in Abu Dhabi and Sri Lanka, where it’s illegal to be gay; the pharmaceutical giant Merck, in Russia, where democratic activist Alexei Navalny is in prison; and BlackRock, the world’s No. 1 investment-management firm, in Latin America, southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where companies that BlackRock has invested in have razed forests and exacerbated greenhouse-gas emissions. And so many more.

  So persists an inescapable contradiction of stakeholder capitalism: All of these corporations have successfully rebranded themselves as good citizens, global stewards and combatants in the war against systemic racism, which has obviously proven good for business, but very bad for America, blurring the moral distinction between democracies and closed societies, between the free West and fear-based societies like China.

  And because this business strategy is dressed in the garments of justice, it only compounds our innumerable confusions about what makes us us.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 20:00

• "This Isn't What We Were Promised" – Critics Slam $10BN Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement For Letting Sacklers 'Off The Hook'
  “This Isn’t What We Were Promised” – Critics Slam $10BN Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement For Letting Sacklers ‘Off The Hook’

  A federal bankruptcy judge has signed off on a settlement between OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and thousands of creditors and litigants participating in a mountain of lawsuits filed against the company over its role in developing and marketing OcyContin in ways that plaintiffs say violated laws and knowingly exposed millions to an extremely addictive substance.

  

  Under the settlement reached with creditors, including individual victims and thousands of state and local governments, the Sackler family will give up ownership of the company and contribute $4.5 billion, some of which will be used for a victims’ compensation fund. In exchange, members of the family will be freed from liability for any future opioid-related lawsuits, allowing them to retain much of their family fortune, even if their cash cow is now no longer under their control. In total, Purdue values the plan at $10 billion.

  The new company will be reorganized under a board chosen by public officials. Profits will go to government efforts to prevent and treat opioid addiction.

  Judge Drain said Wednesday after speaking from the bench for more than six hours that he would approve the plan as long as two technical changes were made. Once made, he plans to enter the final order on Thursday.

  Opioids have killed roughly half a million Americans over the last decade, according to CDC data.

  

  Source: WSJ

  One party to the settlement said the deal “isn’t what we were promised.”

  “It isn’t what we were promised or what we were hoping for,” said Ryan Hampton, an author and activist who had represented victims during the bankruptcy. Hampton resigned from his post on the victims committee the day before the judge’s decision, in part because he believed the compensation for victims was inadequate, especially compared with the proportion of the fund set aside for the cities, counties, states and other public entities suing Purdue.

  At least three parties, led by Washington AG Bob Ferguson, objected to the plan, and are appealing its approval. Ferguson said the settlement as it stands lets the Sackler’s “off the hook”

  “This order lets the Sacklers off the hook by granting them permanent immunity from lawsuits in exchange for a fraction of the profits they made from the opioid epidemic — and sends a message that billionaires operate by a different set of rules than everybody else,” Ferguson said.

  The chairman of Purdue’s board praised the settlement.

  Steve Miller, chairman of Purdue’s board of directors, praised the judge’s decision, saying it was “an outcome that is truly in the public interest.”

  “Instead of years of value-destructive litigation, including between and among creditors, this Plan ensures that billions of dollars will be devoted to helping people and communities who have been hurt by the opioid crisis,” he said in a statement.

  Once effective, the bankruptcy plan will set aside funds for cities, counties and other entities. Individuals, including those who suffered from addiction, families of people who died of overdoses and babies exposed to opioids in the womb and born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, would be entitled to payments ranging from $3,500 to $48,000. The claims would still need to be adjudicated, an effort that could be complicated by that fact that years-old medical records may no longer exist.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:40

• ACLU Says The State Forcing People To Take Vaccines Is A Victory For Civil Liberties
  ACLU Says The State Forcing People To Take Vaccines Is A Victory For Civil Liberties

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  The ACLU has published an article in the New York Times followed up by a tweet which asserts that the government forcing people to take vaccines is a victory for civil liberties.

  

  No, this isn’t out of the Babylon Bee.

  “Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties,” the organization’s tweet ludicrously claimed. “They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”

  Far from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable, people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of color hit hard by the disease. https://t.co/UYfQY2EEqj

  — ACLU (@ACLU) September 2, 2021

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  The tweet linked to a New York Times opinion piece written by ACLU staffers which further amplified claims that the government forcing people to take a vaccine under threat of them losing their jobs, social lives and potentially in the future the right to buy and sell was actually a boon for civil liberties.

  What’s next? Maybe the ACLU will call for the government to forcibly incarcerate Americans for their controversial political opinions because it might ‘prevent harm’.

  Respondents on Twitter were swift to ridicule the organization’s absurd hypocrisy.

  “The government forcing a needle in your arm is actually them furthering your civil liberties” is quite the take even from Marxists like you. Thank you for dropping the mask to reveal yourselves though,” remarked Robby Starbuck.

  “The government forcing a needle in your arm is actually them furthering your civil liberties” is quite the take even from Marxists like you. Thank you for dropping the mask to reveal yourselves though.

  — Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 2, 2021

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  “Look at that stretch!” commented Charlie Nash.

  look at that stretch! pic.twitter.com/qS5F0zbdrv

  — Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) September 2, 2021

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  “It is so sad to see how much leftism has destroyed your organization. Any real civil liberties union needs to be actively against the left and you are example #1 as to why,” tweeted Steven Kolln.

  It is so sad to see how much leftism has destroyed your organization. Any real civil liberties union needs to be actively against the left and you are example #1 as to why

  — Steven Kolln (@stevenkolln) September 2, 2021

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  Perhaps the best summary was tweeted by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

  “Having the state force citizens to inject their bodies with a medicine they don’t want is a victory for civil liberties actually, says the @ACLU.”

  Having the state force citizens to inject their bodies with a medicine they don’t want is a victory for civil liberties actually, says the @ACLU: https://t.co/Y5exMaCWcJ

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 2, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:20

• Huarong Finally Got Its State-Backed Bailout, But Future Chinese Firms May Not Be So Lucky
  Huarong Finally Got Its State-Backed Bailout, But Future Chinese Firms May Not Be So Lucky

  Distressed Chinese asset manager China Huarong Asset Management is getting its bailout.

  Citic Group, in conjunction with China’s Ministry of Finance, has stepped in at the urging of the state to prevent the asset manager from becoming a massive Lehman-style blowup in China for the time being. Defaults have been avoided, according to a new Bloomberg article. While bondholders can breathe a sigh of relief, equity holders likely won’t be as lucky. 

  The rescue of the company was announced on August 18th after months of the state trying to pin down exactly who would step in, where, to help the distressed entity. 

  “Beijing didn’t allow a systemically important financial institution directly owned by the central government to default on its debt, an event that had the potential to upend debt markets and possibly precipitate a financial crisis,” The Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this month.

  The bailout took the form of a “recapitalization” with government funding, Forbes noted, calling it “a financial infusion (unspecified in form or amount) from a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises. It is a straight bailout, as per precedent (although many had feared precedent might not hold).”

  

  But the bailout comes against the backdrop of President Xi reining in China’s major internet and tech companies with regulations that have collectively erased more than $1 trillion in shareholder value from names like Alibaba and Tencent. 

  Thanks to this shift in tone, Sergey Dergachev, a senior portfolio manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt, told Bloomberg he believes that after Huarong, the days of guaranteed bailouts are over: “This assumption is not valid anymore.”

  Huarong borrowed extensively since the late 1990s to help it expand and safeguard other Chinese banks. The company’s longtime chairman Lai Xiaomin eventually wound up being caught in a corruption scandal and finally left the asset manager this January. By the summer, it was obvious the asset manager needed help. From there, it became months of arguing and infighting amongst the state and private investors to try and organize a bailout. 

  

  Citic was eventually engaged, according to Bloomberg:

  For nearly two months, a Citic team pored over the books at Huarong’s headquarters. Even at Citic, a Chinese company as connected as they come, the political nature of the task raised eyebrows. Huarong’s finances were so troubled and past dealings so fraught that some members of the Citic team worried they might be blamed for the mess. They wanted assurances that they wouldn’t be held responsible should higher ups take issue with any rescue plan later on, one of the people said.

  The numbers, audited by Ernst & Young, were dire. Huarong had lost 102.9 billion yuan ($15.9 billion) in 2020, more than its combined profits since going public in 2015. It wrote off 107.8 billion yuan in bad investments. 

  Then, in August, the company’s bailout was officially announced:

  At last, terms were drawn up and the State Council, long silent about Huarong, gave its blessing to a rescue that combines a government bailout with a more market-driven recapitalization. Huarong will get about 50 billion yuan of fresh capital from a group of investors led by Citic, which will assume the Ministry of Finance’s controlling stake, people familiar have said. Huarong is expected to raise 50 billion yuan more by selling non-core financial assets. On August 18, Huarong went public with its huge losses and quickly followed up with news of its rescue.

  Recall, in April we had noted that China’s central bank was considering a plan to “assume more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) of assets from China Huarong Asset Management, helping the state-owned company clean up its balance sheet and refocus on its core business of managing distressed debt.”

  With Huarong out of the way, China Evergrande Group now becomes to the country’s largest worry…

  And for those who think these entities are all too big to fail, David Loevinger, a former senior coordinator for China affairs at the U.S. Treasury, concluded:

  “Now, you cannot say that with 100% certainty,”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 19:00

• "We're All Ruined": Biden Drone Strike In Kabul Kills 10 Civilians, Family Says
  “We’re All Ruined”: Biden Drone Strike In Kabul Kills 10 Civilians, Family Says

  10 civilian members of an Afghani family including seven children were killed in a US drone strike on Sunday, according to NBC News (!?), which spoke with relatives of the Ahmadi family who said they were hoping to make it onto an evacuation flight out of Kabul before the United States ended its withdrawal from the country.

  

  “They were 10 civilians,” said Emal Ahmadi, whose 2-year-old toddler, Malika was among those killed. “My daughter … she was 2 years old,” he said.

  

  More via NBC News:

  That day, Ahmadi’s cousin, Zemari Ahmadi, 38, had just pulled up at home from work, with his 13-year-old son, Farzad, his youngest of three, racing to greet him. (Other reports have said Farzad was 12, but both Ahmadi and another relative told NBC News he was 13.)

  Farzad, who had just learned to drive, wanted to park his father’s car, a wish Zemari was happy to oblige as other family members gathered around.

  It was in that moment that Ahmadi said an explosion tore through the vehicle, killing Zemari, Farzad and eight other family members, as was first reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

  According to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, Washington is “not in a position” to dispute reports that the Sunday drone strike killed civilians, however he claimed that one of the family members belonged to radical Islamic group, ISIS-K.

  Malika and two other toddlers were the youngest family members killed, along with Ahmadi’s nephews Arwin, 7, and Benyamin, 6, and Zemari’s two other sons, Zamir, 20, and Faisal, 16, Ahmadi said.

  Zemari was a technical engineer for Nutrition and Education International, a nonprofit working to address malnutrition based in Pasadena, California.

  Just a day before his death, he had been helping to prepare and deliver soy-based meals to women and children at refugee camps in Kabul, Steven Kwon, president of NEI, told NBC News in an email.

  One colleague and friend of six years to Zemari said he was devastated, while also describing Ahmadi as a “good man with good ethics.”

  

  Also killed in Biden’s drone strike was Ahmad Naser – a former officer in the Afghan Army and contractor with the US military, according to his cousin. Naser was days away from his wedding when he was killed.

  Instead, there will be a funeral.

  “They were all buried,” said 31-year-old Yousef. “We’re all ruined. The family is gone.”

  

  According to an evidence-free statement by US Central Command, however, there “were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehicle,” suggesting that there was a “large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties.”

  That said, we tend to doubt that that a car full of children would be headed to the airport to set off another suicide bomb, following the previous week’s attack that left 169 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the US military dead.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/02/2021 – 18:40

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