Aug 04

Today’s News 4th August 2019

  • The Citadels Of America's Elites: Fractured And At Odds With Each Other

    Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Something is ‘up’.

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    When two Financial Times columnists – pillars of the western Establishment – raise a warning flag, we must take note:

    Martin Wolf was first off, with a piece dramatically headlined: The looming 100-year, US-China Conflict. No ‘mere’ trade war, he implied, but a full-spectrum struggle.

    Then his FT colleague Edward Luce, pointed out that Wolf’s “argument is more nuanced than the headline. Having spent part of this week among leading policymakers and thinkers at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado,” Luce writes, “I am inclined to think Martin was not exaggerating. The speed with which US political leaders of all stripes have united behind the idea of a ‘new cold war’ is something that takes my breath away. Eighteen months ago the phrase was dismissed as fringe scaremongering. Today it is consensus.”

    A significant shift is underway in US policy circles, it seems. Luce’s final ‘take’ is that “it is very hard to see what, or who, is going to prevent this great power rivalry from dominating the 21st century”. It is clear that there is indeed now a clear bi-partisan consensus in the US on China. Luce is surely right. But that is far from being the end of it. A collective psychology of belligerence seems to be taking shape, and, as one commentator noted, it has become not just a great-power rivalry, but a rivalry amongst ‘Beltway’ policy wonks to show “who has the bigger dick”.

    And quick to demonstrate his, at Aspen (after others had unveiled their masculinity on China and Iran), was the US envoy for Syria (and deputy US National Security Adviser), James Jeffrey: A US policy boiled down to one overriding component: ‘hammering Russia’. “Hammering Russia” (he insisted repeatedly), will continue until President Putin understands there is no military solution in Syria (he said with heightened verbal emphasis). Russia falsely assumes that Assad has ‘won’ war: “He hasn’t”, Jeffrey said. And the US is committed to demonstrating this fundamental ‘truth’.

    Therefore, the US plans to ‘up the pressure’; will escalate the cost to Russia, until a political transition is in place, with a new Syria emerging as a “normal nation”. The US will ‘leverage’ the costs on Russia across the board: Through military pressure – ensuring a lack of military progress in Idlib; through Israelis operating freely across Syria’s airspace; through ‘US partners’ (i.e. the Kurds) consolidating in NE Syria; through economic costs (“our success” in stopping reconstruction aid to Syria); through extensive US sanctions on Syria (integrated with those on Iran) – “these sanctions are succeeding”; and thirdly, by diplomatic pressure: i.e. “hammering Russia” in the UN.

    Well, the US shift on Syria also takes one’s breath away. Recall how little time ago, the talk was of partnership, of the US working with Russia to find a solution in Syria. Now the talk of the US Envoy is the talk of Cold War with Russia as much as were his Aspen colleagues – albeit in respect to China. Such ‘machismo’ is evidenced too coming from the US President: “I could – if I wanted – end the US war in Afghanistan in a week”, (but it would entail the deaths of 10 million Afghans), Trump excalimed. And, in the same mode, Trump now suggests that for Iran, he is easy: war or not – either path is fine, for him.

    All this braggadocio is reminiscent of late 2003 when the war in Iraq was just entering its insurgent stage: It was said then that mere “boys go to Baghdad; but real men chose to go to Tehran”. It gained wide circulation in Washington at the time. This type of talk gave rise, as I well recall, to something approaching an hysteric elation. Officials seemed to be walking six inches above the ground, in anticipation of all the dominos expected to fall in succession.

    The point here is that the tacit coupling of Russia – now termed a major ‘foe’ of America by US Defence officials – and China, inevitably is being refracted back at the US, in terms of a growing strategic Russo-Chinese partnership, ready to challenge the US and its allies.

    Last Tuesday, a Russian aircraft, flying in a joint air patrol with a Chinese counterpart, deliberately entered South Korean airspace. And, just earlier, two Russian Tu-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 warplanes — both nuclear capable — reportedly had entered South Korea’s air defense identification zone.

    “This is the first time I’m aware of that Chinese and Russian fighters have jointly flown through the air defence identification zone of a major US ally — in this case two US allies. Clearly it’s geopolitical signalling as well as intelligence collection,” said Michael Carpenter, a former Russia specialist with the US Department of Defense. It was a message to the US, Japan, and South Korea: If you strengthen the US-Japan military alliance, Russia and China have no choice but to react militarily as well.

    So, as we look around, the picture seems to be one in which US bellicosity is somehow consolidating as an éliteconsensus (with but a few individuals courageously pushing-back on the trend). So what is going on?

    The two FT correspondents effectively were signalling – in their separate articles – that the US is entering on a momentous and hazardous transformation. Further, it would seem that America’s élite is being fractured into balkanised enclaves that are not communicating with one another – nor wanting to communicate with each other. Rather, it is another conflict between deadly rivals.

    One such orientation insists on a renewal of the Cold War to sustain and renew that supersized military-security complex, which accounts for more than half of America’s GDP. Another élite demands that US dollar global hegemony be preserved. Another orientation of the Deep State is disgusted at the contagion of sexual decadence and corruption that has wormed its way into American governance – and truly hopes that Trump will ‘drain the swamp’. And yet another, which sees DC’s now explicit amorality as risking the loss of America’s global standing and leadership – wants to see a return of traditional American mores – a ‘moral rearmament’, as it were. (And then there are the deplorables, who simply want that America should attend to its own internal refurbishment.)

    But all these divided Deep State factions believe that belligerence can work.

    However, the more these fractured, rival US élite factions with their moneyed and comfortable lifestyles, cloister themselves in their enclaves, certain in their separate views about how America can retain its global supremacy, the less likely it is that they will understand the very real impact of their collective belligerence on the outside world. Like any cosseted élite, they have an exaggerated sense of their entitlement – and their impunity.

    These élite factions – for all their internal rivalry – however seem to have coalesced around a singularity of talking and thinking that allows the dominant classes to substitute for the reality of an America subject to severe stress and strain – the fable of a hegemon which still can elect which non-compliant governments and peoples to bully and remove from the global map. Their rhetoric alone is curdling the atmospherics in the non-West.

    But a further implication of the incoherence within the élites is applicable to Trump. It is widely assumed that because he says he does not want more wars – and because he is US President – wars will not happen. But that is not how the world works.

    The leader of any nation is never sovereign. He or she sits atop a pyramid of quarrelling princelings (Deep State princelings, in this instance), who have their own interests and agenda. Trump is not immune to their machinations. One obvious example being Mr Bolton’s successful gambit in persuading the Brits to seize the Grace I tanker off Gibraltar. At a stroke, Bolton escalated the conflict with Iran (‘increased the pressure’ on Iran, as Bolton would probably term it); put the UK at the forefront of America’s ‘war’ with Iran; divided the JCPOA signatories, and embarrassed the EU. He is a canny ‘operator’ – no doubt about it.

    And this is the point: these princelings can initiate actions (including false flags) that drive events to their agenda; that can corner a President. And that is presuming that the President is somehow immune to a great ‘switch in mood’ among his own lieutenants (even if that consensus is nothing more than a fable that belligerency succeeds). But is it safe to assume Trump is immune to the general ‘mood’ amongst the varied élites? Do not his recent glib comments about Afghanistan and Iran suggest that he might leaning towards the new belligerency? Martin Wolf concluded his FT piece by suggesting the shift in the US suggests we may be witnessing a stumbling towards a century of conflict. But in the case of Iran, any mis-move could result in something more immediate – and uncontained.

  • As US Ditches INF, Mid-Range Missiles To Be Deployed In Asia "Within Months"

    A mere day after the US officially exited the landmark Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) which had cooled the Cold War arms race, preventing a build-up in Europe, the Pentagon is looking to deploy intermediate range conventional missiles in the Pacific region “within months”.

    Noting that it will most certainly provoke the ire of China, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday of the plans, “It’s fair to say, though, that we would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later.” Esper made the remarks from Australia. “I would prefer months. I just don’t have the latest state of play on timelines.”

    “I would prefer months… but these things tend to take longer than you expect,” Esper stated.

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    File image of US military’s land-based Aegis missile defense testing system based in Hawaii, and being developed jointly with Japan, via the AP. 

    This week’s official end of the INF comes six months after President Trump issued Moscow an ultimatum to cease its alleged violations of the historic treaty.

    At the same time US officials indicated plans to test a new missile which would have been prohibited under the arms control treat in the coming weeks, according to the AP.

    The Pentagon has been sparse on details, and there’s been no indication of which US Pacific or Asian allies might in the near future host new missiles. Both Australia and Japan have lately worked closely with the US on joint missile defense projects, however.

    Interestingly, one of the key reasons both Trump and Bolton have cited over the past year for their view that the INF is “obsolete” is that it fails to include major world powers like China that have made huge advances in their ballistic missile and defense technology since the Cold War. 

    Concerning China, Esper dismissed the potential that new US systems in the Pacific could trigger a crisis amid ongoing tensions with Beijing, per the AP: 

    Esper, who was confirmed as Pentagon chief on July 23, wouldn’t detail possible deployment locations in Asia, saying it would depend on discussions with allies and other factors. He downplayed any reaction from China, saying that “80 percent plus of their inventory is intermediate range systems, so that shouldn’t surprise them that we would want to have a like capability.”

    But perhaps it’s all about geography. Consider for example, how Washington and the American public would react if China were to deploy medium-range missiles in Greenland or anywhere in the Atlantic for that matter. 

    On Friday, 88-year old Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who originally signed the INF alongside Reagan, warned “This US move will cause uncertainty and chaotic development of international politics.”

    Indeed we could already be witnessing the beginning of a new “chaos” and “uncertainty” of a global arms race. 

  • America's Collapse: Paul Craig Roberts Exposes An Economy Based On Plunder

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    Capitalists have claimed responsibility for America’s past economic success.  Let’s begin by setting the record straight. American success had little to do with capitalism. This is not to say that the US would have had more success with something like Soviet central planning.

    Prior to 1900 when the frontier was closed, America’s success was a multi-century long success based on the plunder of a pristine environment and abundant natural resources. Individuals and companies were capitalized simply by occupying the land and using the resources present.

    As the population grew and resources were depleted, the per capita resource endowment declined.

    America got a second wind from World War I, which devastated European powers and permitted the emergence of the US as a budding world power.  World War II finished off Europe and put economic and financial supremacy in Washington’s hands.  The US dollar seized the world reserve currency role from the British pound, enabling the US to pay its bills by printing money.  The world currency role of the dollar, more than nuclear weapons, has been the source of American power. Russia has equal or greater nuclear weapons power, but it is the dollar not the ruble that is the currency in which international payments are settled. 

    The world currency role made the US the financial hegemon.  This power together with the IMF and  World Bank enabled the US to plunder foreign resources the way vanishing American resources had been plundered.  

    We can conclude that plunder of natural resources and the ability to externalize much of the cost have been  major contributors right through the present day to the success of American capitalism.  Michael Hudson has described the plunder process in his many books and articles, as has John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

    Essentially, capitalism is a plunder mechanism that generates short-run profits by externalizing long-run costs.  It exhausts natural resources, including air, land, and water, for temporary profits while imposing most of its costs, such as pollution, on the environment.  An example is the destruction of the Amazon rain forest by loggers.  The world loses a massive carbon sink that stabilizes the global climate, and loggers gain short-run profits that are a tiny percentage of the long-run costs.

    This destructive process is amplified by the inherently short-run time perspective of capitalist activity which seldom extends beyond the next quarter.  

    US economic success was also a result of a strong consumer demand fed by rising real wages as technological advances in manufacturing raised the productivity of labor and consumer purchasing power. The middle class became dominant. When I was an economics student, Paul Samuelson taught us that American prosperity was based entirely on the large American consumer market and had nothing to do with foreign trade.  Indeed, foreign trade was a minor factor in American GDP.  America had such a large domestic consumer market that the US did not need foreign trade to enjoy economics of scale.

    All of this changed with the rise of free market ideology and the collapse of the Soviet Union. When I was a student we were taught that boards of directors and corporate executives had responsibilities to their employees, their customers, their communities, and to their shareholders.  These responsibilities were all equally valid and needed to be kept in balance.

    In response to liberals, who tried to impose more and more “social responsibilities” on corporations, free market economists responded with the argument that, in fact, corporations only have responsibilities to their owners. Rightly or wrongly, this reactive argument is blamed on Milton Friedman.  Conservative foundations set about teaching jurists and legislators that companies were only responsible to owners.  

    Judges were taught that ownership is specific and cannot be abridged by government imposing obligations on the investments of owners for responsibilities that do not benefit the owners. This argument was used to terminate all responsibilities except to shareholders and left profit maximization as the corporate goal.

    Thus, when the Soviet Union collapsed and China and India opened their economies to foreign capital, US corporations were free to desert their work forces and home towns and use cheaper labor abroad to produce the goods and services sold to Americans. This increased their profits and, thereby, executive bonuses and shareholder capital gains at the expense of the livelihoods of their former domestic work force and tax base of their local communities and states.  The external costs of the larger profits were born by their former employees and the impaired financial condition of states and localities. These costs greatly exceed the higher profits.

    Generally speaking, economists assume away external costs.  Their mantra is that progress fixes everything.  But their measures of progress are deceptive.  Ecological economists, such as Herman Daly, have raised the issue whether, considering the neglect of external costs and the inaccurate way in which GDP is measured, announced increases in GDP exceed in value the cost of producing them.  It is entirely possible that GDP growth is simply an artifact of not counting all of the costs of production.  

    As we approach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the long history of American capitalism fed by plunder seems to be coming to an end simultaneously with the ability of the US central bank to protect existing financial wealth by creating ever more money with which to support stock, bond, and real estate prices.  The US has a long history of overthrowing reformist governments in Latin America that threatened American control over their resources.  Washington’s coups against democracy and self-determination succeeded until Venezuela.  Washington’s coup against Chavez was overturned by the Venezuelan people and military, and so far Washington’s attempt to overthrow Chavez’s successor, Maduro, has failed.

    Washington’s attempt to overthrow the Syrian government was prevented by Russia, and most likely Russia and China will prevent Washington from overthrowing the government of Iran.  In Africa the Chinese are proving to be better business partners than the exploitative American corporations.  To continue feeding the empire with its heavy costs is becoming more difficult.

    Washington’s policy of sanctions is making it even more difficult. To avoid the arbitrary and illegal sanctions, other countries are starting to abandon the US dollar as the currency of international transactions and arranging to settle their international accounts in their domestic currencies. China’s Silk Road encompasses Russia with much of Asia in a trade bloc independent of the Western financial system.  Other countries hoping to escape US control are turning to Russia and China to achieve sovereignty from Washington.  These developments will reduce the demand for dollars and impair US financial hegemony.  Alternatives to the World Bank will remove areas of the world from the reach of US plunder.

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    As plunderable resources diminish, American capitalism, which is heavily dependent on plunder, will have one foundation of its success removed.  As aggregate consumer demand collapses from the absence of growth in real income, absence of middle class jobs, and the extreme polarization of income and wealth in the US, another pillar of American capitalism disintegrates.  As business investment has also collapsed, as indicated by the use of corporate profits and borrowing to repurchase the corporations’ equity, thus decapitalizing the companies, total aggregate demand itself collapses. 

    The absence of growth in aggregate demand will make the gap between high stock prices and dismal prospects for corporate profits too great to be bridged by the Federal Reserve flooding money into financial assets.  Without the ability to prop up financial asset prices with money creation, flight from dollar-denominated assets could bring down the US dollar.

    What is left will be a ruin.

  • California's Homeless Crisis Spreads To Orange County, Doubles In Two Years 

    Orange County, California, like much of the state, has seen tremendous house price gains since the great recession. Over time, residents who had access to cheap credit could afford to live in the county, resulting in a significant gap between the rich and poor.

    A new 149-page report from Orange County’s 2019 homeless Point In Time Count published on July 30 to the Board of Supervisors, sheds more light into the expanding wealth gap that has left the county with a homelessness crisis, reported Orange County Register.

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    According to the report, 6,860 people were counted as homeless in Orange County in January, up 43% from two years earlier.

    The findings reveal black, African American or multi-racial, as well as Hispanic or Latino families, make up an increasing percentage of homeless people in the county.

    White people represented the largest single group of homeless people: more than two-thirds of individuals with and without shelter.

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    About 8.41% of homeless people in the county without shelter were black or American. A little over 12% of the unsheltered are described as “Multiple Races” (no definition provided) or “Other,” compared to 3.5% overall.

    The survey found more men were homeless (4,310 or 62%) than women (2,546).

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    County supervisors discussed Tuesday at a meeting about ideas to defeating homelessness. Their plan: build more affordable housing with support services.

    “Not just in Orange County, but across the state, we have a shortage of both affordable and available housing to meet the needs of our populations,” said Susan Price, the county’s coordinator of homeless services.

    Price said 600 shelter beds were created in Orange County over the last several years, in anticipation of a surge in homelessness.

    “We’re working on the system in all components…to the endgame, which is housing for everyone.”

    Other findings:

    • About one in four homeless people in Orange County – totaling 1,654 people – reported having mental health issues.

    A total of 311 homeless veterans were counted in the survey. Price said the county’s plan is to house 20 veterans per month.

    Advocates criticized the county for allowing home prices to soar in the last decade while doing very little for affordable housing. They said many of these homeless people could not afford to rent or own because of prices outpacing their wages.

    Several months ago, we cited ATTOM Data Solutions’ 2Q19 US Home Affordability Report, that said Orange County was one of the most unaffordable housing markets for the average American.

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    And it certainly seems California’s housing affordability crisis is getting worse, has resulted in an explosion in the homeless population not just in Orange County, but also in San Francisco and Los Angeles County. With no end in sight, California’s homelessness crisis is expected to deepen in the early 2020s.

  • Tulsi Gabbard Challenges Foreign-Policy Assumptions And Moves The Overton Window

    Authored by Ali A. Taj via MintPressNews.com,

    During this week’s Democratic presidential debate, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) exposed Senator Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) horrible prosecutorial record as well as her diluted and compromised solution to America’s healthcare crisis.

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    Harris failed to respond to Gabbard and, just as Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) did before her, she attacked Gabbard with the tired label of “Assad apologist,” referring to Gabbard’s questioning of the U.S. government narrative on the Syria chemical-weapons attacks as well as her attempts to foster dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Harris has also used the label in the same weaseling manner that Ryan has — when Gabbard was not present to counter it. 

    While proponents of U.S. foreign policy in Syria have used the label to smear Gabbard before, it was New York Times opinion writer Bari Weiss who arguably made famous the malign smear during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Show. When asked to explain what made Gabbard an Assad apologist, Weiss now infamously responded by calling her a “toady” of Assad. When confronted by Rogan, Weiss admitted she did not know what the term toady meant.

    Post-debate evasion and obfuscation

    Just as Weiss failed to elaborate when confronted about her name-calling of Gabbard, Harris failed to respond to Tulsi’s pointed examination of Harris’ compromised record as a prosecutor. This record, as Gabbard noted, includes the prosecution of over 1,500 people for marijuana charges (the hypocrisy of which was highlighted when Harris laughed when asked if she had herself indulged); blocking evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do; keeping people in prison beyond their sentences, to be used as cheap labor; and fighting to keep the discriminatory cash bail system in place.

    Harris also refused to prosecute Trump lackey, and current Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin for his unscrupulous use of home foreclosures for profit. As CNBC noted in January: 

    In 2012, the California Department of Justice found in an investigation that One West Bank participated in ‘widespread misconduct’ when foreclosing on homes, recommending that Harris file a civil enforcement action against the bank. However, Harris declined to prosecute One West or its then-CEO Steven Mnuchin, despite the department’s recommendation.”

    So what was Harris’ response to Gabbard’s legitimate and very specific criticisms of her record? In a post-debate interview, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asks Gabbard to comment on a characterization of her he had just elicited from Harris off-camera, recounted by Cooper as: “The only thing she [Harris] said about you is that you are essentially an apologist for Assad.”

    Cooper next repeatedly sought clarification from Gabbard as to whether she agreed with the mainstream media’s one-sided version of events in Syria. Not once, but over and over. Cooper came across as hypocritical for his arbitrary line of questioning regarding what leaders the United States could engage with. If our country can engage with Saudi despots who have dissenting journalists from the Washington Post brutally dismembered, what is his issue with Gabbard’s engagement with Assad? And, as Gabbard pointed out, if FDR could meet with, and even ally with, Josef Stalin — a man responsible for the death of millions — why shouldn’t Gabbard meet with Assad, or any other head of state, to prevent what she accurately refers to as “needless regime-change wars of intervention.”

    What Gabbard has accomplished

    For her blunt assessment of U.S. foreign policy, one that is arguably shared by a large portion of the American electorate, Gabbard is vilified or ignored by most in the mainstream media. Pundits have made careers of maligning anyone who dares go against the neoconservative gospel on foreign policy, and Gabbard, of course, is no exception. Even the late-night comedy shows avoided any significant mention of her compelling performance in their detailed summations of the second night’s debate — this despite the fact that she was the most Googled candidate during the debate.

    Tulsi Gabbard has moved the Overton window on what is acceptable discussion when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. She has punctured the rose-tinted narrative being constructed around establishment favorites like Harris. This has not endeared her to mainstream pundits like Cooper of CNN or Brian Williams of CNBC. To understand her actual positions on the U.S. role in Syria, Kim Iverson’s interview with her exemplifies how mainstream pundits should be doingtheir jobs.

  • China's Generation-Z Is Developing An Ugly Addiction To Easily-Accessible Debt

    China’s generation Z, not unlike millennials in the U.S., are developing an ugly addiction to debt. This was highlighted in a recent Bloomberg piece that highlighted examples like one 23 year old Shanghai resident who found himself $1,500 in debt to a smartphone app. 

    His spending habits are made possible buy Huabei, a credit card that’s part of Alibaba’s ecosystem. He routinely spent more than his sole source of income, which was his parents 8,000 yuan (~$1,200) monthly allowance. When fell under a pile of debt, he tried to borrow his way out of it and pay in installments. It didn’t work, and his parents had to bail him out. Hubei charged him 0.05% per day, which is about 18.25% annualized. 

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    His story is typical for China’s Generation Z. Born between the mid 90’s and early 2000’s, this generation has little income and “virtually no credit history”. But that doesn’t stop them from having access to banks, fintech startups and peer to peer lenders (in addition to other unregulated channels). 

    Formal household borrowing is now 54% of GDP in the first quarter, rising more than 4% in a year. China’s ratio is still lower than the U.S. (66%), Hong Kong (72%), or South Korea (100%) but the rapid increase is worrying regulators and analysts. Fitch said in July that periods of debt-fueled consumption “can often be followed by sharp market corrections.”

    And it’s the younger generation that’s the concern. 

    Former People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said last year that the younger generation is being prompted to overconsume from technology. And there could be consequences for the broader economy if this type of debt starts to erode household liquidity, according to the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. 

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    China, as a country, remains in the midst of a longer-term shift from an export and investment led growth model to a modern consumer economy. A consumer debt crisis would obviously throw a wrench in those gears in a big way. 

    Unsecured lending is up 20% a year in China since 2008. Services like Hubei offer revolving lines of credit for between 500 and 50,000 yuan. Balances can be repaid in monthly installments, as well. Alibaba rivals like JD.com have similar products. 

    Regulators have tried to crack down on peer to peer lending and the sector has shrunk to half of its peak size. Data showed that nearly 70% of peer to peer lenders were younger than 40. 

    The worrying part is that loans on these platforms often aren’t counted in official data. And one consulting firm says that the amount of consumer finance available through the internet will more than double, to 19 trillion yuan, by 2021.

  • 20 Dead, 26 Injured In El Paso Mall Attack, Shooter In Custody

    Live Feed:

    Summary:

    • Mass shooting at a Walmart in a mall in El Paso, Texas

    • At least 26 injured (source)

    • At least 20 dead (source) – America’s 8th deadliest mass shooting

    • One suspect in custody – 21-year-old male – Patrick Crusius (source)

    • Police do not believe there any other suspects.

    • President Trump has been briefed.

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    Update (2000ET): CNN reports that twenty people are dead and more than two dozen are injured following a shooting at a shopping complex in El Paso, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press conference on Saturday.

    “We as a state unite in support of the victims and their family members,” Abbott said.

    “We want to do all we can to assist them.”

    El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said that 26 people were wounded.

    The shooting has a “nexus to a hate crime,” according to Allen.

    The FBI cautioned that more investigative work is needed to determine whether it was a hate crime.

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    Update (1750ET): In a stunning update, NBC News reports that at least 19 people are dead and 40 injured after a shooting Saturday near a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, law enforcement officials said. One suspect, a 21-year-old man from the Dallas area, is in custody, law enforcement sources said.

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    Multiple law-enforcement sources say police have identified the suspected as Patrick Crusius.

    A second person was also taken into custody by authorities, but it is not immediately known what role, if any, the person played in the shooting, sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

    America’s deadliest modern mass shootings

    1. MGM Grand, Las Vegas, October 2, 2017: 58 killed, 527 injured.

    2. Pulse, Orlando, Fla., June 2016: 49 killed and more than 50 injured.

    3. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va., April 2007: 32 killed and 17 injured on campus.

    4. Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Conn., December 2012: 26 killed.

    5. First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, Texas, November 2017: 26 killed.

    6. Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas, October 1991: 23 killed.

    7. McDonald’s, San Ysdiro, Calif., July 1984: 21 killed.

    8. Walmart, El Paso, Texas, August 3, 2019: At least 20 killed, 26 injured.

    9. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Fla., February 2018: 17 killed.

    10. University of Texas Tower, Austin, Texas, August 1966: 16 killed around campus.

    11. Inland Regional Center, San Bernardino, Calif., December 2015: 14 killed.

    12. Edmond post office, Edmond, Okla., August 1986: 14 killed.

    13. Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas, November 2009: 13 killed.

    14. Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo., April 1999: 13 killed.

    15. Binghamton Civic Association, Binghamton, N.Y., April 2009: 13 killed.

    16. New Jersey neighborhood and local shops, Camden, N.J, September 1949: 13 killed.

    17. Schoolhouse Lane neighborhood and Heather Highlands Mobile Home Village, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., September 1982: 13 killed.

    18. Wah Mee club in the Louisa hotel, Seattle, Wash., February 1983: 13 killed.

    19. Century 16 movie theater, Aurora, Colo., July 2012: 12 killed, 58 wounded.

    20. Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., September 2013: 12 killed, 8 wounded.

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    Update (1630ET): President Trump has offered his condolences, tweeting on Saturday “Terrible shootings in ElPaso, Texas. Reports are very bad, many killed. Working with State and Local authorities, and Law Enforcement. Spoke to Governor to pledge total support of Federal Government. God be with you all!”

    Update (1500ET): AP reports that Mayor’s aide and police say multiple people were killed in an attack at an El Paso, Texas, shopping complex.

    El Paso Police confirmed one person in custody.

    Walmart has issued a statement:

    We are in shock over the tragic events at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, where Walmart store #2201 and Sam’s Club #6502 are located. We’re praying for the victims, the community and our associates, as well as the first responders who are on the scene. We’re working closely with law enforcement and will update as appropriate.

    NBC News allege this is one of the shooters:

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    Update (1400ET): Some reports claim the shooter has been caught

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    At least eighteen people have reportedly  been shot – with one killed – after an active shooter opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

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    According to a police scanner the shooter was armed with an automatic weapon, possibly an AK-47.

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    Shortly after 11am local time El Paso Police tweeted: “Active Shooting Stay away from Cielo Vista Mall Area. Scene is Still Active.”

    The Mirror reports that the shooter is reported to have opened fire in the car park before going inside the supermarket.

    Live Feed:

    The shooting comes just days after two people were shot and killed in a Walmart store in Southhaven, Mississippi, south of Memphis, and the same week that three people were shot and killed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California.

    Developing…

     

  • Hell's Top Banker Explains "How To Destroy The Global Economy"

    Bill Blain’s new book, The Fifth Horseman – How to Destroy the Global Economy, has been attracting much comment. It’s a tongue-in-cheek polemical sideswipe at Central Bankers, Regulators and Politicians for the poor and mistaken policies that have fuelled the ongoing global financial crisis since 2017.

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    Blain’s book claims to be a hack of emails and documents exchanged between Hell’s top banker and his boss as they plan to extend the crisis they created in 2007 and make it worse… Here is an excerpt…

    (Edited version of the speech given by the TJ Wormwood, Chief Demonic Officer – Finance, Lord of 3rd Ring of the 7th Circle, to invited audience at Davos.)

    Dear Colleagues,

    As you all know, I’ve been wrecking finance for millennia. [Pause for effect]

    Nearly every major big idea, evolutionary leap forward, invention and discovery has improved the miserable lot of mankind only through their ability to monetise it. Forget the theft of fire – being able to monetise fire by attracting pretty and willing mates around a warm campfire, or cooking the food others have hunted, is what mattered. Strip out the noise, and the rise of mankind is largely due to improvements in the efficiency and ease of means of exchange.

    From the realisation hunters could barter their furs for other goods, to the rise of complex products to finance global growth – the innovation of financial markets has been a major driver of success for the Other Side in raising the wellbeing and prosperity of mankind. Pretty much anything that holds back or disrupts trade, increases costs and holds back services is naturally positive for our goal of global destabilisation.

    So, here is the big plan:

    Since 2007 we’ve been turning the Other Side’s successful innovation of financial markets against them. Global Financial Markets are incredibly rich in opportunities to distort truth, hide lies, and undermine mankind – generating immediate greed, envy, suspicion and anger. We’ve uncovered previously unimaginable ways in which to financially screw the World with consequences that impact everyone.

    We’ve overlaid the programme with our mastery and understanding of temptation, human greed, avarice and pride, while adding subtlety and cunning. We merely suggest and advise. We are facilitating the train-wreck of the global economy by destroying asset values while confounding their understanding of money and wealth – the pillars of their society.

    At its simplest form we are manipulating and driving constant market instability to keep mankind distracted. Uncertainty clouds their future expectations – so we keep it raining. A Mortgage crisis one year, followed by a Sovereign Debt crisis the next, spiced with a couple of bank failures, and threats of global trade war. Overlay with confusion and distraction such as social media, fake news, Bitcoin and populism, and it all works rather well.

    Keep their leaders arguing.  Keep the blame game going. 

    Our success can be seen in current financial asset prices. These are now hopelessly inflated and distorted by foolish post financial crisis policy decisions. They are bubbles set to pop. Empower the regulators and bureaucrats to compromise finance through zealous over-regulation, making banking safer by destroying it. Usher in a new era of trade protectionism, the end of Free Trade and increase the suspicion some countries are manipulating their currencies for economic advantage. Sprinkle some dust of political catastrophe, the collapse of law, undo the fair, just and caring society, while adding some eye of newt and complex environmental threats. Make the rich so rich they don’t notice, and the poor so poor they become invisible. If the markets remain uncertain, then it distracts mankind from addressing these issues, making society less stable!

    There as some things we’re really proud of, including the Euro, Social Media, Investment Banks, the Tech Boom, and especially Quantitative Easing (which is still delivering confusion and pain). New Monetary Theory could prove even better – it shows tremendous potential to thoroughly unsettle confidence in money. Cybercurrencies are particularly fun – despite coming up with the idea, neither we, nor even the distinguished members of our panel of eternal guests, understand the why of them. They are libertarian nonsense – so, naturally we continue to encourage them as get-rich-quick schemes, but they also further undermine confidence in money and government. We made something up in a bar one night and called it a Distributed Ledger – the humans ran with it and invented Blockchain, whatever that might be..

    Some of the other stuff we’ve encouraged, such as The EU, ETFs, Hi-Frequency Trading, Neil Woodford and Deutsche Bank look likely to be highly effective vectors of short-term economic destruction and destabilisation, triggering systemic market events and regulatory backlashes across markets. We are only now exploring the full potential of market illiquidity to rob billions of pensioners of their savings.

    We’ve persuaded investors to overturn proven tried and tested investment strategies and wisdoms, nurturing a whole range of overpriced unprofitable US Tech “Unicorn” companies which we are confident will prove utterly over-hyped and largely worthless. The success of social media, data mining and new tech has increased levels of dissatisfaction and envy – especially in our target younger demography.

    The way we successfully pinned the blame on banks for the Global Financial Crisis – despite the fact it was people who wanted mortgages to buy houses and fast cars – ensured global regulators would over-react. We’ve allowed regulators to focus on banks while we target the next financial crisis in other parts of the financial ecosystem.

    Regulators forced the banks to de-risk. But risk does not disappear – it just goes somewhere else. While banks understood risk and had massive staffs to manage risk, risk is now concentrated in the hands of “investment managers” who are singularly ill-equipped to withstand the next credit crunch and global recession, (which we’ve planned for next October – Save the Date cards have been sent).

    We are particularly pleased that many banks now exceed the 2.3 compliance officers for every profitable banker ratio. Compliance and regulatory costs now exceed 10% of income at some European banks – a stunning success and substantially decreasing the efficiency of banking and exchanges.

    We’ve some great new financial ideas we are still experimenting with, some of which show great promise for further weakening society. Facebook Money is going to be a cracker, and I particularly like the Spaceship to Mars project… if only they knew what awaits them…

    By hiding inflation in the stock market, we assisted the accumulation of massive wealth by a tiny percentage of the population to ferment income inequality dissatisfaction. When capital is concentrated and the workers under the cosh, it creates all the right conditions for weak disjointed government to aid and abet the rise of destabilising populism.

    It’s highly satisfying to watch the instability we’ve created in financial markets drive fear and distrust across society. The debt crisis we engineered led to global financial austerity, job insecurity, and rising inequality. We were surprised how easily we pushed the Gig economy concept to further exploit and cow workers through regulators and authorities – they barely noticed. Over this we’ve layered whole new levels of anxiety such as the unknowns of data theft, the rise in envy coefficients through social media, fake news while fuelling social distrust through resentment.

    We’ve managed to persuade Governments to follow damaging and contradictory policies. As society reeled in the wake of the financial crisis, we persuaded policy makers to cut back spending through “austerity” spending programmes, simultaneously bailing out bankers while flooding the financial economy with free money through Quantitative Easing.

    Effectively we’ve split the world into two economies. A real economy which is sad, miserable and deflating, and a financial economy that’s insanely optimistic, massively inflated and ripe to pop on the back of free money.

    The resentment, instability, fear and general sense of decay has paid dividends in our drive to break society by undermining the credibility of the political classes. Our approach to politics has been simple – deskill the political classes, reduce their effectiveness as leaders, while engineering economic, social and financial instability to drive rampaging populist politics – just like in 1932! Populism may ultimately prove short-lived, but it’s difficult to see how the political classes will recover their power in time to reverse the damages being done to the global environment.

    While markets have burned, society become increasingly riven, and politics has failed, we’ve distracted the humans from the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which threatens to create global warming and rising sea levels, while plastics poison the oceans and soil erosion threatens agriculture.

    Now I love the ravenous hunger and sharp pointy teeth of polar bears as much as the next demon, but needs must… needs must. I was also rather fond of the dinosaurs…

    Our approach to ensuring destructive climate change has proved very effective. We’ve supported, financed and advised the loudest green lobbies to ensure their message looks ill-considered, wrong and economic suicide. We also paid big bucks to fund the loudest climate change deniers. Our innovation of fake news to discredit and mitigate anything positive means climate change remains a crank topic – even as our polar bears drown.

    Meanwhile, through our dominance of global boardrooms and investment firms, we’ve made sure that large corporates have bought-out and stifled new technologies that could solve the environmental crisis.

    Our future looks great – because their future is bleak!

    Thank you for your kind attention.

    TJ Wormwood,

    Demonic Chief Office – Finance

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    You can get your personally pixelated copy on Kindle or as a Paperback on Amazon. For less than the price of a couple of pints, you are guaranteed at least 2 laughs.. unless you are Neil Woodford or work for Deutsche or Goldman. Go on… you know it makes sense…

  • Harvard Scientists, Funded By Bill Gates, To Begin Spraying Particles Into The Sky To Dim The Sun

    Authored by Matt Agorist via TheFreeThoughtProject.com,

    Harvard has formed an advisory board to begin moving forward with their plan to spray particles into the stratosphere to test the geoengineering method of dimming the sun…

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    No, we are not a satire site. We are not a conspiracy theory site. The information you are about to read is factually accurate and 100% real despite the ostensible ‘skeptics’ who claim otherwise. The controversial subject of geoengineering or weather modification – which was popularized, and oversimplified with the term “chemtrails” – is once again stepping from the shadows and into the light of public scrutiny. And it may soon be a reality as Harvard scientists plan first ever experiment to spray particles in the sky to dim the sun.

    What was once a conspiracy theory is now the subject of congressional debate, peer-reviewed studies, and now a Harvard experiment. Harvard scientists will attempt to replicate the climate-cooling effect of volcanic eruptions with a world-first solar geoengineering experiment. The university announced this month that it has created an external advisory panel to examine the potential ethical, environmental and geopolitical impacts of this geoengineering project, which has been developed by the university’s researchers.

    According to Nature Magazine, Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the California Strategic Growth Council, a state agency that promotes sustainability and economic prosperity, will lead the Harvard advisory panel, the university said on 29 July. The other seven members include Earth-science researchers and specialists in environmental and climate law and policy.

    What was once a conspiracy theory will soon be a reality—any day now.

    Known as the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), the experiment will spray calcium carbonate particles high above the earth to mimic the effects of volcanic ash blocking out the sun to produce a cooling effect.

    The experiment was announced in Nature magazine last year, who was one of few outlets to look into this unprecedented step toward geoengineering the planet.

    If all goes as planned, the Harvard team will be the first in the world to move solar geoengineering out of the lab and into the stratosphere, with a project called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx). The first phase — a US$3-million test involving two flights of a steerable balloon 20 kilometres above the southwest United States — could launch as early as the first half of 2019. Once in place, the experiment would release small plumes of calcium carbonate, each of around 100 grams, roughly equivalent to the amount found in an average bottle of off-the-shelf antacid. The balloon would then turn around to observe how the particles disperse.

    Naturally, the experiment is concerning to many people, including environmental groups, who, according to Nature, say such efforts are a dangerous distraction from addressing the only permanent solution to climate change: reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

    The idea of injecting particles into the atmosphere to cool the earth also seems outright futile considering what scientists are trying to mimic—volcanic eruptions. If we look at the second largest eruption of the 20th century, Mount Pinatubo, which erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it injected 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide aerosols into the stratosphere. Scientists from the USGS estimated that this 20 million tons only lowered the temperature of the planet by about 1°F (0.5°C) and this only lasted a year because the particles eventually fell to back to Earth.

    The Harvard team, led by scientists Frank Keutsch and David Keith, has been working on the SCoPEx project for several years but they haven’t always been in total agreement. In fact, as Nature reported, Keutsch—who is not a climate scientist—previously thought the idea to be “totally insane.” But he’s since changed his mind. As Nature reports:

    When he saw Keith talk about the SCoPEx idea at a conference after starting at Harvard in 2015, he says his initial reaction was that the idea was “totally insane”. Then he decided it was time to engage. “I asked myself, an atmospheric chemist, what can I do?” He joined forces with Keith and Anderson, and has since taken the lead on the experimental work.

    Adding to the questionable nature of this experiment is the fact that it is largely funded by none other than Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates. Gates is no stranger to funding controversial experiments as he’s publicly funded many of them including one that would implant devices into babies to automatically give them vaccines. 

    While the Harvard team’s experiment may sound like something out of a dystopian science fiction movie, the reality is that it has long been on the table of governments and think tanks from around the world. In fact, just last November, a study published in Environmental Research Letters, talked about doing the exact same thing—geoengineering and planes spraying particulates into the atmosphere to curb global warming.

    What’s more, that study echoed the sentiments of then-CIA director John Brennan when he addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in 2016, detailing a similar process of spraying chemical particulates in the atmosphere to cool the planet.

    At the meeting, Brennan addressed instability and transnational threats to global security at a meeting with the Council on Foreign Relations. During his long-winded talk of threats to US interests and how the largely CIA-created ISIL threat is impacting the world, Brennan brought up the topic of geoengineering.

    Another example is the array of technologies—often referred to collectively as geoengineering—that potentially could help reverse the warming effects of global climate change. One that has gained my personal attention is stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, a method of seeding the stratosphere with particles that can help reflect the sun’s heat, in much the same way that volcanic eruptions do.

    Brennan went on to echo the calls from some scientists who have called for aerial spraying.

    An SAI program could limit global temperature increases, reducing some risks associated with higher temperatures and providing the world economy additional time to transition from fossil fuels. The process is also relatively inexpensive—the National Research Council estimates that a fully deployed SAI program would cost about $10 billion yearly.

    Again, this is not some conspiracy theory. Watch him say all of this in the video below starting at the 12:05 marker.

    The extent to which Brennan talked about stratospheric aerosol injection shows that he and the CIA have likely been considering this for some time.

    Although we are hearing more and more talk about geoengineering, it has been around for a very long time and not just in the realm of conspiracy theories. In fact, scientists have already suggested that it could be going on right now, unintentionally.

    Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are suggesting contrails from airplanes may be inadvertently geoengineering the skies.

    Chuck Long is a researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory at the University of Colorado in Boulder. At the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in 2015, Long and his team released their paper, “Evidence of Clear-Sky Daylight Whitening: Are we already conducting geoengineering?” The analysis found that vapor from airplanes may be altering the climate through accidental geoengineering.

    To be clear, no one here is claiming to be an expert on climate change or the effects of geoengineering. But one thing is clear and it’s the fact that there is still much to be debated and learned before humans deliberately begin altering Earth’s climate. Aside from doing nothing to curb carbon emissions, if we are so quick to jump on this method, it could set off a chain reaction that could prove to be catastrophic.

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