Mar 04

Today’s News 4th March 2019

  • The Fourth Turning & The Case Against Cities

    Via HardScrabbleFarmer.com,

    Historians spend a great deal of time on the subject of cities. Rome, Athens, Constantinople, London, Tokyo, Cairo, New York and Moscow. It is as if the stuff that is most worthwhile is the density of the population, those locations where people lived closely packed together rather than the substance of the people who lived everywhere in between. It would appear that all the significant events and accomplishments of a people throughout history are focused on urban centers and as a result we have convinced ourselves that it is and has always been the cities that define a society.

    Our perception of urban living versus rural is often defined by the culture shapers — politicians, academics, corporations and media. Rarely are the populations who inhabit the different regions asked about the impact of those decisions on their quality of life. They accept the paradigm into which they were born or they convince themselves that the alternatives are much worse than what they face living in densely populated urban centers.

    We seem to readily accept that economic advantages of living in a city far outstrip the opportunities of living in the country, that the benefits of culture — museums and symphonies, for example — are unavailable to anyone who does not live where these attractions are located. There is an almost equal enthusiasm for certain benefits of urbanity, like diversity, that manifest as many, if not more drawbacks to a good life depending on how the effects of that mix manifests itself in good times and in bad. What one gains in access to a varied selection of cuisines is offset by what one must deal with when communication between diverse groups is not possible due to language or cultural differences. While the former are often cited as beneficial, the latter is never mentioned except where it can be used to shame or ridicule anyone who objects. Under social and economic stresses those features such as clannish or tribal behaviors emerge and create fractures along a number of fault lines.

    In reviewing the challenges of a stressed and divided society like America in the 21st century, we must consider which behaviors and choices bear the greatest responsibility for those problems. While experts most often point the finger at those who are resistant to change, as if change itself is always beneficial and stasis is always a negative, it doesn’t mean that they are correct in their estimation. While it is difficult to prove that there is a net benefit to de-urbanization, it is very easy to prove that there are far more negatives associated with increased urbanization.

    Let’s start with a few basic facts concerning the variables between the two.

    According to the US Census nearly two-thirds of Americans live in an urban environment. That area represents less than one fiftieth of the inhabitable land available for habitation and when we look at the numbers, it becomes far more stark. The population of large cities with over one million inhabitants is over 7,000 per square mile, while in rural areas that figure drops to 35.

    200:1 is a variable that presents quite a few challenges, most of which are environmental.

    Everyone who has ever visited or seen a CAFO where livestock are kept prior to slaughter for fattening can tell you that the single most recognizable factor is the waste. In rural areas where a single family inhabits the same amount of space that would fit 150 inhabitants in a city, there is adequate drainage and soil to accommodate their waste with little or no effect on the environment. In a city there exists no spare land to accommodate any waste disposal and so virtually all excess waste must be treated at an extremely high cost with an even greater amount of material that must be relocated away from the urban source. This goes for solid wastes as well as human waste. Urbanized setting cannot dispose of their detritus without reliance on rural areas to distribute those accumulated wastes. Because of the volume produced, there is virtually little chance of any of that being dealt with organically, i.e. allowing for nature to metabolize the wastes, rather they must be buried in landfills creating huge toxic storage issues that will take centuries rather than days to dissipate.

    Cities likewise are incapable of producing even a fraction of what they consume. Urban farming accounts for at best 5% of their total needs making them dependent upon their rural counterparts for 95% of their nutritional requirements. Cities, quite simply, cannot feed themselves nor dispose of their own waste while rural areas have close to zero dependence on urban enclaves for either of the two.

    Rural areas of the United States of America enjoy a much higher quality of life than urbanized area by a large margin. Crime rates are three times higher in cities, while tax rates are doubled. The income necessary to maintain a standard of living in a city is 35% higher than someone living in a rural area. In terms of pure economics whatever advantage higher salaries provide to urban dwellers, it is offset by a factor of almost 3 to 1 and this is based only on six raw data points; energy, housing, food, medical care, taxes, and public services. It fails to take into account the radical differences in what urban people must spend on additional factors associated with urban dwelling, like additional security, fees, and medications (urbanites have a 40% higher incidence of anxiety and psychological issues than their rural counterparts as well as an STD rate over five times higher.

    Overall the quality of life for rural inhabitants scores fifty percent higher than those who live in the city. While none of these are definitive proof that rural life is objectively better — there are people who thrive in high anxiety, isolation and close proximity to strangers at a higher cost, most human beings seem inclined to live in a peaceful setting with higher ratio of income to expenditures. Proponents of urban living will often point to areas that rural environments do not possess, such as public transportation, diversity (higher percentage of non-natives), and cultural institutions, they do not factor in the costs as opposed to their uses. For example people will tout the fact that the NYC Metropolitan Opera features a valuable resource for those who live in NYC. The truth is that with their 3,800 seat capacity and 200 performance season, less than 1 in 15 New Yorkers would ever have the chance to attend a single performance even if they wanted to, far less when you subtract season ticket holders and out of town ticket buyers. Just because a resource exists in an area does not mean that it will ever be utilized except by a small fraction of the urban population. And in no way are those from the rural regions unable to travel into the city for expressly those purposes, so such claims of urban advantage are specious at best.

    It should also be noted that there are significant demographic aberrations in urban versus rural areas, especially in regards to age. Urban populations are much younger than rural ones and skewed to the advantage of younger females. Anyone who has ever made it to adulthood understands what draws young men to a specific place and that is available young females. As old courtship rights were eroded over the last century, especially in regards to the rise of feminism, and loosened standards in terms of sexual availability cities have acted as a magnet for unattached men and women. Similarly the numbers of in tact families is equally skewed with far more living in rural areas than their equal aged cohort in the city. Urban divorce rates are twice that of the country and people who live in the country are ten times as likely to live with a multi-generational extended family than in a city. In addition the number of newly arrived immigrants found in cities dwarves the number located in the countryside as well as second and third generation immigrants. To find someone who speaks the same language, shares the same values, and believes in the same principles you are far more likely to encounter them the further you move from the cities. There are few other considerations that show any of the correlating demographic idiosyncrasies than those demonstrated by the urban/rural divide.

    Of course we can try to do what most economists would do in looking at this issue and most of them would point to the productivity and dollar value of each particular region. Cities, they will say, create more dollars per square foot than the rest of the country combined, but they never mention the difference between the source of those dollars. The country produces the ores that become raw materials to fulfill the demands of industry, they produce the overwhelming majority of sustenance, they produce the majority the energy that propels the engine of the economy and the vast majority of the tradesmen that build and maintain the infrastructure. Cities produce an overwhelming majority of those on various kinds of relief, government employees, attorneys and those who work in the financial service sector, none of which create anything of tangible value. One cannot survive long without nourishment but no lives are dependent on notional trading of derivatives or arcane regulations regarding tort law. Cities are the centers of specialization while the countryside is the seedbed of the generalist. Those who live in the city are five times more likely to call a plumber, electrician or tradesmen to perform basic tasks than a rural resident. The majority of all US Patents are held by someone who was born and raised in a rural environment and most of the greatest developments of the past two hundred years were the result of people reared on farms; Whitney, Deere, Bell, Edison, Ford, Browning, Eastman, Farnsworth and Howe are but a fraction of the names of those whose roots and generalist approach to life allowed them to create innovative and groundbreaking technologies, while most of what takes place in the cities is a form of refinement of those creations. Specialists have their place, especially in areas like surgery and engineering, but the origin of their fields always have their roots in the soil.

    Human beings possess an innate and powerful drive towards concern for their fellow man. In the country if some sees an accident or a fire the first impulse is always to stop and render aid. It is a rare time when someone in need is ignored in a rural community. In the streets of most major cities the population has inured itself to the sight of human suffering and want. They step over the homeless, pretend they don’t notice the piles of human waste or puddles of urine, blithely stare off into space when someone exhibits signs of mental illness or emotional instability and walk away from random acts of violence. The internet is full of videos of beatdowns, assaults, meltdowns in public places, destruction of businesses, flash mobs and every other form of delinquency but only rarely do these occur in rural settings. It is the desensitized population that makes most of these acts possible despite the fact that the perpetrators are almost always far outnumbered by passerby. Their ability to compartmentalize the vast numbers of human interactions they have every day leaves them numb to their genetic predisposition towards altruism and empathy. People who lack empathy and concern for their fellow human beings cannot be expected to make decisions that would benefit anyone other than themselves. Part of the demographic slant in elections — the majority of Democratic voters live in urban areas while the majority of Republican voters live in rural areas with income, sex and age playing a distant second, third and fourth in terms of political affiliation. Interestingly enough the more dependent upon others someone is, the more likely they are to live in a city, thus the need to vote for increasing government involvement in their lives.

    There are certainly more areas where the distinctions between the urban and the rural can be observed, but perhaps none more important than the disconnect between human beings and their natural environment. Human beings were adapted to live in accordance with the seasons and the environment in which they lived. The very advance of human civilization rested almost entirely upon his ability to create surplus food stores in order to survive in year round settlements. These centers became the hub of both agriculture and the domestication of animal species and from that came every conceivable advance and achievement we have ever made since then. The development of mathematics, written language, metallurgy, construction, engineering, medicine, all of them were a direct result of living in tune with the observable world of nature. Urban living divorces human populations of everything from the source of their daily nourishment to the elimination of their wastes. They turn on their lights without knowing where the source of that energy comes from, running in the rivers or buried in the coal seams of some distant wooded hillbillyville, they turn on their tap for their water unaware of its origins in the distant mountains of flyover country.

    They are as dependent as babies on the material resources of the places they make fun of, incapable of feeding themselves or of cleaning up their own mess. They make more waste, use more resources, produce fewer necessities, consume more luxuries, have greater disparities between the economic classes, fewer intact families, experience far more crime and pay a higher price to adjudicate it, then ship off their offenders to prisons in the hinterlands where the rubes are hired as custodians to the human effluent of the cities. You can hear sirens 24/7 but you cannot see the stars at night. There is no such thing as silence, privacy is almost nil, personal space is reduced, self-reliance almost unknown. In most cities you do not have the right to arm yourself for defense against the criminal population that far exceeds that of the rural regions. Virtually every transaction in the city is economic with very few people doing business outside of their own very small circles. For all of their cosmopolitan posturing their social circles are 30% smaller than the average inhabitant of a town with 2,000 or fewer inhabitants. They are, in fact, the most provincial of peoples despite living in the most crowded environments.

    I have lived in a multitude of places over the course of my life and have seen far more of the United States than the most seasoned travelers. I’ve lived in the center of the largest metropolis on the east coast and now choose to live in a New England village with a seasonal population that never exceeds 2,500 residents in an area twice the size of Manhattan. Our choice to live this way was predicated not upon an economic necessity, nor on an historic attachment to place, but rather as a deliberate choice based on what we wanted to best experience a better way of life. Our economic standard dropped significantly but so did our expenditures. Our physical health improved markedly, our relationships with each other and our children has been greatly enhanced, and our connection to those who live around us, friends, neighbors and the community at large has been nothing short of miraculous. Peace is plentiful, crime is not a concern, freedom to do what we want when we want to has increased and we feel like we have lost nothing in the exchange. Try as I might there are only a few things I can think of as being a loss to us; a good pizza, variety of restaurants, and the friends and family we left behind. Beyond that there is nothing I can think of worth noting and under no circumstance would we ever consider moving back.

    The historians rarely concern themselves with life in the provinces, where the toil and sweat of the creator classes accumulated the surpluses that allowed cities to exist in the first place, to flourish and become the centers of civilization we think of today. Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Shanghai and Baghdad. They focus on the remnants of collapsed citadels, shrines and fortresses. Those places that served both to celebrate the accomplishments of the nations and principalities that gave birth to them, and their glory are all ruins today. As much as they were lighthouses to the young and the ambitious of each generation, so too were they the fire that drew attention from afar. Eventually the complex business of moving paper and money, of accumulating wealth and building shrines to their hubris always runs its eventual course. And as the lines of supply are cut off, either through inattention or rebellion, the dependent urban centers begin to feed on themselves, leaving them vulnerable to the predations of those who hunger for a taste of their flesh. And all that endures and comes to life amongst the derelict bones of an extinct metropolis are the sons and daughters of those who preserved their independence and traditions in the far flung country of the rural world.

    Nothing lasts forever and the accelerating pace of domestic instability demonstrates just how fragile our social fabric is. As we enter the maelstrom of the Fourth Turning anything can happen. The Empire and its narrative struggle to maintain legitimacy in a time of universal corruption. All declines follow a similar path and once the collapse occurs events pick up speed leaving everyone who has failed to prepare caught unaware. The cities are the least secure location during such periods and only those who manage to find a place out of the reach of those who tear down the walls of our civilization will be safe.

    Take everything into consideration, but prepare for anything. Your life may depend upon it.

  •  US Navy Declares F-35C Stealth Fighter "Ready For Combat"

    The Commander, Naval Air Forces and the U.S. Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Aviation published a statement last week declaring its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35C stealth fighter jets is operationally ready for war.

    After several decades of testing and development, the service announced Thursday that the fifth-generation fighter had achieved Initial Operating Capability, indicating that it has passed all tests to be flown on combat missions.

    Thursday’s announcement came after a squadron of the F-35Cs qualified and deployed with the San Diego-based Nimitz-class supercarrier, Carl Vinson.

    “The F-35C is ready for operations, ready for combat and ready to win,” said Commander Naval Air Forces, Vice Admiral DeWolfe Miller. “We are adding an incredible weapon system into the arsenal of our Carrier Strike Groups that significantly enhances the capability of the joint force.”

    Lockheed Martin, one of the Pentagon’s top defense suppliers, designed three variants of the plane: the F-35A for the Air Force, F-35B for the Marine Corps, and F-35C for the Navy.

    “We congratulate the Department of the Navy on achieving Initial Operational Capability with its fleet of F-35Cs,” Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin vice president and general manager of the F-35 program, said in a statement.

    “This milestone is the result of unwavering dedication from our joint government and industry team focused on delivering the most lethal, survivable and connected fighter jet in the world to the men and women of the US Navy,” he added.

    Promoted as the world’s most advanced fifth-generation fighter, the F-35 is a deadly and versatile aircraft that combines stealth capabilities, Mach 1.6 supersonic speed, extreme maneuvering, and state-of-the-art sensors. The F-35C has been a favorite of President Donald Trump, whom last year lauded the plane for being “invisible.”

    Rear Admiral Dale Horan, director, USN F-35C Fleet Integration Office said, “The F-35C will revolutionize capability and operating concepts of aircraft carrier-based naval aviation using advanced technologies to find, fix and assess threats and, if necessary, track, target and engage them in all contested environments,” adding “This accomplishment represents years of hard work on the part of the F-35 Joint Program Office and Naval Aviation Enterprise. Our focus has now shifted to applying lessons learned from this process to future squadron transitions, and preparing VFA-147 for their first overseas deployment.”

    However, the stealth jet, which is the most expensive US defense program in history (valued at an acquisition cost of $406.5 billion), has had a long list of setbacks — including problems with the software, engines and weapon systems. 

    Moreover, critics have expressed skepticism about the F-35’s combat capability despite reassurances by Lockheed and Pentagon officials who say the difficulties are being fixed.

    As to why the US Navy has declared the F-35C ready for war, well, Zerohedge readers must turn their attention to China.

    Washington has been surrounding China with various forms of the plane, in other words, the Pentagon is building an F-35 friend circle with countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia.

    While China is no sitting duck in the potential clash with the US stealth jets in the South and the East China Sea, or even the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese have developed a fifth-generation fighter of their own, dubbed the J-20.

    The outlook is very clear: The Pentagon is preparing its best fifth-generation fighters for a conflict in the East.

  • The Future Of The Middle-East: The Astana Trio Versus The Warsaw Debacle

    Via GEFIRA,

    While on February 13/14 Warsaw, Poland, hosted the US-sponsored and US-supervised Middle East conference – well attended by the representatives of the Arab countries but only by second-trier EU diplomats; the Astana Trio – Russia, Turkey and Iran – held theirs in the resort city of Sochi (the venue of the 2016 Winter Olympics).

    While the Warsaw event for all purposes and intentions was held to drum up support for a joint action against Tehran, the rival Sochi meeting addressed the on-the-ground situation in war-torn Syria, the makeup of the country’s future government, the formation of the constitutional committee, the restoration of the basic infrastructure in terms of water and electricity supply systems and the voluntary return of the many refugees.

    Warsaw and Sochi, two simultaneous games of chess with two sets of chess pawns, swearing allegiance to different sovereigns or to none at all. Turkey, though formally a NATO member, used the occasion to strengthen its ties with Russia rather than its military ally the United States. Israel, though no NATO member, used the occasion of the Warsaw gathering to form a crusade against Iran, eliciting NATO countries’ aid; the European Union members, though predominantly members of the Atlantic Treaty, distanced themselves from the Middle East conference with Germany, as is known, continuing to cooperate with Russia over natural gas supplies.

    Israel – and what follows the United States – has a keen interest in neutralizing Iran, whereas the Astana Trio (named so after the initial venue of the three in Astana, Kazakhstan) sought to capitalize on Assad’s success in the civil war and the resultant American pullout.

    Germany, France and the United Kingdom are playing into the hands of the Erdoğan-Putin-Rouhani axis in refraining from backing the Israeli-led orchestration of diplomatic steps aimed against Tehran.

    One may wonder whether or not Benjamin Netanyahu’s objective to rally support for his middle East policy misfired; there is something that the Israeli prime minister has achieved. Having hijacked the Visegrad Group of countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) in that his proposal to hold the group’s meting in Israel (of all the places) was accepted (whatever for?), he drove a wedge between Warsaw and the remaining members of the Group by offending Poles with the accusations of antisemitism and thus forcing them to break ranks with Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary still willing to participate in the V4 gathering in Israel. Iran may be a contentious issue in the Middle East and a threat to Israeli existence but the Jews worldwide have also set their sights on extorting from Poland a few billions of dollars as damages for Jewish property lost during World War Two in Polish territory. A politically isolated Poland is more likely to fall prey to the extortion and one may rest assured that it certainly will not stop supporting Israel.

    The two meetings showed the emergence of three political constellations:

    (i) the European Union (with Poland falling between two stools with its loyalties divided between Brussels and Washington),

    (ii) the United States and Israel,

    (iii) and the Astana Trio.

    Tel Aviv has failed to create anti-Iranian coalition (as for now) but has succeeded in isolating Poland from its V4 allies and pressed further with the agenda of making it pay for Jewish property; the European Union has managed to operate independently of the United States; Turkey, Russia and Iran have coordinated their efforts to achieve a workable solution in Syria; the conference has turned out to be of no avail to the United States; the rift between Washington, Brussels and Ankara – NATO members – has grown larger.

  • Voters Would Overwhelmingly Reject "Socialists" And Candidates "Over 75", Poll Shows

    Bernie Sanders might be leading in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire – polls that typically limit respondents to likely Democratic primary voters. But the chances that Americans will embrace a septuagenarian “Democratic Socialist” should he somehow win the nomination remain as uncertain as ever (even as some twitter wits continue to insist that “Bernie would have won” in 2016).

    But in the latest indication that the odds in the general election would be heavily stacked against Bernie, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that only 25% of respondents ranked “socialist” as a desirable trait for a candidate. And only 37% said “someone over 75” would be a desirable candidate, according to Bloomberg.

    Meanwhile, more voters said they would accept a candidate who was gay or a lesbian, or an Independent under the age of 40. Critically, the survey showed that 41% of voters would definitely or likely vote for Trump in 2020, while 48% said they would probably vote for the Democratic candidate.

    Sanders

    But, in a possible silver lining for Sanders and his “political revolution”, 55% of voters said they would support a candidate who would implement major changes (as Trump did), vs. 42% who said they wouldn’t.

    “We’re getting early signals from Democratic primary voters that they are looking for bigger change and someone who agrees with them on policy,” said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who worked on the survey.

    Republicans in the White House, Congress and in the media have made “socialism” a significant point of attack as the election draws closer, ripping proposals for expanded access to Medicare, the so-called Green New Deal, and other Democratic priorities.

    And though only 41% of respondents said they would support Trump in 2020, a majority said they had a favorable view of the Trump economy, and few expect a recession in the coming year.

    “As long as these economic numbers look like this, that always keeps an incumbent president in the race,” McInturff said.

    In a sign that the prospective candidacy of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has actually soured Americans on third-party candidates, only 38% of respondents said they would support a third-party candidate in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating ticked higher in January from 43% to 46%.

    As at least one well-funded independent – former Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz – considers jumping into the race, only 38 percent of Americans said the two-party system is seriously broken and that the U.S. needed a third party. But that was the highest percentage on the question in a poll that dates back to 1995.

    Trump’s approval rating ticked up to 46 percent from 43 percent in January. He had the support of 88 percent of Republicans. Thirty-seven percent of GOP primary voters said they’d like to see another Republican challenge Trump in 2020, while 59 percent said they were opposed to that.

    The NBC/WSJ poll of 900 adults was conducted Feb. 24-27 and had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. The survey also measured 720 registered voters including primary voters from both parties with higher margins of error.

    In summary, Democratic voters only know that they want a candidate who will shake things up. Meanwhile, Republicans overwhelmingly support President Trump.

  • Poisoning The Public: Toxic Agrochemicals And Regulators' Collusion With Industry

    Authored by Colin Todhunter via Off-Guardian.org,

    In January 2019, campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman accusing European regulatory agencies of collusion with the agrochemicals industry. This was in the wake of an important paper by Charles Benbrook on the genotoxicity of glyphosate-based herbicides that appeared in the journal ‘Environmental Sciences Europe’.

    In an unusual step, the editor-in-chief of that journal, Prof Henner Hollert, and his co-author, Prof Thomas Backhaus, issued a strong statement in support of the acceptance of Dr Benbrook’s article for publication. In a commentary published in the same issue of the journal, they write:

    “We are convinced that the article provides new insights on why different conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and GBHs [glyphosate-based herbicides] were reached by the US EPA and IARC. It is an important contribution to the discussion on the genotoxicity of GBHs.”

    The IARC’s (International Agency for Research on Cancer) evaluation relied heavily on studies capable of shedding light on the distribution of real-world exposures and genotoxicity risk in exposed human populations, while the EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) evaluation placed little or no weight on such evidence.

    Up to that point, Dr Mason had been writing to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EU Commission for an 18-month period, challenging them about ECHA’s positive assessment of glyphosate. Many people around the world had struggled to understand how and why the US EPA and the EFSA concluded that glyphosate is not genotoxic (damaging to DNA) or carcinogenic, whereas the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency, the IARC, came to the opposite conclusion.

    The IARC stated that the evidence for glyphosate’s genotoxic potential is “strong” and that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. While IARC referenced only peer-reviewed studies and reports available in the public literature, the EPA relied heavily on unpublished regulatory studies commissioned by pesticide manufacturers.

    In fact, 95 of the 151 genotoxicity assays cited in the EPA’s evaluation were from industry studies (63%), while IARC cited 100% public literature sources. Another important difference is that the EPA focused its analysis on glyphosate in its pure chemical form, or ‘glyphosate technical’. The problem with that is that almost no one is exposed to glyphosate alone. Applicators and the public are exposed to complete herbicide formulations consisting of glyphosate plus added ingredients (adjuvants). The formulations have repeatedly been shown to be more toxic than glyphosate in isolation.

    REJECTION OF DR MASON’S COMPLAINT

    The European Ombudsman has now rejected Rosemary Mason’s complaint who has in turn written a 25-page response documenting the wide-ranging impacts of glyphosate-based Roundup and other agrochemicals on human health and the environment. She also outlines the various levels of duplicity that have allowed many of these chemicals to remain on the commercial market.

    Mason is led to conclude that, due to the rejection of her complaint (as with others lodged by her to the Ombudsman), the European Ombudsman Office is also part of the problem and is essentially colluding with European pesticide regulatory authorities. Mason has addressed this concern directly to Emily O’Reilly, who currently holds the post of European Ombudsman:

    In your rejection of all my complaints over the last few years, it is clear that The Ombudsman’s Office is protecting the European pesticides regulatory authorities, who are in turn being controlled by the European Glyphosate Task Force…. You have turned a blind eye to the authorisation of many of the toxic pesticides that are on the market today because industry is being allowed to self-regulate.”

    Some of the key points, claims and issues raised in Mason’s new report ‘The European Ombudsman is colluding with the European Pesticide Regulatory Authorities’ include:

    • The European pesticide regulatory authorities and the European Ombudsman is colluding with industry, resulting in the poisoning of humans and the environment

    • Cancer Research UK is not addressing the impact of agrochemicals because it is heavily compromised by industry interests and therefore claims, “there is little evidence that pesticides cause cancer”

    • The UK Science Media Centre is an industry lobby organisation, which feeds the wider media and its journalists with misleading and false information about agrochemicals

    • Industry group the European Glyphosate Task Force (GTF) has been instrumental in ensuring the re-licensing of glyphosate in the EU

    • Maladministration and criminal collusion with the agrochemicals industry resulted in the renewal of glyphosate registration in the EU

    • The report touches on the condemnation of the ECHA’s positive classification of glyphosate by the judges of the International Monsanto Tribunal

    • The global insect apocalypse and the impact of intensive agriculture and pesticides is catastrophic

    • Children and adults have diminished mental acuity and exhibit increasing levels of mental health disorders, depression, suicides and anxiety as a result of exposure to agrochemicals

    • Monsanto’s sealed secret studies shows the company knew about impact of its product on cancers and eye damage

    • The report mentions UN expert on Toxins Baskut Tuncak’s call to put children’s health before pesticides

    • Mason outlines the poisoning of British food: breakfast cereals have shockingly high levels of glyphosate

    • She notes that 30,000 doctors and health professionals in Argentina have demanded a ban on glyphosate

    • Brazil’s National Cancer Institute statement that genetically modified crops are causing of massive pesticide use

    • The independence of regulatory decisions made by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) has been marred by political donations to Labor and the Coalition. In the 2017-18 financial year, Bayer donated $40,600 to Labor and $42,540 to the Coalition, with CropLife donating $34,271 to Labor and $22,300 to the Coalition

    • As a result, APVMA is allowing clothianidin and Roundup to be applied to crops in low lying areas which drains into The Great Barrier Reef

    • In turn, the poisoning of The Great Barrier Reef is taking place due to the impact of herbicides and long-acting insecticides

    There are numerous other important points and issues tackled in the report, which readers are urged to read in full. Mason names key individuals and provides all relevant links to research, reports and papers. You can access the report below. You can also access Dr Mason’s many other documents here.

    Read Rosemary Mason’s new report The European Ombudsman is colluding with the European Pesticide Regulatory Authorities here.

  • China's Employed Population Shrinks For The First Time Ever

    China’s imminent, and historic conversion from a current account surplus to deficit nation is not the only “tectonic shift” taking place in the world’s most populous nation. According to the latest census data from its National Bureau of Services, China’s employed population has shrunk for the first time ever on record, and at the end of 2018, the number of people employed fell to 776 million, a drop of 540,000 from 2017.

    Meanwhile, in yet another sign that China’s population is aging rapidly, the broader working-age population, or people between the ages of 16 and 59, also shrank for the seventh consecutive year, down a total of 2.8% from 2011 to 2018 according to Caixing. Last year’s China’s total working-age population stood at 897 million, down 5 million from 902 million in 2017, according to the NBS.

    Li Xiru, director of the Population and Employment Department at NBS, warned last month that the employed population would further drop in the coming years.

    While China is already beset with a myriad of economic and asset price bubbles, most notably a massive corporate debt load and a still gargantuan shadow banking system both of which it has to balance against an unprecedented housing bubble to avoid a collapse in the financial system sparking a “working class insurrection“, the country’s shrinking work force creates even more headaches for officials as it pushes up labor costs, sparking inflationary pressures and placing more strains on an economy already struggling against external headwinds.

    As China Daily reported recently, the shortage of workforce means labor cost will continue to increase and industrial transfer and technology will substitute workers. And since university graduates – who expect far higher wages – account for nearly half of the labor force entering the market, the market is unable to provide traditional industries with the required number of workforce and the past high-input economic development mode is unsustainable.

    The futures is even bleaker: the working-age population is expected to see a sharp drop from 830 million in 2030 to 700 million in 2050 at a declining speed of 7.6 million every year, said Li Zhong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, in July. Meanwhile, with decreasing supply of labor force, the salary of all industries grew at a rate of 11.3 percent in 2011, 10.5 percent in 2012, and 9.7 percent in 2013, said Zeng, adding that as a result many foreign enterprises left China and shifted to Southeast China due to rising labor cost.

    Adding to the warnings, back in 2015, the World bank cautioned that China’s working age population will fall more than 10% by 2040 in spite of a recent relaxation of its one child policy, heightening the risk of the world’s most populous country “getting old before getting rich”.

    A further decline of 10% would equate to a net loss of 90 million Chinese workers, a number greater than the population of Germany, and is consistent with demographic pressures across East Asia. The working populations of South Korea, Thailand and Japan are also expected to fall by 10 per cent or more over the next 25 years.

    “East Asia has undergone the most dramatic demographic transition we have ever seen,” said Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank regional vice-president. “All developing countries in the region risk getting old before getting rich.”

    As of 2010, almost 40% of all people on the planet aged 65 or older — some 211 million individuals — lived in East Asia, and the World Bank estimates that a least a dozen East Asian countries will see the percentage of their populations aged 65 or higher double to 14 per cent in a quarter century or less. In France and the US, the same transformation took 115 and 69 years respectively

    “As [countries] get richer, fertility falls,” said Philip O’Keefe, lead author of the World Bank report. “Given China’s current fertility [rates], you may get a temporary uptick in people who wanted to have a second child having one, but we don’t see a big long-term impact there.”

    O’Keefe cited surveys showing that only a quarter of Chinese people eligible to have a second child would in fact do so, however according to recent data, despite China’s relaxation of the infamous “one-child policy”, local birth rates have remained stagnant and in fact, in 2018 China’s birth rate dropped to a new record low.

    Commenting on China’s demographic collapse, Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irving, said: “Decades of social and economic transformations have prepared an entirely new generation in China, for whom marriage and childbearing no longer have the importance they once did for their parents’ generation.”

    The World Bank urged East Asian governments to embrace immigration as one tactic to counter falling population pressures, noting that more than 20% of Australians and New Zealanders — and 40% of Singaporeans — were immigrants, although Europeans may offer some counterpoints against opening up one territory to a flood of foreigners…

    “Demography is a powerful force in development but it is not destiny,” Mr O’Keefe said. “Through their policy choices, governments can help societies adapt to rapid ageing.”

    Of course, besides demographics, China’s transformation into the next Japan has major, and potentially dire, consequences for the local economy. As we reported back in October via Econimica, the 0-to-24 year old Chinese population swelled by over 300 million from 1950 to it’s ultimate peak in 1991.  Since that peak, the total population of young in China has fallen by 176 million, or a 30% decline in the number of children across China.  Moving forward, the UN has expressed hopes the formal elimination of the one child policy would simply slow the rate of decline in the population…but by no means will China’s fast declining childbearing population (those aged 15-44) nor disproportionately young male population potentially be offset by a slightly less negative birth rate.  Contrast that with the quantity of debt being forcibly injected into a nation that faces a massive imminent population decline.

    To put that debt into perspective, the chart below shows that total debt and annual GDP each divided by the 0 to 24 year old Chinese population.  As of 2018, every child and young adult in China under the age of 25 is presently responsible for over $100 thousand dollars in debt while the annual economic activity (GDP) created by all this debt continues to lag ever faster. 

    And the coming decade only worsens as the young population continues its unabated fall and debt creation (absent concomitant economic growth) continues soaring… building more capacity all for a population that is set to collapse.

    China’s predicament and reaction to it are not particularly unique…but given China’s size, the ultimate global impact of China’s slow motion train wreck will be unprecedented… particularly as their 15 to 64 year old population is now in indefinite decline.  Chart below shows annual change in Chinese 15 to 64 year old population, in both millions (green columns) and percentage (blue line).

    Simply said, without a dramatic rebound in China’s birth rate, massive overcapacity (thanks to over a decade of government mandated malinvestment) versus an ever swifter declining base of consumption does not add up to a burgeoning middle class or a happy ending.

    Of course, it’s not just China: for context, here is a chart showing US federal debt per capita of the 0 to 24 year old US population…

    … confirming that the next generation, whether in China or the US, is set for a painful collision course with debt bubble dynamics

  • Making Marijuana Legalization More Freedom-Friendly

    Authored by Adam Dick via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    It took 45 years after the 1933 termination of the United States government’s alcohol prohibition for the US government to legalize beer home brewing and, then, another 35 years until in 2013 the last two American states legalized home brewing.

    In comparison, of the ten states where recreational marijuana has been legalized, only the Washington state government prohibits home growing of marijuana, and for years the US government has backed off from prosecuting people complying with the liberalized state marijuana laws.

    In this way, freedom is being recognized more quickly under marijuana legalization than it was under alcohol legalization.

    But, the number of states that include prohibition of home grow in their laws generally ending marijuana prohibition may increase. In particular, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing marijuana legalization that includes, consistent with a recently revealed request from some large marijuana companies, a ban on home grow.

    One area where ending marijuana prohibition is progressing with much less respect for freedom is the legal ability to buy and use marijuana in a variety of places. Under legalization, people have been denied the ability to legally purchase marijuana products at bars and restaurants. The sale of marijuana products also remains prohibited at other places where alcoholic beverages are sold, such as at grocery stores and convenience stores, as well as at special events including concerts, sport competitions, and fairs.

    Proponents of marijuana legalization often say that marijuana use is less harmful than alcohol use. This argument was the focus of a series of bus-side advertisements funded by the Marijuana Policy Project, for example, in its 2013 effort to encourage people to vote in favor of an ultimately approvedmarijuana ballot measure in Portland, Maine. Yet, individuals in states with legal recreational marijuana have less options for where they can purchase and consume marijuana legally than they do in regard to beer or even liquor.

    Ending marijuana prohibition in a state or at the national level is an important accomplishment. But, as with the ending of alcohol prohibition, there afterward remain more actions that can be taken to further expand government’s respect for freedom. Hopefully, many of those actions will be taken in a time period measured in months or even a few years instead of several decades.

  • New Jersey High School Bans Limos, Party Buses, & Luxury Cars From Prom To Promote "Equity"

    What better way to put the fun back into prom night than banning limos, party buses or luxury vehicles?

    At least, this was the thought process of one New Jersey high school, which has implemented a new policy to ban such vehicles on prom night as way to deal with social inequality. How, exactly, does that work? We have no idea.

    According to a report on NJ 101.5, Lakeland Regional High School superintendent Hugh E. Beattie claimed that the new policy is about safety and “equity”. He doesn’t want students who can’t afford a “snazzy ride” to feel left out. Calling it a “group decision made by the Administrative Team”, he says the only way to now arrive at the school’s prom – being held at the Rockleigh Country Club – is to take a chaperoned school bus at a cost of $15 per person.

    That should really ramp up the enjoyment factor of the 45 minute ride students will have to endure on prom night, when it comes around on June 4. 

    Beattie said:

    “The decision was made based on the concern over the safety of all our students and in providing equity for all students so that they all could enjoy a shared ‘prom experience’ despite socio-economic status, and based on the success that other districts have demonstrated utilizing this practice. The district wants to ensure that all students have the equal opportunity to share in a positive, safe and memorable school prom experience.”

    The “success of other districts” includes Freehold School District, who has bussed its students to its junior prom for 20 years – because the event usually takes place on a cruise boat. 

    In other words, the district wants prom to be memorable, unless your idea of memorable is flexing your newfound independence and driver’s license to roll up to the prom in mom or dad’s BMW. 

    And, surprise: the idea was met with “howls of complaints” from students and parents, who claim that renting a limo is part of prom tradition. One student claimed the limo ride was “the best part of the night.” Of course it is; it’s much tougher to hide your booze on a school-chartered bus. 

    New Jersey School Boards Association spokeswoman Janey Bramford backed up the school, saying:

     “As a prom is a school-sponsored function, a school district has the authority to make rules concerning the event.”

    We hope the kids boycott the event and start their own “function”, where they are free to arrive and depart in any method they choose. 

  • Death Toll Rises To 14 As Freak Tornadoes Hit Georgia, Alabama

    Update: The death toll has risen to 14, while the East Alabama Medical Center announced: “We have received more than 40 patients as a result of the tornado this afternoon and expect more. Some patients have also been sent to surrounding hospitals.”

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    t least two large and destructive tornadoes swept through parts of Georgia and Lee County, Alabama, killing at least ten people and leaving more than 35,000 without power as temperatures are expected to dip into the 30s. 

    It is the deadliest tornado day in the US since January 22, 2017, when 16 people were killed in South Georgia, according to The Weather Channel.

    According to WSFA 12 there are at least 10 fatalities. 

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    Buck Wild Saloon, Lee County (Photo from David McBride via James Spann)

     

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