Apr 06

Today’s News 6th April 2022

  • Floating Mines In Black Sea Threaten Grain And Oil Trade, Officials Warn
    Floating Mines In Black Sea Threaten Grain And Oil Trade, Officials Warn

    The risk of hitting floating mines in the major Black Sea shipping route is adding to perils for the few merchant ships still sailing in the region, and governments must ensure safe passage to keep supply chains running, maritime officials said according to Reuters.

    The Black Sea – whose waters are shared by Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Turkey, as well as the warring Ukraine and Russia – is key for shipping grain, oil and oil products. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of laying mines in the Black Sea, and in recent days, Turkish and Romanian military diving teams have defused stray mines around their waters.

    Cargo ships are docked in the Black sea port of ODESSA, Ukraine

    The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) union and the Joint Negotiating Group of maritime employers said they were trying to find ways to ensure that seafarers and their vessels don’t become “collateral damage in the continuing conflict in Ukraine”.

    “We strongly urge governments to do all in their power to mitigate the threat and secure the safe passage for vessels trading near these conflict areas,” said David Heindel, chair of the ITF Seafarers’ Section.

    “It is essential that the world’s seafarers can continue to perform their duties safely and keep global supply chains moving.”

    Two seafarers have been killed and five merchant vessels hit by projectiles – which sank one of them – off Ukraine’s coast since the start of the conflict, shipping officials say.

    “The information available points to a clear threat to shipping and seafarers from floating and drifting mines in areas of the Black Sea,” said a spokesperson with UN shipping agency the International Maritime Organization.

    NATO’s Shipping Centre said in an updated advisory on April 4 that there were ongoing searches by national authorities for “mine-like objects” and that “the threat of additional drifting mines cannot be ruled out.”

    Last month, the insurance industry’s Joint War Committee widened the high-risk area of waters around the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to include areas close to Romania and Georgia, which has contributed to underwriters raising premiums. read more

    “If it transpires that there are significant numbers of live mines that exceed littoral state abilities to contain them, then JWC will move to reassess the listed areas,” the Committee said in a separate note on March 31.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/06/2022 – 02:45

  • From Korea To Libya: On the Future Of Ukraine & NATO's Never-Ending Wars
    From Korea To Libya: On the Future Of Ukraine & NATO’s Never-Ending Wars

    Authored by Ramzy Baroud via Common Dreams,

    Much has been said and written about media bias and double standards in the West’s response to the Russia-Ukraine war, when compared with other wars and military conflicts across the world, especially in the Middle East and the Global South. Less obvious is how such hypocrisy is a reflection of a much larger phenomenon which governs the West’s relationship to war and conflict zones.

    On March 19, Iraq commemorated the 19th anniversary of the US invasion which killed, according to modest estimates, over a million Iraqis. The consequences of that war were equally devastating as it destabilized the entire Middle East region, leading to various civil and proxy wars. The Arab world is reeling under that horrific experience to this day.

    Also, on March 19, the eleventh anniversary of the NATO war on Libya was commemorated and followed, five days later, by the 23rd anniversary of the NATO war on Yugoslavia. Like every NATO-led war since the inception of the alliance in 1949, these wars resulted in widespread devastation and tragic death tolls.

    Anti-Gaddafi militants on March 11, 2011 in Ras Lanuf, Libya. Getty Images

    None of these wars, starting with the NATO intervention in the Korean Peninsula in 1950, have stabilized any of the warring regions. Iraq is still as vulnerable to terrorism and outside military interventions and, in many ways, remains an occupied country. Libya is divided among various warring camps, and a return to civil war remains a real possibility.

    Yet, enthusiasm for war remains high, as if over seventy years of failed military interventions have not taught us any meaningful lessons. Daily, news headlines tell us that the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, Spain or some other western power have decided to ship a new kind of ‘lethal weapons‘ to Ukraine. Billions of dollars have already been allocated by Western countries to contribute to the war in Ukraine.

    In contrast, very little has been done to offer platforms for diplomatic, non-violent solutions. A handful of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have offered mediation or insisted on a diplomatic solution to the war, arguing, as China’s foreign ministry reiterated on March 18, that “all sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.”

    Though the violation of the sovereignty of any country is illegal under international law, and is a stark violation of the United Nations Charter, this does not mean that the only solution to violence is counter-violence. This cannot be truer in the case of Russia and Ukraine, as a state of civil war has existed in Eastern Ukraine for eight years, harvesting thousands of lives and depriving whole communities from any sense of peace or security. NATO’s weapons cannot possibly address the root causes of this communal struggle. On the contrary, they can only fuel it further.

    If more weapons were the answer, the conflict would have been resolved years ago. According to the BBC, the US has already allocated $2.7bn to Ukraine over the last eight years, long before the current war. This massive arsenal included “anti-tank and anti-armor weapons … US-made sniper (rifles), ammunition and accessories.”

    The speed with which additional military aid has poured into Ukraine following the Russian military operations on February 24 is unprecedented in modern history. This raises not only political or legal questions, but moral questions as well – the eagerness to fund war and the lack of enthusiasm to help countries rebuild. 

    After 21 years of US war and invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in a humanitarian and refugee crisis, Kabul is now largely left on its own. Last September, the UN refugee agency warned that “a major humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan”, yet nothing has been done to address this ‘looming’ crisis, which has greatly worsened since then. Afghani refugees are rarely welcomed in Europe. The same is true for refugees coming from Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali and other conflicts that directly or indirectly involved NATO. This hypocrisy is accentuated when we consider international initiatives that aim to support war refugees, or rebuild the economies of war-torn nations.

    Compare the lack of enthusiasm in supporting war-torn nations with the West’s unparalleled euphoria in providing weapons to Ukraine. Sadly, it will not be long before the millions of Ukrainian refugees who have left their country in recent weeks become a burden on Europe, thus subjected to the same kind of mainstream criticism and far-right attacks.

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    While it is true that the West’s attitude towards Ukraine is different from its attitude towards victims of western interventions, one has to be careful before supposing that the ‘privileged’ Ukrainains will ultimately be better off than the victims of war throughout the Middle East. As the war drags on, Ukraine will continue to suffer, either the direct impact of the war or the collective trauma that will surely follow. The amassing of NATO weapons in Ukraine, as was the case of Libya, will likely backfire. In Libya, NATO’s weapons fueled the country’s decade long civil war.

    Ukraine needs peace and security, not perpetual war that is designed to serve the strategic interests of certain countries or military alliances. Though military invasions must be wholly rejected, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, turning Ukraine into another convenient zone of perpetual geopolitical struggle between NATO and Russia is not the answer.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/06/2022 – 02:00

  • China Services PMI Crashes In March As COVID Crisis Worsens
    China Services PMI Crashes In March As COVID Crisis Worsens

    Activity in China’s services industry contracted sharply in March, adding to the evidence that the current COVID outbreaks and the zero-COVID-policy-based-lockdowns to control them are dealing a devastating blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

    While (reported) deaths remain negligible, China’s new wave of COVID cases has hit a new record high today as CCP reports 20,472 new daily Covid cases for Tuesday, driven by surging infections in Shanghai where local officials are building the world’s largest makeshift isolation facility to help contain the outbreak there. 

    Problematically for China’s Zero-COVID policy, the number of cases continues to rise in Shanghai and Jilin, despite the provinces being almost impenetrably locked-down since mid-March (exposing the difficulty of halting the spread of omicron once it has deeply penetrated a population).

    All of which is reflected in tonight’s report that China’s Caixin Services PMI crashed to 42.0 in March from 50.2 in February, the largest single-month decline since February 2020 (at the same scale as the sequential decline last August amid the local outbreak of delta variant in Jiangsu).

    The new business sub-index fell in the services sector likely on the back of tightened restriction measures in March according to Caixin. Surveyed firms’ confidence (after seasonal adjustment) dropped on concerns over the pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine war.

    As Goldman details, their proprietary Effective Lockdown Index (ELI) increased by more than ten points on average in March from February…

    Price indicators suggest cost pressures persisted in the services sector. The input prices sub-index rose to 54.2 from 52.5 in February, while the output prices sub-index decreased to 50.8 from 51.4. Surveyed companies commented higher costs of raw materials, energy, food, transportation and higher Covid-related expenditures were the major drivers of rising costs, while they faced difficulties in passing through the higher costs to consumers due to weak domestic services demand amid the worsened Covid situation.

    The sub-index of expectation of future output, after seasonal adjustment, fell to 58.4 in March (vs. 60.7 in February). And given the very recent surge in cases – and consequently harsher restrictions – we suspect the pain is far from over in China’s Services sector (and neither its manufacturing base). And that should be an ominous sign for the growing anxiety over global stagflation spreading virally through the world’s developed economies.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/06/2022 – 00:33

  • African Union, Covax Refuse To Buy More Vaccines From Moderna As Demand Plummets
    African Union, Covax Refuse To Buy More Vaccines From Moderna As Demand Plummets

    Get ready for another wave of COVID fearmongering as Big Pharma tries to push a second (then a third, then a fourth…) booster dose as demand wanes (even as scientists warn about a new hybrid mutant strain).

    Moderna shares are tumbling on Tuesday after two of the world’s most critical supranational bodies representing low- and middle-income countries have decided not to purchase hundreds of millions of additional doses of the company’s vaccine as a result of waning demand.

    The African Union and Covax, the Bill Gates and WHO-backed group dedicated to spreading (low cost) vaccines across the world, made the decision to pass on buying more jabs (while the US rolls out a second booster for older patients) as developing nations struggle to find enough customers eager to be inoculated.

    Of course, it’s not just demand that’s keeping vaccination numbers low: According to Bloomberg, developing nations have struggled to turn supplies into inoculations. Lower-income countries left behind in the global rollout are now grappling with a lack of funds, hesitancy, supply-chain obstacles and other factors that are hampering distribution.

    Source: Bloomberg

    But outside of China and Hong Kong, COVID cases, deaths and hospitalizations have waned dramatically. This in turn has undermined demand.

    What’s more, after more than a year of getting the short end of the stick from Western vaccine makers, developing nations have become resentful, as more consumers take the view that, if they have made it this far without the jabs, then they certainly don’t need them now.

    “The vaccine landscape has changed drastically in recent months,” said Safura Abdool Karim, a public-health lawyer and researcher in Johannesburg who’s focused on equity in the pandemic. “We went from really needing vaccines super urgently to now having them.”

    While the African Union agreed to purchase 50 million doses during Q1, the organization opted not to acquire another 60 million doses in the second quarter.

    Covax, meanwhile, opted not to buy 166 million doses for delivery in Q3, and also turned down another alternative for 166 million doses in Q4. Although a spokesperson for the organization said talks for another round of purchases have continued to drag on.

    Africa has the world’s lowest immunization rate, with only 15% of the continent’s population counted as fully vaccinated. That’s compared with a global average of 57%, the WHO said last month. Only about 400 million of the more than 700 million doses Africa has received have been administered, leaving hundreds of millions of doses to rot on the shelves.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 23:20

  • What's Behind The Renewed Drone Attacks On The UAE?
    What’s Behind The Renewed Drone Attacks On The UAE?

    By Global Risk Inisghts, Submitted by OilPrice.com,

    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been exposed to a recent wave of drone and missile strikes from Houthi militants in Yemen. These attacks are in retaliation to a change in the UAE’s strategy in its intervention in Yemen’s civil war. The UAE’s robust defense systems have been able to thwart Houthi attacks. However, the UAE’s continued intervention in Yemen risks provoking Houthi rebels into adopting military tactics that target civilians. The mere risk of such an attack would negatively affect the UAE’s perception of security, which is crucial for the UAE’s success as an economic powerhouse in the Middle East. 

    A not-so-local Civil War

    Since 2014, Yemen has been ensnared in a Civil War with multiple international participants. The conflict began when the Houthis, an Iran-backed Shia militia from Yemen’s North, violently attempted to overthrow the internationally recognized government of President Saleh. As the Houthi insurgency accelerated, Sunni-majority countries in the Gulf intervened in a coalition to support government forces. 

    Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have engaged in hostilities through a military campaign that has seen the use of airstrikes and the backing of local militias to prevent a Houthi takeover. The involvement of regional powers has essentially turned the civil war into a proxy war between Sunni Gulf states and Iran. The protracted conflict has destroyed the country and created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

    By late 2020, the conflict in Yemen was heading toward a stalemate with the coalition forces being unable to end Houthi control over the capital city, Sana’a. As a result, the UAE announced it would start disengaging from the war. However, in late 2021, the Houthis moved toward the oil-rich governorate of Marib. To prevent the group from controlling oil rents, the UAE renewed its involvement in the conflict by backing the Giant’s Brigade, a local Sunni militia, to fight against Houthi advancements.

    Houthi Response to the UAE

    In response to revamped UAE intervention, the Houthis, and other groups sympathetic to their struggle, have retaliated through a campaign of attacks against the UAE using low-cost missile and drone systems. On February 2, 2022, the UAE’s Defense Ministry announced that it had successfully destroyed three drones heading toward the UAE with “hostile intent”. The attempted attack was claimed by the Iraqi True Promise Brigades, a relatively unknown terrorist organization that sympathizes with the struggle of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The attempted strike in February is just the latest in a string of attacks. On January 31, 2022, an official spokesperson announced that the country’s defense forces had successfully repelled a ballistic missile strike originating from Yemen. A similar incident happened on January 24, when U.S. Central Command announced that it had stopped two ballistic missiles launched from Yemen and headed toward the capital Abu Dhabi. On January 17, drones laced with explosives flew into an oil storage facility on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. The attack came at the hands of Houthi rebels in Yemen and left three people dead, and destroyed three petroleum tanker trucks.

    Is the UAE safe?

    While this recent wave of attacks is worrying, the UAE’s defensive capabilities ensure that it can protect itself from a barrage of aerial attacks from abroad. However, these attacks and the UAE’s reaction to them risk undermining the perception of the country’s security. 

    For decades, the UAE has been an island of stability in a region noted for political and economic turmoil. The country ranks as one of the safest countries and its pro-business environment has attracted foreign investment that has turned the UAE into a hub for international commerce. While domestic stability is ensured through authoritative governance, defense from foreign threats is possible through initiatives that have provided the UAE with sophisticated weapons systems. In recent years, the UAE has spent billions on state-of-the-art security systems to defend its borders. This has included U.S. manufactured THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 missile systems. On January 16, just a day before the lethal Houthi drone strike, the UAE signed a $3.5 billion deal with South Korean weapons manufacturers to provide surface-to-air missile systems. Alongside these purchases, the US cooperates with the UAE by providing air and naval power. Indeed, the UAE’s focus on protecting itself makes some security analysts believe it is one of the best-defended countries in the world.

    These defense systems ensure the well-being of the UAE’s infrastructure and population. Yet, they are not as effective in protecting the perception of safety, a necessity in the growth of the UAE’s economically vital business and tourism sector. Following the January 17th drone strike that killed three, UAE markets dipped as investors feared further attacks. When the Houthi launched more strikes, local markets again slumped despite being intercepted by the UAE’s defenses.

    Forecast

    The analysis above shows that whilst the UAE is militarily superior and can repel any material threat posed by the Houthis, the mere perception of a threat is sufficient to erode the domestic perception of stability and therefore influence the UAE’s business climate. This illustrates a particular vulnerability that the Houthis can exploit: fear. The Houthis do not need to score a massive attack on the country’s heavy industry to damage its economy. Rather, a targeted attack on the country’s softer targets can shatter the country’s perception of safety inducing reputational costs that are harder to repair. The Houthis will utilize terrorism against the UAE so long as they remain engaged. 

    Indeed, the likelihood of Houthi terrorism in the UAE is more pronounced than ever given its offensive posture in the war in Yemen. In response to Houthi aerial attacks, the UAE has bombed locations in Yemen said to store weapons intended for the UAE. This action, coupled with continued intervention in the civil war, will possibly goad the Houthis to seek retribution. Hampered by a reduced weapons stockpile that, regardless, is ineffective against Emirati defenses, the Houthis may turn to terror tactics that can skirt past expensive missile defense systems. 

    The Houthis have already implemented terror tactics such as suicide bombings in Yemen. Therefore, it is foreseeable that similar tactics be exported to the UAE. Attacks against civilians in the lavish shopping malls and hotels of Abu Dhabi and Dubai would rock the country’s economy, impacting the sectors of the economy that rely most on the perception of security to flourish. In particular,  the tourism sector, which is particularly susceptible to terrorism and accounts for 12.2 percent of the UAE’s GDP, may be the worst impacted sector as a result of potential Houthi terror attacks.

    Knowing full well the cost a terror attack would induce on the UAE economy, it can be expected that the UAE may seek to mitigate this threat by deploying more police throughout major cities. While effective, this defensive presence comes with its own series of costs. The image of armed troops on busy street corners and outside landmarks might make civilians feel protected, but in doing so it evidences the existence of a threat. With threat comes the concern, one which complicates the idea of UAE as a pillar of stability and security in a region otherwise known for the opposite. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 23:00

  • President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai As COVID Outbreak Worsens Despite Lockdown
    President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai As COVID Outbreak Worsens Despite Lockdown

    In the span of just over a week, CCP authorities have gone from denying plans for a citywide lockdown of Shanghai to announcing what was supposed to be a two-part staggered lockdown – to simply locking down the entire city and sending in the military and a contingent of medical workers as locals accuse the government of violating its social compact to put the people’s interests first.

    Now, as the entire city of roughly 26 million faces what’s already shaping up to be the most punishing lockdown in China since the original three-month Wuhan lockdown nightmare, Nikkei reports that Beijing has found itself in an incredibly difficult position.

    On Sunday, Shanghai counted 9,006 mainly asymptomatic infections, more than two-thirds of the national tally.

    The reason the situation in Shanghai presents such a difficult conundrum is that backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure.

    But continuing with the heavy-handed lockdown risks spurring even more unrest – something the CCP has bent over backwards to avoid. For the CCP, it’s an impossible dilemma.

    Already, social media has been flooded with reports of locals dying from neglect as hospital resources have been stretched thin (and not from COVID; it’s other ailments that are killing people now).

    While the entire city has been locked down for less than a week, many individual residential compounds have been locked down for much longer – some since mid-March.

    “It is so uncharacteristic of Shanghai to have to go through this,” said Zhong Lei, a teacher in the city, whose residential compound was locked down even earlier, in mid-March.

    On Tuesday, authorities reiterated that they must try to keep the city’s port and its factories running at full capacity. But accomplishing this – as we have already reported – will require even more draconian measures like forcing workers to essentially live inside the city’s factories.

    Here’s a rundown of some of the obstacles that have led to the surge in cases and deaths, which local authorities have been accused of obscuring and underreporting.

    • Experts are divided over what those costs are. Some warn of heavy economic losses, while others suggest the strict measures ensure industrial stability, not to mention saving lives. Likewise, there is division over China’s vaccination program. Authorities say nearly 90% of the population of 1.4 billion has been inoculated, a staggering feat by any measure. Yet the rate among the most vulnerable seniors lags behind, and China continues to insist on using homegrown shots despite questions over efficacy.
    • What seems evident is that there is no clear path for China to join the growing number of countries “living with COVID” anytime soon, which presents profound risks to China’s economy, as well as its status in global trade.
    • “If we stop all containment measures now, it means all the previous efforts are for nothing,” Liang Wannian, a top official at the National Health Commission, said in late March in response to a reporter’s query on why China is not shifting toward treating COVID as endemic, like influenza.
    • “The recent fine-tuning is an indication that the country is experimenting with a less costly – and thus more sustainable – zero-COVID approach,” Xu Tianchen, a China economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told Nikkei Asia.

    Nikkei added that despite China’s efforts to reform and build up its health care infrastructure over the past decade, the country still faces capacity limitations. The latest available data shows the country had 3.34 registered nurses per 1,000 people, compared to 11.8 in the US. China’s health spending per capita was $459 in 2018, while US spending came to $9,054 in 2019.

    Another major issue, as we mentioned above, is the low vaccination rates among seniors.

    But it’s not just seniors who are vulnerable. China’s refusal to approve western vaccines in favor of its home-brewed concoctions has hurt immunity levels in the broader population. One UK health data provider in the UK estimated in March that due to the lower efficacy of China’s vaccines, less than 30% of the population is protected from infection. “Should infections hit China in the same magnitude as Hong Kong, deaths could exceed 1 million.”

    If that happens, China would surpass Hong Kong as the country with the highest contemporary COVID death rate.

    Unsurprisingly, economists the world over are bracing for the worst as they increasingly expect the Shanghai lockdown to lop an entire percentage point – or more – off China’s GDP growth.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 22:40

  • Liberals "Terrified", Musk's Big Stake In Twitter "Is Not At All Funny"
    Liberals “Terrified”, Musk’s Big Stake In Twitter “Is Not At All Funny”

    Elon Musk’s 9.2% stake in Twitter and his newly announced board seat has sent the left into an anti-free-speech tailspin.

    Musk has been an outspoken proponent of free speech – which he says that failing to adhere to “fundamentally undermines democracy.”

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    On Monday, CNN host Brian Stelter said there’s a ‘fear’ over Musk’s move.

    “There’s interest in billionaires, there’s celebration of the Musk. There’s also fear, I think, sometimes or wariness of- okay, so here’s the richest man on the planet who just bought a big chunk of one of our most important communications tools,” said Stelter. “”He’s also one of the biggest owners of satellites in the world. So he’s incredibly powerful, incredibly, I don’t know, am I allowed to use the word strange when talking about Elon Musk?”

    Except, billionaires have been controlling information for decades and nobody had a problem.

     Coping is not going well for the anti-free-speech crowd.

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    And it’s no wonder why the left is rattled – according to Statista, their biggest problem with Twitter is ‘inaccurate or misleading information,’ while they’re least concerned about ‘Twitter banning users.’

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    More:

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    It appears the wokerati are more than happy to allow ‘free speech’ when it’s their speech but when ‘free speech’ is contemplated for all speech (even the evil ‘others’), tolerance goes out the window and tantrums dominate (until they get their way). Perhaps the real driver of this ‘fear’ of Elon goes back to his comments (paraphrased) that “wokeness… basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”

    Imagine the cognitive dissonance sweeping the nation as that reality soaks in (like there’s no need to wear a mask in a car when you’re alone).

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 22:35

  • Biden Admin Quietly Pushing Anti-Charter Policies, School Choice Advocates Warn
    Biden Admin Quietly Pushing Anti-Charter Policies, School Choice Advocates Warn

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Amid nationwide calls for giving parents more choices in their children’s education, the Biden administration has quietly proposed changes that critics say will make it harder for new public charter schools to open and for existing ones to survive.

    U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona delivers remarks in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 27, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    On March 14, the U.S. Department of Education released a 14-page regulatory proposal regarding the priorities, requirements, and criteria that public charters should meet when they apply for federal funds.

    The department argued the changes are to “create results-driven policies” to help “promote promising practices and accountability,” and are expected to serve as a model for state regulations.

    Under the proposed new rules, which have been given an unusually short public comment period of one month lasting until April 13, public charters would have to “collaborate with at least one traditional public school” in order to be prioritized for federal funding. Specifically, a charter seeking federal money must provide a letter signed by the public school it collaborates with, as well as a plan detailing resources it is willing to contribute to the partnership, including curriculum materials, educator development opportunities, and transportation.

    Many commenters argue that forcing such collaborations as a contingency of funding potential will create unwarranted burden for charters, particularly those that are built in a way district school administrators oppose. Some noted that, given the history of traditional school antagonism towards charters, the inclusion of this priority is more likely to hinder than advance further charter school development.

    In addition, those who plan to open new charters must prepare a “community impact analysis” that demonstrates their commitment to social justice, especially in combating so-called re-segregation in public schools, which the progressives have been blaming on school choice programs.

    According to the proposal, this analysis must include a proposed charter’s demographic projections and a comparison with that of the community’s public schools. It also needs to include a plan to make sure the proposed charter “would not hamper, delay, or in any manner negatively affect any desegregation efforts in the public school districts.”

    In reality, many charters serve predominately black and Hispanic communities and don’t prioritize racial diversity in their enrollment or hiring models. The proposal states that they still need to provide a community impact analysis when applying for federal grants.

    As for charter schools contracting for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) for services, the new rules would make them ineligible to apply for federal grant money, although it’s not rare for public schools to contract basic services from for-profit EMOs.

    A total of 702 charter schools servicing nearly 450,000 students are operated by EMOs, according to pro-charter advocacy group National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

    “Both charter schools and traditional districts contract with EMOs,” the Alliance says on its website. “Many EMOs serve as vendors for specific management-related services, such as back-office support, hosting web platforms, or staffing assistance.”

    Charter school proponents see the new proposal as a political move to appease powerful teachers unions at the expense of families that could have benefited from more education options. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two largest teachers’ unions, are traditionally considered bastions of Democrats and endorsed President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

    “It’s outrageous that Washington would target charter schools in this way—particularly when more families than ever are turning to charter schools,” the Alliance said in a statement. “It’s not okay to play politics with our children or our schools. New policies should put kids first, not systems.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 22:20

  • Numerous Health Problems More Likely Due To COVID-19 Vaccines Than Coincidence: VAERS Data Analysis
    Numerous Health Problems More Likely Due To COVID-19 Vaccines Than Coincidence: VAERS Data Analysis

    Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

    Various health problems reported by people after receiving one of the COVID-19 vaccine shots are more likely caused by the vaccines than being merely coincidental, according to an analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

    A pharmacist prepares a vaccine dose at a COVID-19 vaccination site in New York on Feb. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

    VAERS has been flooded with more than a million reports of various health problems and more than 21,000 death reports since the introduction of the vaccines in late 2020. Some experts and public officials have downplayed the significance of the reports, noting that just because a health problem occurs after getting the shot, it doesn’t mean it was caused by it.

    A deeper analysis of the data, however, indicates that many of the adverse effects are more than just a coincidence, according to Jessica Rose, a computational biologist who’s been studying the data for at least nine months.

    “The safety signals being thrown off in VAERS now are off the charts across the board,” she told The Epoch Times.

    There are multiple ways to parse the data in order to flush out whether the causal link between an adverse event and the vaccination is real or illusory. For example, the vaccines usually come in two doses. A random adverse event unrelated to the vaccine should be dose agnostic. A stroke randomly coinciding with a vaccination shouldn’t be picky about which dose it was. In the VAERS data, however, a number of the reported problems are dose-dependent. Myocarditis in teenagers, for example, is reported several times more often after the second dose than after the first one. Following a booster shot, in contrast, the frequency is significantly lower than after the first dose, Rose found.

    A graph showing age against absolute number of myocarditis reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1, 2 and 3 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)

    Other researchers and health authorities have already acknowledged that the shots are associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis, especially in teenage boys, though they usually also say the risk is low.

    Yet dose-dependency shows up in the VAERS data for other problems too, including fainting and dizziness, which are more common after the first dose.

    A graph showing age against absolute number of syncope (fainting) reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1 and 2 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)

    Rose acknowledged that statistical analysis seldom provides definitive answers. There could be, for instance, some unknown factor that leads to more reports of unrelated health events after the first or second shot. In her view, however, the data leans away from such a conclusion. Previous research showed that the majority of VAERS reports are filed by medical staff, who shouldn’t fail to report adverse events based on which dose is being administered. To Rose, it seems more likely that if people suffer health problems after an injection of a novel substance and if the problems substantially change between the first and the second shot, the substance probably had something to do with it.

    “In lieu of being able to explain this happening for any other reason, it satisfies the dose-response point quite well, in my opinion,” she said of the myocarditis results.

    As for why the reports dropped after the “booster” shots, she said she hasn’t found a definitive explanation. It could be that people who didn’t feel well after the first two shots would think twice about getting more. As such, those most at risk for an adverse reaction would be less likely to get the booster.

    Rose arrived at the results after she evaluated the VAERS data from the perspective of the Bradford Hill criteria—a set of nine questions that are used by epidemiologists to determine whether any given factor is likely the cause of an observed health effect.

    She said she found evidence to answer positively all of the questions.

    Rose has encountered resistance in the establishment science circles when she first tried to publicize her analyses. Last year, right before her paper on VAERS myocarditis data was printed, the publisher pulled the paper for unclear reasons.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 21:40

  • Biden To Unveil US, UK, & Australia In New Trilateral Security Hypersonic Pact
    Biden To Unveil US, UK, & Australia In New Trilateral Security Hypersonic Pact

    The world has evolved into a dangerous multipolar nuclear environment where the US and its allies and China and Russia are rapidly developing and deploying hypersonic weapons.

    A collection of our past reports show the West has yet to field hypersonic weapons, while China and Russia have been rapidly testing and deploying. Russia has even used hypersonic weapons in the invasion of Ukraine, and China just flew a hypersonic weapon around the world. 

    China’s rapid expansion of its military modernization efforts has spooked the West. That’s why President Biden is expected to announce a new trilateral security pact with the UK and Australia as early as Tuesday to advance hypersonic technology, according to FT. 

    Biden’s new trilateral security pact will be called “Aukus.” According to three people familiar with the situation, it will include Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, and Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. 

    The move to co-operate on the development of hypersonic weapons comes as the West has no hypersonic weapons fielded, only in the development stages. US hypersonic testing has been hit with multiple setbacks, and the Pentagon might not have its Lockheed-Martin’s ARRW (Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon) ready until later this year. Meanwhile, China has conducted hundreds of tests. 

    Hypersonic weapons are problematic for the US military. These high-tech weapons travel more than five times the speed of sound and can evade Western missile defense shields. 

    US Admiral John Aquilino, head of Indo-Pacific Command, and General James Dickinson, director of Space Command, recently told FT that the US and Australia were expanding cooperation in space and cyber domains, mainly because of China’s hypersonic weapons.

    “The ability to identify and track, and defend against those hypersonics is really the key,” Aquilino said.

    General Dickinson said his main focus is improving “space domain awareness,” which indicates Western powers are also working on new advanced counter-systems to detect and track these high-speed weapons.

    Responding to the news, China was absolutely furious with Washington. China’s UN Envoy warned that a hypersonic pact between the three countries could “lead other parts of the world into a crisis like Ukraine.” 

    In a multipolar world, countries will choose their partners, as it appears the West will form a new hypersonic pact; this may push China and Russia closer together. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 21:20

  • If The Fed Starts A Digital Currency, It Had Better Guarantee Privacy
    If The Fed Starts A Digital Currency, It Had Better Guarantee Privacy

    Authored by By Andrew M. Bailey & William J. Luther via RealClearPolicy.com,

    President Biden’s latest executive order calls for extensive research on digital assets and may usher in a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC), eventually allowing individuals to maintain accounts with the Federal Reserve. Other central banks are already on the job. The People’s Bank of China began piloting a digital renminbi in April 2021. India’s Reserve Bank intends to launch a digital rupee as early as this year.

    A CBDC may upgrade the physical cash the Federal Reserve already issues – but only if its designers appreciate the value of financial privacy.

    Cash is a 7th century technology, with obvious drawbacks today. It pays no interest, is less secure than a bank deposit, and is difficult to insure against loss or theft. It is unwieldy for large transactions, and also requires those transacting to be at the same place at the same time — a big problem in an increasingly digital world.

    Nonetheless, cash remains popular. Circulating U.S. currency exceeded $2.2 trillion in January 2022, more than doubling over the last decade. The inflation-adjusted value of circulating notes grew more than 5.5 percent per year over the period. And U.S. consumers used cash in 19 percent of transactions in 2020.

    Why is cash so popular, despite its drawbacks? Cash is easy to use. There are no bank or merchant terminal fees associated with cash. And, most importantly, it offers more financial privacy than the available alternatives.

    When you use cash, no one other than the recipient needs to know. Unlike a check or debit card transaction, there’s no bank recording how you spend your money. You can donate to a political or religious cause, buy controversial books or magazines, or secure medicine or medical treatment without much concern that governments, corporations, or snoopy neighbors will ever find out.

    Privacy means you get to decide whether to disclose the intimate details of your life. Some will happily share. That is their choice. But others will prefer to keep those details private.

    In a digital world, personal information can spread far and wide. And it can be used to exclude or exploit people on the margins. The choice about what information to share is important. For some, flourishing depends on carefully choosing how much others know about their politics, religion, relationships, or medical conditions.

    Financial privacy matters just as much as privacy in other areas. What we do reveals much more about who we are than what we say. And what we do often requires spending money. In many cases, meaningful privacy requires financial privacy.

    Privacy also operationalizes the presumption of innocence and promotes due process. You are not obliged to testify against yourself. If law enforcement believes you have done something unlawful, they must convince a judge to issue a warrant before rifling through your things. Likewise, financial privacy prevents authorities from monitoring your transactions without authorization.

    The recent executive order, to the administration’s credit, notes that a CBDC should “maintain privacy; and shield against arbitrary or unlawful surveillance, which can contribute to human rights abuses.” But a reasonable person might worry that the government is paying lip service to privacy concerns.

    A recent paper from the Fed, offered as “the first step in a public discussion” about CBDCs, suggests the central bank has no interest in guaranteeing privacy at the design stage. Instead, it maintains that a “CBDC would need to strike an appropriate balance […] between safeguarding the privacy rights of consumers and affording the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity.” The Fed then solicits comments on how a CBDC might “provide privacy to consumers without providing complete anonymity,” which it seems to equate with “facilitating illicit financial activity.” A U.S. CBDC, in other words, will likely offer much less privacy than cash.

    We do not deny that financial privacy benefits criminals and tax cheats. Such claims tend to be exaggerated, though. In reality, it is a small price to pay for civil liberty. That due process applies to everyone — criminals included — is no reason to scrap the Fourth or Fifth Amendments.

    Policymakers may be tempted to compromise on financial privacy when implementing a CBDC. Instead, they should attempt to replicate the privacy afforded by cash. Like non-alcoholic beer, the Fed’s “digital form of paper money” would superficially resemble the real McCoy while lacking its defining feature.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 21:00

  • NYC Mom Who Confronted Mayor Adams Over Toddler Masking Fired By City The Same Day
    NYC Mom Who Confronted Mayor Adams Over Toddler Masking Fired By City The Same Day

    A New York City mother who asked Mayor Eric Adams why he reneged on his promise to “unmask our toddlers” was fired shortly after putting Adams on blast.

    According to the NY Post, Daniela Jampel – who was an assistant corporation counsel in the city Law Department, learned she was fired ‘less than an hour’ after confronting the Mayor at an unrelated LGBTQ event which had a podium banner reading “Come to the city where you can say whatever you want.”

    “Three weeks ago, you told parents to trust you that you would unmask our toddlers,” said Jampel. “You stood right here, and you said that the masks would come off April 4. That has not happened.”

    When City Hall staffers attempted to cut Jampel off, Adams told them to let her speak – only to condescend to her by telling her she needed to “come to a conclusion.”

    Watch:

     As the Post reports;

    Sources close to the matter said Jampel — a leading local critic of the toddler mask mandate and pandemic school closures — was informed by email shortly after the presser that she was fired.

    The Law Department’s spokesman confirmed to The Post that Jampel was terminated Monday, although the rep said the decision to fire her was made “prior to today. 

    According to a city spokesman, the decision to fire Jampel had previously been made – and her ‘decision to lie’ and say she’s a journalist caused them to do it that day.

    “We hold all of our employees to the highest professional standards. In public statements, Ms. Jampel has made troubling claims about her work for the city Law Department. Based on those statements, the decision had been made to terminate her prior to today.” 

    “Today’s events, however, which include her decision to lie to City Hall staff and state she was a journalist at a press conference, demonstrate a disturbing lack of judgment and integrity. As of today, she is no longer an employee of the Law Department.”

    Jampel, a mother of three who has been out on maternity leave for the past 8 months, and co-founded an advocacy group against pandemic restrictions in schools, told the Post that she is “retaining counsel and will not litigate in the press.”

    A ‘source familiar with the matter’ told the Post that Jampel was in good standing with her bosses ‘as recently as mid-February,’ pointing to the approval of a request for extended maternity leave.

    City sources say the decision to terminate Jampel came Friday after she wrote a tweet criticizing Adams for upholding the toddler mask mandate and said her job with the city entailed defending “cops who lie in court, teachers who molest children, prison guards who beat inmates.”

    “It is a job I have done proudly. Until tonight. Fighting to keep masks on toddlers is shameful. I am ashamed of my office,” Jampel wrote. -NYP

    Jampel attended an anti-toddler-mask rally around two weeks ago, and was quoted by the Post for saying Adams was “not following the science.”

    “This is making a mockery of the science. This is playing us for fools,” she said. “New York state recognizes the science. Everywhere else in New York state — 10 miles away in Nassau County, 10 miles away in Westchester County — toddlers are allowed to take off their masks along with their older brothers and sisters.”

    But “our mayor and our new health commissioner tell us it’s not safe for toddlers to take off their masks.”

     

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 20:40

  • Shellenberger: Why Wishful Liberal Thinking Led To Disasters In Ukraine, Homelessness, & Climate
    Shellenberger: Why Wishful Liberal Thinking Led To Disasters In Ukraine, Homelessness, & Climate

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

    The good news is that everything is changing… and fast…

    In the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberals in the West have denounced their political opponents as deniers of climate change, science, and reality in general. Progressives and neoliberals alike argued that they alone could see the shape of the new world being born. It would be increasingly globalized, democratic, and focused on new threats, like climate change.

    It’s now clear that all of that was a delusion. Neither China nor Russia is democratizing and both have become more autocratic and totalitarian. Neither nation views climate change as a major threat. On the contrary. Russia views climate change as an opportunity to expand agriculture and shipping through its newly ice-free waters. Where both Putin and Chinese Premier Xi used to give lip service to climate change, neither even bothered to attend last fall’s United Nations climate talks.

    It’s true that the West has imposed sanctions on Russia, and the Ukranian people are battling the Russians fiercely and admirably. A few days ago, Russians retreated from the capital city of Kyiv. Western nations froze bank accounts of Russian oligarchs, hammering the ruble. And European governments are calling on their citizens to reduce energy consumption.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) admits, “We’re in Trouble,” as President Joe Biden (center) struggles to respond to the worst energy crisis in 50 years, and as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (right) makes homelessness worse.

    But those are hiccups on the way to a rapidly changed world. Consider that:

    • China aided Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through a massive cyberattack on Ukraine’s military and nuclear facilities, according to intelligence memos obtained by The Times of London.

    • Europe continues to import Russian energy while China nor India are buying Russian oil at a steep discount. There is little reason to believe conservation measures by Western consumers will make much of a dent in energy consumption.

    • And Russia’s retreat from Kyiv appears to be temporary and strategic.

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    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes at the very same time as: the collapse of the West’s climate and renewables agenda; an energy crisis triggered by climate activists; and a worsening drug, crime, and homeless crisis in America’s cities.

    What do all these events have in common? They all point to the grave dangers of irrational liberal optimism.

    Liberals aren’t the only ones who are guilty of wishful thinking. There are an alarming number of Republicans who believe that Donald Trump was elected President in 2020 and that Larry Elder defeated Governor Gavin Newsom in California’s recall election last fall. Only an elaborate electoral fraud conspiracy, the reasoning goes, kept them from assuming office.

    And conservatives contributed to the disasters in Ukraine, homelessness, and climate change. George W. Bush famously said he looked into Putin’s eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” Bush also made the disastrous “Housing First” policy of giving away apartment units, unconditionally, to addicts and the mentally ill, federal policy. And many Republicans have, in recent years, promoted renewable energy subsidies.

    But when it comes to the West’s failure to deter an increasingly totalitarian and violent Russia and China, the growing scarcity and unreliability of energy, and the destruction of America’s cities by open air drug scenes, the fault lies squarely with people on the Left end of the political spectrum.

    Western leaders, including President Joe Biden, French President Emanuel Macron, and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, all denied to themselves, and to others, what was plainly obvious to many analysts for years: Putin intended to invade Ukraine.

    Even as Russian forces prepared for war games last fall, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan wondered “why Russia would take such a military action at that time,” according to a reconstruction of the events leading up to Putin’s invasion by the Wall Street Journal.

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    On climate change, center-Left parties around the world deluded themselves into thinking their high-energy economies could be powered by renewables, which energy historians have known for centuries had to be abandoned for fossil fuels in order for the industrial revolution to happen. And around the world it was liberals not conservatives who fought to shut down nuclear plants and block natural gas pipelines and infrastructure.

    Liberals and progressives could have embraced a climate and energy strategy focused on domestically-produced natural gas and nuclear, as I have urged them to do for over a decade, and which Putin did, allowing him to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supplies.

    Such a strategy was the only one that ever made any sense from an environmental point of view. Nuclear and natural gas are the two technologies that are most responsible for declining emissions by the US and Europe since the 1970s.

    Instead, the Left in Europe opted for importing fossil fuels from Russia and the Left in the US for importing solar panels made by enslaved Muslims in China.

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    On crime, liberal cities have gradually reduced consequences for breaking laws, whether from addiction or malevolence, resulting in rising homicides, burglaries, and open air drug scenes. Relatedly, on homelessness, progressives have funneled hundreds of billions into “Housing First,” which gives away apartments to homeless drug addicts without requiring sobriety.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom doubled down on Housing First last year. At a press conference announcing $12 billion for Housing First, a journalist asked, ”How do you keep California from becoming a magnet for people who have issues in other states and coming here to take advantage of what California is spending. It’s been a problem in the past.”

    Responded Newsom, “To the extent that people want to come here for new beginnings and all income levels, that’s part of the California dream. And we have a responsibility to enliven and inspire. California’s dream is still alive and well. A $80 billion budget surplus… And that should not just be for certain people.”

    The result is that, today, well over 50 percent of the people on the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles are from out of town, according to expert insiders, homeless outreach workers, and the homeless themselves.

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    Why do liberals keep making the same mistake over and over again?

    In part, it’s because of what cognitive psychologists call “theory of mind.” Liberals tend to think that other people think like they do. Western liberal leaders thought Putin was one of them, a liberal democrat committed to rule of law, even though he repeatedly said he wanted to reconstruct the Soviet empire.

    Similarly, leading liberal leaders think homeless drug addicts are seeking a better life, and just need their own apartment to quit drugs, get a job, and re-connect with family and friends. In truth, many if not most homeless addicts maintain their addiction until they are forced to quit.

    On energy and climate change, progressives indulged in the fantasy that we could power the world with energy sources that have no negative consequences. They convinced themselves that renewables were better in every way than either fossil fuels and nuclear, even as they demanded massive subsidies for, and the right to kill endangered species in, their deployment.

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    And liberals engaged in wishful thinking that high standards of living can be maintained with much lower levels of energy consumption, and that poor and working people will accept low standards of living.

    There were financial rewards for such wishful thinking. Politicians like Newsom can raise much more money from homeless housing developers than from homeless shelter providers. Center Left parties take money from renewable energy companies all over the world. And it’s now clear that climate activists in Europe, and perhaps the United States, took, took money from the Russian government to fight fracking and natural gas production.

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    The good news is that the failure of elites to govern at local, national, and international levels points to a coming change of leadership, triggered by covid, but ultimately resulting from the exhaustion of post-Cold War ideologies and institutions.

    It will gradually become clear that the West must defend itself more vigorously against resurgent illiberal regimes, particularly Russia and China, which could well invade Taiwan, or even attempt to take a Japanese island, in the coming months or years.

    In California, it has fallen to mothers of homeless addicts to speak out against the open drug scenes. Yesterday they held a press conference in San Francisco warning foreign tourists not to visit. The dangers of the open air fentanyl markets, unofficially supported by the governments of San Francisco, California, and the United States, are simply too great. The billboard they purchased in Union Square to warn tourists was covered by every major San Francisco news media outlet.

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    And major political changes are afoot. Republicans will likely take one or more house of Congress, and President Joe Biden is unlikely to run again in 2024. The result will be major changes within both parties. California, long a leader of change, for good or ill, will likely see the recall of district attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the election of a new attorney general, and the election of a new, more moderate, governor.

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    In this context, it becomes clear that the claims of reality denial by progressives were a kind of psychological projection. It was progressives who denied the realities of climate change and energy, the intentions of Vladimir Putin, and homelessness. The good news is that people are waking up, and quickly. The trend toward the dismantling of civilization could soon reverse itself. But, ultimately, what happens next is up to us.

    *  *  *

    Donate To Shellenberger 2022

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 20:20

  • "Absolutely Historic" – Harvard's Rogoff Admits US' Weaponization Of Dollar Could End Dominance Within 20 Years
    “Absolutely Historic” – Harvard’s Rogoff Admits US’ Weaponization Of Dollar Could End Dominance Within 20 Years

    During a lengthy interview with Bloomberg TV on the role of cryptocurrencies in the world, when asked by anchor Matt Miller if we will look back at this moment as the beginning of the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency, Harvard University economics professor Kenneth Rogoff started by claiming “…that’s a little hyperbolic but it could be true… a long time from now.”

    However, Rogoff then quickly admitted that “China and Russia have been looking for an alternative to the dollar for a very long time.”

    Indeed they have Mr.Rogoff, as we have detailed over the past few years, de-dollarization of the world has been gathering pace and the recent actions taken by the US and its allies to restrict Russia’s access to the dollar-dominated global financial system – the so-called ‘weaponization of the US Dollar’ – could further stimulate moves to develop an alternative to the greenback.

    For the largest nations, the Harvard prof says challenges of displacing the dollar include “huge network effects, not to mention that in China the rule of law isn’t what it is in the United States,” but, he says, “for smaller, emerging countries, [crypto] is something of an alternative to the dollar.”

    He continues to expound on this by admitting that “China and Russia are going to be looking for something like this… maybe not on a public blockchain but more centrally-controlled,” raising the probability that, as we have noted previously, a ‘de-dollarization alliance’ could be forthcoming, to diminish the economic heft of Washington’s sanctions powers, and its de facto control of SWIFT, the primary inter-bank messaging service via which banks move money from country to country.

    “The move that the U.S. did of shutting down the reserves, or blocking the reserves of the Russian central bank – absolutely historic” Rogoff says, warning that this precedent “will probably accelerate moves in the international financial system” to compete with the dollar.

    “But they’re not going to take place at warp speed. Something that would have taken 50 years maybe is going to take 20 years.“

    Bear in mind, as Wolf Richter points out, that the global share of US-dollar-denominated foreign exchange reserves fell by 40 basis points from Q3 to 58.8% in Q4, setting a new 26-year low, edging out the low in Q4 2020, according to the IMF’s COFER data released at the end of March.

    Over the past 20 years, since 2001 – just before the official arrival of euro banknotes and coins – the dollar’s share has dropped by 12.7 percentage points, from 71.5% then to 58.8% now.

    “Until now, the Chinese authorities have had an ambivalent view of internationalization,” wary about “the loss of monetary policy autonomy that could result from offshore trading in yuan and large foreign investments in the local bond market,” says Michael Spencer, chief economist and head of research, Asia Pacific, at Deutsche Bank AG.

    But now, “the potential threat of being prevented from making or receiving payments in dollars or euros would likely encourage China to redouble its efforts to redenominate international transactions into yuan.”

    Don’t forget, the greenback is hardly the first “global currency”…

    …and nothing lasts forever… not even bitcoin? as Rogoff opined on the future of the largest crypotocurrency, suggesting as Myspace ‘replaced’ Facebook, he “expects to see other things replace” bitcoin, as it becomes more regulated.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 20:00

  • Biden Wants $2.6 Billion For Gender Equity Worldwide
    Biden Wants $2.6 Billion For Gender Equity Worldwide

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Policy,

    On International Women’s Day, President Joe Biden announced that his FY 2023 budget will include $2.6 billion for foreign assistance programs to promote gender equity, more than double than what he set aside the previous year.

    In the announcement, Biden touted his accomplishments in gender equity, like the creation of a White House Gender Policy Council, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the provisions for childcare funding in the American Rescue Plan, and the establishment of the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, among others. 

    Biden didn’t release details about exactly where the money was going, but funding for foreign assistance programs often results in waste because of its decentralized nature.

    Last summer, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com released a report showing that U.S. taxpayers already pay approximately $50 billion a year in foreign aid – an amount more than the federal money flowing to 48 out of 50 state governments.

    Much of the new worldwide gender funding will likely go to individual missions and embassies in foreign countries, which will have broad discretion in the programs they choose to sponsor.

    With few guidelines and little oversight, there’s no telling where these funds will end up.

    The budget request will soon be sent to Congress, which ultimately decides what funding to approve, but the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will likely try to incorporate the president’s priorities into its bill. It’s likely that $2.6 billion for gender equity for foreign assistance programs will make its way into the final bill.  

    The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 19:40

  • Chinese Company Insiders Have Sidestepped Billions In Losses With Conveniently Timed Stock Sales
    Chinese Company Insiders Have Sidestepped Billions In Losses With Conveniently Timed Stock Sales

    Insiders at Chinese companies seem to have incredible timing in selling their own stock.

    At least, that’s the reasonable conclusion one has to draw after reading a new Wall Street Journal report that shows insiders had propensities to sell “large stock holdings” in the periods just before sharp declines. 

    An academic analysis of securities filings shows that Chinese company insiders “avoided at least $10 billion in losses on trades made between 2016 and mid-2021 by selling stock ahead of significant price declines,” the report said. 

    The analysis was performed by former SEC commissioner Robert Jackson and the University of Pennsylvania’s Bradford Lynch and Daniel Taylor, the Journal wrote. They looked at more than 100,000 Form 144 filings that were filed between 2016 and 2021 as part of their research. 

    In the year following their sales, share prices were down by 21% on average. For American insiders whose stock sales were similarly analyzed, the research showed that stock sales preceded 2% gains in stocks the following year. 

    One stunning example was when an entity controlled by an Alibaba insider sold $150 million of Alibaba stock in the day before founder Jack Ma was critical of Chinese regulators. The day after Ma’s speech, Alibaba fell 8%.

    The sale by an entity called Sky Scraper Enterprises Ltd. “avoided hundreds of millions of dollars” in losses, the Journal wrote, stating that the entity likely belonged to “one of the company’s best-paid executives in recent years”.

    The sale was made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, and an Alibaba company spokesperson said: “It is highly inappropriate to suggest that a plan adopted by SkyScraper Limited in early September 2020 was timed to result in a stock sale ahead of unexpected challenges the Ant IPO encountered two months after the plan was put in place.”

    In addition, the Journal looked at iQIYI stock sales, where $125 million was sold before shares were cut in half in the following two months in 2021. It also looked at how top executives at Vipshop Holdings sold more than $250 million in stock near the company’s record highs, before the stock fell 70% in the six months following the sales. 

    The use of Form 144s hid the sales, the Journal noted:

    If those were American companies, the trades would have been reported to the SEC’s corporate-filings website, Edgar, and immediately noticed by investors and services that closely track insider sales. Instead, PDFs documenting them were emailed to the agency’s headquarters and posted on an obscure SEC website.

    Jackson will be testifying in front of congress on Tuesday about insider trading laws. His testimony will state: “Exempting foreign-firm executives from rules governing the transparency of insider trades is the kind of gap in our law that we must close to protect Americans’ confidence in the fairness of our markets.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 19:20

  • Tennessee Senate Advances Bill That Withholds Funding From Schools Allowing Transgender Athletes To Compete
    Tennessee Senate Advances Bill That Withholds Funding From Schools Allowing Transgender Athletes To Compete

    Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Tennessee legislation that would withhold funding from school districts allowing transgender students to participate in sports passed in the Senate Education Committee on March 29.

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington on April 30, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    If passed into law, Senate Bill 1861 (pdf) would require the commissioner of education to withhold a portion of state education funding if the school refuses to determine the gender of a student participating in sports.

    “We passed a bill last year that required boys to play boys and girls to play girls in K–12, and this bill is putting teeth into it,” Rep. John Ragan, a Republican, said on the House floor when speaking about the companion House Bill 1895.

    The bill assigns unspecified financial penalties to the Tennessee law passed in 2021 that prohibited males from playing in female sports.

    Opposition to the Bill

    According to organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), one of the largest LGBTQ-advocate organizations, the bill is discriminatory. The organization stated that allowing transgender youth to participate in sports doesn’t disadvantage other athletes.

    “This bill is only an attempt to continue the conversation to publicly ostracize, demonize, and harm transgender children who only want to play,” HRC said in a press release.

    Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat, said of the bill’s passage on Twitter: “Today on the floor we passed another LGBTQ hate bill (HB1895) that takes away school funding based on last year’s ‘solution’ to a problem we don’t have. There is so much hate in this body due to pure ignorance—it’s stunning.”

    In response to those who call it a “hate bill,” Ragan told The Epoch Times that those statements are “emotionally-based rhetoric, not based in logic.”

    “And I personally don’t hate any of these people,” Ragan said. “But by the same token, the law is the same for everybody. You don’t get a special exemption just because you think you’re not what you are physically.”

    Quoting from the Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire, Ragan said, “‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’ And the definition of absurdity in my mind is denying reality.”

    Rep. Kent Calfee, a Republican, pointed to the transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who in March won the 500-yard freestyle race at the NCAA Division 1 women’s championship. Lia Thomas grew up competitively swimming as a male who began taking hormone replacement therapy in 2019, declaring himself a woman in his junior year in college.

    “That’s totally unfair to people who were born a woman and are competing,” Calfee said.

    Another Ragan-sponsored bill, HB 2316, which passed in House and Senate committees, would prohibit males from participating in female sports in higher education.

    Penn Quakers swimmer Lia Thomas holds a trophy after finishing first in the 500 freestyle at the NCAA Womens Swimming & Diving Championships at Georgia Tech. (Brett Davis/USA Today Sports)

    Transgender Day of Visibility

    On March 30—or what has been nationally deemed “Transgender Day of Visibility,” President Joe Biden said transgender Americans continue to be discriminated against as his administration issued a batch of documents promoting transgender surgery and hormone therapy in children.

    “In the past year, hundreds of anti-transgender bills in States were proposed across America, most of them targeting transgender kids,” Biden said. “The onslaught has continued this year.  These bills are wrong.”

    In January 2021, Biden signed an executive order titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”

    On March 31, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of Population Affairs released a document titled “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People,” which endorses gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatment for minors. On the same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), a division of DHHS, released a document titled, “Gender Affirming Care is Trauma-Informed Care,” which promotes surgical procedures for minors.

    “Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice,” the NCTSN document states.

    It also says there is no scientific research showing negative impacts on a child’s well-being after receiving puberty blockers or what it calls “gender-affirming hormones.”

    A Tennessee bill prohibiting transgender procedures in children stalled in the Senate General Subcommittee where it will likely not pass. House Bill 2835, or the Youth Protection Act, would have specifically prohibited a child who hasn’t reached puberty from getting hormone therapy or other gender alterations, such as surgeries, even if parents approve. If they have reached puberty but are still a minor, they must get parental consent.

    “We have age restrictions on our youth for a number of different reasons that are there to protect them,” Ragan said. “These protections are multifaceted and across the board.”

    The bill would have made it illegal to perform procedures that would “facilitate the minor’s desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”

    “Scientifically, at a cellular level, one is either male or female,” Ragan said. “There’s no denying that, aside from some genetic malfunctions. But what some have decided is that what’s between their ears should conquer reality. The reality is that’s not true.”

    DHHS, NCTSN, and Biden cited mental health issues leading to high suicide rates resulting from what he called transgender discrimination.

    Ragan shared a study that argued the opposite (pdf). It examined 324 sex-reassigned persons (191 male-to-females, 133 female-to-males) in Sweden that concluded that people “with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.”

    The study defines transsexualism, or gender identity disorder, as a condition in which a person’s gender identity “contradicts his or her bodily sex characteristics.”

    The study found “substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalizations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population.”

    In 2004, the Birmingham University Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF) assessed the findings of more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transexuals.

    ARIF concluded that none of the studies provided “conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 19:00

  • Pentagon Wants Permanent Military Bases In Eastern Europe To Deter Russia
    Pentagon Wants Permanent Military Bases In Eastern Europe To Deter Russia

    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Mark Milley in Tuesday testimony before the House Armed Services Committee told Congressional leaders that the US should establish permanent military bases in Eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

    He cited that allies Romania, Poland and Baltic countries remain “very willing” to host US bases, and that “they’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.” He testified alongside Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin. “My advice would be to create permanent bases, but don’t permanently station,” Milley said.

    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, via AP

    He explained that this wouldn’t necessitate permanently deployed forces, but with the same benefits: “You get the effect of permanence by rotational forces,” the top general said.

    Among other highlights in the House testimony was his being questioned over whether Vladimir Putin could have been deterred ahead of the Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine, short of direct US-Russia clash. He said:

    “Candidly, short of the commitment of US military forces into Ukraine proper, I’m not sure he was deterrable.”

    But he and Secretary Austin touted the Pentagon’s robust response in assisting Ukrainian forces, including providing weapons as well as intelligence sharing: 

    “We’ve had extraordinary intelligence all throughout and the intelligence sharing that we’ve enabled Ukraine to see … the ability of us to transmit information that is useful to Ukraine has been enormously helpful,” the US commander said.

    On US weapons in the Ukraine war being a game-changer, Milley described, “We’ve seen them again blunt the advance of a far superior force with respect to the Russians in terms of numbers and capability by using the right types of techniques and the right weapon systems; the Javelin, the Stingers are proven to be very effective in the fight.”

    Gen. Milley further called Russia’s action the “greatest threat to peace and security of Europe, perhaps the world in my 40 years of service and in uniform.”

    He described that it shakes the foundations of the current global order, specifically also mentioning China: “We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities,” he said.

    Secretary Austin backed Milley’s Ukraine assessment, confirming that the US had provided Ukraine with one billion dollars in aid ahead of the Russian invasion…

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

    And on new cutting-edge drones, he confirmed the Pentagon will send Switchblade armor penetrating drones to the Ukrainians, as Reuters reports:

    The United States will send a variant of the Switchblade drone that has an anti-armor warhead to Ukraine as quickly as possible, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday. “The Switchblade 600 and 300 will move as quickly as they possibly can,” Austin said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. The 600 variant has the anti-armor warhead and can loiter over a target for more than 40 minutes, according to AeroVironment, which makes the drones.

    The Pentagon chief further said an additional billion dollars in “security assistance” has been approved and is being rushed, now on the way. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 18:40

  • Your Rising Wages May Make You Feel Better… Until You Try To Buy Stuff
    Your Rising Wages May Make You Feel Better… Until You Try To Buy Stuff

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    Despite the biggest increase in average hourly wages for production and non-supervisory workers in 40 years, these people are actually worse off.

    Why?

    Rising prices are eating up their income gains.

    Year-over-year, average hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory employees were up 6.7% in March, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Other than the lockdown distortions in April and May of 2020, this was the biggest gain since 1982.

    This includes jobs in all industries that are non-management, ranging from assembly line workers to computer coders.

    In dollar terms, the average wage of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees increased by $0.11 month-on-month. Wages were up $1.71 from a year ago, to $27.06.

    As WolfStreet explains, the spike in the spring of 2020 was due to the lockdown.

    Many lower-wage employers, such as restaurants and retailers, were shut down, and their employees were laid off. Their relatively lower wages fell out of the averages, while many people in higher-paying service jobs, such as those in financial services, tech, and other sectors, switched to working from home. As millions of lower-wage people were laid off, the higher wage earners became a bigger proportion of the earners and pushed up the year-over-year gains in average hourly wages. In April and May 2021, the low year-over-year gains reflect the high base a year earlier.”

    The big jump in wages over the last several months may make you feel better — that is until you actually go out and try to buy stuff.

    We hear a lot about 7.9% CPI. That is 1.2% higher than the age gains. And the CPI understates the pain.

    Consider rents. The cost of renting an apartment or a single-family house spiked by 17% from a year ago, according to Zillow’s Observed Rent Index. This is much higher than the contrived calculation the government uses to calculate housing costs in the CPI.

    The price of durable goods, including vehicles, furniture, consumer electronics, etc. jumped by 18.7% in February.

    Nondurable goods prices were up 10.7% in February. That includes food, gasoline and other household supplies. And this was before the huge jump in gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    In fact, based on BLS data, your real earnings have lost over 5% of their value in the last two years as real average hourly earnings have dropped on year-over-year basis for 11 straight months…

    As WolfStreet noted, inflation hits the average American hardest.

    The people that earn hourly wages — they will not be fine. Their raises might make them feel better briefly – until they have to go fill up their car, buy groceries, pay for the rent increase, or buy a car. And if they want to buy a house, well, forget it.”

    Economists and pundits talk about inflation as an academic exercise. They rarely reflect on the fact that rising prices have real impacts on real people. And if you happen to be somebody living on a fixed income or savings, you’re really screwed as inflation is rapidly eating away your purchasing power and your income streams aren’t increasing at all. Inflation always causes the most pain for the poor and elderly.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 04/05/2022 – 18:20

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