Aug 06

Today’s News 6th August 2022

  • AR-15 Most Popular Hunting Rifle In America
    AR-15 Most Popular Hunting Rifle In America

    In a survey commissioned by Winchester, 75% of centerfire rifle shooters used an MSR or “Modern Sporting Rifle.” MSR is a term commonly used to refer to the AR-15 family of rifles.

    Winchester found that 60% of those who hunt use a centerfire rifle, specifically an MSR. 40% of all hunters surveyed used MSRs such as the AR-15 for hunting.

    This data would seem to contradict current legislative proposals on Capitol Hill, such as H.R. 1808, also known as the Assault Weapons Ban of 2022. Which just passed the House of Representatives in a 217-213 vote and currently sits awaiting a vote in the Senate.

    MSRs are commonly used for hunting even in more restrictive states like Maryland, which ban cartridges like the .223 & 5.56 for hunting purposes. Because of this, many hunters choose to use straight wall cartridges like 350 Legend in MSRs like the Ruger AR-556MPR.

    AR Platform rifles or “Modern Sporting Rifles” are a common choice for hunters who desire the platform’s modularity and wealth of aftermarket support. According to Jordan Sillars of TheMeatEater, an outdoor lifestyle company founded by Steven Rinella, hunters can tailor their rifles to their specific needs.

    In addition, statistics cited by Business Insider show that the number of AR-15s and other Modern Sporting Rifles has increased exponentially over the last two decades since the expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban.

    Talking points about the proposed 2022 Assault Weapons Ban, or H.R. 1808, point to the idea that modern sporting rifles are not commonly used for hunting purposes. This new data released by Winchester seems to suggest otherwise.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 23:20

  • The Fentanyl Crisis: Brought To You By Drug Prohibition
    The Fentanyl Crisis: Brought To You By Drug Prohibition

    Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities

    As drug overdoses continue rising in the United States, one drug has emerged as the most notorious killer of our day: fentanyl. Unfortunately, those clamoring loudest about fentanyl’s death toll support policies that actually bolster its position in the illicit drug trade.

    First approved for U.S. medical use in 1968, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used to counter severe pain after surgery, and chronic severe pain. Though similar to morphine or heroin, it’s 50 to 100 times more potent.

    Most of the fentanyl circulating on the streets doesn’t come from pharmaceutical companies. According to the DEA, black market fentanyl is “primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico.” China is a major source of its chemical ingredients and some finished product too.

    As with other black-market knock-offs, the inconsistency of illicit fentanyl makes it more dangerous. Worse, it’s often laced into other drugs, including cocaine, heroin, marijuana and counterfeit pills disguised as pharmaceutical-grade Oxycontin, Xanax, and Adderall.

    Though its effect varies by a user’s size and tolerance, ingesting just 2 milligrams can be fatal. That fact lends itself to jolting descriptions of fentanyl’s lethality by public officials, pundits and click-chasing media. A recent Fox News headline is just one of countless examples of fentanyl sensationalism: “Colorado State Patrol seizes enough fentanyl to kill 25 million people.”

    When you consider that, in 2021, there were 108,000 overdose deaths from all drugs in the entire country, you can see where headlines and rhetoric centered on such calculations aren’t meant to enlighten an audience so much as to shock it.

    American discourse about fentanyl is further warped by politicians and sloppy journalists who promulgate urban legends about cops and bystanders dying from merely touching fentanyl powder.

    For example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently asked Fox’s Sean Hannity if he’d heard about “a young woman who picked up a dollar bill sitting on the floor of a McDonald’s and fell down” because fentanyl was supposedly on it. “That’s how deadly it is.”

    Like many similar tales, this one proved false. Fentanyl can be plenty deadly, but not that way.

    Over-the-top fentanyl scaremongering isn’t just about attracting an audience. For some—like McCarthy—it’s an opportunistic means of advancing a goal of reducing illegal immigration via tightened border security.

    Setting immigration policy aside and keeping our focus here on fentanyl, we now come to an essential truth that’s little-known either inside or outside of government:

    The more you intensify drug interdiction along the border and elsewhere, the more you elevate fentanyl as the drug trade’s import of choice.

    Blame it on the “Iron Law of Prohibition.” First put forth by Richard Cowan in 1986, the Iron Law of Prohibition states: “As law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases.”

    To appreciate the dynamic, let’s look back to America’s experiment with alcohol prohibition, with some help from the Cato Institute’s Trevor Burrus:

    “Smugglers and bootleggers preferred high‐​potency spirits because they are easier to transport illicitly. Consequently, distilled alcohol and fortified wines became almost 90% of alcohol consumption after Prohibition, compared to 40% before…During alcohol Prohibition, speakeasies were essentially bars that only served Everclear.”

    Now think about it from a drug trafficker’s perspective: Would you rather try smuggling 10 pounds of fentanyl, a thousand pounds of heroin or a truckload of pot?

    Infographic via Filter

    The stark reality is that enforcement of drug laws isn’t the answer to the fentanyl crisis—it’s the very reason we have a fentanyl crisis.

    That crisis is also driven by regulatory crackdowns on prescription opiates, which drive both addicts and those with legitimate needs away from pills of uniform quality and dosage and into the dicey, deadly realm of black market alternatives.

    Consider this: In 2011, oxycodone topped the overdose death charts, with 5,587 fatalities. That led the government to impose new policies to frighten doctors away from prescribing opioids. By 2016, fentanyl was the new top killer, and it was associated with 18,335 deaths — more than triple the 2011 oxycodone tally.

    You can build a coast-to-coast border wall that extends 200 feet above and below ground, and fentanyl will keep flowing into the country via other avenues — as it does already to lesser degrees.

    The more difficult you make it to move fentanyl, the higher its price goes, inviting new entrants into the black market, and incentivizing the adoption of innovative and more elaborate ways of meeting America’s perpetual demand for intoxicants. At some point, it could even incentivize cartels to move production inside U.S. borders.

    Those wouldn’t be the only outcomes. If drug warriors and border hawks somehow manage to make it far more difficult to move fentanyl, fentanyl will likely be dethroned by something worse.

    Indeed, earlier this year, an even more dangerous synthetic opioid started making its own grim headlines — it’s called isotonitazene, or ISO, and it’s reportedly 20 times stronger than fentanyl. The Iron Law of Prohibition strikes again.

    Prohibition hasn’t just made drugs more dangerous. Just as alcohol prohibition did, drug prohibition also fosters violence among black market operators. When’s the last time you heard of a gunfight breaking out between rival alcohol distributors?

    Prohibition also invites many hideous forms of authoritarian excess, to include frequently-fruitless dismantling of vehicles, body cavity searches, and even coerced colonoscopies that come up empty.

    In short, drug prohibition’s harmful results far exceed its beneficial ones. Meanwhile, drugs are as readily obtainable today as they were when Richard Nixon declared a federal war on drugs a half-century ago.

    So what are we to do? Though it’s contrary to intuition and a shock to many people’s sensibilities, the proper response to the fentanyl crisis and other collateral damage of the war on drugs is clear: across-the-board drug legalization.

    That isn’t an endorsement of drug abuse any more than legalized alcohol endorses alcohol abuse — which, it should be noted, has a death toll that rivals if not exceeds that of drug abuse.

    Rather, full legalization of both production and possession is the logical position for those who understand that policies must be judged not by their intentions, but by their results.

    Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 23:00

  • Mapping Taiwan's Thinly Weaved Diplomatic Web
    Mapping Taiwan’s Thinly Weaved Diplomatic Web

    The past week has been one of suspense as U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi deliberated over whether or not to stop in Taiwan on her tour of Asia.

    After arriving, the US legislator said that the United States “will not abandon” the island, which is autonomous and democratically governed, but as a part of China is at risk of having that right revoked.

    With the Russian War in Ukraine and the Chinese government’s relatively restrained stance on the issue, many international analysts wonder whether Beijing plans to regain control of the province, only separated from mainland China by the Strait of Taiwan.

    However, as Statista’s Anna Fleck notes,  with the power that China holds on the international stage, the Taiwanese government can only count on the official support of a few small states around the world.

    Currently, only 14 independent countries recognize the Taipei government and dare to challenge mainland China’s position by establishing diplomatic relations with the island, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Infographic: Taiwan’s Thinly Weaved Diplomatic Web | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The majority (eight states) are located in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti.

    Taiwan’s other four allies are island nations in Southeast Asia, namely Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.

    This list is rounded off with the Kingdom of Eswatini, located in Africa, and the Vatican City State, in Europe.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 22:40

  • Revolutions And The Curse Of Democracy
    Revolutions And The Curse Of Democracy

    Authored by Techno Fog via The Rectionary (emphasis ours),

    If we measure the success of a government by how it reflects the will of the people, then our democracy is a failure. This has always been one of the long-discussed dangers of democracy: that it may cease to be a government “by the people.”1 Let us admit that the danger of democracy has been realized.

    The revolution you see today had to start at the top because the people – the voters – were unwilling to spark revolutionary change. Power then imposition, through the institutions and the bureaucracies onto the population. Enabled by the constraints on bureaucratic power being unenforced and the limitations on legislative authority being ignored. Elections thought to reflect the will of the people instead force on the people the will of the elected.

    The people don’t want to be murdered in the streets, but the policies of criminal-friendly prosecutors – those who predicted their acts would result in innocent deaths – demand their blood.

    The people prefer common-sense immigration policies, which include the deportation of criminal illegals. And yet federal and local officials refuse to act, leading to the rape of minors and last year’s decapitation of a Minnesota woman, her body dumped in broad daylight on a residential street. Both acts conducted by illegal immigrants with criminal records.

    The people would like to see their children educated. A minority of those in power would pervert the wishes of parents, following the guidance of their predecessors who advocated for American schools to become committed to the proselytization of liberalism and dedicated to achieving a more radical and progressive social order. As a result, we see the state pushing radical gender theory on children, transgender indoctrination of grade schoolers and sex-ed starting in kindergarten. (Andrew Sullivan can object to the grooming all he wants, but he should know the broader revolution that he helped lead won’t stop when he asks nicely.)

    The personal costs of the new order are dismissed. All revolutions require sacrifices. Lives are destroyed, children are scandalized, heads are severed, and bodies are buried as they remake the world.

    The revolution ceases to be a revolution upon victory. But it won’t end if it’s defeated. It will shift forms and attack other fronts. After all, if the revolution fails to secure its promises, through mistakes or political losses, can it be said that the revolution is really over?2 To paraphrase Richard Rorty, the left will always operate from the premise that our nation is unachieved. It seems its defeat will never be complete eradication, but instead containment and derision, with gender theory kept at the margins with the other nonsense.

    Despite the momentum in certain jurisdictions, their victory is thankfully not guaranteed. It is and will be the long revolution. The aspirations of utopia will always be tried, and always just a few steps ahead, but never be realized. Modern liberals, like the communists before them, will ultimately face the decay of their system. In response, they will reject introspection and reform, and instead demand more liberal democracy – that is, more control and more extremes – to set things right.3 What lies at the end of that democratic road is “a new despotism.”4

    Subscribers can read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 22:20

  • Space Junk Crashing Back To Earth Becomes A Problem
    Space Junk Crashing Back To Earth Becomes A Problem

    As countries and private companies increase space exploration, orbital missions have unleashed thousands of pieces of debris into orbit. The junk consists of rocket boosters, defunct satellites, and spaceborne shrapnel that is at risk of crashing down to Earth, and over the last few weeks, two separate incidents highlighted the growing threat to people and infrastructure. 

    A few years back, the European Space Agency (ESA) warned about the worsening space junk situation jamming up Earth’s orbit. In 2020, there were an estimated 160 million objects in orbit, and growing as the number of space missions has exponentially increased. 

    The latest piece of space junk that uncontrollably tumbled back to Earth was on July 30 when China’s Long March 5B rocket (weighing a staggering 23 tons) crashed into the Sulu Sea, nearly missing Palawan Island in the Philippines. 

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    Another incident on July 9 involved space junk from an old SpaceX mission that landed in rural Australia. 

    SpaceX has not confirmed if the pieces were part of a Crew-1 Dragon spacecraft mission from early 2021, but space debris tracker Jonathan McDowell tweeted on July 29 that they were likely unpressurized “trunk” pieces of Dragon.

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    Two incidents of space debris crashing back to Earth in July alone is a concern for people and infrastructure on the ground. 

    In a study recently published in Nature Astronomy, titled Unnecessary risks created by uncontrolled rocket entries, researchers say there’s a 10% probability that one or more casualties will occur from uncontrolled space junk re-entries over the next decade. 

    “Most space launches result in uncontrolled rocket body reentries, creating casualty risks for people on the ground, at sea and in aeroplanes,” according to the study. “These risks have long been treated as negligible, but the number of rocket bodies abandoned in orbit is growing, while rocket bodies from past launches continue to reenter the atmosphere due to gas drag.”

    “Those national governments whose populations are being put at risk should demand that major spacefaring states act, together, to mandate controlled rocket reentries, create meaningful consequences for non-compliance and thus eliminate the risks for everyone,” it concluded.

    The two uncontrolled space junk renteries last month aren’t a one-off phenomenon. ESA’s Space Debris Office recently published a map pointing out locations where rocket boosters, defunct satellites, and other debris have crashed back to Earth. 

    Earlier this year, we noted a powerful geomagnetic storm knocked dozens of Starlink satellites out of orbit. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 22:00

  • The Rise Of "Constitutional Carry" Is A Sign Of Failing Trust In Government
    The Rise Of “Constitutional Carry” Is A Sign Of Failing Trust In Government

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Come next January, Alabama will be the 25th state to allow the carrying of concealed weapons without a permit. Alabama will soon join Indiana which in March of this year passed a new statute allowing permitless concealed carry in that state—sometimes called “constitutional carry.” In 2021 alone, at least six states passed their own provisions legalizing permitless concealed carry: Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. Essentially, any law-abiding citizen over a certain age (usually 18 or 21 years of age) can now carry a concealed firearm in these states. 20 years ago, only Vermont allowed unrestricted concealed carry. Beginning ten years ago, however, more than twenty states adopted new laws deregulating the carrying of firearms. 

    Why is this happening now? On its most simple level, these laws are passed because lawmakers and constituents at the state level have advocated for their passage. Moreover, whatever opposition has existed among interest groups and the public has been insufficient to block their passage. 

    On a deeper ideological level, increased access to concealed carry is likely the result of a growing feeling among much of the public that they need increased access to firearms for self-protection. In other words, the spread of constitutional carry points to a growing sentiment that state and local authorities are insufficient to provide a reasonable expectation of safety from violent crime, and that private self-defense is therefore more necessary now than in the past. 

    Moreover, many of these laws expanding access to concealed carry have been passed over the objections of local law enforcement. Police organizations have been among the most vocal of opponents to new constitutional carry measures, yet Republican lawmakers—a group often happy to fall all over themselves announcing how much they “back the blue”—have passed these laws anyway. It is one thing to support law enforcement officers on a vague philosophical level, of course, but the continued spread of constitutional carry suggests there are limits to this support among even conservatives. Rather, the passage of these laws suggests a growing lack of faith that even well-meaning law enforcement can or will provide meaningful defense from violent criminals when the time arises. 

    Declining Faith in Institutions

    The survey data continues to point to declining public faith in public institutions, and this includes law enforcement and the legal system. As faith in these institutions falls, the perceived need to provide one’s own self-defense naturally increases. As one sociologist puts it, “legal cynicism” leads to greater demand for “protective gun ownership” and “lower levels of police legitimacy are significantly related to a higher probability of acquiring a firearm for protection.”

    In the worst cases, this can even lead to extralegal “self-help” with a firearm, and this phenomenon has been explored by historian Randolph Roth who notes that declining perceptions of state legitimacy can lead to high rates of violent crime. That is, when the public believes that official coercion will be insufficient to restrain crime, private citizens may feel the need to take matters into their own hands. 

    Moreover, crime data in some cases suggests a correlation between gun ownership and high crime levels. Advocates of gun control naturally interpret this correlation as evidence that the presence of guns is the cause of more crime. Yet the causality more likely runs in the other direction: more crime leads to more people arming themselves. Statistical studies are insufficient to prove causality in any case, as a Rand study on gun violence notes: 

    Whether [the correlation between guns and crime] attributable to gun prevalence causing more violent crime is unclear. If people are more likely to acquire guns when crime rates are rising or high, then the same pattern of evidence would be expected. … existing research studies and data include a wealth of descriptive information on homicide, suicide, and firearms, but, because of the limitations of existing data and methods, do not credibly demonstrate a causal relationship between the ownership of firearms and the causes or prevention of criminal violence or suicide.

    And, as one New Jersey study concluded after surveying young residents of high-crime areas,

    most participants said they carried guns to increase their feelings of safety. “They held a widespread belief that they could be victimized at any time, and guns served to protect them from real or perceived threats from other gun carriers.”

    The perceived need for personal protection is likely more urgent and immediate in high crime areas, but the sentiment certainly is not unique to these areas. Suburban and rural advocates for broadening concealed carry frequently invoke the need for personal protection from violent crime as justification for new laws expanding the right to carry in nearly every situation. 

    Laws Passed Over Police Opposition 

    Although many individual police officers support nearly untrammeled gun ownership by law abiding citizens, many others do not. In the case of Alabama’s legislative battle over permitless carry, for instance, “the bills have been roundly criticized by police and gun control advocates, who argue that removing permits poses a safety risk to citizens and officers.” The head of Alabama’s Sheriff’s Association wants to change the Second Amendment to ban concealed carry altogether. And elsewhere “Some of the loudest opponents of permitless carry laws are the police. They spoke out in Indiana, Texas, and Kentucky but that didn’t stop lawmakers from passing “constitutional carry” laws.” In Georgia, many law enforcement officers voiced their opposition to conceal carry, much to the delight of the state’s Democratic party. In Ohio, constitutional carry has been opposed by the Fraternal Order of Police—the public labor union that provides free lawyers to abusive and incompetent police officers. Even in Republican-controlled legislatures—where professed support for police runs high—police efforts to quash expanded conceal carry have failed repeatedly. 

    The continued spread of constitutional carry is, of course, related to the surge we’ve seen toward more private gun ownership overall. For example, Americans in 2020 and 2021 went on what CNN calls a “gun buying spree” and this included a 58% surge in gun purchases in 2021 among Black men and women. Violent and destructive “mostly peaceful” protests exposed the limited ability of law enforcement to do much other than protect government property during periods of unrest. In the wake of lockdowns, which shut down vital social institutions such as churches and schools, crime surged in the US, and not just in the “usual” places like urban cores. Police legitimacy also suffered a serious blow with the abject failure of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies at the Uvalde school shooting in May of this year. The officers who chose to do nothing while children were massacred will likely face no serious legal repercussions, and this will further highlight that police officers are under no legal obligation to actually protect the public from violent crime. 

    It’s no wonder that permitless concealed carry continues to make gains in American states. In the past, many Americans may have simply trusted to the regime to provide “law and order.” But that sentiment is apparently becoming more and more rare. 

    * * * 

    Statista’s Katharina Buchholz maps out the states that allow permitless carry of guns.  

    Infographic: Which States Allow the Permitless Carry of Guns? | Statista

    And in states like Maryland, where the recent Supreme Court decision changed the stance on licensing concealed firearms from “may issue” to a “shall issue,” demand for concealed carry classes has erupted as citizens feel the need that nobody but themselves will save them in times of emergencies as the country becomes more dangerous.  

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 21:40

  • "Rich People Can Be Very Cheap": Yacht Owners Hem And Haw About The Rising Cost Of Diesel
    “Rich People Can Be Very Cheap”: Yacht Owners Hem And Haw About The Rising Cost Of Diesel

    Well it looks like it’s finally high time for someone to pay attention to soaring diesel prices…

    After all, affluent yacht owners are starting to complain about the high prices! That was the topic of a new New York Post piece out this week where the paper spoke to yacht owners who have grown frustrated with the price of fuel.

    One owner, who docks in the Hamptons, told the Post: “It used to be $2,500 to take my boat out for lunch but this year it’s going to be $5,000.” Large boats that are about 70 feet burn about 130 gallons per hour just to keep their engines running. 

    Another yacht owner, who recently took a trip from an “exclusive marina” in Miami back up to Montauk, complained: “It cost 72% more to have the boat brought up to New York this year from Florida.” 

    Diesel is up more than $1.77 per gallon over last year’s price, the report notes. Premiums for the fuel are even higher in the Central Atlantic, where costs have gone up more than $2 to $5.52 per gallon.

    Owners at places like the Hamptons have complained about the additional premium they have to pay at local docks. In the Hamptons, for instance, there is only a handful of places to refuel, putting boat owners “at the mercy of the marina”. 

    Another owner told The New York Post they believe that the docks were adding another “dollar or two” per gallon in premiums. But the reality is that the wealthy haven’t quite seen enough to call off their summer soirees. 

    “Everyone whines but all the docks are still at capacity,” an owner said. 

    A dock owner chimed in: “Rich people can be very cheap with certain things. Spending a thousand dollars on a lunch is no problem, but paying an extra couple hundred dollars on fuel will annoy them.”

    “There are guys worth hundreds of millions that cut out coupons and give them to the crew for buying groceries. It sucks, but if you’re complaining about filling up a car, that’s a necessity. Boats are a luxury so it’s a little tone-deaf,” they concluded. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 21:20

  • Feed Shortage Leads To Pig Cannibalism, China's Economy Worsens
    Feed Shortage Leads To Pig Cannibalism, China’s Economy Worsens

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A video showing pigs eating a deceased pig on a farm in China went viral recently. Some of the pig farmers, working for a major Chinese financial group, said that the cannibalism occurred because of feed shortages. One expert believes that feed shortages are a reflection of bigger problems in China’s economy.

    Pigs in a pen at a pig farm in Yiyang County, Henan Province, on Aug. 10, 2018. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

    Since July 24, the video has been one of the most searched topics on Chinese social media, putting a spotlight on the listed company and a major pig farming company, Jiangxi Zhengbang Tech (whose subsidiary is Jiangxi Zhengbang Breeding Co.), that contracted the farmers to raise the pigs. Posts about the company have been circulating online, such as “the farmers’ pig feed supply was cut off,” “the chairman of Zhengbang was restricted from buying high-end products,” “the company’s fundraising was delayed,” and “the company’s court ordered total amount of compensation reached 100 million yuan (about $14.8 million),” etc.

    It caused the stock of Zhengbang Tech to fall 6.66 percent to 5.89 yuan (about $0.87) per share on July 25. The company then issued several announcements in response to the issues.

    On July 25, Zhengbang Tech admitted that there were interruptions to the pig feed supply in July, citing the downturn in pig prices in June, COVID-19, the company’s funds being tight, logistics issues, and problems in coordination with the feed producers. There’s no mention of compensation for the pig farmers in the statement.

    The company’s statements did not affirm or deny that pig cannibalism occurred on the farms.

    Bigger Financial Issues

    In addition, a “necessary reminder” was included in the Zhengbang statement. It said: “The company’s net profit in the first half of 2022 is expected to lose 3.8 billion to 4.6 billion yuan (about $563 million to $682 million).” The statement has increased worries from the outside world about the company’s “shortage of funds.”

    Independent current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan told The Epoch Times on July 27, that there are two main reasons for Zhengbang Tech’s shortage of pig feed. “One is a shortage of funds, and there may even be a break in the capital chain. The other is that the COVID-19 epidemic has caused the logistics system to be blocked, which is the problem with the coordination of logistics distribution and feed mills mentioned in the company’s official statement. Behind these two reasons, the root cause is actually that the economic environment in mainland China has deteriorated due to the regime’s zero-COVID policy and measures, resulting in a vicious cycle of mutual causation between the two reasons mentioned above.”

    “The deterioration in China’s economy is largely caused by policy mistakes rather than a natural disaster. Zhengbang Tech is only one of the countless companies that pay for it,” he said.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 21:00

  • Rogan Slams Biden Admin For "Gaslighting" Americans About Recession
    Rogan Slams Biden Admin For “Gaslighting” Americans About Recession

    Having seen the mainstream media rush to defend a clearly weakening economy, closing the ‘Overton Window’ on any mention of the ‘r-word’ – to the extent that one senior economist was fact-checked by Facebook for daring to utter the ‘r-word’ – pocaster Joe Rogan blasted the Biden administration for “gaslighting” the American people about the meaning of a recession after two consecutive quarters of economic contraction were reported last week.

    During a podcast with Chris Williamson, the pair turned to the topic of the recent quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) report and the efforts of President Joe Biden’s entire administration (and every mainstream media useful idiot and tenured ivory tower economist) to deflect the recession label.

    Rogan criticized the administration for tampering with the definition of the word “recession,” and claimed that politicians were “gaslighting” the American public by denying the label.

    “People think that [the word recession] is trivial, ’cause they are talking about this economic downturn, but it’s not trivial, because we’ve always used that term ‘recession,’ and we’ve always used that term to define whether or not the economic policies that are currently in place and whether or not the management in the government has done a good job of making sure that the economy stays in a good place,” Rogan said.

    “They definitely haven’t done that, so in order to escape that sort of distinction, they’re literally changing the definition, which is terrible, and it should be pushed back against in a big way. It should be something that people get angry about.”

    Williamson appeared to agree with Rogan, arguing that changing the definition of recession served only to distract from the hard economic reality and to protect the political interests of the Democratic Party.

    “The bizarre thing about the recession situation is the fact that it doesn’t matter what you call it. You can call it … ‘paradise’ if you want, but it’s still [expletive], and all of the criteria of what’s happening indicates a recession,” Williamson said.

    “The reason, obviously, is that you’ve got midterms coming up, and you need to make sure that ‘is in a recession’ is something that can’t be thrown at the Democrats.”

    Watch the full discussion below:

    And finally, don;t let the administration and its prancing ponies ‘gaslight’ you again that strong jobs data ‘proves’ we are not in a recession. First things first, as we detailed here, jobs are the most lagged signal of a recession; and second, under the hood of today’s “great” jobs data, we find that the surge in jobs was driven by individuals taking on multiple jobs – which hit a record high.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 20:40

  • CDC Claims Link Between Heart Inflammation And COVID-19 Vaccines Wasn't Known For Most Of 2021
    CDC Claims Link Between Heart Inflammation And COVID-19 Vaccines Wasn’t Known For Most Of 2021

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has claimed that there was no known association between heart inflammation and COVID-19 vaccines as late as October 2021.

    Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks in Washington on June 16, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    CDC officials made the claim, which is false, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for reports from a CDC team that is focused on analyzing the risk of post-vaccination myocarditis and pericarditis, two forms of heart inflammation. Both began detected at higher-than-expected rates after COVID-19 vaccination in the spring of 2021.

    The team focuses on studying data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive surveillance system co-run by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

    The date range for the search was April 2, 2021, to Oct. 2, 2021.

    “The National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases performed a search of our records that failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request,” Roger Andoh, a CDC records officer, told The Epoch Times. The center is part of the CDC.

    No abstractions or reports were available because “an association between myocarditis and mRNA COVID-19 vaccination was not known at that time,” Andoh added.

    Both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are built on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

    Earliest Myocarditis Reports

    Reports of heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination were first made public in April 2021 by the U.S. military, which detected the issue along with Israeli authorities well before the CDC.

    While Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, said that month that the agency had looked for a safety signal in its data and found none, by the end of June CDC researchers were saying that the available data “suggest an association with immunization,” and in August described (pdf) the issue as a “harm” from vaccination.

    The claim that the link wasn’t known “is provably false,” Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, told The Epoch Times via email. “Either the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing at CDC, or federal health officials are disseminating misinformation about what they knew about myocarditis following mRNA COVID vaccines and when they knew it.”

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said that the FOIA response “raises even more questions about the agency’s honesty, transparency, and use, or lack thereof, of its safety surveillance systems, such as VAERS, to detect COVID-19 vaccine adverse events.”

    “I have sent two letters to the CDC about the agency’s inability to find records demonstrating its use of the vaccine surveillance systems. To date, the CDC has failed to respond to my letters,” he added.

    A nurse prepares the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Southfield, Mich., on Nov. 5, 2021. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

    ‘Correction’

    “Apparently CDC needs to make a correction!” a spokeswoman for the agency told The Epoch Times in an email.

    The agency is acknowledging that by June 2021, data began to indicate a link between the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and heart inflammation, outlined that month in two presentations made to government vaccine advisory panels.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 20:20

  • Australia Blasts China's Taiwan Drills As "Disproportionate & Destabilizing" – Warns Of Miscalculation
    Australia Blasts China’s Taiwan Drills As “Disproportionate & Destabilizing” – Warns Of Miscalculation

    The United States’ closest regional partner and member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing relationship Australia on Friday condemned China’s “destabilizing” actions in holding live fire drills surrounding Taiwan, most importantly the launching of ballistic missiles over the island.

    “These exercises are disproportionate and destabilizing,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Friday. “This is a serious matter for the region, including for our close strategic partner, Japan,” she added in reference to the “Quad” group, which in addition to the US, Australia and Japan includes the large economy of India.

    Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, via Reuters

    While also condemning the largest PLA exercises in recent history, Canberra’s foreign minister highlighted that the launching of mid-range missiles into waters off Taiwan is “disproportionate,” and urged for “restraint and de-escalation” on the part of Beijing.

    “Australia is deeply concerned about the launch of ballistic missiles by China into waters around Taiwan’s coastline,” Wong said. She further echoed Thursday words of White House NSC spokesman John Kirby which warned of the possibility of “miscalculation”.

    “Australia shares the region’s concerns about this escalating military activity, especially the risks of miscalculation,” she said. The day prior, Kirby stressed in a White House briefing, “One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict.”

    This after announcing that the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group will stay in waters near Taiwan for longer than expected in response to the Chinese PLA drills.

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    Importantly, the Australian top diplomat further underscored that Canberra won’t back a “unilateral change of status quo” across the Taiwan Strait and that it remains committed to the Once China principle.

    However, China has been questioning the commitment of the US and its allies, particularly given US weapons transfers to Taiwan, which Washington has stressed are “defensive” and don’t constitute a threat to the mainland.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 20:00

  • Illegal Immigration Leading To Major Drug Problems Inside America: Lt. Gen. Flynn
    Illegal Immigration Leading To Major Drug Problems Inside America: Lt. Gen. Flynn

    Authored by Zachary Steiber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The flood of illegal immigrants that have entered the United States in the past several decades has contributed to the rise in drugs and drug addiction inside the country, former national security adviser and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn says.

    “We have a domestic problem that is fueled by large, large numbers of deadly drugs and large amounts of money,” Flynn said on EpochTV’s “Facts Matter” program.

    Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in an interview with EpochTV. (The Epoch Times)

    The illegal immigration crisis has reached unprecedented levels under President Joe Biden, with the United States setting new records for illegal alien arrests at the U.S.–Mexico border for both a calendar year and a fiscal year. But the problem goes back 25 years, and has spanned administrations of both parties, said Flynn, who was the national security adviser under President Donald Trump.

    If even just 10 percent of the illegal immigrants are criminals, that means a force that’s larger than the entire U.S. Marine Corps has illegally entered the country in recent years, Flynn said.

    Criminal Cartels

    The criminals, often part of cartels, often go to cities and ply drugs, which has deepened the addiction problems there.

    “They get organized, and they get brought into the cities, they get brought into the urban areas, and they get some money into their pockets, and they’re in there, and they get some orders to get out there and sort of flood the zone with drugs,” Flynn said. “They’re killing this country with the likes of fentanyl, and opioids and heroin. And they’re getting away with it.”

    While some convicted criminals are deported, others are being allowed to remain in the United States under orders from top Biden administration officials, who have asserted that there is not enough manpower to deport all illegal immigrants that are convicted of additional crimes in addition to entering or remaining illegally.

    Speaking in Florida, Flynn said he backed some of the moves Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has made, but decried the busing of illegal immigrants from Texas and Arizona to Washington as a “publicity stunt” that is being cheered by the cartels. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey have been footing the bill for the buses, which has been described as putting pressure on Biden by sending illegal aliens to the city in which he lives. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser recently requested National Guard assistance due to the influx.

    In any case, the illegal immigration and drug issues require action at the federal, state, and local levels, according to Flynn.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 19:40

  • Top Physicist Admits "Distant Star" Photo Was Actually Chorizo
    Top Physicist Admits “Distant Star” Photo Was Actually Chorizo

    A French physicist supposedly tweeted an image of a distant star taken by the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), but it turned out to be fake news and nothing more than a slice of chorizo. 

    Étienne Klein, a prominent physicist and director at France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, tweeted an image of a red ball of spicy Spanish sausage last week, asserting it was the closest star to the sun. 

    “Picture of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years away from us. It was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. This level of detail… A new world is unveiled everyday,” Klein told his more than 92,000 followers on Sunday. 

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    The tweet went viral as Twitter users marveled at what they thought was the latest deep space picture taken by JWST. 

    However, Klein later revealed that the image wasn’t a star over four light-years away but just a slice of Spanish sausage chorizo. 

    “Well, when it’s cocktail hour, cognitive bias seem to find plenty to enjoy… Beware of it. According to contemporary cosmology, no object related to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere else other than on Earth,” he said. 

    On Wednesday, Klein apologized for the fake news:

    “I come to present my apologies to those who may have been shocked by my prank, which had nothing original about it,” he said, describing the tweet as a “scientist’s joke.”

    He also tweeted an image of the Cartwheel Galaxy taken by JWST, assuring the image was “real this time.” 

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    The timing of Klein’s tweet comes several weeks after NASA published the deepest views of the cosmos, a sight no one on Earth had ever seen. 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 19:20

  • The Tyranny Of Coronaphobia
    The Tyranny Of Coronaphobia

    Authored by Ramesh Thakur via The Browstone Institute,

    I’ve had two big worries during the pandemic, starting from the very beginning and still ongoing.

    Both relate to my sense that ‘coronaphobia’ has taken over as the basis of government policy in so many countries, with a complete loss of perspective that life is a balance of risks pretty much on a daily basis.

    First, the extent to which dominant majorities of peoples in countries with universal literacy can be successfully terrified into surrendering their civil liberties and individual freedoms has come as a frightening shock. There is this truly confronting video of the police in Melbourne assaulting a small young woman – for not wearing a mask!

    On the one hand, the evidence base for the scale and gravity of the Covid-19 pandemic is surprisingly thin in comparison to the myriad other threats to our health that we face every year. We don’t ban cars on the reasoning that every life counts and even one traffic death is one too many lives lost. Instead, we trade a level of convenience for a level of risk to life and limb.

    On the other hand, the restrictions imposed on everyday life as we know it have been far more draconian than anything previously done, even during World War II or the great 1918-19 flu. In present circumstances, the argument for the crucial importance of liberties has been made most eloquently by former UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption in a BBC interview on March 31st, and repeated several times since. 

    But it’s also an argument that Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of America (and therefore suspect in the post-Black Lives Matter and statues-toppling environment), made back in the 18th century: ‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety’. 

    Yet, the evidence for the effectiveness of draconian lockdowns is less than convincing. As one Lancet study concluded, ‘Rapid border closures, full lockdowns, and wide-spread testing were not associated with COVID-19 mortality per million people’.

    Second, the coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the health and economies of many developing countries where a billion people subsist in a Hobbesian state of nature and life is ‘nasty, brutish and short’. In poor countries, the biggest numbers of deaths are caused by water-borne infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies and neonatal and maternal complications. 

    The lockdown has produced its own version of Thucydides’ dictum that the strong do what they can, the weak suffer as they must. In developing countries, saving livelihoods is no less important than saving lives. The privileged jet-setters who imported the virus can utilise the private hospitals but the poor they infect have little access to decent healthcare and will be disproportionately devastated. The rich carry the virus, the poor bear the burden since staying at home means foregoing daily income. Millions ‘fear hunger may kill us before coronavirus’.

    I remain very puzzled at how so many people I considered to be liberals have been so utterly indifferent to the plight of the poor and the casual labourers who do not have the luxury of working from home, nor savings to fall back on to tide their family over until they can earn an income again. 

    Celebrities posting videos and selfies of working from home in opulent mansions is positively obscene and revolting. Not surprisingly, given my Indian background, I was powerfully influenced by the visual images of the millions of migrant workers literally on the march by foot over thousands of kilometres trying desperately to make their way back to home villages as all work dried up. 

    Many died en route and the heartbreaking case of Jamlo Madkam in particular, a 12-year old girl who trekked 100km but died of exhaustion just 11km from home, has never stopped haunting me.

    This is not to say that high-income Western countries are immune from the deadly effects of lockdown. But the acuteness of the harsh impacts on the poor is just unconscionable and hard to comprehend intellectually as well as emotionally.

    What about AFTER this pandemic? What worries you the most?

    Most of my answer to this question is anticipated in the answer to the first question: the long-term impact on the health, nutritional requirements, food security, mental wellbeing of people, etcetera. I’ve been worried from the start by the long-term impact of lockdowns over the coming decade on the lives and livelihoods of poor people in poor countries.

    I wonder, too, if we have set ourselves up to repeat the folly every year with annual outbreaks of flu, especially if it is a bad flu season. If not, why not? Perhaps someone will come up with the slogan ‘Flu Lives Matter’. Or governments could just pass laws making it illegal for anyone to fall sick and die.

    How and when are we going to return to the ‘new normal’ and what will it look like? Globalisation has underpinned unprecedented prosperity and the rise of educational and health outcomes for billions of people around the world, along with a dark underbelly of uncivil society. Will its discontents now throw away substantial benefits as the world retreats behind national moats once again?

    The pandemic proves conclusively the need to demilitarise foreign policy and promote greater multilateral cooperation against grave threats that are global in nature and require global solutions. What my former boss, the late Kofi Annan, called ‘problems without passports’ require solutions without passports. The risk is instead we will move in the opposite direction and recreate regionalised balance of power systems in various hotspots around the world.

    Pandemics have long been identified as one of many global challenges for which the world should have prepared in advance. Recently The Wall Street Journal had a major investigative article on the failure to do so, despite ample warnings from scientists. ‘A Deadly Coronavirus Was Inevitable. Why Was No One Ready?’ asked the authors, and quite rightly too. 

    Another catastrophe into which we seem to be sleepwalking is a nuclear war. And remember, the whole point of the sleepwalking analogy is that people walking in their sleep are not aware of it at the time. Other pressing global challenges include growing ecosystem imbalances and fragility, depletion of fish stocks, food and water insecurity, desertification, and of course a host of other diseases that remain the biggest killers on an annual basis.

    Conclusion

    By way of a concluding reflection, I think a common error has been to privilege the medical over all other considerations. In reality, and certainly with the benefit of hindsight but also from the very beginning in my case, this should have involved a considered assessment of what I call ‘A Balance of Interests’ (my chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy). Governments must take into account and reconcile medical, social, economic, liberal democratic, human rights and international policies in fashioning an integrated public policy response to a pandemic.

    *  *  *

    Epilogue

    The above is extracted from a long, 3,000 word full page interview featured in a Sunday edition of the Argentine daily La Nación on August 22, 2020 (in Spanish): Hugo Alconada Mon, ‘The Tyranny of Coronaphobia’, INTERVIEW WITH RAMESH THAKUR

    Since then Covid has mutated into multiple variants, mass vaccinations have been carried out in very many countries, and our understanding, data and knowledge have evolved and grown. Despite that, re-reading these two worries each about the policy responses to Covid two years ago and about the possible ramifications for what the post-Covid new normal will look like, I don’t think I would change a single word today. 

    I confess I still don’t understand the global outbreak of collective panic and hysteria, the shelving of all existing pandemic management plans, the failure of medical professions to speak out, and the astonishing public compliance with authoritarian policies.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 19:00

  • US Prepares To Send $1 Billion In Latest Ukraine Weapons Package
    US Prepares To Send $1 Billion In Latest Ukraine Weapons Package

    The Biden administration is reportedly about to send $1 billion more in US taxpayer funded aid to Ukraine, in what will be one of the largest packages so far, Reuters reports.

    Ukrainian servicemen load a truck with the FGM-148 Javelin, American made-portable anti-tank missiles provided by U.S. to Ukraine, at Kyiv’s airport Boryspil on Feb. 11.Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images file

    The aid will include munitions for long-range weapons and armored transport vehicles, according to three anonymous sources, who added that the package had not yet been signed by President Biden, and could change in value and content before it’s a done deal. As it currently stands, the assistance includes munitions for HIMARS, NASAMS surface-to-air-missile system ammunition, and up to 50 M113 armored medical transports.

    As Reuters notes, the latest assistance – which could come as early as Monday – would bring the total amount given by the Biden administration to $8.8 billion (or 9 fired Ukrainian prosecutors, if one rounds up), since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    The new package comes on the heels of a recent Pentagon decision to offer medical treatment to Ukrainians at a US military hospital in Germany near Ramstein air base.

    It also comes on the heels of a separate security assistance package worth up to $550 million which was announced by the Pentagon last Monday, which includes additional ammo for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

    The new package would be funded under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), in which the president can authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency.

    HIMARS play a key role in the artillery duel between Ukraine and Russia has been described as “grinding” with very little movement of the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

    Since Russian troops poured over the border in February in what Putin termed a “special military operation”, the conflict has settled into a war of attrition fought primarily in the east and south of Ukraine. -Reuters

    The latest round of assistance (which comes two weeks after Ukraine’s first-lady and Vogue magazine ‘Portrait of Bravery‘ Olena Zeleska asked for more weapons) should come as no surprise… after all, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently said the quiet part out loud – revealing that as long as US taxpayer funded assistance flows into Ukraine in what he considers ‘the right path,’ they can ‘fight to the last person.’

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 18:40

  • Biden Admin Evacuated Hundreds On US Watchlist From Afghanistan: Whistleblower
    Biden Admin Evacuated Hundreds On US Watchlist From Afghanistan: Whistleblower

    Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Two GOP senators have urged the Department of Defense (DoD) to immediately investigate whistleblower allegations that hundreds of Afghan evacuees who appeared on official watchlists were not properly vetted before they were released into the United States.

    Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks during a Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Aug. 3, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    According to the DoD whistleblower, the Biden administration failed to properly vet 324 Afghan evacuees who appeared on the DoD’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist (BEWL), which includes known suspected terrorists, said U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Thursday.

    The BEWL identifies individuals whose biometrics have been collected and determined by analysts to be threats or potential threats to national security, including known suspected terrorists.

    A full flight of 265 people supported by members of the UK Armed Forces on board an evacuation flight out of Kabul airport (MoD)

    Hawley and Johnson said the whistleblower also alleges that White House and DoD officials instructed agency personnel to “cut corners” and not conduct full fingerprint tests on the evacuees at staging bases in Europe, “in order to promote the rushed evacuation from Afghanistan.”

    Further, the whistleblower alleges that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff were authorized to delete old biometric data at their discretion, said the senators, who went on to say that this is a “troubling development that could threaten national security and public safety.”

    Whistleblower Allegations Raised in Letter

    Hawley and Johnson raised the DoD whistleblower’s allegations with DoD Acting Inspector General Sean O’Donnell in a letter on Thursday (pdf).

    “We write to you with concern over new allegations raised by a Department of Defense (DoD) whistleblower. This information may show the Biden Administration’s failure to vet those evacuated from Afghanistan was even worse than the public was led to believe. The following allegations demand an immediate investigation by your office,” the senators wrote.

    The DoD has previously admitted in a report that the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) did not vet all Afghan evacuees “using all DoD data prior to arriving in” the United States.

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    The DoD earlier this year said that it identified 50 Afghan individuals in the United States whose records indicate they might pose a significant security concern.

    Hawley and Johnson said they “understand that number has risen to at least 65,” and declared that the individuals “need to be immediately located, fully vetted, and, if appropriate, deported.”

    The senators noted that the 324 Afghan individuals allegedly on the watchlist are in addition to the 50 or 65 already identified.

    Answers Sought From DOD

    Hawley and Johnson asked O’Donnell to confirm how many BEWL matches were generated by biometric submissions from Afghan evacuees.

    Of these matches, if any, the senators asked the DoD acting inspector general to clarify if any were denied entry, admitted entry, or currently in the United States.

    The senators also sought information about the allegations that NSC or DoD staff instructed personnel to cut corners in processing the evacuees’ fingerprints, and asked for clarification on the circumstances under which agency personnel may delete biometric data.

    Hawley and Johnson also asked O’Donnell to clarify the number of BEWL matches generated by Afghan evacuees after they arrived; what steps have been taken toward identification, vetting, or deportation; and how many were known suspected terrorists.

    Additionally, the senators asked if the FBI or other law enforcement were investigating the individuals.

    Hawley Grills FBI Director

    At a Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on Thursday, Hawley confronted FBI Director Christopher Wray about the whistleblower’s allegations.

    Wray wasn’t able to give a clear answer about the FBI’s efforts to track down and interview the 324 Afghan evacuees, but noted that “there are a number of individuals, through our joint terrorism task forces, that we are actively trying to investigate.”

    The FBI director noted that the agency had disrupted a number of actions related to the evacuees, but did not specify what they were.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 18:20

  • China At The Crossroads
    China At The Crossroads

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    Watch where capital is flowing. That’s pretty much all you need to know to predict the future.

    The word “China” evokes strong emotions, so let’s set it aside in favor of a simple syllogism:

    1. Certain things matter in all economies.

    2. China is an economy.

    3. Therefore these certain things matter in China.

    Four things matter to all economies:

    1. The flow of capital and talent in or out of an economy.

    2. The productivity of that capital and talent.

    3. The availability and cost of energy.

    4. The stability of the primary foundation of the majority’s wealth.

    Capital and talent flowing into an economy and being productively invested generates prosperity. Capital and talent squandered on unproductive speculation generates bubbles of phantom wealth that eventually pop, destroying the illusion of wealth.

    Capital and talent fleeing an economy generates stagnation and collapse. Capital and talent are democratic in the most basic form: both vote with their feet. Dictators can strut around ordering everyone to wear their underwear on the outside of their clothing, but if people can vote with their feet, he soon finds he’s talking to himself and a handful of clueless cronies.

    The cliche is that capital goes where it’s well-treated. What does that actually mean? It turns out capital and talent both want what the average citizen / participant in the economy wants: stability and predictability. Every participant wants the rules to be visible and predictable, so they can make decisions about where to invest their capital and talent with some confidence that the rules won’t change tomorrow.

    If everything you’ve worked for can be taken from you or you’re no longer able to sell and deploy your capital and talent elsewhere, then why gamble your capital and talent in such an unstable, unpredictable economy at all?

    The more restrictions that are applied to keep capital and talent from fleeing, the greater the incentives for capital and talent to flee. Those that can’t flee just give up and lay down, doing the minimum to survive.

    Capital and talent invested in unproductive bridges to nowhere and speculative bubbles generate a brief explosion of illusory wealth. The workers and enterprises building the bridges to nowhere spend their earnings, boosting consumption, and the incoming tide of capital chasing speculative gains boosts the value of the assets being chased.

    But bridges to nowhere and speculative frenzies don’t actually boost the productivity of capital or labor; they are mal-investments that bleed the economy dry behind a flimsy facade of phantom wealth, a facade generated by the enormous tide of capital gushing into the economy.

    Once the tide recedes as capital votes with its feet, the facade of phantom wealth collapses.

    When energy is cheap and abundant, all sorts of things become possible. When energy becomes scarce and costly, all sorts of things are no longer financially viable.

    Economies that only function if energy is cheap and abundant unravel when energy becomes scarce and costly.

    People want to become wealthier, and they will follow whatever trails are open to them to do so. If the economy is structured to funnel most of the majority’s wealth into one asset class, that economy becomes highly dependent on the stability of that asset class for its financial, social and political stability.

    If, for example, the people’s wealth is channeled into real estate to the degree that owning empty flats is considered a form of secure savings as well as a stake in an investment bubble that will never pop, then that economy is extremely vulnerable to the resulting speculative excess collapsing under its own weight.

    When an asset class owned solely by the super-wealthy collapses under its own weight–for example, fine art–the damage to the economy is limited. But when an asset class that is the primary foundation of the majority’s wealth collapses, that is extremely consequential because too much of the economy’s capital has been sunk in an unproductive speculative bubble.

    As strategist Edward Luttwak observed, the funny thing about force is how limited it is in actual efficacy. Forcing capital and talent to stay put doesn’t make people productive. It simply forces a choice: find a way to flee or just give up and stop working hard. After all, what’s the point?

    Every economy in which capital and talent can no longer count on predictability is an economy at the crossroads. As Luttwak explained, force is not the same as power, though many confuse the two. Power attracts capital and talent because they’re being offered stability and predictability. Force tries to shove instability and unpredictability down everyone’s throat and compels then to declare their undying loyalty for instability and unpredictability.

    But capital and talent vote with their feet. If they can’t vote with their feet, they just give up. Any economy in which capital and talent either flee or give up has only one possible end-point: stagnation and collapse.

    In other words, watch where capital is flowing. That’s pretty much all you need to know to predict the future.

    *  *  *

    My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: When You Can’t Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 17:40

  • "Less Drag Queens, More Chuck Norris": Orban Rocks CPAC Texas
    “Less Drag Queens, More Chuck Norris”: Orban Rocks CPAC Texas

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has fiercely defended his country’s borders, language and culture, gave a 30-minute speech to a crowd of thousands of American admirers in Dallas on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

    He painted a picture of America and Hungary facing twin fronts in a struggle against liberalism, globalists, communists, and “fake news.”

    “The West is at war with itself,” he said, adding “The globalist can all go to hell. I have come to Texas.”

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    “I can already see tomorrow’s headlines: Far-right European racist, anti-Semite strongman — the Trojan horse of Putin — holds speech at the conservative conference,” he said, to applause and laughter. “They did not want me to be here, and they made every effort to drive a wedge between us. They hate me and slander me and my country as they hate you and slander you,” Orban continued.

    Orban also railed against illegal migration, saying “To stop illegal immigration, we have actually built that wall,” adding that his government was able to “reduce illegal migration to zero.”

    Then, Orban discussed the importance of family and rejecting gender ideology, saying we need to “build a wall around our children” to protect against people who are targeting them.

    “To sum up, the mother is a woman, the father is a man – and leave our kids alone. Full stop, end of discussion!“

    He then said we need “less drag queens and more Chuck Norris,” to loud applause.

    “These two locations will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for Western civilization,” he said, adding “Today we hold neither of them yet. We need both. You have two years to get ready.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 17:20

  • Sen. Menendez Pushes Bill To Designate Taiwan 'Major Non-NATO Ally'
    Sen. Menendez Pushes Bill To Designate Taiwan ‘Major Non-NATO Ally’

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    In an op-ed for The New York Times, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for a major increase in US support for Taiwan that would overhaul US policy toward the island.

    Menendez said that the US can’t make the same “mistake” with Taiwan that it did with Ukraine. He argued that the US didn’t support Kyiv enough to prevent a Russian invasion, even though it’s clear that US meddling in Ukraine was one of President Vladimir Putin’s main motivations for launching the invasion.

    Image source: Bloomberg

    “A clear lesson from the war in Ukraine is that authoritarian leaders have been emboldened in recent years by dysfunctional democracies and hesitant international institutions. Accordingly, the United States needs less ambiguity to guide our approach to Taiwan,” Menendez wrote.

    The current US policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan means that Washington won’t say one way or another if it will intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion. But Menendez wants to change that and is also looking to start sending Taiwan billions of dollars in military aid.

    Menendez and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently introduced the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which would designate Taiwan as a “major non-NATO ally,” authorize $4.5 billion in military aid for the island over four years, and require economic sanctions in response to a Chinese attack.

    Menendez said the legislation “would be the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy toward Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.” The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was set to review the bill on Wednesday, but the review has been delayed.

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    While Menendez said the legislation is necessary for deterrence, it would only make war in the region more likely. Chinese officials have warned that US support for Taiwan’s “independence forces” would lead to war, and they would view the bill as a major shift away from the one-China policy.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 08/05/2022 – 17:00

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