Aug 06

Today’s News 6th August 2024

  • These Are The World's Biggest Submarine Fleets
    These Are The World’s Biggest Submarine Fleets

    Submarines are crucial for navies because they provide stealthy, strategic capabilities for surveillance, deterrence, and offensive operations in underwater environments.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the top 12 countries by their number of military submarines as of July 2024, based on data from GlobalFirepower.com.

    Russia Has the Biggest Fleet

    Russia ranks first with 65 submarines, followed by the U.S. (64) and China (61).

    Combined, the three countries account for 40% of the global fleet.

    When it comes to technology, however, the U.S. is ahead.

    According to Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. submarine technology is one generation, or 10 to 20 years, ahead of  counterparts like China.

    The latest addition to the U.S. Navy, the Columbia-class nuclear submarine, is the most sophisticated vessel of its kind. It is stealthy and equipped with 16 missile tubes.

    The American fleet also has the Seawolf class, designed to address the threat of Soviet ballistic missile submarines and replace the aging Los Angeles class of submarines.

    During the 1980s, a fleet of 29 submarines was to be built, which was reduced to 12. With the end of the Cold War and each submarine costing about $3 billion, the program was reduced to only three units.

    Among the Russian fleet, the Sierra II Class, also known as Project 945A Kondor Class, remains one of the most expensive and deep-diving submarines. These vessels were explicitly developed for search and destroy missions against U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

    If you liked this post, check out Mapped: The World’s Largest Armies in 2024. This graphic shows the top 10 countries by military personnel as of May 2024.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/06/2024 – 02:45

  • Why Is The EU Upping The Pressure On Meloni In Italy?
    Why Is The EU Upping The Pressure On Meloni In Italy?

    Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

    On July 24 the European Commission announced it is putting Italy on notice for alleged “rule of law” deficiencies, which could put in jeopardy EU cohesion and recovery funds earmarked for Rome.

    In theory, the warning is supposed to be about democratic standards, corruption, the independence of the judicial system and the safety of journalists. In reality, the threat to cut off some EU funds is used as a form of financial blackmail to keep bloc countries from straying from neoliberal orthodoxy and NATO priorities.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made this clear when she issued her thinly veiled “tools” threat ahead of Italy’s 2022 election that brought Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (FdI) party to power:

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    The use of these rule and law tools for purposes other than their intended purpose is also apparent in the case of Hungary and Poland. The Commission used billions in withheld funds earlier this year to bribe Orbán into relenting on money he was holding up for Project Ukraine.

    Poland’s rule of law problems with Brussels magically disappeared once loyal EU/NATO soldier Donald Tusk was elected prime minister last year — despite nearly identical issues with the media, for example, as under his predecessor.

    The Meloni government is now being charged with dragging its feet on reform of strict defamation laws and, ironically from the austerity-loving EU, budget cuts to public media. In an additional irony, the Banderite-supporting Commission mentions the fact that Italy’s public broadcaster censored an anti-fascist monologue on one of its shows.As the reprimand is merely a tool for political pressure from Brussels, the particulars likely aren’t all that important.

    The real question is why is the European Commission coming after Italy now?

    While there might not be a clear answer, we can look at the Meloni government’s economic and foreign policy moves for clues.

    Neoliberal Nation 

    The Meloni government has been overseeing a wave of privatizations, including critical communications infrastructure to CIA-connected private equity, and plans for more of the state rail company Ferrovie dello Stato, Poste Italiane, Monte dei Paschi bank and energy giant Eni.

    Last year, Meloni chose May Day to announce her government’s promotion of short-term worker contracts, as well as the abolition of Italy’s basic income program, which provided the unemployed with an average of 567 euros a month. Despite the program providing a mild stimulus to the economy, Meloni said its elimination will force people back to work. “Where is the slump in the economy and employment?” she asked.

    She failed to mention that roughly 40 percent of Italian workers earn less than 10 euros an hour in the country where average wages have fallen 2.9 percent since 1990. Millions of Italians emigrate looking for better opportunities while Meloni backtracked on her strict immigration stance in order to bring in more workers and keep the country’s wage-suppression model on track.

    The government in Rome has also been pushing through a series of “reforms” as part of deals to keep money flowing from the EU’s Covid recovery fund. This neoliberal overhaul was initiated under Meloni’s predecessor, unelected former European Central Bank (ECB) President and Goldman Sachs executive Mario Draghi, with an assist from McKinsey and includes privatizing local public services and transfering power from elected officials to bureaucrats at the Italian Competition Authority which is overseen from Brussels.

    It’s common knowledge that the billions in disbursements from the EU Covid recovery fund would be put on hold if Meloni deviated from the path of Draghi. So Meloni, willingly or not, has gone along.

    Italy is the largest recipient (208 billion euros) of the EU’s Covid recovery fund, but the spigot will be turned off at the end of next year. In the absence of the threat to pull that money, the Commission could be looking for other ways to maintain leverage over Meloni or any future Italian government by placing the country on the rule of law watchlist.

    Any public spat with Brussels over funds always has the potential to topple the government in Rome if it leads to a “confidence crisis” in the bond markets and the ECB doesn’t step in to keep Italian borrowing costs from going through the roof.

    So it’s the same old story for Italy, which has actually been a top performer in liberalizing reforms over the past decades compared with other advanced economies, and Rome has followed the EU’s reform policy rulebook much more closely than Berlin or Paris.

    Yet the cure for Italy’s ills is always more wage suppression, more market-friendly reforms, more social spending cuts, and more privatization. And when that inevitably doesn’t work, the answer is always to double down. Meloni has done nothing to change this, and hasn’t shown much of any sign that she and the FdI have any problem with this arrangement.

    Problems with “The Most Powerful and Successful Alliance in History?”

    Meloni obviously isn’t much of a fan of having to wait around for the NATO royalty to show up to start a meeting:

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    But are there other signs that there’s more significance behind the eye roll? Has the Meloni-led coalition shown any signs of getting wobbly on Project Ukraine? Not really.

    Some in government like Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini are often critical, specifically of how the economic war against Russia harms Italian interests. Italian officials were also among some of the louder voices in opposition to French President Emmanuel Macron’s dalliances with officially sending European forces into Ukraine.

    But Meloni has been a major backer of Ukraine. After all the hysteria over her election back in 2022, a year and a half later, the New York Times was able to declare that Meloni solidified her credentials and “has put the European establishment at ease. She has proved to be rock-ribbed on the question of Ukraine…”

    And she has made clear her coalition partners like Salvini can say whatever they want as long as their votes don’t get in the way of supporting the West’s proxy war in Ukraine.

    Split on Syria?

    Last week, the foreign ministers of Italy, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia and Slovakia said they are willing to thaw ties with Syria in a step they hope will lead to the return of Syrian refugees.

    In a joint letter, the above countries are calling for the creation of an EU-Syria envoy who would be tasked with reinstalling a Syrian ambassador to Brussels and designating 10 so-called “safe zones” within Syria’s government-held regions to which Syrian migrants in Europe could be returned.

    On July 26, Rome also announced its intentions to return an ambassador to Damascus after a decade-long absence during the West’s efforts to topple the government.

    Washington and Brussels will not be in favor of such a move, especially considering that the European Commission just unveiled its own plan to throw a billion euros at Lebanon to host Syrian refugees there (who knows where they’ll go when Israel gets its war with Hezbollah) and the simple fact that Syria is an ally of Russia.

    Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with Putin on July 24 and likely discussed a restoration of ties with Turkiye and possibly “Russian military assistance to Syria in the context of the present Israeli rampage in the neighborhood and most specifically with a view to improving Syria’s ineffective air defenses.”

    China?

    Much has been made about the rule of law news coming out right as Meloni embarked on a trip to China. Could the European Commission have thrown together a rule of law case against Italy in the month since Meloni mentioned she was planning on visiting China during Italy’s hosting of the G7 in June? Sure, but Meloni’s trip was also nothing out of ordinary for a European head of state. In fact, it was very similar to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit in April.

    Italy and China signed some minor agreements, and Meloni mostly pleaded for more Chinese investment and a balancing of trade during her five-day visit. She also performed the obligatory lectures on China’s “support” for Russia and Chinese “overcapacity.”

    Meloni also said Italy adheres to the one-China policy and opposes “decoupling” and protectionism — although Rome did recently back the EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.

    The Chinese were polite and talked up the relationship, but they’re mostly always that way (as long as it’s not German FM Annalena Baerbock), still patiently prodding the EU to act in its own interests rather than those of the US. Chinese President Xi Jinping said China is willing to import more high-quality Italian products and that he hopes Italy will in return provide a fair business environment for Chinese companies investing in Italy.

    Meloni had previously taken a hawkish tone against China and even torpedoed Italy’s involvement in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) last year. Her about face helps highlight the disconnect between instructions to US imperial outposts and reality — one that China hopes to take advantage of:

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    Indeed, on Meloni’s trip Italy and China signed a three-year action plan on Sunday to implement past agreements and experiment with new forms of cooperation, including collaboration on electric vehicles and renewable energy. Some Chinese commentators said that the plan is more like a “compensatory” deal for Italy following Rome’s withdrawal from BRI last year:

    “The action plan serves to minimize the negative impact on Italy after it pulled out of BRI; signing the plan also signals Italy has vast demand for cooperation with China, as it used a alternative plan to focus on areas where there is demand from both countries,” [said] ui Hongjian, a professor with the Academy of Regional and Global Governance with Beijing Foreign Studies University.

    It’s important to note that the BRI is not a membership organization like BRICS, the EU, the Eurasian Economic Union, etc. It’s more of an umbrella term for infrastructure and investment deals that foster more interconnectivity to Beijing’s and typically the partner country’s advantage. Rome and Beijing never progressed much on deals after Italy joined the BRI. Will this latest “action plan” be any different?

    Some China watchers celebrated the trip as a sign that Italy and Europe are beginning to get wobbly on its hawkish China stance:

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    But that ignores the fact that Meloni and Italy, despite having the third-largest economy in the EU, do not have that type of clout in the bloc — as evidenced by rule of law slap down that serves as a reminder for Italy to remember its place. Could more cooperation between Rome and Beijing provide an example of the benefits of such collaboration to other EU countries? The Global Times thinks so:

    Meloni’s visit will have a demonstration effect among European countries, as the trend of “decoupling with China” becomes more prevalent on the continent. Substantial cooperation between China and Italy will demonstrate the benefits of collaborating with Beijing, leading Europe to realize the advantages of such partnerships.

    The problem is that wishful thinking ignores the fact that if Meloni were to lead Italy down that path, Brussels and Washington would work to quickly install a new government in Rome. Still, Beijing is betting that this current arrangement cannot last, maybe best summed up by Zhou Bo, a retired PLA colonel and current senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, who wrote the following last year in the South China Morning Post:

    The battleground won’t be in the Global South, where the US has very much lost to China, especially in Africa and Latin America. It won’t be in the Indo-Pacific either, where few countries want to take sides. It will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and where China is the largest trading partner.

    Gradually, the transatlantic alliance will relax. Even if America’s decline is gradual, it cannot afford a global military presence. It will have to retreat from around the world, including from the Middle East and Europe, to focus on the Indo-Pacific, where the US sees China as a long-term threat. Successive US presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have asked Europeans to take greater ownership of their security. In other words, Europe has to have strategic autonomy, even if it doesn’t want to. That Europe takes China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time says more about Europe’s confusion about China, than what China really is.

    Meloni Flailing About Unable to Change the One Fact that Really Matters

    Meloni’s doubling back to China after confidently bailing on the BRI last year is one of her many headscratchers. Another recent example is her recent bungling of talks in Brussels.

    Meloni is the president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, which her FdI party belongs to. It consolidated its position as Italy’s strongest one in the EU elections, and Meloni had an opportunity to grab a top European Commission post for Italy. Instead, despite cozying up to von der Leyen over the past few years, Meloni and the FdI voted against her in her confirmation for another term.

    Maybe the rule of law notice from Ursula’s Commission is simply out of spite to remind Meloni who’s really in charge. Von der Leyen is nothing if not vengeful. Recall that after a wolf killed her cherished pony Dolly, she began working to reduce wolves’ legal protection so hunters could again go after them to the point of extinction in Europe. EU diplomats describe von der Leyen’s focus on wolves as “strange,” “bizarre,” “puzzling,” and definitely “pushy.”

    So if von der Leyen feels like Meloni failed a loyalty test, a rule of law slapdown wouldn’t be all that surprising. This thread gets into how Meloni badly misplayed her hand in the horse trading at the European Parliament:

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    Politico, in an Aug. 2 piece that reads like high school gossip, details how von der Leyen was gradually inviting Meloni to the cool kids’ table only for the latter to show her ungratefulness and throw it all away. Meloni’s waywardness is depicted as not driven by any grand vision for a more sovereign Italy but simply frustration over still not having a seat at the table when von der Leyen’s centrist conservatives, the liberals of French President Emmanuel Macron and the socialists of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were cutting deals recently in Brussels. That’s all likely true.

    Regardless, the Politico piece makes clear that Meloni’s tantrum better end yesterday: 

    Others stressed that the relationship is at a turning point, and Meloni will have to decide which way it will go.

    “We will see which Meloni will rise from this: the hard-right one we always feared or the pragmatic one which we have gotten to know?” said one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

    Even if Meloni bends the knee again to the Commission, it likely won’t make a difference for her political future due a series of approaching problems that not even von der Leyen can help with. Meloni swallowing her pride and going hat in hand to Beijing after championing her withdrawal from the BRI is an acknowledgement of the economic trouble on the horizon for Italy, as well as much of the eurozone.

    Firstly, there is no end in sight to the energy crisis in Italy.

    Rome had grand plans, initiated under Draghi, to make the country into a gas hub for Europe. It has a pipeline to Algeria and rammed through expansions of LNG storage facilities over local concerns in order to try to take advantage of its Mediterraean position.

    None of it is working as planned.

    The Red Sea remains a no-go zone, which doesn’t look to change anytime soon. The planned increase in supplies from Algeria hasn’t worked out. This left Italy turning back to Russia for pipeline gas while it was still possible before further bans go into effect, but there are problems even there now.

    So not only has Italy not become a hub, but its own supply outlook is bleak. The country has already spent well over 100 billion euros trying to weather the energy crisis, but it is going to be increasingly difficult to continue at that pace.

    That’s because EU austerity enforcement is on the horizon. On July 26 Italy, France, and five other EU countries were placed in the bloc’s dreaded  excessive deficit procedure for violating sacred budget rules: a state’s debt must be no higher than 60 percent of national output, with a public deficit of no more than three percent.

    Italy must now present a plan to Brussels and will have no choice but to lean heavily on extreme austerity that could well be worse than during the spending cuts of the 2011-2014 Euro Crisis — brutal budgetary tightening that leads to life expectancy drops for poorer citizens.

    So even if the European Commission doesn’t torpedo Meloni’s government over perceived violations of NATO/EU dogma, the coming economic implosion will almost certainly end her time as prime minister. She doesn’t have the type of public support that can weather such a storm nor does she have a level of control over financial institutions in the country with its own currency like in Hungary with Orban, which has allowed him to withstand endless pressure campaigns from Brussels. 

    ***

    Focusing on Meloni’s political future risks missing the forest for the trees, however. The bigger story here is that this is another reminder that EU countries are not in charge of their economies and foreign policies. That would be Brussels above them and above Brussels, Washington. Until that hierarchy changes, the only change Europeans are likely to see is continual decline.

    The fact that the EU needs to rely more and more on these types of threats and financial blackmail in order to force member states to go against the interests of a majority of their citizens is not a recipe for long term success.

    In the meantime, the question becomes: what’s an elected leader of an EU nation to do if they want to do what’s best for their country and stay in power? Is the best route to try to limit the damage with other parts of the world, a la Orban, in preparation to quickly pick up the pieces when the EU and NATO begin to crack apart?

    As the Global Times wrote after Meloni’s trip:

    In the future, as long as both countries continue to solidify the position of economic and trade relations as the cornerstone of their bilateral relations, enhance the complementarity of their economic and trade relations, explore new paths for cooperation and foster friendships through cultural exchanges, a mature and stable China-Italy relationship is certainly within reach.

    Now Rome would just need to figure out a way to start repairing its once-strong relationship with Moscow.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 08/06/2024 – 02:00

  • How Trump Can Win (Or Lose) The Election
    How Trump Can Win (Or Lose) The Election

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    The Good News

    The good news for the Trump campaign is that the sure Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is a lifelong California hard leftist at a time when the state is emblematic of progressive nihilism. Her extremist advocacies as a San Francisco county and city attorney, state Attorney General, and senator are on record. And they are consistent with what has virtually destroyed the state.

    Harris was also a driving force as vice president for Joe Biden’s unpopular and unworkable progressive policies—whether open borders, massive illegal immigration, hyperinflation, fanning woke divisiveness, arguing for lax criminal prosecution, or defunding the police. She was far closer to the mindset of the unhinged Squad than Joe Biden himself.

    None of the Biden-Harris administration’s main policy initiatives ever polled 50 percent approval. Abroad, the world blew up under their tenure with an unbridled Putin invading Ukraine, an unbound Iran brazenly using its proxies to attack Israel, and China all but warning the West of its impending absorption of Taiwan—now not a question of if but only when.

    So, it should be easy for Trump to win the key midwestern swing states. All he needs to do is repeatedly remind voters that Harris is the most far-left presidential candidate in modern history. He can drive home that she is not only on record endorsing these extreme positions but has been doing so emphatically for years to energize her exclusively left-wing constituents and audiences.

    If Trump heeds the lessons of late Lee Atwater, then he need only follow the 1988 Republican campaign script, when hard-left Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis’s 17-point lead in late July melted through nonstop reminders that Dukakis was and always would be far to the left of the American voter.

    Dukakis’s efforts to claim that the election was only about his “competence,” not his liberal ideology, evaporated after a devastating series of ads—exposing the “technocrat” Dukakis as an extremist and a hypocrite desperate to disown and hide his prior unapologetically left-wing record from the voters. And Dukakis was a far better candidate than Harris.

    The Bad News

    However, the bad news for Trump is that there are only roughly 90 days left to expose Harris’s extremist record. And like cognitively challenged Joe Biden in 2020, her handlers will not allow her to speak extemporaneously or to give interviews to real journalists.

    She will hide her innate silliness and her extreme record and instead teleprompt a scripted persona and pseudo-centrist agenda to the nation.

    There is, then, almost no time to redefine the reclusive Harris, given she was never a candidate for 2024 nomination. She stuck by the hard lie that Joe Biden was “fit as a fiddle” until he wasn’t and was selected by party bosses and billionaires at a historically late stage of the campaign. That was not a drawback given her hard-left vulnerabilities, but an advantage given that it was always much easier to hide the real Harris in three months than for over two years.

    In addition, she will vastly outspend the Trump campaign—given that her youth, gender, and race contrast positively with the admittedly enfeebled octogenarian Biden and his increasing snark, crankiness, and off-putting incoherence.

    And finally, she is a tempting personal target that naturally irks Trump. So, he has risen to the bait to respond in kind to the sort of personal vitriol that has long been directed at him and now running mate J.D. Vance. When politicos, like the governor of Illinois, stoop to lie that Vance had sexual intercourse with a couch, then there are now no limits on anything.

    Harris is certainly a “DEI” candidate. In the hysteria following the death of George Floyd and the months-long riots of 2020, Joe Biden pandered to his hard-left base that had orchestrated his nomination by forcing the withdrawal of his non-electable primary rivals by promising that he would select a black vice president who would likely be a woman.

    Those racial and gender fixations explained why Biden selected Harris, who otherwise had a dismal and brief senate career. As a candidate herself, she had failed to win a single primary or a single delegate and withdrew in humiliation from the 2019-20 race without even entering a primary or caucus.

    During the violent days of the summer of 2020’s rioting, arson, and looting, Harris virtue signaled her eagerness to get on the presidential ticket in ways that would have proved impossible on her own merits, apparently by pandering to the hard-left BLM/Antifa base.

    So, she loudly helped to raise money to bail out Minnesota rioters and looters. She bragged on CBS that protests (that had long proved violent and had led to deaths and hundreds of injured law enforcement officers) would and should not cease. And thus, we, the American people, she boasted, should “beware” that the unrest would continue up to and beyond Election Day. That warning is about as provocatively left-wing as it gets in American politics and was far more reckless than anything Trump said on January 6. Yet apparently her radical incitement either helped, or was excused, in her appointment as Biden’s running mate

    Moreover, Harris has indeed played the race card, sometimes presenting herself as the “first” California Indian-American senator, sometimes altering her accent to a black patois to emphasize her supposedly authentic black credentials—as the child of an immigrant, Jamaican, and Stanford professor father.

    There are other tempting but dead-end Trump targets.

    Given that his lead over Biden had been growing weekly and given the president’s exponential rate of cognitive decline, it was natural to keep harping on Biden as the “worst” president in U.S. history. As Trump put it, the entire Biden tenure really was a “disaster”—and thus, logically and by extension, so was Harris’s role in that calamity of an administration.

    So, all these ad hominem, name-calling targets are naturally attractive. But in the few weeks left (early voting in some states is scheduled to begin in mere days), they remain dead-ends, distractions, and time-wasters.

    Proving Harris is a DEI selection, a woke opportunist, a hypocrite, an utter incompetent, childlike, and indistinguishable from Joe Biden won’t win Trump a single additional MAGA vote in the swing states or one new Trump-hating Democrat.

    But these ad hominem distractions will bore or even bother independent voters as they hear endless media-ginned-up controversies and psychodramas that Trump is “cruel,” “mean,” and “racist.” At best, Trump will achieve a draw with the Trump-hating media and, at worst, sacrifice precious time and opportunities better spent warning Americans of the Harris record.

    Trump, again, must force Harris to come clean by either reemphasizing her lifelong extreme positions or be exposed as a flip-flopping opportunist, scrambling to reinvent herself in the fashion of a losing George McGovern, Mike Dukakis, or Jimmy Carter.

    Getting tangled up in Harris’s woke and racial contortions, her opportunistically amorous past, and her bouts of cacklerhea will only suggest that Trump is desperate and playing into the hands of the woke victimization narratives.

    Trump must instead hammer away that Biden-Harris has left us with a $1.2 trillion yearly interest bill on the debt, higher interest rates, 10 million unaudited illegal and often dangerous aliens, a nonexistent border, and prices on staples essential to life—key foods, fuels, power, housing, insurance, and health care—20 to 30 percent higher than when Biden took office.

    He should ask Harris, “You own these policies, so why are you suddenly ashamed rather than proud of what you did?” Harris bragged that she was “proud” to have been the last person in the room with Biden on the decision to flee in disgrace from Afghanistan.

    So, Trump should ask, “Then why did both of you abandon to the Taliban terrorists over 70,000 American trucks, armored vehicles, and Humvees, as well over a half-million heavy machine guns, automatic pistols, and assault weapons, along with over 100 planes and helicopters and nearly 200,000 assorted night-vision goggles, sophisticated radios, and artillery pieces?”

    In our dangerous world, with an explosive Middle East, a belligerent Russia, and an oil-thirsty China, the best way to protect American energy interests and independence is not to ban fracking and horizontal drilling, stop the development of natural gas production, or mandate electric vehicles and implement the Green New Deal.

    Once upon a time, the Republicans revealed to the country just how far left a nice enough George McGovern was, just how out of touch and hard leftist gentleman Mike Dukakis was, and just how unstable and unsustainable the world was that an upright Jimmy Carter had left America. Landslide rejections of those leftist agendas followed.

    So, show all the clips of a word salad Harris struggling to achieve minimum coherence—but always in the context of her espousal of agendas that no one today wants.

    Let the left talk of her “diversity” and being “the first female and black vice president” and the pathbreaking “black and Indian nominee” until the American people are weary of cheap woke pandering.

    And let Trump simply answer, “She is the diversity candidate; I am the unity candidate. I want to help all Americans recover from the recent nightmare by offering them policies that improve their livelihoods, their freedoms, their security, and their unity with one another.”

    A final note. As long as Joe Biden selfishly deceived the American people about his mental decline, as long as the president barked and snarked out his divisive Phantom-of-the-Opera, semi-fascist, and anti-MAGA speeches, as long as he demagogued to win a midterm or reelection by draining the strategic petroleum reserve, cancelling student debt, or offering amnesties, the more the people were sick of him and wanted him out.

    But Biden now?

    Our president is an isolated, crushed figure. He was cruelly ambushed by the very forces that had fixed his nomination in 2020 by forcing out his rivals and employing him as a ceremonial veneer for their otherwise unpalatable hard-left agendas. So just as Joe lived by the 2020 coup, so his career perished by the 2024 sequel.

    Thus, Trump need not constantly pound a now impotent and increasingly irrelevant Biden with the self-evident and obvious: that he was a “horrible “president” and a “disaster.”

    America knows that. It is relieved that Biden has only six months left to endanger us.

    But given Biden’s diminished capacity, his visible frailty, and his seclusion, how does Trump beat Harris by beating a proverbial dead horse?

    For the first time in his life, the now-neutered Biden may even gain public sympathy for his feebleness—especially as the Orwellian left narrative factory churns out new pretexts that a “courageous” Joe Biden “voluntarily” stepped down “for the good of the country” and is now a “George Washington figure.”

    A Way Forward?

    Again, focus on the disastrous Biden governance of the last four years. Make Harris own it. And contrast it with 2017-21 and what will follow in 2025.

    But cease with the invective that he was demented, his already old debate as the worst in history, and his tenure an utter disaster.

    Trump is no longer running against a has-been caretaker, whose implosion appeals to the innate sympathy of the swing voter (but not to the extent of wanting another four years of him).

    Finally, in the next debate(s), Trump must not only use characteristic broad adjectives for Biden and Harris, such as “disaster,” “terrible,” or “horrible,” but simply pepper Harris with what Biden actually did and her role in it. Don’t describe Harris as a disaster, but communicate in exactly what way and precisely how in her own words. And there are 30 years of her extreme advocacies to make that case.

    Do all that, and Trump will win decisively in the fashion that Republicans did in 1972, 1980, and 1988 by avoiding the personal and simply demonstrating why McGovern, Carter, and Dukakis were not what they professed to be but entirely at odds with the majority of Americans.

    The left wants Trump to spend the next three months harping on Biden’s dementia, the farce of its coverup, the Democrat coup to remove him, and the off-putting record of Kamala Harris.

    Yet if Trump falls for all that, he will allow the hardest-left candidate in American history to do to the United States what she and her fellow leftists did to California.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 23:10

  • DOJ Should Investigate China's United Front Groups Over Violence In San Francisco: Report
    DOJ Should Investigate China’s United Front Groups Over Violence In San Francisco: Report

    Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Two U.S.-based advocacy groups are calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the activities of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “united front” foreign influence organizations in the United States, after identifying groups responsible for street violence in San Francisco during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit in 2023.

    Pro-Beijing protesters clash with Chinese dissidents in front of the St. Regis hotel in San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 14, 2023. (Eva Fu/The Epoch Times)

    The Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC) and Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) used open-source research and facial recognition technology to identify CCP-aligned actors allegedly assaulting peaceful pro-democracy protesters during Xi’s four-day visit, according to their newly-released report.

    The groups found that 19 leaders of the CCP’s united front groups were in San Francisco during Xi’s visit and 12 of them allegedly participated in attacks against protesters. These leaders came from all over the United States, including New York, California, Portland, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Philadelphia.

    “Investigate whether united front groups in the U.S. are acting as unregistered foreign agents of the PRC in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” the two groups urged the DOJ, referring to China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

    The report also urged the DOJ to “explore the potential criminal liabilities of individuals and groups engaged in” transnational repression.

    Xi arrived in San Francisco on Nov. 14 last year for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

    Many decided to use his visit as a platform to peacefully protest against the CCP’s human rights violations, holding demonstrations at the San Francisco International Airport; on the streets near the Moscone Center, where APEC meetings were held; in areas outside of the St. Regis Hotel where Xi stayed; and in other locations around the city.

    However, the peaceful protests were marred by violence allegedly committed by Xi’s supporters and pro-CCP demonstrators. The report documents 34 cases of harassment, intimidation, and assault.

    Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, said in a July 31 statement that the CCP-directed attacks “were an outrageous violation of American sovereignty and the values we all hold dear.” He called on the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department to hold the perpetrators accountable.

    “This thuggery—also known as transnational repression—has no place in America,” Moolenaar said. “The CCP cannot be allowed to bring its Orwellian model of totalitarian control to American soil.”

    United Front Groups

    The CCP leverages a network of groups, some directly under the control of the United Front Work Department within its Central Committee, to carry out its “united front” strategy to advance the regime’s interests overseas. A big part of the strategy involves exerting influence and control over Chinese diaspora communities and promoting favorable narratives about China under the CCP’s rule.

    One united front leader identified in the report is Li Huahong, the head of the Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance (CACWA). According to the report, Li, who was wearing a CACWA jacket at the time, allegedly attacked Chinese activist Jia Junwei outside of St. Regis on Nov. 14 last year. Jia had traveled to San Francisco seeking justice for her deceased father, a victim of the regime’s land expropriation policies who died in Chinese detention in 2017.

    Jia said that Li “snatched her banner, dragged her into an area surrounded by other CCP supporters who held up their large PRC flags so that no one could see what was happening, pulled her hair, and hit her in the head,” the report states, adding that an ambulance later arrived at the scene and first responders treated Jia.

    Li was “alleged to be involved” in more attacks the next day, alongside a dinner reception for Xi at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, according to the report. Inside a parking garage across from the hotel, an unidentified man wearing a CACWA jacket was among a group of 15 masked CCP supporters allegedly attacking Tibetan protesters, after the latter unfurled a banner with the words “Dictator Xi, Your Time Is Up.”

    In 2013, Li was convicted in New York on charges of attacking Falun Gong practitioners. The faith group is persecuted by the CCP in China.

    Also on Nov. 14 last year, Li Huanjun, a victim of forced demotion in China, said that she was hit in the head with a flagpole and pinched on the arms, waist, and other places several times during encounters with CCP supporters.

    One of the individuals who allegedly participated in the harassment and intimidation of Li Huanjun was Jing Dongsheng, the report stated, identifying him as the president of the Oregon Association for the Promotion of the Peaceful Unification of China.

    Four other united front leaders were allegedly responsible for attacks against Chinese activist Wang Wei on Nov. 15 last year. According to the report, their names are Wengxi Zhuoma, president of the Sichuan Association of Washington State; Guo Jianwei, president of the Henan Association of Washington State; Fang Weixia, chair of the Association of China’s Peaceful Reunification of Washington State; and Chen Wenshen, vice president of the Seattle-area Fujian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Washington State.

    In a video, Fang can be seen “punching … and kicking” activist Wang, according to the report.

    Wang explained in the report that he was wearing a “Free China” sticker on his arm, which could be the reason he became a target of the CCP supporters.

    “A question which the U.S. government, local governments, and federal and local law enforcement authorities may need to confront is whether the CCP united front groups and individuals are essentially acting as unregistered foreign agents, in which case they may be in breach of the law,” the two groups wrote.

    Transnational Repression

    HKDC and SFT said that local authorities in San Francisco did not do enough to protect protesters.

    “Despite strong awareness of CCP [transnational repression] at the federal level and a general commitment to countering it, agencies were unprepared to do so in San Francisco,” the two groups wrote.

    “Local law enforcement authorities exhibited a lack of awareness of [transnational repression], were often unresponsive when alerted to the attacks, and took little and inadequate action in response to the attacks.”

    The report explained that protesters had to change their protest plans several times “due to safety concerns.”

    For example, Tibetan and Uyghur groups canceled their plan to march to the Hyatt Regency on Nov. 15, 2023.

    “When they saw the large numbers of CCP supporters gathered outside the hotel and an absence of separate protest zones, they decided against this course of action as they feared it could lead to a potentially violent confrontation,” the report reads.

    Standing Up for Liberty

    The report offered recommendations to the White House, the Department of State, the DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Congress, and state and local authorities to address the CCP’s acts of transnational repression.

    It urges the State Department to impose targeted sanctions against foreign individuals who “direct or engage” in acts of transnational repression. It also asks the Department of Homeland Security to offer transnational repression-related training to state and local law enforcement.

    Congress is also urged to pass legislation such as the Transnational Repression Policy Act, the Stop Transnational Repression Act (H.R.5907), the Combating Transnational Repression Act of 2024 (H.R. 7443), the Law Enforcement Support and Transnational Repression Hotline Act (H.R. 7433), and the Strengthening State and Local Efforts to Combat Transnational Repression Act (H.R. 7439).

    Introduced by Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) in February and co-sponsored by Reps. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), August Pfluger (R-Texas), and Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), H.R. 7439 would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a “transnational repression threat training program” for state, local, tribal, campus, and territorial law enforcement, according to a press release.

    “Silence and lack of action will surely signal to the CCP that it has ‘gotten away with it’ and simply encourage it to continue to pursue its objectives to silence, intimidate, and inflict violence on those it perceives as its enemies abroad,” the report reads.

    “At best, it leaves those who live in the United States and advocate for freedom and human rights in East Turkestan, Hong Kong, the PRC, and Tibet uncertain and skeptical that U.S. authorities will protect them when the CCP seeks to come after them, and, at worst, fearful and intimidated in the ‘land of the free.’”

    The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 22:45

  • Excessive Internet Use Disrupts Key Parts Of The Teenage Brain
    Excessive Internet Use Disrupts Key Parts Of The Teenage Brain

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The internet drives news cycles and touches practically every aspect of our lives—from communicating with friends and family to finding a job. The current crop of teens is unique from any previous generation in that they are immersed in a virtual world that can present very differently from reality. Many teens have become addicted to it.

    A 2023 Statista survey found that U.S. teenagers spent an average of 4.8 hours on social media platforms every day, with girls spending an average of 5.3 hours compared to 4.4 hours for boys.

    “Being as excessive and addictive screen use is routinely listed as one of parents’ biggest concerns for children, I think it’s overdue that we start educating children as early as possible about the dangers of unhealthy and mindless screen use,” Anthony Anzalone, a clinical psychologist at Stony Brook Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

    (Paula Daniëlse/Getty Images)

    Teen Brain Development Affected

    Scientists have begun investigating the consequences of living one’s life online, and what they’ve discovered is discouraging.

    A systematic review from the University College London, published in June in PLOS Mental Health, looked at 12 studies involving 237 youths aged 10 to 19 who had a formal diagnosis of internet addiction between 2013 and 2023. All the studies were conducted in Asian countries.

    Researchers defined internet addiction as an inability to resist the urge to use the internet, which negatively affects mental well-being, as well as aspects of social, educational, and work life.

    All studies reviewed used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how areas of the brain interact with each other (functional connectivity) in participants living with internet addiction while at rest and while completing a task. The effects were seen throughout multiple regions of the adolescent brain.

    The studies showed a mixture of increased and decreased activity in parts of the brain that are activated during rest, along with an overall decrease in functional connectivity in parts of the brain used in active thinking.

    The findings indicate these changes lead to addictive behaviors and tendencies in adolescents and behavioral changes associated with intellectual ability, physical coordination, and mental health and development.

    Functional Changes in the Brain

    Another study, published in 2023 in JAMA Pediatrics, investigated a group of 169 sixth- and seventh-grade students from a middle school in rural North Carolina. Researchers split the students into smaller groups according to how often they reported checking their Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat feeds.

    The habitual user group members checked their feeds 15 or more times daily, moderate users between one and 14 times, and nonhabitual users less than once daily.

    The children received three brain scans at roughly one-year intervals while they played a computer game that offered rewards and punishment in the form of smiling or scowling faces.

    While playing the game, frequent checkers demonstrated changes in brain regions linked to reward processing, which typically responds to experiences like winning money or risk-taking. They also had difficulty controlling impulsive or habitual behaviors.

    The findings indicate that teens who grow up checking social media more often become hypersensitive to feedback from other kids. They also experience fewer or less intense positive feelings from previously rewarding stimuli, which could drive them to pursue more potent feelings through increased reward-seeking behavior.

    However, the effects of habitual checking may depend on the individual, according to the authors.

    In some children, checking could become “compulsive and problematic” while others engage in “an adaptive behavior that allows them to better navigate their increasingly digital environment,” the authors suggested.

    Signs of Disruption

    Anzalone said that much like with other addictions, people addicted to the internet tend to exhibit a pattern of behaviors that impede daily functioning, such as excessive preoccupation with screen use and withdrawal symptoms when screen use is not possible.

    Other notable features of internet addiction include the following:

    • Inability to reduce time spent online
    • Lack of interest in other activities
    • Continued screen use despite real-world problems
    • Use of gaming to remove negative moods
    • Jeopardizing jobs, school, or relationships due to screen use

    Treatment

    According to Anzalone, treating teen internet addiction requires strong family involvement.

    He pointed out that most of the evidence regarding the treatment of internet addiction revolves around a combination of family therapy “to help promote effective communication and collaboration between caregivers and children,” promoting other activities to replace “hazardous media use,” and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address distortions that patients may have about themselves or their screen usage.

    CBT is based on the idea that how people think about situations can affect their feelings and behaviors. Family therapy is a type of talk therapy focused on improving relationships between family members, which can help treat specific mental health or behavioral issues.

    A systematic review and meta-analysis of 57 randomized controlled trials found that CBT, in combination with other treatments, was among the therapies that ranked best to treat internet addiction effectively.

    “In many cases, the internet addiction is the symptom and not the cause of the problem, so it’s essential that we address any underlying mental health conditions that may be exacerbating the issues, such as depression, anxiety, or ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder),” Anzalone added.

    However, he emphasized that in severe cases, a “digital detox” may be needed. In this detox, exposure to nonessential screen use is gradually reduced, and mindful habits and better-quality activities replace constant digital stimulation. Only after this detox can children be safely reintroduced to technology.

    Prevention

    Anzalone suggested that parents be educated about how harmful excessive screen use is for children and provided with tools to help them raise children with healthy screen habits, the most important of which is parental support and interaction.

    “For young children, nothing will ever replace the quality time a caregiver spends with their child,” he said.

    He added that the more parents help their children explore their environment, encourage play outside, and provide children with emotional, social, and persistence coaching to help them better connect with the world and build resiliency to handle life’s stressors, “the less we will see them engage in various negative and maladaptive behaviors.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 22:20

  • "No Forgiveness": Maduro Arrests 2,000 Venezuelan Protesters, Vows 'Maximum Punishment'
    “No Forgiveness”: Maduro Arrests 2,000 Venezuelan Protesters, Vows ‘Maximum Punishment’

    Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Post-election demonstrations in Venezuela continue as pressure mounts against disputed President Nicolás Maduro, who has firmly stood his ground amid ongoing calls to release voting details from the July 28 general election. In the streets, clashes between Venezuelan security forces and protesters have resulted in at least 20 deaths, according to Human Rights Watch.

    Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government protest in the Petare neighborhood of Caracas on July 29, 2024. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)

    On Aug. 3, Maduro announced that 2,000 civilian arrests have been made and denounced those who contest his administration.

    “This time, there will be no forgiveness,” Maduro said during a Saturday rally of his supporters in Caracas. “We have 2,000 prisoners captured and from there, they will go to Tocorón and Tocuyito [prisons], maximum punishment, justice.”

    During what Maduro supporters called a “grand national march for the defense of peace,” allies of the disputed head of state gathered outside the presidential palace of Miraflores while Maduro delivered a fiery address that condemned the opposition-led protests.

    Maduro called for the arrest of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez for “electoral fraud,” and demanded a criminal sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison. Court authorities in Caracas reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Machado on July 31 for challenging the accuracy of the election results and encouraging protesters.

    Regardless, demonstrators are standing their ground after a week of protests, saying they believe there is evidence showing Gonzalez won the July 28 general election.

    Standing on a truck surrounded by other members of the nation’s largest anti-Chavez coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform, Machado appeared before a crowd of opposition supporters on Saturday to encourage Venezuelans to fight for election integrity in the country.

    “After 6 days of brutal repression, they thought they were going to silence us, stop us, or intimidate us … look at the response,” Machado posted alongside a video of the opposition rally on the social media platform X.

    “Today, the presence of each citizen on the streets of Venezuela demonstrates the magnitude of the civic strength we have and the determination to go to the end,” Machado said.

    Presidential candidate Gonzalez also took to social media to show his support for the protesters and the calls for transparent election results.

    “Today, united Venezuela came out, without fear, in peace and with family, to demand respect for its decision at the polls. We will ensure that your decision is respected and we will begin the re-institutionalization of Venezuela,” Gonzalez stated on his X account.

    Venezuela’s post election demonstrations come at a time when “Chavismo” advocacy, named after former socialist President Hugo Chavez, has hit an all time low. In the months leading up to the presidential election, Maduro lost key support among voters that have historically been loyal to the country’s entrenched socialist party.

    Much of this is due to the unprecedented economic crisis that has come to a head since Maduro became president in 2013. Venezuela’s GDP contracted by more than 75 percent between 2013 and 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund. It represents the single largest economic collapse for a nation not at war in nearly five decades.

    This, in turn, has ignited an exodus of more than 7 million Venezuelans since 2014, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

    The United States is among the growing pool of international voices, which includes Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, that are pressuring Maduro to release election vote details.

    On Aug. 1, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced a resolution for the United States to recognize Gonzalez as the president-elect of Venezuela.

    “The Venezuelan people’s desire for freedom and democracy is admirable. The recent electoral process, which narco-dictator Maduro fraudulently claims he won, has been a testament to the tenacity of the Venezuelan spirit,” Rubio stated in a press release.

    The following day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Gonzalez and Machado to congratulate the opposition candidate for “receiving the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election as documented by the democratic opposition’s extensive efforts to ensure a transparent accounting of the votes.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 21:30

  • Seattle Considers 'Catching And Releasing' From Des Moines Facility After King County Jail Runs Out Of Space
    Seattle Considers ‘Catching And Releasing’ From Des Moines Facility After King County Jail Runs Out Of Space

    Talk about eating your own tail…

    Seattle is infested with so much crime, its jails are running out of space. And, because King County Jail is running out of space, the city is now considering a program that “would pay for jail beds at the SCORE jail facility in Des Moines,” according to KIRO 7. 

    Its a move that the report says “would cost Seattle millions”. And, unsurprisingly, it isn’t winning any fans in Des Moines, as the SCORE facility would be used for offenders who are locked up only for 24-48 hours, before being released. 

    The report says that the Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee met Wednesday to discuss a pilot plan, with public comments varying from full support to calling it “theatre.” The proposal would fund at least 20 beds, costing $1.5 to $3 million annually, depending on usage.

    “It’s scary. It’s scary. Currently things are quiet, but if they start releasing them into our neighborhood, things could change,” said Joan Longnecker, who lives near the SCORE facility in Des Moines.

    Another neighbor says he doesn’t mind the program “as long as they are not released directly from that facility.”

    Under the proposal, Seattle officers would escort offenders to the facility and court dates, but the handoff process post-release is still being finalized. The City Council may vote on the pilot on August 6. A similar program with King County jails and SCORE was tried last year but ended after a few months due to cost and sustainability issues.

    Seattle does know they can use these very same tax dollars to pay the salaries of tough-on-crime DAs whose policies on crimes aren’t ‘let them back on the streets no matter what they do’, right? 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 21:05

  • What Is The Relationship Between Tech Innovation And Investor Euphoria
    What Is The Relationship Between Tech Innovation And Investor Euphoria

    Submitted by Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital.

    Executive Summary

    This report delves into the profound investment implications of innovation eras, specifically examining the 1920s and the 2000s.

    These periods have significantly influenced economic growth, stock market behavior, and investment strategies. They demonstrate how genuine technological advancements can drive economic booms, yet also underscore the risks of speculative bubbles when investor expectations exceed realistic outcomes, leading to market volatility and economic challenges.

    The 1920s marked a transformative era for the automobile industry, transitioning cars from luxury items to mass-market products. Henry Ford’s production innovations drastically reduced costs, making the Model T affordable for the average American family. The success of the Model T catalyzed economic growth in related sectors, including steel, rubber, and oil, due to the increased demand for raw materials. Major auto manufacturers like Ford, General Motors (GM), and Chrysler became industry titans. GM’s strategy of offering diverse models at different price points and Chrysler’s aggressive expansion through acquisitions and innovative engineering attracted significant investor interest.

    However, the euphoria surrounding the auto industry led to speculative investments, not only in manufacturers but also in companies producing auto parts, tires, and infrastructure related to automobiles. Smaller, often financially unstable car manufacturers like Durant Motors and Marmon Motor Car Company attracted substantial investments, driven by the hope of finding the next big success. The practice of buying stocks on margin exacerbated the speculative bubble. This method allowed investors to purchase stocks with borrowed money, increasing both potential gains and risks. When stock prices declined, it triggered a wave of selling to cover margin calls, contributing to market instability.

    By the late 1920s, production capacity outpaced consumer demand, leading to financial strain on smaller manufacturers. The realization that the extraordinary growth rates were unsustainable culminated in the stock market crash of 1929. The crash wiped out billions in wealth and precipitated the Great Depression, highlighting the fragile nature of speculative-driven markets.

    The 2000s introduced the digital age, characterized by the proliferation of the internet, mobile technologies, and social media platforms. Companies like Nvidia, Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla, Microsoft, and Amazon, collectively known as the “Magnificent 7,” became central to market valuations. These companies drove significant technological innovation and societal disruption, leading to immense market concentration. At peak valuations, the three largest of these (Microsoft, Nvidia, and Apple) collectively represented around a third of US GDP, a concentration unparalleled since the 1920s.

    Extreme valuations of today’s tech giants are driven by assumptions of continued exponential growth, invulnerability to competition, and resistance to future technological disruptions. These assumptions mirror the speculative optimism of the 1920s. The lessons from historical manias indicate that high
    valuations based on overly optimistic projections often lead to speculative bubbles and market corrections.

    Both the 1920s and the 2000s experienced rapid market adoption of new technologies, transforming daily life and driving economic growth. However, both periods also faced significant speculative excesses, leading to financial instability. Innovations in the 1920s, such as the automobile and household appliances, fundamentally changed how people lived and worked. Similarly, digital advancements in the 2000s, including smartphones and social media, redefined communication, media consumption, and social interactions.

    The historical parallels between the 1920s and the 2000s provide valuable insights into the relationship between technological innovation and investor behavior. While technological advancements can drive substantial economic growth, they also tend to lead to speculative bubbles and financial instability.  

    These two eras also caused much bigger investor manias due to the multitude of simultaneous technological breakthroughs.

    In isolation, each has had a profound impact on society and financial markets.

    Collectively, even more so.

    In both instances, the same common flawed thinking prevailed: There would be limited or no competition, the existing technology would not be surpassed, and estimations of future market saturation points were grossly exaggerated.

    We know the 1920s ended very badly. Expectations of future investment returns were predicated on nonsensical forecasts, market share and no future disruption. While we don’t yet know the ending of our current boom, we believe it is helpful to understand the relationship between innovation and investment manias of the past

    As new technological advancements continue to emerge, and tales of riches are presented, investors must remain vigilant about the risks that are sure to accompany these opportunities. The examples of past manias suggest the stretched valuations of tech giants today will eventually, and undoubtedly, also face challenges.

    The report seeks to emphasize the dual nature of technological progress—driving economic growth while also posing risks of speculative bubbles. Investors should balance their enthusiasm for new technologies with realistic assessments of market dynamics and potential risks, drawing lessons from historical innovation eras to navigate the current landscape.

    Background

    Why are these two eras so important and unique in financial history? What makes them so distinctly different from other innovation manias?

    How do technology revolutions lead to investment manias? Why do new inventions stir up animal spirits within investors? What makes them take leave of their senses, where genuine innovation breakthroughs lead them to suspend rational behavior?

    These two eras are unique for the multitude of innovations that took place within them.

    Most other innovation eras were centralized around a single innovation, whereas these two eras had many innovations colliding with each other all at once. As a result, these were turbo-charged.

    Conversely, the Canal Mania of the early 19th century in Britain was driven by the enthusiasm for constructing canals to improve transportation and stimulate economic growth. The success of earlier canal projects, such as the Bridgewater Canal, fueled speculative investment in new canal schemes.

    Promoters of canal projects issued shares and attracted significant investments, often based on exaggerated claims of profitability and future traffic. The bubble led to the construction of numerous canals, many of which were unprofitable due to overbuilding and competition. By the mid-1820s, the canal industry faced financial difficulties, and many investors suffered losses as canal stock prices fell and several projects failed.

    The Railway Mania in Britain in the 1840s was one of the first major technology-driven investment bubbles. As railways began to revolutionize transportation, promising faster, more efficient movement of goods and people, investors poured money into railway companies. The promise of huge returns fueled speculative investments, driving up stock prices.

    At its peak, Parliament authorized nearly 9,500 miles of railways – way beyond excess capacity. However, by 1846, the bubble burst, and investors lost fortunes as overvalued shares plummeted and numerous railway companies went bankrupt.

    The introduction of steamships in the early 19th century transformed maritime transportation, leading to a surge in investment in steamship companies. The potential for faster and more efficient trans-oceanic travel attracted speculative investments in new steamship lines and related infrastructure. Companies were often promoted with grand claims about their capabilities and potential profits.

    However, the overestimation of demand, competition, and technical difficulties led to a financial collapse in the steamship sector. Many companies failed, and stock prices plummeted, reflecting the overhyped expectations and eventual disillusionment with the steamship industry.

    The development of the electric telegraph in the mid-19th century revolutionized communication by enabling near-instantaneous transmission of messages over long distances. The success of Samuel Morse’s telegraph system inspired a wave of investment in telegraph companies and related technologies.

    Speculators were drawn to the rapid expansion of telegraph networks and the promise of lucrative returns from international communications. Companies such as the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which aimed to lay an undersea cable between Europe and North America, saw their stock prices soar. However, technical challenges and financial difficulties, including the failure of early transatlantic cables, led to a collapse in telegraph stock values and substantial investor losses.

    In the early 20th century, the electric power industry saw rapid technological advances and widespread adoption. Companies that promised to deliver electricity to homes and businesses attracted massive investment. The advent of electric lighting, along with the development of electrical appliances, drove speculative enthusiasm. Accordingly, investors flocked to electric utility companies and electric equipment manufacturers.

    However, the market soon became oversaturated with numerous competing companies, many of which were financially unstable. When the bubble burst, many electric companies failed, and investors faced substantial losses. This period highlighted the risks of overinvesting in emerging technologies without solid business fundamentals.

    In each of these singular innovation examples, the same common the same flawed thinking prevailed:

    • There would be limited or no competition
    • The existing technology would not be surpassed
    • Estimations of future market saturation points were grossly exaggerated.

    What happens when many innovations happen at once?

    If one singular innovation can lead to crazy investor behavior, what happens to investor behavior when many innovations occur at once?

    In the case of 1929, it took 25 years for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to surpass the peak of 1929.

    Let’s look at how today’s innovation euphoria compares to then.

    Continue reading at the Macro Alchemist.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 20:40

  • These Are The Richest Suburbs In America
    These Are The Richest Suburbs In America

    New York, California, and Texas are home to most of the wealthiest suburbs in the United States.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcu Lu, ranks the top 10 wealthiest suburbs in America based on data compiled by GoBankingRates.

    Methodology

    GoBankingRates examined communities with 5,000 households or more, isolating those with the highest average household income according to the 2022 American Community Survey. The average home value for each city was sourced from Zillow.

    All data was collected and is current as of June 18, 2024.

    Scarsdale, NY: Leading the List

    The wealthiest suburb in the U.S. is Scarsdale, New York, where the average household income is $568,942 and typical home values exceed $1.4 million. Located 11 miles from Manhattan, Scarsdale has a population of around 20,000 and a significant Japanese community.

    Less than 15 minutes by car from Scarsdale is the second suburb on our list, Rye. It boasts an average household income of $405,074, and typical home values can exceed $2 million.

    Next on our list is West University Place, Texas. Located within the Greater Houston area, it has a population of around 15,000 and is nicknamed “The Neighborhood City” for serving mainly as a bedroom community for upper-class families.

    The fourth suburb on our list is Los Altos, California. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, it has a population of 32,000. Once an agricultural town with summer cottages and apricot orchards, Los Altos is now a residential suburb on the western edge of Silicon Valley, providing a major commuting base for the region.

    In terms of coast comparisons, the East Coast has the wealthiest suburbs, with 23 making the top 50, including five from New York and five from New Jersey. The West Coast follows with 19 wealthy suburbs.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 20:15

  • Bangladesh Leader Flees Country In Helicopter As Protesters Storm Parliament
    Bangladesh Leader Flees Country In Helicopter As Protesters Storm Parliament

    Via Middle East Eye

    Bangladesh’s long-serving Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country on Monday, after protesters defied a military curfew and stormed her official residence.

    Hasina, who had been in power for 15 years, fled the capital Dhaka along with her sister by a helicopter to India, the daily newspaper Prothom Alo reported, after weeks of violent crack downs on protesters left nearly 300 people dead.

    Scenes from the recent riots, via AFP

    Reuters reported that the two had left to seek “safe shelter” away from Hasina’s official residence.

    There was no immediate public statement from Hasina’s office, but army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a televised address that the prime minister had resigned and the army was in talks with the president to form an interim government.

    Her resignation came a day after at least 95 people were killed and hundreds more wounded after a violent crackdown on protesters.

    Nationwide protests began a month ago, after a Bangladesh High Court verdict that was set to reintroduce a quota system in the country, reserving 30 percent of government jobs for the descendants of veterans who fought in the country’s independence war in 1971. 

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    Mass protests against the quota system, led by students who believed the move to be anti-meritocratic, were violently cracked down on by authorities for several weeks. More than 200 protesters were killed last month. 

    The deaths triggered further protests demanding accountability and the removal of Hasina, who has led the country since 2009. She had a previous stint as premier, between 1996 and 2001.

    Hasina’s party Awami League, which was born out of Bangladesh’s independence movement, has strengthened its grip on power over the past decade and a half. The party won four successive general elections, the most recent of which, in January, was boycotted by the opposition and had a markedly low turnout.

    The 76-year-old’s rule was marred by mass arrests of political opponents, the silencing of dissenting voices and accusations of human rights abuses. 

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    Hasina is the daughter of Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, leader of Bangladesh’s independence movement in the 1970s and ‘father of the nation’.

    Video footage on Monday showed protesters in Dhaka climbing on top of a large statue of the founding father and chizelling away at the head with an axe. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 19:50

  • Report Finds Biden-Harris Released 99 Illegal Aliens On FBI Terror Watchlist Into American Communities 
    Report Finds Biden-Harris Released 99 Illegal Aliens On FBI Terror Watchlist Into American Communities 

    A new interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, published on Monday, highlights how the Biden administration, with ‘Border Czar’ VP Kamala Harris, facilitated the greatest illegal alien invasion ever on the United States.

    The report titled “Terror At Our Door: How The Biden-Harris Administration’s Open-Borders Policies Undermine National Security And Endanger Americans” revealed that the failed southern border policies of President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris have flooded the nation with more than 5.4 million illegal aliens. Additionally, at least 1.9 million known “gotaways” also entered, bringing the total to 7.3 million illegal entries.

    Fox News’ Bill Melugin, who also reviewed the report, said the border data that dates back between 2021-23 shows “at least 99 illegal aliens on the FBI terror watchlist were released into the US after being arrested by Border Patrol at the southern border, and another 34 watchlisted aliens are still in DHS custody.” 

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    And this. 

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    “With the border in chaos under the Biden-Harris Administration, the terrorist threat to the homeland has skyrocketed. This border insecurity has been the Administration’s choice, and it is a mistake,” the report stated. 

    The report noted that 375 illegal aliens on the US Gov’ts terrorist watchlist have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents under Biden’s first term with VP Harris as Border Czar. 

    The report continued, “That is a more than 3,000 percent increase of watchlisted alien encounters compared to all four years of the Trump Administration.” 

    At the end of last month, leftist MSM spent days in an all-out propaganda media blitz to convince voters that VP Harris was never border Czar – that’s because the nation killing open southern borders pushed by Biden & Harris is such a disastrous topic during the election cycle.

    Meanwhile, national security ‘experts’ have warned countless times that the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-border policies can only suggest it’s only a matter of time before a terror event unfolds in the US.  

    Just last week, we reported…

    In June.

    In April.

    And in March.

    This aged well. 

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    A majority of Americans care about two things ahead of the elections: 1) inflation and 2) the border. 

    For Harris and Obama’s Democrat party, there’s no escaping that disastrous border issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 19:25

  • Weird: Dems Use 16 Year Old Photo Of Kamala Surrounded By 'Michelle' Signs To Promote DNC
    Weird: Dems Use 16 Year Old Photo Of Kamala Surrounded By ‘Michelle’ Signs To Promote DNC

    Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

    In a strange move, the official X account of the Democratic Party chose to upload an image of Kamala Harris that is 16 years old, surrounded by signs that say ‘Michelle’ as a way of promoting the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

    This is the image:

    Weird.

    It’s an image from the 2008 DNC, where Harris was watching Michelle Obama speak.

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    It’s not even a good image. It’s all blurred and has a massive lens flare.

    Why was this image used when there are thousands of images of the DNC and Kamala Harris that are in focus and more recent?

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    Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 19:00

  • "Chip Wars" Will Soon Be "Data Center Wars", As Our "Next AI Trade" Develops
    “Chip Wars” Will Soon Be “Data Center Wars”, As Our “Next AI Trade” Develops

    As we have alluded to numerous times when talking about the next “AI” trade, data centers will be the “factories of the future” when it comes to the age of AI.

    That’s the contention of Chris Miller, the author of Chip War, who penned a recent opinion column for Financial Times noting that ‘chip wars’ could very soon become ‘cloud wars’.

    He points out that the strategic use of high-powered computing dates back to the Cold War when the US allowed the USSR limited access to supercomputers for weather forecasting, not nuclear simulations.

    AI systems today, like supercomputers, have dual civilian and military applications, making control over AI data centers politically and economically significant.

    He tells FT readers that many countries are investing heavily in AI data centers. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia are expanding their AI infrastructure, attracting investments from US and Chinese companies. US cloud companies, eyeing lucrative contracts, argue they must compete in these markets to prevent China from dominating.

    American diplomats are also focused on data centers to block Chinese tech influence, , according to his FT piece. 

    As an example, Chris points out that Microsoft’s new data center in Kenya, announced during President Biden’s meeting with President Ruto, will be developed with G42, a UAE-owned company with ties to Chinese firms like Huawei. This partnership raises security concerns in Washington, prompting calls for strict compliance measures.

    He concludes:

    Chips, clouds and data centres are intrinsically interlinked, so long as high-end, export-controlled chips give cloud computing companies the ability to deploy AI efficiently. The tech competition that started with silicon is now intruding into a new layer of the computing stack.

    Recall, for those that missed it, in April of this year we introduced our subscribers to what we thought would be the “Next AI Trade“, which – if it had be summarized in one word – was basically this: the “electrification” of the current AI trade, which includes everything from massive tech giants needed gigawatts of power to operate their operations, to Matrix-like battalions of data centers spread across the country and likewise needing a staggering amount of electricity.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 18:40

  • Federal Court Orders California College To Drop Censorship Policy
    Federal Court Orders California College To Drop Censorship Policy

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

    A federal judge ordered a California community college on Aug. 2 not to enforce a poster policy that was used against three students whose anti-communist posters were taken down.

    U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston found that the poster policy of Fresno-based Clovis Community College violated the students’ First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights.

    The policy forbade students from displaying material at the taxpayer-funded school containing language or themes deemed “inappropriate” or “offensive.”

    The new order also applies to the State Center Community College District (SCCCD), the state district where the college is located. The district is home to four community colleges, including Clovis.

    The judge issued a permanent injunction preventing the school and the district “from enforcing, by policy or practice, any unlawful viewpoint—discriminatory, overbroad, or vague regulation, or prior restraint, on the content of the speech of recognized student clubs, including but not limited to bans on ‘inappropriate’ or ‘offensive’ language.”

    All the parties in the lawsuit, including Clovis and the district, consented to the order.

    The college and the district agreed in a separate settlement to cover $250,000 of the students’ legal expenses and pay the three students each $20,000 in damages. The settlement also requires a $20,000 payment to their group, the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF).

    In addition, the settlement requires the district to conduct annual First Amendment training sessions for all administrators going forward.

    The new order came after the judge issued a preliminary injunction against the school in October 2022 blocking the poster policy.

    “The mere threat of enforcement of an unconstitutional restriction on speech may create a chilling effect sufficient to show irreparable harm,” Thurston wrote at the time.

    The policy “undermines the school’s own interest in fostering a diversity of viewpoints on campus, thus frustrating, rather than promoting, the College’s basic educational mission.”

    The case goes back to November 2021, when the students wanted to criticize authoritarianism.

    Alejandro Flores, Daniel Flores, and Juliette Colunga said they secured permission from campus administrators to hang three posters on bulletin boards inside the academic buildings at Clovis, as required by the college’s policy at the time.

    The posters promoted freedom and listed the death tolls of communist regimes, associating communism with the “blind arrogance of the left.”

    Juliette Colunga, a member of Young Americans for Freedom, at Clovis Community College in California, in a file photo. (Courtesy of Alvarez Photography Studio)

    But the school later banned the public display of the posters and withheld permission for the club members to display pro-life posters, the students said.

    The students sued and in October 2022 were granted the order temporarily blocking the poster policy. The other side appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s order in August 2023, finding the policy was unconstitutional because it gave administrators unlimited discretion to suppress speech that they didn’t approve.

    The Ninth Circuit upheld Thurston’s finding that the policy was too broad and vague to survive constitutional scrutiny. The circuit court also said it rejected an argument by Clovis that because the college later “rescinded the original Flyer Policy,” the court was deprived of the legal authority to hear the case.

    “We won. We showed the school they were wrong,” YAF-Clovis founder Alejandro Flores said in a statement provided by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which represented the students in the lawsuit.

    “If you think your speech is being stifled, don’t stay quiet, because when you stay quiet, nothing changes.”

    FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner told The Epoch Times the judge’s new ruling was an “enormous victory for over 50,000 community college students in California and for the First Amendment.”

    “You can’t take down posters because they’re offensive,” he said.

    Jill Wagner, spokesperson for the district, and Stephanie Babb, spokesperson for the college, confirmed that administrators had made changes to their poster policies following the case.

    “The court determined that a few words in the prior Clovis Community College flyer posting procedure needed to be changed. In response, SCCCD updated its policy to apply to all campuses,” they told The Epoch Times by email.

    “A settlement was reached to avoid the cost, uncertainty, and distractions that come with any litigation,” they said.

    “SCCCD is committed to upholding the values of the First Amendment and we look forward to ensuring that all members of our community recognize the virtues and benefits of free speech.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 18:20

  • Plot Twist: RFK Jr Says He Put A Dead Bear In Central Park, Staged Accident Scene
    Plot Twist: RFK Jr Says He Put A Dead Bear In Central Park, Staged Accident Scene

    With wild plot twists and high intrigue, the 2024 election has been playing out like a TV miniseries. Straining to keep the ratings high, Sunday’s episode just served up a bizarre admission from secondary character Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. You’ve heard of “jumping the shark”? Call this “jumping the bear.” 

    Apparently racing to beat an upcoming report from The New Yorker, Kennedy has confessed that he dumped a dead bear in Central Park in 2014, and staged the scene to make it look like the cub had been killed in a collision with a bicycle. In a video he posted to social media, Kennedy is shown kicking back in a kitchen, sharing the colorful anecdote with actress Rosanne Barr.  

    Kennedy regales Roseanne Barr with the colorful story of his 2014 prank, which he said revealed “a little bit of the redneck in me”

    Kennedy said he was driving up to the Hudson Valley for a falconing hunt when a van in front of him struck and killed the bear cub. “I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. It was very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator,” he said, noting that New York state allows people to get a “bear tag for a roadkill bear.” 

    However, he and his hunting party had such a productive and enjoyable hunt that they ended up staying late. That precluded a trip back to his home in Westchester, because he had a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in New York in New York City. The dinner went long too, and he had a flight to catch, again barring a trip to his refrigerator. 

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    Not wanting to leave the bear to rot in his car, the then-60-year-old Kennedy opted to turn his conundrum into a sophomoric prank that would capitalize on a controversy that was ongoing in New York City at the time, as multiple people had been killed and badly injured using recently-installed bike lanes. Conveniently, Kennedy had an old bicycle in his car that someone had given him to dispose of.

    “I wasn’t drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea,” said Kennedy. “I said, ‘Let’s go put this bear in Central Park and we’ll make it look like he got hit by a bike.” The independent candidate said he and his unnamed companions thought it would be “amusing for whoever found it.” 

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    Kennedy then related his shock and anxiety when he woke the next morning to see his stunt had not only caused a huge media sensation, but intense police scrutiny:

    The next day, it was on every television station. It was the front page of every paper, and I turned on the TV and there was a mile of yellow tape and there were 20 cop cars. There were helicopters flying over it. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’ 

    There were some people on TV in Tyvek suits with gloves on, lifting up the bike, and they’re saying they’re going to take this up to Albany to get it fingerprinted. I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.” 

    Kennedy was recently contacted by The New Yorker’s  fact-checkers to confirm the tale was true. “You know, it’s going to be a bad story,” said Kennedy, with Barr and someone else in the room erupting in laughter as the video ends.  

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    In an odd coincidence, some of the New York Times’ 2014 reporting on the discovery of the 44-pound, approximately 6-month-old bear was handled by Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of RFK Jr’s first cousin, Caroline Kennedy. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation later concluded the bear was killed by a collision with a motor vehicle. 

    According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Kennedy is the top choice of 8% of voters. Last week, his campaign said that, in working to secure ballot access, it had crossed over one million signatures collected, saying that was more than any presidential candidate in American history.” The campaign says it has now hit the signature requirement in 42 states representing 480 electoral votes. 

    Meanwhile, watch for Democratic talking heads to decry the bear story as an indicator of Kennedy’s un-fitness for high office, while most normal people will find it just plain old funny. 

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 18:00

  • Is Kamala Harris Going To Make The Entire Country As Lawless As Her Hometown?
    Is Kamala Harris Going To Make The Entire Country As Lawless As Her Hometown?

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    Kamala Harris is being touted as the solution to all of America’s problems.  Since she didn’t do much as vice-president, and since she didn’t really accomplish much while she was in the U.S. Senate, many Americans feel like they don’t really know her too well.  So a lot of them are buying into the carefully crafted image that is now being projected by the Democratic Party.  But is that image accurate?  Harris spent many years ascending through the ranks of the Democratic Party in California, and of course the Democratic Party has been systematically transforming that state into a hellhole. 

    There is a reason why millions of people have been moving out of California in recent years.  But Harris isn’t just from California. 

    Her hometown is literally one of the worst places in the entire country…

    In January 2019, Kamala Harris launched her 2020 presidential campaign in Oakland. On Friday, Kamala Harris secured enough votes to become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, hours after her supporters rallied in her hometown of Oakland.

    As some put it, “Oakland is all in for Kamala.”

    The last time Oakland had a Republican mayor was in 1977.

    This is a city that is completely and utterly dominated by the Democrats.

    Under their rule, it has become a cesspool of drugs, homelessness, violence and theft.  Here is just one example of how incredibly lawless Oakland has become…

    In early July, a mob of 80 to 100 looters barged into an Oakland gas station and convenience store and stripped the business bare.

    According to the New York Post, the mob originated nearby at a so-called sideshow, which is essentially lawless street racing that’s become common in Oakland.

    It was bad enough that the store was hit by looters, but what made it worse is that the police took nine hours to respond, according to the owner.

    It took nine hours for the police to show up.

    Nine hours.

    A few years ago, Kamala Harris was one of the politicians that was publicly calling for police budgets to be reduced.

    When you do that, this is what happens.

    At this point, Oakland is so lawless that it even has a “major problem” with pirates…

    Oh, and pirates—yes, pirates—are a major problem in the waters around Oakland. The pirates reportedly come from the city’s myriad homeless encampments. Police have made a few arrests, but the problem now seems endemic in Oakland’s harbors.

    California liberalism has transformed Oakland into one of the worst cities in North America.

    And if she is given the opportunity, Kamala Harris will impose California liberalism on the whole nation.

    Other cities that have been ruled by Democrats for decades are experiencing similar results.

    Just look at what is happening to Seattle.  One man recently ventured into downtown Seattle in the middle of the night, and the footage that he captured looks like something out of a horror show.

    At one point in my life, I spent some time in the Seattle area.

    I can hardly believe what has happened to that once great city.

    Of course the entire country is going downhill really fast.  According to a new report that was just released, shoplifting in the United States increased by 24 percent during the first half of this year…

    Shoplifting increased by 24 percent in the first half of 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s mid-year report, even as other crime levels decreased.

    In many cases, shoplifting is seen as a “crime of necessity” for low-income Americans. As inflation continues to impact both businesses and families, shoplifting rates have surged even higher.

    “Shoplifting as such a widespread crime during a time of high inflation is actually quite common when you look at similar times from other countries in the past,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. “The one-two punch that consumers face is not just higher prices, but also a drawback of additional financial resources they would normally qualify for because of their current employment and income outlook.”

    Shoplifting was already at record levels coming into this year.

    And now it has jumped another 24 percent?

    That is insane.

    In some of our major cities, shoplifting is wildly out of control.  Recently, one reporter spoke to a woman that works at a CVS location in Washington D.C. where there is constant theft…

    The Center Square spoke with a 38-year-old woman who goes by “Jones” who works at a CVS within eyeshot of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

    Jones told The Center Square that shoplifters take from her store daily.

    When Jones does see customers steal something, she doesn’t stop them.

    “We don’t get paid for that,” she said.

    This is happening right in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol building.

    When something is stolen, this woman says that employees are not even supposed to contact the police.  Instead, they are just supposed to write down what was stolen on a clipboard…

    She said procedure is not to notify police but to write a description of the thief and what was stolen down on a form on a clipboard. Jones’ clipboard has seemingly a hundred pages stacked, at least one for each day, many of them filled with reported incidents.

    By 11:15 am Thursday morning when Jones spoke with The Center Square, the store had already been stolen from four times that day, at least as far as she knew.

    This is what anarchy looks like.

    And the chaos in our major cities is constantly getting worse, because the Biden administration refuses to secure the border.

    It is being reported that the most violent gang in Venezuela has decided to move its headquarters to a city in Mexico that is directly across the border from El Paso, Texas…

    Venezuela’s most violent gang, which has already sparked chaos across the US, has moved its headquarters to the outskirts of a major American city, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

    Dubbed the ‘epitome of evil’, the notorious criminal organization Tren de Aragua, or TdA as it is known by federal agents, previously operated out of an infamous South American prison so completely under gang leaders’ control that it had its own zoo, swimming pool and nightclub.

    But after kingpin Hector Guerrero Flores escaped last year, the mafia moved its command center to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico on the US border – directly across from El Paso, Texas, local officials told DailyMail.com.

    Since the border is wide open, this new location gives this gang the perfect staging ground for conducting operations inside the United States.

    In fact, this gang has already become extremely active in major cities far from the border such as Denver and New York…

    A memo by the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that the TDA members in Denver have been given a ‘green light’ to shoot or attack police officers, reported Fox News.

    The gang is also thought to have joined forces with other criminal networks in New York, unleashing violent schemes including brazen moped phone thefts.

    According to NBC News, Joe Biden “tapped Kamala Harris to tackle the daunting issue of immigration in March 2021”.

    Obviously that didn’t work out too well.

    But now we are just supposed to ignore all that.

    And we are just supposed to ignore the endless chaos in our major cities.

    They are telling us that we should vote for Kamala Harris because she will bring “change” to America.

    Based on the “change” that we have witnessed in her hometown, I don’t know why anyone would ever want that.

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    Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 17:40

  • Monday Massacre Brought To You By Kazuo's Carry-Chaos, Kamalanomics, & Jump's Crypto Dump
    Monday Massacre Brought To You By Kazuo’s Carry-Chaos, Kamalanomics, & Jump’s Crypto Dump

    Well it started with a Japanic… but really Asian markets were just playing catch down to Friday’s moves. Yen strength (carry trade unwind accelerates post-BoJ) weighed on stocks and TOPIC had its worst day since the 1987 collapse…

    Source: Bloomberg

    How much more pain will Kazuo Ueda unleash on the Japanese public before he pivots dovish once again

    “You can’t unwind the biggest carry trade the world has ever seen without breaking a few heads. That is the impression markets give us this morning,” Kit Juckes, chief foreign exchange strategist at Societe Generale, said in a research note published Monday.

    In the US, the narrative transition from ‘soft landing’ to ‘hard landing’ stoked the flames of the sell-off and some pointed to Kamala Harris overtaking Trump in the prediction markets as exacerbating equity weakness.

    Source: Bloomberg

    Trump predicted several years ago, “If Biden gets in [office], the market will crash.” And only a couple of days ago, Trump stated, “If Harris wins this election, you will quickly have a Kamala economic crash, you’re going to have a crash.” He told his Georgia rally audience. “You could also have a crash like in 1929, more specifically, ‘cause that’s where we’re heading.”

    Unfortunately for many Americans, it seems the stock market crash didn’t wait for Harris’s potential election.

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    At their worst, Small Caps and Nasdaq were down 6% today, before dip-buyers stepped in and lipstick’d this pig of a day. By the close, all the majors were down around 3-3.5% on the day…

    Goldman Sachs trading desk noted tht overall activity levels are surging up +63% vs. the trailing 2 weeks in line with market volumes up +99% vs the 10dma. Our floor tilts +6% better to buy, driven by HFs while LOs just flipped from net seller to net buyer.

    • HFs are +11% better to buy and shockingly are better to buy in every sector ex-REITs.  Demand heaviest in Tech, Cons Disc, Comm Svcs & Fins which are all +$100mm net better to buy

    • LOs are now flat on the day after starting out -10% better for sale.  A bit more dispersion in their sector skews, buying Comm Svcs, Cons Disc, HCare & Fins while selling Tech, Staples, Mats & Macro Products

    The S&P closed below its critical CTA pivot threshold…

    The S&P 500 broke below its 100DMA…

    Nasdaq broke below its 200DMA but found a supportive bid there…

    “Most Shorted” stocks were slammed again at the open

    Source: Bloomberg

    Mag7 stocks are now down a stunning $3 trillion from their record highs…

    Source: Bloomberg

    NVDA is now down 35% from its record highs…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The ‘Ai trade’ is rapidly unwinding, breaking below its 200DMA…

    Source: Bloomberg

    VIX surged to 65 intraday – its highest since COVID lockdown chaos – before vol-sellers stepped in (but it ended up around 35 still!)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    VVIX exploded higher – near all-time record highs…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The Treasury market was chaotic today (but you’d barely notice if you were checking close to close). Yields collapsed by almost 20bps intraday… twice… before squeezing back higher and ending pratically unchanged. The long-end ended up outperforming on the day (30Y -4bps, 2Y +1bps)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The yield curve (2s10s) briefly dis-inverted today for the first time since June 2022…

    Source: Bloomberg

    The dollar dropped again, testing the mid-May lows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Crude oil plunged back to test its lows since February today ($71 handle for WTI)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Gold was monkeyhammered lower today too, breaking below $2400 before finding support…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Crypto markets were clubbed like a baby seal overnight amid reports that Jump Trading was liquidating its holdings. Bitcoin crashed below $50,000 for the first time since February (basically erasing all the post-ETF gains), then bounced notably off those lows…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, the market appears to be testing The Fed – demanding almost 140bps of cuts in 2024 at the peak today (as 2025 cuts are brought forward)…

    Source: Bloomberg

    Now, don’t forget that this is the third time the market has gone to the limit on Fed rate cuts in the last year. Will Powell fold and unleash the Put?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 17:25

  • Two Chinese Nationals In U.S. Illegally Stopped With $250,000 In Gold Bars On Them In Texas
    Two Chinese Nationals In U.S. Illegally Stopped With $250,000 In Gold Bars On Them In Texas

    Just a normal everyday traffic stop: pulling over a couple of Chinese nationals, driving through Texas, with $250,000 worth of gold bars on their person.

    That was the scene last week in Van Zandt County, according to KETK NBC.

    Sgt. Charlie Hughes of the Wills Point Police Department was monitoring traffic on I-20 near the 533-mile marker when he saw a White Chevy Malibu with Michigan plates committing a traffic violation.

    He then stopped the vehicle and identified the driver as 25-year-old Weijian Chen.

    KETK writes that due to a language barrier, Hughes asked Chen to use a translator app in his patrol vehicle to communicate.

    The officer said that during the interview he “observed multiple factors that lead [him] to believe there was criminal activity afoot.” 

    The driver said that he was heading to Dallas and had also been in Florida to “play”. 

    The vehicle was rented under the name of the passenger, 46-year-old Wenqiang Lin, who consented to a search but appeared uncertain. A K9 unit alerted to the front passenger door.

    Inside, officials found a Spirit Airlines boarding pass indicating that Weijian Chen had flown from Los Angeles to Atlanta on July 30-31 without any bags. The rental agreement showed the car was rented in College Park, Georgia, on July 31 and was due in Los Angeles by August 3, the report continued. 

    A bag behind the driver’s seat contained gold bullion bars worth an estimated $200,000 to $250,000, including:

    • Seven 1-ounce 999.9 gold bars
    • Three 5-gram 999.9 gold bars
    • One 1-gram 999.9 gold bar marked with 20 squares
    • Eight 10-ounce 999.9 gold bars

    After arresting Chen and Lin, Sgt. Hughes contacted U.S. Homeland Security, which revealed both men had entered the country illegally. Lin entered on September 15, 2023, and was awaiting immigration processing in Los Angeles. Chen entered on December 17, 2023, and is also pending immigration judicial action.

    “Based on my training, I know that it is very unlikely that Lin or Chen could have transported the gold bullion through airport Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint with[out] filing a United States Currency Transaction Report,” the officer said.

    KETK wrote:

    During an interview at the Van Zandt County Jail, Chen allegedly stated that the gold bars had been given to him by someone to transport to Dallas however he declined to give any further information.

    Both suspects have been charged with money laundering and are being held on $100,000 bond.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 17:20

  • The Upside Of Adversity
    The Upside Of Adversity

    Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

    A steady diet of adversity prepares one for both the low-level adversities of daily life but also for the metaphorical droughts and floods that push us to our limits of endurance and adaptability.

    We all know the downside of adversity: it’s tiresome, and if it pushes us up against our limits long enough, it can break us.

    If my life is any indication, some of our adversity is outside our choosing and control, while other instances of adversity result from our own decisions and/or traits. We may take risks with the goal of advancing, and end up with adversity. We may choose a difficult path and find it far more arduous than we could possibly have imagined. Or we may have experienced success from the start, and be unprepared for the adversity that inevitably follows easy success.

    Longtime correspondent Matthew W. recently observed that humans share a core trait with other forms of life:

    “Just like animals and crops, if you give too much up front, they grow weak, and being unable to stand any hardship, eventually succumb to simple problems that any normal living thing could tolerate. I see the same application in work. The one who must struggle ceaselessly during training flourishes when placed into a space that requires typical prowess, whereas those who are constantly led by the hand, require massive support systems to do even simple tasks, until their ineptitude ultimately bankrupts the company, leading to their loss of work.”

    This is the upside of adversity: a steady diet of adversity prepares one for both the low-level adversities of daily life (Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, etc.) but also for the metaphorical droughts and floods that push us to our limits of endurance and adaptability.

    As the famed stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius observed, “You have power over your mind–not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” In other words, we don’t control everything going on around us, we only control our response to the circumstances we find ourselves in.

    Where we find strength to endure adversity depends on our experience and personality. In the modern era, the Existentialists perceived the world as devoid of absolutes, and so we make our lives by our actions. Ralph Waldo Emerson said as much: “Do the thing and you shall have the power.”

    My summary is: never mind what you think or feel, just do the work: persevere above all else. Marcus said much the same: “Begin–to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.”

    It is noteworthy that Marcus spent the entire first chapter of his Meditations expressing gratitude to all those who taught him and aided his advance in skills and wisdom. Gratitude for what we have and have learned helps us orient ourselves to the task at hand, enduring adversity and emerging stronger as a result. Here is Marcus: “Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”

    There is also the strength found in faith, something philosopher Soren Kierkegaard addressed in the 19th century. To have faith that the adversity we must endure is as it should be, despite the difficulties and suffering: “And when one knows the frightful truth that there is no evasion or excuse, then one does what one shall.” (page 15, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air)

    For Kierkegaard, faith is not only seeking God’s aid, it is a life-changing experience: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

    Marcus expressed similar notions of fate and faith:

    “Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.”

    “Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‘This is a misfortune’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.'”

    “Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.”

    The Taoists viewed the world as constant change, and our adversities arise from seeking the impossible: to lock in a situation that suits us. As Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing), “Reversal is the movement of Tao.” For the Taoists, the highest skills flow from constant practice until the skills summon themselves.

    Marcus possessed the same wisdom:

    “Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.”

    And so how to we proceed in the face of adversity? By moving forward: As Lao Tzu wrote: “The journey of a thousand li begins with a single step.”

    Here is Marcus: “Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.”

    For Kierkegaard, the ultimate purpose of life is to acquire oneself, to become true to oneself: “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

    “The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly.”

    If we can remain true to ourselves, then we’ll discover what Marcus knew: “Where a man can live, he can also live well.”

    It is wise to focus on what we can do in the present moment, but also wise to explore our past for insights and strengths we can apply to the present:

    Marcus: “Confine yourself to the present.”

    Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 08/05/2024 – 17:00

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