- Betraying The Constitution: Who Will Protect Us From An Unpatriotic Patriot Act?
Betraying The Constitution: Who Will Protect Us From An Unpatriotic Patriot Act?
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
– Thomas Paine
While Congress subjects the nation to its impeachment-flavored brand of bread-and-circus politics, our civil liberties continue to die a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts.
Case in point: while Americans have been fixated on the carefully orchestrated impeachment drama that continues to monopolize headlines, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law legislation extending three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which had been set to expire on December 15, 2019.
Once again, to no one’s surprise, the bureaucrats on both sides of the aisle—Democrats and Republicans alike—prioritized political grandstanding over principle and their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.
As Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) predicted:
Today, while everyone is distracted by the impeachment drama, Congress will vote to extend warrantless data collection provisions of the #PatriotAct, by hiding this language on page 25 of the Continuing Resolution (CR) that temporarily funds the government. To sneak this through, Congress will first vote to suspend the rule which otherwise gives us (and the people) 72 hours to consider a bill. The scam here is that Democrats are alleging abuse of Presidential power, while simultaneously reauthorizing warrantless power to spy on citizens that no President should have… in a bill that continues to fund EVERYTHING the President does… and waiving their own rules to do it. I predict Democrats will vote on a party line to suspend the 72 hour rule. But after the rule is suspended, I suspect many Republicans will join most Democrats to pass the CR with the Patriot Act extension embedded in it.
Massie was right: Republicans and Democrats have no problem joining forces in order to maintain their joint stranglehold on power.
The legislation passed the Senate with a bipartisan 74-to-20 vote. It squeaked through the House of Representatives with a 231-192 margin. And it was signed by President Trump—who earlier this year floated the idea of making the government’s surveillance powers permanent—with nary a protest from anyone about its impact on the rights of the American people.
Spending bill or not, it didn’t have to shake down this way, even with the threat of yet another government shutdown looming.
Congress could have voted to separate the Patriot Act extension from the funding bill, as suggested by Rep. Justin Amash, but that didn’t fly. Instead as journalist Norman Solomon writes for Salon, “The cave-in was another bow to normalizing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance powers.”
That, right there, is the key to all of this: normalizing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance powers.
In the 18 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.
The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.
The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.
The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic being that if government agents knew more about each American, they could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens—no doubt a reflexive impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike.
This, according to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., was a fantasy that “had been brewing in the law enforcement world for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.
Federal agents and police officers are now authorized to conduct covert black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices while you are away and confiscate your personal property without first notifying you of their intent or their presence.
The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited (at least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act).
In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government has subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely without a trial, among other things.
The federal government also made liberal use of its new powers, especially through the use (and abuse) of the nefarious national security letters, which allow the FBI to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies at the mere say-so of the government agent in charge of a local FBI office and without prior court approval.
In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched.
We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list.
It’s only getting worse, folks.
Largely due to the continuous noise from television news’ talking heads, most Americans have been lulled into thinking that the pressing issues are voting in the next election, but the real issue is simply this: the freedoms in the Bill of Rights are being eviscerated.
The Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—which historically served as the bulwark from government abuse.
Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches and the like—all sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—a recitation of the Bill of Rights would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.
We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document. However, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
What once were considered inalienable, fundamental “rights” are now mere privileges to be taken away on a government bureaucrat’s say-so.
To those who have been paying attention, this should come as no real surprise.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Constitution has been on life support for some time now, and is drawing its final breaths.
The American government, never a staunch advocate of civil liberties, has been writing its own orders for some time now. Indeed, as the McCarthy era and the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr. and others illustrates, the government’s amassing of power, especially in relation to its ability to spy on Americans, predates the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001.
What the Patriot Act and its subsequent incarnations did was legitimize what had previously been covert and frowned upon as a violation of Americans’ long-cherished privacy rights.
After all, the history of governments is that they inevitably overreach.
Thus, enabled by a paper tiger Congress, the president and other agencies of the federal government have repeatedly laid claim to a host of powers, among them the ability to use the military as a police force, spy on Americans and detain individuals without granting them access to an attorney or the courts. And as the government’s powers have grown, unchecked, the American people have gradually become used to these relentless intrusions into their lives.
In turn, the American people have become the proverbial boiling frogs, so desensitized to the government’s steady encroachments on their rights that civil liberties abuses have become par for the course.
Yet as long as government agencies are allowed to make a mockery of the very laws intended to limit their reach, curtail their activities, and guard against the very abuses to which we are being subjected on a daily basis, our individual freedoms will continue to be eviscerated so that the government’s powers can be expanded, the Constitution be damned.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 00:05 - Where Are All The Billionaires' Super-Yachts? Slump Signals Recession Dead-Ahead
Where Are All The Billionaires’ Super-Yachts? Slump Signals Recession Dead-Ahead
Investors looking for signs of a recession might want to focus their attention on recreational boating and mega-yacht sales, an industry that tends to decline ahead or during economic turning points.
The National Marine Manufacturers Association (NNMA) is worried about a weakening consumer next year. So far, sales are up for personal watercraft, wake sport boat, and larger fiberglass boat sales, but there’s a notable decline in freshwater fishing boat sales.
In recent quarters, the manufacturing recession has successfully transmitted weakness into consumers and services. Ten months of an employment slowdown, consumer confidence is expected to shift lower in 1H20. Deteriorating consumer confidence could lead to slumping boat sales in 2020, which would be another warning sign that a recession is ahead.
Superyacht dealers are also seeing a slowdown in sales because the ultra-wealthy are spooked by the real threat a global trade recession could arrive sometime next year. The ultra-wealthy are usually in the know of economic turning points, way ahead of the average person. They’re sometimes the smartest money in the room, and make moves before the broader shift occurs. And perhaps, the rich, abandoning their love for yachts this year is also another sign that a domestic and global slowdown will persist into 2020.
Bloomberg notes that superyacht dealers have reported only 102 sales through September, which is likely going to come in significantly weaker than the 199 sold in all of 2018.
Thom Conboy, a superyacht broker for Dutch shipbuilder Heesen Yachts, said wealthy clients purchase yachts based on confidence in the global economy, and if there’s turmoil around the world, the clients don’t buy.
Boating is a luxury; it all comes down to the disposable income of the middle class and ultra-wealthy consumers. So when pessimism and uncertainty unfold across the domestic and global economy, spending on boats and yachts tend to decline.
It seems that the boating industry could have a demand issue in 2020 when the global economy is expected to stumble into a trade recession.
Must be nothing…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 23:45 - Gun Control Groups Hide Behind Bogus "Police" Think-Tank To Disarm Americans
Gun Control Groups Hide Behind Bogus “Police” Think-Tank To Disarm Americans
Authored by Duane Norman via FMShooter.com,
The myth that police support gun control legislation is one of the most frequent crutches used by gun control groups to support disarming Americans. At the forefront of this is the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a DC-based think tank with a long anti-gun history.
This is all done with your tax dollars, no less, as the Nationalist Review recently exposed the DOJ’s funding of PERF:
Between 2001 and 2017, PERF has received a combined $35.2 million in funding from federal, state, and local governments in the form of grants and contracts, according to 990 tax filings submitted by the DC based think tank. In addition to this funding, PERF receives millions more annually in the form of fees charged for training ($9,500 per officer for a three week course) and conference registrations ($3.3 million in 2018 alone)
Made up of police chiefs and executives from large cities, PERF policies have resulted in a “soft federalization” of policing, with “training courses” that yield almost zero flexibility for officers in the field, and this rigidity extends to the push to restrict civilian firearms ownership at every juncture.
Unsurprisingly, PERF was one of the major backstops for former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s first foray into gun control. The push to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment (legislation protecting the privacy of gunowners’ personal information) was spearheaded by Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and supported by none other than PERF’s very own Chuck Wexler:
Mayors Against Illegal Guns last Tuesday stood on Capitol Hill with law enforcement officials and members of Congress to urge the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment.
Members of Congress at the event included… Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum.
Lest we forget, Mayors Against Illegal Guns was disbanded in 2014 and rebranded as Everytown for Gun Safety after the group’s mayors either turned against Bloomberg, or turned up in possession of illegal firearms:
Why was Mayors Against Illegal Guns Renamed? Because of the mayors.
Some mayors believed the organization didn’t target illegal guns, just legal ones.
But the real kicker was when some mayors in the group faced charges for illegally possessing guns themselves. pic.twitter.com/SZFgCEQLuN
— FMShooter (@fmshooter) November 27, 2019
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While Bloomberg was restructuring his gun control apparatus, Wexler remained as PERF’s Executive Director, where in 2017, he pushed back against one of the only noble causes championed by then-AG Jeff Sessions – a drive to have police departments enforce immigration laws:
In 2017, when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to withhold federal funds from police departments that refused to enforce immigration laws, it was Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, who pushed back against him. Wexler claimed that if police departments assisted in detaining illegal immigrants, they would inhibit their ability to gain information from the community about recent crimes.
PERF supports every gun control policy imaginable, including, but not limited to:
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Restrictions on firearm magazine capacity
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Implementation of Universal Background Checks
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“Red Flag” Laws
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Microstamping technology in all new firearms
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Opposition to removal of suppressors from NFA restriction
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A reinstatement of Senator Dianne Feinstein‘s 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, where she famously stated on 60 Minutes that she would support door-to-door gun confiscation:
As previously mentioned by the Nationalist Review, PERF relies on failed retreads and anti-gun fanatics to head their departments, and there is perhaps no bigger example than former NYPD commissioner James O’Neill. O’Neill even took his gun control platform to the national stage, appearing on 60 Minutes to plead againstNational Concealed Carry Reciprocity:
Cyrus Vance: I think it would be a disaster for New York City. And I think for major cities around the country.
James O’Neill: I think it’s insanity.
Vance and O’Neill have established a formidable coalition of prosecutors and police chiefs from nearly every big city in America to lobby senators to keep the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act from becoming law.
Of course, O’Neill continues to support support lackluster firearms training for NYPD officers, and the NYPD continues to be the only police department in the country with a mandated 12lb firearm trigger, a major contributor to poor firearm accuracy:
Comparison of a professional marksman shooting an NYPD trigger vs a stock trigger
When you hear about the NYPD taking 16 shots to kill one bad guy and accidentally wounding nine civilian passers-by, or officers firing 84 shots at a murder suspectand missing 83 times (with the only hit registering in the suspect’s calf), don’t blame the officers—blame their poor training and equipment, mandated by O’Neill all throughout his tenure as commissioner.
And yet, PERF is cited by nearly every liberal organization that supports gun control. Former Connecticut Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty, one of Bloomberg’s most endorsed candidates (via his Moms Demand and Everytown proxies), used PERF to proclaim that “every” major law enforcement organization opposed CCW Reciprocity.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association, Police Foundation, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, Police Executive Research Forum…#StopCCR pic.twitter.com/vI5EohfgXE
— Elizabeth Esty (@Elizabeth_Esty) December 6, 2017
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This was her platform, right up until she was forced to abandon her re-election campaign in the wake of a sex scandal involving her chief of staff:
In early 2018, Esty faced public criticism after news reports revealed that her former chief of staff had been accused of sexual harassment and threats of violence against staff but that she kept him on the payroll for another three months and wrote him a positive letter of reference.
California Rep. Salud Carbajal recently used PERF to justify his push for “Red Flag” laws:
This morning, @HouseGVP met with @PoliceFound, @MjrCitiesChiefs and Police Executive Research Forum to discuss ending gun violence.
We MUST pass my bipartisan #ERPOAct, which will allow law enforcement to ensure those at risk of harming themselves or others can’t access guns. pic.twitter.com/YE48pCesVM
— Rep. Salud Carbajal (@RepCarbajal) October 22, 2019
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But it is hardly just politicians themselves who use PERF as a gun control crutch. Parkland “victim” Cameron Kasky, another anti-gunner who exists solely on Bloomberg donations, used PERF police chief and noted gun-grabbing liar Chief Art Acevedo to promote his advocacy:
Just had a great panel with PERF (Police Executive Research Forum) where I got to meet law enforcers from around the country and discuss behavioral intervention programs and the gun violence epidemic in our country. Special thanks to Chief @ArtAcevedo for his leadership.
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) June 1, 2018
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(THREAD) Guess what – @ArtAcevedo is not only a bad guy, he’s a headline-seeking gun grabber in one of the reddest states in the country. https://t.co/kN9FkNSsgd
— FMShooter (@fmshooter) September 17, 2018
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Rifles PERF wishes to ban frequently save lives:
1) The story of a pregnant woman using an AR-15 to save her husband is now being covered by mainstream media, largely because of the brutal nature of the intruders’ attack.
They’ll have you believe this is an uncommon occurrence. Unsurprisingly, they are lying. pic.twitter.com/exGdWn9zss
— FMShooter (@fmshooter) November 5, 2019
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Even the “conservative” Koch Brothers have donated hundreds of thousands to PERF:
The Police Executive Research Forum launched a new study to identify risk factors that result in police use of force https://t.co/9lr36oJyE6
— Charles Koch Inst. (@CKinstitute) June 30, 2017
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Make no mistake about it, PERF anti-gun policies have infiltrated the Trump administration as well:
ATF Deputy Director Thomas Brandon and other senior leadership participated in the Police Executive Research Forum in DC, focusing on reducing gun violence and #CrimeGunIntel. ATF also showcased one of its NIBIN vans with @JeffCoSheriff. pic.twitter.com/iCWSXJ2tdB
— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) June 8, 2018
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Remember Chuck Wexler? Here he is with none other than the architect of Fast and Furious: former Attorney General Eric Holder:
In Wash DC at Police Executive Research Forum @CWexlerPERF w AG Eric Holder discussing US heroin and opiate issue. pic.twitter.com/Fp71fx8Wmo
— Chief Brooks (@ChiefBrooksNPD) April 16, 2014
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Ironically enough, Holder opposed Project Exile, a program which aimed to force federal prosecutions and guaranteed prison sentences for illegal firearms possession charges. For a man who had no problem with the “soft federalization” of police throughout his career, it is rather amusing that he opposed the one tool that is lauded by both the NRA and police everywhere as a major contributor to a drastic drop in violent crime rates.
But perhaps no one more blatantly clings to PERF than Monsanto lobbyist and “stay-at-home mom” Shannon Troughton. If you haven’t heard of her in the past, it’s because she changed her last name to Watts to try to duck her past as a lobbyist for big corporate interests when she joined Bloomberg’s newly rebranded Everytown:
This is a bizarre lie. The National Association of School Resource Officers opposes it. The Major Cities Chiefs Association opposes it. The Police Executive Research Forum opposes it.
How dare Arkansas lawmakers allow this fraud to give testimony that will impact kids’ safety? https://t.co/SrCLxw6VvZ
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 9, 2018
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2) The Police Foundation, Police Executive Research Forum, Major Cities Chiefs Association and other national police associations all oppose
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) September 28, 2017
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Watts had the temerity to follow Hillary Clinton’s debunked suggestion that suppressors make firearms more deadly. Sadly enough, PERF is all too willing to go along with both Hillary and Watts:
The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots.
Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
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Ever wonder why former Speaker Paul Ryan never brought CCW Reciprocity or removal of Suppressor NFA restrictions to a vote? Look no further than his connections to PERF:
Burlington’s police chief spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day meeting with other police leaders and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin to speak about law enforcement use of force.
The topic: A new policy created by the Police Executive Research Forum with the help of law enforcement partners across the country. Ryan’s hometown police department in Janesville recently adopted the policy, del Pozo said. The Burlington chief was one of five police leaders who helped forum members present the policy to Ryan.
Unfortunately, PERF does the exact opposite of what Ryan claimed to oppose – the soft federalization of local police:
“(Ryan) has never been interested in federalizing local functions, and he considers police a local function,” del Pozo said. “But he was interested in hearing what local police have done sort of on a voluntary basis to improve use-of-force outcomes in policing. We were just explaining the curriculum.”
Make no mistake about it, PERF has infiltrated every layer of our country’s policing and law enforcement apparatus, and draconian gun controls are all over their list of objectives. Whenever anyone states that there is “police support” for a gun control initiative you can bet your bottom dollar that PERF is one of the “police organizations” they’ll use to make that argument.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 23:25 -
- US Fertility Rate Hit Record Low In 2018
US Fertility Rate Hit Record Low In 2018
The US fertility rate dropped for the fourth straight year in 2018, and has fallen approximately 15% since 2007, according to the National Center for Health Statistics – which reports that there were 59.1 births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age.
In total, 3,791,712 births were recorded across the country last year – extending a steep decline that began during the 2008 Recession, according to the New York Times.
As one user in Reddit’s “Childfree” forum notes: “Babies are expensive, and we’re all broke,” to which another user replied “Also, pregnancy and its effects on the body are gross and not worth it.”
There you go.
While teen pregnancy rates dropped the most at 7.4%, women between 20 – 24 years of age recorded the second steepest decline of any age demographic, while mothers aged 40-44 rose 2% from 2017 – a demographic which has risen almost continuously since 1985 as women choose to have children later in life.
“It’s clear that the traditional age-fertility pattern that held for Baby Boomers and Gen X women is shifting,” said Brookings Institution senior demographer William Frey, who notes that over 50% of women who had children in their late 30s last year had college degrees – eclipsing women in their late 20s.
“The data suggest that people want to establish themselves before having children,” said Johns Hopkins demographer Alison Gemmill. “They also want to make sure they have adequate resources to raise quality children.”
Meanwhile, suicide rates among young Americans are at 20-year highs.
The Times notes that Demographers have been scratching their heads over whether this is a “temporary phenomenon or a new normal, driven by deeper social change.”
Fertility rates tend to drop during difficult economic times, as people put off having babies, and then rise when the economy rebounds. That is what happened during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. But this time around, the birthrate has not recovered with the economy. A brief uptick in the rate in 2014 did not last.
“It is hard for me to believe that the birthrate just keeps going down,” said Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
Mr. Johnson estimated that if the rate had remained steady at its 2007 level, there would have been 5.7 million more births in the country since then. –New York Times
The Times also notes that “Other sweeping social changes have accompanied the delay in childbearing. New data from the Census Bureau show that the median age of first marriage is now 28 for women and nearly 30 for men; in 1970, the median ages were 21 and 23,” according to Frey said. “This is a far cry from the 1950s, or even the 1980s and the 1990s.”
Meanwhile, this poor guy is just trying to reproduce:
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 23:05 - Prohibition Ended Today 86 Years Ago
Prohibition Ended Today 86 Years Ago
Authored by D.W.MacKenzie via The Mises Institute,
Today is an interesting milestone for Libertarian minded people, as well as those with a fondness for trivia.
86 years ago today FDR 86’d prohibition.
Drinking became a crime starting on January 17th 1920, and remained a crime until December 5th 1933. Prohibition serves as a leading example of what happens when people in a largely free society lose part of their freedom. Prohibition did not stop Americans from drinking, it just drove an industry underground and into the control of gangs. Consequently, gang violence escalated during the prohibition years.
Prohibition also escalated police raids against harmless commerce. Prohibition fueled speakeasies as dispensers of beer & booze. Speakeasies obviously dealt with violent gangs as suppliers, but speakeasy customers engaged in voluntary transactions for desired goods. Police raids on speakeasies drove willing customers out of these businesses now and then, and these raids prompted both corruption and a minor change in the English language.
One speakeasy was “Chumley’s” located at 86 Bedford Street in Manhattan. Some police acted as informants to the bartenders at Chumley’s: shortly before a raid they would call with the message to “86 the customers”, to stop business and push all customers out the door. Hence the term 86’d began as a term for putting a stop to illicit business in one bar, but developed subsequently into a more general term for getting rid of something or refusing service. Prohibition ended 86 years ago today.
This is perhaps the only day during any year that Libertarian minded person might find it appropriate to raise a toast to FDR.
Cheers to the 32nd President, for just this one occasion.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 22:45 - China Will Use Millions Of Zimbabwe Citizens To Improve Facial Recognition Accuracy
China Will Use Millions Of Zimbabwe Citizens To Improve Facial Recognition Accuracy
As China spreads its economic footprints across multiple continents with The Belt and Road Initiative, and exercises more and more control over the lives of its subjects via a combination its Social Credit Score system and vast surveillance state, it appears Beijing’s Big Brother has run into an issue that needs to be addressed to achieve world domination… inaccuracy!
Facial recognition systems are becoming more and more mainstream and accepted by an increasing number of ‘average joes’ around the world as the cost of security (or just ease of life). The problem is, as we detailed previously, for some segments of society, it is wildly inaccurate.
Specifically, after Oakland and San Francisco voted against the use of facial recognition, Rep. Tashida Tlaib claimed that “the error rate among African-Americans, especially women,” was 60 percent.
During a test run by the ACLU of Northern California, facial recognition misidentified 26 members of the California legislature as people in a database of arrest photos.
But China’s tech behemoths have taken the process of training their algos on non-white faces to a whole new level.
As The FT reports, a deal between Chinese facial recognition company CloudWalk and the government of Zimbabwe means the latter will send data on millions of African faces to the Chinese company to help train the technology.
“African states tend to go along with what is being put forward by China and the ITU as they don’t have the resources to develop standards themselves,” said Richard Wingfield, head of legal at Global Partners Digital, a company working on human rights on the internet.
Perhaps somewhat shockingly, The FT reports that over the past few years, Chinese surveillance infrastructure has swept across regions from Angola to Zimbabwe. For example, earlier this year South African company Vumacam installed 15,000 surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities in Johannesburg, supplied by Hikvision.
In August, Uganda confirmed the nationwide installation of Huawei surveillance cameras with face recognition capabilities. Similarly, the Singapore government plans to install facial recognition cameras on its lampposts, a contract that Chinese start-up Yitu has bid for, according to local reports.
As Foreign Policy previously noted, this agreement will also enable Zimbabwe, a country with a bleak record on human rights, to replicate parts of the surveillance infrastructure that have made freedoms so limited in China. And by gaining access to a population with a racial mix far different from China’s, CloudWalk will be better able to train racial biases out of its facial recognition systems – a problem that has beleaguered facial recognition companies around the world and which could give China a vital edge.
“People did not consent to the use of their biometric data in this way,” Hove said.
“Unfortunately, people do not have any way of holding the government accountable as there are no laws in place or any regulatory body tasked with the protection of people’s privacy or data protection.”
Zimbabwe’s 2002 Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act doesn’t cover biometric data or cross-border flows of data, and, as Hove notes, “the government has rarely ever acted in the people’s interests.”
The CloudWalk deal is built on the back of a long-standing relationship between former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s regime, seen by China as an ideological ally, and Beijing.
And like every other foreign deal done by a Chinese firm of late, it has been wrapped into China’s increasingly all-encompassing Belt and Road Initiative.
“We are concerned about the deal, given how CloudWalk provides facial recognition technologies to the Chinese police,” said Maya Wang, a senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch.
“We have previously documented [the Chinese] Ministry of Public Security’s use of AI-enabled technologies for mass surveillance that targets particular social groups, such as ethnic minorities and those who pose political threats to the government.”
Whether or not the technology is activated, the panopticon effect of visible surveillance – especially when labeled as facial recognition – has been claimed to reduce crime.
However, as Michael Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center recently noted, facial recognition puts every person who crosses its path into a perpetual lineup without any probable cause. It tramples restrictions on government power intended to protect our right to privacy. It feeds into the broader federal surveillance state. And at its core, it does indeed fundamentally undermine liberty.
But, for Zimbabweans and Angolans – who perhaps face little choice when the ‘partner’ in multi-billion-dollar investment plans is China – giving up liberty and freedom is preferable to yet more hyperinflation. For Natasha Msonza, the co-founder of the Digital Society of Zimbabwe, “it feels like [CloudWalk] is looking for guinea pigs,” she said, adding, “I don’t believe that the Zimbabwe government gave this proposition much thought before volunteering its citizens to be subjected to racial facial recognition experiments.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 22:25 - November Payrolls Preview: This May Actually Matter
November Payrolls Preview: This May Actually Matter
With the Fed now on hold well into 2020 (by which we mean no rates hikes ever and a rate cut as soon as the S&P drops more than 10%), Powell’s reaction function is once again data-dependent, which is why tomorrow’s payrolls report might actually matter to markets: if very strong, it may just skewer stocks as the odds of a rate hike, improbable as they may be, will rise; if ugly – which is far more likely after our analysis over the weekend and yesterday’s disastrous ADP – it could send the S&P to new all time highs as traders anticipate another rate cut in the coming months.
With that in mind, here’s what consensus expects the BLS to release tomorrow at 8:30am ET: An above trend 180k in November; The unemployment rate is seen unchanged, though some gauges suggest the jobless rate could be subject to upside risk. The pace of wage growth is seen rising a touch in the month. Other indicators have been mixed; the ADP gauge of payrolls missed expectations, but did not contain the positive impact from GM workers returning from strikes; jobless claims data surged to a five-month high in the survey week, though has subsequently fallen towards the low end of its recent range, providing a mixed signal. The ISM manufacturing survey’s employment sub index was weak, though the services gauge, which is more representative of the US economy, ticked up slightly. Meanwhile, announced job cuts are down on a monthly and yearly basis, though the YTD measure in November was the highest since 2015.
Here is a summary of the key expectations, courtesy of RanSquawk
- Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 180k, Prev. 128k.
- Private Payrolls: Exp. 175k, Prev. 131k.
- Manufacturing Payrolls: Exp. 38k, Prev. -36k.
- Government Payrolls: Prev. -3k.
- Avg. Earnings M/M: Exp. 0.3%, Prev. 0.2%.
- Avg. Earnings Y/Y: Exp. 3.0%, Prev. 3.0%.
- Avg. Work Week Hours: Exp. 34.4hrs, Prev. 34.4hrs.
- Unemployment Rate: Exp. 3.6%, Prev. 3.6%. (FOMC currently projects 3.7% at end-2019, and 4.2% in the long run).
- U6 Unemployment Rate: Prev. 7.0%.
- Labour Force Participation: Exp. 63.3%, Prev. 63.3%.
TREND RATES: The street looks for 180k nonfarm payrolls to be added to the US economy in November, slightly above recent trend rates (3-month average 176k, 6-month average 156k, 12-month average 174k). While the jobless rate is seen remaining at 3.6%, analysts note that the differential between jobs ‘plentiful’ and jobs ‘hard-to-get’ in the CB consumer confidence data narrowed from 35.1 to 32.1, leaving some risk of a rise in the unemployment rate. Consumers are seemingly optimistic on wage growth, with the latest confidence data showing the anticipation of an improvement in future wages rising slightly in the month (from 21.4 to 21.8), while those expecting a decrease declined slightly (6.9 to 6.2).
INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: In the payroll survey week, initial jobless claims printed 228k, the highest weekly print since May, with the four-week moving average rising to 221.25k (compared to 213k weekly print in the October survey week, where the four-week moving average was 215.25k). Pantheon Macroeconomics said that the data got its attention, given it has printed five-month highs in two consecutive weeks. Its economists, however, said that at this point, it cannot be sure if it was a real sign of a change in the labour market, not least because some of the increase appeared to be due to the California wildfires. “We need to see more data before making any sort of macro call, but a clear and sustained increase in claims would be a real warning sign,” Pantheon writes, “so far, all the downshift in job gains has been due to slower hiring; if layoffs rise too, payroll growth will weaken substantially further.”
ADP: According to the ADP’s measure of payrolls, 67k jobs were added to the US economy in November – short of the 145k consensus, and missing even the most pessimistic forecast (range was between 120-188k); Capital Economics says the data presents downside risks to its 170k forecast, though does note that the official payrolls data will be boosted by an approximately 50k rise in auto sector employment after GM workers returned from strike — the ADP’s data did not include this effect. “This report adds to signs that the labour market is still losing momentum, suggesting that income growth and thus real consumption growth will slow a little further in the near term,” Capital Economics writes, “but it would take a much sharper downturn in employment growth to raise recession fears and prompt the Fed into additional rate cuts.”
ISM: The ISM manufacturing survey saw the employment subindex fall by 1.1 points in the month, taking it to 46.6 points, with the contraction extending to four months. ISM said that three of the six big industry sectors expanded employment, and three contracted during the period, an improvement from the previous month, and also said that labour force-reduction concerns remained generally constant. (NOTE: ISM says that an employment sub-index above 50.8, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in the BLS data on manufacturing employment (you have to go back to the July data for the latest print above that level). The employment sub index within the non-manufacturing ISM told a better story, rising 1.8 points in November to 55.5, with respondents stating “we are in a workforce crisis, unable to attract and/or retain workers” and “hiring more personnel to support operations.
CHALLENGER JOB CUTS: Challenger announced job cut announcements by US firms fell to a rate of 44,569 in November, from 50,275 in October – – down 11% M/M and down 16% Y/Y; however, the YTD figure is higher, with employers announcing plans to cut 559,713 jobs, which is 13.1% higher than the 494,775 cuts announced through November 2018, and the highest January-November total since 2015, when 574,888 cuts were announced. Challenger also said that job cuts announced in 2019 have already surpassed the full-year total in 2018, when 538,659 cuts were announced. The report said “employers did not make large-scale job cut plans in November. While concerns of a downturn may linger, consumer confidence is strong and companies are holding on to their employees in a tight labour market.” On a more optimistic note, the report noted that hiring plans by US companies were at a record high, and that through October, companies announced 1,181,438 hiring plans, 564,781 of which are for the holiday season.
Arguing for a Weaker Report:
- Winter weather. Snowstorms during the survey period in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest may have weighed on November payroll growth. As shown in Exhibit 1, our population-weighted snowfall dataset was above average during the November survey week. While the impact is uncertain, we are assuming a weather impact of around -10k in tomorrow’s report.
- Holiday retail hiring. Thanksgiving was relatively late this year (November 28th n ) and this could reduce the number of holiday retail employees reflected in the November survey period. As shown in Exhibit 2, retail job growth tends to be weak in similar calendar configurations, decelerating relative to the 3-month average in each of the last four instances (though the magnitude of this drag may be waning over time).
- ADP. The payroll-processing firm ADP reported a 67k increase in November private employment, 68k below consensus and well below the 135k average pace over the three prior months. While the inputs to the ADP model argued for a weak reading, the shortfall was considerably larger than expected. The fact that job creation slowed “across all company sizes” in the ADP panel also indicates some legitimate weakness in November job growth.
- Job availability. The Conference Board labor market differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—retrenched by 4.0pt to +32.1 in November. Other job availability readings were similarly softer: JOLTS job openings declined to their lowest level since early 2018 (-277k to 7,024k in September) and the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online index fell (-3.0pt to 100.5 in October)
Arguing for a Stronger Report:
- End of GM Strike. As indicated in the BLS strike report, 46k General Motors employees did not work during the October payroll period due to a United Auto Workers strike. The return of these workers is set to boost tomorrow’s manufacturing growth reading by 46k (a 2k metalworkers strike will provide a slight offset to the overall payroll impact).
- Labor market slack. With the labor market somewhat beyond full employment, we see the dwindling availability of workers as one factor weighing on job growth this year. However, as shown in Exhibit 3, first-print November job growth often accelerates when the labor market is tight—for example in 1988, 1989, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2006. We believe some firms may have pulled forward hiring or reduced year-end layoff activity, anticipating a shortage of applicants in future months.
- Employer surveys. Business activity surveys were mixed in November (roughly unchanged on net for headline manufacturing surveys but somewhat stronger for services). While the employment components generally declined for the manufacturing sector (tracker -0.7 to 52.8), they improved for the much larger services sector (+1.0 to 52.4). Service-sector job growth was 157k in October and averaged 136k over the last six months, while manufacturing payroll employment contracted by 36k in October, below its +3k average over the prior six months but quite strong given the 46k drag from the GM strike.
- Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas declined by 6k in November to 46k (SA by GS), and were 10k below their November 2018 level. The sequential decline in announced layoffs primarily reflects a reversal in the technology (-8k) sector.
- Census hiring. Temporary employment related to the 2020 Census declined 19k in October as address-canvassing operations wound down. There were still 9k Census employees in the October payroll counts, and we expect a further modest drop in November (we assume -5k)
Source: RanSquawk, Goldman
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 22:24 - Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 180k, Prev. 128k.
- Shale's Debt-Fueled Drilling Boom Is Coming To An End
Shale’s Debt-Fueled Drilling Boom Is Coming To An End
Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
The financial struggles of the U.S. shale industry are becoming increasingly hard to ignore, but drillers in Appalachia are in particularly bad shape.
The Permian has recently seen job losses, and for the first time since 2016, the hottest shale basin in the world has seen job growth lag the broader Texas economy. The industry is cutting back amid heightened financial scrutiny from investors, as debt-fueled drilling has become increasingly hard to justify.
But E&P companies focused almost exclusively on gas, such as those in the Marcellus and Utica shales, are in even worse shape. An IEEFA analysis found that seven of the largest producers in Appalachia burned through about a half billion dollars in the third quarter.
Gas production continues to rise, but profits remain elusive. “Despite booming gas output, Appalachian oil and gas companies consistently failed to produce positive cash flow over the past five quarters,” the authors of the IEEFA report said.
Of the seven companies analyzed, five had negative cash flow, including Antero Resources, Chesapeake Energy, EQT, Range Resources, and Southwestern Energy. Only Cabot Oil & Gas and Gulfport Energy had positive cash flow in the third quarter.
The sector was weighed down but a sharp drop in natural gas prices, with Henry Hub off by 18 percent compared to a year earlier. But the losses are highly problematic. After all, we are more than a decade into the shale revolution and the industry is still not really able to post positive cash flow. Worse, these are not the laggards; these are the largest producers in the region.
The outlook is not encouraging. The gas glut is expected to stick around for a few years. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has repeatedly warned that unless there is an unusually frigid winter, which could lead to higher-than-expected demand, the gas market is headed for trouble. “A mild winter across the northern hemisphere or a worsening macro backdrop could be catastrophic for gas prices in all regions,” Bank of America said in a note in October.
The problem for Appalachian drillers is that Permian producers are not really interested in all of the gas they are producing. That makes them unresponsive to price signals. Gas prices in the Permian have plunged close to zero, and have at times turned negative, but gas production in Texas really hinges on the industry’s interest in oil. This dynamic means that the gas glut becomes entrenched longer than it otherwise might. It’s a grim reality plaguing the gas-focused producers in Appalachia.
With capital markets growing less friendly, the only response for drillers is to cut back. IEEFA notes that drilling permits in Pennsylvania in October fell by half from the same month a year earlier. The number of rigs sidelined and the number of workers cut from payrolls also continues to pile up.
The negative cash flow in the third quarter was led by Chesapeake Energy (-$264 million) and EQT (-$173 million), but the red ink is only the latest in a string of losses for the sector over the last few years. As a result, the sector has completely fallen out of favor with investors.
But gas drillers have fared worse, with share prices lagging not just the broader S&P 500, but also the fracking-focused XOP ETF, which has fallen sharply this year. In other words, oil companies have seen their share prices hit hard, but gas drillers have completely fallen off of a cliff. Chesapeake Energy even warned last month that it there was “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.” Its stock is trading below $1 per share.
Even Cabot Oil & Gas, which posted positive cash flow in the third quarter, has seen its share price fall by roughly 30 percent year-to-date. “Even though Appalachian gas companies have proven that they can produce abundant supplies of gas, their financial struggles show that the business case for fracking remains unproven,” IEEFA concluded.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 22:05 - New ATF Study: 423 Million Guns In Hands Of Americans
New ATF Study: 423 Million Guns In Hands Of Americans
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
Violent crime rate has decreased by 48.6 percent in tandem with ownership rise…
Newly released figures from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives shows that there are now a whopping 422.9 million guns in the hands of Americans. The number equates to 1.2 guns for every person in the country.
The figures also show that in 2018, 8.1 billion rounds of ammunition were produced by the gun industry.
The figures also reveal that the most popular firearm in the country is the much maligned sporting rifle, often mis-identified as an “assault rifle”, the AR-15 being one of the more popular models.
The findings highlight that there are now 17.7 million of them in private hands, a record high, and more than half (54%) of all rifles produced in 2017 were modern sporting rifles.
The ATF figures also reveal that firearms-ammunition manufacturing accounted for nearly 12,000 jobs in the US, creating over $4.1 billion in goods shipped in 2017.
“These figures show the industry that America has a strong desire to continue to purchase firearms for lawful purposes,” said Joe Bartozzi, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“The modern sporting rifle continues to be the most popular centerfire rifle sold in America today and is clearly a commonly owned firearm with more than 17 million in legal private ownership today.” Bartozzi continued.
“The continued popularity of handguns demonstrates a strong interest by Americans to protect themselves and their homes and to participate in the recreational shooting sports,” Bartozzi added.
Bartozzi also noted that “as lawful firearms ownership in America continues to grow, criminal and unintentional misuse of firearms is falling.”
“During the 25-year period covered in this report (1993–2017) the violent crime rate has decreased by 48.6 percent and unintentional firearm-related fatalities have declined by 68 percent.” he added.
One reason why the popularity of the sporting rifle continues to grow may be because it is routinely criticized and targeted in arguments for stricter gun control.
Justin Anderson of Hyatt Guns, one of the biggest firearm retailers in the country noted that “Sales have definitely been brisk, especially of small, concealable handguns. We also saw a spike in sales of tactical rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s, for which I think we can confidently thank Beto O’Rourke.”
During a failed presidential run, Beto said on multiple occasions that he would ban AR-15s, and even go door to door to confiscate the weapons from Americans.
With a near record high of gun sales on Black Friday last week, Americans are sending a clear message in exercising their Second Amendment rights.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 21:25 - Hillary Casually Drops 'Russian Asset' Smear On Bernie Sanders In New Interview
Hillary Casually Drops ‘Russian Asset’ Smear On Bernie Sanders In New Interview
Hillary Clinton went on the Howard Stern show this week for a wide-ranging interview with the popular radio host, specifically focusing on her loss to Trump and what 2020 looks like — a race she’s recently dropped hints she could be prepared to enter, however unlikely that might be.
While the Wednesday interview was widely covered in the media, there’s one segment largely overlooked in the mainstream, but which is stunning nonetheless. We’ve grown used to her ‘Trump is a Russian asset’ line in her typical blame game fashion anytime she makes a media appearance; however, she did repeat the less common conspiracy that links rival Democrat Bernie Sanders to the Kremlin.
Are we just going to ignore that Hillary Clinton, today, just implied that Bernie Sanders is also a Russian asset? pic.twitter.com/eGc5PlhB4p
— Nicole Alexander Fisher (@_nalexander) December 5, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
She wasn’t even asked, but briefly voluntarily inserted the reference while discussing the Mueller investigation.
Speaking of the Russians, she claimed, “They were like – ‘hey let’s do everything we can to elect Donald Trump’. Those are quotes… those are words [they used]… And they also said Bernie Sanders.”
“But you know that’s for another day…”
Stern runs with it: “Do we hate Bernie Sanders?”
“I don’t hate anybody,” but agrees with Stern’s assessment that he took a while to endorse her: “He could have. He hurt me, there’s no doubt about it.”
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders at a debate on February 4, 2016 in Durham, New Hampshire. Getty Images Then she delivered the final punch at a moment Sanders continues to gain in the polls, especially among young voters: “And I hope he doesn’t do it again to whoever gets the nomination. Once is enough.”
There it is: her disastrous 2016 loss continues to be the fault of everyone else, who are apparently all somehow Russian puppets, even the Leftist Jewish Senator from Vermont (and let’s not forget the Green Party’s Jill Stein).
* * *
If you can stomach watching it, she elsewhere describes in detail ‘how she felt’ being present for Trump’s inauguration ceremony. “Which was one of the hardest days of my life, to be honest!”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 21:05 - Bill Gates Wants to Export India's National ID System Around The Globe
Bill Gates Wants to Export India’s National ID System Around The Globe
Authored by Daniel Taylor via OldThinkerNews.com,
It’s not just a social credit score system spreading around the world from China that threatens the free people of the world; India’s Aadhaar National ID program has the full support of Bill Gates and the World Bank as a model for other countries to follow.
Gates said in a 2018 CNBC interview that it was “too bad” if someone thought that Aadhaar was a privacy issue:
The Gates Foundation has pledged to fund the World Bank in an effort to take the ID program to other countries.
Despite Gates plea that there are no privacy issues with Aadhaar, several court cases have gone to India’s supreme court on grounds of privacy violations.
The ID system has had serious security breaches, with access to a billion identities being sold for less than $10 through WhatsApp.
One of the court filings (Mathew Thomas vs Union of India) details the rise of China’s social credit system, comparing the Indian Aadhaar initiative to the Chinese program.
Perhaps the most sensational angle to this story is that the same international tech company that provides the infrastructure to Aadhaar also makes drivers licenses in the United States.
Idemia (formerly Morpho), is a billion dollar multinational corporation. It is responsible for building a significant portion of the world’s biometric surveillance and security systems, operating in about 70 countries. Some American clients of the company include the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the FBI.
The company website says that Morpho has been “…building and managing databases of entire populations…” for many years.
In the United States, Idemia is involved in the making of state issued drivers licenses in 42 states.
Idemia is now pushing digital license trials in the U.S. Delaware and Iowa are among five states involved in the trials this year. With the mobile licenses, law enforcement will be able to wirelessly “ping” a drivers smartphone for their license.
The Indian government recently announced a facial recognition program to monitor all social media platforms, called the Advanced Application for Social Media Analytics.
Big tech companies are using China, India, South Korea and other countries as testing grounds for smart cities, surveillance systems and command and control tech that are being stealthily rolled out in the west.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 20:45 - JPMorgan Issues 2020 Alert: Recession Odds Jump After The Election, As The Fed's Credibility Is Questioned
JPMorgan Issues 2020 Alert: Recession Odds Jump After The Election, As The Fed’s Credibility Is Questioned
When it comes to Wall Street’s recent flurry of 2020 forecasts, most banks – perhaps with the notable exception of SocGen – agree that the first half of next year will be more of the same smooth sailing for US equities observed for much of 2019 (if not the violent rotations we witnessed below the surface that crippled quant returns this year).
Where where the consensus goes downhill and things gets stormy, is the outlook for the second half of 2020, whose dominant feature will be the November presidential election. And few are as concerned about what the second half of next year may bring than JPMorgan. The bank, which has been steadfastly bullish stocks – and in retrospect correctly so, if for all the wrong reasons (for example, JPM’s bull thesis was predicated on economic growth, not its inverse, and certainly not the barrage of global rate cuts and the Fed’s launch of QE4), retains its cheerful forecast for the first half of 2019, but when it comes to the second half of 2020, not even JPM’s chief equity strategist, Mislav Matejka warns that the “negatives could begin to materialize” and the market might start to discount these some time in the second half of 2020.
Among the factor listed by Matejka are that US politics could become a lose-lose proposition, and trade uncertainty, as well as hard Brexit risk, could come back. Worse, in a striking admission, none other than the largest US bank admits that next year, the “Fed’s credibility might start to be questioned,” as earnings overshoot their trend, while rising credit concerns could come to the fore.
Finally, while JPMorgan repeats that it has “consistently” argued that one should not expect the next US recession ahead of the presidential elections, it then spoils the ending, and in previewing what happens after next November, says that “the odds of a recession might go up significantly.”
** *
We will spare readers the cheerful side of JPM’s year ahead forecast as it is a repeat of many themes covered here previously by the “bullish” JPM and instead focus on the gloomier aspects of the bank’s year ahead predictions, as those are decidedly new and represent a reversal to JPM’s years of relentless optimism.
The first notable item is the US election road map
According to JPM, both the US election and US politics in general, could become a dominant issue relatively soon, as the Democratic nomination process will be heating up towards the end of Q1.
As JPM notes, “we might end up with two candidates who are potentially on the extreme ends of the political spectrum. The exhibit above compares the policies of a select number of Democratic candidates and president Trump, based on our interpretation of published policies and public comments. The divergence of policy proposals between the different Democratic candidates is probably as extreme as the comparison between Trump’s policies and that of any of his Democratic adversaries.”
Of the prominent Democratic candidates, Biden’s nomination is likely to be seen as more market favourable than a Warren nomination, but at the same time the probability of Trump winning vs Biden could be seen as smaller than the probability that he beats Warren.
The key point here, is that the US politics could end up looking like a “lose-lose” proposition for the markets in the runup to and post the US elections according to Matejka. To summarize the possible outcomes, we might either have 2nd Trump’s term, but with the return to confrontational China stance, as he will not be constrained by the markets anymore, or we might have a shift to less equity friendly tax and regulatory regime, in the event of a Democrat victory.
The risk of trade uncertainty escalating again, post the current truce
JPM’s base case over the past months was that Trump will be compelled to move towards a truce with China, given what were the rising risks to the economy, and in particular to the US consumer. The risk is that the current improving sentiment with respect to trade doesn’t hold for too long, and that potentially re-elected Trump resumes his aggressive stance.
An inflecting credit cycle
Some of the credit indicators will soon be turning into a headwind for equities, as we move through 2020.
Notably, G4 credit standards appear to be tightening for both the businesses and for the consumer of late. One typically sees tightening standards ahead of the downturns.
Corporate leverage is surging
US corporates have been levering up over the past years, with median US company net debt-to-equity ratio at the record highs.
Why is this a risk? Because “if the credit markets weaken, this could reduce the pace of corporate buybacks.” Because where would we be without buybacks…
Economic indicators are looking decidedly late-cycle
The US cycle is now officially the longest one since the WW2, and some of the cycle indicators appear to be rolling over. One such indicator is that job opening rate appears to have peaked. This is what usually happens ahead of the downturns.
Earnings have significantly overshot the trendline
Another key JPMorgan concern is that US profits are now starting to appear stretched vs their long term trendline.
Here Matejka notes that one of the arguments that kept him bullish all this time was the finding that US profits don’t tend to peak for the cycle before they significantly overshoot their long term trend. The size of these overshoots was on average of the order of 20-30%. The current overshoot is at 19%
Profit margins have peaked, which typically bodes negatively for the longevity of the expansion cycle
As we noted recently when discussing real, operating profits, one doesn’t usually have a recession before US profit margins, as measured by NIPA, peaked. The lead-lag between margins peak and the next recession was sometimes very significant.
However, as of this moment, JPM finds that “we are now in unchartered territory”, with US profit margins appearing to have peaked in Q3 ’14, leading to the longest lead-lag on record, and counting…
… while a key profit margin proxy – a difference between the output prices and the input costs – appears to be deteriorating further.
* * *
Putting it together, JPM concedes that while “the time is likely approaching when one should be contrarian again”, this time around through turning bearish vs presently growing consensus bullishness, the bank still thinks that “one should not cut risk-on trades too early, as the bear capitulation, which is currently under way, could have legs.” The only question is when does someone, or something, pull the rug from under the market’s melt-up, triggering what even JPMorgan now see as a coming, and long overdue, day of reckoning for the markets
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 20:26 - The Average Person Will Watch Over 78,000 Hours Of Television "Programming" Over The Course Of A Lifetime
The Average Person Will Watch Over 78,000 Hours Of Television “Programming” Over The Course Of A Lifetime
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
If you want to waste your life, a great way to do that is to spend tens of thousands of hours watching television. Today, it is so difficult to get people to leave their homes and get active in their communities, because most of us are absolutely glued to one screen or another. After a long day at school or a hard day at work, most of us understandably want to relax, and from a very early age most of us have been trained to turn to the television as our main source of relaxation. But of course there is great danger in allowing anyone to pump thousands upon thousands of hours of “programming” into our minds.
More than 90 percent of the “programming” that we consume is controlled by just a handful of exceedingly powerful corporations, and those corporations are owned by the elite of the world. So when you endlessly consume their “programming”, you are willingly being bombarded by news and entertainment that reflects their beliefs, their values and their agendas. They openly admit that they are trying to shape the future of society, and up to this point they have been extremely successful.
Unfortunately, we live at a time when most people need television or some other insidious addiction to take their minds off of the gnawing emptiness that they feel deep inside of them. As I was doing some research the other day, a comment that someone posted on an Internet message board really struck a chord with me…
As a kid life seems so amazing and you can dream of big things and have faith. The older you get it seems the world tries to take away your faith. I have had 8 jobs in my life starting in high school and I’m just sick of this ****. I’m lucky to make 100 a day . I know that’s poverty level. But I manage. But thinking ahead I have to do this every day for the next 30 years . How the hell do you guys and gals cope with reality.
I’m on empty.
I want out.
In just a few sentences, this individual summed up what millions upon millions of Americans are feeling.
The harsh realities of modern society have absolutely sucked the life out of so many people around us, and the vast majority of Americans are barely getting by and are living lives of quiet desperation.
If television allows them to forget about their troubles for a while, it is understandable why so many use it as a crutch.
But do we have to watch so much of it? One recent survey found that the average adult will watch more than 78,000 hours of television over the course of a lifetime…
Television has become such a common part of all of our lives that most don’t even think about just how much time they spend staring at their TV screen. Of course, all of those hours are undoubtedly adding up, and a recent survey of 2,000 British adults finds that the average TV viewer will watch an astounding 78,705 hours of programming (movies, sports, news, etc) in their lifetime. That’s a whole lot of screen time that may have been better spent on more productive endeavors.
On a day-to-day basis, the average adult watches TV for three-and-a-half hours, amounting to 1,248 hours each year.
I know that some of my readers will point out that this was a British survey, but the truth is that Americans actually watch even more television. The following comes from Wikipedia…
In the US, there is an estimated 119.9 million TV households in the TV season 2018/19.
In 2017 alone, an average U.S. consumer spent 238 minutes (3h 58min) daily watching TV.
Those numbers are absolutely staggering. And when you break them down further they become even more alarming. In the first survey that I mentioned above, the researchers actually discovered that the average person “will watch 11,278 different TV series”…
The survey, commissioned by LG Electronics, broke down those numbers even further and concluded that the average adult these days will watch 3,639 movies at home, and 31,507 episodes of TV during their lifespan. As far as different programs, the average person will watch 11,278 different TV series as well.
Are there really 11,278 television series worth watching?
I would think that you would have to go really deep into the well to watch that many, but apparently that is what many people are doing.
Of course I am not entirely against television. For example, I think that “Poldark” is an absolute masterpiece. But everything should be done in moderation.
The fact that we are endlessly watching so much television could help to explain why our society has become so “dumbed down”. Yesterday, I discussed a recent study that found that 15-year-old U.S. students are about four grade levels behind 15-year-old Chinese students in math.
I bet those Chinese students are spending a lot more time studying and a lot less time watching television.
At this point, America has truly become an “idiocracy”.
For example, have you heard what the hottest new toy for this holiday season is?
It is actually a “fart launcher” that allows children to blast foul smelling air at one another. The following comes from the New York Post…
Toy insiders and wincing parents tell The Post that the Buttheads Fart Launcher 3000 — a Nerf gun-like gadget that shoots farts instead of darts — is topping off kids’ wish lists this year.
“This is my worst nightmare,” mom Angie Wong, the 42-year-old founder of the private Facebook group Brooklyn Moms, tells The Post. She recently caved and got the gas-blasting gizmo for her 5-year-old son, Will, and 7-year-old daughter, Maddie. “I can see that thing [being] used on my face one unsuspecting morning.”
Of course a “fart launcher” is not the end of the world, but as I document regularly in my articles, there are literally thousands of signs that the fabric of our society is coming apart all around us.
If our society continues to degenerate at this rate, there is only one way that our story can end.
Sadly, most people seem to think that everything is going to be just fine, because that is what their televisions are telling them to think.
Most of us are willingly plugging ourselves into “the matrix” for multiple hours every day, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that most of us see the world the way that the elite want us to see it.
If you want to start making positive changes in your life, breaking free of your addictions is one of the most important things that you can do.
And at this point, for many Americans watching television is one of the most insidious addictions of all.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 20:05 - Beijing No Longer Seems Interested In Footing The Bill For Electric Vehicles
Beijing No Longer Seems Interested In Footing The Bill For Electric Vehicles
EVs were once thought to be the unlimited silver lining behind an automotive industry that has all but collapsed into severe recession in China.
But now, it’s looking like Beijing isn’t so excited to help sustain the EV niche of the market anymore, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And Beijing’s ambivalence is starting to show up in the numbers. EV sales fell off a cliff after June of this year, when the government slashed purchase subsidies. From July to October, sales of new energy cars were down 28% from the year prior.
Many buyers prior to this had purchased vehicles in anticipation of the subsidy cut, which makes the sales “hangover” even worse. But the drop, on its own, still suggests that demand could be waning under the surface without government incentive. EVs are still priced above conventional cars when they are not stapled to a government subsidy.
Luxury EVs have buyers in places like Shanghai and Beijing, partially because they are exempt from the country’s license plate rationing in these areas. But restrictions on convention ICE cars are now starting to relax as the government continues to seek ways to end the country’s auto recession. Shenzhen and Guangzhou increased their license-plate quota in June and other cities may do the same.
Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu predicts that ride sharing and taxi companies accounted for about 70% of EV sales in the country and that they could represent a large portion of the remaining demand, as they have less sensitivity to subsidy cuts.
But Beijing hasn’t given up on EVs entirely. It still wants one in four new cars sold by 2025 to be electric, according to a draft of its 15 year plan released this week. This raises its previous target released two years ago. EVs currently only make up about 5% of the country’s market.
Subsidies are unlikely to come back, however, to meet this target. The government is now aiming for “quality instead of just quantity”, noting that subsidies would be more costly than they were a few years ago, when the market was smaller. Instead, Beijing will spend the money on building out its infrastructure, like its charging stations.
Maybe Tesla could take a hint from this idea…
Regardless, automakers will continue to push out EVs in China, even if they aren’t profitable. The same is expected to happen in the EU. Beijing, similar to Brussels, requires a certain percentage of cars to meet new energy requirements, which could cause a glut in the market.
One last shred of demand hope
comes from channel stuffingactually comes from the automakers themselves, many of whom are setting up their own ride sharing networks. With this being the case, the “ride” for the EV market looks like it could be bumpy and grim going forward…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 19:45 - Subway Loses Lawsuit Against Journalists Who Discovered Chicken Strips Only 43% Actual Chicken
Subway Loses Lawsuit Against Journalists Who Discovered Chicken Strips Only 43% Actual Chicken
Four years after learning their longtime spokesman was a giant pedophile, Subway has suffered yet another embarrassment after a Canadian court threw out a $210 million lawsuit against journalists who tested the company’s meat, only to discoer that Subway chicken contains as little as 42.8% actual chicken.
In February 2017, the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Marketplace DNA tested six different pieces of chicken from five fast food restaurants – finding that poultry from A&W, McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, and Wendy’s contained between 88.5% and 89.4% chicken DNA.
Subway?
53.6% for their oven roasted chicken contained actual chicken, and 42.8% of their chicken strips. According to the CBC, the rest of it was soy protein, according to VICE.
Needless to say, Subway was a little upset – filing a $210 lawsuit against the CBC, claiming the study was “recklessly and maliciously” published and that the DNA test “lacked scientific rigor.”
The company claims lost customers, lost reputation, and that they had lost a “significant” amount of sales according to the report.
“The accusations made by CBC Marketplace about the content of our chicken are absolutely false and misleading,” the company said after the report was published.
Nearly three years later, the suit has been tossed.
But at the end of November, the The Ontario Superior Court threw Subway’s lawsuit out, ruling that the CBC’s program was an example of investigative journalism, and was protected under an anti-SLAPP (“Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”) statute that “encourages individuals to express themselves on matters of public interest,” without the fear that they’ll be sued if they speak out. (John Oliver covered SLAPP lawsuits and how they’re used to stifle public expression on a recent episode of Last Week Tonight.) –VICE
“The Marketplace report dealt with the ingredients of sandwiches sold by popular fast food chains. It relayed the results of DNA tests performed by the Trent laboratory, which indicated that two types of Subway chicken products contained significantly less chicken DNA than other products tested,” wrote Justice E.M. Morgan in his ruling.
“Furthermore, the Marketplace report raised a quintessential consumer protection issue. There are few things in society of more acute interest to the public than what they eat. To the extent that Subway’s products are consumed by a sizable portion of the public, the public interest in their composition is not difficult to discern and is established on the evidence.”
VICE notes, however, that Justice Morgan did note that Subway’s claims had substantial merit because their own testing revealed just 1% soy filler, not the 40% claimed by the CBC.
The CBC stands by their results, and hired their own expert to vouch for the lab’s testing.
Subway told VICE in a comment after publication:
Statement from Subway Restaurants:
“The case has not been dismissed in its entirety, and this decision does not validate the tests performed by Trent University. In fact, the judge’s opinion states: ‘The record submitted by Subway contains a substantial amount of evidence indicating that the Trent laboratory tests were of limited or no value in determining the chicken content of Subway’s products,’ and ‘…there is considerable evidence that suggests the false and harmful nature of the information conveyed to the public in the Marketplace report.’The CBC Marketplace story at issue is wholly inaccurate and built on flawed research, which caused significant harm to our network of Franchise Owners. In 2017, two independent laboratories in Canada and the U.S. found our chicken to be 100 percent chicken breast with added seasoning, verified that the soy content was only in the range of 1 percent, and contested the testing methodology.
The quality and integrity of our food is the foundation of our business, and we will continue to vigorously defend Subway ® Franchise Owners against false allegations such as those made by CBC’s Marketplace program. We are reviewing the recent decision by the Ontario court and are confident in the ability to continue our claims against Trent University while an appeal against the CBC is under review.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 19:25 - Brazilian Car Production Plunge Sparks Widespread Cutback In Work-Hours
Brazilian Car Production Plunge Sparks Widespread Cutback In Work-Hours
Investors searching for “green shoots” in the global manufacturing sector might not discover them in Brazil.
Brazil’s auto industry trade group Anfavea reports vehicle production plunged 7.1% in November, on a YoY basis.
Anfavea said 227,455 vehicles (light vehicles, trucks, and buses) were produced last month, versus 244,771 over the same period the previous year. For the first ten months of the year, vehicle production increased 2.7% from 2,702,306 in 2018 to 2,774,484 in 2019.
The trade group said the number of vehicles exported from Brazil continues to decline.
November vehicle exports were down 7.9% over the year. For the first ten months, vehicle exports plunged 33.2% over the prior year.
Brazil is one of the top five automakers in the world. The sector has struggled in the last several years as a synchronized global downturn gained momentum.
Brazil almost entered a recession during 1H19, mostly due to a manufacturing slowdown, could register below-trend growth as soon as 1H20.
The global macroeconomic situation across the world and in Brazil is so troubling at the moment that Ford had to close its plant in Sao Paulo.
As a result of the downturn, Anfavea has said production in Q4 has fallen so sharply that three fewer working days have been seen for laborers in factories.
Last week, we noted that the global auto industry continues to deteriorate, namely due to broke consumers after a decade of low-interest rates and endless incentives.
We said, “the auto slowdown has sparked manufacturing recessions across the world, including manufacturing hubs in the US, Germany, India, and China. A prolonged downturn will likely result in stagnate global growth as world trade continues to decelerate into 2020.”
As shown in the chart below, global car sales have crashed at a rate not seen since the last financial crisis.
A global economic rebound depends on the auto industry, with no turn up visible, it’s likely the global economy will continue to decelerate into 2020.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 19:05 - Twitter Censorship Confirmed: "Shadow Banning" Is Now Written Into The Platform's New Terms
Twitter Censorship Confirmed: “Shadow Banning” Is Now Written Into The Platform’s New Terms
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Twitter has written “shadow banning” aka, censorship, into their new terms. The platform will now intentionally “limit the visibility” of some users. Expect those who dissent from the official narrative to be the ones censored.
Critics have accused Twitter of censorship for quite some time now. But this time, it’s official. The company has admitted they will attempt to silence those critical of the ruling class. According to RT, the news terms will be taking effect in January of 2020. While the new terms don’t look like much to write home about, some tweaks to the language could have larger repercussions for users, limiting their reach behind the scenes without their knowledge.
Last year, when I spoke to Twitter reps, they lied and gaslight us about their targeted manipulation of people’s tweets. Now it’s in their new TOS. https://t.co/dti7FSd1v6 nu, @RubinReport, we’re waiting for an alternative pic.twitter.com/W2LBYma3lU
— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) December 4, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“We may also remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, limit distribution or visibility of any Content on the service, suspend or terminate users, and reclaim usernames without liability to you,” the new terms state.
The social media giant is telling users that it reserves the right shadow ban or “throttle” or censor certain accounts. And it is not clear on what basis will it make those decisions, although we guess (based on their past which is rife with censorship) that accounts that aren’t parroting the government’s official narrative will be on the list.
While Twitter has previously insisted point-blank “we do not shadow ban,” in the pre-2020 terms the company split hairs between shadow banning and “ranking” posts to determine their prominence on the site, and acknowledged deliberately down-ranking “bad-faith actors” to limit their visibility.
In January 2018, conservative media watchdog group Project Veritas published footage showing Abhinov Vadrevu, a former Twitter software engineer, discussing shadow banning as a “strategy” the company was at least considering, if not already using. “One strategy is to shadow ban so you have ultimate control. The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned because they keep posting and no one sees their content,” Vadrevu said. “So they just think that no one is engaging with their content when in reality, no one is seeing it.”
The new terms will make shadow bans an official policy, all but guaranteeing continued cries of bias and censorship from the platform’s many critics will be silenced.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 18:45 - Russia Ready To Extend New START Arms Pact "Without Preconditions" By Year-End: Putin
Russia Ready To Extend New START Arms Pact “Without Preconditions” By Year-End: Putin
Since the recent collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, the world has witnessed a hardening of positions on the part of the US, Moscow, and some European powers, also as the ‘Open Skies’ treaty is on the White House chopping block. And it goes without saying that these treaties are designed to prevent the kind of Cold War arms race which nearly took the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation, thus many analysts fear once removed there’s no putting the lid of a major arms race back on. New START, which is the landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by the two superpowers in 1991 and took effect in 1994, is set to expire in February 2021, which would be a mere weeks after the next presidential inauguration.
A little over a month ago the Russian Foreign Ministry declared of the potentially soon to be expired pact: “The ball is now in the Americans’ court”; however, on Thursday Putin made a significant overture and is apparently holding out an open hand, lest this final major arms reduction treaty joints the dust bin of history like the INF.
“Russia is ready to immediately, as soon as possible, before the end of the year, extend the New START treaty without any preconditions, so that there would be no double, triple interpretation of our position later. I’m saying this officially,” the Russian president pointed declared according to Interfax.
Image source: DPA/DW.com Addressing a Russian defense meeting, he explained further that he hopes to avoid a new arms race with the United States, and vowed to in good faith refrain from deploying intermediate and shorter range missiles there where there are none.
“Russia is not interested in triggering an arms race or deploying missiles where there are none,” Putin said. He also invited the US and European countries to join a Russian proposed moratorium on such new deployments and weapons. So far only France has greeted the proposal positively. Indicating the offer is conditional, he warned, “No reaction from other partners followed. This forces us to take measures to resist the aforesaid threats.”
He also took Washington to task for prematurely quitting the INF while attempting to falsely place blame on Russia for being in violation for years. “There is nothing to support this stance. Nevertheless, such attempts are being made,” he concluded, in statements reported by TASS.
Some analysts in the West agree with him. As The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison recently observed, “Refusing to renew the treaty is the same as killing it, and the US will be to blame for the collapse of the last limits on the biggest nuclear arsenals on earth.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 18:25 - How To Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession
How To Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
It’s becoming more and more apparent that the United States will not be going back to “business as usual” after Donald Trump leaves office, and it is easy to imagine that the anti-Trump parties will use their return to power as an opportunity to settle scores against the hated rubes and “deplorables” who dared attempt to oppose their betters in Washington, DC, California, and New York.
Certainly, this ongoing conflict will manifest itself in the culture war through further attacks on people who take religious faith seriously, and on those who hold any social views unpopular among degreed people from major urban centers. The First Amendment will be imperiled like never before with both religious freedom and freedom of speech denounced as vehicles of “hate.” Certainly, the Second Amendment will hang by a thread.
But even more dangerous will be the deep state’s return to a vaunted position of nearly untrammeled power and obeisance from elected officials in the civilian government. The FBI and CIA will go to even greater lengths to ensure the voters are never again “allowed” to elect anyone who doesn’t receive the explicit imprimatur of the American intelligence “community.” The Fourth Amendment will be banished forever so that the NSA and its friends can spy on every American with impunity. The FBI and CIA will more freely combine the use of surveillance and media leaks to destroy adversaries.
Anyone who objects to the deep state’s wars on either Americans or on foreigners will be denounced as stooges of foreign powers.
These scenarios may seem overly dramatic, but the extremity of the situation is suggested by the fact that Trump — who is only a very mild opponent of the status quo — has received such hysterical opposition. After all, Trump has not dismantled the welfare state. He has not slashed — or even failed to increase — the military budget. His fights with the deep state are largely based on minor issues.
His sins lie merely in his lack of enthusiasm for the center-left’s current drive toward ever more vicious identity politics. And, of course, he has been insufficiently gung ho about starting more wars, expanding NATO, and generally pushing the Russians toward World War III.
For even these minor deviations, we are told, he must be destroyed.
So, we can venture a guess as to what the agenda will look like once Trump is out of the way. It looks to be neither mild nor measured.
If the effort at preventing any future Trumps succeeds, it will signal essentially the final victory over so-called “Red State” America.
And then what?
In that situation, half the country may regard itself as conquered, powerless, and unheard.
That’s a recipe for civil war.
The Need for Separation
So long as most Americans labor under the authoritarian notion that the United States is “one nation, indivisible” there will be no answer to the problem of one powerful region (or party) wielding unchallenged power over a hapless minority.
Many conservatives naïvely claim that the Constitution and the “rule of law” will protect minorities in this situation. But their theories only hold water if the people making and interpreting the laws subscribe to an ideology which respects local autonomy and freedom for worldviews in conflict with the ruling class. That is increasingly not the ideology of the majority, let alone the majority of powerful judges and politicians.
Thus, for those who can manage to leave behind the flag-waving propaganda of their youths, it is increasingly evident that the only way to avoid a violent conflict over control of the national government is breaking the United States up into smaller pieces. Or at least decentralizing power sufficiently to allow for meaningful autonomy beyond the reach of federal power.
As I’ve noted in the past, this notion has long been gaining steam in Europe, where referendums on greater local autonomy are growing more frequent.
And conservatives are increasingly seeing the writing on the wall. Among the more insightful of these has been Angelo Codevilla. In 2017, Codevilla, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, laid out a blueprint for local opposition to federal power and noted:
Texas passed a law that, in effect, closes down most of its abortion clinics. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down. What if Texas closed them nonetheless? Send the Army to point guns at Texas rangers to open them? What would the federal government do if North Dakota declared itself a “Sanctuary for the Unborn” and simply banned abortion? For that matter, what is the federal government doing about the fact that, for practical purposes, its laws concerning marijuana are being ignored in Colorado and California? Utah objects to the boundaries of national monuments created by decree within its borders. What if the state ignored those boundaries? Prayer in schools? What could bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., do if any number of states decided that what the federal courts have to say about such things is bad?
Now that identity politics have replaced the politics of persuasion and blended into the art of war, statesmen should try to preserve what peace remains through mutual forbearance toward jurisdictions that ignore or act contrary to federal laws, regulations, or court orders. Blue states and red states deal differently with some matters of health, education, welfare, and police. It does no good to insist that all do all things uniformly.
And by 2019, the need for separation was becoming more urgent. Last week Codevilla continued in this line of thinking:
[A]fter the 2020 elections ordinary Americans will have to deal with the same dreadful question we faced in 2016: How do we secure and perhaps restore our fast-diminishing freedom to live as Americans? And while we may wish for help from Trump, we have to look to ourselves and to other leaders for how we may counter the ruling class’s manifold assaults now, and especially in the long term…
The logical recourse is to conserve what can be conserved, and for it to be done by, of, and for those who wish to conserve it. However much force of what kind may be required to accomplish that, the objective has to be conservation of the people and ways that wish to be conserved.
That means some kind of separation.
… [T]he natural, least stressful course of events is for all sides to tolerate the others going their own ways. The ruling class has not been shy about using the powers of the state and local governments it controls to do things at variance with national policy, effectively nullifying national laws. And they get away with it.
For example, the Trump Administration has not sent federal troops to enforce national marijuana laws in Colorado and California, nor has it punished persons and governments who have defied national laws on immigration. There is no reason why the conservative states, counties, and localities should not enforce their own view of the good.
Not even President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would order troops to shoot to re-open abortion clinics were Missouri or North Dakota, or any city, to shut them down. As Francis Buckley argues in American Secession: The Looming Breakup of the United States, some kind of separation is inevitable, and the options regarding it are many.
It is notable that Codevilla’s strategy is not marked by grandiose gestures of independence or a yearning to re-create the glorious military victories of the days of yore. Such were the mistakes of the Confederates in the mid-nineteenth century.
Interestingly, Codevilla’s more sensible approach shares quite a bit in common with the strategies recommended by Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his essay “What Must Be Done.” The idea is to assert local control and refuse cooperation with federal policymakers. But with restraint. Hoppe writes:
It would appear to be prudent … to avoid a direct confrontation with the central government and not openly denounce its authority or even abjure the realm. Rather, it seems advisable to engage in a policy of passive resistance and non-cooperation. One simply stops to help in the enforcement in each and every federal law. One assumes the following attitude: “Such are your rules, and you enforce them. I cannot hinder you, but I will not help you either, as my only obligation is to my local constituents.”
Consistently applied, no cooperation, no assistance whatsoever on any level, the central government’s power would be severely diminished or even evaporate. And in light of the general public opinion, it would appear highly unlikely that the federal government would dare to occupy a territory whose inhabitants did nothing else than trying to mind their own business. Waco, a teeny group of freaks, is one thing. But to occupy, or to wipe out a significantly large group of normal, accomplished, upstanding citizens is quite another, and quite a more difficult thing.
Some will be unable to break out of the mindset that the United States must forever be governed by a singular national policy. They will insist any attempt at decentralization of this sort must necessarily result in violence.
Writing at The American Conservative, Michael Vlahos, for example, appears unconvinced that violence can be avoided. But even he concedes the violence is unlikely to take the form of mass bloodshed as seen in the 1860s:
Our antique civil wars were not bound to formal rules, yet somehow they held to well-etched bounds of expectation. American society today has very different norms and expectations for civil conflict, which certainly will constrain how we fight the next battle.
Today’s America no longer embraces a national landscape of an industrial-lockstep battlefield (think Gettysburg, D-Day). Our next civil war — as social media so eloquently reminds us — will enact its violence on a battle campus of equal pain, if less blood.
Many devotees of perpetual federal supremacy, of course, won’t admit even this. Any attempt at decentralization, nullification, or secession is said to be invalid because “that was decided by the Civil War.” There is no doubt, of course, that the Civil War settled the matter for a generation or two. But to claim any war “settled things” forever, is clearly nonsense.
It is true, however, that if the idea of a legally, culturally, and politically unified United States wins the day, Americans may be looking toward a future of ever greater political repression marked by increasingly common episodes of bloodshed. This is simply the logical outcome of any system where it is assumed the ruling party has a right and a duty to force the ways of the one group upon another. That is the endgame of a unified America.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/05/2019 – 18:05
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