Jul 06

Today’s News 6th July 2019

  • Another, Even Bigger, Quake Just Hit Southern California, Gas Leaks/Fires Reported

    Update (1145ET): Less than 12 hours after seisomologist Lucy Jones warned of another large quake, a massive 7.1 quake just hit 17km NNE of Ridgecrest.

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    This continues the swarm of aftershocks that has hit all day… (Seismologists at Cal Tech said Friday afternoon that there had been around 1,400 aftershocks since Thursday’s 6.4-magnitude quake, with 17 of those with a magnitude of 4 or above.)

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    The quake hit at 2319ET less than 24 hours after the largest quake (6.4) in over 20 years struck the same region.

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    It was big enough to felt on the east coast…

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    The news and accompanying video started to surface on Twitter at around 11:30pm EST on Friday night. The Dodgers even played their baseball game through the quake: 

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    One person on social media reported feeling dizzy and his dog threw up. Chandeliers and hanging plants swayed. Pools sloshed. Electrical wires rocked.

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    Even Northern California residents noted their pools making waves and Vegas residents felt the shake.

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    NBC LA reports gas leaks and fires have been reported.

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    Friday night, the power went out in Ridgecrest, a city of 27,600, around 100 miles north of Los Angeles, according to NBC reporters in the area.

    The San Bernardino County Fire District tweeted that calls were coming in from northwestern communities and that people were reporting “homes shifted, foundation cracks, retaining walls down.”

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    The fire district reported one minor injury and said firefighters were treating the patient. “No unmet needs currently,” the fire department said.

    A major rockslide occurred…

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    As we detailed earlier, the strongest earthquake to hit southern California in nearly 2 decades has also resulted in an unusual number of aftershocks, seismologists are saying. The quake has already prompted one city to declare a state of emergency Thursday and affected residents from Las Vegas to Orange County, according to the Mercury News.

    The quake registered a 6.4 on the Richter scale and was centered about 150 miles north of Los Angeles. An astounding 159 aftershocks of magnitude 2.5 or greater have been recorded already. This is a higher than normal, with the largest aftershocks registering at 4.6.

    Seismologist Lucy Jones called it a “robust” series of aftershocks and says there’s a 50% chance of another large quake in the next week. She also said there is a 1 in 20 chance that a bigger earthquake will hit within the next few days.

    She commented that earthquakes actually increase the risk of future quakes.

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    Jones said:

    “It’s certain that this area is going to be shaking a lot today, and some of those aftershocks will probably exceed magnitude 5.”

    “Plate tectonics hasn’t suddenly stopped; it is still pushing Los Angeles toward San Francisco at the same rate your fingernails grow — about 1.5 inches each year… Their motion cannot be stopped any more than we could turn off the sun,” Jones wrote in her recent book.

    Earthquake scientists Ross Stein and Volkan Sevilgen, writing on their blog at Temblor.net said that this quake may have just made things worse for the area. 

    The two wrote that they believe that parts of three other faults — in remote areas of California — were actually “brought closer to failure by the 4th July quake.”

    The area hit by Thursday’s quake likely became loaded with more seismic strain after two previous temblors — the 1872 Owens Valley and the 1992 Landers earthquakes.

    The earthquake, now named the Searles Valley Quake, was preceded by 4.2 magnitude foreshock.

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    This has caused the city of Ridgecrest to declare a state of emergency, with the mayor citing five fires and broken gas lines as part of the city’s problems. There were also power outages that affected 28,000 residents. Meanwhile, the forecasted high temperature for the area is 100° today.

    Near the epicenter of the quake, the fire department responded to more than 20 incidents, including fires and medical emergencies. Ridgecrest Regional Hospital was evacuated and about 15 patients from the emergency room were taken to another hospital. The facility is currently being inspected.

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    One nearby resident said of the earthquake: “We were panicked trying to get out of the house because everything is falling out of the cabinets, off the shelves, off the walls. … They were flying like missiles off the shelves.”

    Another, directing a Fourth of July kids program, said that the quake startled the 65 children on stage. “It was terrifying,” she said.

    Many residents near the area upset because the city’s smartphone app – set up to warn of quakes – didn’t send a warning in advance.

    The earthquake was also felt in Las Vegas. It was the largest quake to hit southern California since 1999, when a 7.1 earthquake hit in the Mojave Desert. In 1994, a 6.7 magnitude quake hit Los Angeles, causing $25 billion in damage.

  • Escobar: The Un-Submersible US-Iran Stalemate

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    Lost in the submarine uproar, the deadline set by Tehran for the EU-3 to support Iranian crude sales expires Sunday…

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    A thick veil of mystery surrounds the fire that broke out in a state of the art Russian submersible in the Barents Sea, leading to the death of 14 crew members poisoned by toxic fumes.

    According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the submersible was conducting bathymetric measurements, as in examining and mapping deep sea conditions. The crew on board was composed of “unique naval specialists, high-class professionals, who conducted important research of the Earth’s hydrosphere.” Now the – so far unnamed – nuclear-powered vessel is at the Arctic port of Severomorsk, the main base of Russia’s Northern Fleet.

    A serious, comprehensive military investigation is in progress. According to the Kremlin, “the Supreme Commander-in-Chief has all the information, but this data cannot be made public, because this refers to the category of absolutely classified data.”

    The submersible is a Losharik. Its Russian code is AS-12 (for “Atomnaya Stantsiya” or “Nuclear Station“). NATO calls it Norsub-5. It’s been in service since 2003. Giant Delta III nuclear submarines, also able to launch ICBMs, have been modified to transport the submersible across the seas.

    NATO’s spin is that the AS-12/Norsub-5 is a “spy” sub, and a major “threat” to undersea telecommunication cables, mostly installed by the West. The submersible’s operating depth is 1,000 meters and it may have operated as deep as 2,500 meters in the Arctic Ocean. It may be comparable to, or be something of an advanced version of, the US deep submergence vessel NR-1 (operating depth 910m) famous for being used to search for and recover critical parts of the space shuttle Challenger, lost in 1986.

    It’s quite enlightening to place the Losharik within the scope of the latest Pentagon report about Russian strategic intentions. Amid the proverbial demonization terminology – “Russia’s gray zone tactics,” “Russian aggression.” Russian “deep-seated sense of geopolitical insecurity” – the report claims that “Russia is adopting coercive strategies that involve the orchestrated employment of military and nonmilitary means to deter and compel the US, its allies and partners prior to and after the outbreak of hostilities. These strategies must be proactively confronted, or the threat of significant armed conflict may increase.”

    It’s no wonder that, considering the incandescence of US-Russia relations on the geopolitical chessboard, what happened to the Losharik fueled frenetic speculation  including totally unsubstantiated rumors it had been torpedoed by a US submarine in a firefight – on top of it, in Russian territorial waters.

    Connections were made between US Vice-President Mike Pence’s suddenly being ordered to return to the White House while the Europeans were also huddled in Brussels, as President Putin had an emergency meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

    In the end, it was nothing but mere speculation.

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    Submersible incident

    The submersible incident – complete with the speculative plot line of a US-Russia firefight in the Arctic – did drown, at least for a while, the prime, current geopolitical incandescence: the US economic war on Iran.

    Expanding on serious discussions at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek – which included Iran’s President Rouhani – and the Putin-Xi meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg and at the G20 in Osaka, both Russia and China are fully invested in keeping Iran stable and protected from the Trump administration’s strategy of chaos.

    Both Moscow and Beijing are fully aware Washington’s divide-and-rule tactics are geared towards stopping the momentum of Eurasia integration – which includes everything from bilateral trade in local currencies and bypassing the US dollar to further interconnection of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

    Beijing plays a shadow game, keeping very quiet on the de facto US economic blockade against one of its key Belt and Road allies. Yet the fact is China continues to buy Iranian crude, and bilateral trade is being settled in yuan and rial.

    The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), the mechanism set up by the EU-3 (France, UK and Germany) to bypass the US dollar for trade between Iran and the EU after the US unilaterally abandoned the nuclear deal, or JCPOA, may finally be in place. But there’s no evidence INSTEX will be adopted by myriad European companies, as it essentially covers Iranian purchases of food and medicine.

    Plan B would be for the Russian Central Bank to extend access to Iran as one the nations possibly adopting SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages), the Russian mechanism for trade sanctioned by the US that bypasses SWIFT. Moscow has been working on the SPFS since 2104, when the threat to expel Russia from SWIFT became a distinct possibility.

    As for Iran being accused – by the US – of “breaching” the JCPOA, that’s absolute nonsense. To start with, Tehran cannot possibly “breach” a multinational deal that was declared null and void by one of the signatories, the US.

    In fact the alleged “breach” is due to the fact the EU-3 were not buying Iran’s low-enriched uranium, as promised, because of the US embargo. Washington has de facto forced the EU-3 not to buy it. Tehran duly notified all JCPOA parties that, as they are not buying it, Iran will have to store more low enriched uranium than the JCPOA allows for. If the EU-3 resumes buying it that automatically means Iran is not “breaching” anything.

    Cliffhanger

    Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif is correct; INSTEX, already too little too late, is not even enough, as the mechanism does not allow Tehran to continue to export oil, which is the nation’s right. As for the “breach,” Zarif says it’s easily “reversible” – as long as the EU-3 abide by their commitments.

    Russian energy minister Alexander Novak concurs: “As regards restrictions on Iranian exports, we support Iran and we believe that the sanctions are unlawful; they have not been approved by the UN.”

    Still, Iran continues to export crude, by all means available, especially to Asia, with the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) predictably shutting off satellite tracking on its fleet. But, ominously, the deadline set by Tehran for the EU-3 to actively support the sale of Iranian crude expires this coming Sunday. That’s a major cliffhanger. After that, the stalemate won’t be submersible anymore.

  • How Advanced Robotics Will Impact Job Markets

    Robots are set to have a major impact on workforces around the world over the coming years with jobs involving routine manual activity most at risk from automation.

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    As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, in order to gauge how the adoption of advanced robotics will affect the labor market, the Boston Consulting Group carried out a survey of executives and managers from 1,314 global companies in early 2019.

    Infographic: How Advanced Robotics Will Impact Job Markets | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The research found that 67 percent of Chinese companies are expecting a reduction in the number of employees due to automation, along with 60 percent in Poland and 57 percent in Japan. Some companies are more at risk than others with only 34 percent of organizations in Italy expecting reductions by comparison.

  • Power Versus The Press: The Extradition Cases Of Pinochet & Assange

    Authored by Disobedient Media’s Elizabeth Vos, via ConsortiumNews.com,

    With Julian Assange facing possible extradition from Britain to the U.S. for publishing classified secrets, it is worth reflecting on the parallel but divergent case of a notorious Chilean dictator…

    Eight months from now one of the most consequential extradition hearings in recent history will take place in Great Britain when a British court and the home secretary will determine whether WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange will be extradited to the United States to face espionage charges for the crime of journalism.

    Twenty-one years ago, in another historic extradition case, Britain had to decide whether to send former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain for the crime of mass murder.

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    Pinochet in 1982 motorcade. (Ben2, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

    In October 1998, Pinochet, whose regime became a byword for political killings, “disappearances” and torture, was arrested in London while there for medical treatment.

    A judge in Madrid,  Baltasar Garzón, sought his extradition in connection with the deaths of Spanish citizens in Chile.

    Citing the aging Pinochet’s inability to stand trial, the United Kingdom in 2000 ultimatelyprevented him from being extradited to Spain where he would have faced prosecution for human rights abuses.

    At an early point in the proceedings, Pinochet’s lawyer, Clare Montgomery, made an argument in his defense that had nothing to do with age or poor health.   

    “States and the organs of state, including heads of state and former heads of state, are entitled to absolute immunity from criminal proceedings in the national courts of other countries,” the  Guardianquoted Montgomery as saying. She argued that crimes against humanity should be narrowly defined within the context of international warfare, as the BBC reported.

    Montgomery’s immunity argument was overturned by the House of Lords. But the extradition court ruled that the poor health of Pinochet, a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, would prevent him from being sent to Spain.

    Same Participants

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    Assange in 2014, while in the Ecuadorian Embassy. (Cancillería del Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

    Though the cases of Pinochet and Assange are separated by more than two decades, two of the participants are the same, this time playing very different roles.

    Montgomery reappeared in the Assange case to argue on behalf of a Swedish prosecutor’s right to seek a European arrest warrant for Assange.

    Her argument ultimately failed. ASwedish court recently denied the European arrest warrant. But as in the Pinochet case, Montgomery helped buy time, this time allowing Swedish sexual allegations to persist and muddy Assange’s reputation.

    Garzón, the Spanish judge, who had requested Pinochet’s extradition, also reappears in Assange’s case.  He is a well-known defender of human rights, “viewed by many as Spain’s most courageous legal watchdog and the scourge of bent politicians and drug warlords the world over,” as the The Independent described him a few years ago.

    He now leads Assange’s legal team.

    Friends and Enemies

    The question that stands out is whether the British legal system will let a notorious dictator like Pinochet go but send a publisher such as Assange to the United States to face life in prison.

    The tide of political sentiment has been running against Assange.

    Before the U.K. home secretary signed the U.S. extradition request for Assange, leading to the magistrate’s court setting up a five-day hearing at the end of February 2020, British lawmakers publicly urged that the case against Assange proceed. Few elected officials have defended Assange (his image tainted by the unproven Swedish allegations and criticism about the 2016 U.S. election that have nothing to do with the extradition request).

    Pinochet, by contrast, had friends in high places. Thatcher openly called for his release.

    “[Pinochet] reportedly made a habit of sending chocolates and flowers to [Thatcher] during his twice-yearly visits to London and took tea with her whenever possible. Just two weeks before his arrest, General Pinochet was entertained by the Thatchers at their Chester Square address in London,” the BBCreported.  CNN reported on the “famously close relationship.”

    Similar affection was also documented between Pinochet and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The Nation reported on a declassified memo of a private conversation in Santiago, Chile, in June 1976, that revealed “Kissinger’s expressions of ‘friendship,’ ‘sympathetic’ understanding and wishes for success to Pinochet at the height of his repression, when many of those crimes – torture, disappearances, international terrorism – were being committed.”

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    Pinochet, left, greeting Kissinger in 1976. (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Chile, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

    Systematic, Widespread Abuse

    Pinochet rose to power following a U.S.-backed, violent coup by the Chilean army on Sept. 11, 1973, which ousted the country’s democratically-elected president, the socialist Salvador Allende. The couphas been called “one of the most brutal in modern Latin American history.”

    The CIA funded operations in Chile with millions of U.S. tax dollars both before and after Allende’s election, the 1975 U.S. Senate Church Committee reported. 

    Although the Church Committee report found no evidence of the agency directly funding the coup, theNational Security Archive noted that the CIA “actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of President Allende. Many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses. Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military.”

    The violence Pinochet inflicted spilled over the borders of Chile. His orders for murder have been linked to the killing of an exiled Chilean dissident, Orlando Letelier, in a car bomb blast on U.S. soil. The attack also killed Ronni Moffitt, a U.S. citizen.

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    Villa Grimaldi, one of the largest torture centers during the Pinochet military dictatorship. (CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons)

    More than 40,000 people, many only tangentially tied to dissidents, were “disappeared,” tortured or killed during Pinochet’s 17-year reign of terror.

    Pinochet’s Chile almost immediately after the coup became the laboratory for the Chicago School’s economic theory of neoliberalism, or a new laissez-faire, enforced at the point of a gun.  Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan championed a system of privatization, free trade, cuts to social services and deregulation of banking and business that has led to the greatest inequality in a century.

    By contrast to these crimes and corruption, Assange has published thousands of classified documents showing U.S. and other nations’ officials engaged in the very acts of crime and corruption. 

    Yet it is far from certain that Assange will receive the leniency from the British extradition process that Pinochet enjoyed.

    After the dictator’s death, Christopher Hitchens wrote that the U.S. Department of Justice had an indictment for Pinochet completed for some time. “But the indictment has never been unsealed,” Hitchens reported in Slate.

    Assange’s indictment, by contrast, was not only unsealed, more charges were heaped on.

    Given the longstanding difficulties he has had accessing justice, it’s fair to say that the U.K. and the rest of the Western world are committing a slow-motion “enforced disappearance” of Assange.

  • Carmageddon Continues: New Vehicle Sales Plunge To "Horribly Mature" 1999 Levels

    The auto industry continues to look like a bursting bubble in progress and all around sad state of affairs, despite low rates and the “prosperity” of the stock market hitting new all time highs. Meanwhile, under the surface of those numbers, the actual economy – especially in autos – is telling a different story.

    New vehicle deliveries, combining fleet sales and retail sales, were down 1.5% in Q2 to 4.5 million vehicles, according to Wolf Street.

    For the first half of the year, vehicle deliveries fell 2.4% to 8.4 million vehicles. This puts the pace for new vehicle sales on track to fall below 17 million for the year, which would be the worst level since 2014. Further, it has lowered estimates for the full year to 16.95 million units delivered, on par with a “horribly mature market” in 1999. In addition to a struggling consumer, these lowered estimates are also result of rising interest rates and competition from off-lease vehicles. 

    This has resulted, simply, in fewer customers splurging on new cars.

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    As we noted on Friday morning, it’s likely Ford and General Motors are breaking a sweat after the latest slate of economic data hit the wires. Though its overall truck sales held up, those of Ford’s signature F-Series pickup truck fell over last year in June. GM was not as fortunate with sales of its Silverado and Sierra trucks down, especially on the heavy-duty side of the line-up. With the caveat that fleet sales can indeed be trucks and comprised 24% of Fiat Chrysler’s June sales, Ram pickups were nonetheless the standout as a fresh redesign and fat incentives drove sales up over 2018.

    Ford’s sales fell 4.1% in Q2. Car sales at Ford plunged another 21.4% to just 110,195 units, as customers continue to favor new pick up trucks, SUVs and vans instead. Truck sales rose 7.5% but F-series pickups fell 1.3%, cannibalized by Ford’s midsized pick up, the Ranger. However, even the company’s SUV sales look ugly – they fell 8.6% to 215,898 units.

    According to newly released data on Friday, Ford also posted an abysmal quarter in China, selling a total of 154,042 vehicles in the second quarter, a 21.7% decrease compared to the same period last year. 

    General Motors saw sales fall 1.5% in Q2 after plunging 7% in Q1. Fiat Chrysler sales fell 0.5% in Q2 and the company announced that it will abandon reporting deliveries on a monthly basis, following in the footsteps of Ford and GM. Here’s a better look at Q2 numbers for most auto makers:

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    No matter how you look at it, 2019 has been ugly:

    • Year to date, Toyota Motor sales are down 3.1% to 1,152,108 vehicles.

    • Year to date, Honda Motor sales have fallen 1.4% to 776,995 vehicles.

    • Year to date, Nissan sales are down 8.2% to 717,036 vehicles.

    • Year to date, Fiat Chrysler sales are down 2% to 1,096,110 vehicles.

    • Year to date, total GM auto sales in the U.S. are down 4.2% to 1,412,499.

    • Over the first half of 2019, total Ford sales are down 2.9% to 1,240,585.

    To try and continue capitalizing on truck demand, automakers are flooding the market “with efficient and restructured versions of pickup trucks”. And the industry – not unlike most market participants across all sectors in general – is hoping for help from the Fed. A rate cut this summer could help drive more business to dealerships heading into the middle of the third quarter. 

    Recall, we reported just days ago that more than 25% of June’s 41,977 announced job cuts came in the automotive industry, according to Managing Economist for Refinitiv Jeoff Hall. Hall commented on Twitter that the industry’s 10,904 redundancies were the most in seven months and the second most in seven years.

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    Hall also noted that excluding autos, there were only 31,073 job cuts in June, the fewest in 11 months, in low-normal range.

    About a month ago we focused on layoffs in the auto industry, noting that China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the United States have all seen at least 38,000 job cuts over the last six months.

    Recall, at the beginning of June we noted that Bank of America had said that “the auto cycle had peaked”. 

    While Bank of America attributed much of the downturn in the manufacturing sector to the ongoing trade war, it singled out the automotive industry as a specific area for concern. Calling the problem a “classic story of demand/supply mismatch”, the bank pointed out that producers continue to ramp up output at a time when demand has softened. It’s easy to see in the two following charts – one showing auto sales topping out and the other showing output and production not falling.

     

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  • Why Gold Is Money: A Periodic Perspective

    Authord by Nicholas LePan via Visual Capitalist,

    The economist John Maynard Keynes famously called gold a “barbarous relic”, suggesting that its usefulness as money is an artifact of the past. In an era filled with cashless transactions and hundreds of cryptocurrencies, this statement seems truer today than in Keynes’ time.

    However, gold also possesses elemental properties that has made it an ideal metal for money throughout history.

    Sanat Kumar, a chemical engineer from Columbia University, broke down the periodic table to show why gold has been used as a monetary metal for thousands of years.

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    The Periodic Table

    The periodic table organizes 118 elements in rows by increasing atomic number (periods) and columns (groups) with similar electron configurations.

    Just as in today’s animation, let’s apply the process of elimination to the periodic table to see why gold is money:

    • Gases and Liquids
      Noble gases (such as argon and helium), as well as elements such as hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine and chlorine are gaseous at room temperature and standard pressure. Meanwhile, mercury and bromine are liquids. As a form of money, these are implausible and impractical.

    • Lanthanides and Actinides
      Next, lanthanides and actinides are both generally elements that can decay and become radioactive. If you were to carry these around in your pocket they could irradiate or poison you.

    • Alkali and Alkaline-Earth Metals
      Alkali and alkaline earth metals are located on the left-hand side of the periodic table, and are highly reactive at standard pressure and room temperature. Some can even burst into flames.

    • Transition, Post Transition Metals, and Metalloids
      There are about 30 elements that are solid, nonflammable, and nontoxic. For an element to be used as money it needs to be rare, but not too rare. Nickel and copper, for example, are found throughout the Earth’s crust in relative abundance.

    • Super Rare and Synthetic Elements
      Osmium only exists in the Earth’s crust from meteorites. Meanwhile, synthetic elements such as rutherfordium and nihonium must be created in a laboratory.

    Once the above elements are eliminated, there are only five precious metals left: platinum, palladium, rhodium, silver and gold. People have used silver as money, but it tarnishes over time. Rhodium and palladium are more recent discoveries, with limited historical uses.

    Platinum and gold are the remaining elements. Platinum’s extremely high melting point would require a furnace of the Gods to melt back in ancient times, making it impractical. This leaves us with gold. It melts at a lower temperature and is malleable, making it easy to work with.

    Gold as Money

    Gold does not dissipate into the atmosphere, it does not burst into flames, and it does not poison or irradiate the holder. It is rare enough to make it difficult to overproduce and malleable to mint into coins, bars, and bricks. Civilizations have consistently used gold as a material of value.

    Perhaps modern societies would be well-served by looking at the properties of gold, to see why it has served as money for millennia, especially when someone’s wealth could disappear in a click.

  • Japan Is Once Again Inflating A Massive Real Estate Bubble

    Real estate firms in Japan are once again “entering dangerous territory,” according to Bloomberg. S&P Global Ratings said on Friday that the sector’s debt levels are now higher than the nation’s bubble era.

     

    It is bringing back memories of the 1980s, when the grounds of the Tokyo Imperial Palace were being proclaimed as more valuable than all of the real estate in California. This proclamation was then famously followed by a quarter of a century of stagnation in the country’s real estate sector. 

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    S&P said:

    “Japan’s real estate market is peaking out and ready to head down. Although the conditions in the office leasing market are solid, there are signs of a slowdown in corporate earnings, particularly among manufacturers. In addition, we expect major upticks in central Tokyo office building supply in 2020 and 2023.”

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    Companies that are said to be most at risk include Mitsubishi Estate Co., Mitsui Fudosan Co., Sumitomo Realty & Development Co. and Nomura Real Estate Holdings Inc.

    Low interest rates in Japan haven’t prevented domestic lenders from seeing their profitability weaken, mostly due to lower net interest margins. These lenders have increased loans to developers because demand from other corporate customers is relatively weak.

    This, in turn, has prompted developers to take on large redevelopment projects and acquisitions. S&P thinks that financial leverage in the sector is only going to increase as firms use more debt to finance its growth.

    S&P concluded: 

    “If banks reduce their loans to real-estate companies as financial conditions deteriorate, they could pull down property prices and push up debt financing costs. This, in turn, could worsen the financial standing of real estate majors.”

    1. Corporate America's Virtue-Signaling Is Opportunist, Dangerous, And Undermines The Spirit Of Capitalism

      Authored by Robert Bridge via RT.com,

      Once upon a time, the raison d’être of US companies was to simply make a buck. Those days are long gone. Today, corporations are in the business of radicalizing the country by taking sides in cultural standoffs.

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      Just in time for the Fourth of July festivities, which this year celebrates the 243rd anniversary of America’s independence, Nike decided to ignite a political firestorm the size of a Chinese fireworks factory, thereby further dividing the nation.

      The Fortune 500 tennis shoe maker, with $30 billion in annual global sales, announced it would cancel the release of its ‘Air Max 1’ trainers after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick told the company “he and others” found the Betsy Ross-era flag that adorned the sneaker “offensive.” Why? Because the symbol was stitched at a time when slavery was still part of the fledgling nation’s experience. And since a handful of right-wing ‘white supremacist’ groups have reportedly been seen waving this flag (as well as former President Barack Obama, incidentally), which celebrates the original 13 US colonies and their successful fight against the British crown, suddenly it is deemed toxic and unworthy of the mighty Nike.

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      According to this warped logic, anything that came to fruition when slavery was still a thing – up to and including the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776 – is eligible for eradication in history’s great dumpster fire.

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      So who is Colin Kaepernick, and why should Nike kneel to his demands? It might be better to say what Kaepernick is not. He is not a historian, he is not a marketing executive, and he is not even a professional football player. Today, Kaepernick could best be described as an activist and an agitator. In 2017, after a year of refusing to stand during the US national anthem in protest against police brutality, he opted out of his NFL contract, eventually settling with the league in a confidential agreement rumored to be worth many millions of dollars.

      Incidentally, the ex-athlete starred in a 2018 Nike ad where he was featured before a huge American flag as the narrator said, “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything.” Does “sacrificing everything” include the very country of your birth, as well as the very flag it represents? Is that really the sort of controversial message a US corporation, built on the solid foundation of American freedom and ingenuity, should be endorsing?

      In any case, the bigger question here has little to do with Colin Kaepernick. The real question is: why do so many US corporations feel the need to take sides in the nation’s ongoing culture wars, triggered by political correctness and ‘social justice’ theory gone stark-raving mad? After all, this is not the first time America has passed through the fires of an existential challenge without the need for corporate sponsorship. In the 1960s and 70s, the country nearly tore itself apart during the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights battles, when violence on the streets between protesters and police was a daily occurrence. These social volcanoes brought to the surface a number of great orators and leaders, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, individuals who did not cheapen their messages and work by appearing on TV with a Coca Cola, for example, or Nike footwear.

      Without subscribing to any absurd Illuminati conspiracy theories, it would seem that the largest US corporations have an agenda that goes far beyond the simple capitalistic ambition of turning a profit. Much like the Silicon Valley titans of tech, many Fortune 500 companies simply cannot resist expressing their political views, especially in these turbulent ‘Times of Trump’ when so many otherwise intelligent people have lost their minds. After all, what could be the purpose of a corporation endorsing a fiercely contestable message that alienates at least 50 percent of the American population, not to mention their consumer base? 

      The Gillette Company provides perhaps the best example of a corporation abandoning its primary mission – in this case, selling razor blades and shaving cream – to endear itself to the social warrior lunatic fringe.

      Despite a massive public outcry (1.4 million thumbs down and counting) following Gillette’s puke-inducing lecture ad on ‘toxic masculinity’ which showed American men abandoning their backyard barbecues en masse to (finally) teach their malevolent male offspring that bullying is bad, they waded back into the deep end of the public swimming pool, this time to make a pitch for transgender lifestyles. Without venturing into the politics of the idea, which essentially says that men and women can become the opposite sex regardless of their biological sex at birth, it is enough to wonder exactly what the company hopes to gain by appealing to an infinitesimal segment of the population that risks – once again – alienating millions of dedicated consumers who just want a close shave.  

      Even ice cream companies now feel the need to flash their political identities while diving headlong into the cultural bloodbath. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, for example, last year unveiled their ‘Pecan Resist’ brand, handcrafted to appeal to those Americans who are “fighting President Trump’s regressive agenda.” Yum! And just like that, the subsidiary of the globe-straddling Unilever Corporation alienated millions of US Republicans who just want to enjoy a good bowl of ice cream, much like their Democratic counterparts. Again, the question must be asked: what kind of corporate strategy actively aims to lose half of its consumer base? Or have these corporations morphed into such vast money-making empires that they can afford to not give a good damn?

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      In these dizzying days of political correctness a company can get embroiled in a cultural imbroglio without even trying. In 2012, for example, Jack Phillips, the proud owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood Colorado, refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple over his religious convictions. The couple sued and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Phillips was eventually found within his rights to refuse the request on the basis of the freedom of expression. That is a far cry, however, from a Fortune 500 company that actively dumps its ‘personal beliefs’ on the political landscape.

      For better or for worse, corporations today have come to dominate nearly every aspect of our waking hours, to the point that it is nearly impossible to imagine performing the simplest tasks without them. Now it seems these monstrosities have become confident enough in their economic and political power that they can lecture consumers on modern issues now dividing the nation. That approach seems to have very little in common with the spirit of capitalism, itself a complicated and controversial project, without the need for gratuitous virtue signaling that exasperates so many people.

      Considering everything that is at stake, it would seem far more expedient for corporations to stick to the capitalist credo of making a profit and distance themselves from the cultural battles now raging across the land. Nothing less than the very survival of American democracy, which provides the groundwork for free markets and capitalism, is at stake.

    2. Technological Dependence And The End Of Freedom

      Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

      Technology can be dazzling but also debilitating to real human progress, and when I say “progress” I do not mean advancements in the world of machines but advancements in the world of people, and one does not necessarily lead to the other.

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      First, I fully recognize that whenever anyone attempts to criticize technological innovation they take the risk of being labeled a “crackpot” or an “outdated fossil”, a barbaric relic of a foregone era. However, this attitude is an ignorant one. It assumes that the path we are on as a species is one of perpetual improvement as long as we continue to follow the great technology god; but what if this assumption is completely wrong? What if we are actually devolving rather than evolving?

      I’m not here to grunt and shake my spear at the wheel and the combustion engine and the programmable computer – I like all these things. But, what I don’t like is the dark future I see when humanity turns machinery into a great metal, polymer and digital “nurse maid” and we lose our ability to take care of ourselves. Dependency is the cornerstone of slavery, and our civilization is becoming increasingly dependent.

      In my time on this earth I have had the privilege and suffered the pain of watching the digital age come to fruition. I’ve witnessed the creation of the home computer, the birth of the internet, the proliferation of cellular technology, and now the spread of “artificial intelligence” and 5G. I have also seen the decay of an entire generation of millennials into uselessness and despondency, lacking any practical skills of production or survival and completely reliant on digital technology for everything, including building up illusions of friendship and intimacy. I have witnessed the pussification of America.

      The counterarguments against this will vary. Some will say that our society has simply become more convenient and more comfortable, and this is a good thing. Others will claim that skeptics like myself are afraid of the social changes that come with the globalization that the digital age brings. Still, others will maintain that centralization and dependency are “natural” extensions of man’s evolution; that it is inevitable and so we should embrace it.

      These are also the classic arguments of the Futurists, a subculture of ideological zealots who believe that all old ideas and ways of living must be treated as obsolete and thrown out to make way for all new ideas and ways of living. The notion is that all new ideas are an automatic improvement; that each new generation is superior to the one before it as they supposedly have access to more knowledge, and thus they are more wise. But knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom and it is often misused to achieve rather brutal and vulgar goals.

      What the futurists will never admit is that there are very few new ideas in the world, only old ideas rehashed and recycled and repainted to look different. In the grand scheme of history, freedom as an idea is very old, but it’s social application on a grand scale is something entirely new. Centralization, whether by force, manipulation or technological entrapment, is hardly a revolutionary concept. It is the oldest of philosophies.

      The trend today indicates a path to swift centralization, and according to the evidence this is not a natural progression but the consequence of a deliberate agenda by elitist groups that wish to remain in power for centuries to come. The advent of many technologies today is not necessarily the problem, it is how these technologies are being applied in our society that is infantilizing the masses.

      Let’s discuss some specific examples…

      Communication Overload

      Cell technology and the internet have changed the world. With a web connected computer in your pocket, you will always be able to communicate with others, you will rarely get lost, and you can even record video of everywhere you go and everything you do – instant memories. Who knows how much time this technology has added to a person’s day, or how many lives it has saved. But let’s consider the darker side…

      First, attention spans of Western nations have shortened to less than that of goldfish since 2002; right around the time that cell phone and internet use began to explode. According to overall research the average person now spends up to 4 hours a day just looking at their cell phone, and combined with daily social media use at home and at work I expect that this number increases dramatically. In fact, American adults spend approximately 11 hours per day interacting with various media. That’s most of their waking life being distracted by minutia.

      The parts of the world that have instant access to this technology are being zombified and they don’t seem to realize it. Over-saturation of information and instant gratification trigger an oxytocin and dopamine response in the human brain similar to the response we get when we socialize normally, but there is evidence to suggest that the strength of human interaction has a lot to do with the level of pleasure we receive through a dopamine response.  Social media interactions are a poor proxy for real relationships. So, social media creates a near constant flow of dopamine, but also weaker and less significant. This has led to a new form of addiction, perhaps more invasive than any chemical drug in existence.

      Interaction with other human beings without social media or instant gratification has become unthinkable, but the real world does not function according to personal whims, and so, people have begun to discard time when functioning away from the web; they become grossly impatient, like small children.   When forced to do the “remedial tasks” that are required for survival they grow frustrated and complacent.  They avoid the pauses or quiet moments in life, refusing to ponder experiences and explore the deeper meaning behind the events they read about briefly each day in their news feeds. All the information is at their fingertips, but they have no clue how to absorb it and apply it critically.

      Inviting The Watchers Into Your Home

      People do a lot of stupid things in the name of convenience, including opening their homes to surveillance and tyranny under the guise of easy living. While a cell phone is essentially a listening device, video surveillance device and tracking device in your pocket that governments and corporations can exploit anytime they wish, the problems do not stop there. The future of technology is fully interconnected homes in which everything is digital and everything is linked to the “internet of things”.

      We have seen some of this exposed recently with controversies over Amazon’s Alexa tech, which is essentially a large and sensitive listening device which people pay for with their own money and voluntarily place in the middle of their homes. Amazon has been caught on multiple occasions collecting vast amounts of data from their Alexa network, including recordings of customer conversations which employees and even the government then have access to.

      But this is a less subtle example. Consider having ALL your home appliances linked to the web and what this would mean? Government surveillance of daily electrical usage and appliance usage; which means they would know when you are home and what you are doing at all times. This might not seem like a big deal if you think you “have nothing to hide”, but in a world where carbon Nazis are attempting to dictate every aspect of our lives over fraudulent global warming claims, your electrical usage might become a legal issue one day. Not to mention, if every single device in your home is voice activated for convenience, then this means your every private word becomes subject to bureaucratic scrutiny.

      Take this a step further and consider a society in which digital connection is required in order to live.  Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are building the foundation for a cashless economic system in which privacy in trade becomes a long forgotten memory.  Every transaction can be tracked, and and monitored.  And while crypto is being sold to the public as “decentralization”, the reality is that it is even more centralized than fiat currency, as all trade must flow through a government and corporate dominated internet and be recorded on the blockchain in order for the cryptocurrency to proliferate.  Not only this, but many crypto innovations are being accomplished by people deeply connected to government surveillance agencies like the NSA, and the infrastructure is being built by globalist corporations like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

      Privacy is the foundation of freedom. All tyranny relies first on the invasion of privacy and the removal of private spaces. The 4th Amendment exists for a very good reason. The argument that “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” is a very foolish one. Governments are commonly made up of fallible people who are often corrupt or psychopathic, but frankly NO ONE has the objectivity and wisdom necessary to oversee the private actions and conversations of millions of citizens and then judge them fairly. Politicians and bureaucrats are the least qualified and yet we give them the most power to oversee our lives, all in the name of technological convenience.

      Artificial Intelligence And Automation

      When it comes to technology the mass surveillance issue is the subject most discussed, but there is a problem that concerns me even more – automation. There are plenty of menial tasks in this world that probably should be handled through industry and robotics, but some things should be required learning for every person. For example, do we really want the complete automation of food production in our society? Well, that is the goal of corporations, and it could destroy our ability to provide our own necessities in the future simply by removing the knowledge from our social memory.

      The ability to grow food and harvest food, as well as collecting seeds for future harvests, is integral to human survival. The concept of hunting and gathering is so far removed from the average person’s daily life that it is almost a lost art form, but we have not lost all knowledge of food production yet. What I see though is a bleak future if the current path of technological centralization continues.

      Imagine a world in which nearly everyone is hyperconnected to media, to the point that they wear their devices like clothing at all times. Imagine a society where the average person is so enveloped by data that they no longer pay any attention to the tangible world around them and almost all human interactions are achieved through the middle man of the internet. Imagine people so infantilized by convenience that they no longer know how to do ANYTHING for themselves. They no longer know how to produce goods. They no longer know how to fix anything that is broken. They no longer know how to grow food or find water, nor do they even know where it comes from. They are completely dependent on automation.

      They live completely on the grid – they are born on the grid, and if you were to pluck them from their life of comfortable slavery and place them in the middle of the woods surrounded by food, water and potential shelter they would still die. Now realize that this is basically reality today for many people, and the virus of dependency is spreading.

      Technological advancement serves no purpose to humanity except as a crutch or a cage unless it serves the purpose of liberty and is tempered by the conservation of ancient knowledge and skills passed down through generations. The two ideologies must balance each other out. Those who say otherwise are trying to con you into trading your freedom for a fantasy.

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