- Germany Under Pressure, Voices Caution On Western Escalations In Ukraine
Germany Under Pressure, Voices Caution On Western Escalations In Ukraine
Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,
Top German officials expressed concern regarding Western escalations in Ukraine and signaled Berlin will push back against the most provocative proposals.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany was reluctant to send longer-range weapons to Ukraine as the arms may be used to attack Russian territory. London has provided Kiev with Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles which have a range of more than 155 miles. According to recent reporting, the White House is closing in on a decision to send Army Tactical Missile Systems, also known as ATACMS, to Ukraine. These rockets can be fired roughly 200 miles.
Last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu warned the West that Ukraine using long-range weapons to attack the Crimean Peninsula could lead to a direct war between Moscow and NATO. “The use of these missiles outside the zone of our special military operation would mean that the United States and Britain would be fully dragged into the conflict and would entail immediate strikes on decision-making centers in Ukraine,” he said.
Berlin is now receiving requests from Kiev to provide Taurus KEPD 350 missiles, an air-launched missile with a range of over 300 miles. Scholz said Germany is considering the request.
Germany has been the subject of intense pressure throughout the war due to Berlin’s reluctance, at times, to provide Kiev with all requested aid. However, in several instances, Berlin has caved to Kiev’s demands. In one example, Germany resisted sending its Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. After Poland, the UK and the US pledged to send advanced tanks, Germany sent Ukraine dozens of its Leopard 2 main battle tanks.
Some of the German tanks have already been destroyed on the battlefield and Kiev is asking Berlin for replacements. Meanwhile, the American Abrams tanks have not yet arrived in Ukraine.
Berlin is additionally pushing back on plans to give Ukraine an official timeline for membership in NATO at a summit in Vilnius next week. In an interview published in Rzeczpospolita on Monday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the alliance will be unable to determine the conditions for Kiev to join the alliance until after the conclusion of the war with Russia.
“In my recent meetings with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, we were once again in agreement that the Alliance must never become a party to a conflict,” He continued, “Therefore, we will not be able to answer the question of Ukraine’s accession to NATO as long as the war continues in Ukraine.”
⚡️Powerful Ukrainian strike on Donetsk moments ago pic.twitter.com/Wreu6BlyEG
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) July 4, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Pistorius went on to explain that Germany is committed to supporting Ukraine’s war effort for as long as the conflict continues. He said Berlin would be delivering dozens of older Leopard 1 tanks to Kiev in the coming weeks.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/06/2023 – 02:00 - The Hidden Side Of 'Gender-Affirming Care' Driving Transgender Mental Health Problems And Suicide
The Hidden Side Of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ Driving Transgender Mental Health Problems And Suicide
Authored by Dustin Luchmee via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Wearing a black cowboy hat, a red “America First” T-shirt, and a silver cross, you would never know Matt Rey was born female.
At 24, Rey transitioned from female-to-male (FTM). Now 32, Rey is experiencing serious health complications resulting from an overprescription of testosterone and a mastectomy.
Rey is part of a growing number of “detransitioners” returning to the gender of their birth—now warning youth considering “gender-affirming care” not to do it. “While I understand transition does not go badly for everyone, many trans people can have health complications later in life. If you are young, please don’t do this to yourself. Transitioning is NOT for kids. Parents, don’t do this to your children! The risks are too high,” Rey wrote on Twitter.
“Gender-affirming care,” which includes the administration of hormones and sex reassignment surgery, is claimed by advocates to save lives, however, this proposed remedy may actually be what’s driving the high mortality rate in the transgender community.
Authors of a recent Danish study of transgender suicide wrote: “Transgender individuals may be exposed to systemic negativity regarding their trans identity in the form of bullying, discrimination, exclusion, and prejudice, which in turn may result in alienation and internalized stigma, mental health problems, and, ultimately, suicidal behavior.”
The Lure of Incentivized ‘Gender-Affirming Care’
Rey experienced gender dysphoria at a young age. “When I was 5, my mom walked me over to the girls’ clothing section and she was looking at girly outfits. I was looking at the boys section, and wondering why she wasn’t taking me there,” Rey told The Epoch Times.
As a confused and isolated teenager, Rey looked to the internet for answers. FTM individuals who shared glamorous stories about transitioning convinced Rey that a new identity was the solution to happiness.
Turning to the gender identity clinic at the Tavistock Institute in the UK, Rey was surprised to learn that access to “gender-affirming care” was so easy—one visit with a primary doctor, two consultations at the gender identity clinic, then bloodwork—were all it took to begin the transitioning process.
Rey’s bloodwork indicated high levels of testosterone. “One of the doctors said I was ‘intersex’ because of this, but that is not how you diagnose that,” said Rey. “I probably had PCOS, which was not diagnosed at the time. I didn’t even question it, because when you go to a doctor, you expect to be told the truth. When they told me that I was intersex, it made me want to transition, because it made sense as to why I experienced all this confusion all my life.”
The “I” in “LGBTQIA+” represents “intersex,” an umbrella term used to categorize a person having both male and female sex characteristics. These include differences in anatomy, hormones, chromosomes, or reproductive organs. A typical intersex diagnosis requires a physical examination and genetic testing, neither of which were included in Rey’s medical evaluation.
“Gender-affirming care” services are being incentivized by both public and private institutions. Patients like Rey are often steered in the wrong direction of care, jeopardizing their mental and physical health (pdf). Organizations providing “gender-affirming care” can contribute to the confusion around gender identity, sexuality, and the possibility of an individual being intersex, a condition that is actually very rare.
Rey, like many in the LGBT community, is against the push for children to transition and is concerned these procedures are being incentivized by the medical community. “Therapists are being paid today to affirm gender rather than do thorough work on a client’s psyche,” said Rey.
A Social Contagion With Dire Consequences
Dr. Miriam Grossman, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and author of “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness,” in an interview with MG Show stated that the idea of being born in the wrong body is dangerous for kids and has no foundation in medicine or biology.
Grossman says kids are being indoctrinated to believe these ideas and when authorities, teachers, guidance counselors, and internet influencers tell kids this—they believe it. “This is why we have something like a 5,000 percent increase in the number of kids who are identifying as something other than what their body is,” she said. “It’s a social contagion.”
A social contagion is a phenomenon of feelings or behaviors that spreads among peer groups, usually with adolescents and more common with girls, explained Grossman. There are many examples in psychiatry of past social contagions, such as suicidal behaviors, cutting, and eating disorders. “That’s why we have entire groups of girls who are friends from school or from online, and they are going together to a Planned Parenthood or to a gender clinic to get injected with testosterone,” she said.
Grossman is urging parents to become educated and to inoculate their families against this destructive contagion.
Indoctrination Under the Guise of Affirmation
As an outspoken critic of gender ideology, Rey is an active member of Gays Against Groomers, a nonprofit organization of gays against the sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization of children under the guise of acceptance and equality.
“If the truth is told, gender ideology is removed from schools, kids are not taken to drag shows, and agendas are not being pushed down people’s throats, only then will we be able to recover and prevent these atrocities from happening,” said Rey.
The social obsession over gender is doing more harm than good by pressuring individuals to take drastic steps to fit into an identity without considering the implications on their well-being, explained Rey. In 2021, Rey noticed that Hollywood was beginning to push transgenderism, and shortly thereafter, mainstream media followed suit.
The craze surrounding gender affirmation is a social trend that according to Rey, is doing irreparable harm with intentional coercion tactics to exploit vulnerable people. Anyone calling them out is referred to as “transphobic,” including Rey, who embraced transgenderism.
Rey believes this radical pressure is driving the high transgender mortality rate. “There’s this cult-like mentality to be a victim and romanticize this ideology, it sets you up for failure. The only way for people to really help is by telling the truth. The lies are causing a lot of harm to actual trans people,” said Rey. “The radicals are forcing their beliefs on everyone else so that public tolerance is dwindling and people with actual gender dysphoria are not getting the help they need.”
The Unseen Side of Transitioning
“Would you rather have a living daughter or a dead son?” This fearmongering phrase is commonly used to manipulate parents into supporting their child’s “gender-affirming care.”
In Rey’s experience, “gender-affirming care” is sold as the only solution to improve the mental health of individuals struggling with gender dysphoria. Yet “gender-affirming care” can exacerbate mental health problems rather than improve them. “When the facade goes away and you see that you can’t really be the opposite sex, it begins to wear on you. It sets you up for a lot of disappointment,” said Rey.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 23:40 - Biden's Endless Gifts To China
Biden’s Endless Gifts To China
Authored by Robert Williams via The Gatestone Institute,
The gifts the Biden Administration has already given the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in just two years have been nothing short of exorbitant — and often to the detriment of the US.
They have included cancelling the China Initiative that was countering CCP espionage on American soil; allowing the CCP spy-balloon to leisurely hover over America’s major nuclear and military sites while gathering sensitive information to send back to Beijing in real time; permitting CCP interests (there are no private interests in China) to buy up American farmland — especially near US military bases — also with the potential of controlling the distribution of food inside the US or manipulating the crops; poisoning to death more than 100,000 Americans — each year — with fentanyl and other drugs; placing at least six CCP police stations inside American cities; sidestepping Chinese accountability for lying about the origins and transmissibility of COVID-19; condoning the data-gathering and propagandizing of American children by TikTok; doing nothing as the CCP and established naval and other military facilities in the Pacific, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Africa, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, Mexico, Argentina, and has established a significant presence on both sides of the Panama Canal. The Biden Administration has also sat back and watched as the CCP not only installed itself throughout Latin America but also in Caribbean, as well as establishing a military training facility on Cuba’s north shore.
Now, the Biden Administration intends to spend more than half a trillion dollars on “clean energy and climate action over the next decade”, according to the US Department of Energy.
That amount would reportedly include projects for climate change and investments in renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
The problem is: these policies are all gifts to China.
In solar energy, according to S&P Global, China produces between 70% and 98% of the world’s silicon-based raw material and other components for solar panels — a solid world monopoly. According to the US Department of Energy:
“Since President Biden took office, nearly $5 billion in solar manufacturing investments have been announced, including 47 manufacturing plants. Altogether, these investments are enough to power an additional 7 million homes per year.”
It will take an extremely long time before the US can produce anything that remotely matches China’s current monopoly, which is why the Biden administration’s policy will benefit China for years to come.
According to USA Facts:
“Most solar panels are imported, with three-quarters of the imports originating from Chinese subsidiaries manufacturing in Southeast Asia. Despite heavy import tariffs, the US has not kept pace with global solar manufacturing growth and lost 80% of its global market share from 2009 to 2019. In 2004, the US accounted for about 13% of global solar panel shipments but fell to just 0.5% in 2017.”
Additionally, not enough is being invested in the manufacturing of solar panels in the US. The lapse has caused the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie to question whether the US market will be able to meet the Biden administration’s lofty environmental goals. Solar cells will mainly be coming from China.
In addition, the Biden Administration has placed a massive bet on electric vehicles. The goal is that 50% of new vehicles sold in the US should be electric by 2030. The problem is: that also directly benefits China. Electric vehicles need lithium-ion batteries. China has almost a global monopoly on producing them. China, in 2020, manufactured 76% of global lithium-ion battery capacity. The US produced 8%. Another problem is that electric vehicles are expensive — just replacing the battery-pack of a vehicle can cost up to $18,000 — and prices are currently soaring.
The average cost of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, was more than $8,000 per electric vehicle in June 2022. That amount represented an increase of more than 140% since 2020, resulting in the cost of producing an electric vehicle being 125% more to that of an internal combustion vehicle. How many American consumers can afford such expensive cars? Furthermore, electric vehicles have a tendency to burst into flames. None of these problems seems to bother the Biden Administration.
When it comes to wind energy, according to the US Department of Energy:
“The Administration has set an ambitious goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes, support 77,000 jobs, and spur investment across the supply chain. The Department of Energy, through President Biden’s clean energy plan, has supported this initiative with nearly $50 million in research, development and demonstration funding.”
There are, however, several problems with wind turbines. One is that the US still relies on foreign imports to make them, including from — China. Another is that wind turbines endanger wildlife, such as birds and whales.
The Biden Administration, furthermore, has set the goal of reaching a 50-52% reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels in 2030 and economy-wide “net-zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Biden Administration has also set a goal to “achieve a carbon-pollution-free electricity sector by 2035.” All these measures clearly hobble the US and reduce its power to compete, while China, already the world’s largest user of fossil fuels, has announced that by 2030, its carbon dioxide emissions will peak.
China last year built more new coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined — the equivalent of two new coal-fired plants per week. China, in fact, according to the energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021.
Finally, as part of the Biden Administration’s climate change policies, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a program to limit how much carbon dioxide US coal- and gas-fired power plants may emit.
The proposal means that US electric power plants would have to transform the way that they operate, either costing them billions in new equipment, or closing them down entirely.
All these Biden policies seem almost custom-tailored to reduce America’s ability to compete internationally, while giving China even more room to grow its economy and gain an even greater edge over the US.
It should also be recalled that, according to John Kerry, the Biden Administration’s “climate envoy,” whatever the US does unilaterally, without similar action by China and other major economies, is utterly pointless. Kerry admitted in January 2021 that even if the US were to have zero carbon emissions, “almost 90 percent of all of the planet’s global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 23:20 - "We Are Way Behind" Trump: DeSantis Super PAC Spokesperson Admits 'Uphill' Battle
“We Are Way Behind” Trump: DeSantis Super PAC Spokesperson Admits ‘Uphill’ Battle
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Steve Cortes, a top spokesperson for GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’s Super PAC, admitted that defeating former President Donald Trump is an “uphill battle” and that they are “way behind” in polls.
“Right now in national polling, we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Cortes said in a July 3 Twitter spaces event. “I believe in being blunt and really honest. It’s an uphill battle. I don’t think it is an unwinnable battle by any stretch. But clearly, Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner, particularly since the indictments. That was not the case before the indictments. It is the case afterward.”
“And it is understandable that a lot of folks want to rally to him when he’s been unfairly, not prosecuted, really, but persecuted—particularly the Alvin Bragg indictment, which I think was just an absolute sham. So, it is understandable that there was a rally to Trump there.”
“In the first four states, which matter tremendously, polls are a lot tighter, we are still clearly down. We’re down double digits, we have work to do,” he said.
President Donald Trump is greeted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at Southwest Florida International Airport on Oct. 16, 2020. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) Cortes said that DeSantis is not as well known as Trump. “A lot of regular Americans” outside Florida do not know much about DeSantis, he said.
“Whereas, knowledge of Donald Trump is ubiquitous. He’s literally the most recognized and known [personality] in the world, certainly in America. So, given that, it’s not surprising that we’re right now chasing.”
Supporting Trump, Polls
Cortes believes that the GOP primary is “a two-man race” between DeSantis and Trump. “We’re clearly the underdog. We’re clearly fighting uphill.”
While saying that he respects Trump and his supporters, Cortes pointed out that if the DeSantis campaign “does not prevail” in the GOP primaries, “we will make President Trump better for having this kind of primary.”
Polls have shown Trump leading the GOP primaries by a large margin. A survey conducted in June by Echelon Insights showed that 49 percent of respondents would vote for Trump in the Republican primaries compared to just 18 percent for DeSantis.
Third-placed Vivek Ramaswamy got 10 percent support, with the remaining GOP candidates polling in the single digits.
An NBC News poll from late June showed that Trump’s lead over DeSantis widened after the former president’s indictment, which was noted by Cortes in his Twitter Spaces interview.
War of Words
Rhetoric between Trump and DeSantis has heated up in recent months. Just hours before DeSantis’s widely expected announcement he was running for president, Trump said that the Florida governor “was, and is, a disciple of horrible RINO Paul Ryan, and others too many to mention.”
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 23:00 - Savings: Quarter Of Americans Have Few, 1 In 10 Have None
Savings: Quarter Of Americans Have Few, 1 In 10 Have None
Americans today are lacking crucial savings needed for managing short-term emergencies and building long-term wealth.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, according to a rolling representative online survey among U.S. adults by YouGov, 27 percent of Americans had some savings below $1,000 as of May 2023, while 12 percent said they had no savings at all.
You will find more infographics at Statista
This is about as many people as those who volunteered to give answers about the status of their savings and had more than $1,000 in the bank. 18 percent said their saving were at least $1000 but under $10,000, while 11 percent each had $10,000 to $49,999 and $50,000 or more saved up. A substantial share of respondents – 17 percent – preferred not to answer.
The survey also found that U.S. women were much less likely to have (substantial) savings. Women’s wages are lower on average than men’s due to less pay for the same work, more work in low-paying or part-time positions and due to the so-called motherhood penalty – the missed wage increases and promotions women experience because they take more time off for child rearing. Additionally, women in the U.S. have higher student loan debt on average, also affecting savings negatively.
Married Americans were most likely to have big savings in the U.S., with 10 percent of them having put away $100,000 or more, compared to just 6 percent of widowed, 4 percent of partnered and 3 percent of single Americans. According to the Institute for Family Studies, the higher wealth of married Americans is due to a correlation of high education status and stable marriages. These marriages among the highly educated are also more likely to include two earners, which again increases the likelihood of big savings.
In the OECD, Americans saved the 7th highest amounts of money but had only the 15th highest savings rate in 2020.
This shows that Americans, who have the highest disposable incomes in the OECD, are simply not saving as much of them as people in other developed nations despite opportunity to do so. Since the pandemic, U.S. savings rates have dropped even more.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 22:40 - Maryland Republican Dan Cox Says Someone Committed Fraud By Filing Election Paperwork In His Name
Maryland Republican Dan Cox Says Someone Committed Fraud By Filing Election Paperwork In His Name
Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Former Maryland gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox on July 3 said that someone had falsely filed paperwork in his name to run for his state’s 6th Congressional District.
“I have not filed. We’ve reported this matter to the FEC for fraud,” Cox wrote on Twitter.
“I have made no such filing and Valerie and I have made no decision yet,” the former state delegate wrote in an earlier statement on Facebook. “Apparently a far left new Delegate from Montgomery County has issued a press release that I’ve filed and apparently media says someone has filed my name. I did not do so and intend to take action to find out who did.”
Dan Cox, then-candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, reacts to his primary win on July 19, 2022 in Emmitsburg, Maryland. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images) Currently, Maryland’s 6th District is represented by third-term Rep. David Trone (D-Md.).
In May, Trone announced that he would be vacating the seat to run for Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-Md.) Senate seat upon Cardin’s retirement at the end of his current term.
Cox, a former state delegate, received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump in his 2022 bid for the governorship. Although Cox defeated the more moderate Kelly Schulz in the GOP primary, he was ultimately routed by the state’s current Democrat Gov. Wes Moore.
Prior to running for governor, Cox sought Maryland’s 8th Congressional District seat in 2016. After winning the primary, he lost that race to Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cox was a vocal critic of former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s policies, which included mask mandates and stay-at-home orders.
In the state’s General Assembly, he introduced articles of impeachment against Hogan, but they were ultimately rejected by members of his own party.
Although he did not challenge the results of the 2022 election, Cox asked the U.S. Supreme Court in January to reverse an emergency state court order issued prior to the election that suspended parts of Maryland’s election law forbidding the early counting of mail-in ballots.
The court order, Cox held, violated the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution in allowing ballots to be opened more than a month prior to Election Day.
“Mr. Cox was the only elected official who saw an issue with what the Board of Elections was doing,” Cox’s attorney, Ed Hartman, told The Epoch Times in February.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 22:20 - "Like A Cheesy Horror Movie" China's Property Market Woes Refuse To Stay Dead
“Like A Cheesy Horror Movie” China’s Property Market Woes Refuse To Stay Dead
By Ye Xie, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist
It is like a cheesy horror movie: Every time there’s a glimpse of hope for a narrow escape, Chinese real estate developers are pulled back into the abyss. The turmoil at the state-backed Sino-Ocean Group underscores the renewed tensions in the market and that the current piecemeal policy easing isn’t working.
Markets can sometimes defy “common sense.” Despite skyrocketing mortgage rates, the US housing market, one of the most interest-rate sensitive sectors, somehow has roared back to life. Some Fed officials noted that “the effect of high interest rates on the housing sector appeared to be bottoming out,” according to the minutes from the June meeting released Wednesday.
In China, the opposite is true. Even with ever lower interest rates, the slump in the property market resumed after the pent-up demand following the end of Covid Zero faded. Sales among the 100 largest developers tumbled 28% in June from a year earlier, when Covid restrictions were still in place, according to China Real Estate Information Corp. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kristy Hung expects a further decline of more than 10% for the remainder of the year.
Without a sales revival, some troubled developers are struggling to repay debt. State-backed Sino-Ocean saw its bonds tumble in recent days amid concerns about its deteriorating cash positions. That’s a significant development. Credit analysts Eric Ollom at Citigroup wrote in a note last week:
…unlike the property companies that have already defaulted in China, Sino-Ocean can be considered a quasi-sovereign. Thus, any delay in debt servicing is likely to have wider repercussions for the SOEs, particularly in the real estate sector in China.
While we view a scenario of Sino-Ocean default as still unlikely, we believe the tail risks of such an event have expanded. Consequently, the pressure on property sector spreads is likely to persist and valuations are likely to get cheaper.
Where do we go from here? In their conversation with their clients, Goldman Sachs’ economists noted that views are mixed (report available to professional subscribers). Pessimists pointed to structural imbalances between top-tier and lower-tier cities’ property markets, while optimists noted recent property policy loosening in big cities as signs for hope, economists including Maggie Wei wrote in a note.
In any case, the Goldman clients don’t expect any major policies regarding the housing market or local government financing to be rolled out soon as Beijing takes its time to explore different options.
Expect more twists and turns before the horror show comes to the finale.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 22:00 - Yes, Virginia, America Really Is A Good Country
Yes, Virginia, America Really Is A Good Country
Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClear Wire,
Every year at Christmastime, news sites reprint the touching letter from a little girl, Virginia O’Hanlon, asking about Santa Claus and the columnist’s reassuring, fatherly response. He doesn’t smack her with the hard fact that Santa is a fictional creation. He points toward a deeper truth about our shared celebrations and the web of fond memories that bind together generations of children, parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.
As we celebrate this Independence Day, we desperately need to remember our own shared beliefs and ideals in hopes they will bind together our divided nation. Our shared ideals and common identity as Americans should bind us. Today, alas, they are too frayed to do the job. Some think it is a fraud even to stress those commonalities.
It is not. Our shared aspirations and common identity are our country’s best hope for the future. And our history should be a source of hope, as well as somber reflection.
Those ideals are not “our country, right or wrong.” They are not “our country with an airbrushed past.” Neither are they “our country as a relentless record of evil and oppression, at home and abroad.”
Rather, they are “our country as it strives to become better, to celebrate its accomplishments, to overcome its historical wrongs, to heal its lasting wounds and, ultimately, to achieve the ideals set before us in the Declaration of Independence and made concrete in our Constitution.” Whether our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, a slave ship, or a boat from Europe, escaping the Nazis, those are our shared ideals, but only if we embrace them.
What are those ideals? What are those accomplishments, incomplete as they still are? They are the promise that all men and women should be treated equally, allowed to speak freely and assemble peaceably, worship as they choose, permit others to worship, speak, and assemble as they choose, vote for whichever candidates they prefer, and live in safety, governed by laws made by the representatives they choose in fair elections. Those goals are grounded in tolerance and mutual forbearance, which are essential for a cohesive society where people come from different backgrounds and hold different beliefs.
Familiar as these homilies are, we need to repeat and defend them in troubled times when most Americans have lost faith in their institutions and the officials who lead them. They think those institutions and their leaders are biased and self-serving, that they protect themselves and other insiders as they grow rich together at the public trough, that they cover up for wrongdoing by friends and punish it in enemies, that once-respected news organizations have become active partisans and unreliable reporters, that “experts” are often partisan hacks, and that we are governed less by laws than by regulations promulgated, enforced, and adjudicated by unelected bureaucrats. It’s a long list.
This sour view is not wrong. It is the lump of coal in young Virginia O’Hanlon’s Christmas stocking.
Nor is it hyperbole to say that public trust has evaporated. That’s the grim conclusion revealed in public opinion poll after poll. In 1972, even as the Watergate scandal was being exposed, about half the public still trusted the government “always or most of the time.” Those numbers ranged from 66% for conservative Republicans to 44% for liberal Democrats. Moderates fell in between. Those 1972 numbers were already well below those from the 1950s and early 1960s, dominated by a population that had suffered through the Great Depression and World War II.
The erosion of public trust has continued apace over the past half-century, interrupted only by a brief “rally round the flag” effect after 9/11. By 2022, trust in government had reached new lows. The highest confidence came from liberal Democrats, who controlled the White House and the administrative state. But even among liberal Democrats, only a quarter still trusted the government. Republican numbers were far lower: 13% for moderate/liberal Republicans and only 7% for conservative Republicans.
It is difficult to maintain a stable democracy with mistrust so pervasive. Worse yet, those public perceptions aren’t mass lunacy. Our institutions have earned their low marks and will have a hard time restoring confidence.
The public’s mistrust had been reinforced by four profound developments in our political parties and governing institutions.
The first is that U.S. politics has become increasingly ideological, with that ideology taking on the character of fundamentalist religious beliefs. Those who differ from us are no longer the “loyal opposition.” They are apostates disseminating evil ideas. That’s yet another reason we see losing candidates refusing to accept the verdict of the electorate. They claim they were defeated only by fraud perpetuated by unscrupulous political enemies.
Second, the country is increasingly divided into self-enclosed groups who see their particular tribal identity as more important than their shared American identity. Those fissures are painfully clear on college campuses, where the fundamental division is between racial, ethnic, and sexual-identity groups who see themselves as “the oppressed” (and band together politically as such) and everyone else who is labeled as “the oppressor.” It is bizarre, really, how the child of a lawyer and a schoolteacher from a middle-class suburb could be seen as an oppressor – and convinced to see himself that way. But it is commonplace. The more progressive the campus, the more common it is. Meanwhile, the “oppressed,” who usually come from comfortable, middle-class homes, see American history as a trail of tears crushing their group.
This effort to divide Americans and set groups against each other is a powerful movement led by left-wing academics, public intellectuals, and private foundations. The worst example is the shoddy, politically-driven work of the New York Times’ “1619 Project.”
Third, the cohesion of American society is fraying as its family structures weaken (more children out of wedlock, more divorces, more single-parent families) and as fewer people join clubs and other voluntary institutions that make up a vibrant civil society. Edmund Burke called these institutions the “little platoons” of society, which join together and make up larger brigades. Alexis de Tocqueville made a similar point. Today, they would weep.
Finally, Americans are much less willing to proclaim the traditional value of self-reliance, preferring to increase their demands for government assistance and subsidies. These demands and the scope of government programs have ballooned since the Great Society legislation of the mid-1960s, even as the quality of government services has declined. It is also increasingly clear, though rarely discussed among intellectuals, that Great Society programs have steadily undermined family structures in poor communities, especially African-American ones.
So, there’s a lot to worry about, a lot to be angry about.
But those dark shadows are not the whole picture or even most of it. There is much to celebrate, too. Ours is a country that sustained the Union and wiped out slavery in a great civil war. Ours is a country that has welcomed millions upon millions of tired, poor, and hungry, yearning to breathe free. Ours is a country that, yes, allowed Jim Crow to fester for decades but then abolished it over a half-century ago. Ours is a country that, despite its support for some noxious dictators, has done more than any other country in history to foster democracy around the world.
Ours is a country whose citizens still believe, overwhelmingly, in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the document that gave birth to the Fourth of July celebration. Our is still a country that, despite efforts to divide us, still strives to achieve its national motto, “Out of many, one.”
Those values are embedded in America’s distinctive kind of patriotism. It is not the “blood and soil” nationalism of 19th-century Europe. It is an inclusive civic patriotism, embracing all its citizens and those on the path to becoming one. The family from Vietnam, now in Louisiana, or from South Asia, now in South Carolina, is as American as the family descended from Puritans in Massachusetts.
You don’t have to turn a blind eye to America’s troubles to celebrate its achievements. Yes, Virginia, America’s heart and soul are great, and so are its achievements.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 21:40 - 'Trump Organization' Has Worst Brand Reputation (& Tesla Tumbled) In 2023, According To Axios Poll
‘Trump Organization’ Has Worst Brand Reputation (& Tesla Tumbled) In 2023, According To Axios Poll
A company’s reputation has become incredibly important in today’s world, where consumers, investors, and stakeholders are more discerning than ever.
That’s why the Axios Harris Poll 100 has been measuring the reputations of the most visible companies in the United States for over two decades. In the graphic below, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Sabrina Fortin visualize the results for 2023, which are based on a survey of over 16,000 Americans from a nationally representative sample.
Data and Highlights
Each company’s score in the ranking is based on nine underlying categories. These are Character, Trajectory, Trust, Culture, Ethics, Citizenship, Vision, Growth, and Products & Services.
The top 10 of the Axios Harris Poll 100 come from a mix of industries including retail, technology, and automotive.
Patagonia takes the top spot overall, ranking first in the Character, Trajectory, Ethics, Citizenship, and Products & Services categories. The outdoor clothing brand has many social initiatives, including a self-imposed Earth tax that provides financial support to nonprofit environmental protection groups.
Costco is another highly ranked retailer, snagging first place in the Trust, Culture, and Growth categories. The company is famous for its unique warehouse-style stores, and is growing its international presence. As of June 2023, Costco had 854 locations in total, with 267 outside of the U.S.
If you’ve been keeping count, these two brands have claimed #1 in eight out of the nine underlying categories. The last category, Vision, goes to fast food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A.
In addition to its chicken sandwiches, Chick-fil-A is widely known for its corporate culture of care, where employees are treated more like family than just workers.
Biggest Reputation Drops
Brands that took the biggest reputational hits in 2023 were Taco Bell (-20), Netflix (-20), Target (-21), Chrysler (-22), and Tesla (-50).
Looking closer at Netflix, the company scores “excellent” in Products & Services, but only “good” in terms of Character and Citizenship. It’s possible that the company’s decision to crack down on password sharing may have negatively impacted its reputation.
Tesla took the biggest hit this year, and a closer look at its category scores reveals some interesting takeaways.
With an “excellent” score in Products & Services, Vision, and Trajectory, it’s safe to assume that consumers still view Tesla as a pioneer in electric vehicles.
Where the firm has fallen, however, is in Character, Trust, and Citizenship, which may have something to do with public perception of CEO Elon Musk. The outspoken billionaire has become increasingly active on social media in recent years, and this may be rubbing some consumers the wrong way.
Tesla’s reputation may have also taken a hit after it announced significant price cuts in early 2023, which angered many recent buyers that had paid a higher price.
Nevertheless, The Trump Organization has the worst brand reputation of the Top 100 – we’d love to know Axios’ demographic breakdown on the survey.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 21:20 - A Root Cause Of Mental Illness: Harvard Professor
A Root Cause Of Mental Illness: Harvard Professor
Authored by Michelle Standlee via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
What Causes Mental Illness?
For years, this pressing question has remained unanswered.
Often, patients seeking clarity encounter explanations such as “it’s genetic” or “depression is a lack of serotonin.”
(Steven McDowell/Shutterstock) Mental illness has been an enigma and point of confusion for many researchers and scientists. Despite medical advances, the root cause of mental illness has remained unknown.
However, a recent breakthrough in psychiatry may be the missing piece to this mysterious puzzle.
Dr. Christopher Palmer, a Harvard professor of psychiatry, has been connecting the dots of thousands of research articles regarding the relationship between mental illness and mitochondrial dysfunction.
According to Palmer, this collective research raises concerns about the current treatments used for mental disorders.
A pivotal moment in 2016 started the psychiatrist on a new path when he helped a patient with schizoaffective disorder lose weight. The patient not only suffered from severe mental illness but also low self-esteem due to the weight gain he experienced while on psychotropic medication.
Palmer relayed that he initially couldn’t believe switching to a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet could stop chronic auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He quickly started using this intervention in other patients and saw similar—sometimes even more dramatic—results.
This experience encouraged him to begin a scientific journey to understand how a change in diet could help severe mental illness.
Putting the Pieces Together
Palmer discovered decades of scientific research revealing the connection between metabolic and brain health.
Palmer told The Epoch Times, “The more I uncovered in terms of those concrete mechanisms of action, I realized there’s something much bigger here. I’m beginning to connect a lot of dots that our field hasn’t been able to connect before.”
In November 2022, he released a cutting-edge book entitled “Brain Energy,” highlighting his discoveries and theorizing that mitochondrial disorders are the root cause of all mental illnesses.
Drawing from decades of research on metabolism and mitochondria, Palmer believes that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. This means that these conditions are not permanent defects and can be corrected by identifying and addressing their root cause. This insight challenges the notion that conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are lifelong disorders.
“People with labels such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can put their illnesses into remission, they can heal, and they can recover,” Palmer asserted.
“That goes against much of what we tell people today,” he added.
What Is Mitochondrial Dysfunction?
A deep dive into cellular biology reveals tiny organelles within cells responsible for producing energy. Structures called mitochondria are vital for all cells to function normally, including brain cells. When mitochondria are not operating correctly, various health problems can arise, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.
Palmer pointed out that when mitochondria fail to work correctly, this can also lead to mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The brain needs a considerable amount of energy to work efficiently. When mitochondria are not churning out enough energy, this can lead to abnormalities in the brain’s structure and function, leading to mental illness.
Palmer asserts that mitochondrial dysfunction can produce several changes in the brain that can cause mental illness to develop. These changes include fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels, oxidative stress, and inflammation.
Groundbreaking Theory
If the origin of mental disorders is mitochondrial dysfunction, treatment modalities that address the underlying issue could be more successful than traditional tools.
Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the standard treatment for most mental disorders, can sometimes manage symptoms but fail to cure the disease.
Palmer, whose clinical work spans over two decades and focuses on the most treatment-resistant cases of mental illness, discovered that many patients struggling with mental illness also demonstrate signs of mitochondrial dysfunction.
He said addressing the fundamental mitochondrial disorder can often improve their mental health condition. Some of his patients have experienced remission of mild to severe symptoms, including depression, psychosis, and hallucinations, and reduced or discontinued their medications.
Though helpful for some patients in the short term, psychiatric medications can often produce side effects such as reduced libido, increased risk of suicide, and weight gain.
“We seriously need to look at the risks and benefits of those treatments over the long term,” Palmer said.
He cautioned that readers and patients should never discontinue medications without advice from their medical providers.
Low-Carb, Ketogenic Diet Shows Promise
According to his research and clinical experience, Palmer suggested numerous strategies to mitigate the effects of mitochondrial dysfunction, including common-sense lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise, stress reduction, and adequate sleep.
One dietary intervention has proven to be the most successful with Palmer’s patients. The ketogenic diet, which dates back to 1920, was first used to treat epilepsy. The diet—high in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates—has been shown to increase the number of mitochondria in cells and enhance their function.
One of the ways the ketogenic diet benefits mitochondrial health is through the production of ketones. When the body is in ketosis, it produces ketones from stored fat as an alternative, more efficient fuel source. These ketones can provide energy to cells, including brain cells, which rely heavily on mitochondria for their energy needs.
Mitochondria assist in the production of neurotransmitters, chemicals that influence mood and behavior, such as serotonin and dopamine.
The ketogenic diet also improves insulin resistance because it is low in sugar and carbohydrates. Insulin resistance can also impair the creation of new mitochondria. Insulin resistance results in dysfunction of the mitochondria, reduced energy production, and cellular damage, including in brain cells.
Hope on the Horizon
“We have hundreds of cases of people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia putting their illnesses into remission. Scientists are pursuing this. We have at least 10 controlled trials of the ketogenic diet for serious mental illness underway now. One is getting ready to publish their pilot trial results soon,” Palmer said.
“There is a lot of momentum behind this,” he said. “This groundbreaking theory opens up entirely new ways for us to conceptualize and treat mental illness going forward. Studies are already underway and rapidly advancing, yet this can have real results in real people today.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 21:00 - Ban On Recording Without Consent Is Unconstitutional, US Court Rules
Ban On Recording Without Consent Is Unconstitutional, US Court Rules
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
An Oregon law that forbids recording in public without consent runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, a U.S. court has ruled.
James O’Keefe, founder Project Veritas, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Oct. 12, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Oregon law 165.540, first enacted in 1955 and subsequently broadened to bar secret recording of conversations, is unconstitutional, Judge Sandra Ikuta, a George W. Bush appointee writing for the majority in the 2–1 ruling, said.
Exceptions to the prohibition include recording at public meetings, such as city council hearings; while a felony that endangers human life is being committed; and by law enforcement officers while performing their jobs.
The law is content-based because certain groups, such as the law enforcement officers, are treated different than others, Ms. Ikuta said. That means it has to be narrowly tailored for a compelling governmental interest, or survive a test known as strict scrutiny.
Oregon does not have a compelling interest in protecting people’s privacy in public places, the majority ruled. Even if it did, the law is not tailored enough because Oregon has other laws that cover privacy concerns, such as a law allowing tort lawsuits by people who are recorded without consent.
The law “burdens more protected speech than is necessary to achieve its stated interest,” the judge wrote.
The judge also said that the law regulates speech to protect people’s privacy but that many people in public places don’t seek privacy. Instead of acknowledging that point, the law treats all speech in public the same.
When people talk in public places, the privacy of other individuals is only implicated if the speech is unwanted but the law does not incorporate that point, the majority said. They used the example of protesters who may want their conversations recorded in the hopes it will lead to publicity for their cause.
Ms. Ikuta was joined by Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, another George W. Bush appointee.
Judge Morgan Christen, an Obama appointee, wrote in a dissent that the law should be upheld because Oregon “has a significant interest in preventing the secret recording of private conversations even when those conversations occur in public or semi-public locations.”
Ms. Christen also said the law is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.
Oregon is one of only five states that have laws in places banning recording in public places without consent. The others are Alaska, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Montana.
Many other states explicitly allow recording in public without consent while five states have no laws in place regarding the matter.
Earlier Ruling
The new ruling overturns a previous decision by a lower court.
The journalism group Project Veritas challenged the law in 2020, arguing it could result in undercover reporters being criminally charged. People have refused to talk in the past when being told they were being recorded, the group said, meaning the law prevented reporters from exercising their First Amendment rights.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 20:40 - Congratulations To Washington State For Topping California On Nation's Highest Gasoline Prices
Congratulations To Washington State For Topping California On Nation’s Highest Gasoline Prices
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Thanks to cap-and-trade on top of other progressive taxes, Washington passed California for the highest gasoline prices in the nation. It’s a dubious honor, but someone has to hold it.
Gasoline price image courtesy of the AAA.
According to the AAA, Washington state just topped California for the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Congratulations!
The average price in Washington is $4.981. That’s 13.7 cents more per gallon than California and a whopping $2.02 more than the Mississippi average of $2.959.
Mississippi has the lowest average gasoline price in the nation. Click on the above link for an interactive map.
Washington State Imitates California
The folks in Olympia have dethroned California to claim the distinction of the country’s highest gasoline prices. Credit goes to their cap-and-trade program and “clean fuel standard,” both of which took effect this year. California pioneered these policies more than a decade ago, and Washington wants to catch up. Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers estimates that cap-and-trade adds 45 cents a gallon to price of gas—about twice as much as California’s program.
The climate policies are intended to punish fossil-fuel consumption, but they punish lower- and middle-income folks who spend more of their income on fuel. That’s not enough punishment for the Seattle City Council, which now wants to impose a new 2% capital gains tax. Washington long maintained no income tax, which made it more attractive to businesses and high earners. But two years ago Democrats in Olympia imposed a 7% tax on capital gains over $250,000.
The Washington Supreme Court this spring used legal legerdemain to uphold the tax despite a 1933 precedent that prohibits a progressive income tax. Seattle progressives want to exploit this tax loophole. “People are eager for a fair and reasonable tax system because we currently suffer from the most regressive taxes in the nation,” City Councilman Alex Pedersen said. Tell that to drivers.
California Pride
Given that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, California should be proud of what it has accomplished.
For example, California leads the nation in net migration.
Californians are so proud that Millennials Lead the Way on the Great Migration From California to Texas
The California pride list keeps growing.
California Tops the List of Worst Places to Look for an Affordable Home
California has the top 14 least affordable cities in the entire nation for those looking for their first home. Wow. Congratulations!
Everett, Washington is well down the list in spot 21. Everett will have to try much harder. But another 5 percentage points or so can put Everett in the top 10. That’s doable, with a modicum of effort.
For more discussion on the worst places to break into the housing market, please see The Starter Home Is No More, Even in Second Tier Markets
* * *
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 20:20 - US Gun Demand Drops To Four-Year Low
US Gun Demand Drops To Four-Year Low
US gun purchases soared during the virus pandemic after the government forcibly locked down the economy. Demand for firearms surged again following the outbreak of civil unrest nationwide. However, the demand for firearms has sunk to a four-year low, indicating the possible end of this boom. Yet, it’s only a matter of time before gun-buying surges again, given the potential unrest in American cities, as law-abiding citizens carefully watch the turmoil in France.
According to data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), unadjusted criminal background checks fell 11% to 2.26 million in June, the lowest since September 2019. Background checks decreased by 12% from 2.57 million compared to a year earlier. NICS checks were down 51% from 4.69 million (a record high) in March 2021.
Recall NICS background check data is a proxy for gun sales because no national database tracks firearms purchases. The data continues to confirm slumping demand. We noted this trend earlier this year in a piece titled “Gun Background-Checks Reveal Firearms Demand Slumped After COVID Mania.”
Sliding gun demand has left Smith & Wesson Brands, one of the country’s largest firearms manufacturers, with elevated firearm inventory at retailers and distributors. Chief Executive Mark Smith noted in the latest earnings release that consumer promotions are helping to reduce inventory woes.
NICS data appears to lead shares of Smith & Wesson Brands.
Data from Ammo Prices Now shows the most popular caliber for home defense (9mm) has plunged from its Covid peak of 71 cents per round to 14 cents.
Gun and ammo deflation might suggest now is a good time to take advantage of sales or lower prices versus a few years ago before demand surges again.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 20:00 - Online Marketplace For Companies Supporting Conservative Values To Go Public
Online Marketplace For Companies Supporting Conservative Values To Go Public
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A “parallel” online marketplace aiming to provide a solution for Americans who want to shop with businesses aligning with conservative values is looking to go public.
A 12-ounce can of Bud Light on a railing at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Fla. on May 26, 2023. (T.J. Muscaro/The Epoch Times) Colombier Acquisition Corps, a publicly traded acquisition company, has announced plans to merge with online marketplace PublicSq, according to a June 30 press release. “We have witnessed the pronounced need for the values of Main Street to be represented on Wall Street. PublicSq provides that solution for an emerging parallel economy full of patriotic consumers that are ready to spend their money with companies that respect and share their values,” said Michael Seifert, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PublicSq.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has declared the registration statement of the merger on Form S-4 as effective. Colombier intends to hold a special meeting of stockholders on July 19.
After closing the deal, the combined company will be renamed “PSQ Holdings” and will go public, trading on the NYSE under PSQH and PSQH WS symbols. The business combination agreement is expected to close in Q3, 2023.
“We’re grateful for the community of over a million and counting freedom-loving Americans who are registered on our platform as members and the over 55,000 business vendors that have joined us,” Seifert said. PublicSq was launched as an app in October 2021.
According to Omeed Malik, the CEO and chairman of Colombier, PublicSq has “recognized and acted” on the disconnect between the priorities of large corporations and the needs of patriotic Americans.
“With the tremendous growth of its digital platform, it is clear that Michael and his team are just getting started. We are thrilled to be supporting them on this journey.”
In an interview with Fox News in April, Seifert said that PublicSq has “grown exponentially.” He called the patriotic, traditionally valued, constitution-loving American citizens “the largest unaddressed market in the world.
“There are so many entities that, for whatever reason, decided to cater to messaging that only attracts 10 percent of the country when there’s a massive cohort of 100-plus million Americans feeling like their values have been left in the dust.”
Seifert said the customers using PublicSq will not be “lectured” on politics or gender ideology. The marketplace calls itself “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.” One of the board of directors at the company is Blake Masters, Arizona’s GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate last year.
Leftist Business Push
The announcement of PSQ Holdings comes as American conservatives have grown increasingly angry at many major brands for pushing radical leftist ideologies, especially transgenderism, which have recently triggered nationwide boycott calls.
Target stores were boycotted after the retail giant rolled out its Pride collection at the beginning of May, including some items targeted at children. Bud Light became a target after partnering with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney in a promotional campaign in April. As a consequence, the companies have lost billions of dollars in market capitalization.
Other brands like Walmart, Chick-fil-A, Petsmart, and Kellogg’s have also faced boycott calls for similar reasons.
Meanwhile, brands promoting conservative ideologies have come forth and are pushing back against the progressive assault on traditional American values.
Read more here…
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 19:40 - How The World Goes Online
How The World Goes Online
Numbers from the World Bank show how access to landline internet as well as to mobile phones still differ widely around the world.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, while in first-world countries mobile cellular subscriptions outnumber people by far, they still hover around 80-90 subscriptions per 100 people in countries like Pakistan, India and Nigeria.
Access drops as low as 30-50 lines per 100 inhabitants in South Sudan, Mozambique or the Democratic Republic of the Congo or around 60 in Afghanistan, Venezuela or Laos.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Not all people who do have access to a mobile phone in the developing world own a smartphone, however.
Penetration rates were as low as 30-40 percent in Pakistan and Nigeria and 47 percent in India according to NewZoo, leaving many people who still use a feature phone – some of which might even be 4G-enabled.
While in poorer countries people do share mobile phone subscriptions, this is common all over the world for landline internet.
Broadband connections reached as high as 40-50 lines per 100 people in Europe and East Asia (and 37 in the United States), while they were much fewer elsewhere and almost non-existent in many developing nations.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 19:20 - Beijing Needs A Spending Binge To Bring Back Growth
Beijing Needs A Spending Binge To Bring Back Growth
By George Lei, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
A dose of fiscal stimulus may help to cure some of China’s economic woes but whether Beijing is prepared to loosen its purse strings remains anyone’s guess.
Last month, Dow Jones reported that policymakers were weighing the issuance of special treasury bonds worth roughly 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) to help fund new infrastructure projects. There’s been no official announcement since then but a growing chorus of experts at home and abroad are calling for more aggressive fiscal relief for Chinese businesses and consumers.
According to Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Research Institute who coined the term “balance-sheet recession” to explain Japan’s lost decades, it may take companies and households many years to cut down debt and restore financial health in a “very painful process.” In fact, more Chinese are now expecting their incomes as well as home prices to fall in the coming three months, according to a PBOC depositor survey. What Beijing should do, in Koo’s opinion, is to “focus all energy on fiscal stimulus to keep the economy going.”
Liu Yuhui, a prominent academic at a government think tank and former chief economist at several local brokerages, suggested at a public event last week that Beijing should utilize special government bonds to help companies, households and local authorities “repair their balance sheets in an aggressive manner.” Money raised through such debt can go toward covering social security payments from both employers and employees, so that businesses can hire more and workers earn more disposable income, according to Liu.
Wanting Beijing to shoulder a bigger share of China’s borrowing burden isn’t too much to ask: with corporate leverage well above Japan’s peak in the 1990s, early mortgage payments hitting a five-year high and local government coffers increasingly strained, the central government may be the only major player left to borrow. And it has room to do so: taking into account hidden liabilities from local government financing vehicles, total public debt stood at about 126% of GDP last year, roughly half of Japan’s level, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs.
The central authority borrowed at the fastest pace on record in 1Q. Still, increasing government leverage won’t run into “hard constraints” as long as the balance of payments remains healthy and inflation pressure doesn’t pick up, Xu Gao, chief economist at Bank of China International, argued in an article last week.
Beijing is probably holding back for fear that aggressive stimulus will overstimulate the economy and fuel a jump in leverage, like it did in the past. But authorities may be left with no choice if no one else steps up to revive spending and growth.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 19:00 - Actress Allison Mack Released From Prison After Sentencing For Role In NXIVM Sex Cult
Actress Allison Mack Released From Prison After Sentencing For Role In NXIVM Sex Cult
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Actress Allison Mack, who starred in the television series “Smallville,” has been released from prison early, government records suggest.
German-born American TV actress Allison Mack (C) arrives at Brooklyn Federal Court to be sentenced for her role in the alleged sex cult NXIVM, in New York, on June 30, 2021. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images) Online records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons website state that Ms. Mack was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California—a low-security women’s prison—on July 3, a year earlier than anticipated.
The Epoch Times has contacted the prison for further comment.
Ms. Mack, 40, was arrested in 2018 for her role in NXIVM, a New York-based cult whose leader, Keith Raniere, is serving a 120-year prison sentence for federal racketeering, sex trafficking, and child pornography charges.
Raniere, 60, was also arrested in 2018 at his luxury villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Ms. Mack pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering and conspiracy after prosecutors claimed she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for Raniere while she was a high-ranking member of NXIVM, which billed itself as a self-help organization offering classes that cost up to $5,000.
Initially, Ms. Mack had faced a sentence of up to 17 years behind bars but she ultimately received a shorter sentencing after cooperating with investigators who were pursuing a case against Raniere.
The actress handed over evidence to prosecutors showing how the cult leader had brainwashed women into becoming “slaves” and forced female members of the group, which was based in Albany, New York, to have sex with him.
In some cases, women were placed on starvation diets and allegedly branded with Raniere’s initials, prosecutors said. Others were forced to hand over personal or embarrassing information about themselves, such as nude photos, that were later used to blackmail them into not leaving the group.
Ms. Mack was subsequently handed a three-year sentence in 2021 following her cooperation with prosecutors.
In a letter ahead of her sentencing, which was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Ms. Mack apologized to the individuals who had been harmed by her actions.
Defendant Keith Raniere (C) leader of sex cult NXIVM, is seated between his attorneys Paul Der Ohannesian (L) and Marc Agnifilo, during the first day of his sex trafficking trial, in this May 7, 2019, courtroom sketch. (Elizabeth Williams via AP, File) ‘Biggest Mistake and Regret of My Life’
“It is now of paramount importance for me to say, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry,” she wrote. “I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had,” she continued. “I believed, wholeheartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself. I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life,” Mack added.
Ms. Mack and her lawyers also stressed that she had “publicly denounced Raniere (and her own prior association with Raniere) in the strongest possible terms.”
Meanwhile, Raniere was sentenced to a lengthy term behind bars in 2020 and fined $1.75 million. In an interview with NBC News ahead of his sentencing, the former cult leader insisted he was innocent and apologized for his “participation” in the group.
“I apologize for my participation in all of this … this pain and suffering,” he said in the interview. “I’ve clearly participated. I’ve been the leader of the community. And it has come to this. Even if it is by oppression, I am absolutely sorry and pained. This is a horrible situation.”
In 2021, Raniere was also ordered to pay nearly $3.5 million in restitution to 21 of his victims.
The NXIVM group was founded in 1998 and advertised itself as a “professional business providing educational tools, coaching and trainings to corporations and people from all walks of life,” describing its philosophy as “a new ethical understanding” that allows “humanity to rise to its noble possibility,” court documents (pdf) show.
Other members of the group included Clare Bronfman, a billionaire heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune and a daughter of TV star Catherine Oxenberg of “Dynasty” fame.
Bronfman was sentenced in September 2020 to nearly seven years in prison for her role in NXIVM.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 18:40 - The Fatal Error Of Sheep
The Fatal Error Of Sheep
Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,
I will start this article with an apology to those readers who lack a sense of humor similar to mine, as well as to those lovely big hearted folks who don’t like labeling of any sort (sheep and/or shrew).
Regarding the term “sheep”—I have tried (and am certain I have failed occasionally) to refrain from calling an individual person as “sheep.” It is rather a term I have applied to a group of people with a similar “mindset.” If you feel you fit that mindset, you may, if you wish, call yourself a “sheep.” If you find it offensive, and do not feel you “fit,” then that is fine by me. Do not include yourself in the sheep group.
As for shrews. Well, that’s where the sense of humour comes in. I needed a term other than “those of us on the other side of the divide who believe in freedom and do not believe in the agenda or the power hungry globalists trying to take over the world”…whew…”shrew” is an easier way to get the same point across once the term is defined.
Why shrew? That’s a long story. But it is a term as good as any, and is complimentary to “sheep” as it starts with the same first two letters, and it too is an animal. Turns out shrews can be ferocious, even though very small. So that fits too.
So there you have it. Read this article with these things in mind, as it is full of reference to sheep and shrew.
The fatal error of sheep is not realizing that the people they call “conspiracy theorists” and “science deniers” are not some small fringe group of weirdos and hillbillies as they might imagine. The fact is we are large in number and include many brilliant minds and formidable members in our individual fields of expertise. This is no ragtag band of ne’er do wells.
Although I have no question we are on the RIGHT side of things, I will say that to the people who have to deal with us—that fact is of no real consequence (being right seems to have to affect on them). It seems the sheep love to ignore us, and act as if we don’t exist, regardless of the fact we are right. They can’t be bothered with us; we are only a nuisance to them. That attitude is going to one day bite them really hard in the you know where.
Many sheep have asked me, “How can you be sure you are right and we are wrong?” I have often asked myself the same question. There are many answers, my favorite is simply to say, “we are right because we are right”—which of course is rather flippant. This, however, seems to be a more prudent answer: Shrews are curious and look hard for answers.
Even if the prevailing consensus seems correct, we always seem to want more. We want to actually understand why things are like they are. Maybe we don’t do this with everything we encounter; we certainly do it when facing big sweeping pronouncements and when the powers that be tell us we all have to “do” this or that, like take a vaccine no one has really studied for a virus that no one really knows that much about. We typically go “huh?”
We then dive into it. We go down every rabbit hole we can find. Many of those holes lead to dead ends, but we discover those dead ends for ourselves. We don’t let anyone bar us from access and say, “you don’t want to go down there.” We say, “huh? Why not?” Once we start to feel that our usual sources for information, generally what they call “Main Stream Media,” is not giving us the whole story, we quickly move into some uncharted territory and start digging there. Yes, again, more dead ends but we become accustomed to “dead ends” being par for the course of truly uninhibited discovery.
We create conclusions, assumptions, speculations built on all the information we have gathered, and begin to come up with something we can make a tenable statement of truth about. But it takes a ton of work. And is usually never final, never ironclad. We don’t seem to like things that “appear” ironclad.
Sheep do not do this.
I have not yet met one that does. They often THINK they do, and throw back to me lines they have heard on NPR, or the WP or NYT, or of course the big “authorities” such as the retired Tsar of Science Fauci, POTUS, heads of major hospitals or pharmaceutical companies, et al. They don’t seem to realize their insistence on these sources being accurate is akin to looking to Goebbels to verify the accuracy of a Hitler speech, or referring to Der Stürmer for the truth about Jews. You need, today, to go to a variety of sources before you will come upon an accurate portrayal of social or scientific reality.
Sheep refuse to accept this.
What is odd about this is that we have never been in a culture where the mainstream news is 100% reliable. Sources have always been biased, and to really get a true picture of something, we have always needed to access several sources.
The problem is that as Americans (or Canadians for that matter) it has been drilled into us that freedom, truth, mom and apple pie are the hallmarks of our American culture. Although most of us have been brought up to believe that, it really never has been the truth. Maybe for a millisecond it was back in 1776, but I doubt it. (The tenets here are true, but being told that these are the hallmarks and intentions of the American or Canadian government is not the truth.)
That doesn’t necessarily mean that this culture has been 100% deprived of any integrity for 200 years (well, right now you might be able to say that) it means we have always been independently responsible for seeing through this wall of subterfuge. Unfortunately I think they finally managed to chop off the chicken’s head. Most people out there seem to have lost the capacity to use their brains.
It didn’t used to take all that much to reveal the boll weevils hiding in the cotton. We had competing newspapers that reveled in revealing untruths in a competitor’s pages. This tended to work well with all but the biggest players (Rockefellers, Carnegies, Morgans, etc.), now it doesn’t work at all because all the big news sources are bought. This is pretty obvious, but most sheep-types seem to think an owner of a news source has no power over what they print.
Duh.
Many imagine some cigar smoking workaholic editor holding onto his anchor of truth uttering with disgust, “they’re not going to stop ME from printing THAT.” I don’t think that ever really existed. I think if anything kept older news sources more honest than today, it was stumbling onto “truth” as a marketable commodity. This no longer seems to be the case.
So what does this have to do with a sheep fatal error?
Well, just that, truth is no longer a marketable commodity with major news sources, so we must all look to sources where it still is. Sheep don’t realize that shrews have truth on their side. And they align with truth. They also do not believe we have integrity, or that there are quite a few of us, and that we are very SMART, resourceful, and persistent. Eventually that is going to get them, and in a very hard way.
Truth is like rain water on a roof. It will find its way through if there is a way through. Where that analogy fails is when a roof becomes watertight. Culture and human society can never become “truthtight.” Don’t ask me why, it is just a given. Eventually truth finds its way in, no matter what. It may take a while, but truth will get through. It will prevail.
Shrews may not all know all the truth at any given moment, but they look for it, no matter where it might be hiding, and they find it. When they find it, and show other people where it is, they are widening the hole for more of it to come through, just like the leak in the roof, or the hole in the dam.
Eventually the dam will break and the roof will cave in.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 18:20 - Last Friday Was The Busiest Day In US Aviation History
Last Friday Was The Busiest Day In US Aviation History
Against the backdrop of a weakening consumer, air travel remains a hot spot. New data shows the number of people passing through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security checkpoints at airports hit a new record on Friday.
“TSA Officers nationwide screened 2,883,595 individuals – beating our previous travel record of 2,882,915 on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019,” TSA tweeted.
“This is the highest number of passengers the agency has screened on record,” TSA continued.
Arrive at the airport with plenty of time to park, check bags, & get through security screening. Have your ID out and ready. The rest of the week will continue to be busy. #FourthOfJuly
— TSA (@TSA) July 1, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Despite ongoing flight delays and cancelations over the past year as a severe shortage of air traffic controllers is causing flight disruptions, that did not deter millions of passengers from traveling over the holiday weekend.
The question remains, is this a blowoff top in pent-up demand for travel?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/05/2023 – 18:00
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