- War In Nagorno-Karabakh: Shadow Of Big Ottoman Brother Covers Azerbaijan
War In Nagorno-Karabakh: Shadow Of Big Ottoman Brother Covers Azerbaijan
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/06/2020 – 02:00Submitted by SouthFront,
The Turkish military continues to demonstrate its non-involvement in the war with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. On November 4, the heroic defense ministry of Turkey announced that Azerbaijani forces had shot down one more Armenian Su-25 warplane in the conflict zone. Thus, the claimed number of downed Armenian warplanes has reached seven. The only issue is that Azerbaijan itself did not claim such an incident, when the Turkish defense ministry made its statement. So, it seems that Ankara knows much more than do the Azerbaijani forces themselves, who are allegedly alone in their fight against the mighty Armenian aggressors.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev undertook another Twitter advance announcing the capture of the villages of Mirak and Kavdar in the Jabrayil district, Mashadiismayilli and Shafibayli in the Zangilan district, and Basharat, Garakishilar and Garajalli in the Gubadli district. The Azerbaijani military also reported clashes in the district of Adhere. In the last 48 hours, according to Azerbaijan, Armenian forces suffered multiple casualties and lost over two dozen equipment pieces.
Fortified positions and settlements controlled by Armenian forces in the central and northern parts of Nagorno-Karabakh are regularly being targeted with air and artillery strikes by Azerbaijani forces. The most intense strikes hit the areas of Shusha and the Lachin corridor.
Armenian officials kept apace with their Azerbaijani counterparts and also made several victorious statements. For example, on November 4, Armenian forces allegedly eliminated a large group of Azerbaijani soldiers in an operation code-named “Gyorbagyor.” The troops were amassing south of the town of Shusha, when they were detected by an Armenian drone and were targeted by artillery. Dozens were reportedly injured or killed.
In another development, the Armenians allegedly eliminated an Azerbaijani sabotage group operating on the road between Shusha and Lachin. Despite this statement, as of November 5, the road remains closed to civilian traffic. This means that the situation there is more complicated than Yerevan wants to admit. This highlights the unresolved crisis. If Armenian forces fail to push the Azerbaijani units away from the road and to restore free communication along it, the position of the forces defending Shusha will seriously worsen.
In the coming weeks, Azerbaijani forces supported by Syrian militants and Turkish special forces, who allegedly are not participating in the conflict, will continue attempts to cut off the Shusha-Lachin road, and to capture Martuni and Shushi. The Lachin area itself, due to its close proximity to the state border of Armenia, is the more complicated and protected target. Thus, the focus of clashes will likely remain on the center of Nagorno-Karabakh.
If the Turkish Defense Ministry does not forget to inform Baku about military developments on the ground in a timely manner, Azerbaijan still has a significant chance of developing its initial success in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh and making even more gains before the start of winter, which, given the mountainous terrain, will reduce the intensity of the clashes.
- Understanding The Tri-Fold Nature Of The Deep State
Understanding The Tri-Fold Nature Of The Deep State
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 23:40Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Not that long ago the United States came close to total dissolution.
The financial system was bankrupt, speculation had run amok, and all infrastructure had fallen into disarray over the course of 30 years of unbroken free trade. To make matters worse, the nation was on the verge of a civil war and international financiers in London and Wall Street gloated over the immanent destruction of the first nation on earth to be established not upon hereditary institutions, but rather on the consent of the governed and mandated to serve the general welfare.
Although one might think that I am referring now to today’s America, I am in fact referring to the United States of 1860.
The Trifold Deep State
In my past two articles in this series, I discussed how a new system of political economy was established by Benjamin Franklin and his disciples in the wake of the war of independence driven by protectionism, national banking and internal improvements.
I also demonstrated that the rise of the thing known as today’s “deep state” can also be understood as a three-headed beast which arose in its earliest incarnation under the leadership of arch traitor Aaron Burr who established Wall Street, killed Alexander Hamilton and devoted his life to the cause of dissolving the union. After having been caught in the act of sabotage, Burr escaped arrest in 1807 by running off to England where he live in Jeremy Bentham’s mansion for 5 years, only to return to oversee a new plot to break up the union that eventually boiled over in 1860.
The three prongs of the operation that Burr led on behalf of British intelligence and which remains active to this very day, can loosely be described as follows:
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The Anglo-Canadian establishment that arose in the wake of the “United Empire Loyalists” who left the rebelling colonies in 1776 to found English speaking Canada and who were soon labelled as the “Family Compact” by republican revolutionary William Lyon Mackenzie and which ultimately managed the eventual creation of the Rhodes Trust under George Parkin and his heirs.
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The Eastern Establishment families sometimes known as the Essex Junto who took control of Hamilton’s Federalist Party. These were Empire Loyalists who remained within the USA under the illusion of loyalty to the constitution, but always adherent to a British Imperial world order and devoted to eventually undermining it from within. These were the circles that brought the USA into Britain’s Opium trade against China as junior partners in crime and who promoted the dissolution of the union as early as 1800 under the leadership of Aaron Burr.
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The “Virginia Junto”, slave owning aristocracy which also worked with Aaron Burr in his 1807 secessionist plot and whose alliance with the British Empire was instrumental in its rise to power from 1828-1860. This was the structure that soon returned to power, after the civil war, under the guiding hand of such Mazzini-connected “Young Americans” as KKK founder Albert Pike and the Southern establishment that later executed nationalist presidents in 1880, 1901 and in 1963.
Some Uncomfortable Questions
The story has been told of Lincoln’s murder in tens of thousands of books and yet more often than not the narrative of a “single lone gunman” is imposed onto the story by researchers who are either too lazy or too corrupt to look for the evidence of a larger plot.
How many of those popular narratives infused into the western zeitgeist over the decades even acknowledge the simple fact that John Wilkes Boothe was carrying a $500 bank draft signed by Ontario Bank of Montreal President Henry Starnes (later to become Montreal Mayor) when he was shot dead at Garrett Farm on April 26, 1865?
How many people have been exposed to the vast Southern Confederacy secret service operations active throughout the civil war in Montreal, Toronto and Halifax which was under the firm control of Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin and his handlers in British intelligence?
How many people know that Boothe spent at least 5 weeks in the fall of 1864 in Montreal associating closely with the highest echelons of British and Southern intelligence including Starnes, and confederate spy leaders Jacob Thompson and George Sanders?
Demonstrating his total ignorance of the process that controlled him, Booth wrote to a friend on October 28, 1864:
“I have been in Montreal for the last 3 or 4 weeks and no one (not even myself) knew when I would return”.
On The Trail of the Assassins
After Lincoln was murdered, a manhunt to track down the intelligence networks behind the assassination was underway that eventually led to the hanging of four low level co-conspirators who history has shown were just as much patsies as John Wilkes Boothe.
Days later, President Johnson issued a proclamation saying:
“It appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice that the … murder of … Abraham Lincoln … [was] incited, concerted, and procured by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, [Nathaniel] Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, and other rebels and traitors against the government of the United States harbored in Canada.”
Two days before Booth was shot, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton wrote:
“This Department has information that the President’s murder was organized in Canada and approved at Richmond.”
Knowledge of Canada’s confederate operations was well known to the federal authorities in those days even though the majority among leading historians today are totally ignorant of this fact.
George Sanders remains one of the most interesting figures among Booth’s handlers in Canada. As a former Ambassador to England under the presidency of Franklin Pierce (1853-1857), Sanders was a close friend of international anarchist Giuseppe Mazzini – the founder of the Young Europe movement. Sanders who wrote “Mazzini and Young Europe” in 1852, had the honor of being a leading member of the southern branch of the Young America Movement (while Ralph Waldo Emerson was a self-proclaimed leader of the northern branch of Young America). Jacob Thompson, who was named in the Johnson dispatch above, was a former Secretary of the Interior under President Pierce, handler of Booth and acted as the top controller of the Confederacy secret service in Montreal.
As the book Montreal City of Secrets (2017), author Barry Sheehy proves that not only was Canada the core of Confederate Secret Services, but also coordinated a multi pronged war from the emerging “northern confederacy” onto Lincoln’s defense of the union alongside Wall Street bankers while the president was fighting militarily to stop the southern secession. Sheehy writes:
“By 1863, the Confederate Secret Service was well entrenched in Canada. Funding came from Richmond via couriers and was supplemented by profits from blockade running.”
The Many Shapes of War from the North
Although not having devolved to direct military engagement, the Anglo-Canadian war on the Union involved several components:
Financial warfare: The major Canadian banks dominant in the 19th century were used not only by the confederacy to pay British operations in the construction of war ships, but also to receive much needed infusions of cash from British Financiers throughout the war. A financial war on Lincoln’s greenback was waged under the control of Montreal based confederate bankers John Porterfield and George Payne and also JP Morgan to “short” the greenback.
By 1864, the subversive traitor Salmon Chase had managed to tie the greenback to a (London controlled) gold standard thus making its value hinge upon gold speculation. During a vital moment of the war, these financiers coordinated a mass “sell off” of gold to London driving up the price of gold and collapsing the value of the U.S. dollar crippling Lincoln’s ability to fund the war effort.
Direct Military intervention Thwarted: As early as 1861, the Trent Crisis nearly induced a hot war with Britain when a union ship intervened onto a British ship in international waters and arrested two high level confederate agents en route to London. Knowing that a two-fold war at this early stage was unwinnable, Lincoln pushed back against hot heads within his own cabinet who argued for a second front saying “one war at a time”. Despite this near miss, London wasted no time deploying over 10 000 soldiers to Canada for the duration of the war ready to strike down upon the Union at a moment’s notice and kept at bay in large measure due to the bold intervention of the Russian fleet to both Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the USA. This was a clear message to both England and to Napoleon III’s France (who were stationed across the Mexican border) to stay out of America’s war.
Despite Russia’s intervention, Britain continued to build warships for the Confederacy which devastated the Union navy during the war and which England had to pay $15.5 million to the USA in 1872 under the Alabama Claims.
Terrorism: It is less well known today than it was during the 19th century that confederate terror operations onto the north occurred throughout the civil war with raids on Union POW camps, efforts to burn popular New York hotels, blowing up ships on the Mississippi, and the infamous St Albans raid of October 1964 on Vermont and attacks on Buffalo, Chicago, Sandusky, Ohio, Detroit, and Pennsylvania. While the St Albans raiders were momentarily arrested in Montreal, they were soon released under the logic that they represented a “sovereign state” at conflict with another “sovereign state” with no connection with Canada (perhaps a lesson can be learned here for Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers?).
Assassination: I already mentioned that a $550 note was found on Boothe’s body with the signature of Ontario Bank president Henry Starnes which the failed actor would have received during his October 1864 stay in Montreal. What I did not mention is that Booth stayed at the St Lawrence Hall Hotel which served as primary headquarters for the Confederacy from 1863-65. Describing the collusion of Northern Copperheads, anti-Lincoln republicans, and Wall Street agents, Sheehy writes: “All of these powerful northerners were at St. Lawrence Hall rubbing elbows with the Confederates who used the hotel as an unofficial Headquarters. This was the universe in which John Wilkes Booth circulated in Canada.”
In a 2014 expose, historian Anton Chaitkin, points out that the money used by Boothe came directly from a $31,507.97 transfer from London arranged by the head of European confederate secret service chief James D. Bulloch. It is no coincidence that Bulloch happens to also be the beloved uncle and mentor of the same Teddy Roosevelt who became the president over the dead body of Lincoln-follower William McKinley (assassinated in 1901).
In his expose, Chaitkin wrote:
“James D. Bulloch was the maternal uncle, model and strategy-teacher to future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. He emerged from the shadows of the Civil War when his nephew Teddy helped him to organize his papers and to publish a sanitized version of events in his 1883 memoir, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe. Under the protection of imperial oligarchs such as Lord Salisbury and other Cecil family members, working in tandem with Britain’s military occupation of its then-colony Canada, Bulloch arranged English construction and crewing for Confederate warships that notoriously preyed upon American commerce.”
The Truth is Buried Under the Sands of History
While four low level members of Booth’s cell were hanged on July 7, 1865 after a four month show trial (1), the actual orchestrators of Lincoln’s assassination were never brought to justice with nearly every leading member of the confederate leadership having escaped to England in the wake of Lincoln’s murder. Even John Surrat (who was among the eight who faced trial) avoided hanging when his case was dropped, and his $25 000 bail was mysteriously paid by an anonymous benefactor unknown to this day. After this, Surrat escaped to London where the U.S. Consuls demands for his arrest were ignored by British authorities.
Confederate spymaster Judah Benjamin escaped arrest and lived out his days as a Barrister in England, and Confederate President Jefferson Davies speaking to adoring fans in Quebec in June 1867 encouraged the people to reject the spread of republicanism and instead embrace the new British Confederation scheme that would soon be imposed weeks later. Davies spoke to the Canadian band performing Dixie at the Royal Theater: “I hope that you will hold fast to their British principles and that you may ever strive to cultivate close and affectionate connections with the mother country”.
With the loss of Lincoln, and the 1868 death of Thaddeus Stevens, Confederate General Albert Pike established restoration of the southern oligarchy and sabotage of Lincoln’s restoration with the rise of the KKK, and renewal of Southern Rite Freemasonry. Over the ensuing years, an all out assault was launched on Lincoln’s Greenbacks culminating in the Specie Resumption Act of 1875 tying the U.S. financial system to British “hard money” monetarism and paving the way for the later financial coup known as the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (2).
While the Southern Confederacy plot ultimately failed, Britain’s “other confederacy operation launched in 1864 was successfully consolidated with the British North America Act of July 1, 1867. The hoped-for extension of trans continental rail lines through British Columbia and into Alaska and Russia were sabotaged as told in the Real Story Behind the Alaska Purchase of 1867.
Instead of witnessing a new world system of sovereign nation states under a multipolar order of collaboration driven by international infrastructure projects as Lincoln’s followers like William Seward, Ulysses Grant, William Gilpin and President McKinley envisioned, a new age of war and empire re-asserted itself throughout the 20th century.
It was this same trifold Deep State that contended with Franklin Roosevelt and his patriotic Vice President Henry Wallace for power during the course of WWII, and it was this same beast that ran the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. As New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison demonstrated in his book On the Trail of the Assassins (1991), Kennedy’s murder was arranged by a complex assassination network that brought into play Southern secret intelligence assets in Louisiana, and Texas, Wall Street financiers, and a strange assassination bureau based in Montreal named Permindex under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Louis Mortimer Bloomfield. This was the same intelligence operation that grew out of MI6’s Camp X in Ottawa during WWII and changed its name but not its functions during the Cold War. This is the same British Imperial complex that has been attempting to undo the watershed moment of 1776 for over 240 years.
It is this same tumor in the heart of the USA that has invested everything in a gamble to put their senile tool Joe Biden into the seat of the Presidency and oust the first genuinely nationalist American president the world has seen in nearly 60 years.
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- China Vows To Hit Back After 'Illegal' US Reaper Drone Sale To Taiwan Approved
China Vows To Hit Back After ‘Illegal’ US Reaper Drone Sale To Taiwan Approved
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 23:20The to be expected stern Chinese response to the recently announced MQ-9 Reaper drone sales to Taiwan came a day after the State Department’s formal approval was announced Tuesday. Beijing warned on Wednesday that any and all US arms sales to Taiwan break Chinese law and are a blatant violation of the One China principle as well as prior agreements with Washington.
The US State Department earlier this week said it has approved four armed MQ-9 Reaper drones to Taiwan in a deal worth $600 million.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press briefing Wednesday that the sales “severely violate the one-China principle and the three U.S.-China joint communiqués,” according to UPI.
MQ-9 Reaper drone, via Reuters He said it “seriously undermines China’s sovereignty and security interests, and sends out wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.” He further said at a moment that multiple defense systems sales are in progress that “China firmly opposes such acts.”
Wang warned that “legitimate and necessary reactions to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and security interests” will follow, however, it remains uncertain whether Beijing has a big enough card to play (that is, equivalent to something as provocative as the US arming up a breakaway independent island right of China’s mainland).
The Trump administration defended the sales as part of “continuing efforts to modernize [Taiwan’s] armed forces and to maintain a credible defense capability.”
Specifically the maritime monitoring outfitted drones are intended to bring the American and Taiwanese militaries into closer intelligence-sharing, and as part of ‘early warning’ systems intent on deterring any Chinese attack, according to one analyst cited in a regional report Thursday.
MQ-9B drone via GenAtomics_ASI Meanwhile, it’s expected that the Chinese PLA Army and Navy will continue to ramp up their presence around Taiwan, including in the contested waters of the Taiwan Strait. Over the past two months there’s been an uptick in active PLA military exercises to a degree that’s unprecedented.
PLA drills in the area now seem to be conducted on a near weekly basis, dramatically increasing the likelihood of an armed confrontation with US naval patrols in the region who have also lately traversed the strait in ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises.
- Escobar: Russia & China Bid Farewell To America's Failing Democracy
Escobar: Russia & China Bid Farewell To America’s Failing Democracy
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 23:00Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,
Neither Trump nor Biden can stop a China-Russian partnership that is blazing new state-led paths to progress and prosperity…
Whatever the geopolitical and geoeconomic consequences of the spectacular US dystopia, the Russia-China strategic partnership, in their own slightly different registers, have already voted on their path forward.
Here is how I framed what is at the heart of the Chinese 2021-2025 five-year plan approved at the plenum in Beijing last week.
Here is a standard Chinese think tank interpretation.
And here is some especially pertinent context examining how rampant Sinophobia is impotent when faced with an extremely efficient made in China model of governance. This study shows how China’s complex history, culture, and civilizational axioms simply cannot fit into the Western, Christian hegemonic worldview.
The not so hidden “secret” of China’s 2021-2025 five-year plan – which the Global Times described as “economic self-reliance” – is to base the civilization-state’s increasing geopolitical clout on technological breakthroughs.
Crucially, China is on a “self-driven” path – depending on little to no foreign input. Even a clear – “pragmatic” – horizon has been set: 2035, halfway between now and 2049. By this time China should be on a par or even surpassing the US in geopolitical, geoeconomic and techno power.
That is the rationale behind the Chinese leadership actively studying the convergence of quantum physics and information sciences – which is regarded as the backbone of the Made in China push towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The five-year plan makes it quite clear that the two key vectors are AI and robotics – where Chinese research is already quite advanced. Innovations in these fields will yield a matrix of applications in every area from transportation to medicine, not to mention weaponry.
Huawei is essential in this ongoing process, as it’s not a mere data behemoth, but a hardware provider, creating platforms and the physical infrastructure for a slew of companies to develop their own versions of smart cities, safe cities – or medicines.
Big Capital – from East and West – is very much in tune with where all of this is going, a process that also implicates the core hubs of the New Silk Roads. In tune with the 21st century “land of opportunity” script, Big Capital will increasingly move towards East Asia, China and these New Silk hubs.
This new geoeconomic matrix will mostly rely on spin offs of the Made in China 2025 strategy. A clear choice will be presented for most of the planet: “win win” or “zero sum”.
The failures of neoliberalism
After observing the mighty clash, enhanced by Covid-19, between the neoliberal paradigm and “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, the Global South is only beginning to draw the necessary conclusions.
No Western propaganda tsunami can favorably spin what is in effect a devastating, one-two, ideological collapse.
Neoliberalism’s abject failure in dealing with Covid-19 is manifestly evident all across the West.
The US election dystopia is now sealing the abject failure of Western liberal “democracy”: what kind of “choice” is offered by Trump-Biden?
This is happening just as the ultra-efficient, relentlessly demonized “Chinese Communist Party” rolls out the road map for the next five years. Washington cannot even plan what happens the day ahead.
Trump’s original drive, suggested by Henry Kissinger before the January 2017 inauguration, was to play – what else – Divide and Rule, seducing Russia against China.
This was absolute anathema for the Deep State and its Dem minions. Thus the subsequent, relentless demonization of Trump – with Russiagate topping the charts. And then Trump unilaterally chose to sanction and demonize China anyway.
Assuming a Dem victory, the scenario will veer towards Russia demonization on steroids even as hysterical Hybrid War on China will persist on all fronts – Uighurs, Tibet, Hong Kong, South China Sea, Taiwan.
Now compare all of the above with the Russian road map.
That was clearly stated in crucial interventions by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Putin at the recent Valdai Club discussions.
Putin has made a key assertion on the role of Capital, stressing the necessity of “abandoning the practice of unrestrained and unlimited consumption – overconsumption – in favor of judicious and reasonable sufficiency, when you do not live just for today but also think about tomorrow.”
Putin once again stressed the importance of the role of the state: “The state is a necessary fixture, there is no way […] could do without state support.”
And, in concert with the endless Chinese experimentation, he added that in fact there are no economic rules set in stone: “No model is pure or rigid, neither the market economy nor the command economy today, but we simply have to determine the level of the state’s involvement in the economy. What do we use as a baseline for this decision? Expediency. We need to avoid using any templates, and so far, we have successfully avoided that.”
Pragmatic Putin defined how to regulate the role of the state as “a form of art”.
And he offered as an example, “keeping inflation up by a bit will make it easier for Russian consumers and companies to pay back their loans. It is economically healthier than the deflationary policies of western societies.”
As a direct consequence of Putin’s pragmatic policies – which include wide-ranging social programs and vast national projects – the West ignores that Russia may well be on the way to overtake Germany as the fifth largest economy in the world.
The bottom line is that combined, the Russia-China strategic partnership is offering, especially to the Global South, two radically different approaches to the standard Western neoliberal dogma. And that, for the whole US establishment, is anathema.
So whatever the result of the Trump-Biden “choice”, the clash between the Hegemon and the Top Two Sovereigns is only bound to become more incandescent.
- October Payrolls Preview: It's About To Get Ugly Again
October Payrolls Preview: It’s About To Get Ugly Again
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 22:40With the nation transfixed by the bad game show that is the presidential election, now in its 3rd day and counting, it is safe to say that nobody, not even the algos will give a rat’s ass what October jobs data the BLS reports on Friday morning. Still, as we do every month, we will preview what the market expects of the first jobs report after the election, even if it is still unclear who the next president is, and the first report expected to shock Wall Street by how bad it is since the Covid mini-depression.
As NewsSquawk reports, the recent data has been somewhat downbeat, with the rate of Initial Jobless Claims rising in the October survey week against expectations it would, while ADP payrolls rose in October, less than expected and a slower pace from the prior month, although it remains to be seen if it will correlate to the BLS following recent divergences.
Goldman (which expects a below consensus 500K NFP print) agrees, noting that High-frequency labor market information indicates further deceleration in job growth, consistent with a drag from the virus resurgence and fiscal fizzle. The bank also expects virtual schooling and the accelerating shift to e-commerce this holiday season to weigh on education and retail payrolls in tomorrow’s report,respectively. The wind-down of the 2020 Census is also set to reduce payrolls by around 125k in Friday’s jobs report.
In addition to softer signals from Big Data sources, the smaller number of workers on temporary layoff (4.6mn in September, down from 18.1mn in April) reduces the scope for the rapid pace of gains seen in the summer. And while continuing claims declined sharply during the payroll month, much of the drop reflected the expiration of program eligibility as opposed to reemployment.
On the flipside, the manufacturing ISM survey saw employment return to expansionary territory at 53.2 after 14 months of contraction, a reading that is generally consistent with an increase in the BLS data on manufacturing employment. Philly Fed employment fell, although the report noted it still saw an overall increase on manufacturing employment. The ISM services employment report continued to grow in October, albeit at a slower pace than September. Challenger Job Cuts saw the best report in 7 months, with 80,666 layoffs, less than September’s 118k cuts.
With that out of the way, here is what consensus expects:
- Nonfarm Payrolls exp. +600,000 (range 0.300mln-1.221mln, prev. +0.661mln);
- Unemployment rate exp. 7.7% (range: 7.0-8.0%, prev. 7.9%);
- U6 unemployment (prev. 12.8%);
- Participation (prev. 61.4%);
- Private payrolls exp. 0.700mln (prev. 0.877mln);
- Manufacturing payrolls exp. 50k (prev. 66k);
- Government payrolls (prev.-216k);
- Average earnings m/m exp. 0.2% (prev. 0.1%);
- Average earnings y/y exp. 4.6% (prev. 4.7%);
- Average workweek hours exp. 34.7 (prev. 34.7).
Some more details courtesy of NewsSquawk
INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS:
Weekly initial jobless claims for the BLS survey period were above expectations (898k vs 825k expected, prior revised +5k to 845k). Continuing claims fell, however, to 10.02mln (expected 10.7mln from a revised up 11.18mln). Oxford Economics said the latest data was troubling, for a number of reasons: 1) Claims for regular initial state benefits rose to their highest level since late August and a decline in PUA claims seems largely a function of reporting issues in Arizona; 2) the positive trend in continuing claims is being offset by a rise in the number of individuals who have exhausted regular benefits, which OxEco says is further evidence of more long-lasting scarring effects from the pandemic. The situation in California, where there are a number of issues with its reporting, continue to cloud the picture, although these have since been resolved. OxEco warns that “failure to pass additional fiscal relief measures poses considerable downside risk to the economy, particularly as Covid-19 cases are on the rise and would likely lead to further job losses,” adding that a failure to provide more relief “raises the risk that some individuals will lose benefits altogether at the start of 2021.” As a caveat, it is worth noting that some analysts are questioning the usefulness of the initial jobless claims data series — notable economists like Oregon University professor Tim Duy have struggled to reconcile the positive economic momentum seen in housing and auto sales with the notion that the economy is collapsing.
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
Goldman estimates the unemployment rate declined by two tenths to 7.7%, reflecting an increase in household employment partially offset by potentially higher labor force participation. The labor force participation rate probably increased in October as the recovering labor market encouraged job searches. In interpreting the report, pay close attention to the number of unemployed workers on temporary layoff, which spiked to a record high 18.1mn in April and had retraced to 4.6mn in September.
Over the last 50 years, the three recessions with the highest share of temporary layoffs were followed by the fastest labor market recoveries (both absolutely and relative to consensus forecasts at the time). However, the smaller number of workers on temporary layoff in September reduces the scope for the rapid pace of gains seen in the summer (though it remains a positive factor relative to the pre-corona paceof job gains)
ADP:
Headline national employment rose by 365k, albeit a slower pace from the previous 753k and cooler than the expected 650k rise, although it is worth noting the Homebase small business employment numbers were weak. Nonetheless, Pantheon Macroeconomics highlights that this is still a soft ADP print. The desk notes the Homebase numbers suggest a 500k-1mln drop due to the pressure on the services sector, while leisure and hospitality have taken a hit amid the rise in cases. Pantheon expects to see ADP slightly undershoot NFP again and thus are looking for a print of 400k on Friday’s BLS report.
SURVEYS:
The national ISM manufacturing survey saw the employment metric at 53.2, up from the prior month’s 49.6, seeing growth in October after 14 months of contraction. Note, an employment index above 50.8 is generally consistent with an increase in the BLS data on manufacturing employment, ISM says. The ISM services report saw growth for the second consecutive month, albeit at a slower rate than September, printing 50.1 from 51.8 in September. Comments from respondents included: “Minor increase, filling positions” and “Slowly bringing back employees and investing in some areas as business returns”. Philly Fed employment fell in October to 12.7 from 15.7, although the report noted on balance, firms reported increases in manufacturing employment.
JOB CUTS:
Challenger job cuts were encouraging, only seeing 80,666 job cuts, less than the prior months 118.8k, showing the best reading in 7 months. Challenger, Gray & Christmas write the lower number this month indicates “some companies impacted by shutdown orders were able to reopen and stave off cutting jobs”. However, the firm warns uncertainty is likely due to the rise in coronavirus cases, stricter restrictions and lack of stimulus funds. A downturn in demand was the reason for 25,281 job cuts, the primary reason for the layoffs, while market conditions, cost-cutting and restructuring were the reasons for the remainder of job cuts this month.
ARGUING FOR A WEAKER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:
Big Data: High-frequency data on the labor market softened on net, averaging +450k across six measures (median +160k), as shown in Exhibit 1. We also note that the Google Mobility data may have difficulty distinguishing between employees returning to work and those transitioning between work-from-home and in-office labor market activity. Such a deceleration would be directionally consistent with the resurgence of the coronavirus in the middle of the country in late September and early October—or alternatively with the impact of waning fiscal support on spending.
Education seasonality. We expect a second month of weakness in education categories related to the coronacrisis, with the effect worth anywhere from -50k to-250k (mom sa, public + private). Some of the janitors and other school staff who normally return to work in mid- or late-September did not this year due to virtual school reopenings in much of the country. Reflecting this, we note scope for education payrolls to rise by less than the BLS seasonal factors anticipate.
Census hiring. Census temporary workers are set to lower nonfarm job growth by around 125k in October, as field operations wound down further.
ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report rose by 365k in October, wellnbelow consensus expectations. the ADP report was viewed as incrementally negative news.
ARGUING FOR A BETTER-THAN-EXPECTED REPORT:
Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference betweennthe percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hardto get — rose further into expansionary territory (to +6.6 in October from +3.3 inSeptember and -2.2 in August).Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas fell byn39.7% in October to 77k after increasing by 3.7% in September (mom, sa by GS).They remain 57% above their October 2019 levels.
- Police Will Pilot A Program To Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras
Police Will Pilot A Program To Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 22:20Authored by Matthew Guariglia, via EEF.org,
This is not a drill. Red alert: The police surveillance center in Jackson, Mississippi, will be conducting a 45-day pilot program to live stream the Amazon Ring cameras of participating residents.
Since Ring first made a splash in the private security camera market, we’ve been warning of its potential to undermine the civil liberties of its users and their communities. We’ve been especially concerned with Ring’s 1,000+ partnerships with local police departments, which facilitate bulk footage requests directly from users without oversight or having to acquire a warrant.
While people buy Ring cameras and put them on their front door to keep their packages safe, police use them to build comprehensive CCTV camera networks blanketing whole neighborhoods. This serves two police purposes. First, it allows police departments to avoid the cost of buying surveillance equipment and to put that burden onto consumers by convincing them they need cameras to keep their property safe. Second, it evades the natural reaction of fear and distrust that many people would have if they learned police were putting up dozens of cameras on their block, one for every house.
Now, our worst fears have been confirmed. Police in Jackson, Mississippi, have started a pilot program that would allow Ring owners to patch the camera streams from their front doors directly to a police Real Time Crime Center. The footage from your front door includes you coming and going from your house, your neighbors taking out the trash, and the dog walkers and delivery people who do their jobs in your street. In Jackson, this footage can now be live streamed directly onto a dozen monitors scrutinized by police around the clock. Even if you refuse to allow your footage to be used that way, your neighbor’s camera pointed at your house may still be transmitting directly to the police.
Only a few months ago, Jackson stood up for its residents, becoming the first city in the southern United States to ban police use of face recognition technology. Clearly, this is a city that understands invasive surveillance technology when it sees it, and knows when police have overstepped their ability to invade privacy.
If police want to build a surveillance camera network, they should only do so in ways that are transparent and accountable, and ensure active resident participation in the process. If residents say “no” to spy cameras, then police must not deploy them. The choices you and your neighbors make as consumers should not be hijacked by police to roll out surveillance technologies. The decision making process must be left to communities.
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Here is the response we received from Amazon in regards to this post:
“[Amazon and Ring] are not involved in any way with any of the companies or the city in connection with the pilot program. The companies, the police and the city that were discussed in the article do not have access to Ring’s systems or the Neighbors App. Ring customers have control and ownership of their devices and videos ,and can choose to allow access as they wish.”
- 45,000 Americans Flood New Zealand's Immigration Website During Election
45,000 Americans Flood New Zealand’s Immigration Website During Election
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 22:00Tens of thousands of Americans flooded New Zealand’s immigration website, called New Zealand Now, during this week’s presidential election, requesting information about moving to the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
New Zealand’s Stuff reports a massive surge in Americans, more than 40,000, have visited the government’s immigration website in the last few days following the prospect of another four years under a Trump presidency. Though, maybe a sign of relief for those looking to “bug out,” as the election could go to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is currently winning the electoral college vote on Thursday afternoon (264 vs. 214).
But really, at this point, some Americans could be considering the move no matter who wins, mainly because the writing is on the wall; the country is collapsing from within as socio-economic implosions induced by the virus downturn will deeply scar the economy for years.
Besides economic distress and alarming wealthy inequality, the virus pandemic has formed the second virus wave, with caseloads breaching 100,00 this week. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Health Minister Chris Hipkins recently said a major milestone was reached in the country as the virus pandemic has been “squashed” because of their collective actions to mitigate spreading.
Stuff interviewed Texas-native Valentino Johnson, who is looking to move to New Zealand because it appears to be a “place where people care enough about each other” to follow public health rules.
Johnson said Trump’s possible re-election win could produce a toxic environment for his family.
“The country is becoming so divisive,” he said. “I want to raise my son somewhere he can be respected.”
Emergency room doctor Rob Brandt from Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been living in a pool shed for six months at his home as he isolates from his family.
Brandt said many Americans believe the pandemic is a hoax. He said his hospital is starting to see virus cases increase as the second wave pushes daily cases nationally above the 100,000 mark.
Nurse Ana Carino fears for her health at a hospital in Midland, Texas. At the end of the year, she will arrive in New Zealand to take a new job in Invercargill, a city near the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.
“You guys don’t have many cases. The US president has not been proactive in handling it [the pandemic],” she said.
“I work in a hospital where people are dying from Covid-19 and it is not a joke.”
On election night, Americans also panic searched “move to Canada.” To calm their election anxieties, they also searched “liquor store near me.”
- Here's Your Historical Analogy Menu: Rome, The USSR, Or Revolutionary France
Here’s Your Historical Analogy Menu: Rome, The USSR, Or Revolutionary France
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 21:40Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
The core dynamic is ultimately the loss of social cohesion within the ruling elites and in the social order at large.
There’s a definite end of days feeling to the euphoria that the world didn’t end on November 3. And what better way to celebrate the victory of what passes for normalcy with a manic stock market rally?
It’s as if everyone knows there is no returning to the good old days of a well-oiled Imperial machine chewing through any and all obstacles, and this realization is so frightening that the need to pretend everything is fine, just fine, overwhelms the last remaining ties to reality.
And since there’s a brief intermission between gladiator battles while the Coliseum attendants remove the fallen heroes from the last entertainment, let’s play the historical analogy game: which collapse will America track most closely? Rome circa 475 AD, the USSR circa 1989, or Revolutionary France circa 1789?
I’m tempted to include China’s Song Dynasty circa 1276 AD, but the analog of the Mongol invasion isn’t a likely fit. The Khmer Empire circa 1350-1430 AD and the Mayan Civilization in the 9th century might be excellent analogies but not enough is known about these complex declines to make an analogy more than guesswork.
Rome, the USSR and Revolutionary France are all compelling analogies due to the hubristic cluelessness of their fractured elites as the pretensions of stability collapsed around them. Even though Nero didn’t actually fiddle while Rome burned and Marie Antoinette didn’t gush “Let them eat brioche” when notified that the peasants had no bread (or more accurately, could no longer afford it), these myths are handy encapsulations of the disconnect from reality that infested the elites in the last years before the deluge of non-linear chaos overwhelmed the regimes.
While historians gather evidence of tipping points such as pandemics, ecological damage, invasions, droughts, inflation, etc., the core dynamic is ultimately the loss of social cohesion within the ruling elites and in the social order at large.
As a generality, the permanence of the status quo is taken for granted by elites, who then feel free to squabble amongst themselves over the spoils of wealth and power. Distracted by their own infighting, the elites are blind to the erosion of the foundations of their power.
As coherence in the elites unravels, the ties uniting the elites with the masses unravel as well.
One camp within the elites recognizes the danger and seeks reforms, but the reforms are too little, too late, and in any event, the elites who cling most ardently to the past stability fight the reform movement to a standstill.
As social cohesion unravels, systems that once seemed immutable (i.e. linear) suddenly display non-linear dynamics in which modest changes that would have made little difference in the past now unleash regime-shattering disorder.
So take your pick, America: what’s the closest analogy? A sclerotic Politburo of elders living in the past, an elite fiddling while the nation disintegrates, or an elite so out of touch with reality that it claims inflation is zero while the populace can no longer afford bread?
They all lead to the same destination:
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Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF)Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).
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- Soybean Prices Hit Four-Year High As China Demand Ticks Up
Soybean Prices Hit Four-Year High As China Demand Ticks Up
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 21:20Chicago soybean futures rose to a four-year high on Thursday morning, as dry weather in South America and increasing demand from China supported prices.
“China is actively buying beans and we are seeing additional demand emerge from Brazil,” a Singapore-based commodity trader said, who was quoted by Reuters.
The trader continued: “The weather is not perfect for Brazil and the crop is likely to get delayed due to the dry weather.”
November soybean contracts trading on the Chicago Board of Trade were up more than 1% Thursday morning, trading around $10.95 per bushel, climbing to the highest level since July 2016.
Reuters notes La Nina weather pattern remains a risk for crops across South America. Their commodity desk said Brazil’s soybean-growing areas recorded rain this week, but other surrounding areas need moisture.
Commodity traders will be closely watching the USDA Nov. 10 supply/demand reports, which some experts believe it could show “scaled-back U.S. soybean yields and increased export forecasts,” said Reuters.
Reuters’ Karen Braun said, “China’s strong return to the U.S. soybean market in recent months has single-handedly lifted U.S. farm exports to the Asian country to new records, and the heavy forward shipping schedule bodes well for the promises outlined in the Phase 1 trade agreement between the two countries.”
Even though China’s demand for U.S. farm goods has increased late in the year – it’s likely trade commitments outlined in the Phase 1 agreement won’t be met this year.
China is way behind in farm good purchases.
Could soybean prices also be soaring because the prospects of a Biden presidency would be mean friendlier relations with China?
- Don't Forget LBJ's Election Theft
Don’t Forget LBJ’s Election Theft
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 21:00Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
The mainstream pro-Biden media is poking fun at Donald Trump’s suggestion that there could be fraud involved in the post-election receipt of mail-in ballots. Apparently they’re not familiar with the election-theft case of Lyndon Johnson, who would go on to become president of the United States.
The entire matter is detailed in Robert Caro’s second book in his biographical series on Johnson. The book is entitled Means of Ascent.
Johnson election theft took place in 1948, when he was running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, one of the most admired and respected governors in the history of the state.
In the primary election, Stevenson led Johnson by 70,000 votes, but because he didn’t have a majority of the votes, he was forced into a run-off. The run-off was held on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning after the run-off, Stevenson was leading by 854 votes.
As a New York Times review of Caro’s account stated, the day after the run-off election it was “discovered” that the returns of a particular county had not yet been counted. The newly discovered votes were overwhelmingly in favor of Johnson. Then, on Monday more returns came in from the Rio Grande Valley.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday, the State Election Bureau announced that Stevenson had won by 349 votes. Nothing changed on Wednesday and Thursday after the election. On Friday, precincts in the Rio Grande Valley made “corrections” to their tallies, which narrowed Stevenson’s lead to 157.
But also on Friday, Jim Wells County, which was governed as a personal fiefdom by a powerful South Texas rancher named George Parr, filed “amended” returns for what has become famous as “Box 13” that gave Johnson another 200 votes. When all was said and done, Johnson had “won” the election by 87 votes.
It was later discovered that one of Parr’s men had changed the total tally for Johnson from 765 to 965 by simply curling the 7 into a 9.
Where did the extra 200 votes come from?
The last 202 names on on the election roll in Box 13 were in a different color ink from the rest of the names, the names were in alphabetical order, and they were all in the same handwriting. When Caro was researching his book, he secured a statement from Luis Salas, an election judge in Jim Wells County, who acknowledged the fraud and confessing his role in it.
As the Washington Post reported, to investigate what obviously appeared quite suspicious Stevenson employed the assistance of Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who had trapped and killed Bonnie and Clyde. It was to no avail. Johnson got a friendly state judge to issue an injunction preserving the status quo, after which the Democratic executive committee, by one vote, declared Johnson to be the winner.
Stevenson took the matter to federal court but the Supreme Court punted, declaring that it had no right to interfere with a state election.
So, Lyndon Johnson stole the election and ended up going to Washington as Texas’ U.S. Senator. Ironically, if Stevenson had become the state’s senator instead, Johnson would never have been selected to be John Kennedy’s vice-presidential running mate and, consequently, would never have been president.
No wonder Donald Trump is worried about those Democrats! For that matter, those Democrats should be just as worried about those Republicans!
- China's State Media: "Don't Be Naive, Trumpism Will Perpetuate Regardless Of Winner"
China’s State Media: “Don’t Be Naive, Trumpism Will Perpetuate Regardless Of Winner”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 20:40In perhaps the most interesting reaction out of Beijing to the stalled election outcome, Chinese state-run Global Times on Thursday published the reaction of two of its notable foreign policy analysts and geopolitical experts. With the fate of the election hanging in the balance and the world still on edge as all look for a definitive result, Global Times posed the question:
Even if Biden gets elected, will Trump and his doctrines disappear? Will there be another Trump from the Democratic Party?
As the headline to the piece underscores, officials in Beijing are fretting that Trump doctrines will exist regardless of who wins US election. Here’s how Zhang Tengjun, an assistant research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, put it in the state publication:
One should not be too naïve to believe that with Trump’s departure, the social environment that brews Trumpism would disappear. On the contrary, the forces represented by Trump will continue to exist and affect US politics. Trump’s ilk will inherent his doctrines. The US needs more than four years to digest the long-term destructive impact on US politics from Trump’s rule.
And another thinker at a major public research university in Shanghai was further cited as saying that “Trump-style” politicians will continue to emerge.
China of course sees this as a destructive force which will likely perpetuate already severely damaged Sino-US relations for the foreseeable future, apparently regardless of the presidential outcome. Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, had this to say – again likely reflecting the view among many top Beijing officials:
Trump proposes America First, not to pay much effort in international affairs or take unnecessary global responsibilities. As long as Trump believes a treaty or an organization does not fit US interests, he will make a quick divorce from it. Many of his measures reflect what the US public wants, at least a large proportion of them. This time, although Biden leads Trump as of press time, the election also shows that almost half of the voters support Trump. The election of Trump four years ago was never an accidental incident. Populism has already become a powerful trend in the country.
Qiang further said what he dubbed the “Trump Phenomenon” will not end anytime soon.
While netizens from Chinese mainland watch the ongoing US presidential election like a soap opera, it seems that some living on the other side of the Straits are not as calm and poised. https://t.co/oHub65tEQH
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) November 5, 2020
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“As long as such a populist public trend exists, it is very likely that in the future more and more untraditional politicians will have no alternative but to step on Trump’s path in order to win more support,” he said in GT. “After all, winning elections are US politicians’ ultimate goal. Therefore, more Trumps may come into being because they will justify their approach by their goal. I call it the Trump Phenomenon.”
This is to continue, both analysts agreed, “no matter who wins the election” and could come from within either the Republican or Democratic Party. Probably both, they said.
US opinion polls are now ridiculed by Chinese netizens. They are even less accurate than China’s Yiwu index. Don’t know how those polling organizations will survive in the US.
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) November 4, 2020
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The Chinese state-affiliated analysts also made reference to Bernie Sanders, his supporters, and the popular progressive movement among young people as potentially a continued force of division for a possible Biden administration, which would be “bumpy”.
“As for the Democrats, since its internal division is inevitable, it is likely that a politician who always thinks otherwise would emerge from the left-wing radical forces,” the analysis in GT underscored.
- "Racist" Trump Won More Minority Votes Than Any GOP Candidate Since 1960
“Racist” Trump Won More Minority Votes Than Any GOP Candidate Since 1960
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 20:20Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,
Everyone knows that Donald Trump is a racist. How do we know? ‘Cause media says so, that’s how. Every single statement or off-the-cuff remark by Trump that could be deliberately misinterpreted or taken out of context, or twisted into meaning something entirely different, has been used to paint an ugly racist picture of the president.
With black Americans, it’s worked. A poll earlier this year found 83 percent of blacks believing Trump is a racist. How could they not with every media outlet telling them it’s so and many prominent blacks in politics, entertainment, and sports reinforcing the narrative every chance they get?
The so-called “leaders” of the minority communities were virulently opposed to Donald Trump’s re-election. It was nearly unanimous. There were notable exceptions, but brave it was for any black or Hispanic notable to back Trump in public.
But as it turns out, many minority voters tuned out the anti-Trump noise and made an independent decision to back the president. New York Post:
Team Trump and Republicans nationwide made unprecedented inroads with black and Hispanic voters. Nationally, preliminary numbers indicated that 26 percent of Trump’s voting share came from nonwhite voters — the highest percentage for a GOP presidential candidate since 1960.
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, the heartland of Cuban America, Trump turned a 30-plus point Hillary Clinton romp in 2016 into a narrow single-digit Joe Biden win. Texas’ Starr County, overwhelmingly Mexican American and positioned in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, barely delivered for the Democrats. Biden’s Hispanic support in other key swing states, like Ohio and Georgia, tailed off from Clinton’s 2016 benchmarks.
Cuban-Americans have been loyal Republican voters since the 1980s and Ronald Reagan’s strong opposition to Fidel Castro. But they were particularly energized in 2020 to vote for Trump. Conversely, Mexican-Americans in Texas had probably never voted Republican before but were drawn to Trump’s “opportunity agenda.”
And surprisingly, young black men voted for Trump in unprecedented numbers. We won’t know the particulars of how that vote broke down for a few days, but ambitious young men who see a future in a capitalist America were no doubt repelled by the Democrats’ anti-capitalist agenda. They’re also tired of being used by Democrats as props in their little morality plays and are weary of unkept promises.
But what does this say about the Democrat-Media information complex? Looks like someone blew a circuit or two.
It turns out that minorities aren’t so infatuated with the brand of unrepentant progressive “woke-ism” now peddled by the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party. The political, legal, media, corporate and academic establishments have gone all-in on the woke agenda, peddling a toxic brew of intersectionality, socialism lite and Black Lives Matter anarchism. Latinos and many blacks aren’t buying it. As one Twitter wit quipped, Democrats may have won the “Latinx vote,” but they didn’t fare well with actual Latinos.
The cognitive dissonance on the part of our bicoastal ruling class is, and will be over the ensuing months, astonishing. The ruling elite is incapable of processing the notion that the MAGA hat-clad Bad Orange Man is not, in fact, an avatar for racist whites and a harbinger of impending fascism.
The bottom line is that it isn’t only white voters who don’t listen to the media about Trump’s faults. Many in the minority community can judge Trump and what he can do for them all by themselves and don’t need to be instructed on how to vote by those who really don’t have their best interests at heart.
It takes guts to be a black or Hispanic Trump supporter in a lot of places in America. You would wish that wouldn’t be the case, but it is. Are they the harbinger of a movement by the minority community toward the Republican Party? Time will tell, but the electoral earthquake that would ensue if that were the case would be felt even among the coastal elites.
- South Florida Prepares For Eta As It Could Reenergize Into Hurricane
South Florida Prepares For Eta As It Could Reenergize Into Hurricane
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 20:00Weather models forecast Eta, currently ravaging Central America, could reemerge over the Caribbean waters and make landfall in South Florida between late Sunday and Monday.
Eta, the 28th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, has weakened Thursday to a tropical depression as it dumps torrential rains and causes flash floods in Honduras.
Here is a thread of some paypal links and info i’ve gathered where you can help, pray for 🇭🇳 #HuracanEta #HurricaneEta #Honduras pic.twitter.com/dlKT4leXS3
— ᴮᴱmaho⁷ (@UGHBANGT7N) November 5, 2020
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“Eta will begin to feel the influence of upper-level steering to its north, causing the storm to make a hard right turn, pushing it back over the hot northern Caribbean waters. While some intensification is likely, it will be limited, at least initially, because Eta will have to contend with some dry air, upper-level wind shear, interaction with the landmass of Cuba, and limited time,” according to CBS News.
National Hurricane Center’s Tropical Forecast Map Of Eta
CBS notes by Saturday, Eta “will cross over Cuba, likely as a tropical storm, and then head toward South Florida.”
“It is still uncertain how strong Eta will be and the degree to which the storm will impact South Florida. Most likely, Eta will either be a strong tropical storm or even a low-end hurricane. Some models show a direct hit, while others show a glancing blow over the Florida Keys.
“Regardless of exact track, Eta will bring a stretch of very wet weather across South Florida from Friday through early next week. Depending on the track, over a foot of rain seems likely in some spots.”
Eta To Strike Key West?
If Eta strikes the U.S., it would be the 12th named storm to make landfall this year, a record.
- This Is The Textbook Definition Of "Late Cycle" In The Stock Market
This Is The Textbook Definition Of “Late Cycle” In The Stock Market
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 19:40Authored by Jesse Felder via TheFelderReport.com,
The following is an excerpt from a recent report featured on The Felder Report PREMIUM.
I like to think of markets and securities in terms of three separate but interrelated dymanics: fundamentals, sentiment and technicals. Fundamentals include things like earnings, net asset value, how those things are trending and valuation relative to them. Sentiment is simply how investors are feeling toward something and technicals are really just a way to analyze the price trend.
Typically, a security or a market becomes expensive as a result of good fundamentals leading to positive sentiment and a strong uptrend. The valuation eventually becomes overextended, sentiment becomes too bullish and momentum begins to wane. It is at this point the trend reverses. Sentiment will start to turn as the trend turns downward. Momentum will peak roughly midway through the trend. Valuation eventually becomes reasonable or even cheap and sentiment turns sour as a result of a prolonged downtrend. Eventually downside momentum wanes and the trend reverses again, usually just as sentiment bottoms out.
Each of these individual signals is valuable but not nearly as valuable as all three taken together.
Fundamentals
“The chart shows the market value of all publicly traded securities as a percentage of the country’s business–that is, as a percentage of GNP. The ratio has certain limitations in telling you what you need to know. Still, it is probably the best single measure of where valuations stand at any given moment.” –Warren Buffett, December 10, 2001
The single best measure of valuations, according to Warren Buffett, currently sits just off its highest reading in history. In other words, the stock market has never been as expensive as it is today, largely the product of soaring valuations amid deteriorating fundamentals. Not only does this mean that forward returns will likely be exceptionally poor, it means that downside risk has also never been greater than it is today.
Sentiment
“Even the most circumspect friend of the market would concede that the volume of brokers’ loans—of loans collateraled by the securities purchased on margin—is a good index of the volume of speculation.” -John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929
If the level of margin debt is indicative of the “volume of speculation” then we might infer that, just as we are witnessing unprecedented valuations, those extreme prices have been driven by extreme greed, the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations, if ever before.
Technicals
“For me, technical analysis is like a thermometer. Fundamentalists who say they are not going to pay any attention to the charts are like a doctor who says he’s not going to take a patient’s temperature. But, of course, that would be sheer folly. If you are a responsible participant in the market, you always want to know where the market is—whether it is hot and excitable, or cold and stagnant. You want to know everything you can about the market to give you an edge.” -Bruce Kovner, Market Wizards
In analyzing the strength of the trend we can use a very simply metric like RSI. In the case of 18-month RSI, oversold readings have proven to be good long-term entry points; Overbought, readings, however, have merely indicated a strong uptrend that may last several more years. By this measure, the strength of the current uptrend peaked nearly 3 years ago and has only been weakening since, putting in a clear pattern of lower highs.
Together, these three indicators paint a picture of an extremely overvalued stock market, driven by a speculative euphoria even while the price trend is running out of steam. It is the textbook definition of “late cycle” in the stock market and suggests investors ought to exercise a great deal of caution towards equities as an asset class.
- Thai Authorities Face Blowback After Nationwide PornHub Ban
Thai Authorities Face Blowback After Nationwide PornHub Ban
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 19:20Thailand’s Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta, did the unthinkable Monday, he banned Pornhub and 190 URL addresses of porn sites, prompting outrage among the younger generation Tuesday, reported Reuters.
Punnakanta ordered internet service providers and mobile phone operators to ban porn sites for violating Thailand’s Computer Crime Act.
The ban comes one week after Deputy Prime Minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, said that swift action would be taken against porn sites encouraging young people to engage in “improper” behavior, Thai Examiner noted.
Thailand Pornhub users were greeted with the message Monday night: “This content has been suspended. Because it is guilty according to the Computer Crime Act 2007 by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society.”
Pornhub and or other popular porn sites were not available for viewing as of Tuesday afternoon.
Reuters, citing Pornhub stats, said Thai users, on average, spent 11 minutes and 21 seconds last year on the website, which was more time than anywhere else in the world.
The website’s ban could be problematic for Pornhub because Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, was its 10th largest market.
Google Search trends of “Pornhub” in the country have spread like an epidemic over the last three years.
Dozens of Pornhub supporters gathered at government buildings on Tuesday to erect signs and voice their opinion about the site’s shuttering.
One activist group called Anonymous Party said: “We want to reclaim Pornhub. People are entitled to choices.”
Pornhub protesters were seen holding signs saying “free Pornhub” and “reclaim Pornhub.”
Thai Enquirer translates the signs held by protesters. One sign said: “Every evening there’s a horny person – find them.” Another sign said: “Do not hurt the lonely by blocking their entrance.”
Signs from the protest today:
“Every evening there’s a horny person – find them.”
“Do not hurt the lonely by blocking their entrance.”#SavePornhub #WhatsHappeningInThailand pic.twitter.com/Lo7or8GJHC
— Thai Enquirer (@ThaiEnquirer) November 3, 2020
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People in Thailand were not happy about the government blocking the porn site.
More scenes from the protest.
As soon as the ban went into effect, Virtual Private Networks (“VPN”) searches from within the country erupted. VPNs are used to help people circumnavigate censorship.
There is chatter on Twitter about a “Pornhub Spring” in Thailand.
Pornhub Spring #พลังเงี่ยน
— Lily Cu (@WatineeCu) November 2, 2020
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“Turning off the porn site makes anything better?” one protester asks.
He continued: “Can close any website Why not close the gambling website?
ปิดเว็บโป๊ ทำให้อะไรดีขึ้นเหรอ? ผู้ชุมนุมตั้งคำถาม ปิดได้ทุกเว็บ ทำไมไม่ปิดเว็บพนัน? รวมตัวที่หน้าศูนย์ราชการแจ้งวัฒนะ#ไทยรัฐออนไลน์ pic.twitter.com/JIohfKpbLu
— Thairath_News (@Thairath_News) November 3, 2020
- An Election Where (Almost) Everybody Loses?
An Election Where (Almost) Everybody Loses?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 19:00Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
This election did not go the way that most people were anticipating. For months, the mainstream media and many on the left insisted that the big national polls were right this time and that a Joe Biden landslide was coming. Obviously, that did not happen. On the other hand, many on the right kept telling us that a huge Trump landslide was coming, and that did not materialize either. Instead, we got the very close race that I have been warning about for weeks. I kept explaining to my readers that we would not know the winner on the night of the election, and that projection turned out to be right on the money. At this hour, votes are still being counted in critical swing states all over the nation, and things could still go either way. I know that the mainstream media is eager to crown Joe Biden the victor, but that hasn’t happened yet. Trump’s campaign team still believes that the final results in Arizona and Nevada will go their way, and they are convinced that could potentially change everything. We will just have to wait and see what happens.
But for now, things are not looking promising for the Trump campaign. By the time many of you read this, more of the votes will have been counted and the mainstream media may have decided to call the race for Biden. If that happens, this could be perhaps the first national election in U.S. history where almost everybody loses.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Here are some of the potential losers in this election…
The U.S. political system – The legitimacy of our system is on the line in this election, and the rest of the world is watching us very carefully. Sadly, the way that this election has unfolded has been a complete and utter disgrace, and close to half the country is going to believe that the election was stolen once this is all over.
On Tuesday evening, it appeared that President Trump was cruising toward re-election. He had huge leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina, and the Trump campaign was getting ready to put on a victory celebration. But then vote counting suddenly stopped in Democratic strongholds all over the nation. Once it resumed, some very strange things started to happen.
For example, a large Trump lead in Wisconsin was suddenly wiped out by a massive vote dump for Biden right at the last minute, and Biden ended up being declared the winner in that state.
Likewise, a large Trump lead in Michigan was suddenly wiped out by a massive vote dump for Biden right at the end of their vote count.
As I write this article, we are seeing similar patterns play out in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Initially, it appeared that Trump had an insurmountable lead in both states, but by the time you read this article the mainstream media may have called both states for Biden.
It may or may not have been intentional, but a lot of people are speculating that Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Atlanta held back on counting many of their votes until vote totals from most of the conservative areas came in, and to many people it looks extremely suspicious that Biden keeps squeaking out very tight victories in the most critical swing states.
The polling industry – This is the second presidential election in a row when the polling industry has failed dramatically. Last night, Van Jones almost came to tears on CNN because he was so disappointed that the “blue wave” that the national polling had suggested was coming did not materialize. I don’t know how anyone is going to trust the national polls in future elections after how wrong they got it this time around.
The mainstream media – Throughout this election season, the mainstream media has discarded any pretense of objectivity, and in the process they have deeply alienated a large portion of the population. At this point, everyone can see that the mainstream media has essentially become an arm of the Democratic Party, and they are never going to be able to restore the credibility that they have lost.
Democrats – This was supposed to be the election when Democrats finally took back the Senate and strengthened their hold on the House of Representatives. Instead, it appears likely that Republicans will hold the Senate, and Democrats could end up losing up to 10 seats in the House.
Republicans – Yes, Republicans performed better than expected all over the country, but losing the White House definitely cannot be considered a victory.
Donald Trump – This is not the way that Trump and his supporters envisioned that the MAGA era would end. As I discussed the other day, a Trump loss would be the worst emotional blow that conservatives in this country have suffered in decades.
Joe Biden – You would think that Biden should be labeled a “winner” if he ends up becoming the president-elect. But if Republicans hold the Senate, they will be able to block everything that Biden and the Democrats want to do. Biden has been waiting 47 years to finally get to the White House, but when he finally gets there he will be forced to get Republican permission for any bill that he wants passed.
The American people – When this is finally over, the American people will be left with a political system that is in shambles, a country that is more divided than ever, and a deeply corrupt politician that is no longer all there mentally as president.
So are there any winners?
Yes.
Coming out of this election there will be one big winner, and her name is Kamala Harris.
Everyone acknowledges that it is just a matter of time before Biden will have to step aside. Personally, I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.
Whenever that happens, Kamala Harris will become the president of the United States, and she is very much looking forward to that day.
Of course once that day arrives, it will actually be a complete and utter nightmare for about half the country.
In the end, it appears that nothing good is going to come out of this election, and our nation will never be the same again from this day forward.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
- Here Is The Age Distribution Of Trump And Biden Voters
Here Is The Age Distribution Of Trump And Biden Voters
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 18:40Whoever wins the presidential race, one thing is certain: voter turnout is set to be the highest since 1900.
“Did mail-ins or passion increase this”, asks Jim Reid in his daily noting that if it was the former, Covid may have shown how we can enfranchise more voters around the world by offering an alternative to the traditional ballot box.
Reid then makes another observation, pointing out that according to an exit poll by Edison Research, 76% of Trump voters felt rebuilding the economy now, even if it hurts efforts to contain the coronavirus” was more important than “containing the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy”, while 80% of Biden voters felt the opposite showing how polarized views on lockdowns etc. possibly are.
So will the young voters win it for Biden?
Answering this question, and assuming Biden does creep over the Electoral college line, today’s chart from Reid shows estimates of the Dems advantage over the GOP in 2020, 2016 and 2004 by age. 2004 was chosen as that seems to be the last election before there was a big intergenerational age split in voter’s party preferences.
Among 18-29yr olds, Biden is estimated to have secured a 27% lead versus 19% for Clinton 4 years ago and Kerry’s 9% in
2004.This means that if only those 29-and-over voted, based on Reid’s back of the envelope calculations, Trump would have been ‘only’ 2% behind in the popular vote and would possibly have had enough to have won the electoral college. In other words, if the soon to be 78 year old Joe Biden does win, he have the Gen Zers to thank.
And speaking of young vs oldwe remind readers that according to Reid, the “intergenerational divide” will be a great source of disorder in the decade ahead and potentially turn politics sharply leftwards if policies continue as they have (see “The Millennials Are Coming For The Boomers’ Money: One Bank Sees Generational Conflict Breaking Out This Decade“).
As Reid concludes, “the right have generally outperformed in elections over the last decade across the world. To see this continue they may need to address their falling support among the young.”
- Watch Live: President Trump Delivers Remarks
Watch Live: President Trump Delivers Remarks
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 18:36In his first public appearance since the small hours of election night, President Trump will be delivering remarks to the nation at 630pm ET from the James Brady Briefing Room at the White House.
A shot across the bow of social media after having practically every tweet blocked today? A victory lap? A concession speech? An announcement of his 2024 running mate? Or an impassioned plea for transparency in our free-and-fair election counting process?
Maybe Trump Jr.’s recent tweet is a hint: ” It’s time to clean up this mess & stop looking like a banana republic! “
Watch Live (due to start at 1830ET):
- Daily Briefing – November 5, 2020
Daily Briefing – November 5, 2020
Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/05/2020 – 18:25Managing editor, Ed Harrison, is joined by Jay Pelosky, co-founder and CIO of TPW Investment Management, to provide an update on his current outlook amid a turbulent election and uncertain future with stimulus and COVID-19. Pelosky argues that markets are getting closer to end of this period of peak uncertainty around these variables and that deep cyclicals like airlines and oil will rally sharply higher. Pelosky also explains that as the election race comes to a close, markets have been oversold in the past week and are becoming more comfortable with the idea of a split government as investors gain clarity. He digs further into the question of stimulus – a matter of “when,” not “if” – and contends that a vaccine may roll out sooner than stimulus, which would cause the markets to react aggressively, raise rates, and could set up a rotation trade out of tech and into cyclicals. Finally, he also discusses asset allocation and his thesis of a tripolar world. In the intro, Real Vision’s Haley Draznin looks at markets rallying as the U.S. presidential election outcome is still uncertain and analyzes the K-shaped recovery that continues to form as the job market remains high.
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