- Ukraine Was The Origin Of The Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax
Ukraine Was The Origin Of The Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax
Authored by Lawrence Sellin via AmericanThinker.com,
December 2015 was a pivotal month in many respects…
During the first week of December 2015, Donald Trump began to establish a substantial lead over his Republican primary opponents.
Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Ukraine to announce, on December 7th, a $190 million program to “fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector,” but behind the scenes explicitly linked a $1 billion loan guarantee to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the energy company Burisma, which employed Biden’s son Hunter.
On December 9, 2015, the reported whistleblower Eric Ciaramella held a meeting in Room 236 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, which was 59%-funded by Barack Obama’s State Department and the International Renaissance Foundation, a George Soros organization.
Also attending that meeting was Catherine Newcombe, attorney in the Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, with the U.S. Department of Justice, where, among other duties, she oversaw the Department’s legal assistance programs to Ukraine.
By December 2015, Paul Manafort was undoubtedly considering approaching the Trump campaign to rejuvenate his U.S. political bona fides and mitigate the legal and financial difficulties he was experiencing at the time.
From the beginning of his association with the Trump campaign, Roger Stone, a long-time Manafort partner, made a strong case to Trump to bring in Manafort, who would officially connect to the campaign immediately after the February 1, 2016 Iowa caucuses.
Based on events occurring during the same period, were Obama Deep State operatives aware of Manafort’s intent and already intending to use his past questionable practices and links to Russia against Trump?
Such awareness of Manafort’s plans could have been obtained either through FBI surveillance, which began in 2014 and ended in early 2016, or through information provided by Manafort associates, for example, Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Manafort and was a FBI and Department of State asset, not a Russian agent as later painted by the Mueller investigation.
According to White House visitor logs, on January 19, 2016, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting of FBI, Department of Justice and Department of State personnel, which had two main objectives:
-
To coerce the Ukrainians to drop the Burisma probe, which involved Vice President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter, and allow the FBI to take it over the investigation.
-
To reopen a closed 2014 FBI investigation that focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm long had been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone.
That is, contain the investigation of Biden’s son and ramp up the investigation of Paul Manafort.
Again, according to White House logs, the attendees at the January 19, 2016 meeting in Room 230A of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were:
-
Eric Ciaramella – National Security Council Director for Ukraine
-
Liz Zentos – National Security Council Director for Eastern Europe
-
David G. Sakvarelidze – Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine
-
Anna E. Iemelianova (Yemelianova) – Legal Specialist, US Embassy Kyiv and US Department of Justice’s Anti-Corruption Program.
-
Nazar A. Kholodnitsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor
-
Catherine L. Newcombe – attorney in the Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, with the U.S. Department of Justice
-
Svitlana V. Pardus – Operations, Department of Justice, U.S. Embassy, Ukraine.
-
Artem S. Sytnyk – Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine
-
Andriy G. Telizhenko, political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC
-
Jeffrey W. Cole – Resident Legal Advisor at U.S. Embassy Ukraine, presumed to be FBI
Just two weeks after that meeting, on February 2, 2016, according to White House logs, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting in Room 374 of the Eisenhower Executive Office, which seems to be a planning session to re-open an investigation of Paul Manafort (Note: one of the crimes of which Manafort was accused was money laundering, an area covered by the Department of the Treasury). The attendees were:
-
Jose Borrayo – Acting Section Chief, Office of Special Measures, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
-
Julia Friedlander – Senior Policy Advisor for Europe, Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury
-
Michael Lieberman – Deputy Assistant Secretary, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury
-
Scott Rembrandt – Anti-Money Laundering Task Force, Assistant Director/Director, Office of Strategic Policy, Department of the Treasury
-
Justin Rowland – Special Agent (financial crimes), Federal Bureau of Investigation
It appears that Paul Manafort became a vehicle by which the Obama Deep State operatives could link Trump to nefarious activities involving Russians, which eventually evolved into the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
Remember, the key claim of the follow-up Steele dossier, the centerpiece of the Mueller investigation, was that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was the focal point of a “well-developed conspiracy between them [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership.”
Nellie Ohr, Fusion GPS employee and wife of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, not only worked with Christopher Steele on the so-called Trump dossier, but, in May 2016, was the conduit of information to her husband and two Department of Justice prosecutors of the existence of the “black ledger” documents that contributed to Manafort’s prosecution.
Bruce Ohr and Steele attempted to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, efforts that eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could provide information to prove that Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia.
The surveillance and entrapment attempts of Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and others were designed to collect evidence about Trump without formally documenting that Trump was the target.
After the election, to cover their tracks, James Comey, representing the FBI and the Department of Justice, misleadingly told Trump that the investigation was about Russia and a few stray people in his campaign, but they assured him he personally was not under investigation.
They lied.
Donald Trump always was, and still is, the target of the Deep State, the left-wing media and their Democrat Party collaborators.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 23:45 -
- Visualizing The New Cryptocurrency Economy
Visualizing The New Cryptocurrency Economy
Over a decade ago, the birth of Bitcoin sparked a revolution in the digital world – and just last year, the number of active cryptocurrencies jumped from roughly 1,600 to over 3,000 worldwide.
As Visual Capitalist’s Ashley Viens details below, cryptocurrencies have now evolved past simple digital currencies, offering solutions to meet the complex needs of modern financial markets.
Today’s graphic from Abra visualizes the complex, ever-evolving cryptocurrency ecosystem and its real-world applications.
Characteristics of Cryptocurrencies
Why are cryptocurrencies important for the future of digital finance?
-
Borderless
Drastically reduces fees and processing times due to a lack of cross-border restrictions -
Censorship-free
Prevents governments or major institutions from blocking financial activities at whim -
Greater financial control
Individuals can have total control of their funds -
Greater security
Prevents fraudulent alterations from third parties -
Lower costs
Lower transaction fees thanks to fewer third parties -
Greater Accessibility
Reduces or eliminates traditional barriers to capital markets
Much like the internet has forever altered how we live and work, cryptocurrencies have the potential to change how people participate in global financial markets.
Categorizing the New Crypto Economy
Today’s cryptocurrencies go beyond replacing cash. This new token-based economy is evolving─with unique solutions emerging in finance, security, identification, social engagement, and ownership.
Cryptocurrencies are generally categorized by their primary application within the ecosystem:
-
Payments
Digital cash can be used for both ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers -
Store of value
New form of scarce native currency and a means of settlement -
Programmable money
Borderless money that enables easy conversion between currencies -
Stablecoins
Crypto version of fiat which is tied to the value of resources like gold or the U.S. dollar -
Privacy
Private digital transactions, with some offering anonymity -
Digital ownership
Digital handling, storage, and monetization of data -
Decentralized utilities
Crypto-enabled networks, products, and services that exchange between assets -
Alternative finance
Digital assets such as collectibles, commodities, and tokenized securities
Cryptocurrencies are adding both value and utility to the digital economy, and to the global financial market as a whole.
Applications of Cryptocurrencies
Because cryptocurrencies are programmable, customizable computer code, developers can design and adapt them for many use cases within the digital economy.
How are these various cryptocurrencies being used in everyday applications?
Current Projects
-
SPEDN auto-converts crypto to fiat for merchants, reducing exchange rate risk while offering convenient customer payment options.
-
Slice offers real estate investing to anyone for as low as $10,000 through fractional investment.
Near-future Projects
-
CyClean plans to launch a blockchain-enabled electric vehicle (EV) fleet that mines crypto as users travel—reducing emissions and rewarding users for doing so.
-
Digital construction platform Builderium connects contractors to clients around the world through blockchain, opening up a global marketplace of potential deals.
These are just a few of the ways cryptocurrencies are breaking down barriers for people and companies worldwide—allowing them to grow personal wealth and enter the global market.
The Growth of the Crypto Economy
Worldwide, the numbers show that blockchain-based technology and cryptocurrency use is growing. Blockchain wallet users rose from nearly 9 million in 2016 to over 42 million in 2019.
Developers produced a mere 100 decentralized apps (DApps) in 2015─with that number skyrocketing to over 3,100 by 2019.
Overall, cryptocurrencies are helping to create an innovative and accessible financial system around the world.
Cryptocurrency deserves an opportunity to find a sustainable future in our economy.
– Adena Friedman, President & CEO of NASDAQ
While the future of the new cryptocurrency economy is still taking shape, one thing is certain─cryptos are forever altering the way we view and measure the value of money.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 23:25 -
- Sociopaths On The Left & Sociopaths On The Right Work To Break Potential US-China Alliance
Sociopaths On The Left & Sociopaths On The Right Work To Break Potential US-China Alliance
Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Donald Trump is in a painful bind.
The China-bashing traitors within his own party trying to pass themselves off as American patriots have done everything imaginable to destroy the one chance the President has to save America from the policies of economic and social decay which have mis-shaped the past 50 years of world history.
Before breaking under the pressure to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act on November 27, Trump attempted desperately to push against the hard liners stating a day earlier:
“I stand with Hong Kong, but I also stand with President Xi. He’s a friend of mine, he’s an incredible guy. We have to stand, but I’d like to see them work it out, OK? We have to see them work it out. I stand for Hong Kong, I stand for freedom, I stand for all those things we want to do. But we are also in the process of making the largest trade deal in history.”
Of course, Trump’s desire to use protective tariffs, rebuild decayed infrastructure and industries while reversing the regime change wars abroad are good things. However, the ugly fact is that the Trans-Atlantic financial system is also set to crash, and a serious military confrontation between the US military and the Russia-China alliance is both very real and very dangerous.
This is also why the passage of the anti-Beijing Bill on November 27 is so tragic, since the desperately needed economic alliance which Trump has desired may have suffered a wound from which it cannot recover. Not only this, but those anti-China hawks pervasive across Washington are now emboldened to go even further starting with Sen. Ted Cruz’s new bill to recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty, thus undoing the 1972 ‘One China’ agreement which established Beijing as the capital of China.
Cruz’s Taiwan Symbols of Sovereignty Act aims in Cruz’s words to “peel back some of the extreme insults of the Taiwanese that are inflicted by the One-China policy protocol” including the banning of Taiwan officials from visiting US government agencies, and Taiwan students studying at West Point military academy from wearing the Taiwan flag.
Already, the US-military have vastly amplified their presence on China’s border ever since Obama’s “Pivot-to-Asia” and “Air-Sea Battle” were put into practice in 2011-2012 and which heavily relies on a militarized anti-China force in Taiwan ready to do the US’s bidding.
Many leading figures in Taiwan are stuck in a Cold War traumatized mindset established 60 years earlier, and still see their life’s mission and Taiwan’s destiny through the outdated lens of their Kuomintang forebears- as the only rightful leaders of China, destined to reconquer the mainland lost to the Communist Party in 1949. These groups would do anything to fulfill that quasi-religious sense of purpose, making them the perfect puppets for the Deep State which would be more than happy to undermine both China and America as viable sovereign nation states undoing the common cause for which both Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Sun Yatsen dedicated their lives.
Bannon, Soros and Falun Gong: Golems of the Great Game
An ugly and overlooked example of this operation includes the renewed effort by China-basher Steve Bannon who Trump rightly booted from his team in August 2017. Bannon has been a dangerous character attempting to coral Trump supporters in America and the European right into a new anti-Chinese united front while reviving the neo-con “clash of civilizations” doctrine with a vengeance.
One of the main conduits Bannon chose to unleash this assault was the Committee on Present Danger-China which he founded alongside a group of raging neocons in March 2019. Labelling China’s Belt and Road as a new empire threatening to undo America and enslave the world, Bannon’s think tank stated:
“As with the Soviet Union in the past, communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom – one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat.”
Bannon has also found himself working ever more tightly with the anti-Beijing CIA-funded cult Falun Gong which has been banned from China since 1999 and used by the CIA as a propaganda weapon against China claiming anecdotal evidence of Beijing-sponsored organ harvesting and killing of religious minorities. Though pushing itself as a meditation group, its leader Li Hongzhi is based in the USA and promotes the idea that he has magical powers that keep the forces of evil from destroying the world.
Bannon most recently produced the Falun Gong-funded film “Claws of the Red Dragon” putting him into the same boat as his left-handed mirror image George Soros who also supports the Falun Gong through Open Society Foundation’s Freedom House. The contradiction arising from this alliance of pro-Trump sociopaths working with anti-Trump sociopaths only makes sense when you look at the anti-human game from the top down rather than the bottom up.
It is here, that we start getting a fuller picture of the nature of the false ‘left vs right’ game being played, as we look at a City of London-based think tank which Bannon leads called the Dignitas Humanitae Institute alongside 5 other highly connected figures which were recently exposed in a powerful expose by journalist Stan Ezrol who described Bannon’s four other co-patrons of this Catholic group as “Archduke Otto Von Habsburg, successor to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor when it was dissolved; His Royal Highness Charles of Bourbon Two Sicilies and Duke of Castro, a leading figure in the anti-Renaissance wing of European nobility; Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie GCB (Knight of the Grand Cross), LVO (Lieutenant of the Victorian Order), OBE (Order of the British Empire); and Father Matthew Festing.”
The forces managing this international battle are desperately afraid of the fact that western and eastern renaissance traditions may be awakened in the face of the existential crisis facing the human species today. These groups are very much aware that the essential character of any society fit to survive is rooted on certain moral principles that are found in both Christian and Confucian cultures alike, making the USA and China potentially very strong and organic allies.
When one reads the writings of such founding fathers of either great nation as Dr. Benjamin Franklin or Dr. Sun Yatsen, the common moral worldview and sense of human nature as a species made in the image of the creator endowed with inalienable rights is electric. It is thus no coincidence that Dr. Franklin saw in Confucius the key for the foundation of America and Sun Yatsen saw in America’s Constitution the key for China’s future. This is a concept which Hong Kong rioters, Taiwan militarists, Open Society ideologues and right wing Bannonites know nothing about.
Today, Xi Jinping and President Putin exemplify this common outlook wonderfully as their alliance has transformed the international rules of the game on every level, and if Trump wasn’t constrained by such bigoted agents as Cruz, Bannon or the rabid hive of leftist hacks frothing at the mouth for impeachment, then the USA would make an organic ally in this new multipolar alliance.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 23:05 - Six Saudis Arrested For Questioning After Pensacola Shooting – Three Were Filming Attack
Six Saudis Arrested For Questioning After Pensacola Shooting – Three Were Filming Attack
Six Saudi nationals were taken into custody for questioning near the Florida naval base where an Air Force trainee – also from Saudi Arabia – opened fire Friday morning, killing three before a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him.
According to the New York Times, three of the Saudis were filming the attack. It is unknown whether they were students at the base, or whether they are connected to the gunman.
Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani (via the Daily Mail) The shooting spanned two floors in a classroom, according to Sheriff David Morgan of Escambia Country. Two deputies were shot in the ensuing gun battle and are expected to recover.
The gunman, identified as Saudi Air Force second lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, used a locally bought Glock 45 9mm handgun with an extended magazine, and was carrying between four and six more magazines.
In his last message on Twitter confirmed by AFP, Alshamrani wrote that America is a nation of evil.
Pensacola terrorist’s last tweet. pic.twitter.com/B9qLnYuTwH
— Rising serpent (@rising_serpent) December 7, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The FBI is leading the investigation into the incident at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola in Florida, and initially withheld Alshamrani’s name.
He was allegedly a student enrolled in a Navy training program designed for ” immersing international students in our U.S. Navy training and culture ” to help “build partnership capacity for both the present and for the years ahead,” accoring to Fox News, citing 2017 comments by Cmdr. Bill Gibson, who is the center’s officer in charge.
“These relationships are truly a win-win for everyone involved,” he added at the time.
Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) called for a “full review” of the Navy training programs in the wake of the shooting, while investigators have said they are exploring whether the attack was an act of organized terrorism.
“I’m very concerned that the shooter in Pensacola was a foreign national training on a U.S. base. Today, I’m calling for a full review of the U.S. military programs to train foreign nationals on American soil. We shouldn’t be providing military training to people who wish us harm,” said Scott.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Friday that although his first priority is supporting the ongoing investigation and determining the shooter’s motives, he also said: “I want to make sure we’re doing our due diligence to understand what are our procedures” concerning the training programs.
“Is it sufficient [et cetera, et cetera] and it may not be — it may be the vetting — are we also screening persons coming to make sure that they have, you know, their life in order, you know, their mental health is adequate,” Esper said. “So we need to look at all that.”
Esper referred to the shooter as a Saudi national who was a second lieutenant in flight training.
Sources told Fox News that the scene of the shooting — a classroom, where students usually spend three months at the beginning of the program — indicated that the shooter was a student who was “early” in his training. –Fox News
Approximately 1,500 pilots are enrolled in the Naval training program – with Saudis having attended courses at the Pensacola site since the 1970s. According to the report, as many as 20 students from the Islamic Republic are in any given class – with many of them belonging to the Royal Family.
Following the shooting, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs conveyed “its deep distress,” offering “its sincere condolences to the victims’ families, and wishes the injured a speedy recovery.”
“The perpetrator of this horrific attack does not represent the Saudi people whatsoever. The American people are held in the highest regard by the Saudi people,” reads a statement from the Ministry. “Building upon the strong ties between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, and in continuation of the ongoing cooperation between the two countries’ security agencies, the Saudi security agencies will provide full support to the US authorities to investigate the circumstances of this crime.”
President Trump, meanwhile, relayed King Salman of Saudi Arabia’s “sincere condolences,” and gave his “sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack…”
“The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people,” said Trump.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 22:45 - The Impact Of Increased Political Polarization
The Impact Of Increased Political Polarization
Authored by Frank Newport via Gallup.com,
As I write this, the House Intelligence Committee has voted to adopt the committee’s Impeachment Inquiry Report along strict party lines. All 13 Democrats on the committee voted “Yes”; all nine Republican committee members voted “No.” This party-line split is neither unusual nor unpredictable, but reflects the deep partisanship that is one of the defining aspects of our American society today.
I use the words “American society” rather than “American politics” here on purpose. We know that personal partisan identity affects one’s views on a wide variety of policy issues, and, of course, partisanship is the defining determinant of people’s views of their political leaders. But recent Gallup analyses show just how much our political identity today is a part of our views of a wide variety of other aspects of life, which often are not directly related to politics. Personal political identity affects views of the nation’s healthcare system, how one views the economy, one’s overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the nation, views of the safety of the nation’s schools, worry about mass shootings, job satisfaction, views of the state of the environment and views of one’s personal life situation, among others.
The impact of political partisanship appears to be increasing. As my colleague Jeff Jones has documented, the difference between Republicans’ and Democrats’ job approval ratings of President Donald Trump is the largest Gallup has ever measured for a president, eclipsing the already high polarization measured in approval of President Barack Obama.
Pew Research recently reported on Americans’ views of the opposite political party, concluding that “the level of division and animosity — including negative sentiments among partisans toward the members of the opposing party — has only deepened.”
An important review of academic research by journalist Thomas Edsall last year highlighted the degree to which the political polarization has increasingly taken on an emotionally negative tone. As Edsall notes: “Hostility to the opposition party and its candidates has now reached a level where loathing motivates voters more than loyalty,” and “The building strength of partisan antipathy — ‘negative partisanship’ — has radically altered politics. Anger has become the primary tool for motivating voters.”
There Are Some Benefits of Increased Political Polarization
Is this increasingly pervasive influence of party as a key and defining aspect of the way Americans look at the world around them good or bad? As is true with almost all such questions, the answer is complex.
There are some benefits to individuals and society from political polarization and conflict between opposing viewpoints. As we know, the Founding Fathers anticipated there would be conflict between factions in our society and set up the three branches of our federal government to deal with them. If handled correctly, optimal solutions are more likely to emerge when everything is subject to skeptical analysis. (Along these same lines, billionaire Ray Dalio defines this process of constant questioning as the search for “radical truth” and contends it is a secret to his business success.)
Plus, a strong emotional allegiance to one’s political and ideological reference group can have significantly positive effects for individuals, who gain meaning and purpose in life from social solidarity with an in-group while railing against threatening enemies. Partisan “us versus them” perspectives are easier for many individuals to handle cognitively than are complex approaches to issues and situations that attempt to take into account multiple pluses and minuses.
And importantly, there are real economic benefits for businesses that can take advantage of and monetize the behaviors of emotionally driven partisans seeking reinforcement for their views. Among these beneficiaries: cable news networks, talk show hosts, book publishers, bloggers and podcast producers. And, of course, politicians gain support and maximize turnout when their constituents can be emotionally activated on the basis of perceived threats. As political consultants advise clients, negative campaigning is most often much more effective than efforts to remain positive.
Significant Costs of Political Polarization
But today’s increase in partisanship in the U.S. also has significant harmful effects. Most importantly, polarization and partisan conflict lead to inaction, as “my way or the highway,” ideologically rigid mentalities lower the probability of achieving the compromise that should be at the heart of legislative functioning. (We saw this “destroy the village in order to save it” mentality shut down the U.S. government in 2013.)
As I’ve reviewed previously, the American public as a whole rues this approach to politics, giving Congress and its ability to deal with domestic and international problems very low evaluations (even if the American public itself in some ways causes this political inaction by virtue of its own polarized attitudes).
We also have the sociological impact of polarization and increasing disapprobation of one’s political opposites. Any functioning society needs to develop and maintain its social institutions — the widely agreed-upon ways in which society handles the core functions necessary for survival.
But that agreement appears to be waning. Partisans on both sides increasingly see institutions in the U.S. not as beneficial and necessary, but as part of an effort by the other side to gain advantage and to perpetuate its power and philosophical positions. Liberals and Democrats today, for example, have lower trust in traditional family institutions, traditional religious institutions and the economic system. Republicans have lower trust in the scientific process, higher education, the mass media, and the role of the state (government).
These skeptical views of institutions and social structures skew us toward distrust, anger and internal infighting — not actionable efforts to fix problems and address threats.
What Lies Ahead?
As noted, a healthy skepticism of the way things operate in society is often warranted. But our society must continue to function, and that functioning requires an underlying agreement in the legitimacy of societal institutions. This is particularly true today, when there are increasing external threats to our society and way of life from all sides, ranging from rogue states to terrorists to changes in weather and climate patterns to shifting world economies and massively unstable populations.
At some point, our society must balance the internal conflict resulting from differences in partisans’ views of the world with a broader agreement on how we as a society adapt to external threats and achieve societal objectives. What will it take to do that? Presumably we need leaders who don’t focus as much on taking advantage of, and stoking, partisan differences as they do looking at the larger picture. That’s a difficult challenge, but one to which the American public may well be quite receptive. It’s usually easier to criticize than to make efforts to agree on solutions. But we are going to need more emphasis on the latter in the years ahead, I think, if our society is to thrive and survive.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 22:25 - Science Prof Calls For Fewer Humans To "Strengthen Human Rights"
Science Prof Calls For Fewer Humans To "Strengthen Human Rights"
Authored by Lexi Lonas via The College Fix,
Humanity must ‘act to sustain life’ by reducing fertility (voluntarily)
Will there be “untold human suffering” if humans do not stop having children in order to avoid a “climate emergency?” More than 11,000 scientists signed a paper authored by an ecology professor at Oregon State University making that case.
OSU’s William Ripple and Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral research associate at OSU (left and right, below), were the lead authors of the paper “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” published in the journal BioScience.
Their call to “reduce the world population” is among six solutions. “We need to reduce fertility rates through voluntary family planning,” Ripple told The College Fix in an email.
The paper cites “proven and effective policies” that can help reduce the population in order to “strengthen human rights.”
They include access to family planning services for everyone, “full gender equity” and giving everyone “primary and secondary education,” especially women.
“We believe that prospects will be greatest if decision makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency, and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home,” the paper states.
Ripple maintains a website called “Alliance of World Scientists,” where he encourages scientists to read his paper and sign his petition to show “that you generally agree with our article.”
The alliance has 15,000 members from 175 different countries, according to the website. While it claims to vet those who seek membership, the alliance specifically seeks “scientists from any scientific discipline, including graduate students in the sciences.” It makes no mention of requiring an institutional affiliation.
Ripple’s attempt to persuade leaders to implement his agenda stands in contrast to the approach recently favored by Ivy League students. They made themselves a nuisance at the Harvard-Yale football game, delaying it for an hour, in order to protest climate change.
Fewer people, more ‘social integrity’
This isn’t the first warning Ripple has issued about climate change in a paper. In 2017, he was the lead author of “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice,” which drew more than 15,000 signatures from 175 countries, according to the website.
Ripple’s most recent paper claims that the climate crisis is threatening “the fate of humanity” and everyone has an “urgent need for action.” It cites six areas that need to be addressed: energy, short-lived pollutants, nature, food, economy and population.
“I think we need to transform how society functions and interacts with nature,” Ripple told The Fix in an email.
“We need to address social justice issues and honor the diversity of humans around the world. I see this transformation leading to a new carbon-free economy and operating within the limits of the biosphere.”
Reducing the population from its current growth rate of “roughly 80 million people per year or >200,000 per day,” Ripple’s most recent paper says, would actually increase “social integrity.”
The policies to reduce the population would “strengthen human rights” and will lessen “the impacts of population growth on [greenhouse gas] emissions and biodiversity loss.”
Another way for humans to save the planet is to switch to a “mostly plant-based” diet “while reducing the global consumption of animal products,” according to the paper.
The paper also says we need a “carbon-free economy,” but doesn’t specify how to get there. It says the “carbon-free economy” would need to address “human dependence on the biosphere and policies that guide economic decisions accordingly.”
“Goals need to shift from GDP growth and the pursuit of affluence toward supporting ecosystem and human wellbeing by prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality,” the paper says.
It concludes by saying the Alliance of World Scientists is “ready to assist decision makers in a just transition to a sustainable and equitable future,” but it’s not clear how all of the paper’s goals can be accomplished without some coercion of individual choices, such as how many children to have.
Eat plants or suffer ‘widespread misery’
The Alliance of World Scientists wants policymakers, the private sector and the public to understand the seriousness of the climate crisis and take steps to “realign priorities for alleviating climate change.”
This sentiment is similar to Ripple’s paper in 2017 for humanity’s “Second Notice.”
“Sustainability transitions come about in diverse ways, and all require civil-society pressure and evidence-based advocacy, political leadership, and a solid understanding of policy instruments, markets, and other drivers,” the 2017 paper stated.
If humans don’t change to mostly plant-based diet and work to lower fertility rates, “reduce wealth inequality,” increase outdoor education, create new environmental policies and create “new green technologies,” there will be “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss,” it says.
“Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out,” according to the paper, without giving a timeline.
“We believe that prospects will be greatest if policy makers and the rest of humanity promptly respond to our warning and declaration of a climate emergency, and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home,” the Alliance of World Scientists website says.
It includes other “Warning Articles” such as: “A Final Warning to Planet Earth,” “Warnings without Power Are Futile” and “Final Jeopardy: Scientists’ warnings to humanity offer stark choices.”
Ripple has previously used his research to become a policy advocate. He wrote two papers last year: on how scientists can shift policy “ from Growth to [a] Conservation Economy” and protect “Biodiversity and Binational Conservation” from President Trump’s proposed southern border wall.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 22:05 - Fake News By Omission – The Mass Media's Cowardly Distortion Tool
Fake News By Omission – The Mass Media's Cowardly Distortion Tool
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
Western mass media have continued their conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, making no significant mention yet this month of the leaks which have been emerging from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons indicating that the US, France and UK bombed Syria last year in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack which probably never occurred, and that OPCW leadership helped cover it up.
If you haven’t been following the still-unfolding OPCW scandal, you can catch up quickly by watching this seven-minute video.
A leaked email accuses the OPCW of doctoring a report to suit the US government’s justification for its illegal bombing of Syria in April 2018. I explain the scandal mainstream media is trying to supress: pic.twitter.com/MTS4OWwqkH
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) November 28, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Mass media’s silence on this hugely important story is noteworthy not just because it has far-reaching consequences for the future of the Syrian regime change agenda and for public trust in US-led war narratives, not just because the leaks have already been independently authenticated by the mainstream press, and not just because scandalous revelations about powerful entities are normally the sort of incendiary click fodder that makes a mainstream news editor hasten behind his desk to hide his arousal. It is also noteworthy because we’re being told by people in the know that even more leaks are coming.
“Much more to come about the censoring of the facts on Douma at the Poison Gas Watchdog OPCW,” tweeted journalist Peter Hitchens earlier today.
“It really is time that the Grand Unpopular Press and the BBC, realised this is a major story. Are they too proud to admit they might have been wrong?”
Hitchens, who was among the very first to publish the leaked internal OPCW email last month revealing multiple glaring plot holes in the official narrative about the alleged chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, has been saying this for a while now.
“More is known by the whistleblowers of the OPCW than has yet been released, but verification procedures have slowed down its release,” Hitchens wrote in his blog last week.
“More documents will, I expect, shortly come to light.”
So this is still an unfolding story that is only going to get more scandalous in the coming days. Yet rather than reporting on an important news story (which it may surprise you to learn is actually supposed to be the literal job description of the news media), the mainstream press has been silent. The only times the mass media have commented on this major story has been to spin it as Russian disinformation, and Tucker Carlson’s segment on it last week which was also falsely spun as disinfo by establishment narrative managers like David Brock’s Media Matters for America.
The blog Left I on the News uses the term “fake news by omission” to describe this obnoxious yet ubiquitous propaganda tactic, where imperial media outlets deliberately distort people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world by simply declining to cover news stories which are inconvenient to the establishment narrative.
Refusing to tell people about things that did happen distorts their worldview just as much as telling them things that did not happen, yet mass media will never be held accountable for engaging in the former, while engaging in the latter forces them to print embarrassing retractions and lose credibility with the public. For this reason, fake news by omission is their preferred tactic of deceit.
People sometimes think of the mainstream media as always straight-up lying all the time, just fabricating stories whole cloth about what’s going on, but that isn’t generally how it works. A good liar doesn’t lie all the time, and they don’t even tell full lies unless absolutely necessary. What they do is far more cowardly and far more effective: they spin, they distort, they tell half-truths, they emphasise insignificant details and marginalize significant ones, they uncritically report what government officials are telling them, and they lie by omission.
However, the total disappearance of the OPCW leaks is unusual for the legacy media. The imperial press have had their ways of hiding inconvenient stories since newspapers began. Running stories late on a Friday, running them on the “graveyard page” of page 2 (so-called because stories go there to die), holding on to them until another big story breaks so they can be published relatively unnoticed, waiting for them to be broken in a disreputable publication so people will be skeptical of it (sometimes known as “fixing” a story), or running an oppositional op-ed at the same time to spin the uncomfortable facts in a more salubrious way. But in the end, they normally run the story, in one way or another, so they can be seen not to be censoring.
Not this time though. The exceptional silence on the OPCW scandal from imperial news media discredits them completely, but people won’t know about it unless they are told. Spread the word.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 21:45 - Follow The Money: BlackRock, Vanguard Await New Opportunities In China
Follow The Money: BlackRock, Vanguard Await New Opportunities In China
While the Western world controlled the 20th century, the 21st century could be soon controlled by China.
Six of the world’s largest asset managers, including BlackRock and Vanguard, are eager to do more business in China, reported Bloomberg.
Sources said these firms had told regulators they plan to apply for fully-foreign-owned mutual fund licenses after China Securities Regulatory Commission said in Oct., that it would allow overseas institutions more power over onshore ventures in 2020.
According to the sources, Fidelity International, Van Eck Associates Corp., Neuberger Berman Group LLC, and Schroders Plc are some of the other firms that have briefed regulators about their big plans for China in 2020.
Fidelity told Bloomberg via a statement this week that it’s preparing to file for a mutual fund license in China.
These big Wall Street banks see nearly $12.8 trillion of investable assets in Chinese households.
Though China’s economy is slowing with growth rates crashing to three-decade lows and a trade war with the US with no immediate resolution, Western bankers understand that by 2030, the center of the global economy could be China, not the US.
BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink hinted in April that he was exploring options to open up a shop in China.
Fink cited a wealthy middle class and organic growth that could power China’s domestic economy in the decade ahead.
Vanguard, which currently doesn’t have operations on the mainland, indicates that it could open a firm in China with nearly $5 trillion of assets under management, said Asia CEO Charles Lin, who spoke with Securities Times in July.
Wall Street gets it. It’s called follow the money! And obviously, the center of the global economy and the world’s wealth is currently shifting to China.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 21:25 - Greta Thunberg Enraged After Climate Strikes "Achieved Nothing", Has Yet To Visit China
Greta Thunberg Enraged After Climate Strikes "Achieved Nothing", Has Yet To Visit China
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is angrier than ever. The 16-year-old climate crusader, whose childhood was stolen by everyone except China, says that the wave of climate change school strikes over the past year has “achieved nothing” since greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
Speaking from the Madrid climate conference, after arriving via train from Lisbon, Thunberg said she hoped the negotiations would result in “something concrete.”
Thousands of young people were expected to gather at the UN climate conference and in the streets of the Spanish capital on Friday to protest against the lack of progress in tackling the climate emergency, as officials from more than 190 countries wrangled over the niceties of wording in documents related to the Paris accord.
In the four years since the landmark agreement was signed, greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 4% and the talks this year are not expected to produce new commitments on carbon from the world’s biggest emitters. –The Guardian
“People want everything to continue like now and they are afraid of change,” she told reporters, without mentioning the world’s #1 polluter by volume, China. “And change is what we young people are bringing and that is why they want to silence us and that is just a proof that we are having an impact that our voices are being heard that they try so desperately to silence us.”
Thunberg’s movement began in Sweden in 2017, and has morphed into an organized campaign across the world.
There is no one more privileged than the white girl refusing to go to school until literally everyone on earth changes the weather for her https://t.co/L8JnBHHUNb
— Michael Malice (@michaelmalice) December 2, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“I’m just an activist and we need more activists,” said Thunberg, adding “I sincerely hope COP25 will reach something concrete and increase awareness among people, and that world leaders and people in power grasp the urgency of the climate crisis, because right now it does not seem that they are.”
In September, Thunberg drew criticism from French President Emmanuel Macron after she filed a legal complaint accusing five countries of inaction on global warming in violation of the 30-year-old UN Convention on the Rights of a Child. Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey were named in the lawsuit.
In response, Macron told Eruope1 that her stance was “very radical” and likely to “antagonize societies.”
In October, Thunberg received criticism from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said “Go and explain to developing countries why they should continue living in poverty and not be like Sweden.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 21:13 - Epstein Was A Mossad Agent Used To Blackmail American Politicians, Former Israeli Spy Claims
Epstein Was A Mossad Agent Used To Blackmail American Politicians, Former Israeli Spy Claims
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad asset who was used by Israeli intelligence to blackmail American politicians, according to a former Israeli spy.
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy and alleged “handler” of Robert Maxwell, told the authors of a new book, Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, that Epstein ran a “complex intelligence operation” at the behest of Mossad.
Believing that Epstein planned to marry his daughter, Maxwell introduced him and Ghislaine Maxwell to Ben-Menashe’s Mossad circle.
“Maxwell sort of started liking him, and my theory is that Maxwell felt that this guy is going for his daughter,” Ben-Menashe said.
“He felt that he could bless him with some work and help him out in like a paternal [way].”
Israeli intelligence bosses gave the green light and Epstein then became a Mossad asset.
“They were agents of the Israeli Intelligence Services,” said Ben-Menashe.
When it became clear that Epstein wasn’t very competent at doing much else, his primary role became “blackmailing American and other political figures.”
“Mr. Epstein was the simple idiot who was going around providing girls to all kinds of politicians in the United States,” said Ben-Menashe.
“See, fucking around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime. But fucking a fourteen-year-old girl is a crime. And he was taking photos of politicians fucking fourteen-year-old girls — if you want to get it straight. They would just blackmail people, they would just blackmail people like that.”
There’s also a Mossad connection to a different kind of sex offender; Harvey Weinstein.
Weinstein reportedly hired ex-Mossad agents to suppress allegations against him. Working for an Israeli firm called Black Cube, these agents pressured witnesses and tried to intimidate journalist Ronan Farrow in order to “bury the truth” about Weinstein’s activity.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 21:05 - The Panopticon Expands
The Panopticon Expands
Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,
Precedent always becomes practice.
Having established as legitimate the use of cameras to robotically ticket people for “speeding” and “running” red lights – timed to go red quickly, so as to ensnare as many drivers as possible – it was only a matter of time before the principle was extrapolated – now to include automatically ticketing people for using their cell phones while driving.
But it’s more than just cameras now – and it will be more than just cell phone use that’s targeted for confiscation (of your money, that is).
Because why shouldn’t it be?
If it is okay to steal people’s money (which is what we’re talking about here, shorn of the euphemistic language about “fines”) for those things, why not this thing?
Why not anything the government and its corporate “partners” who profit from it decide is ungood?
Buckle-up laws, for instance? How about breaking traction?
In Australia – the same place that is the first place to use the AI cameras to “catch” cell phone “violators” – who will be mulcted to the tune of $344-$457 for not harming anyone – performing a burnout is already a major bust that can result in confiscation (and forfeiture) of the offender’s vehicle.
But an armed government worker had to witness the burnout.
The cameras witness everything – everywhere.
All the time.
A network is being erected that will make it impossible to “get away” with ignoring any edict issued by the control freaks and busybodies who lord it over us. Pre-Panopticon, the myriad tyrannical laws on the books had the upside of being to a great extent ignorable.
Armed government workers can’t be everywhere.
Cameras can. They already are.
Have a look around – and up – the next time you’re out driving around. In most parts of the country these Creepy Cams are perched on top of every traffic signal arm, or curbside.
Armed government worker’s vehicles are being equipped with mobile cameras, also tied into the panopticon. There is talk – and more than just talk – of replacing parking meters in cities with “smart” meters with cameras in them – also tied into the same panopticon.
Soon, wherever you drive – and park – you will be seen. Anything – everything – that is not in ordnung will be noticed. Not by a human. But by an artificial intelligence overlord that – to quote an eerily predictive line from the original Terminator movie, way back in 1984 – cannot be reasoned with or bargained with . . .
Literally.
Another precedent that was allowed to pass into practice with the adoption of camera enforcement was the vitiation of the government’s obligation to establish guilt before fleecing. This was accomplished by shifting traffic offenses from court-adjudicated to civil administrative actions, where it became (and remains) the obligation of the presumed guilty to – somehow – reverse the camera’s verdict.
The rules of court procedure – of due process – do not apply. The presumed guilty verdict is subject to reversal not by evidence or its lack but rather according to the whim of whomever – or whatever – the government-corporate nexus gives . . . administrative power to.
You can sometimes send in an “explanation” – and whatever else you like – but it’s perfunctory, like the practice in Elizabethan times of permitting the condemned to say a few words before the executioner lopped off his head. The head-lopping was never in doubt.
Today, if the government wants your money, they’ll take your money (to borrow a turn of phrase from another eerily prescient movie).
There is one upside to all of this, though.
When it becomes impossible to leave your driveway (and maybe not even that) without being observed – and mulcted – people might begin to object. Try to imagine what it would be like if you had to obey every speed limit – to the letter – else payin’ paper. Full stop – and wait a three second count – at every stop sign. Never dare a right-on-red, an HOV “violation” or an unbuckled ride.
No “aggressive” acceleration, either.
Your papers – all of them – always in ordnung.
That’s what’s coming. Unless we decide to reject the principle – and establish a new precedent. There’s still time.
The clock, however, is ticking – and midnight approaches.
* * *
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos. We depend on you to keep the wheels turning! Our donate button is here.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 21:05 - Tennessee Offered Free College To Fix Its Crumbling Educational System. Then Something Unexpected Happened
Tennessee Offered Free College To Fix Its Crumbling Educational System. Then Something Unexpected Happened
As the frontrunners in the Democratic Party Presidential nomination race battle each other to offer more and more free stuff (funded by the ‘rich’ paying their ‘fair share’) – most notably “a college education” – one state that did just that has had some rather unexpected results.
Here’s what the frontrunners are proposing…
Bernie Sanders
Abolish tuition and fees at four-year public universities, community colleges, and trade schools. Cancel $1.6 trillion in student debt and expand Pell Grants to cover expenses beyond tuition.Elizabeth Warren
Free tuition and no fees at two- and four-year public colleges, plus forgiveness of as much as $50,000 in student debt for 42 million Americans.Pete Buttigieg
Free tuition at public schools for 80% of American families. Expand the Pell Grant program and create a $1 billion community college fund to pay for ancillary costs of college, such as child care and transportation.Joe Biden
Two years of tuition-free community college or high-quality training for recent high school graduates and many adults. The “first-dollar” program means students can use Pell Grants and other aid toward expenses beyond tuition.All sounds awesome, right? Free college, the promise of increased earnings potential, no debt worries to reduce your post-grad consumption capabilities…
Well, as Bloomberg details, Republican-controlled Tennessee has tried this “free college” approach with its Tennessee Promise program… and the results are disappointing to say the least.
The state became the first in the U.S. to offer tuition-free community or technical college for every graduating high school senior when the program was signed into law in 2014.
-
The good news (maybe) – The state’s college-going rate of high school graduates rose to 64% in 2015, the first year of implementation, from 58.1% the year before.
-
The bad news (definitely) – Among the first batch of Promise students, the roughly 16,200 who started college in fall 2015, about 18% dropped out after one semester. After three years, about 49% had quit.
So, not exactly surprising really – enrollment rates soared (well, it’s free!) and dropout rates remain terribly high (and clearly a waste of ‘rich’ taxpayers money).
So maybe there’s more to this whole “education” thing than simply being free…
“There are just inherently complex social and emotional factors that a financial aid program doesn’t address,” says Mike Krause, executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission & Student Assistance Corp., which administers the program.
As Bloomberg notes, Promise is what policymakers call a “last-dollar” program, meaning it pays the cost of tuition not covered by federal Pell Grants or state awards and scholarships. The program doesn’t cover expenses associated with being a student such as transportation, child care, school materials, and other costs. Funds can be used at the state’s community and technical colleges, as well as universities with eligible programs.
Which means Democrats should focus on not just free college, but free transportantion to college, free child care, and free school materials… because that will fix everything.
There is one group who are cock-a-hoop at the government paying for students to attend college…
Terri Bryson, a vice president at Motlow State Community College, which has graduated 1,566 Promise students, proclaims that free tuition has “done a great, huge job, but it’s not a magic wand.”
Indeed, you get a government-guaranteed income stream and more students!
So, if what you want for America is more students dropping out of colleges, vote for “free college” – otherwise, let’s leave the meritocracy well alone because government intervention has not worked (just look at the student loan debacle – sponsored by government-provided loans) and more intervention will create – as Tennessee shows – more unintended consequences.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 20:45 -
- The Fed Detests Free Markets, Part 2
The Fed Detests Free Markets, Part 2
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
It wasn’t really the plan to make this a series, but it seems to have turned into one. Part 1 is here: The Fed Detests Free Markets. Part 3 will follow soon. And yeah, I did think perhaps I should have called this one “End The Fed” Is No Longer Enough. Because that’s the idea here. But what’s in a name?
Okay, let’s talk a bit more about finance again. Though I still think this requires caution, because the meaning of the terminology used in such conversations appears to have acquired ever more diverse meanings for different groups of people. Up to the point where you must ask: are we really still talking about the same thing here?
I’ve said multiple times before that there are no more markets really, or investors, because central banks have killed off the markets. There are still “contraptions” that look like them, like the real thing, but they’re fake. You can see this every time a Fed chief opens their mouth and every single person involved in the fake markets hangs on their lips.
They do that because that Fed head actually determines what anything will be worth tomorrow, not the markets, since the Fed buys everything up, and puts interest rates down so more people can buy grossly overpriced property and assets, and allows companies to buy their own shares so nobody knows what they’re worth anymore.
The Fed today is in the business of propping up zombies. And when I say the Fed, that also means the ECB and BOJ, western central banks. I won’t get into the PBOC here, but they’re not far behind.
Recently, Christine Lagarde, the new ECB head, said the most incredible thing (at least to my ears, I guess not to hers):
We should be happier to have a job than to have our savings protected … I think that it is in this spirit that monetary policy has been decided by my predecessors and I think they made quite a beneficial choice.
Who on earth ever claimed jobs vs savings is some necessary or inevitable “choice”? Why should it be? If this were true, isn’t that a sign that something is terribly wrong? That you can have a job, but you can’t save anything? And aren’t the central banks to blame for that then?
The entire system has been built for decades around the notion that people save, either to purchase big items, or for their old age, and that people put money into their pension systems. And now central banks come along and in no time destroy what has been valid for all these years. And they never even warned about it.
Anyway, after Lagarde’s remarks, I guess the Fed’s Jay Powell felt he couldn’t be left behind and said:
US central bankers see a “sustained expansion” ahead for the country’s economy, with the full impact of recent interest rate cuts still to be felt and low unemployment boosting household spending, Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell said on Wednesday in remarks that brushed aside any worries of a looming slowdown.
“The baseline outlook remains favorable,” and the current level of interest rates “appropriate,” Mr Powell said in remarks prepared for delivery to the joint economic committee of congress, a panel that includes some members from the House of Representatives and Senate.
His comments tracked closely to those in his news conference last month after the US central bank cut rates for the third time this year and signaled it was likely done reducing borrowing costs absent a significant change in the economic outlook. Despite “noteworthy risks” including slowing global growth and fallout from the US-China trade war, “my colleagues and I see a sustained expansion of economic activity … as most likely,” Mr Powell said in his prepared remarks for the hearing.
Former Goldman and Bear Stearns banker, and friend of the Automatic Earth, Nomi Prins, tweeted yesterday: “Tuesday, the Fed added $95 billion in liquidity to financial markets. Today, Fed’s vice chair told Congress, “The Board’s latest [review] confirms the current health of the banking system. It depicts a stable, healthy, and resilient banking sector…” The Fed’s official for supervision and regulation told Congress, “The Board’s latest Supervision and Regulation Report… describes steady improvements in safety and soundness, with a gradual decline in outstanding supervisory actions at both the largest & smallest organizations..”
“The baseline outlook remains favorable,” Powell said. That must be why they have been pulling out all the stops and invented new ones, for a decade+. Bernanke, Yellen, the lot of them, all because the baseline has remained so favorable. Why would anyone want to listen to this guy, who so obviously dabbles in complete nonsense? Well, because he’s the one giving the money away.
I think I can tell Mr. Powell what the “full impact of recent interest rate cuts” will be, what it will feel like, and it won’t be anywhere near what he pretends it will be. I must think he knows that too, or he’s an utter fool, and I don’t think he is. He’s just doing a job, while he’s worth $100 million, and that job is very different from how it’s presented to the public.
I’ll tell you about that full impact in part 3 of this Fed essay, which I left on the shelf for a long time because I thought people would declare me nuts, but which now, with increasing chatter of a next recession, maybe can be exposed to daylight. It’s about how grave the damage is that central banks have inflicted on their economies, something I never see discussed. Powell and Draghi/Lagarde and Kuroda are not just the ones giving the money away, they’re also taking it away, just not from the same people. And that latter part is much more important to societies and economies.
A third quote, just to complete the “circle”, deals with BOJ chief Kuroda; it’s from a June 2019 Reuters article entitled How Japan Turned Against Its ‘Bazooka’-Wielding Central Bank Chief:
The direction taken by the BOJ could determine whether Japan’s banking sector avoids a hard landing and whether Abe or his successor will lean on the central bank to take the most extreme step remaining: printing money for the explicit purpose of financing a national debt that is now more than twice the size of Japan’s economy. That could risk a costly downgrade by credit rating agencies for Japan, and, by extension, Japanese corporate borrowers.
The spurning of Kuroda-nomics also has political implications. It is part of a broader public dissatisfaction with what has been labeled “Abenomics” – the prime minister’s plan to reflate the economy out of prolonged stagnation through a combination of aggressive monetary easing, bold fiscal spending and fundamental structural reforms in the economy.
“Kuroda’s radical stimulus kept interest rates low, allowing politicians to delay reforms to get Japan’s fiscal house in order,” said Koichi Haji, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute. “The foot-dragging could cost Japan dearly. The options left for the BOJ all seem extreme.”
Options left for the BOJ will be even more extreme because Japan’s Birth Rate Has Hit Its Lowest Level Since Records Began In 1899. As a Dutch comment on that report said: “by 2050 there will be one working Japanese for every child or pensioner [..] Japan adopted a law in April designed to make it easier for foreigners to work in Japan. The goal was to attract 350,000 foreign workers. 8 months later, just 400 had arrived”.
And just this week we read that Japan is preparing another $120-$230 stimulus package. Extreme has become normal in no time. Only, the ratings agencies could lower their rating for Japan, because of this. Then again, why should they do it only for Japan? Everyone’s in “extreme” territory, or as Ben Bernanke called it in 2008, “uncharted territory”. Same difference.
But Lagarde is right on one thing: it is “the monetary policy decided by her predecessors” that has destroyed savings -and pensions-. How on earth she can call that “beneficial” is very hard to grasp. What is the goal, what is all these central bankers’ goal? That in the end nobody has any savings or pensions anymore, and they all must go into debt or perish? That would create entire societies made up of zombies. And that’s “policy”?
It’s policy to spin a fantasy tale so people like Jay Powell can claim that “the baseline outlook remains favorable” and “sustained expansion” lies ahead for the economy, and it’s policy to pay for that fantasy with money that belongs to savers and pensioners, and that you can then hand out to a bunch of zombie “investors”. That’s policy.
The role of today’s central bankers is possible only because the public are made to think these are very smart people that have the interest of Joe Blow at heart, and because they have “unlimited resources” to make stocks and bonds and the housing market look good. But what would happen if Joe Blow knew what is going on?
The Fed is now considering “policy” that “makes up for lost inflation”. No, stop laughing, I’m serious. Their extreme policies in uncharted territory have failed so dismally, they’ve obviously not been extreme enough.
Once they’ve gone down the path of extreme stimulus (not that they call it that), there’s no way back. Because they’ve just destroyed the markets, and then they go: let’s see how the markets react to that. Well, they don’t. They’re dead. You killed them. There are parties left who love feeding off of your free money teats, but they’re not the markets or even market participants. They’re rich socialists. But they’re also the only ones the Fed cares about.
Still, a central bank that doesn’t have the population at large, at the center of its policies, is a scourge on a society and/or country. And it should be abolished. But in the case of the Fed, ECB and BOJ, it is probably already too late for that. They have done their damage. “End The Fed” is no longer enough. Societies need to develop emergency measures to counter the damage done, or face untold misery, unrest and eventually, revolution.
People don’t see this, because these central banks -temporarily- taper over the disaster they’ve wrought with their “policies”. Time for the media to step in? No, it’s too late for that too, and besides, what media? They’ve been silent all along, why would they speak up now?
More in part 3.
* * *
Please support the Automatic Earth on Paypal and Patreon so we can continue to publish.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 20:25 - November Heavy Duty Truck Orders Resume Collapse, Down 39% To Weakest Since 2015
November Heavy Duty Truck Orders Resume Collapse, Down 39% To Weakest Since 2015
The collapse in heavy duty trucking is getting tougher to blame on difficult YOY comps and is more and more looking like the symptom of a real manufacturing recession in the U.S.
Class 8 orders against collapsed in November, culminating a dismal year that some thought had seen a reprive with October’s improved bookings. But new data from FreightWaves shows that the collapse has continued its trend, indicating that the sluggish economy is to blame for lackluster replacement demand.
Orders totaled 17,300 units for the month, which marks the slowest November since 2015 and a 39% collapse from November 2018. The slowdown in orders is prompting layoffs of hundreds of production workers by companies like Daimler Trucks North America, Volvo Trucks North America, Paccar Inc. and Navistar International Corp.
Other names in the Class 8 supply chain are also dealing with the negative effects. For instance, engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. is “laying off 2,000 white-collar employees globally in the first quarter of 2020”.
Meanwhile, November used to be a month when fleets would be busy placing orders for the upcoming year. After October’s slight tick up in orders, many analysts thought November could follow suit. That didn’t happen, and sequentially November’s order book was down 21% from October.
Tim DeNoyer, ACT Research vice president and senior analyst said: “The freight market downturn worsened in the past month, and uncertainty surrounding trade and tariffs continue to weigh on truck buyers’ psyches.”
Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles commented: “The stalling of freight growth is causing fleets to exercise caution in placing orders for 2020. There will still be plenty of freight to haul, so we expect fleets will continue to be profitable and to replace older equipment. However, there won’t be a need for much additional equipment on the roads.”
“The industry thrives on stability, but we are now on a rocky road,” Ake concluded.
The rolling 12-month average for Class 8 orders is now 180,000 units and the industry backlog has collapsed to less than half of what it was in December 2018.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 20:05 - The Moral Case For Decoupling From China
The Moral Case For Decoupling From China
Authored by David Archibald via AmericanThinker.com,
One of the first people to see that the infatuation with China would end in tears was Robert Kaplan. In 2005 he wrote an article entitled “How We Would Fight China”, though he didn’t say when or why we will be doing that fighting, or even the how as per the title.
Well the tears are flowing now as the relationship is mostly over. China’s share of world exports peaked just shy of 15% in 2015 and is now contracting. China’s share of world GDP is also about 15% and that too will contract.
In Carroll Quigley’s ‘Tragedy and Hope’ first published in 1966, he wrote that the Chinese Communist regime in the first years after its founding was “insanely aggressive.” The Chicoms reverted to type about ten years ago and went back to ‘snarl diplomacy.’ Only being poor had kept them from trying to impose their will on others.
The corporate retreat from China is proceeding as fast as factory production can be relocated. But even if China wasn’t in breach of its WTO obligations to have a free market economy and a convertible currency, didn’t steal intellectual property, and wasn’t bullying its neighbours, there is another reason why we should completely decouple from China and it is a reason that is overarching and critical to our self-worth as a civilisation.
Dr Arthur Waldron, now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has been studying China for over 50 years. He married a Chinese lady so his views are not those of an inherent Sinophobe. In an online interview he provides interesting detail on the mistakes made in our relationship with China, starting with Nixon.
Dr Waldron starts the interview by reminding us that:
China is the most evil regime the world has seen since the Third Reich, setting aside the Soviet Union.
The whole 68-minute interview is interesting but where he is a thought leader is in his parable of the delicatessen, transcribed below:
Suppose you lived on 86th st and at the local delicatessen with fine produce, at the front of the shop were all these goodies.
But if you went to the very back of the shop there were sort of vats which were kept just above freezing which had freshly harvested kidneys and livers and hearts and all the things which are used at this moment. …
People are being killed so their organs can be used for transplants. Many of which go to the very elderly Chinese leadership or their children. The son of one of the recent leaders of China has had cancer and he has had many organs replaced.
Well, what would you say about this shop. Would you say, well, I think I’ll just shop in the front of the shop and I won’t pay any attention to the fact that there are all these living human organs, God knows where they came from, that are in the back.
What you would say is ‘What the heck is this shop doing in America?’
You can’t decouple these things. This is one integral system.
And that is one of the reasons we have to quarantine China economically.
A rationalisation for saying ‘Well yes it’s true that there is some question with what Hitler is doing with the gypsies and the Jews but Leica still makes a hell of a good camera.”
In the late 1930s when it was quite evident that Hitler was persecuting and killing minorities, would you have bought any German goods, knowing that in doing so you were an enabler of that evil regime? It is no different today. Every Chinese plastic toy or Christmas decoration plucked off the shelves at Walmart contributes to a future U.S. combat death, but beyond that there are also metaphorical vats of human organs at the back of the Walmart store that the buyer is enabling.
Thankfully killing people for their organs is repugnant to us and that needs to continue if we are to remain a good and kind civilisation. But trading with, speaking with, interacting with people who kill people for their organs debases us.
If we continue trading with such people that makes us morally complicit in their barbarism. For our souls, for our self-respect at least, we must stop trading with such people, and training them in our universities, and letting them into the country.
Dr Waldron’s view is that without our trade the Chinese polity will disintegrate; their state-owned enterprises aren’t enough to sustain their economy. The Chinese people’s best chance of liberation is if we nudge things in that direction.
Thank-you Dr Waldron for your insights.
* * *
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 19:45 - New Data Reveals Which College Grads Earn Most And Which Carry The Most Debt
New Data Reveals Which College Grads Earn Most And Which Carry The Most Debt
Prospective college students now have official government data they can use to gauge which colleges and which major programs will make the most fiscal sense. The Trump administration released the data last week, which offers the nation’s most granular look into the finances of recent college graduates yet.
By looking at the median income versus the median debt of graduates from different schools and different levels of degrees, the data finally offers a tangible risk/reward for students considering a range of colleges and degrees. And some of the examples of the data are stunning, according to the Wall Street Journal.
For example, Bismarck State College can now say its business majors earned a median of $100,500 one year after graduating – higher than many elite business schools. And highlighting the amount of debt that students left college with also becomes and important part of the equation. Dentists leaving NYU’s graduate program, for example, left school with a median of $387,660 in debt while earning just $69,600.
The data shows that graduates typically earned more in their first year than what they borrowed in total, but 15% of programs resulted in graduates carrying a debt load greater than their income. In 2% of instances, graduates owed more than twice their annual salaries.
The data was uploaded to a consumer website that was initially created by the Obama administration called the “College Scorecard”. It offers data on more than 36,000 programs at about 4,400 colleges. The data allows consumers to compare programs and “defies years of efforts by the higher-education lobby to keep much of this information hidden.”
For profit colleges may not like some of the comparisons. Computer engineering students leaving DeVry University-Illinois, for example, owed $53,391 at graduation while earning just $37,800. Meanwhile, students at Wichita State in Kansas leave the same program with just $31,000 in debt while earning $61,800.
The effort is part of a Trump administration ethos that making the college landscape a more competitive free market will help bring tuition and student debt down. The administration has been working with companies like Google to find ways to make the data more accessible to families. And to protect privacy, the government isn’t introducing data on programs with limited numbers of students.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement: “The best way to attack the ever-rising cost of college is to drive real transparency.”
The debt and earnings data only represents students who got federal financial aid, which can be a small number at some universities. The figures also exclude debt take on by parents on behalf of their children, which has been a growing way for parents to help shoulder the load of student debt for their kids.
The data reflects common sense at some points. Science and engineering majors at top schools earned the most. MIT math majors earned a median of $120,300 after graduating while borrowing just $8,219. Those who earned master’s degrees at USC for drama and theater arts shouldered $100,796 in debt while earning just $30,800 their first year out.
And the data is surprising elsewhere. Ivy League schools don’t always see the top salaries. Columbia University rhetoric and writing graduates earned just $19,700 their first year out of school, while taking on $28,556 in debt.
Some students have simply struggled to find work in their field after graduating. 22 year old Johnna Ueltschi borrowed about $32,000 to study psychology and criminal justice at UCF in Orlando. She says she has struggled to find a job and now works as a hostess making $10/hour.
“I was a good student, I graduated on time, I did everything that I was conventionally supposed to do. Finding a job is a lot harder than they lead it on to be when you’re in school.”
You can explore all of the data using the Wall Street Journal’s online search tool here.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 19:25 - Things You See At The Top: Woman Calls Pile Of Crap "Artwork", Successfully Sells It For $225,000
Things You See At The Top: Woman Calls Pile Of Crap "Artwork", Successfully Sells It For $225,000
Artist Portia Munson is known for chaotic looking pieces of “art” which often times features thousands of pieces of ephemera per piece. Ephemera comes from the Latin word for “things you can find at a yard sale or tucked away in your grandparents garage“.
Case in point is her work “The Garden”, which she made in 1996 and contains more than 1500 separate objects from plastic flowers to stuffed animals, according to Bloomberg. She calls the piece a “meditation on feminism and climate change”.
Because, of course…
As you can see from the photo, the piece looks more like something you’d see on a Beatles album cover or inside of Cheech and Chong’s Volkswagen bus.
Wendy Olsoff, owner of New York Gallery P.P.O.W., thought it may be a good idea to feature the art at the Meridians section of Art Basel Miami Beach in hopes that she could sell it.
Olsoff said: “We thought it would be fantastic. It talks a lot about the environment, which is obviously in dire straits in Florida, and it also taps into feminism and other topics that we always explore in our program.”
Munson says the objects are arranged in a specific manner that minds the “idea of artificial beauty, consumerism, and cultural ideas around the feminine aspects of nature.”
Olsoff hoped to sell the piece and, after shelling out $60,000 to reassemble, fireproof and maintain the pile of crap, she slapped a $225,000 price tag on it.
Olsoff said: “Maybe if we had done a little homework first and figured out how much it would cost [to install], [we] might not have been so hasty. We didn’t really realize it.”
It was last on display two years ago and since then, the thousands of items for the piece had been sitting in storage at Munson’s home, collecting dust. Every object had to be catalogued and restored.
“When you open a box of plastic after three or five years, there’s going to be pieces that are decaying and disgusting,” Olsoff said.
Then, every piece of fabric had to be made fire resistant to meet fire safety guidelines.
Trey Hollis, the gallery’s director of art fairs, traveled to Munson’s house upstate, brought everything to an open field, strung up the objects on a clothesline, put on a mask, and sprayed everything with fire-retardant coating.
Olsoff did little outreach to existing collectors. “We do normal previews. But this is a little different,” she said.
But lo and behold, the piece was only on display for six minutes before Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, the husband and wife founders of the 21c Museum Hotel, took interest in it. It was a match made in liberal heaven. Wilson, standing in the piece, seemed to fit right in with it:
Steve Wilson said: “We own a piece by Munson already, which we bought 12 years ago. And we just bought this piece.”
They settled at a price under the $225,000 asking price – a small price to pay for a new safe zone where Steve can also meditate on feminism and climate change.
“It’s a done deal. It’s a spectacular piece— one of those things that takes my breath away.”
If you say so, Steve.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 18:45 - Bernstein Analyst Says Masa May Have "Last Laugh" With SoftBank's WeWork Investment
Bernstein Analyst Says Masa May Have "Last Laugh" With SoftBank's WeWork Investment
Seemingly unaware that everybody in the world is already laughing at SoftBank’s disasterous “investment” in WeWork, one Bernstein analyst believes that Masayoshi Son is going to have the “last laugh”.
Bernstein’s Chris Lane says that he believes WeWork can still have a bright future if SoftBank is able to overhaul the business plan (isn’t that true for any business?). Lane says the company should focus on the corporate office market and likens WeWork’s model to Starbucks, where its branding and global scale can give it an advantage, according to Bloomberg.
He believes the company can achieve profitability by pulling back on “extraneous areas” and slowing its expansion to focus on its existing space. He thinks this will lead to the company being able to grab 8% of an emergent market for pre-fitted offices for corporate clients.
Lane wrote in his report: “We think investors should think of the basic business as being similar to Starbucks. While profitable, the scale of profits that can be generated from a single site is small. Starbucks as a corporation only makes sense if you plan to open thousands of outlets.”
Lane spoke to management and says he thinks there’s an opportunity for WeWork to move beyond the niche of selling office space for entrepreneurs and onto offering flexible real estate for a broad range of companies. Hilariously, he is referring to it as “managed space as a service” and thinks WeWork can make $500 per month on memberships as an “ongoing annuity”.
We used to just call this “being a landlord”.
Lane is also confident in WeWork’s new management:
SoftBank named Marcelo Claure, the former chief executive at Sprint Corp., executive chairman of WeWork and put him in charge of the turnaround effort. Under his leadership, Lane says the company will be able to focus on profitability by stopping any incremental expansion, filling its existing space and slashing overhead by getting rid of expansion staff and non-core businesses. WeWork’s ability to gather data about office-use and optimize layouts — while not entirely substantiated — could prove disruptive to the industry, he added.
He estimates that WeWork’s revenue will rise to $1.5 billion per quarter, up from $720 million a quarter, if it can push occupancy to 90% on its current portfolio. He predicts the company will once again try to go public, but not until 2023. He thinks the company could have an EV of $28.8 billion by 2025, which would make SoftBank’s stake worth $19.1 billion.
Lane concluded: “We believe WeWork’s valuation is justified if you believe in the long-term, ‘office space’ will be a managed service outsourced to professionals – and that WeWork will be the leading global player. Despite the huge embarrassment WeWork has been for SoftBank this year, we suspect SoftBank will have the last laugh when they bring the company back to market in a few years – bigger and profitable.”
We’ll believe it when we see it.
Recall, after SoftBank’s initial investment in WeWork, the company started chasing its losses and re-invested in the company months ago. WeWork’s shares are down about 30% from their peak and the $14 billion Softbank has invested has been decimated – WeWork is now valued at less than $8 billion.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 18:25 - "My Faith In Humanity Is Restored": Elon Musk Cleared In "Pedo Guy" Defamation Lawsuit
"My Faith In Humanity Is Restored": Elon Musk Cleared In "Pedo Guy" Defamation Lawsuit
A year after Elon Musk hit the jackpot when the SEC decided to merely slap his wrist over his infamous “funding secured” securities fraud, the Tesla creator struck legal gold again on Friday afternoon, when a Los Angeles federal jury found that Elon Musk did not defame British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth by calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.
“My faith in humanity is restored,” Musk told reporters in the hallways of the courtroom after shaking hands with his lawyer moments after hearing the verdict in the Los Angeles courtroom. He did not address Unsworth, whose team had told the court earlier on Friday the Tesla CEO should pay at least $190 million in damages for his tweets about the diver.
The lawsuit had pitted a 64-year-old financial adviser earning a salary of about $33,000 against one of the richest and most famous men in the world, who told the jury he was worth about $20 billion…. but was “short on cash.” The dispute stems from the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s involvement in the Tham Luang cave rescue in June and July 2018, which saw 12 young football players and their coach successfully extracted from a flooded cave system by a team of British cave divers.
On 13 July 2018, after the successful completion of the rescue, Unsworth said in an interview with CNN that the rescue pod Musk had delivered to the cave site was a “PR stunt”, adding that he should “stick his submarine where it hurts”. A video clip of the interview went viral, drawing the ire of Musk.
The billionaire entrepreneur responded in a series of tweets on 15 July, suggesting that Unsworth’s presence in Thailand was “sus[picious]” and calling him “pedo guy”.
Musk eventually deleted the tweets and apologized to Unsworth.
The jury had been tasked with determining whether a reasonable person would understand the tweets to mean that Musk was calling Unsworth a pedophile. Musk’s attorneys argued that the tweet was not a statement of fact, but an insult, which is considered protected speech. They also attempted to show that Unsworth’s reputation had not been seriously damaged.
According to The Guardian, Unsworth’s attorneys introduced evidence of the broad dissemination of Musk’s tweets, which were reported in 490 English-language articles on 361 websites in 33 countries. They also introduced evidence of Musk’s behavior after the 15 July tweets, including his hiring of a private investigator to seek proof of Unsworth’s “nefarious behaviour”.
As Bloomberg notes, the four-day civil trial marked the first time that Musk has been called as a witness at trial. The Tesla CEO told the jury the tweet shouldn’t have been taken literally and was fired off in anger after Unsworth, in a TV interview, insulted his effort to help rescue members of a Thai soccer team from a flooded cave in 2018.
It’s another win for Musk, 48, who’s managed to get out of legal trouble relatively unscathed. Musk agreed to step down from his role of chairman of Tesla Inc. for three years in 2018 to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over a tweet the regulator said misled investors. But he’s run Tesla and SpaceX as usual.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 12/06/2019 – 18:03
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...![<!–[if IE 9]><![endif]–>](/s3/files/inline-images/alsh.jpg?itok=6wVfZwOX){kind=link}