- "Stressed" Australians Struggle With Record Debts As Housing Market Overheats
Australians are dialing back their spending on everything from clothes to cars as sky-high housing costs, the result of a housing bubble fueled by Chinese buyers, threaten to finally derail the country’s twin asset bubbles – housing and stocks.
But rising mortgage debt isn’t the only thing squeezing Australian customers, as Reuters reports. Inflation on essential items like food, electricity and insurance is accelerating, meaning Australians are also paying higher prices for basic consumer goods.
Australia’s real-estate prices have been rising for more than 25 years with hardly a pause – the last time real estate prices saw a meaningful pullback was during its last recession, in 1987. Reuters reported Tuesday that Australia’s debt-to-income ratio has climbed to an all-time peak of 189%, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia.
While sky-high home prices are, in part, responsible for Australians’ record debt, a sudden drop in valuations would only exacerbate the problem by squeezing those who paid a premium for their homes when the market was at or near the top. Many of these buyers are now saddled with high mortgage payments and little equity in their homes.
"We are seeing a considerable spike in stress even in more affluent households. Large mortgages, big commitments but no income growth," said Digital Finance Analytics Principal Martin North. "Stressed households are less likely to spend at the shops, which acts as a drag anchor on future growth."
North estimates that a record 52,000 households risk default in the next 12 months, and that 23.4 percent of Australian families are under mortgage stress, meaning their income does not cover ongoing costs. That compares with about 19 percent from a year ago.
"People are up to their ears in mortgages," said Brad Smith, a car sales consultant at MotorPoint Sydney which has seen a stark slowdown in sales in the past six months. "They are all on a budget. Everyone's got all their money in houses, that's how it is."
For an economy that has achieved a remarkable winning streak – it has avoided a recession for more than 25 years – circumstances are looking bleak.
"As the housing market slows, we see consumption growth as a major risk amid record-low wages growth and ongoing headwinds to discretionary cash flows," Morgan Stanley economist Daniel Blake said.
Retail sales have hardly grown in the past few months. Even online sales have slowed, with all major categories including homeware, games and toys, daily deals and takeaway food shrinking in April, according to the NAB Online Retail Sales Index. Car sales have flattened this year after solid growth in 2016 while sales of luxury cars and sports utility vehicles are at a four-year low.
For consumers like Sydney resident Marie-Aimee Guillermin, there's little 'play money' left after stepping into Sydney's housing market with a A$1.4 million 3-bedroom house last month.
"We thought once we had the house we could take our foot off the brake a little bit but now that we have it I feel even less certain in terms of stability and financial security," she told Reuters.
"So whether we'll end up spending a bit more on clothes and restaurants and going out and what have you I don't see that happening."
Stock valuations have gotten so out of hand that one firm, Altair Asset Management, made the extraordinary decision to liquidate its Australia-focused fund and return "hundreds of millions" of dollars to its clients.
- Partitioning Syria: Oil, Gas, And Peace
Authored by James Durso via OilPrice.com,
It’s the 101st anniversary of the Sykes–Picot Agreement and, in light of the non-stop Syrian Civil War, it’s time to ask, “How’s that working out for you?”
The Sykes–Picot Agreement formalized the British and French spheres of influence in the Middle East and set the stage for the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, which ran from 1923 to 1946. In 1936, Ali Sulayman al-Assad, grandfather of Syrian President Bashir Assad, and other Alawite notables petitioned French President Leon Blum, in an attempt to stay under French protection: “The spirit of hatred and intolerance plants its roots in the heart of Muslim Arabs toward everything that is non-Muslim, and is forever fueled by the spirit of the Islamic religion. There is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is canceled, therefore, the minorities in Syria will become exposed to a risk of death and annihilation…”
Al-Assad’s thoughts are timely in light of a proposal by Jamsheed and Carol Choksy of Indiana University for an “impartial partition plan” for Syria. The proposal would complement a cease fire with partition along ethnic lines (with concomitant population transfers) and no role for Russia, Iran, and Turkey who have acted as belligerents. The majority Sunni Arabs would get the provinces in the center and the north, the Kurds would take the northeast, the Alawites and Shiites would keep the Mediterranean coastal provinces, the Christians, Druze, and Jews would share the southwest and south, and the Yezidis would get an enclave on the Syria-Iraq border.
The proposal recognizes that Syria’s many sects were never “bonded together by secularism and tolerance” and that the pitiless fighting since 2011 has only sharpened ethno-sectarianism. Autonomous areas may ensure a measure of security for minority Christians, Jews, Druze, and Yezidis whose cooperation with the Assad regime secured protection, and who will want to escape Sunni retribution.
The international community should seriously consider a proposal for independent ethnic states or autonomous areas and take the opportunity to avoid repeating the sectarian character of Iraq’s constitution which, Iraqis point out, was not drafted by Iraqis. This goes against the grain in the West, which “celebrates diversity” but has been dealing, often unsuccessfully, with strains bought on by uncontrolled immigration from Africa and Latin America.
Four factors will bedevil the negotiators of an ethnic autonomy arrangement: the oil and natural gas in the Levant Basin Province; two competing proposals for natural gas pipelines that cross Syria; Iran’s transport corridor through Syria, which Iran needs to support the Assad regime and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah; and the Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons.
1. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are potential mean recoverable resources of “1.7 billion barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of [natural] gas” in the Levant Basin Province, which is offshore Israel, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel is developing its fields and is becoming an energy exporter. Lebanon likely has a similar bounty and has passed legislation governing oil and gas exploration, but development has stalled as Lebanon and Israel are disputing a 300 square mile area both countries claim for their Exclusive Economic Zones. The gas in Gaza’s waters won’t be safe to develop until the Israelis and Arabs conclude a peace deal and the Palestinians adopt rigorous transparency measures due to the Palestinian Authority’s corruption. Syria has limited oil reserves in eastern Deir ez Zor province which have been productive through the civil war, and both the Assad regime and ISIS have benefitted from smuggling oil to Turkey.
The ethnic states/autonomous areas will likely demand a share of the oil and gas revenue from the fields offshore the two provinces controlled by the Alawites and Shia before they agree to a cease fire and partition. A solution may be to form an operating company with transparency as the foundation of its corporate charter or endow it with a governance structure informed by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
It will be important to keep track of the money as it will be needed for reconstruction, estimated to cost at least $180 billion. Russia and Iran have enough money to disrupt Syria, but not to rebuild it. The U.S. is focusing on domestic concerns and, if America is out, Europe will never be all-in. Turkey will want a piece of the action, but no one will tether a reconstruction effort to the authoritarian Pasha. The Gulf states have cash but may lack the contract administration skills to oversee rebuilding. China may want to include Syria in the One Belt, One Road transport network, but only if it gets security and natural resource guarantees.
2. Competing natural gas pipelines that cross Syria will be vital. In 2009, Qatar approached Syria about routing its planned 1,500 mile natural gas pipeline to Europe via Syria’s Aleppo province. Qatar wanted a pipeline to Europe as its gas transport modes were limited to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tanker, mostly to Asia with limited spot shipments to Europe, or the Dolphin pipeline to the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Syria refused Qatar’s offer and, in 2011, Syria, Iran, and Iraq agreed to build a pipeline to connect Iran’s South Pars gas field to Europe. The pipeline would run from Assalouyeh, Iran to Europe via Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, with Syria as the center of assembly and production.
The projects are dead, but the obituaries haven’t been published. The physical risk is “at 11” so no lender will touch them, even if a long term purchase contract could be conjured up. The political risk is almost as bad, as pipeline transits would have to be negotiated with sub-national groups and maybe a surviving Syrian government with little remaining institutional capacity. With an abundance of gas discoveries in the region, there are other ways for a natural gas company CEO to get a headache than getting involved in Syria.
But the projects aren’t useless; they have political utility. Their sponsors – Iran and Qatar – can manipulate the fighting and keep the politicians’ and warlords’ dreams of transit fees alive by saying “when the time is right”.
3. Iran’s Syrian corridor. Iran built a corridor through Syria to support the Assad regime and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. The route originally skirted the Syria-Turkey border before turning south to Homs and Latakia. In response to the U.S. troop build-up in the northeast, Iran shifted the route 140 miles south, mostly though Homs and Deir ez Zor provinces, which will be Sunni-controlled in the mooted partition.
Under partition the loss of the corridor through Sunni territory would be a strategic setback for Tehran as it would have to rely on ocean shipments, many of which have been intercepted, and air shipments, which are expensive and limit the size of the cargo. In addition, increased use of Iran’s airlines to support Assad and Hezbollah will expose them to increased Western sanctions – and may cripple the deals with Boeing and Airbus – at a time when Iran is trying to integrate with the world economy. This will cause tensions between the siloviki and the economic reformers which may dilute Iran’s expansionist efforts, to the benefit of Iran’s neighbors, and the victims of Assad and Hezbollah.
4. The last issue, and one that may swamp the others, is Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). There are almost five million registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. Turkey has the largest contingent of refugees, almost three million, but also has the most developed economy and capacity to host them – for now. Jordan hosts over 650,000 Syrian refugees, and Lebanon hosts over 1 million, over twenty percent of the native population of 4.5 million. Iraq hosts over 200,000 refugees, all in areas controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government. There are six million IDPs, many caused by combat operations. Increased military activity by the U.S. and alleged forced displacement of civilians by U.S. proxies may be sowing the seeds of future trouble.
Jordan and Lebanon are least financially able to indefinitely host the refugees, and they have the most precarious ethnic balancing acts and lack the money to paper over the differences, so the priority should be repatriating the Syrians in Jordan and Lebanon. But repatriate them to where? The only lure may be a share of the oil and gas revenue allocated to the independent ethnic states or autonomous areas. Given that, Lebanon and Jordan won’t be interested in delays or excuses.
The above list isn’t all inclusive. Other potential troubles are:
– The status of the Golan Heights. If Syria goes away, will Israel annex the Golan and just get it over with?
– Absorption of the ethnic states/autonomous areas by neighboring states. Turkey won’t like a semi-autonomous Syrian Kurdish province; it might like a larger Iraqi Kurdistan even less. And in Iraq, will a larger Iraqi Kurdistan cause the Kurds to demand a greater share of oil and seats in the Council of Representatives?
– Russia playing the spoiler. Russia will make things difficult, on the ground and in the UN Security Council, unless it secures naval and air bases in the “Alawite entity” and its national champions Gazprom and Rosneft participate in the development of the Levant Basin. Both firms, however, are under Crimea-related sanctions so they may be weak players.
The word “unprecedented” has been thrown around a lot in regards to Syria. It may be time to apply that thinking to Syria’s partition. The default setting for the international community will be to try to patch the old Syria back together within the internationally recognized borders, but that is make-work for bureaucrats, the aid agencies and their contractors. The impartial partition plan for Syria will give each ethnic or sectarian group territory under its own control.
Should Syria be patched back together? Maybe, but that’s a question for the Syrians and the answer won’t be rendered in this political cycle. Reconstruction after America’s Civil War took 12 years, from 1865 to 1877, and that was for a fight between people of the same ethnic group and religion that weren’t determined to exterminate each other. In Syria, the final decision on unity will be made by the grandchildren.
- Venezuela's "Mysterious" Bond Deal Reappears, And This Time China Wants Out
As its foreign reserves dwindle to less than $10 billion, the government of Venezuela – desperate for any kind of financial lifeline – has partnered with a Chinese brokerage to try and resell $5 billion in bonds that it initially issued at a deep discount, according to the Wall Street Journal. The brokerage, Haitong Securities USA, a unit of China’s Haitong Securities, is quietly marketing the bonds to yield-starved hedge fund managers.
What makes today’s news particularly notable is that the original bond transaction in question was highlighted here back in January when in a post titled “In “Mysterious” Bond Sale, Venezuela Issues $5 Billion In Debt To Itself With China As Underwriter“ we reported that the Maduro government appeared to be effectively selling debt, and raising dollar funds, from (and to) itself with China as an intermediary; as Reuters added at the time, the deal was peculiar in that the transaction did not bring in actual new funds for the cash-strapped OPEC nation.
Quoted by Bloomberg in January, Francisco Rodriguez, the chief economist at Torino Capital in New York, said that “my guess – but it’s just a guess – is that given uncertainty as to whether Venezuela would be able to deliver the oil necessary for repayment, the Chinese may have asked for the loan to be also guaranteed with a bond,” he told Bloomberg by email, adding that he had been expecting a disbursement of $5 billion related to the renewal of a loan from China.
Bond traders were just as confused as reporters and analysts: Russ Dallen, a managing partner at Caracas Capital, told Bloomberg that “bond markets will likely react with “befuddlement. Taking place on Dec. 29 with no approval by the National Assembly and no promulgation notice in the Official Gazette, this smells of some kind of end of the year financial shenanigan from a government that is out of cash and is desperately trying to hide it,” he said.
As we concluded at the time, “With that assumption in place, we look forward to learning the details of just how China is now funding insolvent supplier sovereigns by the back door, and where else besides Venezuela is this arrangement in place.”
Five months later, we may have gotten the answer, and it now appears that Haitong had simply kept the bond without syndicating to end buyers, and – for whatever reason – is now desperate to dump them to any willing purchaser, a move which bodes poorly for China’s ongong relationship with Venezuela.
Reports that Venezuela is shopping around the bonds arrived just a week after Goldman Sachs Asset Management inadvertently ignited a PR crisis when it bought $2.8 billion worth of Venezuelan bonds issued by state oil company PDVSA from an obscure UK brokerage. Opponents of the brutal regime of Nicolas Maduro accused the bank of buying “hunger bonds” and Venezuela opposition leader Julio Borges accused it of “aiding and abetting the country’s dictatorial regime.”
As we noted last week, it appears that Goldman turned around and sold those same bonds, which it bought at a discount, for a tidy profit.
Haitong is reportedly offering the bonds at an even deeper discount than the 31 cents on the dollar that Goldman paid. But the latest batch of bonds currently on sale is different from those purchase by Goldman (and Nomura) as they remain unregistered with clearing organizations like Euroclear and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which is required for the bonds to trade electronically, WSJ reported.
Aside from the illiquidity issue, potential buyers have other reasons to be wary of lending to the Maduro regime: The political opposition has argued that the bond sales are illegal because they were never approved by the legislature.
Some would-be buyers told WSJ they’re afraid that if Venezuela defaults, the owners of the 2036 bonds wouldn’t have the same claim on the country’s debt as other bondholders because the bonds were issued through an intermediary. Of course, any potential buyer should probably be concerned about the huge sheer size of the discounts, as the WSJ points out tongue-in-cheek.
“It’s like they’re having a going out of business sale,” said Russ Dallen, a partner at Brokerage Caracas Capital.
“And that’s what buyers should be worried about. Either they’re really desperate, or they’re just filling up their credit card with no plans of paying back.”
There is a reason for Venezuela’s desperation: after two decades of economic mismanagement, the largest global banks refuse to do business with the insolvent socialist country – which has on numerous occasions tried to lease or sell outright some of its gold reserves – making it impossible to plug holes in its budget by issuing debt. Instead, the country must rely on small and often little-known institutions to peddle its bonds.
That, and of course, hyperinflating away its debt. Venezuela’s economy has shrunk by an estimated 27% since 2013. The International Monetary Fund says inflation this year will hit 720%, and the country’s central bank hasn’t publishing basic economic indicators like balance of payments and gross domestic product since September 2015, rendering the country’s basic economic indicators, let alone calculations of its capacity to repay, a giant question mark for investors and credit rating firms alike.
With that in mind, we’re curious to see who – if anyone – is willing to step up and buy the latest batch of “hunger bonds” in the aftermath of the shock treatment that Goldman received after it was revealed that Blankfein’s firm may have been covertly funding Maduro’s central bank.
But the far bigger question is whether China – as the Haitong firesale appears to suggest – has finally given up on the melting Venezuelan ice cube, also known as one of its main foreign crude oil vendors. If so, Maduro’s days are indeed numbered.
- Twilight Of The Courts: The Elusive Search For Justice In The American Police State
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
We have entered a new regime and it’s called the American police state.
As the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in County of Los Angeles vs. Mendez makes clear, Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.
Continuing its disturbing trend of siding with police in cases of excessive use of force, a unanimous Court declared that police should not be held liable for recklessly firing 15 times into a shack where a homeless couple—Angel and Jennifer Mendez—was sleeping.
Understandably, the Mendezes were startled by the intruders, so much so that Angel was holding his BB gun, which he used to shoot rats, in defense. Despite the fact that police barged into the Mendez’s backyard shack without a search warrant and without announcing their presence and fired 15 shots at the couple, who suffered significant injuries (Angel Mendez suffered numerous gunshot wounds, one of which required the amputation of his right leg below the knee, and his wife Jennifer was shot in the back), the Court once again gave the police a “get out of jail free” card.
Unfortunately, we’ve been traveling this dangerous road for a long time now.
In the police state being erected around us, the police and other government agents can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.
Whether it’s police officers breaking through people’s front doors and shooting them dead in their homes or strip searching motorists on the side of the road, these instances of abuse are continually validated by a judicial system that kowtows to virtually every police demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the Constitution.
These are the hallmarks of the emerging American police state: where police officers, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.
While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.
A review of critical court rulings over the past decade or so, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Police can stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
Police officers can stop cars based on “anonymous” tips or for “suspicious” behavior such as having a reclined car seat or driving too carefully.
Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits.
Police can “steal” from Americans who are innocent of any wrongdoing. Asset forfeiture laws, which have come under intense scrutiny and criticism in recent years, allow the police to seize property “suspected” of being connected to criminal activity without having to prove the owner of the property is guilty of a criminal offense.
Americans have no protection against mandatory breathalyzer tests at a police checkpoint.
Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. A divided U.S. Supreme Court determined that a person arrested for a crime who is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty must submit to forcible extraction of their DNA. In doing so, the Court opened the door for a nationwide dragnet of suspects targeted via DNA sampling.
Police can use the “fear for my life” rationale as an excuse for shooting unarmed individuals. Incredibly, a report by the Justice Department found that half of the unarmed people shot by one police department over a seven-year span were “shot because the officer saw something (like a cellphone) or some action (like a person pulling at the waist of their pants) and misidentified it as a threat.”
Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes.”
Not only are police largely protected by qualified immunity, but police dogs are also off the hook for wrongdoing. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals actually ruled in favor of a police officer who allowed a police dog to maul a homeless man innocent of any wrongdoing.
Police can subject Americans to strip searches, no matter the “offense.” This “license to probe” is now being extended to roadside stops, as police officers throughout the country have begun performing roadside strip searches—some involving anal and vaginal probes—without any evidence of wrongdoing and without a warrant.
Police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home.
Police can use knock-and-talk tactics as a means of sidestepping the Fourth Amendment. Aggressive “knock and talk” practices have become thinly veiled, warrantless exercises by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with heavily armed police who “knock” on their doors in the middle of the night.
Police can interrogate minors without parents present.
It’s a crime to not identify yourself when a policeman asks your name. A majority of the high court agreed that refusing to answer when a policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime under Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute.
Police can carry out no-knock raids if they believe announcing themselves would be dangerous. Legal ownership of a firearm is also enough to justify a no-knock raid by police.
The military can arrest and detain American citizens.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we are dealing with a nationwide epidemic of court-sanctioned police violence carried out against individuals posing little or no real threat, who are nevertheless subjected to such excessive police force as to end up maimed or killed.
When all is said and done, what these assorted court rulings add up to is a disconcerting government mindset that interprets the Constitution one way for the elite—government entities, the police, corporations and the wealthy—and uses a second measure altogether for the underclasses—that is, you and me.
- Seattle Follows San Francisco, Philadelphia In Passing Job-Killing Soda Tax
Following in the footsteps of Boulder, Philadelphia, Oakland and San Francisco, Seattle has approved its own version of a job-killing soda tax.
In a 7-1 vote with one councilmember absent, the Seattle City Council passed the tax on soda distributors by an overwhelming margin. The council ultimately agreed on a tax rate of $1.75 per ounce, which translates to about $1.18 for a 2-litre bottle of soda. Unless opponents of the measure succeed in blocking it, the tax will be collected beginning next year, the Seattle Times reported.
A coalition involving restaurant owners, grocery owners and the local chamber of commerce opposed the bill, which was backed by the American Heart Association. One grocery owner was quoted in The Seattle Times discussing how the tax would hurt his business. Husik Harutyunyan, who owns a small grocery store in North Seattle, urged the council to reject the tax. He said his customers may begin buying soda in Shoreline, Wash. if the tax leads him to raise his prices.
“I have to close my store and go find some job,” the 44-year-old told the Seattle Times.
Diet soda won’t be taxed, while baby formula, medicine, weight-loss drinks and 100% fruit juice will also be exempt. Sports drinks like Gatorade, energy drinks like Red Bull and fruit drinks like Sunny D will all be taxed, along with the syrups used in fountain soda. It remains unclear whether the tax will apply to the syrups used in flavored lattes like those served at Starbucks, the Times reported.
The council will use the revenues from the tax – about $15 million a year – to help fund healthful-eating programs like “Fresh Bucks,” which will help people with food stamps buy more healthy food. The council will also disburse funds to soup kitchens and food pantries. Anti-obesity advocates rejoiced after the measure was passed. “It’s a huge win for Seattle,” said Victor Colman, director of the Seattle-based Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition.
“It’s not a panacea for the problem of childhood obesity, but it’s a huge marker to take this step. Consumption drops will happen, and we’re going to see stronger health in the communities that need this the most.”
The tax, initially proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, was debated for months after some labor unions warned that the plan would be a burden for entrepreneurs and result in job losses. But luckily for the supermarket employees and teamsters who will lose their jobs because of this tax, the council has set aside some of the revenues for job retraining programs.
As the receipt below shows, a 10 pack of flavored water purchased in Philadelphia carries a 51% beverage tax. And since PA has a sales tax of 6% and Philly already charges another 2%, the total sales tax was 8%. In other words, a purchase which until last year came to $6.47 had overnight become $9.75.
The dramatic price increase led to a 30% to 50% drop in beverage sales, forcing supermarkets and beverage distributors to lay off some staff.
- Fighting Systems Of Oppression: UCLA Will Now Pay Students To Be "Social Justice Advocates"
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
As the warped social justice ideology has proliferating on college campuses, “bias response teams” have also multiplied. Though they were unheard of several years ago, they now exist on over two hundred college campuses. They consist of students and administrators who basically act as “speech police.” They narc on students (and encourage students to narc on each other) who are guilty of speech that isn’t sensitive or politically correct.
Recently, UCLA has decided to form a bias response team consisting of 8-10 students, who the school will actually be paying to bully classmates who are guilty of thought crimes. James Allsup, a college student and reporter for TruthRevolt.com, breaks down the insanity and idiocy of this decision.
When it comes to colleges spending money on dumb stuff, UCLA is setting the bar pretty high. Last week it was reported that UCLA would begin employing a fleet of students to serve as on campus social justice warriors. While actually their job title is “social justice advocates” they’ll certainly need the strength of warriors to take on all this job is asking of them. The job of these social justice advocates will be to educate fellow students about “systems of oppression.”
Nothing says “I’m oppressed” like attending a school that costs anywhere from 28,000 and 51,000 dollars a year to attend, and getting on average 9,000 dollars a year from the school to do so. What exactly will these social justice advocates be fighting against? Which heads of the privileged hydra will these warriors be attempting to cut down?
As reported by Campus Reform, the social justice advocates program seeks students who want to help their classmates “navigate a world that operates on whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the primary ideologies.” These forces; whiteness, the patriarchy and heteronormativity, are being described as “systems of oppression.” Then, after identifying white people, straight people, and men as the enemy, they say that their goal is to make UCLA a “more equitable space for everyone.” Unless of course you’re a white straight man, in which case you are literally a Nazi.
Those standards it turns out, are quite ironic according to Allsup. That’s because only 26% of students at UCLA are white, 56% are women, and being a school based in California, UCLA is already very friendly to students who aren’t “heteronormative.”
In other words, while UCLA is working to pass on this myth that minorities are oppressed by white, straight males, their wealthy and prestigious school is actually chock full of students aren’t white, straight, or male. So who exactly is being oppressed at this school?
And these policies shine a light on the real problem with political correctness on college campuses. It would be easy to place all of the blame on the students for the culture of Marxism and political correctness that has risen on college campuses. But according to Allsup, it’s the administrators on these campuses who have largely enabled the far-left to take over our schools.
But to be honest, I can’t completely blame these students. College kids, especially those at left-leaning institutions like Evergreen, are always going to be acting up and making demands. It’s the job of the university administrators to be the adults in this situation. So while I do place some blame on the students, and yes on their parents, I also blame the universities. I blame the bias reporting systems, and the type of administrator who would sign off on paid social justice activists.
They’re the ones who hold the real power on these campuses, and by cracking down on free speech, creating a legitimately hostile environment towards white students, male students, or students with any right-wing political beliefs, they’re using their power to embolden, encourage, and help radicalize far-left.
Is it any wonder then, that our college campuses have become hives of radical leftists?
- Fukushima Remains "A Nuclear Radiation Nightmare", In Pictures
"This is an accident that does not exist in the past tense, but in the present progressive form," exclaimed Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori earlier in March, criticizing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for not explicitly the disaster in his annual speech. “It’s not possible to avoid using the important and significant terms of the nuclear plant accident of nuclear power disaster.”
As IBTimes's Juliana Rose Pignataro notes (and exposes in the images below), it's been an uphill battle for the coastal prefecture of Fukushima, Japan, since an earthquake and tsunami devastated the region in 2011, causing a nuclear disaster at its power plant.
Six years later, workers are still battling to decommission the plant, where radiation is deadly. Officials expect the cleaning won’t be finished for decades.
In this handout provided by TEPCO, the deformed grating vessel of Fukushima's No. 2 reactor is shown Jan. 30, 2017.
Workers remove nuclear fuel rods from a pool inside the No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, Nov. 18, 2013
A TEPCO employee looks at the destroyed reactor in Fukushima, Japan, Feb. 25, 2016
Personal items were left behind in Fukushima, Japan, Feb. 26, 2016.
A wild boar roams in barren, Fukushima, Japan, Mar. 1, 2017
The damaged No. 3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan is shown Feb. 25, 2016.
A deserted home is shown in Fukushima, Japan, Mar. 11, 2016.
Workers stand near the deserted nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, Feb. 25, 2016.
The barren landscape of Fukushima, Japan sits empty, Mar. 11, 2016.
Despite the ongoing decommissioning, increasingly high levels of radiation and wild boar problem, officials have begun welcoming some evacuated people back to their homes. It’s unclear how many residents will choose to return.
- Saudi Arabia Used U.S. Veterans To Lobby Against 9/11 Bill
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Elements of the charm offensive include the launch of a pro-Saudi Arabia media portal operated by high-profile Republican campaign consultants; a special English-language website devoted to putting a positive spin on the latest developments in the Yemen war; glitzy dinners with American political and business elites; and a non-stop push to sway reporters and policymakers.
That has been accompanied by a spending spree on American lobbyists with ties to the Washington establishment. The Saudi Arabian Embassy, as we’ve reported, now retains the brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, the leader of one of the largest Republican Super PACs in the country, and a law firm with deep ties to the Obama administration. One of Jeb Bush’s top fundraisers, Ignacio Sanchez, is also lobbying for the Saudi Kingdom.
In September, the Kingdom helped sponsor opulent galas for Washington’s business elite at the Ritz Carlton and the Andrew Mellon Auditorium. The events were attended by King Salman, along with the chief executives of General Electric and Lockheed Martin, the chairman of Marriott International, and prominent think tank officials.
-From the 2015 post: A Look Inside Saudi Arabia’s Elaborate U.S. Propaganda Machine
Some of the information in today’s piece was widely reported last month, but I didn’t have a chance to look into it until now. What the Saudis are up to in Washington D.C., throwing their money around everywhere is absolutely revolting. One of the more despicable things the barbaric, terrorist-supporting, absolute monarchy did recently was recruit U.S. veterans to go to D.C. and lobby against a bill passed under the Obama administration (Obama vetoed it, but his veto was overridden), permitting terrorist attack victims to sue foreign states. The bill was driven by the desire of 9/11 victims’ family members to have the opportunity to sue Saudi Arabia for its obvious and disturbing role in that attack.
A couple of months ago, I highlighted the fascinating story of attorney Jim Kreindler who is intimately involved in this fight.
Here are a few snippets from the post, Meet the Lawyer Who’s Suing Saudi Arabia for Financing the 9/11 Attacks:
When Jim Kreindler got to his midtown Manhattan office on Friday, July 15, 2016, he had a surprise waiting for him. Twice in the previous eight years, Kreindler had been in the room as then-President Barack Obama promised Kreindler’s clients he would declassify a batch of documents that had taken on near mythic importance to those seeking the full truth of who had helped plan and fund the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Now, Kreindler learned, “the 28 pages” as they were known, were open for inspection and it was up to his team to find something of value. It wasn’t long before they did—a single, vague line about a Somali charity in Southern California.
That obscure reference would soon become part of the backbone of an argument that Kreindler and his firm have been making for a long time: Without financial and logistical support from members of the government of Saudi Arabia, the 9/11 attacks would have never taken place.
Sometimes it seemed as though Kreindler’s own government were actively working against the firm; agencies denied Freedom of Information Act requests and shared information with the Saudis as often as with his team. “I’ve stopped calling what our government has done a cover-up,” says former Senator Bob Graham, the co-chair of Congress’s 9/11 Joint Inquiry and the most prominent voice alleging a connection between the Saudis and the hijackers. “Cover-up suggests a passive activity. What they’re doing now I call aggressive deception.”
What happens next in Kreindler’s case against Saudi Arabia is unclear. JASTA allowed him and his firm to name the country as a defendant, but the bill has come under serious attack since its passage. (Congress overrode Obama’s veto, the first of his two terms.) Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham have spent a considerable amount of time arguing against it, and continue to argue to water it down, saying that if other countries pass similar laws the nation hurt most by the trend may be our own. Then there is the Saudi lobbying apparatus, which at one point last fall numbered more than 10 firms and millions of dollars in fees per month.
It’s pretty obvious to everyone by now that the Saudis played a major role in the attacks of 9/11, which is why its rulers are scrambling ferociously to rally its D.C. puppets behind a nefarious push to gut the JASTA bill. The tactics used by the Saudis are many, but essentially boil down to throwing around as much money as possible though a network of lobbyists and consultants.
As the Daily Caller outlined in a recent article:
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has paid Trump International Hotel nearly $270,000 through its Washington, D.C. lobbying firm over the past several months, new foreign lobbying disclosure filings show.
The payments, from Qorvis MSLGroup, were made for hotel rooms and catering services for dozens of U.S. veterans who the lobbying firm recruited as part of an influence campaign aimed at watering down legislation that could put Saudi Arabia on the hook financially for the 9/11 attacks.
Disclosures filed with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act show that Qorvis MSLGroup paid $190,272 to Trump International for lodging expenses, $78,204 for catering, and $1,568 for parking.
The hotel payments, which are just a small part of a massive $8.4 million campaign aimed at lobbying lawmakers against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), could reinvigorate allegations that Trump’s hotels violate the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting U.S. officials from receiving payments from foreign governments.
The mammoth Saudi lobbying effort on JASTA suggests it has pulled out all the stops to neuter the bill, which allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments who have sponsored terrorist attacks.
Though JASTA was passed into law in September after Congress overrode a veto by President Obama, Qorvis MSLGroup is pushing an amendment co-sponsored by Arizona Sen. John McCain (whose McCain Institute has received $1 million from the Saudis) and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would soften the language in the bill.
McCain and Graham. Of course.
Qorvis MSLGroup’s latest filing sheds new light on its pro-Saudi influence campaign, which The Daily Caller uncovered in December after several veterans published op-eds in newspapers across the U.S. opposing JASTA.
The recent filing shows that the firm hired 75 consultants from all across the U.S. to recruit veterans. Consultants hired by Qorvis MSLGroup were paid anywhere from several thousand dollars to several hundred thousand for the work.
Another $3.1 million was paid to Community Strategies, Inc. for “grassroots activation and supervision,” the filing shows.
Emails released by some of the veterans who visited Washington, D.C. show that Community Strategies’ founder, Michael Gibson, was included in discussions about travel arrangements to the Capitol.
Many of the veterans who were recruited to lobby against JASTA have since claimed that they were misled about the reasons for visiting Washington, D.C. Some of the recruits said that they were told — falsely, it turns out — that JASTA would make U.S. service members vulnerable to “retaliatory lawsuits” from foreign governments.
Others have said that they did not know that the Saudi government was behind the campaign.
At least seven groups of veterans were flown to Washington, D.C. between November and February, according to Brian McGlinchey, the founder of 28Pages.org, a website that has pushed for the declassification of a portion of a joint congressional review that details links between 9/11 hijackers and the Saudi government.
“The entire scam was a waste of the Saudis money because Congress is now well aware of their using our U.S. veterans to do their dirty work.”
Simply revolting that the Saudis used their cash to trick U.S. veterans into supporting a push to prevent family members from pursuing justice against the Kingdom for its role in the attacks of 9/11.
- Alabama Sees 85% Drop In Food Stamp Participation After Work Requirements Reinstated
13 Alabama counties experienced some ‘shocking’ results, or maybe not depending on your natural level of cycism, when they decided to once again require able-bodied food stamp recipients, without dependents, to be employed and/or engaged in a job-training program in order to participate in the program for more than 3 months over a 3-year period.
As background, Alabama, like many states, lifted their work/training requirements associated with food stamp benefits after the great recession. That said, starting Jan. 1, 2017 the last of Alabama’s 13 counties reinstated those requirements and they promptly experienced an 85% decline in taxpayer-funded food subsidies. Per AL.com:
Thirteen previously exempted Alabama counties saw an 85 percent drop in food stamp participation after work requirements were put in place on Jan. 1, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
During the economic downturn of 2011-2013, several states – including Alabama – waived the SNAP work requirements in response to high unemployment. It was reinstituted for 54 counties on Jan. 1, 2016 and for the remaining 13 on Jan. 1, 2017. As of April 2017, the highest jobless rate among the 13 previously excluded counties was in Wilcox County, which reported a state-high unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, down more than 11 percentage points from the county’s jobless rate for the same month of 2011.
As of Jan. 1, 2017, there were 13,663 able-bodied adults without dependents receiving food stamps statewide. That number dropped to 7,483 by May 1, 2017. Among the 13 counties, there were 5,538 adults ages 18-50 without dependents receiving food stamps as of Jan. 1, 2017. That number dropped to 831 – a decline of about 85 percent – by May 1, 2017.
Statewide, the number of able-bodied adults receiving food stamps in Alabama fell by almost 35,000 since Jan. 1, 2016. Meanwhile, with each recipient receiving about $126 a month in benefits, that equates to over $50 million in annual savings for taxpayers based on just the state of Alabama alone.
But sure, there is no fraud in the entitlement programs.
* * *
For those who missed it, below is a look back at a prior post which detailed exactly how Americans are spending the nearly $7 billion they receive through the SNAP program each year.
A new study just released by the USDA, offers a very detailed look at exactly how participants in the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” (SNAP, aka Food Stamps) spend their taxpayer-funded subsidies. Unfortunately for taxpayers, the amount of money spent on soft drinks and other unnecessary junk foods/drinks is fairly staggering. But, we suppose it’s a nice taxpayer funded subsidy for the soda industry…so score one for Warren Buffett and the Coca Cola lobbyists.
Per the study, nearly $360mm, or 5.4% of the $6.6BN of food expenditures made by SNAP recipients, is spent on soft drinks alone. In fact, soft drinks represent the single largest “commodity” purchased by SNAP participants with $100mm more spent on sodas than milk and $150mm more than beef.
Soft drinks were the top commodity bought by food stamp recipients shopping at outlets run by a single U.S. grocery retailer.
That is according to a new study released by the Food and Nutrition Service, the federal agency responsible for running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as the food stamp program.
By contrast, milk was the top commodity bought from the same retailer by customers not on food stamps.
In calendar year 2011, according to the study, food stamp recipients spent approximately $357,700,000 buying soft drinks from an enterprise the study reveals only as “a leading U.S. grocery retailer.”
That was more than they spent on any other “food” commodity—including milk ($253,700,000), ground beef ($201,000,000), “bag snacks” ($199,300,000) or “candy-packaged” ($96,200,000), which also ranked among the top purchases.
Even worse, when we added up all of the commodities that would typically be considered “junk food” (i.e. soft drinks, candy, cakes, energy drinks, etc.), we found that roughly $950mm, or just over 14% of the aggregate $6.6BN of food expenditures made by SNAP recipients, is spent on unnecessary, unhealthy products.
It’s a good thing democrats re-branded Food Stamps as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”….otherwise we would have confused it for a blatant waste of taxpayer money on sodas and energy drinks.
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