- The Coming Coup
The Coming Coup
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 23:35Authored by Michael Anton via The American Mind,
Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes…
As if 2020 were not insane enough already, we now have Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talking about staging a coup. You might have missed it, what with the riots, lockdowns and other daily mayhem we’re forced to endure in this, the most wretched year of my lifetime. But it’s happening.
It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order. They were bolstered by many former generals—including President Trump’s own first Secretary of Defense—who stated openly what the brass would only hint at. Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act. His implicit message was: “Mr. President, don’t tell us to do that, because we won’t, and you know what happens after that.”
All this enthused Joe Biden, who threw subtlety to the winds.
The former United States Senator (for 26 years) and Vice President (for eight) has not once, not twice, but thrice confidently asserted that the military will “escort [Trump] from the White House with great dispatch” should the president refuse to leave. Another former Vice President, Al Gore, publicly agreed.
One might dismiss such comments as the ravings of a dementia patient and a has-been who never got over his own electoral loss. But before you do, consider also this. Over the summer a story was deliberately leaked to the press of a meeting at which 100 Democratic grandees, anti-Trump former Republicans, and other ruling class apparatchiks got together (on George Soros’s dime) to “game out” various outcomes of the 2020 election. One such outcome was a clear Trump win. In that eventuality, former Bill Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, playing Biden, refused to concede, pressured states that Trump won to send Democrats to the formal Electoral College vote, and trusted that the military would take care of the rest.
The leaked report from the exercise darkly concluded that “technocratic solutions, courts, and reliance on elites observing norms are not the answer here,” promising that what would follow the November election would be “a street fight, not a legal battle.”
Two more data points (among several that could be provided). Over the summer, two former Army officers, both prominent in the Democrat-aligned “national security” think tank world, wrote an open letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in which they urged him to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division to drag President Trump from the Oval Office at precisely 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021.
About a month later, Hillary Clinton declared publicly that Joe Biden should not concede the election “under any circumstances.” The old English major in me interprets the word “any” to mean “no,” “none,” “nada,” “niente,” “zero,” “zilch” “bupkis”…you get the idea.
This doesn’t sound like the rhetoric of a political party confident it will win an upcoming election.
The Cover-Up in Plain Sight
These items are, to repeat, merely a short but representative list of what Byron York recently labeled “coup porn.” York seems to think this is just harmless fantasizing on the part of the ruling class and its Democratic servants. For some of them, no doubt that’s true. But for all of them? I’m not so sure.
In his famously exhaustive discussion of conspiracies, Machiavelli goes out of his way to emphasize the indispensability of “operational security”—i.e., silence—to success. The first rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy. The second rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy.
So why are the Democrats—publicly—talking about the conspiracy?
Because they know that, for it to succeed, it must not look like a conspiracy. They need to plant the idea in the public mind, now, that their unlawful and illegitimate removal of President Trump from office will somehow be his fault.
Never mind the pesky detail that the president would refuse to leave only if he were convinced he legitimately won. Remember: Biden should not concede under any circumstances.
The second part of the plan is either to produce enough harvested ballots—lawfully or not—to tip close states, or else dispute the results in close states and insist, no matter what the tally says, that Biden won them. The worst-case scenario (for the country, but not for the ruling class) would be results in a handful of states that are so ambiguous and hotly disputed that no one can rightly say who won. Of course, that will not stop the Democrats from insisting that they won.
The public preparation for that has also already begun: streams of stories and social media posts “explaining” how, while on election night it might look as if Trump won, close states will tip to Biden as all the mail-in ballots are “counted.”
The third piece is to get the vast and loud Dem-Left propaganda machine ready for war. That leaked report exhorted Democrats to identify “key influencers in the media and among local activists who can affect political perceptions and mobilize political action…[who could] establish pre-commitments to playing a constructive role in event of a contested election.” I.e., in blaring from every rooftop that “Trump lost.”
At this point, it’s safe to assume that unless Trump wins in a blowout that can’t be overcome by cheating and/or denied via the ruling class’s massive propaganda operation, that’s exactly what every Democratic politician and media organ will shout.
Stop the Presses
What then? The Podesta assumption is that the military will side with the Dems. There are reasons to fear they might. The Obama administration spent a great deal of political capital purging the officer corps of anyone not down with the program and promoting only those who are.
Still and all, determining the outcome of an election would be the most open political interference possible from our allegedly apolitical military, and it’s plausible that the brass won’t want to make its quiet support of the ruling class agenda that overt. The aforementioned Chairman has already stated that the military will play “no role” in the outcome of the election. That’s probably not a feint, but one wonders if it will hold given the obvious attempt to influence military thinking by people like Jeffrey Goldberg in his recent Atlantic essay.
Can the Dems rely on the Secret Service to drag Trump out? I have my doubts on this one. I’ve seen the Service up close; it really is (or strongly appears to be) apolitical. It has a job to do: protect the president, whoever that is. Officers take that job very seriously. If they don’t believe Trump lost, I don’t think they can be counted on to oust him. On the other hand, were they to believe he did lose and was refusing to leave—a scenario I find impossible to imagine but the Democrats insist is just around the corner—it’s possible the Service might act.
Barring all that, what’s left? Remember that phrase from the Dem war game: “street fight.” In other words, a repeat of this summer, only much, much bigger. Crank the propaganda to ear-drum shattering decibels and fill the streets of every major city with “protesters.” Shut down the country and allow only one message to be heard: “Trump must go.”
I.e., what’s come to be known as a “color revolution,” the exact same playbook the American deep state runs in other countries whose leadership they don’t like and is currently running in Belarus. Oust a leader—even an elected one—through agitation and call it “democracy.”
The events of the last few months may be interpreted as an attempted color revolution that failed to gain enough steam, or as a trial run for the fall.
Is the Trump Administration prepared?
Here’s one thing they could do: play their own “war game” scenario so as to game out possibilities and minimize surprises. They should also be talking to people inside and outside of government whom they absolutely trust to get a clearer sense of who on the inside won’t go along with a coup and who might.
They also need to set up or shore up – now – communication channels that don’t rely on the media or Big Tech. Once the ruling class gives word that the narrative is “Trump lost,” all the president’s social media accounts will be suspended. The T.V. channels, with the likely exception of Fox News, will refuse to cover anything he says. Count on it. He’s going to need a way to talk to the American people and he has to find the means, now.
For the rest of us, the most important thing we can do is raise awareness. If there is a conspiracy to remove President Trump from office even if he wins, they’re telling you about it precisely to get you ready for it, so that when it happens you won’t think it was a conspiracy; you’ll blame the president.
Don’t be fooled.
- China "Parties Like It Is 2019" As Patrons Pack Pool Parties, Nightcubs & Bars From Wuhan To Beijing
China “Parties Like It Is 2019” As Patrons Pack Pool Parties, Nightcubs & Bars From Wuhan To Beijing
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 23:10A few weeks ago, we joked that the people of Wuhan were ‘partying at ground zero’ when a story about a massive pool party to celebrate the end of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak went viral around the world, eliciting frustrated reactions from public officials and social-distancing-obsessed “Karens”. But unlike in the US – where college party goers are being preemptively “scapegoated” while schools defy experts and “science” by sending sick students home en masse since they simply don’t possess the will or, perhaps, the competence, to quarantine them on campus – the Communist Party defended the pool party by arguing that it was a much-needed release for the people of Wuhan.
After suffering through one of the first, and most restrictive, global lockdowns, the people of Wuhan have defeated the virus, a party spokesman said. The party was one of their rewards.
Now, the Financial Times is reporting on the return of the nightlife scene in China. Revelers have returned to China’s nightclubs and bars at a faster pace than perhaps anywhere else in the world. In the US, bars and nightclubs have been closed and blamed for causing the outbreak across the Sun Belt that peaked over the summer. South Korea has also blamed its nightlife for an outbreak that, as it turned out, was largely the result of tests picking up asymptomatic people who were infected elsewhere.
But in Beijing, partiers have reverted to the pre-pandemic tableau: bars are tightly packed, with revelers wearing little in the way of clothing, and no masks.
The procedure is simple. Revelers must use their smartphones to show their COVID-19 testing status is negative. Then they’re temperatures are taken, before being allowed in. Once inside, they can rest assured that the odds of being infected are minuscule. When asked, several revelers told the FT they felt like they had earned the “freedom to party”.
Analysts of the middle class in China have also bandied about the term “revenge spending”, even as China’s economic collapse was even worse than expected.
“From restrictions [on movement] and shop closures to no restrictions and shops opening, there’s [going] to be a big rebound,” said Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS in Hong Kong. But while many middle-class professionals are engaging in “revenge spending” after months of being unable to splash the cash, lower-income workers are still suffering.
Economists say China’s economy is stuck in two-track growth, widening the wealth gap. The most conspicuous sign of the return to confidence in China was the giant pool party held last month in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak originated.
One western expert said China’s heavy handed response to the outbreak is one reason its people can enjoy these relatively friction-less events.
Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, said that for China to have this level of social life whilst keeping transmission low suggested they had the right protective measures in place and a good “test, trace and isolate” system.
“It is a fascinating potential insight into how we could do things differently [in western countries],” Prof Michie added. After Ms Lee returned from the Beidaihe festival, she talked to friends in the US whose lives have still not returned to normal. “Our relative recovery is a result of the strong-handed measures China took, after realising it got it wrong in Wuhan to begin with,” she argued. “It was the right approach.”
As far as the international outcry caused by the Wuhan pool party goes, with many claiming the party was particularly “disrespectful” since China is responsible for allowing the pandemic out of the gate, one party official told the FT that the rest of the world was just jealous.
Mr Luo said he was aware of “bitter comments” from those outside China questioning why people in Wuhan were able to party when they still had to abide by strict social distancing guidelines. There was also resentment on Chinese social media from residents of other cities — some of whom blame Wuhan for its first outbreak. “I think they just can’t make peace with the fact that we Wuhan people are back on our feet,” Mr Luo said. “We’re entitled to a little fun in life, after what’s happened.”
With China’s official infection numbers so low that the outbreak is officially over, China’s young are apparently sufficiently emboldened, and eager to enjoy themselves. It’s almost as if they’ve already been vaccinated…
- The Wages Of Perpetual Fear
The Wages Of Perpetual Fear
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 22:45Authored by Paul Rosenberg via FreemansPerspective.com,
I’ve gone on for a long time about fear making humans stupid, and even about it being a weapon and a brain poison. But I’ve also wondered at times whether people would hit fear-fatigue… that point where people have simply had enough fear and walk out from under it.
As it turns out, however, I was a bit optimistic on fear fatigue. I’ve been reading Robert Sapolsky’s newest book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best And Worst, and was disappointed to learn what the best new research shows on the long-term application of fear. (Or, in the academic terminology, sustained stress.)
My disappointment, however, was soon tempered by two things:
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I gained information on how fear poisoning works.
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That human neurology is immensely variable, that there are exceptions to everything, and that if the whole picture were actually as dark as the most troubling findings, we’d have devolved into nothing but murderous monkeys long ago.
I barely need to say this, but 2020 has been The Year of Fear. I’m a bit amazed by the extent of it. There is a certain appeal to soaking up all the fear stories in normal times – our ability to look evil in the eye makes us appear vibrant – but 2020 has pushed far beyond that level. What we’re encountering is much more than simple fear porn, and there are certain outlets (including websites) that I can only describe as obscene.
This is more destructive than people realize.
What Perpetual Fear Does To Us
I’m going to quote from Sapolsky, who is one of the best neuroscientists of our time. I’ll edit a bit to simplify and to remove the brain-area references, and will follow the passages with a few elaborations.
“During sustained stress, we’re more fearful, our thinking is muddled, we assess risks poorly, and act impulsively out of habit, rather than incorporating new data.”
Under a long stream of fear (like scary headlines), our thinking breaks down. Let me put that very simply: You may be very bright in essence, but when you consume hours of fear every day, you become stupid. And please understand: This is biological. Your brain operations become those of a stupid person. (And yes, I’m using “stupid” very unscientifically.)
Also bear in mind that fear works. The people selling fear on TV, web pages and social media are being rewarded for it. They have become, using my terms loosely but not unfairly, drug dealers, selling damaging material that people become dependent upon. Moreover, these are professionals. Social media companies are fully aware that their business models depend upon people being addicted to them. They are careful to keep them addicted.
The fears people consume, then, are coming to them from people who are cashing in from it.
“Stress weakens connections that are essential for incorporating new information that should prompt shifting to a new strategy – while strengthening connections with habitual brain circuits.”
In other words, fear locks you into your habits and your previous choices.
It literally diminishes the brain pathways that allow you to change your mind.
This is serious, and I suspect that you’ve seen examples of this already.
“Under sustained stress we process emotionally prominent information rapidly and automatically, but less accurately. Working memory, impulse control, decision-making, risk-assessment and task shifting are impaired.”
Again, prolonged fear locks people into whatever path they’re already on. And again, this is biological. The brain circuits are directly affected.
Still…
From everything I’ve written above (and there are other nasty effects like domestic violence), it would appear that we are doomed; that our neighbors who’ve drunk deep from the river of fear are brain-locked, and so long as the fear stream continues (there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight), they will get more and more rigid in their biases, and that violence will continue and increase.
And for some people all of the above will be true. Fear destroys in the most direct way: biologically.
Still… biology is never simple, and especially on the human level. While the things above are generally true, there are always exceptions; sometimes a lot of them. And it is those exceptions that have saved us, time after time.
The wages of perpetual fear are polarized and locked minds. And that leads to knee-jerk opposition, violence and murder. We’re seeing that now and we stand to see it for some time. The world, it seems, has become addicted to fear.
And yet, many of us refuse, and this is a long way from over.
There was a party in my neighborhood two days ago: Music, talking, playing, laughing and so on. It was the first joyful noise I’ve heard in public for a long time.
Life finds a way, and especially human life.
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- Texas AG: The State May Take Over Austin's Police To Prevent Defunding
Texas AG: The State May Take Over Austin’s Police To Prevent Defunding
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 22:20Citizens around the country are hurriedly working out ways to try and prevent their local police from falling victim to the ridiculous demands of “defunding” being pushed by Marxist social justice groups and socialist politicians across the country.
The Texas Attorney General appears to have come up with one such solution: enact legislation that puts Austin’s police under state control.
Governor Greg Abbott is considering the legislation, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton. The move comes in response to Austin’s Mayor, Steve Adler, seeking to defund $150 million from the Austin Police Department.
Paxton told Fox News: “That makes little to no sense and makes our city less safe. We can fund the police in a way that will keep the city safe, which is what we all want.”
Abbott Tweeted about the proposal late last week: “We can’t let Austin’s defunding & disrespect for law enforcement to endanger the public & invite chaos like in Portland and Seattle.”
Mayor Steve Adler has blamed President Trump for the unrest in the city. The city’s council issued a vote of “no confidence” in the city’s police leadership back in June to try and spur changes to end police violence against people of color – none of which appeared to be an issue in Austin.
“I think they’re appeasing left-wing radicals who think this is a good idea,” Paxton concluded.
Local NBC affiliate KXAN also covered the story:
- A Few Of The Many Reasons To Celebrate The United States
A Few Of The Many Reasons To Celebrate The United States
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 21:55Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets.com,
There are so many reasons to celebrate the United States of America. Thankfully too many reasons to celebrate what’s spectacular. Countless books, articles and songs speak to this happy truth. In that case, this write-up will lightly cover just three of many reasons to cheer what rates a routine standing ovation.
The U.S. is defined by fierce individualism. Sorry, but we’re not “all in this together” in the Land of the Free. In truth, the inspiring idea that led to the U.S. was the rather novel notion that a very limited government would exist to protect the rights of individuals to live as they want. People would be free to conform, rebel, or somewhere in between so long as their pursuits didn’t trample on the rights of others.
Crucial is that this elevation of a “live and let live” ethos proved a magnet for the world’s strivers. They risked it all, including crossing oceans, for the chance to be a part of a great American experiment rooted in freedom. The ability to live and think freely overwhelmed the very real possibility that they would die before getting the chance to.
All of which speaks to another reason to celebrate America: its very existence rejects so much conventional wisdom. For the purposes of this piece, the narrow focus will be on why the U.S. mocks all the hand wringing about inequality, and the laughable contention that the gap between the rich and poor harms the poor.
The United States is living proof of why this isn’t true. Indeed, it would be hard to find a country more wealth unequal than the United States. To be fair, massive inequality was the U.S. design. See fierce individualism yet again. If the individual right to freedom of thought and action was going to be protected, it was only natural that some courageous enough to take their talents here would achieve in amazing ways. And so they have. Great wealth has always defined the U.S., and it does to this day.
Yet the world’s poorest keep risking it all to get here, don’t they? Ronald Reagan used to say something along the lines of “facts are stubborn things,” and the facts are that the world’s poorest continue to flock to what is one of the world’s most unequal countries. That they do thoroughly wrecks the popular narrative that wealth inequality harms the poor, and/or that they’re inflamed by it. In truth, they take huge risks in order to live and work where inequality is greatest.
If anyone doubts the above assertion, consider where the poorest Americans migrate to once they’re in the U.S. It’s rarely Buffalo, Flint and Jackson, but often New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. That’s the case given the basic truth that opportunity is greatest where the density of superrich is greatest.
It’s not just that the mass production of former luxuries by the rich (think cars, air conditioners, mobile phones, and computers) lifts our living standards in incredible ways, it’s also that the location of their innovations tends to be where other talented people cluster, only for the range of work options that lift all manner of skill sets to explode. The U.S. is a magnet for the world’s strivers because of its elevation of freedom, and freedom logically correlates with wondrous inequality as varied talents are free to showcase them in endless ways.
Which brings us to the third reason to celebrate the United States: its appeal to those with natural “get up and go” means that it’s the epicenter of entrepreneurialism. Think about it.
The U.S. is in so many ways separated from the old world of Europe and Asia. In an historical sense, it’s the distant new world. The act of leaving the past behind in pursuit of freedom and opportunity (as opposed to security) in the United States is and was the ultimate entrepreneurial act. Imagine leaving the known for a country that offers freedom, but not much else. Such a country would naturally attract the motivated, the visionary, the dreamers….
Having attracted those willing to risk it all just to taste freedom, it’s no surprise that so many Americans and their descendants have risked it all in a commercial sense. Populated by the motivated, those same motivated people regularly channel their herculean energy into creating new ways of doing things.
As a nation of people from “somewhere else,” these entrepreneurial wanderers restless in their search for better relentlessly bring the future into the present. Crucial is that they’re able to rush tomorrow to today precisely because they’re able to express their intrepid nature in a country that exists specifically to protect their right to do just that.
In short, it’s no speculation to say that the late Steve Jobs, who descended from Syrian immigrants, could never have created Apple in Damascus. Neither could Andrew Carnegie have revolutionized the steel industry in Dunfermline. The U.S. is where energetic dreamers become entrepreneurs precisely because the U.S. is where those who see the future differently are free to show why it will be different.
Thank goodness for the U.S. and its design that enables wondrous human flourishing. If the U.S. didn’t exist now, it would have to be invented so that a still primitive planet could be propelled into the future by human capital formerly suffocated by a world that cruelly lacked its most essential country. Let’s celebrate the U.S. indeed.
- Is China On The 'Brink' Of A Major Food Shortage?
Is China On The ‘Brink’ Of A Major Food Shortage?
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 21:30China recently launched the “Clean Plate Campaign,” which targets people wasting food, as speculation of a worldwide food shortage mounts.
President Xi Jinping has pushed new measures to curb food waste following the virus pandemic, calling those who live stream their eating experiences on social media as “shocking and distressing.”
Too strict or not strict enough? A recent @CNN article says the “authoritarian” China wants to control what people eat with its new “clean plate” campaign, but also suggests the campaign isn’t specific enough. It’s too confusing! Seems like China can do no right! pic.twitter.com/RRDZLmFo98
— LIU Xin (@LiuXininBeijing) September 4, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Jinping said China had to “maintain a sense of crisis about food security” amid the virus pandemic. The warning comes as the world’s second-largest economy could soon face food shortages. Besides the virus-induced economic downturn disrupting food supply chains, there’s been droughts, floods, and pests that are likely to result in poor harvests this year.
Chinese state news agency, the Global Times, downplayed the notion China is headed for a food crisis. Some restaurants in China have limited the number of dishes served to diners, while others have weighed customers before ordering.
Estimates show China wastes enough food to feed 30 to 50 million people per year, according to a study published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Wildlife Fund in China. The government’s abrupt crackdown on food waste suggests a shortage could be nearing:
But the campaign [Clean Plate Campaign] has raised speculation China could be facing a food shortage, although state media outlets were quick to try and stop the panic of imminent food shortages, reporting that China had recently seen consecutive bumper grain harvests and record high grain output.
As living standards have raised, so has consumption. Obesity levels have soared and China was estimated to waste enough food in a year to feed a country the size of South Korea.
But with the pandemic already cutting consumption levels, China’s options to quell any shortages domestically were limited.
Subsidising production could fall foul of World Trading Organisation rules which could heighten tensions with the US.
This would mean China, already the world’s largest importer of food, would need to look to increase imports to meet demand.
This could then have a ripple effect on prices all around the globe. –Farmers Guardian
Adapt 2030’s David DuByne offers an alternative view of what could be causing weather disruptions that are pressuring worldwide food supply chains. He said the reduction in the Sun’s energy output over the coming solar cycles will have profound changes on the Earth’s climate and may result in poorer harvests.
DuByne said, “food production globally” won’t be able to feed everybody and already cracks in food supply chains are showing up in China…
China now admits there is a food crisis and the same week the US agricultural department begins to buy surplus crops from farmers to stock food banks. Cosmic rays are increasing to levels not measured since the Dalton Minimum in 1810. -DuByne
Video: You Are Being Trained for Food Shortages
Readers may recall the United Nations warned in late Aug. that billions of dollars in emergency funds are needed to prevent an emerging “famine of biblical proportions” that threatens much of the world.
Food shortages would ultimately result in soaring food price inflation. Something that would make the Federal Reserve excited, considering its new shift in monetary policy, has paved the way for inflation to run well above the 2% target. As we pointed out in 2011, the Fed has argued that rising food prices are not a concern considering technology prices are becoming cheaper.
As we explained in 2014, the cost of living is getting a lot more expensive for households. Take a low-income household with folks working low-wage-paying jobs; years of rising food, shelter, education, and healthcare costs, have left them in a precarious situation of no savings and insurmountable debts.
And the one thing central bankers cannot print is food – if shortages in China and or elsewhere become more serious, resulting in out of control spikes in food prices as the virus pandemic and economic downturn continues, then there’s going to be a lot of hangry people around the world. It’s only then when the next round of global protests could overwhelm governments and central bankers, as they realize “you can’t eat an iPad.”
- Researchers Find New Way For Criminals To Launder Money Using Bitcoin
Researchers Find New Way For Criminals To Launder Money Using Bitcoin
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 21:05Authored by Robert Stephens via Decrypt.co,
Criminals could use “Exclusive mining” to pass off their money laundering as Bitcoin mining income…
In brief
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Exclusive mining could be used to launder Bitcoin.
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It works by only allowing certain miners to process transaction fees.
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It could also be used to start a whole industry around exclusive mining.
Researchers at the Blockchain Research Lab in Hamburg have outlined a new way to launder money on the blockchain: “Exclusive mining.”
Here’s how exclusive mining works, according to the paper by Dr. Elias Strehle of the Blockchain Research Lab and Lennar Ante of the University of Hamburg, published on Friday:
Someone places a transaction through a private channel and gives a single miner, or mining pool, the exclusive right to confirm that transaction and earn cryptocurrency as a reward. These are added to the blockchain, just like regular transactions.
This is different from what usually happens: if someone makes a Bitcoin transfer, everyone on the network can take a shot at mining it to earn their reward of Bitcoin.
Strehle told Decrypt that he is not the first to come up with the concept, but that his research is the first time it has been described in an academic paper.
How could exclusive mining be used by criminals?
So, how can the technology, as the paper mentions, be used for “camouflaging wealth transfers as transaction costs to evade taxes or launder money”?
Imagine that you’re a darknet drug baron and you need to launder your millions of Bitcoin. You send some Bitcoin to an exclusive miner – that you control – and get that miner to charge an absurdly high transaction fee.
Then the exclusive miner takes the Bitcoin they received as a reward for processing this expensive transaction to a cryptocurrency exchange and swaps it for fiat currency. It looks legitimate since it’s income earned from Bitcoin mining. Then the exclusive miner gives the fiat currency to the mafia boss.
And the money trail disappears.
The researchers say that exclusive mining is pretty difficult to detect and can’t easily be solved—it is here to stay.
But is it likely to be used by money launderers?
“I have not come across [it],” Rich Sanders, CEO of blockchain investigations firm CipherBlade, told Decrypt.
“I’ve come across mining services as a laundering methodology, but it is FAR less technically complex – it’s more like a deposit to [mining pool] NiceHash, which, from a functional perspective, will be equivalent to a deposit at an exchanger (trading one coin for another for chain-hopping),” he said, adding that it’s an “interesting” technique but one more likely to be employed by sophisticated users.
“This isn’t going to be a route, say, a divorcee is going to use – at least, not now. It’s way too technical, so unless someone makes a turnkey solution, I doubt we’ll see much of it.”
Legitimate uses for exclusive mining
There are other, legitimate uses for exclusive mining, said Strehle. It opens up a whole new market for private mining: Imagine if you paid a miner a flat fee to process your transaction to get around volatile mining costs or to ensure that none of your miners go rogue and try and mess with the blockchain.
“My gut feeling is that this will become more and more important as block rewards go down on Bitcoin and Ethereum and miners will increasingly have to find other ways of securing their income,” said Strehle. Becoming the exclusive miner of an exchange could be good for business.
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- Robinhood, Schwab Outages Last Week Linked Directly To Tesla And Apple Splits
Robinhood, Schwab Outages Last Week Linked Directly To Tesla And Apple Splits
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 20:40Once again during a period of slight market volatility, Robinhood users found themselves unable to access their platform more than once during the beginning of last week.
It was deja vu from when the market was crashing due to Covid-19 earlier this year and traders couldn’t login to their accounts. Except this time, the outages weren’t triggered by market crashes. They were triggered by Apple and Tesla splitting their stock, according to a new article by Bloomberg.
The influx of trading that occurred as a result of the splits sparked problems at Robinhood (and at Schwab) after the cash open on Monday. Other platforms, like TD Ameritrade, also had difficulty Monday morning.
Robinhood had to deal with a technical problem that caused delays to customer order status updates, though it maintains its entire platform didn’t wind up going down and there was no “system-wide” issues. The stock splits “exacerbated” the issues, the report says.
Schwab said it had changed the storage systems it uses to display price quotes recently, which caused the error on Monday after increased volume in Apple and Tesla. A Schwab spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We have handled far greater volumes than we experienced on Monday as demonstrated by our site performance, which is at over 99.9% for the year.”
A TD spokesperson said the issues on Monday were “completely unrelated” to the stock split. So, it was just a coincidence that TD went down on the same day all these other brokerages did, then?
Regardless, Robinhood needs to make sure it keeps its customer orders working smoothly. It is, after all, how they make their money.
Recall in late July, we detailed how Robinhood was making $90 million by selling its order flow. This followed up on our September 2018 article where we were first to unveil how Robinhood was selling its order flow to HFT clients.
- Iran: "American Soil Is Now Within Range Of Iranian Bombs"
Iran: “American Soil Is Now Within Range Of Iranian Bombs”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 20:15Authored by Majid Rafizadeh via The Gatestone Institute,
Those who advocate pursuing a policy of appeasement toward the ruling mullahs as a means of changing the Iranian regime’s behavior fail to understand that the more the international community will give the mullahs, the more Tehran will become belligerent and emboldened. One day after the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of lifting the arms embargo on Iran, for instance, the ruling mullahs unveiled a ballistic missile that reportedly can reach the United States.
The headline of a report by Iran’s state-controlled Afkar News read in Farsi, “American Soil Is Now Within the Range of Iranian Bombs”. The report boasted about the damage that the Iranian regime could inflict on the US:
“By sending a military satellite into space, Iran now has shown that it can target all American territory; the Iranian parliament had previously warned [the US] that an electromagnetic nuclear attack on the United States would likely kill 90 percent of Americans.“
The report also threatened the EU, which voted in favor of lifting the arms embargo against Iran:
“The same type of ballistic missile technology used to launch the satellite could carry nuclear, chemical or even biological weapons to wipe Israel off the map, hit US bases and allies in the region and US facilities, and target NATO even in the far west of Europe.”
The Trump administration attempted to re-impose international sanctions on Iran after the UN rejected extending the arms embargo. Those are the four rounds of UN sanctions that were in place before the Obama administration and the Iranian regime supposedly reached the JCPOA nuclear deal, which Tehran never signed. When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attempted to trigger the snapback, however, 13 of the 15 countries that are members of the Security Council wrote letters expressing their opposition to the US proposal and to the re-imposition of international sanctions against Iran. The opponents included longtime transatlantic allies and partners of the US, including France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.
This is not the first time that the Iranian regime has become more aggressive after the international community pursued policies of appeasement with the mullahs. Recall when, upon the JCPOA’s agreement, former President Barack Obama pointed out that he was “confident” that the lifting of sanctions and the nuclear deal would “meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies”? It was even outlined in the JCPOA preamble that all signatories — which, again, Iran was not — “anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security.” What, though, was the outcome?
The international community witnessed a greater propensity for Yemeni Houthi rockets launched at civilian targets, the deployment of Hezbollah foot-soldiers in Syria, and increasing attacks by the Iranian-funded Hamas into southern Israel. With billions of dollars of revenue pouring into the pockets of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran did not change its behavior for the better. Instead, it became more empowered and emboldened to pursue its revolutionary ideals of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. Iran became, according to the US Department of State, “the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism.”
At the peak of these appeasement policies towards the mullahs during the Obama Administration, Iran was emboldened to publicly harass the US Navy, detained US sailors and imprisoned American citizens. Khamenei also repeatedly threatened “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and made incendiary remarks about wiping Israel from the face of earth “in less than 8 minutes.”
As the international community gave the regime more, Iran intensified test-firing its ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, an act in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231:
“Paragraph 3 of Annex B of resolution 2231 (2015) calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”
After each act of appeasement towards the ruling mullahs, the regime also ratcheted up its domestic repression and human rights violations as well. According to Human Rights Watch, after the JCPOA “nuclear deal” and after sanctions were lifted, Iran escalated the imprisonment and executions of human rights and political activists. The regime became “the top executioner of women and holds the record on per capita executions in the world” and, according to Amnesty International, the world’s leading executioner of juveniles.
For Iran’s ruling mullahs, compromises and appeasement means weakness. The more the international community gives the mullahs, the more the regime apparently feels empowered to pursue its malign behavior.
- Global Times: Tesla Wreck In Nanchong Killed 2, Has "Raised Doubts" Over Car's Functions, Quality
Global Times: Tesla Wreck In Nanchong Killed 2, Has “Raised Doubts” Over Car’s Functions, Quality
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 19:50Could the ongoing love affair between the Chinese Communist Party and Elon Musk be hitting some speedbumps?
Confirming what appeared to be a horrifying accident in Nanchong yesterday involving a Tesla that ran amok on a city street and left mangled bodies strewn behind it, China’s state owned mouthpiece The Global Times is now “raising doubts” over Tesla’s functions and quality, according to an article published late Saturday.
The article offers updates on yesterday’s terrifying scene, stating that the car was reportedly being driven by a 51 year old woman and the accident resulted in 2 dead and 6 injured. The possibility of drunk driving and driving under the influence of drugs have been excluded, according to the report. Media outlets claimed that “the car had gone out of control”.
By raising the issue, The Global Times seems to have possibly given a nod that the government could be concerned as to the origins of the accident. “Some netizens suggested that the driver had made a mistake, but others doubt the effectiveness of Tesla’s autobrake and intelligent driving functions,” the article says.
The article also notes several other similar incidents involving Tesla vehicles over the last few months:
Tesla cars have reportedly been responsible for several accidents in the past three months, according to a report from autoju.com. On August 17, a driver from Wenzhou, East China’s Zhejiang Province, said his Model 3 suddenly sped up and rushed into the parking lot, damaging about a dozen cars. He also noted that the car’s brake was not working. Another driver from Hangzhou also reported in May that her Tesla once accelerated for no reason.
Recall, it was only hours after Consumer Reports posted a scathing review of Tesla’s Full Self Driving option that video surfaced on Twitter of what was claimed to be Shuangfu Street in Nanchong City, the scene of where a Tesla allegedly “ran out of control and crashed into multiple cars.”
The videos appended to the Tweets appeared to show bodies strewn throughout the street, police on the scene and concerned onlookers. Reports on Twitter and a report published on NetEase’s news app claimed that 3 people have been killed and 8 people have been injured.
#Update:- In car Crashed at 3 people have been killed and 8 people have been injured.#Nanchong City, #Sichuan, #China ( local media report)
— A̷s̷h̷i̷s̷h̷ ̷G̷o̷s̷w̷a̷m̷i̷ (@AshishG0swami) September 5, 2020
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The videos painted a disturbing scene, showing what appear to be lifeless bodies on the street in the aftermath of the event. The video also clearly shows a wrecked black Tesla Sedan, which appears to have rear ended a parked car.
- Don't Steal This Book: Taibbi
Don’t Steal This Book: Taibbi
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 19:25Authored by Matt Taibbi via taibbi.substack.com,
On Thursday, August 27th, the same day Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican nomination, National Public Radio aired an interview with Vicky Osterweil, author of a book called In Defense of Looting.
The white trans daughter of a science professor, Osterweil told a credulous NPR interviewer that looting was justified because it “strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police,” and also “provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure.”
She added riots reveal how “without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.”
I was so sure the Osterweil book was satire – a clever comic doing a Marxist Andy Kaufman routine – that I bought it. It’s not a joke!
In Defense of Looting is supposed to be the woke generation’s answer to Steal This Book, another anarchist instructional published in an epic period of unrest. But the differences between the books are profound.
Abbie Hoffman’s classic guide to “U.S. on no dollars a day” was furious, persuasive, funny, crazy, packed with trenchant commentary about the vicious banalities of sixties America, and entertaining on every page, even when you disagreed with him. If only his iconic definition of free speech were remembered more often today:
Steal This Book could stand alone as a work of assiduous experimental journalism, filled as it was with “survival techniques” for life underground he’d gleaned in multiple innovative ways, including responses to ads placed in revolutionary newspapers. Hoffman even supposedly fact-checked the anonymous tips about places on the map to find free food, get treated for sexually-transmitted diseases, score drugs, etc.
Steal This Book was also an equal opportunity offender, as cutting toward phonies within the revolutionary ranks as it was toward the “Pig Empire”:
The duty of a revolutionary is to make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn’t allow for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che’s picture is no more a commitment than drinking milk or collecting postage stamps.
There are a lot of things one can say about Abbie Hoffman, but he was no LARPer. He wrote the introduction for Steal this Book in jail, doing time for contempt for his memorable lunacy at the Chicago Seven trial, when he among other things told the judge to “stick it up his bowling ball.” He once tried to halt the Vietnam war by using psychic energy to levitate the Pentagon 300 feet in the air, where it would turn “orange and vibrate until all evil emissions had fled.” Abbie Hoffman was interesting.
Then there’s Vicky Osterweil.
Read the rest here.
- "Full Of Crap": Charles Barkley Slams ESPN Host Who Claimed "White Privilege" Landed Steve Nash Nets Coaching Job
“Full Of Crap”: Charles Barkley Slams ESPN Host Who Claimed “White Privilege” Landed Steve Nash Nets Coaching Job
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 19:00NBA legend Charles Barkley could be proof that common sense isn’t quite dead yet.
The veteran NBA player and TNT commentator took to the air days ago to speak out about comments made by Stephen A. Smith, who had asserted on his own show that NBA Legend Steve Nash was hired for a coaching job over Mark Jackson and Tyron Lue because of “white privilege”.
According to Stephen A. Smith, Nash’s record as a player doesn’t count; he only got the job only because he was white. Smith said, talking about a league where predominantly black athletes are paid millions: “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no way around this. This is white privilege. This does not happen for a black man.”
He continued: ““You just want to scream. You want to scream to high heavens. How the hell does this always happen for somebody else other than us?”
Nash is a 2 time NBA Champion, 2 time NBA MVP, 5 time NBA assist leader and a 8 time NBA All-Star.
Come on SA. Steve Nash being chosen over Mark Jackson/Ty Lue is not “White Privilege”.. 2 superstar black athletes ultimately made the decision & we know who they are and what they are about. https://t.co/7lmTjkbiFK
— Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams) September 3, 2020
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Smith’s comments prompted a reaction from Charles Barkley, who said on air one day later: “I was very disappointed with some of the guys on television today talking about ‘white privilege.’ They’re like, ‘Well, this doesn’t happen to black guys.’ I’m like, ‘It happened to Doc Rivers, it happened to Jason Kidd, it happened to Derek Fisher.’ So I was really disappointed.”
Barkley continued: “When you have a responsibility, especially when you have to talk about something serious like race, you can’t be full of crap. You’ve got to be honest and fair.”
You can watch video of Barkley’s comments here:
Charles Barkley sounds off on @stephenasmith saying Steve Nash got Nets job because of white privilege. #12Sports pic.twitter.com/HlkG3tPfOO
— Cameron Cox (@CamCox12) September 4, 2020
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Barkley continued to highlight Nash’s fantastic record as a player. He agreed that the NBA needed more black coaches but also said it “wasn’t the right time” to have that conversation.
Smith was also criticized by ESPN colleague Jay Williams, who Tweeted: “Come on SA. Steve Nash being chosen over Mark Jackson/Ty Lue is not “White Privilege”.. 2 superstar black athletes ultimately made the decision & we know who they are and what they are about.”
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Hilariously enough, we did not hear Smith speak out when the NBA’s Montezl Harrell referred to Luka Doncic as “bitch ass white boy” during a game several weeks ago. But, we digress…
- Customs And Border Protection Bought Half A Million Dollars Worth Of Location Data
Customs And Border Protection Bought Half A Million Dollars Worth Of Location Data
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 18:35Submitted by Sovereign Man
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) just got its hands on a whole bunch of location data. The news service Motherboard (Vice’s technology segment) uncovered a procurement order for $476,000 paid to the company Venntel Software last month. Venntel specializes in location data mining, compiling and selling GPS data gathered on users from various phone apps.
Sources who work with Venntel gave Motherboard more insight into the type of data the government now has its hands on.
Venntel’s technology only gives anonymized data, meaning it does not identify specific people or phone numbers. It gives only a randomized identification number. BUT there is an easy way to identify the owners of the phone.
The technology allows the CBP to draw a perimeter around a geographical area, and obtain the location data for any phones in that area. In this way, CBP could draw a circle around one particular home, acquire the data from it, and surmise that the few devices in that home belong to the homeowners.
What this means:
This allows Customs and Border Protection to ignore laws that require them to obtain a warrant before surveilling particular subjects. They simply purchase the data, instead of having to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.
And keep in mind that CBP does not just target immi’It’s just a question of, one, is it ethical, and two, does that open up the information to being released elsewhere?,’grants. They recently flew their surveillance drones over cities outside the border zone to help other local and federal law enforcement agencies identify and monitor protesters. Of course, CBP is being tight lipped about what exactly the Venntel software will be used for.
A CBP spokesman said:
“Consistent with its border security and law enforcement authorities, CBP has acquired limited access to commercial telemetry data through the procurement of a limited number of licenses to a vendor provided interface.”
This is not the first government agency to use this loophole to skirt the intent of the Fourth Amendment– which requires a warrant to collect certain personal information on people. In June, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Venntel’s sales of personal data to the Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Users generally have to consent in cell phone applications to allow this type of data to be collected for marketing purposes. But that consent does not include government surveillance.
What you can do about it:
Of course, the fewer apps you give permission to share your location with, the less vulnerable you will be to this particular software identifying you. In a recent, exclusive interview for Total Access (Sovereign Man’s top-tier service), Simon talked to a world-class security expert who worked in military cybersecurity.
He gave some tips on how to stop your devices from handing out your personal data.
Compartmentalize.
Use different phones. One you trust more, and one you trust less– and therefore avoid putting personal or sensitive information on it.
For instance, people can hack into your device through sophisticated tools such as Pegasus– spyware that can gain access through a phone call or text.
That’s how Jeff Bezos was targeted by the Saudis who stole pictures from his phone which Bezos had sent to his mistress (and it cost Bezos about $40 billion in a divorce).
If Bezos had one phone for close friends and family, and a second phone for talking to sketchy Saudi Princesses, this situation could have been avoided.
Depending on your security goals, you could, for instance, keep one phone for downloading all the apps you want that may see your location, and a different phone which you take with you to places you don’t want to be tracked.
Internet of Things devices like your Smart TV, refrigerator, or baby monitor– any appliance that connects to the Internet– are not very secure. They open holes on your network to the Internet where automated scanning can be used by hackers to find places to exploit.
Hackers could use unsecured devices to do nefarious things and make it look like it came from your IP address. Or they could access your other devices (like phones and laptops) from the hacked device.
To protect against this, set up two different wifi networks, which you can do from the same router. Put all your Internet of Things devices on one network, and the Internet you actually use for phones and laptops on the other.
That fences off your personal devices, so if anyone gains access to your Smart TV for instance, they cannot also access your main devices. The TV can’t see your laptop because they are on different networks.
Other ways to compartmentalize:
- Use a password generator and secure manager (like 1password.com or Bitwarden.com) to create random, different passwords for each account.
- Use different email addresses for each account. You can create email aliases and multiple addresses, and forward them to your main account with tools from simplelogin.io or anonaddy.com.
- Use different phone numbers (which you can acquire from Google Voice or other VoIP services). That way fewer people have access to your main number. Your main number could be exploited to gain access to more secure accounts, or for a SIM swap attack, where hackers transfer your phone number to their device, and can then receive reset codes for any accounts linked to that number.
It’s a good idea to get started, little by little, understanding how cyber-security for your personal life works, at least at a basic level. A little homework makes you more vigilant to the threats, and allows you to recognize and avoid common vulnerabilities.
- Boris Johnson Sets New Oct. 15 Deadline For Brexit Trade Talks With Brussels
Boris Johnson Sets New Oct. 15 Deadline For Brexit Trade Talks With Brussels
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 18:10With rumors about the EU potentially pushing for another extension to Brexit talks emerging in the British press, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reportedly delivered an ultimatum to the EU and its top negotiatiors that if there’s no final Brexit trade deal in place by the European Council meeting on Oct. 15, then Britain will simply move ahead with plans to exit the transition period with a trading arrangement on “Australian” (read: bare bones WTO) terms.
This latest threat was first reported by the Telegraph, and previews a statement that Johnson will reportedly deliver on Monday, ahead of the beginning of the eighth round of talks, which is set to start on Tuesday in London.
Since they started in February, talks have reportedly gone nowhere since they started in February as the EU’s demands re: Britain and the EU now have just five weeks to strike a trade deal, Boris Johnson will warn on Monday as he rules out extending negotiations beyond the middle of next month.
The PM is reportedly expected to declare that there’s simply “no sense” in allowing talks to continue past the October European Council meeting (Oct. 15-16), which is seen as a key opportunity for the EU to finalize the agreement with all of its member states, which would avoid the possibility of a laborious last-minute sprint, or another politically unpalatable extension, something Johnson has insisted he cannot – and will not – tolerate.
Johnson has tasked Michael Gove, a senior cabinet official and one-time rival for the Tory leadership and prime minister’s seat, with preparing the government for a ‘no deal’ exit, and the editors of the Telegraph have insisted that the government’s preparations have continued throughout the pandemic, and that Johnson believes the UK will be ready to keep all four of its constituent nations together, and outside of the EU, if things don’t pan out.
One strategy that the Tories are embracing to ensure a clean break if a long-term trade deal can’t be reached is to pass a law that would effectively invalidate Britain’s commitments under the hated “Irish Backstop”. The FT, which first reported the news, cited several officials from the EU and UK side who insisted that effectively going back on Britain’s word would sabotage the Brexit talks, effectively ensuring that the UK comes crashing out of the EU at the end of the year.
But what a difference a year makes. If the UK slides out of the EU at the end of the year, there’s little critics can say that hasn’t already been said, and ignored, by the British people, who effectively doubled down on their commitment to leave the EU when they reelected the conservatives during a snap vote late last year.
- A Rogue Institution And A Clear & Present Danger To Liberty In America
A Rogue Institution And A Clear & Present Danger To Liberty In America
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 17:45Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,
We have never heard more gibberish, double talk, and lies from one podium than we have from Fed Chairman Powell.
There is no other way to say it: The Fed has become a dangerous rogue institution that has usurped plenary power over the financial system.
This is all based on implicit theories that eventually lead to a massive speculative blow-off, even as it sucks the vitality out of the Main Street economy in the interim.
The implicit theory is brazenly simple: The Fed believes that relentless credit expansion fosters greater economic growth and full employment. It believes that there is no practical limit to how much debt the household, business, and government sectors of the economy can tolerate or any notable adverse trade-offs from ever-higher leverage ratios.
Self-evidently, lower interest rates foster more debt issuance.
When economic growth falters for any reason, the Fed’s first action is to push rates even lower. This ratcheting process has gone on for more than three decades, and interest rates have, for all practical purposes, been obliterated.
The chart below takes all the short-run bobbing and weaving out of the GDP data by showing the rolling 20-year average of annual growth.
It is dispositive.
By 2019, the rolling 20-year growth trend had fallen to 2.1% per annum—a figure less than half of the 4.4% level in place exactly 50 years ago.
The above dismal trend line was not for want of trying with the debt elixir.
At the end of 1969, total public and private debt (blue area in the chart below) stood at $1.54 trillion, which has since mushroomed to, well, nearly $78 trillion!
In exactly half a century, the level of debt weighing on the US economy attributable to all borrowers—households, businesses, governments, and financials—is up by 51X.
However, at the same time, the national income or nominal GDP (red area in the chart below), which supports it, has risen by only 21X.
That alone points to the skunk in the woodpile.
Total US Debt vs. Nominal GDP, 1969–2019
The debt-to-GDP ratio in 1969 stood at 1.47X, which had been roughly centered in that area for a century since 1870—an interval that saw the greatest explosion of economic growth, mass prosperity, technological progress, and accumulated wealth in human history.
It happened without any increase in the national leverage ratio at all. It had remained at the golden mean of 1.5X debt-to-income throughout.
Today the total debt-to-national income ratio stands at 3.47X, or exactly two more turns of debt than 50 years ago.
To be sure, two extra turns of debt sounds like investment banker jargon, but the phrase captures the essence of the rot that lies at the heart of the nation’s financial system and economy.
Those two extra turns amount to $43 trillion of incremental debt, which constitutes the millstone crushing economic growth and the rudiments of sustainable prosperity.
Stated differently, at the 1969 national leverage ratio of 1.47X, total public and private debt today would clock in at $32 trillion, not $75 trillion. Had the leverage ratio not tripled over the last half-century, the trend rate of economic growth would not have been cut in half.
After all, aggregate economic growth comes from the sum of labor hours employed and productivity improvements. Given the massive burst of technological innovation ushered in by the computer age since 1969, there should have been no want of the latter.
Today, we are employing barely 60% of the available adult labor hours in the US economy. That means there are more than enough latent labor hours available to support pre-1969 levels of growth.
In the case of the employment/population ratio—even allowing for the fact that in 1969 most jobs were full-time and today there is a huge part-time, gig-based element to the workforce—was 14% lower in February (pre-lockdown) than it was back then.
So if the raw productivity and potential labor hours were there to support a continuation of the 4.0% historical growth rate shown above, why has it faltered to less than half of that level during the last half-century?
As Dustin Hoffman might have said in the iconic moment of The Graduate, which was released on the eve of 1969—malinvestment!
That’s what the massive expansion of debt, the systematic falsification of interest rates, and financial asset prices confected by the Fed has wrought.
Capital and technology have been misallocated and wasted; potential labor resources have been inefficiently deployed or not at all.
The legions of money-dealers and speculators in today’s economy are an example of the former.
An example of the latter is the fact that millions of jobs moved offshore because of the Fed’s inflation of debt and the domestic price-cost-wage structure.
Less Interest, More Debt
Jay Powell and his merry band of money-wreckers would not even recognize the charts above.
They are so caught up in groupthink and recency bias that they are not even aware of where their monetary perfidy has taken the nation’s finances and economic foundation.
Each new economic crisis or shock leads them to the same knee-jerk policy spasm: less interest, more debt!
It also leads them into outright intellectual mendacity, that is, the spurious claim that even tiny upward toggles in rock-bottom interest rates are a mortal threat to the economy and must be suppressed with even more heavy-handed intervention.
In that context, Powell let the cat out of the bag when he made the preposterous claim—and with no if, ands or buts—that the insane $2.8 trillion of new money printed by the Fed since the onset of the lockdown in mid-March was some kind of Bernanke-esque profile in the courage to print.
What he describes below did not happen, not even remotely:
“What happened was markets stopped working. They stopped working, and companies couldn’t borrow, they couldn’t roll over their debt. People couldn’t borrow. Financial turbulence and malfunction, a financial system that’s not working, can greatly amplify the negative effects of what was clearly going to be a major economic shock.
What our tools were put to work to do was to restore the markets to function. I think some of that has really happened, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, and that’s a good thing.”
This is the same Gigantic Lie Ben Bernanke unleashed in the fall of 2008.
We wonder what hay wagon Powell thinks we fell off of.
That’s because he made the same specious argument that Bernanke made in the fall of 2008 when he went off the deep end, taking the Fed’s balance sheet from $900 billion (which took 94 years to accrue) to $2.3 trillion in a mere 13 weeks.
Needless to say, once you get in the price control business for debt, you are inherently in the price control business for all financial assets because the cost of the former drives the discount rate for equities and other long-duration assets.
It is the most egregious folly ever imagined.
It causes a massive windfall to the top 1% and 10%, which own 53% and 88% of the stock, respectively. It also fuels a self-reinforcing speculative mania that eventually collapses under its own weight.
In a debt-saturated system, the Fed’s massive bond purchases never transmit anything outside the canyons of Wall Street. This money-printing madness only drives bond prices higher and cap rates lower. This means relentless and systematic inflation of financial asset prices.
As a practical matter, the bottom 90% don’t own enough stock or even inflated government and corporate bonds to shake a stick at. Instead, what meager savings they have accumulated languish in bank deposits, CDs, or money market funds earning exactly what the Fed has decreed—nothing!
So, when Powell says he’s only trying to help the average American, you have to wonder whether he is just stupid or the greatest lying fraud yet to occupy the Fed’s big chair.
It doesn’t matter why. The Fed is now a rogue institution that comprises a clear and present danger to the future of prosperity and liberty in America.
* * *
The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.
- Xi's Political Rivals Run For Cover: "A Purge Is Coming – Be Careful"
Xi’s Political Rivals Run For Cover: “A Purge Is Coming – Be Careful”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 17:20Nikkei Asian Review has more details on Xi Jinping’s ongoing purge in preparation to establish total authority over China’s Communist Party, including related to some recent key, deeply symbolic acts:
Also on Aug. 26, Xi convened a meeting of 300 or so senior police and state security officials from across the country at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
In a pompous ceremony, Xi handed to the police force a newly designed red and blue flag.
The red portion, occupying the top half of the flag, symbolizes the party and is meant to portray the police’s absolute loyalty to the party, it was explained.
It ultimately means that for the first time the country’s police forces are under Xi’s direct control, instead under the immediate oversight of the government’s State Council.
Via Chinese state media The Nikkei report links Xi’s penchant for bestowing new flags on state enforcement entities as underscoring their total loyalty to the party, which increasingly means himself, also given also significant rumors Xi is looking to resurrect Mao Zedong’s historic ‘Chairman’ title to replace his slightly less impressive title of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
The report notes further:
Likewise, the People’s Armed Police — a paramilitary organization responsible for internal security, riot control and anti-terrorism efforts — has been placed under the full command of the Central Military Commission. It had previously been under the military and government.
Back in January 2018, Xi also conferred a new flag to the People’s Armed Police; one that was different from the People’s Liberation Army flag.
Each time Xi seeks to take control of a branch of law enforcement, he confers a flag.
Top trusted officials handpicked by President Xi have expressed worry about “two-faced people” as well as loyalty and political discipline.
Image: AP Amid Xi’s ongoing anti-corruption purge, at least thirty top party officials have already fallen, which many say is reminiscent of Mao’s infamous first major party purge in 1941, dubbed the “Yan’an rectification movement” which paved the way for the founding father of the People’s Republic of China being declared chairman.
Nikkei underscores that with the underlying intentions related to the rectification movement clear, rivals and political enemies are “running for cover” — including apparently leaders of the rival Communist Youth League, now in subtle ways relaying to its members: “A purge is coming. Everyone, be careful.”
- Joe Biden Joked In 2013 About China 'Helping Him' Politically
Joe Biden Joked In 2013 About China ‘Helping Him’ Politically
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 16:55When Joe Biden was Vice President, he told an audience at a US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting that he had the “great pleasure” of spending “a fair amount of time with President Xi,” after Xi was made president of China.
“I congratulated him on his elevation, I asked if he could possibly help me,” Biden then joked, in a clip which can still be viewed on the Obama White House YouTube page, according to the NY Post.
And as American Thinker frames it:
During the 2016 campaign, candidate Trump made a joke about asking Russia for help in finding Hillary Clinton’s deleted (and bleach-bitted) emails from her private server, and that was taken as evidence for launching an FBI investigation and subsequent special counsel probe on non-existent “collusion” with Russia. Yet back in 2013, Joe Biden, whose son was hauled around on Air Force Two to help him make lucrative deals with foreign powers including China, openly “joked” about asking Beijing for help becoming president, and we are only hearing of it this weekend:
NEW (from me)
Joe Biden joked about China helping him become president during remarks at the US-China Strategic And Economic Dialogue in Washington DC in 2013https://t.co/ePb0L3iLtp pic.twitter.com/vRZzQHeQ67
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) September 5, 2020
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Then, months after Biden’s June 2013 comments, he flew with son Hunter on Air Force Two, landing in Beijing where he would meet with Hunter’s Chinese partners at BHR Equity Investment Fund Management Co, according to the New York Post.
How else has China helped, or are helping, the Bidens?
- Trump Says Schools Teaching NY Times' 1619 Project "Will Not Be Funded"
Trump Says Schools Teaching NY Times’ 1619 Project “Will Not Be Funded”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 16:30Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
President Donald Trump on Sunday warned the Department of Education is investigating the use of the New York Times’ “1619 Project” in schools, saying that institutions that use the alternative narrative of U.S. history could lose federal funding.
The “1619 Project,” created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and widely panned by historians and political scientists, attempts to cast the Atlantic slave trade as the dominant factor in the founding of America instead of ideals such as individual liberty and natural rights. Some critics have said that it is an attempt to rewrite U.S. history through a left-wing lens. Some historians have criticized the project over inaccuracies such as the American Revolution having been fought to preserve the institution of slavery rather than for seeking independence from Britain.
“Department of Education is looking at this. If so, they will not be funded!” Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday, responding to a post that said California has “implemented the 1619 project into the public schools,” and that “soon you won’t recognize [A]merica.” California’s Department of Education came up with a draft model last month to include some of the project in history classes.
It echoes the sentiment of a bill that was proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced in July that proposes denying funds to a school that uses the 1619 Project. Schools in places like Washington D.C. and Chicago have modified their curriculum for the project.
Controversy erupted earlier this year when a professor at Northwestern University who helped fact-check the project said that she alerted Hannah-Jones about inaccuracies contained in the project but got no response.
“On August 19 of last year I listened in stunned silence as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against,” wrote professor Leslie Harris in Politico.
Harris also said she “vigorously disputed” the claim that protecting slavery was a major reason why the American Revolution was fought.
“Far from being fought to preserve slavery, the Revolutionary War became a primary disrupter of slavery in the North American Colonies.
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, a British military strategy designed to unsettle the Southern Colonies by inviting enslaved people to flee to British lines, propelled hundreds of enslaved people off plantations and turned some Southerners to the patriot side.
It also led most of the 13 Colonies to arm and employ free and enslaved black people, with the promise of freedom to those who served in their armies,” Harris wrote.
Cotton, meanwhile, wrote in July that the project is “racially divisive” and engages in a revisionist rewriting of U.S. history.
“Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage,” said Cotton.
- Sick Students Flee College Campuses As COVID Outbreaks Rage
Sick Students Flee College Campuses As COVID Outbreaks Rage
Tyler Durden
Sun, 09/06/2020 – 16:05The notion that the US will experience a resurgence in COVID-19 cases this fall is almost starting to look like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A couple of weeks ago, as coronavirus cases were just starting to climb in the state of Iowa, the Daily Iowan, the student newspaper at the University of Iowa, published a harrowing account of one student’s trip through the campus quarantine procedure after testing positive for COVID-19 on campus.
The student described confusion and disorder every step of the way, apathetic staff, and substandard living conditions in the “quarantine” dorms. She eventually decided to walk away from it all and return home to Illinois. The student’s story wound up in the press after going viral after being shared on student life social media pages.
“I felt like a guinea pig,” she told the Daily Iowan.
Since then, Iowa has become host to one of the fastest growing outbreaks in the US.
Outbreaks on college campuses have received growing national attention in recent weeks as more universities opt to send students home, despite a growing scientific consensus that sick students would be better off remaining on campus.
Ravina Kullar, epidemiologist and spokesperson for Infectious Diseases Society of America, said schools should quarantine students on campus, and that students shouldn’t be sent home.
Amazingly, schools have rejected this guidance seemingly en masse, risking a repeat of one of the dynamics that definitely helped spread COVID-19 across the country. As Bloomberg reports, schools around the country are increasingly sending students home, often due, it appears, to their own inability to effectively execute hastily organized plans to deal with sick students. Instead of taking responsibility and risking more financial losses.
Some schools have seen infection rates north of 1% for their student populations. Ohio State saw 1.6% of students test positive during the latter half of August.
At Ohio State University, President Kristina Johnson sent an email to the more than 60,000 students, faculty and staff Thursday urging them all to “act as though you are positive” going into Labor Day weekend.
Between Aug. 14 and Sept. 1, about 1.6% of the public flagship’s student population — 1,052 students — contracted the disease. Deans “can pretty much trace” the spread from party to party, and the ability of the university to provide in-person education will rely on students’ restraint, Governor Mike DeWine said at a news conference.
“No one is telling students to hibernate for nine months or the whole year,” he said. “Look, this is the reality: If the numbers get too high and the spread is too much, these schools are going to have absolutely no choice but to pull back.”
But will schools simply do the right thing and “pack it in” if things get out of hand. Maybe some will. But that seems like a naive assumption.
Some students were left adrift after schools abruptly quarantined, or closed, their dorms, due to a cluster of infections. Those unable to find an alternative, perhaps an off campus apartment, might be forced to return home and complete their “semester” online.
As classroom doors close, some students are rushing home. Others are looking for off-campus housing. Many students, parents and administrators are frustrated,
After a flight from New York to Denver and a two-hour car ride, Laurie Meehan and her son Christopher, an 18-year-old freshman, arrived at Colorado College on Aug. 16. He and his two roommates tested negative upon arrival, but his dorm was quarantined Aug. 29. He was told this past week that students had to leave university housing by Sept. 20 and now, he’s quarantining alone in a triple room.
Christopher and his parents would like him to stay in Colorado and take advantage of the outdoor activities.
“He and a number of other students are trying to find housing,” said Laurie Meehan, 52. “Some are looking in mountain towns because there are so many rental properties available.”
Administrators across the country are finding that they grossly underestimated students inability to comply with social distancing restrictions, as they pack on campus bars and outdoor ‘dartys’ – day parties – during Greek Life rush season. Even without sports, the entire point of going to college, for most of these kids (at least the ones majoring in liberal arts) is partying. And that’s one thing you can’t do online.
The media has responded by selectively shaming students and fraternities and schools. Many have been kicked off campus, or seen their entire semester’s tuition seized and been kicked out, for posting on social media about parties that violated school rules.
The reversals have been predictable, said Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. “Colleges told their students most of the summer that things would be reasonably close to normal,” Kelchen said.
“They expected college students to stay to themselves or in very small groups of friends. That’s not how the college experience works.”
In Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama students packed bars last month after sororities chose their members on their Bid Day, an annual spectacle that involves herds of undergraduate women racing and cheering before large crowds of onlookers.
A few days before students had returned Aug. 23, the school said only 237 of them had tested positive. The number is now more than 1,200. The university had 450 housing units reserved to quarantine students, but exceeded that capacity in less than a week. The school has received 400 reports of students breaking rules about masks and social distancing, and has removed several from class, according to a memo from President Stuart Bell. Officials haven’t suggested sending students home, saying that would spread the virus to their relatives and communities.
Even the “smart” kids have paid little attention to the Rules. The Detroit News found the bars and hotspots in Ann Arbor packed with students, most of whom ignored social distancing rules as they drank and partied into the night.
But UM is hardly alone among Michigan’s public schools.
Central Michigan University now has 260 cases traced to the Aug. 17 return of students, including people living in and around the community, according to the Central Michigan District Health Department that serves six mid-Michigan counties.
USA Today has apparently been keeping a close eye out for stories about students being dismissed without a tuition refund for violating COVID-19 rules. Northeastern University dismissed 11 first-year students after they were discovered partying together in a crowded room at the Westin Hotel in Boston on Wednesday night. They will not receive refunds on their payments for the semester. We imagine the private school’s budget really needed that extra $1 million in tuition, when the school has an endowment of more than $1 billion.
While it’s easy to dismiss this behavior as reckless young people taking dangerous risks, one professor pointed out that depending on young people to behave any differently was a mistake to begin with, and instead of “shaming” them, schools must find a way to roll with it, so to speak.
Universities didn’t acknowledge the inevitable risk that college students take, said Gavin Yamey, a physician and professor of global health and public policy at Duke University in North Carolina.
“Shaming young people for risky behavior at a time when we know they are in young adulthood, when risk taking is at its peak, is an ineffective public health strategy,” said Yamey, who directs Duke’s Center for Policy Impact in Global Health.
After its student newspaper made a stink about the growing number of cases on campus, UNC became the first school in the country to send students home on Aug 17, despite the fact that this strategy has met with no small degree of criticism from epidemiologists. When confronted with a similarly severe outbreak as UNC, Notre Dame took steps to fight the virus, but opted to keep students on campus. That strategy appears to have paid off.
However, the extreme difficulty schools are having containing the virus probably means that President Trump’s wish to see college football revived for the fall season probably won’t be granted.
The University of Dayton has the highest number of COVID-19 cases of any college in Ohio, and is among the highest in the Midwest, according to a local TV station report, which cited numbers released from colleges and universities covering the last days of August and first of September. As of its latest data on Aug. 31, University had 771 positive cases and had 55 new daily cases.
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