Today’s News 8th April 2023

• Central Bank Digital Currency Is The Endgame, Part 2
  Central Bank Digital Currency Is The Endgame, Part 2

  Authored by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian.org,

  In Part 1 we noted that “money” is no more than a medium of exchange. If we cooperate in sufficient numbers, we could create an economy based upon an entirely voluntary monetary system.

  We don’t need banks to control our exchange transactions and modern Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has made voluntary exchange on a global scale entirely feasible.

  We contrasted the true nature of “money” with the proposed Central Bank Digital Currencies. CBDC is being rolled out across the world by a global public-private partnership.

  What we call money is actually fiat currency conjured out of thin air by central and commercial banks. Even so, CBDC is nothing like “money” as we currently understand it.

  Prior to the pseudopandemic, fiat currency circulated in a split-monetary circuit. Only commercial banks could access a type of money called “central bank reserves” or “base money.”

  In late 2019, the global financial institution BlackRock introduced a monetary plan that advocated “going direct” in order “to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders.”

  We discussed how the idea of putting “central bank money” directly into the hands of “private sector spenders” is precisely what that new CBDC based International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS) is designed to achieve. But CBDC will accomplish far more for the global parasite class than merely revamp its failing “debt” based IMFS.

  If it is universally adopted, CBDC will afford the bankers complete control over the our daily lives. The surveillance grid will be omnipresent and every aspect of our lives will be engineered.

  

  CBDC is the endgame and, in this article, we will explore how that game will play out.

  If we allow it.

  THE INTEROPERABLE CBDC EMPIRE

  Contrary to the stories we are told, central banks are private corporations. These private corporations operate a global monetary and financial empire that is overseen and coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

  The BIS does not come under the jurisdiction of any nation state nor intergovernmental organisation. It is exempt from all “law” and is arguably sovereign over the entire planet. As its current monetary system power-base declines, it is rolling out CBDC to protect and enhance its own authority.

  While a “most likely” CBDC “platform” model has emerged, there is, as yet, no agreed single technical specification for CBDC. But, for the reasons we discussed previously, it is safe to say that no national model will be based upon a permissionless DLT—blockchain or otherwise—and all of them will be “interoperable.”

  In 2021 the BIS published its Central bank digital currencies for cross-border payments report. The BIS defined “interoperability” as:

  The technical or legal compatibility that enables a system or mechanism to be used in conjunction with other systems or mechanisms. Interoperability allows participants in different systems to conduct, clear and settle payments or financial transactions across systems

  The BIS’ global debt based monetary system is “tapped out” and CBDC is the central bankers’ solution. Their intended technocratic empire is global. Consequently, all national CBDCs will be “interoperable.” Alleged geopolitical tensions are irrelevant.

  The CBDC Tracker from the NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council, currently reports that 114 countries, representing 95% of global GDP, are actively developing their CBDC. Of these, 11 have already launched.

  Just as the pseudopandemic initiated the process of getting “central bank money” directly into private hands so, according to the Atlantic Council, the sanction response to the war in Ukraine has added further impetus to the development of CBDC:

  Financial sanctions on Russia have led countries to consider payment systems that avoid the dollar. There are now 9 cross-border wholesale CBDC tests and 7 cross-border retail projects, nearly double the number from 2021.

  That this evidences the global coordination of a worldwide CBDC project, and that the BIS innovation hubs have been established to coordinate it, is apparently some sort of secret. China’s PBC, for example, is a shining beacon of CBDC light as far as the BIS are concerned:

  [. . . ] improving cross-border payments efficiency is also an important motivation for CBDC work. [. . .] The possibilities for cross-border use of retail CBDC are exemplified by the approaches in the advanced CBDC project in China[.]

  The People’s Bank of China (PBC) has been coordinating development of its CBDC cross-border payment system in partnership with the BIS via the m-Bridge CBDC project which is overseen by the BIS’ Hong Kong innovation hub.

  Supposedly, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR – Bank of Russia) was suspended by the BIS. Apparently, it was also ousted from the SWIFT telecommunications system. We were told that this was a “punishement” for the Russian government’s escelation of the war in Ukraine. In reality, it is doubtful that the BIS suspension ever occurred, and the SWIFT sanction was a meaningless gesture. Developing interoperable CBDC’s takes precedence over anything else.

  All we have to substantiate the BIS suspension claim is some Western media reports, citing anonymous BIS sources, and an ambiguous footnote on a couple of BIS documents.

  Meanwhile, the CBR is currently listed as an active BIS member with full voting rights and no one, either from the BIS or the CBR, has made any official statement in regard to the supposed suspension.

  The CBR’s cross-border CBDC development uses two of the three BIS m-Bridge CBDC models and it is testing its interoperable “digital ruble” with the PBC. Seeing as the PBC is BIS m-Bridge development “partner,” alleged suspension or not, there is no chance that the “digital ruble” won’t be interoperable with the BIS’ new global financial system.

  The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) provides the world’s most pervasive encoded inter-bank messaging system. Both central and commercial banks, as well as other private financial institutions, use SWIFT to securely transmit transaction data.

  There are a number of SWIFT alternatives. For example, the CBR developed its parallel System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) in 2014 which went live in 2017. Numerous Russian banks were already using the PBC’s China International Payments System (CIPS) long before any supposed censure by SWIFT.

  CIPS was developed by the PBC  in partnership with SWIFT. As a result of SWIFT’s “sanction” of the CBR, the PBC and the CBR then started collaborating in earnest on a potential CIPS based SWIFT replacement. If the stories we are told are true, SWIFT’s action appears to have been an empty act of self-defeating folly.

  None of the various communication layer technologies are financial systems in and of themselves, but they enable banks, trading platforms, clearing houses, payment processing systems and all the other elements of the global financial system to communicate with each other. For CBDCs to be successful they need to be interoperable both with these systems and with each other.

  Interoperability also extends to existing fiat currencies and other financial assets, such as mortgage backed securities and exchange traded funds (ETFs). These assets, funds, currencies and securities, etc. can be “tokenised.” As can practically any physical or virtual asset or commodity.

  Hidera, a distributed ledger technology company that uses the hashgraph based DLT—a blockchain alternative—is backed by a number of wealthy global corporations. The company explains the asset tokenisation (or tokenization) process:

  Asset tokenization is the process by which an issuer creates digital tokens on a distributed ledger or blockchain, which represent either digital or physical assets. [. . .] Suppose you have a property worth $500,000 in New York, NY. Asset tokenization could convert ownership of this property into 500,000 tokens — each one representing a tiny percentage (0.0002%) of the property. [. . .] The possibilities are endless as tokenization allows for both fractional ownership and proof-of-ownership. From traditional assets like venture capital funds, bonds, commodities, and real-estate properties to exotic assets like sports teams, race horses, artwork, and celebrities, companies worldwide use blockchain technology to tokenize almost anything.

  The ability to trade tokenised assets internationally in any market, using CBDC, will facilitate the creation of a new CBDC based IMFS. Furthermore, digital “tokenisation” means anything can be converted into a financial asset and then traded on the new, CBDC based, digital IMFS.

  For example, the BIS’ Project Genesis tokenised “government green bonds.” The World Bank explains “green bonds”:

  A bond is a form of debt security. A debt security is a legal contract for money owed that can be bought and sold between parties. [. . .] A green bond is a debt security that is issued to raise capital specifically to support climate related or environmental projects.

  Using CBDC’s added “smart contract” functionality, Project Genesis appended “mitigation outcome interests” smart contracts (MOIs) to their green bond purchase agreements. When the bond matured, in addition to any premium or coupon payments from the bond itself, the investor received verified carbon credits. The carbon credits are also tradable assets and they too can be tokenised.

  Tokenised assets, traded using the CBDCs that central banks create from nothing, will generate almost limitless permutations for the formation of new markets. Subsequent profits will soar.

  This “financialisation of everything” will further remove an already distant financial system to from the real, productive economy the rest of us live in. Needless to say, “interoperability” is a key desired “feature” of CBDC.

  The BIS published its Project Helvetia report in December 2020 which demonstrated proof of concept for the settlement  payment for “tokenised assets” using CBDC.

  SWIFT subsequently published the findings from its Connecting Digital Islands: CBDCs modelling experiment in October 2022.

  SWIFT’s stated objective was to link various national CBDCs to existing payment systems and thereby achieve “global interoperability.” SWIFT was delighted to report:

  These new experiments have successfully demonstrated a groundbreaking solution capable of interlinking CBDC networks and existing payments systems for cross-border transactions. Interlinking is a solution to achieve interoperability [.] [. . .] This solution can provide CBDC network operators at central banks with simple enablement and integration of domestic CBDC networks into cross-border payments [.]

  In its associated press release, SWIFT announced:

  Swift has successfully shown that Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenised assets can move seamlessly on existing financial infrastructure – a major milestone towards enabling their smooth integration into the international financial ecosystem.

  Whatever CBDC design national central banks adopt, no matter which inter-bank payment system they access—be it SWIFT, CIPS or some new communication layer—global interoperability is assured. Thus many different CBDCs can form one, centrally controlled IMFS that will transact in near instantaneous real time.

  Control of this CBDC system will also mean the centralised global power to limit or block payments, target users, redirect funds, enforce purchases, trade assets, add contracts, tax at source and generally exploit any of the other endless range of “functions” CBDC is capable of. In near instantaneous real time.

  

  THE CBDC FLIMFLAM

  Jon Cunliffe, Bank of England (BoE) Deputy Governor for Financial Stability, launching the UK’s proposal for a “digital pound,” said:

  There is scope for innovation to generate further efficiencies in payments, allowing for faster and/or cheaper payments. [. . .] The digital pound could also complement existing financial inclusion initiatives, for example if it were able to provide for offline payments.

  In its 2021 document on the Digital Ruble Concept, the CBR said that it had developed its Russian CBDC in response to:

  [. . .] growing demand from households and businesses to improve the speed, convenience and safety of payments and transfers, as well as for cost reduction in the financial sphere.

  The claimed advantages of cost saving, efficiency, speed , convenience, financial inclusion, improved resilience, financial security and so on, are trotted out time and time again. All of it is part of a dangerous and completely disingenuous sales pitch deceiving you into accepting your own monetary slavery.

  Further on, the CBR reveals what has really spurred its development of the “digital ruble:”

  [. . .] smart contracts may also be used to mark digital rubles, which will allow setting conditions for spending digital rubles (e.g. defining specific categories of goods/services that can be purchased with them) and tracing the entire chain of movement of the marked digital rubles. [. . .] Digital ruble settlements do not provide for the anonymity of payments.

  The digital ruble might initially seem more “convenient” but it is also designed to enable the the Russian central bankers to identify exactly who is buying what, anywhere in the country at any time. It will also empower them to set the “contract” conditions which will determine what Russians can buy, when and from whom. The central bankers will decide what “choices” Russian CBDC users are allowed to make.

  We should not be duped by the faux rationales offered by the proponents of CBDC. Despite all the cosy rhetoric from the likes of the CBR and the BoE, the real objective is to enhance the global power and authority of bankers. As far as they are concerned, this power will know no bounds.

  For instance, the BoE’s Jon Cunliffe added:

  [. . .] there are broader macro-economic and geopolitical issues that need to be considered. The Bank of England is working actively on these issues with international counterparts through the Bank for International Settlements Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), through the G7, the G20 and FSB [Financial Stability Board] and through close cooperation with a small group of advanced economy central banks.

  Don’t be surprised that the central bankers consider geopolitics to be within their remit. Their stated intention to “actively” work on geopolitical “issues” has no “democratic” mandate whatsoever, but so what? They don’t care, why should they? Who is paying attention? Most of us are too busy worrying about feeding ourselves and paying our energy bills.

  The fact that bankers have long been able exert inordinate influence over geopolitics, economics and society has always been to our detriment. If we continue to neglect our duty to defend each other and ourselves, and if we blindly accept CBDC, the bankers’ power and authority will be immeasurable.

  In 2020, the Russian Federation government amended its legal code with the “Law on Digital Financial Assets” (DFAs).

  The amendment regulated “non-cash ruble” DFAs. The CBR soon added its commercial bank partner Sberbank to the list of financial institutions authorised by the CBR to issue DFAs. In December 2022 Sberbank launched its “gold backed ” DFA offering “tokenised” gold.

  Since 1971, when central banks finally abandoned any semblance of gold standard, many have lamented the supposed loss of fiat currency’s “intrinsic value.” The possibility of adding “intrinsic value” to CBDC through smart contracts is apparently enticing some to now welcome CBDC and, thereby, their own enslavement.

  The Russian and Iranian governments have already proposed a possible gold-backed CBDC “stablecoin” for interoperable cross border payments. “Interoperability” suggests it could be “backed” by Sberbank’s tokenised gold DFA.

  If this sounds suspiciously like a shell game that’s because it is. Nonetheless, some are convinced and have extolled the alleged virtues of this “gold backed” CBDC.

  It makes no difference if CBDC is backed by gold, oil, nuclear weapons or unicorn horns. All claims of its advantages are nothing but CBDC flimflam.

  No matter how it is spun, the brutal fact is that CBDC affords an unimaginable degree of social control to those who program it. From our perspective, unless we have completely taken leave of our senses, nothing warrants taking that risk.

  

  It is all so shiny and marvellous isn’t it?

  THE PROGRAMMABLE CBDC NIGHTMARE

  The BoE is among the central banks to reassure the public that it won’t “implement central bank-initiated programmable functions.” Elsewhere, it also claims that is a public institution, which isn’t true. So we have little reason to believe anything the BoE says.

  Not that it matters much, because the BoE assurances given in its CBDC technical specification don’t provide reason for optimism:

  Central bank-initiated programmable use cases are not currently relevant to the Bank and HM Treasury’s policy objectives for CBDC.

  Perhaps “not currently” but enforcing programmable CBDC may well become “relevant,” don’t you think? Especially given that the BoE adds:

  The design of a UK CBDC must deliver the Government and Bank’s [the BoE] policy objectives. [. . .] Over the longer term, innovation and evolving user needs may mean a broader range of CBDC payment types could be offered. For example, offline and cross-border payments could support public policy objectives.

  As if this mealymouthed squeamishness wasn’t bad enough, the BoE then goes on to suggest we should welcome their dream of a stakeholder-capitalism CBDC Wild West:

  [T]he Bank [BoE] would aim to support programmable functionality[.] [. . .] These functionalities would be implemented by PIPs [Payment Interface Providers] and ESIPs [External Service Interface Providers], and would require user consent. PIPs could implement some of these features, such as automated payments and programmable wallets, by hosting the programmable logic [. . .]. But other features [. . .] might require additional design considerations. [. . .] [T]he Bank would only provide the necessary infrastructure to support PIPs and ESIPs to provide these functionalities. [. . .] An automated payment could be particularly useful in IoT [Internet of Things] use cases. [. . .] PIPs could host their own logic that triggers a payment.

  If the BoE don’t “currently” feel the need to program your “money,” how about handing program control over to HSBC, Barclays, Mastercard or PayPal? They will program your CBDC to “deliver the Government and Bank’s [the BoE] policy objectives.” Undoubtedly adding some lucrative “contract logic” of their own along the way. What could possibly go wrong?

  Let’s say EDF Energy is your energy provider. You could let BlackRock, working in partnership with the manufacturers it invests in, exploit the IoT to program your washing machine to automatically pay for your energy use by deducting your “money” from your CBDC “wallet”, subject to whatever “contract logic” BlackRock has agreed with EDF Energy.

  If you run a small UK business you could let your bank automatically deduct income tax from your earnings and pay it directly to the Treasury. No need for the inconvenience of self-assessment. CBDC will be so much more “convenient.”

  Of course, this will be entirely “optional,” although it may be a condition of opening a business account with your bank. In which case your CBDC “option” will be to work in a central bank managed CBDC run business or don’t engage in any business at all.

  How does that all sound to you? Because that is exactly the “model” of retail CBDC that the BoE are proposing. So are nearly all other central banks because CBDC is being rolled out, for all intents and purposes, simultaneously on a global scale.

  THE RETAIL CBDC NIGHTMARE

  As noted in Part 1, the real nightmare CBDC scenario for us is programmable retail CBDC. In its proposed technological design of the disingenuously named “digital pound,” the BoE revealed that “retail CBDC” is exactly what we are going to get.

  The BoE claims that retail CBDC is essential to maintain access to central bank money. This is only “essential” for bankers, not us.

  It also alleges that its digital pound model has been offered to the public merely for “consultation” purposes. Yet it has only offered one, very specific CBDC design for our consideration and the “consultation” deploys the Delphi technique to ensure that responses are limited to expressing levels of agreement with the imposed, underlying premise. The only question appears to be when we will adopt CBDC, not if.

  The usual flimflam, talking about inclusion, cost savings, offering choice and yada yada, peppers the BoE’s statements and documents. The BoE also lays out its retail CBDC panopticon.

  The UK’s CBDC won’t initially target everyone. Speaking about the design of the digital pound, Jon Cunliffe said:

  We propose a limit of between £10,000 and £20,000 per individual as the appropriate balance between managing risks and supporting wide usability of the digital pound. A limit of £10,000 would mean that three quarters of people could receive their pay in digital pounds, while a £20,000 limit would allow almost everyone to receive their pay in digital pounds.

  If working people are “paid” in CBDC they won’t actually have any “choice” at all. The low paid and those reliant upon benefits payments will have no option but to use CBDC. The independently wealthy, for whom £20,000 is neither here nor there, won’t.

  Cunliffe’s comments highlight the possibility that savings can also be limited in the brave new CBDC world. He clearly suggests that those on low incomes won’t be able to hold more than CBDC-£20,000 and will perhaps be limited to as little as CBDC £10,000.

  Unsurprisingly, the UK’s CBDC won’t be based upon a permissionless DLT that could potentially grant anonymity, but rather upon, what the BoE calls, its “platform model.” The BoE will “host” the “core ledger” and the application layer (API) will allow the BoE’s carefully selected private sector partners—called Payment Interface Providers (PIPs) and External Service Interface Providers (ESIPs)—to act as the payment gateways.

  The PIPs and the ESIPs will be “regulated,” and will thus be empowered on a preferential basis by the central bank. If CBDC becomes the dominant monetary system, as is clearly the intention, by controlling “access to the ledger,” all user transactions—our everyday activity—will be under the thumb of a public private-partnership led, in the UK, by the BoE.

  While the majority of British people don’t have anywhere near £10,000 in savings, the ability to control the amount we can save, and the rate at which we spend, is a tantalising prospect for the central bankers. Add in the ability to specify what we can spend it on and it’s their dream ticket.

  The BoE wishes to impose the most oppressive form of retail CBDC possible, but they aren’t alone. The Russian CBR’s model is another, among many others, that is just as tyrannical. The Russian’s CBDC is also constructed upon a “platform” model that is uncannily similar to the UK’s.

  Just like British citizens, Russian’s behaviour will be monitored and controlled by their private central bank and its partners through their CBDC “wallets.” The CBR’s “Model D” CBDC is also a “a retail two-tier model with financial institutions [private corporate partners] as settlement participants.”

  The CBR states:

  Digital rubles are unique digital codes (tokens) held in clients’ electronic wallets on the digital ruble platform. [. . .] The Bank of Russia opens wallets for financial institutions and the Federal Treasury while financial institutions open wallets for clients [businesses and individuals] on the digital ruble platform. Only one digital ruble wallet is opened for a client.

  Every Russian business and private citizen will each have one CBDC wallet allocated to them by the CBR. Russian commercial banks will enable the “client onboarding” to speed up adoption of CBDC. The commercial banks and other “financial institutions” will then process CBDC payments and act as payment intermediaries on the CBR’s Model D “platform.”

  The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are among those considering programming expiration dates into their CBDC’s.

  This will ensure that Chinese and Indian CBDC users can’t save and have to spend their issued “money” before it expires and ceases to function. Thereby “stimulating” economic activity in the most “going direct” way imaginable.

  The BoE proposes exactly the same in its model of digital pound. The BoE is reluctant to concede that its CBDC will be used to enforce policy. Instead, it has devolved this power to its commercial banks “partners” which the BoE will then control through regulation:

  A range of programmable features might be enabled by providing API access to locking mechanisms on the core ledger. [. . .] This enables PIPs and ESIPs to facilitate more complex programmable functionality off ledger. [. . .] The funds would be locked until a pre-defined condition has been met. [. . .] The PIPs and ESIPs would host contract logic on their own infrastructure, but would instruct the release of funds via API to the core ledger. [. . .] If the set conditions are not met, all locks would have an expiry time where the funds are released back to the original owner.

  The BoE public-private partnership could, for example, program its CBDC with an expiry date. The PIPs or the ESIPs could then modify the program adding “more complex” conditions through their own “contract logic” infrastructure. For example, the BoE could specify that the CBDC your “wallet” will expire by next Wednesday.

  A PIP or ESIP could add some contract logic to ensure you can only buy Italian coffee—before next Wednesday. This could be enforced at the point of sale in any retail setting (off ledger).

  This is a silly example, but don’t be fooled into believing such an excruciating degree of oppressive control isn’t possible. Programmable CBDC, probably programmed by AI algorithms, is capable of enforcing an intricate web of strictures over our everyday lives.

  Just as you can send an encrypted message to anyone else on the same message app, so CBDC “smart contracts” can be tailored to the precisely prescribe what you can or cannot do with your “money.”

  

  Bo-Li

  THEY WOULDN’T DO THAT THOUGH WOULD THEY?

  The infamous quote, from a salivating BIS general manager Agustín Carstens, reveals why central bankers are so excited about CBDC:

  We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.

  We can look to other influential central bankers to appreciate what kind of “rules” central banks might choose to “enforce” by exercising their “absolute control.”

  Bo Li, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of China and the current Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaking at the Central Bank Digital Currencies for Financial Inclusion: Risks and Rewards symposium, offered further clarification:

  CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program [CBDC] to create smart-contracts, to allow targetted policy functions. For example[,] welfare payments [. . .], consumptions coupons, [. . .] food stamps. By programming, CBDC money can be precisely targeted [to] what kind of [things] people can own, and what kind of use [for which] this money can be utilised. For example, [. . .] for food.

  Nigeria has already launched its eNaira retail CBDC. The Nigerian central bank and the BIS have immediately used it as a tool to roll out Digital ID:

  Universal access to eNaira is a key goal of the CBN [Central Bank of Nigeria], and new forms of digital identification are being issued to the unbanked to help with access. [. . .] When it comes to anonymity, the CBN has opted to not allow anonymity even for lower-tier wallets. At present, a bank verification number is required to open a retail customer wallet.

  The French central bank—the Banque de France—hosted a conference in September 2022 where US and EU central bankers decided that their retail CBDC would also force Digital ID upon users.

  Indeed, all central banks have effectively “ruled out” any possibility of “anonymous use” of their programmable money.

  The Reserve Bank of India states:

  Most central banks and other observers have, however, noted that the potential for anonymous digital currency to facilitate shadow-economy and illegal transactions, makes it highly unlikely that any CBDC would be designed to fully match the levels of anonymity and privacy currently available with physical cash.

  Once we have no option but to use CBDC nor will we have any but to accept Digital ID. We will be fully visible on the grid at all times.

  Currently if the state wishes to lockdown its citizens or limit their movement within 15 minutes of their homes they need some form of legislation or enforceable regulation. Once we start using CBDC that is linked to our Digital ID, complete with biometric, address and other details, they won’t need legislation or regulation.

  They can simply switch off your “money,” making it impossible to use outside of your restriction zone. Potentially limiting you to online purchases made only from your registered IP address. CBDC will ensure your compliance.

  It is no use imagining that “they wouldn’t do that.” We have already seen the use of monetary punishment and control in our so-called liberal democracies. Numerous private payment providers removed access from those who, in their view, expressed to wrong opinion.

  When Canadians exercised their legitimate right to peaceful protest and their fellow Canadians chose to offer their financial support to the protesters, the commercial banks worked in partnership with the Canadian state to freeze protesters accounts and shut down their funding streams.

  CBDC will make this a matter of routine, as targeted individuals are punished for their dissent or disobedience. It stretches naivety to wilful ignorance to believe that it won’t.

  The whole point of CBDC is to control the herd and enhance the power and authority of the parasite class. CBDC is a social engineering tool designed to establish a prison planet. Unless you want to be a slave, there is no possible justification for using CBDC. Submitting to CBDC enslavement truly is a “choice.”

  Please share these articles. It is absolutely vital that as many people as possible understand the true nature of CBDC. We cannot rely upon the state or the mainstream media for anything approaching transparency or honesty on the subject. With regard to our potentially calamitous adoption of CBDC, they are the enemy.

  People are already resisting. The Swiss have gathered enough signatures to force a referendum that, if successful, will enshrine cash in Swiss law and stop the government from moving towards a “cashless society.” The Nigerian e-Naira is not popular and there have been significant protests against the removal of cash.

  US Congressman Tom Emmer has introduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act (bill) to stop the Fed rolling out its CBDC. Whether it will go beyond the bill stage remains to be seen.

  This is why the retail CBDC “platform” models, as proposed in the UK, Russian and other central banks, add further reason for concern. By welcoming the commercial banks and the private payment providers into CBDC interoperability, the central banks are not only attempting to overcome resistance from the private sector but seeking to seed CBDC into every form of payment we currently have available to us, other than cash.

  It is easy to envisage how a global financial collapse could usher in the “solution” of CBDC. The European Central Bank (ECB), for example, has already “modelled” how the so-called “climate crisis” could precipitate just such a collapse. If, as Cunliffe proposes, peoples’ only means of payment is CBDC then, using the existing financial system, we really won’t have much choice.

  While we need to use every peaceable means at our disposal, such as referenda, lobbying and protest, to oppose CBDC, ultimately these approaches are appeals to those who wish to impose the CBDC tyranny upon us. It would be prudent for us also to consider potential counter-economic solutions and step away from compliance with centralised authority.

  Fortunately, if we decide to resist there is no reason why we have to succumb to using CBDC.

  In order to construct better systems of exchange that will render CBDC superfluous, we have to come together in our communities. It won’t be easy, there are no simple solutions nor one “perfect” strategic response.

  But the fact is, we simply cannot afford CBDC.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 23:40

• On The Edge Of A Credit Crunch: February Saw Slowest Credit Card Growth In Two Years
  On The Edge Of A Credit Crunch: February Saw Slowest Credit Card Growth In Two Years

  Earlier this week, we wrote an article in which we said that the great fear – one also shared by Jamie Dimon – is that the ongoing bank run and near death experience of countless regional banks will force small and mid-size banks to further tighten lending standards as they enter survival mode and hunker down, effectively grinding all new loan issuance to a halt and sending the US economy into a tailspin  (as a reminder, 70% of US GDP comes from consumption, the bulk of which derives from new credit creation).

  That’s a problem because as we also discussed previously, banks with less than $250bn in assets are responsible for roughly 50% of US commercial and industrial lending, 60% of residential real estate lending, 80% of commercial real estate lending, and 45% of consumer lending. And with key segments of the economy locked out of critical lines of funding, GDP will crater and the US will spiral into a recession, just as the “inflation-fighting” Fed ordered.

  

  Unfortunately for the Fed, the central bank won’t know until early May, or one month from now when the next Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices is published, what the impact of the bank failures has been on loan issuance. What we do know, as we first reported it two months ago, is that already back in February loan demand was plunging while bank lending standards were approaching the tightest levels on record.

  

  The good news is that as we also first reported on Tuesday, we were given an early glimpse into the loan demand and supply big picture as of late March – after the bank crisis and credit crunch had started – courtesy of the Dallas Fed’s latest Banking Conditions Survey which had the following ominous conclusion:

  Loan demand declined for the fifth period in a row as bankers in the March survey reported worsening business activity. Loan volumes fell, driven largely by a sharp contraction in consumer loans…. Credit standards and terms continued to tighten sharply, and marked rises in loan pricing were also noted over the reporting period. Banking outlooks continued to deteriorate, with contacts expecting a contraction in loan demand and business activity and an increase in nonperforming loans over the next six months. Some contacts cited waning consumer confidence from recent financial instability as a concern.”

  

  And since the survey took place after the bulk of the bank failures in March and around the peak of the bank crisis…

  “Data were collected March 21–29, and 71 financial institutions responded to the survey.”

  … it best captures the current lending zeitgeist, and is a credible preview of the bloodbath that will be revealed in the the next SLOOs report.

  Fast forward to today when we got another confirmation that a painful credit crunch is coming when the Fed took advantage of the Good Friday holiday to report the latest consumer credit data. It was ugly.

  What it showed is that as of February, or the month before the worst credit crisis since Lehman slammed the banking sector, revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt) rose by just $5 billion, down sharply from the $12.8 billion in January, the $13.7 billion LTM average, and the lowest single increase since April 2021.

  

  While it is unclear if credit card usage rose at the slowest pace in two years due to weak demand or a sudden squeeze in supply – obviously we will have more information in one month when the next SLOOS hits – the implication is clear: one of the most powerful economic lifelines is grinding to a halt.

  There was a silver lining: while nonrevolving credit had unexpectedly collapsed in early 2023, driven by a sharp slowdown in auto loans (courtesy of record high interest rates), in March, this category saw a modest rebound, rising from last month’s $6.7 billion, if 40% below the LTM average of $16.8 billion.

  

  It gets worse: on Thursday, the American Bankers Association index of credit conditions fell to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic, indicating bank economists see credit conditions weakening sharply over the next six months. As a result, banks are likely to become even more cautious about extending credit.

  The bottom line is that while the consumer credit data is backward looking, the trend is clear and the March events will only lead to an even sharper credit crunch, as revolving credit – due to a reduction in both supply and demand – turns negative, to be followed promptly by a contraction in GDP and – subsequently – a recession, and another panicked stimulus package.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 23:02

• New Medical Codes For COVID-19 Vaccination Status Used To Track People, CDC Confirms
  New Medical Codes For COVID-19 Vaccination Status Used To Track People, CDC Confirms

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Medical codes introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to show when people are unvaccinated or undervaccinated for COVID-19 are being used to track people, the top U.S. public health agency has confirmed.

  

  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the confirmation in emails that The Epoch Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

  The CDC had said in documents and public statements that the goal of the new codes, in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system, was “to track people who are not immunized or only partially immunized.”

  The CDC now says it does not have access to the data, but that health care systems do.

  “The ICD codes were implemented in April 2022, however the CDC does not have any data on the codes and does not track this information,” CDC officials said in the emails.

  “The codes were created to enable healthcare providers to track within their practices,” the officials added.

  The emails were sent to news outlets. The CDC has not answered queries from The Epoch Times about the codes, which the CDC added to the U.S. ICD system in 2022.

  

   How Providers Are Using the Codes

  The CDC proposed the codes in 2021. “There has been interest expressed in being able to track people who are not immunized or who are only partially immunized,” Dr. David Berglund, a CDC medical officer, said during a meeting about the proposal.

  One code is for being “unvaccinated for COVID-19.” Another is for being partially vaccinated, or not having received a primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine.

  In comments to the CDC about the proposal, health care providers said they supported adding the codes—with some detailing how they’d be used.

  Identifying people who are unvaccinated or undervaccinated for COVID-19 “will help health insurance providers identify emollees [sic] who may benefit from outreach and further education about vaccination,” Danielle Lloyd, a senior vice president at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), and Adam Myers, senior vice president at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, said in a joint letter to the CDC.

  “Creating ICD-10 codes that can be tracked via claims would provide health insurance providers key information to help increase immunization rates,” they added.

  In another missive, Nancy Andersen, a director with Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and Hospitals, and Erica Eastham, executive director at The Permanente Federation LLC, told the CDC: “These codes provide valuable data for understanding immunization rates and for follow-up with under-immunized patients.”

  Andersen and Eastham urged the CDC to advise providers entering one of the new codes to also enter an additional code indicating why a person was unvaccinated or undervaccinated, with reasons including due to a contraindication or due to “belief or group pressure.”

  The comments were obtained by The Epoch Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

  Most of the providers and other health care groups, including the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) that commented did not respond to inquiries.

  AHIP declined to say what education it offered to people tracked through the new codes. A spokeswoman pointed to a Feb. 28, 2022, article that outlines steps providers have taken to promote vaccination.

  The codes are part of the ICD’s 10th edition. The World Health Organization of the United Nations holds the copyright for ICD-10 but has allowed the U.S. government to adopt the edition, according to the CDC. The new codes are not part of the World Health Organization’s ICD.

  All health care entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act must use the U.S. version of the ICD. The U.S. version is updated at least once a year. Coded ICD data from providers enable public health officials to “conduct many disease-related activities,” according to the CDC. Purposes include enabling a doctor seeing a new patient to easily retrieve the patient’s medical history.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 22:30

• "Explosive Growth": Nashville, Austin Job Markets Are Hot, Hot, Hot
  “Explosive Growth”: Nashville, Austin Job Markets Are Hot, Hot, Hot

  The sunbelt cities of Nashville, Tennessee, Austin, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida are among the hottest job markets in the country right now, according to an assessment of 380 metro areas conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Moody’s Analytics.

  

  Those Sunbelt cities benefited from a continued recovery in travel and a hiring boom at restaurants, hotels and music venues, consistent with the resurgent services sector driving the U.S. economy in recent months. Many remained relatively affordable as high inflation gripped the nation. Meanwhile, some Western job markets that heated up after the pandemic took hold—including Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Denver—cooled last year.  -WSJ

  The rankings were based on five factors; the unemployment rate, labor-force participation rate, how employment levels have changed, the size of the labor force, and 2022 wages – all of which were used to determine the strongest labor markets in the country.

  

  Last year and into 2023, employers added jobs across the country, while the unemployment rate hit a 53-year low of 3.4% in January, which ticked up to 3.6% in February.

  

  Contributing to the #1 spot for Nashville as the nation’s hottest job market is the labor-force participation rate, which ranked #3 in terms of the share of adults working or looking for jobs. Austin came in at #2, touting the strongest labor-force participation among large metro areas.

  These fast-growing Southern state capitals with vibrant music scenes have drawn in many new workers and companies in recent years. Investment firm AllianceBernstein LP opened its new corporate headquarters in Nashville last year. Elon Musk’s electric-car maker Tesla Inc. moved headquarters to Austin in 2021, and he is laying plans for a new community outside of Austin, next to facilities of Boring Co. and SpaceX, two other companies he controls.

  Jacksonville edged up in the rankings last year, becoming the third-hottest job market, after placing sixth a year earlier based on revised 2021 data. The region, positioned as a logistics hub in northern Florida, has been a magnet for remote workers and new companies during the pandemic, said Mike Brady, owner of two Express Employment Professionals staffing offices in Jacksonville. Affordable homes and Florida’s lack of state income tax are two big contributors, he said. -WSJ

  “There has been explosive growth,” said Brady. “We’re still seeing warehouses being built. We’re still seeing companies move in.”

  According to Brady, the surge in demand has been hard to meet.

  “If we place somebody on a job, and they don’t like the job, then they will just simply go to another job,” he said.

  

  In Jacksonville, FL, employers are hiking wages – causing the city’s weekly wages to grow at the fourth-fastest rate of any large metro area in 2022. Miami, meanwhile, logged the nation’s largest wage gains, according to the report.

  

  What’s more, the cost of living is relatively (emphasis on ‘relatively’) low compared to many coastal cities competing for tech and finance workers. That said, costs are rising – particularly housing costs, in several major Sunbelt  cities.

  If current trends persist, Dallas, Texas is set to surpass Chicago as the 3rd largest metro area in the US by 2040.

  

  Other cities which made notable gains in this year’s rankings include New Orleans, Orlando and Las Vegas, where more workers returned to the labor force last year – filling job vacancies at restaurants, bars and hotels. As the Journal notes, “In the U.S. as a whole, employers in leisure and hospitality have been on a hiring spree, driving a surprisingly resilient labor market in the face of rising interest rates and high inflation.”

  

  Meanwhile, New York was among ‘the few large metros’ which lost workers from its labor force last year, while Los Angles experienced above-average unemployment and below-average wage growth.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 21:55

• Liberal Outrage After Abortion Pill Blocked Nationwide By Order From Texas Judge
  Liberal Outrage After Abortion Pill Blocked Nationwide By Order From Texas Judge

  In a decision which the liberal media called an “unprecedented” decision, late on Friday a federal judge in Texas issued an order that will shut down the prescription and distribution of mifepristone in seven days, one of two drugs used for medication abortions that has been on the market in the U.S. for more than two decades. However, it wasn’t immediately clear if it was the decision that was unprecedented, or that a member of the judicial branch did something that wasn’t immediately prompted by generous funding from George Soros.

  

  The preliminary injunction – which suspends the US government’s decades-old approval of the key drug used in medication abortion – was issued by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President Donald Trump, could soon end the sale and distribution of mifepristone, used as part of a two-pill regimen to terminate a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks, while a lawsuit seeking a more permanent ban on the drug proceeds.

  

  The FDA can appeal the decision and Kacsmaryk’s order will not go into effect for seven days, giving the Biden administration time to appeal his decision to the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considered one of the most conservative courts in the country.

  And confirming that the US judicial system is now terminally broken and is no longer blind but divided into left and right “justice”, Kacsmaryk’s ruling was almost immediately followed on Friday by a decision by a federal judge in Washington state – US District Judge Thomas Rice, an appointee of President Barack Obama – who granted a request by several Democratic-leaning states for an order affirming FDA approval of mifepristone and blocking the government from further restricting its distribution.

  Religious groups and anti-abortion advocates targeted the FDA – whose credibility was already torn to shreds after the whole “covid thing” – in a November lawsuit claiming the agency fast-tracked approval of mifepristone in 2000 without sufficient scientific evidence, something the agency certainly did with various covid “vaccines” meant not to protect the population but to enrich a handful of pharma execs.

  

  Medical groups have defended the medication, arguing that studies show it is safer than Tylenol and Viagra and sends fewer people to the emergency room than those drugs. Abortion rights supporters have decried the lawsuit as politically motivated and not based in science.

  Kacsmaryk, who sits in Amarillo, Texas, said it was clear that the FDA overstepped its authority when it first approved mifepristone for use and suggested that the agency “faced significant political pressure” to advance the drug.

  “The Court does not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly,” Kacsmaryk said in his decision. “But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions.”

  The judge said the FDA’s stance had likely lead to death and injury among women taking the drug. “Whatever the numbers are, they likely would be considerably lower had FDA not acquiesced to the pressure to increase access to chemical abortion at the expense of women’s safety,” Kacsmaryk wrote.

  If the ruling is not blocked by the conservative 5th Circuit, women seeking to end pregnancies will be left with two options: surgical abortion or a single pill called misoprostol, which is less effective when not used in combination with mifepristone. The latest data shows that 98% of medication abortions that occur in the US use the two-pill method, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

  The high-profile Amarillo case has drawn focus from advocates on both sides of the issue, as well as health professionals and medical associations who have been bracing for a ruling on the temporary order for weeks. Dozens of states and advocacy organizations have filed briefs with the court, arguing for or against the order.

  As Bloomberg notes, the abortion pill ruling isn’t Kacsmaryk’s final word on the case, with many court filings and a possible trial to come. But the injunction reflects his judgment that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits, among other factors.

  Anti-abortion groups expected Kacsmaryk to be favorable to their case. Lawyers for the conservative religious-rights groups suing FDA chose to sue in Amarillo, where they were all but assured to get Kacsmaryk, who is assigned all civil and criminal cases. In December, Kacsmaryk tossed out a federal rule that aimed to expand teen access to birth control. In November, he rejected a federal policy that stopped doctors from discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

  The conservative group behind the lawsuit argues that the agency didn’t follow the appropriate protocol when it first authorized the use of mifepristone in 2000 and failed to study the safety of the drugs as required, putting “politics over science.”

  FDA officials have refuted that characterization in public statements and court filings, arguing that the agency followed procedure when approving the medication and “extensively reviewed” the scientific evidence at hand to determine its safety and efficacy.

  Mifepristone was first approved in 2000 for use through the first seven weeks of pregnancy. In 2016, the FDA extended that window to 10 weeks. It is the first pill used in the two-drug regimen most used to terminate a pregnancy and blocks a hormone called progesterone that is needed to support a pregnancy. It is followed by misoprostol, which prompts contractions that expel the contents of the uterus.

  Kacsmaryk’s decision comes as the federal government has taken steps to loosen restrictions on abortion pills, allowing authorized pharmacies to dispense the pills instead of limiting their distribution to doctor’s offices. But Republican leaders of states with abortion restrictions have push backed against the new regulations, filing lawsuits and drafting letters to major drugstore chains to ensure the drugs cannot be dispensed at stores in their states or mailed to their residents.

  A group of 21 Republican attorneys general urged Kacsmaryk to rescind FDA approval of the abortion pill prior to his decision, writing in a court filing that the agency under President Joe Biden has sought to establish a “mail-order abortion regime” that bypasses state limitations on the procedure.

  “The FDA and the administration as a whole have no intention to respect the Constitution,” they wrote.

  Outcry against the order was immediate with various leftist politicians and organizations vowing to fight the ruling.

  Today’s ruling is another massive step towards Republicans’ goal of a nationwide abortion ban and could throw our country into chaos.

  Rightwing activists sought out an extremist judge who is vehement in his desire to take women’s rights away. pic.twitter.com/uI2S0SVs6q

  — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 7, 2023

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  Today, an extremist Republican-appointed judge recklessly ruled to block nationwide access to safe and effective abortion medication that has been on the market for decades.

  Republicans will never rest in their cruel, tyrannical quest to disrespect a woman’s right to choose.

  — Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) April 8, 2023

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  BREAKING: ADAMS ADMINISTRATION VOWS TO FIGHT FEDERAL COURT RULING POTENTIALLY BANNING MEDICATION ABORTION DRUG NATIONWIDE.

  Full statement: pic.twitter.com/sKTVfn6YBR

  — City of New York (@nycgov) April 8, 2023

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  The fact 23 GOP AGs joined suit to ban mifepristone nationwide, not just in their borders, shows again that red states are unlikely to be satisfied restricting #abortion for their own residents, but seek to impose their rules on blue states too. Same on other rights rollbacks https://t.co/YUDGleIq4c

  — Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) April 7, 2023

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  And, as expected, a few hours after the Texas judge order, the DOJ has filed an appeal of Kacsmaryk’s ruling, saying it will also seek a stay.

  Today, a federal district judge in Texas ruled that a prescription medication available for over 22 years, approved by the FDA, and used safely by millions of women should no longer be approved in the U.S.

  Here’s why this matters. And how my Administration is going to fight it.

  — President Biden (@POTUS) April 8, 2023

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  UPDATE: DOJ just filed an appeal of TX fed judge’s ruling and AG Garland says they will seek a stay as well. https://t.co/2EmgdPpWGo

  — Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) April 8, 2023

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 21:10

• Chicago Braces For Tax Shock After Uber-Progressive Mayor Elected
  Chicago Braces For Tax Shock After Uber-Progressive Mayor Elected

  Residents of the Democratic stronghold of Chicago just elected another Democrat Mayor to replace Lori Lightfoot…

  Sick Of Same Old Crime And Violence, Chicago Tries Electing A Democrat This Time https://t.co/QXuN09JTVc

  — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 5, 2023

  …yet, instead of perhaps voting for a centrist, mayor-elect Brandon Johnson is anything but – and the city is now bracing for more taxes.

  As Bloomberg notes;

  The mayor-elect’s proposed levies on corporations, financial securities and the rich would add pressure on the business community in the nation’s third-largest city that’s already grappling with rising crime, high-profile headquarter departures and fragile finances.

  “He wants to put more of the burden on the business community,” said Richard Caccarone, president-emeritus of municipal bond research firm, Merritt Research Services. “There’s some anxiety about the approach that he’ll use and solutions. You don’t want to start a negative spiral.”

  

  Johnson’s unexpected victory on Tuesday comes as the city’s finances are under increasing strain – with pension funds short $34 billion as the city projects a $474 million deficit. In short, Chicago – which has been slower to recover from the pandemic than most other major cities – has to manage its way out of a mess amid high crime and several high-profile corporations bailing for greener (and safer, and lower-tax) pastures.

  During his campaign, Johnson proposed $800 million in new taxes, without raising property levies, to deal with the deficit and invest in residents and neighborhoods across the city, not just downtown.

  He also favors a $4-per-employee tax on large companies that have at least half of their operations in Chicago and has floated taxes on airlines that pollute the city’s air. Additionally, his plan includes a $1 or $2 tax per securities-trading contract — a measure opposed by Chicago’s iconic exchange giants, CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets Inc. -Bloomberg

  According to a spokesperson from CBOE, a securities tax would “only cause considerable harm,” on top of an environment where many traders have already relocated to other states such as Florida, Colorado and Tennessee.

  “So if you’re going to tell the last remaining people that they are going to pay a $1 a contract, the floor would close overnight,” said P.J. Quaid, a senior vice president at R.J. O’Brien, adding “It’s just another piece of private industry that would be decimated by these tax policies.”

  The feasibility of Johnson’s plan will be examined by the Civic Federation, which is tasked with tracking the city’s finances.

  Meanwhile, Chicago will also fall under scrutiny from ratings agencies, and is being closely watched by investment managers.

  “We’re hopeful mayor-elect Johnson will maintain fiscal discipline and continue on the path that earned the city several credit-rating upgrades last year,: said Nuveen senior muni analyst Molly Shellhorn. “Investors will be looking for additional detail on the potential impacts of some of Johnson’s new tax proposals.”

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 20:55

• Clearview AI Scraped Billions Of Facebook Photos For Facial Recognition Database
  Clearview AI Scraped Billions Of Facebook Photos For Facial Recognition Database

  Facial recognition firm Clearview has built a massive AI-powered database of billions of pictures collected from social media platforms without obtaining users’ consent.

  In late March, Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That told BBC in an interview that the company had obtained 30 billion photos without users’ knowledge over the years, scraped mainly from social media platforms like Facebook. He said US law enforcement agencies use the database to identify criminals. 

  Ton-That disputed claims that the photos were unlawfully collected. He told Bussiness Insider in an emailed statement, “Clearview AI’s database of publicly available images is lawfully collected, just like any other search engine like Google.” 

  

  However, privacy advocates and social media companies have been highly critical of Clearview AI. 

  “Clearview AI’s actions invade people’s privacy which is why we banned their founder from our services and sent them a legal demand to stop accessing any data, photos, or videos from our services,” a Meta spokesperson said in an email to Insider. 

  Ton-That told Insider the database is not publicly available and is only used by law enforcement. He said the software had been used more than a million times by police. 

  “Clearview AI’s database is used for after-the-crime investigations by law enforcement, and is not available to the general public. Every photo in the dataset is a potential clue that could save a life, provide justice to an innocent victim, prevent a wrongful identification, or exonerate an innocent person.”

  According to critics, using Clearview AI by the police subjects everyone to a “continuous police line-up.”

  “Whenever they have a photo of a suspect, they will compare it to your face,” Matthew Guariglia from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BBC. He said, “It’s far too invasive.”

  The AI-driven database has raised privacy concerns in the US to the point where Sens. Jeff Merkley and Bernie Sanders attempted to block its use with a bill requiring Clearview and similar companies to obtain consent before scraping biometric data.

  In 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Clearview AI, calling it a ‘nightmare scenario’ for privacy. The ACLU managed to ban Clearview AI’s products from being sold to private companies but not the police. 

  Clearview AI is a massive problem for civil liberties. The easiest way to prevent Clearview AI from scraping photos from your social media accounts is to not be on social media. Alternatively, if you wish to maintain a social media presence, ensure that the images you post are not publicly accessible on the web. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 20:45

• Source Of Starlink Outage Identified Musk Tweets, "Coming Back Online Now"
  Source Of Starlink Outage Identified Musk Tweets, “Coming Back Online Now”

  Update (2112ET):

  Elon Musk tweeted that the widespread Starlink outage was caused by an “expired ground station cert.” He said, “We’re scrubbing the system for other single-point vulnerabilities.”

  Musk said Starlink is “coming back online now. 

  Caused by expired ground station cert. We’re scrubbing the system for other single-point vulnerabilities.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2023

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  Here’s the outage timeline for the US East Coast. 

  

  *   *   * 

  On Friday evening, Starlink customers throughout the US complained that Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service was down. 

  Starlink users were greeted with a message when logging into their account that read:

  “Your area is currently experiencing a service outage. Our team is investigating.” 

  

  Downdetector, which tracks websites, showed Starlink users started reporting outages around 1945 ET. 

  

  People are reporting outages in multiple states. Here’s what some are saying on Downdetector: 

  

  Outages are also being reported in other countries. 

  ⚡ Major Internet #outage detected: #Starlink in #NewZealand since 12:15 PM, impacting #Auckland

  🇳🇿 Live map and analysis
  👉 https://t.co/u6UiazyyUH

  Retweet if down for you too#Starlinkdown #Starlinkoutage #nointernet #Aotearoa #LateMorning pic.twitter.com/6G3uZmXP4X

  — Fing Internet Alert (@outagedetect) April 8, 2023

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  ⚡ Critical Internet #outage detected: #Starlink in #England since 01:15, impacting #London

  🇬🇧 Live map and analysis
  👉 https://t.co/8RlQH5aAh7

  Retweet if down for you too#Starlinkdown #Starlinkoutage #nointernet #night pic.twitter.com/LjGQLhoalj

  — Fing Internet Alert (@outagedetect) April 8, 2023

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  ⚡ Critical Internet #outage detected: #Starlink in #NewSouthWales #Australia since 10:15 AM, impacting #Sydney

  🇦🇺 Live map and analysis
  👉 https://t.co/F7pOMf8Taa

  Retweet if down for you too#Starlinkdown #Starlinkoutage #nointernet pic.twitter.com/uHsejZGTMs

  — Fing Internet Alert (@outagedetect) April 8, 2023

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  The outage is now trending on Twitter. 

  

  …

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 20:34

• Machiavelli & The Globalists: Why The Elites Despise Independent Thought
  Machiavelli & The Globalists: Why The Elites Despise Independent Thought

  Authored by David McGrogan via The Brownstone Institute,

  The most important two sentences in the history of political philosophy since the ancient Greeks appears towards the beginning of Machiavelli’s The Prince.

  ‘[A] wise ruler,’ the author informs his reader, ‘must think of a method by which his citizens will need the state and himself at all times and in every circumstance. Then they will always be loyal to him.’

  

  The history of the development of modern governance is essentially a riff on this basic insight. It tells us almost everything we need to know about our current predicament: those who rule us vigorously engaged in the task of making us need them, so that they can retain our loyalty and hence stay in power – and gain more of it.

  Machiavelli was writing at a particular point in history when the thing which we now know as ‘the state’ first came into existence in European political thought. Before Machiavelli, there were kingdoms and principalities and the concept of rulership was essentially personal and divine. After him, it became secularised, temporal, and what Michel Foucault called ‘governmental’. That is, to the medieval mind, the physical world was a mere staging post before rapture, and the job of the king was to maintain spiritual order. To the modern mind – of which Machiavelli might be called the precursor – the physical world is the main event (rapture being an open question), and the job of the ruler is to improve the material and moral well-being of the population and the productivity of the territory and economy. 

  Machiavelli’s maxim forces us to think more seriously about the doctrine for which he is nowadays famous – raison d’État, or ‘reason of state’, meaning in essence the justification for the state acting in its own interests and above the law or natural right. The way that this concept is usually described suggests an amoral pursuit of the national interest. But this is to overlook its caring aspect.

  As Machiavelli makes quite clear in the lines I have just cited, reason of state also means obtaining and preserving the loyalty of the population (so as to maintain the position of the ruling class) – and this means thinking of ways to make it reliant on the state for its welfare. 

  At the very moment that the modern state was coming into existence at the beginning of the 16th century, then, it already had at its heart a conception of itself as needing to render the population vulnerable (as we would nowadays put it) in order that they should consider it to be necessary. And it is not very difficult to understand why. Rulers want to maintain power, and in a secular framework in which the ‘divine right of kings’ no longer holds sway, this means keeping the mass of the population on side. 

  In the centuries since Machiavelli was writing, we have seen a vast expansion in the size and scope of the administrative state, and as thinkers from Francois Guizot to Anthony de Jasay have shown us, this great framework of government has come into existence largely on the basis of this caring aspect of raison d’Ètat. It is not that, as Nietzsche had it, the state is merely a ‘cold monster’ imposing itself on society unbidden. It is that a complex series of interactions has developed, with the state convincing society that it is in need of its protection, and gaining society’s consent for its expansion accordingly. 

  To return to Foucault (whose writings on the state are among the most important and insightful in the last 100 years), we can think of the state as having emerged as a series of discourses by which the population, and groups within it, are constructed as being vulnerable and in need of the state’s benevolent assistance. These groups (the poor, the old, children, women, the disabled, ethnic minorities, and so on) gradually increase in number such that they eventually make up more less the entire population.

  The ultimate dream, of course, is for the state to find ways to make literally everyone vulnerable and in need of its help (for its status will then surely be forever secure) – and I hardly need to spell out for you why Covid-19 was seized upon with such gusto in this regard.

  This, then, is the basic story of the development of the state since Machiavelli – essentially, legitimising the growth of state power on the basis of helping the vulnerable. And it is at the heart, and has always been at the heart, of the concept of raison d’Ètat. 

  But the story does not stop there. It only takes us far as the end of the Second World War. We are now in an age – as we are frequently reminded – of international cooperation, globalisation and, indeed, of global governance. There is barely a field of public life, from posting parcels to carbon emissions, which is not in some way regulated by international organisations of one kind or another.

  Though the decline of the state has time and again been shown to have been greatly exaggerated, we are indisputably in an age in which raison d’État has at least partially given way to what Philip Cerny once termed raison du monde – an insistence on centralised global solutions to a proliferation of ‘global problems’.

  Like raison d’État, raison du monde is dismissive of petty constraints – such as law, natural right, or morality – that might limit its field of action. It justifies acting in what is seen as the global interest irrespective of borders, democratic mandate, or public sentiment. And, as with raison d’État, it presents itself as a Foucauldian ‘power of care’, which acts where necessary to preserve and improve human well-being. 

  We can all of us list the litany of areas – climate change, public health, equality, sustainable development – in which raison du monde displays an interest. And we can all, I hope, now see the reason why. Just as the state has since its inception at the time of Machiavelli seen its path to security as being through the vulnerabalisation of the population and the securement of its safety, so our nascent global governance regime understands that in order to grow and preserve its status, it must convince the people of the world that they need it. 

  There is nothing conspiratorial about this. It is simply the playing out of human incentives. People like status, and the wealth and power that derive from it. They act robustly to improve it, and to keep it when they have it. What animated Machiavelli and those he was advising is thus the same thing that animates people like Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, Director-General of the WHO. How does one gain and preserve power? Convincing people they need you. Whether it’s raison d’État or raison du monde, the rest simply follows accordingly.

  Thinking of things in this way also helps us to understand the vitriol with which the ‘new populism’ of anti-globalist movements has been treated. Whenever a campaign like Brexit succeeds in rejecting the logic of raison du monde, it threatens the very notion on which the concept rests, and hence of the entire global governance movement. If a state like Britain can ‘go it alone’ in some sense, then it suggests that individual countries are not so vulnerable after all. And if this is shown to be true, then the entire justification for the framework of global governance is called into question.

  This same basic pattern, of course, underpins contemporary anxieties about such phenomena as the no-fap movement, homesteading, tradwives and bodybuilding; if it turns out that the population is not so vulnerable after all, and men, women and families can improve themselves and their communities without the aid of the state, then the entire structure upon which the edifice of raison d’État rests becomes radically unstable. This is at least part of the reason why these movements are so frequently smeared and traduced by the chattering classes which are so reliant themselves upon the state and its largesse. 

  We find ourselves, then, at a crossroads in the trajectory of both the state and global governance. On the one hand, the imperatives of raison d’État and raison du monde seem to both have been spurred by rapid advances in technology with vastly more potential to both vulnerablise the populace and promise to assuage and ameliorate its every inconvenience. But on the other, political and social movements which reject this vision are growing in influence. Where this will lead us is a genuinely open question; we find ourselves, like Machiavelli, at the beginning of something – though there is absolutely no telling what.

  *  *  *

  Republished from the author’s Substack

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 20:10

• "I Was Gonna Die On My Own:" Snowboarder Saved In Washington After Falling Into 'Spruce Trap'
  “I Was Gonna Die On My Own:” Snowboarder Saved In Washington After Falling Into ‘Spruce Trap’

  A wild video has surfaced online showing a skier rescuing a snowboarder in Washington state who had fallen into a tree well, also known as a ‘spruce trap.’ 

  Seattle-based KOMO News said snowboarder Ian Steger was on Mt. Baker when he fell backward into a tree well on the side of the mountain. 

  Steger wasn’t able to free himself, and it was at the moment when he thought he would die.

  “At that point, I realized I was in a lot of trouble because my friends were below me,” he said.

  The snowboarder said he fell into a spruce trap where he couldn’t free himself. 

  “I was gonna die on my own mountain in an area I’ve ridden hundreds of times,” Steger said.

  Some time passed, and skier Francis Zuber, armed with a GoPro camera attached to his helmet, was skiing down the mountain and found Steger upside down, buried in deep snow. 

  Zuber stopped, took off his skies, and began digging to rescue Steger. 

  “He’s yelling out asking if I’m okay, if I can hear him. I can’t see. I can’t hear or see anything,” Steger said. “It wasn’t until he got to my goggles and wiped my goggles that I realized how deep I was and how far away he was from me still.”

  Steger said there were multiple feet of snow, while the video shows just tree tops. 

  Across the West Coast, snowpack this season has been off the charts. With all that snow, avalanche risk has soared. 

  On Thursday, Snowbird, a mountain resort just southeast of Salt Lake City, issued a shelter-in-place after an avalanche. 

  Ski patrol at the resort searched for hours and said, “No guests or employees were caught in the debris caused by an avalanche.”

  First look from above from @KSLChopper5 pilot Ben Tidswell. Looks like majority of slide didn’t make much progress down Chickadee run. Snowbird confirms lift was open at the time of the avalanche. pic.twitter.com/P0efS6KuUi

  — Amy Reid (@amyreidreports) April 6, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Last month, a massive avalanche hit Sundance Resort in Utah. 

  A group of skiers at Sundance Resort, Utah, witnessed a “massive” avalanche on Mount Timpanogos on Monday, March 27.

  A Ski instructor at the resort, Thomas Farley, caught the moment on camera. pic.twitter.com/kvfqEST79h

  — The Weather Network (@weathernetwork) March 29, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  With temperatures warming up, record snowpack across the country’s western half will mean severe flood risk this spring.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 19:35

• Trump Says White House Blame Over Afghanistan Withdrawal A 'Disinformation Game'
  Trump Says White House Blame Over Afghanistan Withdrawal A ‘Disinformation Game’

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former President Donald Trump on Thursday accused the White House of playing a new “disinformation game” after the Biden administration blamed the previous administration for the chaos that unfolded during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.

  

  In a statement on Truth Social, Trump criticized the administration of President Joe Biden for its handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling them “morons” and accusing them of blaming him for their “grossly incompetent surrender.”

  The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 left 13 service members dead, with billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind, and saw the Taliban overrun the Middle Eastern country’s government.

  Trump firmly stated that Biden was responsible for the outcome and that no one else should be blamed.

  “I watched this disaster unfold just like everyone else,” he continued. “I saw them take out the Military FIRST, GIVE $85 Billion of military equipment, allow killing of our soldiers, and leave Americans behind. Biden is responsible, no one else!”

  Trump’s comments were hitting back at a White House review of the chaotic withdrawal published Thursday.

  That review claimed Biden was “constrained” for choices in how to execute a withdrawal because the Trump administration failed to coordinate with the incoming Biden administration in sharing insights on the February 2020 Doha Agreement peace pact.

  “President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the report reads.

  National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said in a media briefing Thursday that outgoing Trump administration officials were not “forthcoming” with insights into the Doha Agreement and their May 2021 withdrawal plans.

  “There were multiple attempts to try to gain insight into what the previous team had been doing; none of those plans had been forthcoming,” Kirby said. “It wasn’t for lack of trying. They weren’t sharing.”

  Therefore, Kirby said, the Biden administration was “almost starting from scratch” in developing a plan to meet the conditions that the time.

  ‘I Am Outraged’: Pompeo

  Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he disagreed that Biden’s choices were constrained. He argued instead that Biden simply “made a hash” of it and the White House was trying to protect Biden “from embarrassment.”

  “We didn’t constrain them at all,” Pompeo told Fox News after the report was released. “The Biden administration has demonstrated their willingness to break up good plans that the Trump administration had. Think of our southern border, where we had a good plan in Remain in Mexico,” he continued. “Now thousands and thousands [are] coming across each day.”

  

  Pompeo said Thursday that it was outrageous for the White House to blame anyone but Biden for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

  “I am outraged. I am outraged by the fact that the 13 Americans that were killed there didn’t have to happen,” he said.

  Pompeo said the military had clearly told Biden that the withdrawal would likely result in chaos if they publicized the date of withdrawal, which they did.

  “I don’t know what they’re talking about. I was the CIA director. I was in the middle of all this,” Pompeo said. “The military, for our entire four years, made very clear to us that if we withdrew too hastily, that if we publically announced the date of withdrawal, that precisely what you just saw happen in the summer of ’21 was a likely outcome. It was a reasonably likely outcome.”

  Pompeo denied Kirby’s use of the word “constrained” and argued that U.S. military and intelligence circles had predicted what occurred, as they understood the Taliban well.

  “For Kirby today to say that he’s somehow proud of the way we departed, that this wasn’t an ‘unmitigated disaster’—we should just all believe our own eyes. We all saw the video. This was chaotic. Thirteen Americans killed,” Pompeo said.

  Pompeo said the United States had a “conditions-based” plan, which the Biden administration “botched” as they went about undoing many Trump plans.

  “They came in, took the plan that we had, and just botched it. They made a hash of it,” he said. “And the American people have suffered for it. And frankly, America’s standing in the world is continuing to suffer from that, today.”

  Kirby’s remarks were also criticized Thursday by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, who said Biden was ultimately to blame for the chaotic withdrawal, having picked the date.

  McCaul also criticized the Biden administration’s “overdue decision” to release the Afghanistan withdrawal after-action reports with Congress.

  The report wasn’t released until McCaul threatened to subpoena them after multiple requests.

  “John Kirby’s comments during today’s White House press briefing were disgraceful and insulting,” McCaul said in a statement. “President Biden made the decision to withdraw and even picked the exact date; he is responsible for the massive failures in planning and execution.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 19:00

• Samsung Slashes Chip Production After Reporting Massive Profits Plunge
  Samsung Slashes Chip Production After Reporting Massive Profits Plunge

  Over the last year, the global semiconductor industry has been in a downward spiral, primarily due to decreased personal computer demand following the Covid surge. As a result, memory chip prices have plunged, with Samsung Electronics Co., the top manufacturer of memory chips, opting not to cut production to expand its market share. However, Samsung is now moving towards resolving the supply surplus with the announcement to slash memory chip production. Additionally, the company reported lower-than-anticipated first-quarter profits, the smallest since the great financial crisis. 

  The South Korean chipmaker said Friday it would make a “meaningful” cut to chip output after operating profits cratered by more than 95% to 600 billion won ($450 million) for the first quarter, missing the average analyst estimate of 1.4 trillion won. Sales dropped by 19% to 63 trillion won. 

  “We are lowering the production of memory chips by a meaningful level, especially that of products with supply secured,” Samsung said. 

  Samsung’s shares closed up more than 4% in South Korea on the news, the highest in three months. Other memory chipmakers’ shares also surged, including a 6% rise in Hynix. 

  

  Commenting on the cut is Greg Roh, the head of research at Hyundai Motor Securities, who said, “The production cut is evidence of how bad the current slump really is.” 

  “The company had warned that earnings would fall in the first quarter on slowing sales. But memory prices tumbled more than anticipated because of sluggish demand for a wide range of electronics from smartphones to PCs, as consumers and companies navigated recession risks. Despite its post-Covid re-opening, China’s market has also not bounced back as quickly as some anticipated,” Bloomberg said. 

  The slide in memory chip prices and demand comes as the global economy faces a downturn. South Korea’s chip exports have experienced one of the worst declines in over a decade. 

  

  Despite the cut and worst profit since 2009, Samsung said it would continue to invest in infrastructure and research.

  One of the biggest problems for the industry is that memory chip inventories need to be lowered, and in order to reduce them, production cuts were needed. 

  John Park, an analyst at Daishin Securities, said: 

  “Today’s production cut signal casts a positive outlook for a memory chip rebound in the second half of the year.”

  Later this month, Samsung will release a full financial statement with various divisions’ net income and performance. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 18:30

• Watch: Legislator Switches To GOP, Says Democrats "Villainize Anyone Who Has Free Thought"
  Watch: Legislator Switches To GOP, Says Democrats “Villainize Anyone Who Has Free Thought”

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  A North Carolina Democratic legislator handed a decisive victory to the Republican party Wednesday by defecting and ensuring a veto-proof majority.

  

  Announcing the switch, Tricia Cotham declared that “The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and others across the state,” adding “I will not be controlled by anyone.”

  “If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside,” she further proclaimed, adding  

  “They have pushed me out.”

  “The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions and wants to get to work to better our state,” the legislator continued, saying she’d rather dedicate her time to that than “just sit in a meeting and have a workshop after a workshop.”

  Cotham expressed a desire to “Really work with individuals to get things done. Because that is what real public servants do.”

  Cotham went on to explain that one factor that influenced her decision to switch parties came after she was heavily criticized and verbally attacked for using the American flag and praying hands emoji on social media.

  Cotham claimed that Democrats have been “blasting me on Twitter to calling me names, coming after my family, coming after my children,” describing an incident where she was verbally abused at a store while shopping with her son.

  “I am still the same person, and I am going to do what I believe is right and follow my conscience,” Cotham vowed.

  The switch says a lot about the state of the Democratic party, given that Cotham is hardly a traditional conservative, having served in the legislature as a Democrat for five terms, from 2007 to 2016 and being reelected as one this year.

  As documented by the New York Times, Cotham campaigned on a “platform of raising the minimum wage, protecting voting rights and bolstering L.B.G.T.Q. rights.”

  She also once took to the floor of the North Carolina House and announced she had previously had an abortion, calling it a “deeply personal decision” and accused GOP lawmakers of just wanting to “play doctor”.

  Now, Cotham has indicated that she is open to supporting new abortion restrictions.

  In a statement, GOP chair Michael Whatley said “This announcement continues to reflect that the Democratic Party is too radical for North Carolina.”

  “The values of the Republican Party align with voters, and the people of Mecklenburg County should be proud to have her representation in Raleigh,” Whatley said of Cotham.

  *  *  *

  Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

  In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 18:00

• Justice Thomas Crushes Left's 'Billionaire-Funded-Trips' Impeachment Dreams
  Justice Thomas Crushes Left’s ‘Billionaire-Funded-Trips’ Impeachment Dreams

  Ever since the rapist-accepting nazification of The Supreme Court during President Trump’s term in office, the left has been desperate for ways to counter the trans-friendly conservative majority.

  The latest cunning plan was to demand Justice Clarence Thomas be immediately impeached for – what can only be summarized as – having rich friends.

  

  In case you missed it, the left was gleeful and cries of ‘we got em this time’ rang out on Twitter after:

  ProPublica revealed in so-called bombshell reporting that right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been taking luxury trips funded by a billionaire Republican megadonor for more than 20 years without formally disclosing them – a likely violation of federal law.

  The investigative outlet reported Thursday that “for more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year” from Dallas-based real estate magnate Harlan Crow.

  “These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures,” the outlet noted.

  “His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress, and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.”

  Thomas’s critics in Congress promptly seized on the report last week of the vacations, suggesting it raised the appearance of impropriety.

  

  As The Epoch Times’ Matthew Vadum reported, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) demanded that the justice be impeached, saying his actions evidenced an “almost cartoonish” level of corruption.

  Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, called for an independent investigation of the justice, who has long been a target of the left.

  Whitehouse and other critics also say that justices whose spouses are involved in political activism, like Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, is active in conservative politics, should have to recuse themselves from involvement in cases related to that activism. Despite pressure, the justice declined to recuse himself from the various challenges to the disputed 2020 presidential election that made it to the Supreme Court.

  Billionaire businessman and Republican Party donor Harlan Crow, who made the gifts to Thomas, has reportedly not had any business before the Supreme Court, so any allegation of a conflict of interest rests on weak grounds.

  Crow reportedly said the trips with Thomas and his wife were “no different from the hospitality that we have extended to many other dear friends.”

  “Justice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality,” he said.

  Thomas responded to the circus in a statement released by the Supreme Court’s public information office on April 7 that Harlan Crow, and his wife, Kathy Crow, have been friends with Thomas and his wife “for over twenty-five years.”

  “As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” the justice said.

  “Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

  “I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. “

  Furthermore, as is usually the case, the leftist media (and the twitterati) were too fast to jump on this as Adam Mortara noted on Twitter, there’s no there, there…

  The “journalist” left and assorted Twitter folk who cannot bother to read are very very wrong regarding the issue of reporting staying at a friend’s house, boat, lodge, or castle, space station, or whatever. pic.twitter.com/ZzvcPkDQhx

  — Adam Mortara (@AdamMortara) April 6, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Specifically:

  

  But, but, but, the left exclaimed… the rules have changed…

  Assorted Twitter idiots cite new version of rules that just went into effect to support false allegations of failed reporting from years ago. Par for the course for the left. https://t.co/phyGBq8Zvw

  — Adam Mortara (@AdamMortara) April 6, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And sure enough, Justice Thomas knew that too, and explained…

  “These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance.”

  “And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future,” Thomas said.

  Additionally, attorney J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), said he doubts the new ethics regulations apply to the Supreme Court.

  “I think there is a fair chance they are unconstitutional,” Adams said.

  “The Constitution does not give Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court’s behavior,” he said.

  So having cleared all that up and silenced the impeachment-demanders, we have one simple question still: Why now? The State Security Apparatus would have known about this for years. Why is it coming out now?

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 17:44

• The Institutionalized Minds Of Most Americans
  The Institutionalized Minds Of Most Americans

  Authored by Kevin Porteus via AmGreatness.com,

  We depend on the state for everything from government jobs and student loans to occupational licenses and the use of public resources. And we have the habits of mind to prove it…

  

  I must have seen “The Shawshank Redemption” at least a hundred times. It was an ubiquitous staple of college life in the late 1990s, like “Friends” or The Dave Matthews Band. It’s the story of a young banker, Andy Dufresene (Tim Robbins), who tries to preserve his humanity and his hope while serving a life sentence after being wrongly convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover.

  In the middle of the movie an elderly prisoner, Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore), holds another inmate hostage at knifepoint. After Andy defuses the situation it is revealed that, after 50 years in prison, Brooks will be paroled. Brooks had spent his entire adult life in prison, and he didn’t want to leave, so he reasoned that by committing another crime he could remain in prison. While Brooks’ would-be victim surmises that Brooks is simply crazy, Andy’s best friend, “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), has a different explanation: “He’s just . . . just institutionalized.” 

  Prison is the only world he knows; it’s the only world that makes sense to him. Red explains that “These walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.” Brooks’ fears, and Red’s explanation, prove prescient. Paroled, Brooks is unable to adjust to the world outside prison, and he hangs himself in his apartment.

  One doesn’t have to be in prison to be institutionalized, however.

  Years ago, as a junior faculty member, I helped a young woman write her undergraduate honors thesis. She was a chemistry major, but the honors program required that her topic be interdisciplinary, so she chose to write on government funding of science in America. During this process I tried to impress upon her some of the obvious problems with our current system of government-funded science, and to get her thinking about alternatives. I assumed, as a newer faculty member, I’d find a receptive audience at a place like Hillsdale College.

  How naïve I was. She could not fathom a world without government-funded scientific research. It was incomprehensible to her that “science” could happen in the absence of massive government funding and pervasive government supervision. Government funding is how “science” happens. For a scientific researcher, especially an academic one, obtaining a government grant from an entity like the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health is critical, both to one’s research agenda and to one’s prestige and career advancement. Universities see it as a marker that one is important and doing important work. 

  Medical professionals of all kinds are dependent on state licenses to ply their trades. Doctors and pharmacists are at the mercy of state pharmacy boards, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration when it comes to prescribing or dispensing pharmaceuticals. These people are practitioners, not academics or intellectuals, so when some government entity tells them that “the science is settled,” they have neither the time nor the inclination nor the resources to challenge the assertion. They’ve been conditioned to accept such assertions as orthodoxy, a conditioning that is reinforced by the possibility of losing their government-issued professional licenses. So your doctor leans on you to get the COVID vaccine, and your pharmacist won’t fill a legal prescription for Ivermectin because the CDC and his state’s board of pharmacy told him it is “horse dewormer.”

  The entire modern state in America is one vast engine for institutionalizing its subjects. That state is so huge and so pervasive that essentially everyone is somehow dependent on it, whether they know it or not, whether they’d like to be or not. We depend on the state for everything from government jobs and student loans to occupational licenses and the use of public resources. All of these foster the dependence, and therefore the subservience, of the recipient on the state. A rancher must remain in the good graces of the Bureau of Land Management. Raytheon, and all its employees, are ruined if they don’t get a steady stream of Defense Department contracts. Radio and TV broadcasters need government permission in the form of an FCC license in order to work. To retain my access to federal student aid, my parents had to hand over sensitive tax information to the Department of Education. Failure to comply could result in loss of access to government largesse, with all the attending consequences.

  The significance of the pervasiveness of government involvement in the scientific and medical fields goes far beyond the threat of loss of benefits and the promise of more benefits. For those who are enmeshed in it, the government-scientific complex is natural, beneficent, and indispensable. It predisposes them to believe that anyone who is outside the complex is not credible, and anyone who challenges it is a crank, a charlatan, or a conspiracy theorist. It fosters the mentality that any other arrangement is inconceivable. Defending that complex is thus a sine qua non of their very being, even when that complex is exposed as incompetent, corrupt, and even unscientific. The system is science.

  Medical and scientific experts have, in the last couple of years, been accused of being stupid, crazy, or downright evil. Whatever is true in individual circumstances (Dr. Fauci, call your office), at the macro level these allegations miss the mark. They’re just . . . just institutionalized.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 17:00

• Small Bank Deposits Plunged $275 Billion In March, There's Just One Thing…
  Small Bank Deposits Plunged $275 Billion In March, There’s Just One Thing…

  Update (1700ET): Forgive our furrowed brow and generally government-data-questioning nature, BUT… One rather notable thing though which throws all of this ‘transparency’ into doubt…

  According to the prior week’s data, Small Banks saw a tiny $1.1 billion outflow (NSA), which prompted much rejoicing early on Monday when markets opened.

  That tiny outflow was revised to a massive $47.5 billion outflow according to this week’s data!

  

  So just how much will this last week’s data be revised next week?

  *  *  *

  US commercial bank deposits (ex-large time deposits) fell for the 10th straight week (to the week-ending 3/29), down $55 billion to their aggregate lowest since April 2021…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Rather oddly, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, total US commercial bank deposits (ex-large time deposits) ROSE $54 billion last week…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  On the bright side, the pace of outflows has slowed  to $55.7 billion (from around $180 billion the previous two weeks), but the outflows look set to continue as Money Market fund inflows kept rising this week (a week ahead of the deposit data)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  Both large and small banks saw outflows once again, with large banks seeing $48 billion in outflows (to the lowest since March 2021) and small banks seeing a modest $7.2 billion in outflows (to the lowest since June 2021)…

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  On a seasonally-adjusted basis, Small banks saw around $275 billion in outflows in March (which included the week running up to SVB’s collapse) while large banks have seen $195 billion in outflows during that same period.

  Last week saw outflows (SA) from large, small, and foreign banks

  • Large banks: -$39.9BN for week ended March 29, vs -$89.8BN last week

  • Small banks: -$44.8BN for week ended March 29, vs +$5.8BN last week

  • Foreign banks: -$26.4BN for week ended March 29, vs -$41.7BN last week

  

  On a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, Small and Large banks saw inflows while foreign banks saw the 3rd straight week of outlows…

  • Large banks: $48.7BN for week ended March 29, vs -$92.2BN last week

  • Small banks: +$25.7BN for week ended March 29, vs $47.5BN last week

  • Foreign banks: -$32.1BN for week ended March 29, vs -$35.4BN last week

  

  So with outflows continuing (and the spread between banks and TSY/MM fund yields), will banks start to compete for deposits? (Well not the biggest ones, for sure)…

  “There are two key questions raised by the recent deposit turmoil,” Barclays Plc strategist Joseph Abate wrote in a note last week.

  “How many deposits do banks ultimately lose to higher yielding money market funds? And how costly is it to replace this funding?”

  Until now, when banks have lost deposits they haven’t had to compete aggressively so rates have lagged the Fed’s rate increases, and balances at government-only money fund balances had been flat since the hiking cycle began.

  “But now that depositors have noticed, this dynamic is about to change,” Abate said.

  And if the small ones start to ‘compete’ their profitability will collapse even further.

  Which probably explains why regional banks just can’t bounce…

  

  Still think this bank-run is over?

  It’s easy to tell from here – as we detailed previously (and as far back as Nov) – as long as we are above the reserve constraint level for small banks, there is stability courtesy of the Fed’s massive reserve injection.

  How far are we from the reserve constraint?

  Looks like the Fed’s $400BN liquidity injection bought 6-8 weeks for small banks. A rapid shrinkage of newly injected reserves just means the next bank crisis round will come that much faster pic.twitter.com/PkmnaequRZ

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 7, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  It appears Small banks are moving back towards the critical level, and the closer we get to that level, the greater the risk of bank failures and Fed panic.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 16:45

• A "Seismic Deal": Exxon Planning Acquisition Of Shale Giant Pioneer
  A “Seismic Deal”: Exxon Planning Acquisition Of Shale Giant Pioneer

  In a deal that would be transformational for the US energy sector, and spark another shale revolution, the WSJ reports that US supermajor, the largest US energy E&P and formerly the world’s largest company by market cap, Exxon – the company that according to the Big Guy made more money than God in 2021, has held preliminary talks with shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources about a possible acquisition of the U.S. fracking giant, as the oil major hunts for a blockbuster deal in the shale patch.

  Citing “people familiar” the WSJ notes that while discussions between the two companies about a potential deal have been informal, and there is no formal process between Exxon and Pioneer yet, now that Exxon is flush with cash thanks to record profits in 2022 it has been exploring options that could reshape a swath of the U.S. oil and gas industry while pushing Exxon deeper into West Texas shale.

  WSJ sources said that any deal, if it happens, likely wouldn’t come together until later this year or next year – which makes sense since Biden’s DOJ would do everything in its power to prevent such a combination, and just like bitcoin bulls, energy shareholders are also eagerly awaiting the collapse of the authoritarian, senile occupier of the White House who picks corporate winners and losers at the behest of his handlers – and talks may not morph into formal negotiations at all or Exxon may pursue another company.

  Still, with Exxon on the hunt for what the WSJ described as a “seismic deal” to put its windfall profits to use, it sees Dallas area-based Pioneer as a top target.

  Should Exxon, whose stock price is near all time highs and sports a market cap just shy of half a trillion dollars, acquire Pioneer whose market cap is around $49 billion, it would be Exxon’s largest since its mega-merger with Mobil in 1999. It would give Exxon a dominant position in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, a region Exxon has said is integral to its growth plans.

  Pioneer’s size would likely put an acquisition of the company ahead of the U.S. oil industry’s most recent blockbuster, Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s 2019 purchase of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. for about $38 billion, and top Exxon’s 2010 acquisition of XTO Energy Inc. for more than $30 billion. That said, nothing is guaranteed in the energy sector which together with crypto, has emerged as the most hated industry of the so-called Democrats. In 2020, when the price of oil collapsed, and when many were doubting that Exxon would avoid bankruptcy, it subsequently emerged (again via the WSJ) that Exxon was considering a merger with Chevron, the energy sector’s 2nd largest company.  Back then, talks between Exxon and Chevron were preliminary and yielded no result. Whether or not there is a favorable outcome for Exxon this time will depend on who the next president is.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 16:20

• Luongo: Davos Runs Into The OPEC+ Buzzsaw
  Luongo: Davos Runs Into The OPEC+ Buzzsaw

  Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

  Every Wednesday and Sunday morning I record a private podcast for my patrons. I cover gold, silver, oil, the Dow Jones and Bitcoin at a minimum. This past Sunday I mentioned during my oil commentary I thought the six-month long weakness in oil was overdone.  

  Last week’s price action clearly agreed with me as the futures markets finally saw some position squaring into the quarterly close on Friday.

  At least that’s what I thought at the time.  It turns out that there were a lot of people who must have known that OPEC+ was going to announce a surprise production cut while I was yammering into a microphone Sunday morning. Because they bid oil up into the quarterly close using the tailwinds of strong closes across the entire ‘tangible assets’ space — gold, stocks, US treasuries, industrial metals, etc. — as cover.

  The ‘deflation trade’ hit its peak when Brent crude futures bottomed near $70 per barrel on March 19th.

  Thanks to OPEC+’s announcement Brent Crude gapped open at ~$85 per barrel.  West Texas Intermediate (WTI) moved above $80 and the Brent/WTI spread is trending towards $3.

  

  It was $8+ a few months ago.  This is very good news for US producers and exporters.  The oil market had a fundamental supply and demand mismatch.  Back in January even the IEA was talking nearly a 1 million bbl/day mismatch between supply growth (1.9 million bbls/day). And that was with a recession on everyone’s lips to start the year and China locked down.

  Today their outlook more sanguine but mostly on disruption due to the embargoes against Russian oil. That disruption, like all things, is temporary. Transport costs will go up due to rising inefficiencies but the structural demand will stay the same.

  This supports, not undermines, higher oil prices.

  Goldman Sachs, whose statements one should always salt to taste, has been screaming that the action in the oil pits has defied reason for months. As long-time readers well know I’ve been complaining that this move down in oil into the $70’s was complete nonsense, a product of futures manipulation through headlines and always dubious inventory data.

  Watching the Volatility Splash By…

  I’ve watched the volatility in oil explode since “Biden’s” war on Russia began.

  You can see it clearly in the weekly charts… just look at the candlesticks on each half of the chart below (demarcated by the vertical black line). You don’t need numbers or years of market analysis behind you, just use your eyes.

  

  The war isn’t just being fought on the ground in Ukraine.  It’s being fought in the capital markets.  Oil is the most important market in the world, far more important than the US dollar or the US Treasury markets.

  Here I disagree with Martin Armstrong, not because those markets aren’t bigger and affect global capital flows more than oil (they do), but because without a relatively stable market for pricing oil there can be no trade.

  The instability of our interest rate and currency markets are downstream of this increased volatility in oil.

  The same thing, by the way, happened to the Dow Jones after President Trump was elected.  I had to alter my data sets for calculating my quantitative tools for assessing the weekly state of the Dow because volatility tripled. This made older data useless in assisting me in seeing the odds of moving higher or lower week to week.

  Targeting the US stock market with volatility was a way to undermine Trump while pushing the US dollar lower even though Jerome Powell was trying to raise interest rates pre-COVID-19, only to be attacked via COVID and Trump’s short-sightedness.

  The main point is this: the way to destroy a market is to make it too volatile for the average person or even small hedge fund to trade.  Constantly whipsawing the price from hither to yon and back again makes it impossible for the small players in the futures markets to maintain their margin requirements. Eventually, they are either the victim of ‘volatility washing’ or just give up and go trade something that isn’t batshit insane.

  When you do this, flush out the small specs (speculators) you decrease market liquidity and make it the plaything of those with the deepest pockets.  This has been the playbook used in the precious metals for years which guys like Craig Hemke (TF Metals Report) and others rightly complain about.

  Multi-Front War

  Do you see why OPEC+ would announce a major production cut at this moment in time?   Brent is becoming a broken market.  

  Biden left the US vulnerable to a price shock with an empty SPR while preparing for at least one ground/naval war.  

  Europe is already screwed. Lagarde is defending the euro to offset energy imports at higher prices from the US, now Europe’s largest supplier.

  This is killing US/EU credit spreads. Because Lagarde can either protect credit spreads or she can protect the euro but she can’t do both without outside help.

  

  Biden was supposed to help Europe (and Davos) by selling them the SPR as the price came down and shutting out Russia via sanctions and Janet Yellen’s moronic price cap. They were supposed to have control over oil prices such that they could drive them into the $50s or even the $40s to break Putin’s and bail out Europe’s economy.

  This would have crushed inflation, stopped the interest rate hikes, and quelled the unrest around the continent.

  Instead OPEC+ did exactly what you would expect them to do in this situation, announce a production cuts and force the central banks of energy importers to defend their currencies.

  The guy laughing his ass off right now is Jerome Powell.

  Look at the markets this morning and you’ll see what I see — a massive cost-push inflation trade.  Gold through $2000, Silver up, Oil up, bond yields down, stocks up strong.

  But at the same time those signals can also be reinterpreted as ‘money getting to ground’ rather than being unleashed because of new economic growth.

  Either way it doesn’t matter, these market reactions tell you headline inflation, not just core inflation, is likely to stop falling here as oil reverses and OPEC+ takes it back towards $100/bbl.

  Oil’s not done rising here.  

  OPEC+ will protect its collective bottom line and push the fiat boys to their limit.  

  I mean if someone declared war on you would you sell them your main export and the literal fuel for that war at a major discount?  

  Only if you hated your own country…

  … but enough about Barack Obama.

  As I discussed in that video for my patrons, Saudi Arabia is making very big moves to alter its allegiances — away from the West and towards the RIC Alliance (Russia, Iran, China). This is the core of the much wider BRIICSS alliance — which now includes India and Saudi Arabia.

  These are permanent moves, making a massive oil refinery deal with China, normalizing relations and becoming a ‘dialogue partner’ with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), just to name a few.

  And since the Saudis are not a ‘democracy’ their government cannot be gamed through electioneering. The diplomatic moves they make today will stick and alter the landscape of global trade for the next generation or two.

  Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pretty pissed with “Biden” which underscores his regional foreign policy moves.  

  Take a look at this heat map of global shipping and you tell me how the “Biden” apparatchiks spin this defeat into a ‘no biggie’ like they do with every Russian victory in Ukraine?

  

  This is one of those pictures that change the way you see the world.  I always ‘knew’ that the Arabian landmass was important but words sometimes just don’t cut it.  Sometimes you have to see it.  

  Davos declared war on oil the second Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine last February. They attempted to bully OPEC into isolating Russia, kicking them out of OPEC+, and failed spectacularly.

  The defection of the Saudis is the biggest strategic defeat of this entire war.  Without a compliant KSA there is no controlling oil prices and, by extension, the ability to control asset prices worldwide through currency trading.

  Here we are 13+ months into this fight and Ukraine has all but lost the war. Bahkmut is done.  Zelenskyy has lost the support of the military and only the warmongers at the top of NATO and the EU want this war to continue.

  And continue it will. Finland’s Davos government fell on its sword on its way out the door to make it a combatant by joining NATO.  There is too much smoke out there that the West is gearing up for an industrial war against Russia and China in the 2024-25 time frame.  They may lose in Ukraine but another front is just around the corner.

  But for all of the focus on Ukraine and the insane tragedy of it, the oil pits and the diplomatic backrooms is where the war is really being fought.  

  MOIA or Bust

  I’ve been screaming MOIA – Make Oil Investible Again — for months in my public interviews because this is how we begin to rebuild what these vandals have already broken and they still have control of the baseball bat in the global economic China shop.

  In order to MOIA the producers have to take control over the market. There is no better way to do that than to force a $10 reversal in price in a few days to volatility wash the big Davos specs out of the market and move a greater percentage of oil trading off US and London markets.

  In March 2020 what kicked off the financial crisis wasn’t COVID-19, it was OPEC+ saying no to production cuts at Putin’s insistence.  I wrote a blog post about Russia saying “No.”  While I’m not fully in agreement with this article today, knowing that Davos used this moment to begin its war on humanity through COVID-19, the basic premise is still the same.

  Putin said “No” to Saudi Arabia to become the de facto leader of OPEC+ by using his lower production costs to get the Saudis to knuckle under and stop playing footsie with the US who was using them as a weapon against Russia and the entire Global South.

  This was Putin’s opportunity to finally strike back at Russia’s tormentors and inflict real pain for their unscrupulous behavior in places like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela and Afghanistan.

  He is now in a position to extract maximum concessions from the U.S. and the OPEC nations who are supporting U.S. belligerence against Russia’s allies in China, Iran and Syria.

  We saw the beginnings of this in his dealings with Turkish President Erdogan in Moscow, extracting a ceasefire agreement that was nothing short of a Turkish surrender.

  Erdogan asked to be saved from his own stupidity and Russia said, “No.”

  This was the turning point in the oil markets.  Russia used its position as the supplier of the marginal barrel to force OPEC to heel and put pressure on US neocon foreign policy.

  Of course Europe would cut itself off from Russia, since it’s been their stated policy for decades, c.f. the Climate Change Hoax.  But if you do that and don’t bring the producers to heel, if you don’t break the cartel you can’t control the price.

  Putin gaining control over OPEC+ and then treating the cartel, which the US had been trying desperately to break, like kings rather than ‘the help,’ he set the stage for the last year when the KSA led the rest of OPEC in defying the US/EU/UK over sanctions on Russia’s markets.

  Davos’ response was predictable, attack oil prices through the futures markets by destroying liquidity while forcing prices below the all-in-sustaining costs for countries like Saudi Arabia.

  Powell undermined Yellen’s quest to break oil by pressuring European capital markets while they were vulnerable to not only energy price shocks but also interest rate and credit shocks.

  Viewed that way the mother of all financial nuclear weapons have detonated over Europe but the radiation cloud hasn’t quite killed everyone.

  The Saudis, predictably, courted China to pay in yuan and join the institutions built by Russia/Iran/China to limit their currency exposure and bring down their internal costs.

  All Russia and KSA had to do then was wait for the perfect moment (1st trading day of Q2 2023) to reverse the March 2020 “No” moment, by supporting oil prices rather than consolidating power over them.

  What this does now is ensure that any war the neocons have planned for the future will be fought with much higher interest rates, much weaker currencies and much higher effective oil prices.

  Cost-push inflation will return in the 2nd half of this year.  “Biden” won’t be able to refill the SPR.  Debt ceiling talks should end with Matt Gaetz telling “Biden” and Yellen to pound sand, we’re cutting spending while the leveraged Eurodollar markets continue shrinking alongside the petrodollar.

  And the neocons, at that point, can only whimper and try one last time to engineer a false flag that no one will believe, because they’ve cried ‘Russian bear’ too many times. The recession on the horizon Powell has purposefully engendered to wipe out the dumb collectivism subsidized by Yellen’s ZIRP bucks should drive political instability in Europe that far dwarfs the carnival barker sideshow of Trump’s indictment.

  Tree meet saw. Check and mate.

  *  *  *

  Join my Patreon if you want to MOIA

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 16:00

• Meta Recruiter Says She Was Paid $190,000 Per Year To Do Nothing
  Meta Recruiter Says She Was Paid $190,000 Per Year To Do Nothing

  A former Meta recruiter who has ‘reinvented herself as a career coach’ says she was paid $190,000 per year to do nothing, according to the Wall Street Journal.

  

  Tampa, Florida-based Madelyn Machado, 33, said that during a typical day she would log on around 11 a.m. when her West Coast colleagues would show up for work, sit in meetings from Noon until 3:30 p.m., and then check LinkedIn for an hour before logging off.

  Ms. Machado, who held a position as a recruiter, says that after joining the company in September 2021, she spent much of her time in meetings that didn’t accomplish anything, and that the parent of Facebook and Instagram had too many recruiters and not enough work for them to do. -WSJ

  “We just don’t hire anybody and, like, we still get paid,” she said in a TikTok video, relaying what she says other recruiters told her, adding that the company didn’t expect her to hire anyone in her first year, given that she was still learning the ropes.

  “I do think a lot of these companies wanted there to be work, but there wasn’t enough,” she said of her six months at the company, which she says fired her for posting career advice on TikTok (and probably all that shit talking).

  Machado isn’t alone

  Over the past few weeks, other former tech workers have posted similar experiences – saying they collected paychecks from large tech companies without much work.

  Such confessions—which have drawn plenty of criticism online—aren’t surprising, executives and industry professionals say. Tech companies that boomed during the pandemic were flush with cash, they say, and snapped up workers to build a deep bench and hoard talent from competitors, even if those workers weren’t being fully utilized. -WSJ

  “They were just kind of, like, hoarding us like Pokémon cards,” a former Meta worker hired in April 2022 said in a recent TikTok video about her experience at the company. “I was like, am I being set up for failure?” said Britney Levy, 35, says she was hired as part of a yearlong training program dedicated to recruiting diverse talent, the Journal reports.

  @clearlythere #stitch with @roilysm #meta #metalayoffs #tech #techtok #techlayoffs #businessinsider #news #google #work #career #metaseverance #fyp #business ♬ original sound – Brit

  https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

  “They were hiring ahead of demand” according to Dartmough business school professor, Vijay Govindarajan, who says that a shortage of tech talent at the time contributed to an inflated sense of urgency that fueled recent hiring sprees.

  “You want to hire ahead of others” when there’s a shortage of talent, he said, adding that there was similar overhiring during the early 2000s.

  

  Former Facebook and Salesforce tech worker Derrick McMillen, 32, says that during his time at Salesforce he felt like 20% of employees were doing 80% of the work, while the rest did on-site yoga and took long lunches.

  “There’s this fluffy image of everyone’s just so nice,” he said. “But when the culture doesn’t let you tell people they’re underperforming, you end up with a team of slackers.”

  Tech companies have laid off over 168,000 people since the start of the year, according to Layoffs.fyi.

  

  By industry, tech jobs in retail, consumer and transportation lead the pack when it comes to layoffs.

  

  In November, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg issued a mea culpa for overhiring, and their mistaken belief that consumer spending habits would shift towards online spending.

  “People were job-hopping from jobs where they were doing nothing, working from home, to another where they were doing nothing, working from home, and got paid 15% more,” said Thomas Siebel, head of the software company C3.ai Inc, who says that working full time from the office is essential to high performance and collaboration.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 04/07/2023 – 15:30

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