- You're Under Arrest: How The Police State Muzzles Our Right To Speak Truth To Power
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“History shows that governments sometimes seek to regulate our lives finely, acutely, thoroughly, and exhaustively. In our own time and place, criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something. If the state could use these laws not for their intended purposes but to silence those who voice unpopular ideas, little would be left of our First Amendment liberties, and little would separate us from the tyrannies of the past or the malignant fiefdoms of our own age. The freedom to speak without risking arrest is ‘one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation.’”
– Justice Neil Gorsuch, dissenting, Nieves v. Bartlett (2019)
What the First Amendment protects – and a healthy constitutional republic requires – are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.
What the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.
For those who refuse to meekly accept the heavy-handed tyranny of the police state, the danger is all too real.
We live in an age in which “we the people” are at the mercy of militarized, weaponized, immunized cops who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”
As such, those who seek to exercise their First Amendment rights during encounters with the police are increasingly finding that there is no such thing as freedom of speech.
This is the painful lesson being imparted with every incident in which someone gets arrested and charged with any of the growing number of contempt charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that get trotted out anytime a citizen voices discontent with the government or challenges or even questions the authority of the powers-that-be.
Merely daring to question, challenge or hesitate when a cop issues an order can get you charged with resisting arrest or disorderly conduct, free speech be damned.
In fact, getting charged or arrested is now the best case scenario for encounters with police officers who are allowed to operate under the assumption that their word is law and that there is no room for any form of disagreement or even question.
The worst case scenario involves getting probed, beaten, tasered, tackled, searched, seized, stripped, manhandled, shot, or killed by police.
This mindset that anyone who wears a government uniform (soldier, police officer, prison guard) must be obeyed without question is a telltale sign of authoritarianism goose-stepping its way towards totalitarianism.
The rationale goes like this:
Do exactly what I say, and we’ll get along fine. Do not question me or talk back in any way. You do not have the right to object to anything I may say or ask you to do, or ask for clarification if my demands are unclear or contradictory. You must obey me under all circumstances without hesitation, no matter how arbitrary, unreasonable, discriminatory, or blatantly racist my commands may be. Anything other than immediate perfect servile compliance will be labeled as resisting arrest, and expose you to the possibility of a violent reaction from me. That reaction could cause you severe injury or even death. And I will suffer no consequences. It’s your choice: Comply, or die.
Indeed, as Officer Sunil Dutta of the Los Angeles Police Department advises:
If you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me.
This is not the attitude of someone who understands, let alone respects, free speech.
Then again, there can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force.
What is this language of force?
Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Contempt of cop charges.
This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.
Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to speak freely.
Just recently, in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling protecting police from lawsuits by persons arrested on bogus “contempt of cop” charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that result from lawful First Amendment activities (filming police, asking a question of police, refusing to speak with police).
In Nieves v. Bartlett, the Court ruled 6-3 to dismiss the case of Russell Bartlett, an Alaska resident who was arrested at an outdoor festival for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after he refused to be interrogated by police and then intervened when police attempted to question other attendees about their drinking. While at a campsite party, Bartlett exercised his First Amendment right to refrain from speaking with a state trooper who was monitoring the event for underage alcohol consumption. Bartlett later intervened after observing another Trooper questioning a fellow camper in what he believed was an improper manner. At one point, one of the troopers reportedly caused Bartlett to stumble, then forced him to the ground, threatened to tase him if he resisted, and arrested him for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The charges were later dismissed. Bartlett sued, asserting that he was arrested in retaliation for challenging the Troopers’ authority. Although the Court recognized that people have a right to be free from a retaliatory arrest over lawful First Amendment activities, it ruled that if police have probable cause for the arrest, the person cannot sue for a free speech violation unless they can show that someone else was not arrested for the same actions.
Another case currently before the Supreme Court, Ogle v. State of Texas, involves the prosecution of a Texas man who faces up to one year in jail and a $4000 fine for sending emails to police criticizing them for failing to respond to his requests for assistance. Scott Ogle was charged with sending complaints to a sheriff’s office, including one email stating that officials were “pissing” on the Constitution. The Texas law under which Ogle was charged makes it a crime to send “annoying,” “alarming” or “harassing” electronic messages. The law is so overbroad that it could be used to punish a negative review of a restaurant posted online or caustic Facebook posts.
In yet another case, a rapper was charged with making terroristic threats after posting a song critical of police on Facebook and YouTube. In refusing to hear the case of Knox v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court paved the way for individuals who engage in controversial and unpopular political or artistic expression, by criticizing the police for example, to be labeled terrorists and subject to prosecution and suppression by the government. Police had been actively monitoring rapper Jamal Knox’s (a.k.a. “Mayhem Mal”) social media presence when they discovered the song titled “F**k the Police” and charged Knox and his rap partner with multiple counts of terroristic threats and witness intimidation.
These cases reflect a growing awareness about the state of free speech in America: it’s all a lie.
If we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to protest unjust laws by voicing our opinions in public or on our clothing or before a legislative body, then we do not have free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled, censored speech, and that’s a whole other ballgame.
Remember, the unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to challenge government agents, think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.
Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent and reminding the populace that resistance to the tyranny of the police state is futile.
Weaponized by police, prosecutors, courts and legislatures, “contempt of cop” charges have become yet another means by which to punish those individuals who refuse to be muzzled.
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Deyshia Hargrave, a language arts teacher in Louisiana, was thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested for speaking out during a public comment period at a school board meeting.
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Fane Lozman was arrested for alluding to government corruption during open comment time at a City Council meeting in Palm Beach County, Fla.
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Dan Heyman, a reporter for the Public News Service, was arrested for “aggressively” questioning Tom Price, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during an encounter in the West Virginia State Capitol.
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College professor Ersula Ore was slammed to the ground and arrested after she objected to the “disrespectful manner” shown by a campus cop who stopped her in the middle of the street and demanded that she show her ID.
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Philadelphia lawyer Rebecca Musarra was arrested for exercising her right to remain silent and refusing to answer questions posed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop. (Note: she cooperated in every other way by providing license and registration, etc.)
Cases like these have become typical of the bipolar nature of life in the American police state today: you may have distinct, protected rights on paper, but dare to exercise those rights and you put yourself at risk for fines, arrests, injuries and even death.
This is the unfortunate price of exercising one’s freedoms today.
Yet these are not new developments. We have been circling this particular drain hole for some time now.
Almost 50 years ago, in fact, Lewis Colten was arrested outside Lexington, Kentucky, for questioning police and offering advice to his friend during a traffic stop. Colten was one of 20 or so college students who had driven to the Blue Grass Airport to demonstrate against then-First Lady Pat Nixon. Upon leaving the airport, police stopped one of the cars in Colten’s motorcade because it bore an expired, out-of-state license plate. Colten and the other drivers also pulled over to the side of the road.
Fearing violence on the part of the police, Colten exited his vehicle and stood nearby while police issued his friend, Mendez, a ticket and arranged to tow his car. Police repeatedly asked Colten to leave. At one point, a state trooper declared, “This is none of your affair . . . get back in your car and please move on and clear the road.”
Insisting that he wanted to make a transportation arrangement for his friend Mendez and the occupants of the Mendez car, Colten failed to move away and was arrested for violating Kentucky’s disorderly conduct statute.
Colten subsequently challenged his arrest as a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with the police.
Although the Court acknowledged that Colten was not trespassing or disobeying any traffic regulation himself, the majority affirmed that Colten “had no constitutional right to observe the issuance of a traffic ticket or to engage the issuing officer in conversation at that time.”
The Supreme Court’s bottom line: protecting police from inconvenience, annoyance or alarm is more important than protecting speech that, in the government’s estimation, has “no social value.”
While the ruling itself was unsurprising for a judiciary that tends to march in lockstep with the police, the dissent by Justice William O. Douglas is a powerful reminder that, in a free society, the government exists to serve the people and not the other way around.
Stressing that Colten’s speech was quiet, not boisterous, devoid of “fighting words,” and involved no overt acts, fisticuffs, or disorderly conduct in the normal meaning of the words, Douglas took issue with the idea that merely by speaking to a government representative, in this case the police—a right enshrined in the First Amendment, by the way—Colten was perceived as inconveniencing and annoying the police.
In a passionate defense of free speech, Douglas declared:
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet. The situation might have indicated that Colten’s techniques were ill-suited to the mission he was on, that diplomacy would have been more effective. But at the constitutional level speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive.
It’s a power-packed paragraph full of important truths that the powers-that-be would prefer we quickly forget: We the people are the sovereigns. We have the final word. We can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy. We need not stay docile and quiet. Our speech can be disruptive. It can invite dispute. It can be provocative and challenging. We do not have to bow submissively to authority or speak with reverence to government officials.
In theory, of course, “we the people” have a constitutional right to talk back to the government.
The Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials.
Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence).
In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded as much in City of Houston v. Hill when it struck down a city ordinance prohibiting verbal abuse of police officers as unconstitutionally overbroad and a criminalization of protected speech.
Unfortunately, the brutal reality of the age in which we live is far different from the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights: talking back—especially when the police are involved—can get you killed.
The government does not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and lawfully. And it definitely does not want us to engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
We’re in deep trouble, folks.
Freedom no longer means what it once did.
Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.
If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.
Protest laws, contempt of cop charges, and all of the other bogus violations used by cops and prosecutors to muzzle discontent and discourage anyone from challenging government authority are intended to send a strong message that in the American police state, you’re either part of the herd, marching in lockstep with the government’s dictates, or you’re a pariah, a suspect, a criminal, a troublemaker, a terrorist, a radical, a revolutionary.
Yet by muzzling the citizenry, by removing the constitutional steam valves that allow people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world, the government is creating a climate in which violence becomes inevitable.
When there is no steam valve—when there is no one to hear what the people have to say, because government representatives have removed themselves so far from their constituents—then frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation.
As John F. Kennedy warned in March 1962, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government is making violent revolution inevitable.
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- Watch: World's First Raspberry-Picking Robot Completes Field Tasks
We have spoken on many occasions about the new wave of investments in automation could stimulate the economy after the next economic reset.
And we have also offered many sobering reminders that robots will likely displace 20% to 25% of current jobs (40 million jobs) by 2030. So, in our search for robots that will take jobs of the bottom 90% of Americans, this week, we have stumbled upon the world’s first raspberry-picking robot.
According to The Guardian, the new robot can pick upwards of 25,000 raspberries per day, outpacing human workers that pick around 15,000 in an eight-hour shift.
University of Plymouth spinout company Fieldwork Robotics is commercializing automation technology that will allow robots to harvest raspberries. With a successful pilot run, the robot could be gearing up to pick other fruits and vegetables.
Check out the world’s first ever raspberry-picking #robot, which has gone on trial in the UK. Developed by Fieldwork Robotics, a spinout from @PlymUni, it uses a robotic arm to pick a raspberry in 10 seconds or less. @guardian https://t.co/K0bZ2dE0Fm #agtech #robotics pic.twitter.com/VBcCEcYDyq
— Robot&AIWorld (@RobotAndAIWorld) May 26, 2019
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The prototype robot cost $890,000 to develop, can detect ripe fruit with its extensive camera system. Guided by sensors and 3D cameras, it uses picking arms to reach into the bush once the ripe fruit is identified, gently grabs it and plucks it from the bush and drops it into a collection bin.
A farm in West Sussex, a county in the south of England, had successfully tested the robot in August 2018. Researchers from the company collected enough data from the trial that will allow the company to push towards commercialization in 2020.
“We are delighted with the progress Fieldwork is making in developing a raspberry-harvesting robot system,” said Neil Crabb of Frontier IP, a major stakeholder in Fieldwork Robotics. “Completing these field trials is an important milestone in commercializing the technology, and we are looking forward to the next round of tests in the autumn.”
Separate tests in China have shown the robot can pick tomatoes and cauliflower.
The new robot works 20-hour shifts, but one of the biggest challenges for researchers is getting them to adapt to day and night conditions, said Rui Andres, portfolio manager at Frontier IP, one of the investors of Fieldwork.
Robots promise to raise productivity, at a time when the global economy is cycling down and has become vulnerable to shocks that may cause a global trade recession. On top of that, global demographic issues persist in the developed world, like the US and Europe, where workforces are aging rapidly. Automation will replace millions of people in the coming years, could aid in the recovery of global economies after the next economic downturn.
- The Pentagon's New Strategy For The Indo-Pacific Region
Authored by Leonard Savin via Oriental Review,
On 1 June, the Pentagon officially unveiled its new strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. Although several such documents have been published recently – take the cyber strategy, for example – it had been reported in advance that the Pentagon’s acting head would announce the institutionalisation of yet another area of focus at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore during his Asia tour. And that’s what happened, although, given the focus of Patrick Shanahan’s speech, it was clear to everyone that he was primarily talking about curbing China.
The very notion of an Indo-Pacific region is relatively new and the term only started appearing in doctrine documents last year. As it says in the strategy’s preamble, however, it is the US Department of Defense’s “priority theater”.
The US began realising its intentions in 2018 with the establishment of the new US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), and at the ASEAN Summit in August of the same year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to provide $300 million to strengthen regional security and counter transnational threats.
In September 2018, a special military cooperation agreement – the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) – was signed with India. It involved the sharing of data, the intensification of joint exercises, and the supply of sensitive US military equipment to India. There is no doubt that the agreement was also aimed at the US establishing a monopoly. Washington was particularly concerned (and still is) about India’s possible purchase of Russian S-400 missile defence systems, as well as other weapons. Then, in December 2018, India opened a maritime information fusion centre with assistance from the US.
Adm. Phil Davidson, center, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, speaks with the media in Singapore, March 2019.
As for the new strategy itself, it is telling that the first chapter is dedicated to America’s historic links with the Indo-Pacific region. While its links with the Pacific region are not in doubt – several US states border the Pacific Ocean, the leading role played by Commodore Perry in opening up Japan to the West, the occupation of the Philippines when the country was a Spanish colony, and the events of the Second World War – America’s links with the Indian Ocean are questionable. Does the creation of the hybrid term “Indo-Pacific region” really give America the right to talk about its special interests in relation to this enormous area? The Pentagon and the White House seem to think so.
The second part of the strategy focuses on trends and challenges, and the People’s Republic of China as a revisionist power is mentioned first. The section covers issues surrounding the disputed territories, the militarisation of a number of islands being claimed by China, the Chinese army’s use of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) technologies, and the use of economic leverage. However, the US itself regularly uses financial and economic institutions as a method of warfare by other means (the pressure on Huawei and the introduction of new tariffs are two recent examples). As a risk reduction measure, the strategy suggests encouraging China to engage with the US. It states that the US remains open to cooperation in every area in which the interests of both countries align.
America’s second challenge is Russia, which is described as a “revitalized malign actor”. Regret is expressed that, despite the sanctions imposed on Russia by the West and the slowdown in economic growth, Russia continues to modernise its military, including its nuclear forces, A2/AD systems, and expanded training for long-range aviation. The authors of the strategy conclude that Moscow wants to re-establish its presence in the Indo-Pacific region and carry out global influence activities there to undermine US leadership and the rules-based international order. Yet Russia has always insisted on the supremacy of international law and has urged the US to follow the UN Charter when it comes to resolving conflicts and disputes. The UN is only mentioned here in the context of Russia and China’s joint efforts in the UN Security Council, which the US regards as an attempt to weaken its world domination.
The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan sails in waters off Okinawa, alongside a refueling ship, in October 2017
It is interesting that Ukraine is referred to in the second paragraph, despite it having nothing to do with the region being discussed. The US is also worried about the Russian military’s regular flights near the Sea of Japan and the coast of Alaska. It seems that the Pentagon has a poor grasp of geography and clearly missed the lesson about the distance between the outermost islands of Russia and America being just 4 km, while the Sea of Japan doesn’t just border Japan, but also Russia’s Primorsky Krai.
Washington is also uneasy about collaboration between Russia and China, both in the economic arena and as regards joint defence initiatives such as the Vostok 2018 military exercise.
At the end of the section dealing with Russia, the strategy’s authors seem to forget they’re supposed to be talking about the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans and switch their attention to the Arctic. Paradoxically, the Pentagon links Russia’s interests in the extraction of natural resources, as well as the country’s extended continental shelf claim and the development of a Northern Sea shipping route, including with Chinese involvement, to the importance of the Indo-Chinese region! One would think that developing a Northern Sea shipping route would reduce the burden, and therefore any potential conflicts, on traditional sea routes through the Indian and Pacific oceans, but no. Even here, the US sees a threat to its own interests, confirming that Washington is actually interested in maintaining its global domination and controlling the actions of other states.
America’s top three challenges also includes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is referred to as a “rogue state”. Like Russia, it is on the list because of its international policies.
The section is finished off with a list of abstract transnational threats, including terrorism, drug trafficking, piracy, and the illicit arms trade.
The third section deals with US interests, as well as measures to implement the strategy itself. Acknowledging that Washington cannot address the aforementioned challenges alone, the report states that the US Department of Defense must seek out like-minded allies and partners as a force multiplier for interoperability, “representing a durable, asymmetric, and unparalleled advantage that no competitor or rival can match.” To this end, the US intends to offer its partners various types of interaction in order to “fight and win together.”
US defence chief to address Shangri La Dialogue on Indo-Pacific strategy, Singapore, June 1, 2019
However, the next chapter heading, which is a logical continuation of the previous one, shows that this will all be done to achieve Washington’s regional objectives through America’s sustained influence.
Operating concepts will be tested, and experiments and exercises will create a “virtuous cycle” that will give rise to additional ideas and innovations. An important point is the stationing of permanent US troops at the bases of its allies.
Besides US investment in its own installations and training facilities, there are plans to invest in advanced weapons systems in Japan and Australia. The development and forward presence of multifunctional groups will be accelerated. And there are plans to provide strategic deterrence by increasing the number of Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The report also refers to the deployment of approximately 400 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles and more than 400 extended range air-to-surface missiles. In addition, there will be increased investment in the development of unmanned vehicles, long-range anti-ship missiles, and in missile defence systems by deploying the 10 new destroyers included in the programme for 2020–2024. There will also be increased spending on offensive cyber capabilities and on the development of military space forces, from the creation of a doctrine and institutionalisation to the establishment of a space warfighting culture.
Although the US Indo-Pacific Command currently has more than 2000 aircraft, 200 ships and submarines, and more than 370,000 personnel at its disposal, this is not enough for the Pentagon, and the US military intends to actively engage partners from other countries. The report places particular emphasis on Japan, Guam, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Cambodia. The list even includes Laos, Nepal and Mongolia (!), although these countries are all landlocked.
Of America’s Western partners, the UK, France and Canada all have an active role to play as US allies. Particular attention is also given to ASEAN, including the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN-Plus format. There is to be an extensive network of US agents, namely the alumni of various courses run by US think tanks. Special mention is made of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI APCSS), which has been systematically pursuing a network strategy since 1995 and has trained more than 12,000 alumni from countries in the region. It should be noted that the idea for creating a networked region under the aegis of the US is indicated in the subtitle of the strategy itself: “Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region”.
U.S. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan delivers remarks at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Singapore, June 1, 2019.
So, as we can see, the goals and objectives of this strategy, which cost the US Defense Department $128,000, go far beyond the specified region, although it is crucial for achieving these objectives. It is likely that, after testing out a number of initiatives on its allies, the US will go on to extend the most successful out to the whole world, especially with regard to sea power, where the US armed forces are strongest.
There are already precursors to this kind of practice. According to retired officer Jim Banks, US Representative for Indiana’s 3rd congressional district and member of the United States House Committee on Armed Services, the US needs the Five-Ocean Navy Strategy, which “calls for a fleet of more than 400 ships, equipped with the latest technology to maximize our Navy’s offensive and defensive technological capabilities.”
He goes on to say that: “Increasing the size of the fleet will help the U.S. Navy match growing forces of our Russian, Chinese and Iranian rivals. It also will safeguard free passage in contested waterways, such as the South China Sea, Suez Canal, Arctic Ocean and Persian Gulf.”
So far, the idea is just a theoretical project, but it clearly reflects the interests of US manufacturers with links to the defence industry, the US Navy itself, and establishment war hawks.
Therefore, the implementation of the new Indo-Pacific strategy, or its failure for whatever reason, will serve as a test of the Pentagon’s future actions.
- How Many People Will Be Retiring In The Years To Come?
The post-WWII baby boom in the US peaked in 1960, when 4,257,850 live births took place. Those who were born in that year will reach the standard retirement age of 65 in about six years (2025).
With this impending milestone set to tax the resources of the Social Security Administration at a level not yet experienced in the system’s 84-year-existence, researchers at the St. Louis Fed shared a few calculations that not only showed how many people can be expected to file for retirement benefits in the years between now and 2025, but also how economists should take this information into account when evaluating the performance of the labor market.
Guillaume Vandenbroucke, the research officer and economist who published the information on the St. Louis Fed’s “On The Economy Blog,” demonstrated how official BLS data tend to understate the performance of the labor market when the number of people retiring is high, because the ‘net’ employment figure subtracts the number of people retiring.
To estimate the number of future retirees, Vandenbroucke started with the population of workers between the ages of 40 and 65 in 2018 using data gathered by IPUMS-USA. He then adjusted for age- and gender-specific mortality rates from the Human Mortality Database.
Basing his calculations on the assumption that the age-specific mortality rates would remain constant over the years, Vandenbroucke calculated the number of people who would reach the age of 65 each year. He then took his calculations one step further, and calculated the number of people reaching the age of 65 each day and each month.
He displayed his calculations in the table below.
What he determined is that the daily rate of people aging into retirement (i.e. turning 65) will peak in 2022 at just below 12,000. Over the next two decades, about 10,000 people will turn 65 every day.
On the right axis, Vandenbroucke breaks down retirement figures by month, which will make them easier to compare with BLS jobs data. That number will peak at just shy of 350,000 in 2022.
Looking ahead several decades, Vandenbroucke will probably need to adjust his model, since millennials, who will reach ‘retirement age’ in 2060, or thereabouts, likely won’t be ready to retire until much, much later – if ever.
- All The World’s Carbon Emissions In One Chart
Submitted by Visual Capitalist
All the World’s Carbon Emissions in One Chart
Two degrees Celsius may not seem like much, but on our planet, it could be the difference between thriving life and a disastrous climate.
Over two centuries of burning fossil fuels have added up, and global decision-makers and business leaders are focusing in on carbon emissions as a key issue.
Emissions by Country
This week’s chart uses the most recent data from Global Carbon Atlas to demonstrate where most of the world’s CO₂ emissions come from, sorted by country.
In terms of absolute emissions, the heavy hitters are immediately obvious. Large economies such as China, the United States, and India alone account for almost half the world’s emissions. Zoom out a little further, and it’s even clearer that just a handful of countries are responsible for the majority of emissions.
Of course, absolute emissions don’t tell the full story. The world is home to over 7.5 billion people, but they aren’t distributed evenly across the globe. How do these carbon emissions shake out on a per capita basis?
Here are the 20 countries with the highest emissions per capita:
Out of the original 30 countries in the main visualization, six countries show up again as top CO₂ emitters when adjusted for population count: Saudi Arabia, the United States, Canada, South Korea, Russia, and Germany.
The CO₂ Conundrum
We know that rapid urbanization and industrialization have had an impact on carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, but at what rate?
Climate data scientist Neil Kaye answers the question from a different perspective, by mapping what percentage of emissions have been created during your lifetime since the Industrial Revolution:
Put another way, the running total of emissions is growing at an accelerating rate. This is best seen in the dramatic shortening between the time periods taken for 400 billion tonnes of CO₂ to enter the atmosphere:
- First period: 217 years (1751 to 1967)
- Second period: 23 years (1968 to 1990)
- Third period: 16 years (1991 to 2006)
- Fourth period: 11 years (2007 to 2018)
In order to be a decarbonised economy by 2050, we have to bend the (emissions) curve by 2020… Not only is it urgent and necessary, but actually we are very nicely on our way to achieving it.
- Lower Income Americans Are Begging The Fed For Less Inflation
While the Fed may be surprised that low income workers aren’t as enthused about inflation as they are, we are not. A recent Bloomberg report looked at the stark disconnect between Fed policy and well, everybody else but banks and the 1%.
While the Fed sees low inflation as “one of the major challenges of our time,” Shawn Smith, who trains some of the nation’s most vulnerable, low-income workers stated the obvious: people don’t want higher prices. Smith is the director of workforce development at Goodwill of Central and Coastal Virginia.
In fact, he said that “even slight increases make a huge difference to someone who is living on a limited income. Whether it is a 50 cents here or 10 cents there, they are managing their dollars day to day and trying to figure out how to make it all work.’’ Indeed, as we discussed yesterday, it is the low-income workers – not the “1%”ers, who are most impacted by rising prices, as such all attempts by the Fed to “help” just make life even more unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Fears, and risks, associated higher prices comprise much of the feedback that the Fed has getting as part of its “Fed Listens” 2019 strategy tour, labeled as a multi-city “outreach tour”. So much for objectivity. Fed Governor Lael Brainard faced additional feedback from community leaders earlier this week in Chicago when she chaired a panel on full employment.
Patrick Dujakovich, president of the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO, told the audience in Chicago: “I have heard a lot about price stability and fiscal sustainability from the Fed for a very, very long time. Maybe I wasn’t listening, but today is the first time I’ve heard about employment sustainability and employment security.”
The problem that the Fed continues to face is that it has backed itself into a corner. With the economy supposedly “booming” and the stock market at all time highs, rates remain low and any tick higher would likely begin to cause massive shocks to a debt-laden and spending-addicted economy that has been swelling into dangerously uncharted waters over the last 10 years.
As one potential answer, the Fed is now looking at “inflation targeting” (whose disastrous policies we discussed here yesterday), which amounts to simply pursuing higher inflation for a while to “make up” for “undershoots” of the Fed’s 2% target since 2009. But the reality is that this idea cripples consumers, especially those at the lower end of the income spectrum.
Stuart Comstock-Gay, president of Delaware Community Foundation, told an audience at the Philadelphia Fed: “The sometimes positive impacts of inflation for certain of us have no good benefits for people at the lower end of the spectrum.”
And even former Fed economists agree. Andrew Levin, who’s now a Dartmouth College professor said: “The Fed and other central banks need to make sure they can foster the recovery from a severe adverse shock. But the answer is not to push inflation higher. Elevated inflation would be particularly burdensome for lower-income families.’’
Other economists have similar takes:
University of Chicago economist Greg Kaplan found that the cumulative inflation rate was 8-to-9 percentage points lower for households with incomes above $100,000 versus those with incomes below $20,000 over the 2004-2012 period. During that time, inflation averaged 2.2% which would be in the range of what Fed officials are now discussing as a possible strategy.
- Petro-Bitcoin? Russian Energy Giant Sees Oil Purchased With Crypto One Day
Authored by Thomas Simms via CoinTelegraph.com,
The head of Russian oil company Rosneft has not ruled out the possibility of paying for oil using cryptocurrencies in the future, according to a report by Snob.ru on June 6.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
Igor Sechin said the industry’s acceptance and awareness of digital assets is beginning to rise as Silicon Valley tech giants including Google, Amazon and Apple begin to explore the oil and gas sector.
While he suggested that the stablecoin Facebook is currently developing could one day be used to purchase oil by the barrel, Sechin warned there are some hurdles that cryptocurrencies need to overcome if they are to pique the interest of energy giants. He was quoted as saying:
“Greater flexibility often means greater volatility, and digitalization creates risks for maintaining commercial secrets and leads to the need to create new regulatory mechanisms, additional reservations. Today, technology companies do not have quality answers to these fundamental questions.”
Sechin was speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Oil and cryptocurrencies have been linked before, with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro issuing a coin known as the Petro, which was supposedly tied to the nation’s reserves of commodities including gold, diamonds and oil.
Last November, major oil companies joined large banks to launch a blockchain-driven platform for commodity trading, but this was more focused on helping industry players transition from paperwork to smart contracts.
- These American Cities Have The Most Vacant Homes
A new report identifies American cities that are experiencing a post-housing crisis hangover.
24/7 Wall St., a financial news website, used tax assessor data from ATTOM Data Solutions to examine the number of single-family homes and condos that are empty in 15,957 ZIP codes, to determine which American cities had the most vacancies.
Twenty-nine cities were found to have at least 5,000 single-family homes and condos abandoned. In most of the cities on this list, the rate is well beyond the national vacancy rate of 1.52%.
Gary, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and Baltimore, Maryland, were identified as some of the cities that have the highest vacancy rates in the country. These vacancies are concentrated in neighborhoods with low incomes that suffer from decades of economic decline due to deindustrialization.
Most of these cities with high vacancy rates are situated in deindustrialized zones in the Midwest and Rust Belt regions. The loss of key industries was gradual and started in the 1970s.
24/7 Wall St. noted that high vacancy rates coincide with lower home prices. Here are 29 cities that are shrinking after decades of economic decline:
Chris Hedges, an American journalist, best describes this deterioration of America’s Heartland as an “unstoppable death spiral.”
Hedges has said the US economy has been drained by wars in the Middle East and vast military expansion around the globe (i.e., the +800 military bases). Exploding deficits, along with the devastating effects of deindustrialization has also crippled the country, he noted.
The bottom 90% of Americans in the 2020s will see stagnate wages, exploding wealth inequality, shrinking communities, and more deindustrialization will contribute to a further increase in vacancy rates across the country.
- Russia-China: A Strategic Alliance For The 21st Century
Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed China’s Xi Jinping to Moscow this week for a three-day state visit. It wasn’t just the personal warmth between the two leaders that was on display. They have met on nearly 30 occasions over the past six years. President Xi referred to Putin as his closest international ally and friend.
More importantly, the two nations are solidifying a strategic alliance that could define the shape of geopolitics for the 21st Century.
Putin and Xi, who also attended the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum this week, signed a raft of bilateral commercial agreements which will propel Eurasian development and indeed global development.
Of particular significance is the continued drive by Moscow and Beijing to conduct international trade in national currencies, obviating the US dollar as a payment means. This is a crucial step in countering the desired “hegemonic control” of the global financial system by Washington. Time and again, Washington has abused its privileged position of printing or withholding dollars in order to further its own agenda of dominating other nations. That abuse has to stop, and it will stop as Russia and China pave the way to a new, fairer mechanism of international finance and trade.
The vision of cooperation and partnership outlined by Putin and Xi is one based on mutual respect and peaceful prosperity. Not just for those two nations but for all others who participate in the multilateral vision that they promulgate. In that way, the alliance being consolidated by Russia and China is one that offers renewed hope in a progressive and peaceful future for the planet.
This positive vision is especially welcome at a time when the US under President Donald Trump is unleashing a barrage of tensions and potential conflicts from its bid to assert global dominance. The US is wielding sanctions and threats at numerous nations, including Russia and China, as well as even towards its own supposed allies in Europe, all in a desperate attempt to assert a hegemonic unipolar ambition.
Such a scheme is a negation of the vision of solidarity and partnership outlined by the Russian and Chinese leadership. The “American way” is not only futile. Ultimately, it is a zero-sum mentality that leads to destruction and war. A path to where, ultimately, nobody wins.
It is not as if history has not shown us that already. Two horrendous world wars were fought in the 20th century – with a total death toll of as many as 100 million people – largely because of selfish imperialist rivalry and zero-sum mentality.
Russia and China were two nations that suffered the most in those conflagrations. They both know the horrific cost of conflict, but also the preciousness of peace. That’s why it is heartening to see those two countries forging a new paradigm of international cooperation based on mutualism and a commitment to development for the common good of all people.
The much-vaunted multilateralism during the so-called Pax Americana decades following Second World War was always over-rated. It was always a cover for Washington’s presumed global hegemony. The present unwinding of the US-led Western order is really just the ugly face of American power coming to the surface.
While Putin and Xi were embodying a vision for the future this week, it seemed ironically appropriate that the US and some other Western leaders were indulging in a backward look at history. The faux camaraderie of Western leaders was also apparent, belied by ongoing seething squabbles and rivalries between the US, France, Britain and Germany.
President Trump and others were marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy Landings in June 1944. That event heralded the opening of the Western Front against Nazi-occupied Europe and contributed to the final defeat of the Third Reich in May 1945. Lamentably, however, Western leaders persist in a conceited and false notion that D-Day was the key turning point in the definitive victory of the Second World War.
It is frankly incontestable that it was the Soviet Red Army and the colossal sacrifices of Soviet citizens that were the pivotal force in defeating Nazi Germany and yielding the liberation of Europe from fascism. The momentous Battle of Stalingrad which smashed the Nazi war machine was over by February 1943, some 16 months before the Western allies launched their long overdue D-Day.
Western leaders can indulge in self-serving vanities about presumed past glories all they want. It doesn’t change the historical record or objective truth. And besides, those who don’t learn from history are bound to be trapped by repeating its errors and dead-ends. They are quite literally yesterday people.
Fittingly, Putin and Xi were not at the D-Day nostalgia event and its escapism to delusional glory of the 20thCentury. They were busy forging an alliance fit for the 21st Century.
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