- McMaken: The "Rules-Based International Order" Is Dead… Washington Killed It
McMaken: The “Rules-Based International Order” Is Dead… Washington Killed It
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
The lack of self-awareness among the many American officials who are striking a moralistic pose in opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is striking.
For example, Foreign Policy has published a column by Col. Yevgeny Vindman, asking how the world can tolerate a country like Russia on the United Nations Security Council. His specific point was that any country that invades another country must not be allowed veto power in the United Nations. Responding to Vindman, however, Stephen Wertheim pointed out what should be obvious to everyone: that’s a “fair question” and one “that applies to 2003, too.”
In other words, the view that the current Russian invasion is somehow unique in its aggressiveness requires a complete rewriting of history and a willingness to ignore the reality of the US’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. If an aggressive power’s veto in the UN was perfectly fine in 2003, why is it suddenly not acceptable now? The reality, of course, is that the United States is powerful enough to invade whatever country it wants and still get away with it. A second-rate power like Russia can’t do the same, even when it basically mimics the acts of the United States.
Nonetheless, Washington continues to have the audacity to portray itself as a white knight that stands for a “rules-based” international order—an order supposedly built around respect for national sovereignty and multilateral enforcement of international law. But, it has become abundantly clear that these alleged rules mean nothing at all when the United States wishes to invade countries in preemptive and elective wars. For those who don’t wear the American selective-memory goggles, it is not clear that the US should be in a leadership position in a rules-based order that it is so obviously willing to flout.
There are implications here well beyond simply pointing out hypocrisy, and they extend to global trade, international law, and the prospects for a new Cold War. Multilateralism means nothing to the US when the notion gets in the way of the next US regime change scheme, and as a result, it is likely no coincidence that the US’s latest demand for a multilateral moral crusade has yielded little cooperation from the rest of the world. As has already become clear, few regimes outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have been willing to go along with the US’s demands that the world’s regimes impoverish their citizens by cutting themselves off from Russian oil and wheat—and everything else. Much of the world, it seems—from Asia to Africa to Latin America—is no longer willing to get lessons in morality from Washington, and even less willing to make their populations go hungry in order to please Washington politicians.
This is likely to become an increasing issue for the global economy and for global international institutions moving forward.
Iraq 2003 versus Ukraine 2022
In 2003, the United States invaded a sovereign state in an elective and “preemptive” war. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis—most of them civilians—were killed. Portrayals of Iraq as a threat to the US and its neighbors were exposed as lies.
In 2022, Russia invaded a sovereign state in an elective and “preemptive” war. Military and civilian casualties may someday rival those of Iraq, but given that Ukraine’s population is now twice as large as Iraq’s was in 2003, totals will need to grow considerably to be comparable to the carnage in Iraq.
Yet, the way the US regime, the US media, and US public treat these two invasions is truly a sight to behold. A few minutes on Twitter make it clear that Americans are still making excuses for the US’s blood-drenched Iraq invasion. Some claim that the deaths of Iraqi women and children should be ignored because the Iraqi regime wasn’t “democratic.”
Others portray the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq—a lowball figure being two hundred thousand out of a population of twenty-three million—as a negligible matter of a few “stray drones.”
Forgotten by these apologists are the times US troops opened fire on children and the US mercenaries who fired machine guns into crowds of unarmed Iraqis. Moreover, the US shelled and completely destroyed both Fallujah and Mosul. The bloodshed was remarkable, indeed. The US media, on the other hand, now hints the Russians are uniquely barbaric for using cluster bombs—but the US used these in Iraq. The US also purposely fomented a civil war through its needless de-Ba’athification policy, which rendered millions of Iraqis unemployed and abolished the nation’s few institutions designed to maintain local order.
Those caught up in the current anti-Russian frenzy denounce anyone who mentions these historical facts because they don’t fit Washington’s present narrative. But for most of the world, which isn’t as emotionally invested in the idea that the United States is the beacon of moral foreign policy, the last twenty-five years of US foreign policy make it clear that talk about a rules-based order is nothing more than talk.
Will the World Isolate Russia on Moral Grounds?
Even in the wake of the alleged massacres in and around Bucha, we’re hearing almost nothing at all from regimes outside the US’s inner circle of NATO and near-NATO allies. For example, in Fox’s piece on “world leaders” reacting to the alleged massacre, we quickly find that “the world” means a handful of countries like Japan, New Zealand, and NATO members. All the same regimes keep showing up in every piece about “the world’s” reaction.
Even within NATO, Turkey continues to engage in efforts to facilitate peace talks with Russia. There is still no sign that Latin America desires to throw its economies into recession by signing on to the US’s sanctions regime. No Latin American countries have yet been added to Russia’s list of “unfriendly countries.” As Mexico’s president has already made clear, Mexico’s interest is in maintaining friendly relations with all nations. India and China, of course, continue to trade with the Russians. In fact, the US-NATO axis only makes up one-third of global GDP (gross domestic product). The US is going to have to convince the rest of the world to cut themselves off from critical commodities in the name of joining the US’s rules-based order. But the US in no moral position to do so.
Will the United Nations Eject Moscow?
One more key plank of the US strategy is now coming into focus. Within days of Vindman’s article in Foreign Policy calling for the removal of Russia from the UN Security Council, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky demanded the same, claiming that no country that invades another country can continue on the Security Council. Short of expelling Russia, Zelensky maintains, the council should dissolve itself. Needless to say, no similar demands were made when the US invaded Iraq, or when NATO devastated Libya.
Zelensky, however, may have stumbled across a good idea. Now may be a good time to abolish the UN. The United States has spent the last thirty years turning the United Nations into a US-dominated institution designed to rubber stamp US military interventions, make excuses for US allies, and wag its finger at US enemies. This has long provided a patina of a rules-based international order, one that can also be ignored when it suits Washington. Thus, when the US failed to get its rubber stamp from the UN prior to the Iraq invasion, Washington denounced its opponents in the Security Council and instead embraced its eastern European partners like Poland and Ukraine, which apparently had no problem with invading and occupying countries unprovoked. (Ukraine sent at least 5,000 troops to help occupy Iraq.)
Prior to this, of course, the Security Council was deadlocked most of the time because the US and the Soviet Union would simply veto each other. Although both Washington and Moscow invaded other sovereign states during this time, neither was delusional enough to think other states in the Security Council could be ejected for such acts. That was then.
Biden’s New World Order
This all continues to highlight how the world is descending into a post-globalization world of at least two blocs: the anti-Russian one and the neutral one. Biden has already claimed that Washington will lead the ”free world” in this “new world order.” But this “free world” is increasingly looking like the US, Europe, and a handful of other allies versus everyone else. Enlarging this bloc would depend on expanding soft power based at least in part on moral leadership, especially as the US continues to become a smaller and smaller part of the global economy. Thanks to the US’s blatant disregard for a rules-based order in recent decades, this looks increasingly unlikely.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 23:40 - These Are The American Cities With The Highest (And Lowest) Rents
These Are The American Cities With The Highest (And Lowest) Rents
While the real-estate market has calmed down from the insanity of 2021 (as mortgage rates have soared to their highest levels in years) the cost of housing remains higher than it was three or four years ago. And while American workers have seen their wages climb in recent months, buoyed by a labor shortage and decidedly “non-transitory” inflation…
…the fact remains that housing is unaffordable for many. And since housing costs (rent, or mortgage) is typically the largest component of a consumer’s fixed monthly costs, fluctuations can have an outsize impact on social cohesion – even more so than rising gas prices.
While the pandemic-inspired savings glut that in turn helped spur demand has slackened, the lack of housing supply has continued to ensure that home prices remain elevated and the market for homes remains tight enough to price out first-time buyers.
And after rents plunged during the early days of the pandemic as workers fled cities (and millennials moved back into their parents’ suburban basements en masse), data show that while rent increases didn’t exactly move in tandem with home prices, landlords are finally starting to hike rents as they demand a greater return on their investments.
But rents aren’t rising uniformly everywhere. A recent report from Stessa found that the states with the most unaffordable rents are typically coastal states like Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, and New York.
In these expensive locations, median rents can approach or top $2,000 a month, while a studio apartment can cost more than a typical 3- or 4-bedroom house in other parts of the country.
On the other end of the spectrum, Arkansas is the most affordable state for renters at $881 per month, approximately one-third of the median rent cost in the most expensive state, Hawaii ($2,537).
Using an analysis of data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau, the organization broke down the most affordable small and medium-size metro areas.
Finally, here’s a breakdown of the 15 most expensive large metros, ranked from least to most expensive, courtesy of Stessa’s data.
15. Austin.
14. Orlando
13. Portland
12. Miami-Fort Lauderdale
11. Denver
10. Sacramento
9. Riverside
8. Washington DC
7. NYC
6. Seattle
5. San Diego
4. LA
3. Boston
2. San Francisco
1. San Jose
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 23:20 - Biden Moves Toward Expanding Obamacare To Eliminate The 'Family Glitch' In The Plan
Biden Moves Toward Expanding Obamacare To Eliminate The ‘Family Glitch’ In The Plan
Authored by Nick Ciolino via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
President Joe Biden is taking steps meant to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
President Joe Biden speaks during an event to mark the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House on April 5, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Alongside the government health plan’s chief architect, former President Barack Obama, at the White House Tuesday, Biden announced plans to fix the “family glitch” in the ACA and signed an executive order that will “protect and strengthen Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.”
Should Biden’s family glitch rule be finalized, it would allow non-employee family members with private insurance from an employer that costs in excess of 10 percent of the household income to qualify for coverage under the ACA. The administration estimates that 200,000 uninsured people would gain coverage, and nearly 1 million Americans would see their coverage become more affordable.
A senior administration official on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement conceded not all of the roughly 5 million families who qualify for the change may want to switch coverage if the rule is approved, saying that some might “find it more convenient to have their whole family in a single health plan.”
The ACA has seen its premiums skyrocket over its 12-year existence.
The administration has not offered details as to how much the new rule would cost taxpayers but has said that if approved it would take effect at the start of next year.
Biden’s executive order he signed on camera Tuesday continues an order he signed at the start of last year directing agencies to “[make] coverage more affordable and accessible for American families.”
In a speech, Biden scolded repeated Republican efforts to repeal the ACA since its inception.
“I got a better idea: Instead of destroying the Affordable Care Act, let’s keep building on it,” said Biden. “Let’s extend it.”
Biden also made calls to “close the Medicaid coverage gap” in states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid. He also called for a change in law to allow Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs that are on the market.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law in 2017 by former President Donald Trump gutted the ACA by removing penalties for those who violate the plan’s individual mandate rule requiring all Americans to pay for health insurance.
In March of last year, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan that included boosts to the ACA, including enhanced subsidies and incentives for states to expand the program.
This past winter, the administration ran what it calls “the most successful open enrollment period under the ACA ever” with 14.5 million sign-ups, plus another 1 million that signed up for a related program called the “Basic Health Plan.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 23:00 - Objects Of Desire: Record-Breaking Auction Sales In 2021
Objects Of Desire: Record-Breaking Auction Sales In 2021
2021 may have been the year of the NFT, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Rosey Eason detail below, wealthy collectors still dropped plenty of cash on physical objects. This included the usual items like paintings and cars, as well as some more obscure ones like meteorites.
To gain insight into the world of rare collectibles, this infographic summarizes the biggest auction sales of 2021, spread across 12 different item categories.
The Numbers
The key details of these sales are listed below in tabular format. Some broke all-time records, while others set the record for 2021 specifically.
The Details
Here are some interesting facts and details about these rare collectibles, starting with:
Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)
This 1932 painting is a depiction of Picasso’s lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977). Walter is believed to have had a significant impact on Picasso’s work, and the pair had a child out-of-wedlock in 1935.
He loved the blondeness of her hair, her luminous complexion, her sculptural body.
– BRASSAÏ
Sold by Christie’s in New York, this was the first painting to auction for over $100 million in nearly two years. The all-time record holder is Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million in 2016 to Mohammed Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
1995 McLaren F1
Produced between 1992 and 1998, the McLaren F1 is widely regarded as one of the most desirable supercars in the world. It features many innovations that are still rare in modern road cars, including a carbon fiber monocoque (the main structure of the car), active aerodynamics on the underbody, and a centered driving position.
The F1’s legacy is cemented by the fact that only 106 were ever produced, many of which have been owned by celebrities. That includes Elon Musk, who famously crashed his F1 in 2000 without insurance.
The specific car highlighted above was sold by Gooding & Company, a classic car auction company. It has just 242 miles (390 km) on the clock, which translates to an average of 9.3 miles (15 km) being driven on the road per year.
1933 Double Eagle Coin
The 1933 Double Eagle is one of the last $20 gold coins ever produced in the United States. It dates back to an era when the U.S. dollar’s value was tied to gold, which is a system known as the gold standard. The coins were melted down when the U.S. transitioned to fiat money, and only 13 examples are known to exist today.
After selling for $18.9 million, this Double Eagle holds the title as the most valuable rare coin in the world.
The Revolver Used to Kill Billy the Kid
The Colt single-action revolver that was used to kill Billy the Kid is now the most expensive firearm ever sold at an auction. It belonged to Sheriff Pat Garrett, who killed Billy in 1881.
Billy is one of the most notorious figures from America’s wild west era and was responsible for the deaths of eight men, including two sheriff’s deputies during an escape from jail.
Because of Billy’s legacy, this revolver is lauded as one of the most desirable Western firearms in existence. Surprisingly, it was the gun’s first appearance in a public auction.
Final Text of the United States Constitution
This first-edition copy of the U.S. constitution is an incredibly rare and historically significant artifact. The story of how it sold is equally as impressive.
Bidding came down to two parties, one of which was Ken Griffin, billionaire CEO of Citadel. If you’re an investor, that name may sound familiar—Citadel was a hedge fund involved in the r/wallstreetbets saga of 2021.
The other party was ConstitutionDAO, a group of 17,000+ crypto investors who pooled together $47 million worth of Ethereum. The term “DAO” refers to a decentralized autonomous organization, which is an online entity that’s collectively owned by its members without centralized leadership—and that takes action based on transparent rules set on a public blockchain.
In the end, the copy was sold to Griffin for a total of $43.2 million. Organizers of ConstitutionDAO could not place a higher bid because they wouldn’t have had enough money to insure, store, and transport the document.
About Those NFTs…
NFTs only exist in the digital realm, but they’ve quickly become some of the world’s most valuable collectibles. How valuable, you may ask?
For starters, consider the $7.6 million sale of CryptoPunk #3100, a profile picture (PFP) NFT that depicts a blue zombie. Then there’s The Merge, a digital artwork comprised of 312,686 pieces. In December 2021, it was sold to a collective of 28,983 buyers who, altogether, paid $91.8 million.
All of this hype has led some of the world’s oldest auction houses to begin selling NFTs through online events. This includes Christie’s (founded in 1766), which surpassed $100 million in NFT auction sales in less than a year.
Whether this momentum can carry forward is questionable. Interest in NFTs has plummeted, and crypto markets remain incredibly volatile.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 22:40 - Media Vilifies Polymer80 In Preparation For Biden's "Ghost Gun" Rule Change
Media Vilifies Polymer80 In Preparation For Biden’s “Ghost Gun” Rule Change
Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN).,
While we in the firearms industry brace for the Biden DOJ to release their new “ghost gun” regulation, the corporate media has been hard at work spinning up their propaganda machines to defame companies that enable citizens to make their own firearms at home.
Their latest target? Polymer80.
For those unfamiliar with Polymer80, they are a company that produces unfinished polymer frames for firearms. With these kits, people can build firearms in the comfort of their homes 100% legally. Unless you have a criminal record, you’d be breaking the law. Remember that point because we’ll be revisiting that.
The ATF has previously determined that Polymer80’s kits do not meet the legal definition of a firearm. They even have a determination letter from the ATF to prove it.
The Biden DOJ announced in 2021 that they would be pursuing a rule change to regulate 80% kits as firearms themselves. This is a dangerous precedent yet seems to be where the Biden DOJ and ATF are headed.
So, to prepare for this move, the corporate media has started its propaganda campaign. If you keep an eye on the news cycle, you’ll begin to see many more articles about the “ghost gun problem in America.” Check out this graph showing the increase in the use of the term ghost gun.
This media campaign is just the groundwork being laid so that Biden can step out later this month and announce that he’s “won the war on ghost guns” with his new rule change.
While the DOJ and ATF point to an increase in the use of these privately made firearms in gun crimes, it is worth noting that if these so-called “ghost guns” suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, criminals would continue to use stolen or straw-purchased firearms to commit crimes.
For those unfamiliar with home manufacturing, it’s completely legal under current US law to build a firearm at home for personal use. For those who own CNC machines or 3D printers, it’s an easy process. For those who don’t, it’s much more complicated.
Companies like polymer80 seek to make this home build process easier by selling what amounts to an unfinished Glock frame. Private citizens can finish these frames at home, and because of the extensive aftermarket for Glock pistols, home builders can buy most other components like slides and barrels online.
Also, regulating things that are not legally considered firearms as firearms themselves is an insane precedent that stands to endanger law-abiding citizens. We saw an example of this play out in real-time earlier this year when the ATF randomly decided to mass deny form 1 kits for solvent traps. This, in a way, mirrors the current proposed rulemaking as many in the firearms world saw solvent traps as 80% kits for home suppressor building, which is also 100% legal.
Those who tried to follow the legal process to build a suppressor were then told that what constituted a “silencer” in the eyes of the ATF was the intent. What they had in their possession didn’t much matter, whether it was oil filters, solvent traps, or a six-inch section of metal pipe.
Now, the Biden DOJ stands to do the same with 80% frames.
The real question is how far this line of thinking will go. Will the ATF regulate PLA plastic and blocks of aluminum? Will Home Depot be required to hold an FFL to do business? This may sound like a ridiculous argument, but when all the government needs to prosecute you is to determine your “intent,” the law becomes a tool for them to strip you of your rights instead of something that protects citizens from bad actors.
Keep in mind that gun control is like red meat for the base in Biden’s eyes. Much of this legislation is useless at best at stopping actual gun crime yet is pushed to better Biden’s poll numbers with his neoliberal base. Right now, with low poll numbers and headed into the midterms, Biden needs all the victories he can get. So, it’s no surprise that his allies in the corporate legacy media are drumming up a “problem” for him to “solve.”
Watch: TMGN’s Steph breaks down what’s happening in the firearms industry and what’s about to be announced by the Biden administration.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 22:20 - Tesla Recalls 127,785 Vehicles In China Due To Possible Inverter Failure
Tesla Recalls 127,785 Vehicles In China Due To Possible Inverter Failure
The tsunami of Tesla recalls that started months ago shows no signs of stopping. The most recent recall was announced this morning, when it was reported that 34,207 imported and 93,578 China-made vehicles were being recalled.
The recall is due to a possible inverter failure, according to Bloomberg, who cited a statement from State Administration for Market Regulation.
The vehicles in question were produced between January 11, 2019 and January 25, 2022.
Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research said in a Thursday morning note to clients: “This does not sound like an over-the-air update (i.e., these cars will likely have to be fixed, manually), and seems (very) important/critical (i.e., losing power while moving)…”
It is the latest in a flurry of recalls by Tesla. More than one million Teslas have been recalled in recent months.
- Tesla Recalls More Than 475,000 US Vehicles Due To Quality Issues
- Tesla Recalls Tens Of Thousands Of Vehicles On “Rolling Stop” Function, NHTSA Says
- Tesla Recalls More Than 800,000 Vehicles Over Seat Belt Chime Malfunction
… and the recalls could increase as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced in February that it’s reviewing complaints about Tesla vehicles suddenly braking at high speeds.
“This process includes discussions with the manufacturer, as well as reviewing additional data sources, including Early Warning Reporting data. If the data show that a risk may exist, NHTSA will act immediately,” according to a statement from the agency.
NHTSA reviewed complaints from drivers about ‘phantom braking’ on highways resulting in near-collisions.
One unidentified 2021 Tesla Model 3 driver in Madison, Wisconsin, complained about his unexpected braking incident on a major highway last month. “I was driving north on Wisconsin route 14 at about 60 mph in my Tesla model 3 using the cruise control,” the driver said, adding that the sudden braking almost sparked an accident.
Popular automotive magazine Car and Driver has been right: Tesla cars are “hampered by quality problems.”
We wrote in February that the number of new stories on the Bloomberg terminal covering the keyword “Tesla recall” has surged over the last three years.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 22:00 - Former Teacher Chooses Homeschool: "An Incredible Blessing for Our Family"
Former Teacher Chooses Homeschool: “An Incredible Blessing for Our Family”
Authored by Barbara Danza via The Epoch Times,
As some parents decide whether to homeschool their children, a specific facet of the homeschooling population may offer some unique insight. Among homeschoolers you might be surprised to find a great many former public school teachers who said “no thank you” to the prescribed route and chose the path of homeschool for their own children.
One such parent is Sarah Miller from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Sarah taught professionally for 10 years before choosing to homeschool her own children. She now blogs about her experience and helps other parents who are just getting started.
One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling, Sarah Miller found, was the bonding between siblings. (Iren_Geo/Shutterstock) I recently asked Sarah about her homeschooling journey. Here’s what she said.
The Epoch Times: How old are your children, and how long have you been homeschooling?
Sarah Miller: My son is 6 and in first grade. My daughter is 3 and starting preschool this year. We are starting our fourth year homeschooling, since we started when my son was in preschool.
The Epoch Times: As a former teacher, what factors led to your decision to homeschool your children?
Ms. Miller: Our decision to homeschool started when trying to choose a preschool for my son. He has a late birthday and would have started preschool just weeks after turning 3. We didn’t qualify to delay a year in our local public school, but my son was very young and very active. I wanted him to have another year at home to play, explore, and grow up before spending time in a classroom environment. We decided to homeschool for one year.
By the end of the year, we knew that homeschooling was an incredible blessing for our family. I had watched my son thrive with the focused attention and customized lessons I could give him, and we both loved the quality time we got to spend together. I am so grateful that we found homeschooling. It’s a great solution for our family.
The Epoch Times: Would you say your teacher training and experience helped you as a homeschooling parent?
Ms. Miller: In some ways, my teacher training does help in our homeschool. I know how to plan a lesson and how to evaluate and choose a curriculum that will work well for us. I am familiar with a lot of research about how kids learn best that I am able to apply to our homeschool.
But in some ways, being a trained teacher is a disadvantage too. I often have to challenge myself to think outside the box about what our school looks like. For many families who are successful at homeschooling, school looks very different than what the public schools offer. I am learning to challenge what I learned in school about how to teach and to adapt it to fit how my kids learn in a more natural way.
The Epoch Times: Do you feel that homeschooling parents without teacher training are at a disadvantage?
Ms. Miller: I don’t think that parents without teacher training are at a disadvantage. There is so much information available about how to homeschool, especially now that it is becoming more popular. All homeschool parents, whether or not they are trained teachers, will learn how to teach each of their individual children as they spend time teaching them.
Parents have a unique advantage that more than makes up for any lack of teacher training they have. As parents, they are an expert on their own children. They know how their children think, what they are interested in, and what motivates them better than anyone else. They care about their children’s success more than any other person on Earth.
The Epoch Times: What have you found to be the greatest challenges of homeschooling?
Ms. Miller: Homeschooling is a big time commitment, so balancing the time it takes to homeschool well with my other life responsibilities is a challenge. It can also be hard not to take things personally when we have a hard day in our homeschool. I care so much about my kids’ learning and I want nothing more than for them to be successful. It’s hard when they are struggling with what they are learning or not feeling motivated to learn. I am learning to be patient and to prioritize my relationship with my kids first, my kids’ love of learning second, and then whatever I am trying to teach them that day third.
The Epoch Times: What have you found to be the greatest benefits of homeschooling?
Ms. Miller: Homeschooling allows us to spend a lot of quality time together as a family. Every day I have the opportunity to invest time intentionally into my relationships with my children. It is such a blessing to be the one who gets to see the light in their eyes when they understand something for the first time, or their excitement about new skills they are learning.
My kids also have a close relationship with each other because they are homeschooled together. They are forming a strong sibling relationship now which I hope will be a lifelong blessing for them.
The Epoch Times: What’s one thing you wish you knew about homeschooling when you were just getting started?
Ms. Miller: Everyone’s homeschool is unique, because everyone’s kids are unique. As a homeschool parent, it is important not to compare what you are doing with what you see others doing. Instead, spend time observing your kids and how they learn. Try to create an experience for them that will help them love learning, and give them lots of opportunities to learn in the way that they learn best. Because every child is different, this will look different for every family. But that is a good thing!
The Epoch Times: What advice would you give a parent today who is considering homeschooling their children?
Ms. Miller: I would recommend taking some time to adjust. This is a big change in your family’s priorities. Start slow and take some time to get used to your new normal. It’s OK to lower your expectations and relax, and it’s OK not to get everything done at first. Learning how to homeschool takes time, both for you and for your child.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 21:40 - "It's Curtains For The US" – Billionaires Are Backing Bitcoin Over "Fiat Fraud"
“It’s Curtains For The US” – Billionaires Are Backing Bitcoin Over “Fiat Fraud”
Bitcoin 2022 has already established itself as one of the more memorable such conferences in recent memory not only because of the sheer number of bold-faced names on the speaker’s roster, but also because of what they have said. During his keynote speech, Peter Thiel denounced the “finance gerontocracy” (Dimon, Fink & Buffett) for their opposition to bitcoin, and declared the cryptocurrency as a critical alternative to fiat money – and, more importantly, equities.
Interestingly enough, Thiel wasn’t the only billionaire to share a scathing criticism of the fiat money system during this year’s conference (something that bitcoin enthusiasts have been shouting from the rooftops for years). During a panel entitled “Billionaire Capital Allocators”, a host of other billionaires shared similar skepticism of the fiat system.
They have a distinct advantage over most of their audience: while many crypto enthusiasts belong to the younger generation, millennials and Gen X, billionaires like Mexico’s third-richest man, Ricardo Salinas, have visceral memories of the failures of fiat – namely, hyper-inflation. And they shared this experience with his audience.
“I have a big grudge against fiat, I call it the fiat fraud,” Salinas, the owner of Mexico’s Banco Azteca, said on Thursday.
He then shared a story about how his salary as a young business school graduate in Mexico during the 1980s declined from around $2,000 a month to just $20 during a period of six years.
“That’s hyperinflation,” he said.
SEchoing Peter Thiel’s controversial comments, Salinas also spoke to the religiosity of its high priests in his keynote address.
“This fiat religion has its high priests, and you can see them right there. And their religion is not tolerant,” Salinas explained.
“They hate anyone who is a heretic. There’s a lot of heretics in this room right now.”
Closing his thoughts, Salinas warned the crowd of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
“If the CBDC is issued these people will have full control over how you can spend your money,” he cautioned.
Why does Salinas think they are so bad? Because you lose all sovereignty in the use of your funds.
“They think it’s a bad idea, they close your capacity to spend your money,” Salinas predicted.
That being said, Salinas noted that not all crypto is created equal:
“Unfortunately, it’s curtains for the US. Sell your shitcoins, and buy bitcoin.”
Salinas added that 60% of his investment portfolio is now in bitcoin or bitcoin-linked equities. According to Bitcoin Magazine, that’s up from 10% in 2020.
Salinas also denounced bonds as toxic and a “terrible investment” that he wouldn’t “touch with a 10-foot pole.”
Of course, he’s not the only high-profile investor to say as much about bonds in the era of inflation (short-dated Treasuries just endured one of the rockiest first quarters in modern history).
I want to thank @TheBitcoinConf for giving me the opportunity to speak about “what’s next”, it was a pleasure to meet you all 😌.
“Please… don’t put your future in government’s hands, you and I know how does that always ends, stay away from #FIAT money, invest in #btc” pic.twitter.com/sjVvbbZKcY
— Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) April 7, 2022
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Another billionaire speaker, the Puerto Rican financier Orlando Bravo, the co-founder of private equity firm Thoma Bravo, told his audience that he’s been getting calls from sovereign wealth funds and pension funds (some of the largest pools of capital around), and they’re inquiring about getting into crypto. Even these firms are looking for ways to hedge the collapse of the dollar-based international financial system. And is there a better alternative than crypto?
“You don’t have to be an economist to see what’s going on with inflation,” he said, pointing to the $2 trillion that was injected into the economy. “You can make all kinds of excuses on supply chains and all the geopolitical issues, but when you pump that much money into the economy, you’re going to grossly devalue that currency.”
Finally, Marcelo Claure, the former SoftBank COO (who is famously battling it out with Masa Son over billions in compensation he clams he is owed) said he was increasing the crypto allocation of his personal holdings to 10%.
“We’re starting to see Bitcoin as one of the safest ways in order for us to maintain our wealth,” he said.
While these comments are certainly encouraging for crypto bulls, and they represent a critical shift in crypto being accepted by a growing number of powerful figures who still see themselves as outsiders in the closely guarded world of Wall Street, we would be surprised if their comments didn’t elicit some kind of push back, not just from the “financial gerontocracy”, but from the central bankers who are the stewards of the fiat system. Just this past week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that crypto poses a risk that could disrupt the financial system.
It’s a familiar strategy: the central banker cabal is skeptical of all crypto except central bank digital currencies – blockchain based cryptocurrencies that they can control, and use to strip society of the last vestiges of privacy and monetary freedom.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 21:20 - Pentagon Report Claims UFOs Left "Radiation Burns" & "Unaccounted-For Pregnancies" After Encounters
Pentagon Report Claims UFOs Left “Radiation Burns” & “Unaccounted-For Pregnancies” After Encounters
Authored by Elijah Cohen via TheMindUnleashed.com,
According to a huge database of U.S. government records recently made public as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, encounters with UFOs have allegedly left Americans suffering from radiation burns, brain and nervous system damage, and even “unaccounted for pregnancy.”
There are more than 1,500 pages of UFO-related information in the collection of records, which comes from the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a clandestine United States Department of Defense program that operated from 2007 to 2012.
The information was never classified as secret or top secret per say, but became more widely known about in 2017 after former program director Luis Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon and revealed to the world multiple now-infamous films of an unidentified aircraft moving in apparently inconceivable ways.
Soon after it was disclosed that the AATIP was in existence, the American edition of the British tabloid The Sun filed a Freedom of Information Act inquiry for any and all records pertaining to the program.
Four years later, on April 5, 2022, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) complied with the request by providing The Sun with an additional 1,574 pages of information.
Reports on UFO encounters and human biology are among the papers found in the trove, according to The Sun. Studies on advanced technology like invisibility cloaks are also among the records along with plans for deep space exploration and colonization. The AATIP informed The Sun that certain papers were “withheld in part” to protect privacy.
The Sun FOIAd the DIA 😲
“The report investigates injuries to “human observers by anomalous advanced aerospace systems”.
And the report warns that such objects may be a “threat to United States interests”.”#ufo #uap #uaptwitter #ufotwitter @Akam1129https://t.co/w2QIo1Kkze— Baptiste Friscourt (@Baptiste_Fri) April 5, 2022
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Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human and Biological Tissues is one of the collection’s highlights. Anomalous sophisticated aerospace systems have allegedly injured “human observers,” posing a “threat to US interests,” the report claims.
42 incidents from medical records and 300 “unpublished” cases in which people were injured following purported contacts with “anomalous vehicles,” which include UFOs, are described in the document.
The research indicated some persons had burns or other illness caused by electromagnetic radiation, perhaps caused by “energy related propulsion systems.”
Unusual car incidents have been linked to brain and nerve damage.
Between 1873 and 1994, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), a civilian non-profit entity that examines reported UFO sightings, collected a list of suspected biological impacts of UFO sightings on human observers.
UFO sightings have been linked to “unaccounted pregnancy,” “apparent abduction,” paralysis, experiences of telepathy, teleportation, and levitation.
More information may be found in The Sun’s original story on their Freedom of Information Act request.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 21:00 - Shanghai Reports 7th Day Of Record Cases As Viral Video Of Fatal Dog Beating Provokes Outrage
Shanghai Reports 7th Day Of Record Cases As Viral Video Of Fatal Dog Beating Provokes Outrage
The better part of a week has passed since local authorities announced on Monday that they would be extending the lockdown in Shanghai “indefinitely”. But despite authorities’ best efforts (or perhaps, because of them) COVID case numbers have continued to climb at a record pace, with Shanghai recording another 20K+ COVID cases on Thursday, topping the 20K mark for the second day in a row.
Authorities reported 21,222 new cases in Shanghai alone on Thursday, marking a 7th straight daily record. For context, the city reported more cases on Thursday than the entire country saw earlier in the week.
The number of symptomatic cases has also increased substantially. Shanghai, the new epicenter of China’s latest coronavirus outbreak, has recorded more than 131,000 cases since the flare-up started on March 1.
According to the latest developments reported by the SCMP, the city has converted conference centers and public facilities into temporary quarantine and treatment facilities with tens of thousands of bunks, adding to the 77,000 hospital beds already set aside in the city of 25 million residents.
Meanwhile, rumors have emerged on social media – sourced from unwittingly leaked military documents – that the military is taking over the city…
Rumors that the military is taking over Shanghai are circulating on social media. State media debunked the rumors, but unverified surveillance footage showed troops are entering Shanghai by train. Netizens on Weibo confirmed that their community was already taken over. pic.twitter.com/Qyl7NPJvWr
— Chu Yang (@ChuYang_Journ) April 7, 2022
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…and that the lockdown will persist at least until May.
A suspected leaked document shows that the lockdown in Shanghai will last until May. pic.twitter.com/ah8jivG7Kd
— Chu Yang (@ChuYang_Journ) April 7, 2022
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Should the lockdown persist for the entirety of April, China’s GDP could suffer a hit of more than one percentage point, as Goldman analysts determined that every four weeks of lockdown in the city would shave 1 percentage point off the country’s GDP, given Shanghai’s importance to the Chinese economy.
The city has recorded more than 131,000 COVID cases since the flare-up began on March 1. Health authorities are taking no chances, even if the vast majority of the infections – daily symptomatic cases were in triple digits – showed no symptoms, and there had been no fatality in the current wave.
“The battle against the outbreak is still very tough,” according to a Thursday speech by Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who had been overseeing the anti-pandemic work in Shanghai since last weekend. “Any sign of relaxation or complacency is unacceptable.”
After sending some 40,000 military and medical personnel to the city, the CCP has issued a call to all discharged and available troops from the PLA in a search for volunteers to join the effort to provide food and other supplies – as well as testing and security – to the center.
Beyond Shanghai, China added a total of 24,101 new cases on Friday, including 2,266 infections spotted in northeastern China’s Jilin province, the outbreak’s second epicenter.
The city and its residents have already endured four rounds of tests involving every single resident between April 3 and April 7. And on Friday, the fifth round of mass testing began.
In keeping with the CCP’s history of scapegoating local officials for lockdown failures, Shanghai removed three local officials in the Pudong New Area for failing to contain the virus, according to a statement from the CCP’s disciplinary committee.
Finally, after suffering one public outrage after another, Shanghai residents were outraged on Friday after footage of a COVID worker beating a dog to death emerged on social media. The brutal remedy was applied after the dog’s owner tested positive for COVID, according to CNN. The beating took place at a residential compound in Pudong on Wednesday.
Footage of the beating, which is being heavily censored within China, can be found below:
浦东新区曹路镇星海家园，主人阳性被带走，宠物狗狗追出来，被大白活活打死💔 pic.twitter.com/bV1FygCJng
— iPaul🇨🇦🇺🇦 (@iPaulCanada) April 6, 2022
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 20:40 - Where Will The Food Riots Start?
Where Will The Food Riots Start?
Global food prices have never risen so fast and have never been so high, and as have detailed multiple times in recent months (as this is not simply a one-month, ‘blame it on Putin’ crisis), most recently here, the pieces are in place for some serious tears to form in the social fabric of many nations.
While food prices may be generally seen as an emerging market problem, they will have an effect on developed markets too, something we will see in the upcoming French election.
And as the following table from Bloomberg Economics shows, while Pakistan is already in the midst of a political crisis and Egypt is already coming under financial pressure (along with Peru and Sri Lanka), the surge in food prices is also adding to problems in the developed world.
Nigeria, India, Colombia, Philippines, and Turkey all bear watching, along with Russia…
In fact, as PeakProsperity’s Chris Martenson details below, the inflation riots have begun. Peru and Sri Lanka both are experiencing violence as inflation spirals the prices of basic necessities higher and higher.
We’ve been here before, and recently.
The Arab Spring was a period of social unrest and riots in 2010 and 2011 that was triggered, in part, by spiking food costs.
As Alfred Henry Lewis said in 1906, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.”
But before pure anarchy comes, society experiences increasing unrest and the erosion of social bonds and niceties. That’s where we are now.
Food prices today are higher than they were in 2010, so the protests are not at all surprising. We can and should expect more of them.
Worse than that, however, is the prospect of actual famine and food shortages.
I expect true famine to emerge by the end of this year, after the northern harvest fails to cover the basic needs of 8+ billion people.
This is yet another reason why you should plant a garden. As if you needed one more, right?
The reason for the glum outlook is not just the loss of Ukraine exports, and probable loss of the planting season for quite a large portion of the Ukraine, but because of the desperate global shortages of fertilizers which have become utterly essential to today’s crop yields.
In this lesson, we learn that converting biologically active and supportive soil into barren dirt was a terrible idea.
By 2030, it is projected that phosphate will reach peak output and then begin its long slow decline. What’s the world plan for this? There isn’t one. Again, this is why local, regenerative farming is so critical to undertake at this time.
Watch the video:
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 20:20 - Trudeau Sets "Dangerous Precedent" With Tax Hikes On Canadian Banks And Insurers
Trudeau Sets “Dangerous Precedent” With Tax Hikes On Canadian Banks And Insurers
Canada’s banks and financial institutions were eager to do PM Justin Trudeau’s bidding when he called on them to financially excommunicate anybody caught supporting the “Freedom Convoy” of Canadian truckers.
Now they’re being rewarded with some of the biggest tax hikes in recent memory.
To wit, Bloomberg reports that Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has imposed a “one-time windfall levy” on Canada’s biggest banks and insurance companies, while also permanently hiking their income-tax rate, in keeping with the Liberals’ campaign promises. The new taxes are expected to result in C$6.1 billion ($4.8 billion) in tax revenue over the past five years.
The measures will force banks and insurance companies to pay an additional C$6.1 billion ($4.8 billion) in tax over five years, according to Freeland’s budget plan released Thursday. The new taxes are virtually certain to be implemented because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already secured the support of a left-leaning opposition party to pass the budget law.
The government’s logic for justifying the tax hikes (much to the chagrin of the C-suite at these institutions) is that the banks benefited from the taxpayer-backed COVID bailout programs. Now, it’s time for them to pay it forward. The government said that massive, government-funded COVID support programs have helped the financial sector recover faster than other parts of the economy, and now it’s time to pay some back.
Of course, Canada’s banks can at the very least look forward to some additional revenues as rising interest rates will help boost their net interest margin.
But ultimately, it’s the borrowers who will suffer, as higher taxes will force the banks to demand even more interest on their loans, effectively creating a double-whammy that will raise the cost of everything from starting a business to buying a home.
Investors who own shares of the big Canadian banks will likely also share some of the burden as their stocks are expected to take a hit, as RBC Capital Markets analyst Darko Mihelic.
- The windfall tax may set a “dangerous precedent that long term investors will be hard-pressed not to notice”.
- “Banks’ earnings move with the economic cycle. By ignoring the earnings downside during a recession and punishing banks when earnings recover, an expectation may build for future cycles, ultimately harming valuations over the longer term”.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the even higher tax hikes that Trudeau had once threatened didn’t pan out.
While the measures are in line with what Trudeau had signaled was coming, the tax may prompt a negative share reaction for the banks on Friday, as some investors may have either ignored the issue or hoped that a flurry of lobbying from the banks would work, said Barclays analyst John Aiken.
“There was some concern, as imaginations started spiraling, that this was going to be absolutely awful,” Aiken said in an interview. “But it was within what had broadly been put out in the campaign promises.”
The windfall tax will apply to all taxable income earned last year by the banks and insurers.
The windfall tax of 15% applies to taxable income earned last year by banks and insurers in Canada over C$1 billion. That will force them to pay about C$4.1 billion, sliced into payments from 2022 to 2027, according to budget documents.
But the government did not go quite as far in increasing the banks’ income tax rate as Trudeau had threatened to during last year’s campaign. The prime minister had pledged to increase the maximum federal income rate for financial institutions to 18% from 15%.
Instead, Freeland is lifting it to 16.5% but lowering the threshold at which the new rate will apply to C$100 million from an original target of C$1 billion. That measure will mean about C$2 billion in additional taxes over five years, government estimates show.
The big question now: how will these tax hikes affect foreign investment in Canada?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 20:00 - The "Doomsday Preppers" Were Right
The “Doomsday Preppers” Were Right
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
For years, there was a great debate about what the future of our society would look like.
The irrational optimists kept assuring us that we would never suffer any serious consequences for decades of incredibly foolish decisions, and they kept promising that a new golden age of peace and prosperity for humanity was just around the corner. Meanwhile, others were warning that humanity would soon be plunging into an abyss filled with endless nightmares.
Instead of a utopian new chapter in our history, we were warned that war, hunger, pestilence and relentless economic problems were on the horizon.
Prior to 2020, to a lot of people it seemed like the irrational optimists might be right after all.
Yes, there were lots of serious problems simmering in the background, but overall life seemed to be rolling along pretty good for most of the population.
But then 2020 came along, and everything started to change.
As I write this article in April 2022, war, hunger, pestilence and relentless economic problems have all materialized. In fact, things are already so bad in Europe that rationing has now been instituted in some areas…
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has threatened the supply of critical commodities in Europe and thrown global supply chains, which were already struggling amid COVID-19, into complete chaos.
As a result, the prices of everything from wheat to oil have soared, leading to multi-decade high inflation rates in places like Germany and Spain. The supply crunch in Europe is now so bad it’s causing governments to begin laying the groundwork for rationing, with some stores already limiting supplies.
This isn’t Africa that we are talking about.
If rationing is already taking place in Europe, how bad is it going to be for the poorer nations in the months ahead?
Well, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is telling us that “the world’s most vulnerable people and countries” are heading into a “hurricane of hunger”…
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned urgently of the global consequences of the war as early as mid-March. The breadbasket is being bombed and a “hurricane of hunger” is threatening, he stated. Given Ukraine’s great importance as a food exporter, the invasion was “also an attack on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries.”
Sadly, he is not exaggerating one bit.
As I discussed yesterday, at this point even Joe Biden is admitting that the coming food shortages are “going to be real”.
But even though global leaders are openly telling us that things are going to get really bad, most people still don’t seem very alarmed.
This greatly frustrates me, because this is not a false alarm.
There are 45 different nations that normally get “at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia”…
The world’s 45 least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia, and 18 countries among them import more than 50 percent. These include Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. These are all countries that are already dependent on humanitarian aid and food supplies because millions of people are currently suffering from massive hunger.
How are all of those countries supposed to feed their people without that wheat?
I keep asking that question, and not a single person has been able to answer it.
Just look at the crisis that has erupted in Lebanon. They normally get approximately 75 percent of their wheat from either Russia or Ukraine, and so far they have been unable to procure supplies from alternate sources…
Lebanon, which obtains 75 percent of its wheat from Russia and especially Ukraine, is also desperately seeking other wheat exporters, but so far without success. The government turned to the international community with a call for help. There are now fears of rationing and sharp price increases, which will hit the already hard-pressed population hard.
Meanwhile, the global bird flu plague just continues to intensify.
Here in the United States, the total death toll is now just short of 28 million…
The new cases mean that across the nation, farmers have had to kill about 22 million egg-laying chickens, 1.8 million broiler chickens, 1.9 million pullet and other commercial chickens, and 1.9 million turkeys.
It has taken less than two months to go from the first confirmed case in the U.S. to nearly 28 million dead.
So what will the death toll look like six months from now?
And can you imagine what this will do to food prices?
It is being reported that the price of a dozen eggs has already risen 52 percent since the start of this new pandemic…
Egg prices are skyrocketing as a bird-flu outbreak ravages commercial chicken flocks in the U.S., with the price of a dozen large eggs spiking more than 52% in just under two months.
For much more on this crisis, please see the article that I posted yesterday entitled “20 Facts About The Emerging Global Food Shortage That Should Chill You To The Core”. I wish that I had sufficient words to properly convey the urgency that we should all be feeling in this hour. We are heading into a complete and total nightmare, and I wish that I could get more people to understand this.
Mike Adams is sounding the alarm too. The following comes from an article that was published a few days ago in the Epoch Times…
Food scarcity. Food vouchers. Food riots and flash mobs.
All of that’s coming—and soon, says Texas-based food scientist and “Health Ranger” podcaster Mike Adams, who sees dire events unfolding in America in the short term.
His advice: people need to get prepared now.
Of course he is right on target.
In fact, I have specifically been warning for years that all of these things were coming.
At this point, it is clear that the “great debate” is over.
The irrational optimists were wrong. There will be no golden new era of peace and prosperity for humanity.
Instead, we have entered a “perfect storm” of pain, suffering and horror.
For many years, society laughed at the “doomsday preppers”, but they were right.
And if you plan to make it through the extremely chaotic times that are coming, I would recommend that you become a “doomsday prepper” too.
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It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 19:40 - UCLA Pulls Ad For 'Unpaid' Professor Job Amid Backlash
UCLA Pulls Ad For ‘Unpaid’ Professor Job Amid Backlash
Universities (and the students and faculty who populate them) like to hold themselves out as paragons of virtue. But despite the immense financial resources of elite American universities, the overwhelming majority of the instructors who teach their classes are poorly paid, and enjoy little – if any – job security, something that has become a ‘fact of life’ for academics.
But UCLA recently tried to push things to the limit, eliciting a furious backlash from academics, who felt the university was trying to exploit its workforce by attempting to hire an adjunct professor with an offer of “zero compensation”.
Unpaid internships for college students are one thing, but the job posting asked for a lot: the candidate needed to have a PhD and a strong teaching record. As the backlash worsened, the university withdrew the job posting – but not before the NYT picked up on it.
The job posting for an assistant adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, set high expectations for candidates: A Ph.D. in chemistry or biochemistry, a strong teaching record at the college level, and three to five letters of recommendation.
But there was a catch: The job would be on a “without salary basis,” as the posting phrased it. Just to be clear, it hammered home the point: “Applicants must understand there will be no compensation for this position.”
The posting last month caused an immediate uproar among academics across the country, who accused the university of exploiting already undervalued adjunct professors, and suggested this would never happen in other occupations. Under pressure, U.C.L.A. apologized and withdrew the posting.
But the unspoken secret had been fleetingly exposed: Free labor is a fact of academic life.
Unpaid, or poorly paid, positions are the biggest drivers of the ‘inequality’ that American colleges purport to oppose (even though they contribute to the phenomenon, due to a combination of academic selectivity and increasingly unaffordable tuition). As it turns out, the academics union at the University of California system has been fighting these arrangements for years.
What’s even more unfair than the low – or no – pay is that the instructors typically spend long hours reading dense academic papers and answering student questions.
The union representing contingent faculty at the University of California has been fighting the uncompensated positions for years, said Mia McIver, the president of the union, which represents about 7,000 members. “The fact that it is common does not excuse it,” she said.
The union suspects that the number of uncompensated teachers at the university is increasing, said Dr. McIver, who is also a lecturer in the U.C.L.A writing program. “As of March 2019, we had identified 26 faculty members at U.C.L.A. alone,” she said.
In the California system, the trend seemed to have begun with the financial crisis of 2008, Dr. McIver said. By 2010, she said, “We became aware of people who had been laid off and who were teaching for free in the hopes, without any commitment from the university, that if the work came back they would be hired back to teach for pay.”
Many instructors who find themselves suckered into these work-for-free arrangements apparently regret it later. One woman who taught biology class at Washington University for free told the NYT that she later regretted agreeing to do so – especially after she found that instructors in other departments were paying paid.
Liza Loza, a graduate student in molecular microbiology and microbial pathogenesis at Washington University, was excited to be asked to teach a discussion section about four years ago. She had to do a lot of preparation, spending hours reading very dense scientific papers and anticipating students’ questions.
But she saw the job as her chance to make those discussions more hospitable to women and other students who had been shut out of the hard sciences. She remembered her own experience having professors who were so intimidating that she was afraid to speak, and she wanted to set a counterexample.
She was told that the job was unpaid because it was a professional development opportunity. She says the experience was valuable. “I did get a lot out of it on my C.V., but also personally, as something that I wanted to help make better about the program,” she said.
Then last semester, in her third year of teaching the section, she found out by accident that graduate students in other departments were being paid $1,000 for the same work.
“That was for me a bright line,” she said. “It just seemed sort of straightforwardly unfair once I figured that out.”
Elite Universities have fought to keep the system in place, while at the same time seeking to distract from it by promoting their efforts to ’empower’ women and members of the LGBTQ community.
But like the old saying goes, “you can’t eat prestige”. As surging inflation makes it increasingly difficult for anybody to work for free (including white men and women who are members of the upper- and upper-middle-class), will we see a rebellion of the instructors and “contingent” faculty who keep these universities ticking?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 19:20 - "Gary Is Just Making Up Random #s" – San Francisco Homeless Officials Caught Lying About Fabricated Data
“Gary Is Just Making Up Random #s” – San Francisco Homeless Officials Caught Lying About Fabricated Data
Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,
Emails released through California Public Records Act show San Francisco Department of Public Health lied about data that had been fabricated by city contractor HealthRight360…
Hilary Kunins, Director of Behavioral Health, Department of Health (Left) Gary McCoy of HealthRight360 (center), Deborah Bourne, Deputy Director, Public Health Department (right)
The operator of San Francisco’s supervised drug use site fabricated the number of people who the site allegedly served, according to a San Francisco Department of Public Health executive, whose emails were released as part of California’s Public Records Act.
“I think Gary is just making up random #s,” wrote Dr. Rob Hoffman, Special Project Manager with the San Francisco Department of Health, in a February 8 email to other city employees including ones with the Department of Emergency Management and city homeless service agencies.
Gina McDonald, co-founder of Mothers Against Drug Deaths, filed the public records request, and was the first to report that of the 23,367 drug users who have visited the Tenderloin Linkage Center, just 18 have received drug treatment.
The Gary in question is Gary McCoy, an employee of city contractor HealthRight360, which is one of the private sector operators of the Tenderloin Linkage Center, which San Francisco Mayor London Breed created last December as part of her proposed crackdown on the open drug market in United Nations Plaza in downtown San Francisco.
The numbers in question were for so-called “meaningful engagements” between city contractors and drug users, many of whom are homeless. Emails between city officials and Linkage Center operators show a struggle over how to measure whether or not the effort is working.
A section of the same email says Hoffman had “concerns about the hr360 metrics. I think they are reporting interactions as meaningful engagements… I observed the HR360 staff and did not see anything that can account for the high numbers of meaning engagements… I think Gary is just making up random #s.”
On February 15, an executive with the Department of Emergency Management, Kay Vasilyeva, wrote, “Adrienne had some concerns about the FEST [Felton Institute Street Team] metrics… Only 229 total encounters but over 200 for both health referrals and linkage center referrals? This must mean there is double counting, which is problematic.”
On February 23, another Department of Public Health employee, Dr. Matthew Goldman, wrote an email to colleagues saying, “After the second & third week there were concerns with HR360’s data, but Gary from HR360 insisted it was valid.”
In response to a request from a reporter with the San Francisco Standard news organization, the Director of Communications with the Department of Public Health, Alison Hawkes, misrepresented what had occurred.
In a separate email later the same day, Hawkes re-wrote a public statement written by Goldman. “Part-way through the most recent reporting period (OP10),” wrote Goldman in his draft, “the TLC metrics team discovered that one of the CBOs was inaccurately recording data on engagements.”
Hawkes re-wrote the statement to read, Part-way through the most recent reporting period (OP10) the TLC metrics team discovered that one of the providers at the site was defining engagements in a way inconsistent with other teams on the site.”
Six minutes later, Hillary Kunins replied to Hawkes saying, “thx Alison! made a few additional edits. I don’t think we should use the terms, ‘incorrect’ or ‘mistake,’ and don’t think we should refer to the ‘privacy area,’ as that has been an internal term, and not (as far as I know) a publicly used description. see below. I do think we need to define meaningful engagement – I don’t have that.”
The emails offer a glimpse into the shared culture of the Department of Public Health and its contractors. One senior Department executive, Deborah Borne, wrote in an email to an employee with the Department of Emergency Management, “I would love to do a real tarot reading for the new year for you!”
* * *
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 19:00 - Bank Of Russia Eases More Capital Controls, Allowing Euro & USD Withdraws
Bank Of Russia Eases More Capital Controls, Allowing Euro & USD Withdraws
Russia’s central bank has announced Friday the easing of more capital controls following its surprise policy meeting, exactly a week after it began loosening some restrictions on the transfer of funds abroad, which authorized transfers up to $10,000 – or another currency equivalent – within a one month timeframe.
“The Bank of Russia rolled back some capital controls, allowing banks to exchange rubles for hard currency once more and for some hard-currency account holders to withdraw euros and not just dollars,” Bloomberg reports of the fresh Bank of Russia decision.
Bank of Russia file It’s latest among a series of signs that the Russian financial system is stabilizing. As we noted earlier in the day the biggest news out of Moscow was the central bank’s unexpected move of slashing rates by 300bps (from 20% to 17%). And was even more surprising to many is that the Ruble – previously dismissed as “rubble” by President Biden – actually strengthened further on the rate-cut, surging by end of day to just below 80/USD.
Further according to Bloomberg, “Individuals with foreign currency accounts or deposits open prior to March 9 who hadn’t used up their $10,000 limit for withdrawing cash, can receive euros as well as dollars from April 11, the central bank said in a statement.
“Banks can sell foreign currency once again from April 18, but only the foreign currency that the banks received since April 9,” the report indicates. The fresh curbs also included canceling the 12% commission on brokers’ FX purchases.
3/ The Bank of Russia is also marginally easing capital controls on individuals: those who still didn’t manage to get their $10k can do it in € now as well (still max $10k till September). Banks can start giving individuals FX cash, but only from fresh FX since 9 April 2022. pic.twitter.com/GOviSvmwkP
— Elina Ribakova 🇺🇦 (@elinaribakova) April 8, 2022
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Meanwhile, the media are claiming that the strength of the ruble “may be illusory” or that Russia has exploited a “loophole” in the sanctions and used “financial alchemy” to “rescue the ruble”.
But as the FT observed yesterday (while telling their readers to “Whisper it quietly…”), “The domestic banking sector also seems to have stabilized, after bank runs in the initial days of the war,” pointing out that “The need for central bank liquidity has faded sharply and the commercial banking sector as a whole could soon end up having surplus deposits with the CBR, the IIF [Institute of International Finance] notes.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 18:40 - Durham Asks Court To Compel Production From Clinton Campaign, DNC
Durham Asks Court To Compel Production From Clinton Campaign, DNC
Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Special counsel John Durham’s team on April 6 asked a federal judge to force Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and two other parties to hand over documents they claim are protected by attorney–client privilege.
John Durham speaks at a conference in New Haven, Conn., on Sept. 20, 2018. (Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut) The campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and research and intelligence firm Fusion GPS appear to be withholding documents that aren’t actually protected by the privilege, Durham’s team said in the filing, entered in the case against ex-Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.
Of the withheld materials, almost all “appear to lack any connection to actual or expected litigation or the provision of legal advice,” prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee who is overseeing the case.
In fact, of the 1,455 documents being withheld by Fusion GPS, only 18 emails and attachments are said to involve an attorney.
The Clinton campaign, the DNC, and Fusion didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The documents in question are being sought for the upcoming trial of Sussmann, who was charged with lying to the FBI for going to a bureau lawyer in 2016 and falsely stating he didn’t hand over unsubstantiated claims about then-candidate Donald Trump on behalf of a client.
The claims were compiled with funding from the campaign and the DNC by former British spy Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, which was founded by former reporters.
Sussmann and his lawyers have been pressing the judge to dismiss the case prior to trial, arguing that the lie about not bringing the information on behalf of a client wasn’t material to the information itself.
Attorney–client privilege protects many communications between a client and their lawyer. Disclosure to third parties usually undercuts privilege claims.
In the new filing, Durham’s team pointed out that Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch penned a book published in 2019, which means even if a valid privilege did once exist, it might have since been waived.
Prosecutors also noted that Fusion GPS operatives regularly communicated with reporters about their work, resulting in several stories before the 2020 election and a spate of others after voters hit the polls.
Further, the Clinton campaign (HFA) and the DNC have claimed privilege over communications sent between Rodney Joffe, whom Sussmann was also representing at the time, and a Fusion operative, “despite the fact that no one from either the DNC or HFA is copied on certain of these communications,” prosecutors said.
The government subpoenaed information from the parties in 2021.
Fusion GPS was paid by the Democratic entities through Perkins Coie, a law firm. The agreement was introduced as an exhibit in the case.
Many if not most of the actions taken by Fusion GPS employees “do not appear to have been a necessary part of, or even related to” Perkins Coie’s legal advice to the campaign and the DNC, Durham’s team said.
Prosecutors want to examine the communications in a private, in-camera setting “in order to resolve these issues and ensure that only legitimately privileged and/or attorney work product-protected communications and testimony be withheld from the otherwise admissible evidence and testimony that is presented to the jury at trial.”
The trial is currently set to start on May 16.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 18:20 - Global Food Prices Explode Higher In March As Ukraine Supply Shock Strikes
Global Food Prices Explode Higher In March As Ukraine Supply Shock Strikes
Global food prices jumped to a new record high, soaring the fastest on record, as the conflict in Ukraine unleashed food supply shocks across the world.
“The current conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation is increasing the risk of a further deterioration of the food insecurity situation at global level,” the FAO said in a recent food insecurity assessment (pdf).
March’s food price index from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) printed 159.3 points in March, up 19.15 points from February, when it had already reached record highs. The index was up 33.6% from the same time last year.
The March rise in food prices is a stunning 12.64% MoM – almost double the previous record monthly surge…
Leading the charge was the FAO Cereal Price Index, up 17.1% in March than in February, entirely driven by significant price increases in wheat and grains as a result of the Black Sea breadbasket region going offline because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and sanctions-related supply disruptions by Western countries on Russia. The invasion has choked off more than a quarter of the global wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally.
Another driver was FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index, up 23.2%, driven by higher prices of sunflower seed oil, of which Ukraine is the world’s leading exporter. Palm, soy, and rapeseed oil prices increased due to higher sunflower seed oil and Brent crude prices.
It’s not just a shortage of food, but also shortages of fertilizer and skyrocketing diesel prices, the ability to farm and even perhaps produce robust harvests by the end of the Northern Hemisphere growing season could be in jeopardy, which would ultimately extend the global food crisis through 2023.
“Looking forward to 2022-23, we’re already seeing signs that production is going to be reduced in Ukraine,” Erin Collier, an economist at the UN, told Bloomberg.
“The amount they’re able to export really depends on how much longer this conflict continues.”
The bad news is the world’s hunger problem isn’t going away and may only get worse from here…
The risks of soaring basic foods are possible inflation riots in emerging market economies. Last week, the UN pointed out millions of Middle Eastern and North African families struggle to buy even the most basic foods to keep hunger at bay.
“People’s resilience is at a breaking point. This crisis is creating shock waves in the food markets that touch every home in this region. No one is spared,” Corinne Fleischer, UN’s World Food Programme Regional Director said.
The risk of uprisings is increasing by the week as the UN projects food prices to soar even higher. It’s important to note that food prices were already rising before the Ukrainian conflict.
We’ve outlined the most reliant countries on Ukraine wheat, including Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey (the countries that could see unrest first).
However, in South America, inflation riots have already begun as the government declared a curfew last weekend. Arab Spring 2.0 appears to be emerging, but this time it could be global, unlike a decade ago.
We are in the early innings of this https://t.co/PPKOq1vDzb
— Doomberg (@DoombergT) April 7, 2022
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 18:00 - David Stockman On The Coming Stock Market 'Crash Of Biblical Proportions'
David Stockman On The Coming Stock Market ‘Crash Of Biblical Proportions’
Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,
International Man: Whether we like it or not, the reality is, the Federal Reserve has an enormous influence over the dollar and the stock market.
And right now, the Fed has an urgent and fateful decision to make.
It can keep printing trillions of dollars, let inflation skyrocket or tighten monetary policy, and watch the stock market crash.
In other words, it can sacrifice the stock market or the dollar.
David, what do you think the Fed will do, and what are the implications?
David Stockman: Well, I think whether it wants to or not, the Fed will crash the stock market. The Fed has painted itself into a hellacious corner because it’s made such a fetish out of its 2% inflation target, especially since January 2012, when it officially adopted this quantitative target.
In fact, most of the massive money printing, which has occurred since 2012, when the economy was pretty much recovered from the Great Recession anyway, has been justified by an inflation shortfall, which wasn’t true, but that was the justification.
They were trying to raise inflation and therefore felt that they could keep quantitative easing at these huge rates, including $120 billion per month, until recently. And as a result, we’re now in a world in which inflation is heading towards double digits.
I think they’re going to have no choice but to throw on the brakes much harder than the market is expecting, much harder than they would like to do, or maybe even intend at the moment, but there’s no choice.
Now, when you have double-digit inflation, number one and second, you’re going into what’s going to be a nasty election season in which the Republicans will finally see hope for their salvation in a horrendous battle on the inflation front blaming the Democrats and Biden.
That means the Fed will not be in a position over the next 2, 3, 4 quarters to retreat on the inflation battle. Whether it wants to or not, it will have to raise interest rates even far more than are expected now.
It’s going to begin QT, quantitative tightening, or draining its $9 trillion balance sheet faster than it is talking about at the moment or what the market expects. That’s because it’s not going to be able to justify or maintain any credibility when inflation is running at the CPI level at nearly 10%.
So that’s a new ballgame.
We haven’t been in these kinds of uncharted waters for a long time, not since the 1970s, and even in the 1970s, the story was far different than it is today. So, the market will struggle with a Fed that turns out not to be their friend. It’s going to time and time again, think that the worst is over, buy the dip and make a lot of money, only to be disappointed.
I point out one final kind of analogy here.
If you go back to March 2000, when the dot-com bubble collapsed, the NASDAQ peaked at 4600, and the market dropped by 30% in the next 15 days. And after that bone-rattling drop people said it’s all over. The worst has happened, and you should buy the dip. You’re going to make a lot of money.
And over the next two years, they kept buying the dip, but over the next two years, the NASDAQ went from 4,600 to 3,300, all the way down to 800. An 80% plus decline and all that dip buying resulted in massive losses and pain.
I think we’re going to go through the same thing again.
International Man: Suppose the Fed does raise rates aggressively in the months ahead. What are the chances that they will capitulate and reverse course as soon as Wall Street starts screaming about it?
David Stockman: Well, that’s what people expect, but I think this time, they’re not going to capitulate soon and easily. In other words, the so-called Fed put is a lot lower on the S&P 500 index than people may expect or that the Wall Street bulls would like to believe. They think it might be 3,500 or something like that. I think it’s around 2000 because the Fed won’t have the maneuvering room.
Even the official inflation statistics are running high. They are understating the true inflation when you adjust for all the gimmicks they put in the CPI in the last 20 years. But when inflation on the government statistics is running at 7-10%, they’re just not going to have room to start the printing presses again.
International Man: Given the rapidly rising debt levels—corporate, personal, and for the federal government—is it even possible for the Fed to raise interest rates beyond a token amount?
David Stockman: Well, I think you can say it would be dangerous, and yes, the debt levels are really something to behold.
If you take public and private debt today, it’s $88 trillion, which is 370% of GDP. It’s off the charts compared to where a stable economy historically stood. If you go back to 1970, before Nixon pulled the plug on sound money, the ratio was 150%. In other words, we had about $1.5 trillion of total debt and a GDP of $1.0 trillion.
So now we’ve had two extra turns of debt added to the economy over the last 50 years. Two turns of additional debt amount to $50 trillion today, burdening all sectors of the economy, households, non-financial business, governments especially, and even financial institutions, than would be the case had we stuck to kind of that golden mean of 150% debt to GDP. That’s the leverage ratio of the national economy that prevailed for a century up to 1970.
So yes, there is a massive problem with this enormous debt burden. When the Fed raises interest rates, it will notch up the carry cost and service cost enormously, creating all kinds of dislocations in households that will have to pay more for their mortgages and their other debt.
As interest rates go up, all that money corporations borrowed to buy back stock and pay dividends that weren’t being earned will result in larger interest expenses and lower profits.
So the whole thing will be a pretty big mess, but that will not stop the Fed from using the only tool it has.
It has one tool. It’s like the craftsman with a hammer, and everything looks like a nail. So if the Fed wants to accomplish something, it will have to hit the nail.
So the Fed will have to raise interest rates, not just a 2% by the end of this year or 2.5%. They’re going to have to go up into the 4-6% range to slow down the economy and break the back of inflation.
I was around when Volcker took interest rates to 20% on the overnight rate to finally break the back of inflation. But, of course, that will cause a lot of damage to the economy. But I don’t think they have much choice.
In short, you’re going to have one difficult time bringing inflation under control, and the consequences of those moves will be mind-boggling and historic in terms of their negative impact.
International Man: Given everything we’ve talked about today, what can the average person do? What can they do to protect themselves and profit from what is coming next?
David Stockman: Well, I think the most important thing is to stay out of the casino.
The bond market is vastly, massively overvalued. As a result, the price of bonds will drop dramatically, and people will be shocked by how much you can lose in allegedly safe sovereign debt.
The stock market is even more dangerous, and it’s entirely because of these artificially low, ultra-low interest rates. So now we’re starting to move into the realm of reality, let’s say normalcy, as interest rates come back up. And I think they got a long way yet to go.
If you’re going to be in the stock market, be on the short side.
But if you don’t have discretionary capital or savings, and if you don’t have the stomach for what will be a very volatile ride, the best thing to do is stay in cash, even though you’re losing ground against inflation. At least bank accounts are not going to lose principle. Whereas bonds and stocks can lose 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% of their value in the next year or two as we go through this great correction.
* * *
The Fed has already pumped enormous distortions into the economy and inflated an “everything bubble.” The next round of money printing is likely to bring the situation to a breaking point. If you want to navigate the complicated economic and political situation that is unfolding, then you need to see this newly released video from Doug Casey and his team. In it, Doug reveals what you need to know, and how these dangerous times could impact your wealth. Click here to watch it now.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/08/2022 – 17:40
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