Today’s News 9th May 2024

• The Machinery Of Fascism Revisited
  The Machinery Of Fascism Revisited

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  Fascism became a swear word in the US and UK during the Second World War. It has been ever since, to the point that the content of the term has been drained away completely. It is not a system of political economy but an insult. 

  

  If we go back a decade before the war, you find a completely different situation. Read any writings from polite society from 1932 to 1940 or so, and you find a consensus that freedom and democracy, along with Enlightenment-style liberalism of the 18th century, were completely doomed. They should be replaced by some version of what was called the planned society, of which fascism was one option. 

  A book by that name appeared in 1937 as published by the prestigious Prentice-Hall, and it included contributions by top academics and high-profile influencers. It was highly praised by all respectable outlets at the time. 

  

  Everyone in the book was explaining how the future would be constructed by the finest minds who would manage whole economies and societies, the best and the brightest with full power. All housing should be provided by government, for example, and food too, but with the cooperation of private corporations. That seems to be the consensus in the book. Fascism was treated as a legitimate path. Even the word totalitarianism was invoked without opprobrium but rather with respect. 

  The book has been memory-holed of course. 

  You will notice that the section on economics includes contributions by Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. Yes, their ideas and political rule were part of the prevailing conversation. It is in this essay, likely ghostwritten by Professor Giovanni Gentile, Minister of Public Education, in which Mussolini offered this concise statement: “Fascism is more appropriately called corporatism, for it is the perfect merge of State and corporate power.”

  

  All of this became rather embarrassing after the war so it was largely forgotten. But the affection on the part of many sectors of the US ruling class had for fascism was still in place. It merely took on new names. 

  As a result, the lesson of the war, that the US should stand for freedom above all else while wholly rejecting fascism as a system, was largely buried. And generations have been taught to regard fascism as nothing but a quirky and failed system of the past, leaving the word as an insult to fling at in any way deemed reactionary or old-fashioned, which makes no sense. 

  There is valuable literature on the topic and it bears reading. One book that is particularly insightful is The Vampire Economy by Günter Reimann, a financier in Germany who chronicled the dramatic changes to industrial structures under the Nazis. In a few short years, from 1933 to 1939, a nation of enterprise and small shopkeepers was converted to a corporate-dominated machine that gutted the middle class and cartelized industry in preparation for war. 

  The book was published in 1939 before the invasion of Poland and the onset of Europe-wide war, and manages to convey the grim reality just before hell broke loose. On a personal note, I spoke to the author (real name: Hans Steinicke) briefly before he died, in order to gain permission to post the book, and he was astonished that anyone cared about it.

  “The corruption in fascist countries arises inevitably from the reversal of the roles of the capitalist and the State as wielders of economic power,” wrote Reimann. 

  The Nazis were not hostile to business as a whole but only opposed traditional, independent, family-owned, small businesses that offered nothing for purposes of nation-building and war planning. The crucial tool to make this happen was establishing the Nazi Party as the central regulator of all enterprises. The large businesses had the resources to comply and the wherewithal to develop good relations with political masters whereas the undercapitalized small businesses were squeezed to the point of extinction. You could make bank under Nazi rules provided you put first things first: regime before customers. 

  “Most businessmen in a totalitarian economy feel safer if they have a protector in the State or Party bureaucracy,” Reimann writes.

  “They pay for their protection as did the helpless peasants of feudal days. It is inherent in the present lineup of forces, however, that the official is often sufficiently independent to take the money but fails to provide the protection.” 

  He wrote of “the decline and ruin of the genuinely independent businessman, who was the master of his enterprise, and exercised his property rights. This type of capitalist is disappearing but another type is prospering. He enriches himself through his Party ties; he himself is a Party member devoted to the Fuehrer, favored by the bureaucracy, entrenched because of family connections and political affiliations. In a number of cases, the wealth of these Party capitalists has been created through the Party’s exercise of naked power. It is to the advantage of these capitalists to strengthen the Party which has strengthened them. Incidentally, it sometimes happens that they become so strong that they constitute a danger to the system, upon which they are liquidated or purged.”

  This was particularly true for independent publishers and distributors. Their gradual bankruptcy served to effectively nationalize all surviving media outlets who knew that it was in their interests to echo Nazi Party priorities. 

  Reimann wrote:

  “The logical outcome of a fascist system is that all newspapers, news services, and magazines become more or less direct organs of the fascist party and State. They are governmental institutions over which individual capitalists have no control and very little influence except as they are loyal supporters or members of the all-powerful party.”

  “Under fascism or any totalitarian regime an editor no longer can act independently,” wrote Reimann.

  “Opinions are dangerous. He must be willing to print any ‘news’ issued by State propaganda agencies, even when he knows it to be completely at variance with the facts, and he must suppress real news which reflects upon the wisdom of the leader. His editorials can differ from another newspaper’s only in so far as he expresses the same idea in different language. He has no choice between truth and falsehood, for he is merely a State official for whom ‘truth’ and ‘honesty’ do not exist as a moral problem but are identical with the interests of the Party.”

  A feature of the policy included aggressive price controls. They did not work to suppress inflation but they were politically useful in other ways.

  “Under such circumstances nearly every businessman necessarily becomes a potential criminal in the eyes of the Government,” wrote Reimann.

  “There is scarcely a manufacturer or shopkeeper who, intentionally or unintentionally, has not violated one of the price decrees. This has the effect of lowering the authority of the State; on the other hand, it also makes the State authorities more feared, for no businessman knows when he may be severely penalized.” 

  From there, Reimann tells many wonderful if chilling stories about, for example, the pig farmer who faced price ceilings on his product and got around them by selling a high-priced dog alongside a low-priced pig, after which the dog was returned. This kind of maneuvering became common. 

  I can only highly recommend this book as a brilliant inside look at how enterprise functions under a fascist-style regime. The German case was fascism with a racialist and anti-Jewish twist for purposes of political purges. In 1939, it was not entirely obvious how this would end in mass and targeted extermination on a gargantuan scale. The German system in those days bore much resemblance to the Italian case, which was fascism without the ambition of full ethnic cleansing. In that case, it bears examination as a model for how fascism can reveal itself in other contexts. 

  The best book I’ve seen on the Italian case is John T. Flynn’s 1944 classic As We Go Marching. Flynn was a widely respected journalist, historian, and scholar in the 1930s who was largely forgotten after the war due to his political activities. But his outstanding scholarship stands the test of time. His book deconstructs the history of fascist ideology in Italy from a half-century prior and explains the centralizing ethos of the system, both in politics and economics. 

  Following an erudite examination of the main theorists, along with Flynn provides a beautiful summary. 

  Fascism, Flynn writes, is a form of social organization: 

  1. In which the government acknowledges no restraint upon its powers—totalitarianism.

  2. In which this unrestrained government is managed by a dictator—the leadership principle.

  3. In which the government is organized to operate the capitalist system and enable it to function under an immense bureaucracy.

  4. In which the economic society is organized on the syndicalist model; that is, by producing groups formed into craft and professional categories under supervision of the state.

  5. In which the government and the syndicalist organizations operate the capitalist society on the planned, autarchical principle.

  6. In which the government holds itself responsible for providing the nation with adequate purchasing power by public spending and borrowing.

  7. In which militarism is used as a conscious mechanism of government spending.

  8. In which imperialism is included as a policy inevitably flowing from militarism as well as other elements of fascism.

  Each point bears longer commentary but let’s focus on number 5 in particular, with its focus on syndicalist organizations. In those days, they were large corporations run with an emphasis on union organization of the workforce. In our own times, these have been replaced by a managerial overclass in tech and pharma that have the ear of government and have developed close ties with the public sector, each depending on the other. Here is where we get the essential bones and meat of why this system is called corporatist. 

  In today’s polarized political environment, the left continues to worry about unbridled capitalism while the right is forever on the lookout for the enemy of full-blown socialism. Each side has reduced fascistic corporatism to a historical problem on the level of witch burning, fully conquered but useful as a historical reference to form a contemporary insult against the other side. 

  As a result, and armed with partisan bête noires that bear no resemblance to any really existing threat, hardly anyone who is politically engaged and active is fully aware that there is nothing particularly new about what is called the Great Reset. It is a corporatist model – a combination of the worst of capitalism and socialism without limits – of privileging the elite at the expense of the many, which is why these historical works by Reimann and Flynn seem so familiar to us today. 

  And yet, for some strange reason, the tactile reality of fascism in practice – not the insult but the historical system – is hardly known either in popular or academic culture. That makes it all the easier to reimplement such a system in our time. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/09/2024 – 02:00

• Strengthening Our Beleaguered Military Starts With A Maritime Overhaul
  Strengthening Our Beleaguered Military Starts With A Maritime Overhaul

  Authored by Brent D. Sadler via RealClear Wire,

  America’s security and prosperity is at high risk today, largely because of bad policies backed up by too weak armed forces. Consider our U.S. maritime complex. Decades of neglect and inadequate investment have left our shipping, shipbuilding, Navy, merchant marines, ports, and Coast Guard woefully behind the times. The Secretary of the Navy and a growing group in Congress are sounding the alarm, drawing attention to the plight of our weakened maritime sector.

  

  Recent headlines help tell the story. Since October 2023, the Navy has been engaged in a ‘whack-a-mole’ standoff with the Houthis, an Iranian proxy that has been attacking vessels in the Red Sea and damaging global trade. This confrontation expanded to include missile defense of Israel, culminating on April 13 with the shoot-down of several Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Israel by destroyers Arleigh Burke and Carney.

  This defensive effort is depleting expensive munitions that are in short supply. The Secretary of the Navy stated before Congress on April 15 that the Navy has responded to 130 attacks at a cost of $1 billion in munitions. At current procurement rates, it could take years to recover unless production capacity is greatly expanded in short order.

  Closer to home, on March 26 a container ship (the Dali) lost power and collided with, and collapsed the Key Bridge in Baltimore, killing six. The investigation is ongoing, but already it is clear our port infrastructure is not resilient enough to withstand errant modern shipping. Neither the Army Corps of Engineers nor Naval salvage capacity is adequate. Both have been unable to ensure the nation’s ports can be rapidly reopened if closed due to deliberate acts, accidents or acts of God.

  A month later, the port of Baltimore remains closed. For comparison, when the ultra-large containership Ever Given grounded and closed the Suez Canal, it was reopened in eight days. Effectively, the Dali has stranded four Navy logistics ships inside the harbor unable to meet national tasking – ships verified still stuck in port on April 29th.

  Finally, in a string of embarrassing events, the large amphibious warship Boxer had to return home, further delaying its deployment due to numerous and repeated mechanical problems. This means other warships must remain at-sea longer or forgo missions, further endangering U.S. interests. As this was playing out, ships directed by the President to assist in the delivery of aid to Gaza, had to turn back due to onboard fires (the venerable 39-year old Military Sealift Command ship 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo), too short endurance (Army’s Frank Besson Jr. refueling stop in the Azores), or weather avoidance (the likely reason USAV Wilson Wharf diverted to Tenerife). These disruptions are a symptom of a too small and aged fleet that has been over-used and under-maintained by over-worked crews.

  The root cause of these problems? Sea blindness – unawareness and underinvestment in the maritime and naval forces that keep the economy functioning and our people safe.

  But there are signs this may be changing. More Americans are demanding action, and members of Congress like Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) are spearheading a bipartisan and bicameral maritime agenda. The opening declaration of this was contained in a recent letter to the President demanding action signed by 19 Congressional leaders from both parties.

  The challenge is huge. Today only 0.4 percent of commercial shipping is American flagged, making the nation too often reliant on less than friendly nations to conduct its trade and move supplies sustaining military operations. But these tentative first steps are just a downpayment on a larger endeavor: regaining the nation’s maritime strength.

  The most urgent task is keeping the peace, and that means deterring China in Asia while safeguarding Americans and our interests abroad. The clock has run out for modest, long-term actions. The threat today demands a combination of actions: retaining useful warships, expanding maritime industrial capacity, and accelerating naval shipbuilding.

  This will be an expansive task, to be sure, but it is not revolutionary, nor is it impossible. Three past naval revivals can help point the way ahead.

  One dates back a little over 100 years ago. Britain’s First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John “Jackie” Fisher’s fleet modernization is what some today call “divest to invest” – the culling of outdated ships to redirect manpower and resources to delivering modern warships. At the time, the British Royal Navy had a still modest naval rival in the Imperial German Navy that was a decade or more away from achieving parity with the British fleet.

  Fisher’s efforts delivered the Dreadnaught – a warship that ushered in the modern battleship and revolutionized naval warfare, as demonstrated at the 1916 Battle of Jutland. Fisher had the time and commitment of resources by a nation with a long, proud, and politically dominant naval tradition behind him. He also had the luxury of a foe years from matching or exceeding his own fleet. China’s navy, by contrast, already exceeds ours and continues a breakneck modernization and readiness program that makes any U.S. divestment of naval capacity a strategic risk.

  The second revival was America’s rearming ahead of the war in the Pacific, made possible by several Naval Acts of the 1930s. Animating this revival was the still fresh memories of a near catastrophe during World War I.

  As that war raged in Europe, the nation’s economy was nearly collapsed without foreign shipping to carry its cargo to market, nor ships to move troops to Europe and back. One intent of the 1930s Naval Acts was to avoid the mismanagement and waste of the Shipping Act of 1916 and the U.S. Shipping Board. With that wisdom, the Acts of the 1930s funded a naval building campaign that invigorated the maritime industrial sector. Thanks to the Naval Act of 1938, the carrier Hornet was delivered in time to play an instrumental role in the victory in the Battle of Midway. The ships these naval acts authorized quadruple the number of shipyards and delivered in the first years of World War II the warships that turned the tide against the Axis. Had it not been done, the war in the Pacific would have had a very different outcome.

  A modern Naval Act is needed, but it cannot be limited to just considerations of naval shipbuilding. It must embrace efforts to rebuild the nation’s merchant fleet that today couldn’t sustain protracted military operations nor a wartime economy.

  Finally, President Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship naval build-up of the 1980s significantly contributed to bankrupting the Soviets and winning the Cold War. The shipbuilding goal was never achieved, but a massive rebuilding effort was accomplished by increasing defense budgets disproportionately directed to naval shipbuilding and the return to service of ships in the inactive fleet. In total, the combination of new shipbuilding and reactivation grew the Navy from a low of 521 ships in 1981 to 594 in six years.

  Today there isn’t really much in the inactive fleet to recall to service. Leading to circumstances that today dictate retaining ships on the Navy’s list for deactivation with more than three years of life, thereby adding 13 warships to the fleet. Furthermore, the fleet could grow a little more with the addition of 21 deployable unmanned (LUSV, MUSV, XLUUV) vessels. This would deliver a fleet of 331 warships by 2027, still short of the 355-fleet goal. To address that gap, conventional approaches to get the Navy and merchant marine needed will not suffice.

  The reality today is that the nation faces multiple threats and at least one existential foe taking increasing risks to reorder the world to its benefit: China. Pacing these challenges has proven inadequate. It is time to seriously enter the race to secure American security and prosperity, which begins with a national effort to rejuvenate our maritime power. Recovering and meeting the threats before the nation requires a multifaceted but coherent plan of attack – a National Maritime Initiative.

  This is critical as the Navy’s ships suffer from years of over work, sailors beaten down under unrelenting prolonged deployments, and an inconsequential U.S. flagged merchant marine. We are in effect living in an “AND” world where spending is needed to grow the maritime industrial base through orders for new warships learned during the Naval Acts era, AND modernizing but without divesting, AND retaining warships with life, AND dramatically increasing naval shipbuilding as done during the Reagan era.

  Anything less is unserious and ignores the world as it is today.

  Brent D. Sadler is a senior research fellow in naval warfare and advanced technologies at The Heritage Foundation.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 23:55

• Hedge Fund Boss Loses Legal Fight Over 2,364 Silver Bars Found In WWII Shipwreck
  Hedge Fund Boss Loses Legal Fight Over 2,364 Silver Bars Found In WWII Shipwreck

  An undersea exploration company backed by a top hedge fund boss in the United Kingdom lost a major legal fight over the salvage of $40 million worth of silver bars from the wreck of a ship lost to a Japanese submarine in World War II. 

  On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that the South African government could declare state immunity in a suit by hedge fund chief Paul Marshall’s Argentum Exploration Ltd. 

  

  Argentum Exploration argued in court that it was owed a ‘substantial salvage fee’ and wanted a court to ‘fix an award.’ However, the judges were informed that the two sides had agreed to a settlement. 

  Here’s more from Bloomberg: 

  The South African government had argued that that it not only still owns the silver, but insisted that it shouldn’t have to submit to the lawsuit at all.

  The Supreme Court judges agreed, saying that the silver was a non-commercial cargo and the government was entitled to immunity.

  The ruling overturned two prior court decisions, with a judge previously saying that the government had probably “forgotten” about the bullion. UK Companies House filings record that Marshall controls Argentum.

  In 1942, the SS Tilawa was sailing from Mumbai on its way to Durban, South Africa, when two torpedoes from an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine sunk the passenger-cargo ship. On board were 2,364 bars of silver destined for the South African Mint. For seven decades, the ship resided more than two and a half kilometers below the surface of the Indian Ocean until Marshall’s exploration company discovered it. 

  In markets, the Bloomberg Precious Metal Subindex shows a multi-decade ‘cup and handle’ bullish formation. 

  

  We wonder if the settlement involved physical silver bars… Some analysts expect a “powerful silver bull market” ahead. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 23:35

• A Deep Dive Into The Opioid Crisis
  A Deep Dive Into The Opioid Crisis

  Authored by Matt Bivens, M.D. via Racket News,

  Editor’s note: the following is the first essay in a series, written by former Moscow Times co-worker and current E.R. doctor Matt Bivens. The remaining features will be published serially on his Substack site, The 100 Days. None of the articles in the series will be paywalled. In a normal presidential election year, the opiate addiction crisis would be a front-and-center domestic issue, but for a variety of mostly illegitimate reasons, it flies somewhat under the radar. Matt’s series chronicles the surprising and little-understood reasons contributing to this man-made, rapidly worsening disaster.

  Yes, we in the medical profession got millions of Americans addicted to heroin and fentanyl. But that was all just a big misunderstanding. Why get into it?

  

  And sure, nearly one in ten adults has had a family member die from a drug overdose. Ordinary people are furious about it, too. Their under-appreciated rage drove skepticism of official COVID-19 narratives, and that same rage might sway the outcome of the Presidential election — heck, might even land us in a war with Mexico! (Wouldn’t that be the ultimate “Wag the Dog”-level distraction from those sociopaths upstairs in our House of Medicine!)

  So, yes, agreed. All good points. 

  We medical people who see the patients and do all of the work — we, the house staff — we’re downstairs people. We can’t do anything about what goes on above. Agreed, it’s shameful how easily the upstairs sociopaths conned us, and it’s annoying to see them now so fabulously rich. But doctors being intentionally manipulated into destroying the lives of millions — that could have happened to anyone. Why stay angry about it? Ancient history! It’s not like it’s still happening, right? (Right?)

  Surely you don’t want to burn down the entire house? We work here. And the pay is not bad. Let’s just focus on the patients before us, and try to stay positive. Right?

  Heroin™ — brought to you by Bayer!

  As a medical student, I was once told by my attending physician that people treated with morphine for pain don’t get addicted.

  Surprised, I asked, “But what about all the Civil War veterans?”

  When the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, both sides demobilized a weary horde of chronically ill and wounded. Some soldiers had contracted tuberculosis, or a lingering pneumonia (in the days before antibiotics). Others had suffered field amputations with handheld saws. But whether the question was chronic coughing or terrible pain, the answer was morphine. The newly invented hypodermic needle allowed for fast-acting injections. Veterans everywhere got hooked, to the point where addiction was called “the Soldier’s Disease.” Soon morphine moved beyond the battlefield and was in use for everything from menstrual cramps to teething.

  

  Things got so bad that when heroin (diacetylmorphine) arrived, it was welcomed as an improvement. Chemists had discovered it decades earlier, but in 1898 the pharmaceutical company Bayer started selling it as Heroisch, German for “heroic.” 

  Heroin was a trade name. It was Heroin™ — brought to you by Bayer! 

  Doctors desperate for something safer than morphine often convinced themselves this new drug wasn’t addictive.

  “Heroin… possesses many advantages over morphine,” wrote a physician in 1900, in the precursor to the New England Journal of Medicine. “It is not a hypnotic… [and there is no] danger of acquiring the habit.” The philanthropic St. James Society even mounted a campaign to mail free heroin samples to morphine addicts (!), to help them break the habit.

  

  Other doctors saw the public swilling down heroin and berated their fellow physicians for not sounding the alarm.

  “The patient comes to look on heroin as a harmless sedative for his cough,” wrote one such physician in 1912, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, because too many doctors think it’s safe: 

  “A patient who came under my observation told a physician, who was called to treat him for an attack of laryngitis, not to give him anything that contained opium, because he had formerly been a slave to this drug. The physician replied: ‘I will give you some heroin; there is no danger of habit from that’.”

  Ordinary Americans weren’t buying it, and by 1906 we had established the federal Food & Drug Administration, because moms want to know if it’s got heroin. Cure-alls like the morphine-and-alcohol-based Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup definitely did quiet fussy babies, but it’s believed thousands never woke up again. 

  President Teddy Roosevelt appointed an “Opium Commissioner,” who looked around and saw track marks on the arms of everyone from aging Army of the Potomac vets to high society ladies, and declared, “Americans have become the greatest drug fiends in the world.” It was our first Opioid Crisis. It had been driven by genuine ignorance and a lack of good alternatives — but tellingly, also by the inappropriate use of heavily marketed and physician-endorsed treatments. In response, the nation went on a scorched-earth campaign against all addictive substances, starting with new anti-narcotics agencies staffed by G-men in trench coats, and culminating in the U.S. Constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. Again: We rewrote the Constitution to outlaw alcohol. That we once went so far suggests how bad things had gotten.

  This all seems like a glaringly obvious cautionary tale for the House of Medicine. Yet somehow, not 70 years after the nation had walked away from the Prohibition experiment, medical schools — medical schools! — were abruptly teaching that opioids weren’t necessarily addictive.

  When my attending said a patient wouldn’t get addicted if a doctor gave morphine for pain, he was simply channeling what all the best people were saying. For example, in 2000, the Joint Commission — an independent non-profit that sets accreditation standards for hospitals — published a book for physician education that claimed: 

  There is no evidence that addiction is a significant issue when persons are given opioids for pain control.

  No evidence. And if the medical students ask about morphine-enslaved Civil War veterans? The Joint Commission’s book dismisses such concerns as “inaccurate and exaggerated.” 

  It was the same over at the Federation of State Medical Boards — a trade organization for the bodies in each state that license, investigate and discipline doctors. A set of FSMB guidelines from this era sternly stated that opioids are “essential” for treating various kinds of pain, and only mentioned addiction to warn that “inadequate understandings” of that could lead to “inadequate pain control.”

  I was literally told by my attending — who was just echoing those who accredit the hospitals and license the doctors — to “do more reading.” That’s a common directive to a medical student: Stop with the skeptical questions and go study.

  From 20,000 deaths a year, to 50,000, to now 80,000

  At the turn of the century, about 20,000 people each year would take an opioid — as a pill, or as a snorted or injected powder — and then stop breathing and die. Those of us working on ambulances or in emergency departments could not save them.

  But for every death, there are about 20 non-fatal overdoses. So, with bag mask ventilation and opioid reversal agents, we have dragged millions of people back to life. How many suffered anoxic brain injuries, and today are mentally a half-step slower? Unknown.

  Overdoses at this scale were a new development, and they were occurring hand-in-hand with the aggressive new marketing and prescribing of opioids. This is the era chronicled so well by popular miniseries — “Dopesick” on Hulu, “Painkiller” on Netflix. In the midst of it, the Sackler family-owned Purdue Pharma pled guilty to a deception campaign meticulously designed to bring about recklessly liberal opioid prescribing. As punishment, the company had to shell out $600 million, and three top executives got multi-million-dollar fines and 400 hours of community service.

  That should have been peak “Opioid Crisis.” But it was only 2007. Heck, George W. Bush was still president. The Sacklers were never contrite. They’d been raking in about $1 billion a year for more than a decade. The $600 million fine sounded impressive — but the Sacklers shrugged, cut the government in to the tune of less than 5% of the cash rolling in, and got right back to slinging opioids. And in the 17 years since, everything has gotten terribly worse.

  Did it feel like a catastrophe back in 2007, when 20,000 people a year would die, and people were enraged at Purdue?

  Or a decade later, in 2017, when President Donald Trump declared it a national emergency, and 50,000 people a year would die?

  That’s nothing. For the past three years, we’ve reliably seen 80,000 people each year take an opioid, stop breathing and die. 

  

  Opioid overdoses accelerated amidst the despair of COVID-19 lockdowns. These days, it’s completely routine for a private car to brake with screeching tires at our emergency department entrance, with the driver screaming about someone in the back seat who is floppy, gray, not breathing. The overhead announcement of “trigger to triage!” used to get nurses and techs running excitedly to the front door. Now, they respond at a walk — a briskly respectful walk, but it’s clear no one’s particularly excited. The novelty wore off long ago. 

  The Olympics of Sociopathy

  Back when Purdue Pharma had to pay $600 million, that was big news. Today, judgments are handed down left and right for billions, without much comment or public excitement, against everyone involved in making, distributing or selling opioids: $17.3 billion from CVS, Walmart and Walgreens, $5 billion from Johnson & Johnson, $21 billion from opioid distribution companies McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, $4.25 billion from Teva Pharmaceuticals, $2 billion from Allergan.

  Meanwhile, an agreement to let the Sackler family skate while Purdue surrenders $6 billion and goes bankrupt is before the U.S. Supreme Court. (For context, Purdue has earned far more than $30 billion from opioids by now. Forbes estimates the Sacklers as individuals are worth more than $10 billion; attorneys general argue the family has hidden billions more abroad. The Sacklers have for years sold more opioids via Rhodes Pharmaceuticals, a Rhode Island-based company they quietly control, than via Purdue).

  Pondering these massive new settlements, I remember thinking, “Walmart? Johnson & Johnson? Surely some innocents have been caught up in an indiscriminate dragnet?”

  Wrong. Don’t look into this if you don’t want to know. Like competitive bicyclists, many had lined up to slipstream behind Purdue Pharma and its deranged, anti-social marketing of OxyContin®. Perhaps none of those other corporations would have dared try to convince physicians and nurse practitioners to hand out opioids like candy. But the Sacklers dared and met with success — instant success, shocking success, in perhaps the most shameful episode in the history of medicine. 

  The other companies might have been surprised, but they all fell eagerly in line behind. Each of them drafted in the turbulent wake of Purdue opioid marketing — some just coasting and enjoying the free money, others so excited they would at times sprint out ahead to briefly take the lead in this Olympics of Sociopathy.

  For example, it may have been the Sacklers who first decided to target returning veterans (who have good health insurance) as an opioid growth market — veterans, by the way, are three times more likely to overdose and die than other Americans.

  

  But it took a Johnson & Johnson-backed organization, the “Imagine the Possibilities Pain Coalition”, to spitball in 2011 about targeting elementary school students. After all, third graders have pain, too! A PowerPoint presentation from this group noted we could start marketing opioids to kids “via respected channels, e.g., coaches.”

  

  Johnson & Johnson also quietly funded the 2013 launch of “Growing Pains”, “a new social networking site for young people with pain”. This effort to market opioids to teenagers aged 13 and up was shut down only as of 2021.

  From Oxy to Heroin to Fentanyl to … Buprenorphine?

  Today nearly every 10th adult has lost a family member to an opioid. All major candidates for president have tapped into the anger — which, however, they have chosen to direct at Chinese and Mexican cartels. 

  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vowed if elected president to send U.S. special forces into Mexico (!) to take out fentanyl labs. Trump as president reportedly talked about shooting missiles into Mexico to destroy said labs. President Joe Biden has pledged to “stop [fentanyl] pills and powder at the border.”

  So, the newly agreed-upon villains are foreigners. 

  Did something change? 

  Yes and no. It turns out the Opioid Crisis — that catchall term for this 25-year-long blizzard of addiction, overdose and death — has gone through different stages, much like how COVID-19 would cycle through variants, from Delta to Omicron. But while COVID quickly mellowed, the Opioid Crisis has just gotten nastier. 

  The CDC identifies three waves: First came the prescription wave of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which launched the entire enterprise. Next came the heroin wave, which per the CDC roughly started in 2010, when the prescription-addicted turned to the streets. From about 2013 to today, we have been awash in synthetic opioids like fentanyl (heroin requires farming poppies, but fentanyl is cheaply made in labs).

  

  But wait long enough, and Big Pharma always wins. Amoral, soulless corporations — often the same ones paying out massive settlements — have maneuvered skillfully to reassert control over the addiction market they’ve created. The goal now is to create a fourth and final wave of the Opioid Crisis: the buprenorphine wave. We will start as many people as possible on this ingenious opioid.

  Buprenorphine, the main ingredient in brand names such as Suboxone® and Subutex®, is a so-called partial opioid agonist: It latches tightly onto opioid receptors but stimulates them only slightly — just enough for a person with physical addiction to not experience withdrawal. A person on appropriately dosed buprenorphine is not sedated or high, they just “feel normal.” (What’s more, even if they were to inject fentanyl, the opioid receptors are already locked down by the buprenorphine, which blocks other opioids from getting through.)

  I can’t argue against expanded use of buprenorphine. The data clearly shows that it prevents death and disability. People really do get control of their lives again. Of course, it is also addictive. So, the plan we confidently propose is to treat opioid addiction with this admittedly ingenious and excellent medication, for a monthly price tag, depending on the formulation, ranging from $196 to $1,136… forever. 

  What’s not to like? 

  Big Pharma, Finally Unmasked

  Medicine has wrought amazing breakthroughs, and we have professed high moral standards. But some of us aren’t above indulging in the same “Braindead Megaphone”-style pronouncements plaguing the rest of society: sternly shouting down even the meekest questions about pediatric gender reassignment therapies or vaccine mandates, for example. When it comes to the Opioid Crisis — this massive, deadly pandemic of addiction we’ve unleashed — we stroll past whistling and look guiltily away, then whirl back around, whip out the Braindead Megaphone, and loudly announce that we expect to be paid handsomely to provide additional addictive opioids to treat this same pandemic. We declare this with wide-eyed innocence, and get indignant if anyone questions this plan — even as internal corporate communications now available show Big Pharma corporations rubbing their hands gleefully at the thought of all of that buprenorphine cash.

  That’s right: internal corporate communications — millions of pages — are now available. They can be searched online at the Opioid Industry Documents Archive, hosted by University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

  I thought I knew a lot about the Opioid Crisis. After all, I’d been a reluctant front-line participant in it for 20 years, as a paramedic, a medical student and a physician.

  Then the lawsuits arrived, and the Archive opened.

  Next: A conspiracy to taint the medical literature

  Matt Bivens, M.D.: Full-time ER doctor. Board-certified in emergency and addiction medicine. EMS medical director for 911 services. Former Russia-based foreign correspondent, newspaper editor and Chechnya war correspondent. Reluctant student of nuclear weapons.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 23:15

• These Are The Countries With The Highest Rates Of Crypto Ownership
  These Are The Countries With The Highest Rates Of Crypto Ownership

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu, ranks the top 10 countries by their rate of cryptocurrency ownership, which is the percentage of the population that owns crypto.

  

  These figures come from crypto payment gateway, Triple-A, and are as of 2023.

  Data and Highlights

  The table below lists the rates of crypto ownership in the top 10 countries, as well as the number of people this amounts to.

  

  Note that if we were to rank countries based on their actual number of crypto owners, India would rank first at 93 million people, China would rank second at 59 million people, and the U.S. would rank third at 52 million people.

  The UAE Takes the Top Spot

  The United Arab Emirates (UAE) boasts the highest rates of crypto ownership globally. The country’s government is considered to be very crypto friendly, as described in Henley & Partners’ Crypto Wealth Report 2023:

  In the UAE, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA-ADGM) was the first to provide rules and regulations regarding cryptocurrency purchasing and selling.

  The Emirates are generally very open to new technologies and have proposed zero taxes for crypto owners and businesses.

  Vietnam leads Southeast Asia

  According to the Crypto Council for Innovation, cryptocurrency holdings in Vietnam are also untaxed, making them an attractive asset.

  Another reason for Vietnam’s high rates of ownership could be its large unbanked population (people without access to financial services).

  Cryptocurrencies may provide an alternative means of accessing these services without relying on traditional banks.

  If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out The World’s Largest Corporate Holders of Bitcoin, which ranks the top 12 publicly traded companies by their Bitcoin holdings.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 22:55

• Lawmakers Urge U.S. Action To Halt China's Organ Trade
  Lawmakers Urge U.S. Action To Halt China’s Organ Trade

  Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

  A group of leading China critics in Congress is urging the State Department to step up its efforts to curb Beijing’s gruesome $1 billion forced organ harvesting trade, which targets ethnic and religious minorities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners. 

  

  Six members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, or CECC, sent a letter last week to Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking him to utilize existing agency reward programs to provide monetary incentives for information that will “deter and disrupt the market for illegally procured organs” in China. Rep. Chris Smith, who chairs the CECC, and Sen. Marco Rubio, the commission’s ranking member, joined Democrat Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia and GOP Reps. Michelle Steel of California, Zach Nunn of Iowa, and Ryan Zinke of Montana in signing the letter. 

  The State Department manages two programs that offer awards of up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of members of significant transnational criminal organizations. One focuses on violators of U.S. narcotics law, and another targets other crimes that threaten U.S. national interests, including human trafficking, wildlife trafficking, cybercrime, money laundering, and trafficking in arms and other illicit goods. 

  “We strongly support the Department of State’s efforts to issue rewards for wildlife and narcotics trafficking in the [People’s Republic of China],” the lawmakers wrote. “However, given the global demand for organ transplants and the evidence of the illegal trafficking of organs in the PRC, there is a pressing need to uncover first-hand information from those who witnessed or engaged in the practice.” 

  The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

  Communist China has long harvested prisoners’ organs, even though the government in Beijing initially asserted that all their organ extractions were from voluntary donors. But as far back as 2005, the top transplant doctor in China, then serving as the nation’s vice minister of health, admitted that roughly 95% of all organ transplants came from prisoners.

  In recent years, leading researchers have documented a reprehensible aspect of these life-ending extractions: Prisoners of conscience – religious minorities and political dissidents are the main victims. There’s now extensive evidence that Chinese surgeons first honed their murderous organ harvesting practices on practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation and exercise movement. In recent years, the regime expanded its pool of victims to China’s imprisoned Uyghur population as part of its systematic oppression of the Muslim minority group. 

  China has vehemently denied these claims, but in 2019, the China Tribunal, a non-governmental, independent commission in the U.K., concluded otherwise. The Tribunal investigated accusations of organ harvesting in China and found that some of the more than 1.5 million detainees in Chinese prison camps are being killed for their organs to serve a booming transplant trade worth an estimated $1 billion a year. The Tribunal also found that the Chinese organ trafficking industry is harvesting organs from executed prisoners and political prisoners at an industrial scale, actions that constitute crimes against humanity.

  In response to the Tribunal’s findings, more than a dozen United Nations human rights experts said they were extremely alarmed by reports that organ harvesting was targeting “specific ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians” detained in China. The experts, who operate under United Nations mandates but do not speak on the international organization’s behalf, called on China to respond to the allegations of illegal organ harvesting promptly and to allow international human rights monitors into hospitals and other areas to monitor the country’s organ extraction practices. China has ignored those requests.

  In 2022, the American Journal of Transplantation, the leading medical transplant publication in the world, published a peer-reviewed article that uncovered compelling evidence that Chinese surgeons are systematically removing organs from prisoners while they are still alive, providing on-demand supplies for China’s organ export industry. 

  The practice violates the internationally accepted “dead-donor” rule that holds that organ procurement “must not commence until the donor is both dead and formally pronounced so.” 

  “Forced organ harvesting is an atrocity, and the disruption and deterrence of this practice should be a priority of the State Department,” the group of lawmakers wrote. 

  “Getting the PRC to account and fully address evidence of forced organ harvesting will be critical in ending this horrific practice and promoting, long term, the establishment of a truly voluntary organ donation system,” they continued. “With effective enforcement mechanisms, we can work towards ensuring organs are procured safely and ethically.”

  Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 22:35

• The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle: Behind The Inexplicable "Strength" Of US Consumers Is $700 Billion In "Phanton Debt"
  The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle: Behind The Inexplicable “Strength” Of US Consumers Is $700 Billion In “Phanton Debt”

  Yesterday we discussed the latest consumer credit data, which revealed that the amount of credit card debt across the US has hit a new record high of $1.337 trillion (even though it appears to have finally hit a brick wall, barely rising in April by the smallest amount since the covid crash), even as the savings rate has tumbled to an all time low.

  

  To be sure, credit card debt is just a small portion (~6%) of the total household debt stack: as the next chart from the latest NY Fed consumer credit report shows, the bulk, or 70%, of US household debt is in the form of mortgages, followed by student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, home equity credit and various other forms. Altogether, the total is a massive $17.5 trillion in total household debt.

  

  But staggering as the mountain of household debt may be, at least we know how huge the problem is; after all the data is public. What is far more dangerous – because we have no clue about its size – is what Bloomberg calls “Phantom Debt“, and we have repeatedly called Buy Now, Pay Later debt. How much of that kind of debt is out there is largely a guess.

  Let’s back up: the topic of Buy Now, Pay Later, or installment debt, is hardly new: we have covered it extensively in the past year, as this selection of articles reveals:

  • “Buy Now, Pay Later” Mania Sends Americans Deeper Into ‘Black Hole’ Of Debt: April 2023
  • Consumers Use ‘Buy-Now, Pay-Later’ Option To Fund Record Black Friday Purchases: Nov, 2023
  • BIS Reveals ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Use Is Soaring Among Working Poor Youngsters: Dec 2023
  • Self-Checkout Kiosks At 4,500 Walmarts Now Offer ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Loans For Basic Items: Dec 2023
  • Many Are Addicted To “Buy Now, Pay Later” Plans, It’s A Big Trap: Feb 2024

  But while it is easy to ensnare young, incomeless Americans into the net of installment debt where they will rot as the next generation of debt slaves for the rest of their lives, there is an even more sinister side to this extremely popular form of debt which allows consumers to split purchases into smaller installments: as Bloomberg reports in a lengthy expose on installment debt, the major companies that provide these so called “pay in four” products, such as Affirm Holdings, Klarna Bank and Block’s Afterpay, don’t report those loans to credit agencies. That’s why Buy Now/Pay Later credit has earned a far more ominous nickname:

  It’s hard enough for central bankers and Wall Street traders to make sense of the post-pandemic economy with the data available to them. At Wells Fargo & Co., senior economist Tim Quinlan is particularly spooked by the “phantom debt” that he can’t see.

  Which is not to say that we have no idea how much “phantom debt” is out there: according to the report, it is projected to reach almost $700 billion globally by 2028, and yet, time and again, the companies that issue it have resisted calls for greater disclosure, even as the market has grown each year since at least 2020. That, as Bloomberg accurately warns, is masking a complete picture of the financial health of American households, which is crucial for everyone from global central banks to US regional lenders and multinational businesses.

  In fact, the recent explosion in installment debt may explain why the US consumer remains so resilient even when most conventional economic metrics suggest consumers should be struggling: “Consumer spending in the world’s largest economy has been so resilient in the face of stubbornly high inflation that economists and traders have had to repeatedly rip up their forecasts for slowing growth and interest-rate cuts.”

  Still, cracks are starting to form. First it was Americans falling behind on auto loans. Then credit-card delinquency rates reached the highest since at least 2012, with the share of debts 30, 60 and 90 days late all on the upswing.

  

  And now, there are also signs that consumers are struggling to afford their BNPL debt, too. A recent survey conducted for Bloomberg News by Harris Poll found that 43% of those who owe money to BNPL services said they were behind on payments, while 28% said they were delinquent on other debt because of spending on the platforms.

  For Quinlan, a major concern is that economic experts are being “lulled into complacency about where consumers are.”

  “People need to be more awake to the risk of BNPL,” he said in an interview.

  Well, those who care, are awake – we have written dozens of articles on the danger it poses; the problem is that those who are enabled by this latest mountain of debt – such as the Biden administration which can claim a victory for Bidenomics because the economy is so “strong”, phantom debt be damned – are actively motivated to ignore it.

  So why is this latest debt bubble called a “phantom”?

  Well, BNPL is a black box largely because of a longstanding blame game among BNPL providers and the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. The BNPL companies don’t provide data on their installment loans that are split into four payments, which were used by online shoppers to spend an estimated $19.2 billion in the first quarter, according to Adobe Analytics, up 12.3% compared with the same period last year.

  The BNPL giants say credit agencies can’t handle their information — and that releasing it could harm customers’ credit scores, which are key to securing mortgages and other loans. The big three bureaus say they’re ready, while two of the major credit scoring firms, VantageScore Solutions and Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO), say they’re equipped to test how the products will affect their figures. Meanwhile, regulation is looming over the industry, but this stalemate has left the status quo mostly in place.

  In other words, not only do we not know just how big the BNPL problem is, it is actively masked by credit agencies which can’t accurately calculate the FICO score of tens of millions of Americans, and as a result their credit capacity is artificially boosted with far more debt than they can handle… and that’s why the US consumer has been so “strong” in recent years, defying all conventional credit metrics.

  The good news is that despite the tacit pushback of the administration, there has been some signs of progress. Apple earlier this year became the first major BNPL provider to furnish transaction and payment data to Experian. As of now, it provides a snapshot of consumers’ overall debt load from Apple Pay Later transactions, but the information won’t be used for consumer credit scores. In separate statements to Bloomberg, Klarna, Affirm and Block said they want assurance that consumers’ credit scores and their data would be protected before reporting customer information. Representatives for TransUnion, Experian and Equifax said they’ve updated their structures and the data would be secure.

  Still, the lack of transparency has researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which publishes a comprehensive quarterly report on the $17.5 trillion in US household debt, convinced they’re missing some of what’s happening in the economy.

  “They’ve reached a certain scale that they could impact economists’ assumptions about their economic outlooks,” said Simon Khalaf, Chief Executive Officer of Marqeta Inc., a firm that helps BNPL providers process their payments.

  Meanwhile, the pernicious effects of BNPL credit are piling up: the Harris Poll survey conducted last month, provides some crucial clues about how Americans use BNPL. For one, splitting payments into smaller chunks encourages more spending, obviously.

  More than half of respondents who use BNPL said it allowed them to purchase more than they could afford, while nearly a quarter agreed with the statement that their BNPL spending was “out of control.” Harris also found that 23% of users said they couldn’t afford the majority of what they bought without splitting payments, while more than a third turned to the services after maxing out credit cards.

  

  The findings also show that the spending, which for more than a third of users has exceeded $1,000, isn’t entirely on big-ticket items. Almost half of those using BNPL say they’ve started, or have considered, using it to pay bills or buy essential items, including groceries.

  Translation: Americans are no longer even charging everyday purchases they traditionally used cash and savings to pay for; now they are using installment plans to pay for bread!

  It’s not just the lower classes that are abusing BNPL credit: while whatever small pockets of consumer distress have emerged so far in the US, have been chalked up to a bifurcated economy where working class Americans struggle to make ends meet, the survey found that middle-class households are relying on BNPL, too. The shocking punchline: about 42% of those with household income of more than $100,000 report being behind or delinquent on BNPL payments!

  “BNPL essentially lets people dig a deeper and deeper hole of credit, which will be harder and harder to climb out of,” said Ed deHaan, a professor of accounting at Stanford Graduate School of Business, adding that it happens “more easily when there’s no transparency.”

  Of course, installment debt is nothing new: the option to pay in installments using short-term loans has been around for a ong time, but it exploded in popularity during the pandemic, especially with younger, digitally savvy consumers who gravitated to the services as an alternative to credit cards. The pioneering BNPL companies, including Afterpay, Klarna and Affirm, launched with trendy retailers, partnered with social media influencers and became a common option on apps and online checkouts.

  BNPL offers quick credit approvals and lets consumers pay in installments. The first is usually due right away, and the others are often collected once every two weeks for the popular “pay in four” loans. There’s typically no interest or fees, as long as payments are made on time. Like credit card companies, BNPL firms make money on fees from merchants — and some have steep penalties for missed payments.

  While normally larger banks would avoid this kind of “new and much more dangerous subprime”, this time is different: the rapid adoption of the products has enticed major financial institutions to offer the option to split payments, even as regulators warn them of the risks. That includes PayPal, U.S. Bancorp and Citizens Financial. Even big banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan have similar capabilities on their credit cards.

  The industry has branded itself a financial equalizer. They argue that “soft-credit checks” — when a lender runs a consumer’s credit history without affecting their score — expand credit access to those underserved by traditional lenders, while zero-interest provides a better deal than many cards.

  Affirm said its customers have an average outstanding balance of $641, while Afterpay and Klarna put the figure at $250 and $150, respectively. Unfortunately, there is no way to check these numbers. And while the average credit card balance was $6,501 in the third quarter of 2023, according to Experian data, the BNPL balances mean that most Americans can’t even afford a weekly outing to their grocery store without putting it on an installment plan, a truly terrifying scenario.

  Critics naturally argue that BNPL is particularly attractive to the financially vulnerable. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has flagged risks to consumers, including surprise late fees and “hidden interest” — or when BNPL purchases are made with credit cards charging high interest rates. The CFPB has also expressed concern about “loan stacking,” when individuals take out several BNPL loans at once with different providers, which is most of them.

  Some BNPL services, including Afterpay and Klarna, require borrowers to agree to “mandatory autopayment,” meaning the companies can automatically charge the credit card or bank account on file when a payment is due. Those who link the latter are potentially vulnerable to overdraft fees.

  Meanwhile, as rates remains sky high, even Wall Street’s perpetually cheerful analysts are wondering where is all the consumption coming from?

  Robust consumer spending and low unemployment rates have many economists convinced the US consumer remains strong, making Wall Street bullish on the economy. But lately, stubbornly persistent inflation has dialed back expectations for imminent interest-rate relief.

  That’s set to ramp up pressure on households that are already stretched thin by higher prices for everything from gas and food to rent and apparel. As of the end of December, almost 3.5% of credit-card balances were at least 30 days past due, according to the Philadelphia Fed, the most since the data began in 2012. Nominal card balances also set a new high.

  

  For those who are falling behind, BNPL offers what appears to be a no-brainer decision: space out payments… at least until this last credit buffer fills up and bankruptcy is the only possible outcome.

  That was the thinking of Hayden Waschak, a 23-year-old in Pittsburgh. Even though he said it felt “dystopian” to use  BNPL to pay for food, he began using Klarna in February to spread out payments on a grocery delivery app. It helped his finances — at first. After he lost his job as a documents processing specialist at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in March, he relied more heavily on the service. And without any income, he became delinquent on payments and started racking up late charges. He eventually paid off the nearly $200 balance, but he said his credit score dropped.

  “Unexpected life events caused me to lose income,” Waschak said. “I ended up paying more than if I had paid for it all at once.”

  Meanwhile, the fact that BNPL balances do not count against your credit rating, means users get little upside when it comes to their credit — paying on time won’t help them build up their score. On the other hand, the downside is still there for falling behind: not only can they get charged late fees, but delinquent BNPL loans can be turned over to debt collectors.

  The latter is what Fabrizio Lopez said happened to him. He used Affirm to split up a $500 online payment for used-car parts in 2019. The Long Island-based mechanic, who doesn’t have a traditional credit card, said that while he received the items a week later, he never got a bill. That is, until debt collection letters started pouring in from across the US.

  Lopez said he primarily relied on cash before that purchase, so the unpaid loan stands out on his credit profile. Now 30, he worries that a the BNPL purchase has created “invisible barriers” to the financial system.

  “They hook you with the idea of no interest rates,” he said. “I thought that I would be able to build my credit if I paid it back — I was so wrong.”

  He is not the only one who is “so wrong”: just as wrong are all those Panglossian economists at the Fed and Wall Street who believe that the US economy is growing at what the Atlanta Fed today laughably “calculated” was a 4.2% GDP, even as the DOE found that the most accurate indicator of overall economic strength, diesel demand, was the lowest since covid, an glaring paradox… yet glaring to all except those who refuse to see just how rotten the core of the US economy has become, and will be “absolutely shocked” when the next credit crisis destroys tens of millions of Americans drowning in what is now best known as “phantom debt.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 22:15

• Argentina To Mine Bitcoin With Stranded Gas
  Argentina To Mine Bitcoin With Stranded Gas

  Authored by Vivek Sun via BitcoinMagazine.com,

  Argentina’s energy sector is increasingly turning to Bitcoin, this time with a state-owned facility using stranded natural gas from oil fields that would otherwise be wasted.

  JUST IN: 🇦🇷 Argentina state-owned company’s subsidiary will mine $BTC with Stranded Gas: Forbes

  Eventually, every country will be mining #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/bu6sCXEUJ1

  — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 8, 2024

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

  State-owned energy firm YPF’s subsidiary, YPF Luz, recently partnered with Genesis Digital Assets (GDA) to launch a gas flare-powered mining facility. It will harness 1,200 machines to monetize gas currently being flared into the atmosphere.

  This comes as Argentina embraces Bitcoin with the election of Bitcoin-friendly President Javier Milei in late 2023.

  By repurposing stranded gas that is currently burned as waste, GDA estimates its mining operation could reduce up to 63% of the carbon emissions, which shows how Bitcoin mining can transform energy byproducts into productive use.

  GDA founder Abdumalik Mirakhmedov said:

  “This will be yet another opportunity to show the world that Bitcoin mining can have a positive effect on the environment and can be fully integrated into local communities.”

  For YPF Luz, monetizing stranded gas offsets costs and drives sustainability. 

  For GDA, this means competitive energy pricing and reduced carbon output. For Argentina, it signals leadership in leveraging Bitcoin mining to enhance energy infrastructure.

  

  The news mirrors how other countries are utilizing Bitcoin mining to “clean up” energy grids. Bhutan mines Bitcoin with renewable hydropower to consume its seasonal excess, while El Salvador uses geothermal energy to power mining with no carbon footprint.

  Mirakhmedov cited Argentina’s energy resources and friendly regulations as ideal conditions for the facility.

  As Bitcoin mining expands worldwide, projects like GDA and YPF’s showcase a template for reducing stranded gas flaring through productive Bitcoin mining.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 21:55

• "Is Consumer Travel Spending Easing?" – BofA Identifies New Trend As Travel Companies Miss Earnings 
  “Is Consumer Travel Spending Easing?” – BofA Identifies New Trend As Travel Companies Miss Earnings 

  One theme we’ve spotted this earnings season has been an increasing number of companies warning about low-income consumers. 

  From McDonald’s to Starbucks to Tyson Foods, executives on earnings calls have warned about mounting headwinds hitting the working poor. 

  Last Tuesday, Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told investors on a call, “Our performance this quarter was disappointing and did not meet our expectations,” adding that significant headwinds originate from a “cautious consumer.” 

  A similar message was shared by McDonald’s last week when execs reported lower-than-expected quarterly sales growth. 

  On Monday, Melanie Boulden, who oversees Tyson’s Prepared Foods business, warned, “The consumer is under pressure, especially the lower-income households.” 

  Then, on Wednesday, credit card data from the Federal Reserve showed households finally hit a brick wall. Credit card debt growth in March plunged to the smallest monthly increase since the Covid crash. 

  This morning, Bank of America’s trading desk also spotted some weakness in consumer-sensitive stocks, this time in the travel industry. 

  “Theme Alert? Consumer Travel Spending easing?” BofA’s analysts asked. 

  They pointed out a list of disappointing earnings across the travel industry: 

  • $EXPE miss/guide

  • $TRIP miss

  • $CMCSA parks commentary

  • $DIS parks’ moderation’ or normalization

  • $UBER slight bookings miss

  Tripadvisor experienced its worst intraday decline ever, with its stock plunging by as much as 38%. This was due to the online travel firm’s announcement that it had called off a deal to sell the company.

  

  Did the lack of ‘deal premium’ suddenly expose investors to the the reality that Gen-Z and millennials can no longer afford their stimmy-funded “experiences” as the economy slows.

  Taking a deeper dive into markets, the Dow Jones US Travel & Leisure Index peaked in late March and fell 7.5%. The index is up against heavy resistance. 

  

  Interestingly, the Transportation Security Administration’s airport checkpoint data still shows robust travel demand. 

  

  Bank of America’s trading desk may be onto something here, a trend that other companies are also starting to notice: low-income consumers are cracking in the era of failed Bidenomics. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 21:35

• House Votes To Nullify SEC's Anti-Crypto Policy, Biden Vows To Veto
  House Votes To Nullify SEC’s Anti-Crypto Policy, Biden Vows To Veto

  Authored by Tom Mitchelhill via CoinTelegraoph.com,

  The United States House of Representatives has voted to pass a bill that overturns controversial Securities and Exchange Commission guidance preventing banks from owning crypto. 

  

  On May 8, the House voted to pass a bipartisan bill dubbed H.J. Res 109 which overturns the SEC’s Special Accounting Bulletin (SAB 121) that requires banks to hold their customers’ crypto assets on their balance sheets – which is not the case for traditional assets such as securities. 

  Republican Congressman Mike Flood – the lawmaker who introduced the resolution – said SAB 121 was unfair for banks looking to custody crypto, as custodial assets are “always considered off-balance sheet.”

  “Gary Gensler, in his jihad against digital assets, used what is supposed to be mundane staff accounting guidance to essentially freeze out large publicly traded banks from taking custody of digital assets,” said Rep. Flood (R-Neb.) in a Wednesday interview with CoinDesk.

  And the SEC didn’t consult with the banking regulators about it, Flood pointed out, arguing that Gensler “doesn’t have any business in the banking world.”

  Notably, 21 Democrats voted in favor of the bill – which combined with the unanimous 207 votes from Republicans – saw the bill pass 228 votes to 182. 

  

  Source: Caitlin Long/X

  “By overturning SAB 121, the bipartisan resolution ensures consumers are protected by removing roadblocks that prevent highly regulated financial institutions and firms from acting as custodians of digital assets,” wrote the House Financial Services Committee (HSFC) in a May 8 statement. 

  “Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 is one of the most glaring examples of the regulatory overreach that has defined Gary Gensler’s tenure at the SEC,” said HSFC Chairman Patrick McHenry.

  Introduced by the SEC in March 2022, SAB 121 outlines the regulator’s accounting guidelines for institutions looking to custody crypto assets. Notably, SAB 121 virtually prevents banks from custodying crypto assets on behalf of clients.

  U.S. lawmakers including SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce have argued SAB 121 jeopardizes the willingness of regulated banks to act as crypto custodians and treats crypto holdings differently than other assets.

  Despite the bill being passed through the House of Representatives, President Joe Biden stated he will veto the new bill.

  “SAB 121 was issued in response to demonstrated technological, legal, and regulatory risks that have caused substantial losses to consumers,” Biden said in a Wednesday statement, saying he “strongly opposes” disrupting the SEC’s work on this.

  In a May 8 statement, the White House said it “strongly opposes” members of the House of Representatives looking to overturn SAB 121, claiming it would disrupt the SEC’s efforts “to protect investors in crypto-asset markets and to safeguard the broader financial system.”

  “Limiting the SEC’s ability to maintain a comprehensive and effective financial regulatory framework for crypto-assets would introduce substantial financial instability and market uncertainty.”

  

  Source: White House

  No lesser mortal than key House Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters thought Flood’s resolution went too far.

  “This bill takes a sledgehammer to fix an issue that may merely need a scalpel, and it does so because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not only interested in doing the bidding of special interest groups, they are also interested in attacking and undermining the SEC in every possible way,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on McHenry’s committee.

  As CoinDesk reports, when an agency rule is reversed under the Congressional Review Act, it’s not only erased, but anything similar is forever blocked from future implementation.

  Waters argued that SAB 121 – apart from the controversial custody component – also provided guidance on crypto disclosures that are necessary and would be threatened if Congress overturns the policy, and Biden echoed the concern about policies that would be blocked.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 21:15

• China Blasts US For Talking Gaza "Ceasefire While Pouring In Weapons"
  China Blasts US For Talking Gaza “Ceasefire While Pouring In Weapons”

  First the Ukraine war and now the Gaza conflict… China increasingly finds itself the leader of the group of nations at odds with the West over how to handle these crises. 

  Beijing has criticized the United States’ role in stoking both conflicts, given Washington is the main supplier of weapons and funds for both Israel and Ukraine.

  Most Global South countries are quite obviously more sympathetic to the Palestinian side when it comes to the Gaza crisis (evidenced by recent votes at the UN), and they have shown themselves open to trade with Russia despite sanctions over the Ukraine war, and most have tended to avoid full-throated condemnations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  

  In a new Wednesday report, Bloomberg has underscored that Gaza is the new ‘wedge issue’ which China hopes to use to further distance the Global South from US and Western policy: 

  Last week, a top Chinese diplomat took to the microphones at the United Nations to harangue the US for blocking a resolution that would have backed Palestinians’ bid for membership, saying it had “shattered the decades-long dream of the Palestinian people.”

  The broadside by Ambassador Fu Cong may have just looked like more anti-US rhetoric. But US officials and experts say it fits into a pattern with greater significance — an increasingly active Chinese effort to turn opinion in developing countries against the US since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, using the Gaza war as a wedge.

  At the start of this week President Xi Jinping was in France where he issued a rare joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron. The statement urged Israel against going through with a ground offensive in Rafah.

  Macron and Xi further reiterated their call for “a decisive and irreversible relaunch of a political process” to implement “the two-state solution with Jerusalem as their capital, and the creation of a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 lines,” according to the joint statement.

  The Chinese foreign ministry also issued its own separate statement, saying “China… strongly calls on Israel to heed the overwhelming demands of the international community, stop attacking Rafah, and do everything it can to avoid a more serious humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.”

  Beijing has also really stepped up its denunciations of Washington ‘hypocrisy’ given the Biden administration is at once arming Israel to the teeth while publicly condemning the soaring Palestinian civilian death toll which has been the end result of deploying those very arms over population-dense urban areas. Bloomberg has further featured the following Chinese Embassy statement: 

  Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, criticized the US for talking about “a ceasefire while pouring weapons” into the “biggest humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century,” in an emailed statement.

  China has lately launched its own efforts at mediating the conflict, given it hosted Hamas and Fatah officials in Beijing last week for rare talks aimed at achieving Palestinian political unity.

  Bloomberg has cited the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue to say that “Chinese and Russian actors are capitalizing on the perceived unpopularity of Western policy towards Gaza.” And ultimately the aim, the think tank says, is “to push the idea of an alternate global power structure with themselves at the helm.”

  But of course, this doesn’t seem to take into account that it might more simply be US and Israeli actions and policies are actually deeply unpopular among large segments of the population. 

  US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently echoed this outlook which sees nefarious Russian and Chinese influence behind every corner. “Let’s be honest — for all the fiery rhetoric, we all know that Russia and China are not doing anything diplomatically to advance a lasting peace,” she told the UN General Assembly in March.

  The disoriented strategy that got us into a new Cold War with Russia, is driving us towards a war with China as well.

  — John Robb (@johnrobb) May 6, 2024

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  But the reality is that it was China which recently achieved the historic Iran-Saudi rapprochement, thus it at least has a positive track record of mediation in the Mideast region of late. Compare this to the US role of the last ten to twenty years, and there are names like: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 20:55

• Jan. 6 Arrests Running At Nearly Double The Rate Of 2023 And 2022: Report
  Jan. 6 Arrests Running At Nearly Double The Rate Of 2023 And 2022: Report

  Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Nearly 1,425 people have been arrested on Jan. 6 charges, with 2024 arrests running at almost double the rate from 2023 and 2022, a U.S. Department of Justice report shows.

  

  Through close of business on May 3, the FBI has arrested 1,424 suspects in the 40 months since the breach and violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the DOJ reported in its monthly update.

  That includes 159 people who were arrested during the first four months of 2024, nearly double the 83 arrested during the same period in 2023 and the 85 arrested in the same period in 2022, DOJ records show.

  The FBI has made 391 Jan. 6 arrests since May 2023 and 614 arrests since May 2022, according to DOJ data.

  Jan. 6 is the largest, most sweeping investigation in FBI history—one that DOJ leaders have pledged will continue unabated. The DOJ has until Jan. 6, 2026, to charge individuals before the statute of limitations expires.

  Some 1,334 people have been charged with entering and remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds, the most common Jan. 6 misdemeanor. Of those, 127 people were charged with entering and remaining while armed with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

  Only two defendants were arrested over the past month for corruptly obstructing an official proceeding—the most commonly charged Jan. 6 felony that now affects 355 people—a controversial charge currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

  Thirty-six percent of defendants—510—have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. More than a quarter of those involved use of a deadly or dangerous weapon, the report said.

  About 820 defendants have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal crimes. Sixty-nine percent were misdemeanor charges, and 31 percent were felonies.

  Nearly 885 defendants have had their cases adjudicated, with 61 percent sentenced to prison time, 19 percent given home detention, and 3.5 percent given some combination of the two, the report said.

  About 160 defendants have been found guilty at contested trials, the report said, including three tried in the District of Columbia Superior Court. Another three dozen defendants were found guilty based on an agreed-upon set of facts.

  Of the 199 defendants who have gone to trial, 82 were found guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers and/or obstructing officers during civil disorder—both felony charges.

  Every defendant who opted for a jury trial has been found guilty of at least some of the charges lodged against them. Only three defendants have been acquitted of all charges. Those cases involved bench trials.

  The rate of arrests picked up during the last quarter of 2023 and has continued through four months of 2024.

  

  On April 16, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a challenge to the DOJ’s novel use of a corporate fraud statute to prosecute Jan. 6 protesters with a 20-year felony.

  The Supreme Court said on Dec. 13, 2023, that it would take up Jan. 6 defendant Joseph W. Fischer’s challenge to the use of 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c)(2) to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants for obstructing Congress’s tallying of Electoral College votes.

  If the High Court strikes down the use of the law for Jan. 6 applications, it could upend the aforementioned 355 cases and land a blow to the DOJ’s prosecution effort.

  However, prosecutors have indicated they could seek sentencing enhancements on other charges or request that prison sentences be served consecutively as ways to ensure that defendants still serve the same time behind bars.

  A small number of defendants have been released from prison pending the Supreme Court decision. Others have had sentencing hearings postponed in anticipation of High Court action in the case by June 30.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 20:35

• Biden Says He'll Halt Offensive Weapons To Israel If It Invades Gaza
  Biden Says He’ll Halt Offensive Weapons To Israel If It Invades Gaza

  Update(2025ET): President Biden spoke to CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday, and in the interview he issued some of the most significant warnings to America’s closest Middle East ally to date, telling Israel that he’s ready to halt offensive weapons transfers if its military launches a full invasion of Rafah.

  “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem.”

  This is being widely interpreted to include all offensive weapons like bombs and artillery shells. He spelled it out in the following:

  “We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently,” Biden told CNN. “But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to — we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

  As The Hill underscores these comments constitute “the first time he has explicitly threatened to cut off the shipment of offensive weapons to the U.S. ally.”

  FLAG: @POTUS Biden says for the first time that U.S. bombs provided to Israel have been used to kill civilians in Gaza.

  “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs,” he tells @ErinBurnett in a @CNN interview. pic.twitter.com/SBR6lKO7mM

  — Ed O’Keefe (@edokeefe) May 8, 2024

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  Earlier in the day the State Department had previewed the new ‘warning’ to Israel over Rafah, saying that it is a decision the White House is still mulling (namely, whether to expand the pause on arms shipments beyond the initial one already paused). 

  So far, Israel has spoken about the Rafah op as ‘limited’ in scope, likely as a way to assuage Washington’s fears about scenes of a humanitarian nightmare and catastrophe unfolding. Pressure is growing on Biden ahead of the November election given Progressives and some of his base are peeling off in droves, and the persistent campus protests.

  Meanwhile there appears to have already been at least a partial invasion of the eastern part of Rafah city:

  Israel releases footage showing its forces entering Rafah, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/KBshNzkRmG

  — Clash Report (@clashreport) May 8, 2024

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  * * *

  US defense secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed while testifying before a congressional subcommittee on Wednesday that the Biden administration has paused an arms shipment to Israel, which reportedly includes large bombs and other ammunition being put on hold for transfer.

  “We’ve been very clear … from the very beginning that Israel shouldn’t launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battlespace,” Austin told US lawmakers. “We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment [of weapons],” the Pentagon chief said.

  

  He added the caveat that the paused transfer in question remains separate from the supplemental aid package for Israel that was passed last month.

  Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan has called the move “very disappointing”. President Biden “can’t say he is our partner in the goal to destroy Hamas, while on the other hand delay the means meant to destroy Hamas,” Erdan said the same day as Austin’s testimony.

  Austin did still emphasize, “My final comment is that we are absolutely committed to continuing to support Israel in its right to defend itself.”

  Separately on Wednesday the State Department hinted that following the initial paused shipment, the US could extend the temporary ban to include more arms and ammo shipments.

  Spokesman Matthew Miller says cited concerns over how Israel conducts itself in the Rafah operation. The White House has said it does not back an Israel ground offensive into the refugee-packed southern city.

  “When you see the results of the campaign to date, you see too many Palestinians die. We have been clear for some time the results are unacceptable,” Miller told a press briefing. “We’ve paused one shipment.… We are reviewing other potential weapons systems. I’m not going to get into the underlying details here.”

  Watching CQ Brown trying desperately not to get tricked into saying into a mic that he is pro the bombing of Hiroshima was not something I expected to see this morning https://t.co/Yj3ehHukyp

  — Aaron Mehta (@AaronMehta) May 8, 2024

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  Meanwhile, the outspoken Iran hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham had this bizarre and highly theoretical exchange with Defense Secretary Austin as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Charles Q. Brown Jr.:

  GRAHAM: Would you have supported dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? General Brown, to end World War II?

  BROWN JR: Well Senator, I think it is based on the situation —

  GRAHAM: Well, we know I mean, it happened, we know. I’m not asking, they did it. Do you think that was disproportionate?

  BROWN JR: It was —

  GRAHAM: Do you, in hindsight, do you think that was the right decision for America to drop two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities in question?

  BROWN JR: Well, I’ll tell you, it stopped the world war.

  GRAHAM: Okay. Well, so. Do you agree, General Austin? If you’d been around, would you say drop them?

  AUSTIN: I agree with the chairman here.

  GRAHAM: I mean, if you were if we go back in time says, hey, we got two atomic bombs, should we drop them? What would you say?

  AUSTIN: Well, you know, I think the leadership was interested in curtailing —

  GRAHAM: What’s Israel interested in? Do you believe Iran really wants to kill all the Jews if they could? The Iranian regime. Do you believe Hamas is serious when they say we’ll keep doing it over and over again? Do you agree that they will if they can?

  AUSTIN: I do.

  GRAHAM: Okay. Alright. Do you believe that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization also bent on the destruction of the Jewish state?

  AUSTIN: Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

  GRAHAM: Okay, so Israel’s been hit in the last few weeks by Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas dedicated to their destruction. And you’re telling me you’re going to tell them how to fight the war? And what they can and can’t use when everybody around them wants to kill all the Jews. And you’re telling me that if we withhold weapons in this fight — the existential fight for the life of the Jewish state — it won’t send the wrong signal? Do you still think it was a good idea, General Austin, to get out of Afghanistan?

  AUSTIN: I support the president’s decision.

  GRAHAM: Yeah, I think you do. I think it was a disastrous decision. If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the State of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war. They can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.

  Is the Senator from South Carolina actually suggesting Israel might need to nuke the Gaza Strip? 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 20:25

• Philadelphia Mayor Starts Long-Awaited Process Of Cleaning Out City's Open Air Drug Markets
  Philadelphia Mayor Starts Long-Awaited Process Of Cleaning Out City’s Open Air Drug Markets

  Philadelphia’s new mayor Cherelle Parker may be succeeding with what seems like a relatively simple task that her predecessors were wholly incapable of performing: cleaning out the city’s open air drug markets in its Kensington section.

  Pay attention, Democrats. There’s a chance it actually can be done.

  During Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, City Council members pressed Managing Director Adam Thiel and other officials for details on the planned “encampment resolution” in Kensington and budget concerns at the Office of Homeless Services.

  The city announced it would clear homeless encampments on Wednesday along the 3000 and 3100 blocks of Kensington Avenue, according to the Philadelphia Tribune. 

  City workers have been reaching out to the homeless, informing them of their removal from the sidewalks and offering beds in treatment facilities. This initiative aligns with a significant policy shift in Mayor Cherelle Parker’s 100 Day Plan to address drug use and violence in Kensington.

  Thiel emphasized a medically focused approach to treating those affected and addressing their needs. While police will be present during Wednesday’s actions, Thiel aims to provide support to those seeking help.

  

  The Philadelphia Tribune reported that, to address neighborhood concerns, the city will eventually displace hundreds of unhoused individuals to clear encampments in Kensington. At-Large Councilmember Kendra Brooks asked if there are enough beds for all those displaced and managing Director Adam Thiel assured that there are sufficient beds citywide.

  “We are building this ecosystem of facilities so we can get folks to the right place for the right care, for the right time, until they get back on their feet and can have access to economic opportunity,” he said.

  Thiel noted that the “specific approach established by the Parker administration is the first time it will be attempted in the country.”

  Council President Kenyatta Johnson suggested sending those needing 60+ days of treatment to facilities outside Philadelphia and partnering with Treatment Court, which mandates treatment instead of incarceration for substance abuse issues.

  But it looks as though the city is holding the Office of Homeless Services accountable, which is likely a great start to at least getting better results than in years past. Councilmembers questioned Thiel and Office of Homeless Services Executive Director David Holloman about the office’s capacity to address Philadelphia’s growing homeless population, which has increased by 12% since last year.

  The office had asked for an additional $15 million last year, which Gilmore Richardson pressed back on: “We held back $5.1 million … because you all at the time could not provide the invoices to help us understand why you needed those dollars.”

  The encampment clearout is underway on Kensington Avenue. @KYWNewsradio pic.twitter.com/CkqAOaoSX9

  — Tim Jimenez (@TimJRadio) May 8, 2024

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 20:15

• Putin Doesn't Bluff
  Putin Doesn’t Bluff

  Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

  Two weeks ago, the Congress passed (and President Biden signed) four key pieces of legislation related to national security.

  Three of the bills provided assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. They received the most attention. The one that got the least attention was a mixed bag of provisions, such as a forced divestiture of TikTok.

  Included in that bill was something called the REPO Act that authorizes the president to steal any Russian assets, including U.S. Treasury securities, that come under U.S. jurisdiction.

  The impact of the REPO Act is limited by the fact that only about $10 billion of Russian sovereign assets are actually under U.S. jurisdiction. Yet the act contemplates that this theft will be a down payment on a much larger theft to be conducted by NATO allies in Europe.

  $290 billion of Russian sovereign assets are being held in Europe. The act says that the assets stolen by the U.S. will be contributed to the Common Ukraine Fund.

  No doubt, the U.S. will be the most powerful voice in the administration of the $290 billion common fund. The U.S. goal is to use the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy on June 13–15 as a platform for getting the other G7 members to go along with the Common Ukraine Fund and to steal any Russian assets under their jurisdiction.

  So these people think that Russia will simply accept this act of theft without retaliating?

  

  “Mirror Imaging”

  One of the persistent problems in intelligence analysis is what experts call “mirror imaging.” This is jargon for an analytic flaw in which the analyst assumes that his beliefs and preferences are shared by an adversary. Instead of looking at the adversary as he actually is, the analyst is looking in a mirror while assuming he is looking at the adversary.

  This is an extremely dangerous flaw.

  You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not. You may believe that leaders want economic growth, but Communist Chinese leaders elevate the party over all other considerations including the well-being of their people.

  You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care — they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there.

  Nowhere is this flaw more apparent today than in the U.S. intelligence analysis of Vladimir Putin. In 2008, President Bush said that Ukraine and Georgia should join NATO. A few months later, Putin invaded Georgia, annexed part of its territory and destroyed Georgia’s chances of joining NATO.

  Putin Doesn’t Bluff

  In 2014, the U.S. backed a coup d’état in Ukraine that deposed a duly elected leader. Three months later, Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine and made it part of the Russian Federation. In 2021, NATO began formal processes to admit Ukraine as a member.

  In February 2022, Russia began a special military operation that’s resulted in 500,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. Some estimates are even higher. Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO are now zero.

  In every case, U.S. analysts did not believe Putin would take the steps he did because they thought it might somehow weaken Putin or Russia. That’s mirror imaging at its worst. The truth is Putin doesn’t bluff. When he says he will do something, he does. When he says he will react to some Western act, the reaction takes place.

  Putin said if the West steals Russian assets, Russia will retaliate by seizing billions of dollars of direct foreign investment in Russia owned by major European companies such as Siemens, Total, BP and others.

  And sure enough, just days after Biden signed legislation to authorize the theft of Russian assets, a Russian court ordered $440 million be seized from JPMorgan.

  The escalation in the asset seizure war has begun. Putin will win in the end. Unfortunately, escalation is also increasing on the geopolitical front. The U.S. and some of its European allies are becoming increasingly desperate about Ukraine’s ability to hold off Russia on the battlefield.

  Short on Weapons, Short on Men

  The recent $61 billion aid package for Ukraine (about two-thirds of which will go to U.S. defense companies) won’t be nearly enough to reverse the tide. The U.S. and its NATO allies have already given just about all they can afford to give Ukraine without jeopardizing their own security.

  The problem isn’t a lack of money but a lack of weapons and ammunition. Before the aid package was approved, critics complained that Ukraine was losing because the U.S. was withholding desperately needed materiel. But that’s not really true.

  The Europeans could have simply bought the weapons from the U.S. and delivered them to Ukraine. They didn’t. Why? Because the weapons simply weren’t there. Yes, there will always be a supply of weapons flowing to Ukraine — they’re not going to run out completely.

  But Ukraine won’t have nearly enough weapons and ammunition to undertake meaningful offensive operations against the Russians. They’ll just have enough to keep them in the fight, which is the goal of NATO.

  Unfortunately for Ukraine, the problems run much deeper than a lack of equipment. They’re also running out of trained manpower. Former commander Valeriy Zaluzhny has suggested Ukraine needs an extra 500,000 troops. But they’re having trouble finding new volunteers. An estimated 650,000 fighting age men have fled Ukraine.

  Meanwhile, the Russian army is even larger than it was before the invasion, and Russian industry is churning out weapons and ammunition at astonishing rates.

  Will France Cross the (Dnieper) Rubicon?

  When you add up Ukraine’s lack of equipment and manpower shortages, you understand why the West is becoming increasingly desperate.

  France’s Emmanuel Macron is continuing to say he might send French troops to Ukraine. Just days ago, he reaffirmed that he wouldn’t rule out sending troops if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Ukraine requested it.

  Well, it’s only a matter of time until Russia breaks through Ukraine’s remaining primary defenses east of the Dnieper River. Of course Ukraine is going to request French troops since Macron himself made the offer.

  Would they be sent to western Ukraine in order to free up Ukrainian soldiers stationed there to go to the front?

  Or would they send French troops to the front, thinking that Russia wouldn’t fire on them out of fears of starting a war with France? France is a nuclear power. It has a limited nuclear arsenal (mostly consisting of four ballistic missile submarines).

  So France might believe it can deter Russia from advancing.

  But Russia has already targeted French “mercenaries” in a missile strike some months back (they were likely Ukrainian and Russian members of the French Foreign Legion). And Russia has warned France that it will attack French soldiers if it sends them to Ukraine.

  Remember, Putin doesn’t bluff. But it’s not just France suggesting a willingness to send troops to Ukraine.

  Countdown to Nuclear War

  I’ve been warning about the dangers of escalation since the U.S. committed itself to Ukraine’s defense. Unfortunately, it’s playing out exactly as I predicted.

  On 60 Minutes last night, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “We can’t let Ukraine fall because if it does, then there’s a significant likelihood that America will have to get into the conflict — not simply with our money, but with our servicewomen and our servicemen.”

  Ukraine’s going to fall, one way or the other. It might not be this year or even next year, although those are possibilities. But it will happen.

  If Jeffries is correct that the U.S. will commit its military to confront Russia directly, then we’re signing ourselves up for a nuclear war because that’s where military confrontation will ultimately lead.

  Every major simulated war game between the U.S. and Russia ends up going nuclear in the end.

  Are we really prepared for that?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 19:55

• RFK Jr Challenges Trump To Debate At Libertarian Convention
  RFK Jr Challenges Trump To Debate At Libertarian Convention

  Hoping to exploit their overlapping appearance commitments, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr on Tuesday challenged Donald Trump to a debate at the Libertarian Party’s national convention this month, saying it represents “perfect neutral territory.” 

  Playing to Trump’s ego, Kennedy’s invitation started off with an expression of gratitude to the former president for spotlighting major media’s “rigged polling” against Trump.  “We have this concern too,” said Kennedy in a lengthy post on X, saying Democrat-aligned pollsters use deceptive methods that result in them “pretending” Kennedy is languishing in the single digits. 

  

  Kennedy then shared the results of his campaign’s own taking of America’s electoral pulse: 

  This is why we did our own poll with Zogby — the largest and most accurate poll of this election cycle. We had Zogby ask about head-to-head matchups. (1) You versus President Biden. (2) Me versus President Biden. (3) Me versus you. The results? You beat President Biden handily. I crush him as well, by even more. And against each other, I beat you in a nail-biter.

  In a three-way, you are ahead but I’m coming up strong. Two new polls (CNN and Quinnipiac) have me above the 15% debate threshold. Another (Activote) has me at 26% among young voters. And you and I are tied among America’s 70 million Independents.

  It wasn’t all flattery: Kennedy also slid in a shot at Trump’s policies, saying many of the former president’s supporters are backing Kennedy this time, saying they’re “upset that you blew up the deficit, shut down their businesses during Covid, and filled your administration with swamp creatures.”

  Dear President Trump,

  I’m grateful to you for calling attention to the rigged polling methodologies that biased DNC-influenced media have used against you. We have this concern too, and I’m happy to show you the deceptive methodologies used by DNC-allied pollsters who pretend…

  — Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 7, 2024

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  Citing a previous Trump statement that he’d be open to sparring with Kennedy if his poll numbers were decent, Kennedy said he meets that threshold, saying “I’m the only presidential candidate in history who has polled ahead of both major party candidates in head-to-head races.” 

  While the Libertarian Party has not yet issued a statement, Kennedy said he checked with party leadership and said “they are game” for a showdown. For now, Kennedy is scheduled to speak on Friday, May 24; Trump, on Saturday, May 25. 

  Meanwhile, Libertarian Party activist, podcaster and comedian Dave Smith — who’d been regarded by many as an ideal 2024 flag-bearer before he opted against running — offered to dive in on the action: 

  If the LP nominee isn’t decided yet, I’ll gladly jump in this debate and represent the @LPNational I’m also happy to debate RFK 1 vs 1 if Trump doesn’t accept. https://t.co/7N3reNusXy

  — Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith) May 7, 2024 

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  The party’s announcement last week that Trump would appear at the convention spawned a debate among party faithful that’s still simmering on social media. Some think his appearance will bring welcome publicity to the Libertarian Party, and demonstrate the party’s eagerness to engage in discourse with those they aren’t aligned with. Some of the more conspiracy-minded opponents say the move manifests a scheme to throw the election to Trump. 

  Earlier this year, Kennedy had considered pursuing the Libertarian Party nomination — and tapping its turnkey, 50-state ballot access — before announcing he’d remain an independent. He’s been gradually announcing his qualification on various state ballots; recently, the list has grown to include California, and the battleground state of Michigan. 

  The fact that RFK and Trump feel the need to win over Libertarian voters is historic and will drive significantly more attention to the party than it has ever received.

  And none of it would have happened without the @LPMisesCaucus takeover.

  — Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) May 7, 2024

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  Wary of his wild card role in what’s shaping up as a tight race, both the Republican and Democratic parties have been taking shots at Kennedy in recent weeks, and Democrats have assembled a lawfare machine to thwart his ballot access.  

  Speaking to the press last week, Kennedy challenged Biden to take a “No Spoiler Pledge.” The far-fetched yet entertaining idea: Biden and Kennedy would sponsor a mid-October poll, and Biden would drop out if he did worse than RFK Jr in a head-to-head scenario. He said that, unlike Biden, Trump “is not a spoiler because he actually can win.” 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 19:35

• Democrats Join Republicans To Block Greene's Bid To Oust Speaker Johnson
  Democrats Join Republicans To Block Greene’s Bid To Oust Speaker Johnson

  By Joseph Lord of Epoch Times

  

  The House of Representatives on May 8 overwhelmingly voted to block a measure to strip House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of the gavel advanced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) forced a vote on a motion to vacate after meeting with the speaker twice this week to discuss her grievances and demands.

  House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) then offered a measure to table Ms. Greene’s motion to vacate. Democrats joined Republicans to approve its shelving in a 359 to 43 vote. 11 Republicans voted to move forward with the ouster attempt.

  BREAKING — THE HOUSE has resoundingly tabled a motion to oust @SpeakerJohnson

  359-43

  R
  196Y
  11N

  D
  163Y
  32N

  — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 8, 2024

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  House Democrat leaders had earlier pledged to help protect Mr. Johnson in the event of Ms. Greene’s ouster vote, citing his help in passing $95 billion foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific.

  Speaking on the House floor during what was intended to be the final vote of the week, Ms. Greene unleashed a litany of complaints against Mr. Johnson.

  She received a loud “boo” from members present when she brought the resolution to the floor.

  The Georgia lawmaker was accompanied by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of two Republicans who openly expressed support for the measure.

  Mr. Johnson has previously denounced Ms. Greene’s attempt to oust him, calling it a “dangerous gambit.”

  “I think it’s wrong for the Republican Party. I think it’s wrong for the institution,” he said last week.

  Ms. Greene, on the House floor, cited a series of alleged conservative failures by Mr. Johnson, alleging that he had “aided and abetted the Biden administration in destroying our country.”

  The other wild thing about this statement is that Trump floats that he may support ousting @SpeakerJohnson but not now!

  “We’re not in a position on voting on a motion to vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.” https://t.co/wxbG79xBsL

  — Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 8, 2024

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

  These included his move to allow a vote on a motion to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from the lower chamber, marking the first time in U.S. history that a member has been expelled before a conviction for a crime.

  Ms. Greene also cited his move to pass a 1,000-page, $1.2 trillion government funding package after giving lawmakers less than 48 hours to consider it, as required by internal rules.

  The Georgia Republican also noted that Mr. Johnson’s move to pass billions in foreign aid for Ukraine came without any demands on border security, effectively yielding any leverage Republicans had over the issue.

  Additionally, she noted Mr. Johnson’s crucial vote to kill a warrant requirement for the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance power.

  More in the full developing report at Epoch Times

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 19:20

• Office Tower Turmoil In NYC Worsens Ahead Of Trillion Dollar Maturity Wall 
  Office Tower Turmoil In NYC Worsens Ahead Of Trillion Dollar Maturity Wall 

  A combination of factors, including remote work, an exodus of progressive cities, higher interest rates for longer, and diminished credit availability, continues to pressure the office tower market nationwide. The latest example of challenges facing the $20 trillion commercial real estate market comes from New York City.

  Bloomberg reports that the $400 million loan backing 1440 Broadway, a 25-story tower at the corner of Broadway and 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan, has fallen into delinquent status.

  

  The loan was bundled into commercial mortgage-backed security called JPMCC 2021-1440. 

  

  “One of the loans responsible for this meaningful month-over-month increase was the $399 million 1440 Broadway loan securitized in JPMCC 2021-1440,” JPMorgan analysts led by Chong Sin, Terrell Bobb and John Sim wrote in a note to clients. 

  The analysts said the deal sponsors “failed to pay the loan’s balloon payment last month, and now the loan is considered non-performing matured.”

  According to JPM data, the serious delinquency rate for office loans hit 7% in April, the highest level since the first half of 2017. 

  

  1440 Broadway has been plagued with a drop in office space demand. One of its largest tenants, WeWork, downsized after declaring bankruptcy in late 2023. Another top tenant, Macy’s, has struggled with sliding foot traffic because of fewer office workers in the city. On top of this, the high-interest rate environment has pushed up the cost of financing. 

  Here’s additional color of the property from JPM: 

  “… The property’s two largest tenants at securitization, WeWork and Macy’s, have presented significant challenges to the continued performance of this loan. At securitization, these two tenants accounted for 70% of the property’s rental income. However, Macy’s vacated the property at the end of its lease term in January 2024. WeWork declared bankruptcy earlier this year but has worked with the property’s sponsors to amend the terms of its lease. WeWork negotiated a 40% decrease in rent as it is now expected to pay just $44 psf for its space in the building as opposed to the $73.26 it was originally paying. WeWork will gradually pay more for its space as the amended lease terms do include steps up in rent. Additionally, WeWork was able to shorten the length of its lease. WeWork’s lease was originally intended to end in 2035 but is now expected to end in 2028. We estimate that the property’s occupancy rate is now at 58% and a 52% decline in gross rental income from the prior year.”

  

  Looking at citywide office occupancy trends, card-swipe data from Katle Systems shows below 50%, an ominous sign office workers aren’t returning in droves. 

  

  The CRE mess is far from over. In fact, it is a rolling disaster, with the real fireworks coming later this year if interest rates remain elevated. 

  In a recent note, we cited Mortgage Bankers Association data showing that $929 billion—20% of the $4.7 trillion total—in commercial mortgages held by lenders and investors are due later this year. The figure is up 28% from 2023 and inflated by amendments and extensions from prior years. Nevertheless, borrowers must now bite the bullet and pay up or default.

  

  Remember that surging CRE defaults risk triggering hundreds of small regional bank failures. We warned about this in a March note titled “$1 Trillion In 2024 CRE Maturities Could Lead To Hundreds Of Bank Failures.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 18:55

• 500 Individuals Recount Discrimination, Sexual Harassment At FDIC In New 200-Page Report
  500 Individuals Recount Discrimination, Sexual Harassment At FDIC In New 200-Page Report

  Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

  The Federal Deposit Insurance (FDIC) failed to provide its employees a safe workplace free from “sexual harassment, discrimination, and other interpersonal misconduct,” a new report released on Tuesday concluded.

  

  Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington on Nov. 15, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

  The more than 200-page report, produced by law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, was ordered by the bank regulator. The independent review was overseen by the Special Committee of the FDIC Board of Directors after The Wall Street Journal published scathing reports identifying an objectionable work climate and misogynistic culture described as a “sexualized boys’ club environment.”

  More than 500 individuals recounted their experiences of discrimination, sexual harassment, and “other interpersonal misconduct” they endured at the FDIC.

  Heads of field and regional offices managed their offices like “fiefdoms” while commissioned bank examiners “controlled the destinies of junior examiners,” the report explained.

  “Those who reported expressed fear, sadness, and anger at what they had to endure,” the report stated.

  “Many had never reported their experiences to anyone before, while others who had reported internally were left disappointed by the FDIC’s response.”

  In one example, a female examiner received a photo of a senior FDIC examiner’s private parts and was recommended by others to “stay away from him because he had a ’reputation.’”

  One employee feared for her safety after a co-worker stalked her and repeatedly shared “unwelcome sexualized text messages that feature partially naked women engaging in sexual acts.”

  Women in a field office explained that their supervisor regularly talked about their breasts, legs, and sex life.

  Others noted that colleagues and supervisors would mock personnel with disabilities, calling one “Pirate McNasty,” and demoralize workers from underrepresented groups by telling them they were “token” employees hired to fill quotas.

  “These incidents, and many others like them, did not occur in a vacuum,” the report stated. “They arose within a workplace culture that is ’misogynistic,‘ ’patriarchal,‘ ’insular,‘ and ’outdated‘—a ’good ol’ boys’ club where favoritism is common, wagons are circled around managers, and senior executives with well-known reputations for pursuing romantic relations with subordinates enjoy long careers without any apparent consequence.”

  The investigation also uncovered prevalent retaliation against workers who complained about the misconduct, which helped foster a toxic work environment.

  “Employees are not encouraged to provide feedback and suggestions up the line, in particular if it is bad news,” one witness said.

  “In fact, employees, such as myself, have been retaliated against for providing suggestions for improvement after having been requested for such feedback.”

  Others, according to the report, were unsure or did not know how to report complaints.

  ‘Very Sorry’

  Mr. Gruenberg told agency staff that the report presented “a sobering look inside our workplace” and expressed that he was “very sorry” for overseeing a hostile environment.

  “I want to also thank everyone who shared their experiences throughout this process. I know that doing so was difficult,” the FDIC chief said. “To anyone who experienced sexual harassment or other misconduct at the FDIC, I again want to express how very sorry I am. I also want to apologize for any shortcomings on my part.”

  “As Chairman, I am ultimately responsible for everything that happens at our agency, including our workplace culture,” he added.

  Implementing “meaningful and sustained change” will not be easy, Mr. Gruenberg said to employees.

  

  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) seal is shown outside its headquarters in Washington on March 14, 2023. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)

  The recommendations outlined in the report will be incorporated into the FDIC’s ongoing 13-page action plan. Additionally, the FDIC is still actively finding a transformation monitor and independent third-party expert to help adopt the Special Review Committee’s recommendations.

  Special committee co-chair Jonathan McKernan called the report “an important first step” toward ushering in change at the FDIC.

  “Today’s report establishes the urgent imperative of a cultural transformation at the FDIC led by those with the leadership capacity to effectuate that change,” Mr. McKernan said in a statement. “Fostering an environment that promotes a safe, respectful, and inclusive workplace is fundamental to achieving the agency’s mission.”

  An apology is not enough for Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who demanded Mr. Gruenberg’s resignation.

  “It’s time for Chair Gruenberg to step aside. The independent report released today details his inexcusable behavior and makes clear new leadership is needed at the FDIC,” Mr. McHenry said in a statement.

  He added that committee Republicans will ensure the FDIC head and other senior leaders are “held accountable” for their actions.

  

   

  Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit at the White House in Washington on May 22, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

   

  Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton was not asked, nor did it determine, if Mr. Gruenberg and other individuals at the federal agency should be removed or disciplined.

  ‘Toxic Atmosphere’ at FDIC

  Late last year, The Wall Street Journal published two in-depth reports. The first was“Strip Clubs, Lewd Photos and a Boozy Hotel: The Toxic Atmosphere at Bank Regulator FDIC,” and the second was “FDIC Chair, Known for Temper, Ignored Bad Behavior in Workplace.”

  The article listed claims by employees, past and present, that bullying, discrimination, and sexual misconduct were pervasive at the FDIC.

  Many cases of inappropriate conduct listed in the article were met with little or no disciplinary action.

  Following the newspaper’s published investigation, Mr. Gruenberg said he had been unaware of the allegations and rejected calls from Republicans to step down.

  Later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FDIC chief maintained “a reputation for bullying and for having an explosive temper.” At least one probe was initiated against Mr. Gruenberg after berating a female employee while serving as the vice chairman.

  Mr. Gruenberg told lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing that he was “personally disturbed and deeply troubled” by the article’s findings, adding that the agency launched a “comprehensive review” of the situation.

  Following the report, several Republican senators demanded his resignation over workplace misconduct allegations.

  Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) urged Mr. Gruenberg to step down so that “a new chair can restore the professional culture at the FDIC that the American people expect from its institutions.”

  In a Dec. 7 letter, Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the accusations “deeply disturbing and unacceptable at any workplace.”

  “According to these reports, both you and your top deputies ‘have been involved in decisions over high-level examples of alleged sexism, harassment, and racial discrimination in which the agency didn’t take a hard line with individuals accused of misconduct,’ allowing the culture of harassment and discrimination to persist and flourish,” the letter added.

  The bombshell Wall Street Journal reports came three years after the FDIC’s inspector general discovered multiple sexual harassment complaints and issued more than a dozen recommendations to change the workplace culture.

  Mr. Gruenberg joined the FDIC Board of Directors in August 2005. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama nominated him to a full five-year term as chairman. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Mr. Gruenberg to another term.

  Should Mr. Gruenberg step down or be removed from his position, FDIC Vice Chair Travis Hill would take over, and the board would be split between Republicans and Democrats.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 05/08/2024 – 18:35

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