- Credit Suisse Apologizes For Hiring Dancing Black Man Dressed As Janitor At Chairman's Birthday
Credit Suisse Apologizes For Hiring Dancing Black Man Dressed As Janitor At Chairman’s Birthday
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 02:45When Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner held a party at a Zurich restaurant to celebrate his 60th birthday last year, he could have had any kind of entertainment he wanted.
Apparently, out of all of his options, he somehow wound up choosing to have a black performer, dressed as a janitor, come onstage and dance to music while pretending to sweep the floor.
While this may have somewhat fit the motif of the party, which had a 1970’s Studio 54 theme according to Bloomberg, it was enough to cause the company’s former CEO, Tidjane Thiam to leave the room. We also can’t honestly think that Rohner would have known a year later, the entire country would be obsessively focused on the issue of race and identity politics.
Having said that, it’s still not a great look for Rohner, or the bank.
Rohner, shown here, thinking that maybe he’ll just skip his 61st birthday party altogether next year. A bank’s spokesperson said this week: “There was never any intention to cause offense, and we are sorry for any offense caused. This is a total mis-characterization of the evening.”
The incident, like every single thing that happens anywhere nowadays, has “sparked a debate about racism” in Switzerland, according to Bloomberg.
The bank said: “Credit Suisse is strongly committed to equality, diversity and supporting all our employees. Over the past year Credit Suisse has taken additional strides to show our commitment to under-represented groups within the firm, and is putting in place broader initiatives to further this. As a company, we are proud to be a geographically and culturally diverse group, and we strive to further strengthen this culture, which supports all our colleagues.”
- Driven By Delusions: The West's Nagorno-Karabakh Hypocrisy
Driven By Delusions: The West’s Nagorno-Karabakh Hypocrisy
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 02:00Authored by Danny Sjursen via AntiWar.com,
Something stands out in recent U.S. and most Western reporting on the ongoing bloodletting in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK). Well, two things actually: ignorance and hypocrisy. Having shuttered most of their foreign bureaus long ago, there’s a distinct lack of expertise in the mainstream press on this – and many other – regional hot spots. That’s translated to a series of Nagorno-Karabakh “explainers” that read like Wikipedia-ripoffs hastily filtered through Washington’s built-in “blame Russia” conflict-colander.
Peddling in platitudes, they assume binaries that aren’t and Russian aggression that isn’t. All the while missing the core cause of this far worse than standard flare-up along the unmonitored Azeri-Armenian “line of contact.” In other words, the Erdogan elephant in the regional room. High-intensity air and armored combat has entered its tenth day, with little sign of abatement. Hundreds have been killed, including civilians, and major cities shelled, along with credible and corroborated reports that Turkey has indeed shipped in Ankara-paid Syrian mercenaries to support the Azeri army.
In other words, while the current conflict has largely local roots, and is prolonged by subpar political leaders on both sides of the frontlines, the real inciter this time around is Turkey. That is, the violence is heightened and widened by a NATO member state that’s led by an ethno-national-chauvinist president who’s stretched that alliance’s ostensible purpose and utility well past breaking point.
Nevertheless, the media cries Russia-foul, or at best implies guilt-parity between Moscow and Ankara. Yet it’s a mistake to equate the proxy-patron relationships fostered by Russia and Turkey. They are of a totally different character; frankly, in completely different leagues. The Russo-Armenian – and equally existent Russo-Azeri – connection is characterized by Moscow’s restraint, caution, and sure, perhaps a touch of the cynical. Turkey, conversely, now acts as though bonded by (mutual-Turkic) blood with Azerbaijan. It is an affair defined by Ankara’s aggression, risk-taking, and more than a dose of ethno-religious toxicity.
Russia starts its Armenian relationship calculus with the assumption that it should avoid military intervention – even though Yerevan and Moscow are Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) allies – then comes up with reasons not to. For example, by not recognizing de facto Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh as de jure Armenia, Moscow can brush off collective defense treaty obligations so long as the Azeris don’t seriously attack across the internationally-recognized border. Believe you me, Baku understands the rules of this game of pretend. The Turkish position is completely different. Ankara is encouraging the Azeris’ game-change-seeking conquest campaign, and actively sending guns, bombs, drones, and armed human Syrians Baku’s way.
Would that it were only the corporate media pushing this purposeful – though sometimes just uninformed – obfuscation and misinformation. We the People’s pretend leaders, and their pretend opposition, in Washington are about as awful as the pretend free press. The Trump administration has been pretty quiet about the NK-blowup. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, per-say – and would certainly the reflect real limits of America’s capacity and capability to do good in far-flung lands. That is, it might be fine if the president and his team were at least willing to name and shame Turkey, or support congressional calls and resolutions condemning Azeri-aggression and halting arms sales to Baku.
Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Joe Biden, was initially no better on the NK-crisis. Plus, per usual, Uncle Joe sprinkled a bit of Russia-reminder dust over the whole affair. That bit was really irksome. See, pretty much right off the bat – after obligatory nods to peace and negotiations – the Biden campaign statement quipped that the U.S. should be “calling for Russia to stop cynically providing arms to both sides.” Those Biden Boys just couldn’t help themselves. OK, so let’s try something new – for the modern media, at least – and dig into that statement just a bit.
“Cynical” Russian Arms Sales: Pot Meet Kettle
For starters, it’s hard to take seriously any arms sales-aspersions tossed by the globe’s number one gunrunner. According to a March report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), during 2015-19, the U.S. accounted for 36 percent of world arms exports, up five points from the previous 2010-14 cycle. Russia is the world’s second leading “merchant of death,” naturally, but it only shipped-off 21 percent of global arms – and that’s down six points since the last cycle.
America also plied its lethal wares to 96 different states – surely none of those countries could’ve been on opposing sides of a conflict, right? Well, about that: you know, actually Washington’s customers were, are, and will ever be antagonists. A few examples should suffice:
India and Pakistan have lived in a state of cold, proxy, and occasional mass-blood-letting conventional war, for 73 odd years now. No matter, Uncle Sam arms both. In the same 2008-18 period, American defense companies shipped $3.1 billion over to Delhi and $2.5 billion to Islamabad. And speaking of those Pakistani customers, remember that they alternate between active and tacit backing of the Taliban insurgents trying to overthrow the U.S.-installed and allied Afghan government. That tottering regime received just a tad less in American arms largesse, $2.40 billion, though that’s 70.8 percent of Kabul’s total arms imports.
Tiny Qatar has recently been at odds, and even blockaded, by the main Gulf State powers of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. Yet all were top US arms-recipients in the same period: $2.63 billion for Qatar (68.3 percent its total imports); $7.60 billion for the U.A.E. (63.7 percent of its total); and $13.72 billion for America’s top global customer, Saudi Arabia (59.6 percent of total). Of course, the Saudis and Emiratis haven’t directly unleashed most of that hardware on Qatar just yet. Instead, they’ve preferred to bombard mostly helpless Yemenis for five full years of terror war now – to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dead; including a minimum of 85,000 starved-to-death children.
Besides, the USdoes provide economic aid, including ample security assistance, to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to a 2014 Congressional Research Service report, all three countries in the South Caucasus received security aid from Washington: During 1992-2010, Armenia trailed the pack at $223 million; its Azeri antagonists grabbed $327 million; meanwhile, Georgia – NATO/EU-aspirant and legit combat foe of bordering Russia – blew both out of the water at $896 million.
Plus, the same report – stop me if this sounds familiar – noted that “some [congress] members have maintained that the Armenian-Azerbaijani military balance is preserved by providing equal amounts (parity) in IMET [International Military Education & Training] and FMF [Foreign Military Financing] assistance to each country.”
Remember how, when pressed on the dual Armenian-Azeri arms deals in 2016, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued that if Moscow stopped, “They would buy weapons in other countries, and the degree of their deadliness wouldn’t change…at the same time, this could to a certain degree destroy the balance.” Of course, it’s always worse when someone named Dmitry says it.
Since then, Congress appropriated far more “peace and security” funding – as the US government politely labels it – for both antagonists during Obama’s second term than in Trump’s first (and maybe last). Azerbaijan received $39 million in direct security assistance during 2013-16, compared to $8.5 million during 2016-19. Armenia got $61 million from Obama II, versus $19 million from Trump I – though much of Yerevan’s aid was related to combating WMD, and thereby not much use for war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Anyway, it’s hard to see how any of that’s so different from – if not much worse than – Russia’s sales to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Apparently arms sales are only cynical if the contract’s signature is in Cyrillic.
Christian Sorensen – an Air Force veteran and researcher focused on the US war industry – noted in recent conversations with the author, that there is a rank hypocrisy inherent in American defense companies’ “tons of sales to Turkey.” After all, Ankara is hardly watching from the sidelines, but is rather the region’s prime Azeri-accelerant – encouraging President Aliyev’s bad behavior. That hasn’t stopped Washington from blessing off on $3.82 billion in arms sales to Ankara from 2008-18, or 45.8 percent of total Turkish weapons-imports. As for that “cynically arming both sides” bit, Turkey is also coming dangerously close to conflict with another American ally, Egypt – $2.8 billion in arms sales (2008-18); $1.3 billion annually in direct US security aid.
In addition to these historic macro stats, Sorensen emphasized the nefarious nature of recent arms deals with Ankara. “What stood out most,” he said, “were repeated sales of ordnance (and ordnance equipment and repair) to Turkey,” including Javelin JV anti-tank missiles (a joint Raytheon and Lockheed Martin project), four other Raytheon missile systems (AMRAAM, RAM, ESSM, AIM-9X), and Boeing-produced small diameter bombs. Incidentally, Defense Secretary Mark Esper made some good bank as a longtime lobbyist for Raytheon before joining his West Point ’86 classmate Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the administration’s inner circle.
Mr. Sorensen knows a thing or two about such “revolving door” corrupt-cronyism, having detailed the crooked system in his recent book, Understanding the War Industry. Reviewing recent Turkish purchases, he noted that “the sheer variety of US corporations that sell to Turkey is another salient feature…[including] Honeywell, CAS, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Boeing.” As for contemporary relevance, and Nagorno-Karabakh crisis connections, Sorensen offered a biting and decidedly disturbing conclusion: “In the same month [September] that Biden officially commented on irresponsible [Russian] arms sales, the US government sold Turkey advanced technology for torpedoes and engineering services for shipborne fire control systems.” In other words: Biden pot, meet Putin kettle.
Then there’s the mercenary factor – which is increasingly an American business, as ex-U.S. soldiers have, since 9/11, eclipsed the old British, French, white Rhodesian, and apartheid South African staples. It seems the Turks aren’t the only ones offering hired guns Azeri autocrat Ilhan Aliyev-the-younger. Enter Erik Prince [of infamy], Donald Trump’s favorite fundamentalist, right-wing zealot of a mercenary, and the male-gendered half of the administration’s in-house sibling power-couple. (His sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.). According to various reports, including one in the Washington Post, back in 2015 Prince planned to peddle crop-duster planes modified to carry guns and rockets to Baku “for use by the government of Azerbaijan in its decades-old conflict with ethnic Armenians, according to the former Prince associate.”
The kitted-out crop-dusters never made it there – probably due to an internal investigation started by Prince’s nervous partners, including ominous legal warnings that “The evidence strongly suggests that Mr. Prince was offering a foreign defense article (i.e., an attack aircraft) for sale” to Azerbaijan’s defense ministry, thus “brokering activities without being registered with [the State Department]. This presents potential violations of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)” – the relevant US statute law. Nevertheless, according to his former associate, Prince did help set up a mercenary unit for Baku, to – per another 2018 report – “help it keep watch on the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”
In other words, the US and its officialdom-line-straddling gang of mercenaries could – and perhaps did – teach the Turks a trick or two about sending soldiers of fortune off to do their government’s bidding. Which brings us to NATO’s resident regional madcap: Turkey and its would-be Ottoman sultan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Our [Mad] Man in Ankara
Neither of the two official State Department statements, nor that of the opposing Biden campaign, fingers – or even mentions – Turkey by name. The initial release from State’s spokesperson referred only to “external parties,” whose intervention would be “unhelpful” and “exacerbate regional tensions.” Talk about a cop-out. On Monday, the second State Department overture – a joint statement “by the Governments of the United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of France” – didn’t even bother with euphemisms. Not a single external actor was mentioned. The Biden campaign masked its Turkey reference with talk of “third parties” who “must stay out of this conflict.” Of course, it offered that rather veiled rebuke only after taking that shot at Russia in the statement’s second sentence.
In a rational country, one whose leaders even occasionally peered over their Russia-goggles, that might seem strange. After all, by any measure Ankara has always – but especially now – held the more aggressive, interventionist, and one-sided position on Nagorno-Karabakh. Only intellectual consistency, or honesty, isn’t really Washington’s thing.
Here’s an illustrative thought experiment, for example: How do you think the Biden campaign’s statement would have read if Putin, not Erdogan, were shipping Moscow-paid mercenaries into the current fray? Something tells me it’d merit a mention or two. To be fair, a later Biden tweet did call on Turkey by name – “to stay out of this conflict” – but didn’t mention the mercenary-deployment or retract the earlier statement’s Russia-baiting. So there we are again, the duopoly offering Americans platitude over principled-policy; partisan-hedging instead of honesty.
The straw that breaks the back of Russian patience will likely relate to Moscow’s own oft-forgotten “dirty war” on Islamist terror in the nearby North Caucasus fiefdom of its federation. Though admittedly a sometimes self-inflicted wound of Soviet and Russian repression, remember that exorbitantly bloody Islamist-inspired attacks reached Moscow not so long. Overall, while hard data is difficult to come by, around 1200 members of the Russian security forces, and 600 civilians were killed in the North Caucasus insurgency from 2009-17 alone.
During the Second Chechen War (1999-2006) that preceded this insurgency, the Russian Defense Ministry admitted to 3,603 servicemen deaths – though a committee of soldiers’ mothers insists Moscow severely downplayed the casualty statistics. In other words, even by modest official counts, more Russian troops died over 18 years in North Caucasus conflicts than American troopers died in Iraq over a similar timespan. The Kremlin, and its common citizenry, are unlikely to take lightly even the potential of any additional Islamist intrusion from the south.
Putin’s early popularity-rise was partly related to average Russians’ sense that he – sound familiar? – would be, and was, tough on terror. Only a strongman in the Kremlin – not some booze-soaked Western-stooge like Boris Yeltsin – could ensure their safety from the Islamic-crescented Caucasus hordes. The American-induced “shock therapy” of crony capitalism masquerading as democracy hadn’t worked out so well for an increasingly impoverished and crime-ridden post-Soviet citizenry, thus if the cost of Putin’s “peace” was a bit of liberty…so be it.
In past decades, Ankara and Moscow mostly cooperated in Russia’s anti-Islamist – though equally anti-secessionist – campaign in the North Caucasus, but the sometime antagonists’ paths have since diverged. Erdogan and Putin aren’t always implacable foes – even the tinpot-sultan is too smart for that – and have made trade deals, talked Syrian peace, sealed some air-defense arms deals, and often defused conflict-area tensions at the eleventh hour. Still, there’s something exceedingly precarious about relatively overt Russian and Turkish interventionism on-the-ground, and on different sides, in the contemporary ungoverned spaces of Libyan and Syrian proxy/civil wars.
The Russians regard themselves – not altogether incorrectly – as the more rational and realistic actors in both conflicts, backing admittedly incorrigible strongmen that (generally) oppose Islamist influence. Turkey, on the other hand, has proven more amenable to both Muslim Brotherhood types (like Libya’s GNA, Government of National Accord) and outright Sunni jihadis (Al Qaeda-esque fighters in the last rebel strongholds – like Idlib – of Northwest Syria). It is from the latter element – and their massive refugee detritus within Turkey’s borders – that Ankara pulls its private hired army, and ships them off to Libya, and now apparently Azerbaijan. If that infusion continues and/or escalates, or if Turkish troops or aircraft truly intervene in the NK-combat, expect the so far remarkably restrained Putin to pronounce “this far and no further.”
Some combination of those Turkish provocations might prove Russia’s “red line,” and unlike the more wobbly Barack Obama – expect Putin to stick to his guns once he’s delineated said boundaries. On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service hinted at this, warning that Turkey’s infiltration of Syrian mercenaries into Nagorno-Karabakh risks creating a launch pad for – what Moscow views as – jihadi elements entering Russian territory. Tehran agrees, apparently, as hours later Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif joined a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, during which both expressed concern over the involvement of Turkish-paid Syrian – and potentially Libyan! – fighters in the NK-conflict.
For all that, Brussels pretends that Turkey is still salvageable – whether in Karabakh, Libya, Syria, Cyprus, or wherever else Erdogan wildly diverges from the alliance’s purported positions or principles. In a joint news conference with Turkey’s Foreign Minister on Monday, NATO’s Secretary-General said: “I expect Turkey to use its considerable influence to calm tensions.” He failed to mention how or why that’s anything more than fantasy.
Perhaps the secretary-general forgot that NATO couldn’t even avoid two top members – with the second (Turkey) and third (France) largest alliance armies – from nearly duking it out on the high seas off the coast of another proxy war, Libya, in June. And wouldn’t you know, the very next day after his joint NATO press conference, Ankara’s foreign minister rejected the entire concept of internationally-brokered peace or ceasefires short of an outright Azeri victory!
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at least opened the door for “mutual concessions’ with Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh. Plus, Armenia’s president – though no peach himself – also offered a more reality-attuned analysis: that Turkish interference is “taking the conflict an order up in magnitude” and “creating something that will eventually become another Syria of the Caucasus.”
Speaking of Syria – yea, I’ll say it – President Bashar al-Assad’s read isn’t exactly wrong either – and certainly less delusional than the naive NATO-line. In an interview published Tuesday, Syria’s strongman called a spade a spade, specifically that “[Erdogan]…was the main instigator and the initiator of the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
Even the most flawed messenger can deliver a dead-on message.
Because here’s the rub: if Russia ever does roll into Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and/or Azerbaijan – in other words, if this thing really gets out of hand – it will be on account of the obscene offensive of a key Turkish member of NATO’s purported “defensive” alliance. Ankara will have done so, have caused it, through the sale – and maybe direct use – of mainly NATO-standard-issue, and largely U.S.-manufactured, weapons systems.
Of course, that’s as uncomfortable as it is unsatisfying. So instead, count on Washington to blame Russia – which is always worth its weight in comfort, satisfaction, and political point-scoring…if not sound strategy. But hey, that’s future America’s problem: appropriate as ever for a nation as strategically-leveraged as it is financially debt-ridden.
You know, back in the late Ottoman Imperial Era – when that bygone empire was doing the Armenian genocide Ankara still denies – it was common to refer to Turkey as “the sick man of Europe.” Forgive the COVID-age pun, but if Washington and its media lackeys keep up their delusion and overreach, it may not be long before folks start dubbing Uncle Sam the “sick man of planet Earth.”
- Does The Coronavirus Make Our Constitutional Freedom Of Assembly Obsolete?
Does The Coronavirus Make Our Constitutional Freedom Of Assembly Obsolete?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 00:10Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
Over the past couple of weeks a trend has become apparent in the state of Idaho, specifically in Moscow, Idaho in Latah County. The city council of Moscow has issued a mandatory mask order, and they are using police to enforce it. Bizarrely, the city had ZERO deaths from Covid at the time the mask order was instituted, meaning their action was in response to…nothing.
Idaho has had a total of 500 deaths from Covid since the beginning of the outbreak. To put this in perspective, the state also has around 400 deaths from diabetes every year, and 250 deaths from the flu/pneumonia according to the CDC. Perhaps they should ban sugar, and make masks mandatory for the flu as well, just to be safe…
The residents of Moscow are not too happy with the city council attempt to unilaterally enforce such mandates. Church congregations in particular are fighting back by holding outdoor services without masks. The city has responded by ARRESTING the pastors of any church that dare to defy mask laws.
I bring up this specific instance of coronavirus enforcement because the circumstances surrounded it are disturbing…
First, it is not surprising that Latah County is one of the ONLY counties in Idaho that leans to the far-left politically, and the majority of the city council of Moscow is made up of leftists. Moscow is also the home of the University of Idaho. It seems wherever the political left sets up shop, constitution violating mandates on the coronavirus are prevalent. Even if a state government is predominantly more conservative and less antagonistic on lockdowns, left leaning city and county officials have decided they are going to enforce their own restrictions anyway.
Second, the mask rules are being used against people who held meetings outdoors, and this is something I am seeing all over the world right now. Why is the science of virus behavior in outdoor open air environments not being discussed AT ALL in the mainstream? Why is no one talking about the fact that open air and UV rays from sunlight KILL microorganisms? The chance of contracting the coronavirus outdoors is next to zero, yet mask rules are being strictly instituted from Melbourne, Australia to New York, New York to Moscow, Idaho.
Government officials must surely be aware that the science contradicts these orders. And if this is the case, then this only confirms that such restrictions are not about saving lives; they are about control.
Third, the use of targeted arrests against organizers of group events is clearly an attempt to frighten the public into compliance without confronting their concerns directly. The goal is to encourage self censorship and to manipulate citizens to avoid public assembly without coming out openly and saying “We are banning public assembly”. It’s an end-run around the constitution, and these actions are increasing in the US.
As I have noted in past articles, I have been watching the draconian coronavirus measures in Australia and New Zealand very closely. My concerns rest on the other side of the world because what I see happening there is perhaps a beta-test for high intensity lockdown restrictions in other western nations including America.
Restrictions in these countries are rooted in what they are calling “Level 4 lockdowns”, and include mandatory mask orders (even outside), mandatory social distancing, bans on public assembly, church closures, citizens are not allowed to travel more than 3 miles from home (essentially people are under house arrest, with only one hour per day outside to exercise), people who contract the virus or are suspected of being infected can be locked up in Covid camps for as long as government officials deem it necessary, and in New Zealand these camps are managed by the military.
People speaking out against the lockdowns online are being arrested for “incitement”. Free speech in Australia is nearly dead.
I believe the establishment of medical tyranny is moving so quickly in Australia because the vast majority of the population has been disarmed and they have limited means to fight back. It’s an easy place to test out control measures. Protests are taking place, but without a means of self defense the citizenry is at the mercy of government and law enforcement. If the government wants to crack down violently on anti-lockdown groups, there will be little the public can do to stop them.
What I see happening in places like Moscow, Idaho is the initial stages of medical tyranny similar to what is happening in Australia. What I see is an incremental form of totalitarianism, and it simply cannot be tolerated.
We have heard it often during this pandemic event that we are “all in this together” and the lockdowns are “serving the greater good”, but this is nonsense. The constitutional rights of public assembly and freedom of religion in particular are being stifled, and these rights ARE the greater good. They are far more important than the lives of the select few people who are susceptible to the virus.
Beyond that, why are we not talking about the number of people that are losing their jobs due to the lockdowns? How about the number of people that will die over time from poverty or depression or economic collapse because of the lockdowns? Is it not a matter of the “greater good” that we end the restrictions rather than increase them?
No virus is worth this. It would not matter if we were talking about the Black Plague. Ultimately, though, Covid affects a very small portion of the US population. The real solution to the pandemic is simple:
The people who are most susceptible should voluntarily stay home and quarantine, and the rest of us should get on with our lives with an open economy and normal constitutional rights. Why is this option not being presented?
Mask laws in particular are truly bizarre. There is little evidence that cloth masks are effective in the slightest, but the idea that “everyone must wear a mask” in order for the masks to work reveals the true nature of the restrictions.
If your mask is useless unless I also wear a mask, then the masks we are wearing are not offering much protection and their enforcement should be questioned. The fact that numerous states and counties across the US have had infection spikes even with strict mask mandates suggests to me that the masks are pointless. Even the CDC questions the effectiveness of cloth masks and recommends N95 masks for healthcare workers until there is some evidence that cloth masks function.
If the CDC doesn’t believe they work very well, then why are people even wearing them, and why are people being arrested for refusing to use them? Again, the science does not support the mandates, so they must be about control rather than saving lives. If you can get a population acclimated to having the government involved in the smallest intricacies of their lives on a daily basis then freedom goes out the window and the establishment enjoys total power to do whatever they please.
Don’t get me wrong, if a person WANTS to wear a mask, or take other precautions no matter how dubious, then I have nothing bad to say about them. That is their decision. If a business wants to require masks before entering, then that is also their right as property owners. I can choose to not shop there if I don’t like it. But it is not anyone’s right to attempt to force others to comply with their baseless rules just so they can personally feel safer. If I’m not wearing a mask and you don’t like it, then don’t come near me; it’s very easy. As leftists like to say: My body my choice.
Take note of how many instances we have seen so far of Mask Nazis physically attacking people not wearing masks. Isn’t this the exact opposite of what they have been preaching? Also take note that Mask Nazis tend to be avid supporters of BLM and Antifa mobs that ignore pandemic restrictions. Again, they don’t care about health issues, they are angry because you are not submitting to their control.
Another terrifying development during the pandemic is the use of executive orders and executive authority to initiate restrictions without public oversight. Here is the bottom line: No government, whether it be federal, state or local, has the power to violate your constitutional rights. Period. If a law or executive order tramples on the Bill of Rights, then it is automatically null and void and should be defied. National emergencies do no supplant the constitution, regardless of what statists might claim.
Executive orders in particular are based on nothing other than color of law. In most cases they do not legally apply to the citizenry, only to government employees. Real laws are passed by the legislature, and are often added to a ballot to be voted on by the public. No governor, mayor, city council or president has the authority to assert new laws without oversight like a dictator.
The political left has been quick to point out these facts whenever Donald Trump issues executive orders, yet they are also quick to defend those orders issued by states and cities to enforce unconstitutional and illegal lockdowns.
In the end, whether you respect the Bill of Rights or not, laws are meaningless unless they are backed by principles. A law that is immoral and unjust should not be followed. Government representatives that abuse their positions to assert powers that are not granted them by the constitution should be unseated. The coronavirus changes nothing – Not a thing.
I would suggest that anyone who lives in a place that is trying to enforce restrictions that are contrary to the Bill of Rights act now to disrupt what is likely an incremental march towards medical tyranny. If you don’t stand in opposition to these actions now, they will only grow over time until a majority of people become conditioned to accept them.
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- Global Food Prices Rise As Famine Threat Emerges
Global Food Prices Rise As Famine Threat Emerges
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:50Food prices continue rising during the coronavirus pandemic, jeopardizing food security for tens of millions worldwide.
On Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said world food prices rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, led by surging prices for cereals and vegetable oils, reported Reuters.
FAO’s food price index, which tracks the international prices of the top traded food commodities (cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar), averaged 97.9 in September versus a downwardly revised 95.9 in August.
FAO’s cereal price index jumped 5.1% in September and is 13.6% above its value one year earlier.
“Higher wheat price quotations led the increase, spurred by brisk trade activity amid concerns over production prospects in the southern hemisphere as well as dry conditions affecting winter wheat sowings around Europe,” FAO said.
Vegetable oil price soared 6% in September, over August prices, due to rising palm, sunflower seeds, and soy oil prices, hitting 8-month highs.
Dairy prices barely budged over the month, with moderate price increases for butter, cheese, and skim milk powder, offset by a decline in whole milk powder.
Sugar prices declined 2.6% over the month, mainly because of a global glut expected to persist through the 2021 season.
Meat prices slipped .9% on the month and were +9.4% year-on-year, with prices for pork slumping due to China’s ban on pork imports from Germany after several cases of African swine fever were recently found.
As outlined by The World Bank in September, rising food costs because of the virus pandemic have significant impacts on vulnerable households, many of which are being crushed into poverty and hunger.
“As the coronavirus crisis unfolds, disruptions in domestic food supply chains, other shocks affecting food production, and loss of incomes and remittances are creating strong tensions and food security risks in many countries,” The World Bank said.
In August, UN World Food Program (WFP) Director David Beasley warned that $5 billion in emergency funds are needed within six months to avert a global famine.
UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres recently said the world is experiencing one of the worst food crises in five decades. The virus-related downturn is driving wealth inequality to extremes and pushing millions of people into extreme poverty.
Here are the highest at-risk areas for a food crisis breakout:
Food insecurity risks, produced by soaring prices and disrupted supply chains because of the virus pandemic, are not limited to the US. A top food bank in the country recently warned of a nationwide “meal shortage” in the next 12 months.
And throughout history, food price volatility and disruptions have often resulted in social unrest. An unintended consequence of the global downturn could be a continuation of the social unrest, seen across the world.
- Masking, Propaganda, & The Outrage Mob's Murder Of Academic Freedom
Masking, Propaganda, & The Outrage Mob’s Murder Of Academic Freedom
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:30If you believe in academic freedom, as well as free speech overall, please consider signing this petition, and sharing it with others who believe that higher education must be free from censorship of any kind, whether by the state, corporations, foreign interests, pressure groups, or by the university itself.
A full professor in NYU’s Department of Media, Culture and Communication (since 1997), and a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill Foundations, Prof. Miller teaches a course on propaganda, focusing not only on the history of modern propaganda, but – necessarily – on propaganda drives ongoing at the time.
The aim is to teach students to identify such drives for what they are, think carefully about their claims, seek out whatever data and/or arguments have been blacked out or misreported to protect those claims from contradiction, and look into the interests financing and managing the propaganda, so as to figure out its purpose.
On Sept. 20, after a class discussion of the case for universal masking as defense against transmission of SARS-COV-2 (in which discussion she did not participate), a student took to Twitter to express her fury that Prof. Miller had brought up the randomized, controlled tests – all of those so far conducted on the subject – finding that masks and ventilators are ineffective at preventing such transmission, because the COVID-19 virions are too small for such expedients to block them.
Prof. Miller urged the students to read those studies, as well as others that purport to show the opposite, with due attention to the scientific reviews thereof, and possible financial links between the researchers conducting them, and such interests as Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation. Prof. Miller followed up by providing the links to the former studies (not easily found on Google, though they have all appeared in reputable medical journals), and other materials, including a video of a debate on the subject.
The student was so outraged by Prof. Miller even mentioning those studies that she called on NYU to fire him:
I hope @nyuniversity, @nyusteinhardt, and @mccNYU agree that this professor should not be trusted with educating and advising students, and I hope they take immediate steps to relieve him of these duties. 8/
— Julia Jackson (@julia_jacks) September 21, 2020
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Having contacted NYU’s bias response line to report him, and getting no satisfaction there, the student kept on tweeting her demand for Prof. Miller’s termination, due to his “unhealthy amount of skepticism around health professionals,” and a range of other posts that she had seen on News from Underground, Prof. Miller’s website, and found no less insidious, misreporting that their sources were “many far right and conspiracy websites,” and therefore, evidently, not worth reading.
The student’s call provoked a storm of tweets, many attacking her, and others thanking her – one of which was posted by Prof. Miller’s department chair, promising to act on her demand:
“Julia, thank you for reporting this issue. We as a department have made this a priority and are discussing next steps.”
Soon after this pledge of institutional support, the dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School (in which Prof. Miller teaches), together with a doctor who advises them on COVID-19 policy, emailed each of Prof. Miller’s students (without putting him on copy), starting with a ritual nod to “academic freedom,” then hinting that the studies noted in that class were dangerous misinformation. To set them straight, the two advised the students to consult the “authoritative” CDC—specifically, its list of several recent studies finding that masks are effective against COVID-19.
(That the CDC itself, as well as Dr. Fauci, had, until April, publicly adhered to the consensus of those “dangerous” studies went unmentioned.) The two concluded with a stern reminder that the students are obliged to mask on campus (although Prof. Miller had made quite clear that he was not suggesting that they break NYU’s rule, which he observes himself.)
Thus that student’s tweets immediately prompted NYU to take her side, and several media outlets to attack Prof. Miller for his dissidence, without interviewing him. The following week, NYU followed up by urging him to cancel his propaganda course next term, and, instead, teach two sections of his course on cinema. Their rationale was that it would be “better for the department,” because enrollment in the latter course is always high; but then so are the enrollments for Prof. Miller’s propaganda course, which has earned the highest praises from its students.
For testimonials from Prof. Miller’s students click here.
Below is the text change.org petition, you can sign it here.
We the undersigned support the academic freedom of Prof. Mark Crispin Miller, now under siege at New York University for urging students in his propaganda course to read scientific literature on the effectiveness of masks against transmission of COVID-19.
We see his situation as but one example of a growing global trend toward rigid censorship of expert views on urgent subjects of all kinds; so this petition is not just in his defense, but a protest on behalf of all professors, doctors, scientists and journalists who have been gagged, or punished for their rights to freely research, study, and interpret data on a variety of matters regardless of their controversial nature.
Censorship is nothing new. We have been edging toward it ever more for decades, as both academia and the media have long discouraged free investigation and discussion of urgent public questions of all kinds, as those who would attempt to tackle them empirically have been slandered as “conspiracy theorists” or “truthers” and other slurs deployed to shut them up, or purge them as purveyors of “misinformation,” “fake science” or “hate speech.”
Such censorship has blocked the sort of open, civil, reasoned give-and-take without which higher education—indeed, any education—is impossible, as is scientific progress overall.
We see Prof. Miller’s situation as a flashpoint in the struggle not just to reclaim but to protect free speech and free inquiry. NYU officials have no right to intervene in Prof. Miller’s courses or message his students surreptitiously undermining his integrity as an instructor.
They have no right to deprive him of the courses he was hired to teach and they should not join in a public smear campaign against the very rights they should uphold at a university.
That so stated, we urge that NYU respect his academic freedom, and thereby set a good example for all other schools with faculty who dare contest official narratives. Otherwise, “education” there will be mere training for compliance, stunting students’ minds instead of opening them – a practice fatal to democracy, and, finally, to humanity itself.
- Doomsday Camps Set To "Activate" Due To Risk Of Election Violence
Doomsday Camps Set To “Activate” Due To Risk Of Election Violence
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 23:10As the country inches closer to the Nov. 03 presidential election, federal agencies, city governments, and local police forces are preparing for political and social instabilities, no matter the election outcome.
Concerns are mounting that mass protests, violent confrontations between extremist groups, and widespread property damage could be seen on election day and days after. If the outcome of the election is undecided, chaos could linger for weeks, if not months.
The prospects of civil unrest around election day have prompted a chain of US survival communities to “activate” – opening their doors for members to hunker down in bomb shelters, with an abundance of weapons and ammo, and years worth of food.
Reuters reports Fortitude Ranch doomsday camps in West Virginia and Colorado will open both facilities to members on election day because of the threat of social unrest.
Fortitude Ranch’s October newsletter suggested “looting and violence” across major US metro areas, similar to what was seen over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd, could follow the elections next month. The newsletter warned social instabilities could transform into long-term issues.
Reuters quotes the survival camp’s CEO Drew Miller as pointing out that chatter on social media suggest election results could tilt the country into civil war. Miller did not rule out that possibility…
“This will be the first time we have opened for a collapse disaster, though it may end up not being so,” said Miller in an emailed statement. “We consider the risk of violence that could escalate in irrational, unpredictable ways into widespread loss of law and order is real.”
Readers may recall, in April, we highlighted soaring demand for Fortitude Ranch’s doomsday bunkers came as the virus pandemic resulted in nationwide lockdowns. We then suggested, given the socio-economic implosion, that a “social bomb” was getting ready to explode across Western cities. And it wasn’t until late May, after Floyd was killed by police, that unrest broke out in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the country.
Fortitude Ranch describes itself as “a survival community equipped to survive any disaster and long-term loss of law and order,” and its actual location(s) are unknown to non-members.
“Fortitude Ranch is a survival community equipped to survive any type of disaster and long-term loss of law and order, managed by full-time staff. Fortitude Ranch is affordable (about $1,000/person annually) because of large numbers of members and economies of scale. Fortitude Ranch is especially attractive to join because it doubles as a recreation and vacation facility as well as a survival retreat. Members can vacation, hunt, fish and recreate at our forest and mountain locations in good times, and shelter at Fortitude Ranch to survive a collapse,” the company’s website said.
At the moment, Fortitude Ranch has two locations in West Virginia and Colorado, with ten more locations expected in the coming years. The goal is to create a nationwide network of doomsday bunkers.
The countdown has started. All levels of government to doomsday bunker facilities are now preparing for what could be a violent November.
- The Average American Is Recorded 238 Times A Week
The Average American Is Recorded 238 Times A Week
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:50Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog,
Cameras are everywhere…
Do you have a cell phone? Unless it’s an old antiquated flip phone, there’s a camera. Public parks, roadways, the parking garage at your favorite shopping center, police officers wearing body cameras, school…they are everywhere.
There was a time when Americans viewed the presence of security cameras in a private business as a creepy Orwellian intrusion into their private lives. They didn’t want to be recorded and watched as they did their shopping or when they went into the bank to cash their paychecks. Those days came and went and Americans accepted and adapted those cameras.
Then along came public surveillance cameras and traffic light cameras. And, once again people felt their lives were being infringed upon. Not only were private businesses still conducting the surveillance, but the government was now watching too. This left many people feeling as though their privacy rights had been taken away from them.
All that changed when 9/11 happened. Suddenly Americans couldn’t be stopped from stuffing their concerns over privacy as far down the toilet bowl as they could.
Two decades later the “Privacy Train” has left the station.
Everywhere we go, there are cameras. Whether it be a camera in a retail store, at a stoplight, inside a hospital, inside an Uber car, inside a restaurant, possibly even inside your own home. Oh, and let’s not forget the doorbell cameras. like the ones surveilling the entire neighborhood without their consent. If you have a smartphone, it’s tracking everywhere you go and that data is being used to compile incredibly detailed information about you.
Cameras are everywhere…including in our own hands. While the images being posted on social media may just be static images, they are still pictures of someone who may not even know that image was posted.
According to Social Media Statistics 2020: Top Networks by the Number Facebook alone has over 300 million photos uploaded DAILY.
People are not only being recorded, they are recording themselves and one another.
And this may sound like some crazy high-tech thing that doesn’t really affect us personally, but consider the ramifications on OPSEC if your every move is tracked and your every purchase is documented.
You won’t believe how often the typical American is recorded every day.
An article published by the Daily Mail reports that the typical American is recorded by security cameras 238 times a week. The information was obtained from Safety.com whose security team conducted a study on surveillance technology. That figure includes:
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Video taken at work: average employee spotted on cameras 40 times per week
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Video taken on the road: Americans are filmed 160 times while driving
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Video taken in stores
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Video taken in homes and neighborhoods: 14 times per week
For Americans who travel a lot or who work in “highly patrolled areas,” the number of times they are recorded on film could reach over 1000 times per week. According to the research, it can be difficult to know how many traffic cameras are passively filming or permanently storing footage. Another result of the study was that people underestimate how often they are recorded.
A survey from IPVM in 2016 found that most people assumed they were being recorded less than five times a day. The example of a typical day was taken from that report:
This example is a running total, including the number of cameras likely present at each stop:
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8:00AM: 4 Cameras – Get a cup of coffee – 4 cameras in Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts
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8:30AM: 24 Cameras – School or office – cameras in parking lot and interior, you will be picked up at various angles by 20 cameras at least.
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12:15PM: 30 Cameras – Stop at ATM before lunch for cash. Bank will have exterior cameras, ATM will have close-up camera
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12:30PM: 38 Cameras – Go get lunch – 4 cameras at lunch spot, plus 4 more easily ay surrounding businesses
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5:00PM: 45 Cameras – Leave work, go to gym to work out. Camera at check-in desk, plus in 6-8 in workout area
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5:45PM: 46 Cameras – Stop to pick up dry cleaning. Camera at front register
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6:00PM: 52 Cameras – Stop for gas. Cameras at pumps and in store
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6:15PM: 54 Cameras – Quick car wash. Cameras at entry and in-bay
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7:00PM: 58 Cameras – Pick up kids from practice/game. Cameras in school parking lot or on building exterior
Lawmakers and civil rights advocates are concerned about the growing state of surveillance.
But, of course, civil rights advocates do not have a real voice in American society. And, lawmakers are the ones who have facilitated the surveillance state, to begin with. So, unfortunately, if you are someone who was hoping to get back some of your rights, don’t hold your breath.
Dan Avery, author of the article on the Daily Mail writes reports that by next year, there will be approximately one billion security cameras operating around the globe. And 10 to 18 percent of them will be in the United States. In 2019, with 70 million cameras in the US, there was at least one security camera for every 4.6 Americans, putting the US as the second-highest ratio. China, being the first, has 4.1 cameras per person. (China, of course, is the country most infamous for social credit scores but many believe that the US is not far behind.)
Some people advocate these surveillance cameras as a vital tool for safety and security, and an important law enforcement device. However, in an article on All Together concerns about inequality, false results, and unethical use of this technology:
“There’s strong evidence that many of the systems in deployment are reflecting and amplifying existing forms of inequality,” said Sarah Myers West, a postdoctoral researcher at AI Now Institute, an interdisciplinary research center at New York University dedicated to understanding the social implications of artificial intelligence. “For this reason, it’s critical that we have a public conversation about the social impact of AI systems, and AI Now’s work aims to engage in research to inform that conversation.”
Joy Buolamwini, an MIT graduate, AI researcher, and computer scientist, provided firsthand research to inform the conversation. Buolamwini, a Ghanaian American, wrote a thesis, “Gender Shades,” in 2017, after she was misidentified while working with facial analysis software. The software didn’t detect her face until she put on a white mask, she said, “because the people who coded the algorithm hadn’t taught it to identify a broad range of skin tones and facial structures.” The software returned worse results for women and darker-skinned persons.
“We often assume machines are neutral, but they aren’t,” she said in a Time magazine essay about her discoveries. Her thesis methodology uncovered large racial and gender bias in AI services from such companies as Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon. In response, Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League to “create a world with more ethical and inclusive technology.”
Owners of smart home security cameras may be in jeopardy.
Those smart home security cameras may not make you as safe as you thought they would.
“Some popular home security cameras could allow would-be burglars to work out when you’ve left the building, according to a study published Monday.” CNN Business
An International study carried out by Queen Mary University of London and the Chinese Academy of Science discovered they could tell if someone was home, and even what they were doing in the home, just by looking at data uploaded by their home security camera, without monitoring the video footage itself. And of course as we just published, the microphones embedded in your smart devices can record you and are being used more and more often by police.
An article written by Brandon Turbeville in 2011,“New Report: ‘Recording Everything’ Details How Governments Can Shape The Dynamics Of Dissent,” details how this data is being stored, at a surprisingly low cost to do so.
According to Turbeville, given the prices (in 2011) and the projected decrease in cost in the future, the United States would be able to store the location data of everyone in the country for a whole year for approximately $18,000, the cost of a low-wage job.
The average American is now videotaped and recorded more times in a day than a Hollywood star fifty years ago.
Clearly, we are no longer entering a “growing” surveillance state, we are already in one.
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- US Security Adviser O'Brien Warns China Against Attack On Taiwan
US Security Adviser O’Brien Warns China Against Attack On Taiwan
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:30We detailed Wednesday that China’s state-run Global Times issued a major threat, saying China should “fully prepare itself for war” with Taiwan in the event it restores diplomatic relations with the United States. The tabloid’s chief editor Hu Xijin wrote in his latest English language op-ed that “We must no longer hold any more illusions. The only way forward is for the mainland to fully prepare itself for war and to give Taiwan secessionist forces a decisive punishment at any time.”
On the same day National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien addressed just such a scenario at an event hosted at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, describing as summarized by Al Jazeera that China is “engaged in a significant naval build-up probably not seen since Germany’s attempt to compete with Britain’s Royal Navy prior to WWI.”
“Part of that is to give them the ability to push us back out of the Western Pacific, and allow them to engage in an amphibious landing in Taiwan,” O’Brien said. “The problem with that is that amphibious landings are notoriously difficult.”
Taiwanese Army exercise, via US Naval Institute As he specified this includes the fact of about a 100-mile distance between the mainland and Taiwan, adding to difficulties of a well-organized amphibious landing.
“It’s not an easy task, and there’s also a lot of ambiguity about what the United States would do in response to an attack by China on Taiwan,” he said, referencing also that China hawks in Congressed have introduced the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act bill. More directly he was referencing the US longtime posture of ‘strategic ambiguity’ regards defending Taiwan.
“You can’t just spend 1 percent of your GDP [gross domestic product], which the Taiwanese have been doing – 1.2 percent – on defense, and hope to deter a China that’s been engaged in the most massive military build up in 70 years,” he said, during a week where Taiwan’s defense spending was up for question at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference.
O’Brien proffered a strategy that militarily Taiwan needs to “turn themselves into a porcupine” because ultimately “Lions generally don’t like to eat porcupines.”
It didn’t take long for Chinese state media to respond in what it called out as Taiwan’s “weakness”:
Meanwhile, after much of a year which has witnessed Taiwan’s Air Force scramble its jets dozens of times, and conduct deterrence exercises and aerial patrol missions, Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Yen Teh-fa on Wednesday announced the island has spent nearly $900 million scrambling its jets in response to PLA warplane incursions and provocations.
In the end it appears that the message from Washington continues to be that Taiwan should dramatically boost defense spending, because it’s anything but clear that the Pentagon will be there when the Chinese military machine comes calling.
- In Defense Of Keeping Politics Out Of Crypto
In Defense Of Keeping Politics Out Of Crypto
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 22:10Authored by Omid Malekan via Medium.com,
Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the leading American crypto exchange, caused a stir recently when he announced a policy of keeping Coinbase out of political and social activism to better focus on its core mission. He backed up the decision with a generous buyout for any employees who disagreed. In his own words:
Many companies never stand the test of time, because they decide to dabble in unrelated efforts, and distract and divide their workforce in the process. Paradoxically, by being laser focused on our mission, we will likely have an even greater impact on the world, through our products and growing customer base.”
One should read the entire post before reacting, as some of the people who have responded negatively clearly have not. There’s more to his argument than “we are just here to make money,” and the online pundits who insist on reducing it to some caricature of capitalism just validate the overall argument.
Armstrong says that he doesn’t want the pursuit of outside causes to distract Coinbase from the core work of building an open financial system that provides greater access to everyone, because executing on that mission will have a greater impact than activism.
I support this approach and hope that more crypto companies adopt it — leaving the tweeting, campaigning, protesting and every other kind of vocal activism to others.
My reasoning starts with that famous proverb that Mohandas Gandhi — the man often credited for it — never said: to be the change we want to see in the world. It’s a powerful saying, regardless of who came up with it, but lacking in practical instructions. Thankfully, what Gandhi did say was more nuanced.
“All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
That last sentence makes all of the difference. There’s a false belief in today’s discourse that yelling about a problem, or shaming those considered responsible for it, go a long way toward solving it. They don’t. Outrage is the state of being upset over something and demanding somebody else fix it. Real change takes individual action — but not, as the Mahatma believed — the kind that impacts others, but rather the kind that impacts the self. A million people tweeting about the need to end racism wouldn’t change much. Those same people taking the time (and summoning the humility) needed to confront their own biases — the kind that all of us, myself included, suffer from — would make a genuine impact.
But that’s doing, and doing is hard. Retweeting is easier. So everyone gets caught up in a recursive loop of posting and protesting, then being upset that nothing has changed, then getting louder. Sides are picked, battle lines are drawn, and little is accomplished. Doing is more effective, but easily distracted by the need for validation. A company deciding to have more minorities in executive positions is great. That same company issuing multiple press releases before the first promotion is less great.
Which brings us back to crypto.
One of the things that shocked me about Bitcoin when I first learned about it was its sheer openness. Anyone could do anything, from owning the coins to writing the code to participating in mining to building the supporting infrastructure (as Coinbase has). If you wanted to build the next great crypto wallet, all you had to do was build it. It didn’t matter if you were young or old, black or white, gay or straight, American or Iranian, an experienced coder or a total noob. The only thing that mattered to the rest of the community was the usefulness of your product, which you were free to build however you thought best.
This was a stark contrast to the traditional financial system, where nothing could be done until you were given permission by a gatekeeper, and the first thing the gatekeeper would ask you to do was to fill out a form, and that form asked you to disclose your name, age and address — information which could easily be used (or misused) to make conclusions about your gender, nationality and race.
Decentralization is often portrayed by the skeptics as a negative, an open invitation to the world’s anarchists or criminals to cause mischief. But decentralized also means “doesn’t discriminate.” When there is nobody in charge, there is no ability to oppress or exercise bias. Our existing financial system on the other hand is built on bias.
Case in point KYC, or the almost universal requirement for traditional financial services providers to “know their client.” Such requirements are designed with good intent, to cut down on financial crime and prevent the use of the banking system for illicit activity. But they are costly, and that cost is borne disproportionately by the underprivileged. Even when executed fairly, KYC requirements mean that poor people who don’t have proper ID, migrants who don’t have a fixed address or undocumented workers trying to stay under the radar can’t get a bank account. That is the best case scenario. The worse case scenario is the personal information gathered for these requirements are used to practice racism, sexism and every other kind of discrimination.
The blockchain doesn’t discriminate, because the blockchain doesn’t know, and better yet, doesn’t give a damn. All anyone needs to access bitcoins is free software — making the bitcoin platform the first digital platform that can’t pick favorites. As far as the protocol is concerned, a billionaire in America gets the same amount of access as a farmer in Thailand. Not because there are laws against discrimination or because miners have undergone sensitivity training, but because both users look exactly the same to every other participant.
A more abstract, but arguably more insidious form of discrimination within the legacy financial system is the distribution of new money. In crypto, new coins are generated algorithmically and distributed to those who contribute the most, be they miners, coders or users. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they live or which political candidate they’ve contributed to. The fiat domain works on the opposite principle. Newly minted dollars, euros or pounds usually go to those who deserve it least, like “too big to fail” banks in the last economic crisis or any corporation that has access to public capital markets in this one.
Central banks such as the ECB and Federal Reserve are now using printed money to subsidize the borrowing of large corporations, including that of mega tech companies like Apple and Microsoft, a corporate subsidy for highly profitable companies who have actually benefited from the pandemic. Since they don’t need the money, these companies will just use the subsidy to drive up their stocks via share buybacks. According to the Fed’s own data, stock ownership in the U.S. skews heavily towards the old, the white and the rich. That makes Fed programs that benefit the market (which is practically all of them) a form of systemic discrimination, executed to the tune of trillions of dollars.
No wonder the current chairman has started giving speeches on the need to tackle racism. A little bit of saying to whitewash all of that tragic doing.
All of these issues are amplified in developing countries where access to basic financial services are even more limited and government institutions are a lot more corrupt. But there is hope, because the same meritocratic and open approach to financial services that was pioneered by Bitcoin is now being applied to everything from fiat currencies to banking. Argentinians fed up with endless government defaults and devaluations could now save in a dollar-denominated stablecoin called Dai, and expats who are often can’t use banks will soon have much better remittance options, including Libra.
Further out on the horizon are protocols for borrowing, lending and investing. Not just in crypto, but tokenized versions of every other asset class, from gold to real estate to collectible art. Such products are not available to the vast majority of people today, due to a tragic mix of poor infrastructure and bad policy. This lack of access has been a prime contributor to the explosion in the wealth gap over the past decade, and when combined with the other types of discrimination inherent to our financial system, form a de facto conspiracy by economic elites to make sure nobody else catches up to them. Put differently, the New York Stock Exchange, Sotheby’s and the SEC are not about to make investing a universal right, but the Ethereum blockchain just might.
I don’t mean to exaggerate the benefits as they stand today. Bitcoin is still too small to make a difference and stablecoins and other forms of tokens are too new to make a dent. But they represent a new way of doing things, one that is superior along the axis that society increasingly cares about, such as equal treatment and universal access. Bringing that vision to the masses will take a lot more doing, and some of it will have to be done by companies like Coinbase.
So Brian Armstrong was correct. The company can have a much greater impact on social justice by focusing on its core mission. As can everyone else in crypto.
- Skynet Does The Office: Citrix Says By 2035, Workers With Implanted Chips Will Have "Labor Market Advantage"
Skynet Does The Office: Citrix Says By 2035, Workers With Implanted Chips Will Have “Labor Market Advantage”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:50Just when you thought things couldn’t get more dystopian this year, American multi-national software company Citrix has quietly released into the internet ethos that it expects workers to have “implanted chips” by the year 2035.
“Welcome to McDonald’s. Can I take your order?” Citrix has joined names like Zoom and Slack as popular talking points during the coronavirus pandemic, as more Americans work from home. The trend, while it may reverse course post-pandemic, is still widely considered to be secular in nature as software and technology has made it easier than ever to work from home.
But just how easy should we be making it? Citrix seems to think that Americans should willingly start turning themselves into cyborgs – a decision that, as champions of liberty we are fine with if people want it – but at the behest of their corporate overlords.
The company Tweeted out about a week ago that those with “implanted chips” by 2035 will likely have a “labor market advantage”.
54% of business leaders believe that by 2035, workers with implanted chips will have a labor market advantage. Take a step into the future of work at https://t.co/X19yXLk7FY #work2035
— Citrix (@citrix) September 28, 2020
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Yeah, and if you turn yourself into a full on robot that never has to use the bathroom, eat or smoke a cigarette on a break, that would probably make you more appealing as well.
“By 2035 some workers will have taken technology augmentation a step further, choosing to be enhanced with implanted chips,” Citrix’s “Work 2035” report read. “Almost half (48%) of professionals would be willing to have a chip implanted in their body if it would significantly improve their performance and remuneration.”
The report notes an obvious delta between business “leaders” and employees on their feelings about implants: “Almost eight in 10 business leaders (77%) believe that under-the-skin chips and sensors will increase worker performance and productivity by 2035, compared to just 43% of employees who share this view.”
The company followed up in a blog post on its website: “Seventy-seven percent of all surveyed professionals believe that by 2035, AI will significantly speed up their decision-making process. A majority of respondents agree that in the future, tech interfaces will increase human productivity and performance.”
And, like it or not, Citrix predicts AI will have a profound presence in office environments going forward: “Additionally, although over 3/4 of leaders believe that organizations will create functions like AI management departments and cybercrime response units, fewer than half of employees anticipate these business units by 2035.”
But while business leaders are obviously quick to embrace the cost savings that come with AI, the rank and file doesn’t seem to jazzed about the idea: “Whereas most business leaders anticipate a world of strong corporate structures powered by a flourishing human-tech partnership, employees foresee a much more fragmented world, with big corporations no longer dominant, and many roles replaced by technology.”
You can read Citrix’s full “Work 2035” report here, though we’re not sure why you’d want to.
Maybe just wait until 2021 to crack this one open.
- "Clear Evidence Of Collusion Between Huawei And The Chinese State": British Defense Report
“Clear Evidence Of Collusion Between Huawei And The Chinese State”: British Defense Report
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:30Authored by Mary Clark via The Epoch Times,
The British defense committee reported on Thursday that there is ‘clear evidence of collusion between Huawei and the Chinese state’ and urged the government to urgently rid the country’s telecoms infrastructure of Huawei’s kit by 2025.
In July Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered that Huawei be purged from Britain’s 5G networks by 2027 amid fears of spying and sabotage and following tough United States sanctions against the company affecting its supply of up-to-date chips.
A crew works on a cell tower to update it to handle the new 5G network in Orem, Utah, on Dec. 10, 2019. (George Frey/AFP via Getty Images)
The defense committee report, however, said the purging should be done years earlier even if it involves recompense for current operators.
“The Government should take necessary steps to minimize the delay and economic damage and consider providing compensation to operators if the 2027 deadline is moved forward,” it said.
‘D 10 Alliance’
The defense committee report also said that the 5G roll out will increase mobile connectivity dependence, leaving the country more vulnerable to “espionage, sabotage, or system failure” but as yet with “no global rules regulating international cyber-attacks.”
The report, therefore, urged the government to partner with allies on a system to hold “perpetrators” accountable.
Democracies should also form a “D10” alliance of top world democracies as a counter to China and other non-democratic countries with malign intent, it said.
“The Committee support the proposal to form a D10 alliance, consisting of ten of the world’s largest democracies, in order to provide alternatives to Chinese technology and to combat the technological dominance of authoritarian states.”
“The Government must act swiftly and outline a joint 5G policy as soon as possible,” the report said and “continue to denounce and deter threats from adversarial states, such as Russia and China.”
Telecoms Security Bill
It said the proposed Telecoms Security Bill should be introduced into law before the end of the year and called on the government to explain why it is not already deploying a “cyberattack capability to deter aggressors.”
Commenting in the Telegraph on Thursday Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the committee, said that the UK’s “growing dependence on an online world has created a virtual theatre of war where we have become increasingly vulnerable.”
“Online espionage and sabotage are the new battlegrounds we must prepare for and defend against,” he said.
“Our international rules-based order was crafted in a pre-digital age,”
“But a major cyberattack, for example, could cause more harm than a dirty bomb but would not technically trip a NATO article 5 response.”
‘Modern Maginot Line’
Ellwood’s comments are reflected in Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s observations on the need for the military to modernize in response to the threat of cyber warfare.
When speaking about cyber defense to ConservativeHome for the virtual Conservative party annual conference that ended on Oct. 6, Wallace said NATO is “still quite focussed on tank brigades, air squadrons, and ships” as a method of countering adversaries “as if mass on its own is somehow the solution.”
“It’s not just about sitting in a static bunch of armored brigades waiting almost like you are a modern Maginot line waiting for somehow this great force to come out of the trees when in fact they’ve gone round you,” he said.
“There’s a modernization program going on at the moment that … recognizes that’s how we need to change,” he added.
Huawei has repeatedly denied collusion with the Chinese state and had not responded to a request for comment at the time of this report.
- Commission Refuses Request For In-Person Debate, Ignores Trump Doctor
Commission Refuses Request For In-Person Debate, Ignores Trump Doctor
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:29(Update 2120ET): Despite President Trump’s doctor confirming that he will be healthy and virus-free enough to go back to “public engagements” by Saturday, AP reports that the Debate Commission will not change its decision to hold the debate “virtually”. Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reports that
“The chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates says it is not reconsidering shifting the second debate from virtual back to in-person, despite a request from President Donald Trump’s team.”
What is most confusing for us ‘lay-people’ who don’t understand the ‘science’ – why does the Oct 15th debate need to be virtual if the ‘science’ according the president’s doctor, confirms he will be fit and healthy by Saturday (Oct 10th)?
Trump 2020 campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes accused the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) of playing “pandemic politics” Thursday
“The Commission on Presidential Debates has revealed itself as a corrupt and complicit swamp cabal,” Cortes told “Special Report” host Bret Baier.
“They are trying to put their thumb on the scale in favor of Joe Biden. They are trying to protect him and, in fact, bail him out.”
Joe – listen to the doctors!?
* * *
(Update 1500ET): Now that the Biden and Trump campaigns have apparently agreed to delay the second debate by a week to Oct. 22, ABC News just announced that Biden will hold a town hall event with ABC News, which will be moderated by George Stephanopoulos.
ABC says they’ll hold a town hall with Biden the night of Oct. 15, the same day the debate had originally been scheduled pic.twitter.com/ubgx7QdLWl
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 8, 2020
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The town hall will be held in Philadelphia, and follow all safety regulations and guidelines.
* * *
(Update 1225ET): Like Larry Kudlow said earlier, the timing and circumstances of the second presidential debate has now become a negotiation. And after Trump said he’d rather walk away than do a virtual event, it looks like Biden called his bluff, and now the Trump camp has apparently acquiesced to potentially rescheduling the debate from Oct. 15 to Oct. 22 (while moving the third debate to Oct. 29).
* * *
Update (1140ET): Joe Biden’s campaign just released a statement saying he would find “an appropriate place” to take questions directly from voters on Oct. 15 instead of debating Trump. The campaign also added that it hoped the debate commission would agree to moving the debate to Oct. 22 to give President Trump more time to recover from the virus.
New stmt from @JoeBiden campaign: “Joe Biden will find an appropriate place to take questions from voters directly on October 15th…Given the President’s refusal to participate on October 15th, we hope the Debate Commission will move the Biden-Trump Town Hall to October 22nd.” pic.twitter.com/oFOcKU4qG9
— Moeko Nitohbe (@mokochita) October 8, 2020
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* * *
Update (0805ET): Well that didn’t take long – as we suspected – President Trump said on Foxthat the decision to change the format for the next presidential debate to virtual “is not acceptable to us,” adding that “I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate, that’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate, it’s ridiculous.”
“I’m not gonna waste my time on a virtual debate,” Trump announces on Fox Business pic.twitter.com/OgHGlJ53wb
— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) October 8, 2020
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Trump has decided to hold a rally instead…“We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead.”
* * *
According to a statement released minutes ago by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the second presidential debate, set for Oct. 15, will be held remotely, taking the form of a town hall meeting with both candidates participating remotely.’
Moderator Steve Scully will still be located at the Miami venue where the debate was supposed to take place, but instead, both candidates will participate remotely, while the participants in the audience and the moderator ask questions from the main location.
“In order to protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15, 2020, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced the following today: The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations. The town meeting participants and the moderator, Steve Scully, Senior Executive Producer & Political Editor, C-SPAN Networks, will be located at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in Miami, Fla. The White House Pool will provide coverage of the second presidential debate.”
Yesterday, Joe Biden opined that there shouldn’t be a second debate if Trump still has COVID-19.
Of course, the remote format could create serious problems for Trump, who was able to wrest control of the first debate thanks to his pugnacious approach, which included frequent interruptions and jabs lobbed at Biden. Afterwards, the Commission promised to change up the format and give moderators new “tools” to help manage the flow of conversation.
The remote format will allow Scully, who once interned in Joe Biden’s Senate office, unprecedented control over the debate. if Trump is being piped in remotely, the moderator can simply mute the president’s feed to prevent him from talking out of turn. At any rate, expect the next debate to be a much more staid affair than the “sh*tshow” – as CNN described it – that tool place last time.
Fortunately for Mike Pence, the one and only VP debate vs. “gaffe machine” Kamala Harris is already over.
The decision comes after Trump’s team said earlier this week that he intended to participate in person during the next debate (the 2nd of three). The decision was made to “protect the safety of all involved” now that a White House COVID-19 outbreak has sickened dozens, including Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump is set to appear on Fox Business Network at 0800ET for his first TV interview since the announcement on Friday.
- That Little Green Dot: Your iPhone Camera Is Spying On You
That Little Green Dot: Your iPhone Camera Is Spying On You
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 21:10Apple has rolled out with a new privacy protection feature on its iPhone, specifically with the new iOS 14 update, which many will welcome and consider crucial in the post Edward Snowden era, as well as the explosion of cases of unwanted corporate spying and tracking individuals for creepy product placement and data collection purposes.
The Apple update will make a little green dot appear anytime an app actively uses the iPhone’s camera, Apple recently indicated in a statement. And further a similar orange dot will appear anytime the microphone is activated.
“An indicator appears at the top of your screen whenever an app is using your microphone or camera,” Apple said. “And in Control Center, you can see if an app has used them recently.”
“Privacy is a fundamental human right and at the core of everything we do,” Apple explained, acknowledging the growing controversy and public outcry over apps that ‘spy’ on users without their known it, for example apps that gear adds based on the iPhone user’s vicinity to a particular store.
“That’s why with iOS 14, we’re giving you more control over the data you share and more transparency into how it’s used,” Apple said previously during the update rollout.
When users download new apps, it’s often buried in the fine print of ‘permissions’ that they access a user’s video and audio features, or it’s most often hardly disclosed at all.
Privacy activists have feared that for years such apps were already accessing iPhone cameras without users knowing about it, possibly also during very private moments. The Apple update can also allow users to disable apps’ ability to do that altogether, or examine a history of when video and audio were activated.
Facebook has also addressed recent controversy related to such unwanted snooping, denying that it regularly picks up users’ conversations for advertising purposes:
Many Facebook users say they’ve spoken about something out loud, only for related adverts to appear on the app soon after.
These users claim they’ve never searched for this sort of content before, and the only possible explanation is snooping.
Users reckon Facebook is using your phone’s microphone to listen in on real-world conversations – to help target ads. But is it true?
However, Facebook did acknowledge in a statement that “We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio.”
But again it’s unclear how aware individual users are that they are granting such permission in the first place.
Recall that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden went so far as to always put tape over his laptop camera or other devices which had camera or audio, given they were potential ‘snooping’ features that could also be used by government intelligence agencies. And no doubt now the ability for clandestine sweeping up of video and audio is even more advanced than when he first exposed sweeping NSA surveillance of the domestic populace on a massive scale over seven years ago.
* * *
The downloadable update iOS 14 is compatible with the following according to Apple’s website:
- iPhone 11
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone XS iPhone XS Max
- iPhone XR
- iPhone X
- iPhone 8
- iPhone 8 Plus
- iPhone 7
- iPhone 7 Plus
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone 6s Plus
- iPhone SE (1st generation)
- iPhone SE (2nd generation)
- iPod touch (7th generation)
- Physicists Prove Time-Travel Is Theoretically "Possible", But Changing The Past Is Not
Physicists Prove Time-Travel Is Theoretically “Possible”, But Changing The Past Is Not
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:50Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,
Researchers at the University of Queensland, Australia, claim to have proven that time travel is theoretically possible according to the laws of physics.
However, we needn’t fear that time-travelers would somehow travel to the past and alter the present-day, as is the case in myriad science fiction scenarios – instead, the future would remain the same, according to the researchers’ calculations.
“Events readjust around anything that could cause a paradox, so the paradox does not happen,” study author Germain Tobar told IFLScience.
His study, which was published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, details how according to the rules laid down by theoretical physics, any changes impacting the past would be subsequently corrected by the events that followed. So don’t expect to succeed in drastically altering history, even if you do go back in time on a mission to kill Hitler in his crib.
Physicists used mathematical modeling to reconcile classic dynamics with Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The contradiction between the two systems is a longtime flaw in time travel concepts, known as the grandfather paradox.
“As physicists, we want to understand the universe’s most basic, underlying laws and for years I’ve puzzled on how the science of dynamics can square with Einstein’s predictions,” said Tobar. “Is time travel mathematically possible?”
According to classical dynamics, any attempt by a time traveler to go back in time and, say, kill their grandfather, would result in the time traveler never coming into existence in the first place.
Within Einstein’s theoretical framework, however, a person could go back in time to kill their grandfather. This is because he calculated that an object in our universe could travel through both time and space in a circular direction before ultimately ending up where it had been before – a path known as the closed time-like curve.
Tobar and his colleagues used the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as their basis for the study, and imagined if a time traveler had gone back to prevent “patient zero” from being infected.
“In the coronavirus patient zero example, you might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would,” Tobar explained.
“No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you,” he continued. “This would mean that – no matter your actions – the pandemic would occur, giving your younger self the motivation to go back and stop it. Try as you might to create a paradox, the events will always adjust themselves to avoid any inconsistency.”
“The range of mathematical processes we discovered show that time travel with free will is logically possible in our universe without any paradox,” Tobar added.
In other words, any attempt to kill your grandfather would mean that something or someone would intervene to prevent this from happening – or, at the very least, your mother would already be a fetus in your grandmother’s womb by the time he did perish.
Dr. Fabio Costa, the University of Queensland physicist who supervised the project, noted: “The math checks out – and the results are the stuff of science fiction.”
- Rigged? Billionaire Wealth Surges As Working-Poor Struggle
Rigged? Billionaire Wealth Surges As Working-Poor Struggle
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:30The virus pandemic has exposed the rigged economic system we all knew about, where mega-corporations and their billionaire owners, a small group of elites, were handed trillions of dollars of stimulus money by their respective central banks and governments.
Stimulus money was then plowed into financial markets, driving up stock and other asset prices from the depths of the crash in mid-March, which helped push total billionaire wealth to new record highs.
The “Riding the storm“ study, published on Wednesday by UBS and PwC, found that between April and July of this year, global billionaire wealth soared to $10.2 trillion, up from $8 trillion at the beginning of April. This increase reflected a 27.5% surge in total billionaire wealth over the three months.
As the Federal Reserve and other major central banks rapidly expanded their balance sheets, it becomes easily discernible that aggressive monetary policy benefited billionaires. During the three months, the number of billionaires worldwide hit a new record high of 2,189, surpassing the 2017 peak of 2,158.
The study found diverging fortunes between billionaires, while all billionaires across all industries saw rising wealth, ones based in technology and healthcare saw the largest increase in new wealth. Most of the wealth creation occurred during coronavirus lockdowns, while working-poor folks were confined to their homes.
If it’s monetary or fiscal, the transmission of stimulus to the world’s wealthiest is a tragedy in itself. The rich got richer, and the working-poor got poorer. In some countries, such as the US, tens of millions of households were handed lousy $1,200 checks, with many folks still without jobs, depleted emergency savings, food insecurity issues, and millions at risk of eviction.
“The economic crisis we are suffering because of the pandemic has been fuelled by a rigged economic model. The world’s largest corporations are making billions at the expense of low wage workers and funneling profits to shareholders and billionaires – a small group of largely white men in rich nations,” Oxfam International’s executive director Jose María (Chema) Vera told Al Jazeera.
The flawed economic system has been exposed for the world to see. The result, well, it’s a “K-shaped” recovery, outlines how wealthy elites greatly benefited from stimulus but left the working-poor and small businesses with no recovery. The “K” recovery is the result of socialism and central planning. The coming blowback of such a reckless policy by governments and central banks enriching billionaires will continue to widen the wealth gap that results in continued social unrest.
- 1 In 5 Americans Could Be "Out Of Money" By Election Day, Survey Finds
1 In 5 Americans Could Be “Out Of Money” By Election Day, Survey Finds
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 20:10Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
This week we learned that there likely won’t be any more stimulus checks for the American people before the election, and that prompted tremendous eruptions of anger all over social media. At first I didn’t understand why people were so angry, but now I do. It turns out that a substantial portion of the population is desperate for another round of checks because they are almost entirely out of cash.
In fact, a very alarming survey that was just conducted found that one out of every five Americans “could be out of money by Election Day”…
In fact, nearly one-quarter of U.S. consumers say they have less than three weeks of financial runway before they run out of cash, according to a weekly survey on Americans’ finances by consumer finance company Credit Karma. With just four weeks until the election, 1 in 5 Americans could be out of money by Election Day, the data shows.
This is yet more evidence that is consistent with the assertion that the economic downturn in the United States is starting to accelerate again. The trillions of dollars of “stimulus money” that the federal government borrowed and spent earlier this year is starting to wear off, and tens of millions of Americans simply aren’t going to be able to make it without more emergency government assistance.
But none is coming for a while, and so many American families are going to be faced with some really “tough choices”…
“People are going to be forced to make tough choices,” says Colleen McCreary, chief people officer at Credit Karma. “There are a lot of Americans who either haven’t been in this situation in a long time or have never had to face this reality. Many will have to sacrifice and prepare because it could get worse before it gets better.”
Sadly, I think that McCreary’s assessment is overly optimistic.
There is absolutely no guarantee that economic conditions will get any better for the foreseeable future.
With each passing day, more businesses are going under and more jobs are being lost.
In fact, another recent survey found that approximately half of all small businesses in America will “need more aid from the government over the next 12 months to survive”…
Half of all small businesses expect to need more aid from the government over the next 12 months to survive, according to a survey by the right-leaning National Federation of Independent Business. Sales for about one-fifth of small companies are still down 50% or more from pre-pandemic levels, the NFIB said.
Please take a moment and let that sink in.
We are talking about half of all small businesses in the entire country.
How in the world can the mainstream media be using the term “recovery” when half of our small businesses are on the verge of going belly up?
That doesn’t make any sense at all.
Of course large businesses continue to deeply struggle as well. For example, we just learned that Wells Fargo has eliminated 700 commercial banking jobs…
Wells Fargo has cut more than 700 commercial banking jobs as part of workforce reductions that could ultimately impact ‘tens of thousands’ of staff, according to a new report.
The San Francisco-based company has made layoffs for positions across the whole division, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
And we also just learned that Ruby Tuesday has formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection…
Hobbled by the pandemic and facing the same long-term challenges as other casual dining chains, Ruby Tuesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Wednesday.
The company hopes to use the debt-cutting process to improve its finances and stay in business, saying in a statement that it had “reached an understanding with its secured lenders to support its restructuring.”
Ruby Tuesday has already closed 185 locations, but they are hoping that a restructured company will allow the rest of their restaurants to stay open.
I remember eating at Ruby Tuesday quite a few times when I lived out on the east coast many years ago, and I don’t remember ever having a bad meal there.
If the chain completely collapses, that will definitely be a very sad day.
Of course Ruby Tuesday is far from alone. So far in 2020, a total of 509 large companies have filed for bankruptcy. The following comes from Wolf Richter…
In September, another 54 large companies filed for bankruptcy, after 54 had already filed for bankruptcy in August, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, bringing the total for the year as of October 4 to 509, the highest for the same period since 2010.
These are companies that are either publicly traded (minimum $2 million in assets or liabilities), or are private companies with debt that is publicly traded (minimum $10 million).
But this is just the beginning. As I have discussed previously, we are being warned that a “tsunami of bankruptcies” is coming in 2021 unless the federal government steps in.
At this point, just about every industry wants federal help, and not everyone will be able to get it.
So we should expect to see more numbers like these as the months roll along…
The American Hotel & Lodging Association has said that nearly three-quarters of hotels say they will have to lay off more workers without further financial aid.
And American Airlines and United Airlines combined furloughed 32,000 employees last week. Airlines have already shed tens of thousands of positions through early retirements and buyouts. Delta Air Lines began the year with 91,000 employees, but 18,000 left voluntarily and 40,000 others agreed to take unpaid leaves of absence. The company may cut 1,700 pilots Nov. 1 unless their union agrees to contract concessions.
Overall, more than 60 million Americans have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits this year. It is a nightmare that never seems to end, and many experts expect the pace of layoffs to start increasing again as we head into 2021.
Many Americans are hoping that the upcoming election will change things for the better, and right now everyone is buzzing about the VP debate. But there have been bubbles of optimism around previous elections, and yet our long-term economic problems have just continued to get worse and worse.
Over the past 12 years we have added 17 trillion dollars to the national debt, we have witnessed the greatest corporate debt binge in world history, and U.S. consumers have been borrowing and spending money like there is no tomorrow.
But tomorrow always arrives, and our day of reckoning is now at hand.
- For The Second Straight Month, The Fed Bought Zero Bond ETFs
For The Second Straight Month, The Fed Bought Zero Bond ETFs
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:50For much of the past seven months, the biggest story in capital markets was the Fed’s Blackrock-mediated purchases of corporate bonds, either in the primary or secondary market or via ETFs.
As a reminder, while the Fed pre-announced its intention to purchase up to $750BN in corporate bond (including certain fallen-angel junk bonds) in March, it started purchasing bonds in May, and bond ETFs in June (among which such mainstays as LQD and HYG). By directly entering the corporate bond market – something none of his predecessors dared to do even at the depths of the financial crisis – Powell created what many – us included – said the biggest corporate and junk bond bubble in history, because by backstopping prices the Fed terminally disconnected fundamentals from prices.
And, as expected, bond prices, stocks, and ETFs all surged while yields plunged, even while the underlying cash flow fundamentals deteriorated as everyone was trying to front-run the Fed’s pending or concurrent massive purchases. In other words, by jawboning alone, the Fed accomplished its handiwork.
Yet something odd happened last month: in all of August, when during the peak summer doldrums it was SoftBank’s turn to steal the spotlight with its now infamous gamma meltup, the Fed did not buy a single ETF, and barely bought any corporate bonds, which prompted us to ask: is Powell sending markets a message?
In retrospect it appears he was, because after an early swoon in the first days of September, stocks suffered their first major bout of turbulence since June last month when they closed in the red for the first time since the covid pandemic broke out.
So fast forward to today when the Fed released the latest monthly activity details under its Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility when we find that for the second month in a row, the Fed bought zero corporate ETFs…
… and logically, the number of ETF shares held was unchanged for the second consecutive month:
Looking at the bond level data showed a similar picture: here the Fed or rather Blackrock was just a bit busier, and bought just $420 million par value of bonds between Aug 31 and Sept 29, after purchasing just $421 million the month prior.
However, unlike August when Blackrock purchased $7 million in Apple bonds across three CUSIPs with maturity dates in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Why the Fed continues to buy Apple bonds – which are arguably the most liquid corporate bonds in the world – remains a mystery.
In any case, the modest September purchases, the Fed’s total corporate bond holdings rose by $394 million from $3.988 billion to 4.382 billion, an amount which also included the redemptions of several issues. And when combined with its $8.618 billion in ETF holdings, this means that as of August 31, the Fed owned just over $13 billion in bonds and ETFs.
Why is this notable?
Because this $13BN of bond purchases to date is a long way away from the $750BN figure the Fed initially said it was targeting and is far below the bogey the market has in mind. , as Johnson says “is currently in market participants psyche (i.e., 1.8% of what many continue to think the Fed will spend)”.
What are the implications?
The fact that the Fed stopped supporting the corporate bond ETF market during August and then again in September, appears to be a rather stark – if still unspoken – reversal in Fed policy stance, and one which we wish a “financial reporter” had asked Chair Powell to explain why during last month’s FOMC conference.
The key question, as we asked one month ago, “could it be that the Fed is starting to telegraph to the market that it moved too far, too fast? We hope to have the answer one month from today when we will learn if the Fed bought no ETFs for 3 consecutive months, and remember: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
- McDonald's Had Its Best Month In Nearly A Decade In September
McDonald’s Had Its Best Month In Nearly A Decade In September
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:30By Jonathan Maze,
It’s probably safe to say McDonald’s Travis Scott promotion was a success. The burger giant’s promotion with the hot-selling musician, along with the introduction of Spicy Chicken McNuggets, helped the chain’s same-store sales hit double digits in September.
The Chicago-based company said on Thursday that its same-store sales increased 4.6% in the third quarter ended Sept. 30.
That included “low double digit” increases in September, the company’s strongest month in nearly a decade and the result of what McDonald’s said was “promotional activity.”
That activity featured back-to-back marketing promotions that were both successful. The $6 Travis Scott Meal generated a rare amount of hype for the typically staid company—customers were seen stealing posters from McDonald’s restaurants to sell them on eBay, where people could also find receipts for the meal on auction.
The meal sold so well that many restaurants ran out of ground beef, bacon and even lettuce—the meal featured a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, lettuce and bacon, along with fries and a Sprite.
McDonald’s followed that up with a limited time offer of Spicy Chicken McNuggets. The company ran out of that product on occasion, too.
McDonald’s same-store sales have been improved in the U.S. largely because of the chain’s drive-thrus, which have thrived during the pandemic. It was a different story internationally, where same-store sales fell 4.4% in its larger international operated markets, featuring countries like the U.K., France, Canada and Australia. Its developing international markets saw same-store sales decline 10.1%.
Globally, same-store sales fell 2.2%.
McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said the performance “demonstrates the underlying resilience of the McDonald’s brand.” He cited the company’s “unrivaled drive-thru presence around the world, advanced delivery and digital capabilities, and marketing scale” which have been “even more important during the pandemic.”
- Doctors Say Trump Will Return To "Public Engagements" Saturday; 4th White House Reporter Sickened
Doctors Say Trump Will Return To “Public Engagements” Saturday; 4th White House Reporter Sickened
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/08/2020 – 19:13Update (1900ET): As Nancy Pelosi rallies Democrats to try and push for a 25th amendment removal of power from President Trump’s hands, his medical team has just announced in their latest update that Trump plans to return to “public engagements” on Saturday, the 10th day since his symptoms began, at which point they say he will not be infectious.
We can’t help but wonder if Trump’s press team will later issue a “clarification” about Saturday being “day 10” since it’s actually 9 days.
Not to be that guy, but Thursday to the next Saturday is…actually 9 days. pic.twitter.com/P4gkUDqEaH
— Shane Savitsky (@ssavitsky) October 8, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Could this have something to do with why Nancy Pelosi wants to know exactly when Trump last tested negative?
Trump released a video message a few hours ago in front of a green screen, though he definitely sounded healthier, and appeared less pale.
* * *
The White House Press Corps has just been informed that a 4th member of the White House press pool has tested positive for COVID-19. The reporter was last at the White House on Oct. 3, 6 days after the Amy Coney Barrett press announcement, which some have speculated might have been a super-spreader event.
New: WHCA emails members to alert them another member of White House press corps has “received a preliminary positive result for COVID-19 today after undergoing a rapid test.” The person is now awaiting results from a PCR test and is “currently asymptomatic.” Last at WH Oct. 1st.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 8, 2020
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We counted Stephen Miller, who tested positive last night, as the 33rd case from the White House outbreak. Earlier, a Marine Corp Assistant Commandant also tested positive after interacting with the Coast Guard Admiral Charles Ray who tested positive earlier this week.
That would make the 4th reporter sickened No. 34 on our list overall (we’re also counting 11 campaign aides who were sickened after the Cleveland debate).
Bloomberg has its own list here.
President Trump tweeted another video message from what appeared to be a green screen backdrop of the White House lawn promising that the antibody therapeutics he was treated with (among other things) would soon be available to “all”.
In response to the news, one twitter user asked about VP Mike Pence cancelling a trip to his home state, Indiana.
What’s up with VP Pence abruptly canceling his trip to Indiana ??
— Brad Cooney (@bradcooney1) October 8, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The other night, the NYT reported that another White House official apparently tested positive back in September, and had apparently fallen “gravely ill”.
White House reporters have slammed the WH press shop for wantonly putting their health at risk, as Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and at least 4 aides have tested positive (including one of her husband’s cousins). Though the only people who have been seriously sickened so far appear to be the White House security official reported last night, and NJ Gov Chris Christie, who remains in the hospital.
As far as President Trump is concerned, the White House told reporters a few minutes ago that they should be releasing another update on Trump’s health today.
Media: @Acosta to @wolfblitzer: “We should note, as the @USMC Marine is standing outside the West Wing, @realDonaldTrump is inside the Oval Office. We’re told by officials that the president’s doctor Sean Conley should be releasing some sort of update on the president’s health.” pic.twitter.com/2PToo4Qc0B
— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) October 8, 2020
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