Today’s News 9th September 2022

• Adults Aged 35–44 Died At Twice The Expected Rate Last Summer, Life Insurance Data Suggests
  Adults Aged 35–44 Died At Twice The Expected Rate Last Summer, Life Insurance Data Suggests

  Authored by Margaret Menge via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Death claims for working-age adults under group life insurance policies spiked well beyond expected levels last summer and fall, according to data from 20 of the top 21 life insurance companies in the United States.

  

  Death claims for adults aged 35 to 44 were 100 percent higher than expected in July, August, and September 2021, according to a report by the Society of Actuaries, which analyzed 2.3 million death claims submitted to life insurance firms.

  The report looked at death claims filed under group life insurance policies during the 24 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from April 2020 to March 2022. The researchers used data from the three years before the pandemic to set a baseline for the expected deaths.

  While COVID-19 played some role in the majority of the excess deaths for adults over the age of 34 during the two pandemic years, the opposite was true for younger people. For people 34 and younger, the number of excess non-COVID deaths was higher than those related to COVID, the data show.

  During the third quarter of last year, deaths in the 25-to-34 age bracket were 78 percent above the expected level and, for people aged 45 to 54, 80 percent higher than expected. Excess mortality was 53 percent above the baseline for adults aged 55 to 64.

  The Society of Actuaries (SOA) asked all 20 of the participating life insurance companies how they determine the cause of death for the purpose of recording claims. Of the 18 that responded, 17 said they list COVID-19 as the cause of death if it’s listed anywhere on the death certificate, while eight of the 18 said they go further and communicate with relatives and the medical examiner and look at other sources to try to determine the true cause of death.

  One life insurance company stated that it recorded COVID-19 as the cause of death only when it could be determined to be the primary cause of death on a death certificate.

  The report also notes that white-collar workers had the highest number of excess deaths during the two years studied. The group, which includes accountants, lawyers, computer programmers, and most other jobs done in an office setting, had 23 percent more deaths than expected.

  The sharp increase of deaths among working-age people was first brought to light by Scott Davison, CEO of the Indianapolis-based life insurance company OneAmerica, who said in a virtual press conference on Dec. 30, 2021, that his company and the life insurance industry as a whole was seeing a 40 percent increase in deaths among people ages 18 to 64.

  Davison said at the time that this represented the highest death rates in the history of the life insurance business, and that an increase in mortality of just 10 percent would constitute a “three-sigma” event, a once-in-200-year catastrophe.

  OneAmerica is one of the 20 companies that contributed data for the SOA report. The others include Aflac, Anthem, The Hartford, Lincoln Financial Group, MetLife, New York Life, and Principal Financial.

  Edward Dowd, a hedge fund manager who has been studying excess mortality for the past several months and has an upcoming book on the topic, Cause Unknown, says the rate of deaths among young people is alarming. He pointed out that excess deaths peaked around the time the Biden administration mandated COVID-19 vaccines and companies rushed to comply.

  “Temporally, in that three-month period, the change was such that, there was something that occurred,” he said. “Well, we all know what occurred in August, September, and October. It was Biden’s mandates on Sept. 9, and a lot of corporations anticipating those mandates.”

  President Joe Biden on Sept. 9, 2021, mandated COVID-19 vaccines for federal employees and health care workers in facilities certified by Medicare and Medicaid. The same day, the president tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) with implementing a nationwide vaccine mandate on private businesses with 100 or more employees.

  

  The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the OSHA mandate in January but allowed the mandate for health care workers to remain in place.

  The campaign to vaccinate the majority of the population against COVID-19 is the largest vaccination campaign in the history of the world.

  As of Aug. 31, about 90 percent of Americans 18 or older had gotten at least the first dose of one of the COVID-19 vaccines, and 77 percent had gotten both a first and a second dose.

  Dr. Robert Malone, a physician and research scientist credited with the invention of the mRNA technology for use in vaccines, says excess mortality must always be studied to determine whether a vaccine or medicine really is safe.

  “Excess mortality should be a signal, a trigger,” he told The Epoch Times. “When we see excess mortality like that—basically if you’re running a clinical trial and you see this kind of excess mortality, you stop the trial. And you investigate the cause before you proceed. And if you’re marketing a drug, generally, with this kind of data, you stop the distribution of the drug until you have sorted it out.”

  

  Malone mentioned what he calls the “classic example” of thalidomide, a morning sickness medication prescribed to a small number of pregnant women in the United States in the late 1950s and early ’60s that was effective in treating morning sickness, but caused severe deformities in their unborn children.

  The drug maker had pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the drug, but the FDA refused, based on the deformities that had been reported.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 23:40

• Taiwan Has The Fastest Internet In The World, USA Is 4th…
  Taiwan Has The Fastest Internet In The World, USA Is 4th…

  According to the cable.co.uk broadband speed league 2022, Taiwan is on top of the world when it comes to fast internet, with an average download speed of 135.88 Mbps – 13.55 more than second-placed Japan.

  As Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, Asia features prominently at the top end of the rankings, with Singapore and Hong Kong also recording mean speeds of 100 Mbps+.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  For this infographic, we excluded places with populations of less than one million.

  When including all of the measured locations, Macao on the south coast of China has the fasted broadband on average, with a whopping 262.74 Mbps. In second place would be the small island of Jersey, located in the English Channel, with 256.59 Mbps.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 23:20

• Homeland Security May Have Allowed Dangerous, Unvetted Afghans Into US: Inspector General
  Homeland Security May Have Allowed Dangerous, Unvetted Afghans Into US: Inspector General

  Authored by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

  During the evacuation of Afghanistan from July 2021 to January 2022, the United States brought nearly 80,000 Afghan citizens into the United States, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to fully vet some of the evacuees, potentially allowing individuals who pose a national security risk into the country, according to a recent report.

  

  The DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit to determine the extent to which the DHS screened, vetted, and inspected the evacuees.

  “We determined some information used to vet evacuees through U.S. Government databases, such as name, date of birth, identification number, and travel document data were inaccurate, incomplete, or missing,” the OIG said in its Sept. 6 report (pdf).

  “We also determined [Customs and Border Patrol] admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States.” As a consequence, the DHS may have admitted individuals into the country who pose a risk to national security and threaten the safety of local communities, the OIG warned.

  The audit found that of the 88,977 evacuee records inspected, 417 did not have first names, 242 did not have last names, and 11,110 had their date of birth recorded as Jan. 1.

  In addition, 7,800 records had missing or invalid travel document numbers while 36,400 records had a “facilitation document” as the travel document type. During the audit, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could not define what the “facilitation document” was.

  One evacuee paroled into the United States by CBP was earlier liberated from an Afghan prison by the Taliban. Another evacuee paroled into the country posed national security concerns. CBP allowed 35 evacuees to board a flight to the United States even though they lacked a green status card required for travel.

  Admitting Potential Threats

  During a recent daily briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that the DHS OIG report did not take into account the “rigorous, multilayered screening, and vetting process” the Biden administration took. However, an earlier Department of Defense (DOD) report and whistleblower claims support the OIG report.

  A Pentagon audit of the civilian evacuation effort in Afghanistan released in February warned about potentially dangerous individuals being brought into the United States.

  The DOD National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) identified “50 Afghan personnel in the United States with information in DoD records that would indicate potentially significant security concerns” in its February 2022 audit report (pdf).

  One whistleblower claimed that the DOD failed to properly vet 324 Afghan evacuees who appeared on the department’s Biometrically Enabled Watchlist that includes suspected terrorists.

  In August 2022, U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) urged the DOD to investigate the whistleblower allegations.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 23:00

• Iran Unveils New Stealth Combat Vessel With Vertical-Launch Missiles
  Iran Unveils New Stealth Combat Vessel With Vertical-Launch Missiles

  A new Iranian-built advanced tech combat patrol vessel has just been put into service by the IRGC Navy. Iran’s military is claiming that the vessel, named the “Shahid Soleimani” – has a stealth capable body and design, giving it “radar-evading stealth technology, meaning that it has a very low level of radar cross-section,” state sources say.

  According to Bloomberg, citing state media, the vessel is the country’s first to be equipped with a “vertical launch, short- and medium-range air defense system” – and was unveiled at a Monday ceremony at the port city of Bandar Abbas, overseen by Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, and IRGC chief Hossein Salami.

  

  The Shahid Soleimani is further being touted as capable of possessing higher maneuverability and smaller radius of rotation given the unique designed, compared to ships of similar size. Bagheri described of the new naval vessel, “The design and construction of this vessel was done by the elite youth and university graduates of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it has a stealth-equipped body with a very low radar cross section, which can be considered as a national achievement for the country.”

  Earlier this summer, as construction was being completed, the naval analysis site USNI News previewed the following capabilities based on available radar images of the vessel seen from overhead: 

  These missile boats offer more conventional capabilities than the myriad of small boats operated by the IRGC-N. They could operate as command vessels for swarms of smaller boats armed with rockets, torpedoes, mines, lightweight anti-ship missiles and drones. They could also operate independently, offering a longer-range arm of the IRGC. Either way, the two new types of catamaran are likely to spearhead the IRGC-N’s modernization.

  While Iran struggles to build larger warships and incorporate modern weapon systems, it continues to innovate and modernize in other fields. Its ballistic missiles are treated with respect, as are its drones and cruise missiles. Iran can build submarines and, now, modern missile corvettes.

  Additionally this week Bagheri issued fresh warnings to the United States and Israel, citing the Iranian navy’s ability to secure the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The top general said in addressing naval officers:

  “Also, the Zionist regime’s joining the terrorist U.S. Army’s Central Command can create threats for us. We do not tolerate Zionism, and in addition to protesting through the country’s foreign policy apparatus, we declare that we will not tolerate such development of espionage and creating threats, and we will not make any compromises regarding the rights of the Iranian nation and the security of our seas and land.”

  First Video of IRGC Navy Shahid Soleimani class catamaran corvette.
  The vessel is claimed to have VLS for AD missiles with 150 km range. A helipad with Bell-206 helicopter and crane for supporting IRGC fast attack crafts can be seen at the first glance. pic.twitter.com/e8eypVIKV4

  — Mehdi H. (@mhmiranusa) September 5, 2022

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

  The remarks came a day after the United States flew two nuclear-capable B-52H Stratofortresses over the Middle East on Sunday in a message aimed at Tehran. Three Israeli F-16 fighter jets had briefly joined the US mission as the bombers made their way “through Israel’s skies on their way to the (Persian) Gulf,” the Associated Press reported. 

  Last week the US and Iran had multiple encounters and intercept incidents in the Gulf region, with the Iranians claiming to have seized and then let go of several US sea drones. The second Friday incident took place in the Red Sea, involving the intervention of a US warship and helicopter which forced an Iranian patrol to release a pair of seized small surface vessels seized earlier the same day.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 22:40

• Xi Doubles Down On COVID-Zero Before Party Congress
  Xi Doubles Down On COVID-Zero Before Party Congress

  By Jacob Gu, Bloomberg Markets Live analyst and reporter

  China’s tightening of Covid-fighting measures has diminished hope that the ruling Communist Party may start relaxing the rigorous restrictions after it concludes its 20th Party Congress in October. Doubling down on the Covid Zero policy may not only cause more pain in the already struggling economy, but also undermine confidence among investors and the general public, something former Premier Wen Jiabao has said is “more important than gold and money.”

  The nation’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Thursday announced a raft of new measures in its fight against the Covid-19 virus, including asking people to minimize travel during the Mid-Autumn Festival next week and National Day holidays in October. People traveling via airplanes and railways will need to present negative PCR test results within 48 hours prior to boarding. They must show proof of a negative test within 72 hours when checking into hotels and visiting tourist attractions.

  In a reversal of its guidance in June, the NHC now requires all regions to conduct regular PCR testing, regardless of whether they have outbreaks or not. Previously, the authorities refuted such tests as unnecessary.

  The new measures, which start on Sept. 10 and end on Oct 31, seem to be designed for minimizing outbreak risks before the Party Congress scheduled for mid-October.

  To some China watchers, such as Nomura’s economist Ting Lu, the Covid Zero policy is unlikely to change until at least 2023 because Beijing may either extend or reintroduce these measures after October. It’s partly due to the calendar: the virus is more infectious during the winter; millions of people will travel during the Chinese New Year holidays in January; and the once-in-a-decade central government reshuffling is due at the National People’s Congress’s annual session in March.

  Market sentiment is already poor. The CSI 300 Index tracking companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen ended a two-day advance. Chinese shares traded in the US tumbled.

  Even before the new rules were announced, economists were already busy lowering forecasts for China’s economy. Nomura this week cut its forecast for 2022 growth to 2.7% from 2.8%. On Thursday, Barclays lowered its growth estimate to 2.6% from 3.1%, citing challenges including Covid lockdowns. Of 78 market participants polled by Bloomberg, 25 now see China’s growth below 3% this year.

  The Covid policy is increasingly unpopular among some Chinese and it’s politically sensitive. On Wednesday, Huatai Financial Holdings (HK) published a report saying an analysis of pandemic data in Asia suggests that the death rate from Covid variant BA.5 is lower than that of influenza. The report, co-authored by chief economist Eva Yi and analyst Xun Zhu, went viral on social media before Huatai shelved the analysis, even though it didn’t comment on Beijing’s policy.

  Nobody is expecting the strict rules to be removed before the Party Congress. But political and policy finesse will be in urgent need afterward to save the economy and restore confidence following the prolonged quixotic fight against Covid, before it’s too late.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 22:20

• It Appears Money Can Buy Happiness After All…
  It Appears Money Can Buy Happiness After All…

  Throughout history, the pursuit of happiness has been a preoccupation of humankind.

  Of course, we humans are not just content with measuring our own happiness, but also our happiness in relation to the people around us – and even other people around the world. The annual World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries, helps us do just that.

  The factors that contribute to happiness are as subjective and specific as the billions of humans they influence, but there are a few that have continued to resonate over time.

  Family.

  Love.

  Purpose.

  Wealth.

  As Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, the first three examples are tough to measure, but the latter can be analyzed in a data-driven way.

  Does money really buy happiness? Let’s find out…

  Wealth and Happiness

  To crunch the numbers, we looked at data from Credit Suisse, which breaks down the average wealth per adult in various countries around the world.

  The chart below looks at 146 countries by their happiness score and wealth per adult:

  

  While the results don’t definitively point to wealth contributing to happiness, there is a strong correlation across the board. Broadly speaking, the world’s poorest countries have the lowest happiness scores, and the richest report being the most happy.

  Regional and Country-Level Observations

  While many of the countries follow an obvious trend (more wealth = more happiness), there are nuances and outliers worth exploring.

  • In Latin America, people self-report more happiness than the trend between wealth and happiness would predict.

  • On the flip side, many nations in the Middle East report slightly less happiness than levels of wealth would predict.

  • Political turmoil, an economic crisis, and the devastating explosion in Beirut have resulted in Lebanon scoring far worse than would be expected. Over the past decade, the country’s score has fallen by nearly two full points.

  • Hong Kong has seen its happiness score sink for years now. Inequality, protests, instability, and now COVID-19 outbreaks have placed the region in an unusual zone on the chart: rich and unhappy.

  Examining Inequality and Happiness

  We’ve looked at the relationship between wealth and happiness between countries, but what about within countries?

  The Gini Coefficient is a tool that allows us to do just that. This measure looks at income distribution across a population, and applies a score to that population. Simply put, a score of 0 would be “perfect equality”, and 1 would be “perfect inequality” (i.e. an individual or group of recipients is receiving the entire income distribution).

  Combined with the same happiness scale as before, this is how countries shape up.

  

  While there is no ironclad conclusion that can be derived from this dataset, there are big picture observations worth highlighting.

  The 5 Countries With Highest Income Inequality

  

  First, countries with lower income inequality tend to also report more happiness. The 5 countries in this dataset with the highest inequality (shown above) have an average happiness score 1.3 lower than the 5 countries with the lowest inequality (shown below).

  The 5 Countries With Lowest Income Inequality

  

   

  Next, interesting regional differences emerge.

   

  Despite high income inequality, many Latin American countries report levels of happiness similar to many much-wealthier European nations.

  The Bottom Line

  People have been seeking understanding on happiness for millennia now, and it’s unlikely that slicing and dicing datasets will crack the code. Still though, much like the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of understanding is human nature.

  And, in more concrete terms, the more policymakers and the public understand the link between wealth and happiness, the more likely we can shape societies that give us a better chance at living a happy life.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 22:00

• Texas Sees Record 25.6% Tax-Revenue Surge Amid High Inflation
  Texas Sees Record 25.6% Tax-Revenue Surge Amid High Inflation

  Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Tax revenue in Texas grew by a record 25.6 percent for the 2022 fiscal year through August, according to the latest tax collection data released by the state Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar.

  

  All-funds tax collection for fiscal year 2022 until August came in at $77.2 billion, beating projections made in the Certification Revenue Estimate by nearly $841 million, the data show.

  Since 1988, the growth in the all-funds tax collections has exceeded the prior fiscal year by double digits just five times. And even then, the increases were only in the range of 10 to 13 percent. The 26 percent increase in fiscal 2022 until August is almost double the largest increase seen since 1988.

  In a Sept. 1 press release, Hegar credited the higher sales tax collections to economic growth and inflation. As demand remains strong, both individuals and businesses continue to pay elevated prices for goods, he pointed out.

  State sales tax receipts tend to spike during periods of high inflation. The 12-month Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of annual inflation, has remained above 7 percent for every single month in 2022, hitting a peak of 9.1 percent in June.

  The CPI was only at 1.4 percent in January 2021 when President Joe Biden took office. In a recently published survey conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, 48 percent of respondents blamed Biden and Congress for inflation and the rising cost of living.

  Texas does not have a corporate income tax or state income tax meaning the state is highly reliant on sales taxes for its revenue. Sales tax accounts for 56 percent of all tax collections in Texas and is the largest source of government funding.

  Sector-Wise Tax, Future Collections

  “The strong growth in August came from receipts remitted by the oil and gas mining sector, which were up by nearly 80 percent compared with a year ago,” Hegar said in the release.

  “Receipts from the construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade sectors showed double-digit growth for the ninth consecutive month, demonstrating continued strong spending by businesses in the state.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 21:40

• These Are The World's Most-Searched Consumer Brands In 2022
  These Are The World’s Most-Searched Consumer Brands In 2022

  In today’s fast-paced world, a strong brand is a powerful asset that helps a business stand out in a sea of competition.

  What are some of the most popular brands around the world? One way to gauge this is by looking at Google searches to see what consumers are searching for online (and therefore, what brands they’re paying the most attention to).

  As Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, this graphic by BusinessFinancing.co.uk uses data from Google Keyword Planner to show the world’s most searched consumer brands in the twelve months leading up to March 2022.

  

  Methodology

  To source this wide of a dataset, the team at BusinessFinancing.co.uk first compiled a list of well-known brands, using a number of reputable sources including Forbes, the Financial Times, BrandDirectory, and more.

  From there, the team created a shortlist of popular consumer brands. This year, they focused on businesses that sell products and services, so some of the big tech companies like Google and Meta were excluded from the 2022 ranking.

  Next, the team used Google Ads API to extract search volume data for the shortlisted brands. They looked at a couple of things:

  • The monthly average of searches over the last 12 months for the brand name alone (e.g. “Nike”)
  • Brand name with the corresponding sector added to the keyword (“Nike clothing”), which helped offset the skew in search volume for generic terms like “Apple” or “Amazon”

  They did this for every country in the world with data available. Here’s what they found.

  The Top 5 Most Searched Brands

  While Netflix is the most frequently searched brand in the highest number of countries (92), Amazon takes the top spot when it comes to total search volume.

  Here’s a look at the top five most search brands by average global monthly searches:

  

   

  But a brand’s search popularity doesn’t necessarily reflect that the business is thriving. For instance, in April 2022, Netflix announced it had lost around 200,000 subscribers throughout Q1.

   

  The week of the announcement, Netflix’s stock price dipped below $200—the lowest it had been since 2017.

  Smartphones

  Apple and its iPhone take the top spot when it comes to smartphone searches, which may be unsurprisingly considering the top five best-selling smartphones in 2021 were all iPhones.

  

  View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here.

  It’s worth noting that the top five best-selling smartphones only capture a fraction of the overall smartphone market, and while iPhones are undeniably popular, they only make up 16.7% of worldwide smartphone sales.

  Gaming

  Epic Games, the creator and platform of Fortnite, maintains its status as the most searched-for gaming brand worldwide, with an average of 14.9 million global monthly searches.

  

  View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here.

  No other gaming company came close to Epic Game’s search volume. For instance, Nintendo, which came in second place, only averaged 3.2 million searches a month.

  However, Nintendo still managed to generate more than $16 billion in revenue throughout 2021, triple the gross revenue that Epic Games made the same year.

  Fast Food

  KFC was the most searched fast-food company in more than 83 countries, making it the most popular worldwide.

  

  View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here.

  However, it’s worth noting that, while McDonald’s ranked first in fewer countries, it had a higher global monthly search average than its fried chicken competitor.

  In 2021, KFC generated approximately $2.79 billion in global revenue, while McDonald’s brought in $23.2 billion.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 21:20

• The "Correct" Attitude About The War In Ukraine
  The “Correct” Attitude About The War In Ukraine

  Authored by Finn Andreen via The Mises Institute,

  There are themes in the West that are difficult to question without running the risk of receiving sharp criticism. For the following themes, for example, there is a position considered “correct” by Western collective opinion: “Welfare State,” “climate policy,” “multicultural society,” or “covid-19 vaccination.”

  It is implied that the “acceptable” position to each one of these themes can and should be adopted without any prior critical analysis at the individual level.

  The list of these themes is not static; new ones rise to prominence in society, while others become less important over time. In recent years two new themes have emerged: “authoritarian Russia” and “communist China,” which is not surprising considering that Washington, and thus, by extension. the West, has decided to treat these two nations as strategic enemies.

  

  A recent study shows, for example, that in a very short time the percentage of Americans with a negative view of China increased dramatically, from 46 percent to 67 percent. This is not a coincidence, but the result of a media communication strategy.

  The Critique of the Antiwar Position

  As far as Russia is concerned, the “correct” attitude to have in the West, especially since the start of the Ukraine conflict on February 24, 2022, is no less than an absolute condemnation of that country. Support for Ukraine must be comprehensive and can receive social confirmation by a small blue and yellow flag on Facebook. Unconditional support for the economic war waged by Western leaders against Russia is also socially required for Europeans, even though they will be the first to suffer from it.

  It is for this reason that the Amnesty International report of August 4, 2022, which confirmed that “Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas” became a media bomb, not only in Ukraine but also in the West. This report disturbs a lot of people because it is not in line with the black and white view of Russia as a criminal aggressor and Ukraine as an innocent victim.

  The people who do not take the “correct” stance on the conflict in Ukraine are often accused of being “pro-Russian,” even when this stance simply consists in being objective; by considering the recent history and behavior of the various protagonists. They are considered “pro-Russian” because they do not express unconditional support for Ukraine, but more often, propose conditions for peace. Indeed, the position of most of these critics is not at all “pro-Russian,” but “pro-peace” by supporting active Western efforts to reach a ceasefire, thus sparing as many Ukrainian lives as possible.

  Western media did not react when, on July 14, 2022, the Ukrainian government published a black list of Western politicians, academics, and activists who, according to Kiev, “promote Russian propaganda.” This list includes leading Western intellectuals and politicians, such as Republican Senator Rand Paul, former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, military and geopolitical analyst Edward N. Luttwak, the political realist John Mearsheimer, and award-winning freelance journalist Glenn Greenwald.

  Though this Ukrainian blacklist should obviously have been condemned in the West, it has hardly elicited any reactions at all, because the Western media already agree with its conclusion: the people on the list are already criticized in their own countries for not adopting the pro-Ukrainian position. Moreover, would the Ukrainian government have dared to publish such a list if it had not had the prior agreement of Washington?

  The Formation of the Collective Opinion

  What is happening in the case of the attitude toward Russia, as well as in the other themes mentioned above, is not surprising or new. In his famous work, On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill is perhaps today best known for his prescient early warning of the dangers of the “collective opinion”; the “tyranny of the majority” in the form of “the dominant opinions and feelings that society is trying to impose” on a minority.

  Society’s majority is naturally intolerant of nonconformism, because thinking like everyone else gives psychological comfort and strengthens social ties. Yet, though society depends on collective opinion for its social cohesion, paradoxically it also depends for its well-being on views that run counter to this majority opinion. Just as natural science progresses only through the sometimes tortuous but generally respectful process of peer review, society also needs minority opinions and dissident voices to curb the permanent search for consensus on the part of the majority.

  But minority opinions will suffocate if there is no deeper understanding of Mill’s idea. Fortunately, this understanding exists today. To Mill’s “collective opinion” were added fundamental sociological concepts, such as “crowd psychology” (Gustave Le Bon, 1895), the “political formula” (Gaetano Mosca, 1923), “propaganda” (Edward Bernays, 1928), the “role of the intellectuals” (F.A. Hayek, 1949), the “banality of evil” (H. Arendt, 1963), the “manufacturing of consent” (Chomsky and Herman, 1988), and recently the concept of “mass formation psychosis” (Matthias Desmet).

  This accumulated knowledge in the reference above leaves no doubt about the will and the ability of Western political and financial elites to form and direct collective opinion through the control that they exert explicitly and implicitly on the editorial boards of traditional media and on social media platforms. The development of the opinions of Western majorities to the themes mentioned at the beginning of this article is largely the result of these elites” influence on Western public opinion. The collective opinion with respect to climate change is probably the most glaring example of this influence today, considering the significant economic consequences that it will have for Western society.

  Libertarianism Is the Only Solution

  Political globalization, an antiliberal process which has been underway for several decades, has the effect of aligning national political centers and thus reducing plurality. Gradually, Western political power is flowing toward supranational institutions (like the UN, the EU, the World Economic Forum). This centralization of political power, and the resulting economic concentration of business, including concentration of media groups that this has entailed enables and facilitates the formation of public opinion by the Western elites.

  The political philosophy that theoretically is best placed to solve this dilemma of modern society is libertarianism, because it clearly argues for a significant and definitive reduction of political power, both nationally and internationally.

  One of the strengths of libertarianism is precisely the importance it places on the cultural and intellectual plurality of a free society. This is the famous “marketplace of ideas” which, like the free market in goods and services, can only exist partially with the pervasive crony capitalism and massive State intervention that most Western societies are subject to today. In a free society, that is, a highly decentralized society with a weak State having at most a night watchman role, the formation of public opinion by political elites then becomes impossible.

  The present moment in history represents a particular threat to freedom, because the ruling globalist elites now have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the attitudes and opinions of their societies, in their own, often twisted, interests. At the same time, the new and easy access by the general public to alternative analyses and independent information, can counteract this nefarious trend. In these social conditions, Western voices of freedom must continue to present libertarianism, not only for its economic benefits but also as a means of liberating Western peoples from the chains of directed collective opinion.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 21:00

• "Really A Desperate Time": Summer Drought Wreaks Havoc Across Northeast Farmland
  “Really A Desperate Time”: Summer Drought Wreaks Havoc Across Northeast Farmland

  Drought conditions expanded and intensified over the Northeast this summer, according to the latest report from the US Drought Monitor. 

  Extreme drought plagues eastern Massachusetts, including Boston, and southern and eastern Rhode Island. A severe drought is more widespread, encompassing much of South Jersey up to the coastal area of Maine. Much of the Northeast is in abnormally dry conditions as of Thursday. 

  

  The emergence of the Northeast drought comes as the US West experiences a historic megadrought threatening supplies of fresh water, food, and hydropower. 

  

  As of Tuesday, not a single county in Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island is free of drought (and or dry conditions). This will impact the summer’s growing season and may shrink crop yields.

  In Rhode Island, farmers who can typically harvest hay three times in a season are expected to do so only once this year. Because each harvest varies in quality and size, that means losing about half the value of the entire crop, estimated Henry Wright, who grows about 300 acres (121 hectares) of hay and corn. 

  The fields are in such poor condition that as the season winds down, Wright is unlikely to be able reseed in the fall. He’ll have to wait until next year, shortening the growing season. He expects the 2023 hay crop to be only 10% to 20% of normal. 

  “It’s just not going to happen,” said Wright, who’s also president of the Rhode Island Farm Bureau. “This is really a desperate time.”

  In parts of Massachusetts in late August, the Charles River, which runs along Harvard University’s campus and is the site of a world-renowned annual rowing competition, shrank to a trickle. Near the Cochrane Dam on the border of the towns of Needham and Dover, the river mainly became a series of disconnected puddles and pools. 

  In Rhode Island, “we had fairly normal rainfall through June, then it just dropped off the edge of a table,” said Ken Ayars, chief of the agriculture and forest environment division at the state Department of Environmental Management.

  The drought is also affecting the quality of the feed that’s available, which will impact how much milk the cows produce. And because cows don’t sweat, they don’t do well in the heat, which can further affect their milk supply. Osofsky expects the herd’s output to be down about a fifth this year, shaving 20% off his annual profit of $300,000 to $400,000. And that’s excluding the additional expense of buying feed. 

  “The whole dairy game is milk,” Osofsky said. “It’s making as much milk as we can as cheaply as we can. So this has made it terribly expensive to do.” — Bloomberg 

  The drought has also impacted some drinking water reservoirs across New Jersey. In July, the Murphy administration asked New Jersey residents and businesses to conserve water due to moderate to severe drought impacting parts of the state. The water crisis appears worse further north. 

  The drought has impacted farmers and their crops in Connecticut, meanwhile in Massachusetts over 100 towns and cities have put in place water restriction due to low flow on local rivers. We’ll cover all that today at 2pm on @NBCNewsNow @NBC10Boston @NBCConnecticut @TelemundoNI pic.twitter.com/09veGssLvE

  — Grace Gómez (@GraceGomez) September 2, 2022

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

  “The scene of the Charles is bad — but unfortunately not unique in Massachusetts.” Across the state, drought has severely impacted local rivers, particularly Boston’s own Charles River.
  How the Charles River is being affected by drought – The Boston Globe
  At Millennium Park in… pic.twitter.com/f2FTRDTBOt

  — Melissa Green (@Melissa67773819) September 1, 2022

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

  Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture, said a high-pressure system above the Northeast had been the source of the dryness. He said the system blocked storms from coming into the region, contributing to less rainfall. 

  Rippey said 40% of the US is consumed in a drought. A protracted La Niña weather pattern has meant hotter and drier weather conditions in the West. 

  The odds of La Nina sticking around through January are now 80%, up from 72% a month ago, according to a new forecast by the US Climate Prediction Center. This could be the third time since 1950 when the weather phenomenon occurred in three consecutive years. 

  

  So is La Nina to blame for chaotic weather patterns across the US, or is it “climate change” as the mainstream media is hellbent on convincing the masses the world is headed for climate doom? 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 20:40

• Greenpeace Co-Founder Patrick Moore Says Climate Change Based On False Narratives
  Greenpeace Co-Founder Patrick Moore Says Climate Change Based On False Narratives

  Authored by Lee Yun-Jeong via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, said in an email obtained by The Epoch Times that his reasons for leaving Greenpeace were very clear: “Greenpeace was ‘hijacked’ by the political left when they realized there was money and power in the environmental movement. [Left-leaning] political activists in North America and Europe changed Greenpeace from a science-based organization to a political fundraising organization,” Moore said.

  

  Moore left Greenpeace in 1986, 15 years after he co-founded the organization.

  “The ‘environmental’ movement has become more of a political movement than an environmental movement,” he said. “They are primarily focused on creating narratives, stories, that are designed to instill fear and guilt into the public so the public will send them money.”

  He said they mainly operate behind closed doors with other political operatives at the U.N., World Economic Forum, and so on, all of which are primarily political in nature.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is “not a science organization,” he said. “It is a political organization composed of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.

  “The IPCC hires scientists to provide them with ‘information’ that supports the ‘climate emergency’ narrative.

  Their campaigns against fossil fuels, nuclear energy, CO2, plastic, etc., are misguided and designed to make people think the world will come to an end unless we cripple our civilization and destroy our economy. They are now a negative influence on the future of both the environment and human civilization.”

  “Today, the left has adopted many policies that would be very destructive to civilization as they are not technically achievable. Only look at the looming energy crisis in Europe and the UK, which Putin is taking advantage of. But it is of their own making in refusing to develop their own natural gas resources, opposing nuclear energy, and adopting an impossible position on fossil fuels in general,” Moore wrote.

  The Left ‘Hijacked’ Greenpeace

  

  He said “green” for the environment and “peace” for the people were the organization’s founding principles, but peace was largely forgotten, and green had become the sole agenda.

  “Many [so-called] ‘environmental’ leaders were now saying that ‘humans are the enemies of the Earth, the enemies of Nature.’ I could not accept that humans are the only evil species. This is too much like ‘original sin,’ that humans are born with evil, but all the other species are good, even cockroaches, mosquitos, and diseases,” Moore argued.

  He said the new dominant philosophy is that the world would be better if fewer people existed.

  “But the people who said this were not volunteering to be the first to go away. They behave as if they are superior to others. This kind of ‘pride’ and ‘conceit’ is the worst of the Cardinal Sins,” Moore said.

  Environmental Activist

  As a prominent scholar, ecologist, and long-time leader in the international environmental field, Patrick Moore is widely regarded as one of the world’s most qualified experts on the environment. He is also a founder of Greenpeace, the world’s largest environmental activist organization.

  Moore received his Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of British Columbia in 1974 and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from North Carolina State University in 2005.

  

  He co-founded Greenpeace in 1971 and served as president of Greenpeace Canada for nine years. From 1979 to 1986, Moore served as the Director of Greenpeace International, a driving force shaping the group’s policies and directions. During his 15-year tenure, Greenpeace became the world’s largest environmental activist organization.

  In 1991, Moore founded Greenspirit, a consultancy focusing on environmental policies, energy, climate change, biodiversity, genetically modified food, forests, fisheries, food, and resources.

  Between 2006 and 2012, Moore served as co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a U.S.-based environmental advocacy group.

  In 2014, he was appointed Chairman of Ecology, Energy, and Prosperity of Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a non-partisan Canadian public policy think tank.

  In 2019 and 2020, Moore served as the Chair of CO2 Coalition, a U.S.-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group dedicated to disputing false claims on CO2 as relates to climate change.

  False Narrative on Chlorine

  “At the time I decided to leave Greenpeace, I was one of 6 Directors of Greenpeace International. I was the only one with formal science education, BSc Honors in Science and Forestry, and Ph.D. in Ecology. My fellow directors decided that Greenpeace should begin a campaign to ‘Ban Chlorine Worldwide.’”

  Moore said it is true that elemental chlorine gas is highly toxic and was used as a weapon in World War I. However, chlorine is one of the 94 [naturally-ocurring] elements on the Periodic Table and has many roles in biology and human health. For example, table salt (NaCl or Sodium Chloride) is an essential nutrient for all animals and many plants. It is impossible to “ban” NaCl.

  

  He pointed out that adding chlorine to drinking water, swimming pools, and spas was one of the most significant advances in public health history in preventing the spread of water-borne communicable diseases such as cholera. And about 85 percent of pharmaceutical drugs are made with chlorine-related chemistry, and about 25 percent of all our medicines contain chlorine. All halogens, including chlorine, bromine, and iodine, are powerful antibiotics; without them, medicine would not be the same.

  “Greenpeace named chlorine ‘The Devil’s Element’ and calls PVC, polyvinyl chloride, or simply vinyl, ‘the Poison Plastic.’ All of this is fake [and] to scare the public. In addition, this misguided policy reinforces the attitude that humans are not a worthy species and that the world would be better off without them. I could not convince my fellow Greenpeace directors to abandon this misguided policy. This was the turning point for me,” Moore said.

  False Narrative on Polar Bears

  When asked how Greenpeace utilizes its massive donations, Moore said it was used to pay for “a very large staff” (likely over 2,000), extensive advertisements, and fundraising programs. And virtually all of the organization’s ads for fundraising are based on false narratives, which he had thoroughly disproven in his books, one example being the polar bears.

  

  “The International Treaty on Polar Bears, signed by all polar countries in 1973, to ban unrestricted hunting of polar bears, is never mentioned in the media, Greenpeace, or politicians who say the polar bear is going extinct due to melting ice in the Arctic. In fact, the polar bear population has increased from 6,000 to 8,000 in 1973 to 30,000 to 50,000 today. This is not disputed,” Moore said.

  “But now they say the polar bear will go extinct in 2100 as if they have a magic crystal ball that can predict the future. In fact, this past winter in the Arctic saw an expansion of ice from previous years, and Antarctica was colder during the last winter than in the past 50 years.”

  Moore said that he does not pretend to know everything and predict the future with confidence like many in the “climate emergency” business claim they can do.

  The Goal of the ‘Environmental Apocalypse’ Theory

  “I believe the human population has always been vulnerable to people who predict doom with false stories,” Moore said.

  “The Aztecs threw virgins into volcanos, and the Europeans and Americans burned women as witches for 200 years claiming this would ‘save the world’ from evil people. This has been [referred to as] ‘herd mentality,’ ‘groupthink,’ and ‘cult behavior.’ Humans are social animals with a hierarchy, and it is easiest to gain a high position by using fear and control.”

  Moore said the environmental apocalypse theory is mostly about “political power and control,” adding that he is dedicated to showing people that the situation is not as negative as they are told.

  “Today, in the richest countries, our descendants are making decisions that our grandchildren will have to pay for,” he said. “Predictions that the world is coming to an end have been made for thousands of years. Not once has this come true. Why should we believe it now?”

  “People are naturally afraid of the future because it is unknown and full of risks and difficult decisions. I believe there is also an element of ‘self-loathing’ in this apocalypse movement.”

  Moore said the young generation today is taught that humans are not worthy and are destroying the earth. This indoctrination has made them feel guilty and ashamed of themselves, which is the wrong way to go about life.

  The Demonization of Carbon Dioxide

  “Very few people believe the world is not warming. The record is clear that the world has been warming since about the year 1700, 150 years before we were using fossil fuels. 1700 was the peak of the Little Ice Age, which was very cold and caused crop failures and starvation. Before that, around 1000 A.D. was the Medieval Warm period when Vikings farmed Greenland. [And] before that, around 500 A.D. were the Dark Ages, and before that, the Roman Warm Period when it was warmer than today, and the sea level was 1–2 meters higher than today,” Moore said.

  

  “Even until about 1950, the amount of fossil fuel used and CO2 emitted were very small compared to today. We do not know the cause of these periodic fluctuations in temperature, but it was certainly not CO2.”

  Moore clarified that the “minority opinion” is not about the history of the Earth’s temperature, but it is the relationship between the temperature and CO2 that is at the center of the dispute.

  “In this regard, I agree that many believe CO2 is the main cause of warming. CO2 is invisible, so no one can actually see what it is doing. And this ‘majority’ are mainly scientists paid by politicians and bureaucrats, media making headlines, or activists making money. [The rest are] the public who believe this story even though they can’t actually see what CO2 is doing,” Moore said.

  Moore provided a graph of temperature continuously measured over 350 years (from 1659 to 2009) in central England. “If carbon dioxide was the main cause of warming, then there should be a rise in temperature along the carbon dioxide curve, but it doesn’t,” he explained.

  

  Moore described the demonization of CO2 as “completely ridiculous.” He added that CO2 is the basis of all life on Earth and its concentration in the atmosphere today, even with the increase, is lower than it has been for a large majority of life’s existence.

  Rising CO2 Correlates With Increased Plantation: Study

  A study in 2013 found that increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years.

  

  The Australian government agency CSIRO conducted the research in collaboration with Australian National University (ANU). The data was based on satellite observations from the year 1982 to 2010 across parts of the arid areas in Australia, North America, the Middle East, and Africa.

  It found an 11 percent increase in foliage cover in the studied area due to what’s called “CO2 fertilization.”

  The study said a fertilization effect occurs when elevated CO2 levels enable a leaf during photosynthesis—the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar—to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air or both.

  “If elevated CO2 causes the water use of individual leaves to drop, plants in arid environments will respond by increasing their total numbers of leaves. These changes in leaf cover can be detected by satellite, particularly in deserts and savannas where the cover is less complete than in wet locations,” according to Randall Donohue, the CSIRO research scientist.

  Breaking the Global Warming Narrative

  “Climate alarmists prefer to discuss climate knowledge only since 1850. The time before this they referred to as the pre-industrial age. This ‘pre-industrial age’ was more than 3 billion years when life was on the Earth. Many climate changes [occurred during that period], including Ice Ages, Hothouse Ages, major extinctions due to asteroid impacts, and other unknown causes,” Moore said.

  “Today, the Earth is in the Pleistocene Ice Age, which began 2.6 million years ago. … So, the most recent major glaciation, which peaked 20,000 years ago, was not the end of the Ice Age. We are still in the Pleistocene Ice Age no matter how the climate alarmists wish to deny this.”

  He said the great irony of the present panic about the climate is that the Earth is colder today than it was for 250 million years before the Pleistocene Ice Age set in. And CO2 is lower now than in more than 95 percent of Earth’s history.

  “But you would never know this if you listen to all the people who benefit from the lie that the Earth will soon be too hot for life and that CO2 will become higher than in Earth’s history,” Moore said.

  ‘More CO2 Is Beneficial to the Environment and Humans’

  According to Moore, nearly all commercial greenhouse farmers worldwide buy CO2 to inject into their greenhouses to realize up to 60 percent higher crop yields.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 20:20

• Apple's Big Product Launch: It Was All About The iPhone Price
  Apple’s Big Product Launch: It Was All About The iPhone Price

  For those who missed it, and to be honest there was not much if anything new…

  Apple executives after selling everyone the iPhone 11 for the 4th time pic.twitter.com/DDgVsA9H7z

  — Marcus Hutchins (@MalwareTechBlog) September 7, 2022

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

  … as even Steve Job’s daughter joked, here is a snapshot of everything that was announced at yesterday’s iPhone 14 reveal, courtesy of Goldman:

  • Pro pricing unchanged, Satellite connectivity, new premium Watch, all as expected Apple’s big Fall event revealed mostly incremental improvements (in GIR’s opinion) as the company launched a new iPhone, Watch, and AirPods.

  • Apple kept its USD pricing for all models of iPhone unchanged and inserted the new 14+ at the price we had expected. Rod believes this is likely the best pricing outcome for Apple as it avoids increasing the risk of Pro downgrades to non-Pro models and preserves some ASP with the 14+ at a higher pricepoint.

  • With regards to international prices, the company did partially adjust pricing for USD strength in international markets though the partial adjustment suggests a possible tradeoff of margin for unit demand.

  • As for other features, Apple launched a new Emergency SOS service via satellite connectivity in all new iPhones and is surprisingly offering the service free for 2 years.

  • The company also launched a new premium Watch Ultra priced at $799 which features a larger 49mm titanium case and a redesigned digital crown among other things. This had been heavily speculated in the press and the product is more or less in line with those reports.

  • Since the Apple Watch Ultra is a completely new product we expect most press to focus on this as the product release nears on September 23. We are particularly interested in how consumers react to the significantly larger size though the feature set looks attractive for outdoor enthusiasts.

  • Finally, the company also rolled out an upgrade to its popular AirPods Pro product with longer battery life and better sound quality. Apple’s stock was up slightly on the day but Rod sees little reason for incremental positivity on a product launch that was largely as expected

  Apple now has an iPhone for (almost) every wallet, starting with the budget-friendly iPhone SE from $429 and ending with the top-of-the-line 1TB 14 Pro Max for a whopping $1,599 in the United States (and significantly more in other parts of the world).

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Looking at the reactions from the broader analyst community, Apple analysts said the biggest takeaway from the company’s product event was its pricing strategy, after the iPhone maker unveiled new versions of its smartphone and watch:

  Piper Sandler (overweight, PT $195)

  • Most importantly, average selling prices for these new phones were kept consistent with last year’s models
  • “Given the constrained economic environment we think this is an incremental positive”

  Canaccord Genuity (buy, PT $200)

  • Apple met investor expectations with its product launch and “has a strong lineup to deliver healthy holiday sales”
  • The company’s ecosystem approach, which includes an installed base that exceeds 1.8B devices globally, “should continue to generate strong services revenue”
  • “Longer term, we expect the higher margin services revenue growth to outpace total company growth and drive gross margin expansion”

  KeyBanc Capital Markets

  • The addition of incremental 4G/5G bands in the new iPhones is a “moderately positive for the RF group” that includes AVGO, QRVO, SWKS
  • Meanwhile, Apple’s decision to standardize eSIM might be a negative for wireless carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon, as it makes switching carriers easier

  Wells Fargo Securities (overweight, PT $185)

  • The announcements “again prove to be more evolutionary than revolutionary,” and therefore the lack of change in the pricing strategy for Pro and Pro Max models is important; “we think investors were expecting up to a $100 price increase on the new high-end devices”
  • Apple’s expanded Apple Watch line-up is “an incremental positive”

  Evercore ISI (outperform, PT $185)

  • The announcements were “largely as expected,” though “some may be slightly surprised by the lack of pricing action”

  Wedbush (outperform, PT $220)

  • The lack of a price increase was a surprise to the Street
  • “We believe Apple is expecting another heavy iPhone Pro and Pro Max mix shift which is a clear positive for [average selling prices] heading into FY23”

  Bloomberg Intelligence

  • “Overall, we don’t anticipate that these new products are likely to spur noticeable sales growth in the company’s next fiscal year”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 20:00

• County Official In Nevada Arrested In Connection With Murder Of Las Vegas Reporter: Report
  County Official In Nevada Arrested In Connection With Murder Of Las Vegas Reporter: Report

  Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Police have arrested a county official in Nevada in connection to the recent murder of a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter who had written articles about the official, the newspaper reported.

  

  The murdered reporter, Jeff German, was found dead outside his home on Sept. 3. He died of “multiple sharp force injuries” in a homicide, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said on Sept. 4. Police said at the time that German appeared to have been in an altercation with another person prior to the stabbing.

  Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal around 6:30 p.m. local time on Sept. 7 that Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles had been arrested.

  The newspaper reported that shortly before Lombardo’s confirmation, police in tactical gear had surrounded Telles’ home, and about 30 minutes later, Telles was wheeled out of his home on a stretcher and was loaded into an ambulance.

  The arrest comes after officers executed search warrants on Telles’ residence earlier in the day. Local outlets reported that a home at which officers were seen belongs to Telles. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to The Epoch Times the execution of warrants were related to German’s murder.

  Vehicle at Crime Scene Matches Description of One in Official’s Garage

  Police had interviewed Telles and searched his home, including his vehicle, which matched the description of a vehicle witnesses saw at the scene of the crime.

  Police on Sept. 6 had released an image of the vehicle, which was described as a 2007 to 2014 red or maroon GMC Yukon Denali with chrome handles, a sunroof, and a luggage rack.

  Reporters with the Las Vegas Review-Journal said that they saw Telles in the driveway of his home with a vehicle matching the description. The GMC vehicle, as well as a second vehicle, were towed from Telles’ property at about 12:50 p.m local time on Sept. 7, reported the outlet.

  Telles did not speak to reporters outside his home around 2:20 p.m., after he was interviewed and searched by police. He was wearing what appeared to be a hazmat suit and sandals, as if he had discarded his clothes, or surrendered them as evidence.

  German, 69, was well known in Las Vegas for his decades of reporting on political malfeasance and organized crime.

  

  Telles, who is due to leave office in January, had lost the Democratic primary election in June. The 45-year-old official’s failed reelection bid came shortly after German reported that Telles had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and treated workers poorly.

  On Twitter in June, Telles called German “obsessed” with him and said that his wife had caught German going through his trash. “Looking forward to lying smear piece #4 by @JGermanRJ,” Telles wrote on June 18 on Twitter. “I think he’s mad that I haven’t crawled into a hole and died.”

  German had also previously written other articles that involved Telles and had recently filed public records requests for emails and text messages between Telles and three other county officials.

  In a letter on his website, Telles said that the articles German authored had contained false allegations. “I know that Clark County will find that I have done nothing wrong,” he wrote of German’s allegations.

  Arrest of Official an ‘Enormous Relief’: Newspaper Editor

  Glenn Cook, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s executive editor, said on Sept. 7 that Telles’s arrest is “at once an enormous relief and an outrage for the Review-Journal newsroom.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 19:40

• China's "ESG" Funds Include Coal Companies And Firms Tied To Alleged Human Rights Violations In Xinjiang
  China’s “ESG” Funds Include Coal Companies And Firms Tied To Alleged Human Rights Violations In Xinjiang

  Further proving that ESG investments can include…anything anybody wants…and proving that the entire notion of ESG investing is one giant racket, it was reported this week that ESG investment initiatives in China have investors funneling their cash into liquor and coal companies. 

  Fund manager Hou Chunyan, who recently pitched ESG investing as a way to stay compatible with China’s goals of “common prosperity”, said in a presentation in June that her fund, the Da Cheng ESG Responsibility Investment Mixed Fund, doesn’t exclude coal companies or liquor stocks, according to Yahoo/Bloomberg. 

  Additionally, the piece notes that ESG funds also invest in chemical manufacturers and solar and technology firms tied to forced labor in Xinjiang. 

  President Xi Jinping’s net-zero commitment and anti-poverty campaigns have prompted 112 new ESG funds to pop up in China over the last 20 months, according to Bloomberg data. This is about three times as many that debuted over the four years prior. 

  Retail investors in China are providing plenty of demand for the funds, Fidelity said. There are now $50 billion in ESG assets in China – about double what there was in the beginning of 2021. 

  And because “ESG” in China also means tethering your fund to China’s political goals, about 15% of the country’s ESG funds are invested in coal. More than 60% own steel companies, who are massive consumers of the country’s coal. 

  

  Bradford Cornell, emeritus professor of financial economics at UCLA, told Bloomberg: “People say ESG like we’ve agreed upon what it is — we’ve not. In China, the rules on environmental and social issues are made by the Chinese Communist Party.”

  Liu Xiangfeng, whose Beijing-based firm, QuantData, specializes in ESG analysis, added: “A local analyst would consider being a state-owned enterprise a good thing, while their counterpart in Europe might consider it a deal-breaker. There is culture and ideology involved.”

  The country’s CSI 300 ESG Leaders index includes China Shenhua Energy Co., which gets 78% of its revenue from coal mining, and alcohol company Kweichow Moutai Co.

  About 10% of the country’s ESG funds also hold Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., which is a company that has already been placed under U.S. trade sanctions due to alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang. 

  Shirley Xu, head of ESG research at China Asset Management Co., said: “As an asset manager in China, aside from using international ratings as a reference, we must follow China’s current stage of industry development and invest accordingly.” 

  Boya Wang, an ESG analyst at Morningstar Inc. concluded: “The government is bound to generate its own interpretation of ESG, because they want to make sure it will not conflict with the country’s national economic strategies…social inequality and local unemployment top the agenda.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 19:20

• Judge Bars Official Who Took Part In Jan. 6 From 'Seeking Or Holding' Office
  Judge Bars Official Who Took Part In Jan. 6 From ‘Seeking Or Holding’ Office

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

  A judge in New Mexico has barred an official who was convicted for being on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol while it was breached on Jan. 6, 2021, from seeking or holding state or federal office, and removed the official from his position.

  

  State District Court Judge Francis Mathew found that Couy Griffin, an Otero County commissioner, took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution when assuming the position.

  Mathew also concluded that the Capitol breach was “an insurrection against the U.S. Constitution” and that Griffin “engaged in” the insurrection when he entered restricted Capitol grounds.

  Three New Mexico residents, represented by the Washington-based nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, had asked the court to bar Griffin from holding office.

  They pointed to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says that no person shall hold a federal or state office if they “having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

  Due to the breach constituting an insurrection and Griffin participating after taking an oath in support of the Constitution, Griffin was disqualified from holding a state or federal office as of the day of the breach, according to the new ruling.

  “Mr. Griffin aided the insurrection even though he did not personally engage in violence,” Mathew said. “By joining the mob and trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, Mr. Griffin contributed to delaying Congress’s election-certification proceedings.”

  Griffin, who also founded a group called Cowboys for Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A phone call to the number listed for him on the Otero County website was not answered.

  The two other Otero County commissioners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 19:00

• Lender Seizes Evergrande's Hong Kong Headquarters
  Lender Seizes Evergrande’s Hong Kong Headquarters

  It may not have been China’s Lehman, but just like Lehman, Evergrande’s sprawling headquarters now belongs to someone else: according to the FT, Evergrande’s Hong Kong headquarters building has been seized by a lender after the struggling Chinese property developer defaulted on a loan and twice failed to sell the building.

  The lender, whose identity has not yet been confirmed, informed Evergrande earlier this week that it had appointed a receiver to take charge of the property, which is valued at $1.2 billion. Citing four sources, the FT notes that the lender had security over the China Evergrande Centre – a 26-story tower near the city center of Hong Kong island – which allowed it to take charge of the asset.

  

  Evergrande had reportedly pledged the building in exchange for loans from a consortium of lenders led by China CITIC Bank International, the HK-based subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned bank. The unnamed lender had appointed receivers from restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal.

  Last September, as an Evergrande default loomed, CITIC Bank told its investors that its loans to the developer were pledged against valuable security, although it did not provide further details. We now have a hint what said security may have been.

  Evergrande was infamously the most prominent developer to default in 2021 as a liquidity crisis gripped the Chinese property sector. It told creditors in January that it would unveil a preliminary plan by the end of July to restructure its $300 billion of liabilities, which include $20 billion of offshore bonds, but it missed that deadline and instead said it had only made “positive progress” toward a proposal.

  The property developer had twice attempted to sell the tower. Last October, Chinese state-owned Yuexiu Property pulled out of a reported $1.7 billion deal to buy the building over concerns about the developer’s financial situation. It put the headquarters back on the market in July, attracting a number of bids including from Li Ka-shing’s Hong Kong property developer CK Asset Holdings. However the sale again fell through because the bids were too low, reflecting Evergrande’s desperate need to raise cash.

  Evergrande has been divesting assets including property and its stakes in companies in a bid to repay some of its creditors. Its chair has also put his personal assets up for sale, including private jets. This week, Evergrande said it would sell its remaining stakes in China’s Shengjing Bank for $1.1 billion.

  The developer, which is listed in Hong Kong but whose shares have been suspended from trading since March, has not yet informed the market that a receiver has been appointed over one of its large Hong Kong assets. Earlier this year, Oaktree Capital, a $158 billion American asset manager, seized two of Evergrande’s prized assets after it defaulted on loans that totaled around $1 billion. The assets were a large development site in Hong Kong, where Evergrande’s chair Hui Ka Yan had intended to build a Versailles-like mansion and a sprawling residential and tourism resort near Shanghai called “Venice.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 18:40

• Rand Paul: "America Should Be Appalled" At Fauci Covering His Tracks
  Rand Paul: “America Should Be Appalled” At Fauci Covering His Tracks

  Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

  Appearing on Fox News Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul slammed Anthony Fauci for taking the default position of trying to “cover up” his activities, including potentially encouraging social media companies to censor medical information.

  

  After a federal judge ordered the release of emails Fauci sent to social media platforms concerning what he defined as ‘misinformation’, many want to know exactly what Fauci asked of them.

  “His response was not that I’ll look into it or I’ll reveal that. His response was, by law, we don’t have to tell you which companies gave us how many royalties and to which scientists,” Paul said of Fauci, noting that the emails sent to social media bosses could reveal censorship efforts.

  “I think that all of America should be appalled that America’s doctor, the leading expert on COVID in public health, doesn’t want to divulge information, doesn’t want to divulge his communications with Big Tech,” Paul urged, adding that Fauci’s “modus operandi” is to “cover up”.

  Watch:

  As part of a lawsuit brought by Louisiana Republican Jeffrey Landry, the federal judge ruled that Fauci and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre need to make public all relevant communications with Big Tech within the next three weeks.

  Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt argued in an initial filing that “having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left, senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved into a phase of open collusion with social-media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation’ and ‘malinformation.’”

  Elsewhere during the interview, Senator Paul commented on revelations by Gun Owners of America that the FBI pressured Americans into signing forms that relinquished their right to purchase, possess and use firearms. 

  “There is a certain irony to saying to someone you have to be mentally competent to sign this statement that says you’re not mentally competent to have a gun,” Paul noted, adding “So there is that that might be a quandary if you get into a court of law. How someone that’s mentally incompetent to own a gun could be competent to sign away their gun rights.”

  “I think the whole problem we have right now is that there’s a burden upon the FBI to prove to the American public that they are not partisan,” Paul said, adding “This goes back to 2016 when they used a foreign intelligence warrant to go after Donald Trump and his campaign.”

  “A foreign intelligence warrant which should be used on foreigners in a secret court was used to go after a major presidential, you know, candidate,” the Senator reiterated.

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 18:20

• California's Power Grid Turmoil Spurs Diesel Demand For Generators
  California’s Power Grid Turmoil Spurs Diesel Demand For Generators

  A record-setting heat wave pushed California’s power grid to the limit this week as California Independent System Operator (CAISO) called for customers to limit their electricity usage or risk widespread power blackouts. 

  Fear of power rationing led top power consumers, such as hospitals, data centers, and manufacturing plants, to fill up their diesel storage tanks to ensure generators had enough fuel to prepare for future brownouts and blackouts, according to Bloomberg, citing fuel distributors in the state. 

  

  The move to top off the tanks of diesel generators helped push supplies at storage facilities across the state to the lowest levels since 2019 — making the fuel primarily used in industrial applications even more scarce, resulting in higher prices. 

  

  “The buying spree comes as the state endures a record-breaking heat wave that’s pushed the electricity system to the brink. California on Wednesday declared another power-grid emergency after managing to avoid rolling blackouts on Monday and Tuesday,” Bloomberg noted.

  And it wasn’t just commercial customers preparing generators for a grid-down situation. Residential customers, especially ones with Teslas, were filling up their gas-powered generators this week to ensure they had on-demand power to charge their EVs. 

  

  Californians are learning the hard way after politicians and unelected officials spent years decarbonizing the grid by decommissioning fossil fuel power generators for unreliable solar and wind while ignoring nuclear has made the state’s grid susceptible to failure during peak demand hours. 

  And somehow, the state wants to ban new sales of gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Instead of unreliable green energy sources, perhaps nuclear is the answer for California’s grid troubles. 

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 18:00

• "Weak Links" Are Being Exposed – Jeff Gundlach Warns "The Period Of Abundance Is Over"
  “Weak Links” Are Being Exposed – Jeff Gundlach Warns “The Period Of Abundance Is Over”

  Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch,

  Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine, worries that the Federal Reserve is overreacting in the fight against inflation. He expects a severe slowdown of the economy and says how investors can navigate today’s challenging market environment. A conversation with the Bond King.

  When Jeffrey Gundlach speaks, financial markets around the globe listen carefully. The founder and CEO of DoubleLine, a Los Angeles based investment boutique mainly specializing in bonds, ranks among America’s highest-profile investors. On Wall Street, he is known for speaking his mind.

  According to his view, one of the biggest risks right now is that the Federal Reserve is doing considerable damage to the economy with its aggressive rate hikes:

  «The next shock is that we’re having to put in a big overreaction to the inflation problem which we created from our initial reaction of excess stimulus,» Mr. Gundlach says.

  «My guess is that we will end up creating momentum that’s more deflationary than a lot of people believe is even possible.»

  In this in-depth interview with The Market NZZ, the market maven explains why he expects a severe economic downturn in the coming months, where he sees the weak links in the system, and where he spots opportunities for prudent investments in today’s volatile market environment.

  

  Mr. Gundlach, financial markets are in a fragile state. Inflation is the highest in more than four decades, and stocks as well as bonds suffered significant losses this year. What’s on your mind in light of this environment?

  The Federal Reserve is very keen on preserving what is left of its credibility and reputation because they have not been able to execute on their interest rate plans for many years. Every time they try to tighten monetary policy, it doesn’t take long for the economy to get weak, and they get embarrassed. In the past, the Fed was able to pivot like it did at the end of 2018 when it completely reversed its course in just six weeks because the stock market collapsed. It was able to do that because the inflation rate was still below 2%, so it didn’t seem to have much of a near-term consequence.

  And how about today?

  This time, the inflation rate is 500+ basis points higher than the yield on any Treasury bond, and the Fed has said forcefully and repeatedly that they are going to bring it down. Therefore, they are not in a position to do a quick pivot.

  What do you think happens next?

  Weirdly, the market consensus thinks that the Fed is going to raise rates somewhat more, maybe even 125 or 150 basis points, and then, around six or seven months from now, the market expects that they mysteriously are going to start easing. Basically, the idea is that they are going to hike interest rates significantly more, and then they are going to drop them back down. To me, that’s a strange thing to predict because why bother with anything then? If you’re taking rates up and then back down, why bother taking them up? Why not just do nothing? It’s like a six-foot-tall man who’s in shape and weighs 185 pounds saying: «I’m going to put on 100 pounds this holiday season, and then I’ll take it off with a crash diet by Easter.» What’s the point of that? That’s not healthy, it’s very bad.

  But isn’t the idea here to give the economy a quick hit so that inflationary pressures subside and the system can recalibrate on a more balanced basis?

  Sure, but what you’re implying here is that the inflation rate goes down from 9% to 2% which is the Fed’s goal within a year or by the end of next year. That’s sort of the hope. But if this would be really possible, if the inflation rate were to fall so quickly and so sharply, why do you think it would stop at 2%? Why wouldn’t you think it goes negative? Why wouldn’t you think so much momentum towards a slowing economy might overshoot on the deflation side?

  How serious is the risk of deflation, in your view?

  Due to the pandemic, we did this huge amount of radical economic policy. The idea was that it was going to be free money and free growth with no bad consequences. But of course, we’ve had bad consequences. Now, people are thinking we can just do this reactionary shock to the economy by taking the federal funds rate up to 3.5% or 4%. But if that’s enough to weaken the economy to take 7 percentage points off the inflation rate, why wouldn’t it be 15 points? So maybe, we are going to get a delayed reaction that’s deflationary, just like we had a delayed reaction that was highly inflationary.

  What would that mean for financial markets?

  These shock-and-awe tactics work with a delay, and if you overdo them, you end up getting tremendous incremental volatility. We’ve had so much economic volatility in the past two and a half years compared with the preceding decade where the economy grew more or less steadily at 2% and the inflation rate never truly budged. Then, we introduced all these extraordinary policies that work with a lag. We just keep doing them until they kick in after the lag, and by then we’ve greatly overdone it. I think that’s the message of the bond market. Why else would we have interest rates so far below the inflation rate and such a flat yield curve?

  

  Into this highly volatile situation, we have a Fed that is expected to do $1 trillion of quantitative tightening over the next twelve months. Will this become an additional burden for the economy?

  Yes, that will add to economic weakness. The consumer is very weak as you can see with some of the upper middle-class oriented retail chains like Nordstrom. Nordstrom’s stock lost 25% just last month. All these things that are aspirational purchases rather than necessities have fallen off the cliff because people have to spend too much money on gasoline and food. In contrast, low-end retailers like Walmart had an explosion in new customers. Many of them used to shop at Whole Foods, now they shop at Walmart because the food there is about 30% cheaper. Walmart is also reporting a significant shift in their customers paying with credit cards, not debit cards. In other words, shoppers are borrowing to buy food.

  However, the labor market is still performing quite robustly.

  It’s highly suspicious. The labor market is screwed up because of all the dislocation. People still don’t know what the future is for office work, or for hybrid work. Looking ahead, it’s hard to figure out where the economic strength is supposed to come from. It’s pretty obvious that the consumer is not in good shape. Therefore, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing weakness in some of the former stock market darlings like Peloton. Peloton’s stock is down like 97% from its high, and it looks like it’s going to zero. Zoom and all the other darlings of the lockdown are collapsing as well. My guess is that a lot of them are going to go bankrupt.

  

   

  In this context, where are the weak links investors should pay close attention to?

   

  The large banks in Europe continue to perform very poorly. I see Credit Suisse is backing away from trying to be a Wall Street and United States titan. Their stock just seems to never go up. Deutsche Bank fared a little bit better, but interest rate suppression policies had made it impossible for European banks to make money. In the American economy, the weak links are producers and retailers of discretionary goods because the people don’t have the money to buy them. It’s like French President Macron recently said: The period of abundance is over. The weak links are those that benefit from abundance. We’re in an economy that doesn’t have the liquidity. There is no more funding for questionable ventures, for non-profitable businesses. Those are the weak links: The people that were living off of free money and cheap money and not making any money.

  What is the probability of a more severe economic downturn in this regard?

  Again, the overarching theme people are not fully appreciating is that we have become unhinged in terms of our economic parameters versus trying to manage the economy gradualisticly, as we did for quite a while. All of sudden, we’ve decided we had to respond in a way that is not all gradualistic. We had to damn the torpedoes and just go for it. That took us off balance, and we’re having a hard time finding our footing. It’s going to take a long time to find footing, but the next shock is that we’re having to put in a big overreaction to the inflation problem which we created from our initial reaction of excess stimulus. My guess is that we will end up creating momentum that’s more deflationary than a lot of people believe is even possible.

  Do you think Fed Chair Powell has the stamina to resolutely continue his fight against inflation if the signs of an economic slowdown continue to pile up?

  He has to. He’s not going to stop. He waffled too much in the past. He made policy pivots on small changes of data, and that put him in an unfortunate light. Now, he has made a pledge to bring inflation down, and he can’t break it without strong evidence that the reason for the pledge has passed. He can’t say «we have won the inflation battle» if the consumer price index stays above 6%. If Powell changes his rhetoric, he will go down in history as a joke. He has said unequivocally and repeatedly that he’s not going to stop just because we get one or two good inflation numbers or we get a little bit of economic weakness. I’m paraphrasing here because he doesn’t want to say it so directly, but essentially, he stated that the Fed doesn’t care if we have a mild recession.

  

   

  But what happens if this turns out to be a severe downturn?

   

  Powell is in an unstable place right now because it probably can’t last. He has a supposedly good employment market. While that’s suspicious, the unemployment rate is at 3.7%, and there are a lot of job openings, which gives the Fed cover to fight inflation. By a mild recession Powell means the unemployment rate goes up to 4%. If it rises to that level, I think he can continue with inflation fighting. But what if the unemployment rate goes up to 8%? Then what? We know exactly what’s going to happen: In the next recession, the US is going to go on a much more aggressive round of free money.

  You’re referring to another money printing binge?

  Much bigger. That’s their methodology: zero interest rates and money printing. It started back in the 2000s, and we’ve been at it ever since. And it always takes a bigger dose. Once you’re on a debt-financed scheme, you always have to borrow more.

  What then, would you advise monetary policy makers to do right now?

  I think Powell should slow down. The Fed should actually not raise the target rate by 75 basis points at the next meeting. They should do 25 basis points, and let a little time pass. Powell can keep playing the inflation fighter as long as he’s raising rates gradually. I wouldn’t even care if he skipped a meeting: A 25 basis point hike in September, and then pause at the next FOMC meeting in November. Let’s wait and see what happens because the bond market should be listened to: Every time the bond market is at odds with consensus economists, the bond market is right. And the bond market is saying that yields are peaking.

  But wouldn’t waiting raise the risk of persistently high inflation?

  We had this incredible shock of liquidity injected into the system in the second quarter of 2020, and the negative consequences really didn’t show up for over a year. The inflation rate didn’t start to go up significantly until the second half of last year. That’s why we should wait. We started raising rates meaningfully in May, so let these hikes percolate through and see what happens. But Powell can’t do that. He has stated so forcefully and repeatedly that he’s not going to let up until he sees inflation coming down in a «convincing» way. Satisfying these conditions is going to take some time. But I think he should slow down.

  How can prudent investors navigate this challenging environment?

  This has been a capital preservation situation for the past year. Beginning of this year or a year ago, stocks, by historical measures, were extremely overvalued in terms of P/E ratios, price-to-book, and all kinds of measures. Except for one thing: As overvalued stocks were versus historical measures, they were actually cheap to bonds. Bonds were even more overvalued, and it’s surprising to people that bonds are down as much as stocks this year. The only thing that’s up at all is commodities, and that ended too back in June. Nothing is really up since the Fed started raising interest rates in earnest in June. So it’s just a capital preservation market.

  That doesn’t sound encouraging. Is there nothing investors can do?

  The problem is that financial markets are entirely balanced upon zero interest rates and quantitative easing. The Fed pledged that was going away, and they are still speaking like they have the intention of further honoring that pledge. As a consequence, your financial assets are devaluing. If people really wanted to invest in something fundamentally, you probably want to invest in something like an energy company. You actually want to have the most old-school types of assets, things producing something that’s needed: farm land, food, energy, oil. Those are the places where you can protect yourself from inflation. These are also assets that are somewhat recession proof. People have to buy food and other necessities, but there is nothing left for all of this abundance spending.

  What about bonds, DoubleLine’s core competence?

  As I said, bond yields are probably in the process of peaking out. Parts of the yield curve have been inverted for a while, so it’s very reasonable to expect an economic downturn of significance within a year. We’re heading into the lean years, and that’s probably a situation where ultimately income becomes harder to come by. That’s why bond yields have been stuck at around 3% to 3.25% for about three or four months now. It sends the message that high-quality bonds might actually perform reasonably well as unattractive as they are versus inflation. In fact, they already have. The long bond got to 3.50%; it’s up in price the past few months. That’s why I think investors should own bonds instead of stocks; bonds are cheap to stocks.

  

   

  Where do you see the most attractive opportunities for fixed-income investments?

   

  Because of the illiquidity and the redemptions from the bond industry, spreads on non-government bonds were widening in a pretty powerful way until the middle of the summer. For instance, junk bonds started out this year with a yield of about 5%, and they got up to about 10%. Some emerging market bonds are yielding 15%, 18%. These are risky, but they are so much more attractive than stocks. Some bonds have yields of 10% to 12% and have prices of 75 cents on the dollar. Think about what the return potential is here: If you have a yield of 10-12%, and you have a 10% price gain, you could easily make 20-25%. It’s very unlikely that you make that from stocks. The bond market has gone from no value anywhere two years ago to abundant value relative to stocks.

  A key question is also what the dollar is going to do after the recent strong rally. How do you view the outlook for the greenback?

  The dollar is in the very late stages of its strength. The dollar will go up until the next recession, and then it will drop precipitously. I have been bullish on the dollar for over a year, but I’m extremely bearish on the dollar for the next ten years.

  A weaker dollar should be good for emerging markets, shouldn’t it?

  Yes, when the dollar tops out, you should own nothing but emerging markets if you’re an extremely aggressive investor. I wouldn’t do it personally because I’m a low-risk personality type, but emerging markets will do very, very well. They’re so cheap compared to developed markets, and their currencies will appreciate, I think, in the next recession. That means you could have a double win when you’re a US dollar-based investor. But I don’t think it’s going to happen this year. That might be a story for 2023.

  China looms particularly large for many investors in emerging markets since it represents an outsize stake in many EM funds. How should one deal with that in times of rising geopolitical tensions?

  I wouldn’t invest in China. I think there is just too much uncertainty. Tensions between China and the United States are high, and likely to get much worse. If you’re an American, you might not even be able to redeem your investment. So I would stay out of there, but Asia ex-China I would invest in.

  Should investors rather buy bonds or shares when it comes to emerging markets?

  I think you would buy both when we get to the next recession, after we have perhaps a Treasury rally. I think bonds broadly will do reasonably well, and in emerging markets they’re so much cheaper than in the United States. Right now, emerging market portfolios yield about 9.5%. So if the currency goes your way, and the yield goes your way, you make a lot of money off emerging markets.

  

   

  How about Europe? Do you spot opportunities for investments in Europe?

   

  We own European stocks. I think in the next recession they will do better, and they’re cheaper than US stocks. Europe doesn’t have the same sort of crazy zombie companies to the extent we do in the United States. It’s the zombie companies that are really going to have problems, and the US is loaded with zombie companies. And again, ultimately the dollar will depreciate, which is another reason we like European stocks. So far, this position hasn’t been a tremendous benefit to us, but it hasn’t hurt either. That’s actually a good sign. Europe was underperforming the United States almost all the time for a decade, and that stopped two years ago. When the trend stops, it takes a while for it to reverse, but once it stops, it tends to reverse.

  You started your career in the investment industry in the early Eighties when the general environment was somewhat similar to today. Looking back on your experience in all kinds of markets, what is the most important thing in investing?

  You have to buy when prices are low. I’m not making a joke, I mean it. Every time when there is a problem in the bond market, money pours out. There is greed and fear: Greed is powerful, but fear is more powerful. Yet, there is one thing that is even more powerful: need. When you need something, you have to have it. If people need to make a certain investment return, what they will do when opportunities go down is increase their risk because they need a higher return. They can’t live on a 3% return, they need 6%. So when there is no 6%, they try to manufacture a 6%. As a result, their risk goes up, up, up, up, up, and then they’re maximum exposed to risk. Next, prices collapse, and then they sell because their fear is so great. Instead, they should be buying. Right now, the bond market is very attractive, but no one is listening because everybody is selling. You’re supposed to be buying when people are selling, and that opportunity is still very strong today.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 09/08/2022 – 17:40

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