Month: July 2019

Why NIRP Can Only Get NIRPier

Authored by Omid Malekan via Medium.com,

Economics is the only profession where the more an idea fails, the more it is believed. Consider the following theory:

Low interest rates lead to higher growth and higher inflation.

If it were true, then a decade of the lowest rates in recorded history would have seen the global economy go gangbusters. Instead it’s been mostly the opposite, leading any reasonable person to at least question this theory.

But wait a second! A wunderkind econ whippersnapper fresh from Davos interrupts.

 If not for low interest rates, things would have been even worse!

This kind of defensive argument is popular among failed forecasters. And to be fair, I can’t prove that it isn’t true and low rates didn’t prevent some unforeseen calamity. That’s the beauty of the Hyperbolic Avoided Hypothetical (HAH! for short) and why it has become a favorite of the Central Banking elite. But it’s junk science, because you can’t disprove it either. For example: I just used my superpowers to prevent a zombie apocalypse. Go ahead and prove that I didn’t. (Do you see any zombies? No? You’re welcome.)

These twin tendencies of believing an idea that keeps disappointing and justifying it with all the worse outcomes that didn’t happen are the pillars of the global liquidity trap that is slowly pulling us all under. Ten years ago, there was a plausible theory that lower rates were a good idea. When they failed, rates were taken to zero (zero interest rate policy, or ZIRP). When that failed, they were taken negative (negative interest rate policy, or NIRP). At no point was it ever even considered that maybe, just maybe, it’s the theory that’s wrong.

My belief is that in the short term, artificially low rates are deflationary, as they result in investing booms that create excess capacity and misallocation of resources that hurts growth. Uber, Lyft, WeWork and AirBnb have caused plenty of deflation by constantly raising money to operate at a loss. Cheap debt enabled a fracking boom that’s flooded the oil market. Public companies that can borrow for nothing are more likely to spend that money on buybacks than wages.

But don’t say any of that to a central banker. In a profession where the things that didn’t happen matter more than the things that did, where giving free money to billionaires reduces income inequality and iPad prices matter more than the cost of food, the only thing that’s wrong with low interest rates is that they aren’t low enough.

And so, the ECB has just announced it will cut rates from negative 0.4% to negative 0.5%, because clearly what’s ailing Europe in the year 2019, a year of hard Brexits, Yellow Vests and right-wing uprisings is the fact that NIRP isn’t NIRPy enough, and should in fact be even NIRPier.

Here in the US we don’t have NIRP (yet) but the Fed is about to cut rates, despite the fact that unemployment is at an all time low, the stock market is at an all time high, and inflation is sitting just below the Fed’s own target. So why start easing? The Wall Street Journal asks the same question and concludes:

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is leading his colleagues to cut interest rates this week for the first time since 2008, even though the economy looks healthy, partly because it isn’t behaving as expected.

Translation: The Fed’s economic models have once again failed to predict the behavior of millions of people, and that could only mean one thing: the people are wrong. It’s tempting to get on these economists for their folly, and lord knows they deserve it, but what we are witnessing is the all too common tendency among smart people to double down on a false belief when confronted with the limitations of their own intelligence. (Unfortunately, and unlike a degenerate gambler, Central Bankers get to double down with our money.)

The great philosopher Homer (Simpson, not the Greek dude) once toasted: “To alcohol: The cause, and cure, of all of life’s problems.” The same can be said for low rates. As the extremity of these policies continue to cause a widening wealth gap, social discord and populist uprisings, they will accelerate the feedback loop. As the drama unfolds, two assets, gold and crypto, will become increasingly sought after.

Yes, you can also use equities, venture capital and real estate to hedge against negative rates. And in fact, that’s exactly what Central Bankers want you to do, along with buying shit you don’t need and taking on debt you might not be able to repay. But too many of us lived through the financial crisis to forget its lessons, and stocks, startups and skyscrapers have already had an epic run anyway.

Gold has been a great hedge against insanity for thousands of years, and with crazy shit like the entire Swiss yield curve being negative out to 50 years being the new normal, these are historically insane times.

Crypto represents a lot of things to a lot of different people, and it remains to be seen whether it ends up being more of a store of value, medium of exchange, equity in decentralized network or some combination therein. But going forward, it will also start to act as a vote against the insanity, for the simple reason that it exists entirely outside of the traditional financial system. In that regard, it is rather undervalued.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZkBz3R Tyler Durden

Another Florida Sheriff’s Deputy Arrested For Arresting People on False Drug Charges

A former sheriff’s deputy in Martin County, Florida, was arrested Monday for falsely imprisoning people on bogus drug charges. He is the second Florida deputy in one month to be charged with fabricating evidence during drug-related arrests.

Former Martin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven O’Leary, who was fired from the department in January, allegedly made three drug arrests in which the substances involved were not actually narcotics. In each case, he claimed that roadside field tests returned positive results for illegal drugs.

Local news outlet WPTV reports:

A Regional Crime Lab determined one of the substances was a powder commonly used to treat headaches, and another was a sand-based material containing no narcotics.

O’Leary had been with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office since February 2018. He was fired from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in January when the State Attorney’s office found problems with three of O’Leary’s cases.

After Monday’s arrest, O’Leary is charged with multiple offenses including: official misconduct, false statements, tampering with evidence, false imprisonment, petit theft and battery.

Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced the arrest of former Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Zach Wester, who was fired after he was caught on his own body camera appearing to plant a small baggie of methamphetamines in a woman’s car during a traffic stop.

Reason obtained body camera footage of a case where Wester lied about the results of a roadside field test for drugs and falsely arrested a man for methamphetamine possession.

After the local state attorney’s office lost faith in Wester’s credibility, it dismissed more than 100 cases where he had been the sole or primary officer. State investigators later revealed that when they searched the trunk of Wester’s patrol car they found dozens of unlabeled evidence bags containing methamphetamines and marijuana, as well as drug paraphernalia.

In addition to a growing number of federal civil rights lawsuits against him, Wester now faces 52 felony charges related to the arrests of 11 people. The charges include racketeering, false imprisonment, possession of methamphetamine, fabricating evidence, perjury, and official misconduct.

State prosecutors are still reviewing 80 drug-related cases that O’Leary handled during his 11-month stint at the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, and 20 people have announced their intent to sue O’Leary and the sheriff for civil rights violations.

“We will never be able to fully put every piece of this back together,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said at a January press conference. “But we’ll learn from what we did, we’ll move forward, and we’ll be a stronger sheriff’s office as a result.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ynp2R8
via IFTTT

Another Florida Sheriff’s Deputy Arrested For Arresting People on False Drug Charges

A former sheriff’s deputy in Martin County, Florida, was arrested Monday for falsely imprisoning people on bogus drug charges. He is the second Florida deputy in one month to be charged with fabricating evidence during drug-related arrests.

Former Martin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven O’Leary, who was fired from the department in January, allegedly made three drug arrests in which the substances involved were not actually narcotics. In each case, he claimed that roadside field tests returned positive results for illegal drugs.

Local news outlet WPTV reports:

A Regional Crime Lab determined one of the substances was a powder commonly used to treat headaches, and another was a sand-based material containing no narcotics.

O’Leary had been with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office since February 2018. He was fired from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in January when the State Attorney’s office found problems with three of O’Leary’s cases.

After Monday’s arrest, O’Leary is charged with multiple offenses including: official misconduct, false statements, tampering with evidence, false imprisonment, petit theft and battery.

Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced the arrest of former Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Zach Wester, who was fired after he was caught on his own body camera appearing to plant a small baggie of methamphetamines in a woman’s car during a traffic stop.

Reason obtained body camera footage of a case where Wester lied about the results of a roadside field test for drugs and falsely arrested a man for methamphetamine possession.

After the local state attorney’s office lost faith in Wester’s credibility, it dismissed more than 100 cases where he had been the sole or primary officer. State investigators later revealed that when they searched the trunk of Wester’s patrol car they found dozens of unlabeled evidence bags containing methamphetamines and marijuana, as well as drug paraphernalia.

In addition to a growing number of federal civil rights lawsuits against him, Wester now faces 52 felony charges related to the arrests of 11 people. The charges include racketeering, false imprisonment, possession of methamphetamine, fabricating evidence, perjury, and official misconduct.

State prosecutors are still reviewing 80 drug-related cases that O’Leary handled during his 11-month stint at the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, and 20 people have announced their intent to sue O’Leary and the sheriff for civil rights violations.

“We will never be able to fully put every piece of this back together,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said at a January press conference. “But we’ll learn from what we did, we’ll move forward, and we’ll be a stronger sheriff’s office as a result.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ynp2R8
via IFTTT

US-China Trade Talks Begin At Shanghai’s Most Infamous Celebrity Hangout

When Steven Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer meet with their Chinese counterparts in Shanghai this week, few observers expect that a breakthrough will be reach. That includes President Trump, who chided the Chinese in a tweet Tuesday morning to cut a deal before the 2020 election – or risk facing a second-term president with a strengthened popular mandate.

But in what appears to be an effort to distract from the lingering tensions over China’s promised purchases of American farm products, or Trump’s promise to remove Huawei from the Commerce Department’s blacklist – neither of which have been kept – Bloomberg reports that the Chinese negotiators are pulling out all of the stops: They will be hosting their American counterparts at the Fairmont Peace Hotel Tuesday evening after the delegation arrives at another hotel on the Bund waterfront shortly after 1:30 pm.

The 1920s art-deco building, which used to be known as the Cathay Hotel, was described by Bloomberg as “one of the most celebrated buildings on the Shanghai riverside” and has hosted famous guests including Charlie Chaplin and Noel Coward. The hotel was briefly used as an administrative building during the early years of the People’s Republic.

China

Negotiations are slated to begin on Wednesday at the Xijiao State Guest Hotel – the leafy compound of luxury reception buildings and accommodations in the west of the city. Neither the US government nor the Chinese would comment when approached by Bloomberg.

Per BBG, the Peace Hotel’s setting in the former International Settlement is freighted with the complicated history of America’s relationship with Chinese.

That could be a message and a reminder that Beijing has no intention of bending to President Trump’s rhetoric.

On the east passage from the lobby, the walls show off the hotel’s glamorous past. There’s Chaplin posing on the famous staircase in 1936, and scenes from the Chinese movie blockbuster Shanghai Triad, set in the 1930s. U.S. President Bill Clinton appears with Hillary Clinton on the roof in 1998, posing with Shanghai’s then-mayor. The hotel plays up its origins in Shanghai’s pre-WWII jazz age. The only clear nod to China’s present-day politics are at least two standing signs declaring “Socialism’s Core Values” — a fifteen-strong list including patriotism, honesty and harmony. Only the heading is rendered in English, though, as “China’s Core Values.”

Over the past few days, Chinese officials have ratcheted up their rhetoric and blamed the US for encouraging pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, something the Communist Party officials have warned they won’t simply let go.

Chinese officials, meanwhile, again alleged American involvement in Hong Kong’s historic unrest, saying recent violence at protests was “a creation of the US.” “Those who play with fire will inevitably burn themselves,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on Monday. “China urges the U.S. to stop as soon as possible.” On Tuesday, an editorial in the state-owned China Daily argued that the city was an “auspicious” venue to re-start the talks, and referenced the visit by former U.S. President Richard Nixon there in 1972 in the course of the diplomatic thaw between the communist and capitalist states.

Chinese officials, meanwhile, again alleged American involvement in Hong Kong’s historic unrest, saying recent violence at protests was “a creation of the US.”

The market’s expectations for a deal are incredibly low. So, any signs of progress could push stocks higher. Then again, with so much going on during this unusually busy summer week, the market’s tepid reaction to President Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning could be a sign that investors are focused on the Fed, and that trade talks no longer hold the same sway over the markets as they once did.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LQsr3V Tyler Durden

Tonight’s Democratic Debate Will Be Long on Personal Attacks and Increased Government

The only truly memorable moment from the first round of Democratic presidential debates came when Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) called out former Vice President Joe Biden for having objected to mandatory busing to desegregate schools back in the 1970s. She acknowledged a few days later that she actually agreed with Biden’s underlying position: Biden didn’t think the federal government should be dictating local school policy, which is also exactly Harris’s stance. But in the moment, that didn’t matter. Her seemingly heartfelt confrontation of the frontrunner—and his bumbling, doddering response—allowed her to vault into the the top tier of candidates.

As the second round of Democratic debates unfolds over tonight and tomorrow, expect more candidates, especially lower-polling ones, to pounce less on Donald Trump and more on their Democratic counterparts, especially Biden, who enjoys leads ranging from 13 points to 27 points in various polls of voters in early states. Especially over the past few weeks, Trump has delivered his critics an embarrassment of riches in the form of hostile, racist tweets directed at various Democratic members of Congress. But the serious contenders realize if they want to square off against the president, they must first win the Hunger Games that is their own party’s nominating process.

Tonight’s debate starts at 8 p.m. ET and can be viewed on CNN. As before, the 20 participants will be split into two groups debating on consecutive nights. Tonight’s lineup includes motivational author Marianne Williamson, Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. The debate will be moderated by Dana Bash, Don Lemon, and Jake Tapper.

Sanders and Warren are the most consistently left-wing major candidates running for the nomination. They support similar plans to grow the size, scope, and spending of the government, and they describe the U.S. economy as fundamentally unfair to all but the top 1 percent. That ideological overlap, along with the fact they both hail from the Northeast and need strong showings early in New Hampshire, suggest they will go at it tonight—all while bashing Biden, who appears tomorrow alongside his nemesis Harris. For formerly hot candidates such as Beto O’Rourke, tonight may be make-or-break time, as he tries to regain the momentum that landed him on the cover of Vanity Fair and drew taunts of “Skateboard Jesus.” Buttigieg has raised a ton of money but remains stuck at around 6 percent. These sorts of candidates need to start making themselves more memorable.

The tension in this week’s debates will not be limited to personal attacks. There’s a deep disconnect between almost all of the candidates and actual rank-and-file Democrats. As the candidates lay out more and more liberal programs—Medicare for All, student debt forgiveness, free college for all, reparations for slavery and for gay couples who couldn’t get married until a few years ago, health care for undocumented immigrants, a Green New Deal—Democratic voters are saying they want a more moderate party. Earlier this year, Pew Research found that 53 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters agreed that they “would like to see their party move in a more moderate direction.” Just 40 percent wanted it to move in a more liberal direction. Late last year, when Gallup asked the same question, 54 percent wanted a more moderate party, compared to 41 percent calling for a leftward lurch (other analyses show that, for instance, a vast majority of Democrats are against getting rid of private health insurance while a number of top candidates are calling for single-payer). Former Obama apparatchik Paul Begala fears that the nominating process has become “some kind of purity game to see who can be the most leftist.” He and others worry that they very thing that leads to success in the short run will make it harder for the Democratic nominee to win in a general election.

In the long run, that disconnect between the party’s candidate and its voters will be more important to the 2020 election than any of the gotcha dramas that play out in tonight’s and tomorrow’s debates.

 

 

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/312cR8J
via IFTTT

The Treasury Department is in desperate need of a sucker

Ten years ago, at the peak of the global financial crisis, the Board of Trustees which oversees Social Security in the United States issued a stark warning:

They projected that Social Security’s enormous trust funds would completely run out of money in 2039.

Naturally nobody paid attention. Back in 2009 the economy in shambles, so focusing on a future economic crisis that was more than three decades away was a low priority.

And for the past decade, the US government has continued to ignore its Social Security problem.

But it’s become much worse.

Ten years later, the Board of Trustees now projects that Social Security’s primary trust fund will run out money in 2034.

That’s five years earlier than they projected back in 2009. And it’s only 15 years away.

Now, 15 years might seem like a long time. But take a minute to grasp the magnitude of this problem:

According to the US government’s own estimates, Social Security and Medicare combined are underfunded by $100 TRILLION.

$100 trillion is literally more than FIVE TIMES the size of the entire US economy. And this giant fiscal chasm is actually growing.

The big problem for Social Security is that tax revenue is no longer enough.

Every worker who is legally employed in the United States currently pays roughly 15% of his/her wages each month to help fund Social Security and pay benefits to retirees.

But there are now so many people receiving Social Security benefits that all the payroll tax revenue is no longer enough.

Social Security also derives a portion of the income it needs to pay benefits from the investment returns on its $3 trillion worth of assets.

Problem is– Social Security is forbidden by law to invest in anything EXCEPT United States government bonds.

Most countries who have large Sovereign Wealth Funds or Pension Funds have the latitude to invest that capital in a variety of asset classes.

I personally know several national pension fund and sovereign wealth fund executives in Europe and Asia, and they typically buy a wide variety of assets– real estate, private equity, stocks, bonds, etc., with a target annualized return of between 6% to 8%.

(Norway’s sovereign wealth fund earned an average 7.6% between 2010 and 2017. And California’s state employee pension fund, CALPERS, earned 6.7% last year.)

But Social Security doesn’t have this investment freedom. Instead, Social Security is required BY LAW to invest in US government bonds, which yield less than 3%.

In fact Social Security’s investment return last year was 2.9%.

You’re probably starting to see the problem–

At the moment, Social Security is the #1 owner of US government debt, having spent years stockpiling $3 trillion of dollars worth of US Treasury bonds.

Month after month, as payroll tax revenues exceeded the total retirement benefits paid out, Social Security invested its surplus into government bonds.

But now that flow of money is about to reverse.

We know that Social Security’s payroll tax revenue is no longer sufficient to pay out benefits. There are simply too many retirees.

We also know that the 2.9% invest return is pitiful and not going to help at all.

This means that Social Security is about to start burning through the trust funds in order to meet its monthly benefit obligations.

The Board of Trustees has already acknowledged this fact. And they project the trust funds will be fully depleted in 15 years.

But it could likely come much sooner than that.

Before they can use the trust funds to cover their financial shortfall, Social Security will first have to convert its government bonds into cash.

Doing that will require that they either let the bonds mature (and demand the government to repay them in full). Or it will require them to dump tens of billions… hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bonds on the open market.

Either way, Uncle Sam loses its biggest lender. Instead of borrowing money from Social Security, the Treasury Department is going to have to pay Social Security back.

We’re talking $3 TRILLION. That’s not exactly pocket change. And it’s coming at a time when the US government is already losing more than $1 trillion per year.

The Congressional Budget Office already forecasts that the federal government will have to borrow $12.7 trillion in additional debt through the end of 2029.

Now, on top of that already-prodigious figure, the Treasury Department will have to find some sucker willing to lend an additional $3 trillion to repay Social Security… not to mention tens of trillions of dollars more down the road.

That’s extremely unlikely.

What’s far more likely is that the US government simply freezes the repayments to Social Security.

Maybe they pay back a trillion or two. But not the full amount. The rest of it would be frozen, which means that the trust funds would be effectively depleted MUCH earlier than expected.

Prudential, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, estimates that 86% of current retirees, 88% of baby boomers who are about to retire, and 71% of Gen-Xers, rely or expect to rely on Social Security when they retire.

But the Social Security trustees themselves tell us that the funds will run out of money in 15 years. And as I’ve just shown, it could happen a lot sooner than that.

So it’s clear that a LOT of people will have their lives turned upside down.

Look, maybe I’m totally wrong.

Maybe the Treasury Department does find a sucker to bail out Social Security. Maybe that sucker is us. Bank deposits, managed IRAs, etc. are all fair game for Uncle Sam. They could seize anything they want.

But even if I’m totally wrong, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B… to take back control of your own retirement.

Source

from Sovereign Man https://ift.tt/330JTYU
via IFTTT

Tonight’s Democratic Debate Will Be Long on Personal Attacks and Increased Government

The only truly memorable moment from the first round of Democratic presidential debates came when Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) called out former Vice President Joe Biden for having objected to mandatory busing to desegregate schools back in the 1970s. She acknowledged a few days later that she actually agreed with Biden’s underlying position: Biden didn’t think the federal government should be dictating local school policy, which is also exactly Harris’s stance. But in the moment, that didn’t matter. Her seemingly heartfelt confrontation of the frontrunner—and his bumbling, doddering response—allowed her to vault into the the top tier of candidates.

As the second round of Democratic debates unfolds over tonight and tomorrow, expect more candidates, especially lower-polling ones, to pounce less on Donald Trump and more on their Democratic counterparts, especially Biden, who enjoys leads ranging from 13 points to 27 points in various polls of voters in early states. Especially over the past few weeks, Trump has delivered his critics an embarrassment of riches in the form of hostile, racist tweets directed at various Democratic members of Congress. But the serious contenders realize if they want to square off against the president, they must first win the Hunger Games that is their own party’s nominating process.

Tonight’s debate starts at 8 p.m. ET and can be viewed on CNN. As before, the 20 participants will be split into two groups debating on consecutive nights. Tonight’s lineup includes motivational author Marianne Williamson, Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. The debate will be moderated by Dana Bash, Don Lemon, and Jake Tapper.

Sanders and Warren are the most consistently left-wing major candidates running for the nomination. They support similar plans to grow the size, scope, and spending of the government, and they describe the U.S. economy as fundamentally unfair to all but the top 1 percent. That ideological overlap, along with the fact they both hail from the Northeast and need strong showings early in New Hampshire, suggest they will go at it tonight—all while bashing Biden, who appears tomorrow alongside his nemesis Harris. For formerly hot candidates such as Beto O’Rourke, tonight may be make-or-break time, as he tries to regain the momentum that landed him on the cover of Vanity Fair and drew taunts of “Skateboard Jesus.” Buttigieg has raised a ton of money but remains stuck at around 6 percent. These sorts of candidates need to start making themselves more memorable.

The tension in this week’s debates will not be limited to personal attacks. There’s a deep disconnect between almost all of the candidates and actual rank-and-file Democrats. As the candidates lay out more and more liberal programs—Medicare for All, student debt forgiveness, free college for all, reparations for slavery and for gay couples who couldn’t get married until a few years ago, health care for undocumented immigrants, a Green New Deal—Democratic voters are saying they want a more moderate party. Earlier this year, Pew Research found that 53 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters agreed that they “would like to see their party move in a more moderate direction.” Just 40 percent wanted it to move in a more liberal direction. Late last year, when Gallup asked the same question, 54 percent wanted a more moderate party, compared to 41 percent calling for a leftward lurch (other analyses show that, for instance, a vast majority of Democrats are against getting rid of private health insurance while a number of top candidates are calling for single-payer). Former Obama apparatchik Paul Begala fears that the nominating process has become “some kind of purity game to see who can be the most leftist.” He and others worry that they very thing that leads to success in the short run will make it harder for the Democratic nominee to win in a general election.

In the long run, that disconnect between the party’s candidate and its voters will be more important to the 2020 election than any of the gotcha dramas that play out in tonight’s and tomorrow’s debates.

 

 

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/312cR8J
via IFTTT

There’s Blood On The Streets Of Baltimore, Homicides Flare-Up, Could See Record Year

Out of control gun violence continues to plague Baltimore through mid-Summer, extending a years-long surge in shootings.

As of Tuesday morning, 196 people have been killed, if that was from a gunshot wound, stabbing, blunt force, and or asphyxiation.

Baltimore’s revival started in the early 2000s, primarily when Under Armour based their global headquarters in the Inner Harbor. But everything changed when Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, was arrested by Baltimore Police and died in police custody in 2015. Riots broke out shortly after, causing more than $10 million in damage, as cars and buildings burned to the ground, reminding everyone what a mess Baltimore has become.

Since the riots, Baltimore homicides have surpassed 300 each year from 2015 through 2018, and 2019 could soon be one of the worst years ever.

Cumulative homicide trends show 2019 could be following the path of 2017 homicides, which would mean 300-342 murders by year-end.

Homicides ticked higher through spring and have exploded during the summer months. It seems that Baltimore has a gun problem.

A vast majority of the murders occurred in the Southwestern, Western, Eastern, and Northwestern districts (basically the entire city).

Crime statistics published by the FBI ranked Baltimore’s homicide rate in 2017, the highest of any large American city. The 342 homicides in 2017 represented a “homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people.”

While homicides in Baltimore continue to gain momentum, killings declined nationally through 1H19. New York City’s murders declined 13.5% and Chicago’s decline of more than 7%.

Despite being 14x larger than Baltimore, New York has lower overall killings per year.

“I’m not happy about it, and neither should any citizen in Baltimore be happy,” Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young said in early July. “It’s disheartening to be labeled the most violent city in America.”

And with three days (as of Monday) of tweets by President Donald Trump blasting Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cumming for his “disgusting, rat and rodent-infested” Baltimore district,” the national debate about race, urban poverty, and homicides becomes mainstream.

What is most puzzling to us is that President Trump continues to tout low black unemployment and the “best economy ever” for these low-income folks, but points out the horrid conditions in Baltimore (something must be amiss in the black unemployment data).

But let’s take a step back decades ago, when Baltimore had nearly 1 million in total population back in the late 1950s, ever since, the population has crashed to 100-year lows last year, now around 600,000.

It wasn’t Democrats that started the demise of Baltimore, and like many other industrial cities across America, it was the corporate elitist, who reallocated resources and labor out of America over the last five decades to other regions of the world, all to enrich shareholders while American inner cities imploded.

It was the big pharma companies, who in the last two decades pumped millions and millions of legal opioid pills onto the streets of Baltimore – destroying the millennial youth.

Baltimore is a failure of all levels of government, both political parties, after all, it’s located just 40 miles north of Washington, D.C.

The more time politicians blame one another, the less time we have in finding productive measures that could lay the groundwork for a potential revival. Coming up with a solution for Baltimore will serve as a blueprint to revive deindustrialized areas across the country. Judging by the progress, this revival is decades out. The “greatest economy ever” is a hoax.

Enjoy reality: “Cause it’s ruthless, and don’t tell me you’re ruthless too. When there is blood on the streets of Baltimore.” 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2SU7GoD Tyler Durden

Police Faked Evidence and the Real Killer Confessed. But Missouri Still Imprisoned an Innocent Man for 24 Years.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office will give a new trial to Lamar Johnson, who was convicted of capital murder in 1995 after the lead detective falsified witness statements and bribed a man to identify Johnson as the killer.

For Johnson to have been guilty, he would have had to leave an apartment party, travel three miles, kill the victim, and return on foot to the same party within a matter of five minutes. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has now filed a 67-page motion to vacate the conviction. It and an accompanying investigative report say that Johnson was only convicted after police and prosecutors relied on “perjured testimony, suppression of exculpatory and material impeachment evidence of secret payments to the sole eyewitness, and undisclosed Brady material related to a jailhouse informant with a history of incentivized cooperation with the State.”

Joseph Nickerson, the lead detective at the time, was found to have fabricated parts of his investigation, including falsifying four witness statements and bribing a man $4,000 to identify Johnson as the shooter at trial. Johnson continued to sit in prison even after the actual killers confessed to their crime, and absolved Johnson of any involvement, in 1996 and 2002.

The Midwest Innocence Project (MIP), which has long represented Johnson, praised Gardner in a press release for filing a motion for a new trial. “We don’t expect prosecutors or law enforcement officers to be perfect—but we should expect that once overwhelming evidence of innocence and government misconduct come to light, that prosecutors fulfill their duty to administer justice by correcting those injustices,” said MIP attorney Lindsay Runnels.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2STdGxH
via IFTTT

Police Faked Evidence and the Real Killer Confessed. But Missouri Still Imprisoned an Innocent Man for 24 Years.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office will give a new trial to Lamar Johnson, who was convicted of capital murder in 1995 after the lead detective falsified witness statements and bribed a man to identify Johnson as the killer.

For Johnson to have been guilty, he would have had to leave an apartment party, travel three miles, kill the victim, and return on foot to the same party within a matter of five minutes. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has now filed a 67-page motion to vacate the conviction. It and an accompanying investigative report say that Johnson was only convicted after police and prosecutors relied on “perjured testimony, suppression of exculpatory and material impeachment evidence of secret payments to the sole eyewitness, and undisclosed Brady material related to a jailhouse informant with a history of incentivized cooperation with the State.”

Joseph Nickerson, the lead detective at the time, was found to have fabricated parts of his investigation, including falsifying four witness statements and bribing a man $4,000 to identify Johnson as the shooter at trial. Johnson continued to sit in prison even after the actual killers confessed to their crime, and absolved Johnson of any involvement, in 1996 and 2002.

The Midwest Innocence Project (MIP), which has long represented Johnson, praised Gardner in a press release for filing a motion for a new trial. “We don’t expect prosecutors or law enforcement officers to be perfect—but we should expect that once overwhelming evidence of innocence and government misconduct come to light, that prosecutors fulfill their duty to administer justice by correcting those injustices,” said MIP attorney Lindsay Runnels.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2STdGxH
via IFTTT