Why Listen to Abhorrent Speech

This week the controversial philosopher Peter Singer took part in a Zoom discussion on “pandemic ethics,” hosted by the philosophy department at Rhodes College. As reported by Daily Nous and by Brian Leiter, a number of Rhodes faculty members urged the school to cancel his invitation, given Singer’s views on the permissibility of euthanizing severely disabled infants. (Singer recently discussed his views with NPR, the New Yorker, and the Journal of Practical Ethics; they were also the subject of a fascinating New York Times Magazine essay by Harriet McBryde Johnson in 2003.)

I want to assume, for present purposes, the beyond-the-pale-ness of Singer’s views. So why should anyone listen to abhorrent speech from an abhorrent speaker?

The standard reason is “because you might learn something.” Singer’s works on animal rights and on charitable obligations are widely read and assigned. (For full disclosure, I include an essay of his on the status of embryos, together with a critical response by Patrick Lee and Robert George, on the syllabus of my reading group on abortion.) But Singer’s critics would say there’s little worth learning from him about illness and disability, and again I want to assume, for present purposes, that they’re right.

Another common reason is “because it helps you debate people like him.” Free-speech proponents often cite some version of J.S. Mill’s argument, that “[h]e who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” But many people feel quite comfortable in their own beliefs about euthanizing infants, aren’t interested in debating Singer on such questions, and are perfectly content to deny him platforms instead. Charles Hughes wrote his colleagues at Rhodes a letter rejecting “the legitimacy of debating whether disabled people are people”; I doubt that Singer accepts this framing, but Mill quotes won’t do much to dislodge it.

Another, similar, reason is “because it helps you understand people like him.” I once attended an event at Oxford on “Islam and Democracy in the Middle East,” in which one of the speakers (on the anti-democracy side) was a member of an Islamist political party dedicated to the restoration of the Caliphate. There wasn’t much chance I was going to adopt his politics over the course of the evening, but many millions of people in some parts of the world already have, and it can be useful to hear a clear expression of what they might actually think. That said, there are limits to this kind of argument; the Anti-Defamation League can track what’s going on among extremists without inviting David Duke to lecture on “Current Trends in Anti-Semitism.” (Though if they did invite him, and if he accepted, that would be quite an event.)

So I want to offer yet another reason to hear abhorrent speech: “because it helps you reconsider premises you might already hold.” Singer is a thoroughgoing utilitarian. Sometimes that strikes others as saintly, as in his advocacy for animals or the global poor; sometimes it strikes others as monstrous, as in his relative disregard for human beings or the global non-poor. But the saintly parts and the monstrous parts aren’t easy to disconnect. Arguments like Singer’s aren’t just sneaky efforts to get you to believe unacceptable conclusions; they’re also efforts to show that these conclusions follow from somewhat-less-than-obviously unacceptable premises. What makes Singer’s work worth reading, if at all, is the quality of the reasoning—whether the arguments are plainly and lucidly expressed, whether they effectively connect proposition A to proposition B. And if the arguments work, if the premises really do lead to the conclusions, then that can be a somewhat-less-than-obvious reason to reject the premises in the first place: one man’s modus ponens is another’s reductio.

G.A. Cohen famously asked, “If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich?” Peter Singer offers something like, “If You’re a Utilitarian, How Come You Wouldn’t Let Parents Euthanize Their Severely Disabled Infants?” For those of us appalled by that suggestion, the answer might be to stop being a utilitarian—or to be a different kind of utilitarian, or to find some other place in the argument to get off the bus. Arguments like Singer’s can have a great deal of force for us even if, perhaps especially if, we recoil from his actual positions. The better the reasoning, the more his work requires us—if we’re going to be honest—to pick out the step where we disagree, and to see what consequences that has for the rest of our thought. (If we agree that infants have a right to live, we might ask which qualities they have in virtue of which that’s so, which other beings have those qualities, and so on.) The fact that Singer actually believes both the premises and the conclusions is less important, for this purpose, than the quality of his efforts at connecting them: someone could read his whole oeuvre as if it were contained in block quotes, followed by the line “And this is why these premises are wrong.”

In theory, anyone else could make that kind of argument. But perhaps because Singer does believe it so strongly, very few people do it better—which strikes me as a decent reason, abhorrence notwithstanding, to think about what he has to say.

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New York City’s Office Space Availability At Record Level

New York City’s Office Space Availability At Record Level

The amount of available office space in New York City is at a record high, Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Goldfarb told clients in a note while citing a new report from real estate service firm Cushman & Wakefield. 

A year and a half, or approximately 18 months, into what the World Health Organization formally declared a virus pandemic in early March 2020, the remote work trend is still holding strong and pressuring commercial real estate in NYC. 

Goldfarb wrote that Class A rents have fallen, and there is an expectation for further declines. He doesn’t see a full rent recovery until 2025 as vacancies will remain stubbornly high due to increasing supply. 

Technology has made virtual conference calls possible from remote areas. The emergence of new COVID variants and breakthrough infections are keeping people out of the office and remote working until at least early 2022. Without workers returning to offices, the economic rebound in the metro area will remain lackluster compared to the rest of the country. 

“The pace of economic rebound will be the biggest determinate for Office, especially given the pending new supply,” Goldfarb added. 

That’s unfortunate news for real estate investment trusts (REITs) with large concentrations of NYC office buildings in their portfolios. And in Manhattan, it’s especially problematic, especially given high office building availability. 

Piper Sandler remains neutral on SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust due to record space availability. They prefer getting exposure to the Westside of Los Angeles and Seattle because of a shortage of buildings and growing local economies. 

In three separate notes, we’ve explained to readers about the oversupplied conditions in the metro area (see: here & here & here) as return to work has been put on hold this year thanks to emerging virus variants even though more than half the country is vaccinated. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/30/2021 – 17:20

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Judge David Stras Was Protested At Duke Law School

Today, Judge David Stras of the Eighth Circuit spoke at Duke Law School. The event was co-sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Clerkship Office. Stras’s topic was “What My Grandparents’ Experiences in the Holocaust Taught Me about the First Amendment.” In July, I appeared with Stras at an event about the same topic.

During Stras’s presentation, two dozen students stood up. One student read from prepared remarks. A Duke 3L posted a video to Twitter:

The student began:

Your honor I would like to speak for a group of students who are here to listen and defend their views as you are encouraging us to do.

Judge Stras said, “Please do.”

The student continued

I am a queer Jewish law student. Lawyers, politicians, and others who advocate for LGBT anti-discrimination laws are not comparable to Nazis. Suggesting otherwise as you have is abhorrent and although we came to listen to you speak we are not going to sit here and listen to blatant homophobia. Thank you for coming today.

Judge Stras said, “Thank you for speaking out.” Judge Stras handled this situation with grace.

The Duke OutLaw chapter elaborated on their views in a tweet.

And the students handed out a document about Judge Stras.

I do not yet have all the facts. I will opine further as I learn more.

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Judge David Stras Was Protested At Duke Law School

Today, Judge David Stras of the Eighth Circuit spoke at Duke Law School. The event was co-sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Clerkship Office. Stras’s topic was “What My Grandparents’ Experiences in the Holocaust Taught Me about the First Amendment.” In July, I appeared with Stras at an event about the same topic.

During Stras’s presentation, two dozen students stood up. One student read from prepared remarks. A Duke 3L posted a video to Twitter:

The student began:

Your honor I would like to speak for a group of students who are here to listen and defend their views as you are encouraging us to do.

Judge Stras said, “Please do.”

The student continued

I am a queer Jewish law student. Lawyers, politicians, and others who advocate for LGBT anti-discrimination laws are not comparable to Nazis. Suggesting otherwise as you have is abhorrent and although we came to listen to you speak we are not going to sit here and listen to blatant homophobia. Thank you for coming today.

Judge Stras said, “Thank you for speaking out.” Judge Stras handled this situation with grace.

The Duke OutLaw chapter elaborated on their views in a tweet.

And the students handed out a document about Judge Stras.

I do not yet have all the facts. I will opine further as I learn more.

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Even The Liberal Media Is Warning Of A “System Collapse” Due To The Failure Of Global Supply Chains

Even The Liberal Media Is Warning Of A “System Collapse” Due To The Failure Of Global Supply Chains

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

If CNN starts sounding like The Economic Collapse Blog, what does that mean?  Unfortunately, the truth about what is in our immediate future is becoming apparent to everyone.  Global supply chains are in a state of complete and utter chaos, and this is driving up prices and causing widespread shortages all over the country.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have written five articles with either “shortage” or “shortages” in the title, and some have accused me of being a little alarmist.  If that is the case, then CNN is being alarmist too, because one of their top stories today openly warned of a “global transport system collapse”

In an open letter Wednesday to heads of state attending the United Nations General Assembly, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and other industry groups warned of a “global transport system collapse” if governments do not restore freedom of movement to transport workers and give them priority to receive vaccines recognized by the World Health Organization.

For decades, we have all been able to take our extremely complex supply chains for granted.  Things have always been where they need to be when they needed to be there, and many of us just assumed that it would always be that way.

But now organizations that represent 65 million transport workers around the globe are openly warning that “global supply chains are beginning to buckle”

“Global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years’ worth of strain on transport workers take their toll,” the groups wrote. The letter has also been signed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Road Transport Union (IRU) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). Together they represent 65 million transport workers globally.

“All transport sectors are also seeing a shortage of workers, and expect more to leave as a result of the poor treatment millions have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat,” it added.

Things are particularly bad at our ports.  Right now, there is a backlog of approximately 500,000 shipping containers waiting on ships off the west coast waiting to be unloaded…

As an estimated 500,000 containers are sitting on cargo ships off the Southern California coast, many are wondering how to handle the backlog.

Needless to say, we have never seen anything like this before.

But what most Americans don’t realize is that the backlog off the coast of China is even worse

There are over 60 container ships full of import cargo stuck offshore of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but there are more than double that — 154 as of Friday — waiting to load export cargo off Shanghai and Ningbo in China, according to eeSea, a company that analyzes carrier schedules.

The number of container ships anchored off Shanghai and Ningbo has surged over recent weeks. There are now 242 container ships waiting for berths countrywide. Whether it’s due to heavy export volumes, Typhoon Chanthu or COVID, rising congestion in China is yet another wild card for the trans-Pacific trade.

If you are waiting for something to come in from overseas, you may be waiting for a very long time.

Because of all the chaos, we are being warned that this could be a holiday season like no other

Retailers are sounding the alarm on the upcoming holiday shopping season due to serious supply chain issues that are slowing shipments of manufactured goods around the world.

Chaos theory in it’s simplest form says if a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it means rain in Central Park. Well, that applies not just to weather, but supply chains as well, and in the Bay Area, it will impact everything from computer parts for your car to the gifts and toys on your holiday shopping list.

If there is something that you really want to get your hands on, you might want to order it now, because it may not be available later.

In addition to shortages, supply chain issues are also pushing prices significantly higher.

For example, we just learned that the price of bacon has risen almost 28 percent over the past year…

The average price for that slab of bacon to accompany the Sunday morning spread has jumped nearly 28% during the past 12 months, inflation-adjusted Consumer Price Index data show.

The supply chain issues and inflationary pressures that have become all-too common in these pandemic times certainly have played theirs roles in the pork price hikes, alongside a slew of industry-specific influence.

A lot of people may be forced to stop eating bacon as a result of soaring prices, and from a health perspective that is not a bad thing.

And the price of bacon is going to continue to go higher, because U.S. hog herds are shrinking at a brisk pace

US hog herds experienced the most significant monthly drop in two decades, according to new data from the USDA. The reason behind the drop is because farmers decreased hog-herd development over the last year due to labor disruptions at slaughterhouses plus high animal feed.

USDA data showed the US hog herd was 3.9% lower in August than a year ago. It was the largest monthly drop since 1999 after analysts only expected a decline of about 1.7%, according to Bloomberg.

Many of you already don’t eat bacon, and so what I just shared may not affect you, but what about a shortage of potatoes?

Incredibly, it is being reported that some fast food outlets are now running out of French Fries.  The following comes from Matt Stoller

My favorite story is quintessentially American, and un-American, at the same time. It’s from a Florida realtor who was in a hurry and stopped at a Burger King for lunch. He saw a sign, “Sorry. No French Fries with any order. We have no potatoes.” At first he thought he was imagining things. What kind of fast food place runs out of fries? Is this, he wondered, a sign of things to come?

It’s a good question. Fast food exists in a land of plenty, of surplus, of mass produced food with a reliable infrastructure of trucks, trains, farms, and distributors. Shortages of everyday goods conflicts not only with most of our lived experiences, but also with our very conception of who we are. There’s a name for this framework, and it’s called affluence.

I really like how Stoller made that last point.

So many of us think that since we are the most prosperous nation on the entire planet that long-term shortages could never happen to us.

But they are happening.

And if you think that what we are experiencing now is bad, just wait until we get a few more years down the road.

From the very top to the very bottom, our entire economic system is being shaken.

If you are expecting our national leaders to come in with some sort of a quick fix to this crisis, you are going to be waiting a really, really long time.

The blind are leading the blind, and the months ahead are going to be very challenging.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/30/2021 – 17:00

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China Says US Must Correct Its ‘Cognitive Problems’ After Tense Military-To-Military Talks

China Says US Must Correct Its ‘Cognitive Problems’ After Tense Military-To-Military Talks

The US and Chinese militaries are attempting to restore positive communications at a moment tensions are continually rising in the South China Sea and particularly around Taiwan – where both sides have upped their presence in the form of warship deployments, including sail-throughs of the contested strait and aerial flyovers near the island – the latter which the PLA military is conducting on at at least a weekly basis.

Beijing is meanwhile still warning Taiwan leaders that they are “playing with fire” given the deepening military ties with the US. All of this makes the US-China military communications ‘hotline’ urgently important, given the potential for misunderstanding and an inadvertent incident to set off a chain of events leading to major military confrontation in the region.

Concluding two days of military-to-military talks done by video conference Tuesday and Wednesday, Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian charged that Washington has ‘cognitive problems’ – or serious, abiding flaws in the way it perceives itself in the world, according to Bloomberg. Fundamentally the US “lacks self-awareness and an understanding of the world” – as Chinese media summarized of the official statements. 

Illustrative image via DoD/Young Diplomats

The two sides have now gone through two recent rounds of high-level defense talks, with this week’s including Michael Chase, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for China.

At Thursday’s daily press briefing Wu further called on the US side to resolve “serious issues” that continue to make progress difficult. This includes that close US ally Britain is ramping up its presence in the Indo-Pacific, which “hurts stability” according to the statements. 

Wu detailed that this week the US and China “exchanged in-depth views on relations between the two countries and the two militaries and issues of common concern.”

He ultimately blamed Washington’s “continuous provocation and containment” of China for “considerable difficulties and challenges” between the two militaries. “China’s sovereignty, dignity and core interests brook no violations,” Wu continued. “Regarding the relationship between the two armed forces, we welcome communication, welcome cooperation, face differences and oppose coercion.”

Meanwhile, Beijing officials have continued to condemn the US-UK-Australia defense technology sharing pact as a threat to regional stability…

A US defense department spokesman at the same time also acknowledged “frank” and “in-depth” discussion “on a range of issues.” But officials say the United States aims to “responsibly manage competition” between the two superpowers and rivals.

Further the US side said, “Both sides reaffirmed consensus to keep communication channels open. The U.S. side also made clear our commitment to uphold shared principles with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/30/2021 – 16:40

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House Votes to Apply Mandatory Draft Registration to Women


Draft

It attracted relatively little attention, because of all the other political issues in the news. But, a few days ago, the House of Representatives voted to expand mandatory “Selective Service” draft registration to include women. The system currently applies only to men aged 18-25. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that passed the House last week would apply the system to women of the same age. Since the Senate version of the NDAA includes a similar provision, it is highly likely that women will soon be subject to mandatory draft registration, on par with men.

The move is likely, at least in part, a reaction to recent indications that the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the present system on the ground that it engages in unconstitutional sex discrimination. In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging the male-only system. But three justices, including conservative Brett Kavanaugh, filed an opinion arguing that the system is unconstitutional, and suggesting that the Court should invalidate it in the near future, if Congress does not act.

If Congress expands the system to include women, it would indeed put an end to the problem of unconstitutional sex discrimination in draft registration. But it would do so at the cost of subjecting both men and women to potential forced labor. In testimony before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (whose report was cited by the justices) and elsewhere, I explained why such a policy is deeply unjust, and the better way to end sex discrimination is simply to abolish draft registration for everyone. By that means, we can simultaneously promote liberty and gender equality, instead of sacrificing one to the other.

It so happens I have both a son and a daughter. Both should be free of sex discrimination. But I also don’t want either of them to be subjected to forced labor by the state.

For the foreseeable future, the expansion of the draft registration system might make little difference. There is no military draft, and no significant movement to reinstate. But when and if such a movement reemerges (as it has several times in earlier American history), the existence of the draft registration system would make it easier to implement its agenda.

In addition, the same registration system that is currently meant only to serve as the basis for a potential military draft, could easily be repurposed to impose a system of civilian forced labor, as urged by some advocates of mandatory “national service,” such as 2020 Democratic presidential contender John Delaney. Right now, this idea probably has even less support than reimposition of the military draft. But, it too, could potentially gain popularity, as has  happened in France, which recently reintroduced mandatory national service, scheduled to begin in 2026. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, whose recommendations on draft registration influenced both Congress and the Supreme Court justices, included people sympathetic to the idea, though its final report stopped short of it.

As I explained more fully in my testimony to the Commission, a nationwide system of forced labor isn’t just another debatable policy option, or one of many potential infringements of liberty. It would be a massive assault on the basic principles of a free society. Instead of expanding a draft registration system that might facilitate such a grave injustice, Congress should abolish it root and branch, for men and women alike. We should strive for equal liberty regardless of sex, not equal potential subjection to forced labor.

 

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House Votes to Apply Mandatory Draft Registration to Women


Draft

It attracted relatively little attention, because of all the other political issues in the news. But, a few days ago, the House of Representatives voted to expand mandatory “Selective Service” draft registration to include women. The system currently applies only to men aged 18-25. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that passed the House last week would apply the system to women of the same age. Since the Senate version of the NDAA includes a similar provision, it is highly likely that women will soon be subject to mandatory draft registration, on par with men.

The move is likely, at least in part, a reaction to recent indications that the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the present system on the ground that it engages in unconstitutional sex discrimination. In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging the male-only system. But three justices, including conservative Brett Kavanaugh, filed an opinion arguing that the system is unconstitutional, and suggesting that the Court should invalidate it in the near future, if Congress does not act.

If Congress expands the system to include women, it would indeed put an end to the problem of unconstitutional sex discrimination in draft registration. But it would do so at the cost of subjecting both men and women to potential forced labor. In testimony before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (whose report was cited by the justices) and elsewhere, I explained why such a policy is deeply unjust, and the better way to end sex discrimination is simply to abolish draft registration for everyone. By that means, we can simultaneously promote liberty and gender equality, instead of sacrificing one to the other.

It so happens I have both a son and a daughter. Both should be free of sex discrimination. But I also don’t want either of them to be subjected to forced labor by the state.

For the foreseeable future, the expansion of the draft registration system might make little difference. There is no military draft, and no significant movement to reinstate. But when and if such a movement reemerges (as it has several times in earlier American history), the existence of the draft registration system would make it easier to implement its agenda.

In addition, the same registration system that is currently meant only to serve as the basis for a potential military draft, could easily be repurposed to impose a system of civilian forced labor, as urged by some advocates of mandatory “national service,” such as 2020 Democratic presidential contender John Delaney. Right now, this idea probably has even less support than reimposition of the military draft. But, it too, could potentially gain popularity, as has  happened in France, which recently reintroduced mandatory national service, scheduled to begin in 2026. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, whose recommendations on draft registration influenced both Congress and the Supreme Court justices, included people sympathetic to the idea, though its final report stopped short of it.

As I explained more fully in my testimony to the Commission, a nationwide system of forced labor isn’t just another debatable policy option, or one of many potential infringements of liberty. It would be a massive assault on the basic principles of a free society. Instead of expanding a draft registration system that might facilitate such a grave injustice, Congress should abolish it root and branch, for men and women alike. We should strive for equal liberty regardless of sex, not equal potential subjection to forced labor.

 

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The Bull$hit

The Bull$hit

Authored by Walter Kirn via Unbound substack (h/t Glenn Greenwald)

I used to like to read the news, the middlebrow mass-market weekly news. I also used to like to write it.  Some. This was back in the 90s at Time magazine, a publication which still exists in name but whose original, defining mission – grounding the American mind in a moderate, shared reality – is dead. The whole concept seems strange now – the American mind; a cloud of ideas, opinions, and sentiments floating somewhere above the Mississippi – but at Time, in the 90s, before the internet made its approach seem sluggish and slashed its readership, it was still possible to regard our product as unifying and, in its way, definitive. Sometimes I covered tangible events such as drug epidemics and forest fires, but much of the time I stitched together interviews conducted by local stringers and reporters into feature stories on such topics as “The New Science of Happiness” and “Children of Divorce.” It was an article of faith at Time that the findings of social scientists, simplified for popular consumption, ranked with hard news as a source of public enlightenment. Until business began to suffer, requiring cut-backs, the magazine kept an in-house research library, the better for checking even the smallest facts. The burden of accuracy lay heavy on Time. Its mighty name required nothing less.

Things are different now.

Every morning, there it is, waiting for me on my phone. The bullshit. It resembles, in its use of phrases such as “knowledgeable sources” and “experts differ,” what I used to think of as the news, but it isn’t the news and it hasn’t been for ages. It consists of its decomposed remains in a news-shaped coffin. It does impart information, strictly speaking, but not always information about our world. Or not good information, because it’s so often wrong, particularly on matters of great import and invariably to the advantage of the same interests, which suggests it should be presumed wrong as a rule. The information it imparts, if one bothers to sift through it, is information about itself; about the purposes, beliefs, and loyalties of those who produce it: the informing class. They’re not the ruling class — not quite — but often they’re married to it or share therapists or drink with it at Yale Bowl football games. They’re cozy, these tribal cousins. They cavort. They always have. What has changed is that the press used to maintain certain boundaries in the relationship, observing the incest taboo. It kept its pants zipped, at least in public. It didn’t hire ex-CIA directors, top FBI men, NSA brass, or other past and future sources to sit beside its anchors at spot-lit news-desks that blocked our view of their lower extremities. But it gave in. 

I’m stipulating these points, I’m not debating them, so log off if you find them too extreme. Go read more bullshit. Immerse yourself in news of Russian plots to counterfeit presidential children’s laptops, viruses spawned in Wuhan market stalls, vast secret legions of domestic terrorists flashing one another the OK sign in shadowy parking lots behind Bass Pro Shops experiencing “temporary” inflation, and patriotic tech conglomerates purging the commons of untruths. Comfort yourself with the thoughts that the same fortunes engaged in the building of amusement parks, the production and distribution of TV comedies, and the provision of computing services to the defense and intelligence establishments, have allied to protect your family’s health, advance the causes of equity and justice, and safeguard our democratic institutions. Dismiss as cynical the notion that you, the reader, are not their client but their product. Your data for their bullshit, that’s the deal. And Build Back Better. That’s the sermon.

Pious bullshit, unceasing. But what to do? 

One option, more popular each day, is to retreat to the anti-bullshit universe of alternative media sources. These are the podcasts, videos, Twitter threads, newsletters, and Facebook pages that regularly vanish from circulation for violating “community standards” and other ineffable codes of conduct, oft-times after failing “fact-checks” by the friendly people at Good Thoughtkeeping. Some of these rebel outfits are engrossing, some dull and churchy, many quite bizarre, and some, despite small staffs and tiny budgets, remarkably good and getting better. Some are Substack pages owned by writers who severed ties with established publications, drawing charges of being Russian agents, crypto-anarchists, or free-speech “absolutists.” I won’t bother to give a list. Readers who hunt and choose among such sources have their own lists, which they fiercely curate, loudly pushing their favorites on the world while accusing those they disagree with of being “controlled opposition” and running cons. It resembles the old punk-rock scene, but after it was discovered, not early on. Some of the upstart outlets earn serious money, garnering higher ratings and more page-views than the regime-approved brands Apple features on the News screen of my iPhone. (A screen I’ve disabled and don’t miss.) This wilderness of “contrarianism” – a designation easily earned these days; you merely have to mention Orwell or reside in Florida — requires a measure of vigilance and effort from those who seek the truth there. As opposed to those who go there to relax, because they prefer alt-bullshit to mainstream bullshit.

They can just kick their shoes off and wade in. 

One reason to stick with the premium name-brand bullshit is to deconstruct it. What lines are the propagandists pushing now? Where will they lead? How blatant will they get? Why are the authors so weirdly fearless? The other day when Cuba erupted in protests, numerous stories explained the riots, confidently, instantly, as demands for COVID vaccines. The accompanying photos didn’t support this claim; they featured ragged American flags and homemade signs demanding freedom. One wire-service headline used the protests to raise concerns about viral spread in crowds. A puzzling message. It wasn’t meant for the defiant Cubans, who weren’t at liberty to read it and whose anger at their rulers clearly outweighed their concerns about contagion. It had to be aimed at English-speaking Americans. But to what end? American protests of the previous summer hadn’t raised such cautions from the press. To the contrary. Our riots, if one could call them that (and one could not at many companies) were framed as transcendent cries for justice whose risks to public health were negligible, almost as though moral passion enhances immunity. And maybe it does, but why not in Cuba, too? To me, the headline only made sense in the context of the offensive against domestic “vaccine hesitancy” and its alleged fascist-bumpkin leaders. The Reuters writer had seen in Cuba’s revolt a chance to glancingly editorialize against rebelliousness of another type. The type its staff abhors day in, day out, no matter what’s happening in Cuba, or, for that matter, in America. The bullshit is consistent in this way, reducing stories of every kind into nitrogen-rich soil for the same views. These views feel unusually ferocious now, reflecting the convictions of those on high that they should determine the fates of those on low with minimal backtalk and no laughter. Because science. Because Putin. Democracy. Because we’re inside your phones and know your names. 

Engaging with the bullshit news-stream for defensive, deconstructive reasons has been my personal program for a while now. The game can be intellectually amusing and it confers a sense of brave revulsion. I was conditioned to seek this feeling in school, during units on “current events,” when my classmates and I were invited to deplore poverty, pollution, and prejudice. Behind these exercises was the notion that our little lives were isolated, vulnerable affairs loomed over by colossal, distant “trends.” Like bad weather, these trends might sneak up on us and harm us, especially if we ignored them, but unlike bad weather, which came from nature, these grim enormities were human-made and therefore partly our responsibility. This idea promoted magical thinking. Take our sixth-grade war on “smog,” which worsened children’s asthma and killed trees. Smog didn’t bother our Minnesota town but it smothered Los Angeles and other cities, as we learned from mock-newspapers and film strips. We cast spells against it from our desks by drawing pictures of smoky traffic jams. Our teacher called this “showing awareness” and implied it helped. I must have bought this. It explains why I thought being conscious of the bullshit actually accomplished something.

The idea of ignoring it entirely raised superstitious fears in me. Unnoticed bad trends might whack me from behind. Also, dropping out seemed immature. Well-adjusted grown-up read the news, if only to curse the news. They read it because other grown-ups read it, creating a common model of the world that might be bullshit but forms a frame of reference for public debate. Then I considered the state of public debate. Judging by Twitter, it wasn’t high. One problem was no matter how well you argued, no matter how strong your evidence and logic, your foes almost never recognized they’d lost. No judges to arbitrate the matches, no rules to guide them, and no trusted sources of facts to balance them. Mostly you just called bullshit on each other, and sometimes you wondered if both of you were right.  Such arguments were sink holes. They never advanced past their own premises. 

At times in my life, by happenstance, I’ve dwelled in oblivion, thoroughly news-free. In college in the early 80s I went four years without turning on TV or opening a paper. I learned that President Reagan had been shot from a pilot’s announcement on a plane, then gathered more details when I landed, from a stranger in a cowboy hat. My sense of the wider world derived from classes, books, conversations, works of art, and glimpses of newsstands and magazine racks. I don’t remember feeling deprived. Then, last year, at the height of the pandemic, when everyone else was merging with their screens, I turned my back on the bullshit for two whole months.

My father was dying of ALS in his retirement cabin in Montana, out of range of cell-phone towers. It was an overwhelming situation. Disregarding all the latest rules, friends had brought him there in a motorhome from his seniors’ community near Tucson. I needed help lifting him, so I hired a health aid who flew in from Miami, another breach of quarantine. This hazard required the local hospice workers to visit wearing full protective gear and stay outside the cabin in the driveway when passing me my father’s meds and pamphlets on the stages of death. They stuck to this protocol for the first week, then abandoned it so they could see their patient’s face. I lost track of the rules, the days, the virus. I sat at his bedside before his big TV watching reruns of Murder She Wrote, his favorite show, he told me, “Because there’s never any blood.” A former patent attorney with a degree in chemical engineering, a Republican who’d ofted voted Democrat, he’d tuned out the news a few years ago, he said, because it gave him stomach aches. He forbade me to handle the remote lest I land for a moment on CNN while changing channels. He talked about family history, old friends, and had me place phone calls to banks and credit card firms, which he seemed to take pleasure in informing of his any-minute-now demise. I turned on my computer exactly once, to research a narcotic he’d been prescribed, and I peeked at a rundown of election news that curdled my brain with its lazy tropes and buzzwords. To think that people wore out their precious lives consuming and reacting to such bullshit, cycling through the emotions it unleashed, sweating out its bulletins and updates, believing, disputing, and decrying it. And ultimately, in my father’s case, avoiding it.

Maybe he should have ignored it all along. Once time grew short, he didn’t mention a bit of it, with one exception: the day John F. Kennedy was shot. He spoke of it three days before he died. He said he was in Washington DC then, working as a law clerk in the same building that housed the Associated Press. He ran to its offices when he heard the news and watched paper spill from the teletype machines and pile on the floor. He told me he regretted not snatching some; those first dispatches might be worth a lot now. I thought about this. One-of-a-kind original paper documents, not identical, infinitely reproducible electronic files. No wonder there was so much bullshit now. It was content. Mere content. Ones and zeros. Lots of zeros, not so many ones.

“I’ve always wondered who killed him,” my father said. “It wasn’t Oswald. Not Oswald on his own.”

“Who do you think?” It seemed he’d studied the matter. New side of him. Should have spent more time together.

“Maybe the Mafia, maybe LBJ. There may have been certain Cubans in the mix. All I know is we didn’t get the truth.”

I’m fairly sure we often don’t. Still, it’s hard to give up hope, and today I blew half an hour on the bullshit, under which the truth lies buried. Maybe. Maybe it’s bullshit the whole way down. How much time do you have for finding out?

Less than you had this morning.

Fact.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/30/2021 – 16:21

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3uzsnJh Tyler Durden

Slumptember: Stocks Suffer Worst Month In A Year As USA Sovereign Risk Soars

Slumptember: Stocks Suffer Worst Month In A Year As USA Sovereign Risk Soars

September started excitedly for stocks with 2-3 big up days but since then – as fears of a tapering Fed and a defaulting Treasury increase – stocks and bonds have puked in September (along with gold) as the dollar spiked

Source: Bloomberg

…despite a surge in USA sovereign risk…

Source: Bloomberg

We can’t help but see that chart and consider the rancor in Washington and think of this…

For Q3, The dollar was the biggest gainer, bonds made very modest gains while stocks and gold lagged (but were only down modestly – both down 1% on the quarter)…

Source: Bloomberg

Global stocks ended the quarter unchanged and US Majors were mixed with Small Caps, Trannies, and the Industrials red while Nasdaq and S&P managed to cling to their gains on the quarter. The selling pressure began at the start of September

Source: Bloomberg

Financials outperformed in Q3 with Energy and Industrials lagging…

Source: Bloomberg

All the major US equity indices were red in September with Nasdaq the biggest loser – its worst month since last September

Source: Bloomberg

Only Energy stocks ended the month green with Utes and Materials the biggest losers…

Source: Bloomberg

The median US stock fell over 2% in September (the worst month since last September), and is down 3% in Q3 – the first quarterly drop since Q1 2020’s COVID collapse…

Source: Bloomberg

September saw Small Caps outperform Big-Tech (Russell 2000 / Nasdaq 100) by the most since February..

Source: Bloomberg

All the major US equity indices broke key technical levels today and bounced back…

Perhaps most notably, Risk-Parity funds saw their worst month since the March 2020 COVID crash. This helps explain why stocks and bonds are both being sold and why vol is rising as RP is forced to degross…

Source: Bloomberg

Before we leave stocks, here’s how things went today. Several positive headlines and votes out of Washington (but the realization that $3.5tn ain’t gonna happen) left the debt ceiling debate uncertain but govt funded for a few more weeks. Dow was hit hardest…

This is the biggest drawdown for the S&P since November…

Source: Bloomberg

Q3 saw bond yields end higher (apart from the 30Y) with September’s surge in yields outpacing August’s rise (the short-end of the curve is now up in yield for 3 straight quarters). 5Y was +10bps, 30Y unch.

Source: Bloomberg

This was the global bond market’s worst month since 2020.

The September surge started after The FOMC’s hawkish taper statement…

Source: Bloomberg

Notably since breaking 1.50%, the 10Y yield has traded sideways…

Source: Bloomberg

Given the actually very modest rebound in the US macro data, the recent surge in yields looks overdone…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar surged to its highest since the US election in Nov 2020, rising for the second straight month…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were all down in September, never really recovering from the ‘China ban’ puke…

Source: Bloomberg

However, Q3 saw Ethereum end up 38%, outperforming Bitcoin (+21%)…

Source: Bloomberg

While crude surged in September, Copper and the Precious Metals were monkeyhammered lower…

Source: Bloomberg

The picture was similar for Q3 with silver getting monkeyhammered while crude managed gains and gold tried to get back to even…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, that divergence between silver and oil of the last few days lifted the ratio to its highest since pre-COVID (oil richest to silver)…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, legendary investor Jeremy Grantham, who cofounded investment firm GMO, told CNBC this week that equities are in a “magnificent bubble” in the US.

“This has been crazier by a substantial margin than 1929 and 2000, in my opinion,” Grantham said.

Stocks have never been this expensive relative to the economy. Warren Buffett will be fearful…

Source: Bloomberg

It’s never been more expensive for Wall Street to buy stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

And it’s never been more expensive for Main Street to buy stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

Grantham said he thinks the S&P 500 is likely to decline 10% or more in the coming months.

He pointed to the popularity of so-called meme stocks, special purpose acquisition vehicles (SPACs) and cryptocurrencies as signs that financial markets are extremely confident and are due for a fall.

“The market is so into optimism that even as the data turns against it, as it is today, the market shrugs it off,” he said.

[US macro data has been tumbling for months and even surveys are now plunging]

“So interest rates are beginning to go up: shrug. So the Fed is beginning to talk about pulling back on its purchasing of bonds: shrug.”

Is it time to stop shrugging?

Source: Bloomberg

But we want to end on a bright note – COVID cases are plunging…

Source: Bloomberg

Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/30/2021 – 16:01

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3F8sjVS Tyler Durden