Month: September 2024

Former CDC Director Robert Redfield, who served during the Trump administration, wrote an editorial in Newsweek praising President Trump’s decision to join forces with Robert Kennedy Jr. to “make America healthy again.”

“We know chronic disease is more than 75 percent of the country’s $4 trillion annual health care expenditure. Unfortunately, we have become a sick nation. We’re paying too much for chronic disease, and this must change. It’s time to make America healthy again,” Redfield wrote in the op-ed published on Tuesday. 

After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland. 

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” 

He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” 

Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups.

Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. 

Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

Here’s a good take on it…

RFK Jr. was right all along, and now we’ve got a former CDC Director admitting it—agency capture is real, folks. The FDA, NIH, and even the Department of Agriculture are all in the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Corporations. We’ve been screaming about this for years! How can we…

— MrReeKilla (@MrReeKilla) September 25, 2024

MAHA and MAGA people have joined forces. 

WATCH: RFK Jr.’s running mate Nicole Shanahan just released another awesome video ENDING the media’s lies about “The MAGA People.” It shows how they have lied about Trump supporters and vilified them for years

“Contrary to what we have been told, we found the MAGA People to be… pic.twitter.com/rZyXxN6eJP

— George (@BehizyTweets) September 13, 2024

Via Middle East Eye

The US has said it will waive visa requirements for citizens of Qatar, making the gas-rich Gulf state the first Arab country, and only the second Muslim-majority country, to join a network of states with expedited travel to the US.

The US Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that the Gulf monarchy cleared the “stringent security requirements” to become the 42nd member of the US’s visa waiver program. The agreement “will deepen our strategic partnership and enhance the flow of people and commerce between our two countries,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Qatar’s population stands at just 2.6 million, of whom only a tiny fraction – around 313,000 – are citizens. The US visa waiver program is mainly reserved for wealthy western European and Asian states. Israel was added to the program last year.

Qatar has a GDP per capita of $87,661, which is roughly $10,000 above the US’s. US officials said they were open to other Gulf Arab nations eventually entering the program. The only other Muslim-majority country in the program is the Southeast Asian nation of Brunei.

Qatar is also a key US ally. It is home to al-Udeid, the largest US air base in the Middle East and the forward operating headquarters of all US forces in the region also known as Centcom. Roughly 10,000 US troops are based in Qatar.

In January, the Biden administration reached a deal to extend its stay at the base for another 10 years. Qatar diligently guards its partnership with the US.

Doha previously weathered a blockade by neighbors UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over its alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, among a host of other reasons. Qatar has since patched up ties with Riyadh, but relations with Abu Dhabi remain frosty and they are aiding different sides in Sudan’s civil war.

Qatar remained close to Republican and Democratic administrations by demonstrating its value to the US. It helped the US fly out thousands of Afghan allies as the Taliban seized control of the country. More recently, it has mediated alongside Egypt for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.

While Qatar enjoyed good ties with the Biden administration, it has come under some pressure from members of Congress who are irked by its relationship with Hamas.

Hillary Clinton email reveals she knew of Saudi & Qatar government funding for ISIL (#ISIS) by August 2014
Link: https://t.co/tlWxkEZ8FN pic.twitter.com/gO2VUpOIct

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 2, 2021

Hamas was based in Damascus, Syria, until 2012, when it fell out with the Syrian government over the country’s civil [proxy] war. Qatar agreed to host the exiled leadership at the request of the US to maintain an indirect line of communication with the group, Qatari officials say.

In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that both Qatar and Egypt warned Hamas officials that they face possible arrest, freezing of their assets, sanctions and expulsion from Doha if they don’t agree to a ceasefire with Israel.

Between 2014 and September 25, 2024, more than 30,000 people either died or went missing in the Western, Central and Eastern Mediterranean according to data by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Even with the numbers of missing and dead migrants increasing across major migration routes in Africa and Asia between 2022 and 2023, Statista’s Florian Zandt reports that the Mediterranean is still by far the most dangerous region for refugees fleeing from conflict, persecution and economic hardship in their home countries.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This large number can be attributed to widespread migration movements in 2015 and 2016.

Those two years alone were responsible for 30 percent of total migrant deaths and disappearances on this route between 2014 and 2022.

The number of incidents occurring while crossing the Sahara Desert, which accumulated to 6,316 in the past ten years, is tangentially related to these movements as well.

Deaths and disappearances connected to border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico amounted to 5,431 between 2014 and 2024.

These numbers, however, do not reflect the total and rather show the minimum estimate aggregated from cases reported by connected governments, media outlets and NGOs as well as surveys of migrants and, in some regions, field missions by the IOM itself.

The IOM’s methodological scope encompasses “the deaths of migrants who die in transportation accidents, shipwrecks, violent attacks, or due to medical complications during their journeys. It also includes the number of corpses found at border crossings that are categorized as the bodies of migrants, on the basis of belongings and/or the characteristics of the death.”

Deaths in detention, refugee camps or housing, after deportation and of internally displaced people are excluded.

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

Washington is preparing sanctions against former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili over his opposition to Tbilisi joining the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.  

A senior US official told American state media, Voice of America, that Ivanishvili’s growing ties with Russia are concerning the White House. “We have information that Ivanishvili undertook actions to develop relations with Russian oligarchs, took actions to enable Russia to gain better access to the Georgian market,” the official explained. “In fact, he took some actions at the direction of the Russian intelligence services.”

While Ivanishvili has not personally been involved in Georgian politics since 2013, his populist Georgia Dream party is gaining influence in Tbilisi.

The party has increasingly found itself at odds with Washington over a foreign agents law that was passed in Tbilisi earlier this year. 

Similar to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) the legalization required agencies operating in Georgia and receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as foreign agents. 

A source familiar with the Biden administration’s plan to sanction Ivanishvili said the move is coming out of frustration that Washington has been unable to move Tbilisi.

“I think the Biden administration has been frustrated by its inability to get the Georgian government to take seriously the position they’ve put themselves in,” a source said.

“The Biden people are trying to convey the seriousness and hope that somebody in the Georgian government is listening in a serious way,” the source added.

In Georgia, US flags have appeared in crowds protesting about laws to restrict foreign influence in the country, The EU and US have condemned the law.

Lets ignore that the Georgian law is far less restrictive than the US “Foriegn Agents Registration Act,” passed there in 1938 pic.twitter.com/X8RDkiXgiA

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) May 25, 2024

In 2008, NATO signed a pledge to one day admit Ukraine and Georgia into the Washington-led bloc. However, the Kremlin views the countries’ entrance into the alliance as a national security threat. In 2022, Moscow invaded Ukraine, in part because Kiev was becoming a de facto member of NATO. 

Established financial centers have lost some of their shine in the past decade, according to the Global Financial Centres Index by UK research initiative Long Finance, which has been ranking cities for the competitiveness of their financial industries since 2007.

Especially London, whose competitiveness was impacted by Brexit, has lost points, but so have New York and Hong Kong.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Shanghai and Shenzhen are among the world’s top 10 financial centers. Chinese locations have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride in the past 10 years, which is about as long as they have established themselves among the top financial centers in the world. In Long Finance’s first ranking in 2007, both cities only ranked 24th and 36th, respectively. More Chinese cities have recently been added to the ranking and some also surprised on the upside. Costal city Qingdao, for example scored 708 points in 2024, up from 594 in 2016. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, U.S. financial centers other than New York also slid down the ranking, but have since recovered.

More Asian cities are now trying to take the leap to the top of the list of global financial centers. South Korean capital Seoul, currently ranked 11th, has been investing more than $200 million over the course of five years to bolster the city’s standing as a financial hub. The goal of the plan is to attract more than 250 foreign financial firms and $30 billion in foreign direct investment by 2030, according to the Korea Herald.

The Long Finance ranking takes into account business environment, financial sector development, infrastructure, human capital and reputational factors, among others.

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The United Nation’s Summit of the Future is over. The “great and good”  of global leadership got together for four days in New York for what their website called…

a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the multilateral system and steer humanity on a new course

…which sounds just lovely and not at all creepy and hubristic.

The four day event was split into  two “action days” and two days of “the Summit.”

Both of which are just different names for “people in suits sitting around big tables using bureaucratic jargon while making big time serious important-person faces”.

The result of which is the passing of a document they’re calling the “Pact for the Future” – 81 pages of self-important waffle so crammed with meaningless political language it becomes near-unintelligible (what James Corbett calls “Globalese”).

Here’s a paragraph chosen at random:

Enhancing cooperation with stakeholders, including civil society, academia, the scientific and technological community and the private sector, and encouraging intergenerational partnerships, by promoting a whole-of society approach, to share best practices and develop innovative, long-term and forward-thinking ideas in order to safeguard the needs and interests of future generations.

…it’s all like that. And I read it all. 81 pages.

You’re welcome.

In terms of real content, there are no new ideas here. We have seen  this globalist shopping list of alleged “issues” before.

Climate change, conflict, food insecurity, poverty, misinformation, hate speech. The usual “problems” that collectively form what the document refers to as “complex global shocks”.

These “shocks” – the document tells us – can  be addressed with a series of “solutions” that are again no surprise:

“respect for international law”,

“expanded cooperation”,

“increased role for the UN” and the post-covid buzzword of choice –

“interoperability”.

All of which can be broadly defined as our old friend “global government”.

As you’d expect, there’s a lot of talk about money and finance (massive transfers of public money into private hands is how you win over corporations and hedge funds to your authoritarian cause, after all). For example Action 9(28)(f) promises…

…a new collective quantified goal from a floor of 100 billion United States dollars per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries [to combat climate change];

$100 billion per year. You can buy a lot of ScienceTM with that.

The most blatantly authoritarian language is reserved for control of the internet (it almost always is), and Objectives 3 & 4 of the “Global Digital Compact Annex” are two of the few that require little to no translation at all, pledging to:

Foster an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space that respects, protects and promotes human rights [and] Advance responsible, equitable and interoperable data governance approaches

The annex goes on to underline the importance of “Information Integrity” [emphasis added]:

33. Access to relevant, reliable and accurate information and knowledge is essential for an inclusive, open, safe and secure digital space. [T]echnolog[y] can facilitate the manipulation of and interference with information in ways that are harmful to societies and individuals, and negatively affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

34.We will work together to promote information integrity, tolerance and respect in the digital space, as well as to protect the integrity of democratic processes. We will strengthen international cooperation to address the challenge of misinformation and disinformation and hate speech

And charges digital technology companies to hand over private information to government researchers so they can “address misinformation”:

We urgently call on digital technology companies and social media platforms to enhance the transparency and accountability of their systems [and] provide researchers access to data […] to build an evidence base on how to address misinformation and disinformation and hate speech that can inform government and industry policies, standards and best practices…

That means censorship and surveillance. Just in case that wasn’t clear.

Oh and this?

We commit, by 2030 to: Design and roll out digital media and information literacy curricula to ensure that all users have the skills and knowledge to safely and critically interact with content and with information providers and to enhance resilience against the harmful impacts of misinformation and disinformation

This means brainwashing.

Highly predictable, and very unpleasant, but as I said, none of this is new.

New ideas are not the role of Summits and Pacts, their role is to reinforce the old ideas. The hard-coded assumptions upon which the political class operate.

To shape consensus.

And that’s just what the Pact of the Future did – the pact itself was passed without a vote. Why was it passed without a vote? Because two years ago UN Resolution A/RES/76/307 agreed in advance…

that the Summit will adopt a concise, action-oriented outcome document entitled “A Pact for the Future”, agreed in advance by consensus through intergovernmental negotiations

Rendering Russia’s last minute objections – backed by Sudan, Syria, Iran, Belarus and Nicaragua – entirely pointless, if not entirely performative.

Nevertheless, they warrant examination.

In his statement to the UN on September 22nd, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin claimed:

From the very outset, those who coordinated the work on the draft included in it only what was dictated to them mainly by Western countries. The points of contention piled up and were never resolved. None of our requests to sit down at the negotiating table and discuss them were met. This is not what is considered and called multilateralism, which many like to speechify about.

In his trademark eloquent style, Sergei Lavrov remarked:

The future of our peoples cannot be invented in a test tube with the participation of the UN Secretariat and Western lobbyists. It is important to shape a decision on this matter in the conditions of negotiations and achieve a balance of interests,”

Any kind of dissent on the matter of multilateralism – especially re: climate change the social media – represents an uncharacteristic break in the trend of total global harmony on these issues.

Does this represent a genuine split in the global support for “the great reset”?

Well, it’s possible, and we can all hope so, but let’s not oversell it. We know Russia endorses virtually every aspect of the Great Reset –  the notion of anthropogenic climate change, Agenda 2030, censorship, CBDCs, digital identity and…well, all of what can be called the globalist agenda.

Their objections here don’t seem to represent any change in that. They don’t appear to be objecting to any of these specific policies.  They are raising issues of consultation and national sovereignty, procedure and influence, rather than rejection of the founding myths of the pact.

These are valid of course. Let’s not minimise them.

But do they amount to a rejection of globalist values?

Is this Russia saying no to the  Great Reset, or saying it wants to implement the GR on its own terms?

Would the latter represent any kind of victory or benefit for ordinary Russian people?

Is this standing for  a point of principal?  Or is it  jockeying for position in the multipolar world order? In that context, China’s silence would be noteworthy, wouldn’t it.

Or, more cynically, should these objections be read  with the same scepticism as the extravagant promises made by opposition leaders who know they will never get in to power and therefore never have to stand by their own words?

After all, the Russians know their objections don’t carry much practical weight because they  already signed up to the deal before the fact, making any demurrals purely token at this point.  At best this has to be seen as an act of insane naiveté on Russia’s part. Another self-defeating act in a recent history of self-defeating acts.

A note for  Russia going forward has to be  that agreeing to support a document that hasn’t been written yet no matter what it says is maybe not the brightest idea.

But, however you parse these last minute objections, they are dust in the wind, because the pact is now official.

Every country in the world (yes even the ones that raised objections) now formally agrees that hate speech and misinformation are the problem.

Every country in  the world (even the ones  that raised objections) endorses an end to privacy and increased censorship as a solution.

Every country in the world (all of them) agrees to spend at least $100 billion per year to pursue “sustainable development goals” in developing nations.

And even those who objected were not dissenting on these policies. Indeed they have endorsed these policies many times.

Just to be absolutely clear here –

There is not one voice in the room actually standing up for reality.

We may not have a formal global government yet, but we already have a globalism of ideas, even if there is some disagreement over implementation.

That’s how world government is being shaped, and how it will get finally born – through a  creeping consensus of fictitious problems & needless and often insane “solutions” quietly endorsed by every nation of the world.

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United States is facing a threat from China’s communist regime that Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has warned is more severe than the Cold War, with a senior House lawmaker emphasizing that the regime poses an “immediate danger.”

Campbell made the remarks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Sept. 18, which was centered around the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents,“ Campbell said. ”It’s not just the military challenges. It’s across the board. It’s in the Global South. It is in technology. We need to step up our game across the board.”

The Biden administration has labeled China the “most consequential” challenge to the United States, saying that the United States seeks competition with Beijing but does not seek a conflict or a new Cold War. The Pentagon has characterized China as its “pacing challenge,” particularly in areas such as cyberspace, the Arctic region, and outer space.

Campbell emphasized the importance of having a bipartisan focus on China.

“Probably the most important thing that we’re going to need to do in terms of a national strategy in the Indo-Pacific is to sustain bipartisanship, and I do believe we’re on the road to that now,” he said. “I think there is a recognition that this is the most significant challenge in our history.”

Campbell said that the dominant area of competition is in technology, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and semiconductors.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the committee’s chairman, also warned about the threat posed by the CCP.

“The great power competition with China is not just a contest of military might or economic dominance; it is a struggle over the rules which will shape the 21st century and the global balance of power,” McCaul said in his opening remarks at the hearing.

“This is not a future threat or an isolated problem on the other side of the world—the CCP poses [an] immediate danger to the security interests of the United States and its allies.”

Russian Ties

China’s ties with Russia also came under scrutiny during the hearing, particularly Beijing’s support for the Russian war in Ukraine.

Campbell said the United States had been “slow to recognize the absolute intensity of engagement” between CCP leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As for China’s support for Russia’s defense industry, Campbell said it came from the top of the CCP leadership.

“The most worrisome thing is that it comes from the very top,” Campbell said.

“We see the role of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and other capacities that are penetrating the Ukrainian airspace. Much of that has been supported surreptitiously by China, and it raises real concerns.”

When asked about specifics that China provided to Russia, Campbell said that “chips, some design features,“ and ”some capacities associated with the making of explosives” have substantially aided Russian capabilities on the battlefield.

Xi and Putin elevated their ties to a “no-limit“ partnership in February 2021, just weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. In 2023, bilateral trade between the two countries reached a new record of $240.1 billion, up 25 percent from the previous year, according to China’s official customs data.

The two leaders reaffirmed their partnership in China in May, during Putin’s first official overseas trip since the start of his new six-year presidential term.

The Biden administration has more than 300 sanctions and export controls on Chinese entities for their support of Russia in the Russia–Ukraine war.

“We, frankly, have taken a lot of sanctions against Chinese firms,” Campbell said. “The challenge is we’ve got to get more support from Europe on this.”

In exchange for China’s help, Russia has provided China with submarine and missile technologies, according to Campbell.

“Russia is providing China with ‘submarine operations, activities of aeronautical design, including stealth; that also involves capacities on missile capabilities,’” McCaul said while quoting Campbell’s remarks following talks with European Union and NATO counterparts earlier this month.

McCaul told Campbell, “I couldn’t agree with you more that countering the CCP must be our top priority.”

By Brinley Hineman of FreightWaves

Florida ports are preparing for Hurricane Helene, which is expected to make landfall in the state on Thursday and bring life-threatening conditions with it. 

The National Hurricane Center on Wednesday upgraded Helene from a tropical storm to a hurricane. A large portion of Florida and the Southeast are expected to see flooding, strong winds and rainfall of 5 to 10 inches.

SeaPort Manatee in Florida, which moves more than 11 million tons of cargo annually, closed Wednesday for ship traffic. Port Panama City, which handled 2 million tons of cargo last year, suspended container gate operations at noon local time on Wednesday and planned to suspend general cargo operations at 4 p.m. The Port of Key West, a major economic driver for the city, closed Wednesday.

Tampa International Airport announced Wednesday it was suspending operations Thursday ahead of the hurricane.

The U.S. Coast Guard reported the following ports were open with restrictions Wednesday: Canaveral, Fernandina, Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Tampa in Florida; Brunswick and Savannah in Georgia; and Mobile in Alabama. 

The National Weather Service predicts Helene will turn north Wednesday before making landfall Thursday night on the coast of Florida’s Big Bend. It is unclear how strong Helene will grow, but forecasters said the storm is expected to “be a large, major hurricane.”

Florida will begin experiencing tropical storm conditions Wednesday before the storm reaches Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday, the hurricane center said. 

The Southeast through Appalachia will see 5 to 10 inches of rainfall, with some areas seeing around 15 inches, meteorologists predict. Considerable flash flooding is expected, and landslides are possible in southern Appalachia.

Tornadoes are possible Wednesday in Florida and southern Alabama. The tornado risk will increase Thursday across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

AccuWeather said Helene could strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane.

Increasing retail sales have been constantly held up over the past couple of years by the establishment media and Democrats as a sign that “Bidenomics” is actually working.  Given that almost every other statistical indicator used to support Bidenomics has proven false, it’s fair to suspect that the retail data is also rigged.  But what if it’s not?

There is of course the problem of inflation skewing retail numbers to the upside.  You rarely hear mainstream analysts mention that little issue when they swoon over America’s “retail rebound.”  CNN recently lauded the data as a “sales surge” and a sign of the US economy’s strength. 

However, there is another little known social factor beyond inflation that might help explain why retail spending hasn’t completely collapsed despite most major indicators showing the US entering a recession with shades of stagflation.  

Why did retail data print so strong over the summer when manufacturing plunged and the July jobs report triggered the Sahm Rule, which is now used by central banks as an early sign of an impending recession?  Perhaps because a certain subset of consumers are engaging in a counterintuitive trend called “Doom Spending.”

According to psychologists, doom spending is when a person mindlessly shops to self-soothe because they feel pessimistic about the economy and their future.  The practice is apparently a growing habit among younger generations in today’s stagflationary climate.  Economic theory has long held that high inflation and high interest rates will force consumers to save instead of spend, thereby reducing demand and lowering prices over time.  Except this is not happening.

A whopping 96% if Americans are worried about today’s economy. Over 27% of respondents (most of them Gen Z and Millennials) to a recent survey conducted by Qualtrics and commissioned by Intuit Credit Karma admitted to “doom spending,” and 32% have taken on more debt in the last six months.  US consumer debt stats reveal the true nature of this disastrous trend.  

New York Fed research shows US credit card debt at all time highs; a record $1.14 trillion.  Total US household debt has hit record highs, holding at $17.3 trillion, and rose by 4.3% from Q2 2023 to Q2 2024.  

Keep in mind, this debt is accumulating under much higher interest rates than before the pandemic, and the money is buying less because of inflation.  The mindset makes no sense.  It’s actually digging Americans further into poverty with inevitably more stress and depression attached, but that’s probably why they call it “doom spending.”

The US economy is far from recovery.  In fact, it’s continuous decline is being misrepresented as a “rebound” partly because of the bizarre habits of a contingent of American consumers.   

Doom spending helps to explain a number of inconsistencies in current retail data and also presents a disturbing reality – That almost 30% of the US consumer population has no plans to prepare for the future and is incapable of mentally adapting to sour financial conditions.  In other words, they refuse to take responsibility for their own personal survival. 

It’s a sure bet that this is the same 30% of the population who avidly defend the progressive socialist policies promoted by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  They likely hope (or expect) they will be bailed out by government spending in the near future.  But what if that doesn’t happen?  Will they roll over and starve quietly, or, will they riot in the streets out of spite? 

Authored by Ritika Dubey via The Canadian Press,

Driven by fake credit applications and identity theft, automotive fraud has surged 54 percent from a year ago, a report from Equifax Canada has found.

“That kind of increase really indicates there’s a specific targeted attack to that sector,” said Carl Davies, head of fraud and identity at Equifax Canada, in an interview.

The biggest jump in auto fraud rates was in Ontario, where they doubled since last year, said the report released Tuesday.

Rising vehicle prices in recent years have made the industry a target for fraud, Davies said, while in his opinion, recourse against criminals remains limited.

“When you combine those two, I think that’s driven a lot of the fraud activity into the auto sector this time around,” he said.

But not all fraudsters are organized criminal groups, Davies said.

The most common type of fraud was first-party fraud, where people knowingly provide false information about their finances, such as lying about how much money they make.

About 60 percent of fraud within the auto sector was related to consumers misrepresenting their financial situation, Davies said. While that’s roughly comparable with last year, it remains a concern for lenders.

He said the high cost of living, which has pressured many Canadians’ household budgets, could also be underpinning rising fraud rates.

“If they absolutely need the car … I think they will do whatever’s necessary,” Davies said.

First-party fraud was higher among younger Canadians because they think white lies won’t hurt them, he said, but providing false information can lead to serious penalties in the long term such as loan denials, damaged credit and legal ramifications.

Davies thinks first-party fraud will continue to be a trend as people struggle with the economic slump and high unemployment.

The proportion of identity theft in credit applications continued to grow, the report said, with 48.3 percent of all fraudulent applications flagged as identity theft in the second quarter, up from 42.9 percent during the same time last year.

While lenders bear the brunt of fraud, Davies said it affects everyone in the long run.

“The lender, unfortunately, has to recover that cost from somewhere and ultimately what that translates to is higher costs for everybody,” he said.

Equifax called for caution and vigilance among businesses and consumers.

Businesses should use identity theft protection tools to detect fraud early, the report suggested. This includes verifying identities, cross-checking financial documents and staying informed about regional fraud trends.

“If something comes up and it sounds too good to be true, then trust your instincts,” Davies said.