Author: admin

We’re told that institutional ‘bias reduction’ training and ‘diversity’ hiring policies are meant to create an inclusive environment which values and respects minorities.

Certainly, as 21st Century Wire notes, Silicon Valley believes it is leading the world in advancing such values.

Upon closer inspection, the opposite seems to be the case.

Diversity training and hiring practices do not extinguish prejudice – they actually promote it.

Ex-Google and Facebook employee, Patrick Shyu, explains why ‘diversity’ policy creates more problems than solutions.

Watch:

Authored by Jake Anderson via TheMindUnleashed.com,

As much as astronomy has revealed to us about the universe, there is still much we don’t know and anomalous discoveries routinely remind scientists of this. The newest discovery could be a totally brand-new type of astronomical object that is fascinating and a bit spooky.

Astronomers have discovered four rings, called “odd radio circles,” or ORCs, that so far have defied explanation or description. We don’t know how big the objects are, how far away they are, or how they formed-all we know is that they are only visible at radio wavelengths, where they are very bright at the edges. The ORCs are totally invisible when viewed with the visible, infrared, and X-ray wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The paper describing this phenomenon, which was submitted for publication to the journal Nature Astronomy, offers explanations for ORCs but also methodically rules them out. So far, supernovas, star-forming galaxies, planetary nebulas, and gravitational lensing have all been excluded as possible explanations.

Two of the ORCs appear to contain central galaxies that can be seen at visible wavelengths; scientists speculate those rings could be connected to some kind of local galactic phenomena. The other two ORCs share close physical proximity and so could be interconnected in some way.

Astronomer Kristine Spekkens at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University says,

“[The objects] may well point to a new phenomenon that we haven’t really probed yet. It may also be that these are an extension of a previously known class of objects that we haven’t been able to explore.”

Other astronomers have speculated the ring-shaped islands in deep space could be the result of shockwaves or radio galaxies.

Astronomers discovered the ORCs while working on another project, the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), which is a map of radio frequencies in space. The EMU pilot survey employs the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, a radio telescope network of 36 dish antennas which are collectively generating a wide-angle view of the night sky and which scientists expect will identify 70 million new radio objects.

“This is a really nice indication of the shape of things to come in radio astronomy in the next couple of years,” Spekkens added. “History shows us that when we open up a new [avenue of looking at] space to explore … we always find new and exciting things.”

The discovery comes right at a time when astronomers are still struggling to understand more about another space radio anomaly, the Fast Radio Bursts, or FRBs, that spew incomprehensible amounts of energy in concentrated beams across the universe. While there are many outlandish speculations–including often specious murmurs of advanced extraterrestrial life–anytime scientists discover something in space that defies explanation, we will have to wait substantially longer to learn what both ORCs and FRBs really are.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in June there was a “significant risk” of fraud for Paycheck Protection Program loans. 

GAO said, which oversees spending for the CARES Act, “a number of loans approved, the speed with which they were processed, and the limited safeguards, there is a significant risk that some fraudulent or inflated applications were approved.” 

The GAO said the Small Business Administration (SBA) had safeguards to deter fraudulent loans, but as we find out in mid-July, they weren’t good enough. 

Fortune reports a Texas man received almost $1 million in PPP loans to support 51 employees at his “Texas Barbecue” company to payout salaries during months of lockdowns.

The only problem, Joshua Argires, who received $956,250, never had a BBQ company nor any employees, but received the money and deposited in Coinbase to trade cryptocurrency. 

On Tuesday, Argires was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, and engaging in the unlawful monetary transactions by the Department of Justice (DoJ).

The DoJ didn’t specify how they detected the fraud but suggest something was a miss when Argires noted on PPP forms he would pay 51 of his fictitious employees $90,000 per month.

“Such a high average salary for a barbecue operation raises further suspicion,” the DoJ’s complaint said. 

Argires was involved in another PPP scam, that was with a fictitious business called Houston Landscaping. The DoJ said he was paid out $160,657 in PPP funds. 

There was no mention of what cryptocurrencies the Texas man bought or how frequently he was trading. 

During the PPP disbursements period, we outlined how some Americans who received Trump stimulus checks were taking the money and using it for “securities trades.” 

The rise of daytraders, as Goldman strategists have recently pointed could explain the surge in small trades over the last several months. It seems like President Trump’s CARES Act partially funded the boom in day trading during the pandemic. With Nasdaq at new highs, well, mission accomplished Mr. President. 

Following in the foosteps of a report from earlier thisweek, that the White House would rescind its decision to deny student visas to students who won’t be studying on campus full time this fall, Reuters reports that foreign students coming from Europe will be exempt from a travel ban the United States imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. State Department told congressional offices on Thursday. The State Department also told lawmakers that it would offer exemptions for some au pairs and family members of visa holders in the United States, according to a memo sent to lawmakers and seen by Reuters.

The decision is part of the administration’s effort to gradually reopen international travel following months of sweeping restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March, President Trump banned travelers from most European countries as COVID-19 cases soared in the region before the disease took hold in the United States.

Meanwhile, even though the European Union began to allow non-essential travel from a limited number of countries last month, travelers from the United States remain banned due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases.

The U.S. decision to allow European students comes days after the Trump administration agreed to drop a policy that would have forced tens of thousands of international students to leave the United States if their classes went entirely online; the reversal came amid legal challenges by major universities and pressure from business and tech companies.

China, Brazil and Iran face similar travel bans, but students from those nations were not included in the U.S. exemptions.  Students in European countries who already have visas to study in the United States are exempt from the ban, according to the memo.

The State Department also said spouses and children of certain foreign workers coming to the United States could qualify for exemptions, including the spouses of skilled workers with H-1B visas.

Authored by Jorge Gonzalez-Gallarza via TheAmericanConservative.com,

Few policy items have more ominously heralded the ongoing realignment of our politics than Universal Basic Income. That its proponents and detractors can’t seem to agree on what UBI is intended for in the first place is merely a measure of that omen. 

Take Spain. The country’s far-left government was an early fan of the policy, and when it leaped on the unemployment caused by lockdowns to implement a version of it, the handouts were popularly mocked as la paguita—Spanish for pocket money. The derisive analogy was swiftly censured as xenophobic—the potential pull effect for illegal migrants deemed a red herring—or more creatively still, as aporophobic, a made-in-Spain woke neologism for aversion towards the poor. Yet it was fresh college graduates, not illegal aliens nor the destitute, that users of la paguita fretted UBI would put on the dole. UBI-skeptics fear this more than any potential loopholes for migrants or layabouts: namely, further untethering the over-credentialed young from the demands of the labor market, directing them instead towards “more creative pursuits” of dubious societal interest while turning the self-sufficient lower-middle classes into their unconsenting patrons.

The dissonance over who exactly UBI is meant to assist is extremely revealing. The policy was initially designed in Silicon Valley to make automation painless, but liberals on both sides of the Atlantic have hailed the insurance it provides against labor market disruptions. The reckoning with the need for a larger safety net is actually widespread, but the unalloyed welfare that UBI would afford entitled millennials remains a no-go across much of the right. By embracing UBI, the left seems to have made peace with our tech-induced drift away from self-sufficiency and towards generalized dependence. But creating a dependent class out of the supposedly “best and brightest” is still deemed profoundly perverse on the right.

This realignment around work and welfare is but one instance of what Joel Kotkin describes in his latest book as The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, the surreptitious supplanting of liberal capitalism—a blend of economic opportunity, pluralism and dispersed political power—with a new regime dominated by tech oligarchs, enabled by their legitimizers in the so-called “progressive clerisy,” and so far acquiesced to by most everyone else. The proposition that a class of tech overlords is infiltrating liberal institutions will sound far-fetched to most of Kotkin’s readers, but that’s only because our connotations of “feudalism” suffer from recency bias. This f-word often calls to mind pre-revolutionary France, where a monarchic nobility and a conservative priesthood united to preserve their privileges at swords’ point until 1789.

That late form of feudalism is displayed in Kotkin’s choice of cover—an engraving of a nobleman and a priest riding a peasant’s back printed two months before the storming of the Bastille. But what the book warns about is feudalism at an embryonic stage, one where the interests of nobility and clerisy may not jibe all the time, and where the third estate’s submission is still unknowing. Similarly, it took centuries after Rome fell for medieval feudalism to fully take shape, with the Church emerging first as a check on kings’ earthly power before becoming their geopolitical ally, and the servants toiling in the rural estates of the post-Roman nobility barely conscious of their evolving towards serfdom. Then as now, Kotkin argues our feudalization is slow but steady, with ever more power concentrating among fewer hands. Kotkin is better known as an urbanist than as a historian, which is precisely how he garners the historical savvy and prescience to discern the trend stealthily unfolding—for unlike in the early Middle Ages, cities and not rural areas are the microcosm of the neo-feudal order.

Big tech CEOs and the “progressive intelligentsia” form an unlikely coalition, corporate power being a classic progressive gripe. So what about today’s tech overlords makes them more palatable than the bankers and utility oligopolists they’ve replaced? Hipness and woke capitalism surely play a part, but their primary appeal to the wider society is in Kotkin’s view technical, grounded in the growing premium our economy places in technological skill. More than a technocracy, this is a technocratic ratchet—the techies hold the keys to an economy they’ve ushered in and keep making more complex. Progressive opinion-makers have largely acquiesced to the concentration of productive know-how in ever fewer hands, even as the less affluent are shut out of the pathways towards acquiring it. Worse still, the societal benefits from technological innovation reaped by everyone else keep diminishing—where innovation was once concerned with productivity, transport or housing, its link with improved living standards has all but broken under society’s hype over social media and artificial intelligence.

Atop the neo-feudal order sit these two powerful blocks, and the economic disruption their alliance portends is correspondingly far-reaching, not limited to a single set of policy wins for tech companies. Even if their tax evasion or greedy data collection practices are reined in with transnational digital taxes and ambitious privacy rules, for big tech these will amount to little more than inches on the margin, mere bumps on the road towards neo-feudalism. To work out the contours of the new economic order, Kotkin proposes instead to size up the larger tenets of liberal capitalism undergoing erosion. This starts with property, the ladder through which a majority could once reach middle-class prosperity but that is being pulled up before our very eyes.

Under feudalism, serfdom was the norm—toiling on the land of someone else who robbed you was the only path to subsist. Similarly, as the clustering effects of today’s knowledge economy keep driving capital and labor towards already cramped cities, property has concentrated in ever fewer hands, with home renters left similarly property-less. Cities used to be hotbeds of opportunity, today they are segregated dystopias. Where strivers could once take jobs that afforded spacey homes, amenities and savings, today the squeezed middle is driven out of cities altogether by skyrocketing housing, transport and childcare costs. Where suburbia once stood to pick up the pieces of our urban dysfunctions, today that last redoubt of the property-owning middle is reaching full capacity in turn, with the comfortable lifestyle it affords shunned by the environmentalist clerisy.

This crisis of property is behind the mantra that “today’s young are the first generation to face dimmer prospects than their parents,” borne out in endless surveys. A married couple of first-generation college graduates today struggles to buy a home even at the age their non-college educated parents did, effectively delaying the age at which the upward mobility both generations worked so hard to chase can take its effect. Even as it remains the only real launchpad to wealth accrual, homeownership is increasingly the monopoly of those lucky to inherit it, which further tilts a playing field at birth already more uneven than ever. And all this concerns only what Kotkin calls the modern “yeomanry” of financially insecure but credentialed professionals. Even grimmer are the prospects of the neo-feudal serfdom, that netherworld of low-skilled jobs in the service precariat. Devoid of technical skills, these neo-serfs live paycheck to paycheck in what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich once called the “share-the-scraps-economy”—a wordplay on the “sharing economy”—with not a whiff of any real economic opportunity.

But just like medieval serfs felt bound to the feudal system through the Christian hope of redemption, so is our neo-feudal order held together, as much as by economic relationships, by the cultural values evangelized from the clerisy downwards. Yesteryear’s societal ethos was one of dynamism, creative destruction and widespread opportunity for all, which, when sincerely embraced by those at the top, gave the entire system a buttress of legitimacy. For the managerial class holding the reins, living out these values and leading by example reinforced their position atop the system—creating jobs meant supporting middle-class livelihoods, reneging from corporate welfare and accepting the diktats of antitrust enforcement meant playing by the rules.

The values underpinning today’s neo-feudalism, rather than allowing for elites to be renewed through competition and merit, serve to entrench the ones we’re stuck with. Pluralism in online discourse is on the way out and any talk of breaking up the tech giants is defamed as antitrust heresy, effectively enshrining their natural monopoly over the digital space. As for philanthropy, today’s tech overlords truly see their lot as the kindest hearted in society, but their foundations no longer seek to align status with merit but to refashion our political economy entirely by normalizing dependence. UBI is to philanthropy what giving away fish is to fishing education. 

Whenever economic opportunity is invoked by big tech’s allies in the clerisy, it is most often in the discourse of identity politics, which derives policy prescriptions that fail to create more of it, resorting instead to shoving ethnic minorities amidst the ranks of the technocracy. Instead of expanding access to high-quality education, vocational training or urban property, the siren song of identititarianism calls for numerical quotas and affirmative action. If anything, economic opportunity stands to lose even more ground if the shibboleths promoted from atop are pursued à la lettre, to the extent they pose further penalties on the less fortunate, such as through environmentalism or multiculturalism. And this is where policies such as UBI come back into the picture—their aim is to make the lack of economic opportunity less painful and politically costly, not to reverse our direction of travel towards neo-feudalism. Evangelized with the brimstone of religion, these values are ushering in a new regime of what Kotkin calls “oligarchic socialism,” with productive work increasingly the province of a fortunate few, while everyone is left to battle out for the scraps but numbed with progressive piety.

The alarm Kotkin sounds is all the more courageous and credible coming from an old-school progressive like him, and shows that the left’s realignment around the interests of tech oligarchs and the gospel of wokeism won’t go without internal pushback. Kotkin has even earned an audience on the right—the book is published by Encounter. If his Warning to the Global Middle Class is to be heard widely, it will need all the support it can get from conservatives, whom are undergoing a realignment of the kind Kotkin advocates for his own side. Which calls to mind the ominous words of the abbé Sieyès in 1789—“what is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been in the current political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something!”

*  *  *

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, by Joel Kotkin, (New York: Encounter Books, 2020), 224 pages.

America has a nut problem; oversupplied conditions with plunging demand thanks to President Trump’s trade war and the virus pandemic could prove disastrous for nut farmers this year who produce a majority of the world’s almonds, walnuts, and pecans.

Bloomberg describes a world in which an economic boom led farmers to increasingly plant more and more saplings. Several years later, these trees are now becoming nut-bearing ones, will soon increase supply at a time when the trade war has crushed demand for US agriculture products, and the virus pandemic has crashed the global economy. 

Bill Carriere, a seasoned nut farmer in California, said saplings were planted about five years ago are now becoming nut-bearing ones, could produce an unusually high crop yield this year.

“It’s been five years since the last trees were planted, and now that production is hitting, and the young trees are coming on board,” said Carriere. “It’s going to be a big crop, and that will be true for the next few years.”

A bumper crop of nuts is one thing, but now the nut industry, comprising of almonds, walnuts and pecan farmers, has been at the mercy of the president’s trade war, resulting in plunging demand for American nuts. 

“We’re nervous, especially for next year, with where prices are,” said Carriere, who is also on the California Walnut Board and California Walnut Commission. “They could get below the cost of production.”

America’s nut boom is becoming more and more like a nut bust.  The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest crop report projects almond yields will jump 20% this year to a record 3 billion bounds. California produces about 80% of global almonds – any decline or collapse in price will undoubtedly be felt in local communities in the West Coast state.

China, and the rest of Asia, have been regularly importing US nuts over the years, but that has decreased since the trade war began, forcing Beijing to slap America’s nuts with tariffs. 

USDA estimates US almond exports will reach a three year low in 2020 – suggesting supply concerns will pressure spot prices. 

In addition to declining trade flows between the US and China – the coronavirus pandemic has plunged world trade into a depression. 

Carriere expects more saplings will be planted on his California farm through 2022. He added:

“Once the new trees are in, you’re in for 40 to 50 years,” he said. “We’ll have to suck it up and grit our teeth and get through it.”

President Trump’s failure to sign a legitimate trade deal with China, as we now know, the phase one deal was nothing more than hype to boost the president’s election odds as Beijing had zero intention on fulfilling trade purchase commitments (in dollar amount). Nevertheless, the president is now saying the phase two trade deal is “unlikely.”

The Trump administration might to ready the next bailout to farmers, this time with maximum concentration on nut growers.

Via Priceonomics,

The coronavirus outbreak and resulting shelter-in-place orders have created enormous changes in the hourly job market. Some industries, like hospitality, have seen unprecedented job losses. Other industries, like warehouse and logistics, have actually seen job growth as the delivery of goods becomes essential.

In this article, we’ll look at job applications. Are people looking for work currently or still shying away from employment due to the virus?

We found that in March and April, job applications for hourly jobs plummeted compared to February. However, this May, we’ve seen a very strong rebound. A lot of this rebound in May has been due to restaurants and healthcare facilities reopening. Nevertheless, most industries are seeing job applications below pre-pandemic levels.

While almost all metropolitan statistical areas have seen an increase in job applications, Miami, Las Vegas and Baltimore have seen the largest surge in applications this May.

***

First let’s examine the overall national trends in job applications. What happened to the number of applications on Snagajob since before the pandemic through the end of May? The chart below shows the total applications, indexed to 100 in February:

In March and April we saw a steep decline in job applications, with job applications down 42% from their pre-pandemic level. However, this May has seen a sudden rebound in job applications as states have lifted stay-at-home restrictions. Applications are still well below pre-pandemic levels.

Is this dynamic of falling (and then rising) job applications because of fewer job postings available or because skittish individuals are less likely to apply for jobs during the pandemic? The answer is a little bit of both. The chart below shows the number of job applications per available position on Snagajob:

As the pandemic began, the number of applications per position fell in March and stayed similarly low in April. However by May, the number of applications per position available swung back to pre-pandemic levels.

While people are applying for jobs again at pre-pandemic levels, total applications are still down because the number of job postings are still less than in February:

Compared to February, hourly job postings are down 19%. Companies are hiring more in May than in April, but still at a much lower level than in February. On the national level, it appears as though both employers and potential employees are re-entering the labor market in May.

Which industries are seeing this great rebound in job postings this May? The chart below shows categories experiencing the largest (and smallest) surge in applicants last month:

By a considerable margin, sit-down restaurants have seen the largest surge in applications in May compared to April. Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, most restaurants across the country were closed for sit-down dining in April. As these restaurants have reopened, job applications have returned. Grocery stores continue to attract applications, as they have continued hiring throughout the pandemic. Cleaning services have also rebounded during reopening, as have healthcare job applications as places like dentist offices are now allowed to operate.

However, most of these categories are receiving fewer applications in May than they were prior to the pandemic beginning in February:

Compared to prior to the pandemic, only the categories of Logistics/Warehouse have seen strong applications growth. On the other hand, Hospitality and Entertainment applications are down over 80% from February.

As economies have reopened across the United States, we have seen a growth in job applications. The chart below shows the growth in job postings in the top 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) on Snagajob in May compared to April.

This prior month, the metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) of Miami, Las Vegas and Baltimore have seen the highest surge in job applications, followed by Houston and Orlando. Boston and Detroit have seen the smallest surge in job applicants, though both cities still received 13% more job applications than the prior month.

However, almost all geographies are seeing fewer hourly job applications than before the pandemic in February:

Just 13 of the top 50 largest metro areas on Snagajob are receiving more applications than prior to the pandemic’s start in February. Each of the top 6 locations are in the South, with Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina leading the way. Of all the metros we examined, Detroit has had the largest dropoff in applications with 46% fewer job applications in May compared to February.

***

As the economy has reopened, job applications have flooded back this May. The average job posting on our site in May got about as many applications as one would have in February. However, employer job postings still haven’t fully bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. Nevertheless, for some job categories like restaurants, job applications are booming.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf condemned “rampant, long-lasting violence” in Portland, Oregon on Thursday, after the city “has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city,” he said in a Thursday morning statement. 

Wolf traveled to Portland to survey the city after members of Antifa established the “Chinook Land Autonomous Territory” outside of the Portland federal courthouse earlier in the week.

#BREAKING Motorcade with acting Homeland Security Secty Chad Wolf in Portland #KOIN6NEWS #PortlandProtest #BLM pic.twitter.com/BzBKHoGgke

— Lisa Balick (@lisabKOIN) July 16, 2020

City of Portland is working overtime to clean up ASAP the mess left by antifa. DHS acting secretary is reportedly in Portland now to do a walkthrough soon. pic.twitter.com/NbmmYWLjR2

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) July 16, 2020

“A federal courthouse is a symbol of justice – to attack it is to attack America,” Wolf said, referring to the protesters as “anarchists.”

Local businesses have reported $23 million in losses due to looting and rioting that have gripped its downtown area, and rioters were seen lighting mattresses on fire and setting off fireworks in the streets. Protesters have also set up tents in the park near the federal courthouse and have barricaded streets to create their own autonomous zone, likened to the since-disbanded Capitol Hill Organized Protest in Seattle.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security deployed more than a half-dozen law enforcement agencies and departments, with officers from the U.S. Marshals, the Federal Protective Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rotating protection services throughout the city in a bid to quell the violence and protect federal property — a move opposed by local politicians. –Fox News

“Instead of addressing violent criminals in their communities, local and state leaders are instead focusing on placing blame on law enforcement and requesting fewer officers in their community. This failed response has only emboldened the violent mob as it escalates violence day after day,” the statement continues.

.@PortlandPolice have released photos of the #antifa autonomous zone that was set up overnight in the parks by the federal courthouse. Extremists confronted police during the standoff. The area has extensive damage. Nine were arrested. https://t.co/5vYntPRaGg #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/d1RVhNNbrD

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) July 16, 2020

According to journalist Andy Ngo, “One of the biggest scandals of the last 50 days is how Portland media & politicians describe rioters as peaceful while declaring police violent agitators. This lie keeps riots going.”

Wolf provided a list of offenses committed by “Violent anarchists” in Portland going back to late May:

05/29/2020

• Violent anarchists broke a front window at the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Overall, the cost of damages on federal property done by the violent mob this first night was estimated at $5,000.

05/30/2020

• Violent anarchists graffitied the BPA Building.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Edith Green-Wenell Wyatt Building.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Terry Schrunk Plaza.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the 911 Federal Building.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Pioneer Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Gus J. Solomon Courthouse.

06/01/2020

• Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists graffitied Terry Schrunk Plaza.
• Violent anarchists graffitied The Pioneer Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists graffitied The Gus J Solomon Courthouse.

06/02/2020

• Violent anarchists graffitied the U.S. Custom House.

06/06/2020

• Violent anarchists destroyed fencing surrounding federal property.

06/07/2020

• Violent anarchists damaged and breached the fence around the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Portland Police were forced to deploy crowd control spray to disperse a crowd that was throwing animal seed at officers.

06/08/2020

• Violent anarchists broke a window at the Hatfield Courthouse while pelting the building with objects.
• Violent anarchists cut a hole in the fence surrounding Hatfield Courthouse.

06/10/2020

• Violent anarchists removed the entire fence around Hatfield Courthouse and graffitied its front columns.
• Violent anarchists attempted to remove wooden barriers from a window on the Hatfield Courthouse.

06/11/2020

• Violent anarchists dismantled a section of the fence protecting the Edith Green-Wenell Wyatt Federal Building.

06/13/2020

• Violent anarchists destroyed the card reader at the Hatfield Courthouse by ripping it off its mount.
• Violent anarchists destroyed the fence at the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists threw metal pipes at the Hatfield Courthouse, causing Portland Police to issue a disbursal warning for unlawful assembly.

06/17/2020

• Violent anarchists graffitied the Hatfield Courthouse.

06/20/2020

• Among a group of over 400 protesters marching in front of the Pioneer Courthouse, violent anarchists attempted to cause eye damage to officers with commercial grade lasers.
• Violent anarchists graffitied the Gus J. Solomon Courthouse.

06/25/2020

• Violent anarchists vandalized an FPS camera at the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists breached the fence of the Justice Center, adjacent to the courthouse.

06/30/2020

• Violent anarchists ripped down plywood covering the windows at the Edith Green-Wenell Wyatt Building, before breaking the windows.

7/01/2020

• Violent anarchists graffitied new plywood covering the windows at the Hatfield Courthouse and ripped down plywood on the other side of the building.
• A group of over 200 violent anarchists blocked access to the building and proceeded to launch aerial fireworks at federal property.

07/02/2020

• Violent anarchists broke a front window to the Hatfield Courthouse and attempted to enter the building.
• Violent anarchists refused orders to vacate the Hatfield Courthouse area, and instead launched fireworks and threw objects at officers, while attempting to cause eye damage with lasers. One explosive firework was shot into the courthouse.
• FPS law enforcement officers were forced to utilized crowd control measures for safety.

07/03/2020

• After ongoing riots around the Hatfield Courthouse, crowds were dispersed only to make a return later into the night.
• Violent Anarchists broke the front window of the Hatfield U.S. Courthouse and shot fireworks into the building.
• Violent anarchists firebombed the building. Federal law enforcement extinguished the fire.

07/04/2020

• Around 1,000 violent anarchists spray painted, threw rocks, and shot fireworks (including mortar style fireworks) at the Hatfield Courthouse. They also destroyed a security camera at the facility.
  • A CBP team supporting FPS at the courthouse arrested suspects from the graffiti and camera vandalism incidents.
  • The mob continued to throw rocks and paint-filled balloons, while attempting to breach the doors.
  • Teams were forced to utilize crowd control measures for safety.
• Multiple individuals were seen carrying rifles, including the driver of a vehicle who attempted to strike a Portland Police Bureau officer with his car in front of the Hatfield Courthouse.

07/05/2020

• A hostile crowd of about 250 violent anarchists returned to the vicinity of Hatfield Courthouse to vandalize and attack numerous facilities and police, while failing to comply with dispersal order.
• Violent anarchists surrounded and blocked law enforcement from the area as extremists proceeded to attack police with thrown projectiles and large mortar style fireworks.
• Two Portland Police Bureau officers were injured by the crowd (possible concussion). 
• Portland Police Bureau took five into custody for directing lasers against aircraft.
• Violent anarchists set fires in front of Hatfield Courthouse and Chapman park.
• At the entrance of Hatfield Courthouse, Violent Anarchists fired large fireworks and threw other dangerous objects toward the entrance and the personnel protecting it.
• The mob was pushed completely out of the area of Hatfield Courthouse; FPS made two arrests during push.
• Portland Police made multiple arrests and found a loaded weapon on one subject.
• Two more violent anarchists were arrested, and one was found to be carrying what appears to be a pipe bomb.
• Violent anarchists assaulted construction crews by targeting them with fireworks while they repaired Hatfield Building.
• A joint team had to be deployed to create buffer between violent anarchists and construction crew to protect construction workers.

07/06/2020

• Violent anarchists attempted to cause vision damage to personnel with lasers. Five arrests were made for assaulting law enforcement.

07/07/2020

• Violent anarchists held a “Night of Rage,” in which a 400-500-person protest devolved into riots, assaulting law enforcement officers and federal property.
• Approximately 200 violent anarchists began pursuing law enforcement officers to disrupt enforcement actions, assaulting them with rocks and bottles.
• Around 150 violent anarchists in front of the Justice Center began attacking personnel with lasers and peppered the area with fireworks.
• Three violent anarchists were arrested for attacking law enforcement.

07/08/2020

• Approximately 200 violent anarchists attacked DHS law enforcement officers while apprehending a subject who was wanted for property damage.
• One arrest was made after three law enforcement officers were injured.
• Law enforcement officers’ personal information was publicly exposed, including FPS, ICE, and CBP personnel.
• Violent anarchists continued to attack officers with lasers. 

07/09/2020

• Violent anarchists attacked DHS law enforcement officers while apprehending a subject who was wanted for property damage.
• A violent anarchist graffitied the Hatfield courthouse.
• An unidentified subject fired several shots from a gun into the air from the rear seat of a passing white SUV. 

07/10/2020

• Crowds of approximately 300 violent anarchists vandalized federal property and cameras with spray paint, blocked roadways, and assaulted law enforcement officers.
• Three were arrested for Assault on a Federal Officer.
• Violent anarchists attempted to ambush Portland Police Department PD during their shift change, but a DHS team was deployed and able to prevent any attacks.

07/11/2020

• DHS law enforcement officers supported local police to help a violent anarchist who overdosed.
• Four violent anarchists were arrested, including one who attempted to assault an officer with a hammer.
• Violent anarchists sieged the barricade of the courthouse and tried to damage it with a large hammer.
• A law enforcement officer was assaulted with blows from a hammer. Violent anarchists fought officers while they were arresting those responsible.

07/12/2020

• Six violent anarchists were detained and cited.
• A mob of 300 refused to comply with directions not to trespass on federal property.
• Another mob of 200 individuals armed with sledgehammers, tasers and/or stun guns, gathered in Chapman Park across from the Hatfield Courthouse.
• Violent anarchists launched fireworks, threw fecal matter and large objects, and pointed lasers at federal law enforcement officers.
• Violent anarchists deployed a plywood blockade while graffitiing the Edith Green-Wenell Wyatt Federal Building, before firing wrist rockets at the facility.
• When an arrest team was deployed to apprehend a rioter who encroached on a police barrier and refused to leave, they were assaulted by violent anarchists.
• A rioter trespassed on the steps of the Hatfield Courthouse and was confronted by federal law enforcement Officers, then swallowed a large amount of narcotics. Law enforcement called medical services after the individual started to convulse.
• Despite more orders to stay off of federal property and to cease unlawful activity, FPS was forced to push back violent anarchists. The Portland Police Bureau declared the mob an unlawful assembly.

07/13/2020

• Violent anarchists released personal information of federal law enforcement officers to the public, publishing names of those in Portland.
• Violent anarchists continued to assault law enforcement officers with lasers, slingshots and fireworks. Others were armed with sledge hammers, tasers, and stun guns, and dragged flaming debris into the scene.

07/14/2020

• Violent anarchists set a container of liquid on fire at the Terry Schrunk Plaza.
• Violent anarchists jumped a fence and attempted to breach the Edith Green Federal Building.
• Violent anarchists assaulted federal law enforcement officers with cans and other hard objects while they attempted to unblock the entrance of the Edith Green Federal Building.

07/15/2020

• Violent anarchists doxed members of federal law enforcement.
• Violent anarchists attempted to damage the Hatfield Courthouse by throwing objects at it and spray painting it. Numerous fireworks were also lit.
• Violent anarchists trespassed on federal property and destroyed a card reader at the Justice Center.

Submitted by Luke Eastwood,

Since the crash of 2008 much has been made of the fact that the world did not end or the sky fall in on us – unless of course you are one of the people who have been touched by bankrupcy, homelessness, addiction or even suicide as a result of the crash. The truth is that, since the financial collapse, life has not improved, improved very little or even got worse for a huge number of individuals around the world.

Many political and financial pundits have highlighted the fact that the problems that caused the sub-prime crisis and subsequent bank collapses around the world are  in fact a systemic problem. However, it appears that very little has been done to remedy  the situation.  The basic problem is not complex at all – it is very simple in fact:

1. All closed systems have limits and the economic and ecological world system  is  nearing the limits of tolerance.

2. The main beneficiaries of the current system are a tiny minority (often referred to as the 1%), which is in fact growing smaller, further exacerbating imbalance.

3. No attempt has been made to address a flawed system that is ultimately unsustainable – papering of the crack is all that has occurred.

If you accept the 3 points above then it is easy to see that we are not in fact headed anywhere better in the short or medium term. If no attempts are made to deal with the distribution of capital, the availability of financially meaningful employment, the facilitation of resources and investment in genuinely productive and beneficial enterprises then circumstances will continue to deteriorate.

The short to medium term solution to the 2008 crisis was quantitative easing, or stimulus, however many would argue that the stimulus was given to the arse when it needed to be given to the brain of the patient. Stimulus in the wrong place is of no benefit if the system remains unchanged, or if the beneficiaries only gain more from maintaining the status quo, instead of engaging in reform.

So here we are in 2020, QE or stimulus never ended, although somewhat declining in recent years, it has now been ramped up again to frightening levels. We now have a situation where the broken system of 2008 is still broken but now with a level of leveraging across countries and corporations that is eye-wateringly catastrophic. If this is not a black swan moment in itself, the fact that we have to contend with COVID19, political and social unrest, locust plagues in Africa and Asia, increased threat of war, plus increased protectionism and nationalism should be ringing everyone’s alarm bells.

There is a significant drag in the system, a time delay or delayed reaction if you will. I personally regard this as being about 6 months lag between disaster A and full comprehension of the impact of disaster A. This is then followed by the repercussions of this new understanding, which is from that point onwards is reflected in financial markets, on main street, employment levels, the media and in every day life.  At this moment we are seeing or are about to see Q2 figures from across the world, which is the beginning of the comprehension of disaster A, and a growing awareness that disasters B, C, D and E are in progress right now.

Preppers have long been derided as maniacs who see doom and gloom and impending disaster around every corner. While many of these people and social/financial commentators may have been wrong about the timing, they have been right all along about the systemic weakness and the strong likelihood of an implosion that could gut societies all across the world. It may have been fun to have a good laugh at ‘Johnny no mates’, filling his plastic bins with non-perishable foods and buying gold coins, but now Johnny is not look so stupid any more.

The full impact of the coming financial devastation is a long way off, what we have seem this year is just the entré, a small taste of what is to come. I would suggest that Q3 and Q4 will yield results of unprecedented disaster that will lead to a mass exodus from financial markets, a collapse of the derivatives market, commercial and domestic property collapse and possibly the insolvency of many large financial institutions and corporations across the world.

For those who have not prepared at all for the coming economic and social chaos, I would to suggest that right now is a good time to start – as soon as you have finished reading this article! Those with a high level of debt would be wise to pay it off if they have the ability to do so. Those with financial assets likely to be devalued by a stock market slide, derivatives collapse etc would be wise to get out while the getting is good. Those that have property that is expensive, costly to maintain and not generating income would also be wise to sell it while it still retains any quantifiable value.

In my own case, I have sold my home which had an unsustainable mortgage and cleared that debt. I have made arrangements to settle all other borrowings within the next 12 months. I have relocated to a low population area, living in a very affordable rented home. I have changed job and now work part-time as a government employee in a pensionable job. I also have a supply of non-perishable food that will last 3-6 months, tools and equipment to deal with lack of supply and a shared ‘allotment’ near by, to grow food. I also have a reasonable supply of 1oz silver coins and bars, which should hopefully retain some purchasing value when the hyperinflation eventually hits.

My own prepping is fairly minor, compared to some, however I feel adequately prepared to ride out the inevitable storms that are coming our way. I would not have revealed these steps in the past, given the general derision of most people towards those preparing for disaster. I would most likely be lumped in with the ‘tin foil hat’ conspiracists for taking steps to avoid destitution, hunger and the disintegration of my personal situation, brought on by events beyond my control. Now that we have finally arrived at the ‘perfect storm’ people like me are not looking like fools any more.

In truth it is the people with zero vision, foresight and planning who are going to look stupid. It is those who have sleep-walked through the last decade and done nothing to safeguard their own future who will be feeling stupid very soon. However, total disaster is not upon us just yet – it is still in the post. There is still time to sell up, move house, change career, pay off debt. If you have not already analysed your life and its future viability, in the face of unprecedented change, now would be a very good time to start.

*  *  *

Luke Eastwood is a horticulturist and writer, living in Ireland. He has formerly worked in the financial industry in UK, journalism, publishing, design, advertsing and marketing. You can read more of his work at lukeeastwood.com

Several months ago, we noticed parking lots across the US were quickly filling up with rental cars as the entire car rental industry collapsed. The virus-induced recession crushed the travel and tourism industry, so it would only make sense that indirect industries, like rental cars, would get hammered.

In May, rental car fleets were being shifted from airports to massive parking lots at sports stadiums from Philipedia to Los Angeles; the pictures below show the magnitude of the collapse: 

Thanks to mcm-ct.com, who also showed us the commercial real estate bust in South Florida in May, has once again posted stunning pictures of where rental cars now ‘go to die’. 

MCM might have uncovered the evolution of what happens to rental cars after they’re temporarily parked at sports stadiums or massive parking lots – that is, as he describes – ends up in a “death yard” – as Hertz and other rental car companies will eventually markdown these assets from their respective balance sheets. 

On Sunday, MCM’s Twitter post said he “drove past” the Palm Beach International Airport on Saturday and uncovered a huge parking lot of “rental cars needing maintenance/out of commission.” 

Drove past the WPB Airport yesterday & saw this:

A DEATH YARD FOR RENTAL CARS NEEDING MAINTENANCE/OUT OF COMMISSION

1. EVERY CAR mechanical issue marked on window

2. THEY ARE BAKING IN THE

3. WILL TAKE YEARS & $$$ TO GET THROUGH THESE REPAIRS

Can you say asset impairment? /1 pic.twitter.com/oSLi0JoBkv

— mcm-ct.com (@mcm_ct) July 12, 2020

He said, “every car” had mechanical issues “marked on” the window – as they bake in the South Florida sun. He said it would “take years & $$$ to get through these repairs,” as he suggested: “Can you say asset impairment?” 

From the street, MCM snapped a panoramic view of the parking lot with at least a thousand of these cars left in the sun to die.  

He shows every window is “marked with mechanical issues.” 

Here’s another angle of the yard – with a closer look – all of these vehicles are basically brand-new. 

Another view:

And another: 

MCM said: “Anyway you look at it, its YEARS OF INVENTORY that is sitting baking in the sun…it is a major operation imo just to find the keys for these cars let alone repair and move them – they will be there for a very long time it seems and that means these cars will deteriorate a lot.” 

Adding that, “DON’T WORRY THE @federalreserve CAN FIX THIS as @neelkashkari is on the job.” 

And if MCM is right – Hertz and or other rental car companies could be on the cusp of writing down their vehicle fleets as the anticipation of steady cash flows from these assets are now deemed unrecoverable as the whole travel and tourism industry has gone bust and will remain depressed for years.