Dramatic Footage Shows Rescue Of 4 Missing Crew From Inside Capsized Ship’s Hull

Dramatic Footage Shows Rescue Of 4 Missing Crew From Inside Capsized Ship’s Hull

Dramatic images and footage released on Tuesday showed the rescue of four men who had been missing for more than 36 hours after early Sunday their cargo ship had capsized off the Georgia coast. 

The South Korean crew members were the last after 20 had been previously rescued by the US Coast Guard. The four had been trapped deep inside the ship and were considered “missing” into Monday – leading rescue personnel to tap on the vessel’s hull. Eventually they heard a “tap” back and drilled a hole in order the communicate with the trapped men. 

Monday’s harrowing and complicated rescue operation was described by Coast Guard officials speaking to CNN as follows

Rescuers were dropped off via helicopter and drilled a small hole in the ship to communicate with the crew members, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Phillip VanderWeit said. As they worked to make the hole large enough to let in food, water and more air, temperatures climbed to 120 degrees outside and even higher inside the boat, Reed said.

    By 3 p.m. three of the crew members had been safely rescued, and the fourth was freed a few hours later, Reed said.

    When the final crew member exited the boat, rescuers cheered and clapped.

    The cargo ship, named the Golden Ray, was reportedly a car carrier, something believed to have contributed to its destabilizing and severe listing which occurred early Sunday before the accident.

    The ship had capsized, and remained tipped on its side in the Port of Brunswick near St. Simons Island since Sunday. 

    * * *

    previously

    Four crew members of a large international transport vessel went missing Sunday off Georgia after the boat began listing violently and caught fire. The vessel, identified in reports as the 656-foot Golden Ray, had 24 crew members aboard, 20 of which were rescued in a high risk US Coast Guard operation

    The Golden Ray on its side in St. Simons Sound on Sunday, via the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. 

    CNN has reported that four South Korean crew members are still being looked for after rescue efforts were temporarily disrupted when a fire broke out on the ship.

    Dramatic coast guard images showed that the boat had capsized early Sunday, tipping on its side in the Port of Brunswick near St. Simons Island.

    Given the Golden Ray was reportedly a car carrier, this could have contributed to its destabilizing and severe listing before the accident, though a specific cause has yet to be identified. 

    According to CNN, citing Coast Guard commander, Capt. John Reed

    Officials are working to stabilize the leaning vessel, he said. Once that’s done, rescue efforts will continue.

    “The other outcome could be that it may be deemed more appropriate to go ahead and right the vessel and de-smoke and de-water before we are able to actually get in there and locate the four individuals,” Reed told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield in an interview Sunday.

    The tanker tracker site MarineTraffic.com indicated the ship was sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands and had been bound for Baltimore.

    The Coast Guard published dramatic rescue footage involving stranded crew members being lifted off the large cargo ship via helicopter, as well as some dropping into rescue boats. 


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/10/2019 – 10:01

    via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LNS0QO Tyler Durden

    ‘Quant Quake 2.0’ Fallout: Nomura Warns Of “Horrific” Returns For Momo Stocks Ahead

    ‘Quant Quake 2.0’ Fallout: Nomura Warns Of “Horrific” Returns For Momo Stocks Ahead

    The shock of yesterday’s US Equities factor reversals will go down in infamy alongside the August 2007 “Quant Quake” and the Fed/March/April 2016 “Market-Neutral Unwind” as one of the more stunning trades in modern market history…

    …And yet, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott exclaims, hilariously, nobody watching financial TV or Joe Schmoe retail investor looking at just simple Index returns in isolation (or even a more sophisticated investor looking at the Vol complex yday) would have had any idea of the calamity occurring under the surface, as it was all about a blowout in sector- and thematic- dispersion which then acted to offset / “mask” the “top down” moves.

    Stepping into today’s trade and CRITICALLY as it pertains to said devastating “internals” within this US Equities performance dynamic of the past few sessions, overnight we see US Rates / USTs pausing the bleed of the past week and actually “bull-flattening” – which should help “locally” to stop the violence of the Equities “Momentum” unwind, which at its “macro core” was “kicked-on” by the recent Duration selloff / “Bear-Steepening” in US Rates.

    But for now, Nasdaq is notably underperforming…

    Just how unprecedented was the “Momentum Shock” unwind?  Yesterday’s -7.7% move in US Equities “1Y Price Momentum Factor” was the second largest 1d drawdown in the history of our factor data going back to 1984 (the worst day being -8.2% on April 4th, 2009), while my US Equities HF L/S model was -3.3% on the day, tied for the second-worst 1d performance move for the leveraged fund proxy since the jarring 2015 “Growth Scare” trade (all of which encompassed a China FX deval, a disinflationary “Crude Shock,” US HY E&P default scare, a one-quarter US Earnings recession and the first Fed hike of the cycle).

    What would make the Momentum unwind stop or pause?  As mentioned above, a resumption of the Duration / Rates rally (particularly “bull-flattening”) would staunch the pain, and could easily be driven by more “bad global growth data” or an “dovishly inline with market expectations” ECB this week

    But what could make the Momentum unwind accelerateTwo potential catalysts I’m watching:

    First is price-based, as it relates to the Nomura QIS CTA model and the level at which we would see Systematic Trend begin to deleveraging from the legacy “+100% Long” position in ED$ (ED4 is what we track), as it is the best proxy for the Leveraged Fund universe and their “grab” into the YTD Rates trade; currently we would expect reduction / selling-down of that position on a break and close in ED4 below 98.46/45, where the signal would move from “+100% Long” to just “+12% Long” as the 3m model window would “flip” to SELL (see bottom chart / table of email)

    Second is the waaay out of consensus ECB scenario I put in yesterday’s first note, as outlined by our EGB Rates Strat Marco Brancolini, who made a call into the ECB that we see a “dovish surprise” from the ECB…but that perversely, it could come via a surprise twist which would actually see the long-end HIT LOWER, which in-turn would extend the recent “steepening” in Rates curves and risk accelerating the current “unwind” dynamic further.

    Most importantly below, Nomura’s McElligott attempts to answer the question that every investor has been asking over the past 24 hours: 

    “What does this type of “Momentum Shock” mean for forward themes and returns for both S&P and “Momentum” themes going-forward?” 

    (e.g. implications for the reversal of various long-standing dynamics seen with “Growth over Value,” “Defensives over Cyclicals,” “Large Cap over Small Cap,” “Min Vol over High Beta / High Vol” etc)

    We tested scenarios three scenarios:

    1) a “Momentum Shock” of this magnitude (hint: a VERY small sample size as noted earlier!), and specifically,

    2) the Value (“EBITDA / EV” factor) performance standalone and

    3) the Value outperformance as a spread vs “1Y Price Momentum” factor at a similarly extreme level

    Per said back-tests, the dates where we experienced comparable “triggers” in both tested scenarios are a rather stunning group of macro periods which were MAJOR market inflections / escalations…

    PUNCHLINES:

    The S&P looks to painfully just “chop” in a range both up and down, which means that traditional hedges might not do anything for you IF your single-stock / thematic tilts continue going “wrong-way” (as this is a DISPERSION issue / portfolio rebalance / rotation trade, not an index trade).

    A prior extreme “Momentum Shock” test (we look at previous -6.8% or more 1d returns) shows us that “Momentum” continues to come unglued: -9.9% 2s return, -11.8% 1m, -10.6% 3m, -26.2% 6m, -27.8% 12m.

    HORRIFIC FORWARD RETURNS FOR “MOMENTUM” FACTOR AFTER A COMPARABLE “SHOCK DRAWDOWNS”

    And a look the DATES for prior-6.8% Momentum 1d return are particularly “compelling”: outside of yesterday, we see 3/3/16 (peak of the 2016 famed “mkt-neutral unwind” where funds experienced a massive “Momentum Shock” following the late 2015 global growth scare pivot into cyclical risk-on after the Shanghai accord / Yellen ‘weak dollar’ policy); 3/16/09 (GFC mkt bottom); 11/17/08 (post Lehman escalation into the GFC lows); 12/26/2000 (Tech bubble pop acceleration)

    Prior extremes in our “Value” factor proxy where “EBITDA / EV” saw a 1d 99.5th %ile return (yesterday was actually +99.7th %Ile but we had to widen out for sample size) tells us that under prior “trigger” events, “Value” factor too chops from here out to 3m months but then EXPLODES HIGHER out 6m (+27.1% median return) and 12m (+83.3% return!)

    This is possibly telling-us that either the “end of days” global growth prognostications were wrong, or that we do indeed begin to come out of Recession – either way, a BIG “Value outperformance” trade begins


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/10/2019 – 09:40

    via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31ea4K4 Tyler Durden

    Another Multiracial Family Falsely Accused of Sex Trafficking While Flying

    Lawsuit alleges profiling by Frontier Airlines. In what’s becoming a sadly regular occurrence, another multiracial family has been profiled by airline staff as being involved in human trafficking. In this case, 55-year-old Peter DelVecchia, a white man, was traveling with his adopted 12-year-old son, who is black. According to a lawsuit DelVecchia filed in federal court, Frontier Airlines staff accused him of sex trafficking his son and detained the boy in the back of the plane.

    DelVecchia alleges that the only basis for this confrontation was the fact that he and his son don’t have the same skin color.

    This wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. A rash of recent incidents on flights and at airports feature false fears of human trafficking that seem to be based on nothing more than staff or onlookers—including Cindy McCain—finding children or women traveling with a man of a different race or ethnicity to be suspicious.

    Small-minded people like this have surely always existed. But these specific bits of speculative bigotry—the fear that folks are using commercial airlines to smuggle kids into “sexual slavery”—are part of a paranoid scheme spread by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other authorities as part of “see something, say something” efforts. And as part of this, flight attendants and airport staff now get trained to intervene in what federal officials (falsely) portray as an epidemic of airline-based sex trafficking which can be spotted by good Samaritans who know the “signs.”

    These initiatives have been helped along by groups like the McCain Institute, where Cindy McCain heads an “anti-trafficking” arm and dubious viral stories about a “hero flight attendant” and others who trust their guts and save the day. But the only victims who seem to be unearthed in real life are the interracial couples and families who have been profiled and accused.

    In DelVecchia’s case, reports The Charlotte Observer, flight attendants were “merely acting on training to recognize potential human trafficking victims, Frontier said.”

    His son, called A.D. in the suit, was taken “against his will” to the back of the plane, according to DelVecchia’s lawsuit against five Frontier employees. It says the son “asked repeatedly to be allowed to return to the seat beside his father, but [Frontier staff] would not allow A.D. to leave the seat in which [they] had placed him” for several hours. “They refused to believe that Peter and A.D. are father and son, despite being told so by both Peter and A.D.”

    In 2014, a whole plane was detained while police questioned an Asian woman and a Puerto Rican man who were traveling together. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, but police had decided the woman was likely being sex trafficked.

    In 2017, “Brian Smith, from Arizona, was travelling back from a trip to Florida with his wife Renee and their three children, including Georgianna, 16, who the couple adopted from China,” when a Southwest Airlines staff member accused Smith of trafficking his adopted daughter.

    Earlier this year, McCain said that she had reported a woman flying a toddler of a different race to airport police, who later confirmed the woman was sex trafficking the child—but police say this was not the case.



    FREE MINDS

    Truth not approved by the FDA. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is going after popular e-cigarette maker Juul for saying it can help people quit regular cigarettes, since the agency has not officially approved this messaging.

    “It may be obvious anecdotally that vaping is a good way to wean yourself off smoking,” notes TechCrunch. But because the FDA has not authorized such statements of reality, Juul may find itself in big trouble. In a recent letter, the FDA requested that the company “provide any and all scientific evidence and data, including consumer perception studies, if any, related to whether or not each statement and representation explicitly or implicitly conveys that JUUL products pose less risk, are less harmful, present reduced exposure, or are safer than other tobacco products.”


    FREE MARKETS


    QUICK HITS

    • Bill de Blasio’s proposed “robot tax” is completely unnecessary (just like his presidential candidacy), writes Reason‘s Eric Boehm.
    • A new true crime series looks at the murders of eight sex workers in Louisiana. The show, Murder in the Bayou, “casts intense doubt on the official version of events, and suspicion on [one local man] and his cop pals,” notes The Daily Beast.
    • Why are America’s three biggest cities shrinking?
    • Los Angeles moves to further criminalize homelessness:

    from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/31aACMx
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    Blain: None Of These Are Questions To Which People Want To Hear The Answers

    Blain: None Of These Are Questions To Which People Want To Hear The Answers

    Blain’s Morning Porridge, submitted by Bill Blain of Shard Capital

     “Six impossible things before breakfast…”

    One of my colleagues came over this morning and said: “Bill, you have the easiest job in the World. Brexit: the gift that just keeps on giving.”  True.  For sheer horror value it’s the equivalent of lining up a whole row of cute little seal pups and handing a psychopath a baseball bat.  UK politicians could not look more stupid, even if the SAS trained them in combat stupidity.  That said, John Bercow’s valedictory last night from the Speaker’s chair was amusing stuff.  We shall miss him..  Order.. Order..

    Of course, as an entirely serious market strategist (really?) I deeply resent the implication I’m being lazy by focusing on the political issues of a small country at the unfashionable end of Yoorp.  But, if I’m absolutely honest, it’s fascinating to watch this slow motion, ergot-driven, dance macabre!  I just can’t wait to see what goes humiliatingly wrong next.  (Regular readers of the Porridge may remember my contribution on the collapse of Lehman Brothers was a top 30 financial apocalypse playlist.  The Porridge has always been a more esoteric market commentary than other, perhaps, more focused views..)

    And just to prove I’m not Brexit fixated, let me list all the other things I’m thinking about this morning:

    • What is the ECB actually going to do this week? Why? How much will lower European rates and a resumed buy programme further distort already distorted bond markets?  How little will NIRP (Negative Interest Rate Policies) achieve in terms of stimulating European Growth?  Why are European bank stocks rising when perpetual NIRP is destroying all values, inflating financial assets, and increasing systemic bank risk?  How will more of the same improve the chances of Christine Lagarde moving the agenda forward into common fiscal policies?  What chance of fiscal agreement?  (And do note, investors in long dated German bunds are now down over 6% over the last 2 weeks on just the hint the German’s might press the stimulus button – just a hint of more pain to come?)
    • What about US Corporate Debt?  Ford Cut to Junk – what are the implications for the rest of increasingly overleveraged pre-tech industries struggling to restructure and adapt?  Why is Apple sitting on a huge cash pile, but borrowing more.. (because they can), and how much more potential damage to corporate America’s leverage is going on across the sector?  Does debt matter in this low rate environment?  How do you kill Zombie Corporates in a ZIRP environment? (Head shot.. always a head shot.)
    • Why are we even worrying about US/China trade negotiations?  Whatever the White House says we’re way beyond a future agreement.  The outcome is going to be increased polarisation as new supply chains develop, a new cold war emerges, and the implications of slowing, internally focused China economy are understood.  The expectations for global growth fuelled by China’s belt and road policies can be quietly forgotten.
    • What about Global stocks?  Does Softbank urging We Company to pull its IPO (because it will expose how much money Softbank has lost as it tries to double up on its “Vision Fund”) represent the top of a bubble?

    And a fantastic article in FT about the new Volfefe Index.  Perhaps more important are serious concerns about the chaotic White House, and how much longer the Trump administration can keep up the illusion its functional.. but hey-ho, we can’t comment from here in the UK about other nation’s dysfunctional politics, can we?

    For all these and more…  I suspect none of these are questions to which there are answers people particularly want to hear. 

    However, the biggest question I’m struggling with remains the UK.  We’ve watched the Conservative part immolate itself most spectacularly in recent weeks.  Regular readers will know that’s unlikely to cause me much pain or regret.  As a Scotsman I am genetically engineered to vote Red – although I shall admit I once voted Blue, but only because the other choice was Liberal which, frankly, is just a waste of ink on a ballot paper.

    What I really, really want to understand is what the Labour Party offers as an alternative?  I did get out the 2017 Labour Manifesto the other day, and to be fair, there is nothing I really disagree with in terms of building a fairer country and its focus on more police officers, better health services and especially better education. (For the Record: the reason I detest the Liberals was their craven support for University Fees so they could sit in the coalition government.  They are well meaning middle class kulaks (look it up yourself) lickspittle-capitalist-lackeys who are not to be trusted!) 

    I also agree with Tory Chancellor’s Sajid Javid’s plans to borrow more and spend to boost/repair the economy after 10-years of austerity. There really isn’t that much between the parties – there never rally has been.

    As for all the stuff about how McDonald and Corbyn are  unreformed Marxists who are going to steal you rental flats, nationalise your watch collections, and put Somali refugees in your sitting room… sure.. it won’t happen.  Just like when Dangerous Radical Tony Blair took office in 1997 and the became the best conservative premier of all time (until he started behaving like one..)  Despite Momentum, the bulk of Labour MPs (like Tory MPs) are essentially decent.  I would expect the UK media to become even more hostile to Labour as an election approaches.

    I am, however, somewhat concerned that a well-meaning Labour government will prove an even bigger disaster than the current Tory farce.  In the 2017 Manifesto Labour said it accepts the referendum result and will put the national interest first.  Yet listening to, and reading what Labour politicians are now saying, they make the Conservatives sound sensible, organised and united!  I think the official Labour Brexit policy is something like: We will negotiate a new Brexit agreement with Brussels which we will then put to the people a choice in a second referendum. We will then campaign to remain in Europe by voting against the agreement we negotiate with Brussels.”

    Oh dear..

    Back to the day job… and out of time.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/10/2019 – 09:29

    via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3061T0Y Tyler Durden

    Another Multiracial Family Falsely Accused of Sex Trafficking While Flying

    Lawsuit alleges profiling by Frontier Airlines. In what’s becoming a sadly regular occurrence, another multiracial family has been profiled by airline staff as being involved in human trafficking. In this case, 55-year-old Peter DelVecchia, a white man, was traveling with his adopted 12-year-old son, who is black. According to a lawsuit DelVecchia filed in federal court, Frontier Airlines staff accused him of sex trafficking his son and detained the boy in the back of the plane.

    DelVecchia alleges that the only basis for this confrontation was the fact that he and his son don’t have the same skin color.

    This wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. A rash of recent incidents on flights and at airports feature false fears of human trafficking that seem to be based on nothing more than staff or onlookers—including Cindy McCain—finding children or women traveling with a man of a different race or ethnicity to be suspicious.

    Small-minded people like this have surely always existed. But these specific bits of speculative bigotry—the fear that folks are using commercial airlines to smuggle kids into “sexual slavery”—are part of a paranoid scheme spread by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other authorities as part of “see something, say something” efforts. And as part of this, flight attendants and airport staff now get trained to intervene in what federal officials (falsely) portray as an epidemic of airline-based sex trafficking which can be spotted by good Samaritans who know the “signs.”

    These initiatives have been helped along by groups like the McCain Institute, where Cindy McCain heads an “anti-trafficking” arm and dubious viral stories about a “hero flight attendant” and others who trust their guts and save the day. But the only victims who seem to be unearthed in real life are the interracial couples and families who have been profiled and accused.

    In DelVecchia’s case, reports The Charlotte Observer, flight attendants were “merely acting on training to recognize potential human trafficking victims, Frontier said.”

    His son, called A.D. in the suit, was taken “against his will” to the back of the plane, according to DelVecchia’s lawsuit against five Frontier employees. It says the son “asked repeatedly to be allowed to return to the seat beside his father, but [Frontier staff] would not allow A.D. to leave the seat in which [they] had placed him” for several hours. “They refused to believe that Peter and A.D. are father and son, despite being told so by both Peter and A.D.”

    In 2014, a whole plane was detained while police questioned an Asian woman and a Puerto Rican man who were traveling together. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, but police had decided the woman was likely being sex trafficked.

    In 2017, “Brian Smith, from Arizona, was travelling back from a trip to Florida with his wife Renee and their three children, including Georgianna, 16, who the couple adopted from China,” when Southwest Airlines staff accused Smith of trafficking his adopted daughter.

    Earlier this year, McCain said that she had reported a woman flying a toddler of a different race to airport police, who later confirmed the woman was sex trafficking the child—but police say this was not the case.



    FREE MINDS

    Truth not approved by the FDA. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is going after popular e-cigarette maker Juul for saying it can help people quit regular cigarettes, since the agency has not officially approved this messaging.

    “It may be obvious anecdotally that vaping is a good way to wean yourself off smoking,” notes TechCrunch. But because the FDA has not authorized such statements of reality, Juul may find itself in big trouble. In a recent letter, the FDA requested that the company “provide any and all scientific evidence and data, including consumer perception studies, if any, related to whether or not each statement and representation explicitly or implicitly conveys that JUUL products pose less risk, are less harmful, present reduced exposure, or are safer than other tobacco products.”


    FREE MARKETS


    QUICK HITS

    • Bill de Blasio’s proposed “robot tax” is completely unnecessary (just like his presidential candidacy), writes Reason‘s Eric Boehm.
    • A new true crime series looks at the murders of eight sex workers in Louisiana. The show, Murder in the Bayou, “casts intense doubt on the official version of events, and suspicion on [one local man] and his cop pals,” notes The Daily Beast.
    • Why are America’s three biggest cities shrinking?
    • Los Angeles moves to further criminalize homelessness:

    from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/31aACMx
    via IFTTT

    Our Own Nick Rosenkranz Running for Yale Trustee “to Protect Free Speech, Intellectual Diversity”

    So reports The College Fix (Christopher Tremoglie): Nick, a leading constitutional law scholar at Georgetown, is also the cofounder of Heterodox Academy. I’ve known Nick for years, and think he will make an excellent trustee, though, alas, I’ve been cruelly disenfranchised from voting for him (since I’m not actually a Yale graduate). If you are a Yale graduate, though, submit your signature to get him on the final ballot, via Alumni for Excellence at Yale.

    from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/31bB7G3
    via IFTTT

    WeWork Bonds Tumble Below Critical Level

    WeWork Bonds Tumble Below Critical Level

    Things just went from bad to worse for WeWork (and Softbank) as the over-levered office-rental company sees its debt pummeled back below a critical level as its IPO flails.

    WeWork’s 2025 Bonds have plunged back below par for the first time since filing for its IPOwhich Softbank is now reportedly urging them to pull

    Source: Bloomberg

    This could be a problem going forward as Bloomberg reports that while WeWork is aiming for investment-grade status eventually, the office-rental company plans to rely on junk bonds for funding for the foreseeable future, a WeWork executive said in a meeting with analysts.

    And that cost of funding just soared, now trading back at almost 700bps over Treasuries…

    Source: Bloomberg

    WeWork has lined up a $6 billion credit line that is contingent on it raising at least $3 billion in its IPO, according to the offering prospectus by its parent, the We Co.

    “Its rapidly growing footprint burns cash, so traditional credit metrics will view the company poorly,” said Arnold Kakuda, a senior credit analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

    “WeWork would need to exhibit stable profits, before it can be seriously considered to be an investment-grade company.”

    As Bloomberg recently noted, “anyone weighing whether to buy shares in WeWork’s IPO cannot ignore the fact that the company will have to find $47 billion from somewhere in coming years to meet its contractual obligations – including about $10 billion in just the next five years. Right now, its own very negative cash flows won’t cut it.”


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/10/2019 – 09:10

    via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Q1GZAo Tyler Durden

    Our Own Nick Rosenkranz Running for Yale Trustee “to Protect Free Speech, Intellectual Diversity”

    So reports The College Fix (Christopher Tremoglie): Nick, a leading constitutional law scholar at Georgetown, is also the cofounder of Heterodox Academy. I’ve known Nick for years, and think he will make an excellent trustee, though, alas, I’ve been cruelly disenfranchised from voting for him (since I’m not actually a Yale graduate). If you are a Yale graduate, though, submit your signature to get him on the final ballot, via Alumni for Excellence at Yale.

    from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/31bB7G3
    via IFTTT

    22 Surveys Which Prove That Americans Never Want To Go Back To The Way America Used To Be

    22 Surveys Which Prove That Americans Never Want To Go Back To The Way America Used To Be

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

    For a long time a great battle has been fought to determine the future direction of this country, and at this point one thing has become exceedingly clear.  America is never going to be the country that it once was.  Of course for millions of Americans this is actually very welcome news, but for those of us that have been working so hard for so long to restore the values that this nation was founded upon, it is incredibly sad to finally come to this realization.  In order for America to return to her glory days, our nation would need to embrace the values that once made our nation so great, and the truth is that the American people have resoundingly rejected those values.  This is especially true for our young people, and it won’t be too long before they are running everything.  The other side has control of our education system, of our major media outlets, of our entertainment industry and of our legal system.  They are literally systematically training future generations what to think, and that has proven to be an insurmountable advantage.  The “culture war” has been over for a long time, and they won.  But that doesn’t mean that the broader conflict is over.

    A lot of people reading this article will be tempted to think that this is a Republican/Democrat thing, but that is not true at all.  In fact, the truth is that many lawmakers that are considered to be “conservatives” today would be considered to be flaming liberals by our founders.  Ultimately, nearly all of our political leaders have fundamentally rejected the values that so many previous generations of Americans fought so hard to defend.  The United States has been overthrown, but it wasn’t by a foreign power.  We have been conquered from within, and it was a very slow process, but now their victory is almost entirely complete.

    If you doubt this, I would like for you to take a few moments to consider the following numbers.  The following are 22 surveys which prove that Americans never want to go back to the way America used to be…

    #1 According to an American Bar Association survey, only 38 percent of all Americans know that the U.S. Constitution is the highest law in the land.

    #2 According to a new survey that was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 76 percent of Americans support “red flag” gun laws.

    #3 A recent Rasmussen survey discovered that 28 percent of all Democrats actually believe that it should be “illegal” to be a member of the NRA.

    #4 A survey that was just conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of Americans trust law enforcement authorities to use facial recognition technology “responsibly” even though it horribly violates our privacy rights.

    #5 70 percent of Americans support “Medicare for all” – a national socialized single-payer healthcare system.

    #6 46 percent of Americans have taken at least one pharmaceutical drug within the last 30 days.

    #7 59 percent of Americans support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to raise the top tax rate to 70 percent.

    #8 When asked to name the greatest president in their lifetimes, more Americans named “Barack Obama” than anyone else by a wide margin.

    #9 58 percent of American adults under the age of 35 agree that some version of socialism “would be good for the country”.

    #10 One survey discovered that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.

    #11 Almost one-third of all U.S. Millennials are still living with their parents.

    #12 One very alarming survey found that the average American spends 86 hours a month on a cellphone.

    #13 49 percent of Americans say that not having wifi would ruin their vacation.

    #14 34 percent of pet-owning adults in the United States say that their pet is their “favorite child”.

    #15 According to a Quinnipiac University poll from last year, 63 percent of all Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade in place.

    #16 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of Americans now support gay marriage and only 31 percent of Americans are against it.

    #17 45 percent of U.S. college students believe that the phrase “In God We Trust” should be removed from our currency.

    #18 Over the last three decades, the number of Americans with “no religion” has increased by 266 percent.

    #19 During the 2016 election, more than 40 percent of Americans did not know who was running for vice-president from either of the major parties.

    #20 Only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government.

    #21 One very shocking survey found that 74 percent of Americans don’t even know how many amendments are in the Bill of Rights.

    #22 According to a survey that was conducted last year, Americans from the age of 18 to the age of 29 favor Democrats over Republicans by a 66 percent to 32 percent margin.

    Once again, this is not a Republican/Democrat thing.  Ultimately, both major political parties seem determined to take us down the tubes.  One may want to do it at a faster pace than the other, but the destination is still the same.

    I know that some will dismiss me as an out of touch pessimist, but I did not come to these conclusions lightly.  In fact, not too long ago I spent an entire year talking to voters and trying to do what I could to point the country in the right direction, but I discovered that only a very small remnant actually wants to go in the right direction.

    If George Washington, John Adams and the rest of the boys were around today, they would all be considered “dangerous extremists” and none of them would have a prayer of actually getting elected to public office.

    I am certainly not giving up, and you shouldn’t either.  In fact, my wife and I believe that the most exciting chapters of our lives are right around the corner.

    But for the nation as a whole, our choices are going to have very severe consequences.  The past few years represented yet another opportunity to amend our ways, but instead the American people have been running in the opposite direction as rapidly as they can.

    Our country will be greatly rattled in the years ahead, and that process will wake many from their slumber.  Let us use that time to win one heart at a time, and let us be thankful that we were born into such a critical time in history.


    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 09/10/2019 – 08:50

    via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HXsk31 Tyler Durden

    Stossel: Let Charter Schools Teach

    Many parents try to escape government-run schools for less-regulated “charter schools.”

    Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells tells John Stossel that she wanted to get her boys into a charter because her local government-run school in inner-city Philadelphia was “horrible…there were fights after school every day.”

    Her kids spent years losing lotteries that they hoped would get them into a charter.

    “It’s heartbreaking,” Wells says.

    In Philadelphia, thanks to government limits, only 7,000 kids get into charters. 29,000 apply.

    But eventually, Wells got her kids into a new charter school: Boys’ Latin, founded by David Hardy.

    Boys’ Latin does many unusual things. All kids learn Latin, wear uniforms, and stay longer hours—and it’s all-boys.

    “The rules are there to set the stage for the students,” Hardy tells Stossel. “If the teacher can tell you to tuck in your shirt, they can tell you to be quiet in class…tell you to do your homework.”

    Wells says that worked for her kids. “Before Boys Latin I would come home and say, ‘OK, I need you to read for an hour—read a book.’ And their response would be, ‘Why? What did we do?’ Like reading was a punishment! [After] Boys’ Latin…I would find books in the bathroom on the floor!”

    Her son Ibrahim adds, “It came to the point where the teacher would tell our mom that I’d taken too many books.”

    The school was better at hiring teachers who tried hard.

    Wells recalls being shocked to find her sons talking to teachers at night: “He’s in his room and I hear him talking on the phone and it was 10 o’clock at night. I’m like, ‘Who are you on the phone with?’ and he was like, ‘Well, Mr. Bumbulsky told me to call him if I needed help with homework.'”

    Stossel pushed back at some of David Hardy’s ideas, like making every student take four years of Latin. “It’s ridiculous. Nobody speaks Latin,” Stossel suggests to founder David Hardy.

    “Well we picked Latin because it was hard,” Hardy replies.

    “What’s the point of that?” Stossel asks.

    “Because life is hard—to be prepared you have to work hard,” Hardy says. “We wanted to get that into the psyche of our students.”

    Overall, Boys’ Latin gets somewhat better test scores than surrounding schools in most subjects.

    “We deliver,” Hardy says. “Since the very first class we’ve sent more black boys to college than any high school in Pennsylvania.”

    Despite that, government officials rejected his proposal to open a “Girls’ Latin” school. They’ve rejected a bunch of schools.

    Opponents complain that charters “drain scarce resources” from government-run schools.

    “You can’t tell me that,” Wells responds. “Every parent pays taxes…if I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that’s where my taxes should go!”

    In fact, Philadelphia and other cities don’t give charters the same amount of money they give to schools they control. Philadelphia gives them only 70 percent of that. So per student, Stossel notes, the government schools make money whenever a kid leaves for a charter. Over 13 years of schooling, Philadelphia saves $70,000 per kid.

    Stossel asks Wells: What if those savings were passed onto the child?

    “Absolutely! Give them the rest of the money!” Wells laughs.

    But it won’t happen because, as Hardy notes, “It would also mean that there would be a whole lot less union jobs. The unions are not going to be for that.”

    The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

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