Category: zerohedge

Via TheSwarmBlog.com,

Since the 1970’s, international trade has continuously been promoted by leaders of developed countries and economic agents.

Several theoretical frameworks have been put forward to explain the benefits of a free trade environment, from Adam Smith’s concept of absolute advantages to more recent firm-based theories. However, the reality is much more nuanced, especially after China’s entry into the WTO in 2001, and questions arise as to the sustainability of the current model.

While the development of free trade activity could be regarded as a sound intellectual victory for Western capitalism, such trend has paradoxically weakened several countries in Europe and America.

• The first side effect of economic globalism in the West has been the retreat of manufacturing in several economies like the United States, with durable unemployment issues as a result. Beyond social impacts, Canadian author Vaclav Smil argued that a manufacturing decline is structurally problematic as it affects the ability of a country to innovate on the long run.

• The second reason to be skeptical about international trade is the multiplication of structural imbalances in the global economy, with unstainable surpluses and deficits everywhere. An economy displaying a growing trade deficit is getting poorer with respect to foreign economies, leading to a financial and/or social crisis in the end. To understand that, it is necessary to imagine a country whose currency is backed by something tangible (e.g. gold). In that case, a deficit means that the country owes metals to the rest of the world. Of course, current account deficits can be offset by financial inflows, but as there’s no free lunch in economics, that should not be seen as a long-term solution.

• Last but not least, the rise of global trade and countries specialization has led to a system full of frictions and highly vulnerable to shocks (whatever their size). This has been well documented and explained by research in complex systems including econophysics (see It’s the Complexity Stupid). One could imagine a local natural disaster disrupting the global car industry supply chain (e.g. Japan earthquake and tsunami 2011), a small shipping incident blocking a large part of maritime trade (e.g. Suez Canal obstruction 2021), or even a tiny pathogen freezing the global economy for several months (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic).

In other words, a problem affecting local factories in some regions of Asia or mining facilities in Chile is likely to impact most economies in the world. In other words, the more specialized countries are in terms of economic production, the more dependent on foreign production they become, and the more vulnerable to distant events they will be.

The Trade War Black Swan

All that being said, imagine what happens if US-China tensions keep on rising and if the global economy gradually splits into two different markets. While America has turned more protectionist since Trump’s election in 2016, China has made it clear that they will implement a “Made in China for China” economic policy for the coming years (and even decades) as economic independence has become one of the main goals of Xi Jinping.

I do not know how well Western economic agents are prepared for such a scenario, as most people display Gaussian-like behavior and always bet on a return to normal. But the consequences of a structural change in the global trade activity could be significant for the rest of the world, especially for net importers depending too much on foreign producers for materials or key technological components.

People may argue that the world is getting more and more interconnected and that a large-scale economic network is likely to continue to expand on the long run. That is correct on a long timeline, but it could be proven wrong during our lifetimes.

From that perspective, interesting lessons can be learned from the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

The Fall of Rome

Studying the transitional period from the Roman Empire to Middles Ages (also known as Late Antiquity), British archeologist Bryan Ward-Perkins explained that “the fall of Rome” was a brutal decline during the 5th and the 6th century.

More interestingly, Ward-Perkins argued that before the 5th century, a large and complex trade network had emerged in the Western Empire, leading to strong economic activity in most provinces and a high level of technology with respect to Middles Ages. For instance, regions specialized in the production of weapons for the legions, others on certain types of pottery, etc.

Ward-Perkins noted that after decades of so-called “Barbarians invasions,” economic activity showed serious signs of decline in the Empire, as evidenced by the collapse of manufactured goods such as pottery or “high-end” building materials. Besides, archaeological excavations also lead to the conclusion that the use of coins significantly diminished during that period.

Since every region became dependent on the others, the economic foundations of the Western Empire became vulnerable to any disruptive event. And this is what happened for two centuries. It is interesting to note that in the same time the Byzantine Empire was experiencing relative peace and economic boom, as evidenced by archaeological findings.

As the economy of the West was hit by several shocks, the Roman Empire got caught in a vicious circle, meaning that wars and defeats led to weaker supply activity in some regions, resulting in economic problems everywhere, budget issues, less transfers to the legions, social unrest, and thus further military defeats, and so on.

The example of the Western Roman Empire is striking, as its collapse also led to a serious decline in terms of technology. Thus, the question is whether it is a relevant proxy for the current Western capitalist empire.

No one knows for sure, but as Ward-Perkins wrote in 2005: “Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

Looking back at history is a necessity when trying to understand what the future may hold.

Using insights from our Generational Power Index 2021 report, along with survey data from Pew Research in 2016, Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh identified some key milestones for each cohort, to understand how these events helped shape each generation’s unique perspectives.

Quick Context on Generational Definitions

Before diving in, it’s important to clarify which generations we’ve included in our research, along with their age and birth year ranges.

These generational categories aren’t universal, but we went with the most widely cited definitions from reputable U.S. sources including the Pew Research and the U.S. Federal Reserve. It’s also worth noting that these generational definitions are somewhat specific to North America. For this reason, the focus is on U.S. historic events.

Defining Events: Silent Generation

The oldest members of the Silent Generation were 11 years old at the start of World War II, and were teenagers by the time it ended. In other words, their formative years fell smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest international conflicts in modern history.

Because of this, it makes sense that World War II ranks as the second most impactful event in their lifetimes, trailing only the far more recent Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (2001).

Most Impactful Historic Events, Silent Gen (Survey Results)

In fact, the Silent Generation cited four different wars on their list, more than any other cohort. For context, Boomers identified three conflicts (including the Cold War), while Millennials only referenced one (Iraq/Afghanistan).

Of course, other not-so-violent events made the list as well. And interestingly, some of these impressionable moments occurred later on in life.

For example, the youngest members of The Silent Generation were already in their mid-t0-late forties when cellphones became common in the ‘90s—yet, 27% identified the tech revolution as one of the top 10 most impactful events that happened in their lifetime.

Clearly, life never stops throwing you curve balls—no matter how far along you might be.

Most Notable Historical Events: Baby Boomers

Many of the historical experiences cited by Baby Boomers were related to war and violent acts. For instance, Boomers identified two assassinations on their list—John F. Kennedy’s in 1963, and Martin Luther King’s in 1968.

Most Impactful Historic Events, Boomers (Survey Results)

For this generation, the moon landing in 1969 made the cut, as did Barack Obama’s election win in 2008.

Baby Boomers only identified one event that was unique to their cohort (Martin Luther King’s death). It’s worth noting that responses varied between Americans of different racial backgrounds. Not surprisingly, Black Americans were far more likely to name MLK’s death as a top defining moment.

Most Notable Historical Events: Gen X

For Gen Xers, two unique events made their list: the Challenger disaster (1986) and the Gulf War (1991). Interestingly, neither of of these events stood out for other generations.

The Challenger disaster impact was widely felt because it involved civilians alongside astronauts, making the space shuttle’s explosion all the more notorious.

Most Impactful Historic Events, Gen Xers (Survey Results)

Hurricane Katrina (which occurred in 2005) is the only natural disaster to make it on any of these lists. The hurricane—which caused a significant share of New Orleans’ population to resettle—left a lasting impression on the nation.

Most Notable Historical Events: Millennials

Millennials remember the September 11 attacks the most of all generations, with 86% citing it as their most influential event. They also paid close attention to the aftermath of this occurrence, as marked by the inclusion of both the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the death of Osama Bin Laden among their most notable events.

Most Impactful Historic Events, Millennials (Survey Results)

Sadly, a lot of Millennials recollect instances of gun violence more than any other generation, from Orlando and Columbine to Sandy Hook.

Last but not least, Millennials are the only generation to note the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and the subsequent Great Recession, as a momentous event. This makes sense considering many of them began their careers in its aftermath.

Gen Z and Younger

The Pew Research survey data was collected in 2016, so opinions on more recent events have not been collected.

That said, it could be premature to say in the short term which events will leave a lasting impression on generations, young and old.

According to the above data, the election of Barack Obama was a lasting milestone in recent history. Will the election of Donald Trump leave a similar impact? How will COVID-19 be regarded in the future? Time will tell which events will define future generations.

Moments, Movements, and Everything in Between

One key takeaway worth emphasizing is just how varied these formative events can be. Some were experienced as a single moment, while others were a culmination of shifts over several years.

It’s also clear that timing and duration are not the only determining factors behind an event’s influence on American society. For example, the moon landing was a tangible moment with a date stamp, whereas the tech revolution has a much fuzzier start (before exploding in significance alongside the Dotcom boom and bust).

Also interesting is what is absent from the top results. For example, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 is barely referenced.

In short, a variety of impactful events and more gradual revolutions have made their mark on American society. Some have influenced specific generations, while others have transcended generational boundaries and unified the American public.

Download the Generational Power Report (.pdf)

 

Authored by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

The common thread that connects failed societies, from Weimar Germany to the Soviet Union, is an almost pathological insistence on denying reality. Weimar Germany denied that masses of printed money would destroy civilized society. The Soviet Union insisted that Soviet Man would emerge spontaneously from the ashes of capitalist society. Weimar Germany spawned Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was completely destroyed, both physically and politically, by the World War II Allies. Mercifully, the Soviet Union simply collapsed after seventy years of consuming capital to achieve the phantom of the classless society. Today both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are synonymous with tyranny and failure. Both nations murdered millions. Both nations no longer exist. True, Germany exists as does Russia, but I contend that both are new nations. Neither is perfect, but neither claims a political heritage to the nation that preceded it.

Pathological policy errors flowed inexorably from a skewed view of reality in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Once this view of reality was deemed to be above criticism, its champions adopted increasingly tyrannical policies. Nazi Germany’s Aryan Supremacy racial theories seemingly justified the murder of the handicapped, Gypsies, those of alternative sexual orientation, Jews, and Slavs. In the name of birthing a new Soviet Man, the Soviet Union murdered anyone who stood in the way of its program to confiscate all businesses, including small farms. When businesses and farms failed, there was no soul searching as to root causes that might lie in Marxism itself. No, the problem had to be saboteurs within society. Reality, you see, was what the Soviet Union’s Politburo said it was. As the vanguard of the proletariat, the Politburo stood outside society and saw its flaws. Those who disagreed were blind to this insight and had to be eliminated.

Chasing the Phantoms of Alternative Reality

Today the West especially is adopting policies that flow from alternative realities that, frankly, do not exist.

Here I list just a few:

1. Catastrophic global warming/climate change is caused by man and must be stopped. I prefer to qualify the term “global warming/climate change” by the adjective “catastrophic”. Is the world warming? Who knows? Is the climate changing? Probably. But neither global warming nor climate change is “catastrophic”. Yet it has become almost an article of faith that the earth is on the precipice of an environmental catastrophe, requiring ever more radical handicaps on our freedoms and the economy.

2. White privilege in the US is responsible for crimes against minorities and disparities in wealth. This critical race theory has spawned witch hunts for secret and shadowy white supremacist groups especially in the military, which has empowered investigators to find evidence of these groups and root them out. It will be imperative that these investigators actually uncover such groups, whether they exist or not. Critical race theory is the old Marxist class struggle theory in new clothes. The Marxist class struggle theory postulated that we all are born into a class and cannot escape its prejudices. But notice that the Marxist and now the Race theorists consider that they themselves are not susceptible to the prejudices in which all the rest of us are trapped. Very convenient, eh?

3. Covid-19 is an existential threat to human life on earth. Constitutionally guaranteed human rights may be violated with impunity. Who gets to decide all this? Why, elected officials and government bureaucrats, of course.

4. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) explains that government need not moderate its spending. Government can always manufacture more money in order to fund new programs and pay its debts . More government spending can always prevent a drop in aggregate demand. Government debt is irrelevant, because “we owe it to ourselves”. MMT gave government elected officials exactly what they always wanted–carte blanche to spend, spend, and spend some more and not worry about justifying or prioritizing spending. As Keynes actually said, pay people to dig holes in the ground and pay others to fill them back up. What could possibly go wrong?

Champions of the above denials of reality refuse to discuss whether their view of reality is accurate. All are articles of faith and cannot be questioned. In fact, to question them is considered to be an admission of ignorance, guilt, or perfidy. One wants to destroy Mother Earth, enslave minorities, kill innocent people, and prevent all in society from enjoying unlimited prosperity. It’s the old straw man fallacy on steroids. Furthermore, resources will be expended to pursue these phantoms, and more resources will be expended to protect oneself from being caught in a witch hunt. Society will live in fear–fear of global warming, fear of being branded a racist, fear of contracting a dread disease. Unfortunately, what society does not fear is that our lifetime’s savings will be wiped out by inflation made possible by MMT.

The Basics of Reality

Contrast these phantoms with the pragmatic basics of sound economics: namely, that in order to prosper man must face the reality of human existence—primarily scarcity and uncertainty. People’s preferences must be accepted at face value. Man acts. This is an irrefutable axiom in that to deny it is to confirm its validity. His action is rational in the sense that he believes that his action will improve his condition. He understands cause and effect. He performs one act at a time. He performs the most important act first; in other words, he ranks his actions in order of importance. Performing an act means that he must sacrifice the execution of others until later; in other words, acting means giving up some other preference, at least until some later time. Man’s ordinal ranking of preferences means that the cost of an action is determined by what he eschews until later. No two men have the identical ordinal ranking of preferences; plus, the preferences cannot be assigned a cardinal value in order to compare one man’s preferences with another. Man discovers the concept of comparative advantage and adopts the division of labor in order to accomplish more. Through the market process, man adopts a universal medium of exchange (money) in order to break the tyranny of direct barter. Now man can indirectly exchange his specialized production for a universal medium of exchange in order to obtain his real wants. Man invents government as a specialized service in order to protect his person and his property at a lower cost. He invents law in order to adjudicate inevitable disputes.

All this is reality. Peaceful exchange requires social cooperation, which brings about peace and prosperity among men everywhere. As advice columnist Ann Landers used to say, Wake up and smell the coffee!

Yesterday’s news that the DoJ and IRS are digging into Binance amid whispers about allegations of tax fraud, manipulation and AML violations was just the latest indication from the government that it is taking enforcement of securities taxes tied to crypto wealth very seriously. In case that wasn’t already clear, WSJ published a story in its “Tax Report” section (with the federal tax deadline just days away at May 17) reminding readers that the IRS under President Joe Biden is coming for your crypto wealth – and those that don’t cough it up might be subject to harsh penalties, both financial and criminal.

It starts by reminding readers that two new IRS investigations to catch crypto tax cheats targeting various exchanges have been launched in recent months. In April, a judge in Boston approved an IRS summons to the payments company Circle and its affiliates, including the crypto exchange Poloniex. In May, a judge in San Francisco approved a similar summons for records from Kraken, another exchange based in California. Both summonses apply to customers who have traded more than $20K in crypto in any single year between 2016 and 2020.

“With these summonses and other actions, the IRS is mounting a full-court press to show taxpayers how seriously it takes cryptocurrency compliance,” says Don Fort, a former chief of IRS criminal investigation now with Kostelanetz & Fink. “Taxpayers should take it seriously too.”

Crypto exchanges don’t report client information to the IRS like discount digital brokerages do, so there’s temptation for traders to try and skate by. But if this approach worked in the past, be warned: that could change this year now that the Dems are back in power.

Binance doesn’t even allow American customers to trade on its platform (though it has been accused of illegally doing so by turning a blind eye to users trying to skirt this rule), but other investigations and summonses of note go back even further. In 2016, the IRS received approval for a similar summons for Coinbase and obtained information for about 13K customers. The agency sent letters urging many of them to make sure their crypto taxes were paid, as the IRS might soon be taking a hard look.

Admissions from the IRS in court filings suggest this tactic has been working for the agency. In one filing to justify its summonses, the the agency said it had received more than 1,000 amended tax returns and collected $13 million from crypto holders with more than $20,000 of transactions, plus another $12 million from other crypto notices, and audits are ongoing.

Remember, those who are caught skirting taxes often are forced to enter the IRS’s Voluntary Disclosure program for taxpayers with criminal liability, a program that usually lets participants out of prosecution but imposes large penalties.

Another filing hinted at a different strategy being employed by the agency: the agency plans to compare data it receives from Kraken to data on offshore crypto transactions. It didn’t identify the source of this offshore data to look for discrepancies. Kraken may also soon need to turn over phone numbers, email addresses, DoBs, tax ID numbers and other sensitive details as part of the subpoena.

With all this in mind, here’s a few quick reminders from WSJ:

When it comes to crypto tax laws, here are the basics: In 2014, the IRS declared that cryptocurrencies are property, not currencies like the dollar, and therefore are treated like an investment property akin to stocks. If an investor sells crypto after holding it for longer than a year, the profit is a typically considered a long-term capital gain, and taxed at lower rates than ordinary income under current law (although Congress may soon change this for the highest earners).

If the holding period is a year or less, the profit is a taxed as a short-term capital gain as the same rate as ordinary income like wages. Capital losses on crypto investments can offset taxable capital gains on other assets as well as crypto, plus up to $3,000 of ordinary income such as wages a year—a valuable benefit. Unused losses can be carried forward to future years.

Tax triggers: Any time a cryptocurrency is bought or sold or spent is a taxable transaction. If you trade bitcoin for dogecoin, that transaction has tax exposure.

If you buy a tesla, you will owe an additional tax on the transfer on top of any sales taxes you pay. These rules make bitcoin difficult to use for payments, something that regulators no doubt intended.

Lot identification: Investors who bought the same coin at different prices can often minimize taxes by selling the lot that would give them the smallest tax exposure. For example, say that someone sold bitcoins at $22,000 each in December 2020 and had coins bought in 2016 for $600 and 2017 for $16,000. Selling the 2016 coins would mean a taxable gain of $21,400 each, while selling the 2017 coins would mean a gain of $6,000 each—a big difference.

Offshore holdings: In late 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a Treasury Department unit known as FinCEN, announced that it may soon require US taxpayers holding more than $10,000 of cryptocurrencies offshore to file FinCEN Form 114, known as the FBAR, to report these holdings. But this rule has yet to be adopted, and wasn’t in effect for 2020.

* * *
Source: WSJ

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The president of Portland, Oregon’s police union said in a blistering new statement that the city is on the brink of war.

“We need to talk about the elephant in the room: gun violence. We are on the precipice of a gang war,” said Daryl Turner, head of the Portland Police Association.

Police in the state’s largest city had responded to 357 shootings as of May 9, an increase of over 100 percent from the same time period the year prior.

Portland dealt with a jump in violence in 2020, with both shootings and murders skyrocketing, along with near-nightly riots that regularly diverted attention from 911 calls.

Officials in the city have tried addressing both matters, escalating the response to rioting and approving $6 million to combat shootings.

But the city has not brought back the Gun Violence Reduction Team (GVRT) and none of the new funding went to the police. That’s on top of the City Council cutting money for the police force in 2020.

Turner said that commissioners “only use data when it serves their political agendas” and called what he sees as a continued ignorance of statistics and shifting of blame unacceptable.

“The GVRT proactively policed with a holistic approach, building partnerships and relationships to get illegal guns off the street. It’s obvious to everyone except for City Council that more guns and increased gang activity mean more violence,” he said in the new statement.

City Council members are now focused on making additional cuts to the Portland Police Bureau’s budget, which will not address the gun violence epidemic, according to Turner.

“The answer is that our community deserves a fully staffed police force with a minimum of 1,000 officers and a full budget commitment to addressing gun violence, AND our community deserves adequate social service resources. Forcing us to choose one over the other is short-sighted. Social services and alternatives resources are not a replacement for police officers and common-sense public safety infrastructure,” he said.

A spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat who also serves as police commissioner and sits on the council, declined to comment, referring The Epoch Times to Portland’s Office of Violence Prevention. The office did not respond to an inquiry.

Nike Green, the office’s director, last month called the jump in shootings “a public health crisis.” Green said the office was using “data, research, and evidence-based practices to prioritize partnerships designed to interrupt cycles of gun violence,” such as programs with violence interrupters, who seek to stop shootings before they happen.

The other city commissioners did not respond to requests for comment.

The council on Thursday approved a 2021 budget that includes a $3 million cut to the police bureau, local media reported.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, a Democrat, said in a statement that she appreciated the budget not adding “ongoing funds back into the Portland Police Bureau after council reallocated money from the bureau into the Portland Street Response and other community investments last year.”

New research conducted by Toxic-Free Future, a Seattle-based non-profit fighting for safer products free of deadly chemicals, found that women’s breast milk, especially in the US, contains dangerous levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). 

Erika Schreder, a co-author and science director with Toxic-Free Future, said the findings “are cause for concern” and highlight a possible threat to newborns.

Schreder collected 50 breast milk samples and discovered that the PFAS contamination was nearly 2,000 times higher than the level of regular drinking water.

“The study shows that PFAS contamination of breast milk is likely universal in the US and that these harmful chemicals are contaminating what should be nature’s perfect food,” Schreder said.

PFAS consists of approximately 9,000 compounds and is used in manufacturing clothing, food packaging, cooking products with Teflon, and cleaning products. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and build-up in humans. 

The study, titled “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Breast Milk: Concerning Trends for Current-Use PFAS,” was peer-reviewed and published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal on Thursday. It said PFAS chemicals are linked to various diseases such as cancer, thyroid, lower sperm counts, and liver disease. 

“The study provides more evidence that the PFAS that companies are currently using and putting into products are behaving like the ones they phased out, and they’re also getting into breast milk and exposing children at a very vulnerable phase of development,” she said.

“Moms work hard to protect their babies, but big corporations are putting these, and other toxic chemicals that can contaminate breast milk, in products when safer options are available,” Schreder continued. 

Besides breast milk, a separate study by the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported 19 million Americans had been exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. EWG researchers found 610 locations, including public water systems, military bases, military and civilian airports, industrial plants, dumps, and firefighter training sites, across the country with dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals in the ground. 

America appears to have a PFAS problem. 

Authored by Tim Hinchliffe via GlobalResearch.ca,

Say it’s 2014 and you’ve had this idea for a technocratic Great Reset of the world economy for some time now, but it only works if the entire planet is rocked by a pandemic. How do you go about selling your idea?

“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future” — Klaus Schwab, WEF

If you are World Economic Forum (WEF) Founder Klaus Schwab, you attempt to sell your vision of a global Utopia via a Great Reset of the world order in three simple steps:

1. Announce your intention to revamp every aspect of society with global governance, and keep repeating that message

2. When your message isn’t getting through, simulate fake pandemic scenarios that show why the world needs a great reset

3. If the fake pandemic scenarios aren’t persuasive enough, wait a couple months for a real global crisis to occur, and repeat step one

It took Schwab and the Davos elite about six years to watch their great reset ideology grow from a tiny Swiss seed in 2014 to a European super-flower pollinating the entire globe in 2020.

The so-called “Great Reset” promises to build “a more secure, more equal, and more stable world” if everyone on the planet agrees to “act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

But it wouldn’t have been possible to contemplate materializing such an all-encompassing plan for a new world order without a global crisis, be it manufactured or of unfortunate happenstance, that shocked society to its core.

“In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval” — Clade X pandemic simulation (May, 2018)

So, in May, 2018, the WEF partnered with Johns Hopkins to simulate a fictitious pandemic — dubbed “Clade X” —  to see how prepared the world be if ever faced with such a crisis.

A little over a year later, the WEF once again teamed-up with Johns Hopkins, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to stage another pandemic exercise called Event 201 in October, 2019.

Both simulations concluded that the world wasn’t prepared for a global pandemic.

And a few short months following the conclusion of Event 201, which specifically simulated a coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared that the coronavirus had reached pandemic status on March 11, 2020.

“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

Since then, just about every scenario covered in the Clade X and Event 201 simulations has come into play, including:

• Governments implementing lockdowns worldwide

• The collapse of many industries

• Growing mistrust between governments and citizens

• A greater adoption of biometric surveillance technologies

• Social media censorship in the name of combating misinformation

• The desire to flood communication channels with “authoritative” sources

• A global lack of personal protective equipment

• The breakdown of international supply chains

• Mass unemployment

• Rioting in the streets

• And a whole lot more!

After the nightmare scenarios had fully materialized by mid-2020, the WEF founder declared “now is the time for a “Great Reset” in June of this year.

Was it excellent forecasting, planning, and modeling on the part of the WEF and partners that Clade X and Event 201 turned out to be so prophetic, or was there something more to it?

Timeline

Below is a condensed timeline of events that tracks the Great Reset agenda that went from just a “hope” in 2014 to a globalist ideology touted by royalty, the media, and heads of state the world-over in 2020.

2014-2017: Klaus Schwab calls for Great Reset and WEF repeats message

Ahead of the 2014 WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Schwab announced that he hoped the WEF would push the reset button on the global economy.

The ‘Great Reset’: A Technocratic Agenda that Waited Years for a Global Crisis to Exploit

The WEF would go on to repeat that message for years.

Between 2014 and 2017, the WEF called to reshape, restart, reboot, and reset the global order every single year, each aimed at solving various “crises.”

• 2014: WEF publishes meeting agenda entitled “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”

• 2015: WEF publishes article in collaboration with VOX EU called “We need to press restart on the global economy.”

• 2016: WEF holds panel called “How to reboot the global economy.”

• 2017: WEF publishes article saying “Our world needs a reset in how we operate.”

Then in 2018, the Davos elites turned their heads towards simulating fake pandemic scenarios to see how prepared the world would be in the face of a different crisis.

2018-2019: WEF, Johns Hopkins & Gates Foundation simulate fake pandemics

On May 15, 2018, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted the “Clade X” pandemic exercise in partnership with the WEF.

The Clade X exercise included mock video footage of actors giving scripted news reports about a fake pandemic scenario (video below).

The Clade X event also included discussion panels with real policymakers who assessed that governments and industry were not adequately prepared for the fictitious global pandemic.

“In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval,” according to a WEF report on Clade X.

“There are major unmet global vulnerabilities and international system challenges posed by pandemics that will require new robust forms of public-private cooperation to address” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

Then on October 18, 2019, in partnership with Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WEF ran Event 201.

During the scenario, the entire global economy was shaken, there were riots on the streets, and high-tech surveillance measures were needed to “stop the spread.”

Two fake pandemics were simulated in the two years leading up to the real coronavirus crisis.

“Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a public statement on January 24, 2020, explicitly addressing that Event 201 wasn’t meant to predict the future.

“To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction. Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.”

Intentional or not, Event 201 “highlighted” the “fictional” challenges of a pandemic, along with recommendations that go hand-in-hand with the great reset agenda that has set up camp in the nefarious “new normal.”

“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

Together, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation submitted seven recommendations for governments, international organizations, and global business to follow in the event of a pandemic.

The Event 201 recommendations call for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors while emphasizing the importance of establishing partnerships with un-elected, global institutions such as the WHO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Air Transport Organization, to carry out a centralized response.

One of the recommendations calls for governments to partner with social media companies and news organization to censor content and control the flow of information.

“Media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)

According to the report, “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation.

“National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages.

“For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology.”

Sound familiar?

Throughout 2020, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been censoring, suppressing, and flagging any coronavirus-related information that goes against WHO recommendations as a matter of policy, just as Event 201 had recommended.

Big tech companies have also deployed the same content suppression tactics during the 2020 US presidential election — slapping “disputed” claims on content that question election integrity.

2020: WEF declares ‘Now is the time for a Great Reset’

After calling for a great reset in 2014, the Davos crowd repeated the same ideology for a few more years before pivoting towards simulating faux pandemic scenarios.

A few months after the WEF established that nobody was prepared to deal with a coronavirus pandemic, the WHO declared there was a coronavirus pandemic.

All of a sudden! the great reset narrative that the WEF had been nurturing for six years, found a place to pitch its tent in the “new normal” camp.

“The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future,” Schwab declared on June 3, 2020.

And that’s where we’re at today.

• The Davos elites said they wanted a global reset of the economy many years ago

• They role-played what would happen if a pandemic were to occur

• And now they’re saying that the great reset ideology is the solution to the pandemic, and it must be enacted quickly

The great reset is a means to an end.

Next on the agenda is a complete makeover of society under a technocratic regime of un-elected bureaucrats who want to dictate how the world is run from the top down, leveraging invasive technologies to track and trace your every move while censoring and silencing anyone who dares not comply.

In the modern digital world, social media reach is power.

The people with the most followers on Twitter, for example, have a massive platform to spread their messages, while those with large, engaged followings on Instagram are an advertiser’s dream sponsor partner.

Social media can also be an equalizer of power. As Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach notes, while it’s true that many celebrities boast large followings across platforms, social media has also enabled previously unknown personalities to turn YouTube or TikTok fame into veritable star power and influence.

Who has the biggest reach across the entire social media universe? Instead of looking at who has the most followers on Instagram, Twitter, or other networks, we ranked the most-followed personalities across all major platforms combined.

Who Has the Most Overall Followers on Social Media?

We parsed through hundreds of the most-followed accounts on multiple platforms to narrow down the top influencers across social media as of April 2021.

Sources include trackers of the most followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok, verified directly on site and with social media tracker Socialblade.

The results? A top 50 list of social media influencers consisting of athletes, musicians, politicians, and other personalities.

Unsurprisingly, celebrities reign supreme on social media. As of April 2021, soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was the most-followed person on social media with almost 500 million total followers.

But there are other illuminating highlights, such as the global reach of music. With large and diverse fanbases, artists account for half of the top 50 largest social media followings.

Also notable is the power of Instagram, which was the biggest platform for 67% of the top 50 social media influencers. This includes hard-to-categorize celebrities like the Kardashians and Jenners, which turned reality TV and social media fame into business and media empires.

Download the Generational Power Report (.pdf)

The Most Followers on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube

However, it’s not only celebrities that dominate social media.

Personalities that started on one social media platform and developed massive followings include TikTok’s most-followed star Charli D’Amelio and YouTubers Whindersson Nunes Batista, Germán Garmendia, and Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg.

Politicians were also prominent influencers. Former U.S. President Barack Obama has the most followers on Twitter, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has more than 175 million followers across social media.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump would have also made the list with more than 140 million followers across social media before being banned from multiple platforms on January 8, 2021.

A Generational Look at Social Media Influence

While older generations have had to adapt to social media platforms, younger generations have grown up alongside them. As a measure of cultural importance, this gives Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z a rare leg-up on older generations.

Millennials, in particular, hold the lion’s share of spots in this top 50 list:

The average age of the top 50 influencers was just over 37.

In our Generational Power Index (GPI), which measures the share of power generations hold in various categories, digital platforms were a key area where Millennials derived their power and influence. Overall, Baby Boomers—and to a lesser extent, Gen X—still run the show in most areas of society today.

Social Media Influence, Going Forward

As most fans and advertisers know, not all social media accounts and followings are homogenous.

Many influencers with relatively small followings have more consistent engagement, and are often able to demand high advertising fees as a result.

Conversely, most social media platforms are reckoning with a severe glut of fake accounts or bots that inflate follower counts, impacting everything from celebrities and politicians to personalities and businesses.

Regardless, social media has become a mainstay platform (or soapbox) for today’s cultural influencers. Billions of people turn to social media for news, engagement, recommendations, and entertainment, and new platforms are always on the rise.

Authored by Jeff Benson and Matt Hussey via Decrypto.co,

In brief

• Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism, which makes sure that only legitimate transactions get added to blocks.

• It works by having validators lock up their cryptocurrency to secure the network.

Mining cryptocurrency is an energy-intensive business. But it doesn’t have to be.

The Ethereum community has been working to change how the currency is created in order to radically reduce the blockchain’s carbon footprint. The method it’s working toward is called proof of stake (PoS).

Proof of stake is an alternative to proof of work (PoW), which Bitcoin and Ethereum currently use.

Both PoS and PoW are examples of consensus mechanisms.

Consensus Mechanisms

Public blockchains, at their most basic level, are just databases.

Most databases set permissions for who can access and edit them. This centralized control is convenient but makes them vulnerable to hacks. By contrast, blockchains make everyone running the software—from exchanges to traders in their basement—responsible for updating them.

That sounds like it would be messy, which is why blockchains use “consensus mechanisms” or “consensus algorithms.” Consensus mechanisms keep the network humming, making sure that only legitimate transactions get added to blocks. It’s all the nodes—or computers running the blockchain software—checking together to say, “Yes, this is true.”

In doing so, they guard against 51% attacks, which is when someone gets more than half of the computing power in a distributed network and can then control it.

Proof of Work

To prevent attacks, which make it possible to spend funds twice, Bitcoin uses the proof-of-work consensus algorithm. That system asks people to use hardware and electricity to help the network process transactions. In proof of work, miners (or, their computers, to be precise) try to solve fiendishly difficult puzzles in order to be the first to complete a block of transactions. Their work helps to verify the transactions are legitimate. As compensation, they’re rewarded with cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.

Proof of work was built into the design of Bitcoin, and replicated by other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum. However, one of the by-products of this system is it requires a lot of electricity and machines working on a problem in order to solve it.

Proof of Stake

Ethereum developers are building a separate set of upgrades, Ethereum 2.0 that will run on proof of stake and will eventually merge with the Ethereum mainnet.

Proof of stake on Ethereum 2.0 aims to achieve the same outcome as proof of work: to securely verify transactions on the blockchain.

But whereas PoW miners dedicate hardware resources (large, expensive computers) to secure the network, PoS “validators” dedicate their cryptocurrency. With PoS, to get a chance to verify transactions in a block—and get the associated fees—validators must lock up, or stake, at least 32 ETH that they can’t spend. The blockchain uses that locked-up crypto to secure the network.

According to the Ethereum Foundation, proof of stake has several advantages over proof of work.

• 🖥️ Since earning rewards isn’t based on having the most computing power, you don’t need super-fancy hardware.

• 👨‍💻 That opens up the possibility for more people to participate in running an Ethereum node, which will allow for further decentralization and more resistance to 51% attacks.

• 🔌 Because of the lower hardware requirements, proof of stake uses far less energy than proof of work.

How Does the Network Choose?

Validators are chosen at random by the network to propose new blocks.

They are also randomly grouped into committees of 128 nodes, which change daily. Every time a new block of transactions is created and added to the blockchain database, the PoS consensus mechanism selects multiple committees to “attest” that the block that’s been proposed is correct.

Validators receive rewards for both making blocks and attesting to seeing other blocks being made. If validators are offline or not making correct attestations, they receive a penalty. If they try to attack the network, they can lose up to their entire stake.

The algorithm is designed to make an attack on the network statistically improbable. According to ConsenSys (which funds an editorially independent Decrypt), “There is less than a 1 in a trillion chance that an attacker controlling 1/3 of the validators on the network would control ⅔ of the validators in a committee to successfully execute an attack.”

The Future

Ethereum isn’t the first cryptocurrency to use proof of stake.

Algorand, Cardano, Cosmos, EOS, Polkadot, and Tezos have all implemented a version of proof of stake.

The Ethereum network is currently in Phase 0 of its upgrade to Ethereum 2.0. While people have staked ETH to the network, it’s not yet ready to be built upon.

Tens of millions of Americans could be in for a dazzling optical treat Saturday evening as NASA gears up to launch its Black Brant XII sounding rocket carrying the KiNET-X payload from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

A four-stage Black Brant XII rocket carrying the KiNET-X payload will be launched around 2010 ET Saturday. There is a 40-minute launch window. 

LAUNCH UPDATE 🚀 The Black Brant XII launch is now scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, May 15, with the window opening at 8:10 p.m. ET. The team continues to inspect the rocket and launcher after the vehicle came in contact with a launcher support during launch preparations. pic.twitter.com/2IMEkZ8wMn

— NASA Wallops (@NASA_Wallops) May 13, 2021

The rocket “will be used for the mission that includes the release of barium vapor that will form two green-violet clouds that may be visible for about 30 seconds,” NASA said. 

The mission is called KiNETic-scale energy and momentum transport eXperiment, or KiNet-X. Researchers want to study a fundamental problem in space plasmas: how are energy and momentum transported between different regions of space magnetically connected? 

What makes this launch so different from Central Florida ones is that barium vapor tracers will be visible for much of the eastern US from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.

Here’s an example of what millions of Americans might see on Saturday night, weather permitting, of course…

Live coverage of the launch will be made available on the Wallops IBM video site around 1940 ET on launch day.