Category: zerohedge

For the first time ever, microplastic particles were detected in the placentas of unborn babies, according to researchers who warn these “potentially harmful (plastic) particles is a matter of great concern.”

The study, published in the journal Environment International and titled “Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta,” found microplastics in four placentas of women who had pregnancies and births. 

Researchers noted microplastics were found on both the fetal and maternal sides of the placenta and in the membrane within which the fetus develops.

A dozen plastic particles were found in the four placentas, mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they were small enough to travel through the bloodstream and were analyzed to have come originally from packaging paints or polymers and personal care products.

“In total, 12 microplastic fragments (ranging from 5 to 10 μm in size), with spheric or irregular shape were found in 4 placentas (5 in the fetal side, 4 in the maternal side and 3 in the chorioamniotic membranes); all microplastics particles were characterized in terms of morphology and chemical composition. All of them were pigmented; three were identified as stained polypropylene a thermoplastic polymer, while for the other nine it was possible to identify only the pigments, which were all used for man-made coatings, paints, adhesives, plasters, finger paints, polymers and cosmetics and personal care products.”

Antonio Ragusa, director of obstetrics and gynecology at the San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome who led the study, told The Guardian that “it’s like having a cyborg baby: no longer composed only of human cells, but a mixture of biological and inorganic entities.”

Researchers concluded: 

“Due to the crucial role of the placenta in supporting the fetus’ development and in acting as an interface with the external environment, the presence of potentially harmful plastic particles is a matter of great concern. Further studies need to be performed to assess if the presence of microplastics may trigger immune responses or may lead to the release of toxic contaminants, resulting in harm.”

In August 2019, high levels of microplastics were found in the Alps to the Arctic. Another report has shown these harmful plastics were turning up in human stool. 

What’s clear is that the world could have a plastic problem where babies are born pre-polluted. Still, more studies need to be conducted to prove nanoparticles of plastic are dangerous for humans. 

Authored by Alexander Rubinstein & Jeb Sprague via The GrayZone.com,

The longest piece of legislation in United States history, containing both a coronavirus relief package and the annual omnibus spending package, quickly passed through Congress on December 22, with little opposition. While technically separate bills, the omnibus and stimulus were debated and passed together, at the same time.

The massive piece of legislation – a staggering 5,593 pages in length – lays bare the priorities of the US government, prioritizing regime change in foreign nations and the imperatives of empire over the basic needs of Americans. In just a few hours, it passed through the House of Representatives by 359-53, and through the Senate by 92-6.

While the US public was forced to grovel for months for a $600 direct payment, the same piece of legislation pumps billions of dollars into “democracy programs” – US government code for regime-change operations via civil society NGOs – and foreign military assistance. The measly $600 survival checks pale in comparison to the massive foreign spending on regime change and titanic allocations to prop up US-friendly authoritarian militaries.

On so-called “Democracy Programs” alone, the legislation appropriates $2.417 billion, and $6.175 billion on the “Foreign Military Financing Program.” Another $112.9 million is appropriated for “International Military Education and Training.”

$6 billion more is allocated toward the domestic procurement of US Air Force missiles and US Navy weapons of war. This is in addition to the $740 billion defense bill passed earlier in December.

By contrast, the stimulus package comes at a value of $900 billion, with the largest portion devoted to business bailouts. The Federal News Network reports that the $1.4 trillion omnibus includes $671.5 billion allocated to “base defense spending,” with another $77 billion going to “overseas contingency operations.”

Stimulating regime change and intervening in the Global South

The legislation stipulates: “$300,000,000 shall be made available for a Countering Chinese Influence Fund to counter the malign influence of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party and entities acting on their behalf globally.”

In Hong Kong, where CIA cutout the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has given financial support to activist groups leading riots that rocked the city for months on end, the United States is now devoting $3 million for local destabilization efforts, including “internet freedom,” activists’ legal fees, and “democracy programs.”

Similarly, the legislation devotes $8 million to NGOs for activities in Tibet or to support the Tibetan government-in-exile. It appears that, every fiscal year between 2021 and 2025, it allows for the additional appropriation of $8 million per year to support Tibetan communities in Tibet, as well as $6 million per year to support them in Nepal and India, and another $3 million per year for “Tibetan governance.”

The bill also allocates $3.3 million for the US government-backed media outlet Voice of America, and $4 million to the similarly operated Radio Free Asia every year between fiscal years 2021 and 2025, in order “to provide uncensored news and information in the Tibetan language to Tibetans, including Tibetans in Tibet.”

In perhaps the most bizarre appeal to a regime-change activist lobby, an entire section of the bill is devoted to defining US policy “regarding the succession or reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.”

The bill also directs the secretary of state to establish a US consulate in Tibet.

Meanwhile, aid to a number of countries is conditioned on their taking part in Washington’s economic aggression. For example, $85.5 million in assistance to Cambodia is contingent on it “taking effective steps” to enforce “international sanctions with respect to North Korea,” and “assert[ing] its sovereignty against interference by the People’s Republic of China.”

As for Latin America, the legislation stipulates that “not less than $33,000,000 shall be made available for democracy programs for Venezuela.” By contrast, the legislation appropriates $461.3 million for Colombia, a country which has seen massacre after massacre and scores of political assassinations — with more than 290 human rights activists killed in 2020 alone.

While 20 percent of the funds are not releasable until Colombia shows it is “taking effective steps to hold accountable perpetrators of gross violations of human rights in a manner consistent with international law,” given Washington’s record in the country, it will likely give the green light regardless of the facts on the ground.

Globally, $70 million is made available to support “internet freedom,” with an additional $2.5 million potentially available “to surge Internet freedom programs in closed societies.”

Meanwhile, a Ronald Reagan-inspired program aimed at expanding US influence and the “war on drugs” in the Caribbean, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, is being given a $74.8 million injection.

The combined Corona Package/Omnibus includes $74m for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative.

The CBSI w/its roots in the Reagan founded CBI is an important mechanism for the “war on drugs” & gains US influence in security agencies across the region.

Pg.184 of my recent book: pic.twitter.com/4CP8Lnfm8v

— Jeb Sprague (@JebSprague) December 22, 2020

In Zimbabwe, where former President Robert Mugabe passed away in 2017, the government is still not off the hook. The legislation states: “The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director of each international financial institution to vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan or grant to the Government of Zimbabwe.” This language is aimed at depriving the cash-strapped African nation of international relief.

$15 million is going toward “democracy programs” in South Sudan, while $60m is being repurposed away from the “Global War on Terrorism” and “made available for assistance for Sudan”.

In central Africa, $325 million is being earmarked for assistance to Congo, with some part of this appearing to be intermingled with “peacekeeping” operations.

The phantom Russian menace

With $453 million appropriated for assistance to Ukraine, $290 million for “countering Russia,” $173 million for NATO, and $132 million for NATO ally Georgia, the legislation comes close to appropriating a billion dollars toward new cold war policies against Moscow.

The rationale for this spending may be the re-emergence of an old menace; a hint buried more than 5,000 pages into the document states that it is US policy “to not recognize any incorporation of Belarus into a ‘Union State’ with Russia, since this so-called ‘Union State’ would be both an attempt to absorb Belarus and a step to reconstituting the totalitarian Soviet Union.”

In one striking example of how hell-bent the legislation’s authors are on regime change and confronting Russia, the following phrase appears verbatim nine times: “The Government of Belarus, led illegally by Alyaksandr Lukashenka.”

The legislation also demands a report from the director of national intelligence, the secretary of state, and the secretary of treasury that identifies all of Lukashenka’s assets and those of his family, plus “identification of the most significant senior foreign political figures in Belarus, as determined by their closeness to Alyaksandr Lukashenka.”

The insistence on such information seems aimed at fast-tracking a list of entities to impose sanctions, in an effort to destabilize the country and make it ripe for a takeover by the US- and EU-backed opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskay, whose name appears six times in the legislation.

Along with detailed attention on cyber activities in Belarus, the bill explains how US officials will put together a comprehensive strategy and cost estimate for carrying out various operations aimed at the country, one of which includes: “Expand independent radio, television, live stream, and social network broadcasting and communications in Belarus to provide news and information, particularly in the Belarusian language, that is credible, comprehensive, and accurate.”

Middle East madness

As the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden has promised not to condition aid to Israel in any circumstance, including potential annexation of the West Bank, Congress has rushed to pump the apartheid regime full of fresh cash.

Of the $6.1 billion appropriated for funding foreign militaries, a whopping $3.3 billion – more than half – “shall be available for grants only for Israel,” and must be “disbursed within 30 days of enactment of this Act.”

Additionally, it appears that $500 million is appropriated for “Israeli Cooperative Programs,” which includes weapons procurements.

While it is difficult to interpret different allocations and far-distanced portions of the legislation going to the same target, one thing is clear: loads of money has been appropriated to a far-away apartheid state, as Americans remain unprotected from rent-related water shutoffs under the legislation.

Meanwhile, any aid to the Palestinian Authority will be held up if its officials initiate or support any kind of investigation at the International Criminal Court (ICC) that seeks the prosecution of Israeli nationals for crimes against humanity.

In neighboring Syria, which has been constantly bombed by Israel since the outbreak of the foreign-backed proxy war against the country’s government, Congress has appropriated $40 million toward” non-lethal stabilization” – in other words, destabilization assistance.

While the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has largely been defeated, $710 million to counter the group remains “available until September 30, 2022”.

Iran, meanwhile, is mentioned 22 times in the legislation.

The ‘”Afghanistan Security Forces Fund” of $3 billion will “remain available until September 30, 2022,” and is geared toward the “security forces of Afghanistan, including the provision of equipment, supplies, services, training, facility and infrastructure repair, renovation, construction, and funding…”

The legislation also appropriates $250 million to reimburse the governments of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman on border security spending, with $150 million going to Jordan, a geostrategic lynchpin that shares a borders with Iraq, Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian West Bank.

Another $241.4 million of appropriations through the “Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs” will be made “available for assistance to Tunisia.”

Egypt’s military, notorious for its repressive crackdowns on dissent, is due to receive a colossal $1.3 billion, according to the guidelines established in the Camp David Accords.

While US citizens continue to suffer the economic fallout of haphazard government shutdowns that have been largely ineffective in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Congress poised passed a greatly reduced stimulus packaged alongside a massive handout to corporate America and its foreign client states.

Now it is up to the outgoing president – ironically notorious for his ‘America First’ rhetoric – to sign the legislation into law. Reports indicate he intends to do just that.

As Deutsche Bank’s chief credit strateigst, Jim Reid, writes, “central banks have driven us here and in turn have also driven Bitcoin to the spectacular year.”

It’s also why in an addendum to his latest monthly survey, Reid explicitly asked Deutsche Bank’s clients around the globe where they thought bitcoin would end 2021.

Here are the answers: a vast majority think it goes higher with only 27% thinking under $20,000 in 12 months. 41% think between $20-49,999 in various buckets with 12% thinking over $100,000.

On an average basis, survey respondents think it will be over $40,000 by then, nearly double current levels.

Authored by Alex Murashko via The Epoch Times,

Cities throughout Orange County, California, are standing by Sheriff Don Barnes as he fights a court order demanding the release of 1,800 prisoners from county jails.

In a Dec 11 court order, Barnes was told to pare down Orange County’s jail population as the centers grapple with rising COVID-19 infections. But the region’s top cop is challenging the order, and refusing to release the inmates.

On Dec. 21, more cities joined a movement to support Barnes’ decision. During special city council meetings, the cities of Irvine, Mission Viejo, and Westminster voted unanimously to file legal briefs supporting Barnes’ challenge. The cities joined Newport Beach and Yorba Linda, which filed briefs on Dec. 18.

“Public safety has always been our top priority,” said Mission Viejo Mayor Brian Goodell in a press release announcing the city’s decision.

“Our City Council wholeheartedly supports Sheriff’s Barnes’ appeal to keep these criminals off our streets and his plan to appropriately respond to coronavirus issues in the jail system.”

Other cities set to hold special meetings on Dec. 21 to discuss the issue included Dana Point, Los Alamitos, and San Clemente.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is serious and presents a risk, but that risk does not outweigh the necessity of holding dangerous offenders in custody,” Barnes said recently. “We cannot start 2021 with a court-ordered crime spree.”

Judge Peter Wilson’s 32-page ruling on Dec. 11 stated that Barnes’ “deliberate indifference to the substantial risk of serious harm from COVID-19 infection to … medically vulnerable people in [his] custody violates their rights under the California Constitution.”

Wilson also stated in the ruling that Barnes’ action and inaction showed “conduct that may unnecessarily expose inmates in his custody to significant risks to their health and safety.”

Opponents to Wilson’s order said the greater safety risk would be to release criminals in jail for crimes such as murder and pedophilia into the general public.

“This is extremely alarming for all of us in any city that we live in,” said Westminster Police Chief Mark Lauderback, who spoke before the council’s vote.

“When you’re being told to release a large number of inmates who should be doing time in serving their sentence, and they are going to be released early, it’s very alarming.”

He called for an effective alternative that would help curb COVID-19 numbers in jail while keeping the public safe.

“Yes, we have a pandemic going on; yes, it is very scary for everybody in the medical field and a society to be living with such a medical nightmare; but doing this without actually taking a look at the consequences of the actions of the judge, I think we need to find a better solution,” Lauderback said.

The Garden Grove City Council also moved to support Barnes.

“If forced to comply with the court order, we are aware you will need to release approximately 1,800 inmates, which both you and the Orange County District Attorney have stated unequivocally poses a significant risk to public safety,” Garden Grove Mayor Steve Jones said in a Dec. 18 letter.

“Specifically, you identified that of the 700 inmates considered medically vulnerable under the Center of Disease Control and Prevention’s Guidelines, 59 inmates are incarcerated for murder, 39 inmates for attempted murder and 90 for child molestation.”

The mayor’s letter said that there have already been significant impacts on public safety related to the release of prisoners by Orange County and the state related to COVID-19. More than 22,000 inmates have been released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation since the pandemic began.

“The release of so many prisoners in such a short time frame is straining state and local law enforcement who are not only addressing traditional law enforcement issues but responding to law enforcement issues associated with the pandemic,” Jones wrote.

On Dec. 18, Orange County recorded its first COVID-19-related inmate death when Eddie Lee Anderson, 68, died about a week after testing positive for COVID-19. The Theo Lacy Facility inmate was transferred to a hospital on Dec. 13 for treatment.

According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, 1,512 inmates have tested positive for the virus since the beginning of the pandemic. The sheriff’s website indicates that as of Dec. 21 there are currently 835 inmates with the disease.

With apparently little else left to sanction in Syria, the United States is now going after Bashar al-Assad’s wife and even extended family members which have long resided in London.

A Tuesday statement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated the US is imposing sanctions on Syria first lady Asma al-Assad, blaming her in part for prolonging the war and blocking a peaceful political settlement through her charities and civil society organizations. 

Of course, in Washington-speak “stalling efforts to reach a political resolution” means simply that Bashar Assad has refused to step down and flee the country, which would ultimately put the secular Baath state in the hands of the jihadi fanatics.

Pompeo’s statement specifies that “The Department of State today is imposing sanctions on Asma al-Assad, the wife of Bashar al-Assad, for impeding efforts to promote a political resolution of the Syrian conflict pursuant to Section 2(a)(i)(D) of Executive Order 13894.” It adds that “Asma al-Assad has spearheaded efforts on behalf of the regime to consolidate economic and political power, including by using her so-called charities and civil society organizations.”

Recall that just before the war in Syria got started Asma was widely praised in the West for her beauty and philanthropy, even being profiled in a glowing Vogue magazine piece headlined “A Rose in the Desert” (March 2011). More recently the Syrian first lady has survived breast cancer, and is said to have fully recovered.

Hey, remember when @vogue gushed over Asma Assad, “A Rose in the Desert”? #SyriaStrikes #SyriaAirstrike pic.twitter.com/JizH4yMNmO

— Patrick Poole (@pspoole) April 7, 2017

But the US is now going so far as to sanction members of her family, some of which have lived in England for decades, foremost among them Bashar’s father-in-law, the respected Syrian-English cardiologist Fawaz Akhras: 

“In addition, we are sanctioning several members of Asma al-Assad’s immediate family, including Fawaz Akhras, Sahar Otri Akhras, Firas al Akhras, and Eyad Akhras as per Section 2(a)(ii) of EO 13894. The Assad and Akhras families have accumulated their ill-gotten riches at the expense of the Syrian people through their control over an extensive, illicit network with links in Europe, the Gulf, and elsewhere,” the US statement reads.

Asma’s father has long been a cardiologist at Cromwell Hospital in South Kensington, London along with running a private practice.

The family has been in Britain so long that Asma was born and raised there by her Syrian parents before marrying Bashar.

But now Washington is going after them, apparently blaming even relatives outside of Syria for fueling the war. The irony is tragic and thick, considering just who it is that Washington has been supporting throughout the conflict.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a recent address to Syrian lawmakers in Damascus, President Assad launched into a surprisingly blunt and cogent diatribe against Neoliberalism:

Assad owns the libs: “Liberalism is about turning people into animals”. NATO is using neo-liberalism and a form of subterfuge against eastern nations. We have proof. pic.twitter.com/PAvfERefqo

— Syrian Girl 🎗️🇸🇾 (@Partisangirl) December 21, 2020

Submitted by PlanetFreeWill ,

The COVID spending bill passed Monday allows federal bureaucrats to increase the amount of foreign labor they hired as millions of Americans are jobless due to the economic contractions caused by COVID-19 and government lockdowns.

On top of all the handouts to foreign governments and other waste of taxpayer money, a provision in the 5,593 page bill allows the Department of Homeland Security and Labor Department to “increase the total number of aliens” hired under H-2B foreign visas.

According to the bill, the foreign hiring can take place if the “needs of American businesses cannot be satisfied in fiscal year 2021 with United States workers who are willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary non-agricultural labor.”

As Breitbart’s John Binder highlights, this is could exacerbate the trend of DHS allowing employers to over-hire foreign labor under the H-2B visa program that has been shown to drive down American wages:

DHS Secretaries over the last four years have repeatedly allowed businesses to import more H-2B foreign visa workers above the annual cap of 66,000. Continuation of the policy would come as 24.5 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed. About 17.8 million of those are jobless.

The H-2B visa program has been widely used by businesses to drag down the wages of American workers in landscaping, conservation work, the meatpacking industry, the construction industry, and fishing jobs, a 2019 study from the Center for Immigration Studies finds.

When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.

As shown in the table below, the H-2B foreign labor disproportionately effects the construction, fishing, meatpacking, and plumbing industries:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 10.7 million Americas unemployed in the month of November.

Perhaps some of the hundreds of millions of dollars being sent to foreign governments to secure their borders could have been allocated to training Americans for the types of jobs that will undoubtedly be replaced by the cheap labor.

But no, that actually would have made this bill a “stimulus package” and not the special interest smorgasbord the American people were handed from the blind signatures of their “representatives.”

1/4 This is the spending bill under consideration in Congress today. I received it just moments ago, and will likely be asked to vote on it late tonight. It’s 5,593 pages long. I know there are some good things in it. I’m equally confident that there are bad things in it. pic.twitter.com/SoWXnEWYfV

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) December 21, 2020

Famed Boston-based pizza reviewer and stock pumper Dave Portnoy has spent the last couple of years reviewing a slice of pizza from mom and pop restaurants. 

Portnoy’s YouTube account called “One Bite Pizza Reviews” has hundreds of videos of him reviewing pizza slices from small shops up and down the East Coast, mainly in the Northeast. 

Even during the pandemic, Portnoy continued the pizza reviews though being on the ground and seeing the first-hand devastation of government lockdowns and restrictions have had on small businesses, more specifically the restaurant industry, forced him to launch a fund to save dying eateries. 

Called the Barstool Fund, more than 31,600 Barstool supporters have raised $2 million and supported three restaurants so far. 

On the Barstool Fund’s website, Portnoy goes on a rant about how “no one in the government seems to care” about small businesses. 

He said the government has “no plan, no relief, no bailout” for mom and pop shops. 

Portnoy said Marcus Lemonis told him, “to put his money where his mouth is,” referring to supporting small business. He said he started the fund, and Barstools will donate $500k. 

Portnoy said his Barstool Fund “isn’t the best plan” – indicating that the “best plan” is for the government to bail out these mom and pop shops before they lose their livelihoods. 

Portnoy lays out a set of rules for restaurants that want to access his fund. One of the major requirements is that they must be paying their employees. From there, he said a deal can be worked out with the shop as to how much money they need every month. 

We assume some of Portnoy’s newly minted stock market millionaire followers on Twitter can spread the wealth to help the cause. 

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson recently interviewed Portnoy about the Barstool Fund. 

As we must remind readers, it’s not the virus pandemic that is killing small businesses, it’s the government enforced lockdowns and restrictions. 

Authored by Bill Zeiser via RealClearPolicy.com,

Even casual viewers of cable news are familiar with commercials featuring actor William Devane – usually golfing or horseback riding – exhorting them to invest in precious metals. Lately, Devane has been joined in this pursuit by financial educator Robert Kiyosaki, creator of the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series. The prevalence of these ads should not be surprising. In these volatile times, the Trump administration has spent big and printed money. (The United States is not alone in borrowing and printing its way out of this pandemic.) There is no reason to expect different behavior under Joe Biden.

It’s no wonder that alternative stores of value are flourishing.

Days ago, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached yet another all-time high, just as it became clear that a Biden-Harris administration was a fait accompli. But while Bitcoin is the best-known digital currency, it is only a small part of a technological shift that could satisfy our demand for safer, cheaper, and faster ways of doing business in times of crisis and disruption. Bitcoin’s underlying technology, blockchain – a sort of shared, secure ledger of transactions between networked computers – has applications ranging from supply-chain management to securing international payments. It could be “a game changer for the global economy,” according to JPMorgan Chase. In fact, the investment giant started using its own JPM Coin in October to move investor money across its global financial platforms. Consulting firm Gartner forecasts that the business value-add from blockchain will blow past $3 trillion by the end of this new decade.

The industry powering all this change, however, is finding it harder to stay in the United States due to Washington’s dysfunction. Silicon Valley start-ups are investing billions in research and development, but there is still no clear set of rules to help them bring products to market. Congress has punted on writing a regulatory framework, and the country’s oversight agencies are – as usual – fighting over turf.

Experts say that this “regulatory chaos” is suppressing American innovation while other market centers like Britain and Singapore have quickly updated their rules to lure American blockchain developers away, while Beijing scrambles to establish tech dominance.

Roslyn Layton of the American Enterprise Institute sent the Senate a blunt message this month: regulators, lacking guidance, are killing innovation. China could soon overtake us, she warned, unless the Senate holds Biden to his promises of “technocratic competence” and firm economic competition with China.

At least eight regulatory agencies are fighting over who gets to play U.S. crypto cop.

Without any direction, regulators “copy-paste their bureaucracy on anything that moves,” Layton observed. The Securities and Exchange Commission is applying archaic 1930s rules that “never imagined blockchain solutions,” comparing all digital assets to securities no matter how they are designed or used.

Critics like Layton point to China’s new “digital yuan” – the country’s sole legal cryptocurrency – as a disturbing signal that the Chinese are gaining on us. The People’s Bank of China formally issued it in October and has enticed 2 million Chinese to bid on U.S. $10 million worth of the official token, says Wayne Brough of the Innovation Defense Foundation. Big American companies including Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Subway have embraced China’s new currency. France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan are developing central bank digital currencies of their own. Brough frets that through inaction, the U.S. will “blunder our way out of winning a race that we were born to win.” 

George Nethercutt, former Republican congressman from Washington State, warned in The Hill that Washington’s neglect could create “a needless trainwreck.” China and Singapore are paving the way for their own blockchain industries, he wrote, “while the U.S. is struggling with a coin shortage, stimulus check complications, and an obvious dearth of understanding on Capitol Hill about what a cryptocurrency even is.” This is “embarrassing” for the most technologically developed country in the world, he lamented.

Layton and Nethercutt point the finger at outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who, Layton said, made “a deliberate lack of regulatory clarity” the “cornerstone of his crypto policy approach.” Clayton demonstrated “no understanding for the need for a regulatory framework” with his “notoriously guarded approach” to blockchain solutions, Nethercutt added, “significantly constraining American innovators.”

Clayton empowered the SEC by treating any digital asset as a “security,” justifying enforcement actions with a 1946 Supreme Court ruling. Clayton’s SEC lowered the boom on “utility tokens” – a core feature of business software using blockchain – according to Layton, even if they “had no resemblance to investment contracts.” This treatment extended to utility token XRP, the third-highest-valued cryptocurrency in the world, used by American developers like Ripple and R3 to power the kind of payment systems that JPMorgan has already rolled out. Just by putting this token under “a bewilderingly persistent enforcement threat,” the SEC hurt every developer on the XRP ledger. Clayton preserved his own agency’s power “but steadily eroded U.S. leadership as the best place to do business.”

It remains to be seen what Biden thinks of Clayton’s view of unlimited power over digital assets, or whether Biden’s promise of bipartisan cooperation will extend to ending the regulatory chaos.  Republicans have spent the last four years slashing regulations and reining in the administrative state and should understand that China can’t be allowed to win the crypto race. Senate Democrats on the Banking Committee like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown should remember that a president of their party, Bill Clinton, enacted the regulatory framework for e-commerce in 1997. It created millions of American businesses, reaching tens of millions of customers, and spawned a long list of occupations that had never existed before.

Coming together to vet Biden’s SEC pick on crypto policy and move the country closer to a clear set of rules would be a win-win for both parties and for the U.S. economy. Our competitors abroad can never beat us on innovation – unless we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot.

America’s RV craze continues.

According to the RV Industry Association’s survey of North American manufacturers, all-towable RV shipments soared 46.3% in November to 38,485 from 26,297 a year earlier,  All motorhome shipments rose 20.3% last month to 4,028 from 3,347, and total RV shipments grew 43.4% in November to 42,513 from 29,644.

As Americans can no longer afford to buy “stationary” homes, they are increasingly moving to mobile variants (or perhaps they just want to be able to scatter at a moment’s notice), and so far this year through November, all-towable RV shipments totaled 353,109 compared to 334,792 from the previous period, a 5.5% Y/Y growth.

All motorhome shipments totaled 36,921 compared to 43,762, for a 15.6% decline. Total RV shipments totaled 390,030 compared to 378,554, an increase of 3.0%.

Authored by Annaliese Levy via SaraACarter.com,

Democratic New York Congressman-elect and new member to the “Squad” Jamaal Bowman said he believes the U.S. system of capitalism is a form of slavery.

In an interview Monday with The Root, Bowman said, “I believe our current system of capitalism is slavery by another name.”

He continued:

“We’ve moved from physical chattel enslavement and physical racial segregation to a plantation economic system. One that keeps the majority of Americans unemployed, or underemployed and struggling just to survive, while the power elite continues to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, and allow large corporations to pretty much run the world as multinational corporations.”

“The pandemic has revealed it. With almost 300,000 dead from the pandemic, disproportionately Black and brown, and Jeff Bezos is the first $200 billionaire. In the next six years, he might become the first trillionaire. That’s slavery by another name. It’s a system that’s not working, so we need a new system.”

Bowman, who is set to be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3, has been very vocal about the need for a new system and has criticized Obama for not being radical enough.

“I don’t think Obama is the standard we should be striving towards,” Bowman said.

“I think the Squad is more of a standard we should be striving towards because I think the Squad is more responsive to what’s happening today in our streets. I think Obama represents a certain demographic of the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party is a big and diverse tent. “

“I think the Squad and myself represent more of what’s happening right now in the party, on the ground, in the streets—particularly with parts of the community that we haven’t always engaged very well.”

The Squad is the informal name for a group of four progressive women elected in the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Bowman tweeted Dec. 16 that he was “so proud to be entering congress to fight with my sisters for the American people,” referring to The Squad.

I’m so proud to be entering congress to fight with my sisters for the American people. Their leadership is why I’m here. They organize, strategize, mobilize and fight for us every second of every day. Looking forward to the 117th Congress. It’s about to be on! https://t.co/bQyboHiQp2

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) December 17, 2020