Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dead At 87 Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/18/2020 – 19:45
Justice Ruth Bader Gisnburg is dead at the age of 87, the Supreme Court announced on Friday, which added that she died of “complications of metastatic pancreas cancer.”
The court said in a statement:
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer. She was 87 years old. Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1993. She was the second woman appointed to the Court and served more than 27 years. She is survived by her two children: Jane Carol Ginsburg (George Spera) and James Steven Ginsburg (Patrice Michaels), four grandchildren: Paul Spera (Francesca Toich), Clara Spera (Rory Boyd), Miranda Ginsburg, Abigail Ginsburg, two step-grandchildren: Harjinder Bedi, Satinder Bedi, and one great-grandchild: Lucrezia Spera. Her husband, Martin David Ginsburg, died in 2010.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. said of Justice Ginsburg: “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.”
Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15,1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959-1961. From 1961-1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963-1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972-1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977-1978. In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973-1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974-1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. During her more than 40 years as a Judge and a Justice, she was served by 159 law clerks.
While on the Court, the Justice authored My Own Words (2016), a compilation of her speeches and writings.
A private interment service will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.
* * *
As a reminder to our regular readers, President Trump unveiled his list of potential Supreme Court picks less than two weeks ago:
Bridget Bade, a judge on 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Daniel Cameron, the attorney general of Kentucky
Paul Clement, former solicitor general of the United States
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Stuart Kyle Duncan, a judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals
Stephen Engel, assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel in the Trump administration
Noel Francisco, former solicitor general of the United States
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
James Ho, a judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals
Gregory Katsas, a judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Barbara Lagoa, a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
Christopher Landau, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico
Carlos Muniz, a justice on the Florida Supreme Court
Martha Pacold, a judge on the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Peter Phipps, a judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals
Sarah Pitlyk, a judge on the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri
Alison Jones Rushing, a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals
Kate Todd, a deputy assistant a deputy counsel to the president
Lawrence VanDyke, a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
“Every one of these individuals will ensure equal justice, equal treatment, and equal rights for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed,” Trump promised.
“Together we will defend our righteous heritage and preserve our magnificent American way of life.”
The most serious nominee, however, is believed to be Judge Amy Coney Barrett – who Trump nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RHphQJ Tyler Durden
Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty and risks to your prosperity.
Today, we are starting with some stories that are not amusing, but simply tragic.
Unborn baby dies due to absurd Covid lockdown rules
This one highlights the sad reality of crushing people’s basic rights.
An Australian woman was in childbirth a few weeks ago when it became clear she needed highly specialized medical care.
Unfortunately her small town of Ballina, located in the Australian state of New South Wales, did not have sufficient medical care options to treat her pregnancy complications.
Ballina is very close to the border of the neighboring state of Queensland, where two much larger cities– Gold Coast, and Brisbane– are fairly close by.
And prior to Covid, the woman would have simply been quickly transported to one of those two cities in the neighboring state for a multitude of top quality medical options.
But now Australians are no longer able to travel across their own state lines without special permission from the government.
The woman was told that she would have to undergo a 14-day quarantine, simply for crossing the state line, before she could access medical care in Queensland. Incredible.
This was obviously unacceptable. So her next best option was to fly to Syndey (which is at the opposite end of New South Wales, a state that’s bigger than Texas). Except that the next flight was SIXTEEN HOURS later.
Needless to say, she didn’t receive the care she needed in time, and one of her twin babies died as a result of the travel restrictions.
They say all the lockdowns are worth it if it saves just one life.
University professor cancelled for watching a pro-police rally
Students at Skidmore College are boycotting an art professor, David Peterson, and demanding he be fired.
His crime? Watching a “back the blue” pro-police protest for about 20 minutes.
Peterson was not actually attending the rally, holding signs, or wearing a pro-police shirt. He simply listened to the pro-police protesters (AND the counter protesters) in his own community for a bit, and then went out to dinner with his wife.
So, simply just listening to an unwoke opinion is now a thoughtcrime. And that is all it takes these days to lose a career.
Court awards unmarried woman $50,000/month in alimony
An Ontario court granted a woman $50,000 per month for the next decade in spousal support.
The strangest part though, is that she didn’t have a spouse. There was no divorce, because she was never married to the man who must now pay her alimony.
This woman and the wealthy businessman she fleeced dated for years, but they were never married.
They never lived together, and have no kids together.
But the court said they were “common law married” anyway.
Ironically, the court used the fact that he had spent so much money on her during their time as a couple as proof that he should be forced to continue his support.
US Customs & Border Patrol seizes ‘counterfeit’ Apple earbuds
Relax and breathe easy, your government is on the case protecting you from evil dangers lurking around the world.
According to an official press release from US Customs and Border Patrol, “officers seized 2,000 counterfeit Apple Airpod Earbuds from Hong Kong destined for Nevada at an air cargo facility located at John F. Kennedy International Airport [in New York City].”
CBP went on to brag via their Twitter account that these ‘counterfeit’ earbuds would have been worth nearly USD $400,000.
But it turns out that the earbuds are, in fact, NOT counterfeit. In fact they’re not even Apple earbuds.
These earbuds are specific to another mobile phone manufacturer called OnePlus. You’d think that the CBP officers would have been able to figure that out given that the earbuds actually have “OnePlus” Buds” printed on the freaking boxes!
It’s unclear whether the officers who seized these earbuds are completely illiterate, or cannot imagine a world where there are other mobile phone companies besides Apple.
(OnePlus is actually a pretty good sized company and generated $1.4 billion in revenue last year…)
But rather humorously, OnePlus responded to CBP’s Tweet earlier this week saying “Hey, give those back!”
You’d think the story would end there, and CBP would admit its mistake. But no.
Now CBP is saying, in its sole discretion, that the earbuds violate Apple’s trademark, so they’re keeping the seized product.
This is completely ridiculous, and I’m not sure if this agency even understands what a trademark actually is. And if ‘trademark’ was even the issue here, then the agency’s initial press release would have stated so. But instead they called the earbuds counterfeit.
It’s also rather interesting that there has been no court injunction against OnePlus, no warrants, and not even a lawsuit.
Yes, not even Apple (whose ‘trademark’ has supposedly been violated) thinks this is a problem. Apple has earbuds. OnePlus has earbuds. Big deal.
California Crackdown On Benefits Fraud Sparks 72% Plunge In Pandemic Jobless Claims Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/18/2020 – 19:20
The last few weeks have seen improvements in jobless claims data stall at extremely high levels, gravely disappointing those expecting a continued v-shaped recovery back to the old normal…
The leading ‘culprit’ for these elevated levels of unemployment benefits seekers has been California.
The last two weeks have seen Cali claims far above other states…
And at an aggregate level, the biggest driver of composite jobless claims levels across America has been the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) – a federal relief program intended for self-employed workers and independent contractors…
So, what is going on?
The answer is simple:
It’s fraud!
As Bloomberg reports, between mid-August and the first week of September, applications for PUA doubled in California to more than 524,000, far above claim levels when the federal program first launched in April, the state’s Employment Development Department said Thursday.
But, EDD admitted rather stunningly that after taking action to deter suspected scammers from filing false applications in hopes of getting payments, PUA applications dropped sharply to 145,790, a decline of more than 72%.
In addition, Bloomberg reports that California’s figures show a wide discrepancy with nationally-reported data on continuing PUA claims in California. While the federal Department of Labor reports that more than 6 million Californians are claiming PUA benefits each week…
Some have suggested that the national figures may reflect states catching up with backlogs rather than representing the most recent levels of actual job losses.
No matter what – or who – is to blame, the fraud issue in California underscores the widespread unemployment data challenges – including clerical errors and double counting – that state employment departments have faced since the pandemic began in March.
“Aggressive efforts to fight fraud are yielding results in curbing the recent uptick in suspicious Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims in California,”the state’s employment department said.
Fed Chair Powell even admitted on Wednesday that all this data was full of noise and little signal when he cast doubt on the reliability of the national PUA figures, saying during a press briefing that the “actual counting of the claims is volatile” and it’s difficult to “take much signal about the particular level.”
Or put another way – hold your nose and buy stocks, ignore the terrible data, ignore the fraud!!
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hQPVS8 Tyler Durden
Those who don’t see the fragmentation, the scarcities and the battlelines being drawn will be surprised by the acceleration of the unraveling.
I recently came across the idea that inflation is a two-factor optimization problem: inflation is necessary for the macro-economy (or so we’re told) and so the trick for policy makers (and their statisticians who measure the economy) is to maximize inflation in the economy but only to the point that it doesn’t snuff out businesses and starve workers to death.
From this perspective, households have to grin and bear the negative consequences of inflation for the good of the whole economy.
This narrative, so typical of economics, ignores the core reality of “inflation” in America: it’s a battleground for the class war that’s accelerating. Allow me to explain.
“Inflation” affects different classes very differently. I put “inflation” in italics because it’s not one phenomenon, it’s numerous phenomena crammed into one deceptively simple word.
When “inflation” boosts the value of homes, stocks, bonds, diamonds, quatloos etc. to the moon, those who own these assets are cheering. When “inflation” reduces the purchasing power of wages, those whose only income is earned from their labor suffer a decline in their lifestyles as their wages buy fewer goods and services.
They are suffering while the wealthy owners of soaring assets are cheering.
The Federal Reserve and federal authorities are not neutral observers in this war. The Fed only cares about two things: enriching the banking sector and further enriching the already-rich.
The banking sector makes money by lending newly created currency to borrowers. No borrowers or new loans–banks go broke. So the Fed must generate the right kind of “inflation”: it must lower the cost of borrowing money (deflating the cost of borrowing) by reducing the rate of interest borrowers pay, and it must “inflate” the market value of the collateral banks and Wall Street need to support more debt: commercial buildings, homes, stocks, bonds, etc.
This “inflation” of asset valuations makes those who already own these assets richer, while impoverishing those who must buy them with wages that are losing purchasing power. The Fed doesn’t care if small businesses go broke or households slide into poverty; the Fed’s only concerns are maintaining “inflation” in asset valuations and “deflation” in the cost of borrowing, so that debt-serfs, zombie corporations, local and federal government–everyone–can borrow more money, further enriching banks and Wall Street.
This is the sole goal of the Fed. Everything else is distracting PR.
There are downsides to this, of course, but they fall on “the little people” so economists, the Fed and federal officials don’t bother to even track the downsides. Thus we have the nonsensical games government statisticians play to keep official measurements of “inflation” low. This serves to obscure the reality that real-world “inflation” in the cost of education, childcare, health insurance, rent, and so on–all the big-ticket household costs–is soaring, stripping away the purchasing power of wages.
Here’s an example of how wages and purchasing power can be understood. Back in the day, I could rent my own studio apartment for half a week’s pay. I was young and not well-paid, but I could still rent a crummy apartment for half a week’s pay: 2.5 day’s wages.
Try finding an apartment for half a week’s pay in a major city. Young workers are paying two week’s pay just to rent a room. This is a massive loss in the purchasing power of labor.
Meanwhile, those with the right kind of assets are experiencing fantasic increases in their unearned income. These increases in income (and wealth) far exceed the modest impacts of real-world inflation on these owners of the right kind of assets.
Let’s start with the the wrong kind of asset: a savings account. Where savers earned 5.25% on their savings as a regulatory requirement in the 1960s, now they earn less than nothing: even the bogus “official inflation” is 2%, while savers get 0.1% or less on savings. So savers lose money every day.
Those who bought bonds and stocks and real estate–the right kind of assets–have scored enormous gains in wealth and income. There’s just one little tiny problem with the right kind of assets: the vast majority are owned by the top 5% of households, with the top 1% owning 40% and the top 0.1% owning 20%–more than the bottom 80% own.
There aren’t just wealth-income classes –those who own these assets and those who don’t– there are demographic and age classes, too. Young wage earners are mostly priced out of buying these assets with wages, unless they borrow staggering sums of money and devote most of their income to servicing their debts (student loans, auto loans, mortgage, etc.).
Retirees have been forced into gambling their retirement funds in the Fed-rigged casinos, which just so happen to crash every decade or so, wiping out the naive punters who believed “the Fed has our backs.”
“Inflation” isn’t an abstract debate –it’s class war. And it’s not just between two classes, those who depend on wages/earned income and those reaping the trillions in unearned income and wealth; there are warring classes fractured by age, demographics, political loyalties and issues of who’s hoarding what: every one of these fractured classes is competing for scarce resources, scarce income and scarce security.
Those who don’t see the fragmentation, the scarcities and the battlelines being drawn will be surprised by the acceleration of the unraveling. As noted here previously, The banquet of consequences is being laid out, and there won’t be much choice in the seating.
Schumer, Warren Introduce Resolution To Cancel $50,000 In Student Loans To “Close Racial Wealth Gaps” Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/18/2020 – 18:40
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) rolled out a proposal on Thursday which calls for the next president of the Untied States to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt in 2021.
The plan would call on the next president to “take executive action to administratively cancel up to $50,000 in Federal student loan debt for Federal student loan borrowers using existing legal authorities…”
The plan would also call on the next president to ensure “no tax liability for Federal student loan borrowers resulting from administrative debt cancellation.” Moreover, it asks the next president to pause student loan payments and interest accumulation “for the entire duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Doing so, according to the plan, would “ensure that administrative debt cancellation helps close racial wealth gaps.“
According to The Hill, the Democrats are essentially handing Joe Biden a talking point – as President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have flatly opposed earlier attempts to forgive student debt.
“We know that President Trump and [Education] Secretary [Betsy] DeVos have been totally against things like this. We understand that. But the next president could easily do this,” said Schumer, adding “We want to start getting people focused on this issue as a major issue that could be dealt with early next year.”
The $3.4 trillion HEROES Act passed in May included a provision to cancel up to $10,000 of student debt for a limited number of people.
The measure introduced by Warren and Schumer Thursday calls on the president to take executive action to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student debt for every borrower in the United States, which would wipe out the student debt obligations for more than three-quarters of Americans who owe them.
An estimated 44 million Americans owe about $1.6 trillion in student loans.
Schumer said the plan would protect student loan borrowers from having to pay taxes on forgiven loans.
“The president can use the IRS code to ensure federal student loan borrowers won’t have tax liabilities resulting from administrative debt cancellation,” he said. –The Hill
Warren raised the issue last Thursday during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, noting that the committee had yet to hold any discussions on “the student debt crisis.”
“I think we ought to focus on how to deal with the $1.6 trillion dollars in debt that is crushing millions of people,” she said.
As Jonathan Turley also warns, the proposals may be a foreshadowing of a greater push to use unilateral executive powers under Joe Biden if he wins the election.
The senators insisted that the Secretary of Education has “broad administrative authority” granted by Congress to cancel federal student loan debt under section 432(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Thus, they are arguing for the president to simply wipe out the debt by taking “executive action to broadly cancel up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt.”
I have long been critical of such unilateral executive actions to order massive increases in debt or the negation of federal laws. We need a serious debate over the leveraging of the future on the mounting debt for this rising generation. I am worried about this college debt but I am also worried about these students facing decades of debt that must be paid off by the government. We need a comprehensive debt plan.
Politicians are casually referring to trillion dollar increases in a variety of different packages. Many long-standing goals are being refashioned as “stimulus measures” but they would pile more debt on an economic recovery that could already be difficult after the pandemic.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3mCygkm Tyler Durden
The Spanish flu of 1918 is an event that, unsurprisingly, is being revisited by many observers today. And yet, at the same time, another major event occurred a century ago which we would also do well to remember: namely the largely forgotten economic depression of 1920.
We all hear, from time to time, about the ghost of the 1929 crash, of the dreadful decade of the thirties, of the Great Depression from which the world (supposedly) only recovered at the cost of a new world war. In the covid-19 context of today, it is even likely that many people believe that unless all national and international governments and organizations move ahead with drastic measures, we are condemned to a similar fate. Nonetheless, the depression of 1920 can provide us with a starkly different picture.
The end of World War I was followed by some months of high profits and renewed expectations. Unfortunately, due to the gigantic inflation and government controls introduced during the war, as well as the deaths caused by that same war and the pandemic that followed, a great economic readjustment was unavoidable, which eventually came along in 1920.
Renowned financial analyst James Grant, author of the book The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself, provides shocking data for the United States. Grant tells us that the Federal Reserve index of industrial production fell by 31.6 percent from 1920–21. In comparison, in the crisis years 2007–09, it “only” fell by 16.9 percent. Grant estimates that the unemployment rate may have reached as high as 15.3 percent.
Meanwhile, “over the course of 12 months, wholesale prices plunged by 36.8 percent, consumer prices by 10.8 percent and farm prices by 41.3 percent (for speed of decline, not even the Great Depression would match the break of 1920–21). The Dow Jones Industrial Average, then comprising 20 stocks rather than today’s 30, crested in November 1919 at 119.62 and bottomed in August 1921 at 63.9, for a peak-to-trough decline of 46.6 percent.”
It seems abundantly clear that the situation was dire. Profits drastically fell, companies were liquidated and taken over in a wave of bankruptcy procedures until…it all reverted. As professor, banker and “Austrian” fellow traveler Benjamin M. Anderson (1886–1949) described it in his memoirs,
“in 1920–1921 we took our losses, we readjusted our financial structure, we endured our depression, and in the month of August, 1921, we started up again. By the spring of 1923 we had reached new highs in industrial production and we had labour shortages in many lines.”
“by the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.”
The economy was ready for the Roaring Twenties.
What had happened? What did the government do to push the economy out of the ground? The answer is: nothing. Or better still: it cut spending to balance the budget and reduce public debt. There were no massive liquidity “bazookas” shot by central banks, no giant stimulus programs from the Ministry of Economy, no price or profit margin controls. President Wilson had suffered a severe stroke at the end of 1919, which left him practically disabled for the rest of his presidency, while his successor, Warren G. Harding, declared the following in his 1920 acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination:
Let us call to all the people for thrift and economy, for denial and sacrifice if need be, for a nationwide drive against extravagance and luxury, to a recommittal to simplicity of living, to that prudent and normal plan of life which is the health of the republic. There hasn’t been a recovery from the waste and abnormalities of war since the story of mankind was first written, except through work and saving, through industry and denial, while needless spending and heedless extravagance have marked every decay in the history of nations.
Thus, the federal budget was reduced from $18.5 billion in 1919 to $3.7 billion dollars in 1922, and public debt fell from $26 billion at the end of 1919 to $22.3 billion dollars in June 1923. One can easily see why Grant described this depression as “the crash that cured itself.” As he ironically notes, “by the lights of Keynesian and monetarist doctrine alike, no more primitive or counterproductive policies could be imagined.”
But wouldn’t it have been better if the government had “softened” things a little bit? That would probably have been achieved at the cost of stagnation, as in the case of the thirties, and of greater problems in the future, as in the case of Japan, described by Anderson:
early in 1920, the great banks, the concentrated industries, and the government got together, destroyed the freedom of the markets, arrested the decline in commodity prices, and held the Japanese price level high above the receding world level for seven years. During these years Japan endured chronic industrial stagnation and at the end, in 1927, she had a banking crisis of such severity that many great branch bank systems went down, as well as many industries. It was a stupid policy. In the effort to avert losses on inventory representing one year’s production, Japan lost seven years, only to incur greatly exaggerated losses at the end. The New Deal began in Japan in early 1920.
The First World War was seen by the state bureaucracies of the West as definitive proof of how tasteful an extensive state control of the capitalist engine could be. On the other hand, the disintegration of the classical gold standard and the return to a blatant use of central banks to finance war debts at the cost of inflation had marked the end of the classical liberal world order based on international commerce and financial discipline. Still, some traces of the cultural values and traits that had led to its extraordinary ascension could still be found, especially in the American population. One need only remember that both the Federal Reserve and the income tax as we know it today had only been established in the United States a few years before, in 1913.
Since then, much has changed, including, of course, the legal, institutional, and even cultural context of our economies. Economy means people—and modern society does not seem to have the cultural and institutional “anchors” that would allow it to endure, like in the 2020–21 shock, so drastic a recipe as that circumstantially applied a century ago. And yet the “forgotten depression” can still teach us important lessons: that there was once a time when individuals and communities used to overcome even the worst depressions, by making use of their freedoms, and that the interventionist and spendthrift state is often more part of the problem than it is of the solution. These are important insights we need to keep in mind especially today.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32KZWvQ Tyler Durden
Real Vision CEO and co-founder, Raoul Pal, is joined by senior editor, Ash Bennington, to look forward to the future of markets as well as Real Vision. After they evaluate how the market interpreted the Fed’s latest FOMC meeting, Raoul broadens the conversation beyond equities to make sense of the flatness in bond yields and credit spreads. Raoul and Ash then discuss the upcoming two-week exploration on Real Vision, “Has Everything Changed,” as well as discuss how Real Vision’s new platform, “The Exchange,” is allowing Real Vision members to connect with each other and form a “hive mind.” In the intro, Jack reviews market price action and gives a sneak peak of “Has Everything Changed.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3cbDleQ Tyler Durden
Angry Judge Slams Bankrupt Hertz’ “Offensive” Attempt To Pay Another $5.2 Million In Management Bonuses Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/18/2020 – 18:00
It’s not exactly clear what the lawyers of bankrupt Hertz were thinking but the first time the company spent a whopping $16.2 million on corporate retention bonuses just one day after it announced it would lay off 10,000 US workers and just days after it filed for Chapter 11, it made front page news.
Perhaps they were simply hoping that the bankruptcy judge overseeing the Chapter 11 case has a short memory or is senile, but whatever the reason when they requested that the management team of Hertz – which landed the iconic company into bankruptcy court for the first time in its 102 year history – be paid another $5.2 million in incentive-linked bonuses, the judge had had enough.
Judge Mary Walrath slammed the application for another bonus program, saying it comes too soon – less than 4 months to be exact – after the $16.2 million in retention money Hertz agreed to hand out to about 340 employees just days before it filed for bankruptcy in May. Walrath’s order also denied a new plan that would have split as much as $9.2 million among about 295 lower-ranking managers.
“It seems offensive to give senior executives bonuses” when some of them got retention payments immediately before Hertz headed for court, Walrath said in a Thursday telephonic hearing according to Bloomberg, which adds that under the pre-bankruptcy retention plan, CEO Paul Stone received $700,000. With the new plan, Stone could have collected as much as $1.6 million.
Typically Bankruptcy Code restricts bonus payments to top executives, in part by requiring them to be tied to performance goals. And while retention payments are allowed, but have tighter restrictions that make them harder to justify. All of this appears to have been lost on Hertz’ law firm White & Case, perhaps best known for trying to quietly sell $1 billion in stock to gullible Robinhood traders in early June when the company’s stock inexplicably soared, in lieu of arranging a DIP (luckily, that plan also ended up getting nixed). So it was perhaps for the benefit of White & Case’s lawyer when Walrath explained that Congress wrote the rules to ensure managers who drove a company into bankruptcy were not rewarded for staying around during a Chapter 11 case.
Of course, Hertz’ management has already received some $16 million in bonuses. They were now coming back for another round.
“More has to be done to show why employees who got retention bonuses and agreed to stay with the company are not going to do their best to see that the company survives and succeeds,” Walrath said for the benefit of greedy but incompetent management teams everywhere.
According to Bloomberg, as part of the original deal, employees agreed to forgo their 2020 bonuses. The new bonuses “are in reality the 2020 bonuses under a different name,” the U.S. Trustee has said.
Ironically, White & Case was hoping that this bait & switch would pass by unnoticed, and as Hertz bankruptcy attorney Jason Zakia said during the hearing, a “relatively large percentage” of the employees who would be eligible for the new bonus program also got retention bonuses. In short: reward management for destroying billions in shareholder value… and then reward them some more.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3co2J1f Tyler Durden
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) is a shadowy group of government, military and media elites who have concocted a plan to spread mayhem and disinformation following the November 3 presidential elections.
The strategy takes advantage of the presumed delay in determining the winner of the upcoming election, (due to the deluge of mail-in votes.) The interim period is expected to intensify partisan warfare creating the perfect environment for disseminating propaganda and inciting street violence. The leaders of TIP believe that a mass mobilization will help them to achieve what Russiagate could not, that is, the removal Donald Trump via an illicit coup conjured up by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers and their Democrat allies. Here’s a little more background from an article by Chris Farrell at the Gatestone Institute:
“In one of the greatest public disinformation campaigns in American history — the Left and their NeverTrumper allies (under the nom de guerre: “Transition Integrity Project”) released a 22-page report in August 2020 “war gaming” four election crisis scenarios:….The outcome of each TIP scenario results in street violence and political impasse.
…Is it possible that the leadership of the American Left, along with their NeverTrumper allies, are busy talking themselves into advocating and promoting street violence as a response to a presidential election?
The answer is: Yes…. expect violence in the aftermath of the election, because now that is the new ‘normal.”
Farrell is right. As we can see from the many articles that have recently popped up in the media, the American people are being prepared for a contested election that will fuel public anxiety and revolt. This all fits with the overall strategy of the TIP. Selected journalists will be used to provide bits of information that serve the interests of the group while the people will be told to expect a long and drawn-out constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, the media, the Democrat leadership, trusted elites and elements in the Intelligence Community will put pressure on Trump to step down while firing up their political base to take to the streets. TIP’s 22-page manifesto makes it clear that mass mobilization will be key to any electoral victory. Here’s an excerpt from the text:
“A show of numbers in the streets-and actions in the streets-may be decisive factors in determining what the public perceives as a just and legitimate outcome.”
In other words, the authors fully support demonstrations and political upheaval to achieve their goal of removing Trump. Clearly, this scorched earth approach did not originate with Joe Biden, but with the cynical and bloodthirsty puppetmasters who operate behind the curtain and who will do anything to advance their agenda.
This is a full-blown color revolution authored and supported by the same oligarchs and deep-state honchoes that have opposed Trump from the very beginning. They’re not going to back down or call off the dogs until the job is done and Trump is gone. And when the dust settles, Trump will likely be charged, tried, sentenced and imprisoned. His fortune will be seized, his family will be financially ruined, and his closest advisors and allies will be prosecuted on fabricated charges. There’s not going to be a “graceful transition” of power if Trump loses. He will face the full wrath of the scheming mandarins he has frustrated for the last 4 years. These are the men who applauded when Saddam and Ghaddafi were savagely butchered. Will Trump face the same fate as them?
Trump has less than two months to rally his supporters, draw attention to the conspiracy that has is presently underway, and figure out a way to defend himself against the coup plotters. If he is unable to derail the impending junta, his goose is cooked.
It’s worth noting, that the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) has no legal authority to meddle in the upcoming election. They were not appointed by any congressional committee nor did any government entity approve their intrusive activities. This is entirely a “lone wolf” operation designed to exploit loopholes in campaign laws in order to undermine public confidence in our elections and to express their unbridled hostility towards Donald Trump. That said, there analysis will probably influence those who share their views. In the first page of their “Executive Summary” they say:
“We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape. We also assess that the President Trump is likely to contest the result by both legal and extra-legal means, in an attempt to hold onto power.”
This short statement provides the basic justification for the group’s existence. It presents the participants as impartial observers performing their civic duty by objectively analyzing exercises (war games?) that indicate that Trump will challenge the election results in a desperate attempt to hold on to power. Not surprisingly, the group provides no evidence that the president would react the way they think he would. In fact, their hypothesis seems extremely far-fetched given the fact that Trump has no militia, no private army, and very few allies among the political class, the Intelligence Community, the FBI, the military or the deep state. Who exactly does the group think would help Trump hold on to power: Bill Barr, Larry Kudlow, Melania??
There is nothing “impartial” about this analysis. It is partisan gibberish aimed at discrediting Trump while creating a pretext for launching a coup against him. Here is another sample of TIP’s “objective analysis” from page 1 of the manuscript:
“The Transition Integrity Project (TIP) was launched in late 2019 out of concern that the Trump Administration may seek to manipulate, ignore, undermine or disrupt the 2020 presidential election and transition process. TIP takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes, or on the likely winner of the upcoming election; either major party candidate could prevail at the polls in November without resorting to “dirty tricks.” However, the administration of President Donald Trump has steadily undermined core norms of democracy and the rule of law and embraced numerous corrupt and authoritarian practices. This presents a profound challenge for those –from either party –who are committed to ensuring free and fair elections, peaceful transitions of power, and stable administrative continuity in the United States.”
Got that? In other words (to paraphrase) “Trump is a corrupt dictator who hates democracy and the rule of law, but that is just our unbiased opinion. Please, don’t let that influence your vote. We just want to make sure the election goes smoothly.”
As we noted, the hatred for Trump permeates the entire 22-page document and that, in turn, undermines the credibility of the author to portray his project as an impartial examination of potential problems in the upcoming election. There is nothing evenhanded in the approach to these issues or in the remedies that are recommended. This is a partisan project concocted by malicious elites who despise Trump and who plan to remove him from office by hook or crook.
So, do we know who the leaders of this (TIP) group are?
Well, we know who their two main spokesmen are: Rosa Brooks– Georgetown law professor and co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project, and Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary, and chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to an article by Whitney Webb:
“(Rosa) Brooks… was an advisor to the Pentagon and the Hillary Clinton-led State Department during the Obama administration. She was also previously the general counsel to the President of the Open Society Institute, part of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a controversial organization funded by billionaire George Soros.Zoe Hudson, who is TIP’s director, is also a former top figure at OSF, serving as senior policy analyst and liaison between the foundations and the U.S. government for 11 years.
OSF ties to the TIP are a red flag for a number of reasons, namely due to the fact that OSF and other Soros-funded organizations played a critical role in fomenting so-called “color revolutions” to overthrow non-aligned governments, particularly during the Obama administration. Examples of OSF’s ties to these manufactured “revolutions” include Ukraine in 2014 and the “Arab Spring”…..
In addition to her ties to the Obama administration and OSF, Brooks is currently a scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute, where she focuses on “the relationship between the military and domestic policing” and also Georgetown’s Innovative Policing Program. She is a currently a key player in the documented OSF-led push to “capitalize” off of legitimate calls for police reform to justify the creation of a federalized police force under the guise of defunding and/or eliminating local police departments.Brooks’ interest in the “blurring line” between military and police is notable given her past advocacy of a military coup to remove Trump from office and the TIP’s subsequent conclusion that the military “may” have to step in if Trump manages to win the 2020 election, per the group’s “war games” described above.
Brooks is also a senior fellow at the think tank New America. New America’s mission statement notes that the organization is focused on “honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create.” It is largely funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Jeffrey Skoll and Pierre Omidyar (eBay). In addition, it has received millions directly from the U.S. State Department to research “ranking digital rights.” Notably, of these funders, Reid Hoffman was caught “meddling” in the most recent Democratic primary to undercut Bernie Sanders’ candidacy during the Iowa caucus and while others, such as Eric Schmidt and Pierre Omidyar, are known for their cozy ties to the Clinton family and even ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.”
Is it safe to say that Rosa Brooks is a Soros stooge overseeing a color revolution in the United States aimed at toppling Trump and replacing him with a dementia-addled, meat-puppet named Joe Biden?
Political analyst Paul Craig Roberts seems to think so. Here’s what he said in a recent post at his website:
“I have provided evidence that the military/security complex, using the media and the Democrats, intends to turn the November election into a color revolution… The evidence of a color revolution in the works is abundantly supplied by CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post and numerous Internet sites funded by the CIA and the foundations and corporations through which it operates.. … All of these media organizations are establishing the story in the mind of Americans that Trump will not leave office when he loses or steals the election and must be driven out.
…With Antifa and Black Lives Matter now experienced in violent protests, they will be unleashed anew on American cities when there is news of a Trump election victory. The media will explain the violence as necessary to free us from a tyrant and egg on the violence, as will the Democrat Party. The CIA will be certain that the violence is well funded….
… What is a reelected President Trump going to do when the Secret Service refuses to repel Antifa and Black Lives Matter when they breach White House Security? …
American Democracy is on the verge of being ended for all times, and the world media will herald the event as the successful overthrowing of a tyrant.” (“America’s Color Revolution”, Paul Craig Roberts)
Another of the leading spokesmen for TIP is Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who made this revealing statement in a recent interview:
“Let me just say some of the things that we’re putting out there. Among those things, one that is very important is the media, particularly the mainstream media. They cannot act as they usually act with regard to elections. They have to play a coup on election night. They can’t be declaring some state like Pennsylvania for one candidate or the other. When Pennsylvania probably has thousands upon thousands of votes yet to come in and count. So, the media has to get its act in order and it has to act very differently than it normally does.”
(NOTE: In other words, Wilkerson does not want the media to follow the normal protocols for covering an election, but to adjust their reporting to accommodate the aims of the coup-plotters. Does that sound like someone who is committed to evenhanded coverage of events, or someone who wants reporters to shape the news to meet the specifications of his own particular agenda? Here’s more from Wilkerson:)
“Second, ….we also have learned that poll workers have to be younger. And we’ve started a movement all across the country to train young people. And we’ve had really good luck with the volunteers to do so, to be poll workers. Because we found out in Wisconsin, for example, poll workers are mostly over 60. And many of them didn’t show up because they were afraid of COVID-19. And so Wisconsin went from about one 188 polling places, to about 15. That’s disastrous.” (“This ‘War Game’ Maps out what happens if the President contests the Election”, WBUR)
Why is Wilkerson so encouraged by the young people he’s trained to act as poll workers? Doesn’t that sound a bit fishy, especially from a dyed-in-the-wool partisan who’s mixed up with a group whose sole aim is to beat Trump? And why are the authors of the TIP manifesto so eager to reveal their true intentions. Take a look:
“There will likely not be an “election night” this year; unprecedented numbers of voters are expected to use mail-in ballots, which will almost certainly delay the certified result for days or weeks. A delay provides a window for campaigns, the media, and others to cast doubt on the integrity of the process and for escalating tensions between competing camps. As a legal matter, a candidate unwilling to concede can contest the election into January.…..”
So, that’s the GamePlan, eh? The coup plotters want a contested election that drags on for weeks, deepens divisions among the population, undermines confidence in the electoral system, instigates ferocious street fighting in cities across the country, and gives the Biden camp time to mobilize its political resources in Congress to mount a Constitutional attack on Trump.
Can we at least call this treachery by its proper name: Treason – “the crime of betraying one’s country by trying to overthrow the government?”
If the shoe fits…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hL88jE Tyler Durden
“We Don’t Have The $$$” – Yellow Cabs Block NYC Bridges As Taxi-Debt Crisis Erupts Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/18/2020 – 17:20
After five years of crashing NYC taxi medallion prices, leading to a number of taxi suicides that we have documented exhaustively, taxi drivers with insurmountable medallion debt (secured by medallions) have been crushed by the virus pandemic.
With the travel and tourism industry in a deep bust cycle, many Manhattan offices empty, sporting and cultural events canceled, restaurant restrictions, scared consumers, economic depression, and city-dwellers exiting the metro area for suburban life, drivers have struggled to find customers this summer, making it nearly impossible for thousands of yellow taxi driver-owners to service their monthly debt payments. Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing apps haven’t made the situation better for taxi drivers.
Data from the Taxi and Limousine Commission revealed Yellow Cab handled 92% fewer rides in June versus the same month in 2019, with as many as 82% of the city’s 13,500 yellow taxi medallions not operational as there are no customers to pick up.
One glance of Times Square on Friday morning (Sept. 18), around 1015 ET, revealed parts of the city still resemble a ‘ghost town’.
With no “V”-shaped recovery for the taxi industry, thousands of drivers are broke, have no income, insurmountable debts, can’t pay rent or service their mortgage, nevertheless feed their family or pay for their children’s education – as it appears Thursday was the breaking point for hundreds of cabbies who shut down two NYC bridges and halted traffic on several streets, begging for debt forgiveness.
NY Patch said the protests were organized by NY Taxi Workers, a union representing many of the drivers in the city.
“Brooklyn Bridge SLOWDOWN!” NY Taxi Workers tweeted. “Driver power! Union power! Debt forgiveness now!”
As readers know, we’ve pointed out the bubble in NYC taxi medallions for years (see: here), resulting in a steep price decline, but more importantly, the human cost has been tremendous as a slew of taxi suicides have been seen over the last five years because of the crushing debt.
The union points out:
“Yellow cab drivers have been betrayed by the city and bilked by lenders. Over 80 percent now face food insecurity.”
And readers need to hear what one taxi driver or at least someone associated with the taxi crisis had to say:
“We don’t have the $$$ of the rich but we have the power of the people,” the lady said.
To thwart social unrest in the city, not by BLM, but rather taxi drivers, Mayor Bill de Blasio might want to pass the $500 million bailout for drivers ASAP.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FK3Yvf Tyler Durden
