The timing of a Russia-India-China summit next week could not be more apt following a deadly skirmish in the disputed Himalayan region which resulted in dozens of military casualties.
The summit scheduled for June 22 of the RIC (Russia-India-China) group was initiated weeks ago by Moscow. It will be held by teleconference between the foreign ministers. The event predates the flare-up in dangerous tensions between New Delhi and Beijing.
At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed earlier this week in hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese forces. It was the deadliest incident in more than half a century since the two Asian powers fought a brief war in 1962 over similar border dispute. There are dozens of casualties also reported on the Chinese side, but Beijing has not officially confirmed numbers.
New Delhi and Beijing immediately expressed willingness at the highest level to deescalate the tensions. There is mutual recognition that further clashes could spin disastrously out of control between the nuclear-armed states.
However, the acrimony will not be easy to contain. Both sides have blamed the other for aggression following the bloody incident on Monday-Tuesday night. There is popular anger in both nations with Indian protesters burning images of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Reports say hundreds of soldiers were engaged in a pitched battle using rocks, clubs and knives after opposing units became involved in a brawl in the high-altitude Galwan Valley. Many soldiers were thrown to their deaths from treacherous slopes.
Indian and Chinese forces patrol the disputed 3,500-km Line of Actual Control between the two countries with competing territorial claims. A bilateral agreement stipulates that the rival units are unarmed in order to reduce risk of conflict.
Confrontations have increased in recent years with both sides accusing the other of encroachment. Following a border skirmish in May, Indian and Chinese army commanders negotiated a de-escalation deal earlier this month. Now both sides are accusing each other of bad faith.
The RIC summit may provide a path for New Delhi and Beijing to find a way out of escalation. One crucial factor is Russia’s respected standing with both powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin has cordial relations with both Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping. Moscow can be trusted to act as an honest broker to facilitate dialogue for resolving the long-running territorial dispute between India and China, a dispute which goes back to the legacy of the British Empire and the contested borders it bequeathed.
U.S. President Donald Trump has already offered to mediate between India and China. But that offer, made in May, was rebuffed at the time by New Delhi. It was perceived that Washington is not a credible broker, given its well-established alignment with India for strategic-military aims against China. Indian premier Modi may have felt the patronage of Washington would undermine his credibility as a strong leader in dealing with China on a one-to-one basis.
In any case, any pretensions of Trump acting as a mediator have been blown apart since his administration ratcheted up China-bashing over the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump and his aides have made incendiary claims blaming China for causing global spread of the disease and in particular huge economic damages and more than 112,000 deaths in the U.S. Beijing has dismissed Washington’s claims as a cynical cover-up of inherent failures on the part of the Trump administration.
The Cold War-like tensions between Washington and Beijing have also seen an increasing deployment of U.S. military forces in the Asia-Pacific region to counter what the Trump administration and Pentagon provocatively claims to be “Chinese aggression”.
Any involvement of the U.S. in the current India-China tensions can only make the already fraught situation even worse. Indeed, the Trump White House and anti-China hawks in Congress will try to exploit the tensions with a view to destabilize Beijing.
India should tread carefully to avoid being used by Washington as a proxy for its geopolitical confrontation with China.
In an editorial this week, China’s semi-official Global Times accused India of being misled by Washington as a “lever” for the latter’s own strategic goals.
If New Delhi and Beijing are genuinely motivated to find a negotiated settlement to their decades-old territorial dispute, they will have to work together to find a mutual compromise on defining a sovereign border, one that finally supplants the diffuse Line of Actual Control. The incoherence of the LAC is an-ever present source of contention and ultimately a tinderbox for war.
Russia is the only power with bona fides and credibility as an honest broker for resolving the India-China conflict.
New Delhi will have to decide if it wants to fully engage with the Eurasian multipolar vision of development espoused by China and Russia, among others, or will it allow Washington to interfere with its selfish imperialist agenda to the detriment of the entire region?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YZdD7d Tyler Durden
NYC’s Army Of 3,000 COVID-19 ‘Contact Tracers’ Have Accomplished Surprisingly Little Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/21/2020 – 21:15
As officials and experts around the world continue to stubbornly insist that contact tracing is ‘the answer’ to preventing a resurgence in new cases once economies reopen, even as a growing body of research suggests that the virus spreads most quickly among members of the same household, and less frequently via asymptomatic ‘carriers’ (though it surely does happen), New York City is finding that the ‘army’ of contact tracers raised by Mayor Bill de Blasio is much less useful than officials had hoped, according to a report in the New York Times published one day before the city enters its second phase of reopening.
with outdoor dining, in-store shopping and office work resuming tomorrow, the first batch of data from the program, which began on June 1, indicates that the tracers are usually unable to locate infected people or gather any useful information from newly infected subjects. Interestingly, the biggest ‘obstacle’ to obtaining this information is the patients themselves: Only 35% of the 5,347 city residents who tested positive or were presumed positive for COVID-19 in the program’s first two weeks gave information about close contacts to tracers, the city said.
If anything, this failure suggests that contact tracing in this manner simply isn’t an effective tool for preventing a second wave of the virus, though states have many other tools, including widespread testing and quarantining the sick and vulnerable. Instead, the NYT suggests the failure is a “worrisome” sign that “the difficulties in preventing a surge of new cases as states across the country reopen.”
Though contact tracing has worked in the past during outbreaks of tuberculosis and measles, the technique appears to be much less useful when implemented on the scale of the coronavirus, officials are finding. However, other countries have reported more success with these techniques, including China, South Korea and Germany and other countries have set up extensive tracking networks that have helped identify potentially infected individuals before they become seriously symptomatic.
In South Korea, for example, people at weddings, funerals, karaoke bars, nightclubs and internet-game parlors write down their names and telephone numbers, and the authorities have been able to draw on cellphone location data. Of course, all of this relies on the subjects being willing to give out their information.
One of the program’s leaders told the NYT that while things are getting off to a less-than-ideal start, there are signs that NYC’s program could help prevent another outbreak. For example, at least most of the patients who are being contacted are at least answering the phones.
Dr. Ted Long, head of New York City’s new Test and Trace Corps, insisted that the program was going well, but acknowledged that many people who tested positive had failed to provide information over the phone to the contact tracers, or left interviews before being asked. Others told the tracers they had been only at home and had not put others at risk, and then did not name family members.
Dr. Long said one encouraging sign was that nearly all the people for whom the city had numbers at least answered the phone. He added that he believed that the tracers would be more successful when they start going to people’s homes in the next week or two, rather than just relying on communication over the phone.
The NYT then spent most of the piece focusing on individual contact tracers from minority backgrounds who had been assigned to canvass patients in more ‘economically disadvantaged’ neighborhoods.
But another expert quoted by the NYT pointed out that Mayor de Blasio’s decision to establish the corp of contact tracers outside the City Department of Public Health would ensure that all the contact tracers lack the experience for this type of work.
Dr. Halkitis at Rutgers said he thought the low cooperation rate was likely due to several factors, including the inexperience of the tracers; widespread reluctance among Americans to share personal information with the government; and Mayor de Blasio’s decision to shift the program away from the city’s Department of Health.
“You have taken it away from the people who actually know how to do it,” he said. “The D.O.H. people, they are skilled. They know this stuff.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/37Riyec Tyler Durden
The objective of the coronavirus response and the riots...
During the coronavirus hoax and the George Floyd riots, most people kept their comments and criticisms to private conversations and internet postings. They didn’t respond to forced lockdowns or violence in the streets with violence of their own, although many of them have the ability and capacity to do so. Their restraint has been the primary force keeping whatever remains of the peace in this country.
The restraint stems from respect for that peace, their stake in maintaining it, and a fading hope that things will eventually get back to normal. People who run businesses, have jobs, own property, and are engaged in honest production have a vested interest in civil order. Only reluctantly will they overtly oppose unjust and idiotic government measures or rampaging rioters. Keeping their cold rage on ice, the vast majority will be moved to action only when they feel they have no other choice.
That day is coming. Consider the philosophical obscenity of governments renouncing their only justified reasons for existence—protecting individual rights, particularly the foundational rights of security for people and property. The Minneapolis city council voted to disband its police force and other jurisdictions are considering defunding theirs. Minneapolis and Seattle abandoned police stations to mobs. No word yet if criminals are going to swear off crime and embark on productive pursuits, or where they’ll find such pursuits with 30 plus million unemployed. The only certainly is that official appeasement will elicit nothing but what appeasement always elicits—contempt.
The criminals will fill the void as any remaining police retreat from law enforcement that might subject them to personal danger as well as official recrimination and punishment. As slums and ghettoes become “no-go” areas akin to Islamic “no-go” districts in Europe, the criminals and their gangs will thrive while the innocent will suffer, forced to either leave or cower in place. Eventually entire cities will be “no-go.”
The government officials pushing to eliminate or defund police are slitting their own throats. The praetorians of any government—the police and military—are always just as corrupt as the government of which they are a part. However, the de facto first duty of the praetorians is to protect the government itself, and that becomes more paramount as the government becomes more corrupt. Appeasing violence by renouncing one’s defenses against it guarantees more violence and the eventual elimination of the renouncers, i.e. useful idiots.
It’s already happening in once great cities that have been governed by statist stooges for decades. Their governments are crumbling and the cities are dissolving into chaotic hellholes before their eyes. Many cities are already shunned by anyone seeking freedom and its fruits: individual rights, honest production, voluntary interaction, wealth, security, and peace.
City and state governments and the federal government are flat broke and technically bankrupt. Coronavirus totalitarianism and the George Floyd riots have destroyed businesses, jobs, and property values—the tax base—while at the same time increasing the demand for support payments, social services, and public safety. Governments are presently running deficits and their future medical and pension liabilities are far greater than their means to pay them.
Insolvency will be anti-government revolutionaries’ staunchest ally, not requiring them to lift a finger but merely watch as governments spend and borrow themselves into ruin. This will undoubtedly inflict a great deal of misery on the populace, but governments are not their people. The latter will still have productive assets and skills; the former produce nothing.
The federal government is resorting to the tactic resorted to by bankrupt governments throughout history—debasing its own debt—as if manufacturing ever increasing trillions of new IOUs can actually produce value. A government undermining its own debt is idiocy on par with a government disbanding its police department. Historically, debasement becomes debauchery followed by downfall. A government that can offer the honest and the productive nothing but its own worthless promises has one foot in the grave, potential prey to anyone who can promise something better—restoration of political, financial, and economic stability—by fair means or foul.
The coronavirus response, monetary debasement, and George Floyd riots have clearly demonstrated to the honest and the productive that governments offer them less than nothing. For decades they’ve been told they have to put up with governments’ protection racket. Taxes, coerced redistribution, and funny money would keep the rabble at bay and protect whatever governments left them of their businesses, incomes, and wealth. By and large they put up and shut up.
Now governments can’t or won’t protect themselves and officials are taking the knee in hopes they’ll be spared by the marauding horde. We’ll see how that works out. Many of their constituents who still have spines have gone full rooftop Korean—stocking up on guns and ammo to protect the homes and businesses governments won’t. They’ve seen the futility of governments as protection racket, and of putting up and shutting up.
The marauding horde and its rhetorical and political enablers have told a vast swath of the population that their jobs, businesses, safety, and lives do not matter, except as fodder for the horde. Predictably, the horde is setting up its own protection racket: show us the money…or else.
Politicians will be writing rubber checks to propitiate the ceaseless demands for the unearned from anyone with a gripe and political clout. A figure of $14 trillion, even if it is just funny money, has been bandied about as slavery reparations from people who were never slaveowners to people who were never slaves. That $14 trillion may not make it into law, but a smaller amount might—more money from those who earn it to those who don’t. The honest and the productive always pick up the tab, and the recipients never stay propitiated. Why is anyone surprised at the former’s contempt for the latter or the latter’s contempt for the former? Perhaps we need to have a conversation about that.
Or perhaps before the collapse of the cities spreads to the rest of the country, before cold rage erupts into hot rage, before the financial and economic system completely fails, and before wars erupt and governments are overthrown, we need to have a conversation about divorce. Here’s a proposal that will never be peaceably implemented, but it’s important to understand why it won’t be.
Given the irreconcilable ideological divisions within the U.S., why not split the country into six or seven different countries that reflect those divisions? The East Coast and New England could go their own way, same for the Middle Atlantic, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest, the mountain states, and the far West. Not that there aren’t cultural and political differences within those regions, but there is more homogeneity than within the US as a whole.
For the first ten years allow free immigration between the new countries so everyone has the opportunity to migrate to the country for which they have the most affinity. Split up the nukes and other military assets so each country can deter attack. The countries will work out taxes, trade, and other economic arrangements as they see fit. Those may run the gamut from Marxist collectivism to laissez faire (where SLL would end up).
The animating spirit of this proposal is allowing people to go their own way and find their own place, in short, to live and let live. And that is why it has no chance of being accepted. Other than Laissez-Faire land, none of the countries could allow live and let live. From mixed economy welfare-statism to democratic socialism to Marxist totalitarianism, every political system is built on subjugation and submission, on a principle that boils down to: your life is the state’s.
There are differences in degree, but the essential principle is always the same. The state can take what it wants from you, up to and including your life as it sends you off to a concentration camp, a gas chamber, or a pointless war. Governments all over the world just deprived their citizens of jobs, businesses, free movement, and even the right to breathe fresh air. Coming soon: mandatory vaccines, biometric identification, a health credentialing and credit system modeled on China’s social credit system, and universal contact and location tracing.
Anyone who has watched a baby, a kitten, a puppy, or any other animal being born has witnessed the miracle of new life. For humans, those precious moments open the gates to all the amazing potential of the human mind, spirit, and soul. The possibilities on this extraordinary journey called life are endless—to be met with anticipation and realized with joy.
Such is a healthy human spirit. What is the animating spirit of coercion, power, subjugation, and totalitarianism? No truism was ever truer: misery loves company. Those who privately bear their suffering out of strength of spirit and quiet consideration for the rest of us deserve a salute. Miserable, malignant souls have no strength of spirit or consideration for others. They exercise power for power’s sake, their cancer feeding on submission and domination.
A strong human spirit recoils in instinctive loathing at ritual exactions like wearing a mask or taking a knee. At least 90 percent of the masks worn are ineffective, and 100 percent adversely affect wearers, who are rebreathing their own respiratory waste and affirming mindless group-think.
Will stepped in front of his portrait and studied it. In Arabella’s experience, no one could look upon his own face in a mirror, or see a representation of it, indifferently. Will liked to look at himself. He was handsome, why shouldn’t he? Arabella liked to look at herself. She liked what she saw, and she studied her face’s angles and proportions. There were those who didn’t like looking at themselves, sometimes because their faces were unsightly or deformed, but usually because they saw deformity or ugliness in themselves that no one else saw.
The Golden Pinnacle, Robert Gore, 2013
It’s conjecture, but not unfounded, that masks satisfy a psychic need. People are wearing masks when they are alone in their cars or outdoors, and they may not remove them even after the official all clear, if that ever comes. You don’t hide what you’re proud of, and the face is the window to the soul.
No conjecture is required here; this is abject self-abasement. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and company are concretizing a handover. Their politics draped pursuit of power in professed altruistic concern for the constituencies that provided them power. Now they are kneeling to the new politics, if you can call it that, which dispenses with the hypocritical concern, sees people not as individuals but as members of groups who either aid or hinder the acquisition of power, and are driven by malevolent plans to subjugate and enslave. It’s a race to the bottom. This handover is like the brutal and vicious Mafia ceding the drug business to the even more brutal and vicious Columbians.
Such power always insists, at the point of a gun if necessary, on complete submission in thought, word, and deed. Those scheming for control of CHOP, a city, a state, the United States, or the entire world are overjoyed that millions submit to Covid-19 tyranny and that government officials, corporate executives, celebrities, and other “important” people genuflect to orchestrated violence. Does anyone think all this taking of knees would have happened if there had been peaceful protests but no riots? The lesson our would-be rulers, or more correctly, our would-be dictators, will take from this: fear works on both the masses and the elite.
The translation of “laissez faire” is “let go.” Unfortunately for those of us who want the freedom to live our lives as we see fit, malignant souls don’t let go and won’t allow us to live in freedom, pursuing our own happiness. Even a laissez-faire district the size of CHOP wouldn’t receive the tolerance that collectivist CHOP has so far. The police or troops would clear it out as quickly as they could.
The point of coronavirus totalitarianism and orchestrated riots is surrender, humiliation, and submission, not for the sake of health or justice, but for the sake of surrender, humiliation, and submission.
The choice for each of us couldn’t be clearer: resist or submit.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Bxd8Jh Tyler Durden
Indian Troops Given ‘Fire At Will’ Orders Against Chinese Troops If Threatened, Enraging Beijing Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/21/2020 – 20:15
Beijing is enraged over current widespread Indian media reports that the Indian Army has been given orders to shoot or use “complete freedom of action” in hostile engagements with Chinese PLA forces along the disputed Ladakh border region.
The reports come following last week’s major border incident with China that resulted in 20 Indian Army troops killed, and an undisclosed number of Chinese PLA casualties in the disputed Galwan Valley area of East Ladakh.
Chinese state-media Global Times editor Hu Xijin called out the reports, saying that if the new ‘rules of engagement’ are true, it’s a serious violation of prior treaties implemented for deescalation.
Indian media reported that Indian army along the border with China had been given “complete freedom of action”, including using firearms in “extraordinary situations.” If true, this is a serious violation of agreement, & the Indian side will pay a heavy price for any such action. pic.twitter.com/ukmIZIX9Mp
A significant change in Rules of Engagement (ROE) by the Indian Army following the Galwan Valley skirmish that left 20 Indian soldiers dead gives “complete freedom of action” to commanders deployed along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) to “handle situations at the tactical level,” two senior officers said on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
The commanders will no longer be bound by restrictions on the use of firearms and will have full authority to respond to “extraordinary situations” using all resources at their disposal, said one of the officers cited above.
Essentially troops will be able to fire on opposing Chinese troops if they feel under threat without consulting higher level officers or the national chain of command.
Obviously this holds the potential for more such deadly escalations as happened a week ago, considered the most severe Chinese-India clash along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in a half-century.
June 16 satellite image showing Chinese military personnel in the Galwan Valley. Souce: 2020 Planet Labs/AFP/Getty Images
The Hindustan Times report cited another military source further, who explained: “With the changes in the ROE, there’s nothing that limits the ability of Indian commanders to take whatever action they deem necessary on the LAC. ROE have been amended to address the brutal tactics being employed by Chinese troops.”
Days after the Monday night clash, which apparently did not involve discharging of firearms, but instead brutal hand-to-hand combat that resulted in Indian soldiers succumbing to severe wounds in freezing high-altitude conditions, some almost unbelievable details emerged of the “violent face-off” in the western Himalayas.
Just days after #GalwanClash, India modifies engagement rules across LAC giving soldiers “complete freedom of action” to handle situations at the tactical level. https://t.co/6xAJ8Oqejl
The Guardian reported that Indian soldiers actually “fell to their deaths” after being knocked off a narrow ridge:
The hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, on steep, jagged terrain, with iron bars, rocks and fists. Neither side carried guns. Most of the soldiers killed in the worst fighting between India and China in 60 years lost their footing or were knocked from the narrow Himalayan ridge, plunging to their deaths.
Other international reports said that baseball bats spiked with nails and barbed wire were even used in the clash.
Chinese PLA troops training in harsh Himalayan border area conditions, file image.
At one point it reportedly involved hundreds in close-quarter combat on dangerous, steep terrain:
Reinforcements from the Indian side were summoned from a post about 2 miles away and eventually about 600 men were fighting with stones, iron rods and other makeshift weapons in near-total darkness for up to six hours, Indian government sources said, with most deaths on both sides occurring from soldiers falling or being knocked from mountain terrain.
At least four more Indian soldiers were said to be in critical condition. Indian media outlets cited intelligence sources claiming up to 50 Chinese soldiers may have been killed in the melee but did not present the evidence. Chinese CCTV’s widely watched evening news broadcast made no mention of the border confrontation on Tuesday.
Certainly with these numbers, now with an additional build-up of forces on each side said to number in the tens of thousands near the Galwan Valley area of East Ladakh, a new authorization of “shoot to kill” if under threat holds the potential to spark a major battle possibly leading to war between the two nuclear powers.
Last week top diplomats on both sides called for deescalation, but these latest Indian media reports, and subsequent accusations and anger out of Beijing, aren’t helping matters.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2V34xoA Tyler Durden
Attorney General Bill Barr during a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo said that there soon may be “developments” in Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe.
“In terms of the future of Durham’s investigation, you know he’s pressing ahead as hard as he can and I expect that you know we will have some developments hopefully before the end of the summer,” Barr said in the interview today.
Durham’s investigation has slowed as a consequence of the coronavirus crisis, the attorney general said. When Bartiromo asked about a grand jury, Barr declined to divulge whether one has been impaneled.
“I don’t want to suggest there has been or is a grand jury but it is a fact that there have not been grand juries in virtually all districts for a long period of time and also people have been reluctant to travel for interviews and things like that,” Barr said.
Durham has “been working where he can on other matters that aren’t affected by the pandemic. But there has been an affect,” Barr noted.
During the interview Barr expressed concern that mail-in voting is ripe for fraud and could harm public confidence in election integrity.
“It absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud. Those things are delivered into mailboxes, they can be taken out,” he said.
“Right now a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots and be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot,” he said.
The attorney general said that “it can upset and undercut the confidence in the integrity of our elections. If anything we should tighten them up right now.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/37MhDvR Tyler Durden
Musk Sells Bel-Air Home To Chinese Billionaire For $12 Million More Than He Paid For It In 2012 Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/21/2020 – 19:25
It was just a little more than a month ago that we wrote that Elon Musk claimed he would be selling “almost all” of his physical possessions and had put his houses on the market.
Now, he’s found a buyer for his Bel-Air mansion: a Chinese billionaire who seems to be happy forking over $29 million to Musk for the home. The buyer is tied to billionaire William Ding, according to Business Insider, who is the founder and CEO of NetEase.
Ignoring the fact that it’s odd for Musk to be offloading his assets at the same time Tesla’s valuation is at, or near, all time highs of ~$185 billion, Musk was able to cash out with a $12 million profit on this home (which he bought for $17 million 2012) in the midst of a real estate market that is enduring chaos from both the supply and the demand side as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Even stranger was that we took the time to note in our early May writeup that according to Bloomberg: “Fewer buyers were coming from China, Russia and the Middle East amid international tensions, and limits on state and local tax deductions dampened the appeal of owning California homes for wealthy U.S. buyers.”
So not only did Musk find himself a buyer from China, he found one that was willing to pay him a $12 million premium on his house to what it cost in 2012.
Recall, we also noted in 2019 that Musk took out $61 million in mortgages on five of his properties in California. Four of these properties were in the Bel Air neighborhood.
The loans were signed off on by Morgan Stanley and represented $50 million in new borrowing for Musk at the time. One loan was a refinancing on a 20,200 plus sq. foot property that Musk purchased in 2012 for $17 million. The initial $10 million loan he took on the property had turned into a $19.5 million debt, with a monthly payment of about $180,000.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/37LMUiu Tyler Durden
Bolton: Trump Gave Bibi Green Light For Preemptive Israeli Strike On Iran Nuclear Sites Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/21/2020 – 19:00
Among the new revelations and interesting tidbits found in John Bolton’s now leaked pre-published edition of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” is that President Trump was said to be prepared to endorse an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.
In a section which describes the “elusive search” for an Arab-Israeli peace deal, Bolton writes that Trump told him at a moment of increased Israeli concerns over Iran’s nuclear development:
“You tell Bibi that if he uses force, I will back him. I told him that, but you tell him again.”
Image via GPO
Though the significant revelation has barely made a dent in US media, it generated multiple headlines in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long held out the ‘option’ of a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
But Israel’s political and defense establishment would likely never sign onto such a huge and aggressive military ‘first strike’ action without first securing Washington’s backing. Bolton’s book essentially says Tel Aviv has it under Trump. The former national security adviser even boasted he pushed a ‘military solution’ on Iran.
This as Israel perceives Iran is bent on developing nukes despite Tehran officials long assuring they are only interested in peaceful nuclear energy development.
Oh no!! The pdf of Bolton’s book got leaked and people can download it and read it on the phones or iPads! That would mean he doesn’t get a royalty!! Oh no! The Room Where It Happened – John Bolton.pdf – Google Drive https://t.co/K7XgcQ63qT
In the section, which comes early in the book, Bolton reveals the following conversation with the president at the White House:
“On Iran, I urged that he press ahead to withdraw from the nuclear agreement and explained why the use of force against Iran’s nuclear program might be the only lasting solution. ‘You tell Bibi [Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] that if he uses force, I will back him. I told him that, but you tell him again,’ Trump said, unprompted by me.”
More recently Netanyahu has also claimed a ‘green light’ from the US administration to annex parts of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley.
In related sections in Bolton’s book, various Syria conversations with Trump and among his security team are revealed, including details of chemical weapons incidents, the Kurds, Russian intervention in Syria, Turkey policy, and ‘Iranian expansion’. Some crucial sections from the book can be seen here compiled at the following Reddit thread.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZalAqn Tyler Durden
NPR Busted Framing Self-Defense Getaway From Gun-Toting ‘Protesters’ As Right-Wing Extremist Attack Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/21/2020 – 18:39
NPR has altered an article after they were busted using a misleading photo of a ‘vehicle ramming’ in Louisville to make the claim that ‘right-wing extremists’ are targeting protesters with cars.
Archived photo of original article claiming an increase in ‘right-wing extremist’ vehicle attacks on protesters.
Here’s what actually happened – the driver of the car, a woman with dreadlocks, was attacked by the ‘peaceful’ protesters, one of whom reportedly pulled a gun on her – and another who was struck as she accelerated to escape:
Here’s a fuller video of what you’re calling a “right-wing extremist attack” … a driver is harassed by a group of people, tries to get away, is then attacked by a larger group… and uses their vehicle to defend themselves and get away.
So – while NPR claims at least ’50 vehicle-ramming incidents’ since late May, and tried to pass off a photo of a victim fleeing a potentially deadly situation, the liberal news network was unable to find a single photo of a recent ramming incident by ‘said extremists.’
Note: A previous version of this post and story included a photo of a protester being struck by a car in Louisville, Kentucky. The photo, chosen by editors, does not appear to be an example of the assaults described in the story, and has been replaced. pic.twitter.com/mDIzyoLmPO
While it is relatively easy to predict that the post-corona economy will suffer from high unemployment, the outlook for price inflation is not so certain. On the one hand, there will be high government deficits and more public debt; on the other hand, given the weak economy, consumers and companies may refrain from taking on new debt and could begin to lower their debt burden.
Monetary Expansion Doesn’t Always Lead to Price Inflation
In contrast to common usage, the correct use of the term “inflation” refers to the money supply. Rising prices are not the cause, but the result of monetary expansion. However, not every rise of the money supply turns into price inflation. It can happen that the so-called price level remains stable when there are drastic shifts in the demand for goods and services that impact differently on their prices. The average will be deceiving when rising and falling prices cancel each other out and when certain goods and service vanish from the statistical basket because prices have risen so much that the demand has collapsed.
Due to the immense disruptions caused by the lockdown of the economy and because of social distancing, fundamental structural changes in business life are going on. More goods and services will be removed from the official price statistics than usual, and for those products that remain in the basket, prices may vary widely.
Problems with Measures of Price Inflation
Even more than in the past, the statistics of the price index will send wrong signals about the extent of price inflation. If the prices for some goods rise exorbitantly and, accordingly, there is less demand, they go into the statistical shopping basket with a lower weight, and these goods can drop out completely if they are hardly in demand because they have become too expensive for normal consumers. Even more than in the past, price inflation, measured by the statistical price index, will no longer be a reliable guide for monetary policy—if this has ever been the case.
Inasmuch as modern central banks follow the policy concept of “inflation targeting,” they will lose a reliable compass. Central bankers set the interest rates as if blindfolded.
More than in the past, depending on their personal demand structure, each individual will have a price inflation rate that differs from that of their fellow consumers. Different social groups will not only be affected differently by unemployment, but also by the price changes. The so-called price level stability directive is becoming less and less meaningful as an indicator of monetary policy. The same applies to official unemployment numbers. The upheavals that the lockdown has brought about affect the segments of the labor market in different ways. When persons leave the labor market for good, they no longer show up as unemployed.
As it did with the blow that came with the oil price shock in 1973, the economy after the lockdown confronts stagflation. When stagnation and recession show up together with price inflation, macroeconomic policy has hit the wall. Using Keynes as the guide for fighting the downturn of the economy after the lockdown would give an additional blow to the economy, which has already been weakened by the lockdown. The lockdown of the economy has also severely hurt the global system of supply chains that had been a major source of keeping prices low. Additionally, with the rupture of the trade with China that concerns not only the United States, the impact of cheap goods from overseas that had dampened global price inflation will recede. One of the consequences of more home production instead of global free trade will be higher production costs.
Monetary authorities have released a huge amount of money in the form of central bank money to mitigate the consequences of the economic slowdown and social isolation. Such a policy has already been implemented in response to the 2008 financial crisis and has been practiced as a so-called quantitative easing.
QE Forever?
In response to the 2008 crisis, the assets of the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve System have expanded from $870 billion in August 2007 to $4.5 trillion in early 2015. The later attempts to trim the central bank’s asset sheet only slightly brought down the amount of assets to $3.8 trillion until August 2019, when monetary policy became expansive again. Beginning in September 2019, the assets of the Fed began to rise again, reaching over $4 trillion before an additional big boost due to the lockdown lifted the total assets to over $7 trillion dollars in June 2020.
The lockdown brought the economies all over the world almost to a standstill and affected production and supply chains. The International Monetary Fund currently expects global production to shrink by 3 percent in 2020. While the US government has refrained from an economic outlook for the rest of 2020 on the grounds that the preview is too uncertain, the Congressional Budget Office predicts a fall in the real GDP of 12 percent during the second quarter and an unemployment rate close to 14 percent.
In the face of the economic consequences of lockdown, the Fed is about to expand the scope of assets that it may buy. While in the past the range of assets that central banks were able to buy was limited to government bonds, the range of asset categories is in the process of being extended to go beyond public debt titles—not to mention the possibility of direct financing of government spending.
A Credit Contraction—until the Dam Breaks
What has happened so far is a steep increase of the money supply in the form of the so-called monetary base. This increase does not necessarily mean that the newly created money will end up in the hands of businesses and consumers. If the demand for credit is low and the commercial banks assume an increased risk of default, or if they are already in a precarious state, they will use the money offered by the central bank as a liquidity cushion instead of lending it. In this way, the commercial bank’s lending capacity exists only as potential and is not yet actually executed.
This phenomenon of a credit contraction emerged also in the 2008 financial crisis. Despite the massive monetary policy stimulus from the central banks, global price inflation failed to materialize. The base money did not flow into the production economy and the demand for goods, but remained largely in the financial sector and served as a reserve for commercial banks. The most significant effect of the monetary expansion in the wake of the crisis of 2008 was the hefty price increases for bonds and shares.
Even after the lockdown, the effects of the central bank’s creation of base money over a longer period of time may not show up as lending, thus boosting aggregate demand. However, the current expansionary monetary policy harbors the danger that what has hitherto existed as mere potential could, as it were, become an avalanche overnight that swamps the real economy with liquidity. Until the dam breaks, it may appear to the superficial observer and to large sections of the population that there is nothing to fear and that the heads of the central banks have the situation under control.
One must fear that the national debt of the United States, which reached 107 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2019, will rise sharply in 2020 and in the years thereafter. Deficit financing goes along with an increase of the money supply. Here, it comes in handy that the so-called modern money theory (MMT) explicitly provides a justification for direct government financing through the government’s own creation of money. Under the MMT model, a country’s central bank would become part of the Treasury. It does not take much effort to explain that following this theory of monetary mismanagement opens the door to hyperinflation and that it will be impossible to close this door once it has been opened.
The Importance of Sound Economics
Before the flood breaks loose, the central bank’s money creation may not significantly affect the real economy in terms of production, nor may it drive price inflation right away. A possible scenario could be that the central banks continue following their current policy model of “inflation targeting” and increase the money supply even further under the deception of an apparently “stable” price level. This way, the monetary authorities would ignore the inflationary potential and neglect the risk that hyperinflation exists as a clear and present danger. The monetary potential of price inflation that has accumulated in the past twelve years is so great that control has become unattainable once the avalanche starts.
Regardless of the differences in their details, the politically influential macroeconomic schools are interventionist. These doctrines are attractive to politicians, because they assume that the market economy is permanently dependent on government control. For these economists, the economy always needs leadership, control, and guidance. By declaring the market economy to be permanently ill, the interventionist economists are taking on the role of scientifically proven saviors. These social engineers then find coveted and highly paid jobs at the central banks and in the various ministries and regulatory bodies.
Austrian economics has a different perspective. For these thinkers, the economy is dynamically self-regulating. Consumers strive to improve their situation and entrepreneurs are vigilant in pursuit of these needs. In a competitive market, the price system provides control and guidance from consumers. Extensive intervention by the government and its central bank is not only not necessary, but harmful to prosperity.
More Intervention Will Bring Even More Economic Damage
Governments—not only in the United States—are about to make the same errors that were made in the 1930s, when economic policies deepened and prolonged the crisis. As Rothbard explained,America’s Great Depression came about because the policymakers encouraged the maintenance of high wage rates and implanted measures to stabilize the price level. They actively fought deflation through direct interventions. Instead of encouraging savings, the political decision-makers tried to stimulate consumption and discourage savings. Instead of promoting laissez-faire, policymakers expanded and deepened interventionism.
A new round of zero and negative interest rate policies (ZIRP and NIRP) would further deviate the price of financial assets from the fundamentals and sharpen wealth inequality at a time when social tensions have reached a revolutionary degree. What is needed in the face of an economic downturn is not more, but less government spending, and not more, but less monetary and interest rate stimuli.
The lockdown has resulted in the destruction of capital. The challenge ahead requires rebuilding the capital structure. This requires more savings and investment and less consumption. The government, Rothbard recommends, can only help positively if it lowers “its relative role in the economy, slashing its own expenditures and taxes, particularly taxes that interfere with saving and investment.” Stimulating consumption will prolong the time required to return to a prosperous economy.
Laissez-faire means freeing the multitude of economic actors from government impediments so that they can actively seek to improve their lives. Not more interventionism, but less taxes, less public debt, less inflation, less bureaucracy, and less regulations will open the way for entrepreneurial creativity and thus for the country’s prosperity. Getting the country out of the slump is not done with more alms, but with more productivity.
Conclusion
The lockdown of the economy and the imposition of social isolation have led to large-scale economic disruptions. Not only have jobs been destroyed, capital has also been consumed and the political measures have caused many cracks in the delicate network of the division of labor.
After the big mistake made with the ineffective lockdown, now another, maybe even larger mistake—not only in the United States but in Europe, too—is being made. The implementation of expansionary economic policies will mean that after the blow of the disease, and the smash of the lockdown, economic life will receive another major hit. More government spending and still lower interest rates will not accelerate the upswing but will paralyze the economy after a short flash in the pan.
The upcoming challenge requires the reconstruction of the capital structure and the restoration of global cooperation. This objective does not require more consumption but more savings and new investments. In order to overcome the economic impact of the lockdown, the Austrian school of economics recommends the opposite of the official economic policy that is in effect today. Instead of trying to get the economy going again with the futile means of low or negative interest rates, economic policy should provide a policy environment that promotes savings, encourages innovation, and gives room for private initiative.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2AWh4n8 Tyler Durden
For once, the spreadbetting estimate of where Dow futs would be on Sunday was correct, and with IG expecting a drop of -230 points several hours ahead of the market open…
… that’s precisely what we got at 6pm ET when Dow futs opened down 250, Spoos were -30 and the Naz -80.
Why the early encounter with gravitation? Because as Amplify Trading writes, the market still remains wary of a second wave of coronavirus with nationwide cases in the US up 15% in the last two weeks and cases rising in 18 states across the South, West and Midwest, according to the NYT. Over the weekend, new cases in California rose by a record (4,515) and Florida infections up 3.7% from a day earlier, compared with an average increase of 3.5% in the previous seven days.
As a reminder, on Friday stocks slumped after Apple said that it will again close almost a dozen stores in the US because of a recent rise in coronavirus infections in the South and West, and although the tech giant can still operate effectively online the move was an ominous sign for brick and mortar retailers across America and a dent to the optimism that the US recovery is in full swing.
A number of Fed officials also remained cautious with Fed’s Rosengren (non-voter) stating on Friday “this lack of containment could ultimately lead to a need for more prolonged shut-downs, which result in reduced consumption and investment, and higher unemployment”, with Neel Kashkari adding “unfortunately, my base case scenario is that we will see a second wave of the virus across the US, probably this fall.”
Two other noteworthy developments on the virus come from Germany where the infection rate has shot up to its highest level for weeks after more than 1,300 abattoir employees tested positive for the virus. The country’s R-naught rate soared to 2.88 on Sunday, from 1.06 on Friday. Meanwhile, China blocked some US poultry imports over clusters at Tyson Foods plants.
What to expect this week
According to Amplify, one of the most important data sets this week is the latest flash PMI data due on Tuesday. While a rising headline number may give some cheer that confidence is returning the data in itself is forward looking which brings about two interesting points.
It could be highly subject to change depending on the developments of a second wave virus (a la Apple on Friday).
As analysts at ING note, looking at other data, including Google’s mobility index, the economy still appears to be operating well below its pre-virus level.
Finally, here is a calendar of the week’s events courtesy of NewsSquawk
Monday
Data: EZ Consumer Confidence US Existing Home Sales
Events: China LPR, US & Russian Army Talks; Chinese, Russian & Indian Foreign Minister meeting
Speakers: ECB’s de Guindos & Lane, Fed’s Kashkari, RBA Lowe
Tuesday
Data: EZ, UK & US PMIs (Flash)
Supply: UK, German & US
Wednesday
Data: German Ifo
Events: RBNZ Rate Decision, BoJ Summary of Opinions
