Category: zerohedge

Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

There are many influential supporters of nuclear war, and some of these contend that the use of ‘low-yield’ and/or short-range weapons is practicable without the possibility of escalation to all-out Armageddon.

In a way their argument is comparable to that of the band of starry-eyed optimists who thought, apparently seriously, that there could be such a beast as a ‘moderate rebel’.

In October 2013 the Washington Post reported that “The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, US-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war,” and the US Congress gave approval to then President Barack Obama’s plan for training and arming moderate Syrian rebels to fight against Islamic State extremists. The belief that there could be any grouping of insurgents that could be described as “moderate rebels” is bizarre and it would be fascinating to know how Washington’s planners classify such people. It obviously didn’t dawn on them that any person who uses weapons illegally in a rebellion could not be defined as being moderate. And how moderate is moderate? Perhaps a moderate rebel could be equipped with US weapons that kill only extremists? Or are they allowed to kill only five children a month? The entire notion was absurd, and predictably the scheme collapsed, after expenditure of vast amounts of US taxpayers’ money.

And even vaster amounts of money are being spent on developing and producing what might be classed as moderate nuclear weapons, in that they don’t have the zillion-bang punch of most of its existing 4,000 plus warheads. It is apparently widely believed in Washington that if a nuclear weapon is (comparatively) small, then it’s less dangerous than a big nuclear weapon.

In January 2019 the Guardian reported that “the Trump administration has argued the development of a low-yield weapon would make nuclear war less likely, by giving the US a more flexible deterrent. It would counter any enemy (particularly Russian) perception that the US would balk at using its own fearsome arsenal in response to a limited nuclear attack because its missiles were all in the hundreds of kilotons range and ‘too big to use’, because they would cause untold civilian casualties.”

In fact, the nuclear war envisaged in that scenario would be a global catastrophe — as would all nuclear wars, because there’s no way, no means whatever, of limiting escalation. Once a nuclear weapon has exploded and killed people, the nuclear-armed nation to which these people belonged is going to take massive action. There is no alternative, because no government is just going to sit there and try to start talking with an enemy that has taken the ultimate leap in warfare.

It is widely imagined — by many nuclear planners in the sub-continent, for example — that use of a tactical, a battlefield-deployed, nuclear weapon will in some fashion persuade the opponent (India or Pakistan) that there is no need to employ higher-capability weapons, or, in other words, longer range missiles delivering massive warheads. These people think that the other side will evaluate the situation calmly and dispassionately and come to the conclusion that at most it should itself reply with a similar weapon. But such a scenario supposes that there is good intelligence about the effects of the weapon that has exploded, most probably within the opponent’s sovereign territory. This is verging on the impossible.

War is confusing in the extreme, and tactical planning can be extremely complex. But there is no precedent for nuclear war, and nobody — nobody — knows for certain what reactions will be to such a situation in or near any nation. The US 2018 Nuclear Posture Review stated that low-yield weapons “help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely”. But do the possible opponents of the United States agree with that? How could they do so?

The reaction by any nuclear-armed state to what is confirmed as a nuclear attack will have to be swift. It cannot be guaranteed, for example, that the first attack will not represent a series. It will, by definition, be decisive, because the world will then be a tiny step from doomsday. The US nuclear review is optimistic that “flexibility” will by some means limit a nuclear exchange, or even persuade the nuked-nation that there should be no riposte, which is an intriguing hypothesis.

As pointed out by Lawfare, “the review calls for modification to ‘a small number of existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads’ to provide a low-yield option.

It also calls for further exploration of low-yield options, arguing that expanding these options will ‘help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely.’ This is intended to address the argument that adversaries might think the United States, out of concern for collateral damage, would hesitate to employ a high-yield nuclear weapon in response to a ‘lower level’ conflict, in which an adversary used a low-yield nuclear device. The review argues that expanding low-yield options is ‘important for the preservation of credible deterrence,’ especially when it comes to smaller-scale regional conflicts.”

“Credible deterrence” is a favourite catch-phrase of the believers in limited nuclear war, but its credibility is suspect. Former US defence secretary William Perry said last year that he wasn’t so much worried about the vast number of warheads in the world as he was by open proposals that these weapons are “usable”. It’s right back to the Cold War and he emphasises that “The belief that there might be tactical advantage using nuclear weapons – which I haven’t heard being openly discussed in the United States or in Russia for a good many years – is happening now in those countries which I think is extremely distressing.” But the perturbing thing is that while it is certainly being discussed in Moscow, it’s verging on doctrine in Washington.

In late February US Defence Secretary Esper was reported as having taken part in a “classified military drill in which Russia and the United States traded nuclear strikes.” The Pentagon stated that “The scenario included a European contingency where you’re conducting a war with Russia and Russia decides to use a low-yield, limited nuclear weapon against a site on NATO territory.” The US response was to fire back with what was called a “limited response.”

First of all, the notion that Russia would take the first step to nuclear war is completely baseless, and there is no evidence that this could ever be contemplated. But ever if it were to be so, it cannot be imagined for an instant that Washington would indulge in moderate nuclear warfare in riposte.

These self-justifying wargames are dangerous. And they bring Armageddon ever closer.

Some while ago, rare earth metals important in the production of microchips, electronics and electric motors were almost exclusively sourced in China. However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, in recent years, several nations have picked up production again while new players entered the market, diversifying it at least to some degree.

You will find more infographics at Statista

China was still responsible for almost two thirds of global production in 2019, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But as many countries are wary of depending on China, especially when it comes to technology products, countries with rare earth deposits are likely to exploit them further. The U.S., however, is still shipping its rare earths to China for processing, but a first processing plant on American soil is in the planning stages with funding help from the U.S. army.

China also has the largest know deposits of rare earths, but Brazil, Vietnam and Russia also have a lot of (largely) untapped potential in the sector. The United States and Australia ramped up production of rare earths after 2010 and most recently, Myanmar has been mining considerable amount. As seen in the chart above, the U.S. had in the past mined and produced rare earths for military uses and re-entered the market as rare earths were getting more important as a part of the implementation of crucial technologies.

A Denver councilwoman has come under fire for praising a now-deleted tweet from a user who said they would attend “every MAGA rally I can” if they are infected with the new coronavirus.

Candi CdeBaca (D) tweeted “#solidarity Yaaaas!!” in support of the message:

And surprise, she’s a supporter of Bernie Sanders – whose staffers were caught on hidden camera espousing the virtues of throwing rich people in literal gulags while they redistribute their wealth.

The Denver city councilwoman who’s encouraging people with coronavirus to go to Trump rallies to spread the virus is a… Bernie Sanders supporter. I bet you’re all shocked. 🙄

This is what so many socialist Democrats like her really want, to kill Republicans. Absolutely sick. pic.twitter.com/L5H2IT5QCu

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 3, 2020

In response to the tweet, CdeBaca’s office said: “Councilwoman CdeBaca made a sarcastic tweet on Twitter to call attention to the Trump administration’s downplaying of the Coronavirus outbreak as a “hoax” no more dangerous than the common flu. Rather than conservative outlets making a four-day-old Tweet their focus on Super Tuesday, they should focus their energy on demanding a competent Federal response to this public health crisis instead.”

The Colorado Republican Party, meanwhile, said in response: “Councilwoman CdeBaca praising a social media post calling for Trump supporters to be infected with the coronavirus is simply disgusting. There can be no room in our politics for wishing harm on Americans who have different political beliefs. Democrats in Colorado and across the country need to condemn this evil statement,”  “In light of these comments, the Colorado Republican Party is calling on Councilwoman CdeBaca to resign immediately.”

Submitted by the Swiss Propaganda Research organization

Understanding the geopolitical and psychological war against Syria.

What is the Syria war about?

Contrary to the depiction in Western media, the Syria war is not a civil war. This is because the initiators, financiers and a large part of the anti-government fighters come from abroad.

Nor is the Syria war a religious war, for Syria was and still is one of the most secular countries in the region, and the Syrian army – like its direct opponents – is itself mainly composed of Sunnis.

But the Syria war is also not a pipeline war, as some critics suspected, because the allegedly competing gas pipeline projects never existed to begin with, as even the Syrian president confirmed.

Instead, the Syria war is a war of conquest and regime change, which developed into a geopolitical proxy war between NATO states on one side – especially the US, Great Britain and France – and Russia, Iran and China on the other side.

In fact, already since the 1940s the US has repeatedly attempted to install a pro-Western government in Syria, such as in 1949, 1956, 1957, after 1980 and after 2003, but without success so far. This makes Syria – since the fall of Libya – the last Mediterranean country independent of NATO.

Thus, in the course of the “Arab Spring” of 2011, NATO and its allies, especially Israel and the Gulf States, decided to try again. To this end, politically and economically motivated protests in Syria were used and were quickly escalated into an armed conflict.

NATO’s original strategy of 2011 was based on the Afghanistan war of the 1980s and aimed at conquering Syria mainly through positively portrayed Islamist militias (so-called “rebels”). This did not succeed, however, because the militias lacked an air force and anti-aircraft missiles.

Hence from 2013 onwards, various poison gas attacks were staged in order to be able to deploy the NATO air force as part of a “humanitarian intervention” similar to the earlier wars against Libya and Yugoslavia. But this did not succeed either, mainly because Russia and China blocked a UN mandate.

As of 2014, therefore, additional but negatively portrayed Islamist militias (“terrorists”) were covertly established in Syria and Iraq via NATO partners Turkey and Jordan, secretly supplied with weapons and vehicles and indirectly financed by oil exports via the Turkish Ceyhan terminal.

ISIS: Supply and export routes through NATO partners Turkey and Jordan (ISW / Atlantic, 2015)

Media-effective atrocity propaganda and mysterious “terrorist attacks” in Europe and the US then offered the opportunity to intervene in Syria using the NATO air force even without a UN mandate – ostensibly to fight the “terrorists”, but in reality still to conquer Syria and topple its government.

This plan failed again, however, as Russia also used the presence of the “terrorists” in autumn 2015 as a justification for direct military intervention and was now able to attack both the “terrorists” and parts of NATO’s “rebels” while simultaneously securing the Syrian airspace to a large extent.

By the end of 2016, the Syrian army thus succeeded in recapturing the city of Aleppo.

From 2016 onwards, NATO therefore switched back to positively portrayed but now Kurdish-led militias  (the SDF) in order to still have unassailable ground forces available and to conquer the Syrian territory held by the previously established “terrorists” before Syria and Russia could do so themselves.

This led to a kind of “race” to conquer cities such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in 2017 and to a temporary division of Syria along the Euphrates river into a (largely) Syrian-controlled West and a Kurdish (or rather American) controlled East (see map above).

This move, however, brought NATO into conflict with its key member Turkey, because Turkey did not accept a Kurdish-controlled territory on its southern border. As a result, the NATO alliance became increasingly divided from 2018 onwards.

Turkey now fought the Kurds in northern Syria and at the same time supported the remaining Islamists in the north-western province of Idlib against the Syrian army, while the Americans eventually withdrew to the eastern Syrian oil fields in order to retain a political bargaining chip.

While Turkey supported Islamists in northern Syria, Israel more or less covertly supplied Islamists in southern Syria and at the same time fought Iranian and Lebanese (Hezbollah) units with air strikes, but ultimately without success: the militias in southern Syria had to surrender in 2018.

Ultimately, some NATO members tried to use a confrontation between the Turkish and Syrian armies in the province of Idlib as a last option to escalate the war. In addition to the situation in Idlib, the issues of the occupied territories in the north and east of Syria remain to be resolved, too.

Russia, for its part, has tried to draw Turkey out of the NATO alliance and onto its own side as far as possible. Modern Turkey, however, is pursuing a rather far-reaching geopolitical strategy of its own, which is also increasingly clashing with Russian interests in the Middle East and Central Asia.

As part of this geopolitical strategy, Turkey in 2015 and 2020 even used the so-called »weapon of mass migration«, which may serve to destabilize both Syria (so-called strategic depopulation) and Europe, as well as to extort financial, political or military support from the European Union.

What role did the Western media play in this war?

The task of NATO-compliant media was to portray the war against Syria as a “civil war, the Islamist “rebels” positively, the Islamist “terrorists” and the Syrian government negatively, the alleged “poison gas attacks” credibly and the NATO intervention consequently as legitimate.

An important tool for this media strategy were the numerous Western-sponsored “media centres”, “activist groups”, “Twitter girls”, “human rights observatories” and the like, which provided Western news agencies and media with the desired images and information.

Since 2019, NATO-compliant media moreover had to conceal or discredit various leaks and whistleblowers that began to prove the covert Western arms deliveries to the Islamist “rebels” and “terrorists” as well as the staged “poison gas attacks”.

But if even the “terrorists” in Syria were demonstrably established and equipped by NATO states, what role then did the mysterious “caliph of terror” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi play? He possibly played a similar role as his direct predecessor, Omar al-Baghdadi – who was a phantom.

Thanks to new communication technologies and on-site sources, the Syria war was also the first war about which independent media could report almost in real-time and thus for the first time significantly influenced the public perception of events – a potentially historic change.

It looks like Tesla may have finally found a way to use up all of that old, unused inventory that’s been sitting on the company’s balance sheet: make new cars with old parts, and blame the coronavirus.

At least, that’s exactly what it appears the company is doing in China, according to a recent report by Xinhua. 

On Tuesday, the news broke that Tesla was “downgrading” hardware on its China made Model 3 due to “supply chain status amid the epidemic” and it then promised free upgrades to its customers. Instead of just doing the right thing, which would be suspending production until you can make the product property, Tesla is doing what it does best: half assing it. 

The report points out that some Chinese consumers were noticing that the hardware in their newly delivered Tesla vehicles was inconsistent with their orders. Tesla responded by saying that Hardware 2.5 had been installed in some vehicles that were promised Hardware 3.0.

Isn’t that a nice way to find out, as a consumer, that you’re not getting what you ordered?

Elsewhere, this would look suspiciously like a bait and switch. And it appears from Xinhua’s report that Tesla only fessed up after consumers started to take notice. We’d also be extremely interested in finding out when and how Tesla delivers on the promise of “free upgrades” for the customers taking delivery of their vehicles, with the wrong hardware, now.

The company’s Gigafactory in China resumed work on Feburary 10. 

People on social media were skeptical – to say the least. But it seems as long as Tesla’s stock holds up, Elon Musk will continue to get away with things like this. It’s when the tide goes out on the stock that we’re most interested in finding out what bubbles to the surface:

Imagine Ford pulling a stunt like this?

“Here’s your new F150. We ran out of V8 engines, so we put a 4-cylinder in for now.”$TSLA $TSLAQ $F $GM https://t.co/GHay1wGwah

— passthebeano (@passthebeano) March 3, 2020

Authored by Aaron Kesel via TheMindUnleashed.com,

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll expressed that clues in the small-scale structure of the universe point to the existence of numerous parallel worlds.

The shocking comments were made on the Jeff Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast last year. Carroll says that the fact that tiny particles like electrons and photons don’t have one set location in the universe is evidence that there are many parallel universes.

Recently, in a follow up interview with News.com.au, Carroll expanded his thoughts.

“But there’s a lot more going on,” Carroll told News.com.au. “Not every world you imagine actually comes true.”

The common sense rules of physics that rule our lives everyday make sense to us but at very minuscule scales common sense breaks down altogether. At the quantum level, the empty vacuum of space is filled with tiny particles constantly popping in and out of existence.

Bell’s theorem, a fundamental construct in quantum mechanics, may prove that multiverses exist.

This theorem deals with situations where particles interact with each other, become entangled, and then go their separate ways, according to New Scientist.

“There are still equations, physical rules, patterns that must be obeyed. Some possible alternate worlds can come true. But not all of them,” Carroll said.

In the past, Carroll has advanced some groundbreaking yet controversial theories on topics such as the Big Bang theory and the nature of time.

He has said that the universe didn’t start in a huge explosion as most people now believe, but instead it is an infinitely old, constantly inflating entity in which time can run both forward and backward.

For Carroll quantum physics is not something that can be broken down and explained in simpler terms.

“As far as we currently know,” he writes.

“Quantum mechanics isn’t just an approximation to the truth; it is the truth.”

“Physics is stuck trying to understand the fundamentals of nature and the Big Bang,” Carroll said.

“It’s time to take a step back and understand its foundations. It’s time to tackle our understanding of the quantum world.”

In 2011 physicist Brian Greene wrote a book exploring the possibility called The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.

“You almost can’t avoid having some version of the multiverse in your studies if you push deeply enough in the mathematical descriptions of the physical universe,” Greene told NPR.

 “There are many of us thinking of one version of parallel universe theory or another. If it’s all a lot of nonsense, then it’s a lot of wasted effort going into this far-out idea. But if this idea is correct, it is a fantastic upheaval in our understanding.”

Even Stephen Hawking suggested that, thanks to quantum mechanics, the Big Bang supplied us with an endless number of universes, not just one.

Up until this point understanding quantum physics and its realms has been impossible, but Carroll hopes that is changing thanks to technology.

“Now we’re getting better at that,” Carroll says. “Technology has improved. Maybe things are going to change.”

Greene, Carroll, and Hawking may be right, and researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee want to find out if there are multiverses or mirror images of our own reality. The team was set to record experiments last year sending a beam of subatomic particles down a 50-foot tunnel, past a powerful magnet and into an impenetrable wall.

“If it exists, it would form a bubble of reality nestling within the fabric of space and time alongside our own familiar universe, with some particles capable of switching between the two,” lead researcher Leah Broussard told New Scientist.

A bill introduced by a California Democratic lawmaker would punish stores that separate toys, clothing and other children’s items into separate boys and girls sections – forcing them to pay a $1000 fine, according to The Federalist Papers.

“I was inspired to introduce this bill after 8-year-old Britten asked, ‘Why should a store tell me what a girl’s shirt or toy is?” said California State Assembly member Evan Low of Silicon Valley, who unveiled AB 2826 last week. “Her bill will help children express themselves freely and without bias. We need to let kids be kids.”

Via a press release by Low:

Clothing and toys sections of department stores that are separated along gender lines pigeonhole children. No child should feel stigmatized for wearing a dinosaur shirt or playing with a Barbie doll, and separating items that are traditionally marketed for either girls or boys makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare products. It also incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.

The bill states:

This bill would require a retail department store with 500 or more employees to maintain undivided areas of its sales floor where, if it sells childcare articles, children’s clothing, or toys, all childcare items, all clothing for children, or all toys, regardless of whether a particular item has traditionally been marketed for either girls or for boys, shall be displayed. Beginning on January 1, 2023, the bill would make a retail department store that fails to correct a violation of these provisions within 30 days of receiving written notice of the violation from the Attorney General liable for a civil penalty of $1,000, as provided.

…

(a) A retail department store shall maintain one, undivided area of its sales floor where, if it sells childcare articles, all childcare articles, regardless of whether a particular item has traditionally been marketed for either girls or for boys, shall be displayed.

(b) A retail department store shall maintain one, undivided area of its sales floor where, if it sells children’s clothing, all clothing for children, regardless of whether a particular item has traditionally been marketed for either girls or for boys, shall be displayed.

(c) A retail department store shall maintain one, undivided area of its sales floor where, if it sells toys, all toys, regardless of whether a particular item has traditionally been marketed for either girls or for boys, shall be displayed.

Yet another ‘quirk’ for California retailers to love about the Golden State.

Authored by Daniel Lazare via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

People have always wondered what makes America so paranoid. The historian Richard Hofstadter wrote about it in 1964 in a famous Harper’s essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” that he later expanded into a book. He took aim at all the usual suspects: Joe McCarthy going on about “a great conspiracy on a scale so immense,” turn-of-the-century Populists warning of international bankers seeking to crucify Americans on a cross of gold, antebellum Know-Nothings raving about Catholics and the Pope, and so on.

But one aspect Hofstadter didn’t address is why.

Why is it that Americans are so quick to blame their problems on others instead of themselves? Rather than analyzing their society in a calm and sensible way, why do they continually go in search of mysterious foreign cabals?

The question has never been more relevant than in an age of Russia, Russia, Russia. If Joe Biden is sagging at the polls, if Bernie Sanders is surging, or if Donald Trump is seemingly headed for a second term, then it can only mean one thing: the Kremlin is at it again. As the New York Times declared in all seriousness in explaining why Sanders and Trump are benefiting at Biden’s expense, it’s because they “represent the most divergent ends of their respective parties, and both are backed by supporters known more for their passion than their policy rigor, which makes them ripe for exploitation by Russian trolls, disinformation specialists, and hackers for hire seeking to widen divisions in American society.”

Since Russia finds it easier to manipulate Americans when they gravitate to the extremes, that’s where it somehow causes them to wind up.

Or so corporate media assure us. But where does such paranoid nonsense come from and why does the press bombard us with it night and day?

Although Hofstadter traced the problem back to the mid-nineteenth century, we can trace it back even farther – all the way, in fact, to the nation’s founding. Indeed, we might argue, with only slight exaggeration, that it began with a single individual: James Madison.

Madison, of course, is the wealthy Virginia slaveowner who played a leading role in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was an equally important figure in the great ratification debate that followed immediately after. He wrote 29 of the 85 newspaper articles known as the Federalist Papers, which expounded the new plan of government to his fellow countrymen.

And he authored the all-important Federalist No. 10, the essay that political scientists never tire of quoting, which argues that democracy must be endlessly checked and balanced against itself in order to prevent Americans from coming together in “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.”

A Bernie supporter he was not. But Madison was even pithier in an October 1787 letter to Thomas Jefferson in which he summed up the meaning of checks and balances and separation of powers in a single sentence.

“Divide et impera,” he wrote, “the reprobated axiom of tyranny, is under certain qualifications, the only policy, by which a republic can be administered on just principles.

These twenty-five words tell you everything you need to know about American politics, including why they’re now in such trouble. Divide et impera, Latin for “divide and conquer,” is Madison’s ironic justification for dividing government up into separate executive, legislative, and judicial functions and then pitting them against one another so as to neutralize democracy’s most dangerous tendencies.

The idea is to structure the polity in such a way that it ends up more rational and moderate than any of its components. But divide et impera leads to a paradox. If, as the Preamble to the Constitution states, “we the people” are the prime movers in the new republic, able to “ordain and establish” new constitutions and destroy old ones in the bargain like the 1783 Articles of Confederation, then what happens once they undergo the self-division and conquest that Madison describes? Are they still “we the people”? Or are they now an agglomeration of splintered sub-groups without any sense of collective democratic identity or will?

Anyone who studies American fragmentation will suspect it’s the latter. But that leads to another question. Psychologists tell us that a healthy, well-balanced adult is one whose intellect, emotions, and drives come together to form a balanced and integrated whole. Since the individual is in charge of all his faculties, he’s able to marshal his resources so as to solve problems, work creatively, and process information clearly, logically, and accurately.

But if those same faculties are fragmented and mutually at odds, the opposite occurs. Instead of marshalling his resource, the individual is paralyzed and confused. Instead of seeing the world as it is, he shies at phantoms of his own making. As a Bosnian psychologist named Vito Zepinic explained a few years ago, “the vulnerable self-structure of traumatized individuals” leads to “difficulties in self-regulation (self-esteem maintenance, lower tolerance levels, and the sense of self-discontinuity)” and “frequent upsurges of anxiety/fear, depression, and specific fears or phobias regarding the external world…”

What holds for individual patients also holds for a collective personality like the United States. Since 2000, it has suffered repeated traumas in the form of war, terrorism, military defeat, financial crisis, and stolen elections, the effect of which has been to take Madisonian self-disintegration and render it even more debilitating. “Difficulties in self-regulation” are what happens after decades of corruption and gridlock. Problems with “self-esteem maintenance” lead to an obsession with making America great again. “Lower tolerance levels” give rise to fears of alien hordes overrunning the border. “Phobias regarding the external world” are another term for mass paranoia about Russian agents lurking behind every bush and beneath every bed.

The upshot is a country that is lost, disoriented, and unable to tell where reality begins and fantasy leaves off. When the Washington Post recently reported that Russia is working behind the scenes to boost the Sanders campaign, a sensible person would have demanded to see the evidence. But not Bernie. To the contrary, he snapped to attention even though there was no evidence to be had and denounced Putin as an “autocratic thug” who should “stay out of American elections.”

Similarly, when CBS News asked Biden why he was doing so poorly, he replied that it’s because “the Russians don’t want me to be the nominee … they like Bernie.” When a reporter asked Pete Buttigieg what the Russias were looking to accomplish in the 2020 election, he explained with equal confidence: they “want chaos.”

They can’t process information concerning what Russia is really up to and therefore make up horror stories to scare themselves in the dark. Instead of exposing a petty imperialist like Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post’s owner, they allow themselves to be manipulated.

The upshot is a democracy that is too weak and fragmented to govern itself effectively. The big question is how to overcome Madisonian self-division so as to render democracy coherent and whole. But that’s a subject for another essay.

Investors are grossly underestimating the potential economic impact of Covid-19 as the first signs of China’s supply chain meltdown are now washing ashore on US West Coast ports. 

The Port of Long Beach, the second-largest containerized port in the US, has had two top officials warn in the last several weeks of chilling effects of supply chain disruptions from China. 

Last week, the Deputy Executive Director of Administration and Operations for the Port of Long Beach Noel Hacegaba warned China’s economic paralysis led to the increase of blank sails between China and the US. He said port activity plunged in January and February, with expected weakness to continue through March.  

Hacegaba said the slowdown at Long Beach is starting to hit the local economy around the port. He said it could only be a matter of time before it triggers a broader slowdown in the region, and even maybe in the overall US economy. 

As we’ve noted in many pieces of creaking global supply chains fast emerging in China and spreading outwards, Deutsche Bank’s senior European economist Clemente Delucia last month pointed out in a report titled “The impact of the coronavirus: A supply-chain analysis” that the US is overly exposed to a crashing China economy.

As for the second Long Beach official, Bloomberg quoted Mario Cordero, executive director of the port, who said cargo volumes are expected to slump 9% YoY in February due to declining shipments from China.

Cordero said February’s YoY loss is nearly double of 2019’s decline of 5.4%, which has already resulted in a 50% reduction in labor at the port. He said the East Asia shipping route accounts for 90% of shipments through the port. 

“The port of Long Beach is ground zero for trade,” warns Cordero. “There was uncertainty with the trade war, but the coronavirus has taken it to chaotic.”

Downward pressure from supply chain disruptions in China has now spilled over into the rest of the world. The transmission mechanism to the US is West Coast ports. The port Long Beach handles $200 billion in trade annually and supports 2.6 million trade-related jobs across the country, including almost 600,000 in Southern California.

As for other West Coast ports, reports of a containerized volume declines from China are inevitable. These ports are a critical artery of the US economy’s transportation infrastructure and essential for the flow of imports and exports, representing about 12.5% of US GDP. 

A slowdown of containerized volume at Long Beach and other West Coast ports could suggest a broader economic downturn is ahead for the US economy.