Macron Ends Unsupervised Imam Program Over Risk Of ‘Separatism’
With Emmanuel Macron’s popularity in freefall and his allies taking hits, the French President has yet again attempted to appease France’s growing populist movement – announcing on Tuesday that he would end a program which allowed foreign countries to send imams and other religious teachers in order to crack down on “separatism.”
“The problem is when in the name of a religion, some want to separate themselves from the Republic and therefore not respect its laws,” said Macron, speaking from the eastern French city of Mullhouse, adding that his government would combat “foreign interference” in how Islam is practiced – as well as how its religious institutions are organized within the country, according to France 24.
Of note, France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community – estimated at around 6 million, or 8% of the population. The country has long sought to assimilate Muslim nationals and residents.
Macron said he plans to end a programme created in 1977 that allowed nine countries to send imams and teachers to France to provide foreign language and culture classes without any supervision from French authorities.
Four majority-Muslim countries – Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey – were involved in the programme, which reaches about 80,000 students every year. Around 300 imams were sent to France every year by these countries, and that those who arrived in 2020 would be the last to arrive in such numbers, said Macron. –France 24
Macron’s government has asked the French Muslim Council (CFCM) – which represents Islam in France – to find solutions to train Imams on French soil in order to ensure that they can speak French and do not spread radical Islamist views.
The announcement comes less than a month before municipal elections in France – suggesting that perhaps Macron is simply pandering to angry French citizens by adopting his political opponents’ nationalism.
The measures were part of a much-anticipated intervention less than a month before municipal elections in France. Macron’s speech came at the end of a visit to Mulhouse, home to a large Muslim community that has been the focus of the French government’s campaign against Islamism.
The new rules were intended to counter Islamic extremism in France by giving the government more authority over the schooling of children, the financing of mosques and the training of imams, said Macron. –France 24
“This end to the consular Islam system is extremely important to curb foreign influence and make sure everybody respects the laws of the republic,” said Macron.
“We cannot have Turkey’s laws on France’s ground. No way,” Macron added.
According to the report, Turkey runs a “vast network of mosques inside the country and abroad under the powerful Diyanet, or Directorate of Religious Affairs,” which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has received a significant boost in funding – to the point where critics accused Ankara of using it as a foreign policy tool in order to extend Turkey’s soft power.
In recent years, France has suffered a spate of radical Islamic terror attacks. In November of 2015, Muslim terrorists attacked the Bataclan theater and other sites, killing 130 people in the deadliest attacks since WWII. Most of the attackers were French or Belgian nationals who were indoctrinated into radical Islam while in Turkey before traveling to Iraq and Syria to fight with ISIS.
We set up a ‘brain trust’ in the Cafe in order to write a combined sitrep for The Saker Blog about the Coronavirus. The new name in the taxonomy is COVID-19 but let’s stick to Novel Coronavirus for now. It is of course too early to come to any conclusions, but we can start isolating the discernible high level trends and perhaps get an early glimpse as to what effect the outbreak may have geopolitically and economically, although it is very early days.
We will not attempt to look at the technical picture here – the numbers of recoveries, the death rates and the infection rates, rates of transmission, life of virus on surfaces and so on because the technical picture is not yet clear and all data is in a state of flux with opposing and inconsistent reports from all sides. One cannot expect otherwise as the world is still shooting at a rapidly moving target in terms of statistical ground and epidemiological analysis.
In addition, we have professional organizations like the WHO and the CDC not really in lockstep and giving different pronouncements on a professional level. It is too early to draw conclusions.
What people are saying:
Let us look for a moment as to what ‘people are saying’.
(If you want to end up deeply into conspiracies, I would suggest you go to subReddits /r/Coronavirus and /r/China_Flu )
What ‘people are saying’ runs the gamut from messages received in meditation, prayer, even channeling, and this information is being put out there as valid for everyone else in the face of no definitive information you can hang your hat on.
Every talking head on youtube has suddenly turned into an expert, both on China and on the Novel Coronavirus. Every uninformed blockhead has now turned into a specialist. Every Twitter feed out there now considers itself an insta-influencer.
Most of the western alternative news medias have suddenly decided to follow their governmental lead on China, and the message is overwhelmingly that Brutal China is indeed very Brutal and very Bad.
China is attacking her own people to reduce population
Lab Accidents happen. (this is of course a pragmatic view, but usually Level 4 laboratories are situated very far away from the center of busy cities).
Wuhan was on the point of massive riots, Hong Kong Style against their government
The Chinese government is lying and not reporting correctly. The death rate is much higher.
The Chinese Defense Forces are riddled with virus infected soldiers, and they are being contained somewhere else. There is no information on this excepting wild speculation.
Every non-flattering video from China is being passed along salaciously; usually grainy and one cannot really figure out where it is from – no markings, road signs, store names or anything where anything can be identified. The scuttlebut is that these mostly security camera videos and actively distributed by Falun Gong. Your guess on this is as good as mine.
As you can see from this list, and it is by no means exhaustive, all over the show, and there are literally 10’s more of these
What the timing indicates
The timing is suspicious no matter how you look at it.
Manufacturing usually shuts down or goes slow over Chinese New Year / Spring Festival which can last as much as 15 days. So, economically, this was a good time for a virus (if China ‘did it’).
On the other hand, this holiday gives rise to the greatest migration of people on our planet which also makes it an ideal time to infect a population (if someone outside of China ‘did it’).
The timing so close to the signing of the of the US/China Phase I Trade Agreement, which the Chinese referred to as only a ‘cease fire’ in the trade war, and the US referred to as a great breakthrough, is suspicious. The Chinese were indicating that they are very hesitant to even go to a phase II negotiation. And of course, there is a black part of the actual agreement that we do not know about.
The Main Tropes
1. The main trope out there is that this is a bioengineered bioweapon. But right at that point opinions diverge so widely that one can only ask questions, and not conclude anything.
2. The second trope is that people are being arrested widely. We’ve seen reports of arrests in Canada and in the US, and out of Harvard. Here is but one.
3. The third trope is that China is “The Sick Man”, and we hate them for dumping this virus on the rest of us. Let me just say that the level of invective against China is not only unprecedented, it is also suspicious. Rebranding of the Coronoa Virus to the Chinese Virus is proceeding apace, even though it has a formal name now – COVID-19. In my life I have never seen such an overt manipulation of the common headspace such as this, since ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
4. The fourth trope is that the US, on a public and governmental basis has decided to vilify China, correctly or incorrectly. Note Mr Pompeo. Is he only taking an opportunity that is presented to him, or does he know more than what we think?
5. The fifth trope is that the civilizational fear against China is suddenly out in the open for everyone to see. It is almost a morphic resonance of fear expressed against China and that China is the culprit. However, we don’t really know who the culprit is actually. We don’t even know if there is a culprit.
Is China the culprit, or is China the victim, or is this a virus that spread from animal to human or has it escaped from some or other lab by accident (or on purpose)? We do not know any of this and this trope just creates more FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).
6. The sixth trope is that China is wrong no matter what she does. Quarantine and even forced quarantine is expressed by the blockheads of Brutal China Cracking Down on Their People, without thinking what is actually necessary to do for this kind of outbreak, no matter where it comes from. One after the other video supposedly from China showing the so-called Brutal Chinese government is distributed with relish, with nary a thought that you and I are actually being protected by these heavy handed tactics. The snoflakes are out in force talking about human rights, yet, by the looks of things, China is going all out protecting the many.
Because there is a strange consistency in what the State (used generally) says, and what the alternative media says, this is more worrying than anything else. On the one hand nobody can believe the State, and on the other hand alternative media is reproducing and disseminating the message of the State.
7. The seventh trope is that the few voices, even here on The Saker Blog, that try to look at this realistically are drowned out in the general societal willingness to believe the worst. Viva free speech!?!
The formal state, and the western alternative media are generally in lockstep on this issue.
China is now attempting to go back to work. We do not know how successful this is, but some are trying to measure the actual air pollution to try and figure out if China has gone back to work, or not. Economically China has also given guidance to business, saying that this event is a force majeure, known colloquially in contractual terms as ‘an act of God’, and therefore they can renegotiate contracts, delivery dates and completion.
Let us look at what is clear.
China is fighting for its life. The death-toll or even containment is not truly visible in any numbers as yet. This will have tremendous impact on supply lines and not only on China’s economy, but all parts of the international supply chain, upstream and downstream. China is acting on expressed unhappiness of their people. They are firing those who do not perform, who put red-tape in the path of directly fighting this virus. It may look brutal to lock people into their homes, but how many do they save by this action? Where do these get food? It is in the Chinese media that food gets delivered. This is something that the western youtube pundits (and their a-hole brothers) forget to report, although this is open and publicized in the Chinese media.
This is a catastrophe. It is not a flu, it is not a common cold, it is not something that 5G brought onto China, it is not God punishing the Godless red commies. Whatever it is, it is a catastrophe with world-wide consequences. We do not know enough to come to any meaningful conclusions except to say that considering the timeline, we are right to be suspicious and we may be right to prepare with the basic masks, gloves and limited public exposure, i.e., not visiting large gatherings, for a period of time.
If this virus continues, it will have societal impact that may be severe – we won’t shake hands, we won’t hug babies, social interaction will be vastly compromised, and a few more common contact methods like music concerts or sporting activies for humans will be left by the wayside.
If it continues much beyond the current level, the extensive economic fallout cannot be estimated. You and I and no analyst in the world can truly get their arms around the economic fallout and the breakdown of worldwide supply chains. Who knows, we may be out of a specific little part for a normal service of a vehicle, we may be out of medicines (the idea of the many people that are taking anti-depressants and such types of medicines having to go cold-turkey is quite scary, and there may be a severe shortage of simple medical equipment, like masks and gloves that are even now getting hard to source – just try buying masks on Amazon).
In the current analysis and according to what we have available, we do not yet know enough to be meaningful. Much more than that is pure speculation and gives rise to other agendas being seeded into the public narrative.
What is clear, is that fear, uncertainty, and doubt is rife and people are terrified…
Credit Suisse MD Dies In Freak Accident After Slipping Through Chairlift And Being Suffocated By His Own Jacket
Almost exactly 10 years ago, we detailed the tragic death of Gerard Reilly in a skiing accident – the point man on Repo 105, the point person for E&Y’s “investigation” into the Matthew Lee whistleblower campaign, Lehman’s Level 2 and Level 3 asset valuation, the brain behind the idea to spin off Lehman’s commercial real estate business, Lehman’s Archstone investment, and likely so much more:
[Reilly] was skiing alone on the John’s Bypass Trail, a connector between the Excelsior and Lower Cloudspin ski runs that’s accessible from either the Cloudsplitter Gondola or the Summit Quad chairlift, when he left the trail and hit a tree. A skier following behind Reilly witnessed the incident and contacted ski patrol.
…not only was he was a decent skier but he was over 6’4″ tall and wearing a helmet – it may always be a mystery to us how he succumbed to his injuries so fast…
The reason we bring this up is that an investigation continues in Colorado after the death of a skier in the popular tourist town of Vail.
The skier, 46 year old Jason Varnish of New Jersey, was Credit Suisse Managing Director, and served as the bank’s global head of prime services risk
In what can only be described as a freak accident, Varnish reportedly died of asphyxia and his death was ruled an accident after he slipped through the seat of the lift and his coat got caught. The incident took place at the Blue Sky Basin section of the Vail Ski Resort.
The skier reportedly suffocated to death after being “caught in a chairlift” and the incident marks about the 8th skier death in Colorado this year, which marks a pace slightly lower than last year, according to the Washington Post.
Kara Bettis, local coroner, commented:
“We are still investigating how this whole situation happened. According to our initial investigation, the deceased slipped through the seat of the chair lift and his ski coat got caught up in the chair.”
His folding seat was left in the upright position, so when Varnish went to sit down, he slipped through the seat before his coat got caught around his head and neck, cutting off his airway. Ski patrol then performed CPR, but Varnish was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Joseph Bloch, a Colorado attorney who litigates ski incidents, immediately seemed to blame the operators of the lift:
“They should’ve just hit the stop button, there’s an emergency stop and there’s a slow stop and if they’re doing their job they could hit the slow stop before the guests are loading.”
The lift was closed for the remainder of the day and the following day, but Vail Resorts then released a statement defending its lifts as having been inspected and as properly functioning.
Beth Howard, the resort’s CEO, said:
“Vail Mountain and the entire Vail Resorts family express our sincere condolences and extend our support to the guest’s family and friends.”
Nice touch, Beth. At least you didn’t offer the family free lift tickets…
One of the main political events of the past week was the Munich Security Conference, which brought together more than 150 heads of state, senior diplomats and prime ministers in the Bavarian capital for an open discussion of burning issues of the current political agenda.
A topic important for discussion was the vector of further interaction between Russia and the countries of Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron, whose current aspirations were assessed by Sergei Lavrov, who was in charge of the Russian delegation, as “pragmatic” and “politically discerning”, has repeatedly called for the need to resume a sustained dialogue with Moscow, noting the fact that it was extremely difficult to predict economic benefits from sanctions in Russia and the retaliatory measures in the foreseeable future.
As the conference proceeded, negotiations between the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and the Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry were held. They paid special attention to “practical issues of developing a dialogue between the EU and the EAEU with the prospect of creating conditions for the formation of a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok”, and also discussed the specifics of the completion of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline construction. It is known that today Nord Stream-2 is one of the most important strategic subjects of international cooperation within the framework of the European geopolitical space, which plays a significant role in the prospective improvement of relations between the countries to which its economic effect is being directed.
We should recall that in the end of December 2019, the US sanctions forced the Nord Stream-2 contractor, the Swiss company Allseas, to suspend laying the last underwater section of the pipeline and leave the construction site. Lavrov justly called the US attempts to disrupt this economic and energy project “an impudent and cynical act of interference in the affairs of European business”.
At the same time, Germany is also not satisfied with the traditionally aggressive US policy. Germany’s political course is currently clearly oriented towards establishing closer and more trusting relations with Russia. In particular, this was announced on Tuesday, February 18, by the German Minister of Economics and Energy Peter Altmaier during his speech at the Russian-German conference in Berlin. He noted Germany’s growing need for more natural gas and intensified dialogue with Russia, in connection with which it was decided to create a German-Russian working group on future energy policy, not only to complete the construction of Nord Stream-2, “meeting the interests of both countries”, but also for competent interaction in future.
“I would like a breakthrough in bilateral relations. Russia has undergone a huge transformation, in many areas it has become a modern country. We are ready and really want to continue and improve our economic relations. Russia is a necessary partner for Germany in our quest to solve the problems of the world”, – Peter Altmaier expressed his opinion.
The German minister also noted that Germany was actively discussing the question of limiting the negative impact of sanctions on German enterprises with the United States.
The fact that relations between Russia and the leading countries of the European Union in the nearest future may reach a qualitatively new level is not denied by the Italian political expert, Tiberio Graziani, President of the Vision & Global Trends International Institute for Global Analysis. He commented on the current situation as follows:
«Currently there are new pronouncements, mainly made by the French President Emmanuel Macron, aimed at improving relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union. These intentions are also confirmed by the growing attention that France and Germany show towards the other great power of the Eurasian continental mass: China. The two lungs of Eurasia – Russia and China – should agree on a policy as common as possible towards the European Union.
However, it should be remembered that the Euro-Atlantic strabismus of Brussels and the participation of member countries of the European Union in NATO places a heavy mortgage of the improvement of Euro-Russian relations, both regarding security issues, and regarding the issue of sanctions.
The Nord Stream-2 pipeline is a powerful opportunity that Germany could and should structure within the framework of softening of Brussels’ positions towards Moscow».
Of course, today the prerequisites for a peaceful, safe and united existence and interaction of countries in the European geopolitical space are slowly but surely being strengthened. It is unlikely that the world community will be able to get rid of the destructive intervention of the United States, due to the introduction of sanctions. Despite this, the competent, pragmatic and far-sighted policies of Russia, China and the most important members of the European Union, which are also being implemented in economic and energy projects, will undoubtedly contribute to the establishment of stable and reasonable relations.
UBS Hires ING Boss To Replace Ermotti 1 Week After Credit Suisse Ousts Thiam
Switzerland’s cross-town banking rivals are now under new management.
Despite presiding over several epic ‘compliance failures’ at ING that led the Dutch bank into the morass of a multibillion Russian money laundering scandal that has rocked the European banking system, ING boss Ralph Hamers has been tapped to succeed Sergio Ermotti at the helm of Switzerland’s largest bank – UBS.
According to the Financial Times, which got the scoop on Hamers’ ascension, Hamers will take over for Ermotti as his 8-year tenure at the helm of UBS comes to an end. Like many other European megabanks, UBS has suffered from a stagnant streak in its moneymaking wealth management business, and stalled merger talks with DWS, the actually-profitable offshoot of Deutsche Bank’s management business, didn’t help. Despite round after round of cutbacks in the name of efficiency, the bank’s board decided that Ermotti’s time had come.
Ralph Hamers
UBS chairman Axel Weber reportedly approached Hamers months ago and, following an internal and external search, Weber offered him the job after the board determined that Hamers was the most “capable and qualified” candidate.
Hamers joined ING 28 years ago, and has been its CEO since 2013, winning plaudits for leading ING through its post-crisis restructuring and the payback of a Dutch government bailout, while the compliance scandal marred his reputation, per FT.
Mr Hamers, who joined ING more than 28 years ago, has been chief executive of the Dutch lender since 2013. He led the bank through the completion of its post-financial crisis restructuring, repaying the money it received from the Dutch government and returning to dividend payments, while investing heavily in digital services and slashing the size of its traditional branch network.
However, his tenure has more recently been marred by a series of major compliance failings. The bank received a record €775m penalty from Dutch prosecutors in 2018, and has been banned from taking on new customers in Italy for more than a year.
ING was forced to pull an additional tier 1 bond offering on Wednesday because of “new information that has come to the issuer [ING], that needs to be studied”.
Notably, the report about Hamers new job comes less than a week since UBS’s cross-town rival Credit Suisse fired CEO Tidjane Thiam over the corporate spy scandal that rocked CS last year. Compared to Thiam, who scapegoated a longtime protege just to keep his job for a few more months, Hamers is a banking saint.
Patients deemed to be “racist” or “homophobic” will be denied care in NHS Trust hospitals under new rules set to take effect in April.
“Currently, staff can refuse to treat non-critical patients who are verbally aggressive or physically violent towards them,” reports Sky News.
“But these protections will extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.”
Police will also be given new powers to prosecute “hate crimes” committed against NHS staff.
What is determined to be “racist” or “homophobic” is anyone’s guess, since many elderly patients will be totally unfamiliar with modern politically correct speech codes and could be deemed to have behaved in a racist or homophobic way even if they didn’t maliciously intend to.
Homophobic, sexist and racist patients could be barred from non-emergency care at NHS trusts, under new rules from April https://t.co/lTYHqBmME2
As Jack Montgomery highlights, “In late 2017 an NHS patient who requested a female nurse to carry out a cervical smear complained when the hospital sent a person with “an obviously male appearance… close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble” who insisted “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”
The line between critical and non-critcal care is also up for debate. Will refusal to treat a patient because they said something someone deems offensive result in accidental deaths?
This is even worse than China’s social credit score, which hasn’t yet gone so far as to punish people by withdrawing medical treatment if they engage in wrongthink.
First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages. Now it’s deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people’s right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.
It’s also important to emphasize that these changes are coming in under a supposedly “conservative” government.
Respondents poked fun at the new rules.
“This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook,” remarked one.
This is going to be hilarious when a boomer is denied his double bypass cause he called someone coloured on Facebook https://t.co/id7hxtJ0eI
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Once you understand the globalist mindset, almost everything they do becomes rather robotic and predictable. It should not be surprising that the World Health Organization (WHO), a branch of the United Nations, has been so aggressive in cheerleading for the Chinese government and its response to the coronavirus outbreak. After all, China’s communist surveillance state model is a beta test for the type of centralization that the UN wants for the entire planet. They certainly aren’t going to point out that it was China’s totalitarian system that allowed the outbreak to spread from the very beginning.
Even now Xi Jinping is trying to rewrite history, claiming that he had been swift in responding to the crisis more than a month before he actually did. The lie that the coronavirus mutated naturally in a food and animal market in Wuhan continues to be peddled by the mainstream media even though no evidence supporting this claim exists. And China is still releasing rigged death and infection numbers while they have over 600 million people under martial law lockdown and their crematoriums continue pumping out the fumes of the dead 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Brave health workers like Li Wenliang, who was punished by the government for warning about the virus in December, have died in the process of trying to fight against the centralized behemoth just to get vital information to the world, but that never happened, right? It was actually president Xi and the CPC that saved the day. The WHO and the CPC say so. You’ll never hear the UN praise the efforts of Li Wenliang; they want his name to disappear down the memory hole as much as the Chinese government does.
The developing narrative is a familiar one – Local officials “stifled” the response to the outbreak while the centralized national leadership put things back on track with extreme control measures that have turned the Hubei province into a veritable internment camp. Whatever you do, don’t point out that it was the national government’s habit of imprisoning health officials that release “false information” that led to the delayed reaction on the coronavirus. Also, don’t point out that ground zero for the outbreak is just down the road from the largest Level 4 Biohazard Lab in Asia, because that would make you a “conspiracy theorist”.
The message being pounded into the public consciousness is clear: “Shut up and accept that Centralization works”. Even when it fails miserably, it is still the answer to all our problems. All we have to do is “adjust” the historical record a little bit every time the system breaks and then institute even MORE centralization in response.
In other words, if the interdependent and draconian top-down structure of the globalist state leads to crisis, then it is because it was not centralized ENOUGH. Centralization always begets more centralization.
The financial fascist system of central banking and corporate oligarchy leads to the socialist welfare state, and the socialist welfare state leads to the surveillance state, the surveillance state leads to the martial law state, and the martial law state leads to full-on global governance; an endless elitist empire.
The failings of centralization have caused numerous problems long before it led to a potential pandemic. The pandemic simply clarifies the issue. For example, the breakdown in the global supply chain is becoming a bigger threat by the day. The Baltic Dry Index a measure of shipping rates as well as global demand for goods, has essentially collapsed. This should have been the first warning sign that the supply chain was in trouble, but the mainstream doesn’t pay attention to the fundamentals, only stock markets. Enter Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, which has now abandoned its projections for 2020 and finally admitted that the shutdown of Chinese factories may just be a problem.
Some mentally challenged people out there are scoffing sarcastically at this issue, saying “Oh no, whatever will we do without i-Phones…?”. They don’t grasp the wider implications. If Apple’s production is going down because of the supply chain disruption then this is a signal that multiple companies and most of the economy are also going down because of supply chain disruptions. It’s not about i-Phones, it’s about the bigger picture.
Globalism has led to interdependent economies and nation states that no longer have redundancies in production. We have been forced to rely on production centers on the other side of the world for a vast majority of our goods.
When China shuts down, the US economy loses almost 20% of its supply chain. When Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam shut down from the virus, you can add another 10% to 15% on top of that. Retailers in the US represent around 70% of GDP. Cut off the supply chain in Asia and retailers lose a vast array of goods to sell. The US economy eventually shuts down also, even if the virus never spreads here.
Some people will argue that we don’t need all the “cheap plastic crap” from Asia anyway, and this situation is a “good thing”. Sorry to break it to you, but America’s economy is built on the selling of cheap plastic crap (along with the selling of the fiat dollar as the world reserve currency). Walmart (Chinamart if you discount agricultural products) is the largest employer in the US and the world, after all. Right or wrong, our economic system is so globalized that the fall of the Chinese dominoes will eventually knock down our own dominoes.
But when this disaster occurs and numerous national economies suffer from enforced globalist integration, guess what will happen next? The globalists will ride to our “rescue” with even greater centralization. This was their agenda all along.
Many people in the liberty movement are now aware of the Event 201 simulation, a war game run by globalists in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum on a “theoretical” coronavirus pandemic that kills 65 million people. This simulation took place only a couple of months before the real thing exploded in China in December. But hey, maybe that’s all just amazing coincidence. What concerns me even more is the solution that was presented at the end of Event 201 – the creation of a centralized global financial body that would manage the international response to the outbreak.
Isn’t it amazing how every major catastrophe caused by globalism seems to lead to more globalism? One might start to wonder if some of these events were triggered by incompetence, or if they were deliberately engineered. At the very least, crisis events have been allowed to fester unchecked by organizations like the WHO as they continue to write off the coronavirus as a non-issue that is “well under control” by a Chinese government that caused it to spread in the first place.
So here is what is going to happen next:
Best case scenario is that the Western world is mostly unscathed by the virus itself but the economic supply chain suffers major setbacks. The global economy, which was already crashing over the past year due to historic levels of corporate and consumer debt, not to mention faltering exports and freight, is finally tipped over the edge. The massive Everything Bubble, fueled by a decade of inflationary central bank stimulus, implodes. Governments respond with totalitarian measures in the name of “protecting the public”.
Globalist institutions like the IMF step in and suggest that frail national monetary systems come under the management of their Special Drawing Rights basket in order to mitigate the debt crisis. Essentially, this is the first step to global governance.
Worst case scenario, the virus spreads throughout the US and Europe and governments respond the same way China’s government has; martial law and full blown concentration camp culture. This would lead to civil war in the US because we are armed and many people will shoot anyone trying to put us into quarantine camps. Europe is mostly screwed.
The establishment then suggests that paper money be removed from the system because it is a viral spreader. China is already pushing this solution now. Magically, we find ourselves in a cashless society in a matter of a year or two; which is what the globalists have been demanding for years. Everything goes digital, and thus even local economies become completely centralized as private trade dies.
Again, this might be an engineered event, or it might simply be that the globalists are exploiting a natural outbreak. Either way, they are not going to let a good crisis go to waste. Whether or not they succeed is dependent on several factors, but mostly, its dependent on us. How many people will buy into the notion that centralization is the answer to out problems? How many people will realize that centralization is the CAUSE of all our problems? And how many people will fight to prevent ultimate centralization under a psychopathic globalist cult?
A viral outbreak is a significant danger to us all, but an even greater threat is the supposed cure. Trading our economic and social freedom in the name of stopping the coronavirus? No matter how deadly the bug, it’s just not worth it.
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New Estimates Suggest Chinese Tech Shipments Are About To Crash
Now that Apple has opened the floodgates and made it entirely clear that China’s economic collapse will slash revenue guidance on the year and lead to production woes through April, an onslaughter of earnings downgrades from other top technology companies with significant operations in China could be imminent.
Evidence grows by the day of supply chains grinding to a halt as the second-largest economy in the world falters (as described here last week)…
We’ve described how China’s economic output remains frozen, and even if supply chains were able to restart, companies don’t have enough capital to cover wages, or have delayed or stopped paying workers, suggesting that the Covid-19 outbreak has left businesses on the brink of disaster. Worse, workers can’t freely move around the country, and many are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, which has forced a massive labor shortage.
This is creating a perfect storm that could lead to an extended period of depressed factory output, triggering future shortages of products destined for Eastern and Western markets, and even more ripples across global supply chains.
As we’ve routinely noted in the last several weeks, the most exposed sector to the continued crunch across Chinese factories is technology.
Putting what we’ve already summarized together, there’s no way that full production can be seen by the end of this month or in early March, which means a massive reduction in shipments and product shortages are imminent. This will ultimately force many tech companies with exposure to China to revise their full-year earnings on the year.
TrendForce published a report earlier this week that serves as a preview of what’s to come for technology shipments.
The research firm said shipments of smartwatches, smartphones, computers, monitors, TVs, video game consoles, smart speakers, and automobiles, will take a big hit in the first quarter.
Here’s what the firm said about shipments for smartwatches, smart bracelets, and TWS Bluetooth earphones:
“In spite of the projected mid-February work resumption date, work stoppages, labor shortages, and material shortages can bring about a decline in 1Q20 production volume, with deferred releases of new products originally scheduled for 1H20 release.
In terms of the Chinese market, Chinese-branded wearables are mainly aimed at domestic sales and therefore expected to suffer more losses in 1H20 compared to international brands. In particular, competitive-priced generic brands and new brands may be even more affected by the outbreak because component suppliers and production capacities are prioritized to fulfill orders from established brands first, and consumers will have reduced willingness to buy in the short term.”
TrendForce said the virus outbreak is having a “high impact on the smartphone industry because the smartphone supply chain is highly labor-intensive. 1Q20 smartphone production is projected to decline by 12% YoY, making it the quarter with the lowest output within the past five years.”
“Parts in the upstream supply chain, including passive components and camera modules, are also showing shortages, which can potentially continue to negatively affect smartphone production in 2Q20, if the outbreak is not contained by the end of February. Should the outbreak intensify, TrendForce considers market need to be the most important consideration in the long-term analysis of the smartphone industry. Because of the interconnectedness of the global economy, the progression of China’s outbreak damages not only China’s GDP, but also the overall global economy, leading to a reduction of consumer purchasing power and subsequently presenting a difficult challenge for the overall smartphone industry. 2020 smartphone production is projected to reach 1.381 billion units, a 1.3% decline YoY and the lowest output since 2016. Still, due to the outbreak’s mercurial nature, it is entirely possible for 2020 smartphone production to fall below this forecast.”
As for notebooks, LCD monitors, and LCD TVs, these supply chains have been “undoubtedly hit the most by the coronavirus outbreak.”
“These companies lost precious working days after work resumption was postponed. After their production is resumed, on a whole, operators’ work resumption rate is low. Besides, all types of materials and components are in shortage. Hence, productivity plummets. For TVs and monitors, their manufacturing processes and demand for materials are similar. Therefore, according to TrendForce, in 1Q20, the TV set shipment is predicted to fall from previous prediction (48.8 million units) to 46.6 million units because of the outbreak. The monitor set shipment is projected to decrease from previous prediction (29 million units) to 27.5 million units. To assemble a NB set requires complicated key components. At the current stage, NB’s batteries, hinge, and PCB already experienced shortage or out of stock. This factor might cause some brands’ shipment quantity to remarkably drop from previous prediction (35 million units) to 30.7 million units in 1Q20.
The pandemic not only negatively affected the production’s supply chain, but it also hurts China’s consumer confidence and reduces end-market demand in the short and long run, respectively. Considering the pestilence’s potentially negative impact to China market’s demand, TrendForce moved down the top 3 application categories’ shipment scales for the year 2020. TVs’ shipment scale was reduced from previous prediction (219.6 million units) to 218.0 million units, down by 0.7 percentage point. Monitors’ shipment was reduced from previous prediction (125.8 million units) to 124.5 million units, down by 1.0 percentage point. Notebooks’ shipment was moved down from previous prediction (162.4 million units) to 160.2 million units, down by 1.4 percentage points.”
We expect a waterfall of negative earnings preannouncements to start for many technology companies with modest exposure to Chinese output. Apple’s downgrade on Monday was only the beginning…
Wall Street has priced the stock market for perfection while ignoring China’s virus crisis as one of the biggest shocks to hit the global economy since a decade ago.
Is the virus outbreak in China about to pop the Fed-induced stock market bubble?
We recently witnessed two events that indicated the possible demise of liberal democracy. The implications should frighten supporters of democratic forms of government in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognized and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law.
The growing intolerance of many “left-wing” groups is apparent in the uproar of the democratic election of the state premier of the German state of Thuringia as well as in the performance of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, publicly ripping up US President Donald J. Trump’s State of the Union address. It was an official document that belongs not to her but to the public, and of which she was merely its custodian.
That does not even start to mention the entire sham “impeachment” of President Trump, in which centuries of accepted due process were thrown in the gutter. The Senate “trial,” which probably should have been dismissed from the get-go as the “fruit of the poisonous tree” — a legal metaphor meaning that if any evidence is found to be tainted or violates a defendant’s constitutional rights, whatever “fruit” follows from it must be thrown out. The House, however, like the Inquisition, is allowed make up its own rules, and make them up it did. Another central problem seemed to be that a US president is obligated by law — under Ukraine (12978) – Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed in 1998 — not to hand taxpayer money over to the Ukraine without first checking to see that there is no corruption. Trump did, there was not, case closed. Trump was not only totally acquitted in a show trial that should not have existed in the first place, but his accusers seemed more guilty of what he was accused of — the non-crimes of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” — than he was.
Currently, there is growing concern on both sides of the Atlantic that the ability of many on the political “left” to accept the democratic process and the rights of those with whom one disagrees is becoming increasingly rare. According to Andreas Unterberger, Austria’s most widely read political blogger:
“The left exhibits mocking scorn or even aggressive violence. If a relevant part of the population is unwilling to respect democracy and those with dissenting opinions, then the constitutional state will necessarily implode.”
Sometimes it seems as if the underlying intention is actually to dismantle democratic norms and replace them with authoritarian ones. The thinking seems to be: If you vote any way other than for what we want, the result is automatically illegitimate and need not be accepted. In the US, this view had been evident in the three-year refusal to accept the election of President Trump by the “wrong” people”, as well as a refusal by many last year to accept the vindication of US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in yet another show trial devoid of evidence , and most recently warnings about a refusal to accept President Trump’s acquittal. The title of the latest book by the noted defense Attorney Alan M. Dershowitz, Guilt by Accusation, seems to be fast becoming the norm.
In Germany, the media establishment as well as Chancellor Angela Merkel were shocked to the point of demanding the reversal of the vote for the “wrong” premier of the state of Thuringia because the election came as a result of the “wrong” votes, namely those from the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). Baron Bodissey of the blog Gates of Vienna provided background information:
“The FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei, Free Democratic Party) is a relatively minor conservative business-oriented party in Germany. Nowadays it would be described as “classical liberal” if it were in an American context. In last fall’s state elections in Thuringia, the FDP just barely surpassed the threshold to seat representatives in the state parliament. The Left (Die Linke) gained the greatest share of the vote, but the constellation of leftist parties did not have enough seats to automatically form a government.
“Since then there has been wheeling and dealing by all parties in an effort to establish a viable coalition. Yesterday came a big surprise: with the support of the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union, Christian Democratic Union) and the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany), Thomas Kemmerich of the FDP was elected minister president (the equivalent of premier or governor) of the state of Thuringia…
[I]t seemed the cordon sanitaire against the AfD had been breached. Up until now, all across Western Europe the major immigration-critical populist parties had been kept out of government: the Sweden Democrats, the PVV in the Netherlands, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, and the AfD in Germany. Even though those “xenophobic” parties are quite popular, they have yet to obtain a majority of the vote in their respective countries, and the other parties simply agree never to join a coalition with them. Did yesterday’s events in Thuringia signal a change?”
Not quite. The cordon shuddered a little bit, but remained intact. It seems the FDP never asked for the support of the AfD, and received it unexpectedly. Mr. Kemmerich and his party were just as appalled by the AfD as [the] leftist parties were. And Mr. Kemmerich announced he would resign his position to force new elections.
Mr. Kemmerich’s announcement of resignation came as a result of massive intimidation against his family, his children requiring police protection, and “Antifa” protests outside Thuringia’s parliament building. In this context, it is important to note the irony of the political left. The Left Party (“Die Linke”), the successor party of the SED, the Socialist Unity party of the communist German Democratic Republic (DDR), accused the Free Democrats of believing that it was “better to rule with fascists than not to rule at all.” Indeed, there are grounds to argue that it is the Left Party, exhibiting the intolerance of fascists as the predecessors of the Left Party, that was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Germans trying to escape East Berlin by breaching the Berlin Wall. Even more ironic, it was on the 31st anniversary of the execution of 17-year-old Chris Gueffroy, guilty in the eyes of the ruling elite of wanting to leave the DDR, that the German mainstream media began its campaign of hatred against a democratically elected official.
Adding insult to injury, the strategist of the Left Party had the gall openly to insinuate that Mr. Kemmerich was voted into office “by the grace of those who murdered liberals, commoners, leftists and millions more in Buchenwald [concentration camp] and elsewhere.” In saying this, the strategist and others used what is currently the most potent weapon in political discourse: the instrumentalization of Nazi crimes as a weapon against political competitors. According to the German political analyst Vera Lengsfeld, politicians and media are employing psychological terror by igniting the “Nazi nuclear bomb” and by suggesting that the election of Mr. Kemmerich occurred thanks to a “Nazi party”, namely the AfD. Lengsfeld adds:
“What has taken place in Germany in the past three days can be considered a breach of the dam. Germany is witnessing the gradual erosion of democracy and the rule of law, a process that began in 2015 [during the migrant crisis] and which has become even more visible since and has ended in putsch against democracy.
“Overnight, Germany has turned into an open dictatorship of convictions. Unless true democrats display resistance and firmly defend democracy and the rule of law, it will once again become cold and dark in Germany.”
Dushan Wegner, another political commentator, asks whether a country can call itself a democracy if its chancellor demands the annulment of the election and the Free Democrats buckle in the face of disagreement, only because of the election of a state minister with the help of votes of a party behind a cordon sanitaire. Wegner argues:
“From faraway South Africa, Chancellor Angela Merkel said something very painful and simultaneously very frightening and shocking: ‘The election of the state minister was unforgivable and the vote must be reversed.’
“The chancellor openly demands the annulment of a democratic vote, one that she is unhappy about, and politics remains silent. I find it difficult to call those democrats that do not use all democratic and legal means to remove the chancellor from office.
“Germany currently fluctuates between democracy and absolutism thanks to Angela Merkel. Why bother exercising the right to vote when the ‘wrong’ choice can be annulled by the media and the chancellor through propaganda and veto?
“A Chinese proverb says: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Yes, these are interesting times, and yes, it is a curse. What is positive about interesting times is that they force us to define our stance. Do we stand for democracy or for elections until the results suit the ruler?”
Josef Hueber explains in a commentary how in a pseudo-democracy, elections mean voting until the result is “correct.” Moreover, it is important to use the right words: the undesirable democratic election is a “political Fukushima”, a breach of the dam, a catastrophe. The consequence of elections can be an “undesirable” or unexpected result for one political side; some will be elated, others disappointed. One could argue that this is democracy; this is how it is supposed to be. The understanding of democratic processes was unveiled with what recently transpired in the Thuringian parliament.
The situation in the United States is not much different. Th recent State of Union (SOTU) address demonstrated clearly what the Democrats’ view of tolerance and respect for the office of the president looks like. What began with the absence of self-avowed democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Maxine Waters and others ended in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of the speech at the end of the State of the Union address delivered by democratically elected President Donald Trump. By doing so, Pelosi disdained all America, not just the president.
Pelosi disdained the president’s supporters as well as a black girl who wants nothing more than a choice in education; she disdained the Tuskegee airman honored by the president; she disdained the great economic performance of the country. She acted in a petty and classless manner, unfitting for someone holding one of the highest offices in the United States. When asked by a reporter why she tore up Trump’s speech, Pelosi shot back, “Because it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives.” What are the alternatives, Madam Speaker? The legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who disagreed with some aspects of the SOTU, said:
“She represents the House as an institution — both Republicans and Democrats. Instead, she decided to become little more than a partisan troll from an elevated position. The protests of the Democratic members also reached a new low for the House. Pelosi did not gavel out the protest. She seemed to join it.
“It was the tradition of the House that a speaker must remain in stone-faced neutrality no matter what comes off that podium. The tradition ended last night with one of the more shameful and inglorious moments of the House in its history. Rather than wait until she left the floor, she decided to demonstrate against the President as part of the State of the Union and from the Speaker’s chair. That made it a statement not of Pelosi but of the House.”
Pelosi’s behavior shows a disappointing lack of argumentative abilities. If tolerance is to mean anything, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats should have exhibited just that. Instead, she, as a role model, did the opposite by engaging in petty and irresponsible behavior, followed by days futilely trying to have her outburst scrubbed from social media.
The entire episode fits seamlessly into a series of illiberal actions by the left in recent times. Consider the shutting down of debates on college campuses, thereby restricting freedom of speech. Or the attack on people wearing MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats. The author Kim R. Holmes explains the left’s increasing intolerance as follows:
“What we call a ‘liberal’ today is not historically a liberal at all but a progressive social democrat, someone who clings to the old liberal notion of individual liberty when it is convenient (as in supporting abortion or decrying the ‘national security’ state), but who more often finds individual liberties and freedom of conscience to be barriers to building the progressive welfare state.”
Seldom has the left on both sides of the Atlantic exhibited its increasing intolerance of dissenting opinions in a more concentrated manner than these past weeks. The foundations of liberal democracy are shaking noticeably. We are presently faced with yet more politically-based show trials: of the parliamentarian Geert Wilders in The Netherlands and of Matteo Salvini in Italy. It is up to the population and voters to decide whether liberal democracy is worth fighting for.
Two Years After Handing It The Biggest Ever Bailout Loan, IMF Finds Argentina Debt Levels Are “Unsustainable”
Back in the summer of 2018, when the IMF handed Argentina an unprecedented $56 billion bailout loan, the largest in IMF history, some warned that this is a case of deja vu similar to the 2001/2002 precedent when Argentina eventually defaulted on its foreign creditors, while humiliating the IMF which had signed off on Argentina’s economic policies that ended up in bankruptcy court. The IMF, however, was confident that this time would be different, and rushed – under now-ECB head Christine Lagarde – to hand to Argentina the greatest amount of money the IMF had ever disbursed to a struggling nation.
It turned out that this time wasn’t different, and after completing a week of meetings in Argentine, the IMF – which so generously handed out other people’s money to prop up the crumbling, corrupt Latin American nation less than two years aqo – finally threw in the towel and admitted that Argentina’s debt load is unsustainable, paving the way for the government to ask private bondholders to take on losses as it prepares to renegotiate its obligations.
The last time IMF officials commented on Argentina’s debt was in the fourth review of the credit line in July 2019, when they called it “sustainable, but not with a high probability.”
Oops. But it gets better.
A “meaningful contribution” will be necessary from private bondholders to restore the country’s debt sustainability, the IMF wrote in a statement Wednesday following talks with Argentine officials during its first technical mission in Buenos Aires under Alberto Fernandez’s presidency.
“The primary surplus that would be needed to reduce public debt and gross financing needs to levels consistent with manageable rollover risk and satisfactory potential growth is not economically nor politically feasible,” the Fund said, in what may be the most embarrassing moment in the Fund’s history.
Why embarrassing? Because as Hector Torres, a former executive director at the Fund who represented South American countries, said last summer, “The IMF has put a lot in — not just money, but prestige,” to avoid a default. “The fact that the arrangement is not performing well right now is an embarrassment,” he said. Little did he know just how embarrassing it would get.
As discussed previously, Fernandez is seeking to renegotiate billions of dollars in debt with private creditors, including the infamous $56 billion loan with the Washington-based organization.
Argentina’s record IMF loan has been on hold since August after Fernandez pulled off a shock upset of incumbent Mauricio Macri in a presidential primary vote, sending markets reeling.
“IMF staff emphasized the importance of continuing a collaborative process of engagement with private creditors to maximize their participation in the debt operation,” according to the statement. Meanwhile, Argentina’s economy has collapsed, the currency has plunged, bonds prices have been in freefall and debt rose to nearly 90% of GDP at the end of 2019, the Fund said.
But the biggest pain now await bondholders, some of whom were so dumb to actually buy 100 year bonds from Argentina. Guzman warned investors (or at least their replacement since those who made the original investment were surely summarily fired) last week they’ll probably be frustrated with negotiations, which he intends to wrap up by the end of March. South America’s second-largest nation owes over $38.7 billion to bondholders just this year, and payments peak in May. There is no way it can make those payments without magic.
