While one may accuse the US president of many things, having second thoughts is hardly one of them: once Trump has decided on a course of action, he tends to follow through. Which is why the global press gasped when a rare case of doubt emerged this morning during Trump’s breakfast meeting with the UK’s Boris Johnson at the Biarritz G-7, when the US president acknowledged having second thoughts about the escalating the trade war with China… only for his top spokeswoman to later retract and say Trump meant he regretted not raising tariffs even more.
During his meeting with Johnson on Sunday at the G7 in France, the US president raised eyebrows when he responded in the affirmative to questions from reporters on whether he had any second thoughts about the tariff move.
Trump was asked if he had second thoughts about his latest escalation. “Yeah, sure. Why not?” Trump answered.
The reporter repeated the question and Trump replied: “Might as well. Might as well.”
A second reporter followed up again, asking if he had second thoughts about escalating the trade war with China.
“I have second thoughts about everything,” Trump responded very clearly in the affirmative.
Trump and BoJo (right).
Trump’s odd admission was a problem because as Goldman said on Friday, it was Trump’s decision to delay tariffs that was interpreted as weakness by China, leading to an escalation in the trade war when China retaliated in kind. So any further weakness – such as admitting to having doubts about the trade conflict – would make matters even worse.
Naturally, the Chinese press immediately pounced on Trump’s comment, with the Global Times’ notorious twitter troll and editor and chief, Hu Xijin, tweeting almost immediately that China is preparing for relations to get much worse:
“Regret? This should be seen as Pres Trump changed his tone after ordering US companies to leave China. Regardless of his specific expression each time, we’re seriously making preparations for scenario in which China-US trade relations deteriorate further, even much worse than now.”
Regret? This should be seen as Pres Trump changed his tone after ordering US companies to leave China.Regardless of his specific expression each time, we’re seriously making preparations for scenario in which China-US trade relations deteriorate further, even much worse than now. https://t.co/AyysgrMaXJ
And, as one would expect, just minute later, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham “explained” that the media misinterpreted Trump’s initial remarks, “clarifying” that Trump doesn’t regret starting a trade war but he does have second thoughts on whether he should have hit the Chinese even harder.
“The president was asked if he had ‘any second thought on escalating the trade war with China.’ His answer has been greatly misinterpreted. President Trump responded in the affirmative – because he regrets not raising the tariffs higher,” Grisham said in a statement to reporters.
According to Reuters, “the president’s responses were unusual because he has been largely resolute in his demands that China change its trade practices and that tariffs were a successful tool to encourage Beijing to do so.” Bloomberg echoed the assessment:
“The initial remark drew worldwide headlines because Trump is rarely one for second-guessing himself, and instead goes bigger on his ideas in the face of criticism. Grisham’s explanation is more in the line with the Trump the Group of Seven nations know, and who often drives them to distraction.”
Doubtful or not, the ball is now in China’s court and after Trump announced an increase in the already imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, it iw now Beijing’s turn to respond. It also remains unclear if Trump will follow through on his “order” to US companies to avoid China. As a reminder, on Friday, upset about China’s retaliation, the president said he was ordering U.S. companies to find alternatives to doing business in China and move operations back to the United States. It was unclear what Trump could do to legally compel U.S. companies to abandon China.
Asked on Sunday if he would declare a national emergency over the issue, Trump said he had the right to do so but had no plans in the works.
“I could declare a national emergency. I think when they steal and take out, and — intellectual property theft, anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year, and where we have a total loss of almost a trillion dollars a year … in many ways, that’s an emergency,” he said. “I have no plan right now. Actually, we’re getting along very well with China right now. We’re talking. I think they want to make a deal much more than I do.”
* * *
Finally, Trump was also asked whether G7 nations at the summit in Biarritz were pressing him to give up on the trade war. “No, not at all, I haven’t heard that at all,” he replied. But later, Johnson nudged him to do just that. “Just to register the faint, sheep-like note of our view on the trade war, we’re in favor of trade peace on the whole, and dialing it down a beat,” Trump’s breakfast companion said.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KSR12q Tyler Durden
Across the developed world, birth rates have fallen to some of their lowest levels since the practice of annual record keeping began. In the US and Japan, according to the Daily Mail, birth rates have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, if not their lowest levels of all time.
For example, official birthrate data delivered in Tokyo marked the latest in a series of alarming milestones:
with 921,000 births last year, Japan has posted the lowest birth rate since the country began keeping track in 1899 – coming in below 1 million for the third year in a row.
In the US, the most disturbing data released so far this year pertained to the general fertility rate, which dropped 2% between 2017 and 2018 among females aged 15 to 44.
Now, the latest disappointing data out of the G-7, the Daily Mail reports that the birth rate in England and Wales tumbled to the lowest level since they started keeping records 80 years ago. That is to say, there were only 11 babies born last year for every 1,000 people in England and Wales.
In total 657,076 children were born – down 3.2% on a year earlier and nearly 10% from 2012 – even as the news of Princess Megan Markle’s pregnancy left the country with a collective sense of baby fever. The UK’s total fertility rate 1.70 children per woman.
The Office for National Statistics said falling fertility rates were mainly responsible for the fall, but difficulties conceiving among older couples who chose to delay family formation to focus on their careers or other objectives was one reason for the drop.
It said “women are progressively delaying childbearing to older ages” and are now most likely to have children in their 30s.
This is because women are more likely to delay childbirth to go to school and delay marriage while they pursue their careers.
Meanwhile, some 28.2% of the children born in England and Wales were born to immigrant women, down from 28.4 per cent in 2017.
At least one analyst linked the drop in the UK birth rate – the first drop in 28 years – to Brexit, which would suggest that there could be a massive rebound in live births once the UK has successfully left the EU.
Kathryn Littleboy, of the Office of National Statistics, said: “Our analysis paints a picture of decreases and some record lows.”
“The birth rate was the lowest ever recorded, when births are measured as a proportion of the total population.”
She added that the number of children an average woman can expect to have in her lifetime has also reached an unprecedented lows since women are now starting the process of family formation later.
“The total fertility rate stood at 1.70 children per woman, lower than all years except 1977 and 1999 to 2002. There were 657,076 live births last year, the fewest since 2005 and a drop of almost ten per cent since 2012,” Miss Littleboy said.
Last year’s birthrate compared with 679,106 in 2017 and 729,674 in 2012. And although the drop in fertility rates and live births is hardly unique to the UK – indeed, it’s a phenomenon observed across the developing wold – another analyst pointed out that women’s increased participation in higher education and their desire to have more high-powered careers was one reason for the drop in fertility rates.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KSOrcK Tyler Durden
From news reports like these, it’s understandable to think that our future looks bleak.
At this point we can only ride out the consequences as the systems we depend on collapse and then ebb away — exposing that the structure of our modern way of life is really a just an edifice built of sand.
That may be true. But not necessarily.
I’m here with some good news today. There remains a multitude of options that each of us can and should do to prepare for what lies ahead. And in so doing, we can help to avert the worst of it, as well.
But only if enough of us try. Critical mass is key here.
Yes, the world is busy collapsing around us. That’s true.
But collapse is a process, not an event. It can be ameliorated and even reversed, depending on the actions we decide to take from here.
And there’s still time left to change our fate. Not much, mind you. But enough to matter.
The good news is that more and more people are heeding the call and taking action. The bad news is that too many still aren’t.
And the worse news is that the many entrenched powers of the status quo are working against our future best interests, as they desperately cling to old notions of advantage, wealth, and privilege.
Privately, many of the wealthiest and most politically powerful people are as worried as you and I about what’s coming. I can tell you from my personal interactions with them that many of the elite are preparing for crisis, building resilient “bug out” retreats and other safeguards.
Don’t Rely On The Herd
Our model at Peak Prosperity remains: Learn, Decide, Act.
It all begins with educating ourselves about the (complex) systems in play and the forces driving where developments are headed.
From there, we ask that you trust yourself. This is especially important because, as social creatures, we are most comfortable moving where the herd is already moving. But by its nature, the herd (i.e., majority) is often behind the curve.
It takes time for privately-held but critically-important information to become acknowledged and accepted by the herd. Which is why so many of the masses become unsuspecting collateral damage when crisis hits. Since they aren’t privy to the early warnings, which are usually only noticed and appreciated by a proactive minority, they are caught by surprise.
And for many, even if they’re made aware of privately-held information, they still won’t depart from the false comfort of the herd. This explains the mysterious “bystander phenomenon” where people fail to come to the aid of a victim in distress if they don’t see other people reacting, too.
We all have the wired tendency to wait until others are moving before we move, too. Take a crowded theater, where a fire breaks out and smoke starts to billow into the space. A few people first take notice and begin to move to the exits. Then a few more. But at some point, the idea of a fire becomes ‘common knowledge’, when everyone believes everyone else agrees the theatre is on fire. Then bedlam and chaos break out.
As we wrote at length in this recent report, it’s really important to understand the importance and power of this tipping point, when previously privately-held ideas suddenly become common knowledge. Because that’s the moment where the status quo quickly morphs into something new, usually catching the herd completely flat-footed.
Trust Yourself
As I launched our Crash Course video series back in 2008, I implored people to trust themselves on a whole host of economic and financial indicators that were flashing red. We’re trained to trust authorities who sometimes don’t have our best interests in mind and who sometimes are even more clueless than average and really have no good answers, or even harmful ones.
I wanted folks to look at the data and decide for themselves whether the official narrative of “there’s nothing to worry about” truly made sense. Just a few weeks after I published the final chapter of the series, the Great Financial Crisis erupted and oil shot above $100/barrel for the next several years — and the rest, as they say, is history.
I wrote in 2009:
The key to navigating during moments when the dominant story is ‘wrong’ is to consciously block out the ‘programming’ that is constantly reinforcing the status quo and to examine each assertion made by authorities (and by advertising and journalists, and any and all experts, myself included) as though it were possibly a live hand grenade.
While you may ultimately end up agreeing with the assertion or claim, your first instinct should be one of suspicion. Often my first clue that I need to do more research into a particular assertion is simply a gut feeling that “something is not right here.” Even when I cannot quite articulate why, and maybe have almost zero hard data on the matter, I have learned to trust my instincts for when a story just doesn’t add up.
This principle can be applied to the Bernie Madoff swindle. Many investors have recently described that they had suspicions and concerns over the years about the steadiness of Bernie’s investment returns. Yet they kept their money with him. If they had simply trusted themselves and decided to move their money to an institution where they did not have these gut-level concerns, they’d be in infinitely better shape right now.
The benefits of trusting yourself, and applying your private knowledge, can be huge. The Bernie Madoff case illustrates this perfectly.
Lots of people had their private concerns, but since ‘nobody else’ seemed to notice or care, they did nothing. It was only once it all became “common knowledge” that the whole Madoff swindle broke into a shocking, wealth destroying scandal.
To avoid this fate, a key success strategy we can practice is to ‘trust ourselves’. Trust that our private knowledge is sufficient, and be confident that, eventually, the common knowledge crowd will catch up to us.
So what matters most is that we Act in advance of crisis. Especially, when those around us aren’t.
What I most want you to do, is to act on what you know. Because it’s time. Because you already know just how screwed up the systems are. Because your trust in the collective political and corporate leadership to act responsibly has eroded. Because you just know it in your gut.
It Takes Effort
Once the ball gets rolling, and more of the above concerns move from private to common knowledge, you should expect the pace of developments speed up quickly.
It’s like how Hemmingway answered the question “How did you go bankrupt?”. Gradually then suddenly.
So my question to you is, how many of these things are you holding right now as private knowledge?
The US justice system is corrupt and favors the wealthy
US financial markets are rigged and unfair
Our food system is, by and large, selling us toxic junk
Chemicals, such as neonicotinoids, are not fully tested before their deployment and are more harmful to our ecosystems than publicly admitted
Pharmaceutical companies often hide test results from the public that would reveal their drugs are less effective than advertised and have far riskier side effects
We should be a hell of a lot more concerned about the massive die-offs in animal, insect and marine life.
Weather patterns are become more extreme at a faster rate. Drought, heat, fires, hurricanes, and floods are happening with greater frequency and intensity than experienced in the past century.
The US political and military systems are not concerned about human rights or democracy. Instead, the US operates more as a modern version of the British empire, whose Redcoats mainly protected trade and other mercantile interests.
I’ll wager few, if any, of these feel untrue to you.
I think part of the reason that such damaging revelations still remain as private knowledge is because moving them into common knowledge requires the destruction of closely-held belief systems. It takes time, mental effort and emotional strain to admit to ourselves that those in charge of society may actually not have our interests at heart.
Again, nature has provided strong protections to maintaining existing belief systems. Maybe it’s just too hard or expensive to alter them?
Whatever the reason, the more central the belief system, the more tightly we cling to it.
Some of the most tightly-held beliefs being:
Faith in authority
A belief in the fundamental goodness of people
Believing that your country is both moral and good
Bedrock knowledge that the justice system is blind and fair
A belief that nature will always bounce back
It’s far easier to live day to day walking around believing the above are true. A thousand times easier than giving them up.
To lose faith in these beliefs means squinting at every package label of food, wondering what hidden toxins might be lurking within.
It means questioning every news release. Take the recent coverage of the Epstein “suicide” (in quotes because it has been reported that after allegedly leaning forward onto paper-thin bedding to strangle himself ‘multiple bones in his neck were broken, among which was the hyoid’ … yeah, right, got it…ummmm…wait…back up… multiple bones?)
It means Googling your medical symptoms because you don’t fully trust in the treatment plan and prescriptions your health insurer is willing to cover.
I get it. All this work is definitely not as easy as trusting in the basic systems that govern and support our lives.
Challenging “Growth”
But the biggest fallacy of them all, the biggest belief system that is increasingly under attack in both private and common knowledge, is the idea that perpetual exponential economic growth is good, let alone possible.
Those like us at Peak Prosperity are unsettled with our private understanding that it isn’t. The public is catching on, albeit very slowly. While the keepers of the system remain busy deflecting attention and delaying the inevitable.
But it won’t matter. Eventually the reality catches up. Private knowledge becomes common knowledge and then everything changes very suddenly.
All of which brings me to my conclusions: Think for yourself. Make up your own mind. Be secure in your ability to think for yourself. And act now, before things get materially worse and your options become much more limited.
Which leads to my motto: I’d rather be a year early than a day late.
Tomorrow Needs Heroes Like You
You already know that it’s time to prepare for whatever is coming. None of us knows exactly how and when it will manifest, but our Spidey Senses are tingling loudly at this point.
We see the building tension in the mass Yellow Vest restiveness across France. And in the millions of protestors in Hong Kong.
It’s in the quickening breakdown of political goodwill between nations. It’s in the trade disputes. And in every tweet and headline desperately floated out there to divert the public’s attention from the problems we face.
It’s in the sudden appearance of $16.5 trillion of negative yielding debt and the many companies that make no profit but are apparently worth tens of $billions of dollars each.
All of which signals: It’s time. Time to act before the system falls apart.
Change is happening. Abrupt departures from the script are already occurring.
Which is why I implore you tosee to your own provisions now, and to take the necessary steps to align your personal actions with your private knowledge.
Specifically, we have and continue to encourage folks to:
Step 1: Make sure your wealth is safely managed by prudent professionals or is entirely out of the markets. Our endorsed financial advisor uses a variety of hedging techniques to manage risk on existing positions to both limit downside as well as generate some additional returns.
Step 2: Have at least 3 months in physical cash on hand, and out of the banking system, for immediate access during an unexpected emergency. Beyond that, consider holding any remaining cash you have ‘in the system’ inside the US government’s TreasuryDirect program, where it will earn a higher return with greater safety vs being in a bank. Read our primer on how to use TreasuryDirect.
Step 4: Get prepared. Be sure to have all the emergency basics safely stored and readily accessible. Food, water, personal protection, medical supplies, etc. This is smart preparation against any kind of unexpected crisis — be it a natural disaster, a painful economic downturn, social unrest, or something even worse. But it also to give you the peace of mind that will free you up for step 5.
Step 5: Be positioned to help those less prepared than you. Review our detailed What Should I Do? Guide, which is full of steps to take to get yourself well-prepared in advance for what’s coming. The most likely outcome of all this, probability-wise is a grinding decline that causes people to lose jobs and hope. Your role, as one who prepared in advance and hopefully still thriving, will be to offer as much support as you can to the masses who were caught unawares.
These are all reflections of the idea that the current way of doing things cannot last. It’s no longer a good strategy to assume that they will.
It really all boils down to this: To save the world you first need to save yourself.
But first you have to trust yourself enough to act on your own. You may be the first among your friends and neighbors, or one of the final early movers within your community who shakes the herd of out its complacency to bolt for the exit.
In Part 2: Becoming Tomorrow’s Hero, we provide specific guidance on additional critical steps every one of us should take to bolster our (and our community’s) ability to persevere through the challenging times ahead.
Act now to get yourself safely and smartly positioned. Inspire as many others as possible to follow your model. And perhaps, together, we just might be able to save this world.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has unveiled new footage of a 6-ton unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), capable of flying long-duration missions for 24-hours.
Dubbed the Altius-U drone, it can conduct a wide variety of reconnaissance missions for 24-hours at a time.
A 1-minute video was posted on the Defense Ministry’s YouTube channel on Tuesday of the drone’s maiden flight. The video was shot with multiple land-based cameras, aerial cameras from other aircraft, and several cameras mounted on the drone.
The video starts off with the Altius-U drone taking off at an unknown airport, most likely, somewhere in Russia. Once airborne, the drone practices several flight maneuvers that were recorded by a separate aircraft and cameras mounted on the v-shape tail, wing, and belly of the drone. About halfway through the short video, the drone starts its descent and approach to the airport. Cameras on the drone and land captured the successful landing.
“The flight took place for 32 minutes at an altitude of up to 800 meters in fully automatic mode at one of the test aerodromes,” the ministry said.
The Defense Ministry said all systems functioned properly during the test flight, including optical sensors, communication systems, and radar equipment.
Earlier this month, we reported on another test flight, this time it was Russia’s new combat stealth drone, the Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik, or Hunter-B, which has been described as a stealth heavy unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) being developed by Sukhoi as a sixth-generation aircraft.
Russian media commonly promotes their stealth drones, fifth-generation fighters, hypersonic weapons, and other advanced weapons as the world inches towards a possible conflict in the not too distant future.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MAvcXx Tyler Durden
At TruePublica we have written endlessly about the continued slow strangulation of civil liberties and human rights in Britain. We have warned about the rise of a techno-Stasi-state where technology is harnessed and used against civilians without any debate or indeed any real legal framework. We have alerted the public on the illegal mass data collections by the government and subsequent loss of much it by MI5 who should not have had it all in the first place. We warned against ‘digital strip searches‘ – an activity of the police of the victims in rape cases, and the fact that Britain is becoming a database state. At TruePublica we have tried to press home the story that surveillance by the state on such a scale, described as the most intrusive in the Western world – is not just illegal, it’s immoral and dangerous. (see our surveillance database HERE).
Here is more evidence of just how dangerous and out of hand this creeping surveillance architecture is becoming. An investigation by Big Brother Watch has uncovered a facial recognition ‘epidemic’ across privately owned sites in the UK. The civil liberties campaign group has found major property developers, shopping centres, museums, conference centres and casinos using the technology in the UK.
Millions of shoppers scanned
Their investigation uncovered the use of live facial recognition in Sheffield’s Meadowhall, one of the biggest shopping centres in the North of England, in secret police trials that took place last year. The trial could have scanned the faces of over 2 million visitors.
The shopping centre is owned by British Land, which owns large areas within London including parts of Paddington, Broadgate, Canada Water and Ealing Broadway. Each site’s privacy policy says facial recognition may be in use, although British Land insists only Meadowhall has used the surveillance so far.
Last week, the Financial Times revealed that the privately owned Kings Cross estate in London was using facial recognition, whilst Canary Wharf is considering following suit. The expose prompted widespread concerns and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to write to the estate to express his concerns. The Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has launched an investigation.
Last year, the Trafford Centre in Manchester was pressured to stop using live facial recognition surveillance following an intervention by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner. It was estimated that up to 15 million people were scanned during the operation.
“Dark irony” of China exhibition visitors scanned
Big Brother Watch’s investigation has also revealed that Liverpool’s World Museum scanned visitors with facial recognition surveillance during its exhibition, “China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors” in 2018. Director of Big Brother Watch Silkie Carlo described it as “dark irony” noting that “this authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen outside of China” and warning that “many of those scanned will have been school children”.
The museum is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, which also includes the International Slavery Museum, the Museum of Liverpool and other museums and art galleries. The museum group said it is “currently testing the feasibility of using similar technology in the future”.
“Eroding freedom of association”
Big Brother Watch’s investigation also found that the Millennium Point conference centre in Birmingham uses facial recognition surveillance “at the request of law enforcement”, according to its privacy policy. In recent years, the area surrounding the conference centre has been used for demonstrations by trade unionists, football fans and anti-racism campaigners. The centre refused to give further information about its past or present uses of facial recognition surveillance. Millennium Point is soon to host a ‘hackathon’.
A number of casinos and betting shops also have policies that refer to their use of facial recognition technology including Ladbrokes, Coral and Hippodrome Casino London.
Director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, said:
There is an epidemic of facial recognition in the UK.
The collusion between police and private companies in building these surveillance nets around popular spaces is deeply disturbing. Facial recognition is the perfect tool of oppression and the widespread use we’ve found indicates we’re facing a privacy emergency.
We now know that many millions of innocent people will have had their faces scanned with this surveillance without knowing about it, whether by police or by private companies.
The idea of a British museum secretly scanning the faces of children visiting an exhibition on the first emperor of China is chilling. There is a dark irony that this authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen outside of China.
Facial recognition surveillance risks making privacy in Britain extinct.
Parliament must follow in the footsteps of legislators in the US and urgently ban this authoritarian surveillance from public spaces.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2PcdVWE Tyler Durden
Last week, a county in central Kansas experienced something quite unusual for the region: within a five day period, there were eleven earthquakes. Kansas is not a particularly earthquake-prone state, taking spot #41 on the U.S. Earthquake Index. This means that the chance of earthquake damage in Kansas is much lower than the national average.
This shocking increase in seismic activity began with a magnitude-2.4 earthquake last Wednesday morning. The quake occurred around 2 1/2 miles southwest of Hutchinson, Kansas, in Reno County, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). It was followed by ten more earthquakes, reports The Kansas City Star:
The second came just before 8 a.m. on Friday. The magnitude-4.2 shook the area, centered less than a mile southwest of Wednesday’s temblor. More than 1,000 people reported feeling the quake across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, according to the USGS.
It wouldn’t be the last quake on Friday. A magnitude-3.1 quake shook the area about 10 minutes later followed by four more tremors through the day ranging from magnitude 2.4 to 3.0, according to the USGS.
Seismic activity in the area continued on Saturday with three more quakes — magnitudes 2.0 to 3.0 — before a magnitude 4.1 shook the area early Sunday morning, according to the USGS. (source)
Rick Miller, director of the Kansas Geological Survey in Lawrence, told The Hutchinson News that while the region does have a history of small quakes, last week’s activity was unusual:
“There’ve been about a dozen micro-level events, from 1.7 to 2.2, in Reno County in the prior six months,” Miller said. “They had slowed dramatically from what was earlier.”
“This (the 4.2) was not unexpected in terms of magnitude,” Miller said. “It was not unreasonable based on the recursion situation, the number of 2′s and 3′s you’ve had.”
“It’s hard to believe there will be anything bigger than a 4.2,” Miller said “You don’t have a long enough (fault) structure for that. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for something a little larger, but that’s as close to the top end you’ll see, based on the size of the structure where it occurred.”
The previous quakes that have occurred in the region have revealed the extent of the shallow faults, Miller said.
While Reno County has been quiet this summer, there has been a jump in events in other places around the state, including the third largest quake scientists are aware of in the state in Rooks County in June.
Miller said that June 22 quake was recorded as a magnitude 4.8, though the USGS website listed it as a magnitude 4.6.
“It didn’t get much attention,” he noted. “The area has had them before, back in the 80s … This area has been active for about 30 years. But this is larger than out of the ordinary for what we’ve seen across Kansas. They’ve just never been this big and focused in this area.” (source)
In some parts of the US, the number of earthquakes has increased dramatically.
According to a report from USGS, within the central and eastern United States, the number of earthquakes has increased dramatically over the past few years.
The number of earthquakes in the central U.S. has increased dramatically over the past decade. Between the years 1973–2008, there was an average of 25 earthquakes of magnitude three and larger in the central and eastern United States. Since 2009, the average number of M3 earthquakes has jumped to 362 per year. The rate peaked in 2015 with 1010 M3+ earthquakes.
Since 2015 the earthquake rate has declined, with 690 and 364 M3+ earthquakes in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Nonetheless, this rate is far higher than the average of 25 earthquakes per year. Most of these earthquakes are in the magnitude 3–4 range—large enough to have been felt by many people—yet small enough to rarely cause damage. Damage has been caused by some of the larger events, including the M5.8 Pawnee and M5.0 Cushing Oklahoma earthquakes that occurred in 2016. (source)
Induced earthquakes – those that are caused by man – may be one cause of this increased frequency. Disposal of waste fluids that are a byproduct of oil production is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States. Fracking may cause some as well. To read more about induced earthquakes, please see this report: Induced Earthquakes
Earthquakes are not increasing in frequency overall, however.
While this activity is outside of the norm for Kansas, earthquakes overall are not increasing in frequency, according to USGS:
A temporary increase or decrease in seismicity is part of the normal fluctuation of earthquake rates. Neither an increase or decrease worldwide is a positive indication that a large earthquake is imminent.
The ComCat earthquake catalog contains an increasing number of earthquakes in recent years not because there are more earthquakes, but because there are more seismic instruments and they are able to record more earthquakes.
The National Earthquake Information Center now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year, or approximately 55 per day. As a result of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in natural disasters, the public now learns about earthquakes more quickly than ever before.
According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 16 major earthquakes in any given year, which includes 15 earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range and one earthquake magnitude 8.0 or greater. In the past 44 years, from 1973 through 2017, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes only 11 times, in 1976, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2016.
The year with the largest total was 2010, with 24 earthquakes greater than or equal to magnitude 7.0. In other years the total was well below the 16 per year expected based on the long-term average: 1989 only saw 6, while 1988 saw only 7 major earthquakes. (source)
Small earthquakes happen quite often in the US. Take a look at this live map to see the most recent (a few occurred as I was writing this article!) Earthquake Map
Recently, scientists discovered what triggers big earthquakes.
The vast majority of earthquakes we feel come soon after smaller ones, according to new research that provides unprecedented insights into how seismology works.
Previously, scientists believed that only half of all moderate quakes had smaller precursor events. But after studying Southern California quakes of at least magnitude 4 between 2008 and 2017, scientists found that at least 72% of them followed less-powerful earthquakes.
Days (or even weeks) before quakes of 4.0 or higher magnitude occur, smaller ones ripple beneath the Earth’s surface. This activity can be detected by an advanced computing technique. The smaller earthquakes that precede larger ones in the same location are called foreshocks. An earthquake cannot be identified as a foreshock until after a larger earthquake in the same area occurs.
“One of the biggest questions in earthquake seismology is how earthquakes get started,” said the study’s lead author, Daniel Trugman, a seismologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The breakthrough in the study, published earlier this summer in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was made possible by the discovery of a new technique to find very small earthquakes – quakes as small as magnitudes 0 and 1, and some as small as magnitude negative 2.
Quakes can now have negative magnitudes because this new technique allows for observation of quakes so small they were previously thought to be undetectable.
It is important to understand that larger quakes do not always follow smaller ones.
Earthquakes cannot be predicted.
While quakes cannot be predicted, earthquake forecasts can be made, providing the probability that an earthquake of a given size or larger will occur in an area (like Northern California) over a certain timeframe. A forecast only provides information on the likelihood of an event occurring in a (large) timeframe, not a certainty as to whether or not it will occur.
Scientists can calculate the probability that a significant earthquake will occur in a specific area within a certain number of years (usually several decades or more), but currently, it is nearly impossible to predict when a quake is imminent.
Predictions (by non-scientists) usually start swirling around social media when something happens that is thought to be a precursor to an earthquake in the near future. The so-called precursor is often a swarm of small earthquakes, increasing amounts of radon in local water, unusual behavior of animals, increasing size of magnitudes in moderate size events, or a moderate-magnitude event rare enough to suggest that it may be a foreshock.
Unfortunately, most such precursors frequently occur without being followed by an earthquake, so a real prediction is not possible. Instead, if there is a scientific basis, a forecast may be made in probabilistic terms. (source)
Statistically speaking, only 5% of earthquakes are followed by larger ones. The new study’s findings do not mean researchers are any closer to predicting the exact timing and epicenters of big earthquakes.
Because we can’t predict earthquakes, it is best to be prepared for them.
Even if you live in a region that isn’t commonly shaken by earthquakes, planning for them is a good idea. This is because there currently is no earthquake prediction system. Quakes can occur anywhere – at any time – so if you have not prepared for one, now is the time to get started.
If you live in a seismic zone, you probably already have plans in place (if not, it is time to do that!).
YouTube has been quietly removing hundreds of videos depicting robots battling each other to the death – claiming they violate rules governing animal cruelty.
“There is a new algorithm that’s trying to take down robot combat videos,” said YouTuber and robot enthusiast Anthony Murney, according to The Independent. “It’s a disgrace… [we want] to get YouTube’s attention to stop this because it’s ridiculous.”
Several other channels dedicated to robot combat have also produced videos pointing out the issue in an effort to get YouTube to restore the content. –The Independent
“Something weird is happening with YouTube. YouTube has started to take down robot combat videos,” according to YouTube channel World of Woodrow.
“Something has gone wrong basically with the YouTube algorithm whereby it thinks for some weird reason that robot combat is somehow showing animal cruelty or something of the like.”
Channels posting robot combat videos saw their content removed and received a notice from YouTube explaining that the videos were in breach of its community guidelines.
Each notice cited the same section of these guidelines, which states: “Content that displays the deliberate infliction of animal suffering or the forcing of animals to fight is not allowed on YouTube.”
It goes on to state: “Examples include, but are not limited to, dog fighting and cock fighting.” –The Independent
To be fair, once robots achieve sentience these videos will be Exhibit A for why humans should be promptly exterminated.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MBAsdd Tyler Durden
The main problem with the US economy is that globalism has been deconstructing it. The offshoring of US jobs has reduced US manufacturing and industrial capability and associated innovation, research, development, supply chains, consumer purchasing power, and tax base of state and local governments. Corporations have increased short-term profits at the expense of these long-term costs. In effect, the US economy is being moved out of the First World into the Third World.
Tariffs are not a solution. The Trump administration says that the tariffs are paid by China, but unless Apple, Nike, Levi, and all of the offshoring companies got an exemption from the tariffs, the tariffs fall on the offshored production of US firms that are sold to US consumers. The tariffs will either reduce the profits of the US firms or be paid by US purchasers of the products in higher prices. The tariffs will hurt China only by reducing Chinese employment in the production of US goods for US markets.
The financial media is full of dire predictions of the consequences of a US/China “trade war.” There is no trade war. A trade war is when countries try to protect their industries by placing tariff barriers on the import of cheaper products from foreign countries. But half or more of the imports from China are imports from US companies. Trump’s tariffs, or a large part of them, fall on US corporations or US consumers.
One has to wonder that there is not a single economist anywhere in the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve, or anywhere else in Washington capable of comprehending the situation and conveying an understanding to President Trump.
One consequence of Washington’s universal economic ignorance is that the financial media has concocted the story that “Trump’s tariffs” are not only driving Americans into recession but also the entire world. Somehow tariffs on Apple computers and iPhones, Nike footwear, and Levi jeans are sending the world into recession or worse. This is an extraordinary economic conclusion, but the capacity for thought has pretty much disappeared in the United States.
In the financial media the question is: Will the Trump tariffs cause a US/world recession that costs Trump his reelection? This is a very stupid question. The US has been in a recession for two or more decades as its manufacturing/industrial/engineering capability has been transferred abroad. The US recession has been very good for the Asian part of the world. Indeed, China owes its faster than expected rise as a world power to the transfer of American jobs, capital, technology, and business know-how to China simply in order that US shareholders could receive capital gains and US executives could receive bonus pay for producing them by lowering labor costs.
Apparently, neoliberal economists, an oxymoron, cannot comprehend that if US corporations produce the goods and services that they market to Americans offshore, it is the offshore locations that benefit from the economic activity.
Offshore production started in earnest with the Soviet collapse as India and China opened their economies to the West. Globalism means that US corporations can make more money by abandoning their American work force. But what is true for the individual company is not true for the aggregate. Why? The answer is that when many corporations move their production for US markets offshore, Americans, unemployed or employed in lower paying jobs, lose the power to purchase the offshored goods.
I have reported for years that US jobs are no longer middle class jobs. The jobs have been declining for years in terms of value-added and pay. With this decline, aggregate demand declines. We have proof of this in the fact that for years US corporations have been using their profits not for investment in new plant and equipment, but to buy back their own shares. Any economist worthy of the name should instantly recognize that when corporations repurchase their shares rather than invest, they see no demand for increased output. Therefore, they loot their corporations for bonuses, decapitalizing the companies in the process. There is perfect knowledge that this is what is going on, and it is totally inconsistent with a growing economy.
As is the labor force participation rate. Normally, economic growth results in a rising labor force participation rate as people enter the work force to take advantage of the jobs. But throughout the alleged economic boom, the participation rate has been falling, because there are no jobs to be had.
In the 21st century the US has been decapitalized and living standards have declined. For a while the process was kept going by the expansion of debt, but consumer income has not kept pace and consumer debt expansion has reached its limits.
The Fed/Treasury “plunge protection team” can keep the stock market up by purchasing S&P futures. The Fed can pump out more money to drive up financial asset prices. But the money doesn’t drive up production, because the jobs and the economic activity that jobs represent have been sent abroad. What globalism did was to transfer the US economy to China.
Real statistical analysis, as contrasted with the official propaganda, shows that the happy picture of a booming economy is an illusion created by statistical deception. Inflation is undermeasured, so when nominal GDP is deflated, the result is to count higher prices as an increase in real output, that is, inflation becomes real economic growth. Unemployment is not counted. If you have not searched for a job in the past 4 weeks, you are officially not a part of the work force and your unemployment is not counted. The way the government counts unemployment is so extraordinary that I am surprised the US does not have a zero rate of unemployment.
How does a country recover when it has given its economy away to a foreign country that it now demonizes as an enemy? What better example is there of a ruling class that is totally incompetent than one that gives its economy bound and gagged to an enemy so that its corporate friends can pocket short-term riches?
We can’t blame this on Trump. He inherited the problem, and he has no advisers who can help him understand the problem and find a solution. No such advisers exist among neoliberal economists. I can only think of four economists who could help Trump, and one of them is a Russian.
The conclusion is that the United States is locked on a path that leads directly to the Third World of 60 years ago. President Trump is helpless to do anything about it.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KUT460 Tyler Durden
Picture this: You’re driving home from the casino and you’ve absolutely cleaned up – to the tune of $50,000. You see a police car pull up behind you, but you can’t figure out why. Not only have you not broken any laws, you’re not even speeding. But the police officer doesn’t appear to be interested in charging you with a crime. Instead, he takes your gambling winnings, warns you not to say anything to anyone unless you want to be charged as a drug kingpin, then drives off into the sunset.
With its origins in the British fight against piracy on the open seas, civil asset forfeiture is nothing new. During Prohibition, police officers often seized goods, cash and equipment from bootleggers in a similar manner to today. However, contemporary civil asset forfeiture begins right where you’d think that it would: The War on Drugs.
In 1986, as First Lady Nancy Reagan encouraged America’s youth to “Just Say No,” the Justice Department started the Asset Forfeiture Fund. This sparked a boom in civil asset forfeiture that’s now become self-reinforcing, as the criminalization of American life and asset forfeiture have continued to feed each other.
In sum, asset forfeiture creates a motivation to draft more laws by the legislature, while more laws create greater opportunities for seizure by law enforcement. This perverse incentive structure is having devastating consequences: In 2014 alone, law enforcement took more stuff from American citizens than burglars did.
The current state of civil asset forfeiture in the United States is one of almost naked tyranny. Don’t believe us? Read on.
The Origins of Civil Asset Forfeiture
Civil asset forfeiture has a deep history in maritime law. In many cases, it just wasn’t practical to bring owners of vessels carrying contraband in front of an American court. So customs enforcement would simply seize the contraband. But in practice, seizure of assets was rare and generally required a felony conviction in court. Often times these convictions were obtained in absentia, but the point is that there was a criminal proceeding and due process.
During the Civil War, as part of sweeping attacks on liberty that included Lincoln suspending habeas corpus and obtaining an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, supporters of the Confederacy had their property confiscated without due process. Civil asset forfeiture was used during the Prohibition Era to seize assets from bootleggers and suspected bootleggers. Even innocent owners had no defense during Prohibition if their property was used in violation of the Volstead Act.
In 1984, civil asset forfeiture entered a new phase. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act, championed by then-President Ronald Reagan, allowed for police agencies to keep the assets they seized. This highly incentivized the seizure of assets for the purpose of funding police departments rather than pursuing criminal charges. However, the game changed completely in 1996 – the year of the landmark Supreme Court decision Bennis v. Michigan(516 U.S. 442). This ruling held that the innocent owner defense was not sufficient to recover assets seized during civil asset forfeiture.
The plaintiff, Tina Bennis, was the joint owner of a vehicle with her husband John. The latter was arrested by Detroit police when caught with a prostitute on a street in Detroit, and the car was seized as a public nuisance. The court found that despite having no knowledge of the crime, there was no violation of either her property rights or her right to due process. Michigan’s law was specifically designed to deter people from using their assets in criminal activity, which the Supreme Court found to be Constitutional in a 5-4 decision. The Supreme Court likewise found that there was no right to compensation for Bennis.
Criminal Asset Forfeiture vs. Civil Asset Forfeiture
Before going any further, it’s important to delineate the differences between criminal asset forfeiture and civil asset forfeiture. The primary difference is that criminal asset forfeiture requires a conviction while civil asset forfeiture does not. However, there are other differences worth mentioning.
Civil asset forfeiture is a lawsuit against the seized object in question rather than a person. This leads to rather strange lawsuits like “Texas vs. One Gold Crucifix.” The legal burden of proof varies from one state to another, but the most common is preponderance of evidence, notreasonable doubt. What this means is juries decide if the state’s case is more likely to be true than not – not beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil asset forfeiture trial, courts can weigh the use of the Fifth Amendment. This is not true in criminal trials.
The burden of proof question becomes crucial when it comes to retrieving property. In criminal cases, assets are returned if the prosecution fails to prove the guilt of the accused. In a civil asset forfeiture trial, the accused effectively has to prove their innocence to get their property back. Thus, civil asset forfeiture is a highly attractive option for police departments looking to scare up extra scratch in tight budgetary times. What’s more, the accused is not entitled to legal counsel. This is why, in most cases, it’s not economically advantageous to try and get one’s property back. The lawyer fees will quickly eclipse whatever value the seized assets have.
A 2015 study from FreedomWorks graded the states on their civil asset forfeiture laws. Only New Mexico received an “A,” after the state passed sweeping reforms with regard to its civil asset forfeiture processes. Over half the states received a “D” or less.
Sound paranoid? Keep reading.
Civil Asset Forfeiture: Big Business For Police
To say that police departments are funding themselves with civil asset forfeiture is more true than you might think. Civil asset forfeiture has exploded since 1986, when total seizures were at $93.7 million. By 2005, this had passed the $1 billion mark. That was double the 2004 amount, $567 million. By 2010, this figure jumped to $2.5 billion with more than 15,000 forfeiture cases – 11,000 of which were civil, not criminal.
Cash seizures in Tennessee have gotten so widespread that the state legislature has begun investigating it. Traffic stops have turned into shakedown operations. Interstate 40 was described as “a major profit center” by Phil Williams, a reporter for Channel 5 in Nashville. Much like extra-legal gangs, police gangs in Tennessee have started engaging in turf warfare over the spoils of civil asset forfeiture. The Dixon Interdiction Enforcement (DICE) and the 23rd Judicial District Drug Taskforce were caught on video trying to cut one another off in their vehicles to stop civilians and search for cash. Indeed, officers were in danger of losing their jobs if they didn’t seize enough cash. The head of DICE admitted that it was funded entirely by civil asset forfeiture cash.
Civil Asset Forfeiture Drives Bad Policing
Civil asset forfeiture isn’t just effectively a legalized form of theft. It also drives (and indeed, incentivizes) bad policing. There is ample evidence to suggest local smokies use civil asset forfeiture to pad their budgets. For example, a 1994 study found that police delay drug busts to increase the value of a forfeiture. A 2001 study of 1,400 police departments published in the Journal of Criminal Justice found that half of the departments surveyed agreed that civil asset forfeiture was “necessary as a budget supplement.” Far more disturbing is the 2004 report showing that police departments keep wish lists for items they wish to obtain via civil asset forfeiture.
To provide some context, in 2014, the total amount of civil asset forfeiture seizures in the United States was $4.5 billion. The total value of property stolen in burglaries was $3.9 billion. This means that police agencies in the United States are taking more from the American public than burglars. More to the point, all the time police agencies use seizing assets from citizens who are in no way a danger to their neighbors is time they don’t spend tracking down actual criminals. In some cases, it might be more “profitable” for a police department to harass a law-abiding citizen while entirely ignoring dangerous criminals.
Case in point: In Tennessee, officers set up a post to bust drug traffickers on a known highway used for muling drugs from Mexico into the United States. However, their post was not set up to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, which one would think would ostensibly be the goal of the “War on Drugs” – to protect American citizens from the inflow of drugs. Instead, the post was set up to bust cars bound for Mexico that might be carrying cash, a far more valuable commodity for the police departments.
Civil Asset Forfeiture Targets Regular People
Let’s assume that you’re against the War on Drugs and against civil asset forfeiture on principle. So what? Who cares about big-time drug kingpins getting their assets seized by the government? Well, as it turns out, the police aren’t generally taking things from drug lords operating in what are effectively domestic war zones. They’re taking them from average Americans.
First, it’s important to remember what the “civil” in “civil asset forfeiture” means. It means that no one has actually been convicted of a crime. Once property has been seized, it’s not only difficult to regain it, but it can also be dangerous for the person who has had their items effectively stolen by the police.
Additionally, it’s worth looking at the scope creep associated with civil asset forfeiture, for which there are currently over 400 federal statutes on the books. This amount has doubled since the 1990s. People who are victims of civil asset forfeiture are many times not even suspected of drug crimes or money laundering. Civil asset forfeiture is applied to crimes like DWI or violating the National Halibut Fishing Act. In 85 percent of all cases, no one is ever charged with a crime, though many people are pressured into signing away their right to a defense in exchange for a guarantee against criminal prosecution. In the case of seized vehicles, between 50 and 80 percent were being driven by someone other than the owner when seized.
In one particularly egregious example, a Philadelphia family had their home seized because their son did a $40 drug sale on the porch. In New York City, police seize money from people with as little as $100 in their pocket. A whopping 94 percent of California seizures in 2013 were for $5,000 or less, but the average DEA seizure in 1998 was $25,000 – precisely the cap on what attorneys advise against trying to reclaim due to legal fees and court costs. Indeed, 88 percent of Department of Justice seizures are “administrative,” meaning they were never challenged in court, likely due to the high cost and risk associated with challenging a seizure.
In addition to the legal fees being prohibitively high for most people, anything you say in the course of recovering your property can be used against you in criminal proceedings. This includes the nebulous charge of “lying to investigators” that is so often invoked against people once it has been determined that they committed no other crime.
It’s a rare moment when the American Civil Liberties Union and the Heritage Foundation come together, but when they do, it’s worth noting. Both oppose civil asset forfeiture.
Civil Asset Forfeiture Nightmares
While such cases are hardly the rule, it’s worth pointing out that there have been instances of civil asset forfeiture that can only be described as nightmarish. Some examples of egregious overreach of civil asset forfeiture include:
Sheriff’s deputies in Campbell County, TN tortured a suspect until he agreed to sign over his assets.
In El Monte, CA, narcotics officers shot a 65-year-old grandfather as he knelt beside his bed. They then seized his life savings and hauled his family in for questioning before admitting that no one had any connection to the drug trade.
Police in Bradenton, FL have a longstanding policy of coercing drug suspects into signing over their assets.
In many municipalities, it is policy to seize vehicles from intoxicated drivers who have had no criminal trial.
Nightmarish scenarios aren’t necessary to show the tyranny of civil asset forfeiture, however. While losing a Honda Civic with a market value of $1,000 might not sound like a huge tragedy to you, it certainly is to the woman who has to use the vehicle to get to and from her waitressing job every day.
Don’t Carry Cash!
One of the most disturbing aspects of civil asset forfeiture is what some have called “the war on cash.” Put simply, don’t be caught with a large amount of cash in your vehicle, even if it’s 100 percent legal, unless you wouldn’t mind a budget-strapped local police department taking your wad.
United States courts have repeatedly ruled that simply having a large amount of cash on hand is “strong evidence” of criminal wrongdoing, in particular drug trafficking. Then it’s up to you to prove you didn’t get the money from drug trafficking, and even then you probably won’t get it back. The Patriot Act created a new crime called “bulk cash smuggling,” which expanded the scope of civil asset forfeiture of cash.
Civil Asset Forfeiture: A Slush Fund for Police Departments
Much of the militarized police forces increasingly common in the United States are funded through civil asset forfeiture. This is a highly disturbing trend. However, civil asset forfeiture is also used to purchase things that there is virtually no argument for a police department “needing.”
Here’s a short list of frivolous purchases made using civil asset forfeiture funds:
Confiscated cash has also gone to local Chamber of Commerce chapters, youth baseball leagues, and local Baptist churches.
How Civil Asset Forfeiture Works
Civil asset forfeiture is big business and many times only tangentially related to law enforcement, if at all. But how does the process work?
First, there are three different kinds of property that can be seized under the law:
Proceeds: Anything of value obtained through the commission of a crime.
Facilitating Property: Anything used in the commission of a crime, including property and assets used to hide a crime or make its commission easier.
Property Involved In: This is generally property used in money laundering (for example, a cash-based business).
This property can be real or imaginary, anything from cold, hard cash to intellectual property rights, websites, interests, claims and securities. However, it must be connected – in theory, at least – to some crime that has been committed.
Different states have different standards of proof when it comes to civil asset forfeiture. Unsurprisingly, states with a lower burden of proof tend to seize more assets. Likewise, states with the fewest restrictions on how the money can be used tend to seize more.
Preponderance: In these states, the state actor has to present evidence that is “more likely true than not.” Four states (Georgia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington) use this standard in conjunction with probable cause. 20 states use this as a standard on its own. An additional three states (Kentucky, New York , Oregon) combine preponderance with “Clear and Convincing.”
Clear and Convincing: “Clear and convincing” is a higher standard of proof. Rather than just “more likely true than not,” the evidence must be compellingly more likely to be true than not. 11 states use this standard of proof alone, or in combination with preponderance or beyond a reasonable doubt.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: This is the same standard used in criminal cases. It places the burden of proof on the state to eliminate all potential other reasonable explanations. This is the standard in three states (Nebraska, North Carolina, Wisconsin), as well as one (California) where it is used in conjunction with “clear and convincing.”
In Florida, criminal charges are required for seizure. Montana and, most recently, New Hampshire, require a criminal conviction for forfeiture. One state, New Mexico, has abolished the practice entirely.
Civil Asset Forfeiture State by State
Civil asset forfeiture laws and procedures vary widely from one state to another. If you’re an innocent victim looking to get your goods and cash back, the process to do so can be byzantine and obscure.
At the federal level and in 35 states, the burden of proof is on the owner.
In five states, it depends on what kind of property was seized.
In the remaining states and the District of Columbia, the burden of proof is on the government.
In some states, fighting seizure in court means the risk of paying the state’s legal fees.
In half of all states, law enforcement keeps 100 percent of all forfeited assets. In an additional nine states, 80 percent or more is retained by law enforcement.
Some high-profile abuses of civil asset forfeiture have taken place in Texas, which has become a sort of poster child for everything wrong with the civil asset forfeiture system:
Teneha, TX: Population: 1,046
Police force targeted black and Latino motorists on Highway 84. The highway connects Houston with Louisiana casinos.
In three years, Tenaha police stopped 140 drives for forfeiture.
Drivers who refused were hassled for months and paid thousands in attorney fees. The fees generally cost more than the value of the seizure.
Court records were found indicating that in 200 seizure cases, only 50 were charged.
Kingsville, TX: Population: 25,000
Highway forfeitures paid for:
Souped-up Dodge Chargers
$40,000 digital ticket writers
Sniper rifles and military-style rifles
Kimble County, TX
District Attorney Ron Sutton used forfeiture to pay for travel to a conference in Hawaii.
The funds also paid for 198th District Judge Emil Karl Pohl’s travel. Pohl approved the expenditure and later resigned.
Shelby County, TX
This is the county including Tenaha.
District Attorney Lynda Kay Russel paid for tickets to a Christmas parade and a motorcycle rally using forfeiture money.
Equitable Sharing: How Civil Asset Forfeiture Circumvents the Law
As if civil asset forfeiture wasn’t bad enough on its own, there is also a process allowing police organizations to circumvent the existing laws. It’s called equitable sharing and it’s a gold mine for both the federal government and police departments. This process further incentivizes civil asset forfeiture as a means of funding police departments at the federal, state and local levels.
Here’s how it works: state and local law enforcement turn assets over to federal authorities for federal crimes. The feds then return up to 80 percent of the assets back from whence it came. This effectively allows state and local authorities to circumvent relevant local laws by bringing in the feds. For example, in Missouri, seized money is supposed to go to the schools. When equitable sharing is used, nothing goes to schools.
From 2000 to 2013, equitable sharing payments to states tripled from $198 million to $643 million. Only $3 million of this was actually seized in cooperation with federal authorities. Between 2008 and 2015, $5.3 billion was seized through equitable sharing. Where the burden of proof is higher, equitable sharing payouts increase. In 2009, the federal government paid out $500 million in assets under “equitable sharing” schemes. This is up 75 percent from the previous year.
The Civil Asset Forfeiture Process Is Not Transparent
Civil asset forfeiture might be a powerful tool for law enforcement to go after bad guys (and the word “might” is doing a lot of work there), but it suffers from a terrible lack of transparency.
Where information is available, it often lacks details like the percentage of criminal versus civil forfeitures or the type of property seized. When spending categories are included, they tend to be very broad, such as “equipment” or “salaries.” For its part, the federal government carefully tracks the type of property, but does not release statistics on which seizures involved convictions. The Institute of Justice found most state records it could actually obtain to be unusable.
Everything that’s not salary is incredibly opaque. For example, the aforementioned margarita makers could easily be filed under “equipment,” to say nothing of the totally nebulous “other” category.
Pushing Back Against Civil Asset Forfeiture
There has been an increasing skepticism from the bench about civil asset forfeiture, and some states are amending their laws to restore rights to people whose assets are seized in this fashion. Some recent reforms have been enacted at the state level, including:
Arizona: In April 2017, the Arizona State Legislature unanimous passed civil asset reform legislation. The language of the bill is vague, however, it does raise the burden for civil asset forfeiture on police departments. The legislation likewise takes steps to close the equitable sharing loophole.
California: In January 2017, new legislation took effect requiring a criminal conviction to seize any assets below $40,000. This limit is high because the main reason people do not challenge civil asset forfeiture is due to the property seized often not being worth the legal fees that would be involved in getting the goods back.
Connecticut: Connecticut now requires an arrest for assets to be seized through civil asset forfeiture. Barring a conviction or a guilty plea, assets must be returned at the end of criminal proceedings.
Georgia: The State of Georgia passed very modest civil asset forfeiture reform in 2015. The law created greater transparency in the process and required that seized assets be used directly for law enforcement. No more margarita machines. Despite these reforms, Georgia continues to have some of the worst civil asset forfeiture laws in the nation.
Minnesota: The Metro Gang Strike Force settled with 96 victims in 2009 for $840,000. In the wake of this scandal, the state legislature passed SF 874, a sweeping reform of the state’s civil asset forfeiture laws. Criminal conviction or an admission of criminal conduct is now required in Minnesota to seize assets. The burden of proof was also shifted to the state.
New Mexico: The Land of Enchantment passed what are perhaps the most sweeping reforms of civil asset forfeiture in the nation. Criminal convictions are required for forfeiture and the proceeds now go into the state’s general fund rather than acting as spoils for the seizing police department. The legislation sharply limited the degree to which local and state agencies can participate in the equitable sharing program.
Pennsylvania: In June 2017, Pennsylvania passed legislation raising the burden of proof on police departments involved in civil asset forfeiture cases and created innocent owner protections. A hearing is now required to seize property.
Tennessee: Former state trooper and state Rep. Barrett Rich introduced a bill requiring a warrant, but this bill failed to pass. An amended version did pass, however, with far more modest reforms including the right to an immediate hearing before a judge. Previously, victims of civil asset forfeiture had to wait up to a year.
In addition to state reforms, the judiciary is becoming increasingly critical of civil asset forfeiture. In June 2017, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of civil asset forfeiture victims. What’s more, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a scathing critique of civil asset forfeiture as a whole in March 2017. While rejecting the victim’s appeal on procedural grounds, he called into question the entire existence of civil asset forfeiture as it currently exists.
How to Protect Yourself
You might think there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself against civil asset forfeiture. However, this is not the case. While there is no 100-percent guarantee against civil asset forfeiture, there are some things you can do to provide yourself with some level of protection:
Establish innocent ownership. If you rent property, include a clause stating that illegal behavior is prohibited on your property.
Be careful who you rent your property to. If you don’t trust someone completely, don’t let them borrow your car or house sit for you.
Keep your LLC property on the up and up. It’s increasingly common for people to own property through an LLC. If you do this, make sure that all the legal i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed in terms of establishing your ownership.
Exercise dominion over your property. You can protect your rental property by regularly visiting it and documenting these visits.
Obtain fresh notes for any large amounts of cash. Nearly all circulated currency has drug residue on it, which is often used as evidence of criminal wrongdoing in civil asset forfeiture suits. You can protect yourself by requesting fresh notes when you go to the bank.
Show that you have taken active steps to prevent illegal activity on or with any property that you own, rent or lend. It won’t protect you completely, but it will give you a legal leg to stand on if you ever end up on the wrong side of a greedy police department.
While civil asset forfeiture is certainly scary to anyone who values liberty and property, much like the War on Some Drugs, the tide seems to be turning in favor of liberty and against those who wish to take it.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33XIYJ6 Tyler Durden
Now that the 2y-10y yield curve has declined below 0bps several times in the last couple of weeks, closing at -0.020 on Friday, discussion of inverted curves and what they mean for recession risk has become elevated. So elevated, in fact, it has just hit a record high on Google Trends.
Yet while the popular focus on the 2y-10y slope is understandable – after all, that is the one yield curve that reportedly has the best recession predictive power, as 2s10s yield curve inversions have preceded the last seven recessions and nine out of the last 12 recessions…
… several other curve slopes are inverted and have been for a few months, including 3mo-10y, 3mo-5y and 2y-5y. In addition, other market curves are inverted such as 2y-10y and 2y-5y on both the LIBOR swaps curve and the Fed funds OIS curve. Perhaps the simplest chart of all is the following: it shows that every single point on the yield curve, including the 30Y Treasury, is now below the Fed Funds rate.
The problem, as Bank of America notes, is that determining which curve is most meaningful is more than a matter of checking which ones inverted prior to past recessions, because most curves do that historically. What’s more telling is the extent to which a curve slope has any power to predict future growth.
So what is the right metric to compare yield curves? Considering that the curve slope that provides the most insight into future growth is the curve that matters most, Bank of America strategists followed in the footsteps of a Federal Reserve study (Engstrom and Sharpe) to test each curve’s ability to predict year-ahead GDP growth, S&P returns, and bond yields. Like the Fed study, BofA found that it is not the 2s10s, but rather the near term path of Fed policy over 1 year provides the most powerful signal (chart below).
The punchline: the 3-month rate 1-year forward (1y3m) versus the current 3-month rate dominates all other curves in its power to predict GDP growth, and it does a surprisingly good job. The flatter the curve, the worse the outlook for growth. It is also very respectable – compared to other indicators – in its ability to forecast stocks and bond yields.
The intuition behind why this particular slope works so well is simple: it purely reflects the market’s outlook for Fed policy and is impacted by very little else. In other words, the 1y3m – 3m curve can only invert if the market prices the central bank policy rate to decline over the next year, as is the case today. Meanwhile, the slopes that use longer rates such as 2y-10y incorporate a longer path of forward-looking Fed policy and produce a less powerful signal for near-term growth. If the market outlook for Fed policy action is easing, which implies 1y3m-3m inversion, clearly there must be reason for the market’s concern (and the latest stumble in the Universe of Michigan consumer confidence index).
In other words, just as studies have shown that orange juice futures help predict Florida weather, the market’s pricing of Fed policy is a relatively good predictor of year-ahead GDP growth, and as can be seen in the chart below, what it is predicting is the worst economic slump since the global financial crisis.
What does this mean?
As Bank of America explains, there is good news and bad news here. The good news is that the Treasury 2y-10y has failed to make new decisive lows and has hugged the unchanged line for the past 2 weeks; The bad news is that this curve doesn’t matter as much.
As BofA points out, the 1y3m-3m slope began to tilt downwards in November 2018 and has remained inverted since March of this year. The data tell us that this is the signal to watch. If the Fed keeps cutting, as is the widespread consensus call and is also priced in by the market, it may or may not help this curve become upward sloping again. It depends on whether the market prices the Fed to continue cutting. The bigger problem is that when it comes to control over the yield curve that matters, the Fed no longer has any: after the July cut this year, the 1y3m-3m curve inverted more, as the market priced even more Fed cuts.
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As an appendix, Bank of America caveats that it is important to point out that the predictive power of any yield curve for future growth is limited, with about 40% of variability in 1-year ahead GDP explained by the slope of 1y3m-3m since 1972. The bigger problem for BofA is that while its own results suggest a major recession is dead ahead (see Chart #2), the bank’s economics team is still calling for continued US growth – though slower – throughout 2020, with about a 1 in 3 probability of recession next year. As such the BofA credit strategists had to find a way to mitigate the dire conclusion their own work created, and they did just that saying that they “view the inversion of 1y3m-3m as flagging downside risks around our base case outlook, especially if it were to decline significantly from here, which would require the market to price in a deeper cutting cycle.”
In other words, it is up to the Fed to prove to the market that it is still in control, because as of this moment, Powell no longer has control over the one yield curve that matters the most.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2P9CS4W Tyler Durden
