iftttwall

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Since just before Christmas, armies of unidentified drones have been appearing each night in the skies above Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.  The drones are approximately 6 feet wide and they have red and white lights, but nobody knows where they are from or who owns them. 

This is a story that is now receiving national attention, and the FBI, the FAA and the U.S. Air Force are all investigating this mystery.  According to eyewitnesses, these drones can move “much faster than a regular aircraft”, and that would seem to indicate that they are highly sophisticated. 

So far, the U.S. military, every government agency that has been asked, and many of the major companies in the area have all denied operating the drones.  Federal, state and local law enforcement officials have been doing all that they can to solve this mystery, but so far they have come up completely empty.

And even though these drones are now receiving so much attention, they just keep coming back night after night.  According to one northern Colorado resident, when the drones come out it looks like “something from a movie”…

For the last week, Michelle Eckert has spotted a high-flying, night-time mystery above her rural northern Colorado home. She has seen drones, sometimes a dozen or more with wingspans 6 feet wide.

“The sky is lit up with Christmas lights basically,” she told CBS News. “There’s lights and things flying all over. It reminded me of something from a movie.”

Sometimes eyewitnesses just see one drone.  In other cases, the drones are working in pairs.  And in other instances, there are large groups of up to 30 drones working in very close coordination.

On Thursday night, a Denver Post reporter went out in search of these drones, and it wasn’t long before some of them were spotted…

As light turned to dark Thursday, stars appeared in the night sky. And soon after, so did drones. Around 6:10 p.m., a Denver Post reporter and photographer spotted two unmanned aircraft whizzing west above I-70, 8 miles outside Limon.

More drones could be seen outside Last Chance, a slight whir audible as they passed overhead. The aircraft flashed one red light and one white. Two other yellowish lights remained on throughout the flight. In 20 minutes, a half-dozen flying objects could be seen traversing over the barren wind farms.

The fact that there are so many of them and that they are operating over such a large area would seem to indicate that this is not the work of some rogue individual.

But at this point we don’t have any answers.

Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Nestor has been working on this case for quite a few days, and his county map is now “dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks” because so many people have been reporting sightings…

Inside the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in Hugo on Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Tom Nestor and Capt. Yowell stared at a county map hanging in a narrow hallway.

It’s dotted with blue and yellow thumbtacks, depicting sightings from across the county of just under 5,500 people. There’s a series of tacks clustered around Interstate 70 in Limon, with a few scattered north and south of the interstate. Some people reported the drones flying in packs. Others saw solo flights.

Nestor immediately suspected that a local company may be doing some mapping, but that theory didn’t turn up anything.  And other law enforcement officials in the region have come up empty as well…

Nestor said he has spoken to local oil companies and drone experts, learning information but getting no answers. Neighboring sheriffs have spoken to the military, which has denied involvement, he said. The Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the University of Colorado Boulder have told The Denver Post that they’re not flying the drones.

The FAA has gotten involved, and you would think that they should be able to get to the bottom of this, but they are just as puzzled as everyone else…

Already, the FAA has contacted test sites, drone companies and companies that have received authorization to operate drones in the affected areas. But the agency has not been able to determine who is flying the aircraft, spokesman Ian Gregor said in a statement Monday.

The FAA also asked area airports and pilots to report sightings or people they see operating the drones from the ground.

So far there is no evidence that these drones are malicious, but just a few days ago we received a reminder of how deadly they can potentially be.  Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed by a drone, and he probably never even knew that the attack was coming.

On Monday, dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officials gathered in the town of Brush to talk about these drones.  At the conclusion of the meeting, reporters were told that there is still “no explanation” for this mystery…

Mysterious drone sightings remains a mystery on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. Monday, more than 70 local, state and federal officials met in Brush to talk about findings and reports from the last couple of weeks.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, the FBI, United States Air Force and the FAA ended the meeting with no explanation of what the objects hovering over vast properties really are.

People living in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas desperately want some answers, and now a similar sighting has been reported in Minnesota…

Drones were reported flying over Juniata and Hastings Sunday night. An operator has not been identified at this time.

Minneapolis Air Traffic Control contacted the Hastings Police Department with a report from an airplane pilot about the drones.

Air traffic control reported the drones were flying in a grid pattern around 9-10 p.m. Sunday, Police Capt. Mike Doremus said.

This sounds very similar to many of the other sightings, but nobody has been able to examine one of these drones up close yet, and so we still don’t know precisely what we are dealing with.

But what we do know is that our world is a very strange place, and it is getting stranger by the day.

Hopefully this is just some relatively harmless top secret U.S. military program that the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about.

Because if these drones do not have a U.S. origin, then that opens up a completely different can of worms.

President Trump’s core campaign promise was to “Make America Great Again,” through a revival of the manufacturing complex via launching a trade war against China and debt-fueled tax cuts for corporations. Most of the recovery, well, it was a sugar high, that by the time late 2018 rolled around, economic growth rates started to reverse. 

Manufacturing data on Friday was more confirmation that an industrial recession continues to persist and could be broadening into early 2020. Now the slowdown appears to be spreading to nine states that are teetering on the edge of a recession. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia published new leading index data for 50 states for November 2019 last week. The leading indexes are a six-month forecast of the coincident state indexes that show nine US states are expected to plunge into a recession within six-months – this is the most significant number of states to slide into a contraction since the financial crisis.

State leading indexes for November show that West Virginia’s economy is headed for a significant downturn. The coal industry is in tatters, manufacturing is busting, and an opioid crisis continues to ravage local communities across the state. 

Delaware, Vermont, Oklahoma, Montana, Iowa, Kentucky, and Connecticut are other states where leading indexes are indicating an economic contraction could occur in the next six months.  

Leading indicators suggest Midwest and Rust Belt states will record marginal growth in the next six months, but we should note that growth rates have quickly faded in these states where farming and manufacturing have gone bust. 

Bloomberg data shows nine states are headed for an economic contraction; this is the highest amount since July 2009. 

An industrial recession is broad-based at the moment, spreading to nine states, with the risk of infecting another 14 states in the Midwest and Rust Belt by 2021. 

President Trump will be hitting the campaign trail momentarily and visiting many of these states where he promised an economic revival. 

Raising chilling memories of the downing of MH-17 (false-flag) in Ukraine, the devastating news that a Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet has crashed following takeoff from Iran is fascinatingly coincidental with tonight’s massive escalation (and rapid de-escalation) in Iraq.

Iranian state TV has confirmed the Ukrainian airplane, carrying 180 passengers and crew, has crashed near Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport in Iran, after suffering technical problems minutes after take-off. 

An investigation team was at the site of the crash in southwestern outskirts of Tehran, civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh said.

The following clip is circulating social media claiming to be the last few seconds of the flight. Judging by the fireball, “technical” problems would be an understatement…

أول مقطع فيديو من تحطم طائرة تابعة لشركة الخطوط الجوية الأوكرانية من طراز بوينج 737 على متنها 180 راكباً في العاصمة الإيرانية طهران الان . pic.twitter.com/CSYjq6mfPO

— محمد مجيد الأحوازي (@MohamadAhwaze) January 8, 2020

There is something odd about this though, as FlightRadar24 shows, the plane was gaining altitude at around 8,000 feet when it suddenly disappears…

This terrible accident comes after Iranian President Rouhani appeared to threaten a western airliner,

Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655
Never threaten the Iranian nation.

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 6, 2020

290 is a reference to the death toll from downed Iran Air Flight 655: in 1988, the U.S. warship Vincennes mistakenly shot  down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf, killing all 290 aboard.

The attack was the deadliest aviation disaster involving an Airbus A300, as well as the deadliest to occur in Iran.

If you don’t know the story of Iranian Air Flight 655, then you don’t fully understand American-Iranian relations.

On July 3, 1988 the US Navy used missiles to shoot down an Iranian passenger jet – killing all 290 civilians – including 66 children – on board. pic.twitter.com/Jw3E2YtXBa

— Shaun King (@shaunking) January 6, 2020

Submitted by Raheem Kassam,

War with Iran is unavoidable… at least according to the media.

Democrats have been wringing their hands over Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani’s death, with some calling it a “war crime” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeking to restrict the president’s powers.

But what did Democrats say when President Obama used his executive powers to strike (and kill) U.S. citizens in Yemen in 2011, including a 16-year-old boy?

Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that the use of force was “legitimate use of the authority granted to the president.”

They said Obama had met the legal standard.

These three senators were part of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. They went on to describe the killing of terror leader Anwar al-Awlaki:

Mr. al-Aulaqi [sic] clearly made a conscious decision to join an organized fighting force that was (and is) engaged in planning and carrying out attacks against the United States,” the senators wrote. “By taking on a leadership role in this organization, involving himself in ongoing operational planning against the United States, and demonstrating the capacity and intent to carry out these operations, he made himself a legitimate target for military action.

Does the same rationale apply to Soleimani? Or has it suddenly changed?

After all, Soleimani was the head of the Quds Force, recently designated a terrorist organization by the United States government.

Additionally, a Justice Department memo released in 2014 led to this report from the New York Times:

Intelligence officials had concluded that  Awlaki was an operational terrorist leader who had gone overseas, become part of Al Qaeda or an associated force, and was “engaged in continual planning and direction of attacks” on Americans. His capture was not feasible, the memo said. Working from that premise, David Barron, then the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that it would be lawful for the government to kill Awlaki, notwithstanding federal statutes against murdering Americans overseas and protections in the Constitution against unreasonable seizures and depriving someone of life without due process of law.

“We do not believe al-Awlaki’s citizenship provides a basis for concluding that he is immune from a use of force abroad” as otherwise congressionally authorized to use against Al Qaeda, Barron wrote, addressing the memo to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Asked about the killing of Awlaki’s son a few weeks after the initial strike, Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs glibly replied about the drone strike on another U.S. citizen deemed to be a threat:

“I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”

Politico also explained how the Democrats used the killing of Bin Laden and Awlaki as part of their reelection strategy, with the headline of one story reading, “Al-Awlaki’s killing bolsters Obama.”

The story asserted:

The killing of Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki — just months after the killing of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden — appears to eliminate the war on terror as a campaign issue for Republicans in the 2012 election and could even give President Barack Obama an unlikely advantage on national security, Democrats said Friday.

It’s remarkable that the president has, in many ways, taken national security off the table as an issue altogether,” Democratic operative and former White House spokesman Bill Burton said on MSNBC. “I don’t think a lot of folks would have thought three years ago that, at this point of the presidential race, President Obama would be sort of untouchable when it comes to national security.”

“His main platform should be, ‘I protected America from terrorists,’ and he should cite the death of the two terrorists and that he was brave and determined to make it happen, and he did,” said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who, like Obama, ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. “He should run on foreign policy, easing tensions around the world, America regaining its respect abroad, and homeland security and terrorism. That’s what should be his main campaign address.”

It’s clear the media and Democrats have different standards for Obama than they do for Trump.

That’s been clear for a while.

The Trump administration should seize on the words of Democrats, diplomats, and the media to provide the rationale for the killing of a man who ISN’T a U.S. citizen (Soleimani) and has been on the terror list for some time.

Soleimani’s long history of pulling together attacks such as Benghazi, hundreds of deaths of Americans and others in the region, as well as the most recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is all the rationale President Trump needed.

End of story.

Facebook announced in a Monday blog post that deepfakes – computer generated imitations of people – will no longer be allowed on the platform, along with footage which has been otherwise edited in ways that aren’t obvious to the average person.

Manipulations can be made through simple technology like Photoshop or through sophisticated tools that use artificial intelligence or “deep learning” techniques to create videos that distort reality – usually called “deepfakes.” While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases. -Facebook

“There are people who engage in media manipulation in order to mislead,” writes VP of global policy management, Monika Bickert.

Going forward, the company will remove ‘misleading and manipulated media’ if it meets the following criteria:

• It has been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say. And:
• It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.

The company says the policy does not apply to parody or satire, or a video which has been “edited solely to omit or change the order of words.”

But the policy — first reported by The Washington Post, and confirmed by Facebook late Monday — does not prohibit all doctored videos. The tech giant’s new guidelines do not appear to address a deceptively edited clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral on the social network last year, prompting criticism from Democratic leaders and digital experts.

“While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases,” Monika Bickert, the company’s vice president for global policy management, wrote in a blog post. –Washington Post

According to the BBC, Facebook announced last September that it would allocate $10 million to improve deepfake detection technology.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has himself featured in a deepfake video. The clip featured a computer-generated version of Zuckerberg crediting a secretive organisation for the success of the social network.

William Tunstall-Pedoe, a computer scientist who sold his AI company to Amazon, told BBC News that Facebook deserved credit for trying to tackle the “difficult area”.

“The fact the video is fake and intended to be misleading is the key thing for me,” he said. “Whether sophisticated AI techniques are used or less sophisticated techniques isn’t relevant.”

Other companies like Google and Microsoft are also trying to combat deepfakes. –BBC

Facebook will work with academia, government and businesses to combat deepfakes, according to the report.

Authored by Atilla Sulker via The Mises Institute,

The National Bureau of Economic Research recently published a study which concluded that the grading policies for STEM classes contribute to the gender gap in the STEM field.

The study finds that STEM classes, on average, assign lower grades compared to non-STEM classes and that this tends to deter women enrolling. Women — who value higher grades more than men — are apparently put off by the lower average grades in STEM subjects. This is despite the fact that “women have higher grades in both STEM and non-STEM classes,” according to the study.

The study also shows that women are more likely to switch out of STEM than men. To increase female participation, the authors propose curving all courses to around a B. They estimate that this would increase female enrollment by 11.3 percent.

This may seem like a noble endeavor, but it is based on a faulty premise, and it will have adverse effects.

The authors aim to solve the problem of the gender gap in STEM, but they never explain why this should be a goal. Individuals have distinct abilities, and efforts to “equalize” their abilities and interests based on gender goes against this.

That men have lower attrition rates in STEM should not necessarily be seen as an advantage. For example, another study by Karen Clark, a doctoral candidate at Liberty University, shows that women are, on average, more persistent than men in staying in college. This may be, in part, because they are more likely to avoid high-attrition courses of study like STEM.

The effort to “close the gender gap” in STEM represents a preference for minority status over merit that deems a student’s performance less important than her femaleness. Yet it only hurts individuals to put them in a field in which they will be unhappy or perform poorly, regardless of gender. If an individual, no matter how gifted, is averse to the risk of possibly burning out and forgoing a good grade, then maybe STEM isn’t the right field.

STEM curricula are deliberately rigorous, as their subjects are not easy, and bridges tend to collapse when things go wrong. This is why there are weed-out classes to discourage students from pursuing them lightly. In general, women earn higher marks, but students trying to maintain a high GPA — something women value more than men — might rather avoid such classes. There is no guarantee that in STEM subjects reasonable effort will earn one an A.

Thus, we should not mistake an individual’s willingness to work hard with fitness for STEM. Rather, it is their ability to cope with the possibility of burnout and lower grades, in addition to hard work, that is the better indicator. The National Bureau of Economic Research study clearly shows that men express this ability at a higher rate.

The authors’ view presents yet another dilemma. If we are to close the gender gap in STEM, why not also do so in other areas? What if the history, philosophy, and business departments also have this disparity? Why not intervene in every department, every class, and so on? This would create an endless continuum of administrative oversight and indifference to merit.

The authors would likely agree that such an approach would be too extreme, but this concession destroys their argument. The goal is to close the gender gap, but if this end is not pursued to the extreme, one group will still be “less equal” by their definition.

We should ask ourselves if we are really to throw out pure merit for the sake of an unbacked ideal like “We need more women in STEM.” We never seem to question why we pursue these ideals, or the many unseen effects of pursuing such policies. We just accept them as sacred.

The Indonesian Air Force has deployed four General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons to the South China Sea on Tuesday in a stand-off with China over its exclusive economic zone, reported Reuters.

The stand-off began last month when Beijing sent a coast guard vessel and commercial fishing boats to the disputed waters off the coast of Indonesia’s northern Natuna islands.

Fajar Adriyanto, the air force spokesman, said four F-16 fighter jets have been conducting flight missions over the islands as a deterrent against China.

“They’re doing standard patrols to protect our sovereign area. It just so happened that they’re patrolling Natuna,” Adriyanto said. “We don’t have the order to start a war with China.”

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said Monday that increased Chinese vessels in the disputed waters is a direct violation of international law.

Widodo said there’s no negotiation with China when it comes “to our sovereignty.”

Indonesian president Joko Widodo told reporters: “There is no negotiation when it comes to our sovereignty.”
Sends 4 more warships to join 6 already in a standoff with China over the Natuna islands, with China significantly under powered. pic.twitter.com/pNftTWnoK1

— Graphenes (@Graphenes1) January 7, 2020

In the last week, the Indonesian Navy has ramped up patrols in the same region that is known for vast natural resources, reported Channel News Asia.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Tuesday Beijing had “opened diplomatic channels” with Indonesia since the stand-off began, and said “both countries shoulder responsibility for maintaining regional peace and stability.”

Reuters notes that ship tracker data shows at least two Chinese ships, Zhongguohaijing and Haijing 3511, were on the edge of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone on Tuesday. Both ships were located on China’s “nine-dash line.”

Commander of Indonesian Military #TNI 1st Joint Regional Defense Command #Kogabwilhan, Vice Admiral Yudo Margono, show the result of aerial reconnaissance conducted by our Boeing 737-200 Surveillance towards China ship in North #Natuna Sea

Source: IG Indonesian_airfroce pic.twitter.com/wqd39tAgnT

— JATOSINT (@Jatosint) January 4, 2020

This isn’t the first time both countries have faced a stand-off near Natuna. Indonesia has, for years, deterred Chinese vessels from the region, it’s just this time Indonesia has deployed fighter jets as a response to China’s aggression.

What can possibly go wrong at a time when the Middle East is on the verge of war?

 

Authored by William Lazonick, Mustafa Erdem Sakinç, and Matt Hopkins via Harvward Business Review,

Even as the United States continues to experience its longest economic expansion since World War II, concern is growing that soaring corporate debt will make the economy susceptible to a contraction that could get out of control.

The root cause of this concern is the trillions of dollars that major U.S. corporations have spent on open-market repurchases — aka “stock buybacks” — since the financial crisis a decade ago. In 2018 alone, with corporate profits bolstered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, companies in the S&P 500 Index did a combined $806 billion in buybacks, about $200 billion more than the previous record set in 2007. The $370 billion in repurchases which these companies did in the first half of 2019 is on pace for total annual buybacks that are second only to 2018. When companies do these buybacks, they deprive themselves of the liquidity that might help them cope when sales and profits decline in an economic downturn.

Making matters worse, the proportion of buybacks funded by corporate bonds reached as high as 30% in both 2016 and 2017, according to JPMorgan Chase. The International Monetary Fund’s Global Financial Stability Report, issued in October, highlights “debt-funded payouts” as a form of financial risk-taking by U.S. companies that “can considerably weaken a firm’s credit quality.”

It can make sense for a company to leverage retained earnings with debt to finance investment in productive capabilities that may eventually yield product revenues and corporate profits. Taking on debt to finance buybacks, however, is bad management, given that no revenue-generating investments are made that can allow the company to pay off the debt. In addition to plant and equipment, a company needs to invest in expanding the knowledge and skills of its employees, and it needs to reward them for their contributions to the company’s productivity. These investments in the company’s knowledge base fuel innovations in products and processes that enable it to gain and sustain an advantage over other firms in its industry.

The investment in the knowledge base that makes a company competitive goes far beyond R&D expenditures. In fact, in 2018, only 43% of companies in the S&P 500 Index recorded any R&D expenses, with just 38 companies accounting for 75% of the R&D spending of all 500 companies. Whether or not a firm spends on R&D, all companies have to invest broadly and deeply in the productive capabilities of their employees in order to remain competitive in global markets.

Stock buybacks made as open-market repurchases make no contribution to the productive capabilities of the firm. Indeed, these distributions to shareholders, which generally come on top of dividends, disrupt the growth dynamic that links the productivity and pay of the labor force. The results are increased income inequity, employment instability, and anemic productivity.

Buybacks’ drain on corporate treasuries has been massive. The 465 companies in the S&P 500 Index in January 2019 that were publicly listed between 2009 and 2018 spent, over that decade, $4.3 trillion on buybacks, equal to 52% of net income, and another $3.3 trillion on dividends, an additional 39% of net income. In 2018 alone, even with after-tax profits at record levels because of the Republican tax cuts, buybacks by S&P 500 companies reached an astounding 68% of net income, with dividends absorbing another 41%.

Why have U.S. companies done these massive buybacks?

With the majority of their compensation coming from stock options and stock awards, senior corporate executives have used open-market repurchases to manipulate their companies’ stock prices to their own benefit and that of others who are in the business of timing the buying and selling of publicly listed shares. Buybacks enrich these opportunistic share sellers — investment bankers and hedge-fund managers as well as senior corporate executives — at the expense of employees, as well as continuing shareholders.

In contrast to buybacks, dividends provide a yield to all shareholders for, as the name says, holding shares. Excessive dividend payouts, however, can undercut investment in productive capabilities in the same way that buybacks can. Those intent on holding a company’s shares should therefore want it to restrict dividend payments to amounts that do not impair reinvestment in the capabilities necessary to sustain the corporation as a going concern. With the company plowing back profits into well-managed productive investments, its shareholders should be able to reap capital gains if and when they decide to sell their shares.

Stock buybacks done as open-market repurchases emerged as a major use of corporate funds in the mid-1980s after the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted Rule 10b-18, which gives corporate executives a safe harbor against stock-price manipulation charges that otherwise might have applied. As a mode of distributing corporate cash to shareholders, buybacks surpassed dividends in 1997, helping to elevate stock prices in the internet boom. Since then, buybacks, which are much more volatile than dividends, have dominated distributions to shareholders when the stock market is booming, as companies have repurchased stock at high prices in a competition to boost their share prices even more. As shown in the exhibit “Buying When Prices Are High,” major companies have continued to do buybacks in boom periods when stock prices have been high, rendering these businesses more financially fragile in subsequent downturns when abundant profits disappear.

JPMorgan Chase has constructed a time series for 1997 through 2018 that estimates the percentage of buybacks by S&P 500 companies that have been debt-financed, increasing the financial fragility of companies. In general, the percentage of buybacks that have been funded by borrowed money has been far higher in stock-market booms than in busts, as companies have competed with one another to boost their stock prices.

In 2018, however, as stock buybacks by companies in the S&P 500 Index spiked to more than $800 billion for the year, the proportion that were financed by debt plunged to about 14% in the last quarter. Why was there a sharp decline in 2018, when the dollar volume of buybacks far surpassed the previous peak years of 2007, 2014, and 2015?

The answer is clear: Corporate tax breaks contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 provided the corporate cash for the vastly increased level of buybacks in 2018. First, there was a permanent cut from 35% to 21% in the tax rate on corporate profits earned in the United States. Second, going forward, the 2017 law permanently freed foreign profits of U.S.-based corporations from U.S. taxation (Under the Act, the U.S. Treasury has been reclaiming some tax revenue lost because of a tax concession dating back to 1960 that had enabled U.S.-based corporations to defer payment of U.S. taxes on their foreign profits until repatriating them).

In 2018 compared with 2017, corporate tax revenues declined to $205 billion from $297 billion, hypothetically increasing the financial capacity of U.S.-based corporations to do as much as $92 billion more in buybacks in 2018 without taking on debt. Given that from 2017 to 2018 stock buybacks by S&P 500 companies increased by $287 billion (from $519 billion to $806 billion), the reality is that, through the corporate tax cuts, the federal government essentially funded $92 billion in buybacks by issuing debt and printing money to replace the lost corporate tax revenues.

Since the total federal government deficit increased by $114 billion (from $665 billion in 2017 to $779 billion in 2018), we can (again hypothetically) think of $92 billion of this additional government debt as taxpaying households’ gift to business corporations to enable them to do even more buybacks debt-free, shifting the debt burden of stock buybacks from corporations to taxpayers. If, as a “transfer payment,” we add $92 billion to the $150 billion in debt that, according to the JPMorgan data, S&P 500 companies used to fund buybacks in 2018, the percentage of their 2018 buybacks that were debt-financed rises to 30%, greater than the proportion of 29% for 2017. But because of corporate tax cuts, in 2018 taxpaying households were burdened with about 38% of the combined government and business debt that enabled corporations to do buybacks.

Whether it is corporate debt or government debt that funds additional buybacks, it is the underlying problem of the corporate obsession with stock-price performance that makes U.S. households more vulnerable to the boom-and-bust economy. Debt-financed buybacks reinforce financial fragility. But it is stock buybacks, however funded, that undermine the quest for equitable and stable economic growth.

Buybacks done as open-market repurchases should be banned.

Chelsea Clinton has made $9 million in under nine years while serving on the board of an internet investment company, according to Barron’s.

According to the report, Clinton receives an annual salary of $50,000 and $250 in restricted stock units from IAC/InterActiveCorp, which owns such brands as Vimeo, College Humor, OkCupid, Tinder, Angie’s List and Home Advisor.

Clinton, who has been an IAC director since 2011, receives an annual $50,000 retainer and $250,000 in restricted IAC stock units, or RSUs. As of Dec. 31, she owned the equivalent of 35,242 IAC shares, consisting of 29,843 shares and 5,399 share units under a deferred-compensation plan, according to a form she filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Share units convert to stock when an IAC director leaves the board.

The value of Clinton’s stake has surged along with the stock. Her IAC shares were valued at $8.95 million as of Friday’s close at $253.91. That is up from $7.2 million in June, and up from $6.6 million in October 2018. –Barron’s

Notably, Chelsea joined the board of IAC the same year she joined NBC News as a $600,000 per year ‘special correspondent’ doing virtually nothing, before switching to a month-to-month contract three years later.

While Chelsea ostensibly wasn’t hired to protect a Ukrainian oligarch from prosecution, it’s clear that those who are ‘born right’ receive dividends in spades.

Submitted by Great Game India, a journal on Geopolitics and International Relations.

The Indian Ocean island Naval Base of Diego Garcia is the key launchpad for United States in case of an attack on Iran in the wake of the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike. The Pentagon has send six B-52 strategic bombers to military base on Diego Garcia that is beyond the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles to prepare to hit Tehran if given the order.

B-52 Bombers deployed at Diego Garcia

The US Defense Department is sending six B-52 bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the northern Indian Ocean as preparations for possible military action against Iran move forward.

Pentagon officials told CNN on Monday that the B-52 will be available for operations against the Islamic Republic if ordered into action, though the deployment does not signal a decision has been made about any attack plans, as reported by Dailymail.

The United States maintains several military bases in a number of Middle Eastern countries in close proximity to Iran, but it chose to deploy its bombers to Diego Garcia because it is out of reach of Iran’s longest range missiles, according to the Pentagon.

JAN 06: USAF B-52Hs MYTEE51 & 52 departed Barksdale AFB for Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean due to #Iran tensions. pic.twitter.com/2PgkMMnAXw

— Aircraft Spots (@AircraftSpots) January 7, 2020

This is the second time in the last year that the American military has deployed B-52 bomber aircraft to the region due to rising tensions with Iran.

In May, the White House ordered six B-52s to deploy to an American military base in Qatar as well as other bases in ‘southwest Asia’ after it received reports of alleged threats from Iran.

Diego Garcia – British occupied American Naval Base in Indian Ocean

The Chagos Islands were colonized by France in the 18th century and African slaves were shipped in to cultivate coconuts. In 1814, France ceded the islands to Britain, which in 1903 merged them with Mauritius, its colony about 1,200 miles to the south-west.

In 1965, Britain separated the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, paying £3million for them. When Mauritius became independent in 1968, the islands remained under British control, and were renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory. In 1966, Britain leased the islands to the United States for 50 years.

Between 1968 and 1973, about 2,000 Chagos islanders were evicted. Most were shipped to Mauritius and the Seychelles. Evicted islanders enlisted the help of human rights lawyer Amal Clooney when they took their fight to the Supreme Court in 2015, but the court ruled against them.

The secretive military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island, has been dubbed ‘the Guantanamo of the East’ amid suspicions it was a key staging post in the US rendition and torture program.

In 2016, the US lease was extended to 2036.

Strategic location

The American presence there can be attributed to the fact that Diego Garcia’s location is strategically vital. Diego Garcia has been a launching point for US military actions in the Middle East – including the 2001 campaign against Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It is also a refueling station for US Air Force jets that patrol the South China Sea. Diego Garcia was also designated an emergency landing spot for space missions by NASA.

The future of the American presence on the atoll was thrown into doubt earlier this year when a United Nations court ruled that the British illegally seized control of the island. The court, in a nonbinding ruling, said that control over the territory should be returned to Mauritius.

Diego Garcia is home to between an estimated 3,000-5,000 American military personnel. There is also believed to be a small number of British soldiers stationed at the site as well as civilian contractors mostly from Mauritius. These contractors are believed to cook and clean for the soldiers and sailors.

The horseshoe-shaped atoll measures about 17 square miles. It is surrounded by about 60 other atolls. The coastline of Diego Garcia form a natural harbor, making it ideal to station a naval base there. Diego Garcia is also a tropical paradise that is home to a significant population of turtles, giant migrating birds, and coconut crab.

The US military has long been tight-lipped about Diego Garcia. Unlike the base in Guam, spouses of military personnel are not allowed on the atoll. It was also reported that Diego Garcia was used as one of the CIA’s ‘black sites’ – the secret rendition program in which the Americans interrogated and tortured suspected extremists.

But its most important function for the American military is the airstrip. The runways at Diego Garcia allow US warplanes to freely operate in the skies above Africa to the southwest; the Middle East and Central Asia to the north and west; and the Far East and Asia to its east, as reported by Business Insider.

The Americans used this Naval base at Diego Garcia to spy on India’s Mission Shakti. USAF RC-135S 62-4128 CHAOS45 departed Diego Garcia at 2330Z for a mission in the Bay of Bengal to monitor India’s ASAT anti-satellite missile test. USAF KC-135Rs FRESH53 and 54 provided tanker support and returned to Diego Garcia.

In response to India’s Mission Shakti the US launched what is dubbed as Operation Olympic Defender. At the Space Symposium the head of United States Strategic Command Gen. John Hyten called for Space Rules in response to India’s ASAT test sharing for the first time American Space War plans, known as Operation Olympic Defender, with a small number of allies. It is believed these allies referred to by Hyten are members of the Five Eyes.

American Military Bases on Target

The American military footprint in the Middle East and central Asia includes approximately 14,000 troops in Afghanistan; 13,000 soldiers in Kuwait; 13,000 more in Qatar; 7,000 in Bahrain; 6,000 in Iraq; 5,000 in the United Arab Emirates; 3,000 in Saudi Arabia; 3,000 in Jordan; and 2,500 in Turkey. There are much smaller troop levels in Syria and Oman, according to The Washington Post.

In total, Iran could conceivably strike at areas that would place more than 55,000 American soldiers at risk. Its ballistic missile arsenal includes weapons that are very difficult to target because they are either road-mobile or hidden inside highly fortified mountain fortresses, according to The War Zone.

In the event of war between Iran and either the United States or its Sunni Arab allies, the Iranians would only need a few minutes to launch ballistic missiles from subterranean strongholds. Iran could hit American bases, airfields, and other key sites.

That is why the Pentagon would most likely rely on its fleet of strategic bombers based in Diego Garcia. If war did break out with Iran, the US has at its disposal machines of war like the B-52 and the B-2 Spirit bombers that can unleash devastating blows.

The Americans would most likely deploy the B-2s to drop precision-guided 40,000-pound ‘bunker buster’ GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), which are specially designed to pierce through Iran’s mountain complexes.

The B-52 Stratofortress: America’s long-range strategic bomber

The United States Air Force currently has 76 B-52 Stratofortress bombers in service today. Designed and built by the Seattle-based Boeing Company, the B-52 is a long-range strategic bomber that has been used by the Air Force since the 1950s.

It is capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds of weapons while flying at a combat range of more than 8,800 miles without aerial refueling. This heavy bomber is powered by 8 turbofan engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. Each engine is capable of producing 17,000 pounds of thrust to propel the plane forward in the air.

The B-52 also boasts a wingspan of 185ft. Each aircraft has a length measuring 159ft4in. The plane stands at a height of 40ft8in. The aircraft weighs approximately 185,000 pounds. It can take off at a maximum weight of 488,000 pounds.

To fly its long-range bombing missions, it needs fuel – a lot of it. Each B-52 has a fuel capacity of 312,197 pounds. The plane is a subsonic aircraft that can reach speeds of 650mph. It can also fly at a top altitude of 50,000ft as claimed by the Boeing Company.

US-Iran tensions

An Iranian government minister denounced Trump as a ‘terrorist in a suit’ after the US president sent a series of Twitter posts on Saturday threatening to hit 52 Iranian sites, including targets important to Iranian culture, if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets to avenge Soleimani’s death.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Washington from Florida on Sunday evening, Trump stood by those comments. ‘They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,’ he said.

Democratic critics of the Republican president have said Trump was reckless in authorizing the strike, and some said his comments about targeting cultural sites amounted to threats to commit war crimes. Many asked why Soleimani, long seen as a threat by US authorities, had to be killed now. Republicans in Congress have generally backed Trump’s move.

The Iraqi Resolution

The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for an end to all foreign troop presence, reflecting the fears of many in Iraq that Friday’s strike could engulf them in another war between two bigger powers long at odds in Iraq and across the region.

While such resolutions are not binding on the government, this one is likely to be heeded: Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had earlier called on parliament to end foreign troop presence as soon as possible.

Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said that if US troops were required to leave the country, Iraq’s government would have to pay Washington for the cost of a ‘very extraordinarily expensive’ air base there.

He said if Iraq asked US forces to leave on an unfriendly basis, ‘we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.’ Iran and the United States have been competing for clout in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Russian Spying over Mar-a-Lago

About 24 hours after arriving from Moscow, a private jet regularly used by the head of Russia’s largest state-run bank remained at an airport just a short drive from where Donald Trump was vacationing, giving rise to concerns whether the Russians were spying on top secret discussions taking place at Mar-a-Lago where the decision to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was taken by US President Donald Trump.