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China’s central bank announced it would cut the Required Reserve Ratio (RRR) for most banks by 1.0% effective October 15 for the fourth time in 2018, a little over three months after the PBOC announced a similar cut on June 24, as Beijing seeks to stimulate the slowing economy amid the growing trade war with the US, a slumping stock market, a sliding yuan and a record number of bond defaults.

The People’s Bank of China announced on Sunday local time that it lowered the required reserve ratio for some lenders by 1 percentage point according to a statement on its  website. The cut, which will apply to a wide range of banks including large commercial banks, joint stock commercial banks, city commercial banks, non-county rural banks and foreign banks, will release a total of 1.2 trillion yuan ($175 billion), of which 450 billion yuan will be used to repay existing medium-term funding facilities which are maturing, and the remaining RMB 750bn will help offset the seasonal rise in liquidity demand during the second half of the month due to tax payments, according to the PBOC.

But the real reason behind the RRR cut is that it is intended to boost sentiment before the onshore equity market re-opens on Monday after the week-long holidays, as well as to support liquidity conditions at a time when global interest rates have suddenly spiked to multi-year highs..

Commenting on the cut, Goldman economists said that while they had been expecting one RRR cut per quarter in H2, “the 1pp magnitude surprised us on the upside.”

To some, the RRR cut was expected: Karine Hirn, from East Capital in Hong Kong, said that “weaker PMI, negative development in U.S.-Sino tensions, poor weekly performance in Hong Kong during the past week while the onshore equity markets were closed made most investors expect some kind of supportive announcement over the weekend ahead of the reopening on Monday.”

And, never one to disappoint markets, the PBOC delivered right on schedule.

Concerned about the US response to what will be perceived as its latest easing action, one which could lead to further yuan devaluation, the central bank argued in a separate statement that the move won’t affect the overall amount of liquidity in the economy, as it substitutes for existing instruments, and the remaining money will offset the tax-payment pressure in mid-to-late October. Additionally, the PBOC claimed that the cut won’t put depreciation pressures on the currency, although it is unclear if the US will accept that explanation at a time of escalation economic and geopolitical tensions between the two nations.

China’s central bank has been reacting to the cyclical slowdown that’s been worsened by Beijing’s anti-debt campaign and the building trade conflict with the U.S. As a result, the PBOC has maintained an accommodative monetary policy even as the yuan has continued sliding. However, the effects of Chinese policy support plus tax cuts and increased infrastructure funding have yet to fully filter through though, and economic momentum continued to lose pace in September, with the Caixin manufacturing PMI last week dropping to 50, ending 15 months of expansion and the lowest level since May 2017, while the official PMI recorded its first September drop since the PMI series was released. Reflecting the escalating trade war with the US, new export orders fell to the lowest reading since 2016.

“China’s monetary policy is still prioritizing domestic economic problems, despite the escalating trade war and Federal Reserve tightening,” said Ming Ming, head of fixed income research at Citic Securities Co. in Beijing. “The reduction will help ease domestic financing difficulties,” he said.

The RRR cut also comes at a time when China’s deleveraging campaign has resulted in a record number of bond defaults. According to Goldman, just in August and September of this year, there had been no less than 8 new defaults, a troubling trend “despite the introduction of a number of policy loosening measures in early July.” This compares to only 11 new defaults between January and July this year, with all the recent defaults coming from privately owned enterprises.

The recent cluster of defaults has brought the number of new defaults this year to 19, surpassing the previous full year record of 18 defaults recorded in 2016. In terms of the notional amount of bonds that defaulted, it has reached RMB 91.4bn, equivalent to 0.5% of corporate bonds outstanding at the start of 2018, and 69.6% higher than the RMB 53.9bn recorded for all of 2016.

The increased liquidity from the RRR cut will help support slowing bank lending and credit, and unlike the PBOC’s medium-term funding tools, it is permanent “which can help banks’ liquidity expectations”, said Wang Tao at UBS. The cut gives the market a stronger easing signal and can support sentiment, which has been negative on China and emerging markets in the past few days, she said quoted by Bloomberg.

In addition to the slowdown on the economy and in aggregate lending, as well as the decline in the stock market and the rising defaults, trade war has been a key risk for Chinese policymakers. The lack of progress in negotiations between Washington and Beijing over their trade rivalry means that there’s a good chance the current roster of tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods exported to the U.S. will grow, as President Trump has threatened. The US imposing tariffs on all Chinese imports is now the base case for both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. With little room for optimism on external demand, the outlook for China’s economy hinges increasingly on the effectiveness of targeted stimulus measures being rolled out this year.

Meanwhile, with Chinese markets shut last week due to holidays, the onshore currency hasn’t traded, although in that time the the offshore yuan has lost almost 0.3% of its value against the dollar as turmoil from sharply higher rates has hit global markets.

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Having been accused of ‘moral bankruptcy’ by US officials, The United Nations appears to be heading for fiscal bankruptcy as, earlier this summer, UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned staff that the world body is running out of cash and urged member states to pay what they owe as soon as possible.

But it appears Guterres’ warnings went unheeded by many, as Statista’s Sarah Feldman notes that as the United Nations concludes its two weeks of annual meetings in New York, some states remain timelier with their annual payments than others.

By the end of the on-time payment period in February, only about a third of countries paid their dues in full.

Seven months later about two thirds of member states have made their payment to the regular budget. All permanent members have made their full regular payments, except the United States.

You will find more infographics at Statista

President Trump has routinely complained about the alleged skewed payment of United Nations dues system, where the U.S. pays 22 percent of the overall regular budget. All member states are legally required to make payments to both the regular budget and the peacekeeping budget, two separate budgets with two different payment calculations. The UN considers gross national income, population, and debt burden when coming up with its operational budget.

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Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• The new immigration law is a tacit admission that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy, which has allowed into Germany more than a million mostly unskilled migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, has failed to resolve the country’s most pressing demographic challenges and labor shortages.

• “We are creating the framework for more controlled immigration of qualified specialists.” — Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

• By the middle of 2018, only a quarter of those who arrived during the migrant crisis had found a job and only a fifth were paying into the social welfare system, according to the Institute for Employment Research. Most of those who were employed had low-paying jobs, and many of them were receiving supplementary welfare benefits to make ends meet.

Germany’s Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (left), Economic Affairs Minister Peter Altmaier (middle) and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (right) present the government’s immigration policy framework for skilled workers, at a press conference on October 2, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

After months of wrangling, Germany’s coalition government has reached an agreement on the key points of a new immigration law — one that is aimed at filling labor shortages and stabilizing the public pension system by encouraging the immigration of skilled workers from outside the European Union.

The new law, which will tighten restrictions on the immigration of unskilled workers, is a tacit admission that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door migration policy, which has allowed into Germany more than a million mostly unskilled migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, has failed to resolve the country’s most pressing demographic challenges and labor shortages.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Economic Affairs Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) presented the compromise agreement during a joint press conference in Berlin on October 2.

The so-called Fachkräftezuwanderungsgesetz (Law on Immigration of Skilled Workers) would waive existing requirements for companies to give preference to German or EU citizens when filling job vacancies. Specifically, it would allow companies to recruit non-EU (Drittstaaten) citizens in all economic sectors, provided that those recruits are qualified for the job and have satisfactory German language skills.

Even lower requirements would apply for information technology professionals, who would be allowed to come to Germany without formal academic qualifications, provided they have solid work experience and a job offer.

The new law would also provide skilled workers without concrete job offers a six-month residence permit to find a job, provided they have German language skills and the financial means to support themselves during this period.

On the other hand, the proposed law states that non-EU citizens without higher education will not be allowed to migrate to Germany: “We do not want any immigration from unqualified third-country nationals,” the deal states.

“We will ensure through clear criteria that the rules cannot be abused. We will align our efforts with the needs of our economy, taking due account of qualifications, age, language skills, evidence of a real job offer and the ability to guarantee livelihoods.”

The agreement does not specifically mention the so-called Spurwechsel (“lane change”) proposal, a plan championed by the SPD that would allow migrants living in Germany to exchange their asylum seeker status for permanent residency status if they find a job and learn German. “We maintain the principle of separation of asylum and labor migration,” the document states. “We will prevent immigration into the social welfare system.”

Seehofer and others said they feared that the “lane change” proposal would reinforce the immigration pull factor, thereby further encouraging unskilled economic migrants to travel to Germany in the hopes of being allowed to stay. “We had a silent consensus that there should be no lane change,” said Seehofer.

In a compromise, however, the deal commits the government to “define clear residence criteria” for so-called Geduldete (“tolerated”) migrants: well-integrated refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected but who cannot be deported because they lack identification papers, their home countries refuse to take them back, or there is legitimate fear for their safety once home. Currently, there is no unified policy on Geduldete migrants; some of Germany’s 16 federal states are showing leniency while others are taking a hard line.

Seehofer said he was “extremely satisfied” with the results and described the agreement as a “pragmatic, practical response to the reality of life.” He added: “We are creating the framework for more controlled immigration of qualified specialists.”

Labor Minister Heil said the agreement represented the first step for a “modern immigration law in Germany.”

Economic Affairs Minister Altmaier said that the deal would “ensure that all jobs for skilled workers can also be filled.”

By contrast, the leader of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alexander Gauland, said that the compromise on the so-called lane change proposal would encourage more illegal immigration:

“With the new immigration law, the SPD has once again prevailed against Seehofer. Asylum and immigration are now being mixed beyond recognition and the opportunities to escape deportation are massively expanded.

“This is now officially what the AfD has always warned: As soon as illegal immigrants have crossed our borders, they may stay with us forever.”

Business leaders praised the deal. The chief executive of the Confederation of Employers’ Associations, Steffen Kampeter, said that the German economy “relies on qualified specialists from abroad” in order to maintain competitiveness: “We need the brightest brains from all over the world.”

The president of the Federal Association for Information Technology (Bitkom), Achim Berg, said there currently are about 55,000 job vacancies in the IT sector, costing German companies about 10 billion euros in lost sales each year:

“Bitkom has been campaigning for years for the immigration of skilled workers. We very much welcome the fact that this is now fundamentally addressed by the federal government with the Law on Immigration of Skilled Workers. We need the brightest minds from around the world to shape digitization in Germany, to support our economy and to strengthen the labor market.”

Germany will need to take in 300,000 migrants annually for the next 40 years to stop population decline, according to a leaked government report. The document, parts of which were published by the Rheinische Post, revealed that the German government is counting on permanent mass migration to keep the current size of the German population (82.8 million) stable through 2060.

The report implied that Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow into the country some 1.5 million mostly Muslim migrants between 2015 and 2016 was not primarily a humanitarian gesture, but a calculated effort to stave off Germany’s demographic decline and to preserve the future viability of the German welfare state, in which the young are obligated support the elderly.

The report stressed the need quickly to integrate migrants into the workforce so that they can begin paying into the social welfare system. “According to past experience, this will not be easy and will take longer than initially often hoped,” the report conceded. “Successes will only be visible in the medium to long term.”

By the middle of 2018, only a quarter of those who arrived during the migrant crisis had found a job and only a fifth were paying into the social welfare system, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Most of those who were employed had low-paying jobs in the hospitality or services sectors, including in cleaning, package delivery or security, and many of them were receiving supplementary welfare benefits to make ends meet.

In August 2018, Deutschlandfunk public radio reported that “disillusionment has arrived” as many refugees are still receiving social welfare benefits or working in the low-wage sector:

“‘First refugees, then ‘German craftsman,’ ‘Young, alone and motivated,’ ‘People come to work hard,’ ‘Refugees are lucky.’ This is what the headlines sounded like in the summer of 2015, when images of the German welcome culture were seen around the world. The welcoming teddy bears at Munich’s central station promoted the view that hundreds of thousands of young men from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran could solve several problems in one go — rejuvenate aging German society and alleviate the skills shortage.

“Three years later, the headlines sound sobering: ‘Job miracle among migrants is missing,’ ‘Where are the specialists?’ ‘Most of the refugees live on Hartz IV [unemployment benefits],’ ‘The high burden of refugee policy.’

“Was Germany naïve in summer 2015? Did policymakers and experts see the situation from too rosy a perspective and forget that integration into the labor market is a long, sometimes rocky path? ….

“Only one out of every 100 refugees is working in a highly skilled job in Berlin. Nationwide, 8 out of 10 asylum seekers have neither a university degree nor a vocational qualification….”

In another segment entitled, “No New German Economic Miracle in Sight,” Deutschlandfunk reported:

“The German economy needs skilled workers: When almost one million refugees came to Germany in 2015, hopes of the big corporations were aroused. But what role do the 30 DAX [blue chip stock market index consisting of the 30 major German companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange] companies play in integrating into the labor market?

“Deutschlandfunk conducted a survey — the result is sobering: only 800 refugees have been recruited by DAX companies. Most of them work at Deutsche Post — especially in parcel sorting centers or as couriers — and also at the carmakers BMW and Daimler. But: The majority of stock market heavyweights has not hired any migrants….”

Company executives said the main problem is that migrants lack professional qualifications and German language skills.

According to the Federal Labor Office, the educational level of newly arrived migrants in Germany is far lower than initially expected: only a quarter have a high school diploma, while three quarters have no vocational training at all. Only 4% of new arrivals to Germany are highly qualified.

For now, the vast majority of migrants who entered Germany in 2015 and 2016 are wards of the German state. German taxpayers paid around €21.7 billion ($25 billion) on aid for refugees and asylum seekers in 2016, €20.8 billion in 2017, and will pay a similar amount in 2018, according to government figures published by Focus magazine.

A Finance Ministry document revealed that the migrant crisis could end up costing German taxpayers an additional €94 billion ($107 billion) by 2020. About €25.7 billion would be for social spending, such as unemployment benefits and housing support. About €5.7 billion would be destined for language courses and €4.6 billion for integrating refugees into the workforce.

Over the long-term, the 2015 migrant crisis could end up costing German taxpayers more than one trillion euros — the equivalent of around one-third of Germany’s current GDP — according to calculations presented by economist Bernd Raffelhüschen on behalf of the Market Economy Foundation (Stiftung Marktwirtschaft). He concluded:

“We need people, that is clear. But we need people we need. Which means: Germany needs an immigration limitation law. Only those who fit into the German qualification requirements may come. Other countries do that too. One must have the courage to discriminate, that is to select.”

Germany currently has more than 1.2 million job vacancies, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). Of these, 440,000 are for skilled jobs, which, if filled, would increase German economic output by a full percentage point, according to the German Economic Institute in Cologne.

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Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The United States Government is now treating Ukraine as if it were a NATO member, and on September 27th donated to Ukraine two warships for use against Russia. This is the latest indication that the US is switching to Ukraine as the locale to start World War III, and from which the nuclear war is to be sparked against Russia, which borders Ukraine. 

Here is why Syria is no longer the US alliance’s preferred choice as a place to start WW III:

On September 4th, US President Donald Trump publicly threatened Syria, Iran and Russia that if they exterminated the jihadists in Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, then the US might launch a full-scale invasion against Syria, Iran and Russia in Syria. Either the US or Russia would then quickly escalate to nuclear war so as not to lose in Syria — that would be the conventional-war start to World War III. 

The leaders of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Syria (Putin, Rouhani, Erdogan, and Assad), agreed in two meetings, one on September 7th and the other on September 17th, to (as I had recommended on September 10th) transfer control of Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, to NATO-member Turkey. This action effectively prevents the US alliance from going to war against Russia if Russia’s alliance (which includes Syria) obliterates all the jihadist groups in the Al-Qaeda-led Syrian province Idlib. For the US to war against Russia there would also be war against fellow-NATO-member Turkey — out of the question. 

The US has been using Al Qaeda in Syria to train and lead the jihadist groups which have been trying to overthrow Syria’s Government and to replace it with a government that has been selected by the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia. Ever since 1949 the US Government has been trying to do this (to place the Saud family in charge of Syria). That plan is now being placed on-hold if not blocked altogether, because of the Russia, Turkey, Iran, Syria, agreement. As I reported on September 25th, “Turkey Now Controls Syria’s Jihadists”. The US would no longer be able to save them, but Turkey would, if Erdogan wants to. “Turkey is thus now balanced on a knife’s edge, between the US and its allies (representing the Saud family) on the one side, versus Russia and its allies (representing the anti-Saud alliance) on the other.” 

During the same period in which the US Government was setting Syria up as the place to start WW III, it was also setting up Ukraine as an alternative possibility to do that. US President Obama, in a very bloody February 2014 coup which he had started planning by no later than 2011, overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President, and replaced him by a rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascist regime whose Ukrainian tradition went back to ideologically nazi Ukrainian organizations that had supported Hitler during World War II. Though communism is gone from Russia ever since 1991, the US aristocracy never ended its goal of conquering Russia; the Cold War was secretly continued on the US-NATO side. Ukraine’s nazis (meaning its racist-fascists) are now the US and UK aristocracies’ chief hope to achieve this ambition of a US-and-allied global conquest. Here are the recent steps toward WW III regarding the US alliance’s new (since 2014) prize, Ukraine:

On September 28th, John Siciliano at the Washington Examiner bannered “Ryan Zinke: Naval blockade is an option for dealing with Russia” and he reported that Trump’s Interior Secretary Zinke had said “There is the military option, which I would rather not. And there is the economic option. … The economic option on Iran and Russia is, more or less, leveraging and replacing fuels.” He was saying that in order for the US to get its and its allies’ (mainly the Sauds’) oil and gas into Europe replacing some of Russia’s dominant market-share in that — the world’s largest energy-consuming — market (and also shrink Iran’s market-share there), a military blockade against Russia and Iran would be an option. Currently, most of Russia’s oil and gas into Europe goes via pipelines through Ukraine, which the US already controls. Siciliano’s news-break received a follow-up on September 30th from Zero Hedge.

On October 1st, George Eliason, the great investigative journalist who happens to live in Donbass, the southeastern part of Ukraine that broke off from Ukraine when Obama’s coup overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian President who had received over 90% of the votes in Donbass, reported at The Saker’s site, that Ukraine’s war against Donbass was now returning in full force. Headlining “War Crimes in LNR and DNR [Donbass] —The Unannounced War”, he opened: 

On September 28th, Lugansk Peoples Republic (LNR)Deputy Foreign Minister Anna Soroka and Andrey Chernov gave a presentation unveiling a photo album entitled Unannounced war. This collection of 150 images details the war crimes by the Ukrainian government during the war from 2014-2018.

Over the last 4 years, many journalists including myself reported on the war crimes committed by Ukrainian punisher battalions and sometimes the Ukrainian army. These war crimes are privately funded by Ukrainian Diaspora groups led primarily by US and Canadian citizens.

The Ukrainian punisher battalions and Ukrainian volunteer battalions take pride in the fact there is no need to hide any of Ukraine’s crimes from the West’s prying eyes.

Even now, when there is supposed to be a ceasefire so the children can go to school, Kiev is shelling cities and towns across Donbass. On September 29th, in just 24 hours Ukrainian army units shelled DNR (Donetsk Peoples Republic) over 300 times violating the ceasefire.

The US Government is trying to bully Russia and its allies, and now is overtly threatening to go to a naval blockade against Russia. Those two warships that the US just donated to Ukraine could be helpful in such a blockade. Alternatively, Ukraine’s re-invasion of Donbass might become Trump’s opportunity to ‘aid a NATO ally’ and precipitate WW III from a conventional war in Donbass. Either way would likely produce from Russia a nuclear blitz-attack to eliminate as many of America’s retaliatory weapons as possible, so as to beat the US to the punch. In military terms, the side that suffers the less damage ‘wins’, even if it’s a nuclear war that destroys the planet. The side that would strike first in a nuclear war would almost certainly suffer the less damage, because most of the opponent’s retaliatory weaponry would be destroyed in that attack. Trump is playing nuclear ‘chicken’ against Putin. He is surely trying Putin’s patience.

If the US regime uses any of these entry-points to a conventional war, Russia would simply be waiting for the US to nuclear blitz-attack Russia, which the US regime has long been intending to do. Regardless which side goes nuclear first, the blockade and/or re-invasion of Donbass (repeating there such things as this and this) will have started WWIII. And, clearly, any survivors would likely view the US in the way that most of today’s world views the fascist powers in WWII: as having been the aggressors. Consequently, if the American people cannot first overthrow the US regime and establish an authentic democracy here, then WWIII seems likely to result, which would be an outcome far worse, for the entire world, than an overthrow of the government that the entire world considers to be by far the most dangerous on Earth.

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With unaffordability reaching levels not seen in decades across some of the most expensive urban markets in the US, a housing-market rout that began in the high-end of markets like New York City and San Francisco is beginning to spread. And as home sales continued to struggle in August, a phenomenon that realtors have blamed on a dearth of properties for sale, those who are choosing to sell might soon see a chasm open up between bids and asks – that is, if they haven’t already.

While home unaffordability is most egregious in urban markets, cities don’t have a monopoly on unaffordability. According to a report by ATTOM, which keeps the most comprehensive database of home prices in the US, of the 440 US counties analyzed in the report, roughly 80% of them had an unaffordability index below 100, the highest rate in ten years. Any reading below 100 is considered unaffordable, by ATTOM’s standards. Based on their analysis, one-third of Americans (roughly 220 million people) now live in counties where buying a median-priced home is considered unaffordable. And in 69 US counties, qualifying for a mortgage would require at least $100,000 in annual income (Assuming a 3% down payment and a maximum front-end debt-to-income ratio of 28%). As one might expect, prohibitively high home prices are inspiring some Americans to relocate to areas where the cost of living is lower. US Census data revealed that two-thirds of those highest-priced markets experienced negative net migration, while more than three-quarters of markets where people earning less than $100,000 a year can qualify for a mortgage experienced net positive migration.

ATTOM illustrated this correlation between home affordability and net migration in the chart below:

Rising home prices have played a big part in driving home unaffordability, but they’re not the whole story. Stagnant wages are also an important factor. The median nationwide home price of $250,000 in Q3 2018 climbed 6% from a year earlier, which is nearly twice the 3% growth in wages during that time. Looking back over a longer period, median home prices have increased 76% since bottoming out in Q1 2012, while average weekly wages have increased 17% over the same period.

Instead of fighting to overpay for existing inventory, one study showed that, for now at least, most Americans would be better off renting than buying a residential property. According to the latest national index produced by Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University faculty, renting and reinvesting will “outperform owning and building equity in terms of wealth creation.”

However, with the average national rent at an all-time high, American consumers are increasingly finding that there are no good options in the modern housing market. Which could be one reason why millennials, despite having more college degrees than any preceding generation, are increasingly choosing to rent instead of buying, even after they get married and start a family.

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

The United States’ trek towards complete Communism is well on its way.  Thanks to the alleged Russian election meddling, citizens living in what hasn’t been the land of the free in over a century have even fewer freedoms than they did a mere two years ago according to a report.

According to an independent watchdog that measures political rights and democratic institutions around the world, Americans now have less freedom since electing Donald Trump and because of the alleged Russian election interference, reported Business Insider.

“The United States’ political rights rating declined … due to growing evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, violations of basic ethical standards by the new administration, and a reduction in government transparency,” according to Freedom House.  Overall, the US’s freedom rating dropped from 89 to 86 because its political rights dropped from 36 to 33, according to the annual Freedom House report. The “land of the free” only the 58th freest country in the world, making it a joke to even pretend we are free.

The report stated that the current administration’s defiance of ethical standards and Robert Mueller’s Russian election meddling investigation heating up are the specific reasons American citizens have become less free.

In terms of defying ethical standards, Freedom House specifically mentioned Trump refusing to release his tax returns, “promoting his private business empire” in office, and “naming his daughter and son-in-law as presidential advisers.”

As for making major policy decisions with little consultation or transparency, Freedom House mentioned Trump’s January 2017 executive order banning seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the US, and his July 2017 executive order banning transgender people from the military. –Business Insider

Read Freedom House’s 2018 Freedom in the World report here, and its explainer of the US’s freedom here.

This is not to say that we do or do not agree with how Freedom House determines the level of freedom, because taxation (government theft and the most obvious violation of basic human civil rights) rates were obviously not a factor in their rankings. Nor were the number of government services the public is forced to fund at gunpoint whether they use them or not taken into account.  It appears they judge only on a few very social layers. But read the reports and see for yourself.

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Former Fed governor Kevin Warsh warned on Thursday that the US-China relationship is “probably as poor as” it has ever been since former President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger developed strategic relations between both countries in the early 1970s.

“We’re at the risk of a real cold war” between the world’s two largest economies, said Warsh who had been on President Trump’s list for Fed chairman before Jerome Powell was chosen. “The last 30 years we’ve been living and breathing globalization as if it’s an inevitable force,” but now, it seems the six-decade-long bubble has finally popped.

Bank of Americas says trade wars and deteriorating relations with China have been some of the reasons for the decline in globalism. Especially, US tariff duties collected, % of total imports have surged under the Trump administration.

“Protectionism has cross-party support in the US, and nationalist parties continue to gain in Europe. Further action on China ($200bn), autos ($350bn), NAFTA ($690bn) could raise US tariff revenue as % total imports to levels not seen since 1946,” said BofA.

 

During the CNBC interview, Wash used the term “cold war” to describe the economic standoff, not the decades-long “mutually assured destruction” nuclear stalemate with Russia.

“We are probably on the precipice of a brand new relationship with the Chinese,” Wash told CNBC.

He asked: “Could we be at the beginning of a 10- or 20-year cold war?” If so, an economic cold war between the countries could have major implications for the global economy like causing a global growth scare and repricing risk assets.

What is next? 

The return of a bipolar world: “Five or 10 years from now we might see two poles: a Chinese-centric world and an American-centric world. And the [other global] economies and countries will have to plug into one or both,” he said.

“Great power relationships are not about how many soybeans you’re going to buy [or how] many Boeing airplanes you’re going to buy. It’s about your core interests,” he added.

“I suspect that there will need to be between [Chinese President Xi Jinping] and President Trump a great summit, among great powers. And that requires two countries that want to have that discussion,” said Warsh, who was a Fed governor during and in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

While Wash made no reference about a military “cold war” between the countries in the CNBC interview, it is likely that a continued breakdown in US-China relations will likely transform into a new arms race starting in the early 2020s.

“Trade war should be recognized for what it is…1st stage of a new arms race between the US & China to reach national superiority in technology over long-term via Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Electronic Vehicles, Robotics, and Cyber-Security. 

China strategy to ensure that 40% of China’s mobile phone chips, 70% of industrial robots, 80% of renewable energy equipment are “Made in China” by 2025. China First strategy will be met head-on by an America First strategy. Note military spending by the US and China is forecast by the IMF to rise substantially in coming decades, to $4tn in China & $3tn in the US,” said Bank of America.

With the threat of a full-blown trade war in 2019, and relations between both economic superpowers to worsen. It is only a matter of time before a hot war develops.

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Authored by Alice Salles via The Mises Institute,

As Gallup reports that more Americans expressed support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during the week he denied being guilty of sexual assault, it’s clear that whether accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is speaking the truth, the public might not be ready to accept the allegations without evidence. But if you were to rely solely on most news outlets , you would think Kavanaugh had been charged and convicted.

While the outspread concern over a Supreme Court nominee is warranted , mainly due to the power justices have over our lives, the conversation was never about how Kavanaugh saw the PATRIOT Act as “measured, careful, responsible, and constitutional,” despite the law’s mockery of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Democrats also never bothered to mention Kavanaugh once ruled that “the Government’s metadata collection program is entirely consistent with the Fourth Amendment” while sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Before the allegations of sexual assault, all they seemed to worry about was how Kavanaugh would rule on an abortion case, apparently frightened that states would have to pick up where they left off before Roe v. Wade. But ever since Ford entered the picture, offering a compelling story of assault but also one with gaps and no evidence , the focus is back on one thing and one thing only: We must believe all women, no matter what.

The #MeToo movement has long been co-opted by politicians and Americans who identify as Democrats in the President Donald Trump era. Perhaps because accusations of sexual assault boost ratings . If news outlets can link anything back to Trump, then they’re sitting on a goldmine.

But there’s also another unintended consequence to the movement, one that seemed clear from the get-go as the #MeToo hashtag went viral in Oct. 2017.

Then, America’s left-leaning influencers , politicians , and celebrities made it clear that believing all women was always the right thing to do, automatically abandoning due process and trashing any presumption of innocence in the name of fairness.

In this very public court of opinion, accusers were seen as infallible while the accused, when formerly charged, had already been convicted long before appearing before a court. But as libertarian writer and feminist Wendy McElroy wrote recently, the damage of #MeToo-style public “prosecution” lies in how it’s made us all ignore nature.

“‘Believe the accuser’ runs up against human nature,” McElroy wrote. “People are not only fallible, but they [are] also capable of bad behavior, such as lying.”

Imagine that! As if women could ever lie .

But perhaps, what’s even more damaging to the left’s own cause, if you consider they are genuinely concerned about women’s welfare, is how the “believe all women” theme in the Kavanaugh hearings could damage an entire generation of young women.

Coming of age in a world that teaches you ought to expect being protected and treated with respect no matter where you go might sound like the ideal scenario, but it doesn’t reflect real life.

While we live in a much safer world than our grandparents did, the reality is that the world remains a big place, filled with people of different backgrounds and sometimes, ulterior motives. Ignoring this reality is to ignore truth itself.

For poor and low-income women in urban areas, for instance, dealing with harassment and abuse is all too common . Knowing how to deal with these situations ends up being part of who they are .

But for middle- and upper middle-class girls, harassment is also a possibility. Understanding that there are risks and knowing how to avoid them will better prepare these girls so they may grow into stronger, more capable, and yes, more self-resilient women .

Needless to say, it’s heartbreaking that in the United States young women (and men) are in constant danger of being victims of sexual assault. Nevertheless, it is our duty — and right — to defend ourselves when necessary, and to act accordingly if the risk outweighs the benefits.

As professor and famed feminist author Camille Paglia once explained, feminism to her generation meant having the freedom “to risk rape.” Those women were not saying they wanted to be shielded and treated like precious porcelain dolls, quite the contrary — they were stating they were ready to fight back.

Not too long ago, after punk rocker Mia Zapata was violently raped and murdered in a dark Seattle alley, Grunge musicians of the time such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Heart came together to raise funds for a campaign called “ Home Alive ,” which organized self-defense classes for local women. Singer Joan Jett joined the movement, writing the song “ Go Home” and releasing a video depicting a woman successfully fighting her attacker.

But the spirit doesn’t live on with the younger generation, at least it doesn’t seem like it does as many today will often say that no, women should not have to defend themselves from attackers. This is particularly true among those who defend restrictions on firearm ownership, claiming that guns don’t deter sexual assault while real life cases prove otherwise .

Regardless, the reality is that as Kavanaugh is accused of having attacked Ford, the accuser is seldom pressed to provide more evidence while the Supreme Court nominee feels compelled to continuously prove his innocence. But while Ford’s account might as well be true, the reality is that we’re turning this charade into the main story, and we’re judging Kavanaugh on the basis of an unproven claim, not real policies he’s supported and that continue to impact all men and women in America.

To young girls witnessing the spectacle on TV, girls whose parents may say they have no doubt they know what happened in that room in 1982 and who are, perhaps, pro-gun control activists and even Hillary Clinton supporters — as strange as it may seem — the message couldn’t be clearer: The world owes you your safety.

As Paglia wrote in 1991 about then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and his accuser, Anita Hill, Hill made uncorroborated allegations that served Democrats with a very clear agenda: abortion rights.

While Ford’s and Hill’s stories are different in nature, it is as true today as it was then that Democrats are using allegations to push an agenda, choosing to talk about uncorroborated claims instead of the Supreme Court’s power over our lives. And that’s not a bug in the system, as both Democrats and Republicans will take any opportunity to have more control over the narrative. Still, this showdown has real-world consequences, as young people are largely influenced by what they see on social media. And you can’t go through one day online without seeing celebrities , politicians , and news personalities discussing the Kavanaugh allegations as facts.

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After overcoming the temptation to publish under a pseudonym, former Google PR executive Jessica Powell has finally dropped her long-awaited satirical novel/memoir “The Big Disruption” last week. In the highly anticipated book – and in an accompanying personal essay published on Medium – Powell offers what may be one of the most scathing critiques of Silicon Valley from a former executive at one of its biggest and most influential companies.

Some of her claims are nothing short of shocking – like when she admitted in her essay that she quit Google last August (she was the company’s top PR executive, reporting directly to CEO Sundar Pichai) not to go back to school to study creative writing, as was reported at the time, but because she “got tired” defending the company’s unscupulous actions. In particular, she cited YouTube’s argument to UK lawmakers that it couldn’t censor all of the far-right and jihadist recruitment content posted on its platform because of the sheer volume of content – a claim that Powell said was an outright lie, per the Daily Mail.

Memorably, there were some instances where Google even paid some of the accounts that posted terrorist content.

Google has been widely criticised for allowing jihadists, far-Right extremists and other hate preachers to post content on its YouTube video platform. In some cases, it funnelled cash from advertisers to the extremists posting videos.

But the firm has repeatedly told MPs it cannot stop problem content because of the sheer volume of videos that are uploaded to YouTube.

Miss Powell was in charge of the company’s response to the criticism, reporting directly to Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai.

Her decision to quit the lucrative role in August last year surprised many in the industry. At the time, Miss Powell claimed she was leaving to go back to university to study creative writing.

However, in her essay, published for free on the Medium website, she admitted she needed to ‘take a break from the issues that I got tired of defending at parties’.

She said: ‘On the surface, things seemed really important and exciting. We were doing big things! Bringing the internet to the developing world! But also, on some level, it all felt a bit off, like when you go on vacation and find yourself wondering when it’s going to feel like the Instagram pics other people have posted.’

While Silicon Valley insiders probably think they’re among the most noble people on the planet as they fight to expand Internet access in the developing world and support other similarly “noble” causes, Powell argues that there’s a certain cognitive dissonance that arises from tech industry excuses about its failures to combat election hacking and its unwillingness to be transparent about how user data is monetized.

“This is an industry that takes itself far too seriously, and its own responsibility not seriously enough.”

[…]

“You can’t tell your advertisers that you can target users down to the tiniest pixel but then throw your hands up before the politicians and say your machines can’t figure out if bad actors are using your platform.”

“You can’t buy up a big bookstore and then a big diaper store and a big pet supply store and, finally, a big grocery store, national newspaper, and rocket ship and then act surprised when people start wondering if maybe you’re a bit too powerful.”

Powell urged Silicon Valley to “end the self-delusion” and “fess up to reality” or work toward holding itself to a higher ethical standard.

“I want Silicon Valley to end the self-delusion and either fess up to the reality we are creating, or live up to the vision we market to the world each day. Because if you’re going to tell people you’re their saviour, you better be ready to be held to a higher standard.”

Of course, no Silicon Valley tell-all would be complete without details of the sexual harassment that’s reportedly rampant in the valley. And Powell’s essay is no exception.

Should I start with the early stage companies? Like the time I was at a startup and the founder I was working for — a guy who owned a hundred shirts in the same color and quoted Steve Jobs on a daily basis — asked me whether we should hand out dildos as company swag or consider converting our social media platform into an anonymous sex club. (We even whiteboarded it.)

Or maybe I could start with the money — all the absurd valuations with seemingly little basis in reality. Or the time a partner at a VC “jokingly” offered up my female friend, his employee, as an enticement for a founder to work with his firm.

To be sure, Powell isn’t saying anything new. All of these criticisms of Silicon Valley have been lodged in the past – but mostly by outsiders. The fact that she was a senior executive working her tech – and that she walked away from the money because she became disillusioned – is almost as relevant as the details of her story.

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