Facebook Announces More Restrictions On Political Advertising As Zuck Caves To The ‘Woke’ Mob

Facebook Announces More Restrictions On Political Advertising As Zuck Caves To The ‘Woke’ Mob

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 07:30

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO who turned out to be the only Silicon Valley CEO to have the temerity to stand up to both the “woke mob” demanding Facebook run every conservative-leaning group off its platform, and the #RussiaHoax fanatics who insist Zuckerberg was duped by Putin into helping Trump rig the election – a fanciful narrative with no basis in fact.

But that hasn’t stopped Democratic pols and, well, pretty much everybody to slam Facebook as an agent of chaos in our society, an example of corporate scapegoating at its finest.

In the face of an advertiser boycott and mounting political pressure (few have more to lose if Biden triumphs than Zuckerberg), the company has once again caved, and ceded to its critics yet another draining concession via its advertising business. Of course, this isn’t the first time.

In a statement to the press Thursday morning, Zuckerberg said Facebook would block new political ads during the final week of the election, and also develop a process for suppressing ‘premature’ claims of victory on the platform.

“This election is not going to be business as usual,” he said, acknowledging the difficulties of voting during a pandemic.

“I’m worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country,” he said in the statement, adding that “our democracy is strong enough to withstand this challenge and deliver a free and fair election.”

As for expectations that the results of the election likely won’t be known on election night, Zuckerberg said “it’s important that we prepare for this possibility in advance and understand that there could be a period of intense claims and counterclaims as the final results are counted.”

To ensure that no fraudulent claims of victory are propagated on Facebook – a luducrious notion that has been propagated by the press and the intelligence community without, as the liberals like to say , “a shred of evidence” – Facebook will partner with Reuters, the financial newswire service, to ensure the integrity of its election night results.

The ban on new political ads during the final week of the campaign is intended to stop campaigns from spreading “misinformation” just as voters are heading to the polls.

Finally, Facebook will also take steps to “protect election officials” from threats of violence during the vote-counting process. Meanwhile, Facebook will continue to swiftly remove any “misinformation” about the voting process – like, for example, fake posts advising minorities that polling places in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods will be open for an extra day due to “social distancing”, or whatever.

Note: That last example was fabricated by us for the purposes of making a point. Please don’t accuse us of ‘spreading misinformation’.

 

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Cargo Ship With Dozens Of Crew, 6,000 Cattle Capsizes Off Japan Coast

Cargo Ship With Dozens Of Crew, 6,000 Cattle Capsizes Off Japan Coast

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 07:00

A large cargo vessel from New Zealand capsized off the coast of Okinawa, a Japanese island in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Mainland Japan, according to a South China Morning Post report.

Gulf Livestock 1, a specialized cargo ship measuring 139 meters with 5,867 cattle on board, was headed for the Port of Jingtang in Tangshan, China, when it sent a “mayday” call Wednesday from west of Amami Oshima island in southwestern Japan.

Hours after the ship’s crew sent a distress call, the Japanese coastguard arrived on the scene and rescued one person out of the 43 who were on board. The survivor, Sareno Edvarodo, 45, the vessel’s chief officer, said the ship’s engine had failed just as a rogue wave struck the side of the vessel in just the right way. As the boat began to capsize, all crew were instructed to put on life jackets and prepare life-threatening conditions like strong winds and heavy rain from Typhoon Maysak. 

Edvarodo said he jumped from the vessel but did not see any of his colleagues before the coast guard rescued him. 

Crew member was rescued by Japan’s coast guard on Wednesday. h/t JPN Coast Guard/AP

Maysak caused devastation in South Korea this week, with winds reaching upwards of 90 mph. North Korea reported Thursday widespread flooding in the eastern region of the county. There was only minor damage across Okinawa on Tuesday; it’s the second typhoon to hit the Korean Peninsula in the span of the last few weeks.

US Tropics 

Fortunately, the storm doesn’t pose a threat to the US mainland, unlike a record-breaking new storm forming in the Atlantic.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3gWAAin Tyler Durden

If You Want to Fix Policing, Listen to the Pragmatists

topicsfuture

Nobody likes pragmatists. To the revolutionary, the pragmatist sounds too much like an apologist for the status quo. To those who fear rule by the angry mob, the pragmatist has granted the mob’s premise and is simply bargaining about the timeline.

When absolutely everyone else is screaming, it can be hard to hear the calm, slightly nasal voice of the pragmatist explaining the procedures by which a cause might be realistically advanced. But in the cacophonous summer of 2020, with protesters in the street and a pandemic raging, it looked for a moment like practical policing reform might actually make some headway. Wonky pragmatists from across the spectrum seemed to converge on both the need for and general outlines of reform. National Review published a piece called “Reform Police Training—Why It’s a Conservative Cause.” Mother Jones asked: “‘Qualified Immunity’ Gives Abusive Cops a Free Pass. Will the Supreme Court End It?” The Washington Post reported “Top CEOs Endorse Calls for Police Reform, Another Sign of Momentum on the Issue.” Bills popped up in the House, the Senate, and state legislatures, and governors and mayors announced their intention to make changes.

In that moment of optimism, Reason asked writers who have been on the criminal justice beat for years to lay out serious proposals for reforms with a fighting chance of being implemented in the coming months or years. The result is a robust list that includes calls to abolish qualified immunity (page 18), bust the police unions (page 22), better regulate the use of police force (page 25), rethink crisis response (page 28), end the drug war (page 32), release body cam footage (page 35), stop overpolicing (page 37), and restrict asset forfeiture (page 40). Each article begins with a quote from Reason‘s archives, some from issues dating all the way back to the 1960s. Reason has been carrying this torch for a long time, in preparation for the moment when mainstream political culture and elected officials were ready to hear us out.

This summer, it looked like that moment had come. According to a Cato/YouGov poll conducted in July, 63 percent of Americans favor eliminating qualified immunity for police officers, which would make it easier to hold cops accountable for misbehavior and abuse. Another 62 percent favor limiting police unions’ bargaining power. A whopping 84 percent oppose erasing police records of misconduct every few years, a common clause in police union contracts. While Democrats are more likely to support such reforms, the number of Republicans open to these marginal changes was surprisingly high—64 percent of GOP respondents, for instance, say police officers should be held accountable for misconduct even if they were “unaware at the time that their actions were illegal.”

Most of the folks at this summer’s street protests, of course, wanted to go much further, demanding everything from an end to racism (via methods that were often alarmingly TBD) to full Marxist revolution. But at least on policing, there was some crystallization, and a genuinely realistic slate of changes emerged.

The trouble with pragmatic, incremental reform is that it simply can’t produce the kind of immediate gratification that is required to keep the focus of people in the grip of culture war–induced ADHD. Chanting “Defund the police” is exciting; trying to figure out what that might look like across thousands of different jurisdictions is irksome. Spraypainting slogans on the plinth of a bust of Christopher Columbus gives a thrill; crafting legislation to hold officers accountable for misconduct in court is tricky and time-consuming.

Even more challenging, sometimes partial or badly executed reform is worse than nothing at all. Privatization without mechanisms for market competition and creative destruction can quickly become entrenched cronyism. Budget cuts without reductions in the scope of government create inefficiencies and delays. Rule changes done without proper legislative procedure create uncertainty, because they can be reversed when the political tides change.

But when agreement about the need to implement some reform, any reform, emerges, the pragmatist takes seriously the need to work with the tools that are available. Take body cameras, for instance: Many jurisdictions were surprisingly willing to require law enforcement officers to wear cameras on their lapels or install them in their patrol cars in recent years, due to a combination of public pressure, evolving attitudes toward surveillance in the workplace, and the belief by union leaders that the cams could serve to exonerate officers inaccurately accused of wrongdoing.

The hope was that cameras would reproduce the observer effect on officers, in which they would choose more ethical behavior because they knew they were being watched. That hope hasn’t panned out. But that doesn’t mean that we should turn away from body cams entirely. Instead, we can lean into the cameras as a tool for transparency. As part of a slate of reforms focused on accountability, cameras become a way for courts, citizens, and others to get the information they need in order to adjudicate whether police acted legally and morally in the course of their work. Paired with stronger freedom of information laws and the abolition of qualified immunity, body cams may yet deliver on their promise.

Likewise, use-of-force regulations have failed to prevent deaths and abuse in many places where they have already been implemented, but many municipalities are trying again. In San Diego, the chief of police formally ordered his officers not to use “carotid restraints” to cut off blood flow to the brain and knock out suspects. In Colorado, the County Sheriffs of Colorado, the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, and the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police put out a joint statement calling for state lawmakers to require that other officers intervene when their colleagues use unreasonable force, paving the way for criminal charges. The combination of familiar reforms and a new cultural context may work where it hasn’t before.

Other reforms, like busting police unions or ending the drug war or rolling back asset forfeiture, are more radical. But they have taken on new life in the context of more broadly shared concerns about police brutality.

Like so many distracted boyfriends, America’s wandering eye was drawn by more inflammatory topics, from fighting about which statues to yank down (see “American Idolatry Meets Woke Iconoclasm,” page 58) to banning social media platforms where teenagers lip sync while shaking their butts.

Some people who took to the streets because too many Americans have died with police officers’ knees on their necks or bullets in their backs have redirected their energy back to mainstream partisan squabbling rather than specific policy reform. Faced with a real chance to improve the lot of some of the least well-off people in our society by reining in the power of the state, some online activists have opted to wage Twitter campaigns to get journalists and academics fired for bad tweets instead. Many mayors seem to have contented themselves with painting large street murals declaring that Black Lives Matter and calling it a day. And some people just got bored.

It’s hard to stay mad about one thing when there are so many new things to get mad about every day, especially in the cascading semi-apocalypse of 2020. But a certain kind of sustained anger is vital to real reform. Fireworks are attention-getting and bonfires are fun, but it’s the banked coals of a well-tended hearth that get the job done. As meaningful reforms keep working their way through the system, it’s the pragmatists, not the firebrands, who will keep that flame alive.

 

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If You Want to Fix Policing, Listen to the Pragmatists

topicsfuture

Nobody likes pragmatists. To the revolutionary, the pragmatist sounds too much like an apologist for the status quo. To those who fear rule by the angry mob, the pragmatist has granted the mob’s premise and is simply bargaining about the timeline.

When absolutely everyone else is screaming, it can be hard to hear the calm, slightly nasal voice of the pragmatist explaining the procedures by which a cause might be realistically advanced. But in the cacophonous summer of 2020, with protesters in the street and a pandemic raging, it looked for a moment like practical policing reform might actually make some headway. Wonky pragmatists from across the spectrum seemed to converge on both the need for and general outlines of reform. National Review published a piece called “Reform Police Training—Why It’s a Conservative Cause.” Mother Jones asked: “‘Qualified Immunity’ Gives Abusive Cops a Free Pass. Will the Supreme Court End It?” The Washington Post reported “Top CEOs Endorse Calls for Police Reform, Another Sign of Momentum on the Issue.” Bills popped up in the House, the Senate, and state legislatures, and governors and mayors announced their intention to make changes.

In that moment of optimism, Reason asked writers who have been on the criminal justice beat for years to lay out serious proposals for reforms with a fighting chance of being implemented in the coming months or years. The result is a robust list that includes calls to abolish qualified immunity (page 18), bust the police unions (page 22), better regulate the use of police force (page 25), rethink crisis response (page 28), end the drug war (page 32), release body cam footage (page 35), stop overpolicing (page 37), and restrict asset forfeiture (page 40). Each article begins with a quote from Reason‘s archives, some from issues dating all the way back to the 1960s. Reason has been carrying this torch for a long time, in preparation for the moment when mainstream political culture and elected officials were ready to hear us out.

This summer, it looked like that moment had come. According to a Cato/YouGov poll conducted in July, 63 percent of Americans favor eliminating qualified immunity for police officers, which would make it easier to hold cops accountable for misbehavior and abuse. Another 62 percent favor limiting police unions’ bargaining power. A whopping 84 percent oppose erasing police records of misconduct every few years, a common clause in police union contracts. While Democrats are more likely to support such reforms, the number of Republicans open to these marginal changes was surprisingly high—64 percent of GOP respondents, for instance, say police officers should be held accountable for misconduct even if they were “unaware at the time that their actions were illegal.”

Most of the folks at this summer’s street protests, of course, wanted to go much further, demanding everything from an end to racism (via methods that were often alarmingly TBD) to full Marxist revolution. But at least on policing, there was some crystallization, and a genuinely realistic slate of changes emerged.

The trouble with pragmatic, incremental reform is that it simply can’t produce the kind of immediate gratification that is required to keep the focus of people in the grip of culture war–induced ADHD. Chanting “Defund the police” is exciting; trying to figure out what that might look like across thousands of different jurisdictions is irksome. Spraypainting slogans on the plinth of a bust of Christopher Columbus gives a thrill; crafting legislation to hold officers accountable for misconduct in court is tricky and time-consuming.

Even more challenging, sometimes partial or badly executed reform is worse than nothing at all. Privatization without mechanisms for market competition and creative destruction can quickly become entrenched cronyism. Budget cuts without reductions in the scope of government create inefficiencies and delays. Rule changes done without proper legislative procedure create uncertainty, because they can be reversed when the political tides change.

But when agreement about the need to implement some reform, any reform, emerges, the pragmatist takes seriously the need to work with the tools that are available. Take body cameras, for instance: Many jurisdictions were surprisingly willing to require law enforcement officers to wear cameras on their lapels or install them in their patrol cars in recent years, due to a combination of public pressure, evolving attitudes toward surveillance in the workplace, and the belief by union leaders that the cams could serve to exonerate officers inaccurately accused of wrongdoing.

The hope was that cameras would reproduce the observer effect on officers, in which they would choose more ethical behavior because they knew they were being watched. That hope hasn’t panned out. But that doesn’t mean that we should turn away from body cams entirely. Instead, we can lean into the cameras as a tool for transparency. As part of a slate of reforms focused on accountability, cameras become a way for courts, citizens, and others to get the information they need in order to adjudicate whether police acted legally and morally in the course of their work. Paired with stronger freedom of information laws and the abolition of qualified immunity, body cams may yet deliver on their promise.

Likewise, use-of-force regulations have failed to prevent deaths and abuse in many places where they have already been implemented, but many municipalities are trying again. In San Diego, the chief of police formally ordered his officers not to use “carotid restraints” to cut off blood flow to the brain and knock out suspects. In Colorado, the County Sheriffs of Colorado, the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, and the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police put out a joint statement calling for state lawmakers to require that other officers intervene when their colleagues use unreasonable force, paving the way for criminal charges. The combination of familiar reforms and a new cultural context may work where it hasn’t before.

Other reforms, like busting police unions or ending the drug war or rolling back asset forfeiture, are more radical. But they have taken on new life in the context of more broadly shared concerns about police brutality.

Like so many distracted boyfriends, America’s wandering eye was drawn by more inflammatory topics, from fighting about which statues to yank down (see “American Idolatry Meets Woke Iconoclasm,” page 58) to banning social media platforms where teenagers lip sync while shaking their butts.

Some people who took to the streets because too many Americans have died with police officers’ knees on their necks or bullets in their backs have redirected their energy back to mainstream partisan squabbling rather than specific policy reform. Faced with a real chance to improve the lot of some of the least well-off people in our society by reining in the power of the state, some online activists have opted to wage Twitter campaigns to get journalists and academics fired for bad tweets instead. Many mayors seem to have contented themselves with painting large street murals declaring that Black Lives Matter and calling it a day. And some people just got bored.

It’s hard to stay mad about one thing when there are so many new things to get mad about every day, especially in the cascading semi-apocalypse of 2020. But a certain kind of sustained anger is vital to real reform. Fireworks are attention-getting and bonfires are fun, but it’s the banked coals of a well-tended hearth that get the job done. As meaningful reforms keep working their way through the system, it’s the pragmatists, not the firebrands, who will keep that flame alive.

 

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via IFTTT

One Bank Warns The Coming Flu Season Could Lead To Chaos

One Bank Warns The Coming Flu Season Could Lead To Chaos

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 06:30

Earlier today, Dr. Fauci sparked anger among those who believe that the covid pandemic is, for all intents and purposes, contained when he said that the upcoming Labor Day weekend will be key in determining whether the nation gets a “running start” at containing the coronavirus this fall, with the implication that Americans should spend the holiday dutifully locked up, or at best within shouting distance of each other when they say goodbye to the summer.

Yet while Fauci’s (“don’t wear a mask… ok fine, wear a mask”) opinion is easy to dismiss, that of Jim Reid, who repeatedly has warned that the consequences from the economic shutdowns will be far more dire and pervasive across all social groups than the impact of covid itself (which targets the most elderly and frail segment of society), is far more relevant, who today warned that the coming flu season could unleash a new wave of chaos on the global economy (not just US) as the population freaks out mistaking ordinary flu symptoms for those of the coronavirus, potentially resulting in overflow of local hospitals.

According to Reid, “as we move into the colder months in the northern hemisphere (where 90% of the global population reside), attention will shift towards a second covid wave.”

As his first graph shows (using the 20 countries with the most cases), the second wave (or extended first wave) is already here for many: “we’ve sorted the legend on the chart by current 7-day moving average (highest to lowest). While the increase in testing will have helped encourage some of this growth, there is little doubt that countries like Spain (114 per 100,000 – 7-day MA) and France (52) have seen their numbers deteriorate in the last month while others like the US (90) have seen notable improvements.”

Yet while flu season will be accompanied by a second wave in cases across many countries, in terms of fatalities or hospitalizations however, “there are no obvious signs of a second wave yet.”

For example, in England there are now 305 covid patients in hospital with 33 patients on ventilation. At the peak, we had 17,000 and 2,800 respectively.

Why is the mortality rate tumbling? Because as Reid explained several months ago, much of this global trend is due to younger and less vulnerable people catching the virus, better medical treatment, and less pressure on healthcare systems, with some even suggesting less deadly mutations although this is speculation at this stage.

The not so good news is that while the lower fatality rate is good news, it further confuses the already confused response strategy

As Reid explains, “we move to the winter months, it is surely inevitable that case numbers remain elevated and likely increase in many areas. So should policy makers fight the battle of the first wave or learn to adapt?” Indeed, while Reid’s unspoken view is that the latter is the proper approach which is also supported by the numbers, “political/public pressure may encourage the former” especially in Democratic states.

As such, vaccine developments will be key.

Which brings us to the final point from Reid, who in a note published today by Deutsche Bank writes that vaccines normally require 10 years to be operational but covid-19 has ensured the most monumental global effort in history to cut the time frame to within a year. The graph below shows the percentages of clinical trials that advanced from the various phases between 2005-2015. Around 60% eventually advanced from “Phase 3” to “Approved.”

And since there are currently 7 vaccines at Phase 3, the probability of more than one being approved soon are high based on this. The good news is that, on average, once a vaccine for an infectious disease makes it to phase-three trials, it has an 85% chance of being approved. As there are  currently seven in phase-three trials, this implies six could be approved (obviously, questions will be asked by the public as to whether corners have been cut and that may impact the initial take up).

Yet, while a vaccine appears statistically likely, it is important to note that vaccines are not 100 per cent effective. In fact, most routine childhood vaccines are only effective for 85-95 per cent of recipients, according to the WHO. In addition, the US Centre for Disease Control says the ‘flu vaccine is regularly under 50 per cent effective.

The punchline: given the imminent feedback time frames, a vaccine could also become a highly politicized US election event ahead of November one which potentially could sawy the outcome of the vote; the real question is even if there is a vaccine, how many people will voluntarily take it and if they refuse what will the federal and state governments do?

Some argue that a quickly-developed vaccine cannot have been evaluated for longterm side effects. Furthermore, one survey notes that over three-quarters of Americans worry the vaccine approval process is being driven by politics. To counter this, some governments have discussed making a vaccine mandatory via various incentives and punishments, which of course just confirms fears of politization. It also presents a legal and ethical quagmire. For what it’s worth, Deutsche Bank’s proprietary survey shows that between 61 and 78% of people in various countries will choose to be vaccinated, however, there is strong disagreement on whether it should be mandated.

Looking forward, Reid expects to hear significant developments soon. Most vaccines plan to be (if not already) available for emergency use this autumn so we will likely hear feedback on effectiveness within weeks.

As the DB strategist concludes “this could create a very interesting political dynamic ahead of the US election. A roll-out announcement may boost Mr Trump but any move is likely to be highly politicized which may impact its early success.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/35dUG5B Tyler Durden

A Dose Of Reality About The Labor Market

A Dose Of Reality About The Labor Market

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 06:00

Authored by Michael Lebowitz and Jack Scott via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The language used to describe recent employment data is confusing. The Bureau of Labor Services (BLS) reported that the U.S. regained 9.3 million jobs since May. In reporting on those results, the business media characterizes the jobs market as “better than expected.” Given that no one expected 22 million jobs to be lost, why should we use expectations as a meaningful gauge?

Although it is encouraging to see improvement in employment amid the COVID-19 pandemic, investors would be wise to avoid rose-colored lenses just yet. Despite the job gains, the U.S. still has about 12 million fewer people employed today as compared with February before the pandemic shutdowns hit the economy. Additionally, though down from over 15%, the unemployment rate remains extremely high.

Correctly Assessing Labor Markets

Having written in the past about the importance of linguistic precision, reports on the labor market should be rephrased. Technically, recent data is better than economists’ expectations, but the situation is better characterized as “ugly but improving.”

Job gains of the past three months are filling a vast unemployment crater formed by the COVID virus meteor. As the chart below highlights, U.S. job gains of the past three months have only just gotten back to the worst levels of the past 70 years. Bear in mind, various adjustments make today’s data look better than it is.

For example, according to BLS, the formation of over 881,000 new jobs occurred over the last three months due to net new business formations. The likelihood of that being true seems quite remote given the circumstances we are facing.

Narrative-Driven Journalism

As is evident from the labor market facts and the media’s characterizations, the reasoning seems to be going backward from some desired conclusion to the preferred “V-shaped” recovery story. A term we recently heard that fits is “narrative-driven journalism” which is just a euphemism for propaganda. It is the opposite of investigative journalism. This is a symptomatic issue and one that resurfaces time and again in the evaluation of the economy’s “recovery” from the virus shutdowns.

If we look at job losses as opposed to the unemployment rate, one gets another perspective on the enormity of the situation, as illustrated below. Never before have we seen anything resembling the labor market devastation seen in April.

One standard deviation of the monthly change in jobs between 1939 and 2019 is 223,000. As a percentage of the workforce, the 1.3 million jobs lost in March was a 2.7 standard deviation event. The negative 21 million job report in April counts as a 35.7 standard deviation event. That number is even more incomprehensible than the image on the chart above. Devastating job losses during the 2008 financial crisis are barely perceptible.

Employment in July rose by an impressive 1.8 million and, as mentioned, the economy has recovered over 9 million jobs since April. While encouraging, of those that lost their job in March and April, a majority remain out of work. Not only that, but a large percentage of those can also expect to once again be out of a job. Another 2.8 million people have left the workforce altogether. The BLS does not count them as members of the workforce.

Looking Ahead

Results from a recent study conducted by Cornell’s Daniel Alpert, the U.S. Job Quality Index (JQI), and RIWI, indicate maintaining improvement in the labor market is unlikely. Furthermore, their work suggests that a sizeable percentage of job gains are temporary.

The results of their survey illustrate the problems and complexities associated with interpreting the job gains since May. Developed to test the vulnerability of U.S. employees to business failures once government support diminishes, their data reveals that concern is well-founded. Although not yet showing up in economic data, another round of layoffs is indeed occurring. The study suggests that the problems in the labor market are “much more significant and systemic” and not isolated to those states that experienced another COVID-19 surge.

The Trend Is Not Labor’s Friend

Looking back at prior recoveries, as shown in the chart below, employment rebounds are progressively more anemic. With that trend as evidence, the outlook for displaced workers, and therefore the economy, is troubling.

For the moment, the various forms of record stimulus are trying to prop up a very sick economy. Massive stimulus obscures a reasonable assessment of economic fundamentals. Being a prudent steward of wealth demands that we attempt to draw sensible conclusions about the current environment and, more importantly, the economic outlook. That task, as discussed in Why the Recovery Will Fall Short of Forecasts, has never been more challenging.

Political Considerations

Meanwhile, the cities hardest hit by the virus are in peril. For the nation’s largest cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, most of the things that make those cities exciting and dynamic remain shut down. As discussed by @boriquagato in a recent thread on Twitter, restaurants, clubs, live music, sporting events, and theater will have difficulty rebounding from a 5 or 6-month pause. They do not hold enough capital to survive such a pause.

Permanent changes to behavioral patterns will alter much even after cities fully reopen. The respective mayors and governors mostly failed to understand the trade-off between shutdowns and economic destruction until now. The irony is that re-opening at this point will reveal the extent of the economic damage. For the politicians of those states hardest hit, that is a significant problem.

As former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker once said, “We all know what needs to be done, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after doing it.”

Summary

Personal consumption represents 70% of GDP. Therefore, no single piece of economic data is more important than the employment picture. It is not a matter of unjustified pessimism to urge a proper characterization of economic fundamentals, it is prudence. Although temporarily encouraging, assuming the post-pandemic recovery will be robust or “V-shaped” is disingenuous. Not only that, it encourages behavior and decision-making that is detrimental to the prospect of recovery. Given the profoundly uncertain outlook, we should prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Put another way, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hU1zMR Tyler Durden

Face Masks Are Going Through An Electronic Revolution 

Face Masks Are Going Through An Electronic Revolution 

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 05:30

LG Electronics announced Thursday, a new line of wearable air purifying masks are likely to gain traction, as the next-generation in face masks are set to be unveiled in the coming months. 

“LG PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier resolves the dilemma of homemade masks being of inconsistent quality and disposal masks being in short supply. The PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier employs two H13 HEPA filters, similar to the filters used in the company’s home air purifier products,” an LG press release read. 

By now, readers have the understanding that face masks or face coverings are required in almost every brick and mortar store, restaurant, and social gathering event, no matter the state.

While out in public, everyone mainly uses face masks and coverings of some sort that haven’t changed designed in decades, if not more than half a century. That is why, in the ‘war against covid’ – a lot of money is being plowed into research, and with that comes innovation, such as LG’s wearable air purifying masks. 

LG breaks down the technology within the masks: 

Employing LG’s latest advancements in air purification, high-performance replaceable filters enable PuriCare Wearable to supply fresh, clean air indoor and out. With its Dual Fans and patented Respiratory Sensor, LG’s wearable air purifier allows users to take in clean, filtered air while the Respiratory Sensor detects the cycle and volume of the wearer’s breath and adjusts the dual three-speed fans accordingly. The fans automatically speed up to assist air intake and slow down to reduce resistance when exhaling to make breathing effortless.

Ergonomically designed based on extensive facial shape analysis, LG PuriCare Wearable fits snugly on the user’s face to minimize air leakage around the nose and chin. The design also makes it possible to wear the unit comfortably for hours on end. The efficient and lightweight 820mAh battery offers up to eight hours of operation in low mode and two hours on high.*

What’s more, LG’s innovative personal air solution comes with a case that helps maintain hygiene between uses. Equipped with UV-LED lights that kills harmful germs, the one-of-a-kind case can even charge the mask and sends a notification to the LG ThinQ mobile app (Android/iOS) when the filters need to be replaced for peak performance. And because every component of LG PuriCare Wearable – from the filters to the ear straps – is replaceable and recyclable, it’s an environmentally responsible solution as well. -LG 

For anyone wondering if LG is the only company producing next-generation face masks – well, we noted in February (see: “iMask? Companies Race To Build Next-Gen Facewear To Block Germs”) that startup Ao Air’s Atmos Faceware was set to launch sometime this year.

So if you want to look like a fighter jet pilot with an oxygen mask – LG’s new mask will be available in the fourth quarter. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31RyQCI Tyler Durden

Navalny Novichok Poisoning: The (Very Unlikely) Story So Far…

Navalny Novichok Poisoning: The (Very Unlikely) Story So Far…

Tyler Durden

Thu, 09/03/2020 – 05:00

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

For those of you who haven’t been following the news – Russian politician (or “opposition figure”, as he is universally referred to in the Western press) Alexei Navalny was taken ill two weeks ago.

It is now being reported he was “poisoned” with “novichok”.

Here’s a quick rundown of the official story as it currently stands (bearing in mind that, as with most “official stories” it will likely be subject to instant, contradictory and retroactive changes in the coming weeks):

  • Alexei Navalny has never held any elected office, his political party doesn’t have a single MP in the Duma, and he polls at roughly 2% support with the Russian people.

  • Despite this, and in the middle of an alleged “pandemic”, Vladimir Putin deems the man a threat and orders him killed.

  • The State apparatus responsible for unnecessary and seemingly arbitrary acts of political murder decide to use novichok to poison him.

  • This decision is taken in spite of the facts that a) Novichok totally and utterly failed to work in their alleged murder of the Skripals and b) It has already been widely publicly associated with Russia.

  • Rather unsurprisingly, the novichok which didn’t kill its alleged target last time, doesn’t kill its alleged target this time either.

  • Compounding their poor decision making, the Russians not only perform an emergency landing and take Navalny straight to a hospital for medical care.

  • Despite Navalny being helpless and comatose in a Russian hospital, the powerful state-backed assassination team make no further attempts on his life.

  • In fact, seemingly determined to under no circumstances successfully kill their intended victim, the Russian government, allow him to leave the country and get medical help from one of the countries which previously accused them of using novichok.

  • To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Germans claim to have detected novichok in Navalny’s system.

  • Vladimir Putin and the Russian government are immediately blamed for the attempted murder.

If all this seems unlikely to you, don’t worry Luke Harding is here to explain it all.

He doesn’t have any evidence, of course. Instead we get sentences like this one [our emphasis]:

Over the past decade Moscow has produced and stockpiled small quantities, western intelligence agencies believe.

However, never let it be said that Luke isn’t aware of the contradictions in his story:

One other unresolved question is why Moscow granted permission for Navalny to be treated abroad, knowing that sooner or later the novichok inside his body would be detected.

But he has an answer for this:

The logical conclusion: Moscow wants the world to know.

You see, Putin wants everyone to know he did it, so he’s making it obvious. And the Kremlin’s denials are being done with “a wink and smile”. This must be some new meaning of the word “logical” I wasn’t previously aware of.

One wonders what the Russians would have done if the novichok had worked as intended, and killed Navalny before he could get to a hospital.

They couldn’t send him to Berlin then, so who announces the novichok was there? Do they do it themselves?

Oh well, at least now people will have something to talk about that isn’t the rapidly crumbling Covid narrative.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hY3hfW Tyler Durden

Brickbat: That’s Not Who I Really Am

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Arkansas County, Arkansas, Sheriff Todd Wright has resigned after he was recorded shouting racial slurs at a black man working in a local grocery store. Wright reportedly became angry when a woman he was with spoke to the man. Wright said he was “upset over certain things.” “People who know me, know that’s not me,” he said.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jJR9zY
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