China Pork Reserves At Risk Of ‘Running Out In Months’ As Prices Soar Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/23/2020 – 22:20
China could be on the brink of exhausting its massive frozen pork reserves as the country’s pig herd is wiped out by African swine fever.
Declining reserves are particularly bad news for the Communist Party of China, which is worried that it might not be able to prevent another destabilizing surge in prices.
For more color on China’s strategic pork reserves, Enodo Economics, a London-based consultancy firm, quoted by the Financial Times, said reserves fell by 452,000 tons from Sept. 2019 to Aug. 2020. This means the country’s pork reserves are at dangerously low levels.
It’s unclear how much of China’s latest pork imports have been diverted to state stockpiles – but Diana Choyleva, Enodo’s chief economist, said China has about 100,000 tons of frozen pork left in reserves, and “at this rate, within two to three months they’ll be out.”
FT notes the reserve numbers provided by Enodo are in-line with a recent livestock report via US agricultural attaché in Beijing that said, “pork reserves appear to have been mostly depleted by the third quarter of 2020.”
China’s pork reserves have been CPC’s primary weapon against soaring wholesale pork prices this year – preventing prices from breaching Rmb 50.
As prices continue to climb amid dwindling reserves, the CPC will need to increase imports of frozen pork from the US or Latin America, limiting supplies of fresh pork even further (Chinese consumers typically prefer fresh to frozen, and have been known to be suspicious of China’s frozen reserves). As tensions continue to complicate the trading relationship between China and the US, the pork shortage could become one of the most pressing domestic issues facing the world’s second-largest economy.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hZibSy Tyler Durden
By now, readers are no doubt familiar with the sight of angry mobs smashing windows, looting stores, and harassing pedestrians and street diners around the country, supposedly in the name of advocating for the rights of black Americans. Around the country, these mobs are diverse and have diverse motives, ranging from simply wanting to loot and get free stuff to being driven by deeply held ideological beliefs. However, one can’t help but notice that in many places a significant number of those causing disturbances are not the subjects of the state oppression in question, but are often white and sometimes even affluent, and as a result are almost completely isolated from the consequences of their destructive sprees.
Portland, site of over a hundred straight days of protests and often violent rioting, seems like the poster child for this phenomenon. Portland is, in fact, the whitest big city in the US.
In New York City, the Daily Mailreported on the recent arrest of seven members of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, a revolutionary Maoist group, after a rioting spree that caused at least $100,000 in damages. Every one of them appears to be white from their mugshots, and among them are an art director who has done work for Pepsi and Samsung, a model and actress, and the son of famous comic book writers. The New York Postprofiled one rioter, twenty-year-old Clara Kraebber, and discovered that her mother runs her own architecture firm and her father is a psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University. The family paid $1.8 million in 2016 for their New York City apartment and also own a home in Connecticut with four fireplaces.
Or consider Vicky Osterweil, the white author of the much-discussed book In Defense of Looting, who is also the daughter of a college professor. As Matt Taibbi reports in his review of the book, “there’s little evidence the author of In Defense of Looting has ever been outside” and “she confesses to a ‘personal aversion to violence,’ lamenting a ‘refusal to attack property’ that ‘does not lessen the degree to which I benefit from systems of domination.’” In Taibbi’s words “this is a 288-page book written by a Very Online Person in support of the idea that other people should loot, riot, and burn things in the real world.”
Rioting by the affluent is not limited to white people either. Consider the case of the two nonwhite attorneys, one of whom received his law degree at Princeton, whose arrest for throwing a molotov cocktail at a riot in New York City made the headlines precisely because of their high-status, well-paying jobs.
What all of these examples have in common is that the rioting and destruction, or advocacy for the same, is being perpetrated by people who have no skin in the game and will not be exposed to the long-term consequences for the people and communities that they are ostensibly trying to help. Neighborhoods that suffer through riots often end up economically depressed for decades to come, but people like Clara Kraebber will not have to worry about such things.
In the last century, there has been a great deal of scholarship attempting to discover the roots of these kinds of widespread revolutionary movements. In Liberalism, Mises discusses the idea of a Fourier complex, where antiliberal revolutionary ideas are adopted by people as a means of dealing with their own inadequacy in the face of reality. Political theorist Eric Voegelin (who attended Mises’s Vienna seminars) also posits a similar, though more complex, explanation with his theory of gnosticism.
The classically liberal sociologist Helmut Schoeck also makes a similar argument in his book Envy. Envy, Schoeck argues, stems from an individual’s reaction to a personal inadequacy and a desire to find a way to shift the blame to anyone or anything other than himself. Like Mises and Voegelin, Schoeck explores the ways in which this attitude is detrimental to society, but he also explores why some people engaged in revolutionary movements are themselves well off and not members of the toiling masses they seek to “liberate.”
In these cases Schoeck argues that such people are not afflicted with envy, but rather with a fear of envy or the guilt of being unequal. He argues that “the guilt-tinged fear of being thought unequal is very deeply ingrained in the human psyche,” and that it can be observed everywhere from offices to schools in the way in which people who excel at something will consciously or unconsciously lower their performance. This phenomenon is unfortunate enough when it comes to the workplace, but when it comes to politics the consequences can be much more serious.
Schoeck argues that such guilt may lead a person to forgo their old life in order to serve the less fortunate but that many times such a person does not seek to extirpate their guilt by leaving their own comfortable station, but rather by insisting that the entire world must join them in eradicating inequality. In his words “I have no doubt that one of the most important motives for joining an egalitarian political movement is this anxious sense of guilt: ‘Let us set up a society where no one is envious.’”
No doubt even Schoeck would be impressed by the degree to which our current upheavals are driven by those wracked with the guilt of being unequal rather than those filled with envy itself. To be sure, there is no shortage of such envious people running around these days, but there can be no doubt about which group is the driving force.
Hopefully, as social life slowly returns to normal and as the weather gets colder, the guilt-ridden rich kids will tire out from playacting as revolutionaries and return home. But until then, it seems that the rest of us will be forced to suffer as they work out their psychological problems through some window-smashing therapy.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hXj5Pr Tyler Durden
“Kind Of Like QVC” – Mall Of America Embraces Live Real-Time Shopping Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/23/2020 – 21:40
Since the virus pandemic began, consumers have stayed away from shopping malls, including Mall of America (MoA), the largest shopping mall in the US, with more than 500 stores, located in Bloomington, Minnesota. Already, MoA’s owner, Triple Five, has missed mortgage payments this year. There is a push among MoA’s marketing department to revive the dying mall via a new “live stream shopping” experience.
Jill Renslow, the Senior VP of Business Development & Marketing at MoA, told KARE 11 that MoA has just partnered with Popshop Live.
Renslow explained the app is “live real-time shopping through a digital channel. It’s kind of the new version of QVC.”
She said it’s different than ordering from online retailers, as there is a digital shopping experience that is attached to it – something Amazon customers don’t experience.
“You can interact with that host, learn about the products, and even ask questions and have them navigate through the store for you,” Renslow said.
She said app users can search stores and buy products, all from within the app; adding another feature of the app is whenever a mall’s shop goes live, consumers can watch a live show about the products.
“It can be something for everyone. One day we might be able to sell toys to a certain customer, then we might be able to do apparel for women. It might be beauty products; the options are endless,” described Renslow.
Here are several examples of Popshop Live broadcasts from retailers within MoA.
The app could be a short-term solution to keep business flowing at MoA as many retailers are experiencing sluggish in-store sales with depressed foot traffic due to strict social distancing measures, a consumer not convinced brick-and-mortar stores are safe, and a timeline on vaccine commercialization for the masses that might not be until the second half of 2021.
“We really feel like this compliments brick and mortar really well, because not only can you continue to come and shop with us in person at MOA, but this is another way to engage with us in a really fun and dynamic way,” said Renslow.
She said all purchases on the app would be mailed to the customer or available for curbside side pickup at MoA.
The introduction of the online shopping app comes as owner Triple Five Group has fallen behind on at least three of MoA’s mortgage payments. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune recently said the mall is reportedly laying off 200 employees and could furlough up to 178 more.
Bloomberg said Triple Five missed a $7 million payment for June on a $1.4 billion mortgage.
As readers may recall, the ongoing crisis in structured debt backed by commercial real estate has pushed Starwood Retail Property Trust 2014-STAR, a portfolio which is backed by an almost $700 million loan which is collateralized by several malls – including The Mall at Wellington Green in Florida – owned by Barry Sternlich’s Starwood Capital, and whose investors are beginning to take losses, to the verge of default.
MoA’s shift to move hundreds of its retailers to a live real-time shopping app might be too late as retail bankruptcies continue to surge.
Could all of this suggest MoA’s days are limited?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZZy70Q Tyler Durden
Despite imposing bans on almost all other forms of large gatherings, and applying harsh punishments to those who disobey such bans, colleges and universities appear reluctant to call out student protesters for violating their COVID-19 safety policies.
Common trends among university coronavirus guidelines include mandates to remain at least six feet away from others whenever possible and restrictions on the number of people who can be in a given space at a given time. But recent Black Lives Matter protests on college campuses, inspired by a larger national movement aimed at combating perceived racial injustices, seldom comply with these requirements.
Such punishments, 330 at the University of Missouri alone, are often handed down after students are found guilty of doing things like ignoring mask mandates, attending parties, or bringing guests into residence halls. Though they appear to also violate university policy, there has been no such equivalent crackdown on student protests.
In some cases, university officials have even voiced support for student demonstrations.
Following a racial incident that occurred during a Zoom event at Simpson College in Iowa, more than 350 students, faculty and staff spent all day protesting near the college’s Kent Campus Center. The event greatly exceeded the 10 person maximum allowed by Simpson’s COVID health guidelines and students can be seen ignoring social distancing in images of the protest.
Campus Reform reached out to Simpson College to see if it considered the protest to be in violation of its policy as well as to ask how it rationalizes prohibiting other large gatherings but not the aforementioned demonstration.
Cathay Cole, a spokeswoman for the college, told Campus Reform “Simpson College places the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff as a top priority” and that the school “firmly believe[s] the rally that took place Sept. 2 was in the best interests of the mental health and safety of our campus community.”
Cole also stated, “those in attendance were masked and actively practiced social distancing throughout.”
She went on to say “the rally allowed students of color to highlight their struggles with racism — on- and off-campus — and enabled the entire campus community to gather in support.” Cole concluded the college’s statement by asserting that the protest represented “a pivotal day in the history of our College, and one that did much to begin a healing process of another kind.”
Though the University of Alabama has imposed even more stringent restrictions on students, protests at the university have also received a degree of institutional support. A recent protest led by Alabama’s head football coach Nick Saban attracted both a very large crowd and the support of other campus officials, including the university’s president who spoke at the event.
Though the protest violated the university’s ongoing moratorium on in-person events and images suggested a lack of social distancing, it still drew the support of the institution’s top administrator.
The University of Alabama has struggled to contain the spread of COVID-19 with more than 800 students reported infected. To combat this, the university temporarily banned Greek life events, prohibited visitors to residential buildings, closed common areas, and extended a two-week moratorium on all in-person events, among other things.
There are no public reports of any of these schools disciplining the organizers of these events.
When asked if the restrictions on in-person meetings apply to student protesters, the University of Chicago told Campus Reform“all members of our campus community must comply with the University’s health and safety precautions, including the restrictions on social gatherings noted in a recent message to all students.”
A spokesperson for Georgia Southern University told Campus Reform that the student-athletes involved in the protest on its campus “are tested regularly and monitored closely” and explained that “the event was outside, attendees wore face coverings and were reminded about public health guidelines.”
According to the statement made to Campus Reform, the protest was not in violation of the University’s health guidelines and organizers were not reprimanded, the spokesperson claimed.
“Students were exercising their First Amendment rights,” the spokesperson said.
The University of Utah was asked by Campus Reform whether it believes that protests should be subject to the rules set for students but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Pentagon Informs Congress It’s Preparing To Have “Zero” US Troops In Afghanistan By Spring Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/23/2020 – 21:00
With the Pentagon expected to reduce troops levels in Afghanistan down to 4,500 by the November elections, and with the still negotiated US-Taliban peace deal facilitating this, on Tuesday a Pentagon official told Congress it can expect American presence there to be completely ended by May 2021.
Getty Images
Acting assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs David Helvey issued the ambitious timetable during a Congressional hearing:
“I’d like to make it clear that [Secretary of Defense Mark Esper] has not issued orders to reduce military personnel below this 4,000 to 5,000 level in Afghanistan, although we are conducting prudent planning to withdraw to zero service members by May 2021 if conditions warrant, per the US-Taliban agreement.”
In August Esper vowed “We are going down to a number less than 5,000 before the end of November,” in accord with President Trump’s wishes, who has ahead of the election talked up “brining our troops home” in various statements and on Twitter.
Currently there are an estimated close to 9,000 US troops there, after in recent years as many as 14,000 had been deployed in America’s longest running war.
Critics have said that Trump’s vows and commitment to ending US “forever wars” have oscillated and have only ramped up again ahead of the election, given it’s a talking point popular with his base.
Trump recently referenced the Middle East as “the bloodiest sand anywhere in the world” and reiterated that going to war there was the “single worst decision our country ever made.”
“We killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East.
I always say it’s the bloodiest sand anywhere in the world, and it didn’t have to be that way.
Iraq is also to slated for rapid and significant US pullout, however, neighboring Syria has just this past week seen more mechanized infantry units enter amid ongoing tensions with Russian patrols in northern Syria.
Bradley Fighting Vehicles are now patrolling northeast Deir Ezzor region with greater frequency, an escalation in US posture compared to the lighter armored convoys previously seen “protecting the oil” – as Trump has put it.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HkYkjW Tyler Durden
2020 has certainly been quite a year so far, and a defining one for the preparedness movement. No longer are our stockpiles of rice, beans, and hand sanitizer objects that make us strange. Our stashes of TP would make us the envy of the neighborhood if, of course, anybody knew we had it.
So many of the things and beliefs that made us figures of mockery in the past are now proving their value. We’re learning, with a mixture of relief and perhaps dismay, that we weren’t so crazy after all.
This has been a year in which so many things have occurred that proved preppers have things right that it’s positively exhausting. We’ve had a pandemic, civil unrest, food shortages, increases in crime, exorbitant unemployment, and we’re facing an economic collapse, or at the very least, an economic crisis.
And we’re tired.
Maybe everyone doesn’t feel this way. Maybe you’re perfectly fine and you live on your back 40 and have been completely untouched by any of the above-mentioned crises. Maybe your finances are just fine, you never got out much anyway, and you’ve still got 8 years’ worth of food socked away to supplement the things you grow. Maybe you’re reading this as you spin goat hair into yarn from which you’ll make this year’s mittens. Maybe you have no relatives, friends, or loved ones in the path of danger. Maybe your area isn’t prone to a single natural disaster.
If this is the case, I salute you. I really do. Good for you.
But for most of us, this is not the case. A lot of us are tired.
And I mean tired.
I’m sure there will be plenty of folks in the comments who say, “Daisy Luther is such a whiner” but whatever. I’m just going to come right out and tell you how I feel about this.
This year has been difficult.
My life changed completely. The lives of people I love changed completely. I lost some people I cared for deeply to the virus. I watched people in my family frolic around blithely ignoring the virus for which they’re in a peak risk group for death. I watched my country get torn asunder by everything from the pandemic response to racial injustice to perceived insults or losses of rights. I have a family member who lives in a riot zone but due to work and finances, can’t just relocate. (Although those folks on the internet always make it sound so damned easy to just quit your job then up and move to the boondocks to raise sheep.)
I have friends who have developed such extreme political views on either side that I don’t even know what to say to them anymore. I still love them. I still know they’re good people or we wouldn’t have been friends in the first place. But what the heck, y’all?
Then we’ve got hurricanes and the worst wildfires ever in history and floods and droughts and snow in September and murder hornets and the Olympics got canceled and there was some radiation leak in Russia and police brutality, which you will say is alleged or real, depending on your personal perspective. Oh yeah, and the US Postal Service has gone to heck, a lot of kids can’t go back to school so they’re surfing the net while they’re supposed to be “distance learning” online, and Netflix is playing a child porn movie to prove that kids are getting sexually exploited. Our system is going downhill on a greasy slide.
Our presidential candidates are (in my humble opinion) like a choice between your favorite sexually transmitted infection, syphillis or gonhorrhea. And regardless of whether syphilis or gonorrhea wins, all hell’s going to break loose (or break looser because it’s already pretty freakin’ bad in a lot of places) before and after the election that may not even happen the regular way because of the pandemic.
And we preppers who were ready for an emergency are sitting here scratching our heads thinking, “Heck fire, I wasn’t actually prepared for ALL OF THE EMERGENCIES AT ONCE.”
And it’s going on and on and on.
And that’s the other thing.
This stuff is going on and on and on forever. Ad infinitum. We are still in the middle of a global viral outbreak that we don’t completely understand and lots of places are still under major restrictions. A lot of folks don’t have their jobs back and a lot never will. We have been dealing with this particular disaster since at least February and the mental toll of dealing with the restrictions, the loss of income, the isolation, and the loss of freedom has been harsh for many people. There are folks who are just plain mad that they didn’t get the apocalypse they signed up for and they haven’t gotten to shoot any marauders and quite frankly, lockdown is boring as heck.
Lots of us have family members and people in our inner circles who are chomping at the bit to get back to “normal” when things simply are not normal. We’ve got loved ones who want to head out to parties and who want to throw caution to the wind and who flat don’t give a hoot what they bring home to Grandma. We’ve got loved ones who are using this entire scenario to say how we’ve overreacted. We’ve got loved ones who still get aggravated when we bring home more toilet paper.
When we were prepping for all this stuff most of us never expected that our families who were also prepping for this stuff might not be on board with this specific scenario. We never thought we’d have to argue with children and spouses and friends and lovers about things like quarantines and masks and not eating all five years’ worth of the good snacks like Oreos in the first 6 months. We didn’t consider that we might not be able to replace our Bluetooth headsets or that we’d need them for work or that we’d have to have our offices in our homes or that our kids’ teachers might see their BB guns in their bedrooms and send the SWAT teams after us.
We can’t go to church but we can go to riots. We aren’t supposed to travel yet mysterious busloads full of “protesters” show up in other states and that’s just hunky-dory. The borders are closed except they’re not really and the restaurants can’t serve you except they can sort of and we can’t go to the beach but we can line up for a vaccine once the promised injection, untested for long-term side effects, is ready.
This is the worst apocalypse ever because it’s so dad-gum boring and it’s going on for-freaking-ever. That’s the thing that nobody warned us about. This monotony just goes on and on and on. It would be one thing if we were out there fighting for resources but in reality, we’re all just standin’ in line at Wal-Mart with our masks on waiting for our turn to get zapped with a thermometer to see if we are allowed to go inside. If it weren’t for wifi we’d all be crazy by now. Or – let’s be real for a moment – maybe it’s because of wifi so many people are crazy right now. Social media is a jungle – an outright vicious and bloody jungle – and may the most audacious mofo win because those of us who still retain our human decency are not going to be able to hang with the people out there flinging wild ungrounded insults like poop in the monkey cages at the zoo.
And folks – I hate to say it but we’re still on Round One.
We’re going to be dealing with this bizarre altered reality for quite some time. This virus ain’t over yet or if you don’t believe in the virus, then consider that this government response isn’t over yet. We’re never “getting back to normal” and we’re going to have to adapt. We’re going to have to hope our children who are going to school in personal bubbles aren’t going to have OCD and chronic anxiety for the rest of their lives. We’re going to have to learn to make do without all the imports that no longer seem to be populating stores.
We never really expected that a huge part of survival would just be waiting and adapting to the new world around us. Not this new world anyway. This isn’t one we can shoot our way out of or buy our way out of or wait our way out of. We have to adapt to the new economy, the new precautions, and the new suspicions. We have to adapt to a different type of supply chain. We have to move into survival mode as we watch civil unrest and riots break out in the most unlikely places, although it’s not really the survival mode we ever expected. We have to adjust to the nearly constant state of offense and unrest. We’re going to have to teach our children to be bold and fearless despite a system that wants them to be afraid. We’re going to have to forge a path through a labyrinth that is nothing like the one we expected when we began prepping for serious events because this event was so wildly unpredictable that nobody could have seen it happening the way it did.
But this is what we do.
We’re preppers. Preparing for the unexpected is our thing. Even when the unexpected is long-lasting, monotonous, boring, and stifling. Even when our family thinks we’re overreacting. Even when everything changes and things don’t get back to “normal.” Even when we’re just sitting there right on the edge of chaos wondering if today is the day that things will erupt in our neck of the woods.
Every.
Single.
Day.
For.
Months.
The way this unfolded isn’t the disaster any of us expected but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. How well we’re able to handle it will tell us a lot about how mentally prepared we actually are. How we manage our friends, families, and expectations will help us determine how things might go in a future, more Mad-Max variety of apocalypse.
Take this as the learning experience that it is. And don’t be lulled by the boredom into a false sense of security.
Because this is not over. Not by a long shot.
Hang in there, my friends. Whether we have to pull our loved ones along by their collars, whether we have to buy our supplies and stash them away on the sly, whether we have to prepare all on our own, we have to deal with the apocalypse we’ve been given, emotionally and physically.
It’s going to be a long haul, but we’ve got this. I don’t know if you’re feeling the same way that I am, but just in case you are, I wanted you to know – you’re not alone.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2G7CkbW Tyler Durden
Possible Ballistic Missile Launcher Vehicle Spotted At North Korea Parade Practice Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/23/2020 – 20:20
Weeks ago, in early September, we noted how North Korea was preparing for an “October Surprise,” one where the rogue nation could launch a ballistic missile(s) ahead of the U.S. presidential elections.
New commercial satellite imagery from Sept. 22 of North Korea’s Mirim Parade Training Ground, “reveals a probable missile-related vehicle at the secure storage compound,” according to a report by the website 38 North.
“While imagery resolution is insufficient to determine exactly what the vehicle is, relative size and shape suggest that it may be a transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) for a large missile,” the think-tank said.
The size of TEL suggests the vehicle is sufficient enough to carry a Hwasong intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The change in coloring going toward the cab suggests that there may be a missile on the transporter, and the light color may represent the missile or a light-color tarp draped over the missile airframe. However, again, the imagery resolution precludes a clear determination on this matter.
A dark, irregular line perpendicular to the possible missile transporter is likely an assembly of equipment and/or troops.
Beyond that activity, approximately 50 large troop formations can be seen around the parade ground, similar, but larger in number to those reported from the previous analysis. There is also another large, casual grouping of personnel, located at the plaza at the far west side of the complex. – 38 North
Figure 1. Possible TEL At Mirim Parade Training Ground
2020 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-nc-sa 4.0. h/t 38 North
At the end of the report, 38 North acknowledged there “may be other possibilities about what this large vehicle is, such as a low-bed trailer with a Maz-like tractor, they seem unlikely in this particular location and circumstance.”
An October Surprise could be the launch of ballistic missile(s), either by land or by sea, ahead or during the Oct. 10 holiday, marking the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
The launch of missiles would signal the lack of progress between the Trump administration and North Korea in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32UltlD Tyler Durden
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to stop funding to federal government contractors who hold critical race theory training sessions.
“The President signed an Executive Order to end training sessions based on race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating in the Federal workforce, the Uniformed Services, and among Federal contractors,” the White House said in an announcement.
“This order will prohibit Federal agencies and Federal contractors from conducting training that promotes race stereotyping, for example, by portraying certain races as oppressors by virtue of their birth.”
In the executive order, titled “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” Trump wrote that many people are pushing an ideology that is a “different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual.”
“This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans,” Trump wrote, later calling the ideology “divisive.”
The president provided a number of examples of such critical race theory trainings, which included a seminar recently held by the Treasury Department that promoted the message that “virtually all White people, regardless of how ‘woke’ they are, contribute to racism.” The same seminar was found to have told small group leaders to encourage employees to avoid the idea that Americans should be “more color-blind” or “let people’s skills and personalities be what differentiates them.”
In another example, the Sandia National Laboratories, a research lab and a federal entity, was found to have stated in training materials for non-minority males that an emphasis on “rationality over emotionality” was a characteristic of “white male[s].” The training materials also asked the trainees to “acknowledge” their “privilege” to each other.
The Argonne National Laboratories, a research center under the U.S. Department of Energy, was found to have stated in its training materials that racism “is interwoven into every fabric of America.” It also characterized statements like “color blindness” and “meritocracy” as “action of bias.”
The executive order also pointed to the Smithsonian Institution in another example, where one of the museum’s graphics asserted that concepts such as “objective, rational linear thinking,” “hard work” being “the key to success,” the “nuclear family,” and belief in a single god are “aspects and assumptions of whiteness” and not values that would unite Americans. The museum also stated that “[f]acing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear,” according to the order.
“All of this is contrary to the fundamental premises underpinning our Republic: that all individuals are created equal and should be allowed an equal opportunity under the law to pursue happiness and prosper based on individual merit,” Trump wrote in the order.
Trump said in the order that such trainings “[perpetuate] racial stereotypes and division and can use subtle coercive pressure to ensure conformity of viewpoint.”
“Such ideas may be fashionable in the academy, but they have no place in programs and activities supported by Federal taxpayer dollars,” the president wrote. “Research also suggests that blame-focused diversity training reinforces biases and decreases opportunities for minorities.”
Trump’s latest action comes after the White House announced an order earlier this month to stop taxpayer-funded critical race theory training sessions to government workers in various U.S. executive branch agencies.
In a statement on Twitter, the president announced late Tuesday: “A few weeks ago, I BANNED efforts to indoctrinate government employees with divisive and harmful sex and race-based ideologies.
“Today, I’ve expanded that ban to people and companies that do business with our Country, the United States Military, Government Contractors, and Grantees. Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said on Twitter: “This is another important step that builds off his directive to agencies to stop trainings that push a radical anti-American agenda.”
“In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us, and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free,” Trump said in a statement.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33XkiRR Tyler Durden
JPMorgan Traders Complain Bank Didn’t Warn Them About Recent COVID-19 Outbreak Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/23/2020 – 19:40
While the world’s biggest tech firms have come out in favor of working from home in perpetuity (or at least until next summer), JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs were among the earliest major American companies to start pushing employees to get back to the office. And already, both have endured trading floor outbreaks (albeit smaller than outbreaks they experienced back in March).
But while JP Morgan’s ‘research’ showing young employees lose ‘creative intelligence’ when confined to their homes – denied the collaborative experience of working from a cubicle in Midtown – is certainly compelling, it looks like the bank’s employees have some trepidation about the push back to the office.
Specifically, they’re concerned about the bank’s policy of only informing employees who came into close, direct contact with anybody who tests positive of the virus. According to CNBC, an employee asked Troy Rohrbaugh, JPM’s global markets head, about the policy during a recent virtual town hall.
The executive explained the bank’s policy is to inform only those who had been working on the same floor, or who may have had contact with the sick individual.
But JPM isn’t alone in that: Goldman only discloses infection to workers who had meetings, or worked on the same floor, as somebody who got sick.
“Why did I have to read about this in Bloomberg?” said one trader who declined to be identified criticizing his or her employer, referring to an article on the matter.
Looking to the CDC guidelines, the source of the conflict is clear. Guidelines clearly state that “employers should inform fellow employees of their possible exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace but maintain confidentiality as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.” “Exposure” is defined as “being within 6 feet of someone with the virus for 15 minutes or more”.
That’s a change from the early days of the outbreak, when information about infections was more widely shared by both banks. Meanwhile, JPM said in an official statement that its protocols “go beyond just notifying those who are in close contact”…with the bank adding that “we notify a wide group of employees out of precaution.”
CEO Jamie Dimon might want to give the issue a rethink if the bank still prioritizes recruiting the ‘top talent’ out of America’s rapidly emptying colleges. While big tech firms are known for their office ‘perks’, in the future, the most desirable ‘perk’ of all might be the ability to work from anywhere.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3coOgSo Tyler Durden
The United States has always had a love affair with certain generals. George Washington, of course, was immensely popular, and thirteen US presidents were generals before they were president.
But prior to the Second World War, generals as a group were not revered or treated with any particular veneration or respect. In fact, in the nineteenth century, full-time US military officers were often treated with suspicion and contempt. While state militia officers were regarded as indispensable night watchmen who preserved order, the full-time government employees who served in the federal military were often derided as lazy and otherwise unemployable.
But now those days are long gone.
In recent decades, active generals and retired generals have grown into a group of politically influential technocrats who can be regularly seen on evening news programs and are habitually feted and promoted as incorruptible patriots. They are fawned over by media organizations while being paid enormous pensions. Moreover, upon retirement they are able to turn their former government employment into lucrative positions on corporate boards and throughout the private sector.
The immense deference and trust placed in the opinions and alleged expertise of these men is far beyond what is warranted. Like all technocrats—whether we’re talking Supreme Court justices or public health bureaucrats—the generals have their own interests and their own agendas.
This was recently highlighted by the president’s new public feud with some generals.
At a Labor Day press conference Trump averred:
“The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
It’s always difficult to guess Trump’s motivations and earnestness when he makes statements such as this, but the statement itself isn’t wrong. The generals—retired and not— are often deeply enmeshed with weapons manufacturers and tech firms that rely on Pentagon spending.
The Generals’ Unimpressive Record
It’s difficult to see why the nation’s generals enjoy such a stellar reputation. The US military establishment has lost every major military endeavor since 1945 and has been shown to be fiscally inept at a level that could only be described as criminal indifference. The Pentagon has repeatedly failed audits and has “misplaced” trillions of taxpayer dollars.
Yet in spite of this impressive record of failure and incompetence, generals continue to be held up by pundits and media organizations as the men who somehow care more about America than anyone else. Moreover, as is typical for technocrats, the generals are used by the establishment to provide intellectual and ideological cover to those who wish to forever expand US military adventurism and intervention. The alleged expertise of the generals—although apparently insufficient to actually win any wars—is said to offer us great insight into how American foreign policy ought to be conducted today.
The Generals Are Hardly Objective, Unbiased Observers
Needless to say, this view of the generals veers far from the reality. Moreover, the generals may now be morally and ideologically compromised by their deep ties to weapons manufacturers and the corporate boards on which many generals serve.
In a blistering article published at the American Conservative last week, Hunter Derensis explains how the image of American generals as selfless public servants is long past its expiration date:
Perhaps Trump learned the hard way that the generals of the forever wars don’t measure up to the twentieth-century soldiers he adulated growing up.
For instance, when George Marshall oversaw the deployment of 8.3 million GIs across four continents in World War II, he did so with the assistance of only three other four-star generals. In retirement, Marshall refused to sit on any corporate boards, and passed on multiple lucrative book deals, lest he give the impression that he was profiting from his military record. As he told one publisher, “he had not spent his life serving the government in order to sell his life story to the Saturday Evening Post.”
Contrast that to the bloated, top-heavy military establishment of today, where an unprecedented forty-one four-star generals oversee only 1.3 million men[-] and women-at-arms. These men, selected and groomed because of their safe habits, spend years patting themselves on the back for managing wars-not-won, awaiting the day they can cash in. According to an analysis by The Boston Globe, in the mid-1990s nearly 50% of three- and four-star generals went on to work as consultants or executives for the arms industry. In 2006, at the height of the Iraq War, that number swelled to over 80% of retirees.
The examples are as endless as America’s foreign occupations: former Director of Naval Intelligence Jack Dorsett joined the board of Northrop-Grumman; he was later followed by former Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh; meanwhile, former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright went to Raytheon; former Chairs of the Joint Chiefs—the highest ranking position in the military—William J. Crowe, John Shalikashvili, Richard Myers, and Joseph Dunford went on to work for General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, and Lockheed-Martin, respectively.
Just as former presidents are able to turn their fame into multimillion dollar fortunes (as the Obamas and Clintons have done) generals are able to engage in very similar activities. Derensis continues:
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, in between his forced retirement from the Marine Corps and appointment as Secretary of Defense, joined the board of General Dynamics where he was paid over a million dollars in salary and benefits. Returning to public life, Mattis then spent two years cajoling President Trump into keeping the U.S. military engaged in places as disparate as Afghanistan, Syria, and Africa. “Sir, we’re doing it to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square,” Mattis told his commander-in-chief.
Left unsaid was that a strategic withdrawal would also lead to a precipitous decline in Mattis’ future stock options, which he regained after he rejoined General Dynamics following his December 2018 resignation.
None of this proves generals are all amoral cynics, of course. It is quite possible to want a safe and prosperous America while also being an opportunist who’s always on the lookout for new ways to turn one’s life of living off the sweat of the taxpayer into some additional easy cash.
But what this all shows us is that it’s time to start viewing the generals for what they are: lifelong bureaucrats who upon retirement are more than happy to use their easy and vaunted experience in government as a means to fame, adulation, and easy money. After all, in the modern world, generals don’t become generals through courage on the battlefield, or even through any particularly insightful thinking or expertise. It’s not 1944, and these guys aren’t exactly George S. Patton.
Today’s generals are politicos, bureaucrats, and Washington insiders whose primary skill set lies in gaining influence in the halls of Congress and on cable TV shows. It’s very easy and rewarding work. If you can get it.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2G0x7Td Tyler Durden
