Tag: finance

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on yesterday’s hearing in the Senate, which ended abruptly with Sen. Hirono walking out after a confrontation with Sen. Cruz over his objection that the Democrats were avoiding direct criticism of Antifa.

In roughly 50 hearings as a witness in Congress, that was a first for me. I have been in a hearing with a lock down but I have never been in hearing with a walk out. I was not sure if I was expected to turn off the lights after both senators left.

The dramatic ending of the hearing however quickly supplanted the underlying issue. As I stated in my testimony, I am less concerned with Antifa’s role in the protests as its role in the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States.

Here is the column:

If you read the coverage online or watch the cable networks, the extremist movement known as Antifa is either the new Al Qaeda or the new Big Foot. President Trump wants to have Antifa classified as a terrorist organization, while various Democrats insist it is simply a conservative phantom. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler even insisted that violence by Antifa is a myth and called the accounts imaginary.

While I oppose designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, its existence is certainly not a myth. Indeed, it may be the most successful movement against free speech in modern history. However, its structure and tactics avoid easy detection, which is why so many people claim the group is an apparition. It is true that whenever such spontaneous and concentrated violence erupts, many people tend to believe it is Antifa.

Antifa is often the culprit on university campuses. In the film “The Usual Suspects,” the character Virgil described the invisible villain Keyser Söze. He is “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” Antifa does exist and the last few weeks demonstrate how skilled it is as the Keyser Söze of social unrest in America.

Antifa was founded on a rejection of formal structures and leaders. Many associated groups are part of Anti-Racist Action and a loose coordinating organization known as the Torch Network. This lack of structure not only appeals to the anarchist elements for the movement but serves to evade both law enforcement and legal challenges. The threat of Antifa is not its role in civil unrest but its activities attacking free speech.

Both far left and far right groups have been identified in riots in various cities. These extremist groups use social media and the internet to sow disorder, hide their identities, and frame other groups for their activities. Notably in the last week, Richmond police identified both Antifa and the Boogaloo Boys in violent protests in that city. It is part of what Attorney General William Barr refers to as the “witches brew of violent groups on both sides” such as Antifa and some other similar groups.

Antifa members have been arrested and involved in violence in the cities. The president of the Portland National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wrote in the Washington Post to denounce the “white spectacle” of the recent violence. He asked, “What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality?”

The answer is that Antifa is not an ally to Black Lives Matter. It is all about revolutionary change and using demonstrations to trigger greater social unrest. It follows the same purpose mistakenly spoken by former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley following those riots during the Democratic National Convention in 1968, “The police are not here to create disorder. They are here to preserve disorder.” Antifa causes such violence.

Antifa has found allies while the movement has grown. It primarily targets conservatives and the free speech community, so it has not been a major concern of liberals. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer.

That fact is that Antifa works to strike fear not in the heart of Trump but in the heart of anyone who will oppose the movement. The Antifa handbook states how the group has rejected the idea of free speech and has spent years organizing protests to prevent opposing views from getting heard. That practice has been adopted by other groups as well. Antifa violence can give colleges or politicians cover for barring conservative speakers. Nancy Pelosi has called for the revocation of a permit for a conservative prayer group viewed as a security matter in San Francisco.

George Washington University student Jason Charter has been charged as the alleged “ringleader” of efforts to take down statues across the capital. Charter has been an active Antifa member on campus for years. Following his arrest, he claimed the “movement is winning.” It is winning partly since local officials order police to stand down or drop criminal charges to avoid conflict. But it is winning mostly since people remain silent.

Silence kills free speech. Antifa knows that. It is the silence of professors who watch as their colleagues are harassed, investigated, or threatened. It is the silence of students who watch as others are attacked for dissenting ideas. It is the silence of reporters who watch as other journalists are fired or forcibly retired for challenging orthodox views. Finally, it is the silence of those politicians who dismiss the destruction of property as a case, in the words of Pelosi, that “people will do what people will do.”

Antifa will do a great deal of damage if allowed.

That is why, for academics and writers, Antifa’s presence is menacing, not mythological. As Virgil explained, Keyser Söze became the “spook story that criminals tell their kids at night.” Some politicians want to portray Antifa as a spook story that Republicans tell their kids at night. However, it is no illusion for those who have been the targets of Antifa and related groups.

Antifa has achieved the agenda against free speech to a degree that even critics like me never imagined possible. It simply took inaction from our government and silence from our citizens. Threats against free speech are reaching a critical mass in our schools and on our streets. We can either take action or remain passive bystanders to what inevitably comes next.

Food prices at supermarkets surged during the pandemic as tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. 

According to the latest seasonally adjusted data by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the virus pandemic has had a tremendous impact on food prices from February to June:

Meat and poultry prices jumped 11%, with beef prices surging 20%. Pork climbed by 8.5%, egg prices increased by 10%, and cereals and fresh vegetables were up more than 4%. 

“The pandemic has caused a surge in demand for groceries as millions of Americans stay home and avoid eating out. While there’s no significant shortage of food, disruptions in the supply chain have created scarcities and driven up prices,” CNN Business noted. 

Rapid food inflation comes at the worst possible time for the working poor, who were already struggling well before the virus-induced recession, with insurmountable debts, stuck in a renting society, and had very little savings to weather an economic downturn.

These folks have been thrown off a fiscal cliff just weeks ago. They were receiving a $600 per week stimulus check, but since the program ended in late July, their ability to buy food or pay bills has come to a standstill as politicians on Capitol Hill bicker about the next round of direct payments. 

With inflation now around 1% and unemployment at Great Depression levels, the Federal Reserve is set to announce new commitments in September to ramp up inflation back to its 2% target. 

If the Fed decides to ramp up inflation, possibly sending food, clothing, energy, and shelter prices higher, a larger portion of people’s incomes, as we’ve explained, a quarter of all household income comes from the government (i.e. direct payments), would be used for survival instead of spending it on things like iPhones, Pelotons, Casper mattresses, and or Teslas. 

As the depressionary storm continues to swirl above America, 30 million folks have already said they did not have enough to eat in late July, which was the highest level people going hungry since food bank lines emerged across the country in April/May.

We recently noted food bank lines have reemerged as the recovery stalls. 

And if the Fed wants to see higher inflation, they should send a few staff economist to local supermarkets.

Washington is upping the ante on China with what will be interpreted as a new direct frontal assault on the decades-old ‘One China’ official policy which has preserved the status quo in Taiwan. 

Over the past days it’s been clear something big was coming, given the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday slammed a planned-for trip later this week of “the highest-level visit by a U.S. cabinet official” to Taipei in forty years, namely led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. 

For the first time ever, the US moving to sale high-tech military drones to Taiwan, which is sure to unleash fury from Beijing.

“The United States is negotiating the sale of at least four of its large sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan for the first time, according to six U.S. sources familiar with the negotiations, in a deal that is likely to ratchet up tensions with China,” Reuters reports of the details.

Specifically they are SeaGuardian surveillance drones, which will vastly expand the reach far and above beyond the capabilities of Taiwan’s current drone fleet. They are said to reach up to 6,000 nautical miles, or 11,100 km.

They are being described as heavily modified versions of the deadly MQ-9 Reaper drones, capable of carrying advanced missiles and targeting technology.

It’s not yet been approved by Congress, Reuters reports, but is expected to be:

While the sale of the unmanned aerial vehicles has been tacitly authorized by the State Department, two of the people said, it is not known whether the U.S. officials have approved exporting the drones with weapons attached, one of them said.

It’s expected to be formally taken up by US lawmakers as soon as next month.

But no doubt the headlines out of The New York Times will be enough to spark a new round of angry back-and-forth accusations between the US and China, given the already worsening state of relations, and then there’s the issue of continued military build-up and tensions in the South China Sea to boot.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll has found that just 42 percent of Americans say they plan to get a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available.

The figure represents an all time low, having fallen from 55 percent in early May, 50 percent in late May, and 46 percent in July.

When asked “If and when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available, will you get vaccinated?” many fewer Americans across the political spectrum answered in the affirmative.

Only a majority of Democrats now plan to get vaccinated, with 55% saying they will still take the jab.

Among Republicans, only 37% say they are willing to get vaccinated, with even fewer independents, 34%, willing to take the vaccine.

Assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida Natalie Dean has noted “Why should we expect Americans to agree to a vaccine before one is even available?”

Writing recently in the New York Times, Dean noted “I’m a vaccine researcher, and even I would place myself in the ‘not sure’ bucket.”

“What we have right now is a collection of animal data, immune response data and safety data based on early trials and from similar vaccines for other diseases. The evidence that would convince me to get a COVID-19 vaccine, or to recommend that my loved ones get vaccinated, does not yet exist.” Dean asserted.

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that it is “realistic” to expect a coronavirus vaccine in the fall, and that it is “very credible” to expect “tens of millions of doses” to become available by the end of the year, and “hundreds of millions” by 2021.

“We have seen, under President Trump’s leadership, the most historic advances in the development of vaccines we have ever seen in human history,” Azar claimed in an interview with Fox News.

“The United States now has six vaccines that we have placed major investments in. Four of them have already reported out positive phase one clinical trial results. And two of them are already in the advanced final phase three studies. Others will advance there soon.” Azar added.

“It’s really just President Trump has marshaled the whole of the U.S. government and our biopharmaceutical industry. It’s incredible,” Azar proclaimed.

As public school districts in parts of the US start to reopen, small business owners around the country are turning their attention to one all-important question: how are colleges planning to reopen? And what does that mean for us?

They might be interested in seeing the following survey data.

Because recent findings from BeenVerified, which analyzed data from more than 1,200 private and public 4-year universities across the country, examining several top universities to see how plans for fall education are evolving.

Their results show that less than 50% universities plan for students to be on-campus this fall, though rates vary between public and private schools. Most top-rated private schools are planning a limited return to campus in the fall, and while some public school systems are going online-only, most are planning some kind of hybrid model. 

Read more on that below:

* * *

As states consider rolling back openings as coronavirus cases surge across the country, many U.S. colleges and universities have made last-minute changes on whether they will meet in person, online, or through a combination of distance learning and on-campus education.

BeenVerified analyzed data from more than 1,200 private and public four-year universities across the country, examined several top universities to see how plans for fall education are firming up, and looked into whether tuition freezes or reductions are on offer.

Our results show that less than half of universities plan for students to be on-campus this fall—but most private universities still plan to offer a return to campus in the fall. Yet most top-rated academic universities are planning online learning or a hybrid model of in-person and distance learning.

Despite the economic upheaval in the aftermath of the pandemic, most top schools have no plans to freeze or reduce tuition in the fall—except for historically Black colleges.

Our top findings: Top take-aways

By the end of July, a number of colleges recalibrated school reopening plans. Fifty-two percent of colleges in our analysis originally planned for in-person learning, but as the pandemic continues to surge across the country less than half (48%) are now planning for a traditional in-person only return.

Most U.S. colleges and university programs remain divided over reopening plans. Our data shows just under half the nation’s colleges and universities still plan to offer in-person learning, 35% plan a combination of in-person and distance learning, 14% will be online only, and 3% of schools are still reviewing.

Private colleges are still most likely to offer in-person classes only. Private colleges and universities are by far the largest group still planning in-person classes—58% of private schools are planning to be on-campus versus 38% of public universities.

Public universities are more likely to keep their distance. Nineteen percent of public universities are planning online-only classes this fall, compared to 8% of private colleges. As much as 41% of public institutions are planning for a hybrid system of on-campus and distance learning, compared to 29% of private colleges.

States most likely to be on-campus are in the South and Midwest. States with the highest percentage of universities scheduled to meet in person include Wyoming, South Dakota, Mississippi, North Dakota and Missouri. States more likely to have online-only education in the fall include Delaware, California, New Mexico, Alaska and Washington.

Looking at several top schools by category (Ivy League; top-revenue college football schools; and top-ranked public, private, liberal arts and historically Black colleges and universities), a more nuanced picture appears on school openings, as well as offers of tuition freezes or discounts:

Three out of 10 top football schools will be on campus this fall. Schools that draw the highest revenue from their football programs were evenly split between in-person education and a hybrid model in mid-July. Now 7 out of 10 plan for a hybrid model.

Most top academic schools favor the hybrid approach. Six out of eight Ivy League universities plan a combination of in-person and online learning this year, as do half of the 10 top-ranked historically Black colleges and universities. More than half of the top-ranked liberal arts and top national schools plan a hybrid model in the fall.

Top public universities are split between hybrid and online-only learning. Forty percent of top public universities are planning for hybrid learning, while the other 40% will be online only.

Most top schools are not freezing or discounting tuition. Sixty percent of historically Black schools will either freeze (40%) or discount (20%) tuition, and 30% of top liberal arts colleges and top-revenue football schools plan tuition freezes.

“With the rising tide of coronavirus cases and lack of consensus on the best way to open universities, students are facing a stressful—and in many cases, uncertain—start to the academic year,” said Michael Pugh, a data analyst for BeenVerified. “That’s especially true for families with children attending different schools in the fall.”

Our study uses data from private and state four-year universities across the nation collected by The Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as a look at top academic schools as determined by 2020 U.S. News & World Report college rankings, and the 10 most profitable football programs, according to Forbes magazine. (See methodology for more information.)

Most public universities plan to offer a hybrid model compared to private schools

Private universities are, by a wide margin, planning to be on-campus this fall compared to public universities. Forty-one percent of public universities are planning a hybrid model, which aims for a combination of distance learning with smaller on-campus class sizes, compared to 29% of private schools.

“Private schools—many of which were in difficult financial straits even before the pandemic hit—are likely feeling more pressure to provide an ‘on-campus experience’ to justify their higher tuition,” Pugh said. “Public universities have taxpayer money to draw on and need to take fewer risks to survive the pandemic.”

Top states that plan to be on-campus vs. online

As our results show, there is a wide variety of approaches planned for the fall depending on the state. Wyoming and South Dakota are the only states where all of the local universities in our data set plan to be on-campus in the fall, followed by Mississippi and North Dakota.

On the other hand, Alaska, Delaware, New Mexico and Nevada are states in which none of the local colleges plan to offer on-campus learning for the fall.

Online-only approaches to the new academic year are much less common. Delaware and California are the two states where a majority of universities plan to offer only distance learning this fall, followed by New Mexico (43%), Alaska (33%) and Washington (28%).

“With the recent surge of coronavirus cases in California, the move to online learning makes sense—yet states that have experienced similar surges, such as Texas and Florida, are not following suit,” Pugh said.

Top schools plan a hybrid or online-only approach

Most top-ranked universities plan to offer a hybrid or online-only approach. While a number of schools with high revenue-generating football programs have reverse course on plans to fully return in-person, 30% still plan a traditional return to campus in the fall. “With the cash at stake with these programs, the pressure is enormous to come back to campus this fall,” Pugh said. “Still, there are lingering doubts what shape the fall college football season will take this year.”

Tuition discounts rare—except for historically Black schools

Looking only at tuition and fees (not room and board), most top schools plan to maintain annual tuition increases for the 2020–2021 academic year.

“With the convergence of the economic crisis with the coronavirus, the fact that most top universities don’t plan to freeze or discount tuition will undoubtedly be a concern for some families,” Pugh said. “On the other hand, preparing for both on-campus and distance learning in some ways doubles the work for college staff and faculty.”

Methodology:

BeenVerified used data collected by The Chronicle of Higher Education to compare the current status of 1,269 schools and universities. Data was downloaded July 31, 2020. To choose top universities to examine, we used the 2020 U.S. News & World Report list of top schools in each category. For our examination of universities with top football programs, we used Forbes magazine’s 2019 list of College Football’s Most Valuable Teams.

List of schools in each category are:

Ivy League: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

Top private schools (outside the Ivy League): Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, California Institute of Technology, University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt University, Rice University, Washington University in St. Louis and Emory University.

Top public schools: University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Irvine, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at San Diego, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Florida, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Top liberal arts schools: Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Carleton College, Claremont Colleges, Middlebury College, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, Wellesley College, Williams College, and Washington and Lee University.

Historically Black colleges and universities: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Hampton University, Howard University, Morehouse College, North Carolina A&T State University, Spelman College, Xavier University of Louisiana, Tuskegee University, Claflin University and Fisk University.

Top revenue football programs: University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, The Ohio State University, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, University of Oklahoma, University of Florida, University of Notre Dame and Auburn University.

Late last year, data released by the PBOC and the Russian Central Bank shone a light on a disturbing – at least, for the US – trend: As the Trump Administration ratcheted up sanctions pressure on Russia and China, both countries and their central banks have substantially “diversified” their foreign-currency reserves, dumping dollars and buying up gold and each other’s currencies.

Back in September, we wrote about the PBOC and RCB building their reserves of gold bullion to levels not seen in years. The Russian Central Bank became one of the world’s largest buyers of bullion last year (at least among the world’s central banks). At the time, we also introduced this chart.

We’ve been writing about the impending demise of the greenback for years now, and of course we’re not alone. Some well-regarded economists have theorized that the fall of the greenback could be a good thing for humanity – it could open the door to a multi-currency basket, or better yet, a global current (bitcoin perhaps?) – by allowing us to transition to a global monetary system with with less endemic instability.

Though, to be sure, the greenback is hardly the first “global currency”.

Falling confidence in the greenback has been masked by the Fed’s aggressive buying, as central bankers in the Eccles Building now fear that the asset bubbles they’ve blown are big enough to harm the real economy, so we must wait for exactly the right time to let the air out of these bubbles so they don’t ruin people’s lives and upset the global economic apple cart. As the coronavirus outbreak has taught us, that time may never come.

But all the while, Russia and China have been quietly weening off of the dollar, and instead using rubles and yuan to settle transnational trade.

Since we live in a world where commerce is directed by the whims of the free market (at least, in theory), the Kremlin can just make Russian and Chinese companies substitute yuan and rubles for dollars with the flip of a switch:as Russian President Vladimir Putin once exclaimed, the US’s aggressive sanctions policy risks destroying the dollar’s reserve status by forcing more companies from Russia and China to search for alternatives to transacting in dollars, if for no other reason than to keep costs down (international economic sanctions can make moving money abroad difficult).

In 2019, Putin gleefully revealed that Russia had reduced the dollar holdings of its central bank by $101 billion, cutting the total in half.

And according to new data from the Russian Central Bank and Federal Customs Service, the dollar’s share of bilateral trade between Russia and China fell below 50% for the first time in modern history.

Businesses only used the greenback for roughly 46% of settlements between the two countries. Over the same period, the euro constituted an all-time high of 30%. While other national currencies accounted for 24%, also a new high.

As one ‘expert’ told the Nikkei Asian Review, it’s just the latest sign that Russia and China are forming a “de-dollarization alliance” to diminish the economic heft of Washington’s sanctions powers, and its de facto control of SWIFT, the primary inter-bank messaging service via which banks move money from country to country.

The shift is happening much more quickly than the US probably expected. As recently as 2015, more than 90% of bilateral trade between China and Russia was conducted in dollars.

Alexey Maslov, director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Nikkei Asian Review that the Russia-China “dedollarization” was approaching a “breakthrough moment” that could elevate their relationship to a de facto alliance.

“The collaboration between Russia and China in the financial sphere tells us that they are finally finding the parameters for a new alliance with each other,” he said. “Many expected that this would be a military alliance or a trading alliance, but now the alliance is moving more in the banking and financial direction, and that is what can guarantee independence for both countries.”

Dedollarization has been a priority for Russia and China since 2014, when they began expanding economic cooperation following Moscow’s estrangement from the West over its annexation of Crimea. Replacing the dollar in trade settlements became a necessity to sidestep U.S. sanctions against Russia.

“Any wire transaction that takes place in the world involving U.S. dollars is at some point cleared through a U.S. bank,” explained Dmitry Dolgin, ING Bank’s chief economist for Russia. “That means that the U.S. government can tell that bank to freeze certain transactions.”
The process gained further momentum after the Donald Trump administration imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods. Whereas previously Moscow had taken the initiative on dedollarization, Beijing came to view it as critical, too.

“Only very recently did the Chinese state and major economic entities begin to feel that they might end up in a similar situation as our Russian counterparts: being the target of the sanctions and potentially even getting shut out of the SWIFT system,” said Zhang Xin, a research fellow at the Center for Russian Studies at Shanghai’s East China Normal University.

At times, Russia has prioritized use of the yuan over its own currency in the hopes that his would push Beijing to become more “assertive” in establishing the yuan as an internationalized currency. While the yuan was added to a IMF basket of reserve currencies a few years back, Beijing’s unwillingness to take its hand off the wheel when it comes to managing the currency has stymied its internationalization.

Russia’s push to accumulate yuan is not just about diversifying its foreign exchange reserves, Maslov explained. Moscow also wants to encourage Beijing to become more assertive in challenging Washington’s global economic leadership.

“Russia has a considerably more decisive position toward the United States [than China does],” Maslov said. “Russia is used to fighting, it does not hold negotiations. One way for Russia to make China’s position more decisive, more willing to fight is to show that it supports Beijing in the financial sphere.”

Six years have passed between Russia and China opened FX swap lines between their central banks in 2014. That three year deal was expanded in 2017.

While trying to assess the long-term risk, remember: Ray Dalio has apparently assigned a whole team of publicists to help spread his concerns about the potential fallout from a US-China “capital war”. It’s worth remembering that China has far more financial firepower with which to vex the US than many pundits are willing to acknowledge.

The virus pandemic and social unrest have already sparked an exodus from major cities and now, the ability to work remotely has likely contributed to the decline in luxury condo prices. 

Wealthy elites, those who still have the economic mobility to flee cities, considering mortgage lending standards are quickly tightening, are heading to rural communities and suburbs, which is being reflected in dwindling demand for some luxury condos in Manhattan.

Forbes reports unsold units at The Getty Residences, at 503 West 24th Street, have seen sharp price discounts, of more than 40%, as demand collapses.

The units range from a 3,312-square-foot, three-bedroom, three 1/2-bathroom that had its price cut about 42% to $9.4 million to a 3,816-square-foot, three-bedroom, three 1/2-bathroom apartments with a balcony dropping 43% to $13.8 million. – Forbes

The building’s developer said price reductions reflect the current bearish fundamentals of the real estate market: 

“We recognize that the New York City luxury real estate market is currently in a much different place than it was even a year ago,” Ran Korolik, vice president and partner of developer Victor Group, told Forbes. “Therefore, we are taking a proactive approach by significantly reducing the prices on the remaining homes at The Getty Residences to reflect today’s environment.”

Over at the “coveted” One57 building, one of the flagships of billionaire’s row, a luxury condo just sold for $28 million about six years after it was initially purchased for $47.4 million. 

It marks a 41% discount for the condo in the span of about a half-decade. The plunge in prices would be the most significant discount to date at the building. 

Even before the virus pandemic, half of all Manhattan’s new luxury condos sit unsold. Imagine what that figure is today…

Authored by General Michael Flynn, via WesternJournal.com,

This Is My Letter To America

We are witnessing a vicious assault by enemies of all that is good, and our president is having to act in ways unprecedented in decades, maybe centuries.

The biblical nature of good versus evil cannot be discounted as we examine what is happening on the streets of America.

It’s Marxism in the form of antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement versus our very capable and very underappreciated law enforcement professionals, the vast majority of whom are fighting to provide us safe and secure homes, streets and communities.

When the destiny of the United States is at stake, and it is, the very future of the entire world is threatened.

As Christians, shouldn’t we act? We recognize that divine Providence is the ultimate judge of our destiny. Achieving our destiny as a freedom-loving nation, Providence compels us to do our part in our communities.

It encourages us in this battle against the forces of evil to face our fears head-on. No enemy on earth is stronger than the united forces of God-fearing, freedom-loving people.

We can no longer pretend that these dark forces are going to go away by mere prayer alone. Prayers matter, but action is required.

This action is needed at the local, state and federal levels. Action is also required in the economic, media, clerical and ecclesiastical realms.

Decide how you can act within your abilities. Stand up and state your beliefs. Be proud of who you are and what you stand for. And face, head-on, those community “leaders” who are willing to allow dark forces to go beyond peaceful protests and destroy and violate your safety and security.

Churches and houses of worship must return to normal. We invite everyone of goodwill to not shirk their responsibilities and instead act in a fraternal fashion. If for no other reason or with no other ability, act in a spirit of charity.

We cannot disrespect or disregard natural law along with our own religious liberties and freedoms.

I am witnessing elderly people lose their connection to all that is good in their lives: connections to their faith, their families and their individual freedoms, especially the simple act of attending church, something they’ve been doing for decades.

Let us not be intimidated or fear those who cry out that we are in the minority; we are not.

Good is always more powerful and will prevail over evil.

However, evil will succeed for a time when good people are divided from each other and their personal lives — children away from their teachers, preachers from their congregations, customers from their local businesses.

America will never give in to evil. Americans work together to solve problems.

We do not and should not ever allow anarchy and the evil forces behind it to operate on any street in our nation.

No one should have to fear for their very life because some dark, disturbed force is challenged by the very essence of what America stands for.

We are “one nation under God” and it is our individual liberties that make us strong, not liberties given to our government. Our government has no liberty unless and until “we the people” say so.

God bless America and let’s stand by everything that was and is good in our lives, in our communities and in our country.

Otherwise, America as the true North Star for humanity will cease to exist as we know it.

Yesterday we compared this centrally-planned joke of a “market” to a physics class, one in which Newton’s first law was on full display, to wit:

These days Newton’s first law is as applicable in physics as it is in capital markets, because despite growing concerns about a new wave of covid infections, chaos and confusion over the passage of a new stimulus wave, a V-shaped surge in projected earnings, not to mention the all too real possibility that Joe Biden will be US president in 3 months, stocks continue to move in an upward motion, unperturbed by anything, with the Nasdaq hitting its 31 new all time high of 2020 and rising above 11,000 for the first time ever on the back of the 5 FAAMG stocks but mostly the AAPL juggernaut, which despite taking a rest today on a BofA downgrade is up a staggering quarter of a trillion dollar in market cap just since its earnings report last Thursday.

Fast forward to today when there clearly wasn’t a sufficient powerful force to change the market’s inertia, and the meltup has continued across all asset classes, with investors flooding into stocks, bonds, and pet rocks…

… send the MSCI All-Country Index green for the year, as if the biggest economic crash since the Great Depression never happened…

… with AAPL – whose market cap alone is now 7% of the entire S&P500 – is more than 100% higher from its March 23, lows, adding a third of a trillion dollars in market cap in the past week alone, and now just fractions away from a $2 trillion market cap.

As Bloomberg notes, the pause in the leadership of the mega-cap technology stocks is over, as evidenced by their dominance today. Nearly all of the S&P 500’s 18-point gain can be explained by five stocks: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. That’s how the index can rise even though 54% of its stocks are down at the moment. Among the group on pace for all-time closing highs: Apple, Amazon and Facebook.

However even AAPL’s stunning move pales in comparison to the 150% surge in silver from its March lows.

All of this is happening as expectations of a deflationary singularity have sent the 10Y real rate to a new all time record low of negative -1.10%

Gold has benefited mightily from the collapse in real yields, and has hit another all time high today…

… and up 14 of the past 15 days.

Meanwhile, unlike yesterday when the S&P went catatonic after the overnight ramp, today the Emini which is now just over 1% or some 40 points  away from its all time high, spiked higher in the afternoon, led as usual by the old faithful FAAMGs.

Finally, while the dollar did not crater today for a change, it was the Lira’s turn to enter freefall mode, plunging to a record low against the dollar as investors bet on a total collapse of the Turkish economy next.

And while there has been a bit of a nudge higher in currency volatility…

… Overall, it was an extremely boring day, in which the VIX dropped to a new post crisis low, which is precisely what one would expect from centrally-planned markets.

Authored By John Vibes Via The Libertarian Institute, 

The controversial reality TV show “Live PD” was recently taken off the air, as the country is beginning to rethink its relationship with police, and how they are being portrayed in the media. Just like the show’s predecessor “COPS,” Live PD has been accused of crossing ethical boundaries in order to get their footage.

In one case, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Texas is being accused of intentionally passing up an opportunity to arrest their suspect, Asher Watsky, while he was in court, just so they could raid his home for the television cameras a few hours later. The court appearance and raid happened in May of 2019, but is just now getting new attention after the cancellation of the show.

“The second I saw the cameras, I’m aware of the Live PD program, I figured out right then, I had a feeling what was going on,” Asher said.

Gary Watsky, one of the occupants of the home, says that the SWAT raid was “all for show.”

“It was all for TV,” he said.

Watsky was wanted on a warrant relating to an assault charge that he faced from a fight that he got into with his roommate. He was fulfilling all of his court requirements for the initial charge, but for some reason, the police filed an additional charge against him, but didn’t activate it until after he appeared in court.

Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick was among many people involved with the case who felt that Watsky could have been arrested peacefully when he was in court less than four hours before the raid.

According to KVUE, Dick said that officials with the sheriff’s office admitted that they removed Watsky’s warrant from the record system so no one in the court would see it that day and try to arrest him.

They reportedly claimed that a SWAT raid on his home would be safer than arresting him after he passed through security in a courthouse. Dick has also identified at least five other cases where the Williamson County sheriff’s office used excessive force while cameras were rolling for Live PD.

Three former officers with the department have said that it was common for supervisors to push for arrests to happen during Live PD recordings, instead of off-camera where more peaceful interactions might be possible. One former officer, Gil Unger, complained to his supervisors but says that no one listened to him.

Law enforcement officials and legal experts insist that the tactics used in the Watsky raid are highly unusual. National law enforcement consultant Jeff Noble said that this raid may not have been necessary, and he fears—

“That this was staged for the value of live television.”

“That is not the type of situation to take lightly but, at the same time, it is not the type of situation I would expect a SWAT team to enter a home to make an arrest,” Noble said.

Both Live PD and Cops were taken off the air earlier this year in response to the growing protests against police brutality — when they encourage cops to do things like this, only good can come from it.

In June, TFTP reported on a similar instance with a much more tragic ending. Javier Ambler, a 40-year-old postal worker, was on his way home from a friendly poker game when he allegedly made the mistake of failing to turn off his brights when passing another vehicle.

Ambler’s last moments alive were captured on police body camera footage as well as footage from the crew from A&E’s reality show “Live PD.” He never resisted, posed a threat to cops, or attempted to attack them, yet he was thrown to the ground, repeatedly tasered, and the air squeezed from his body until he fell unconscious and died.