Pursuant to this instruction, in January the Council on Environmental Quality proposed far-reaching revisions to the regulations instructing federal agencies how to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires that federal agencies complete environmental impact statements (EISs) before undertaking major actions that have a significant effect on the environment.
As the CEQ noted, federal NEPA regulations had not been meaningfully revised in over forty years. In that time, the costs of NEPA compliance—in terms of both time and money—have increased substantially, and far exceed what CEQ had anticipated. In 1981, CEQ predicted that the EIS process would generally take less than a year. In practice, however, the EIS process has taken far longer. According to CEQ, the “average” time for an EIS and agency decision is over four years, and the median time is over three years. The typical EIS is also something of a tome, as the average length is 661 pages. (When CEQ adopted its first NEPA regulations, it expected the average EIS would be closer to 150 pages.)
In order to address the costs and delays associated with NEPA compliance, CEQ proposed narrowing the range of impacts and effects agencies must consider, as well as narrowing the universe of agency actions that trigger NEPA’s requirements. Among other things, agencies are not required to assess the cumulative or indirect effects of agency actions. Further, agencies are not required to consider policy alternatives that lie outside an agency’s jurisdiction or legal authority. CEQ also proposed setting presumptive page and time limits on final EISs.
On July 16, CEQ were finalized its proposed reforms, prompting immediate legal challenges. In total, four separate lawsuits against the new NEPA regulations were filed by environmentalist groups and blue states. In only one of the four suits did the plaintiffs seek an injunction or stay to prevent the rules from taking effect, and that motion was denied in a ruling last Friday. As a consequence the new NEPA rules took effect today (though you would not know it from reading most national newspapers). James McElfish of the Environmental Law Institute has a useful overview of the final revisions on ELI’s Vibrant Environment blog.
Some federal agencies have eschewed reliance upon Chevron deference when adopting new regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has argued that some of its regulatory reforms are compelled by the plain text of the relevant statutes. CEQ, on the other hand, explicitly argues that these new regulations “embody CEQ’s interpretation of NEPA for Chevron purposes.” CEQ further argues that its interpretation of NEPA’s requirements preempts any alternative interpretations previously offered by any other federal agencies, and that its new rules override any preexisting agency regulations or guidelines purporting to require more extensive procedures. In other words, the new regulations detail what is both the floor and the ceiling of what federal agencies are expected to do in order to comply with NEPA.
The various legal challenges to the new NEPA rules will proceed, and one of them may eventually succeed. In the meantime, federal agencies will have an easier time complying with NEPA’s requirements, and it will be more difficult for environmentalist and NIMBY groups to use NEPA to obstruct infrastructure and other federal projects.
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Real Vision senior editor Ash Bennington hosts managing editor Ed Harrison to discuss the animal spirits that are driving this market. After reviewing historical financial panics, Ed and Ash take another look at whether options mania is exerting influence on equity price action. They explore the “Softbank narrative” through the lens of volatility investor and arbitrageur Benn Eifert, and examine how speculators are buying options from market makers who are forced to delta-hedge their position, as they don’t want to take a directional position. Lastly, Ed and Ash look forward and see if there is “another shoe to drop” as fall approaches. In the intro, Jack Farley and Ash Bennington discuss the OPEC’s latest monthly oil market report.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GTTlGI Tyler Durden
Sunday Night Football Ratings Post “Steep Decline” Compared To Last Year Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/14/2020 – 18:00
In an NFL season that seems to be more about social justice and Covid precautions instead of; well, playing football, perhaps it should come as no surprise that ratings for Sunday Night Football tanked on NFL’s Week 1.
Initial ratings from Sunday night’s game featuring “America’s Team” – the Dallas Cowboys, and the newly moved Los Angeles Rams plunged from last year.
Sunday Night Football ratings plunged, according to Yahoo Finance. The game posted a 4.7 among the key Adult 18-49 demographic with 14.81 million viewers. Although the numbers may still rise after West Coast numbers are factored in, the article notes it is still a “steep decline” from 2019.
For comparison, last year’s Patriots vs. Steelers Sunday night opener had 22.2 million viewers. This total was generally in-line with the opener the year before, indicating that even with West Coast viewers factored in, this Sunday’s ratings were significantly lower.
The idea that NFL viewership is suffering due to the league’s social justice message isn’t especially farfetched. The Dallas Cowboys are one of the most widely supported teams in the league, across the nation, and their presence often helps draw in viewers. The Los Angeles Rams are also widely considered to be playoff contenders this year.
Which leaves many to wonder: what could the NFL be doing wrong?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hyVXX8 Tyler Durden
BoJo Wins First Vote On Bill To Modify Brexit Deal, Infuriating Brussels Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/14/2020 – 17:49
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has effectively placed Britain on the path to an “Australia-style” trade arrangement with the EU after his “intermarket bill” – which has been criticized for effectively overriding parts of the UK-EU withdrawal treaty – passed its first important procedural vote in the House of Commons Monday.
Passage has opened the door to a messier exit from the EU for Britain, while also raising the possibility that a “hard” border could return to the island of Ireland separating Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland (an EU member state). Many fear that could lead to a revival of sectarian violence in a return to “the troubles”.
Though cable’s reaction to the news was relatively muted, investors are now faced with the likelihood that the EU27 will walk away from negotiations, as they have threatened to do. Brussels has also threatened legal action against London should the bill move forward.
The new bill, which had its first reading on Wednesday, outlines a new “safety net” of rules for trade between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to prevent disruption to the internal market inside the UK, even in the event that Britain and the EU do not reach a comprehensive trade agreement by the end of 2020. The bill would ensure there will be no new checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK, and gives Parliament the power to “disapply” rules relating to the movement of goods. It also specifically states that provisions in the law will override parts of the withdrawal agreement, where applicable.
The bill will now pass on to its 2nd reading after a vote of 340 vs 263. Following the second reading is the final vote to make the bill into legislation. Though, as ITV’s Paul Brand points out, a large number of abstentions in this vote suggests the bill could face tougher votes in the future.
BREAKING: MPs vote for the Internal Market Bill to progress to next stage, despite concerns it could break international law.
AYEs 340
NOEs 263
Seems there were a fair few abstentions – suggests there may be a closer fight over next week’s amendments.
Once again, Johnson was credited with putting down a “conservative rebellion” , according to a report published a few hours ago by the FT, as more MPs fret over Johnson’s confrontational style, which has infuriated the UK’s former continental partners.
Importantly, the vote comes just as hedge funds turned the most bullish they’ve been in five months, Bloomberg reports.
A team of Goldman FX analysts said in a note to clients that the market is currently pricing in a 40-45% chance of the “no deal” Brexit outcome. The team says it sees potential long-term upside for any traders able to persevere through some short-term volatility, since “beyond the very short-term we would see meaningfully lower odds of a ‘no deal’ Brexit than the market appears to be implying,
the bank said.
They argued that while a “no deal” scenario would ultimately be bad for Britain’s economy, Johnson has often favored such tough negotiating tactics in the past. In the end, Goldman believes, a trade deal is still the most likely outcome, which could send the pound to 87 pence to the euro.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Fm5fch Tyler Durden
When the money runs out or loses its purchasing power, all sorts of complexity that were previously viewed as essential crumble to dust.
Four D’s will define 2020-2025: derealization, denormalization, decomplexification and decoherence. That’s a lot of D’s. Let’s take them one at a time.
I use the word derealization to describe the inner disconnect between what we experience and what the propaganda / marketing complex we live in tells us we should be experiencing.
Put another way: our lived experience is derealized (dismissed as not real) by official spin and propaganda.
The current state of the economy is a good example. We see the real-world economy declining yet the officially approved narrative is that there’s a V-shaped recovery underway because Big Tech stocks are hitting new highs. In other words, we don’t need a real-world economy, all we need is a digital economy provided by Big Tech platforms.
This is derealization at its finest: the everyday world you experience directly no longer matters; what matters is stock prices and various statistics that all paint a rosy picture.
Meanwhile, the wealthiest class is fleeing soon-to-be-bankrupt cities. The wealthiest class has the means to buy the best advice and also has the most to lose, so I give their actions far more credence than official propaganda.
This is why denormalization is an extinction event for much of our high-cost, high-complexity, heavily regulated economy. Subsidizing high costs doesn’t stop the dominoes from falling, as subsidies are not a substitute for the virtuous cycle of re-investment.
The Fed’s project of lowering the cost of capital to zero doesn’t generate this virtuous cycle; all it does is encourage socially useless speculative predation. Collapse isn’t “impossible,” it’s unavoidable.
The basic idea is that all the structures of the “normal” economy only function at full capacity, as costs have moved higher, unproductive complexity has increased and our ability to pay these higher costs is based on ever-expanding debt.
As a result, “normal” became extremely fragile and binary: it’s either fully funded at full capacity or it collapses. The structures of everyday life (to use Braudel’s apt phrase) are incapable of downsizing to 70% of their previous complexity and cost, much less 50%.
There won’t be any “new normal” because the system has become too rigid, ossified, over-regulated and controlled by entrenched interests and elites. It is incapable of reducing complexity and cost, and bailouts via borrowed money are stopgaps, not actual solutions.
Decomplexification is a mouthful, and everyone inside the machine knows the impossibility of paring organizational complexity. Everyone who is a stakeholder in the status quo (which is virtually every employee, manager, etc.) will fight to keep the status quo intact as is, for fear that any re-organization might imperil their livelihood or security. This is entirely understandable, of course.
Modern life is inherently complex. Democracy is complex and cumbersome because having a bunch of stakeholders all competing for public resources and advocating for a bigger slice of the pie is inherently messy. There must be oversight and feedback to minimize the possibility of one clique gaining complete power.
Long global supply chains are inherently complex. Managing ever-increasing regulations is inherently complex. And so on.
When the money runs out or loses its purchasing power, all sorts of complexity that were previously viewed as essential crumble to dust. We’re witnessing the early stages of this in real time in healthcare and education: overly complex and costly systems are breaking down not just from the challenges of the pandemic but because they’re structurally incapable of adapting or evolving beyond pseudo-reforms and policy tweaks.
As an illustration, consider the current overly complex way our healthcare system funds itself and a system in which customers pay cash for medical care: no insurance, minimal oversight auditing, etc. Regulations boil down to a requirement to publicly post prices for services and actually charge only the posted prices.
In higher education, as per the model I outline in my book The Nearly Free University, the campus and its entire bureaucracy becomes superfluous. Classes, embedded apprenticeships and in-person workshops are organized online. The entire scheme of accrediting colleges is jettisoned in favor of accrediting each student.
And so on. You can see the problem: eliminating unproductive, obsolete layers of costly complexity will eliminate millions of middle-class jobs that can’t be replaced with new expansive bureaucracies.
Yes, paying cash for healthcare and campus-less, mostly automated universities are oversimplifications. So where is the middle ground between current costly complexity and some “new normal” with half the costs and complexity? There’s no way to accomplish this while retaining the payrolls, priorities, processes and structures of the existing systems.
The point here is that when the money runs out or loses much of its purchasing power, overly costly complexity collapses whether we like it or not.
Decoherence is an interesting word. In science, “Decoherence can be viewed as the loss of information from a system into the environment, since every system is loosely coupled with the energetic state of its surroundings.”
Decoherence refers to the loss of systemic coherence between narratives, values, processes and systems. Simply put, stuff no longer works right and it no longer makes sense.
What worked in the past has been transformed by two systemic drifts:
1. Systems that evolved to function in a specific socio-political-economic context continued adding complexity and cost because debt-based funding was available, not because they were becoming more efficient or effective.
2. The socio-political-economic context has changed and so the status quo systems are mal-adapted, i.e. obsolete.
These two systemic drifts occur so slowly that we aren’t even aware of the loss of coherence unless we compare the current system to a previous set point or look at it from the perspective of starting from scratch: what would the most sustainable, lowest-energy consumption, most efficient and productive system look like if we designed it from scratch? It certainly wouldn’t be the system we have now,
The four Ds help us understand why the status quo is incapable of adapting / evolving fast enough and effectively enough to manage a controlled collapse to a much lower level of cost and complexity.
The status quo can’t even admit the need for a controlled collapse, much less manage it.
We can add a fifth D: denial. The four Ds are already in motion and denial is only accelerating systemic decoherence.
DHS Blocks Products Linked To Uighur Labor Camps & “Modern Slavery” From Entering US Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/14/2020 – 17:19
Over a month after widespread allegations that China has been routinely using its Muslim Uighur population as prison laborers for products shipped to the West — specifically after 13 tons of human hair in weave products estimated to be worth over $800,000 was seized as a US port — the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday five new orders blocking the importation of products believed to be the result of forced labor.
Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan underscored the new measures send a “clear message” concerning forced labor entering US supply chains.
“Today’s Withhold Release Orders send a clear message to the international community that we will not tolerate the illicit, inhumane, and exploitative practices of forced labor in U.S. supply chains,” Morgan said, according to The Hill.
Inside a compound at the Kunming Municipal Compulsory Rehabilitation Center in China, Getty Images/The Telegraph.
The directives are aimed at blocking products from multiple facilities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that are suspected of being either internment or ‘re-education camps’ or as including staff made up of forced labor.
All products made with labor from the Lop County No. 4 Vocational Skills Education and Training Center in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.
Hair products made in the Lop County Hair Product Industrial Park in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.
Apparel produced by Yili Zhuowan Garment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Baoding LYSZD Trade and Business Co., Ltd in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.
Cottonproduced and processed by Xinjiang Junggar Cotton and Linen Co., Ltd. in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.
Computer parts made by Hefei Bitland Information Technology Co., Ltd. in Anhui, China.
Morgan added of these tightening of controls that “The Trump Administration will not stand idly by and allow foreign companies to subject vulnerable workers to forced labor while harming American businesses that respect human rights and the rule of law.”
AFP/Getty via NBC: A high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.
The statement went so far as to call China’s practice “modern slavery” and said DHS would do everything in its power to protect American workers, citizens, and the supply chain.
It comes after over much of the past year international human rights groups have published a mountain of photographic and satellite evidence showing a sprawling network of Uighur Muslim camps being run by the Chinese communist government, which Beijing has consistently downplayed or denied altogether.
Previously China has leveled retaliatory sanctions against the US over criticism related to the sensitive issue of treatment of the minority Chinese Muslim community.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32rgPvg Tyler Durden
Nikola Slides On Report SEC Is Examining Hindenburg’s Fraud Allegations Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/14/2020 – 17:08
In a rollercoaster day for Nikola, the company’s shares slumped after the close following a Bloomberg report that the SEC has started an examination of the company to “assess the merits” of Hindenburg’s allegations that the company is an “intricate fraud.” The news sent NKLA shares down 4% after hours.
Ironically, this means that the company’s founder, Trevor Milton, has gotten his wish: on Monday, Nikola pulled a Wirecard and encouraged the laughably toothless SEC to get involved to settle the report claims, perhaps hoping that the SEC would pull a “Tesla” and find nothing terminally wrong.
As reported previously, the Phoenix-based company said it reached out to the SEC to discuss its issues with the Hindenburg report, and ultimately held a call with agency officials on the morning of Sept. 11. Nikola says Hindenburg was attempting to profit from a “manufactured decline” in its share price.
“Nikola has contacted and briefed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding Nikola’s concerns pertaining to the Hindenburg report,” the company said in a Monday statement. “Nikola intends to fully cooperate with the SEC regarding its inquiry into these matters.”
In a lengthy report on Sept. 10 Hindenburg Research compared Nikola to Theranos, calling it an “intricate fraud” which overstated the capabilities of its earliest test trucks among many other allegations. Nikola pushed back, accusing the short seller of making misleading statements that were designed to manipulate its shares.
The feud prompted the SEC to examine Hindenburg’s claims to determine whether Nikola may have violated securities laws, said Bloomberg’s anonymous sources.
The regulator’s review is preliminary and may not lead to allegations of wrongdoing according to Bloomberg; according to us the most likely outcome – if one judges how the SEC has handled Tesla – is something between Herbalife and Wirecard, where the SEC finds one or more wrist-slappable violations but nothing terminal, “punishes” the company with a modest fine, and everyone moves on sparking a furious short squeeze as those betting on a catastrophic plunge in the stock are forced to cover.
Furthermore, with GM involved and Mary Barra vouching today for the company’s due diligence in Nikola, it is unlikely that the SEC will dare to end Barra’s career, destroy Nikola and ruin hundreds of thousands of Robinhood traders who have been busy buying the dip in the alleged fraud.
The one positive outcome to come from all of this is that if and when the SEC slaps Nikola with a modest fine, it will be officially time to declare that the SEC is now hopelessly captured and will allow frauds to persist with little concern for long-term capital markets implications… similar to what the German regulator Bafin did amid a chorus of allegations that Wirecard was a fraud when instead of ending the charade, Bafin instead lashed out at the shorts and skeptical voices.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33tL5EV Tyler Durden
As I’ve been observing the actions and justifications of men like Jerome Powell, Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo, Joe Biden and Donald Trump during this self-inflicted global depression, I can’t help but channel the iconic American actor Clint Eastwood and his most famous role – Dirty Harry, when assessing whether they have an understanding of their limitations. If a man doesn’t know his limitations, he can ruin his own life.
When men in positions of immense power don’t know their limitations, they can ruin the world, destroying the lives of millions and propelling the world towards a catastrophic financial collapse and likely global conflict. Our benevolent leaders act as if they know what is best for mankind, when they are actually flailing about blindly, corrupted by their own power and wealth, leading us on a path to destruction, because their immense egos won’t allow them to humbly admit their dreadful mistakes and take corrective actions.
The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force, came out in 1974, with Harry taking on vigilante cops in San Francisco. His lieutenant, played by Hal Holbrook, tries to keep Harry off the case of bad guys being executed by the lieutenant’s squad of dirty cops, using the logic that Harry posed a risk to society by not following proper police and justice procedures.
It’s funny how people in positions of power accuse others of doing what they in fact are doing themselves. In a condescending tone, the lieutenant boasts that he has never had to take his gun out of his holster as he has risen to a rank above Harry’s. The sarcastic response from Harry shows his contempt for those not willing to do the dirty work, keeping the streets safe from criminals:
“You’re a good man lieutenant. A good man always knows his limitations.”
At the end of the movie, after Harry has killed all the vigilante cops, the lieutenant pulls a gun on Harry and smugly tells him he will frame him for the murder of the cops. He then gets into the car Harry had been driving, not knowing Harry had activated a mailbox bomb and tossed it into the back seat. As he slowly drives away, the bomb goes off, killing the lieutenant. Another Dirty Harry happy ending. The movie ends with Harry saying:
“A man’s gotta know his limitations.”
That phrase keeps popping into my mind lately. Watching the world burn while what amounts to leadership bloviates, lies, misinforms, and makes decisions which condemn the masses to a future of poverty, homelessness, violent upheaval, and an economy gutted by reckless central bankers and feckless politicians, is infuriating to critical thinking rational people. I’m constantly baffled by the lack of forethought regarding how actions taken today by leaders, to supposedly alleviate problems created by their previous solutions, will lead to long-term disaster.
I used to blame these decisions on stupidity and incompetence. But I now attribute it to malice of forethought, driven by greed, envy and a sociopathic desire for power and control over others. Those chosen to hold the key positions in government, central banking, and in the media are hand-picked and groomed by shadowy billionaire types whose agenda is to reap riches, hijack the financial system and exercise control over the population.
The year 2020 has revealed the type of men we’ve allowed to control our economy, our government and our lives. We have become a nation of willfully ignorant, technology addicted, moronic dupes, being led down a path to destruction by sociopathic egomaniacal traitors to our country. These men have a high opinion of their intellectual talents and arrogantly believe they know the answers to all the questions and confidently put forth solutions designed to benefit themselves and those they serve – not you.
This is not a new development for mankind. Greed, envy and desire for control have driven a minority of men throughout history. A sociopath has no empathy for other human beings. They have no conscience, therefore have no qualms about lying, stealing, sending men to their deaths for oil or destroying the lives of millions. Their hubris and arrogance always lead to their downfall because they are incapable of the self-reflection necessary to understand their limitations.
There are three men, among many, who history will treat poorly when the story of 2020 is written (depending on who writes it). Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo and Jerome Powell are men with high IQs, large egos, slaves to reputational accolades and used by the billionaires running this planet to implement their plans to control the world. Are they just pawns or active participants in the conspiracy to financially, politically, socially medically and militarily enslave the population of the planet through false narratives and financial engineering designed to impoverish the many and enrich the few?
It’s a question that reverberates through my mind constantly, as I watch in disbelief while these men continually do the exact opposite of what needs to be done to improve the lives of Americans and blatantly lie, misinform, and obscure the truth. Not being a sociopath, it is difficult for me to comprehend what drives men like these. It appears power to rule over others, admiration from the masses, corporate media enhanced status, wealth seeking, an over-inflated opinion of their intellectual talents and an inability to acknowledge their own limitations are their key traits. They have no second thoughts about sacrificing you at the altar of their gods – corporate billionaire oligarchs.
Anthony Fauci has been a government bureaucrat in charge of the U.S. infectious diseases department for the last thirty-six years. You can only last that long in one position by pleasing those who matter. In a rational world his performance over the last year would be considered disastrous, since his organization failed to see the pandemic coming, ignored it when the WHO and China conspired to cover it up, had absolutely no plans in place to combat it, downplayed the threat into early March, told people masks were useless (they are) before demanding the whole nation mask up, used the ridiculous Neil Ferguson model predicting 2 million deaths to convince the country to lockdown, has continuously provided conflicting advice, and has contributed greatly to the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression.
He is clearly a tool of the left as he is a big fan of Hillary Clinton and does the bidding of Bill Gates on the need for a vaccine for a flu that will not kill 99.9% of all Americans. He clearly loves the limelight, appearing on dozens of TV shows every week, as his bureaucrat ego grows in proportion to the accolades he receives from the corporate media and the sheep who worship at the feet of the lockdown cult. He portrays himself as a scientist following the facts. He wasn’t lying about masks back in March.
The CDC’s own literature prior to the pandemic said masks are useless in stopping the spread of viruses, because they are. If he was a real scientist following the data, he would humbly admit Sweden was right all along, with no lockdown, no mandatory masking, no school shutdowns, and developing herd immunity as the infection rate reached 20%. The vulnerable (old and those with pre-existing conditions) should have quarantined and the young and healthy should have gone on with our lives. He is too proud and agenda driven to ever admit he was appallingly wrong. His guidance during this pandemic has been as accurate as his pitching.
Fauci and his acolytes have convinced the masses masking protects them as a way to exercise control and conformity, testing the limits of governmental authority. Compliance with the tyrannical dictates of governors and health “experts” (who are uniformly unhealthy looking) is a test run for further mandates and forced vaccines. For doing his part on behalf of Gates and the other billionaire oligarchs, Fauci will reap riches, with book deals, positions on drug company boards, speaking fees at healthcare conferences and TV appearances.
Fauci’s inability to realize his limitations and/or his moral failing as a supposedly neutral scientist have led to death and economic destruction on a far greater scale than if he had admitted what he did not know and didn’t fear monger the nation into a complete shutdown. The suicides, riot death and destruction, undiagnosed cancer and heart disease deaths, mental health epidemic, millions of jobs lost and hundreds of thousands of small business closures are real blood on his hands.
Andrew Cuomo is a particularly vile character whose enormous ego is so inflated it convinces him to write a book in the midst of the pandemic about what a stupendous job he did by having the largest number of Covid-19 deaths in the nation, by far, and murdering thousands of nursing home residents by purposely directing infected patients back into the nursing homes. I wonder how a man like this can sleep at night, with that many corpses on his conscience. But there is the answer.
Sociopaths have no conscience. Cuomo is so arrogant and self-loving; he actually believes he’s done an outstanding job. He believes he’s earned his position of governor when he rode the coattails of his daddy’s name recognition. He married a Kennedy (who he eventually divorced) and asked journalists how it would play, before proposing. He is nothing more than an ambitious self-promoting climber, willing to do anything to get ahead. Some animals are more equal than others when it comes to masking.
As with the other left-wing governors (Murphy, Wolf, Witmer, Newsome), Cuomo became intoxicated with the power he assumed during this pandemic. Governors are essentially figureheads during normal times. They rarely impact the day to day lives of their constituents. But, with the panic induced by medical “experts” and Trump buying into the end of the world scenarios from purposely faulty models, governors and mayors throughout the country assumed almost dictatorial power to control our lives, with threats of imprisonment or fines for not following their authoritarian decrees. They have had no legislative or judicial checks on their illegal mandates.
Cuomo was clearly inebriated with the attention he got from his daily briefings, copying Trump’s daily updates. He invoked a draconian lockdown, blamed the Feds for all his shortfalls, invoked fear among the populace rather than portraying the required stoicism, rational consideration of risks, and fortitude in the face of uncertainty. This maniacal blowhard has the gall to take a victory lap and ridicule other governors when his death count is twice any other state and three times as high as the states he has scorned.
If this man was capable of self-reflection, he would be on his knees begging forgiveness from thousands of families for his fatal error of putting infected patients into nursing homes, sentencing thousands of seniors to death. Instead he glories in the accolades of the left-wing media, who ignore his disastrous decisions, and support his claims Trump is to blame. Even though lockdowns have proven to be the wrong solution, Fauci proclaims Cuomo’s actions as an outstanding response to the pandemic.
I guess destroying the economy of the world financial capital, presiding over a self-imposed mass death event, encouraging BLM and ANTIFA terrorists to riot, murder and destroy businesses, and treating the public like pawns in a political game, constitutes success in Cuomo world. Cuomo’s limitations are many and his talents few, but he would never admit it. Mencken’s words from decades ago have never been truer:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
That brings us to Jerome Powell, the man who sold the world. How could a man with such an undistinguished career of working as an underling on Wall Street and as a mid-level government bureaucrat, become the most important man in the world? As with his two predecessors, Yellen and Bernanke, they all had the mundane unimpressive careers of academics and bureaucrats. None of them distinguished themselves as brilliant thinkers or leaders. They fit Taleb’s description as IYI (intellectual yet idiot).
They all achieved “success” by playing the game, ingratiating themselves to the ruling class, and proving to be pliable tools to those pulling the strings. The reward for doing the bidding of the banking cabal and billionaire oligarchs running the Deep State is fame, media accolades, book deals, positions on boards, outrageous speaking “fees” (aka payoffs) and wealth they never dreamed of. Bernanke made more for giving a one-hour speech at a Bank of America conference than he was paid annually as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Bernanke didn’t allow the creative destruction of capitalism to put a recklessly corrupt organization like Bank of America out of business, and reaped riches for doing so. Powell knows who butters his bread and will be compensated handsomely for saving the Wall Street cabal once again, while throwing Main Street and senior citizens under the bus.
As you can see from the chart below, the Fed Funds rate averaged between 4% and 5% from 1990 through 2008. A senior citizen could get a similar return on a safe money market fund, to supplement their Social Security. But thanks to Bernanke, Yellen and Powell, rates have essentially been zero for over a decade. These actions have benefited their true constituency – criminal bankers, hedge fund managers, wealthy oligarchs, mega-corporations, and politicians.
They have impoverished the middle class, encouraged market speculation rather than capital investment and destroyed the retirements of low-income senior citizens. They are solely responsible for the greatest level of wealth inequality in history. They have created two bubbles (2000, 2008) with their easy money policies which burst, leading to widespread economic destruction. But those bubbles pale in comparison to the world destroying bubble they have created as the “solution” to their last bubble.
Powell and his compadres have created a financial system so fragile that it couldn’t handle interest rates at 2.5%. By handle, I mean the stock market threw a tantrum and the spineless Wall Street lackey Powell did what he was told and started to cut rates in the summer of 2019. Something broke within the fetid rigged machinery of financial market chicanery in September, with overnight repo rates soaring to 10% – a level reflecting the true risk in the markets. Rates reflecting the true market risk are unacceptable to the powers that be. Powell was already doing the bidding of his bosses by lowering rates into the year-end and conducting stealth QE, while denying it was QE.
Powell is not a dumb man. He knows a country cannot run up it’s national credit card without negative consequences at some point – default, currency collapse, hyperinflation, civil chaos, global conflict. It would require a man of courage, fortitude and morality to stand up to the evil forces controlling the systematic pillaging of the nation. Powell is not that man.
His limitations are self-evident, as he has put the country on a path to destruction, while exacerbating the gulf between the Haves (Powell’s people) and the Have Nots (you and me). His monetary machinations have fueled the riots roiling the country, which is possibly exactly what his oligarch superiors desire. If the country is distracted by false narratives about systematic racism, with fighting in the streets, the systematic reaping of the national wealth can go on behind the curtain.
Powell has made a mockery of price discovery by buying up one third of the mortgages in the country, billions in junk bonds of companies that should be bankrupt, and convincing unemployed Robinhood day traders that stocks only go up, because Powell will rescue them if stocks start to drop. After observing the clearly desperate actions taken by Powell to prop up his Wall Street puppeteers, under the cover of a pandemic, one must wonder whether he has been threatened to do so or actually believes his traitorous actions are beneficial to the country.
By lowering rates to zero, expanding his balance sheet by $3 trillion in a matter of months, enabling the Federal government to run $3 trillion deficits, and providing the fuel for an epic stock, real estate, and bond bubble, Powell is solely responsible for the banquet of consequences we will experience. Powell has pushed all his chips on the table. A man of much higher character and intellect than this cowardly Powell character explained what will happen seven decades ago:
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” – Ludwig von Mises, Human Action [1949]
When this Powell-created bubble explodes, there will be many Dirty Harry type characters cracking a wry smirk and saying, “a man’s gotta know his limitations”.
Over the past few months, I have written several blog posts about how the courts have approached the 1st, 2nd, and 14th Amendments during the pandemic. Those posts will serve as the basis for a lengthy article. I should be able to post it to SSRN by the end of this month. It is comprehensive.
For now, I will flag a portion of Judge Stickman’s decision in the Pennsylvania lockdown case. (Eugene flagged it earlier). He accurately stated the place Jacobson occupies in our constitutional canon.
Jacobson was decided over a century ago. Since that time, there has been substantial development of federal constitutional law in the area of civil liberties. As a general matter, this development has seen a jurisprudential shift whereby federal courts have given greater deference to considerations of individual liberties, as weighed against the exercise of state police powers. That century of development has seen the creation of tiered levels of scrutiny for constitutional claims. They did not exist when Jacobson was decided. While Jacobson has been cited by some modern courts as ongoing support for a broad, hands-off deference to state authorities in matters of health and safety, other courts and commentators have questioned whether it remains instructive in light of the intervening jurisprudential developments.
In Bayley’s Campground, Inc. v. Mills, _ F. Supp. 3d _, 2020 WL 2791797 (D. Me. May 29, 2020), a district court examined whether the governor of Maine’s emergency order requiring, inter alia, visitors from out of state to self-quarantine, was constitutional. As here, before proceeding to its analysis of the substantive legal issues, the court examined how it should weigh the issues—according to a very deferential analysis purportedly consistent with Jacobson, as advocated by the governor, or under “regular” levels of scrutiny advocated by the plaintiffs. The district court examined Jacobson and, specifically, whether it warranted the application of a looser, more deferential, standard than the “regular” tiered scrutiny used on constitutional challenges. It observed: “[i]n the eleven decades since Jacobson, the Supreme Court refined its approach for the review of state action that burdens constitutional rights.” Id. at *8 (citing Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 857 (1992)). See also Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. at 857 (citing Jacobson, 197 U.S. 24-30) (affirming that “a State’s interest in the protection of life falls short of justifying any plenary override of individual liberty claims.”). The district court declined to apply a standard below those of the established tiered levels of scrutiny. It stated:
[T]he permissive Jacobson rule floats about in the air as a rubber stamp for all but the most absurd and egregious restrictions on constitutional liberties, free from the inconvenience of meaningful judicial review. This may help explain why the Supreme Court established the traditional tiers of scrutiny in the course of the 100 years since Jacobson was decided. Bayley’s Campground, at *8.
Judge Strickman is exactly right. Jacobson, on its own terms, does not apply to these sorts of COVID-19 cases. Now that we have moved from the early days of the pandemic, I hope courts can approach these unprecedented lockdown measures with more consideration.
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I blogged below about the general analysis in Judge William S. Stickman IV’s decision in County of Butler v. Wolf (W.D. Pa.), as well as its application to the gatherings ban and the stay-at-home order. But the court also concluded that the business shutdown also violated substantive due process (as well as equal protection), because “The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a citizen’s right to support himself by pursuing a chosen occupation”—and even if that right is subject only to rational basis scrutiny, the shutdown failed that scrutiny because it was too arbitrary:
The Supreme Court has recognized that the “core of the concept” of substantive due process is the protection against arbitrary government action. Indeed, “the touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary actions of government ….” Rational basis review is a forgiving standard for government acts, but it “is not a toothless one ….” As a general matter, the rational basis test requires only that the governmental action “bear[] a rational relationship to some legitimate end.” Conversely, actions which are irrational, arbitrary or capricious do not bear a rational relationship to any end….
The record shows that the Governor’s advisory team, which designated the Business Plaintiffs and countless other businesses throughout the Commonwealth as “non-life-sustaining” and, thereby, closing them, did so with no set policy as to the designation and, indeed, without ever formulating a set definition for “life-sustaining” and, conversely “non-life-sustaining.” The terms “life-sustaining” and “non-life-sustaining” relative to businesses are not defined in any Pennsylvania statute or regulation…. The record demonstrates that the policy team’s unilateral determination as to which classes of businesses would be classified as “life-sustaining” was never formalized and the team never settled on a specific definition of “life-sustaining” ….
Mr. Robinson said that [the policy team] used the NAICS system to determine which businesses were “life-sustaining,” although the NAICS does not actually use that categorization. He acknowledged that the team simply applied their common-sense judgment as to what was, or was not, “life-sustaining.” In doing so, they did not confine themselves to “the formality of kind of enshrining a definition somewhere.” So, without a definition, how can one determine which businesses can stay open and which must close? Mr. Robinson said that one should look to the policy team’ s list (of “life-sustaining” businesses). Essentially, a class of business is “life-sustaining” if it is on the list and it is on the list because it is “life-sustaining.” …
The manner in which Defendants, through their policy team, designed, implemented, and administered the business closures is shockingly arbitrary. The policy team was not tasked with formulating a theoretical policy paper or standard to categorize abstract classes of business or NAICS codes. Rather, it had the authority to craft a policy, adopted wholesale by Defendants, that had an immediate impact on the Business Plaintiffs and countless other businesses, employers, and employees across the Commonwealth. Despite the fact that their decisions had the potential (and in many cases the actual effect) of destroying businesses and putting employees out of work, Defendants and their advisors never formulated a set, objective definition in writing of what constitutes “life-sustaining.”
The Court recognizes that Defendants were acting in haste to address a public health situation. But to the extent that Defendants were exercising raw governmental authority in a way that could (and did) critically wound or destroy the livelihoods of so many, the people of the Commonwealth at least deserved an objective plan, the ability to determine with certainty how the critical classifications were to be made, and a mechanism to challenge an alleged misclassification. The arbitrary design, implementation, and administration of the business shutdowns deprived the Business Plaintiffs and their fellow citizens of all three.
Another layer of arbitrariness inherent in the business shutdown components of Defendants’ orders are that many “non-life-sustaining” businesses sell the same products or perform the same services that were available in stores that were deemed “life-sustaining.” For example, Plaintiff R.W. McDonald & Sons is a small appliance and furniture store that was deemed a “non-life-sustaining” business and required to close. But larger retailers selling the same products, such as Lowes, The Home Depot, Walmart and others remained opened. Mr. McDonald stated that his business “lost approximately $300,000 in revenue” and that his business has been “financially devastated.” He also averred that he lost business to the big-box retailers that were permitted to remain in operation….
But the court rejected the equal protection challenge to the different reopening schedules in different regions:
The Court holds that Defendants had a rational basis for rolling out their reopening plan on a regional basis based on counties. Doing so recognized and respected the differences in population density, infrastructure and other factors relevant to the effort to address the virus. The Business Plaintiffs point to similarity between their area and neighboring counties permitted to open earlier, but rational basis does not require the granularity of a neighborhood by neighborhood plan. Distinctions between counties are a historically accepted manner of statewide administration and pass scrutiny here.
The court also held that the challenge to the shutdown order is not moot, even though it has been “suspended,” because it hasn’t been withdrawn outright and may yet be reinstated.
My sense is that the substantive argument invalidating the business shutdowns isn’t really consistent with the Court’s precedents on economic regulation and the rational basis test: Rightly or wrongly, the Court has held that the government has very broad authority in drawing lines when it comes to economic regulation (including regulation of the right to pursue one’s chosen occupation), and that seems to me to include making case-by-case decisions that may be hard to fit into a clearly articulable rule. I doubt that this part of the decision (or perhaps even the other parts) will survive on appeal, though I’ve been proved wrong in such predictions many times before.
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