The person who originally tweeted the image remarked, “A prime example of psychological warfare and mind control.”
Author and commentator Peter Hitchens, a vehement critic of coronavirus lockdown laws, also weighed in.
“This official tax-funded placard from Stockton-on-Tees encourages human beings to treat each other as toxic hazards,” tweeted Hitchens.
“Leaving aside the disturbing philosophical and moral implications, surely such behaviour is incompatible with anything resembling a society,” he added.
This official tax-funded placard from Stockton-on-Tees encourages human beings to treat each other as toxic hazards. Leaving aside the disturbing philosophical and moral implications, surely such behaviour is incompatible with anything resembling a society. https://t.co/nDM9nWWE8v
As we previously highlighted, the UK is home to some of the most draconian social distancing rules in the developed world, with one company telling staff that only 40% of them will be able to return to work in January due to a rule that dictates cars must be “socially distanced” in the parking lot.
As we document in the video below, the public’s perception of the threat of coronavirus is infinitely greater than its actual lethality.
A survey revealed in the UK for example that people on average think COVID-19 has killed 7 per cent of the population – around 5 million people.
The actual number is 41,403.
* * *
In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3aNTDtR Tyler Durden
Tik-ing Time-Bomb: With 25 Days Until Ban, Tik Tok Scrambles To Reassure Employees, Brands, & Influencers Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/22/2020 – 08:45
Tik Tok is now just 25 days away from being banned in the United States due to executive orders issued by President Donald Trump earlier this month.
As “D-Day” is lurching closer, the company has been doing damage control for its 1,500 U.S.-based employees, influencers and brands. The company has already shelved plans to hire 10,000 employees and open new offices in the U.S. as it models out various scenarios of how to continue its business after September 15, according to Bloomberg.
The company is holding “virtual town hall” sessions weekly, where worried employees can ask executives questions like whether or not they will still have a job if the app is banned in the U.S. Tik Tok has pointed to India, where it has been banned but jobs have not been lost.
Patrick Ryan, a technical program manager at TikTok said: “Employees are scared, there’s a lot of questions and concerns. There’s no guide to what to do when the U.S. president says he’s going to eliminate a job you love in 45 days.”
The orders that President Trump issued call on Tik Tok’s parent company, ByteDance, to either sell its U.S. operations or shut down by mid-September, citing national security concerns. Since then, companies like Microsoft, Oracle and Twitter have all been reportedly interested in purchasing the company.
Vanessa Pappas, TikTok’s general manager for the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Australia said: “Tiktok strongly disagrees with the Trump administration’s stance, and TikTok hadn’t been presented with any evidence to back up claims it shares data with the Chinese government.”
She says the company will remain in the U.S. regardless of Trump’s orders and thinks the company has “multiple paths forward”. “It’s an extremely turbulent time, so our message is really just, ‘let’s focus on the things that you can control, the things that matter,’” Pappas commented. Regardless, Pappas spends her days calming the nerves of employees who can’t help but watch the September 15 deadline creep closer.
At the same time as other apps have seen growth slow, Tik Tok continues growing rapidly. It now has over 2 billion downloads and it is outpacing popular other social media apps.
One employee told Bloomberg: “So many of us were getting laid off and the economic situation was really rough, but TikTok was still growing. There are so many questions right now, but I don’t think the leadership team would be hiring and working so hard to keep the business going if they didn’t know what they were doing.”
Since hiring has been frozen, Tik Tok’s employees are being pushed to the limit in terms of work hours. More than 66% of the company’s 1,500 employees in the U.S. have been hired since the beginning of 2020 – even amidst the pandemic.
But keeping employees is one thing – keep the platform’s influencers and advertisers is another. Popular Tik Tok influencer Carrie Berk called the platform a “ticking time bomb” and has asked her users to move to Instagram.
Advertisers are also making backup plans. “We’re negotiating contracts to give brands a level of comfort that if something does happen to Tiktok, it won’t come out of their budget,” commented Eric Jacks, who works at marketing agency Collab.
One advertiser asked: “Should we be investing in a platform that could get banned?'”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2EtLMFn Tyler Durden
Earlier this month, Chinese ruler Xi Jinping declared war on food waste. “Waste is shameful and thriftiness is honorable,” Xi said, calling for a combination of “legislation, supervision, and long-term measures” to rein in waste under a “Clean Plate Campaign.” Xi also warned China was facing a “crisis” of food security.
China’s national legislature is expected to introduce a series of anti-food waste laws soon. If early steps are any indication, the campaign is likely to trample on individual rights.
Food waste, as I explain in my book Biting the Hands that Feed Us—quoting a U.N. report—refers to “food that completes the food supply chain up to a final product, of good quality and fit for consumption, but still does not get consumed because it is discarded, whether or not after it is left to spoil.”
It’s a remarkably and troublingly common problem across the globe. Roughly 40% of the food Americans produce goes to waste. Food security, on the other hand, refers to a person’s access to sufficient food.
China has generally been considered to be food-secure—roughly on par with Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Argentina. But food waste is a massive problem in the country. “Chinese cities produce 25 percent of the world’s municipal solid waste, most of it food,” Earth.org reported in April. It’s also a problem the government has been combating for several years.
Reports suggest several factors have contributed to China’s mushrooming food-waste crisis, including supply-chain disruptions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, trade tensions, low food prices that discourage future plantings, overreliance on imported food, and devastating floods that have inundated cropland in the country. Other reports cite additional factors, from droughts and pestilence to higher grain prices.
Given that most of these factors have little or nothing to do with waste, I wonder if the “Clean Plate Campaign” is really about fighting food waste, or it’s instead a response to growing food insecurity in the country? China expert Gordon Chang tweeted last week that Xi’s campaign signaled that China “is facing a severe food shortage.” And a tweet this week from a Hong Kong pro-democracy group claimed China has banned use of words such as “hunger” and “starving” from its anti-food waste campaign.
We should fight food waste. Decomposing food waste releases billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. And that’s just one part of the problem.
“Consider that food that goes to waste still used all of the resources needed to produce the food—including any combination of water and fertilizer (to grow crops), pesticides (to keep them free of pests), farmland (often converted from wildlands and tilled, both of which release stored carbon), and oil (to power plows and harvesters),” I explain in Biting the Hands that Feed Us. “Those resources are all used up whether a food is eaten or is left to rot in a field or landfill.”
Thankfully, there are countless ways to reduce food waste—most of which don’t require government to do more. For example, if we were to stop using taxpayer funds to subsidize farmers to grow way more food than consumers demand, we’d save money and waste less food.
Private efforts to fight food waste—some “highly profitable“—already exist in China. But rather than expanding those efforts, Xi sees more government as the answer.
To be fair, some changes enacted in the wake of Xi’s announcement, such as renewed efforts to encourage diners to take their leftovers home, are smart and relatively nonintrusive.
But others are anything but. Spurred by Xi’s plan and criticism from state media, for example, China’s tightly monitored media outlets, including social media giant Sina Weibo, have vowed to crack down on food programming that shows “excessive eating and drinking,” including ones that feature actual or feigned competitive eating.
Elsewhere, at least one restaurant in China has drawn customers’ ire by placing scales near its entrance and urging “diners to weigh themselves and then order food accordingly.” The restaurant, which had “recommended that women under 40kg (90lbs) should order no more than two dishes—with suggestions including sautéed beef and steamed fish head—while men weighing 70-80kg could have up to three” dishes, was forced to reverse course after a backlash.
But those women and men who could order up to two or three dishes might be the lucky ones. Since Xi’s announcement, many restaurants have urged consumers to order one fewer dish than the number of people seated at a table. So, for example, four diners eating together should share three dishes. (Solo diners might be out of luck.) One local government agency took Xi’s guidance to heart, vowing to “establish a frugal consumption reminder system” and “supervise consumers to eat frugally.” Sounds lovely. Food-delivery services are also urging customers to order smaller portion sizes. One hotel restaurant is fining diners who waste food from the restaurant buffet.
Critics of Xi’s plans, The Guardianreported, were quick to push back against the new guidelines, with many urging government officials and other wealthy diners to put up or shut up.
Some critics of the plan, reports CGTN, “are calling for boundaries to the campaign, asking if leftovers at restaurants are really such a crime.“
The South China Morning Postreported this week that another obstacle Xi’s plan faces is “long-held attitudes towards entertaining” in China, where sharing a bounty with guests is considered “a symbol of hospitality and social standing.“
Still, China’s crackdown does have its supporters. One self-avowed Marxist chidedThe Guardian for expressing mild discomfort about China’s oppressive anti-food waste campaign.
Food waste is a problem around the world. Combating it must be a goal. But achieving that goal shouldn’t come at the expense of individual rights—in China or anywhere else.
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From the four-Justice majority opinion (written by Justice Richard Gabriel, joined by Chief Justice Nathan Coats and Justices William Hood and Carlos Samour) in Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood v. Wagner, decided by the Colorado Supreme Court in June; the case arose from a shooting that killed three (including one inside the building) and injured nine at a Colorado Springs abortion clinic:
Here, the plaintiffs introduced substantial evidence showing that PPRM [Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains] knew for many years that there was a risk of violence against its facilities. In fact, PPRM warned all new physicians that “there is an inherent risk associated with working [at PPRM],” and it provided them with training on how to protect themselves. PPRM even offered to provide all of these physicians with custom-fitted bulletproof vests, free of charge.
The plaintiffs also presented evidence tending to demonstrate that PPRM knew that the level of threats of violence and criminal activity directed against Planned Parenthood facilities increased exponentially in the aftermath of the release of the inflammatory “baby body parts” videos. In fact, after the videos were released, the Medical Director of PPRM personally reported the level of increased threats and more invasive actions to both the president and chief executive officer and the chief operating officer of PPRM, as well as to the president and chief executive officer of PPFA.
In addition to the foregoing, the plaintiffs presented evidence that, despite this awareness, PPRM did not take adequate precautions at the Colorado Springs facility. For example, the plaintiffs offered evidence to show that although PPRM had hired an armed security guard, that guard was on duty only three days per week and only for about four hours each day (until 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 noon), despite the fact that the facility remained open (and doctors were performing abortions there) after the guard had ended his shift. Indeed, the guard had been at work on the day of the shooting but left at 11:00 a.m., shortly before Dear started his shooting rampage at approximately 11:35 a.m. Similarly, the plaintiffs offered evidence that PPRM did not erect a perimeter fence around the Colorado Springs facility, although it had done so at its Denver location, and it did not replace its tempered glass entry door with a steel or otherwise bullet-resistant door, which allowed Dear to shoot through the door to gain entry and continue his rampage.
Finally, the plaintiffs presented a lengthy and detailed affidavit from Lance Foster, an expert in premises security. In his affidavit, Mr. Foster opined, in pertinent part, that (1) the lack of security at the PPRM Colorado Springs facility made it a more likely target and placed it at a much higher risk for an event like that which ensued; (2) fencing would likely have prevented Dear from gaining entry onto the facility’s property in the first place; (3) had the security guard been on duty, the shootings would likely have been prevented; and (4) had steel doors been installed and electronic lock down measures been employed, Dear would not likely have been able to enter the clinic itself. Based on the foregoing, Mr. Foster opined that the shootings at issue “were reasonably preventable and the injurious effects could have been mitigated.”
In light of this evidence, and cognizant of the settled principle that summary judgment is a drastic remedy, we conclude that on the evidence presented in the summary judgment record here, a reasonable juror could find that Dear was not the predominant cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries and that therefore PPRM’s action or inaction was a substantial factor in causing those injuries. Accordingly, we further conclude that PPRM was not entitled to the entry of summary judgment in this case….
We hasten to say that in ruling as we do, we offer no view as to the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. Nor should our opinion be read to suggest either (1) that different rules apply to what may be deemed “politically neutral” sites, on the one hand, and potentially “incendiary” sites such as a women’s health clinic, on the other, or (2) that given the risk that a mass shooting could happen virtually anywhere, potential targets—even those that are sadly sometimes attractive to the deranged or sadistic, or those with sociopathic notions of political motivation—must build fortresses to protect against any possible risk.
To the contrary, our ruling is limited to the specific facts of this case, based on the summary judgment record before us. And we do not intend to suggest that summary judgment is never appropriate in a case such as this, although we are likewise unwilling to say … that summary judgment is required in virtually every case involving a mass shooting because the shooter’s actions will almost always be the predominant cause of the victims’ injuries. We say no more than that, on the summary judgment record here, we do not believe that a court can properly decide the predominant cause issue as a matter of law.
Three Justices dissented, in an opinion written by Justice Melissa Hart, joined by Justices Monica Marquez and Brian Boatright:
[T]he majority makes “proximate cause” a determination solely of the foreseeability of a particular event—in this case a mass shooting—occurring at a particular location. The dangerous consequence of this move is to subject a landowner to liability for the irrational actions of a mass murderer, who has no concern about detection or death. And, while the majority asserts that its approach does not turn on the politically controversial nature of the landowner’s business, I fear that in fact the majority is creating the equivalent of a heckler’s veto—if a business owner receives threats of violence because of the nature of his business, the business owner will be subject to a risk of liability that could render his business uninsurable or require impossibly expensive fortifications….
On one hand, we expect all public-facing businesses—including women’s health clinics—to incur the costs of security measures that are reasonably proportionate to the potential risk of harm to their patients. But, because mass shooters are not animated by reason or cost/benefit analysis, it is irrational to ask businesses—or jurors—to engage in the cost/benefit analysis of determining what sorts of preventative measures are sufficient to prevent or mitigate the harm caused by a shooter’s senseless acts of violence….
I fully grant that “‘the concept of foreseeability is central to establishing proximate cause’ and that foreseeability acts ‘as a guidepost to delineate the extent to which a defendant may be held legally responsible for a plaintiff’s injury.'” And unfortunately, Planned Parenthood has suffered a “long history of violent direct attacks, killings and threats” against its various facilities.
But the reason for such threats, largely unacknowledged by the majority, is the well-known fact that PPRM provides abortions—a service fraught with political controversy and heated cultural divide. While the majority asserts that its analysis does not turn on whether a mass shooter’s attack is on a politically controversial business, I fear that the consequence of the court’s approach is that certain businesses and activities will face entirely different risks of liability than others will.
It bears emphasizing that our proximate cause analysis has never, and should not now, turn on how controversial the goods or services offered by a landowner are. But the majority’s approach creates a perverse incentive: Knowing that women’s health clinics are more threat-prone than other public-facing businesses, and that such clinics may be found liable for their failure to mitigate or prevent mass shootings, abortion opponents can increase the frequency and severity of their threats of violence in order to force women’s health clinics to fortify their facilities to extreme levels. This, in turn, makes women’s health clinics both prohibitively expensive to operate and virtually impossible to insure….
Moreover, this risk is not one that will be faced only by women’s health clinics that provide abortion services. After today’s decision, antisemitic fanatics can impose additional costs on synagogues, and White supremacists can inflict the same on Black churches or businesses. Threats of violence often precede acts of violence in these locations, as they did at PPRM.
I fear that the consequences of today’s decision will be felt well beyond this litigation. The majority’s analysis, by focusing so exclusively on foreseeability, significantly changes our proximate cause jurisprudence. In doing so, it ties the liability of the landowner to the nature of its business and ignores the reality that the overwhelming—the predominant—cause of harm to victims of mass shootings is the maniacal determination of the shooter himself.
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Earlier this month, Chinese ruler Xi Jinping declared war on food waste. “Waste is shameful and thriftiness is honorable,” Xi said, calling for a combination of “legislation, supervision, and long-term measures” to rein in waste under a “Clean Plate Campaign.” Xi also warned China was facing a “crisis” of food security.
China’s national legislature is expected to introduce a series of anti-food waste laws soon. If early steps are any indication, the campaign is likely to trample on individual rights.
Food waste, as I explain in my book Biting the Hands that Feed Us—quoting a U.N. report—refers to “food that completes the food supply chain up to a final product, of good quality and fit for consumption, but still does not get consumed because it is discarded, whether or not after it is left to spoil.”
It’s a remarkably and troublingly common problem across the globe. Roughly 40% of the food Americans produce goes to waste. Food security, on the other hand, refers to a person’s access to sufficient food.
China has generally been considered to be food-secure—roughly on par with Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Argentina. But food waste is a massive problem in the country. “Chinese cities produce 25 percent of the world’s municipal solid waste, most of it food,” Earth.org reported in April. It’s also a problem the government has been combating for several years.
Reports suggest several factors have contributed to China’s mushrooming food-waste crisis, including supply-chain disruptions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, trade tensions, low food prices that discourage future plantings, overreliance on imported food, and devastating floods that have inundated cropland in the country. Other reports cite additional factors, from droughts and pestilence to higher grain prices.
Given that most of these factors have little or nothing to do with waste, I wonder if the “Clean Plate Campaign” is really about fighting food waste, or it’s instead a response to growing food insecurity in the country? China expert Gordon Chang tweeted last week that Xi’s campaign signaled that China “is facing a severe food shortage.” And a tweet this week from a Hong Kong pro-democracy group claimed China has banned use of words such as “hunger” and “starving” from its anti-food waste campaign.
We should fight food waste. Decomposing food waste releases billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. And that’s just one part of the problem.
“Consider that food that goes to waste still used all of the resources needed to produce the food—including any combination of water and fertilizer (to grow crops), pesticides (to keep them free of pests), farmland (often converted from wildlands and tilled, both of which release stored carbon), and oil (to power plows and harvesters),” I explain in Biting the Hands that Feed Us. “Those resources are all used up whether a food is eaten or is left to rot in a field or landfill.”
Thankfully, there are countless ways to reduce food waste—most of which don’t require government to do more. For example, if we were to stop using taxpayer funds to subsidize farmers to grow way more food than consumers demand, we’d save money and waste less food.
Private efforts to fight food waste—some “highly profitable“—already exist in China. But rather than expanding those efforts, Xi sees more government as the answer.
To be fair, some changes enacted in the wake of Xi’s announcement, such as renewed efforts to encourage diners to take their leftovers home, are smart and relatively nonintrusive.
But others are anything but. Spurred by Xi’s plan and criticism from state media, for example, China’s tightly monitored media outlets, including social media giant Sina Weibo, have vowed to crack down on food programming that shows “excessive eating and drinking,” including ones that feature actual or feigned competitive eating.
Elsewhere, at least one restaurant in China has drawn customers’ ire by placing scales near its entrance and urging “diners to weigh themselves and then order food accordingly.” The restaurant, which had “recommended that women under 40kg (90lbs) should order no more than two dishes—with suggestions including sautéed beef and steamed fish head—while men weighing 70-80kg could have up to three” dishes, was forced to reverse course after a backlash.
But those women and men who could order up to two or three dishes might be the lucky ones. Since Xi’s announcement, many restaurants have urged consumers to order one fewer dish than the number of people seated at a table. So, for example, four diners eating together should share three dishes. (Solo diners might be out of luck.) One local government agency took Xi’s guidance to heart, vowing to “establish a frugal consumption reminder system” and “supervise consumers to eat frugally.” Sounds lovely. Food-delivery services are also urging customers to order smaller portion sizes. One hotel restaurant is fining diners who waste food from the restaurant buffet.
Critics of Xi’s plans, The Guardianreported, were quick to push back against the new guidelines, with many urging government officials and other wealthy diners to put up or shut up.
Some critics of the plan, reports CGTN, “are calling for boundaries to the campaign, asking if leftovers at restaurants are really such a crime.“
The South China Morning Postreported this week that another obstacle Xi’s plan faces is “long-held attitudes towards entertaining” in China, where sharing a bounty with guests is considered “a symbol of hospitality and social standing.“
Still, China’s crackdown does have its supporters. One self-avowed Marxist chidedThe Guardian for expressing mild discomfort about China’s oppressive anti-food waste campaign.
Food waste is a problem around the world. Combating it must be a goal. But achieving that goal shouldn’t come at the expense of individual rights—in China or anywhere else.
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From the four-Justice majority opinion (written by Justice Richard Gabriel, joined by Chief Justice Nathan Coats and Justices William Hood and Carlos Samour) in Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood v. Wagner, decided by the Colorado Supreme Court in June; the case arose from a shooting that killed three (including one inside the building) and injured nine at a Colorado Springs abortion clinic:
Here, the plaintiffs introduced substantial evidence showing that PPRM [Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains] knew for many years that there was a risk of violence against its facilities. In fact, PPRM warned all new physicians that “there is an inherent risk associated with working [at PPRM],” and it provided them with training on how to protect themselves. PPRM even offered to provide all of these physicians with custom-fitted bulletproof vests, free of charge.
The plaintiffs also presented evidence tending to demonstrate that PPRM knew that the level of threats of violence and criminal activity directed against Planned Parenthood facilities increased exponentially in the aftermath of the release of the inflammatory “baby body parts” videos. In fact, after the videos were released, the Medical Director of PPRM personally reported the level of increased threats and more invasive actions to both the president and chief executive officer and the chief operating officer of PPRM, as well as to the president and chief executive officer of PPFA.
In addition to the foregoing, the plaintiffs presented evidence that, despite this awareness, PPRM did not take adequate precautions at the Colorado Springs facility. For example, the plaintiffs offered evidence to show that although PPRM had hired an armed security guard, that guard was on duty only three days per week and only for about four hours each day (until 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 noon), despite the fact that the facility remained open (and doctors were performing abortions there) after the guard had ended his shift. Indeed, the guard had been at work on the day of the shooting but left at 11:00 a.m., shortly before Dear started his shooting rampage at approximately 11:35 a.m. Similarly, the plaintiffs offered evidence that PPRM did not erect a perimeter fence around the Colorado Springs facility, although it had done so at its Denver location, and it did not replace its tempered glass entry door with a steel or otherwise bullet-resistant door, which allowed Dear to shoot through the door to gain entry and continue his rampage.
Finally, the plaintiffs presented a lengthy and detailed affidavit from Lance Foster, an expert in premises security. In his affidavit, Mr. Foster opined, in pertinent part, that (1) the lack of security at the PPRM Colorado Springs facility made it a more likely target and placed it at a much higher risk for an event like that which ensued; (2) fencing would likely have prevented Dear from gaining entry onto the facility’s property in the first place; (3) had the security guard been on duty, the shootings would likely have been prevented; and (4) had steel doors been installed and electronic lock down measures been employed, Dear would not likely have been able to enter the clinic itself. Based on the foregoing, Mr. Foster opined that the shootings at issue “were reasonably preventable and the injurious effects could have been mitigated.”
In light of this evidence, and cognizant of the settled principle that summary judgment is a drastic remedy, we conclude that on the evidence presented in the summary judgment record here, a reasonable juror could find that Dear was not the predominant cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries and that therefore PPRM’s action or inaction was a substantial factor in causing those injuries. Accordingly, we further conclude that PPRM was not entitled to the entry of summary judgment in this case….
We hasten to say that in ruling as we do, we offer no view as to the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. Nor should our opinion be read to suggest either (1) that different rules apply to what may be deemed “politically neutral” sites, on the one hand, and potentially “incendiary” sites such as a women’s health clinic, on the other, or (2) that given the risk that a mass shooting could happen virtually anywhere, potential targets—even those that are sadly sometimes attractive to the deranged or sadistic, or those with sociopathic notions of political motivation—must build fortresses to protect against any possible risk.
To the contrary, our ruling is limited to the specific facts of this case, based on the summary judgment record before us. And we do not intend to suggest that summary judgment is never appropriate in a case such as this, although we are likewise unwilling to say … that summary judgment is required in virtually every case involving a mass shooting because the shooter’s actions will almost always be the predominant cause of the victims’ injuries. We say no more than that, on the summary judgment record here, we do not believe that a court can properly decide the predominant cause issue as a matter of law.
Three Justices dissented, in an opinion written by Justice Melissa Hart, joined by Justices Monica Marquez and Brian Boatright:
[T]he majority makes “proximate cause” a determination solely of the foreseeability of a particular event—in this case a mass shooting—occurring at a particular location. The dangerous consequence of this move is to subject a landowner to liability for the irrational actions of a mass murderer, who has no concern about detection or death. And, while the majority asserts that its approach does not turn on the politically controversial nature of the landowner’s business, I fear that in fact the majority is creating the equivalent of a heckler’s veto—if a business owner receives threats of violence because of the nature of his business, the business owner will be subject to a risk of liability that could render his business uninsurable or require impossibly expensive fortifications….
On one hand, we expect all public-facing businesses—including women’s health clinics—to incur the costs of security measures that are reasonably proportionate to the potential risk of harm to their patients. But, because mass shooters are not animated by reason or cost/benefit analysis, it is irrational to ask businesses—or jurors—to engage in the cost/benefit analysis of determining what sorts of preventative measures are sufficient to prevent or mitigate the harm caused by a shooter’s senseless acts of violence….
I fully grant that “‘the concept of foreseeability is central to establishing proximate cause’ and that foreseeability acts ‘as a guidepost to delineate the extent to which a defendant may be held legally responsible for a plaintiff’s injury.'” And unfortunately, Planned Parenthood has suffered a “long history of violent direct attacks, killings and threats” against its various facilities.
But the reason for such threats, largely unacknowledged by the majority, is the well-known fact that PPRM provides abortions—a service fraught with political controversy and heated cultural divide. While the majority asserts that its analysis does not turn on whether a mass shooter’s attack is on a politically controversial business, I fear that the consequence of the court’s approach is that certain businesses and activities will face entirely different risks of liability than others will.
It bears emphasizing that our proximate cause analysis has never, and should not now, turn on how controversial the goods or services offered by a landowner are. But the majority’s approach creates a perverse incentive: Knowing that women’s health clinics are more threat-prone than other public-facing businesses, and that such clinics may be found liable for their failure to mitigate or prevent mass shootings, abortion opponents can increase the frequency and severity of their threats of violence in order to force women’s health clinics to fortify their facilities to extreme levels. This, in turn, makes women’s health clinics both prohibitively expensive to operate and virtually impossible to insure….
Moreover, this risk is not one that will be faced only by women’s health clinics that provide abortion services. After today’s decision, antisemitic fanatics can impose additional costs on synagogues, and White supremacists can inflict the same on Black churches or businesses. Threats of violence often precede acts of violence in these locations, as they did at PPRM.
I fear that the consequences of today’s decision will be felt well beyond this litigation. The majority’s analysis, by focusing so exclusively on foreseeability, significantly changes our proximate cause jurisprudence. In doing so, it ties the liability of the landowner to the nature of its business and ignores the reality that the overwhelming—the predominant—cause of harm to victims of mass shootings is the maniacal determination of the shooter himself.
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New evidence has emerged which shows that UK hospital admissions for COVID-19 were ‘over-reported’ during the height of the crisis back in April. It seems that patients who were being taken in for other common illnesses were in fact being counted as ‘COVID’ in the government’s statistical totals.
This latest embarrassing admission comes on the heels of other similar revelations of dubious record-keeping by the government – all of which have been pivotal in giving the false impression to the public that there were more COVID deaths than actually took place. Back in July, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock was forced to admit how data from Public Health England regarding coronavirus fatalities were being fraudulently recorded – effectively ‘double counting’ their deaths, forcing the government officials to revise their totals downwards to reflect more realist numbers.
This latest ‘COVID counting’ scandal in the area of hospital admissions shows why the these numbers are crucial in how government policies are sold to the public. Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at Oxford University said, “The admissions data is a crucial point. I’d say it is more important than the death data because it is the best marker of the impact of the disease.”
This widespread practice of exaggerating COVID casualty numbers appears to have aided the government in justifying its shaky position on to imposing draconian ‘lockdown’ measures and school closures, as well as to hype the imminent release of a COVID ‘miracle’ vaccine which the UK government has been developing in partnership with pharmaceutical firms like AstaZeneca and its vaccine financiers at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Hospital admissions for Covid-19 were over-reported at the peak of the pandemic, with patients who were taken in for other illnesses being included in outbreak statistics, it has emerged.
An investigation for the Government’s Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) found that people were being counted as Covid hospital admissions if they had ever had the virus, and were added to those being admitted directly due to it.
Government figures show that, at the peak of the pandemic in early April, nearly 20,000 people a week were being admitted to hospital with coronavirus (see graph below), but the true figure is unknown because of the problem with over-counting.
Professor Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, asked by Sage to look into the situation, told The Telegraph: “By June, it was becoming clear that people were being admitted to hospital for non-Covid reasons who had tested positive many weeks before…
‘Gem Diamonds’ Unearths Massive 442-Carat Diamond From Its Letseng Mine In Lesotho Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/22/2020 – 07:35
Sometimes when you “strike gold”, it’s with diamonds.
Such was the case for Gem Diamonds Ltd. on Friday morning, when the company announced that it had recovered a monstrous 442 carat diamond from its Letšeng mine in Lesotho.
Recall, the world’s largest uncut diamond was 1,109 carats and was sold at a price of $47,777 per carat back in the fall of 2017. This would value the Lesotho diamond at about $21.1 million. Accounting for the inflation the Fed has been responsible for since 2017, we wouldn’t be surprised if it sells for $100 million.
Regardless, it marks one of the largest recoveries of the year for the company and its South African mine.
Gem’s CEO, Clifford Elphick, said “Oh my god, it’s massive! I’m f*cking rich!” that partial proceeds from the diamond would go to fund a “special community project” in the area. We were all very deeply moved to hear that.
But what will likely happen is that the diamond will be sold and the proceeds will likely be used to pay Gem’s executives hefty bonuses.
Elphick concluded in a brief, company issued, press release: “The recovery of this remarkable 442 carat diamond, one of the world’s largest gem quality diamonds to be recovered this year, is further confirmation of the calibre of the Letšeng mine and its ability to consistently produce large, high quality diamonds.”
He continued: “It is also a fitting testament to the dedication of the employees in the group to have recovered such an extraordinary diamond, whilst at the same time maintaining strict adherence to health and safety precautions during the global Covid pandemic.”
He did not mention whether he would be putting an addition on his home or making any super-yacht purchases as a result of the bonus he is likely going to get as a result of the discovery. We’ll wait to hear further from the company.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31hoUCc Tyler Durden
8/22/1998: On August22, 1998, Barry Black led a Ku Klux Klan rally in Carroll County, Virginia. The Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of his prosecution for cross burning in Virginia v. Black (2003).
The Rehnquist Court
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Many central banks are researching retail digital currencies, which if implemented, would allow them to issue a new currency directly to the public, managed on a centralised ledger bypassing commercial banks. While there is an element of feeling the need to address new private sector currency developments which threaten central bank monopolies, specific objectives are beginning to emerge.
This article does not consider technology issues, confining its comments to the policy objectives identified in an IMF survey of central banks.It points out the dangers to individual freedom and why the application of a monetary policy extended to include central bank digital currencies are bound to fail.
Introduction
Fiat currencies are failing — let’s try something different. This seems to be the logic partly behind the feverish research by central banks into digital currencies (CBDCs). The central banks of the Bahamas, Ecuador, Ukraine and Uruguay have conducted limited scale pilot projects, and China is also reported to have planned trials through Meituan-Dianping, an on-line food retailer and two further Tencent backed companies, though the status of these projects is at the moment unclear.
These are retail CBDCs. With a retail CBDC, the central bank issues the new CBDC to the public, either through agents, such as commercial banks, or directly to the public, bypassing the current financial system entirely. An advantage claimed over existing fiat is that it is capable of providing access through mobile technology to everyone, including the unbanked. But these advantages are already available through credit and debit cards and e-money, stored in apps such as M-Pesa and AliPay. They work perfectly well, replacing the need for cash where cash is not necessarily available or desired by transacting individuals. Perhaps further development of these facilities could be seen to pose a threat to the fiat monopoly
Alternatively, a central bank might decide to authorise a synthetic CBDC, a privately issued digital money backed by central bank reserves, regulated and supervised by the central bank. In effect the CBDC is contracted out to private sector partners, the full technological capabilities required lacking in a central bank. Furthermore, synthetic CBDCs are potentially cheaper, quicker to market and may be less risky to implement. We shall assume for the purpose of this article that the monopolistic ethos of central banks rules them out and focus on directly-issued CBDCs.
Why central banks want CBDCs
The stated reasons for issuing CBDCs provide initial clarity to observers. According to a recent report from the IMF the following objectives are under consideration:
1) CBDCs could enhance payment system competition, efficiency, and resilience in the face of increasing concentration in the hands of few very large companies.
2) CBDCs may be a means to support financial digitization, reduce costs associated with issuing and managing physical cash, and improve financial inclusion, especially in countries with underdeveloped financial systems and many unbanked citizens.
3) CBDCs could improve monetary policy effectiveness to implement targeted policy, or to tap more granular payment flow data to enhance macroeconomic projections.
4) An interest-bearing CBDC could enhance the transmission of monetary policy, by increasing the economy’s response to changes in the policy rate. Such a CBDC could be used to break the “zero lower bound” on policy rates.
5) CBDCs would also help reduce or prevent the adoption of privately issued currencies, which may threaten monetary sovereignty and financial stability, and be difficult to supervise and regulate.
6) CBDCs could help improve traction of local currency as means of payments in jurisdictions attempting to reduce dollarization.
7) CBDCs could play a role in distributing fiscal stimulus to unbanked and other recipients.
This list reads like a wish list, rather than one of definite policy objectives, but it is an insight into central bank thinking in its early stages. But given that a synthetic CBDC is almost certainly more efficient when implemented by specialist technology firms in the private sector, we can ditch the first objective whereby a CBDC could offer competition to the private sector as little more than statist flannel. The other objectives are worthy of further discussion, at least from a central banker’s point of view.
Supporting financial digitisation, reducing cash costs and improving financial inclusion
Supporting financial digitisation is little more than irrelevant nonsense and needs no further comment, beyond the observation that in the absence of possessing any entrepreneurial motivation central banks would prefer their fiat monopoly not to be challenged by financial digitisation. And as a means of limiting the expense of issuing cash, other means such as limiting withdrawals or banning cash altogether are more effective.
It is only the last point mentioned in this objective that has a genuine rationale. As well as limiting or banning cash, by including unbanked citizens more of a nation’s GDP is captured, potentially adding to tax revenue, and lifting a nation up global rankings by economic size. By replacing cash with a CBDC distributed to and held by mobile apps, sections of economic activity currently unrecorded become included in the GDP total. Thus, Indonesia, with its scattered communities spread over thousands of islands, could record a larger economy than Australia. This matters to politicians and policy planners.
Improving monetary policy effectiveness
Presumably, the thinking behind this objective is that current monetary policy is failing for lack of control over economic actors while dismissing the possibility that monetary policy itself is flawed. Tapping more “granular payment flow data to enhance macroeconomic projections” is a desire to further monetary control, whereby a small committee of central bank officials can determine not just the quantity of money but how and where it is distributed in the economy. Armed with this power, the economy can be micromanaged through capital allocation directed by the central bank. Some sectors, even individual businesses, will benefit at the expense of others and it is a small step for industry to realise it must not only lobby the politicians but with the politicians in tow also to lobby the central banks.
Lobbying issues aside, for most statists improving monetary policy effectiveness through greater control over free markets is their Holy Grail. It is the ultimate destination of Keynesianism. The reason for its lack of success in banishing the business cycle so far is thought by policy makers to be due to lack of sufficient control over outcomes.
An interest bearing CBDC could enhance the transmission of monetary policy
On the assumption that a CBDC will circulate alongside existing fiat currency, in principal it would have to reflect the same interest rate structure. But if its issuance is restricted to preferred sectors of the economy, it might be possible for interest rate differentials to be maintained. In this case, policy planners could see a CBDC to be an important management tool. But for interest differentials to exist, strict limits would have to be placed on the ability for economic actors to arbitrage interest rates.
Of course, what is meant by interest bearing is almost certainly the imposition of yet greater negative rates with the intention of promoting selected sectors or even individual businesses. The application of the Taylor rule, whereby a central bank sets interest rates with reference to the difference between the GDP deflator and the inflation target is almost certainly behind current thinking.
There appears to be a belief current among monetary policy planners that an economic shock leading to a fall in the consumer price index can be swiftly neutralised by deeply negative rates. If a CBDC circulating alongside fiat is the channel for deeply negative interest rates relative to those of the circulating fiat currency, then a CBDC could become a more effective policy conduit for economic recovery.
The use of a CBDC targeting consumers could probably incorporate another stimulative device by issuing them with a time limited value or an expiry date. The incentive to spend would be enhanced and hoarding all but eliminated. Furthermore, by directly issuing CBDCs to the general public, policy planners might assume they can finetune the effects on prices by varying the quantities and terms of the CBDC.
CBDCs can discourage or prevent the adoption of private currencies
This objective envisages the current monetary arrangement of a state monopoly being undermined by competing currencies in the private sector. Privately issued currencies are not defined, but presumably include centralised e-money tied to fiat. AliPay and WeChat Pay are in this category and their further development might raise problems for state monopolists. Asset-backed stablecoins and crypto assets, such as bitcoin, are seen as a more direct threat to fiat, and their development has informed a millennial tech-savvy generation about monetary policy currency debasement and the relative benefits of limited-issue distributed ledger cryptocurrencies.
It is understandable that central bankers worry about developments in these areas and how they might threaten existing fiat currencies. This threat is possibly twofold; to a central bank’s monopoly over circulating currency, and the potential for any one or combination of these categories to undermine monetary policy to the extent that they encourage fiat to be abandoned.
The monopolist instinct in any state actor demands a policy to address the proliferation of e-money, stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. The simplest response is to ban them all, but that horse has already bolted. Individual currency competitors can be closed down by regulating them out of existence, but to be effective that requires cross-border cooperation, which usually takes years to obtain.
That leaves one alternative, for the state to produce its own CBDC and to ensure as much as possible it circulates as money alongside fiat. But only a statist would think that by issuing a CBDC that economic actors would prefer it to private currencies. Markets decide these things, and the inflationary characteristics of a CBDC would to a large extent determine or undermine its rate of adoption as a circulating medium.
Reducing dollarisation
No doubt all central banks with weak currencies believe that domestic use of the dollar to displace the local fiat currency is the principal cause of policy failure. The reasons for fiat failure and a flight into a more stable foreign currency are not hard to discern, even for central bankers grappling with this problem.
Dollarisation undermines the monopoly power of the central bank. Wherever dollarisation features it is understandable that the monetary authorities will explore the possibility of a CBDC resolving the issues arising from circulation of the dollar in the domestic economy. Furthermore, from Venezuela to Argentina, from India to Zimbabwe, cryptocurrencies present an enormous threat to the state control of money, a threat that central banks naturally believe must be addressed, and a monopoly for a CBDC could be seen to be part of the solution.
CBDC used to distribute fiscal stimulus
Unless the government distributes a digital currency directly which in the IMF paper is assumed not to be the case, the impact on fiscal balances from a CBDC must be through displacement, freeing a government from some of its existing spending commitments. Central banks therefore appear to be exploring variations on helicoptering money and the distribution of fiscal stimulus should be examined in that context.
A CBDC is assumed to be a liability of the central bank, shown as a balance sheet item alongside, but separate from, fiat money cash in circulation. To the extent the quantity of a CBDC is then expanded, balance sheet liabilities increase and have to be matched by an increase in assets.
The current route to a central bank’s balance sheet expansion cannot apply, whereby quantitative easing funds the government (increasing central bank balance sheet assets) and expands the reserves of commercial banks at the same time (increasing balance sheet liabilities). Furthermore, a CBDC bypasses the commercial banks.
If it is banned from funding government spending directly, which is often the case, the central bank would have to find other means of acquiring assets to match the expansion of CBDC on the liability side of its balance sheet. The three-card trick will be to provide stimulus to the targeted individuals and businesses, release the government from that obligation by funding it with a CBDC, and to do so without undermining the fiat currency beyond the price inflation target through excessive monetary inflation.
But monetary inflation is inflation, whether it be by fiat or a CBDC. However, a central bank could decide to keep the issuance of a CBDC off its own balance sheet. A likely innovation would be to use it to fund a sovereign wealth fund under its control. That way, the appearance of inflationary financing would be a step removed from the public arena and directly associated with the state’s creation of wealth for the common good.
The monetary fallacies behind CBDC
So far, we have attempted to debate the benefits of a CBDC from the central banks’ point of view. In doing so, we have generally ignored the fallacies that have led them to consider embracing digital currencies.
Inevitably, critics of macroeconomic monetary policies are cast into the position of the Irishman, who when asked the way to Ballymena by a motoring tourist, advised that he wouldn’t start from here. The fashion for mathematical, state-driven, socialistic macroeconomic theory is so pervasive in the corridors of power, central banks, commercial banks and investment houses that an understanding of the genuine economic philosophy of human action by the establishment hardly exists.
Like the Irishman, we are talking to an establishment that is lost on the wrong road. The multiple errors of macroeconomics, particularly with regard to the treatment of the means of exchange, have driven the establishment towards a collective economic destruction. That is now the overriding issue faced by monetary planners.
The establishment has responded to its policy failures, not through an unbiased examination and reassessment of its errors, but by turning its beliefs into a cult, like an antique religion that appeases its gods by the sacrifice on their alters of human lives. It appears nothing will dissuade them from doubling down with yet more human sacrifices, until all humanity is sacrificed in the name of preserving the establishment’s macroeconomic beliefs.
The establishment is obviously now the enemy of its electorate, destroying private livelihoods and wealth through increasingly rapid debasement of the population’s means of exchange. The very few operators who wield executive power over us and who increasingly discern the errors behind macroeconomic fallacies are now powerless to do anything about it for fear of precipitating the crisis they now fear.
This is why we see sensible men and women when they are given power, conform. They lack the courage, are outvoted or simply despair of changing statist policies. There is no leadership against macroeconomic fallacies, and in any event a brainwashed public wholeheartedly supports inflationism without appreciating the consequences.
CBDCs are merely an extension of embedded inflationism, inflation by additional means. Some of the executive are dimly grasping the reality that their fiat currency will have to be inflated at such a rate that it could lead to its rejection as a means of exchange — unbacked by anything other than faltering confidence in a failing system. But because no one with executive power has the courage and authority to challenge the macroeconomics of aggregates and to rehabilitate economic theories based on the actions of individuals free of government intervention, a solution is being sought in new currencies. Involving CBDCs is one of the possible resets increasingly debated on policy fringes.
Our focus, therefore, must be on the differences that might lead to success of a CBDC where existing fiat has failed. And the first thing we should note is that as proposed, CBDCs are another form of fiat, unless that is, a CBDC is gold-backed. But none of the literature emanating from the establishment suggests or even mentions a sound money objective. We should therefore assume CBDCs will be just another form of inflationary fiat.
With respect to new technologies, the state always moves at a glacial pace. While we have identified trials in the Bahamas, Ecuador, Ukraine and Uruguay with some reports of developments in China, it will be years before CBDCs can possibly become mainstream. The principal weakness will be a centralised ledger, inevitably exposed to outside hackers from cyber-warring states and criminals. The chances of the CBDC movement being stillborn are therefore high, particularly when one considers the urgency of a policy solution to current events. And the most important consideration of the benefits of CBDCs not mentioned anywhere is whether the general public actually wants them, because it will require their cooperation.
For our empirical guidance we can turn to a debate in Germany that took place in the first few years of the twentieth century. The new Austrian school of economics was pitted against the German historical school. The Austrians argued in favour of the general public choosing their medium of exchange, while the historical school, represented by Georg Knapp and the Chartalist movement, argued in favour of the state theory of money. Bismarck seized the opportunity presented by Knapp’s arguments to arm Germany through monetary inflation, which led to the First World War. The continuation of Chartalist policies led to the collapse of the papiermark in November 1923. Predictably, after tolerating it for some time the German public had woken up to the fundamental weakness behind the state theory of money. Give the state the power over money and it will abuse it.
It is an argument that resonates today, with fiat money being inflated as a catchall solution to an economic mess of the establishment’s own making. Let us turn to another example from history which refers to a monetary reset, with or without CBDCs. In December 1789, five months after the storming of the Bastille, France’s National Assembly issued assignat bonds secured on sequestered church lands and bearing a coupon of 5% to pay off national debt. The intention was for the issue to be a one-off, but the temptation to issue more after declaring it as a currency the following year could not be resisted. And when the assignats had lost almost all their purchasing power after successive issues, the government then reset with a new currency in 1796, the mandats territoraux, at the rate of one mandate for thirty assignats. The mandate became worthless within six months.
If the establishment today was not so dismissive of pre-Keynesian classical economics, they might note that the replacement of one fiat currency for another, even bedecked with technological gubbins, is no resolution of the failures of the former.
The implications of CBDCs for economic power
We can describe any modern state’s power as being in three buckets. There is the government itself, managed by a permanent establishment advising the political class. There is the central bank, responsible for managing the currency, ensuring the government is funded, and exercising control over commercial banks. And then there are the commercial banks, licensed by government agents to expand bank credit out of thin air, freed from the charge of doing so fraudulently.
The general public always thinks that the real power is held by the politicians, but that does not account for the control of money, the expansion of which is in the hands of the central bank and its commercial charges, who split the benefits of monetary seigniorage between them. It is assumed in the literature that the introduction of a CBDC will bypass the commercial banks entirely, unlike fiat cash which is always distributed through them.
It is clear from the objectives listed above, which are the result of an IMF survey of central banks concerning their research into CBDCs, that with the possible exception of synthetic CBDCs, there is no intention of retail CDBCs being distributed through the financial system. That being the case, there would be a transfer of power from commercial banks to the central bank, which is likely to be an additional reason for central banks being interested in the possibilities of a CBDC.
Furthermore, central banks are increasingly aware that there are times when commercial banks are reluctant to expand bank credit when risk factors increase, the very moment that central banks believe that monetary expansion is most needed. Consequently, commercial banks become obstructive to the deployment of monetary policies at those crucial times. A CBDC could be seen to be a resolution to this problem. Targeted at stimulating consumption selectively, it could then be used to promote state favoured production and technologies. Not only are central banks contemplating forms of monetary reset, but they may be looking at radical changes in the financial system to enhance their power as well.
Instead, the position of commercial banks could be undermined by the next systemic crisis, which, due to the accelerating rate of bankruptcies rising around the world from covid-19 shutdowns and the banks’ reluctance to lend, is likely to be imminent. Systemic dangers today are without doubt more serious than at the time of the Lehman crisis, and having their origin in the non-financial economy, more far-reaching. Notwithstanding earlier promises of bail-ins for which legislation has been passed by the majority of, if not all G20 member nations, whole banking systems will most probably have to be bailed out by taking them into state ownership.
If this happens, then the benefits of CBDCs to central banks that come from bypassing commercial banks will be nullified, because the effective nationalisation of commercial banks will remove them as a separate power base and obstacle to delivering monetary stimulus. And by holding all the purse strings, central banks could become considerably more powerful than the governments that originally sponsored them.
Conclusion
Central banks researching CBDCs are motivated by finding an additional means of monetary inflation to the existing means of issuing increasing quantities of fiat currencies. By issuing CBDCs directly to the public, commercial banks are by-passed, and central bankers hope to forensically target where the inflation is applied. A successful introduction of a CBDC could eliminate the impediment of contracting bank credit which occurs at the end of every credit cycle.
The further benefit for central banks is it will increase their power as an organ of the state at the expense of commercial banks, potentially becoming more important than the state itself. However, the current economic situation is deteriorating more quickly than a working CBDC can be introduced, so the whole exercise is likely to be too late to have any relevance to monetary policy in the foreseeable future.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31jnN4P Tyler Durden
