For many poor nations, it is a long and winding road to ‘debt’ and ‘corruption.’ A journey littered with economic potholes in the shape of China’s signature foreign policy project which was unveiled by President Xi Jinping six years ago.
In short, the US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, along with other foreign funding, has become a magical mystery tour, baffling the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Or, according to critics, a diplomatic car crash waiting to happen.
“Compared with China’s dominance in world trade, its expanding role in global finance is poorly documented and understood,” a report released last week by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy stated.
“Over the past decades, China has exported record amounts of capital to the rest of the world. Many of these financial flows are not reported to the IMF, the BIS [the Bank for International Settlements] or the World Bank,” authors Sebastian Horn, of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, Carmen M Reinhart, of the Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, and Christoph Trebesch, of the Kiel Institute for the World Economyin Germany, wrote.
“‘Hidden debts’ to China are especially significant for about three dozen developing countries, and distort the risk assessment in both policy surveillance and the market pricing of sovereign debt,” the working paper added.
A breakdown of the numbers showed that lending soared to around US$5 trillion by 2018 from roughly $500 billion in 2000, which dwarfs World Bank and IMF credit lines.
“This dramatic increase in Chinese official lending and investment is almost unprecedented in peacetime history,” the report revealed. “Lower-income developing economies mostly receive direct loans from China’s state-owned banks, often at market rates and backed by collateral such as oil,” the report revealed.
“Our new dataset covers a total of 1,974 Chinese loans and 2,947 Chinese grants to 152 countries from 1949 to 2017. We find that about one-half of China’s overseas loans to the developing world are ‘hidden,’” it continued.
“A main challenge to explore China’s large-scale official lending boom is its opacity. Unlike the United States, the Chinese government does not release data on its lending activities abroad or those of its government entities. No data is therefore available from the creditor side,” the working paper added.
Indeed, the lack of transparency has become an issue with the Belt and Road Initiative. Launched in a fanfare of state-media hype in 2013, the BRI is epic in scale and has become an extension of China’s global ambitions.
Controversy
Crucial to the program are strands of the ‘New Silk Road’ superhighways connecting the world’s second-largest economy with 70 nations and 4.4 billion people across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe in a maze of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects, including a web of digital links.
Yet in the past 18 months, the venture has been mired in controversy after being branded a “debt trap” by the US and its key Western allies.
“Similarly, China does not provide details on its Belt and Road Initiative and its direct lending activities,” the study by the Kiel Institute pointed out.
“Apart from the aforementioned omissions in reporting to the Paris Club, China does not divulge data on its official flows with the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System, and it is not part of the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] Export Credit Group, which provides data on long- and short-term trade credit flows,” it continued.
“With regard to cross-border banking, China recently joined the list of countries reporting to the BIS, but the data [has] not [been] made available on a bilateral basis and the coverage is incomplete. Taken together, these data limitations make it very challenging to do rigorous empirical work on China’s official capital exports,” the report added.
A graphic from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy report.
Last year, a comprehensive study released by the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank, singled out 23 countries prone to “debt distress.”
Of the group, Pakistan, Djibouti, the Maldives, Laos, Mongolia, Montenegro, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were rated in the “high risk” category.
Sri Lanka was another after it handed over control of the Hambantota Port to China’s state-owned Merchants Port Holdings at the end of 2017 under the weight of massive loans.
Stung by phrases such as “debt book diplomacy,” Beijing has again pledged to increase transparency when it comes to commercial funding.
“The Belt and Road is an initiative for economic cooperation, instead of a geopolitical alliance or military league, and it is an open and inclusive process rather than an exclusive bloc or ‘China club’,” he said in April.
“Everything should be done in a transparent way and we should have zero tolerance for corruption.”
Since then, the ruling Communist Party has announced plans to expand its anti-corruption campaign to BRI projects.
In the past, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection had limited involvement in the program but that is starting to change.
“How can you strike hard on corruption here at home and give a free hand to Chinese people and business groups [that are] reckless abroad,” La Yifan, the director-general for international co-operation at the CCDI, told the Financial Times last week. “Part of the campaign is to go after corruption and stolen assets abroad.
“[We aim to] create a network of law enforcement of all these Belt and Road countries,” he added.
So, will this long and winding road finally have flashing warning signs of “debt” and “corruption?” Or will this continue to be a highway to economic hell? BRI nations might want to buckle up for a bumpy ride.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZoU8Ux Tyler Durden
California’s Central Valley is going green(er). Thanks to constrained water supplies and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) which requires over 500,000 acres be taken out of production, some of the Golden State’s more than 77,000 farms are embarking on ambitious solar projects, according to the LA Times.
The Maricopa West solar project. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Converting farmland to solar farms also could be critical to meeting California’s climate change targets. That’s according to a new report from the Nature Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit.
Working with the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, the conservancy tried to figure out how California could satisfy its appetite for clean energy without destroying ecologically sensitive lands across the American West. The report lays out possible answers to one of the big questions facing renewable energy: Which areas should be dedicated to solar panels and wind turbines, and which areas should be protected for the sake of wildlife, outdoor recreation, farming and grazing?
One takeaway from the report, released this week: California will need hundreds or maybe thousands of square miles of solar power production in the coming decades — and it would make sense to build one-third to one-half of that solar capacity on agricultural lands, mostly within the state. –LA Times
The 160-acre Maricopa West project, pictured, would be dwarfed by Westlands Solar Park, planned for the Central Valley, which could extend across 20,000 acres. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
By utilizing land which has already been ‘ecologically degraded’ (saving the state’s desert critters from solar annihilation), California can convert a ton of land to solar panels without harming the state’s $50 billion annual agriculture industry. According to a prior study by UC Berkeley, the state has at least 470,000 acres of “least-conflict” lands in the San Juaqin Valley (the lower portion of the Central Valley) where “salty soil, poor drainage or otherwise less-than-ideal farming conditions could make solar an attractive alternative for landowners,” according to the Times.
“The next project is going to be 100 megawatts. It’s going to be five times this size,” said John Reiter, a renewable energy developer and farmer who has already gone solar on 160 acres and has big plans for the future.
Jon Reiter, a senior adviser to Maricopa Orchards, walks between a solar array and almond groves. The solar energy project was part of a 6,000-acre habitat conservation plan.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
At Maricopa Orchards — a major Fresno-based grower of almonds, oranges and other crops — Reiter hatched a plan to build solar panels on thousands of acres of agricultural land in Kern County.
He worked with local officials to create a 6,000-acre habitat conservation plan, which allows solar panels on 4,000 acres of the company’s land and sets aside 2,000 additional acres for environmental mitigation. The mitigation lands are now reverting back to habitat for San Joaquin kit foxes, blunt-nosed leopard lizards, burrowing owls and other at-risk species.
Reiter’s vision is a work in progress: So far, only 160 acres have been developed with solar. The 20-megawatt Maricopa West solar project was built by the German company E.ON and sold to Dominion Energy of Virginia, on land adjacent to almond orchards. –LA Times
Reiter says he’s negotiating with three developers on seven ‘shovel-ready’ solar projects, with “permits and mitigation lands ready to go, saving them time and money,” according to the report.
Big plans
Meanwhile, other Central Valley agricultural producers are gearing up for their own projects.
Wonderful Co. — which grows tree nuts and owns Pom Wonderful, Fiji Water and Justin Wines — is aiming to power its operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2025. Wonderful opened its first solar project in 2007 and this year signed a contract with Florida-based developer NextEra Energy for a 23-megawatt solar installation, to be built on 157 acres of fallow farmland.
Wonderful sees “tremendous potential for siting solar on agricultural land,” said Steven Swartz, the company’s vice president of strategy. Wonderful, owned by Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, can make about as much money producing solar power over a 30-year period, Swartz said, as it can growing almonds and pistachios, two of the most lucrative crops grown in California.
“In one case we’re growing an agricultural product that has value, and in another case we’re producing electrons that have value,” he said.
Swartz added that he expects “relatively limited competition” between solar and agriculture because there’s already so much farmland that isn’t in production in the Central Valley.Wonderful has 10,000 acres it’s keeping fallow, he said, either due to poor soil conditions or insufficient water. In 2015, at the height of California’s most recent drought, Central Valley farmers kept about 1 million acres idle all year, NASA scientists estimated. –LA Times
So far the biggest Central Valley solar project is being planned by Westlands Solar Park, which is scheduled to break ground on the first 670 megawatts of a project which could eventually grow to 2,700 megawatts across 20,000 acres. It will be built on “drainage-impaired” land where the soil has been spoiled with tons of “crop-killing salts and toxic selenium” because layers of clay under the dirt prevent irrigation from reaching the underground aquifer.
“If you continue to farm these types of lands, you continue to make the drainage problems worse and worse,” said DCaniel Kim, VP of regulatory and government affairs for developer Golden State Clean Energy.
How much will it cost to go solar?
According to the Times, citing the Nature Conservancy’s “Power of Place” report, developing solar farms on in-state land which has regulatory clearance could cost around $110 billion. If the projects were to expand to lands with endangered species or, that figure could rise to $125 billion. Easing land-use rules, meanwhile, would bring the costs down to around $106 billion.
“That West-wide scenario is the best-case scenario,” said Arne Olson, a co-author of the Nature Conservancy report and senior partner at the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics.
The “Power of Place” report doesn’t capture every force that could shape California’s energy future. It assumes no development of offshore wind power, despite enormous potential for turbines off the Pacific coast. It also doesn’t account for other states’ renewable energy needs, which could be substantial.
Still, clean energy advocates say the document could help California officials balance development with ecosystem protection as they plan for 100% climate-friendly electricity by 2045, the target adopted by lawmakers last year. In 2018, California got 31% of its electricity from renewables including solar and wind, and another 20% from zero-carbon nuclear and large hydropower facilities.
The Nature Conservancy’s report “appears to outline thoughtful options for how to site the projects we need to meet the climate crisis,” said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-scale Solar Assn., a Sacramento-based trade group. –LA Times
“Missing the forest for the trees” is an apt metaphor if we take a look at most commentary describing the past twenty years or so. This period has been remarkable in the number of genuinely tectonic changes the international system has undergone. It all began during what I think of as the “Kristallnacht of international law,” 30 August September 1995, when the Empire attacked the Bosnian-Serbs in a direct and total violation of all the most fundamental principles of international law. Then there was 9/11, which gave the Neocons the “right” (or so they claimed) to threaten, attack, bomb, kill, maim, kidnap, assassinate, torture, blackmail and otherwise mistreat any person, group or nation on the planet simply because “we are the indispensable nation” and “you either are with the terroristsor with us“.
During these same years, we saw Europe become a third-rate US colony incapable of defending even fundamental European geopolitical interests while the USA became a third-rate colony of Israel equally incapable of defending even fundamental US geopolitical interests. Most interestingly looking back, while the US and the EU were collapsing under the weight of their own mistakes, Russia and China were clearly on the ascend; Russia mostly in military terms (see here and here) and China mostly economically. Most crucially, Russia and China gradually agreed to become symbionts which, I would argue, is even stronger and more meaningful than if these two countries were united by some kind of formal alliance: alliances can be broken (especially when a western nation is involved), but symbiotic relationships usually last forever (well, nothing lasts forever, of course, but when a lifespan is measured in decades, it is the functional equivalent of “forever”, at least in geostrategic analytical terms). The Chinese have now developed an official, special, and unique expression to characterize that relationship with Russia. They speak of a “Strategic, comprehensive partnership of coordination for the new era.”
This is the AngloZionists’ worst nightmare, and their legacy ziomedia goes to great lengths to conceal the fact that Russia and China are, for all practical purposes, strategic allies. They also try hard to convince the Russian people that China is a threat to Russia (using bogus arguments, but never-mind that). It won’t work, while some Russians have fears about China, the Kremlin knows the truth of the matter and will continue to deepen Russia’s symbiotic relationship with China further. Not only that, it now appears that Iran is gradually being let in to this alliance. We have the most official confirmation possible of that fact in words spoken by General Patrushev in Israel after his meeting with US and Israeli officials: “Iran has always been and remains our ally and partner.”
I could go on listing various signs of the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire along with signs that a new, parallel, international world order is in the process of being built before our eyes. I have done that many times in the past, and I will not repeat it all here (those interested can click here and here). I will submit that the AngloZionists have reached a terminal stage of decay in which the question of “if” is replaced by “when.” But even more interesting would be to look at the “what”: what does the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire really mean?
I rarely see this issue discussed and when it is, it is usually to provide all sorts of reassurances that the Empire will not really collapse, that it is too powerful, too rich and too big to fail and that the current political crises in the USA and Europe will simply result in a reactive transformation of the Empire once the specific problems plaguing it have been addressed. That kind of delusional nonsense is entirely out of touch with reality. And the reality of what is taking place before our eyes is much, much more dramatic and seminal than just fixing a few problems here and there and merrily keep going on.
One of the factors which lures us into a sense of complacency is that we have seen so many other empires in history collapse only to be replaced pretty quickly by some other, that we can’t even imagine that what is taking place right now is a much more dramatic phenomenon: the passage into gradual irrelevance of an entire civilization!
But first, let’s define our terms. For all the self-aggrandizing nonsense taught in western schools, Western civilization does not have its roots in ancient Rome or, even less so, in ancient Greece. The reality is that the Western civilization was born from the Middle-Ages in general and, especially, the 11th century which, not coincidentally, saw the following succession of moves by the Papacy:
1054: Rome separates itself from the rest of the Christian world in the so-called Great Schism
These three closely related events are of absolutely crucial importance to the history of the West. The first step the West needed was to free itself from the influence and authority of the rest of the Christian world. Once the ties between Rome and the Christian world were severed, it was only logical for Rome to decree that the Pope now has the most extravagant super-powers no other bishop before him had ever dared contemplate. Finally, this new autonomy and desire for absolute control over our planet resulted in what could be called “the first European imperialist war”: the First Crusade.
To put it succinctly: the 11th century Franks were the real progenitors of modern “Western” Europe and the 11th century marked the first imperialist “foreign war” (to use a modern term). The name of the Empire of the Franks has changed over the centuries, but not its nature, essence, or purpose. Today the true heirs of the Franks are the AngloZionists (for a truly *superb* discussion of the Frankish role in desotrying the true, ancient, Christian Roman civilization of the West, see here).
Over the next 900 years or more, many different empires replaced the Frankish Papacy, and most European countries had their “moment of glory” with colonies overseas and some kind of ideology which was, by definition and axiomatically, declared the only good (or even “the only Christian”) one, whereas the rest of the planet was living in uncivilized and generally terrible conditions which could only be mitigated by those who have *always* believed that they, their religion, their culture or their nation had some kind of messianic role in history (call it “manifest destiny” or “White man’s burden” or being a Kulturträger in quest of a richly deserved Lebensraum): the West Europeans.
It looks like most European nations had a try at being an empire and at imperialist wars. Even such modern mini-states like Holland, Portugal or Austria once were feared imperial powers. And each time one European Empire fell, there was always another one to take its place.
But today?
Who do you think could create an empire powerful enough to fill the void resulting from the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire?
The canonical answer is “China.” And I think that this is nonsense.
Empires cannot only trade. Trade alone is simply not enough to remain a viable empire. Empires also need military force, and not just any military force, but the kind of military force which makes resistance futile. The truth is that NO modern country has anywhere near the capabilities needed to replace the USA in the role of World Hegemon: not even uniting the Russian and Chinese militaries would achieve that result since these two countries do not have:
1) a worldwide network of bases (which the USA have, between 700-1000 depending on how you count)
2) a major strategic air-lift and sea-lift power projection capability
3) a network of so-called “allies” (colonial puppets, really) which will assist in any deployment of military force
But even more crucial is this: China and Russia have no desire whatsoever to become an empire again. These two countries have finally understood the eternal truth, which is that empires are like parasites who feed on the body which hosts them. Yes, not only are all empires always and inherently evil, but a good case can be made that the first victims of imperialism are always the nations which “host the empire” so to speak. Oh sure, the Chinese and the Russians want their countries to be truly free, powerful and sovereign, and they understand that this is only possible when you have a military which can deter an attack, but neither China nor Russia have any interests in policing the planet or imposing some regime change on other countries. All they really want is to be safe from the USA, that’s it.
This new reality is particularly visible in the Middle-East where countries like the United States, Israel or Saudi Arabia (this is the so-called “Axis of Kindness”) are currently only capable of deploying a military capable of massacring civilians or destroy the infrastructure of a country, but which cannot be used effectively against the two real regional powers with a modern military: Iran and Turkey.
But the most revealing litmus test was the US attempt to bully Venezuela back into submission. For all the fire and brimstone threats coming out of DC, the entire “Bolton plan(s?)” for Venezuela has/have resulted in a truly embarrassing failure: if the Sole “Hyperpower” on the planet cannot even overpower a tremendously weakened country right in its backyard, a country undergoing a major crisis, then indeed the US military should stick to the invasion of small countries like Monaco, Micronesia or maybe the Vatican (assuming the Swiss guard will not want to take a shot at the armed reps of the “indispensable nation”). The fact is that an increasing number of medium-sized “average” countries are now gradually acquiring the means to resist a US attack.
So if the writing is on the wall for the AngloZionist Empire, and if no country can replace the USA as imperial world hegemon, what does that mean?
It means the following: 1000 years of European imperialism is coming to an end!
This time around, neither Spain nor the UK nor Austria will take the place of the USA and try to become a world hegemon. In fact, there is not a single European nation which has a military even remotely capable of engaging the kind of “colony pacification” operations needed to keep your colonies in a suitable state of despair and terror. The French had their very last hurray in Algeria, the UK in the Falklands, Spain can’t even get Gibraltar back, and Holland has no real navy worth speaking about. As for central European countries, they are too busy brown-nosing the current empire to even think of becoming an empire (well, except Poland, of course, which dreams of some kind of Polish Empire between the Baltic and the Black Sea; let them, they have been dreaming about it for centuries, and they will still dream about it for many centuries to come…).
Now compare European militaries with the kind of armed forces you can find in Latin America or Asia? There is such a knee-jerk assumption of superiority in most Anglos that they completely fail to realize that medium and even small-sized countries can develop militaries sufficient enough to make an outright US invasion impossible or, at least, any occupation prohibitively expensive in terms of human lives and money (see here, here and here). This new reality also makes the typical US missile/airstrike campaign pretty useless: they will destroy a lot of buildings and bridges, they will turn the local TV stations (“propaganda outlets” in imperial terminology) into giant piles of smoking rubble and dead bodies, and they kill plenty of innocents, but that won’t result in any kind of regime change. The striking fact is that if we accept that warfare is the continuation of politics by other means, then we also have to admit, that under that definition, the US armed forces are totally useless since they cannot help the USA achieve any meaningful political goals.
The truth is that in military and economic terms, the “West” has already lost. The fact that those who understand don’t talk, and that those who talk about this (denying it, of course) have no understanding of what is taking place, makes no difference at all.
In theory, we could imagine that some kind of strong leader would come to power in the USA (the other western countries are utterly irrelevant), crush the Neocons like Putin crushed them in Russia, and prevent the brutal and sudden collapse of the Empire, but that ain’t gonna happen. If there is one thing which the past couple of decades have proven beyond reasonable doubt is that the imperial system is entirely unable to reform itself in spite of people like Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Ross Perrot, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel or even Obama and Trump – all men who promised meaningful change and who were successfully prevented by the system of achieving anything meaningful. Thus the system is still 100% effective, at least inside the USA: it took the Neocons less than 30 days to crush Trump and all his promises of change, and now it even got Tulsi Gabbard to bow down and cave in to Neocons’ absolutely obligatory political orthodoxy and myths.
So what is likely to happen next?
Simply put, Asia will replace the Western World. But – crucially – this time around no empire will come to take the place of the AngloZionist one. Instead, a loose and informal coalition of mostly Asian countries will offer an alternative economic and civilizational model, which will be immensely attractive to the rest of the planet. As for the Empire, it will very effectively disband itself and slowly fade into irrelevance. Both US Americans and Europeans will, for the very first time in their history, have to behave like civilized people, which means that their traditional “model of development” (ransacking the entire planet and robbing everybody blind) will have to be replaced by one in which these US Americans and Europeans will have to work like everybody else to accumulate riches. This notion will absolutely horrify the current imperial ruling elites, but I wager that it will be welcomed by the majority of the people, especially when this “new” (for them) model will yield more peace and prosperity than the previous one!
Indeed, if the Neocons don’t blow up the entire planet in a nuclear holocaust, the USA and Europe will survive, but only after a painful transition period which could last for a decade or more. One of the factors which will immensely complicate the transition from Empire to “regular” country will be the profound and deep influence 1000 years of imperialism have had on the western cultures, especially in the completely megalomaniac United States (Professor John Marciano’s “Empire as a way of life” lecture series addresses this topic superbly – I highly recommend them!): One thousand years of brainwashing are not so easily overcome, especially on the subconscious (assumptions) level.
Finally, the current rather nasty reaction to the multi-culturalism imposed by the western ruling elites is no less pathological than this corrosive multi-culturalism in the first place. I am referring to the new theories “revisiting” WWII and finding inspiration in all things Third Reich, very much including a revival of racist/racialist theories. This is especially ridiculous (and offensive) when coming from people who try to impersonate Christians but who instead of prayers on their lips just spew 1488-like nonsense. These folks all represent precisely the kind of “opposition” the Neocons love to deal with and which they always (and I really mean *always*) end up defeating. This (pretend) opposition (useful idiots, really) will remain strong as long as it remains well funded (which it currently is). But as soon as the current megalomania (“We are the White Race! We built Athens and Rome! We are Evropa!!!”) ends with an inevitable faceplant, folks will eventually return to sanity and realize that no external scapegoat is responsible for the current state of the West. The sad truth is that the West did all this to itself (mainly due to arrogance and pride!), and the current waves of immigrants are nothing more than a 1000 years of really bad karma returning to where it came from initially. I don’t mean to suggest that folks in the West are all individually responsible for what is happening now. But I do say that all the folks in the West now live with the consequences of 1000 years of unrestrained imperialism. It will be hard, very hard, to change ways, but since that is also the only viable option, it will happen, sooner or later.
But still – there is hope. IF the Neocons don’t blow up the planet, and IF mankind is given enough time to study its history and understand where it took the wrong turn, then maybe, just maybe, there is hope.
I think that we can all find solace in the fact that no matter how ugly, stupid and evil the AngloZionist Empire is, no other empire will ever come to replace it.
In other words, should we survive the current empire (which is by no means certain!) then at least we can look forward to a planet with no empires left, only sovereign countries.
I submit that this is a future worth struggling for.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZpGWyG Tyler Durden
Australia’s construction slump is taking its toll on the major companies in the industry with one of the nation’s largest developers, Ralan Group, forced into voluntary administration, according to ABC Australia. The developer has frozen billions in apartment projects, and has debts of about $500 million to its creditors.
Cement manufacturers, like Adelaide Brighton, have also felt the pain. Adelaide Brighton recently suspended its interim dividend after downgrading its profit forecast, sending its shares down 18.3% in recent trading. Similar Australian companies like Boral and CSR also saw their stocks plunge 7.8% and 6.1%, respectively, as a result. This happened one day after building approvals plunged 25.6%.
Ralan Group’s administrators, Grant Thornton, said that the company has a “development pipeline of over 3,000 residential units which are in the construction or pre-sale stage as well as operating accommodation assets comprising over 600 rooms”.
Grant Thonton’s national managing partner Said Jahani said: “In terms of the operating businesses within the group, it is as far as possible, business as usual. We are working closely with key stakeholders to identify and preserve value for creditors.”
The administrators are still conducting an “initial investigation” as to why the company collapsed. In the case of Adelaide Brighton, it warned that its underlying net profit would “fall to $120-130 million this calendar year — a 37 per cent drop compared to the $190.1 million profit it earned last year.”
The company said “further softening of conditions in the residential and civil construction markets” was to blame. “Continued competitive pressure” in Queensland and South Australia and “sustained increase in raw material costs” were also cited as reasons for the cut.
It was the second profit downgrade from the company in less than 3 months. Citi’s building materials analyst Daniel Kang downgraded Adelaide Brighton’s stock two months ago, stating:
“A vicious cocktail of an accelerating housing downturn, intensifying competition and higher raw material costs triggered the company’s profit warning.”
The broader data coming out of Australia’s construction sector continues to be dismal:
ABS revealed this week that building approvals had fallen 1.2% in June, driven by a slump in apartment construction.
Annualized results were even uglier, with total dwellings receiving construction approvals down 25.6% for the year.
Approvals for houses were down 14.8% over the same 12 month period.
Apartment approvals posted a catastrophic 39.3% plunge since June 2018.
Trend approvals are now at 174,000 for the year, the lowest in 6 years.
Morgan Stanley economist Chris Read said: “We expect further declines in building approvals in the coming months, given the elevated level of new supply coming to market and still tight credit conditions.” Meanwhile, UBS chief economist George Tharenou “forecast[s] no recovery, with dwelling commencements to drop to 170,000 this year”.
Tharenou stated: “Hence, as the still near record pipeline of activity completes, GDP-basis dwelling investment will likely still decline for at least a year, and probably slump by around 10 per cent year-over-year, dragging down construction jobs.”
BIS managing director Robert Mellor concluded:
“Australia’s dwelling stock deficiency will grow once again as rising undersupplies in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania develop by 2020/21. We anticipate this pressure to facilitate growth in house prices and rents, helping create a renewed upswing in residential building starts through the early to mid-2020s. The downturn has further to run with an additional 8 per cent decline forecast for 2019/20, with the fall in residential building outweighing the growth expected in the non-residential sector.”
Finally, for those who use Australia as a direct proxy of its biggest trade partner, China, the accelerating slowdown down under is an especially ominous indicator for what is truly taking place below China’s carefully maintained artificial facade.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yxDjuD Tyler Durden
Facebook is one step closer to reading your mind. The social media giant has become one step closer to developing a working brain-computer interface, capable of reading users’ thoughts.
CNBCreported that Facebook has taken yet another step in developing its brain-computer interface, with the company’s Reality Labs division working alongside researchers from the University of California, San Francisco to develop a device that can decode speech directly from the human brain onto a screen.A new report published in the journalNature Communications reveals that researchers are becoming closer than ever to connecting human brains directly to computers.
Researchers reportedly worked with three patients currently undergoing treatment for epilepsy in order to develop the device. The patients had electrodes implanted into their brains and researchers will spend the next year testing the technology. Researchers from UCSF stated that the findings of the research could help to give patients that are unable to speak due to severe brain injuries a new way to communicate. –Breitbart News
Researchers have claimed that successful trials are more likely to be used as part of Facebook’s efforts to develop augmented reality glasses.
Today we’re sharing an update on our work to build a non-invasive wearable device that lets people type just by imagining what they want to say. Our progress shows real potential in how future inputs and interactions with AR glasses could one day look. https://t.co/ilk192GwAR
“It’s currently bulky, slow, and unreliable,” Facebook said. “But the potential is significant, so we believe it’s worthwhile to keep improving this state-of-the-art technology over time.”
Many other Silicon Valley companies are also researching computer-brain interfaces, with Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink working on a similar project.
Musk claimed at a recent event that the company expects to start human trials before the end of 2020. Facebook is quickly jumping into artificial intelligence and mind reading at a time when humanity is quickly approaching “singularity.” or the point of no return when it comes to machine learning.
Singularity is the point in time when humans can create an artificial intelligence machine that is smarter. Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief of engineering, says that the singularity will happen in 2045. Louis Rosenberg claims that we are actually closer than that and that the day will be arriving sometime in 2030. MIT’s Patrick Winston would have you believe that it will likely be a little closer to Kurzweil’s prediction, though he puts the date at 2040, specifically. –SHTFPlan
Kurzweil has said that the work happening right now “will change the nature of humanity itself.” He said robots “will reach human intelligence by 2029 and life as we know it will end in 2045.” There is a risk that technology will overtake humanity and make human society irrelevant at best and extinct at worst.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yvtj5l Tyler Durden
According to a new lengthy Bloombergexploration outlining the possibilities that China’s military could intervene against the now eight weeks-long increasingly violent protests that have gripped Hong Kong streets, a central question now on everyone’s mind is, What will the Chinese military do?
2017 PLA military drill at Hong Kong garrison, via CNN
Reports began appearing late last week of a Chinese security forces build-up just outside the semi-autonomous city, setting nerves on edge, and this week the chief of the Chinese military garrison in Hong Kong warned thatthe army stands ready to “protect” Chinese sovereignty. And then there was also the extremely provocative just released “riot control” video, showing People’s Liberation Army (PLA) solders conducing a drill to invade a city in an imagined armed crackdown on protesters and unrest.
The Bloombergreport begins by noting that though Chinese army occupation of Hong Kong remains unlikely, it remains that “even smaller-scale intervention could spark a knee-jerk exodus from the city’s financial markets, drag down property prices and prompt international companies to reconsider their presence in the territory, analysts say.” The major financial hub could suffer “irreparable damage” by such an exodus, along with severely weakening the “one country, two systems” concept in effect since 1997.
Chinese military officials, and especially state media have begun floating the argument for “military options” and intervention. Officials also recently described the US as a “black hand” behind the anti-Beijing protests – which began over a proposed extradition bill – something which the US state department dismissed as “ridiculous”.
Below are some of the key takeaways from the Bloomberg report, which heavily quoted military analysts regarding PLA troop numbers stationed near Hong Kong.
***
Beijing doesn’t want a Tiananmen “massacre” repeat
“Beijing is unlikely to use the PLA to quell the protests until it feels it has exhausted all other levers at its disposal,” Euan Graham, a former Asia analyst at the U.K.’s foreign office, now at an international Asian affairs think tank. “However much Xi Jinping fears chaos within China’s borders and that the use of the PLA is legitimate in his eyes, above all he does not want to have the stain of another Tiananmen massacre.”
Some 20,000 PLA officers in neighboring province
“A senior Trump administration official told reporters Tuesday that the White House was monitoring a congregation of Chinese troops or armed police gathering across the mainland border from Hong Kong. The nature of the build-up was unclear, and the report coincided with a swearing-in ceremony for 19,000 officers in the neighboring province of Guangdong.”
Via Bloomberg
6,000 PLA troops garrisoned in the city
“While the garrison has never been deployed at the request of Hong Kong’s government, it could in theory be called to action at a moment’s notice. An estimated 6,000 PLA troops are stationed in the city at any given time, with thousands more located across the border in Shenzhen, according to Rand Corp. The PLA’s Hong Kong headquarters sits in the city’s main business district, a few steps from Bank of America Tower.”
Alternative to PLA intervention: the 600,000+ strong “People’s Armed Police”
“One alternative form of intervention for Beijing might be the deployment of the People’s Armed Police, said Meia Nouwens, research fellow for Chinese defense policy and military modernization at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. The 660,000-member paramilitary force is often the agency China relies on to guard sensitive sites like Tiananmen and quell unrest in places like the predominately Muslim region of Xinjiang.”
PLA soldiers during a 2016 demonstration at the opening day of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Base at Stonecutter Island in Hong Kong. Source: CNN
Major investment bank warns of “worse case scenario” in client letter
“Aside from calling in the PLA, other “worst-case scenario” options for Hong Kong include declaring martial law or a state of emergency, Kevin Lai, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong Ltd., wrote in a July 25 report to clients. Intervention from Beijing could prompt the U.S. to revoke its preferential trading designation for Hong Kong, a potentially devastating blow for the city’s economy, Lai said in an interview.”
“There may be a possibility that they need to call for the PLA,” Lai said, adding that the odds are still low. “If they do that, it would be very negative for Hong Kong.”
* * *
Image source: Getty
Should such a “worse case scenario” unfold with a PLA crackdown on Hong Kong’s streets, what would be the likely reaction from the White House?
Trump weighed in on Thursday in Washington, calling the Hong Kong protests “riots” — the same label used by Chinese authorities. Trump said he doesn’t know what China’s attitude is on the matter. “Somebody said that at some point they’re going to want to stop that,” he said. “But that’s between Hong Kong and that’s between China, because Hong Kong is a part of China.”
One analyst cited in the report aptly described, “If it does happen, Hong Kong as we know it will be over.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MBFVQI Tyler Durden
A thoughtful feature of the post-cold war ‘adjustment’ in India’s foreign policies following the disbandment of the former Soviet Union was that Delhi should stick to the proverbial principle ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ when it comes to America.
The maxim of the three wise monkeys in the ancient Indian folklore stems from the elite’s ‘unipolar predicament’ – a notion that to be on the right side of history in the 21st century means India might as well jump on the US bandwagon.
Delhi’s strategic patience under Prime Minister Modi’s rule has been somewhat stretched to the limits during the Donald Trump presidency. Modi tried everything in the Indian rope trick to pacify the mercurial American president. But with Trump, no one can be quite sure. Where golf-playing statesmen oozing charm – such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – failed, India should have drawn conclusions.
Delhi instead chose to ignore the taunting – at times insulting – Trumpean tweets poking at Modi. Trump even cavalierly turned down the ultimate honour that Modi could bestow on him – an invite to be the chief guest at India’s National Day parade in Delhi.
Then, on July 22, all hell broke loose with Trump disclosing to the media that Modi has asked him to play the role of a mediator on Kashmir issue – India’s Achilles’ heel – and that he is rolling up the sleeves. And, rubbing salt into the Indian wound, Trump made this sensational disclosure in the presence of the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Doesn’t Trump know that India publicly disavows third party mediation on Kashmir? Without doubt, he knows. And that’s the whole point. Within hours, the Indian foreign ministry reacted evasively that ‘no such request has been made’ by Modi. The Indian spokesman rolled out the mantra regarding India’s ‘consistent position that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are discussed only bilaterally.’ Delhi added, ‘Any engagement with Pakistan would require an end to cross border terrorism’.
In the present context, Pakistan’s help to end the Afghan war can mean a big foreign policy achievement for Trump that would have mileage for his campaign for the presidential election next year in the US. Therefore, the probability is that Trump was being boastful by ‘declassifying’ fully or partly what must have been a highly sensitive exchange between him and Modi in Osaka without any aides present.
Suffice to say, Trump’s mediatory offer on Kashmir and the salience of Imran Khan’s visit to the US hold serious implications for Indian policies.
First and foremost, the Modi government recoiled from the backlash of Indian public opinion regarding Trump’s mediatory offer. In reality, though, India has selectively accepted US mediation in the past, the best known example being the Kargil War in 1990. Therefore, even if Modi had sought Trump’s mediation, it would have been nothing extraordinary.
In fact, tactically, it would have been a clever ploy to pin down Trump to the neutral ground as regards India-Pakistan tensions even as Imran Khan was to shortly undertake a momentous visit to the US.
Indeed, Imran Khan’s visit will cause disquiet in the Indian mind insofar as Trump is promising to Pakistan a seamless alliance. This is happening at an awkward moment for India when the guns have fallen silent on the India-Pakistan border and the cross-border infiltration of militants to J&K has dried up lately.
The Modi government is just about to roll out a new strategy toward the J&K situation. The Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh publicly announced only last week that a final solution to the J&K situation is ‘imminent’.
A reasonable guess is that the Modi government plans to integrate J&K by divesting or eroding some of its so-called ‘special status’, taking advantage of the perceived Pakistani capitulation on cross-border terrorism. That plan may now have to be put on the back burner.
One of the basic assumptions behind that plan is that there isn’t going to be any international repercussions if Delhi robustly pushed the project forward, with coercion if need be, to integrate J&K. But Trump may have now shaken up the Indian confidence. Trump drew attention to the security situation in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, the longstanding character of the Kashmir problem and the singular inability of India and Pakistan to resolve the dispute bilaterally.
The way things are developing in the equations between Washington and Islamabad at the highest level of leaderships, Pakistan has succeeded in getting the US to accept a linkage between any Afghan settlement and a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Trump’s remarks in their totality implicitly seems to acknowledge such a linkage.
At any rate, for the big hand that Pakistan is holding out to Trump to help end the Afghan war and claim a foreign-policy trophy in 2020, it will expect far greater US sensitivity toward Pakistan’s legitimate interests in regional security and stability, where its longstanding demand is for ‘strategic balance’ in South Asia. In the Pakistani estimation, ‘strategic balance’ requires a rest of the US’ South Asia policy compass, which tilts in favour of India.
Trump’s remarks suggest that he accepts in principle that goodwill and cooperation makes a two-way street. Therefore, Trump’s explosive disclosure will also have resonance with the Kashmiri people who are already alienated from the Indian state. Trump may have unwittingly given hope to the Kashmiris.
J&K’s planned ‘integration’ now becomes an uphill task for the Modi government. Nonetheless, Delhi is not going to be deterred from integrating J&K on terms that Bharathiya Janata Party, India’s ruling party, has unwaveringly set as its goal. From Delhi’s mild reaction to Trump’s remarks, it seems Modi government hopes to continue to tackle POTUS by making concessions elsewhere — such as, more lucrative arms deals.
The Indian analysts often speak of foreign policy under Modi as one of ‘multi-alignment’. But in practice, Indian policies operate on the ground as if the world community is an animal farm where the US remains more equal than others. Simply put, the Indian elites desire it that way, the bureaucrats are au fait with it and the Diaspora in North America, which roots for Hindu nationalism, demands it.
This is where the fundamental contradiction lies. When Trump says he is raring to mediate on Kashmir and help normalise India-Pakistan relations, he has unceremoniously trespassed on India’s core interests. Hopefully, this will trigger an Indian rethink in a longer term perspective rather than as a storm in the tea cup, given the high probability that Trump will remain in power for a second term as well.
Such poignant moments underscore that India’s strategic ambivalence in the contemporary world order, characterised by growing multipolarity, is becoming increasingly untenable. Modi’s forthcoming visit to Russia in September and the visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India in October will provide significant pointers to the Indian policies in the changing regional and international milieu.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LXzjwt Tyler Durden
The nationwide housing bust is underway with the first cracks showing up in Seattle-area home prices.
The price of a Seattle single-family home in May fell 1.2% YoY, the first negative change in a major US city in this cycle, according to new data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller.
“Whether negative YOY rates of change spread to other cities remains to be seen,” said S&P Dow Jones Indices Director and Global Head of Index Governance Philip Murphy, in a statement.
“For now, there is still substantial diversity in local trends.”
Eric Basmajian, Founder of EPB Macro Research, said an industrial slowdown has moved into real estate and is now affecting some areas in services, has the potential to create “negative wealth effect,” something that most Americans haven’t seen since the last recession. He warned if more cities experience negative home price growth YoY, like Seattle, this will undoubtedly put downward pressure on the domestic economy in the coming quarters.
“As the deceleration in economic activity becomes increasingly pervasive, spreading from manufacturing to housing and now some areas of the service sector, the potential for a negative wealth effect has reemerged – a dynamic not seen for most of this economic cycle.
The growth rate in the national home price index has dropped to an 80 month low, falling below 3.5% year over year. While the national index continues to decelerate, holding above the zero bound, the latest data showed Seattle recording the first negative reading in year over year home price growth, falling 1.2% compared to the same month last year.
Of note is how broad-based the decline in home price appreciation has become with none of the major cities recording a rate of home price growth greater than one year ago and only one region posting a growth rate above the reading six months ago.
Should more cities continue on this path to negative home price growth, the potential for a negative wealth effect and downward pressure on forward consumption remains a strong possibility, adding to the already mounting headwinds facing the domestic economy.”
But digging into local-area price trends, north and south of Seattle remained vibrant. In Tacoma and Pierce County, median house prices increased 7.3% in June YoY, according to data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. And prices in Kitsap and Skagit County both recorded sizeable price gains.
The Case-Shiller index identified three tiers of home prices in Seattle: over $625,000, less than $400,000, and those in between. The lowest-priced homes in the Seattle metropolitan area did the best, increased in May by 2.74% YoY. But it’s the mid-tier to the luxury homes that have gone cold.
Nationwide, growth rates in home prices have been slowing in the last three quarters. Las Vegas, which passed Seattle as the nation’s hottest housing market last June, saw gains of 6.4%, still experiencing declining growth rates over the last year.
As Basmajian noted, a turning point in the domestic economy could be nearing if more major cities see negative home price growth YoY. Perhaps Seattle is a leading indicator of what’s to come for the national housing market.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GHAyf2 Tyler Durden
A few months ago I was on the Lite Show (Litecoin) podcast, we got to talking about Facebook’s forthcoming crypto currency, which hadn’t been named yet. I mused then that it would totally suck for the entire crypto-currency space to have come this far with Bitcoin, et al only to have Facebook swoop in and take all the marbles. (In marketing parlance this maneuver is called “grabbing the microphone”)
Then Facebook announced their digital currency, it’s Libra, and it was met with immediate resistance. But the pushback, didn’t come from wherer one might expect it, the crypto community, there was plenty of commentary about it to be sure, but nobody from within the crypto space was saying that Libra had to be stopped.
No, the immediate pushback came from various tendrils of myriad states and government entities, including:
Maxine Waters, immediately calling for Facebook to cease all work on Libra
and most recently the G7 (at least recent when I last worked on this post), the G7 forming a task force to address the issues Libra raises, and urging the “highest possible level of regulation” on it,
This instant pushback against Libra seems even more intense than any initial government condemnations against Bitcoin itself when it started to gain traction over the initial ramp up. Perhaps there are good reasons for this, such as:
In the rear-view mirror, it’s possible that governments now view giving Bitcoin some room to run was a mistake, and it opened a Pandora’s box (from their perspective) which would be unable to be contained, and
Facebook provides an identifiable target – governments can actually pinpoint them and (for now) regulate or threaten to regulate them. They can’t target Satoshi Nakamoto or an open source repository of computer source code.
I mused in my dayjob’s #AxisOfEasy newsletter #102 that we seem to be arriving in a scenario depicted in the Mr Robot TV series, where the crypto-currency Bitcoin and a private, corporate sponsored e-coin dual for supremacy in the aftermath of a hacker induced economic collapse (In the series, Libra’s role is depicted as the fictionalized “Evilcoin” with Bitcoin starring as itself. The economic collapse also turns out to be a Trojan horse operation launched by China).
The only thing missing from today’s reality, as I write this, is the economic collapse part, but with stock markets sliding from all-time highs, and the Fed cutting rates again in this ostensibly great economy, clueful observers the world over sense that something is about to give. Tangentially the stealth bull in precious metals and resurgence of Bitcoin, even in the face of Libra, all point toward the idea that not all of these economic indicators can be right at the same time. That means at some point a disorderly readjustment may occur.
Welcome to a New World Order. We call it “Snow Crash”
Snow Crash was the Neal Stephenson near-future thriller set against a backdrop in which national governments found themselves set back on their heels, competing against privatized sovereignties across a wide spectrum ranging from a multi-national pizza conglomerate to the global Mafia.
Why didn’t Bitcoin tank when Libra was announced? If one is to accept the superficial premise that Facebook will indeed swoop in and capture the digital currency space after Bitcoin softened the ground for them, the announcement should have had a similar effect to when Amazon announced it was buying Whole Foods, and grocers everywhere tanked hard. That didn’t happen, why not?
By contrast, Bitcoin has more or less held steady since the announcement, after giving back some ground after an initial spike higher post-Libra. In any case, there was no instantaneous death crash compared to when Amazon entered the grocery space.\
The reason, I think, is because Facebook’s Libra isn’t challenging Bitcoin. Facebook, perhaps without even being aware of it themselves, is doing the same thing Bitcoin and crypto-currencies did when they emerged out of a financial crisis spawned by central bank manipulation and a currency regime so rigged as to destroy all market signalling capabilities:it challenged the prevailing economic order, and that order is the scaffolding of the nation state as we know it.
In other words, these crypto and digital currencies are ushering in a new era of competitive economic sovereignty, and with it, the decline of the hegemony of nation states.
One of the best books I’ve ever read that anticipated this disruptive shift in the nature of sovereignty was “The Sovereign Individual” by James Dale Davidson and the late Lord William Rees-Mogg (father of Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was once reportedly on the short list to replace Mark Carney to head the BoE).
According to that book: Nation states arose by capturing escalating returns on violence and force. The transition into the gunpowder era ushered in the rise of nationhood, and increasing returns on violence, right up until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The fall of Eastern block, they argue, was not an ultimate victory of the West over Communism, as Francis Fukuyama asserted in The End of History. Instead they posited it more as the death of a fraternal twin, that of nation statehood.
As the returns on violence decreased as can be witnessed by every military disaster the US has undertaken since WWII, the other twin is now sclerotic and withering. So what does have increasing returns now? It isn’t violence anymore. It’s information. The shift from one to the other means that the nature of the monetary system will also shift.
The old order monetary system was built on Bretton Woods – a global reserve currency backed by US military imperialism. That system is going away and everybody knows it.
Money does not issue forth from power, recall my prior citations of Stephen Zarlenga: who controls the money system, controls society. Power emanates from money. Nation states and central banks assumed they would retain control of the money system indefinitely. That they could continue to manipulate the money supply to further their own interests (Cantillon Effect driven benefits) and there was nothing anybody would ever be able to do about it.
But Revolution has a way of lobbing disruptive, explosive technologies from the periphery where nobody is expecting an asteroid to originate. Did the major music labels expect to be reinvented by Apple? Did the Hollywood studios expect to be elbowed aside by Netflix and Amazon? And did the nation states and central bankers think disruption would encroach and fundamentally transform all aspects of society but stop at the demarcation point of sovereignty and money? Why yes, yes they did.
Money has evolved, and is now reinventing itself for the next ascendant wave of increasing returns: information. Next, sovereignty will reconfigure itself to adjust to the new format of money. This is the opening that Bitcoin opened up, and Facebook is the among the first to make a move into it. And that’s why ensconced governments are so up in arms about it. They recognize direct, real competition to their own authority and relevance. The nation state isn’t going away any time soon, but the rise of the platforms isn’t going to be stopped, either.
In the future, your digital single-sign-on credentials that you use to access various online platforms (or the one platform from which you derive your entire sustenance and livelihood) will be as important to you, perhaps eventually more so, than your government issued passport.
Governments want to regulate how the Age of the Platforms will rise, which is similar to how the Papacy once deigned to guide and arbitrate royal succession. But over time this will reverse and it will be the Platforms that increasingly set the terms for nation states. Given the accelerated pace things move at today, this process will not play out over centuries, the way the transition from feudalism to nation states did, but over decades, even years in some places.
Today nobody raises an eyebrow that the SNB is Apple’s largest shareholder by printing francs and buying shares. What happens tomorrow, when Facebook issues some Libra, sells them for USD to pay their taxes? Or to settle one of the myriad fines levied, like Papal encyclicals of yesteryear, against these upstarts? My guess is governments will scream foul, “only we can print value ex nihilo!” . But the reality is, anybody can create their own monetary instruments provided they can find a market to ascribe value to it. Money has always changed with the times and arisen privately, the states then adapt, co-opting whatever emerges as money at the earliest possible opportunity. Looking back on today that may be what Libra is to Bitcoin. The equivalent of a Federal Reserve of Digital Currencies (the Libra Founders Association looks hauntingly like a modern, cyber analog to the member banks of the Fed).
The Real Battle of the Future
One might think that this means the battle of our times will be between the falling (failing) nation states and the rising Platform challengers, but that’s not the way I see it. In many cases nationhood and platform will effectively merge, witness China, where tech giants like Google and IBM’s Open Power Foundation is helping the Chinese government build out their Sesame Credit total surveillance platform.
In other situations, platforms may prevail, if Facebook or some other technology upstart is successful in their machinations they may become more relevant than the State in many jurisdictions. They may effectively become the de facto state in some areas.
In both these cases the defining characteristic will be centralization and consolidation of power and authority.
Against this, will be the ascendency of decentralized, autonomous sovereignties based on crypto-currency models and the original ethos of Bitcoin.
Where Western Capitalism vs Communism was the defining question of the now ending age of industrial nation states, the fraternal twins of the future may be that of platforms vs protocols.
The former centralized, consolidated, authoritarian as anticipated by Fukuyama and fleshed out today in The New Digital Age, Google’s manifesto penned by Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt:
We collaborated first as writers of a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about lessons learned in Iraq, and thereafter as friends. We share a worldview about the potential of technology platforms, and their inherent power, and this informs all of the work we do, both within Google and outside it. We believe that modern technology platforms such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, are even more powerful than most people realize, and our future world will be profoundly altered by their adoption and successfulness in societies everywhere.
The pro-Tesla cultists over at InsideEVs published an article Friday morning highlighting an ex-employee who revealed “what it’s really like to work for Tesla”.
But instead of highlighting the interview’s content right off the bat, the article starts by immediately making excuses for Tesla at the expense of short sellers, claiming that “instead of dealing just with production and sales issues, [Tesla] also has to deal with the so-called shorters.”
The article claims that short-sellers are “everywhere,” even in the media. You know, because public conventional auto makers like Ford and General Motors don’t have people shorting their stock.
Perhaps InsideEVs felt like they needed to cover for some of the statements the ex-employee made.
The article goes on to present an interview with an ex-Tesla employee from the company’s solar, delivery and customer support department.
He opines on several topics during his time at Tesla. While talking about wait times for customer service, he says:
“The long wait times. I could coordinate those directly with the number of people available to take calls. You could see an entire department. An entire row of computers and phones on Monday – and then on Tuesday, that whole row is empty.”
He talks about his customer support training, where he’s flown to California, only to witness the current customer support team “pulled off into another room and told they were going to be let go after 30 days.”
He continued, talking about layoffs:
“They took a 12 person team down to 2. It’s just ridiculous. I don’t know how they expected me and my colleague to handle the workload ourselves. It was ridiculous. We got back to Utah, we watched all our friends that we had been working with get fired, which was a horrible day. I came back to Utah and I cried.”
When talking about why he stayed at Tesla for so long, he said:
“Elon had the right idea. His mission is not to make a bunch of cars, it’s to save the planet. That’s why I was on board. That’s why I put up with all the crap that they put me through. Because that was the true message that Tesla was about. It’s not about making a car.”
He also claims that many people at the company are on their way out the door:
“I still have plenty of friends who still work there and they tell me it’s just getting worse. Most of them are just trying to wait it out – to get their full year in to get their stock options, then they’re gonna leave. I can’t say that I have a good feeling about it.”
In describing Model 3 quality, he said:
“I kinda made the joke that when a car would come in and there were parts missing off of it, I’d say that one came out of the tent. I had to remove tape [from cars being taped together]. They would deliver Model 3’s on a diesel, the driver would unload the cars, hand me the keys and I would take the cars down to parking storage. I had a list of customers that were coming in that day. I would have to move the cars down and prep them so they could be washed. Half of that was just me taking tape off the car. I found interior door panels were not held on by anything. No clips, just tape. It was a circus. It’s true. “
He claims that he faced some “very strange hiccups” at delivery that he couldn’t attribute to simple mistakes or plain stupidity. We have to ask: has he checked the tone at the top of the company yet?
The employee points out that he is suspicious that “a big part of the current employees” are just there to sabotage the company.
“It would not surprise me if there was about 25 percent infiltration from other companies, like Ford, Chevy… That is just there throwing monkey wrenches into it,” he says.
The notion was immediately ridiculed by hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, who Tweeted out “#FacePalm”.
And in describing the future outlook, he offers this ominous sounding take:
“I’m scared, I’m hanging onto all the little trophies I got while I was at Tesla because I’m afraid that one day they’re going to be valuable because there’s not going to be any Teslas. I don’t have a great feeling.”
You can watch the ex-employee’s interview here:
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KfQAip Tyler Durden
