Multiple People Stabbed In Terrorist Incident In South London, Attacker Dead
Breaking moments ago, a man has been shot on a busy London street after reports at least one person was stabbed, reported BBC News.
The incident occurred in Streatham High Road around 2:30 PM and appeared to be a “terrorist-related” incident.
Metropolitan Police have tweeted, “A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related.”
#INCIDENT A man has been shot by armed officers in #Streatham. At this stage it is believed a number of people have been stabbed. The circumstances are being assessed; the incident has been declared as terrorist-related. Please follow @metpoliceuk for updates
The Daily Star said a witness on Twitter suggested a female “cyclist was stabbed in the back,” as well as another person, but that is an unofficial report and has yet to be confirmed by authorities.
Others have said a man stabbed the cyclist with “a knife grabbed from a restaurant and police shot him” and the man fell to the ground.
Here’s a video that appears to show the knife-wielding man on the ground after being shot by a police officer.
Over the last few weeks, the message from the newsletter has been repetitive:
“The markets are overbought, overextended, overly complacent. A correction is coming so reduce and rebalance portfolio risks.”
Despite those issues, the markets continued to push higher leaving readers with the assumption the “warnings” were wrong.
As noted last week, there have only been a few points over the previous 25-years where investors were so extremely lopsided in their positioning. We have shown many charts of investors being “all in” to equities over the last three weeks, but here is the latest Fund Manager’s Survey, which shows cash balances at 6-year lows.
The importance of these measures is not meant to be a “timing” signal to buy or sell positions. These measures are more valuable when thought about as an “accelerator” in a car. When markets are rising, investors press down on the accelerator, taking on more equity risk. As long as the road is straight, and visibility is good, it seems there are no consequences for driving at high speeds. However, if the road suddenly turns, or a hazard presents itself, bad outcomes happen very quickly.
The same is true for the markets. As markets are rising, investors ignore the warning signs, and the flashing yellow lights, under the assumption, there is no risk ahead. This is why we discussed taking profitsa couple of weeks ago, which was simply how we “eased our foot off the gas” as signs were warning of a “sharp curve ahead.”
I apologize for the analogy, but the message is important. The reason that investors do so poorly over time is the inability to manage risk. Risk is never a function of how much money you make when markets are rising; it is a measure of “your ability to survive the crash.”
This past week, the road took a sharp right as the “Coronavirus” begin to impact overly optimistic views of a global reflation. While media headlines have run rampant with commentary suggesting investors shouldn’t worry about the virus, we wrote on Thursday, this time is different than 2003.To wit:
“Following a nearly 50% decline in asset prices, a mean-reversion in valuations, and an economic recession ending, the impact of the SARS virus was negligible given the bulk of the ‘risk’ was already removed from asset prices and economic growth. Today’s economic environment could not be more opposed.”
With global growth already slow, and the U.S. dragging its feet along at roughly 2% annual growth, there isn’t much room to absorb the impact of an event that potentially curtails consumption. Here was the important point in our recent article:
“China itself is a much more crucial player in the global economy than it was at the time of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2003. It occupies a central place in many supply chains used by other manufacturing countries—including pharmaceuticals, with China home to 13 percent of facilities that make ingredients for U.S. drugs—and is a voracious buyer of raw materials and other commodities, including oil, natural gas, and soybeans. That means that any economic hiccups for China this year—coming on the heels of its worst economic performance in 30 years—will have a bigger impact on the rest of the world than during past crises.
That is particularly true given the epicenter of the outbreak: Wuhan, which is now under effective quarantine, is a riverine and rail transportation hub that is a key node in shipping bulky commodities between China’s coast and its interior.”
Importantly, as percentage of global GDP, China is 4x the size it was in 2003.
Don’t dismiss the risk of a viral contagion on an already weak global economy, at a time when asset prices are grossly deviated from actual profits, and GAAP earnings.
Is The Correction Over?
Since taking profits out of our portfolios, this leads us to the obvious question of whether or not the “Coronavirus Correction” is over?
From an investment standpoint, this is a fairly tricky question which brings up what we term in our practice as an “equity risk duration match.”
On a very short-term basis, there is a potential for a reflexive bounce. If your “investment duration,” or rather your “investment holding period” is very short, there may be a “trading” opportunity for you. However, if your “duration” is a longer time-frame, like ours, then the short-term oversold bounce is likely an opportunity to “reduce risk” further into.
As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
China’s mask shortage problem is so acute that the local government of Xiamen, which is located 1,200 km away from Wuhan, in East China’s Fujian Province has launched a lottery system for mask purchases through its official WeChat account Friday as China grapples to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
The step by the government, first reported by the Global Times, was reportedly launched in a bid to curtail the public gathering in the stores so as to reduce the possible risks of contracting the virus.
“You can still buy masks from local stores but we encourage you to buy it through our platform. Since you don’t need to wait on the queue in the crowds, it will reduce the risks for cross-infection,” a customer service rep told the Global Times.
The lottery is only available to the locally registered residents or the social security payees, according to the service provider. The winners will be notified via text message and unsuccessful applicants can directly participate in the subsequent lottery again.
There are drawbacks: the winners don’t have the option of choosing the type and prices of the masks as they depend on the stores, not the platform. Despite that each winner can only buy six masks from designated local stores, the service has still drawn many participants to try their luck, a service provider said, refusing to reveal the total number of applicants.
According to analysts, the masks shortage is the result of the inadequate production capacity during the Chinese Spring Festival which partly overlapped the coronavirus outbreak. It’s also the result of unprecedented demand.
And while the minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei said the ministry will take more powerful measures to ensure market supply, and odd site was observed in the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, Wuhan, where a local account has shared a video of thousands of boxes of supplies donated worldwide have been piled up in the open by the Wuhan Red Cross.
The account notes that “it only takes one heavy rain to make everything unhygienic” and asks “All supplies must pass through the Red Cross. Why? On what grounds? Various online shopping channels have their own delivery systems and are very mature. Why use a Red Cross? People’s lives are at stake, and they will never let go of efficient folk power, because the Red Cross is not a non-governmental organization, but a subsidiary organization of the party!”
The efficiency of Chinese state distribution services notwithstanding, in a surprising twist roughly a month after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a new theory is now being propounded, one according to which the virus is spreading not by air but by human feces.
Big discovery! Traces of the novel #coronavirus was found in the feces of some confirmed patients in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province pic.twitter.com/JqD7c0cuTp
According to a report by Zijian Feng, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “The initial focus of case detection was on patients with pneumonia, but we now understand that some patients can present with gastrointestinal symptoms.”
Which is ironic: China still considers an unknown number of coronavirus fatalities to be the result of pneumonia, and to keep the death count low has been putting down pneumonia as the source of death as the WSJ reported recently. Now doctors can add “deadly diarrhea” to the list of non-coronavirus reasons for death.
That said, while Bloomberg does not explicitly say it, the theory is built on rather flimsy foundations, and appears to almost be a diversion from something else:
The novel coronavirus was detected in the loose stool of the first U.S. case — a finding that hasn’t featured among case reports from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. However, that doesn’t surprise scientists who have studied coronaviruses, nor doctors familiar with the bug that caused SARS.
* * *
Doctors have reported diarrhea infrequently in 2019-nCoV patients admitted to Wuhan hospitals, though it’s been more prominent among reported cases outside the city, including members of a Shenzhen family infected in Wuhan, and more recently in the first U.S. case in Washington state. That patient experienced a two-day bout of diarrhea from which a sample tested positive.
In any case, any theory can be presented for public consumption – no matter how questionable – as long as it deflects from the worst-case scenario: that the version of coronavirus, whose R0 some now estimate is as high as 4, was not man-made.
WHO Warns “Countries Should Prepare For Local Outbreaks” As Pentagon Increases Quarantine Housing
Summary:
14,550 confirmed cases worldwide, 19,544 suspected cases, 304 deaths, 2,110 in serious/critical condition, 328 in China treated and released; 138,000 under observation
First death outside China recorded in the Philippines
24 countries reporting cases
Philippines, New Zealand join list of countries several restricting travelers from China
* * *
Local officials in Hubei weren’t kidding when they warned that Saturday would be the worst day so far for confirmed cases/deaths related to the coronavirus outbreak. China’s body count climbed above 300, and the first death outside the mainland was recorded in the Philippines. Scientists predict that exponentially more cases are active in China, but the true number either haven’t yet been diagnosed, or the Chinese government is simply suppressing it for obvious PR purposes. Anecdotal reports also claim the death toll is higher than the 304+.
Even though the man who died in Manila was from Wuhan, now that the virus has proved lethal outside the confines of China’s deeply overburdened health-care system, even more countries have decided to defy the WHO and restrict entry for travelers from China. New Zealand, Iraq, Indonesia and the Philippines have joined the growing list of countries – including the US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, etc. – who are imposing travel restrictions on people who have either recently been to China, or recently traveled to Hubei Province (or if they have a passport from Hubei).
“This is the first reported death outside China,” Rabindra Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organisation representative to the Philippines, said.
But that wasn’t all we heard from the WHO on Sunday. The organization, which just declared the outbreak a dangerous global pandemic, warned governments around the world to prepare for controlling domestic outbreaks.
“Countries need to get ready for possible importation in order to identify cases as early as possible and in order to be ready for a domestic outbreak control, if that happens,” WHO official Gauden Galea told The Associated Press in Bejing on Saturday.
Though the virus is the enemy, the people who carry it are also often treated with suspicion during outbreaks, and it appears this trend has finally peaked both inside and outside China. Two days ago, the New York Times published a story documenting what it described as ‘growing xenophobia’ in Japan, directed at Chinese whom locals feared might carry the virus. Inside China, videos have shown mobs surrounding families from Hubei. Government propaganda has directed a large swath of the country to stay inside until the outbreak subsides. It could be weeks before that happened. Businesses inside China have posted signs warning people from Hubei to stay away; in Japan and Hong Kong, signs are directed at all mainlanders.
Across China, the total number of cases under observation is now a whopping 137,594, an increase of over 19,000 from 118,478.
Outside China, the WHO reports roughly 130 confirmed cases of the virus in more than 20 countries outside of China and Taiwan. The Philippines reported the first death attributable to the virus outside of China. Other tallies put the number of confirmed cases outside China higher. Late Saturday in the US, new cases were confirmed in South Korea and India.
Chinese doctors are now claiming that the virus can be spread via fecal matter, as well as droplets passed through the air.
Expecting a bloodbath when markets open tomorrow (late Sunday evening in the US), Chinese financial regulators have already announced a massive $173 billion (Rmb1.2 trillion) support package. According to the FT, China’s central bank said on Sunday that it would provide the lending facilities to money markets as stock markets reopen following the LNY extended holiday, during which western markets logged heavy selling. Hong Kong markets also took a beating when they reopened for the second half of the week. BBG noted that the sum will come to $21 billion on a net basis, practically nothing, after covering the roll of previous liquidity injections.
The Huoshenshan Hospital, one of two hospitals being rapidly constructed in Wuhan, has finished construction, according to Chinese state media. It will begin admitting coronavirus patients on Monday, hopefully relieving some of the overwhelming burden on the city’s existing medical infrastructure. The Global Times reported that the hospital will be run by Huawei’s “remote consultation platform” which will improve efficiency. Nearly 2,000 PLA personnel are reportedly being dispatched to run a hospital that reportedly has been outfitted with what appear to be jail cells.
Wuhan #Huoshenshan Hospital has finished construction and will admit #coronavirus patients on Monday. #Huawei‘s “remote consultation platform” will also put into use there, improving the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment. #2019CoVpic.twitter.com/4zUDXjts75
When it’s all said and done, economists inside and outside China have warned that the outbreak could shave a percentage point or more off of GDP, potentially pushing the rate of growth below 5% – not that many economists trust the Chinese data anyway.
Back in the US, the country is waiting with baited breath to see whether a suspected 9th case of the virus – this time, in NYC – will be confirmed. The Pentagon recently approved a request for quarantine housing for 1,000 people, according to Epoch Times.
Across the world, dozens of airlines have suspended flights to and from China, some as far out as April.
Does that sound like everything is under control to you?
Massive natural gas discoveries off the eastern coast of Israel and Palestine is slated to make Tel Aviv a regional energy hub. Whether Israel will be able to translate positive indicators of the largely untapped gas reserves into actual economic and strategic wealth is yet to be seen.
What is certain, however, is that the Middle East is already in the throes of a major geostrategic war, which has the potential of becoming an actual military confrontation.
Unsurprisingly, Israel is at the heart of this growing conflict.
“Last week, we started to stream gas to Egypt. We turned Israel into an energy superpower,” Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, bragged during a cabinet meeting on January 19.
Netanyahu’s self-congratulating remarks came on the heels of some exciting financial news for the embattled Prime Minister, as both Jordan and Egypt are now Tel Aviv’s clients, receiving billions of cubic meters of Israeli gas.
For Netanyahu, pumping Israeli gas to two neighboring Arab countries constitutes more than just economic and political advantages – it is a huge personal boost. The Israeli leader is trying to convince the public to vote for him in yet another general election in March, while pleading to Israel’s political elite to give him immunity so that he can stay out of prison for various corruption charges.
For years, Israel has been exploiting the discovery of massive deposits of natural gas from the Leviathan and Tamar fields – located nearly 125 km and 80 km west of Haifa respectively – to reconstruct regional alliances and to redefine its geopolitical centrality to Europe.
The Israeli strategy, however, has already created potentials for conflict in an already unstable region, expanding the power play to include Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, and Libya, as well as Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Russia.
On January 2, Netanyahu was in Athens signing a gas pipeline deal, alongside Greek Prime Minister, Kyriako Mitotakis, and Cyprus President, Nicos Anastasiades.
The EastMed pipeline is projected to travel from Israel to Cyprus, to Greece and, ultimately, to Italy, thus transporting eastern Mediterranean gas directly to the heart of Europe.
A few years ago, this scenario seemed unthinkable, as Israel has, in fact, imported much of its natural gas from neighboring Egypt.
Israel’s Tamar field partly rectified Israel’s reliance on imported gas when it began production in 2003. Shortly after, Israel struck gas again, this time with far greater potential, in the massive Leviathan field. On December 31, 2019, Leviathan began pumping gas for the first time.
Leviathan is located in the Mediterranean Sea’s Levantine Basin, a region that is rich with hydrocarbons.
“Leviathan is estimated to hold over 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas—enough to fill Israeli power-generation needs for the next 40 years, while still leaving an ample supply for export,” wrote Frank Musmar in the BESA Center for Strategic Studies.
Egypt’s share of Israeli gas – 85 billion cubic meters (bcm), with an estimated cost of $19.5 billion – is acquired through the private Egyptian entity Dolphinus Holdings. The Jordanian deal was signed between the country’s national electricity company NEPCO, and American firm, Noble Energy, which owns a 45% stake in the Israeli project.
Jordanians have been protesting Israel’s gas deal en-masse, as they view economic cooperation between their country and Israel as an act of normalization, especially as Tel Aviv continues to occupy and oppress Palestinians.
The echoes of the popular protests have reached the Jordanian parliament which, on January 19, unanimously voted in favor of a law to ban gas imports from Israel. Israel is diversifying beyond exerting regional economic dominance to becoming a big player on the international geopolitical stage as well. The EastMed pipeline project, estimated at €6bn, is expected to cover 10% of Europe’s overall need for natural gas. This is where things get even more interesting.
Turkey believes that the deal, which involves its own regional rivals, Cyprus and Greece, is designed specifically to marginalize it economically by excluding it from the Mediterranean’s hydrocarbon boom.
Ankara is already a massive energy hub, being the host of TurkStream, which feeds Europe, with approximately 40% of its needs of natural gas coming from Russia. This fact has provided both Moscow and Ankara not only with more than economic advantages but geostrategic leverage as well. If the EastMed pipeline becomes a reality, Turkey and Russia will stand to lose the most.
In a series of successive, and surprising moves, Turkey retaliated by signing a maritime border deal with Libya’s internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and by committing to send military support to help Tripoli in its fight against forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar.
“Turkey will not permit any activity that is against its own interests in the region,” Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s Vice-President, told Anadolu News Agency, adding that “any plan that disregards Turkey has absolutely no chance of success.”
Although European countries were quick to condemn Ankara, the latter has succeeded in changing the rules of the game by staking a claim to vast areas that are also claimed by Greece and Cyprus as part of their so-called exclusive economic zones (EEZ).
Not only will Turkey be drilling in Libya’s territorial waters for natural gas, but in disputed water near Cyprus as well. Ankara is accusing Cyprus of violating “the equal claim to discoveries”, an arrangement that followed the military conflict between both countries in 1974.
If the issue is not resolved, the EastMed pipeline project could potentially turn into a pipedream. What seemed like a lucrative deal, with immense geopolitical significance from an Israeli point of view, now appears to be another extension of the wider Middle Eastern conflict.
While the EU is eager to loosen Russia’s strategic control over the natural gas market, the EastMed pipeline increasingly appears unfeasible from every possible angle.
However, considering the massive deposits of natural gasthat are ready to fuel struggling European markets, it is almost certain that the Mediterranean natural gas will eventually become a major source of political disputes, if not a war.
Shocking Footage Inside China’s Newly-Constructed Hospitals, ‘Like Jail Cells Where You Go To Die’
China has gone from constructing ghost cities to now erecting hospitals to treat coronavirus patients. As we’ve reported, China could be hiding the true number of confirmed cases and deaths, and in some cases, not reporting the deaths at all, and “immediately” hauling the bodies down the street to a local crematorium, effectively burning the evidence.
The government’s official death toll on Saturday night topped 300, with more than 14,550 cases reported globally.
China is attempting to show the world, it has been proactive and responsible during the outbreak, and in one way that it can optically please everyone that it has everything under control, is to build a hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of where the deadly virus supposedly began.
UK researchers have warned upwards of 75,000 could be infected in Wuhan, as more than 137,600 have been placed under observation across China.
While China and the World Health Organization (WHO) attempt to calm fears of a deadly virus outbreak, the actions by Beijing in locking down dozens of cities and quarantining 50 million people or more, suggest the situation remains severe.
RT News reports that Wuhan’s new 25,000-square-meter hospital, one of two new facilities commissioned in response to the coronavirus outbreak, has been completed.
Construction started on Jan. 24, has made national press and headlines across the world for China’s quick response in handling the epidemic. Though as we’ve noted before, China stalled for weeks if not a month, with minimal action in attempting to contain the virus and notify world health officials about the developing incident, hence why confirmed cases are now seen across the world.
State-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) published satellite images of the facility’s construction, declaring the hospital was completed on Saturday and can start receiving patients next week.
#BREAKING Construction work of Huoshenshan Hospital, #Wuhan‘s makeshift hospital built for treating pneumonia patients infected with the novel #coronavirus completed Sunday morning; the hospital will officially start services from Monday pic.twitter.com/njpeB8xqmG
Allegedly, a video from inside the hospital is circulating social media channels on Sunday morning. Each room appears to be airtight, with bars on the windows so the infected patients cannot escape.
#Breaking: Just in – Video footage from inside the finished 1000 bed hospital building just outside the outskirts of #Wuhan, showing a very tough quarantine measure system to contain the #CoronaVirus in #China. And they are still building another 2 of these in the #Hubei province pic.twitter.com/fsJ7OlLAxS
If the patients die from coronavirus, state-owned Global Times said, “victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid the spread of the virus: National Health Commission.”
Bodies of #nCoV2019 victims should be cremated close by and immediately. Burials or transfer of the bodies not allowed. Funerals not allowed to avoid spread of the virus: National Health Commission (File Photo) pic.twitter.com/IsAHnuY4Rk
The virus has uncontrollably spread across China, forcing the Trump administration on Friday to restrict entry into the US from the outbreak area.
The 8th US coronavirus case was confirmed on Saturday in Massachusetts, and a suspected one is being tested in New York City.
Putting the coronavirus in the context of the deadly SARS epidemic, the coronavirus pandemic has now officially exceeded SARS in cumulative cases in just two weeks.
Many Americans will basically be meeting Mike Bloomberg for the first time today, when the billionaire former three-term mayor of New York City drops an ad costing a reported $11 million during the Super Bowl. Despite have served in office first as a Republican and then as an independent, Bloomberg is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He’s not exactly unknown (he even once had a funny cameo on Curb Your Enthusiasm), but he’s hardly as familiar to most voters as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Donald Trump.
But based on his commercial, which is about gun violence in America, Bloomberg has already lost my potential vote. Let me explain.
As a small-l libertarian unaffiliated with any party, my vote is up for grabs in November even if I’ve gone Libertarian in almost every presidential race in which I’ve voted (the one exception came in 1984, when as a first-time voter, I cast a vote for Walter Mondale, whose self-deprecating “Norwegian charisma” and honest declaration that he would raise taxes to close the deficit spoke to me). Especially as I get older, I want to be able to vote for a candidate who might actually win and I understand that presidential politics will never cough up someone with whom I completely agree. Indeed, I even parted company with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson on various things despite enthusiastically voting for him in 2012 and 2016.
Rare among libertarians, who tend to dismiss Bloomberg as a petty tyrant for many plausible reasons, I was excited when he jumped into the Democratic race. Sure, he was a nanny stater on steroids when he ran the Big Apple, famous for his what-the-fuck efforts to ban Big Gulp sodas and salt and he was an unapologetic champion of the repressive police tactic known as “stop and frisk” (he’s unconvincingly repented now that he’s running for president). He remains an idiot and a hypocrite on pot legalization, among other things. It’s at least a little disturbing that he’s risen as high as fourth in some polls based solely on spending $250 billion on ads. His just-announced $5 trillion tax plan is a groaner as well, especially since he doesn’t seem interested in cutting spending.
But he’s running for president of the United States, so the soft bigotry of low expectations works in his favor. In a Democratic field filled with ultra-lefties such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom want to regulate the hell out of the economy, Bloomberg is a dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic capitalist who earned his $54 billion net worth the old-fashioned way: by providing an excellent service at a price that customers were willing to pay.
He is thus nothing less than a walking, talking refutation of the “destroy all billionaires” mindset of Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars“) and former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich (who says billionaires’ fortunes have nothing to do “with being successful in the supposed free market”).
Like the widely disliked and now-forgotten Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO who flirted with an independent run last year and openly defended free enterprise, Bloomberg has succeeded incredibly in the private sector and unlike his fellow billionaire Donald Trump, his wealth isn’t based on working political connections, getting tax breaks, and pursuing eminent domain grifts.
As important, Bloomberg has a real political record to run on. Talk to just about anybody with a five-digit income in New York and they’ll tell you that Bloomberg was a good mayor despite the Nurse Ratched flourishes. Unlike the current occupant of Gracie Mansion, the failed presidential contender and groundhog killer Bill De Blasio, Bloomberg made the city safe for commerce, improved the provision of basic services, and forced positive changes in the public school system. He was nobody’s idea of a libertarian, but he also oversaw an absolutely booming city.
So I looked forward to seeing him spar with Warren and Sanders on economic issues, mock Joe Biden for never having worked in the private sector, and dismiss Mayor Pete for his unaccomplished tenure in a city whose population is less than New York’s was in 1810. As befits somebody who made his mint in New York, Bloomberg is blunt, mean, and nasty and I caught myself daydreaming about the debates he might have with Donald Trump, whom he calls “a failed businessman whose companies went bankrupt multiple times.”
But that Super Bowl ad kills whatever minor buzz he gave me. This is how he chooses to intro himself to the voting public? The ad recounts the tragic, senseless shooting death of a young black man, a powerful vignette that Bloomberg’s campaign insists will “stop people in their tracks.” As mayor and afterwards, gun control was a central concern to Bloomberg, who helped bankroll 2018 candidates who wanted to restrict gun rights and whose website touts his plans to create “more effective background checks,” “keep guns out of the wrong hands,” “tackle daily gun violence in the hardest-hit communities,” “ban assault weapons and protect schools,” and “confront the gun lobby head-on.”
I believe in Second Amendment rights but I don’t have particularly strong feelings on the matter, especially compared to most libertarians. All of the things that Bloomberg suggests are either already basically the law or won’t have the effects supporters claim. As my Reason colleague Jacob Sullum has written, background checks will do nothing to stop mass shootings because “perpetrators of these attacks typically do not have disqualifying criminal or psychiatric records.” Beyond that, passing more and stricter laws generally don’t stop criminals, who don’t follow laws, from getting guns. Researchers funded by the federal government concluded that the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 had essentially no impact on gun violence and crime. Most important, Bloomberg simply ignores the massive declines in gun-related crimes and violence over the past 25 years. “There were 4.6 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2017, far below the 7.2 per 100,000 people recorded in 1974,” reports Pew. Between 1993 and 2015, “rates for crimes using guns dropped from 7.3 per 1,000 people to 1.1 per 1,000 people.”
The story told in Bloomberg’s Super Bowl ad is moving and sad, but I simply don’t understand why the billionaire would focus on the issue of gun violence in such a high-profile setting. In its way, it’s as off-kilter as Donald Trump’s insistence during the 2016 campaign that violent crime was somehow out of control. Perhaps Bloomberg is trying to signal loud and clear to Democratic primary voters that despite his past affiliations as a Republican and an independent, he is in synch with Democratic fixations and policy priorities.
Maybe the “George” ad will in fact help seal the deal with Democrats, but it leaves me and, I suspect, other independent voters wondering just how different he is from other candidates who are already in the race. I would have much rather seen a commercial that explained how Bloomberg would draw on his business experience and success as mayor of the largest city in the country to grow the economy, tackle looming entitlement cataclysms, and reduce culture-war battles.
The 2020 race doesn’t yet have a major-party candidate who offers a compelling, optimistic, and realistic vision of an economically vibrant and socially tolerant nation. Instead we have, on the one hand, an incumbent president who can barely go a few hours without picking fights and signing off on massive spending increases, trade barriers, and immigration restrictions. On the other hand, we have a bunch of Democrats who talk about massively expanding the size, scope, and spending of government while dreaming of new taxes and regulations on virtually every aspect of our lives.
Mike Bloomberg might have offered an alternative to these two exhausting and generally miserable options. Instead, he is dropping millions of dollars on a high-profile commercial that will win him no new followers nor distinguish him from his rivals. Given his billions, Bloomberg can afford to follow his bliss when it comes to campaigning, but I know I’ll be looking elsewhere for a candidate to support.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Om87H5
via IFTTT
Brexit is one of the most historically significant events of recent times. It was the precursor to Trump, it heralded the populist movement across Europe, and it was the first moment that the world realized that the ideology of globalism was not a fixed fate, inescapable and unstoppable.
When we read history, more often than not, we focus on the events and the great happenings. We contemplate and wonder at the surrounding circumstance, and question how these things got started, what was the impetus to the historical event? We know the players, we know the dates and the number of people involved, but we rarely hear of the motivations, or at least what the primary cause of said motivation might be. Not so with Brexit.
It took three Prime Ministers, two General Elections, and three and a half years of arguments from either side of this political divide since the public voted to leave. It was a campaign that was being fought even after the votes were counted. This may seem familiar to our American audience. President Trump won in 2016, and yet there are swathes of the political and media class who just do not accept the reality: This is Brexit country.
As Britain prepares to bid a not-so-fond farewell to the E.U., I want to walk you through the timeline of events from Britain joining what was billed as little more than a simple trade arrangement. And we’ll go all the way through to the E.U. becoming a monolithic government that commanded nations in what laws they must implement and what border controls, if any, they were permitted. Finally, we’ll see how Britain broke free of an organization that would be a country.
The Back Story: Clashes And Confrontations
In 1973, Britain joined the European Communities (E.C.), which was a fairly simple trade organization made up of just eight other countries, including France and Germany. Then, in 1975, the E.C. developed to become what is today known as the Common Market or ECC. Membership of the ECC would require certain laws and regulations to be made in the E.U. and not in Westminster, in order to have regulatory alignment political capital. A referendum was held to see if the people of Britain wished to continue. The result was an overwhelming yes.
However, as the years went on, more and more changes to the structure of this trading organization took place that required a handing over of national sovereignty. The trading block grew, adding new European countries to its ranks. Treaties were signed by the governments of the day each time they arose that handed power to Brussels and took it away from the British parliament. Many thought this was a price worth paying to be part of a large trading block.
But not everyone.
Political Pressure
A Euro-Skeptic movement began around the same time that the E.U. was pressuring Britain to adopt the Euro as its currency and to do away with the Pound Sterling. The skeptics – or “mad, swivel-eyed loons” as the PM described them – argued that a trade deal was not worth handing over law-making abilities to what was fast becoming a foreign government and that Britain should have control over its own laws, currency, and immigration policy.
Nigel Farage
It took over 20 years of campaigning, but electoral pressure from the United Kingdom Independence Party, then headed by Nigel Farage, forced PM David Cameron to offer an In/Out referendum on continued membership of the E.U. if he won the 2015 General Election with an outright majority.
Cameron, who was then leading a minority government in coalition with the Liberal Democrat Party, believed there was little chance he would gain an outright majority, but that the promise of a referendum would at least put himself and his Conservative Party back in power. The nation was stunned by the result
A Brexit Referendum
Far from just winning the election, because of Cameron’s promise on the referendum, he was catapulted back to Westminster with a large majority and was beholden to the voters to deliver on his promise.
All leaders of the main political parties campaigned for Britain to remain part of the European Union. Nigel Farage, UKIP, and several grassroots movements campaigned to leave in a David and Goliath campaign. On June 23, 2016, the public went to the ballot boxes. The vast majority of polling predicted that the Remain side would win, and it wasn’t until the results started coming in that David Cameron realized he had made a huge miscalculation.
The final result was 52% to Leave and 48% to Remain. Of the 650 voting constituencies in the U.K., over 400 voted to part ways with the E.U. It was the largest single vote for anything ever in the history of the country.
Brexit Delayed
In the wake of the historic result, Cameron first attempted to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership in hopes that this would be enough to satiate the Brexiteers. The E.U., perhaps believing that no country would ever actually leave, reacted arrogantly, offering nothing more than sops. The PM returned to Britain humiliated.
Theresa May
Because PM Cameron had campaigned to Remain in the E.U., he felt he should not be the person responsible for taking Britain out. A leadership election was held in the Conservative Party, and Theresa May became the new prime minister. However, May did not seem to have the support, or perhaps the will, to complete Brexit.
The country remained divided between those who won the referendum and those who wanted to ignore the vote and carry on as before. PM May was unable to pass any legislation in Parliament, and without support, could not govern; another leadership election was called. Boris Johnson handily won this race and challenged the opposition Labour Party to agree to a General Election.
In the U.K., the Fixed-Term Parliament Act prevents calling an election unless a two-thirds majority of MPs vote for one, or the five-year period expires.
Labour, under leader Jeremey Corbyn, was initially hesitant to agree to an election as his party’s stated position was to try and remain in the E.U. After much back and forth, mocking and threats, an election was agreed to, and Boris Johnson, running on a platform of “Get Brexit Done,” won a resounding landslide.
Lingering Tentacles
Britain leaves today, but this does not mean that the relationship is entirely over. During the next year, parliament will negotiate with E.U. leaders to determine if some kind of trade arrangement can be reached. So far, the E.U. is asking for what’s known as a “level playing field,” which in reality means political and legal alignment on rules and regulations. Boris Johnson has ruled this out, suggesting that it is this alignment that began Brexit in the first place.
If at the end of 2020 no trade arrangement is reached, Britain will revert to trading on World Trade Organization terms, no different to any other country outside of the E.U. Whether PM Johnson wins another election will depend on how well he manages these negotiations.
Eternal Flame?
Perhaps we can, after looking at the story of Brexit, understand why we so seldom have a complete overview of historical events – and why it’s so difficult to hand over a complete package wrapped in a nice little bow and say, ”look, here’s this segment of history and all you need to know.” Perhaps it’s because these events that shape the future of nations are never truly over.
Brexit has happened, Donald Trump won, but the story goes on. What happens today will have major consequences for the next 20 years, 200 years, or perhaps even more. Brexit was the spark that lit the flame of a populist resurgence around the globe. We see it in Europe, we see it in the U.S., and it will rage until all people can honestly say that they are truly, finally, free.
Many Americans will basically be meeting Mike Bloomberg for the first time today, when the billionaire former three-term mayor of New York City drops an ad costing a reported $11 million during the Super Bowl. Despite have served in office first as a Republican and then as an independent, Bloomberg is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He’s not exactly unknown (he even once had a funny cameo on Curb Your Enthusiasm), but he’s hardly as familiar to most voters as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Donald Trump.
But based on his commercial, which is about gun violence in America, Bloomberg has already lost my potential vote. Let me explain.
As a small-l libertarian unaffiliated with any party, my vote is up for grabs in November even if I’ve gone Libertarian in almost every presidential race in which I’ve voted (the one exception came in 1984, when as a first-time voter, I cast a vote for Walter Mondale, whose self-deprecating “Norwegian charisma” and honest declaration that he would raise taxes to close the deficit spoke to me). Especially as I get older, I want to be able to vote for a candidate who might actually win and I understand that presidential politics will never cough up someone with whom I completely agree. Indeed, I even parted company with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson on various things despite enthusiastically voting for him in 2012 and 2016.
Rare among libertarians, who tend to dismiss Bloomberg as a petty tyrant for many plausible reasons, I was excited when he jumped into the Democratic race. Sure, he was a nanny stater on steroids when he ran the Big Apple, famous for his what-the-fuck efforts to ban Big Gulp sodas and salt and he was an unapologetic champion of the repressive police tactic known as “stop and frisk” (he’s unconvincingly repented now that he’s running for president). He remains an idiot and a hypocrite on pot legalization, among other things. It’s at least a little disturbing that he’s risen as high as fourth in some polls based solely on spending $250 billion on ads. His just-announced $5 trillion tax plan is a groaner as well, especially since he doesn’t seem interested in cutting spending.
But he’s running for president of the United States, so the soft bigotry of low expectations works in his favor. In a Democratic field filled with ultra-lefties such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom want to regulate the hell out of the economy, Bloomberg is a dyed-in-the-wool, unapologetic capitalist who earned his $54 billion net worth the old-fashioned way: by providing an excellent service at a price that customers were willing to pay.
He is thus nothing less than a walking, talking refutation of the “destroy all billionaires” mindset of Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars“) and former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich (who says billionaires’ fortunes have nothing to do “with being successful in the supposed free market”).
Like the widely disliked and now-forgotten Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks CEO who flirted with an independent run last year and openly defended free enterprise, Bloomberg has succeeded incredibly in the private sector and unlike his fellow billionaire Donald Trump, his wealth isn’t based on working political connections, getting tax breaks, and pursuing eminent domain grifts.
As important, Bloomberg has a real political record to run on. Talk to just about anybody with a five-digit income in New York and they’ll tell you that Bloomberg was a good mayor despite the Nurse Ratched flourishes. Unlike the current occupant of Gracie Mansion, the failed presidential contender and groundhog killer Bill De Blasio, Bloomberg made the city safe for commerce, improved the provision of basic services, and forced positive changes in the public school system. He was nobody’s idea of a libertarian, but he also oversaw an absolutely booming city.
So I looked forward to seeing him spar with Warren and Sanders on economic issues, mock Joe Biden for never having worked in the private sector, and dismiss Mayor Pete for his unaccomplished tenure in a city whose population is less than New York’s was in 1810. As befits somebody who made his mint in New York, Bloomberg is blunt, mean, and nasty and I caught myself daydreaming about the debates he might have with Donald Trump, whom he calls “a failed businessman whose companies went bankrupt multiple times.”
But that Super Bowl ad kills whatever minor buzz he gave me. This is how he chooses to intro himself to the voting public? The ad recounts the tragic, senseless shooting death of a young black man, a powerful vignette that Bloomberg’s campaign insists will “stop people in their tracks.” As mayor and afterwards, gun control was a central concern to Bloomberg, who helped bankroll 2018 candidates who wanted to restrict gun rights and whose website touts his plans to create “more effective background checks,” “keep guns out of the wrong hands,” “tackle daily gun violence in the hardest-hit communities,” “ban assault weapons and protect schools,” and “confront the gun lobby head-on.”
I believe in Second Amendment rights but I don’t have particularly strong feelings on the matter, especially compared to most libertarians. All of the things that Bloomberg suggests are either already basically the law or won’t have the effects supporters claim. As my Reason colleague Jacob Sullum has written, background checks will do nothing to stop mass shootings because “perpetrators of these attacks typically do not have disqualifying criminal or psychiatric records.” Beyond that, passing more and stricter laws generally don’t stop criminals, who don’t follow laws, from getting guns. Researchers funded by the federal government concluded that the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 had essentially no impact on gun violence and crime. Most important, Bloomberg simply ignores the massive declines in gun-related crimes and violence over the past 25 years. “There were 4.6 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2017, far below the 7.2 per 100,000 people recorded in 1974,” reports Pew. Between 1993 and 2015, “rates for crimes using guns dropped from 7.3 per 1,000 people to 1.1 per 1,000 people.”
The story told in Bloomberg’s Super Bowl ad is moving and sad, but I simply don’t understand why the billionaire would focus on the issue of gun violence in such a high-profile setting. In its way, it’s as off-kilter as Donald Trump’s insistence during the 2016 campaign that violent crime was somehow out of control. Perhaps Bloomberg is trying to signal loud and clear to Democratic primary voters that despite his past affiliations as a Republican and an independent, he is in synch with Democratic fixations and policy priorities.
Maybe the “George” ad will in fact help seal the deal with Democrats, but it leaves me and, I suspect, other independent voters wondering just how different he is from other candidates who are already in the race. I would have much rather seen a commercial that explained how Bloomberg would draw on his business experience and success as mayor of the largest city in the country to grow the economy, tackle looming entitlement cataclysms, and reduce culture-war battles.
The 2020 race doesn’t yet have a major-party candidate who offers a compelling, optimistic, and realistic vision of an economically vibrant and socially tolerant nation. Instead we have, on the one hand, an incumbent president who can barely go a few hours without picking fights and signing off on massive spending increases, trade barriers, and immigration restrictions. On the other hand, we have a bunch of Democrats who talk about massively expanding the size, scope, and spending of government while dreaming of new taxes and regulations on virtually every aspect of our lives.
Mike Bloomberg might have offered an alternative to these two exhausting and generally miserable options. Instead, he is dropping millions of dollars on a high-profile commercial that will win him no new followers nor distinguish him from his rivals. Given his billions, Bloomberg can afford to follow his bliss when it comes to campaigning, but I know I’ll be looking elsewhere for a candidate to support.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Om87H5
via IFTTT
