Month: May 2016

Be afraid… be very afraid (oh and lay down your arms)…

 

 

Source: The Burning Platform

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Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

It’s unclear what China was thinking when it borrowed all those trillions to quadruple its capacity to make steel, cement and other basic industrial products. There’s no record of it checking in with the other countries that have such industries to see if a sudden surge of cheap imports was okay with them.

Turns out that it’s not. The US in particular seems to lack a sense of humor where the death of its steel industry is involved:

US hits China and others with more steep steel duties

 

(CNBC) – The U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed more duties on corrosion-resistant steel imports from China and elsewhere in an effort to protect its industry from a glut of steel imports from around the world.

 

On Wednesday, the department’s International Trade Administration, which has conducted an investigation into the “dumping” of steel products into U.S. markets, said it had found the “dumping of imports of corrosive-resistant steel (CORE) products from China, India, Italy, Korea and Taiwan” by various steel producers that it named within those countries.

 

As a result, the department said that Chinese corrosion-resistant steel would be subject to a final anti-dumping duty of 210 percent and anti-subsidy duty of between 39 percent and up to 241 percent.

 

China’s low-cost metal producers have been widely cited as the main culprit for a glut in global steel production that has pushed down prices. Last week, the U.S. slapped tariffs of more than 500 percent on Chinese cold-rolled steel, which is used mainly in car production and appliances.

 

China has been accused by the U.S. and leading figures in the steel industry of “dumping” that cheap steel on to global markets due to a slowdown in domestic demand and a bid to gain global market share at any cost.

 

China has conducted a ‘war’—not trade—with steel, experts say.

 

China’s Commerce Ministry said yesterday that it was extremely dissatisfied at what it called the “irrational” move by the United States, which it said would harm cooperation between the two countries, Reuters reported. “China will take all necessary steps to strive for fair treatment and to protect the companies’ rights,” it said, without elaborating, according to the news agency.

Europe’s not amused either:

EU warns China to expect new steel tariffs

 

(CNBC) – The EU has warned China that it faces new anti-dumping tariffs on steel, amid growing pressure for the west to block Beijing’s bid for “market economy status” and greater access to world markets.

 

Speaking ahead of the G-7 summit in Japan, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker declared: “If somebody distorts the market, Europe cannot be defenseless.”

 

The issue of Chinese steel exports will be discussed by G-7 leaders on Thursday against the backdrop of a steel crisis in many western countries, including Britain where efforts are under way to save Tata Steel’s UK operations.

 

Draft language prepared for discussions on the G-7 communique, while not mentioning China, expresses concern about the excess supply of steel around the world and says it has distorted the global market. A Japanese government official said the issue went beyond steel to other commodities as well.

 

Juncker claimed Chinese overcapacity amounted to double the EU’s annual steel production and that it had contributed to the loss of “thousands of jobs since 2008”.

 

“We will step up our trade defense measures,” he said. Juncker also said there would be an impact assessment of Chinese steel exports and detailed discussion on Beijing’s bid for market economy status under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

 

China expects to achieve that status in December on the 15th anniversary of its 2001 accession to the WTO, giving it greater access to world markets and making it harder for third parties such as the EU to impose anti-dumping sanctions.

 

This month, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) passed a resolution saying China should not be granted market economy status by Brussels, amid widespread pressure from European steelmakers to protect the sector.

And trade wars, of course, = deflation

So what happens to all that Chinese steel that was on its way to the US and EU before slamming into those prohibitively high tariffs? One of three things: Either it’s sold elsewhere, probably at even steeper discounts, thus pricing US and EU steel exports out of those markets. Or it’s stockpiled in China for future use, thus lowering future demand for new steel production and, other things being equal, depressing tomorrow’s prices. Or many of China’s newly-built steel mills will close, and China will eat the losses related to this malinvestment.

Each scenario results in lower prices and financial losses somewhere. Put another way, as far as steel is concerned, the world’s fiat currencies are rising in value, which is the common definition of deflation. And since steel is just one of many basic industries burdened with massive overcapacity, it’s safe to assume that the process which began with oil and recently spread to steel will continue to metastasize throughout the developed and developing worlds. Next up: real estate. See Miami’s Condo Frenzy Ends With Inventory Piling Up in New Towers.

“Modern” monetary policy, designed to achieve exactly the opposite outcome (that is, rising prices for real things), will in response be ratcheted up to ever-more-extreme levels — which in this analytical framework is like trying to douse a fire with gasoline. The result is a world in which past over-investment produces slow growth and falling prices while ever-more-aggressive monetary policy distorts markets beyond recognition and encourages new over-investment in different sectors, which then proceed to follow oil and steel into the deflationary abyss. And so on, until the system collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

Postscript: Gold and silver can’t suffer the fate of steel and oil because humans have been searching for these metals since the beginning of recorded history and have never been able to add more than a few percent to available supplies in any given year. In fact it’s getting harder to find accessible deposits, so no amount of currency creation will produce an oversupply. This imbalance between the rates of fiat currency creation and precious metals discovery is why the latter will rise relative to the former as long as current policies are in place.

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Via The Hayride,

HB 1035, a bill by Rep. Valarie Hodges that would have mandated that schoolchildren in Louisiana be taught the Declaration of Independence, sailed through the House Education Committee with a 6-2 vote. But Wednesday, when the bill reached the floor of the House, it had a different fate – amid a torrent of squabbling, Hodges returned the bill to the calendar and it’s likely finished for the session.

The Louisiana House of Representatives has 61 Republican members out of 105, and yet it was apparent no consensus for a cornerstone of basic civics in the state’s public schools was available to the bill’s supporters.

And yet, the bill did serve to provide a bit of civic education for the people of Louisiana – although perhaps not the lesson Rep. Hodges was looking for.

What we found out was something many of us knew – namely, that Rep. Barbara Norton, a Democrat from Shreveport, isn’t a fan of our founding documents – and also is a barely sentient being.

 

Have a look at Norton’s cranky questioning of Hodges about the Declaration of Independence, and consider the prospects of Louisiana’s legislature contributing positively to the state’s civic progress…

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Several months ago, as Venezuela’s hyperinflating, imploding economy was spinning in freefall, leading to the dramatic episodes of total social collapse such as those profiled in “Scenes From The Venezuela Apocalypse: “Countless Wounded” After 5,000 Loot Supermarket Looking For Food“, we wrote that the country which recently had “run out of money to print its own money” was preparing to liquidate its remaining gold holdings to pay coming debt maturities.

Then, courtesy of an analysis by our friends at Bullionstar, we found just how Venezuela was quietly exporting tons of its gold to Switzerland, as it prepared to conclude the transaction with whoever the end buyer of Venezuela’s bullion would end up being.

And now it’s official – the “gold for fiat” transaction has been officially concluded, and as the FT writes, Venezuela’s gold reserves have plunged to their lowest level on record after the country sold $1.7 billion of the precious metal in the first quarter of the year to repay debts. The country is grappling with an economic crisis that has left it struggling to feed its population.

The OPEC member’s gold reserves have dropped almost a third over the past year and it sold over 40 tonnes in February and March, according to IMF data. Gold now makes up almost 70% of the country’s total reserves, which fell to a low of $12.1 billion last week.

At this point it is only a matter of time before Maduro, scrambling to preserve his regime from both domestic political opposition and foreign creditors, sell all of the Venezuela gold which his late predecessor diligently scrambled to repatriate so it would avoid precisely this fate.  The late president Hugo Chávez had said he would free Venezuela from the “dictatorship of the dollar” and directed the central bank to ditch the US dollar and start amassing gold instead. In 2011, as a safeguard against market instability, Chávez brought most of the gold stored overseas back to Caracas.

It must be an double slap in the face of the impoverished local population to watch as Maduro undoes everything Chavez had achieved, if only when it comes to the country’s gold reserves.

Venezuela began selling its gold reserves in March 2015, according to IMF data. At roughly 367 tonnes, Venezuela has the world’s 16th-biggest gold reserves, according to the World Gold Council.

While Venezuela was selling, China and Russia were buying – perhaps from Maduro – and both have added to their gold holdings this year, the data show.

As a reminder, last year Venezuela’s central bank swapped part of its gold reserves for $1 bilion in cash through a complex agreement with Citi As the FT unnecessarily notes, the gold swap is another indication the country is desperate for cash… in case it was not obvious from the surge in murders, violence and general social unrest.

But the main reason why the gold liquidation will continue is that Venezuela and its national oil company PDVSA have some $6bn to repay in principal and interest payments this year. Amid fears of default, PDVSA is attempting to restructure some of its debt, sources say.

Seeking to reassure investors this month, Miguel Pérez Abad, Venezuela’s economic tsar, told news agencies that the country has reached a deal with its main financier China to extend loans, and that he would further cut imports, even if shortages of basic goods are ravaging the country. Which is notable because as we further reported recently, the main reason why China is being flooded with oil is because countries like Venezuela are sending far more oil to repay their debt which was issued when oil was trading at $100, and as a result Caracas has to ship out double or triple the amount of oil to Beijing to satisfy the terms of the loan.

“We have a cash flow problem, but we have sufficient assets for the short-term and will reprofile the debt levels in an intelligent manner. There are various scenarios, and all of the proposals are extraordinary for the bondholders. They have the absolute assurance that their securities are guaranteed,” Mr Pérez Abad told Bloomberg. Ecoanalítica, a Caracas-based consultancy, said in a note that “we consider that the payments of external debt is a priority for the executive.”

In other words, Venezuela, which is now effectively a failed state, will soon part with its last liquid reserve of worth, when it sells its remaining gold to repay its Developed nation lenders, while it continues to pump oil to keep Beijing happy as it repays its energy loans to China.

Finally, for those who need a quick and easy primer, here is a quick clip explaining in under 100 seconds how Venezuela’s sovereign default is just a question of when.

via http://ift.tt/1NX3gZi Tyler Durden

Less than a week ago, after reporting that shootings in Chicago were up an astonishing 50% from the same time in 2015, Chicago's police superintendent Eddie Johnson proclaimed "as we look toward the summer months, violence will not be tolerated." Johnson didn't give any further details around what the plan was actually going to be to stem the violence other than volunteers would be asked to work overtime during the Memorial Day Weekend.

Sadly, as the Chicago Tribune reports, whatever plan Johnson had didn't work and violence in Chicago has erupted once again. So far this Memorial Day weekend, there have been 40 people shot (4 killed, 36 wounded), and with two full days left, 2016 shootings are likely to far surpass last year's total of 56 that were shot over this same weekend.

Nineteen of the shootings took place either in or within a half-mile of the Harrison District on the West Side police said. The district is one of the city's most violent, despite having more officers assigned to it than almost any other district in the city.

The breakdown of the numbers is as follows: Friday saw three people killed and 12 wounded, while Saturday saw 1 killed and 24 wounded. The Chicago Tribune has been covering the shootings extensively, and has provided a detailed breakdown of the shootings that occurred just overnight heading into today…

The shootings from overnight include:

• A 17-year-old boy walked into Roseland Community Hospital with a gunshot wound to his leg Sunday morning. Police said he was hit around 5:15 a.m. in the 300 block of West 108th Street. Details were not immediately available.

• A 27-year-old man walked into Stroger Hospital around 4:45 a.m. after being shot in the 5000 block of West West End Avenue.  He was hit in the right leg and was reported stable.

• A 26-year-old woman walked into Loretto Hospital around 4:40 a.m. after getting shot in the back in the 3900 block of West Wilcox Avenue, police said. Police expected her to be transferred to Stroger Hospital.

• A 23-year-old man was shot in the 9700 block of South Vincennes Avenue about 3:45 a.m. after getting into an argument, police said. He was in a car and started arguing with someone in another car, and that person shot him. He drove to St. Bernard Hospital to be treated for a leg wound, police said.

• A 27-year-old man was shot in the 900 block of North Cambridge Avenue on the Near North Side about 2 a.m., police said. He was listed in critical condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. It wasn't clear what led to the shooting. Police taped off a parking lot between low-rise yellow-brick buildings and used empty small plastic cups to mark the location of shell casings.

• Two men, 21 and 22, were shot in the 700 block of North Kedzie Avenue about 1:05 a.m. Both walked into Norwegian American Hospital for treatment, and the younger man was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital.

• Two women, whose ages weren't available, told police they were shot on the Dan Ryan Expressway, possibly between 35th and 39th streets about 12:35 a.m., police said. Officers described the pair as "uncooperative," and Illinois State Police didn't have any information about the shooting as of about 6 a.m.

• A 37-year-old man was shot in the 4700 block of West Erie Street about 12:20 a.m. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition with wounds across his body, police said. The man ran toward Cicero after getting shot and waited in front a house while a neighbor applied towels to his wounds. Paramedics picked him up there.

• Two men, 28 and 29, were shot in the 700 block of South Independence Boulevard about 11:55 p.m. Both were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and their conditions were stabilized.

• A boy, 17, walked into Mount Sinai Hospital for a gunshot wound to his leg around 10:15 p.m. The boy told police he was shot in the 1500 block of South Ridgeway Avenue. Someone dropped him off at the hospital.

• Three people were wounded in the West Englewood neighborhood about 10:05 p.m. Two of them, ages 17 and 23, were on a porch when someone shot toward them. A 46-year-old woman in a nearby car was grazed in the neck. The woman was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center and the other two walked into Holy Cross Hospital.

• At 9 p.m. a 23-year-old man was shot on the 5100 block of West Chicago Avenue in the Austin neighborhood, police said. The man was walking on the sidewalk when a light-colored vehicle drove up and someone inside shot him, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said.

• At 8:40 p.m. two men were shot in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The victims were stopped at a light in the 1500 block of West 47th Street when another vehicle pulled up behind, then pulled up next to them and fired shots, according to Officer Hector Alfaro, a Chicago police spokesman. A 32-year-old man was shot in the right leg and transported to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. A 22-year-old man was shot in the right leg and transported to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

• Around 8 p.m., a 26-year-old woman was found shot in the driver's seat of a car on the 3900 block of West Lexington Street in the Lawndale neighborhood, police said. The woman was shot in the lower neck and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition. She was driving when someone on the street fired shots. She crashed just east of Pulaski Road.

• At 7:44 p.m. a 19-year-old man was shot on the 8300 block of South Dante Avenue in the Marynook neighborhood on the Southeast Side, police said. The man was shot in the buttocks, and his condition was stabilized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police said.

• Someone shot and seriously wounded a 24-year-old man in the leg at 4:20 p.m. in the 1400 block of West 99th Street in the Longwood Manor neighborhood, police said.  A weapon was recovered, but the man was not being cooperative with officers. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition has stabilized, said Chicago Fire Department Cmdr. Walter Schroeder.

• Paramedics responded to the 3900 block of West Erie Street in the East Garfield Park neighborhood about 3:45 p.m. for two 46-year-old men who suffered gunshot wounds to their lower extremities, according to police and fire officials. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, fire officials said. Police said they were shot by three robbers. One of the victims was shot in the right leg while the other was shot in the left ankle.

* * *

It turns out that those "strategic subject lists" algorithms being provided to the police aren't really helping much, either that or police superintendent Eddie Johnson has a different definition of "tolerate" than we do. We can't even imagine just how many shootings will take place in Chicago over these next 48 hours, as in addition to the "normal" violence that occurs, the number of retaliations for what's happened already over this weekend will undoubtedly cause the numbers to skyrocket.

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Authored by John Aziz via Azizonomics.com,

One of the defining cultural events of the 2016 election season so far has been the overwhelming rejection of the notion of political correctness expressed in the Republican selection of Donald Trump as presidential nominee. Here is Trump expounding his view on political correctness:

What is the political correctness that the Trump supporters are rejecting?

Trump-supporting website Infowars.com gives the following definition:

In his novel 1984, George Orwell imagined a future world where speech was greatly restricted.

 

He called that the language that the totalitarian state in his novel created “Newspeak”, and it bears a striking resemblance to the political correctness that we see in America right now.

 

According to Wikipedia, Newspeak is “a reduced language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit free thought, and concepts that pose a threat to the regime such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, peace, etc. Any form of thought alternative to the party’s construct is classified as ‘thoughtcrime.’”

Infowars then lists 19 examples, from “The Missouri State Fair… permanently bann[ing] a rodeo clown from performing because he wore an Obama mask” to “a Florida police officer” losing his job for calling Trayvon Martin a “thug”, to “the governor of California signing a bill to allow transgendered students to use whatever bathroom and gym facilities they would like”.

The overriding concern expressed by the Trumpians appears to be that liberals are trying to enforce their worldview through the use of language. They are trying, in other words, to promote their own worldview through making it difficult to dissent from the “politically correct” version of reality.

I disagree that political correctness is an entirely or even largely liberal phenomenon. To be blunt and upfront with my thesis, this is because what is politically correct is a matter of subjective opinion. We each — as human beings — have our own notion of what is the politically correct way to frame an argument or think about a situation or system. So that which is “politically correct” for one person or group of people is absolutely politically incorrect for another person or group of people. In other words, every side of the argument has its own “politically correct” version of reality.

For example, advocates of transgender rights and particularly the notion that it is possible for a person to be born transgender would likely be outraged at the notion that Caitlyn Jenner was born as a male, and so is still a man in spite of transitioning to living as a woman. The notion that Caitlyn Jenner is a man is politically (and factually) incorrect to this first group. And by contrast, advocates of rigid and unchangeable gender roles would likely be outraged by the notion that Caitlyn Jenner is now a woman, and can use the women’s bathroom. The notion that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman is politically (and factually) incorrect to this second group.

I even disagree that political correctness is a new phenomenon. What was McCarthyism, if not a hardcore form of right-wing political correctness? What was the Bush Administration renaming French Fries as Freedom Fries as protest over the French government’s refusal to participate in the Iraq war if not trying to use language to police reality?

Of course, it is completely possible for someone to believe that X is true and respectfully disagree with the opposing view that X is not true, and vice versa.

But that is hardly the direction that the country is headed. Many metrics show that Americans are becoming more and more politically polarized, as this chart via Pew illustrates:

Perhaps what people really mean when they say they are frustrated with political correctness is that they are frustrated with just how disengaged they are from the other side.

With that in mind, what the selection of Donald Trump represents is not so much a rejection of political correctness as a scorched-earth rejection of the other side’s version of reality. In other words, the polarization is becoming more extreme and both sides’ versions of what is “politically correct” are becoming more distinct and noticeable.

This all, of course, is an outgrowth of the pluralism of modernity. American society has become increasingly pluralistic as it has become increasingly diverse and tolerant of alternative lifestyles.

This is entirely unsurprising. With more freedom and liberty comes divergence. People are variable and heterogeneous. They are not all motivated by the same things and in pursuit of the same goals. Giving people freedom to pursue their own goals and interests inevitably leads to pluralism, if not to full-blown polarization.

This is why Trump’s policies are necessarily authoritarian. In order to beat back the pluralism of modernity, Trump advocates authoritarian policies that reduce liberty with the design of building a more cohesive society. Banning Muslims from entering the U.S. decreases diversity and pluralism. Deporting undocumented migrants decreases diversity and pluralism. Building a wall at the border is an instrument of reducing diversity and pluralism. And the show of naked authoritarianism itself makes society fearful. The most successful totalitarian states are the ones — such as North Korea — where a sheepish public polices itself.

Trump, of course, would point out that these measures were the norm throughout most of American history and that the status quo is some kind of freakish digression. But to boil it down to its core essence, “Making American Great Again” is about turning back multiculturalism toward monoculture. It is, ultimately, about enforcing an idea — that a more cohesive and less diverse society is a good thing — on everyone else.

Of course, when you have two groups whose understanding of the world fundamentally disagrees, it is very hard to achieve unity and stability. Lots of wars have been fought over this very kind of thing. The notion of a culture war is actually quite prescient as cultural warfare is exactly what is occurring between the Trumpians and the liberals.

I doubt that either side will be victorious. The fragmentation of the world that has led to these divergences is probably not the result of a liberal conspiracy or liberal control of government. It is much more likely to be a result of technology. Why? Well, consider the way that technology is fragmenting the media. It is much easier to live in a local monoculture when your main source of global news is a town notice board, or two radio channels, or four TV channels, or even fifty cable channels, than it is when your main source of global news is the huge and varied and exponentiating internet. As technology continues to fragment communication and the spread of ideas, people will continue to pursue their own individual interests with the effect of further cultural divergence. Virtual reality will be a very important technology in developing this, as it will begin to let us not only listen to our own FOX News/MSNBC echo chambers, but live in virtual worlds to suit our own tastes. We are heading toward a world where we can build our own echo chambers and shut off anything we find offensive or unpleasant.

In other words, if you think that cultural fragmentation is bad now — or that the Trump supporters are suggesting extreme measures in order to reimpose a degree of cultural hegemony — you ain’t seen nothing yet. The decentralization of warfare through the adptation of drone technology and things like 3-D printed guns and bullets means that many skirmishes will likely be fought over this stuff again.

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One month after disturbing reports emerged that the cash-strapped Islamic State regime, which as noted last week is rapidly losing control over territory it had gained during its 2014 blitz offensive in 2014 in Iraq and Syria, has been killing its own fighters in order to sell their organs, as well as paying $50 to fighters for every female sex slave they own, ISIS has now tapped into yet another critical cash-flow stream: selling female sex slaves.

A recent Facebook posting attributed to an Islamic State fighter who calls himself Abu Assad Almani shows a young woman, around 18, with olive skin and dark bangs that droop onto her face. In the Facebook photo, she attempts to smile but doesn’t look at her photographer. The caption mentions a single biographical fact: She is for sale.

“To all the bros thinking about buying a slave, this one is $8,000,” begins the May 20 Facebook posting by Almani. The same man posted a second image a few hours later, this one a pale young face with weepy red eyes. “Another sabiyah [slave], also about $8,000,” the posting reads. “Yay, or nay?”

 

As WaPo adds, after advising his Facebook friends to “get married” and “come to dawlah,” the name for the Islamic State’s territory in Iraq and Syria, Almani then engaged with different commenters in an extensive discussion about whether the $8,000 asking price was a good value. Some who replied to the postings mocked the women’s looks, while others scolded Almani for posting photos of women who weren’t wearing the veil.

The sex trade conversation then devolved into pure Econ 101: “What makes her worth that price? Does she have an exceptional skill?” one of his correspondents asks about woman in the second photo. “Nope,” he replies. “Supply and demand makes her that price.”

Technically $8,000 was the ask. It is unclear what if any bids were presented and if any actual trades took place.

A Yazidi who had been held by ISIS militants as a slave for several
months sits in a tent outside Duhok, Iraq.

According to WaPo, the photos were taken down within hours by Facebook; it is unclear whether the account’s owner was doing the selling himself or commenting about women being sold by other fighters.

The unusual posting suggests that not only is ISIS in desperate financial straits, but obviously hundreds of women who are now ISIS’ sex slaves face an extremely perilous existence. The group’s female captives appear to be sold and traded by cash-strapped fighters, subjected to shortages of food and medicine, and put at risk daily by military strikes, according to terrorism experts and human rights groups.

Social-media sites used by ­Islamic State fighters in recent months have included numerous accounts of the buying and selling of sex slaves, as well the promulgation of formal rules for dealing with them. The guidelines cover such topics as whether it’s possible to have sex with prepubescent prisoners, yes, the Islamic State’s “legal experts” say, and how severely a slave can be beaten.

But until the May 20 incident, there were no known instances of Islamic State fighters posting photographs of female captives being offered for sale. The photos of the two unidentified women appeared only briefly before being deleted by Facebook, but the images were captured by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington nonprofit group that monitors jihadists’ ­social-media accounts.

Not much is known about Abu Almani, the owner of the Facebook account: according to WaPo he is thought to be a German national fighting for the Islamic State in Syria. He has previously posted to social-media accounts under that name, in the slangy, poorly rendered English used by many European fighters who can’t speak Arabic. Early postings suggest that Almani is intimately familiar with the Islamic State’s activities around Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria. He also regularly uses his accounts to solicit donations for the terrorist group.

ISIS has had to constantly innovate its sex slave trade marketing. Facebook has been quick to react to terrorists’ use its pages. At the same time, the militants also have become more agile, leaping quickly from one social-media platform to another and opening new accounts as soon as older ones are shut down.

And while we commiserate with the plight of hundreds of women who are the innocent hostages of yet another proxy war involving the world’s political superpowers, we can’t help but notice how increasingly streamlined and efficient the Islamic State is becoming as a result of its fiscal stress.

Recall in late April we showed a wage voucher which confirmed that ISIS is now paying soldiers extra cash for each additional family member with the biggest kick for those who have a sex slave in the form of a $50 bonus. The following crinkled wage voucher breaks it down by family member:

• For each of his two wives, al-Jiburi would receive an extra $50.
• For each of his six children under age 15, he would get another $35.
• Any “female captive” – sex slave – would entitle him to an additional $50.

So pay $50 per sex slave, and then retain a substantial portion of the ~$8,000 transaction price once the sex slave is sold on to her future owner. Not a bad IRR for a regime whose military future may be limited.

via http://ift.tt/1U5EZNp Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

If you haven’t heard yet, median home prices in the United States are on a tear having reached all-time highs in April. To boot, rental prices have gone insane, showing a year-over-year inflationary increase of 8%. On top of that, stock markets are rocketing back to their own all time highs based on the premise that the U.S. economy is seeing healthy growth. By all official accounts, it appears that we’re back on track.

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Forget McDonalds and minimum wage blowback, the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is set to send a convoy of vehicles along a stretch of Interstate 69 in Michigan as part of an initial testing of driverless military vehicle equipment on public roadways. The autonomous technology, designed to "save the lives of soldiers serving overseas," is the latest step for the army as it progresses towards its goal of unmanned Abrams tanks and helicopters.

This road test follows the successful demostration of a seven vehicle unmanned convoy traveling at speeds of more than 40 mph for a group of senior Army and industry leaders.

 

As Stars & Stripes reports, a convoy of U.S. Army vehicles will cruise along a stretch of Interstate 69 in Michigan as part of an initial testing of driverless military vehicle equipment on public roadways.

Representatives from the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center and the Michigan Department of Transportation held public information sessions on the testing Monday in eastern Michigan.

 

 

In late June, the vehicles will test a piece of technology that's critical in the development and testing of driverless and connected vehicles, the Times Herald of Port Huron reported.

 

Six radio transmitters will be set up along Interstate 69 to allow for groups of five vehicles to broadcast speed, distance, and traffic issues as directed over the frequency, said Alex Kade, chief system architect in ground vehicle robotics for the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center.

 

If the testing is successful, the technology could save the lives of soldiers serving overseas, according to officials.

 

Kade said the advancement of driverless vehicles could help cut down on accidents and dangerous combat situations for soldiers, especially in places where bombs and improvised explosive devices could be hidden.

 

The stretch of I-69 in St. Clair and Lapeer counties in Michigan was chosen for the testing because of its proximity to an international border crossing and to the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center's headquarters at the U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal in Warren, said Doug Halleaux, the center's public affairs officer.

 

 

Interstate 69 will remain open to traffic during the testing period.

The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center's 30-Year Ground Vehicle Strategy "introduces scalable autonomy that will serve as a force multiplier and augment the capabilities of Soldiers," said Dr. Paul D. Rogers, director of the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, known as TARDEC.

This new technology is capable of making almost every military vehicle an optionally-manned vehicle. As far as removing the assistant driver, "I believe we can do that now with the autonomous capability that we'll be integrating into our vehicle systems," according to Rogers. "It's a mature capability that is ready to go into a program of record and could be fielded in the 2025 timeframe."

Removing both drivers is about two years behind that in research and development.

As the official US Army site concludes, while autonomous vehicle convoys made up of troop-carrying vehicles like the Humvee and cargo-carrying vehicles like the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck are a huge leap forward, TARDEC also has its sights set on vehicles that are weapons platforms, such as the Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Stryker.

TARDEC will be experimenting with manned and unmanned teaming so that maybe four manned Abrams tanks could team up with four that are unmanned. The unmanned tanks could perform screening operations to protect the flanks or could operate at point in front. It's still a future concept that's probably 20 years away, Rogers said.

 

Another exciting possibility is TARDEC's exploration of manned or unmanned aircraft teaming up with unmanned ground vehicles. That development is a lot closer in time, he said, with demonstrations coming up at the end of this year and on into next.

 

Rogers compared these manned-unmanned teaming systems to outdoorsmen who rely on their mules or hunting dogs for survival.

 

A third endeavor TARDEC is exploring is the use of unmanned helicopters to deliver unmanned ground vehicles into a dangerous environment that may not only contain extremists, but also an extremely unfriendly environment containing chemical, biological or radiological hazards.

 

"It's no place you'd want to send a Soldier," he said, adding that once those unmanned vehicles are dropped off, their sensors could immediately stream data about the environment via satellite or command link.

The big question is, how long before the trucks, tanks, and choppers become self-aware?

via http://ift.tt/1X5TDeh Tyler Durden