Month: January 2017

Submitted by Rick Sterling via Strategic-Culture.org,

The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any “propaganda” that challenges Official Washington’s version of reality.

The new law mandates the U.S. Secretary of State to collaborate with the Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence and other federal agencies to create a Global Engagement Center “to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests.” The law directs the Center to be formed in 180 days and to share expertise among agencies and to “coordinate with allied nations.”

The legislation was initiated in March 2016, as the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia was already underway and was enacted amid the allegations of “Russian hacking” around the U.S. presidential election and the mainstream media’s furor over supposedly “fake news.” Defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton voiced strong support for the bill: “It’s imperative that leaders in both the private sector and the public sector step up to protect our democracy, and innocent lives.”

The new law is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because it merges a new McCarthyism about purported dissemination of Russian “propaganda” on the Internet with a new Orwellianism by creating a kind of Ministry of Truth – or Global Engagement Center – to protect the American people from “foreign propaganda and disinformation.”

As part of the effort to detect and defeat these unwanted narratives, the law authorizes the Center to: “Facilitate the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among Federal departments and agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices.” (This section is an apparent reference to proposals that Google, Facebook and other technology companies find ways to block or brand certain Internet sites as purveyors of “Russian propaganda” or “fake news.”)

Justifying this new bureaucracy, the bill’s sponsors argued that the existing agencies for “strategic communications” and “public diplomacy” were not enough, that the information threat required “a whole-of-government approach leveraging all elements of national power.”

The law also is rife with irony since the U.S. government and related agencies are among the world’s biggest purveyors of propaganda and disinformation – or what you might call evidence-free claims, such as the recent accusations of Russia hacking into Democratic emails to “influence” the U.S. election.

Despite these accusations — leaked by the Obama administration and embraced as true by the mainstream U.S. news media — there is little or no public evidence to support the charges. There is also a contradictory analysis by veteran U.S. intelligence professionals as well as statements by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, that the Russians were not the source of the leaks. Yet, the mainstream U.S. media has virtually ignored this counter-evidence, appearing eager to collaborate with the new “Global Engagement Center” even before it is officially formed.

Of course, there is a long history of U.S. disinformation and propaganda. Former CIA agents Philip Agee and John Stockwell documented how it was done decades ago, secretly planting “black propaganda” and covertly funding media outlets to influence events around the world, with much of the fake news blowing back into the American media.

In more recent decades, the U.S. government has adopted an Internet-era version of that formula with an emphasis on having the State Department or the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy supply, train and pay “activists” and “citizen journalists” to create and distribute propaganda and false stories via “social media” and via contacts with the mainstream media. The U.S. government’s strategy also seeks to undermine and discredit journalists who challenge this orthodoxy. The new legislation escalates this information war by tossing another $160 million into the pot.

Propaganda and Disinformation on Syria

Syria is a good case study in the modern application of information warfare. In her memoir Hard Choices, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that the U.S. provided “support for (Syrian) civilian opposition groups, including satellite-linked computers, telephones, cameras, and training for more than a thousand activists, students and independent journalists.”

Indeed, a huge amount of money has gone to “activists” and “civil society” groups in Syria and other countries that have been targeted for “regime change.” A lot of the money also goes to parent organizations that are based in the United States and Europe, so these efforts do not only support on-the-ground efforts to undermine the targeted countries, but perhaps even more importantly, the money influences and manipulates public opinion in the West.

In North America, representatives from the Syrian “Local Coordination Committees” (LCC) were frequent guests on popular media programs such as “DemocracyNow.” The message was clear: there is a “revolution” in Syria against a “brutal regime” personified in Bashar al-Assad. It was not mentioned that the “Local Coordination Committees” have been primarily funded by the West, specifically the Office for Syrian Opposition Support, which was founded by the U.S. State Department and the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

More recently, news and analysis about Syria has been conveyed through the filter of the White Helmets, also known as Syrian Civil Defense. In the Western news media, the White Helmets are described as neutral, non-partisan, civilian volunteers courageously carrying out rescue work in the war zone. In fact, the group is none of the above. It was initiated by the U.S. and U.K. using a British military contractor and Brooklyn-based marketing company.

While they may have performed some genuine rescue operations, the White Helmets are primarily a media organization with a political goal: to promote NATO intervention in Syria. (The manipulation of public opinion using the White Helmets and promoted by the New York Times and Avaaz petition for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria is documented here.)

The White Helmets hoax continues to be widely believed and receives uncritical promotion though it has increasingly been exposed at alternative media outlets as the creation of a “shady PR firm.” During critical times in the conflict in Aleppo, White Helmet individuals have been used as the source for important news stories despite a track record of deception.

Recent Propaganda: Blatant Lies?

As the armed groups in east Aleppo recently lost ground and then collapsed, Western governments and allied media went into a frenzy of accusations against Syria and Russia based on reports from sources connected with the armed opposition. CNN host Wolf Blitzer described Aleppo as “falling” in a “slaughter of these women and children” while CNN host Jake Tapper referred to “genocide by another name.”

The Daily Beast published the claims of the Aleppo Siege Media Center under the title “Doomsday is held in Aleppo” and amid accusations that the Syrian army was executing civilians, burning them alive and “20 women committed suicide in order not to be raped.” These sensational claims were widely broadcast without verification. However, this “news” on CNN and throughout Western media came from highly biased sources and many of the claims – lacking anything approaching independent corroboration – could be accurately described as propaganda and disinformation.

Ironically, some of the supposedly “Russian propaganda” sites, such as RT, have provided first-hand on-the-ground reporting from the war zones with verifiable information that contradicts the Western narrative and thus has received almost no attention in the U.S. news media. For instance, some of these non-Western outlets have shown videos of popular celebrations over the “liberation of Aleppo.”

There has been further corroboration of these realities from peace activists, such as Jan Oberg of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research who published a photo essay of his eyewitness observations in Aleppo including the happiness of civilians from east Aleppo reaching the government-controlled areas of west Aleppo, finally freed from areas that had been controlled by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and its jihadist allies in Ahrar al-Sham.

Dr. Nabil Antaki, a medical doctor from Aleppo, described the liberation of Aleppo in an interview titled “Aleppo is Celebrating, Free from Terrorists, the Western Media Misinformed.” The first Christmas celebrations in Aleppo in four years are shown here, replete with marching band members in Santa Claus outfits. Journalist Vanessa Beeley has published testimonies of civilians from east Aleppo. The happiness of civilians at their liberation is clear.

Whether or not you wish to accept these depictions of the reality in Aleppo, at a minimum, they reflect another side of the story that you have been denied while being persistently force-fed the version favored by the U.S. State Department. The goal of the new Global Engagement Center to counter “foreign propaganda” is to ensure that you never get to hear this alternative narrative to the Western propaganda line.

Even much earlier, contrary to the Western mythology of rebel “liberated zones,” there was strong evidence that the armed groups were never popular in Aleppo. American journalist James Foley described the situation in 2012 like this:

“Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The rebels in Aleppo are predominantly from the countryside, further alienating them from the urban crowd that once lived here peacefully, in relative economic comfort and with little interference from the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad.”

On Nov. 22, 2012, Foley was kidnapped in northwestern Syria and held by Islamic State terrorists before his beheading in August 2014.

The Overall Narrative on Syria

Analysis of the Syrian conflict boils down to two competing narratives. One narrative is that the conflict is a fight for freedom and democracy against a brutal regime, a storyline promoted in the West and the Gulf states, which have been fueling the conflict from the start. This narrative is also favored by some self-styled “anti-imperialists” who want a “Syrian revolution.”

The other narrative is that the conflict is essentially a war of aggression against a sovereign state, with the aggressors including NATO countries, Gulf monarchies, Israel and Jordan. Domination of the Western media by these powerful interests is so thorough that one almost never gets access to this second narrative, which is essentially banned from not only the mainstream but also much of the liberal and progressive media.

For example, listeners and viewers of the generally progressive TV and radio program “DemocracyNow” have rarely if ever heard the second narrative described in any detail. Instead, the program frequently broadcasts the statements of Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and others associated with the U.S. position. Rarely do you hear the viewpoint of the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, the Syrian Foreign Minister or analysts inside Syria and around the world who have written about and follow events there closely.

“DemocracyNow” also has done repeated interviews with proponents of the “Syrian revolution” while ignoring analysts who call the conflict a war of aggression sponsored by the West and the Gulf monarchies. This blackout of the second narrative continues despite the fact that many prominent international figures see it as such. For example, the former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua and former President of the UN General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto, has said, “What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State.”

In many areas of politics, “DemocracyNow” is excellent and challenges mainstream media. However in this area, coverage of the Syrian conflict, the broadcast is biased, one-sided and echoes the news and analysis of mainstream Western corporate media, showing the extent of control over foreign policy news that already exists in the United States and Europe.

Suppressing and Censoring Challenges

Despite the widespread censorship of alternative analyses on Syria and other foreign hotspots that already exists in the West, the U.S. government’s new “Global Engagement Center” will seek to ensure that the censorship is even more complete with its goal to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation.” We can expect even more aggressive and better-financed assaults on the few voices daring to challenge the West’s “group thinks” – smear campaigns that are already quite extensive.

In an article titled “Controlling the Narrative on Syria”, Louis Allday describes the criticisms and attacks on journalists Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal for straying from the “approved” Western narrative on Syria. Some of the bullying and abuse has come from precisely those people, such as Robin Yassin-Kassab, who have been frequent guests in liberal Western media.

Reporters who have returned from Syria with accounts that challenge the propaganda themes that have permeated the Western media also have come under attack. For instance, Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett recently returned to North America after being in Syria and Aleppo, conveying a very different image and critical of the West’s biased media coverage. Bartlett appeared at a United Nations press conference and then did numerous interviews across the country during a speaking tour. During the course of her talks and presentation, Bartlett criticized the White Helmets and questioned whether it was true that Al Quds Hospital in opposition-held East Aleppo was attacked and destroyed as claimed.

Bartlett’s recounting of this information made her a target of Snopes, which has been a mostly useful website exposing urban legends and false rumors but has come under criticism itself for some internal challenges and has been inconsistent in its investigations. In one report entitled “White Helmet Hearsay,” Snopes’ writer Bethania Palmer says claims the White Helmets are “linked to terrorists” is “unproven,” but she overlooks numerous videos, photos, and other reports showing White Helmet members celebrating a Nusra/Al Qaeda battle victory, picking up the bodies of civilians executed by a Nusra executioner, and having a member who alternatively appears as a rebel/terrorist fighter with a weapon and later wearing a White Helmet uniform. The “fact check” barely scrapes the surface of public evidence.

The same writer did another shallow “investigation” titled “victim blaming” regarding Bartlett’s critique of White Helmet videos and what happened at the Al Quds Hospital in Aleppo. Bartlett suggests that some White Helmet videos may be fabricated and may feature the same child at different times, i.e., photographs that appear to show the same girl being rescued by White Helmet workers at different places and times. While it is uncertain whether this is the same girl, the similarity is clear. 

The Snopes writer goes on to criticize Bartlett for her comments about the reported bombing of Al Quds Hospital in east Aleppo in April 2016. A statement at the website of Doctors Without Borders says the building was “destroyed and reduced to rubble,” but this was clearly false since photos show the building with unclear damage. Five months later, the September 2016 report by Doctors Without Borders says the top two floors of the building were destroyed and the ground floor Emergency Room damaged yet they re-opened in two weeks.

The many inconsistencies and contradictions in the statements of Doctors Without Borders resulted in an open letter to them. In their last report, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) acknowledges that “MSF staff did not directly witness the attack and has not visited Al Quds Hospital since 2014.”

Bartlett referenced satellite images taken before and after the reported attack on the hospital. The images do not show severe damage and it is unclear whether or not there is any damage to the roof, the basis for Bartlett’s statement. In the past week, independent journalists have visited the scene of Al Quds Hospital and report that that the top floors of the building are still there and damage is unclear.

The Snopes’ investigation criticizing Bartlett was superficial and ignored the broader issues of accuracy and integrity in the Western media’s depiction of the Syrian conflict. Instead the article appeared to be an effort to discredit the eyewitness observations and analysis of a journalist who dared challenge the mainstream narrative.

U.S. propaganda and disinformation on Syria has been extremely effective in misleading much of the American population. Thus, most Americans are unaware how many billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on yet another “regime change” project. The propaganda campaign – having learned from the successful demonizations of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and other targeted leaders – has been so masterful regarding Syria that many liberal and progressive news outlets were pulled in. It has been left to RT and some Internet outlets to challenge the U.S. government and the mainstream media.

But the U.S. government’s near total control of the message doesn’t appear to be enough. Apparently even a few voices of dissent are a few voices too many.

The enactment of HR5181, “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation,” suggests that the ruling powers seek to escalate suppression of news and analyses that run counter to the official narrative. Backed by a new infusion of $160 million, the plan is to further squelch skeptical voices with operation for “countering” and “refuting” what the U.S. government deems to be propaganda and disinformation.

As part of the $160 million package, funds can be used to hire or reward “civil society groups, media content providers, nongovernmental organizations, federally funded research and development centers, private companies, or academic institutions.”

Among the tasks that these private entities can be hired to perform is to identify and investigate both print and online sources of news that are deemed to be distributing “disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda directed at the United States and its allies and partners.”

In other words, we are about to see an escalation of the information war.

via http://ift.tt/2hQ0R6t Tyler Durden

For months we’ve warned about the impending collapse of the luxury real estate markets in New York and San Francisco amid tepid demand and a supply glut that is getting ready to flood the market with new capacity (see here, here and here).  Of course, one of the first signs of excess capacity comes in the form of rent concessions, which as we pointed out over the summer, have been relatively easy to find in the large metro markets.

“Listings that once rented in just two to three weeks can now take two to three months to rent,” explains Paul Hwang, principal broker at Skybox Realty, a San Francisco-based real estate agency.

 

At least four new apartment buildings have opened within a three-block radius of one another during the last 18 months in San Francisco’s thriving South of Market neighborhood, which is home to major tech companies like Airbnb, Pinterest and Yelp (YELP).

 

Those four buildings — Jasper, 340 Fremont, 399 Fremont and Solaire — frequently offer some sort of bargain for prospective renters. 340 Fremont is offering six weeks of free rent; Solaire is pitching four weeks of free rent, free on-site storage and $1,000 discounts to renters who work at tech companies like Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB) and Yahoo (YHOO). Meanwhile, another building, 399 Fremont, even tried giving away free bikes one weekend.

But new buildings weren’t the only ones offering incentives.  Craigslist was also flooded with listings like the one below offering free rent and a $500 gift card to interested renters.

 

Unfortunately, as the Wall Street Journal points out, NYC and San Francisco aren’t the only cities across the country that are about to get flooded with new luxury apartments.  In 2017 alone, 378,000 new apartments are expected to be completed across the country, or roughly 35% more than the 20-year average. 

Developers in New York are already offering up to three months of free rent on some projects. In Los Angeles, some landlords are offering six months of free parking, and some in Houston are waiving security deposits. Meanwhile, MPF Vice President Jay Parsons said he expects little or no rent growth in urban rental markets this year.

 

“This will be a very challenged leasing environment almost everywhere,” Mr. Parsons said.

 

The slowdown, he said, is being driven not by a pullback in demand but rather a flood of new apartments. Demand for urban properties jumped after the housing bust as young, high-earning professionals eschewed homeownership and flocked to big cities. Developers responded by focusing most of their efforts on high-end properties.

 

Now, though, the number of upscale apartments coming onto the market appear to be outpacing the number of renters able to move into them: More than 50,000 new units were rented by tenants in the fourth quarter in the U.S., six times the number in the year-earlier period. But that demand was overwhelmed by the 88,000 new units that were completed in the quarter, the most since the mid-1980s, according to MPF.

 

That gap looks set to widen in 2017. More than 378,000 new apartments are expected to be completed across the country this year, almost 35% more than the 20-year average, according to real estate tracker Axiometrics Inc.

And smaller cities like Dallas, Atlanta and Nashville are expecting some of the largest supply gluts.

The sluggishness is expected to spread across the U.S., hitting markets from Nashville, Tenn., and Dallas to Los Angeles and Atlanta.

 

Dallas is expected to see nearly 25,000 new apartments delivered, compared with the long-term average of roughly 9,000 new apartments a year, according to Axiometrics. Los Angeles is expected to get roughly 13,000 new apartments, nearly double the historical average.

 

Nashville could see some 8,500 new apartments, more than triple the typical 2,400 apartments completed annually.

 

John Tirrill, managing partner at SWH Partners, an Atlanta developer that has several projects under way in the Nashville area, is leasing a new five-story property with a fitness center, yoga and barre studio and swimming pool. He has lowered rents from $2.25 a square foot to $2.10 a square foot—a $150 discount on a 1,000-square-foot apartment—and is offering one to two months of free rent.

 

Meanwhile, as Wolf Street notes, rent concessions have become fairly pervasive across the country.

 

And, banks are starting to get just a little worried that they financed a few too many luxury skyscrapers.

Banks are pulling back on lending, which could help slow the pace of construction starting in late 2018.

 

“We’re just being really selective,” said John Cannon, a senior vice president at Pinnacle Financial Partners, a Nashville-based financial-services company that has increased its focus on multifamily lending in the last couple of years. “Multifamily has a large number of units on the ground that they really have to demonstrate some absorption.”

We vaguely recall seeing the single-family version of this movie a few years ago…

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Migrants and asylum seekers at a refugee center in Cona near Venice, Italy set fires inside the facility and blocked the gates, forcing social workers to barricade themselves inside their offices, after a protest broke out over living conditions following the death of a young woman, Reuters reported.

A 25-year-old woman, later identified as Sandrine Bakayoko from the Ivory Coast, was found unconscious in the bathroom and was believed to have died because of an alleged delay in medical assistance. The town mayor, however, told La Repubblica TV that she had of natural causes on Monday afternoon. Her fellow migrants reacted angrily, and started rioting, cutting off the electricity supply to the centre, setting fires and barring the exit, leaving 25 staff members barricaded inside, local media said.

Protest in the refugee camp of Cona after the death of an Ivorian woman

Shortly after, riot police were called to the scene, and Italian security forces later quelled the unrest according to RT. The stand-off ended in the early hours of Tuesday after law enforcement convinced the protesters to open the gates and allow the staff to leave, local police chief Angelo Sanna told la Nuova di Venezia e Mestre newspaper. None of the camp workers were injured.

Mayor Alberto Panfilio said calm had been restored at the center, where up to 1,500 people have been placed in a facility originally meant for 15 migrants. Many were housed in tents. Police had persuaded the protesters to open the gates shortly after midnight on Monday, let the staff leave, and re-connect electricity, local police chief Angelo Sanna told la Nuova di Venezia e Mestre newspaper.

Early reports said the protest had been caused by a delay between the young woman being taken ill and an ambulance arriving to treat her. The protesters said the ambulance arrived some eight hours after being called and that Bakayoko died after the medics arrived, according to Ruptly agency. Yet, local police and health and social care services claimed it took the ambulance some 20 minutes to arrive to the center after the emergency call.

“The hour and place of death are still to be determined,” Sanna told Ruptly, adding that the deceased woman’s “countrymen were obviously worried about the cause of her death and the speed of the first aid delivery, and this has induced them to start a protest.” Prior to the incident, the camp’s administration had reportedly been investigated over allegations of fraud and maltreatment, according to Il Sole-24 Ore radio.

“This death is not directly linked to the high concentration (of people) but I hope it can be useful to change a situation that is no longer sustainable,” Mayor Panfilio said.

The mayor told local media that the centre had opened in 2015. Numbers had ballooned dramatically last year. The Cona facility, which was initially intended to house just 15 people, is hosting up to 1,500 migrants, many of whom are living in tents. The centre is one of many temporary migrant reception centres in Italy that are housing more than 136,000 people. In the past three years, roughly half a million migrants have arrived in Italy by boat.

The centre is one of many temporary migrant reception centres in Italy that are housing more than 136,000 people. In the past three years, roughly half a million migrants have arrived in Italy by boat.

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Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

In retaliation for the hacking of John Podesta and the DNC, Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered closure of their country houses on Long Island and Maryland’s Eastern shore.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that 35 U.S. diplomats would be expelled. But Vladimir Putin stepped in, declined to retaliate at all, and invited the U.S. diplomats in Moscow and their children to the Christmas and New Year’s party at the Kremlin.

“A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger,” reads Proverbs 15:1. “Great move,” tweeted President-elect Trump, “I always knew he was very smart!”

Among our Russophobes, one can almost hear the gnashing of teeth.

Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being “Putin’s puppet,” lost.

Is then a Cold War II between Russia and the U.S. avoidable?

That question raises several others.

Who is more responsible for both great powers having reached this level of animosity and acrimony, 25 years after Ronald Reagan walked arm-in-arm with Mikhail Gorbachev through Red Square? And what are the causes of the emerging Cold War II?

Comes the retort: Putin has put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania.

True, but who began this escalation?

George W. Bush was the one who trashed Richard Nixon’s ABM Treaty and Obama put anti-missile missiles in Poland. After invading Iraq, George W. Bush moved NATO into the Baltic States in violation of a commitment given to Gorbachev by his father to not move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army withdrew.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, says John McCain.

Russia did, after Georgia invaded its breakaway province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers. Putin threw the Georgians out, occupied part of Georgia, and then withdrew.

Russia, it is said, has supported Syria’s Bashar Assad, bombed U.S.-backed rebels and participated in the Aleppo slaughter.

But who started this horrific civil war in Syria?

Was it not our Gulf allies, Turkey, and ourselves by backing an insurgency against a regime that had been Russia’s ally for decades and hosts Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean?

Did we not exercise the same right of assisting a beleaguered ally when we sent 500,000 troops to aid South Vietnam against a Viet Cong insurgency supported by Hanoi, Beijing and Moscow?

That’s what allies do.

The unanswered question: Why did we support the overthrow of Assad when the likely successor regime would have been Islamist and murderously hostile toward Syria’s Christians?

Russia, we are told, committed aggression against Ukraine by invading Crimea.

But Russia did not invade Crimea. To secure their Black Sea naval base, Russia executed a bloodless coup, but only after the U.S. backed the overthrow of the pro-Russian elected government in Kiev.

Crimea had belonged to Moscow from the time of Catherine the Great in the 18th century, and the Russia-Ukraine relationship dates back to before the Crusades. When did this become a vital interest of the USA?

As for Putin’s backing of secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk, he is standing by kinfolk left behind when his country broke apart. Russians live in many of the 14 former Soviet republics that are now independent nations.

Has Putin no right to be concerned about his lost countrymen?

Unlike America’s elites, Putin is an ethnonationalist in a time when tribalism is shoving aside transnationalism as the force of the future.

Russia, it is said, is supporting right-wing and anti-EU parties. But has not our National Endowment for Democracy backed regime change in the Balkans as well as in former Soviet republics?

We appear to be denouncing Putin for what we did first.

Moreover, the populist, nationalist, anti-EU and secessionist parties in Europe have arisen on their own and are advancing through free elections.

Sovereignty, independence, a restoration of national identity, all appear to be more important to these parties than what they regard as an excessively supervised existence in the soft-dictatorship of the EU.

In the Cold War between Communism and capitalism, the single-party dictatorship and the free society, we prevailed.

But in the new struggle we are in, the ethnonational state seems ascendant over the multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, multilingual “universal nation” whose avatar is Barack Obama.

Putin does not seek to destroy or conquer us or Europe. He wants Russia, and her interests, and her rights as a great power to be respected.

He is not mucking around in our front yard; we are in his.

The worst mistake President Trump could make would be to let the Russophobes grab the wheel and steer us into another Cold War that could be as costly as the first, and might not end as peacefully.

Reagan’s outstretched hand to Gorbachev worked. Trump has nothing to lose by extending his to Vladimir Putin, and much perhaps to win.

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Over the past few years, as Amazon’s distribution network has grown at a near-exponential pace, so has its workforce. As the chart below shows, starting in 2010 and continuing through the third quarter, Amazon has seen a staggering increase in its mostly part-time employment: from 28,300 to over 306,000.

However, always seeking ways to cut a few basis points from its razor thin retail margins, Jeff Bezos has discovered that many, if not all, of these part-time laborers, minimum wage as they may be, are expendable, and the company is actively growing its robotic “workforce” in preparation for the moment when most of those 300,000+ workers become fully redundant.

As the Seattle Times reports, Amazon now has some 45,000 robots across 20 fulfillment centers. That’s a bigger headcount than the armed forces of the Netherlands. It’s also a 50% increase from last year’s holiday season, when the company had 30,000 robots working alongside 230,000 humans. For now, the growth rate is keeping pace with that of human additions: from Q4 of 2015 through Q3 of 2016, Amazon reported a 46%, 12-month increase on average in staffers. However, as the pace of carbon-based employment eventually plateaus, that of new robot recruits will only continue to rise.

As the Times notes, the surge in Amazon’s robots showcases the company’s love for automation. In 2012 the company bought Kiva Systems, a Boston-area robotics firm that invented the flat, toaster-like warehouse robots that now populate Amazon’s warehouses. There are also other kinds of automata, such as arms that carry pallets.

For now, the 300K+ workers are mostly safe as much of the stowing and picking of items, which require fine motor skills and discernment, is done by human brains and hands. That is changing, however, as robots become increasingly more sophisticated.

“We’ve changed, again, the automation, the size, the scale many times, and we continue to learn and grow there,” Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said of the robots in a conference call last April. The executive said he couldn’t point to any “general trends” in the adoption of robotics, because some fulfillment centers are clearly “fully outfitted” in robots and “some don’t for economic reasons — maybe the volume’s not perfect for robot volume.” However, as minimum wages continue creeping higher, the “economic reasons” to boost robotic volumes will dominate, and most if not all fulfillment centers will become “fully outfitted.”

Of course, warehouse automation is just a part of Amazon’s grand vision of maximizing logistical and supply-chain efficiencies, as well as eventually doing away with bothersome paychecks for employees. Several weeks ago, Amazon announced that it had made its first automated drone delivery in the UK. More recently, the company obtained a patent for an “airborne fulfillment center utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles for item delivery”, i.e., a giant flying drone mothership zeppelin warehouse. 

By now, it is becoming clear that Bezos will not stop until Amazon is one giant, automated, and fully self-contained system, along the lines of the following video showcasing how early-generation Kiva robots have already displaced thousands of human workers.  Within a few years, expect all of Amazon’s warehouses to look virtually the same.

 

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Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

For the umpteenth year in a row, mainstream economists and analysts are once again planting the seeds of hope for a return to stronger GDP growth. The White House has hoped for it for the last 8 years, and now President-elect Trump is all but promising a surge in economic growth.

Unfortunately, while promises are great, we must analyze the reality of attaining such a lofty resurgence.

Let’s start with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and their projections for the next decade. This is shown in the chart below.

There are several very noteworthy observations which need to be made:

1. Real potential GDP has been sharply reduced from the long-term exponential growth trendline (green dashed line) to close the gap between real GDP and “hope.”
2. With the economy heading into its 8th year of growth without a recession, the CBO is currently projecting another 10-years of “recession-free” growth. The reality of such happening is very slim.
3. While the output gap has closed, by reducing expectations, real GDP continues to underperform significantly against both reduced expectations and long-term reality.

While the data above tells us is that simply the economy is currently operating well below its potential level. While the most visible culprits are employment, wages, industrial production and consumption, these issues are byproducts of the 50-Trillion pound Gorilla sitting quietly in the corner. That seemingly invisible Gorilla is simply – debt.

To get a better idea of what I mean let’s take a look at economic growth in relation to debt levels. Prior to 1980, economic growth was entirely financed by economic activity as debt levels remained well below economic output.

Today, that same $1 dollar of GDP growth requires almost $3 dollars to finance it. That’s right – nearly $3 of debt to finance $1 of GDP.

Therein, of course, lies the problem of returning to 4% economic growth in the foreseeable future. With real GDP currently at $16.7 Trillion and debt estimated at $65 Trillion, the ratio is 3.9:1 debt to GDP.

In order for GDP growth to reach 4% in 2017 (assuming 2% growth in Q4) – GDP would have to expand to roughly $17.7 Trillion. Subsequently, the debt would need to expand to $67.6 Trillion or a whopping $2.6 Trillion in the coming year. So forth, and so on.

Are you seeing the problem here?

The problem is simply the math.

Furthermore, the current economic malaise is not something new that was caused by the financial crisis in 2008. The reality is that economic growth has deteriorated consistently since 1980. Economic growth cannot be supported by debt growth.  Increases in debt reduce savings and productive investment. Debt, like cancer, consumes income which detracts from consumption and investment. 

The larger the debt, the more consumption it requires.

As interest rates began their long march lower in the 1980’s so did economic growth. As growth rates began to slow, the need to maintain higher standards of living required a reduction in the personal savings rate and increases in debt. In turn, there was less available for productive investment. As each year passed quietly by the cancer of debt spread, undetected and ignored, until it became terminal.

What we now realize, yet still try to ignore, is at the very heart of Austrian economic theory.

“As the inevitable consequence of excessive growth in bank credit, exacerbated by inherently damaging and ineffective central bank policies, which cause interest rates to remain too low for too long, resulting in excessive credit creation, speculative economic bubbles and lowered savings.”

In other words, the proponents of Austrian economics believe that a sustained period of low interest rates and excessive credit creation results in a volatile and unstable imbalance between saving and investment. Low interest rates tend to stimulate borrowing from the banking system which in turn leads, as one would expect, to the expansion of credit. This expansion of credit then, in turn, creates an expansion of the supply of money and, therefore, the credit-sourced boom becomes unsustainable as artificially stimulated borrowing seeks out diminishing investment opportunities. Finally, the credit-sourced boom results in widespread malinvestments.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The problem currently is exponential credit creation can no longer be sustained. The process of a “credit contraction” will occur in fits and starts over a long period of time as consumers, and the government, are ultimately forced to deal with the leverage and deficits. The good news is that process of “clearing”  the market will eventually allow resources to be reallocated back towards more efficient uses and the economy will begin to grow again at more sustainable and organic rates.

Most importantly, the demographic and structural shift in the economy remains a major headwind to stronger rates of economic in the future.

The current levels of anemic economic growth in U.S. remain dependent upon the consumer with roughly 70% of GDP tied to personal consumption. Unfortunately, roughly 22% of personal incomes which are used to reach those consumption levels currently comes from government transfers. 

Working to reduce the governmental assistance programs, when such a large portion of personal incomes depend on it, will not be a boon to creating the economic growth needed to make the plan work in the future. The problem lies in the demographics.

With over 70 million individuals currently moving into the retirement system, this demographic shift will further complicate the net drag on savings – which are integral to productive investment and the creation of an expanding economy – as well as the increased demand on welfare and healthcare programs. While Trump has proposed reforms to these systems, which are most definitely needed to keep them viable in the long-term, the near-term impact on economic growth will most definitely be felt.

The processes that fueled the economic growth over the last 30 years are now beginning to run in reverse, and when combined with the demographic shifts in the U.S., the impact could be far more immediate and prolonged than the media, economists and analysts are currently expecting.

Again, it is simply a function of math.

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A number of disaffected Hollywood celebs, including Sally Field, Rosie Perez, “Westworld’s” Jeffrey Wright, and “Boardwalk Empire” actor Steve Buscemi, have utilized the former pro-Hillary social media group known as “Humanity for Hillary” to create yet another attack message aimed at President-elect Trump. In this latest message, which refers to Trump as “racist, sexist and xenophobic,” the disaffected Hollywood snowflakes call on Congress to “vigorously oppose” and “obstruct” Trump on any policy that “violates our core values as diverse Americans.”

The video opens by citing all the key buzz words that will undoubtedly “trigger” the leftists in Congress and suggests that “hate crimes in the U.S.” have risen as a result of Trump’s election….

“The majority of Americans, regardless of who they voted for, did not vote for racism, for sexism, or for xenophobia. And yet, Donald Trump won.”

 

“And since he won, hate crimes are rising, women have been attacked in his name, people of color have been attacked in his name.”

…then continues with a demand that Congress “vigorously oppose” Trump’s policies that “violate our core values as diverse Americans.”

“Here’s what we demand:  To the extent Trump pursues racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, anti-worker, anti-muslim, anti-semitic, anti-environmental policies, we demand that you vigorously oppose him.

 

“We expect you to use your Congressional powers to obstruct anything that violates our core values as diverse Americans.”

 

We wonder whether these celebs condone the mass riots held by Hillary supporters in the days after the election…does this count as a “hate crime?”

Results of the 2016 election have sparked protests in the East Bay and some demonstrators took to the streets of downtown Oakland and set multiple fires. #abc7news #protest #2016election #EastBay #Oakland

A video posted by @abc7newsbayarea on Nov 9, 2016 at 2:26am PST

 

Or how about the shooting of 5 people at an anti-trump protest in Seattle (see “5 Shot, 2 Life-Threatening Injuries During Anti-Trump Protest In Seattle“)?  Or how about the DNC’s efforts to incite violence at Trump rallies (see “Undercover Footage Shows Clinton Operatives Admit To Inciting “Anarchy” At Trump Rallies“)?

Somehow we suspect we’ll never hear from Hollywood celebrities regarding these “hate crimes.”

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Another quarter, another disappointing delivery announcement from Tesla, which moments ago reported that for the fourth quarter and full year, had delivered 22,200 and 76,230 vehicles, well short of Wall Street estimates of 25,000 for the quarter and shy of the full year goal of 80,000. To mitigate the disappointment, Tesla explained that its “Q4 delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct.” Which, of course, is how all other carmakers define their deliveries as well.

The company also announced that it had produced a total of 24,882 vehicles in Q4 and a total of 83,922 for the full year, trying to offset the poor deliveries number by reporting a 52% increase in Model X net orders.

However, the market was far more disappointed by the miss, which the company blamed on “production challenges” leading to missed shipping dates: “the delay in production resulted in challenges that impacted quarterly deliveries, including, among other things, cars missing shipping cutoffs for Europe and Asia. ”

Tesla also blamed customers for being unable to take “physical delivery” of the car, to wit: “In total, about 2,750 vehicles missed being counted as deliveries in Q4 either due to last-minute delays in transport or because the customer was unable to physically take delivery.”

It was not immediately clear if that is another way of saying the customer “cancelled” the order, although it does point in that direction with the following clarification: “even where these customers had already fully paid for their vehicle, we still did not count these as deliveries in Q4.”

One of these days, Elon Musk may just run out of excuses and be forced to admit that the growth rate he has led Wall Street to believe, as well as the implied deliveries, are simply too high. Putting Tesla’s amibitions goals in perspective, the company hopes to deliver 1,000,000 cars by 2020. So far it is well behind schedule.

The market, while likely giving TSLA the benefit of the doubt yet again, was rather displeases with the initial announcement.

Full press release below

PALO ALTO, CA — (Marketwired) — 01/03/17 — Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) produced 24,882 vehicles in Q4, resulting in total 2016 production of 83,922 vehicles. This was an increase of 64% from 2015.

 

Tesla delivered approximately 22,200 vehicles in Q4, of which 12,700 were Model S and 9,500 were Model X. When added to the rest of the year, total 2016 deliveries were approximately 76,230. Our Q4 delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct.

 

Because of short-term production challenges starting at the end of October and lasting through early December from the transition to new Autopilot hardware, Q4 vehicle production was weighted more heavily towards the end of the quarter than we had originally planned. We were ultimately able to recover and hit our production goal, but the delay in production resulted in challenges that impacted quarterly deliveries, including, among other things, cars missing shipping cutoffs for Europe and Asia. Although we tried to recover these deliveries and expedite others by the end of the quarter, time ran out before we could deliver all customer cars. In total, about 2,750 vehicles missed being counted as deliveries in Q4 either due to last-minute delays in transport or because the customer was unable to physically take delivery. Even where these customers had already fully paid for their vehicle, we still did not count these as deliveries in Q4.

 

In addition to Q4 deliveries, about 6,450 vehicles were in transit to customers at the end of the quarter. These will be counted as deliveries in Q1 2017.

 

Vehicle demand in Q4 was particularly strong. Q4 net orders for Model S and X, which were an all-time record for us, were 52% higher than Q4 2015 and 24% higher than our previous record quarter in Q3 2016.

 

Tesla vehicle deliveries represent only one measure of the company’s financial performance and should not be relied on as an indicator of quarterly financial results, which depend on a variety of factors, including the cost of sales, foreign exchange movements and mix of directly leased vehicles.

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