Month: June 2021

After receiving more than 75,000 individual complaints that it’s Alex-powered Echo devices were spying on them, Amazon has abandoned its policy that such complaints must be resolved outside the court system via secretive arbitration proceedings, and will instead allow customers to file lawsuits, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In other words, ‘so sue us.’

The company quietly changed its terms of service to file lawsuits, as the company already faces at least three class action suits – including one brought May 18 alleging that the company’s Echo devices were recording people without permission.

The retail giant made the change after plaintiffs’ lawyers flooded Amazon with more than 75,000 individual arbitration demands on behalf of Echo users. That move triggered a bill for tens of millions of dollars in filing fees, according to lawyers involved, payable by Amazon under its own policies.

Amazon’s decision to drop its arbitration requirement is the starkest example yet of how companies are responding to plaintiffs’ lawyers pushing the arbitration system to its limits. -WSJ

Arbitration agreements are typically buried in the fine print in order to avoid costly litigation, while many employers use them for adjudicating issues such as discrimination complaints or pay disputes. The right to require arbitration has been repeatedly upheld by the US Supreme Court.

During private arbitration, less evidence is presented and there are no appeals – with companies typically agreeing to pay for initial filing fees ranging between $100 and $2,000. The proceedings are managed by companies that charge additional fee, while the arbitrators themselves will of course bill for their time.

According to consumer advocates and plaintiffs’ lawyers, arbitration usually makes it financially worthwhile for individuals to pursue claims, while companies say it’s a fair process.

“Companies thought they were getting out of liability altogether,” with arbitration clauses, says Chicago lawyer Travis Lenkner, whose firm filed the majority of the Amazon claims. “Now they’re seeing exactly what they bargained for, and they don’t like it.”

The mass-arbitration filings have forced companies to scramble. Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc., and TurboTax maker Intuit Inc. have all tried to avoid paying filing fees or direct claims back into court after being hit in recent years with thousands of arbitration claims.

Few companies so far seem ready to scrap arbitration outright like Amazon.

Instead, some are requiring employees to speak to a lawyer at the company before filing an arbitration claim. One arbitration provider created a mass-claim protocol that calls for handling a few test cases before the full filing fees come due. -WSJ

Claims against Amazon began pouring in after it was revealed in 2019 that Alexa devices were storing recordings of users without their consent. When consumers filed for class action lawsuits claiming that the recordings violated consent laws, Amazon was able to successfully argue that the claims belonged in arbitration. In early 2020, Keller Lenkner and other firms filed tens of thousands of individual arbitration demands.

One year later, Amazon’s attorneys notified plaintiffs’ attorneys of their recent change in terms of service – eliminating a 350-word arbitration requirement and replacing it with two sentences which say disputes can be brought in state or federal court near Amazon’s Washington state headquarters.

Local attorneys are surely buzzing with excitement.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A man in eastern China contracted what appears to be the first human case of H10N3, a type of avian influenza, according to Chinese regime officials.

The 41-year-old man, who was not named, was hospitalized in late April with H10N3 in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, located near Shanghai, according to China’s National Health Commission in a statement on its website.

The commission said that no other cases have been reported.

“This infection is an accidental cross-species transmission,” its statement said, while also claiming that “the risk of large-scale transmission is low,” according to a Chinese-to-English translation.

[ZH: Forgive us some skepticism but haven’t heard that before from Chinese authorities?

Jan 2020: COVID-19…person-to-person transmission risk is low

Jun 2021: H10N3… risk of large-scale transmission is low

h/t @neontaster]

The agency said that the man developed a fever and other symptoms. He was diagnosed with H10N3 about a month later, on May 28.

Filip Claes, the regional laboratory coordinator of the Food and Agriculture Organization, told the Reuters news agency that this strain of bird flu is “not a very common virus.”

Over the years, several strains of bird flu have been found among animals in China, although reports of mass outbreaks among humans are rare.

The last human epidemic involving a bird flu strain, H7N9, occurred in China in 2016 and 2017.

H7N9, which has a relatively high mortality rate, has infected some 1,700 people and killed 613 since 2013, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

Last year, Chinese health officials reported outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu, including one that forced the culling of 18,000 chickens in Hunan Province.

The reports of H10N3 being contracted in China come as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has faced increasing scrutiny from U.S. officials about the origins of the CCP virus, otherwise known as the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and whether it leaked or was researched at a lab in Wuhan. CCP officials have long said that the virus was transmitted from an animal to humans at a Wuhan wet market, but the regime has provided no evidence for the claim and hasn’t identified the animal in question.

Late last month, President Joe Biden released a statement saying that many within the 17-agency U.S. Intelligence Community believe that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a top-security lab, and called on them to release a report within the coming months on the origin of the CCP virus.

Before that, throughout 2020, corporate media outlets and fact-checking websites attempted to downplay assertions that the virus came from the lab, sometimes describing the claims as part of a “conspiracy theory.”

But over the weekend, top journalists including ABC News’ Jonathan Karl admitted that the Wuhan lab leak theory is plausible and said it wasn’t taken seriously simply because President Donald Trump and administration officials often made those claims.

“Yes, I think a lot of people have egg on their face,” Karl conceded. “This was an idea that was first put forward by Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, Donald Trump, and look, some things may be true even if Donald Trump said them. Because Trump was saying so much else that was just out of control … he said flatly this came from that lab, and it was widely dismissed … but now serious people are saying it needs a serious inquiry.”

The Biden administration has scrapped FBI background checks for caregivers at its overpacked child migrant shelters (or as AOC no longer calls them, ‘concentration camps’), alarming child welfare experts who say this compromises safety, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The move comes as Biden turns to “tent camps, convention centers and other huge facilities” which are operated by private contractors paid by the Department of Health and Human Services. In March, the administration announced that it would open eight new emergency sites across the Southwest, which will add 15,000 new beds – doubling capacity.

In order to deal with the flood of migrant children, the US government has lowered the bar required to watch them.

These emergency sites don’t have to be licensed by state authorities or provide the same services as permanent HHS facilities. They also cost far more, an estimated $775 per child per day.

And to staff the sites quickly, the Biden administration has waived vetting procedures intended to protect minors from potential harm.

Staff and volunteers directly caring for children at new emergency sites don’t have to undergo FBI fingerprint checks, which use criminal databases not accessible to the public and can overcome someone changing their name or using a false identity. -Chicago Tribune

As NPR reported last month, there is little oversight at the mass shelters holding tens of thousands of migrant children, while “Some of the facilities holding children these days are run by contractors already facing lawsuits claiming that children were physically and sexually abused in their shelters under the Trump administration, while others are new companies with little or no experience working with migrant children. Collectively, the emergency facilities can accommodate nearly 18,000 children, according to data the agency provided earlier this month.”

In April, Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott called for the Biden administration to close a San Antonio facility for migrant children following allegations of sexual assault.

“In short, this facility is a health and safety nightmare,” said Abbott.

And now, caregivers watching migrant children won’t require an FBI background check – though HHS says they still have to pass “public record criminal background checks,” which “generally take less time but are reliant on the subject providing correct information.”

The agency also says that those giving direct care are supervised by federal employees or others who have passed fingerprint-based background checks (like the 5,000+ Pentagon employees who had child porn on their computers, we assume).

According to HHS’ inspector general, FBI fingerprint checks “provide a unique safeguard.”

“While the various background checks could identify some past criminal convictions or sexual offenses, these checks were not as extensive as the FBI fingerprint background checks.”

Laura Nodolf, the district attorney in Midland, Texas, where HHS opened an emergency site this month, said that without fingerprint checks, “we truly do not know who the individual is who is providing direct care.”

“That’s placing the children under care of HHS in the path, potentially, of a sex offender,” Nodolf said. “They are putting these children in a position of becoming potential victims.”

Dr. Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist who is executive director of the immigration advocacy group Every Last One, noted that HHS requires fingerprint checks of relatives who seek to take in children as part of a vetting process that takes more than 30 days on average.

“Failure to check fingerprints of frontline facility staff exposes vulnerable migrant children to a significant danger of physical and sexual abuse,” she said. -Chicago Tribune

There are currently more than 18,000 children and teenagers in US custody – a figure which rises almost daily. 

We’re sure Kamala is on the case.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Major League Baseball (MLB) and the league’s players union were hit this week with a lawsuit for moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia earlier this year.

Baseball commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. answers questions from the media during spring training media day at the Glendale Civic Center in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb 19, 2019. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports)

The move affected scores of small businesses in Atlanta, including many owned by minorities, according to the suit, which was filed in federal court in New York.

After officials announced on April 2 that they were shifting the game to Colorado, more than 8,000 hotel reservations were canceled in the Atlanta area and Cobb County officials estimated the move would cost the local economy some $100 million. Past MLB All-Star events have brought in between $37 million and $190 million for the communities that host them.

MLB officials said they moved the game because of Georgia’s election integrity law, which was described by supporters as a way to bolster election security and by critics as racist and restrictive. Officials violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, the Equal Protection and Privileges and Immunities Clauses, and the Dormant Commerce Clause, the lawsuit charges.

The 2021 All-Star Game Logo is displayed on the screen prior to the game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves at Truist Park in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 24, 2020. (Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)

“MLB Defendants intended to punish Georgians because their state enacted a reasonable ballot-integrity statute and to coerce Georgia and its duly elected government to surrender Georgia’s sovereignty in our federal system,” it states.

“Plaintiff and its members were injured as a direct and proximate result of the aforesaid conduct in an amount to be determined at trial, but not less than $100 million. MLB Defendants’ conduct was willful and contumacious and designed to inflict substantial harm, including reputational harm, upon Plaintiff. Accordingly, the Court should award not less than $1 billion in punitive damages.”

MLB and its players union did not immediately respond to requests for comment. No defendants had lawyers listed on the court docket.

Job Creators Network, a small business lobbying group, filed the suit. They’re asking MLB and the union to pay money to businesses that won’t see revenue from the game now that it’s been moved.

“MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta—many of them minority-owned—of $100 million, we want the game back where it belongs,” Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the network, said in a statement.

“This was a knee-jerk, hypocritical, and illegal reaction to misinformation about Georgia’s new voting law which includes voter ID. Major League Baseball itself requests ID at will-call ticket windows at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and at ballparks all across the country.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Major League Baseball (MLB) and the league’s players union were hit this week with a lawsuit for moving the All-Star Game out of Georgia earlier this year.

Baseball commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. answers questions from the media during spring training media day at the Glendale Civic Center in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb 19, 2019. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports)

The move affected scores of small businesses in Atlanta, including many owned by minorities, according to the suit, which was filed in federal court in New York.

After officials announced on April 2 that they were shifting the game to Colorado, more than 8,000 hotel reservations were canceled in the Atlanta area and Cobb County officials estimated the move would cost the local economy some $100 million. Past MLB All-Star events have brought in between $37 million and $190 million for the communities that host them.

MLB officials said they moved the game because of Georgia’s election integrity law, which was described by supporters as a way to bolster election security and by critics as racist and restrictive. Officials violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, the Equal Protection and Privileges and Immunities Clauses, and the Dormant Commerce Clause, the lawsuit charges.

The 2021 All-Star Game Logo is displayed on the screen prior to the game between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves at Truist Park in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 24, 2020. (Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)

“MLB Defendants intended to punish Georgians because their state enacted a reasonable ballot-integrity statute and to coerce Georgia and its duly elected government to surrender Georgia’s sovereignty in our federal system,” it states.

“Plaintiff and its members were injured as a direct and proximate result of the aforesaid conduct in an amount to be determined at trial, but not less than $100 million. MLB Defendants’ conduct was willful and contumacious and designed to inflict substantial harm, including reputational harm, upon Plaintiff. Accordingly, the Court should award not less than $1 billion in punitive damages.”

MLB and its players union did not immediately respond to requests for comment. No defendants had lawyers listed on the court docket.

Job Creators Network, a small business lobbying group, filed the suit. They’re asking MLB and the union to pay money to businesses that won’t see revenue from the game now that it’s been moved.

“MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta—many of them minority-owned—of $100 million, we want the game back where it belongs,” Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the network, said in a statement.

“This was a knee-jerk, hypocritical, and illegal reaction to misinformation about Georgia’s new voting law which includes voter ID. Major League Baseball itself requests ID at will-call ticket windows at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and at ballparks all across the country.”

In January, 2020, when the World Health Organization insisted that COVID-19 wasn’t transmissible between humans, and Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the risk to the American public from the virus was “low,” officials at the National Institutes of Health were scrambling to perform damage control after a controversial – and now withdrawn – study suggested that there were HIV-like ‘insertions’ included in SARS-CoV-2.

The study, “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts on the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag,” posited that segments of the virus’s RNA had no relation to other coronaviruses such as SARS, and instead appeared to be closer to HIV.

Specifically:

To further investigate if these inserts are present in any other corona virus, we performed a multiple sequence alignment of the spike glycoprotein amino acid sequences of all available coronaviruses (n=55) [refer Table S.File1] in NCBI refseq (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) this includes one sequence of 2019-nCoV[Fig.S1]. We found that these 4 insertions [inserts 1, 2, 3 and 4] are unique to 2019-nCoV and are not present in other coronaviruses analyzed.

…

We then translated the aligned genome and found that these inserts are present in all Wuhan 2019-nCoV viruses except the 2019-nCoV virus of Bat as a host [Fig.S4]. Intrigued by the 4 highly conserved inserts unique to 2019-nCoV we wanted to understand their origin. For this purpose, we used the 2019-nCoV local alignment with each insert as query against all virus genomes and considered hits with 100% sequence coverage. Surprisingly, each of the four inserts aligned with short segments of the Human immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) proteins.

The now-withdrawn paper piqued the interest of several journalists, including Zero Hedge (whose account Twitter banned one day after we updated our coverage of the article, claiming we ‘doxed’ a Chinese scientist in an earlier report).

Thanks to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Fauci’s emails, we now know that the National Institutes of Health was not only aware of the Indian report, but were actively discussing how to handle it.

A January 31 email from AFP’s Issam Ahmed asks NIH immunologist Dr. Barney Graham for comment:

“I was told by a contact you may be willing to give an opinion of this paper that has just gone live. It suggests the new Coronavirus has four inserts similar to HIV-1 and this is not a coincidence,” reads the email.

Graham immediately forwards the correspondence to the Office of Communications and Government Relations (OCGR), saying “This is one we don’t want to answer without high-level input, but wanted you to know about the rising controversy.”

Two days later, Jennifer Routh OCGR replies, telling Graham: “OCGR is going to send a note to the reporter to decline, noting that the paper is not peer-reviewed. Please let us know if you receive similar requests.”

That same Sunday morning, Fauci is looped in – with Sir Jeremy Farrar forwarding Zero Hedge‘s article after mentioning how World Health Organization Director Tedros Adhanom and the organization’s cabinet chief were in ‘conclave’ – ostensibly on how to manage the narrative – noting “If they do prevaricate [bullshit the public], I would appreciate a call with you later tonight or tomorrow to think how we might take forward.”

“Do you have a minute for a quick call?” Fauci replies, after having called the Indian paper “really outlandish.”

Wow! @zerohedge gets mentioned! @JeremyFarrar pic.twitter.com/OKvo5ekL8G

— Jess (@uacjess) June 1, 2021

 Of course, the Indian paper was quickly withdrawn by its authors, and the notion that COVID-19 could have been man-made was rendered radioactive – for a while.

In April of last year, Dr Luc Montagnier – winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for “discovering” HIV as the cause of the AIDS epidemic – claimed that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus that was accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

“With my colleague, bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA virus,” explains Luc Montagnier, interviewed by Dr Jean-François Lemoine for the daily podcast at Pourquoi Docteur, adding that others have already explored this avenue:

Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of another virus, … the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great.

The plot thickened further as a study by Chinese scientists published in May 2020 found that the novel coronavirus uses the same strategy to evade attack from the human immune system as HIV.

Then, last June, former MI-6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said he believes COVID-19 is a manmade virus which contains ‘inserted’ sections that accidentally escaped from a Chinese laboratory, according to The Telegraph.

But Sir Richard, 75, pointed to a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team who claim to have discovered clues within Covid-19’s genetic sequence suggesting key elements were “inserted” and may not have evolved naturally.

Entitled “A Reconstructed Historical Aetiology of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike”, the new study, seen by The Telegraph, suggests the virus is “remarkably well-adapted virus for human co-existence” and is likely to be the result of a Wuhan lab experiment to produce “chimeric viruses of high potency”.

The paper concludes: “Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong before asserting that their evidence is persuasive, most especially when, as we also show, there are puzzling errors in their use of evidence.” –The Telegraph

The Australian government canceled further development of a COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 after several trial participants had false positive tests for HIV.

More recently, two European virologists say they’ve found genetic ‘fingerprints’ which prove COVID-19 was man made.

British professor Angus Dalgleish – best known for creating the world’s first ‘HIV vaccine’, and Norwegian virologist Dr. Birger Sørensen – chair of pharmaceutical company, Immunor, who has published 31 peer-reviewed papers and holds several patents, wrote that while analyzing virus samples last year, the pair discovered “unique fingerprints” in the form of “six inserts” created through gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

They also conclude that “SARS-Coronavirus-2 has “no credible natural ancestor” and that it is “beyond reasonable doubt” that the virus was created via “laboratory manipulation.”

We can only imagine what the NIH and Fauci are saying about this theory now.

Hey Tony, can we have a word pic.twitter.com/68Yf4kZUjO

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 1, 2021

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

You probably don’t need me to tell you that society is coming apart at the seams all around us.  If you live in a major city, you can just walk outside and watch it happen right in front of you.  Prior to 2020, social decay was steadily eating away at our society, but once the pandemic hit many of our societal problems greatly accelerated.  Even while the Federal Reserve was making sure that wealthy Wall Street investors were being taken care of well, poverty and homelessness were absolutely exploding in major cities all over the nation.  Meanwhile, an increasing number of Americans have been turning to drugs to cope with their problems, and this has particularly been true in our urban areas.

At one time, Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan was quite lovely, but now it is being described as “lawless” and “drug-infested” because of the hordes of drug addicts that constantly hang out there…

A lawless, drug-infested Washington Square Park is horrifying even famously free-spirited Greenwich Village residents.

“We may be liberal but this has gone too far,” lamented Steven Hill, who has called the neighborhood home since 1980. “There have always been drugs in the park, mostly pot, but what’s emerged this spring is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

Just like so many other public spaces in major cities across the country, Washington Square Park is no longer a safe place for families.

These days, local residents are kept awake “until the wee hours” by the drug-fueled parties that take place night after night around the central fountain…

Washington Square Park’s northwest corner was overtaken in recent months by a crack-and-heroin-filled “drug den,” while boisterous, booze-soaked raves around the central fountain have kept neighbors up until the wee hours and left the historic green space trashed each morning.

Of course this sort of activity can be found all over New York City these days.

In fact, at this point even Times Square has been virtually taken over by drug addicts and homeless people…

Andy Hort, who runs a printing company in Times Square, said he now avoid the area whenever he can.

‘There’s a lot more crime and a lot more drug addicts and vagrants everywhere,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘In the last three months, I’ve seen three or four people shooting up right in front of me.’

What would you do if you started to see people regularly do heroin right in front of you?

Would you move?

That is what hundreds of thousands of New York residents have done, but even though so many people have moved out, crime rates in the Big Apple just continue to rise.

The days when NYC was one of our safest major cities seem so far away now.  According to the latest NYPD data, crime in the city is up 30 percent so far in 2021…

In 2021, almost every type of violent crime is on the rise in New York City. According to recent figures from Compstat, the NYPD’s data gathering unit, crime is up 30 percent city wide.

At this stage, I don’t know why anyone would still want to live in New York.

If you can believe it, even New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is publicly admitting that the city has a “major crime problem”…

‘New Yorkers don’t feel safe and they don’t feel safe because the crime rate is up. It’s not that they are being neurotic or overly sensitive – they are right,’ Governor Andrew Cuomo declared on Wednesday.

‘We have a major crime problem in New York City. Everything we just talked about, with the economy coming back, you know what the first step is? People have to feel safe.’

I write a lot about New York, but city after city all over the country is dealing with the exact same thing.

Crime rates are way up from coast to coast, and there is a new mass shooting in the news almost every single day now.  The latest one comes to us from Miami…

Miami-Dade police are investigating a deadly mass shooting that left two people dead and 20 others injured in what detectives described as a “targeted act of violence.”

“This is a despicable act of gun violence,” said Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez. “A cowardly act.”

According to police, the shooting took place after a birthday party for a local rapper known as ABMG Spitta, birth name Courtney Paul Wilson.

The killers were specifically waiting for people to leave that birthday party.

It is being reported that “several gunmen sat in a white Nissan Pathfinder SUV in the parking lot for up to 40 minutes”, and when people started to pour out of the banquet hall they jumped into action…

Cellphone video shows the chaotic moments after the bullets stopped flying outside El Mula Banquet Hall. Up to 25 people were hit, and two were killed on the scene.

People who live nearby heard the barrage of gunfire about 12:30 a.m. near NW 67 Avenue on Miami Gardens Drive.

“It was like, ‘Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,’ and just kept going and then it stopped for a little bit, then it went a little bit more then it stopped,” explained neighbor Gianna Donoso

This is what our nation has become.

Our streets are soaked with the blood of the innocent, and millions of our young people are completely and totally out of control.

These days, it seems like kids are becoming violent at younger and younger ages.  Earlier today, I was shocked as I read a news story about a 14-year-old that had stabbed a 13-year-old cheerleader 114 times…

Chilling new details have emerged about the fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old cheerleader who was found dead in a wooded area in Northeast Florida on Mother’s Day.

On Thursday, State Attorney for the 7th Circuit R.J. Larizza announced during a news conference that Tristyn Bailey was stabbed 114 times while fighting off her killer. He said at least 49 of the stab wounds were to her hands, arms and head and that they were “defensive in nature,” according to local media reports.

Nobody can deny that our society is deeply sick, and just about every sort of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us.

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, there is no way that our story is going to end well.

As a society, we need to turn around and reverse course immediately.

But that isn’t going to happen, is it?

We are like the drug addicts in Washington Square Park that just keep coming back for yet another hit.

We know that we are literally destroying ourselves, but we are so far gone that most of us don’t even care anymore.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Longtime ‘bond king’ Bill Gross has kept a low profile since his “retirement” from Janus Henderson, where he worked after leaving PIMCO abruptly in 2014 in a high-profile dispute with colleagues. While he emerged earlier this year to share the results of a recent Gamestop short, Gross has been making more appearances in the tabloids than in the business press recently thanks to a legal dispute with one of his neighbors.

But in today’s FT, Gross returns with an editorial warning that the Federal Reserve and Treasury are injecting money into the economy so quickly that as the economy recovers from COVID-19, they’re risking a dangerous snap-back in markets as investors reckon with the withdrawal of all the post-COVID stimulus.

For those who still have faith in the Fed, Gross asks: do you think the booms in cryptocurrencies and SPACs represents “the product of financial innovation”…”or the product of cheap and plentiful credit…”

Even enthusiasts of the Fed’s policy must wonder whether hundreds of cryptocurrencies or a boom in special purpose acquisition vehicles are the result of continuing financial innovation or the product of cheap and plentiful credit demanded by deficit spending and an accommodating Fed chair.

Gross also wondered how long the Fed could continue with “near-costless Fed financing for “$2 trillion, $3 trillion, $4 trillion deficits” without sinking the dollar? The greenback has certainly weakened in response to all this stimulus, but just how much more can the market absorb before things start to break?

Many observers wonder how Treasuries and other global sovereigns can trade at yields that are so low, and in some cases negative. Five-year US Treasuries currently yield just 0.80 per cent, not much in a world where inflation expectations over the same period are above 2.5 per cent. That is reflected in the negative real yields, which have the effects of inflation stripped out.

Five-year US inflation protected bonds now trade at a yield close to minus 2 per cent. Part of the explanation lies with the less attractive yield on local sovereign debt for foreign institutions (minus 0.5 per cent in Germany, for instance). Even US investors, however, believe that a 10-year Treasury yielding 1.65 per cent can earn a total return of 2.40 per cent or more by capturing the rising price of the bond as it approaches its maturity date. And then there’s the Fed buying more than $1tn Treasuries a year.

No wonder the 10-year Treasury rests illegitimately at 1.65 per cent. Such speculations, however, are dependent upon the stability of the dollar and the consistency of Powell’s vow to keep short rates unchanged for the foreseeable future. At some point in the next few months, hopes for this will probably be disappointed as inflationary pressures pose increasing price risks to Treasuries and stocks too.

Gross also wondered how the Fed will determine essential policy benchmarks like Nairu, since the central bank’s historical models likely won’t be much use in the post-pandemic era.

Powell will not even acknowledge asking the question about asking the question until Covid is more under control and employment returns to historical norms. Yet unemployment may never return to 4 per cent, given the radical changes in working from home and Zoom-like technological shifts.

What is Powell’s new Nairu? The Fed’s historical model for the “non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment” cannot be a reliable guide for future policy rate changes. And how long can the Treasury continue to require near-costless Fed financing for $2tn, $3tn and $4tn deficits without sinking the dollar? In a historical gold-standard world, Fort Knox would have been emptied long ago, implying the bankruptcy of the world’s reserve currency.

Here’s an example of what the Fed’s stimulus is doing to the plumbing of the global dollar-based financial system: banks are quickly running out of places to stash all their cash reserves amid a shortage of good collateral, much of which has been hoovered up already by the central bank.

Thanks to the Fed, Gross argues that Treasuries valuations have become so stretched that they’re essentially “risk” assets now. Financial journalists scoffed last month when Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio once again warned that “cash is trash”, a warning that he has made repeatedly in the past, often before big market selloffs. As Gross sees it, cash might soon be the only real haven for investors as markets are forced to reckon with the possibility that rate hikes and tapering might arrive sooner than investors might like.

The Fed cannot for long continue to maintain current policy rates and expand its own balance sheet and therefore private bank reserves at a $120bn monthly pace.

Ten-year Treasuries morphed into the “risk” asset category several years ago. Stocks with valuations supported by low yields have entered the same category now, no matter the growth potential for 2021 and 2022.

Cash has been trash for years but soon it may be the only haven for investors sated beyond reasonable expectations of perpetually low yields and supportive bond kings and queens.

Regardless of what happens next, few would argue with Gross’s conclusion that Chairman Jerome Powell and the Fed’s other top officials are the true “kings and queens” of the bond market.

Via SchiffGold.com,

Last month, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law that creates a commission to study the feasibility of creating a gold bullion depository in the Volunteer State.

A state bullion depository would not only create a safe place to store precious metals; it would increase the state’s financial independence. It could also facilitate the everyday use of gold and silver in financial transactions in Tennessee and set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

Sen. Paul Rose (R) sponsored Senate Bill 279 (SB279) and Rep. Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport) carried the companion bill in the House — House Bill 353 (HB353). The new law requires the Tennessee advisory commission on intergovernmental relations (TACIR) to study the feasibility of creating a state gold depository, including whether other states or jurisdictions have created a gold depository, and to report its findings to the speakers of the senate and house of representatives no later than January 1, 2022.

The Tennessee Senate passed SB279 by a 32-0  vote. The House approved the measure 90-0. Gov. Lee signed the bill on May 27.

This takes a long-awaited second step toward creating a bullion depository in Tennessee. In, 2016 Gov. Bill Haslam signed HJR516, a resolution in support of creating a state gold bullion depository. Both houses of the legislature passed the measure unanimously. Passage of this new, five years later, finally takes a second step forward in the pursuit of sound money.

Tennessee could follow the lead of Texas.

In the summer of 2015, Gov. Greg Abbot signed a law creating a state gold bullion and precious metal depository. The depository received its first deposits in the summer of 2018. The following year, the state exempted precious metals in these depositories from taxation.

A state gold repository creates a path toward financial independence for a state. Countries around the world have been buying gold to limit their dependence on the US dollar. For instance, last spring Poland announced plans to add another 100 tons of gold to its reserves.

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said a state depository could serve a similar function for Texas.

This is another in a long line of ways to make Texas more self-reliant and less tethered to the federal government. The financial impact is small but the political impact is telling, Many conservatives are interested in returning to the gold standard and circumvent the Federal reserve in whatever small way they can.”

In his signing statement, Abbot emphasized the autonomy the new facility could provide the state.

…the Texas Bullion Depository will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state.”

A state bullion depository also creates the potential for monetary competition by facilitating the use of gold and silver in everyday business transactions. This is a stated part of the plan for the Texas Bullion Depository.

In a nutshell, through the depository, Texans will be able to deposit gold or silver and pay other people through electronic means or checks. Private individuals and entities will be able to purchase goods and services using assets in the vault in the same way they use cash today. Doing so has the potential to open the market to sound money in day-to-day transactions. Ultimately, depositors will be able to use a bullion-funded debit card that seamlessly converts gold and silver to fiat currency in the background. This will enable them to make instant purchases wherever credit and debit cards are accepted.

By making gold and silver available for regular, daily transactions by the general public, the new depository has the potential for a wide-reaching effect. Professor William Greene is an expert on constitutional tender and said in a paper for the Mises Institute that when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a ‘reverse Gresham’s Law’ effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes).

“As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”

Gresham’s Law holds that “bad money drives out good.”  For example, when the U.S. government replaced silver quarters and dimes with coins made primarily of less valuable copper, the cheap coins drove the silver out of circulation. People hoarded the more valuable silver coins and spent the less valuable copper money. So, how do you reverse Gresham?

The key is in making it easier to use gold and silver in everyday transactions. The reason bad money drives out good is that governments put up barriers to using sound money in day-to-day life. That makes it more costly to spend gold and silver and incentivizes hoarding. When you remove barriers, you level the playing field and allow gold and silver to compete head-to-head with Federal Reserve notes. On an even playing field, gold and silver beat fiat money every time.

President Biden has decided to maintain President Trump’s blacklisting of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, cutting it off from key American suppliers and hamstringing its smartphone business, which was, for a brief time, the global leader in sales thanks to its leading position in China, by far the world’s biggest market. Now, after developing its own proprietary operating system and initially deploying it on laptops and tablets, the company is preparing to launch a mobile version of Harmony OS for smartphones in a bid to take on Google and Apple.

Establishing a competitive alternative operating system to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android has been attempted before: both Microsoft and Samsung have tried and failed. But since being cut off from using Android, along with most of the popular American social media apps (most of which are already banned in China), Huawei has no choice but to launch its own operating system if it wants to keep selling smartphones.

Huawei is hoping it might encourage South Korean giant Samsung or at the very least some of the other Chinese smartphone makers, like Xiaomi, to try its new operating system on some of their phones.

Google has held the No. 1 spot for most-used smartphone operating system virtually since Android was introduced. Before Huawei, other challengers have had limited success unseating Google. Years ago, Samsung launched a rival operating system called “Tizen,” but it never gained any traction. Microsoft also tried selling a phone with a mobile version of Windows, but it also sold poorly.

According to WSJ, Huawei is targeting 200MM phones with Harmony installed by the end of the year – what many third-party analysts would describe as an extremely lofty, if not unrealistic, goal.

“It’s a giant leap,” said Nicole Peng, an analyst at market-research firm Canalys. “There isn’t a successful case of an alternative operating system out there,” she said. “It takes many, many years to be able to build up that ecosystem and get all the stakeholders to be able to agree on it and see the benefit of it.”

For years now, Huawei has been pushing developers to build programs for the company’s app store, AppGallery. The company has already launched some apps to replace those whose access it lost. For example, a program called Petal Maps replaces Google Maps, while Petal Search replaces the phone’s Google search bar. Aside from Xiaomi, the other two major Chinese smartphone brands are Oppo and Vivo.

A handful of Chinese manufacturers are already running Harmony OS on smart appliances, including Midea, a home-appliance giant. The operating system is designed to pair with Huawei smartphones, though these devices are only found in China.

If anything, Huawei’s long-shot embrace of its own operating system just shows how badly Trump’s aggressive trade policies have hurt the Chinese telecom giant, which has been accused of facilitating spying by the Chinese government.