Month: July 2021

Authored by Simon Veazey via The Epoch Times,

Record numbers of people are running the gauntlet of the English Channel in small boats and rubber dinghies, with nearly 6,000 breaking immigration law to reach the UK in the last six months.

The uptick comes despite Home Secretary Priti Patel’s vows to make crossing what is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes “unviable” for the smugglers and immigrants.

According to the PA news agency, which has tracked and analysed crossings for the last 18 months, more than 5,900 people have succeeded in reaching the UK aboard small boats so far in 2021.

A total of 8,417 made the journey in the whole of 2020—four times the number for 2019.

In 2018, just 299 people made the crossing, according to Home Office figures.

A Home Office spokesperson said, “These crossings are completely unacceptable and we have redoubled efforts with French authorities by increasing beach patrols, intelligence sharing, and investment in surveillance as we enter the summer months.

“As a result we have now seen over 5,000 people prevented by the French from making the dangerous crossing so far this year.

“As organised criminal gangs adapt their approach, so will we. But to truly close this lethal route we must fix the broken system through our New Plan for Immigration, which will be firm on those who abuse the system and fair on those in genuine need of protection.”

Some charities have criticised the Government over the figures.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “The Government’s obsession with trying to build Fortress Britain has created a people smuggler’s dream.”

“And their planned refugee Bill looks set to be an unworkable, unlawful and expensive disaster that will do nothing to stop refugees risking their lives on the Channel.”

Several people have died attempting the busy 21-mile crossing in recent years.

In October, a Kurdish-Iranian family including small children died when their migrant boat sank off the French coast.

Channel crossings make up only a small proportion of illegal immigration to the UK. The vast majority of illegal immigrants in the UK are those who have overstayed visas, failed to receive asylum, or have obtained visas illegally.

The latest figures on channel crossings come amid reports that the home office may introduce controversial legislation to enable asylum seekers to be sent to process centres abroad.

There is little precise information on levels of what might be categorized as illegal migration into the UK, not least because the definition of “illegal” migration is also hard to pin down and is subject to different interpretations and uses.

A report by the London School of Economics in 2007 (pdf) estimated the number of “irregular” migrants was 533,000—a little under one percent of the population.

Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

After only five months in office, President Joe Biden has already become notorious for his verbal gaffes and mis-spokes, so much so that an admittedly Republican-partisan physician has suggested that he be tested to determine his cognitive abilities.

That said, however, there is one June 16th tweet that he is responsible for that is quite straightforward that outdoes everything else for sheer mendacity. It appeared shortly after the summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was apparently intended to be rhetorical, at least insofar as Biden understands the term. It went:

“How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country.”

There have been various estimates of just exactly how many elections the United States has interfered in since the Second World War, the numbers usually falling somewhere between 80 and 100, but that does not take into account the frequent interventions of various kinds that took place largely in Latin America between the Spanish-American War and 1946. One recalls how the most decorated Marine in the history of the Corps Major General Smedley Butler declared that “War is a racket” in 1935. He confessed to having “…helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

And there have been since 1900 other regime change and interventionist actions, both using military force and also brought about by corrupting local politicians with money and other inducements. And don’t forget the American trained death squads active in Latin America. Some would also include in the list the possibly as many as 50 Central Intelligence Agency and Special Ops political assassinations that have been documented, though admittedly sometimes based on thin evidence.

That Joe Biden, who has been at a reasonably high level in the federal government for over forty years, including as Vice President for eight years and now President should appear to be ignorant of what his own government has done and quite plausibly continues to do is astonishing. After all, Biden was VP when Victoria Nuland worked for the Obama Administration as the driving force behind efforts in 2013-2014 to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election. Nuland, who is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies on the square accompanied by Senator John McCain to encourage the protesters.

A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé who is married to leading neocon Robert Kagan, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. As Biden’s tweet even recognized in a backhanded way, it is hard to imagine that any U.S. administration would tolerate a similar attempt by a foreign nation to interfere in U.S. domestic politics, particularly if it were backed by a $5 billion budget, but Washington has long believed in a global double standard for evaluating its own behavior. Biden clearly is part of that and also clearly does not understand what he is doing or saying.

Nuland is most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The Obama and Biden Administration’s replacement of the government in Kiev was the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea. That point of conflict has continued to this day, with a U.S. warships in the Black Sea engaging in exercises with the Ukrainian navy.

Biden was also with the Obamas when they chose to destabilize and destroy Libya. Nor should Russia itself be forgotten. Boris Yeltsin was re-elected president of Russia in 1996 after the Clinton Administration pumped billions of dollars into his campaign, enabling him to win a close oligarch-backed victory that had been paid for and managed by Washington. Joe Biden was a Senator at the time.

And then there is Iran, where democratically elected Mohammed Mossadeq was deposed by the CIA in 1953 and replaced by the Shah. The Shah was replaced by the Islamic Republic in turn in 1979 and the poisoned relationship between Washington and Tehran has constituted a tit-for-tat quasi-cold war ever since, marked by assassinations and sabotage.

And who can forget Chile where Salvador Allende was removed by the CIA in 1973 and replaced by Augusto Pinochet? Or Cuba and the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 where the CIA failed to bring about regime change in Havana? Can it be that Joe Biden cannot recall any of those “interventions,” which were heavily covered in the international media at the time?

And to make up the numbers, Joe can possibly consider the multiple “interferences in elections,” which is more precisely what he was referring to. As a CIA officer stationed in Europe and the Middle East in and 1970s through the early 1990s, I can assure him that I personally know about nearly continuous interference in elections in places like France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, all of which had prominent communist parties, some of which were on the verge of government entry. Bags of money went to conservative parties, politicians were bribed and journalists bought. In fact, during that time period I would dare to say there was hardly an election that the United States did not somehow get involved in.

Does it still go on? The U.S. has been seeking regime change in Syria since 2004 and is currently occupying part of the country. And of course, Russia is on the receiving end of a delegitimization process through a controlled western media that is seeking to get rid of Putin by exploiting a CIA and western intelligence funded opposition. China has no real opposition or open elections, nor can its regime plausibly be changed, but it is constantly being challenged by depicting it and its behavior in the most negative fashion possible.

Joe Biden really should read up on the history of American political and military interventions, regime changes and electoral interference worldwide. He just might learn something. The most important point might, however, elude him. All of the intervention and all of the deaths have turned out badly both for the U.S. and for the people and countries being targeted. Biden has taken a bold step to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, though it now appears that that decision might be in part reversed. Much better to complete the process and also do the same thing in places like Iraq, Somalia and Syria. The whole world will be a better place for it.

“Are you happy?” is a deceptively complex question to both ask and answer.

It’s generally understood that having enough money to cover your needs and wants can help you live a relatively happy, comfortable life – and recent research shows this relationship may increase linearly as income levels grow, as well.

However, as Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh details below, there’s much more to it than that. Happiness levels depend not just on financial security, but also broader perceptions of one’s social support, personal freedom, and more.

This series of map pulls data from the World Happiness Report to uncover the average scores of 149 countries between 2018-2020, and which ones emerged the happiest or unhappiest. We also look at the most and least improved countries in every region.

How is Happiness Measured?

First, let’s look at the factors used to calculate world happiness levels. Some clear indicators are health and wealth, both metrics that have been steadily on the rise worldwide. The report takes these into account, weighting GDP per capita and life expectancy at birth into the scores.

The report also looks at more intangible aspects, collecting survey responses around:

• Social support

• Freedom to make life choices

• Generosity

• Perceptions of government/ business corruption

• Positive or negative affects (Recent experience of emotions)

This year, there was a natural focus on the negative affect measure of the COVID-19 pandemic on happiness levels, such as exacerbating mental health risks. In addition, such measurements varied depending on each country’s response to the crisis.

Looking Closely at Regional Happiness Levels

Worldwide happiness comes in at an average score of 5.5, a marginal improvement since our previous coverage of this report in 2019. Let’s dive into regional outlooks for happiness levels.

North America

Current Mood: Happy (6.1)

Canada retains its spot as the happiest country in North America, although its overall global ranking has dropped over the years. In 2019, it was ranked in ninth place globally, dropping to 11th in the 2020 edition, and declining further to 14th place in this year’s report.

Haiti continues to fare poorly as the unhappiest in the region, with an average annual GDP growth of only 1.3% over 20 years. Its weak economy and political instability have been worsened by the pandemic—setting back efforts to reduce poverty and widening inequality.

South America

Current Mood: Content (5.9)

With the largest middle class in the Americas—60% of its population—and a miniscule 0.1% extreme poverty rate, Uruguay is the happiest South American country. The nation has also achieved equitable access to basic services, from education to electricity.

The trio of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela are experiencing different stages of progress in happiness levels, but their relationship is very much interdependent.

Venezuela and Ecuador face similar economic challenges and sharp declines in oil prices. Venezuela is additionally acutely affected by socio-political unrest, triggering a mass exodus of citizens to Ecuador and Colombia alike. The silver lining is that the influx of highly-educated Venezuelan migrants may provide a 2% boost to Ecuador’s GDP.

Colombia, the most improved country, has halved its poverty rate in the last decade. In addition, it has welcomed almost 2 million Venezuelan migrants as of Dec 2020—and plans to provide them up to 10 years of protective status.

Europe

Current Mood: Happy (6.4)

Finland remains at the top of the leaderboard as the world’s happiest country. This year’s ranking was also influenced by high levels of trust in the way the COVID-19 pandemic was handled.

Meanwhile, the shock of the COVID-19 crisis is expected to be short-lived in Croatia, which is the most improved country. This is partly due to its steady pre-pandemic economic gains, although risks remain.

In the unhappiest country of Ukraine, conflicts continue to cause stress on its politics, security, and economy. In particular, government corruption remains a big public issue.

Middle East and Central Asia

Current Mood: It’s Complicated (5.3)

Saudi Arabia is the most improved country in the region, as it continues to reduce its oil dependence, diversify its economy, and bolster its public services. It has also been making some progress towards gender equality.

The tourism and hospitality industries contribute nearly 20% of Jordan’s GDP—and COVID-19 has caused a prolonged economic decline in the country along with the headwinds of these industries.

Although Afghanistan has seen improvements in access to basic services and its agricultural economy, challenges remain with prolonged conflict and violence. A post-pandemic recovery in the world’s unhappiest country might take several years.

East Asia and Oceania

Current Mood: Neutral (5.5)

Both New Zealand and Taiwan saw a successful COVID-19 response and recovery boosting their positions in the global happiness rankings. In fact, New Zealand was the only non-European country to make it into the top 10 on the global happiness list.

Note: As the report only covers 149 countries, “Oceania” only refers to Australia and New Zealand in this instance.

Although India remains the unhappiest country in the region, it also showed the most improvement overall, possibly due to its increased access to basic services. Notably though, the pandemic caused a sharp economic contraction in real GDP by 23.9% year-over-year in Q1’2021.

Africa

Current Mood: Unhappy (4.5)

In July 2020, the island nation of Mauritius joined Seychelles to become the second high-income country in Africa, helping cement its status as the happiest in the region.

Zambia, the most improved African country, has one of the world’s youngest populations by median age—which presents long-term opportunities for labor force participation.

On the flip side, agriculturally-reliant Benin struggles with high poverty, with close to 40% of the population living below $1.90 per day.

Zimbabwe, the unhappiest country, has been through not just natural disasters but financial disasters too. It experienced hyperinflation of 786% in May 2020, accompanied by an equally sharp rise in food prices.

Although each country has been uniquely impacted by the pandemic, it’s clear that on the whole, happiness levels take into account so much more. How will future rankings look like in a post-pandemic world?

Maybe it’s time to admit that the whole “green” energy push is one big farce

Six months after a historic failure in the Texas power grid which collapsed when various “renewable” sources of electricity failed concurrently and dragged down the entire network, California – that liberal utopia powered by renewable power and/or unicorn flatulence – realizes it is about to get Enroned, and has made an urgent request for additional power supplies to avoid blackouts this summer, an extraordinary step after suffering from rolling outages less than a year ago.

State energy officials asked the California Independent System Operator, which runs most of the grid, to contract for additional power capacity for July and August on concern it won’t be able to meet demand during the evening when solar production fades, according to a joint statement Thursday from grid, utility and energy agencies. They didn’t say how much more power is needed but one can guess it will be a lot.

Of course, there was a convenient scapegoat on which to blame the collective lack of competence: global warming.

“California is using all available tools to increase electricity reliability this summer,” the heads of the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, and grid operator said citing “unprecedented climate change-driven heat events, which are occurring throughout the West in combination with drought conditions that reduce hydroelectric capacity.”

Right, it’s always someone else’s fault that you could not properly budget even a few months in advance after keeping millions of people in the dark last year when California again blamed… global warming. But if you know there is global warming, and you suffer one nightmare summer in the dark because of it, can’t you extrapolate at least a year into the future?

In California, the answer is no.

Their statement underscores California’s challenges in the coming months as it begins summer already parched by drought that’s leaving hydroelectric reservoirs at historic lows. The state narrowly avoided rolling power outages recently as extreme heat came early this year, and with few new generation sources on the immediate horizon supplies tighten when hot weather hits.

California has taken a number of steps including adding battery storage (which some may recall was a complete disaster last summer) to prevent blackouts such as those in August, when demand overwhelmed the grid. However, the state has grown concerned that that the increases aren’t enough, according to the letter.

Procuring additional capacity “is taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure electric reliability and preserve the public health and safety of all Californians,” the officials said. Their letter also cited delayed availability for some thermal power plants and said some resources expected to be running during the hottest months have now been delayed.

Supply challenges are mounting less than a year after a heat wave forced the state’s first rolling outages in two decades, and meeting demand is likely to be even harder this year because long-range forecasts call for above-average temperatures through September.

What is remarkable is that even Bloomberg, which has been on a crusade to crush non-green sources of power, admits that California’s problem is the state’s aggressive push to cut carbon emissions by shifting to renewable energy.

Many gas-burning plants have closed, which means electricity supplies tighten at sunset as the production from solar generation fades around sundown (good thing there are no vampires or zombies in Cali, yet). What’s more, big batteries being built to store solar power during the day and resupply the grid in the evening won’t be available by August and September, the state’s hottest months.

In short, it’s time to admit that California’s “green” push has been a complete disaster, and is about to leave millions of people in the dark during hot, sweaty days, leading to countless deaths.

Of course, since we are talking about the socialist paradise, this will never happen, and instead locals have even more brilliant ideas like for example paying people not to use electricity.

“The short-term strategy needs to be centered around incentivizing demand reductions instead of increasing supply,” said Abe Stanway, co-founder of Amperon Holdings Inc., which provides analysis to utilities and power traders. “The best way to reduce uncertainty around demand resources is to simply pay consumers more to use less during peak events.”

Because while electricity may not grow on trees in California but at least money still does.

A News crew in Oakland, California was held at gunpoint midway through an interview with Oakland’s head of violence prevention, Guillermo Cespedes, after the city’s Democratic leaders decided to divert $18 million away from police amid a spike in violent crime.

The incident took place Monday afternoon on the steps of Oakland City Hall – hours after Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong decried the reallocated $18 million – as NBC affiliate KNTV was interviewing Cespedes. As the East Bay Times‘ George Kelly reports:

Just after 6 p.m., police said in a statement that two suspects approached a cameraperson filming during an interview at 3:09 p.m. before trying to take the camera at gunpoint.

After a scuffle ensued, “the armed security officer pulled his firearm out, and directed the suspects to leave. The suspects immediately left the area without the camera,” and were still outstanding, police said.

Officers, including a police spokesperson, responded to the scene during an investigation. There were no injuries, police said.

“Please be advised that the suspects are still outstanding,” police said. “We encourage everyone to be vigilant of their surroundings and report all crimes. Please stay safe.”

In a statement, an Oakland city spokesperson confirmed that Department of Violence Prevention Chief Guillermo Cespedes was the person being interviewed outside City Hall.

The $18 million diverted from the city’s proposed $674 million police budget will be reallocated to the city’s relatively new Department of Violence Prevention, headed by Cespedes – who joined in 2020. Diverting the funds was the idea of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.

According to SFGate, the Department, formed in 2017, has a focus on “community-led intervention strategies” to prevent violent crime, somehow. “Oakland has seen 65 homicides so far this year; there were a total of 74 in 2019 and 102 in 2020,” per the report.

Believe it or not, news crews are regularly held at gunpoint in California.

Authored by John Rossomando via The Epoch Times,

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley dismissed concerns about neo-Marxist critical race theory. He feigned outrage at accusations the military was becoming “woke.” His cavalier response showed that at best he’s ignorant, and at worst he doesn’t care.

Critical race theory stems from a school of thought among post-Russian Revolution Marxist intellectuals who were disturbed by the fact communist revolution didn’t sweep Europe as Marx predicted. Orthodox Marxists deny that critical race theory is Marxist because it derives from a revisionist strain of thought. The revisionists reimagined Marxist theory to focus on who has power in society and who doesn’t instead of the class struggle between the working class and the capitalists found in Karl Marx’s writings.

Critical race theory’s reliance on Marxist dualism of the oppressor versus the oppressed intends to produce strife and chaos.

Unsurprisingly, a 2012 Harvard Business Review article noted, “Diversity training doesn’t extinguish prejudice. It promotes it.”

Other social-science research finds that diversity training is ineffective at reaching positive outcomes.

Milley clearly never read these reports.

“I’ve read Mao Tse Tung. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist,” Milley said.

“So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?”

Milley acknowledged critical race theory’s roots in critical legal studies at Harvard University back in the 1980s. It bears the strong influence of neo-Marxist theorist Frantz Fanon and Communist Party USA member W.E.B. DuBois, winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union.

“And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers of being, quote, woke or something else, because we’re studying some theories that are out there. That was started at Harvard Law School years ago,” Milley continued.

He claimed that he wanted to understand the “White Rage” behind the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6. The general’s liberal-sounding rhetoric masks the real problem. The concept of “White Rage,” developed by Emory University professor Carol Anderson, is an aspect of critical race theory itself.

Anderson promotes black powerlessness and blames whites for every contemporary problem of black America. She insinuates that questioning the critical race theorists’ dogmas itself is racist in her book “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.”

“The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement,” Anderson theorizes, thus setting up a strawman argument that suggests that all white Americans oppose prosperity for blacks and that it threatens them.

Her book cherry-picks points about white Americans following the Civil War. It avoids discussion of how people such as General and later President Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. Army fought to protect freed blacks from racist violence. She also glosses over how Republicans tried to protect black civil rights from racist oppression immediately following the Civil War (pdf), focusing instead on President Andrew Johnson’s racism. Doing so is needed to portray America as totally evil. Such omissions show that Anderson’s “White Rage” is propaganda, not scholarship.

Are Grant’s exploits on behalf of black Americans discussed, or the role of the U.S. military during Reconstruction protecting black lives (pdf) talked about in the Defense Department’s seminars?

Milley’s discussion of his having read Mao, Marx, and Lenin was a red herring about the question at hand.

Namely, are U.S. servicemembers being indoctrinated in ideas developed by contemporary acolytes of Karl Marx? Marxist thought is particularly destructive because it’s predicated on dialectical thinking that promotes conflict to bring about a new society.

Milley’s dismissal set up a strawman argument because critical race theory is not a dispassionate examination of the history of slavery, Jim Crow, or even the problems black Americans currently face in American society. And by all reports, this critical race theory is being taught as fact rather than as a dispassionate assessment of the sectarian opinions of neo-Marxist scholars without presenting contrary ideas for debate. They aim to discredit the United States, its Constitution, and the same institutions that members of the military swear an oath to protect.

“What Gen. Milley was responding to was an exchange that I had had during my time of question-and-answer with Secretary Austin, where I raised the point of a series of courses and seminars that’s being taught at West Point, which was brought to my attention by very upset and disturbed cadets, their families, soldiers,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told Hugh Hewitt on his podcast on June 24.

“One of the seminars, Hugh, was titled, ‘Dealing With Your Whiteness and White Rage,’ which apparently over 100 cadets attended; ‘Critical Race Theory: An Introduction’—the textbook is part of the curriculum.”

This was one of several incidents that have appeared since Joe Biden became president.

Members of Congress have repeatedly raised questions about the Navy’s recommendation of neo-Marxist ideologue Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How to Be an Antiracist,” which seeks to remedy past discrimination against blacks with “future discrimination” against whites. Kendi blames capitalism for the lack of an equality of outcome among black Americans. Kendi’s thesis falls apart after you look at how Afro-Cubans live in communist Cuba compared with Cubans of Spanish descent, the former suffering discrimination despite living under socialism.

Like Anderson, Kendi cherry-picks his information and gets facts, such as data about black poverty in the Reagan era and other topics that are more nuanced than he claims, wrong.

American capitalism has spawned more innovations and technological achievements than any in the preceding millennia of human history, including the technology that you’re reading this article on. Poor Americans of all colors have a higher standard of living here than they do in any socialist country, including China.

Adm. Michael Gilday similarly defended critical race theory and Kendi’s disinformation.

“Sir, initially you mentioned critical race theory: I’m not a theorist; I’m the Chief of Naval Operations,” Gilday told Congress.

“What I can tell you is, factually, based on a substantial amount of time talking to sailors in the fleet, there’s racism in the Navy, just like there’s racism in our country. And the way we’re going to get after it is to be honest about it, not to sweep it under the rug, and to talk about it—and that’s what we’re doing. And that’s one of the reasons that book is on the list.”

Winning wars requires unit cohesion and a common mission. It seems that Gen. Milley, Adm. Gilday, and the Pentagon’s civilian leadership are determined to compromise unit cohesion at the time when threats from Russia and China are increasing and that cohesion is needed the most. If they examined the social science, they would realize their activities only cause harm.

Labor market reading going into tomorrow’s Nonfarm Payrolls have been predominantly strong in June, but not all; as Newsquawk writes in its payrolls preview, ADP’s report was strong, but the whisper number was even higher. Challenger layoffs was an exceedingly solid print at the lowest figure since June 2000 with the report crediting record job openings and high job seeker confidence. Consumer Confidence continues to facilitate the potentially impressive NFP print, as it rose to the highest post-pandemic level, while the difference between jobs “plentiful” and jobs “hard to get” rose too. However, the jobless claims figure was poor and surprisingly rose, which may weigh, but the total number on unemployment benefits fell below 15mln for the first time since April ’20.

At the same time, business surveys, such as the ISM Manufacturing survey, painted a reasonably poorer picture with the headline figure falling alongside the employment sub-component dipping into contractionary territory, where panelists noted it remains difficult to fill vacant positions. Some of the former factors point to improving conditions and growing confidence amid the re-opening picture. However, slack still remains in the economy illustrated by the participation and unemployment rate still way off pre-COVID levels and record job openings.

Looking at high-frequency data on the labor market shows a mixed picture for the May and June survey weeks. While two of the six measures tracked by Goldman declined outright (Dallas Fed survey, Google mobility), there were strong gains in the two datasets that explicitly track employee scheduling (Homebase, ADP). These two indicators may more effectively track inflections in reopening categories like restaurants, hotels, and other services.

On this, and while the Fed continues to state unemployment has a long way to go, it is not unanimous. For instance, Quarles does not think we need to see labor force participation return to pre-COVID levels due to baby boomer retirements, although several members have said they are looking to return to the pre-COVID employment landscape.

Therefore, as Newsquawk summarizes, a decent print is only likely to amplify the hawkish calls at the Fed amid progress on “substantial further progress”, sustaining expectations for a tapering announcement into year-end.

With that in mind this is what consensus expects from tomorrow’s payroll report:

• Non-farm Payrolls (exp. 7110k, prev. 559k);
• Private Payrolls (exp. 615k, prev. 492k);
• Manufacturing Payrolls (exp. 28k, prev. 23k);
• Government Payrolls (prev. 67k);
• Unemployment Rate (exp. 5.7%, prev. 5.8%);
• Participation Rate (prev. 61.6%);
• U6 Underemployment (prev. 10.2%);
• EPOP (prev. 58.0%, vs 61.1% in Feb 2020);
• Average Earnings M/M (exp. 0.4%, prev. 0.5%);
• Average Earnings Y/Y (exp. 3.7%, prev. 2.0%);
• Average Workweek Hours (exp. 34.9hrs, prev. 34.9hrs)

Guesses by bank, from high to low:

• Citi 860K
• BofA 800K
• Daiwa 800K
• JPM 800K
• Jefferies 800K
• NatWest 800K
• TD 800K
• GS 750K
• WF 750K
• SocGen 730K
• Nomura 720K
• UBS 711K
• CS 700K
• DB 700K
• Mizuho 700K
• Scotia 700K
• Amherst 690K
• HSBC 675K
• Barx 625K
• BNP 625K
• MS 620K
• RBC 570K
• BMO 550K

Some more details from Newsquawk

ADP PAYROLLS: Ahead of Friday’s jobs report, the ADP’s gauge of payrolls showed 692k jobs being added to the US economy in June, above the forecasted 600k, but below May’s figure which was revised lower to 886k from 978k. Pantheon Macroeconomics hoped for a greater increase, based on the Homebase employment data, suggesting the signal for Friday’s NFP release is unclear. Pantheon highlights the ADP’s measure was short of the official payroll data for most of the pandemic, but it suddenly overshot in April and May, adding that the change was likely due to ADP’s model overstating the strength of macroeconomic variables (retail sales and jobless claims) while ignoring the labor supply shortfall. As such, payrolls growth has not kept pace with demand due to the participation rate remaining lower. Looking ahead, PM writes, “if the new pattern continues for June, Friday’s print will only be about 200K, but that would be wildly at odds with the clear message from the Homebase data suggesting that increasing labor supply allowed payrolls growth to jump to about 1mln”, an expectation Pantheon is sticking with, but believes the breadth of Friday’s plausible outcomes is exceedingly broad.

JOBLESS CLAIMS: The initial jobless claims data released for the period that usually coincides with the BLS Employment Situation report showed a surprise rise to 412k from 375k, against the expected fall to 359k. Continued Claims followed suit and also surprised on the upside, rising to 3.518mln from 3.517mln (revised up from 3.499mln), against the expected fall to 3.43mln. The rise in initial claims marked the first increase in more than a month, although the gains were primarily seen in California, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. The good news from the report was that the total number of people on unemployment benefits fell below 15mln for the first time since April 2020. However, looking at the headline prints, it does not bode so well for the June BLS data.

BUSINESS SURVEYS: The ISM Manufacturing PMI fell to 60.6 (prev. 61.2), below the expected 61.0. The survey gave a fairly negative insight into the labour market, highlighted by the Employment sub-component falling to 49.9 from 50.9, into contractionary territory after six straight months of expansion, with panellists continuing to note significant difficulties in attracting and retaining labour at their companies’ and suppliers’ facilities. Alongside this, panellists reported difficulties in filling open positions, continuing to limit manufacturing-growth potential. Looking at services, heading into this month’s payrolls the ISM Services data has yet to be released, and as such the IHS Markit Services May PMI data can be used as a proxy. The Markit data stated there was a further sharp rise in employment which can be derived down to the greater business requirements. However, despite that, the rate of job creation reduced as firms reported difficulties filling vacancies as they could not find suitable candidates. Nonetheless, jobs creation still remained sharp and outpaced the long-run series average.

CHALLENGER LAYOFFS: Challenger reported that job cut announcements fell from 24,586 in May to 20,746 in June, the lowest monthly total since June 2000, and -88% Y/Y. Challenger stated that so far this year, employers announced plans to cut 212,661 jobs, the lowest January-June total since 1995, and down 87% from the 1,585,047 jobs eliminated through the same period last year. The report noted they are seeing a rubber band snap back, and companies are holding on tight to their workers during a time of record job openings and very high job seeker confidence. Also, they have not seen job cuts this low since the Dot-Com boom. However, Challenger adds, the majority of cuts were attributed to Restructuring (10,876), while 2,950 were from plant and store closings. Nonetheless, a low challenger layoffs reading
bodes well for a  strong NFP print.

SLACK: Fed officials are looking past the headline unemployment rate to try and gauge the levels of slack that remain; accordingly, the U6 Underemployment metric, Participation Rate, as well as the Employment-to-Population ratio have gained in importance. Last month, U6 was 10.2% (vs 7.0% in February 2020), Participation at 61.6% (vs 63.3% in February 2020), and the Employment-Population Ratio at 58.0% (vs 61.1% in February 2020), all three indicating there is still a long way to go, and recovering the lost ground is not going to happen in the immediate short-term. Moreover, Fed officials continue to state that unemployment has a long way to go, although it is not unanimous, as Quarles noted he does not think we need to see labour force participation return to pre-COVID levels due to baby boomer retirements.

SENTIMENT: Consumer Confidence rose to the highest figure since February last year which indicates confidence has recuperated a large part of the COVID hit. Moreover, the view of the labour market has also drastically improved, as the “jobs hard to get” index fell to just below the pre-COVID level. Further signalling the positive outlook, the difference between jobs “plentiful” and jobs “hard to get” rose. Nonetheless, the future remains highly uncertain, as the level of people expecting business conditions to worsen has stopped falling. As such, the positive consumer confidence may filter through into a solid NFP figure.

SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT:  Recall that April and May disappointed in no small part due to seasonal adjustments that mistook a highly unusual reopening for a regular expansion. In June the seasonal adjustment is still negative (-200k), but less than in May (-400k) and April (- 800k). But In July the US economy normally lays off 1,000k workers meaning that if the reopening economy continues to add about 1mn jobs monthly (seasonally unadjusted) Nonfarm payrolls could be around +2mn on a seasonally adjusted basis. Clearly that implies a rapidly improving labor market, inflation, much higher interest rates and wider credit spreads.

Arguing for a better-than-expected report:

• Reopening. The further decline in infection rates and looser restrictions on businesses and mask usage has supported job growth in virus-sensitive industries. For example, restaurant seatings on OpenTable rebounded to 90% of their 2019 levels during the June survey week, compared to 83% in the May survey week.

• Seasonality. In April and May, reopening effects likely overlapped with normal seasonal hiring patterns, resulting in less-impressive job gains on a seasonally-adjusted basis.1 The June seasonal hurdle is sequentially easier in June however: the BLS adjustment factors generally assume 200k-400k of net hiring in June (mom nsa), compared to +414k in May 2021 and +823k in April 2021.Additionally, the end of the school year should result in fewer than normal education layoffs, given the 1.1mn staffers still not working because of pandemic.
• Labor supply constraints. We also expect less of a drag from labor supply constraints in tomorrow’s report, due to the arrival of the youth summer labor force and the wind-down of federal unemployment top-ups in some states. As shown inthe left panel of Exhibit 2, 1.8mn 16-24-year-olds join the labor force in a typical June as the school year ends. This may have boosted overall payroll growth if a higher proportion successfully found jobs due to strong demand for labor in lower-skilled occupations. For example, if net hiring occurs at the 2019 pace (82% of the nsa change), we estimate it would boost headline job growth by approximately +325k relative to a typical June (66%).

• The right panel indicates that state-level changes to unemployment insurance availability and generosity are also boosting labor supply. Benefits were curtailed in half of US states (representing 29% of the outstanding job losses since the start of the pandemic) in June and early July. Encouragingly, continuing claims declined more quickly in these states (by roughly 200k relative to the trend in all other states).
• ADP. Private sector employment in the ADP report increased by 692k in June, above consensus expectations for a 600k gain. Additionally, the large reported gain in leisure and hospitality jobs (+332k) is consistent with our view that labor supply constraints eased sequentially.
• Job availability. The Conference Board labor differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—surged to +43.5 in June (from +36.9 in May) and is now at its highest level since 2000.

Arguing for a weaker-than-expected report:

• Employer surveys. The employment component of our manufacturing survey tracker was unchanged (-at 58.4), while the employment component of our services survey tracker decreased (-1.6pt to 54.9), but both remain around early-2019 levels.Encouragingly, the employment component of the GSAI increased substantially (+7.3pt to 68.4).
• Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas rose by 18%nin June after declining by 33% in May (mom, SA by GS). Layoffs were at the lowest level since 1993.

Neutral/mixed factors:

• Big Data. High-frequency data on the labor market were mixed between the May and June survey weeks (see Exhibit 3). While two of the six measures we track declined outright (Dallas Fed survey, Google mobility), we note strong gains in thetwo datasets that explicitly track employee scheduling (Homebase, ADP). These two indicators may more effectively track inflections in reopening categories like restaurants, hotels, and other services.

• Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims declined during the June payroll month, averaging 396k per week vs. 505k in May. Across all employee programs including emergency benefits, continuing claims remained roughly unchanged between the payroll survey weeks.

FWIW, Goldman estimates nonfarm payrolls rose 750k in June (above the 711k consensus) after rising 559k in May and 278k in April. Labor demand remains very strong due to the reopening and the stimulus, and the arrival of the youth summer labor force and the wind-down of federal unemployment top-ups in some states eased the labor supply constraints that held down job growth in May and April. GS thinks pPrivate payrolls rose 675k, above consensus of +620k.

Goldman also estimates a two-tenths drop in the unemployment rate to 5.6% (in line with consensus of 5.6%), reflecting a strong household employment gain but a further rise in the participation rate. Goldman sees scope for the household measure to outperform relative to headline payrolls, as the former should better reflect the impact of reopening establishments. At the same time, in addition to a vaccine- and reopening-driven rise in labor force participation, the easing of labor supply constraints discussed earlier may have also boosted it as well. This would absorb some of the impact of strong job growth from the perspective of the jobless rate. Goldman also will pay close attention to the number of unemployed workers on temporary layoff, which spiked to a record-high 18.1mn last April but fell to 1.8mn in the May 2021 report. The smaller number of workers left on temporary layoff reduces the scope for the rapid pace of gains seen last summer, but it remains a positive factor relative to the pre-coronavirus pace of job gains.

Finally, Goldman estimates a 0.4% rise in average hourly earnings (above consensus of +0.3%), reflecting continued labor shortages partially offset by negative calendar effects. Coupled with last spring’s waning composition effects, this would result in a further rise in the year-on-year rate from +2.0% to +3.8% (consensus is +3.6%). Wage growth continues to be resilient in the wake of the crisis, reflecting strong labor demand per unemployed worker and pandemic-related delays in job searches. Wages for lower-paid workers have risen sharply in recent months amidst widespread reports of worker shortages, and this imbalance led to further wage hikes in June as well.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

After Comcast suspended a user’s Internet access for downloading copyrighted material, some people are asking whether in the near future similar punishments could be inflicted for accessing ‘offensive content’.

A Comcast Xfinity subscriber was informed that his Internet service had been suspended for 8 hours due to downloading torrents and that it wouldn’t be restored until he contacted the company.

“This alert is to let you know that this month, we again received notifications of alleged copyright infringement associated with your Xfinity account. That means your Internet service may have been used repeatedly to copy or share a movie, show, song, game, or other content without any required permission,” said the email to the customer.

The user was told that further violations would result in another 12 hour suspension and that, “Further notifications may result in your Xfinity Internet account being suspended again or terminated.”

ISP Cox also previously handed out a 6 month suspension against a user after receiving multiple complaints.

“Such terminations have the potential to disrupt everything from distance learning to telework and telemedicine,” reports Torrent Freak.

Indeed, now that things like grocery shopping, banking, housing, government services and other basic life necessities are mainly conducted online (exclusively in some cases), cutting off someone’s Internet access isn’t far removed from cutting off their power or water supply.

And if major ISPs are willing to bow to the entertainment industry by metering out such draconian punishments, what’s to say they won’t do the same when pressured by governments or woke mobs?

“If Comcast is cutting people’s internet off for civil copyright infractions, whose to say they won’t start cutting people off for “hate speech” next?” asks Chris Menahan.

“The same measures the US government used to seize the domains of torrent sites a decade ago are now being used to seize Middle East news websites the Biden regime doesn’t fancy.”

He is referring to the Iranian news website Press TV and similar sites, which Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last month had been seized by the FBI.

This all underscores the fact that Internet access should be treated as a utility and protected by law.

*  *  *

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In the continuing saga and standoff between US tech giants and the Russian state, the Kremlin just took a bold, creative step in its long-running efforts to reign in foreign “propagandistic” attempts to both censor official Russian sources and at the same time promote “obscene” content, as its officials have long complained.

Russian President Putin on Thursday signed a law that seeks to force major social media companies to open offices on Russian soil if they continue to want their platforms unrestricted inside Russia. 

“A foreign entity, carrying out activities on the internet in Russia, is obliged to create a branch, open an office or establish a Russian legal entity,” the new law reads, according to Reuters.

More details of the law were reported in Reuters as follows:

Alexander Khinshtein, the head of the information policy and IT committee at the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said the law applied to internet giants with a daily audience in Russia of at least 500,000 people.

The firms must register a personal account on the website of Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state communications regulator, he wrote on his Telegram channel. Companies that violate the legislation could face penalties such as advertising bans.

This in effect targets at least 20 US-based and other international companies, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Telegram YouTube, and TikTok – many of which already have multi-million dollar fines against them inside Russia based on allegations they promote and elevate “banned” anti-government activity, including recent pro-Navalny protests dubbed by the state “illegal gatherings”.

Putin on Wednesday actually addressed the immense power of Silicon Valley during his annual “call-in” telethon which allows citizens to ask questions of the Russian leader directly:

“We tell them ‘you are distributing child pornography, instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails and suicide, you must remove that’,” Putin said.

Last Spring the country began throttling Twitter speeds for some of these very issues and lack of compliance to Russian law.

“If the foreign social media companies work in our country and make good money, they must comply with our laws. We do not demand anything extra from them, but such companies must open representative offices in Russia to enable a dialogue,”

“His company, his rule” in the mud. https://t.co/MDQgYJKsdj

— Ayelaagbe olajide (@am_i_olajide) June 30, 2021

While the threat of outright banning some platforms remains, many of the big platforms are so popular among Russians that it’s not believed leaders could pull it off politically, given the massive domestic backlash that would ensue. Putin this week emphasized that there’s currently no plans to ban social media companies, however, he stressed “they must comply with our laws” and remain available to state authorities “to enable dialogue”. 

Commercial satellite imagery obtained by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies suggest that China is building over 100 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert close to the northwestern city of Yumen, which – if true, could signal a ‘major expansion of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities,’ according to the Washington Post.

The Monterey, California-based James Martin Center says the images reveal that work is now underway at ‘scores of sites across a grid covering hundreds of square miles’ of arid terrain in the country’s Gansu province. At least 119 nearly identical construction sites which contain features seen at existing launch facilities for China’s nuclear arsenal have been observed.

The sites are spaced approximately two miles apart, and many are concealed by large, dome-like coverings – a practice WaPo says has been observed during construction at known missile silos. Where the dome is not in place, crews can be seen excavating a circular-shaped pit in the desert floor.

The acquisition of more than 100 new missile silos, if completed, would represent a historic shift for China, a country that is believed to possess a relatively modest stockpile of 250 to 350 nuclear weapons. The actual number of new missiles intended for those silos is unknown but could be much smaller. China has deployed decoy silos in the past.

During the Cold War, the United States developed a plan to move its ICBMs across a matrix of silos in a kind of nuclear shell game, to ensure that Soviet war planners could never know exactly where the missiles were at any given time.

The construction boom suggests a major effort to bolster the credibility of China’s nuclear deterrent, said researcher Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on China’s nuclear arsenal and part of a team that analyzed the suspicious sites, first spotted by colleague Decker Eveleth as he scoured photos taken by commercial satellites over northwestern China. Lewis described the scale of the building spree as “incredible.” -WaPo

“If the silos under construction at other sites across China are added to the count, the total comes to about 145 silos under construction,” said Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “We believe China is expanding its nuclear forces in part to maintain a deterrent that can survive a U.S. first strike in sufficient numbers to defeat U.S. missile defenses.“

Lewis believes the silos will likely house a Chinese ICBM known as the DF-41, which is capable of carrying multiple warheads and has a reach of at least 9,300 miles, close enough to reach US mainland.

Is a cold war on the menu?

WaPo’s logical conclusion from this – which, as they dutifully note ‘follows recent warnings by Pentagon officials about rapid advances in China’s nuclear capability,’ is that a cold war is on the horizon – if not already here.

According to Lewis, the silo construction is part of an effort by Beijing to expand their deterrence strategy, as they continue to grow their arsenal in what appears to be an abandonment of their “limited deterrence” doctrine which prioritizes a robust, lean nuclear arsenal that maximizes China’s ability to retaliate against adversaries if attacked.

Neither China’s Foreign Ministry nor the US Department of Defense commented on the satellite images, however Pentagon spokesman John Supple noted that previous Pentagon reports and analysts have raised concerns over China’s silos.

“Defense Department leaders have testified and publicly spoken about China’s growing nuclear capabilities, which we expect to double or more over the next decade,” he said.

According to Lewis, “We’re stumbling into an arms race that is largely driven by U.S. investments and missile defense.“