“It’s An Airbnbust”: Home In Palm Springs Falls Quicker Than Meme Stock
DFW housing and macro analyst Amy Nixon has raised concerns about the potential for an ‘Airbnbust’ to increase inventory in the housing market. Although this scenario has yet to materialize, it remains to be seen whether owners of heavily leveraged Airbnb properties can withstand a prolonged downturn in the short-term rental market.
On X, Nixon pointed out that Zillow housing data shows a home in Palm Springs, California, that sold for $1.3 million in May 2023 and was recently listed for $625k. She called this the latest example of an “Airbnbust.”
“Just because it hasn’t happened at scale, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening,” Nixon said.
This home in Palm Springs, CA sold for $1,300,000 in May of 2023
It’s now being dumped for $625,000
It’s an Airbnbust
Just because it hasn’t happened at scale, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening
“The first thing that jumps out is Short Sale on the listing. This was so common for years after 2008 but had not seen it for a long time,” another X user said.
The first thing that jumps out is Short Sale on the listing. This was so common for years after 2008 but had not seen it for a long time
Over the last 12 months, vacation rental owners and real estate agents have described what they say is a downturn in the short-term rental market. Some on X have used the hashtag “Airbnbust.”
Sabrina Must,37, who owns a one-bathroom Airbnb property in Encinitas, California, about 25 miles north of San Diego, complained to WSJ in an interview that her listing only fetches $275 per night. During Covid, she had the property listed for $1,000 per night.
“I’ve felt a massive drop,” adding, “I am so beyond stressed by it.”
According to data from AllTheRooms, the number of Airbnb rentals in the US jumped from 200,000 seven years ago to nearly 1 million in 2023.
As for all those millennials and GenZers who used stupid amounts of leverage to buy Airbnb properties, it’s widely understood some of them have the weakest balance sheets to weather a prolonged downturn in the short-term rental market, which might force them to panic sell.
All the fundamentals are now in place for the above equation to be true:
Wars will sadly not go away but instead escalate since there is ZERO desire for peace from the US neocons or the weak Europeans.
Inflation and interest rates will increase rapidly, driven by deficits and exponential growth of debt.
Wars and inflation will lead to a major shift into GOLD by Central Banks, the BRICS as well as for wealth preservation purposes.
“Poverty is the parent of revolution, crime and war” is what Aristotle stated 2,300 years ago. I added “war” since this is often the consequence of poverty and bankruptcy for a nation in a desperate attempt to borrow more money and blame the war for the economic woes.
As the US is now totally losing its hegemony, we can on a daily basis follow the desperate actions that a failing super power takes.
As every empire and nation that fails, the US has followed the same pattern whether we talk about the Roman, Mongol, Ottoman, Qing or British Empires.
Initial economic success as well as military might lead to illusions of grandeur and infallibility.
Riches, often stolen from other nations, turn to deficits and debts, collapsing currencies and decadence. That leads to money printing followed by the collapse of the currency. At that stage wars are often started which generally have disastrous consequences.
The RISK OF A COLLAPSE OF THE global geopolitical and economic SYSTEM is crystal clear BUT the outcome is extremely murky.
So let us look at what is clear on the geopolitical side:
The US is not led by a visible leader but by an invisible and unaccountable group of neocons who only want war.And in Europe there is not a statesman to be found. Instead, weak European leaders follow the headless US.
The US Neocons want to crush Russia by any means, even if it leads to nuclear war. Thus the US has implemented sanctions against Russia and forced Europe to take their full part by also sending weapons, money and military expertise to Ukraine. The cost of these measures is destroying the European economy and making the US even more bankrupt than it is, by running a deficit approaching $2 trillion with total US debt at soon $100 trillion. Remember it was $1.7 trillion in 1971 when Nixon closed the gold window. See graph further down.
If the US war against Russia (carried out in Ukraine) escalates, Russia will have many friends on their side like China, North Korea and Iran. The US and NATO do not have the capacity to win a war on the ground so any war involving the West will be in the Air and very likely nuclear.
The US also wants to crush the Muslim/Arab world. Iran is currently the principal enemy. But the US is also supporting Israel against Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen. The Muslim world has no capacity for a major war against the West but they have a much more effective method of paralysing the West which is terrorism on a major scale. Most Western countries have well armed Muslim cells, most probably also with dirty nuclear weapons. So surprise attacks on strategic buildings or major shopping centres in the US, UK and rest of Europe are probable. That would totally paralyse the countries involved.
A cyber war is also very likely. Whether Russian and Chinese missiles can take out major communication satellite systems, as recently published, remains, to be seen. But they have well developed skills for cyber attacks anywhere.
The US has no desire for peace. They and other NATO countries are not sending a single peacemaker to Russia but only weapons and money.
The majority reaction to the recent Tucker Carlson 2 hour interview is typical for the propaganda led hatred for Putin. Most people in the West have been told by MSM to hate Putin and blame him for all evil acts and thus not listen to the interview. I am by no means saying that Putin is an angel because he definitely isn’t. But nor is any other leader of course. Nevertheless Sun Tzu, the Chinese General, strategist and philosopher told us 2,500 years ago: KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
So how can anyone in the West understand Russia or Putin when they are not prepared to listen to him calmly presenting the Russian side for 120 minutes?
Tucker Carlson – Biden interview. Some US politicians wanted to ban Tucker Carlson from coming back to the US after the interview. Instead I would suggest that Tucker would be given a 2 hour interview with Biden. Just like with Putin, there should be no advisors present, no crib sheets and no teleprompters.
Let the world thereafter compare the quality of the argument of the two leaders, their clarity and if they are both Compos Mentis. After all, these are the minimum requirements for a leader of a major power and someone who personally can press the nuclear button.
I have above covered the global geopolitical situation which is “crystal clear” from a risk point of view.
I have since the Ukraine war started been very clear that Ukraine can never beat Russia. After a lot of initial enthusiasm for the underdog and a lot of fake news that Ukraine was winning, the world now realises that this war is a human catastrophe with both sides reporting big losses for the enemy and minimal for themselves. Total deaths are probably well above 500,000 but we will never know.
The tragedy is of course that the leaders sit in their safe offices and send 100s of thousands of men to their slaughter with no resolution in sight.
How this war will play out in detail, we will of course only know afterwards. But in the end it will be seen as another futile war with no winners and one or several million losers, just like most wars that megalomanic leaders start.
THE RISK OF A COLLAPSE OF THE WESTERN ECONOMY IS CRYSTAL CLEAR
So let us now look at the global economic picture.
The risk of your wealth declining by 70-90% in the next 5-7 years is today probably greater than any time in history.
The US market is driven by a handful of tech stocks which are massively overvalued.
On any measure, US stocks are greatly overvalued and as the US debt disaster starts to dominate the discussion, markets will quickly realise that the US is bankrupt.
TOTAL US DEBT IS NOW GROWING EXPONENTIALLY
US debt has almost quadrupled this century.
As I have set out in several articles, the interest cycle bottomed in 2020 and we will now see a long term trend up for 20-30 years.
US Federal debt has doubled every 8 years on average since 1980. With the state of the US finances, the debt is likely to now grow super exponentially. Thus it is likely that $100 trillion Federal debt will be reached before 2036 as a mere doubling every 8 years would result in.
So with $100 trillion or more of Federal debt within the next 10-12 years, the US economy will default, especially if interest rates reach 10% or more. Remember they were around 20% in the late 1970s and early 80s.
Obviously, at that point, or more likely well before it, the US dollar will have collapsed and gold will be the only real money that central banks and ordinary investors will be willing to hold.
Yes, there will probably be a few rounds of other forms of fake money in between like CBDC’s issued by central banks, in the next few years. But they will fail as CBDC’s will just be another Fiat currency backed by debt and no assets.
So there we have it. Aristotle’s prediction is coming to pass. The US debt and deficit is the Poverty for the country as a whole and will rapidly spread to the people as the financial system implodes. Revolution or internal conflicts will follow both in the US and Europe. The truckers’ action in the US and in many European countries is the start of a form of Revolution. But it will get much worse. There will be conflict between various political fractions whether it is Trump supporters against the system or neo-Nazis against immigrants or just ordinary people against the wealthy. Extreme income and wealth inequalities, like we are currently seeing in the West, normally lead to conflicts or revolutions.
And anyone living in the WEST knows that Crime (as Aristotle said) is rampant and the prisons in most countries are full.
Anyone who doesn’t see that we are at the end of a major era, with massive calamities next, will soon have a rude awakening.
So overvalued stock markets will crash as will bond markets with interest rates surging.
SO WHAT ABOUT CASH IN A BANK– will that save investors?
Your cash in a bank belongs to the bank: And that is where most people keep their cash.
What people don’t realise is that your cash in the bank isn’t your money.
No, all you have is a claim on the bank as an unsecured creditor.
And as soon as the bank receives your electronic money, it lends it out up to 10X!
The consequence of that is if one borrower out of the ten can’t repay his loan, you have lost all your money.
This process is now happening slowly but just as debt is accelerating exponentially, so will defaults. I explain the process in this article.
Banca Rotta or Bankrupt: This expression comes from the Italian financial system in Florence in the 1600s when banking was conducted on a bench or desk. If the banker couldn’t honour his obligations, his bench was broken. And that is where the word Bankrupt (Banca Rotta in Italian) derives from.
So there we have it, a broken or rotten banking system is what the world is looking at now.
We had the first signs just under one year ago when four US banks had to be saved, starting with Silicon Valley Bank. Shortly thereafter Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, had to be saved by the Swiss National Bank and government and then UBS were made an offer by the Swiss government that they weren’t allowed to refuse and bought Credit Suisse.
What we saw during the Ides of March last year (March 15 when Caesar was murdered), was the first warning signal for the world that the banking system is broken.
The pressure on the banking system continues. The number of companies that failed to meet required repayments increased by 83% in 2023.
US corporate debt has increased by 18% since 2000 and is now at $13.7 trillion.
Further deterioration is expected for 2024 due to higher rates. 40% of debt Rated B- or below is risking to be downgraded in 2024.
The market is hoping for lower rates in 2024 but as I have stated many times, inflation and continued deficits will put pressure on the debt markets.
Commercial property is a real timebomb with vacancy rates approaching 15% and rents under pressure. Office sales prices are also falling rapidly by between 20% and 66% (in San Francisco).
The commercial property market is likely to lead to major write-offs for the banks and eventually either rescue actions (=money printing) or defaults – Banca Rotta!
But let’s face it, the exponential growth of total US debt is unsustainable.
There are sources quoting up to $7 quadrillion derivatives but since I cannot prove it, I cannot make that claim myself. But since there are so many “bets” outside the banking sector and in the shadow banking sector, most of them uncollateralised, we will never know the true size until the system implodes. But whatever the sum is “only” $700 trillion or as much as $7 quadrillion, it is at least 8X global GDP which is enough to break the world financial system and collapse the world economy.
This is not a fantasy. It is a nightmare. Because when counterparties fail the gross outstanding derivates cannot be netted and the gross amount outstanding is due.
Initially governments will assist banks in turning the derivatives into on balance sheet debt but as the sheer weight of the debt becomes unmanageable and hyperinflation ravages, that’s when the system will fail.
Yes, central banks will issue CBDS (Central Bank Digital Currencies) and try to hide the debt but CBDS is just another form of fake money and will suffer the same fate as paper money.
Besides the risk of the financial system, governments and central banks around the world, have throughout history destroyed our money without fail.
Only since the early 1700s over 500 currencies worldwide have become extinct, the majority through hyperinflation.
Just take the dollar which has lost 98% of its purchasing power since 1971 and 86% since 2000.
Putin Responds To NATO Chief’s Vow That “Ukraine Will Join NATO” On War’s Anniversary
In weekend remarks made on the occasion of the Russia-Ukraine war hitting the two-year mark, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued some ultra-provocative predictions regarding Kiev’s future with the Western military alliance.
“Ukraine will join NATO. It is not a question of if, but of when,” he said in a video message released Saturday, Feb. 24, which marked an exact two years since Russian forces poured across the Ukrainian border.
Important message from NATO:
“Ukraine will join NATO, it’s not a question of if but when”
“As we prepare you for that day, NATO will continue to stand with Ukraine. For your security, and for ours,” Stoltenberg added. This ‘vow’ of future NATO membership comes at a moment where even Ukraine’s staunchest external supporters acknowledge its forces are in retreat.
Stoltenberg acknowledged this “extremely serious” state of battlefield affairs and asserted “there are no indications” President Vladimir Putin is preparing for peace.
Still he praised and sought to spin reports of the latest major losses as Kiev forces are in retreat (especially from Avdiivka), instead emphasizing recent ‘positive’ naval actions and developments in the Black Sea, such as the sinking of a Russian landing ship this month.
“You have recaptured half of the territory seized by Russia. Pushed Russia back from large parts of the Black Sea. And inflicted heavy losses on the Russian forces,” the NATO chief said.
Referencing billions of dollars of Western defense aid poured into Kiev so far, including “artillery ammunition, air defence, and combat boats … F-16 equipment and spare parts, drones, and demining equipment” – he pledged that “more support is on the way.”
In a response the following day, President Putin warned that European countries will “automatically be pulled into a war with Russia” if Ukraine is allowed to enter NATO.
PUTIN🇷🇺: ‘If Ukraine joins NATO and attempts to bring Crimea back by military means, it means the European countries will automatically be pulled into a war conflict with Russia.
Of course, NATO and Russia’s potentials are incomparable. We understand it. But we also understand… pic.twitter.com/KfW0y1tTfO
Putin said the following in televised remarks translated by The Daily Mail:
If Ukraine joins NATO and attempts to bring Crimea back by military, it means the European countries will automatically pulled into a war conflict with Russia.?
NATO and Russia potentials are incomparable. We understand it. But we also understand that Russia is one of the leading nuclear states. And by some modern components, it even outperforms many.
That’s when the Russian leader stressed that in such a scenario “There will be no winners” as “you will be pulled into this conflict against your will. You wont even have time to blink your eye when you execute Article 5. I don’t want it.”
Last week Stoltenberg had also for the first time issued a greenlight on behalf of NATO for Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, or to choose targets “outside Ukraine” – as he put it.
“Ukraine has the right to self-defense,” he had told Radio Free Europe on Tuesday. “And that includes also striking legitimate military targets, Russian military targets, outside Ukraine. That is international law and, of course, Ukraine has the right to do so, to protect itself.”
First footage of a Ukrainian M1A1 Abrams MBT in combat, sporting woodland camouflage, seen here shelling Russian positions in Stepove, Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/pv0VNIqiuQ
While Ukraine has already long been doing this, and is positively boasting about it – including attacks on oil and energy infrastructure and even civilian centers such as Belgorod city – NATO has never issued such blunt statements openly encouraging these attacks. If anything Western leaders have until now officially urged restraint on attacks deep into Russia (publicly anyway). Thus it seems the war is entering a new, darker phase wherein dirtier tactics are authorized and even encouraged by the West.
Nigeria has taken drastic measures in to attempt to stabilize its plummeting national currency, the naira, by blocking access to major cryptocurrency exchanges, reported the Financial Times.
This move comes as the Nigerian government attempts to crack down on currency speculation amid record lows for the naira.
JUST IN: 🇳🇬 Nigeria blocks access to Coinbase, Binance and Kraken as their national currency falls to record lows, Financial Times reports.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) issued orders to telecoms companies late on Wednesday to restrict consumer access to websites of major cryptocurrency platforms like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. As a result, consumers experienced only intermittent access to these sites on Thursday.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser Information and Strategy to the President of Nigeria, took to X to say a local report of the government blocking access to the exchanges was correct.
Cryptocurrency exchanges have played a big role in establishing unofficial market prices for the naira, with platforms like Binance often serving as benchmarks for local foreign currency exchange rates. The government’s move to block access to these platforms is an effort to regain control over the currency valuation of the naira.
“Binance, facing regulatory showdown in many countries, and causing disruptions in the currency market, should not be allowed to dictate the value of the naira, not on its crypto exchange platform,” Onanuga further stated.
“Crypto should be banned in our country or else this bleeding of our currency will continue unabated.”
Nigeria’s adoption of rash methods to defend its currency, including shutting down price-setting websites and declaring certain cryptocurrency entities illegal, highlights the challenges the country faces in managing its economic stability.
Nigeria’s national currency has lost over 70% of its value since their central bank lifted its dollar peg in June.
Houthis Have Knocked Out Several Undersea Internet Cables: Report
There are new reports saying Yemen’s Houthis have knocked out several underwater telecommunications cables linking Europe and Asia, however, some of the accounts of the extent of damage remain conflicting.
Multiple Israeli publications are reporting Monday that four underwater communications cables between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti have been damaged in recent months – the result of Houthi sabotage. The reporting appears to have originated in Israel’s financial daily outlet Globes.
But one industry publication cautions, “One cable operator has confirmed damage to a cable in the region, but said it didn’t know the cause yet.” Reportedly only the Seacom operator has issued confirmation that it has had cable issues at Djibouti.
Three months after the Houthis began attacking merchant ships, the Yemenite rebels have carried out another one of their threats. “Globes” has learned that four submarine communication cables have been damaged in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa.
According to the reports, these are cables from the companies AAE-1, Seacom, EIG and TGN. This is causing serious disruption of Internet communications between Europe and Asia, with the main damage being felt in the Gulf countries and India.
Other impacted cables are operated by the companies Tata, Ooredoo, Bharti Airtel, and Telecom Egypt, but these did not issue immediate comment or confirmation as to the reported damage or outages.
But the Seacom outage is now being confirmed by NetBlocks…
⚠️ Confirmed: Metrics show a disruption to network connectivity at the Djibouti Data Center which connects the country’s landing stations; the incident comes as Israeli media report four submarine cables across the Red Sea including SEACOM have been targeted by Houthi rebels ✂️ pic.twitter.com/tjlBLAgYd4
Israel’s Globes says repairs could take up to eight weeks, but the waters in the region remain high risk due to what are now daily Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. The Houthis have lately made veiled threats they could take out the underwater fiber optic cables.
“The repair of such a large number of underwater cables may take at least eight weeks according to estimates and involve exposure to risk from the Houthi terror organization,” the report says. “The telecommunications companies will be forced to look for companies that will agree to carry out the repair work and probably pay them a high risk premium.”
Analyst Alberto Rizzi has explained that “at low depths, trained divers/ship anchors are enough to damage them” and that “Bab-el-Mandeb/Aden is a chokepoint where damage can impact multiple cables at once.”
Jesalyn Harper, a City of Reedley code enforcement officer, had to determine whether to turn off the power to a secret Chinese biolab in California in order to prevent a fire that inspectors had said was a risk.
But with the power off, the freezers’ contents would thaw, with potentially dangerous consequences. The biolab was full of thousands of vials of possible infectious pathogens.
She called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for advice.
“It was a very short-lived and frustrating phone call that ended with them hanging up,” said Ms. Harper.
She left the power on.
That was in March 2023, months after Ms. Harper had first discovered the biolab in December 2022 and alerted authorities.
Ms. Harper found inside what was supposed to be an unoccupied warehouse, thousands of vials of potentially infectious agents, including ones labeled as coronavirus, chlamydia, E. coli, streptococcus pneumonia, HIV, hepatitis, herpes, rubella, and malaria. A freezer was labeled “Ebola” and about 1,000 lab mice were kept for experimentation.
But there was no single authority that could deal with all of the pathogens, chemicals, and biological hazards and the response became drawn out.
It wasn’t until local officials contacted their congress member, Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), asking him to intervene at the federal level, that the CDC responded to California state government and local official requests, according to a congressional report from the Select Committee on the CCP that was published in November 2023.
In early May 2023, the CDC spent two days inspecting the biolab, along with several other agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Fresno County Public Health, and the California Department of Public Health.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) told The Epoch Times he is trying to find out from the CDC why the agency initially “looked the other way” as local officials tried to get their attention.
“They [CDC] didn’t investigate for months and months and months and months,” Mr. Kiley said. “Why? What are your protocols for responding to credible intelligence of public health risks that are present in our communities?
“Why would you not be on top of that right away?”
However, when the CDC did visit the biolab, it wouldn’t investigate something unless it had a specific label on it, according to Ms. Harper.
The agency created a report for 20 items that were labeled, and those items were sprayed down, disinfected, and put in special waste containers to be incinerated.
“CDC officials confirmed that the CDC made this list of pathogens based solely on the labels that were placed on samples. The CDC did not test these samples to assess whether the listed labels were correct or otherwise,” the congressional report states.
“According to local officials, they also asked if the CDC could at least test a random sample of the pathogens. The CDC still refused,” the report states.
“Despite their limited local budget, local officials then offered to pay the CDC for the entirety of the cost of testing these samples. The CDC still did not and left the site.”
Meanwhile, it was becoming apparent that behind the Chinese man who controlled the biolab was a tangled web of Chinese shell companies operating in the dark in several countries.
Jia Bei “Jesse” Zhu, a Chinese national and wanted fugitive in Canada, controlled both Universal Meditech Inc., which initially owned the biolab, and Prestige Biotech, which later took over the lab. After the biolab was discovered, Mr. Zhu, using the false name “David He,” introduced himself to Reedley city officials as a “special representative” of Universal Meditech and asked them not to destroy the pathogens and requested to move them to another location. Local officials refused.
Then, another two months after the CDC’s inspection, the Ebola freezer was discovered. The freezer was among 32 refrigerators and freezers that Fresno County public health staff had observed in the biolab.
A city worker found the freezer in July 2023 and unfolded the white piece of paper taped on top “and that paper read ‘Ebola,’ and it was handwritten,” Ms. Harper said.
None of the silver sealed bags tossed inside the freezer were labeled, she said.
“They [CDC] didn’t come, they didn’t test, they didn’t even ask us to sample,” Ms. Harper said. “Unless an item is actually labeled ‘Ebola,’ it doesn’t fall under the CDC purview.”
The city never found out what was in the silver bags, as the CDC never examined them.
Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the CDC, told The Epoch Times via email that, “CDC did not discover any label on a freezer that identified Ebola virus or any other select agent or toxin at the time of their onsite support.”
“As CDC determined that, at the time of the on-site review, there wasn’t evidence of violation select agent and toxin regulations, CDC does not have regulatory authority to unilaterally enter or seize materials,” Mr. Daigle wrote.
The county was left to coordinate the destruction of the freezer along with more than 103 tons of general waste and 448 gallons of medical and biological waste.
“How did you not comprehensively enough investigate and search the facility to find a whole freezer that had Ebola labeled on it?” Mr. Kiley said.
“I mean, this is very serious stuff. It’s labeled with Ebola, how do you not find that and test that as well?”
Mr. Kiley, as well as the Select Committee, are looking for an explanation from the CDC about the Ebola freezer.
“We are concerned by the freezer labeled ‘Ebola’ reported by local officials,” the report states.
“It is concerning that, when this was brought to the CDC’s attention, a CDC employee did not take meaningful action in response.”
The Select Committee noted that the CDC confirmed that it didn’t contact the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, the government biodefense laboratory located in Fort Dietrich, Maryland, “that could potentially have provided greater assistance.”
CDC spokesman Mr. Daigle said, “While CDC currently has no regulatory or investigative authority over this building, CDC continues to collaborate with federal, state, and local partners to provide technical guidance on biosafety and biosecurity as requested and appropriate.”
Universal Meditech allegedly misbranded, sold, and distributed hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 tests using FDA lot numbers that didn’t exist, according to a criminal complaint.
Mr. Zhu is accused of importing more than over 47,000 pregnancy test kits that were made in China and selling them to the American public “without being registered with the FDA as was required.”
“We discovered these devices on Amazon, in just doing our own research,” Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba told The Epoch Times.
According to an abatement warrant filed on June 15, 2023, during a city inspection of the biolab on March 16, 2023, a room was found “housing hundreds of laboratory mice,” according to the Select Committee report.
“A person associated with Prestige Biotech and who appeared to be in control of the Property, informed the investigators that these mice were genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus,” the report stated.
In March 2023, Prestige Biotech President Xiuqin Yao emailed City of Reedley officials and asked about the mice.
According to the select committee report, she wrote in her email that the mice were a “special purebred population that took six years to build up” and were “of special significance in the study of immunology and oncology.” She also said the transgenic mice were “biological assets” that were worth “hundreds of thousands or even one million” dollars.
Ms. Yao asked the city to keep the mice and take care of them until she could travel to the United States from China, but she was delayed due to a “visa backlog.”
Despite repeated requests from the City of Reedley officials, Ms. Yao “failed to provide any certifications or licenses from any state or federal agency for storage and experimentation on mice and other laboratory activities” at the Reedley biolab, the select committee report stated.
Ms. Zieba said that the transgenic mice had been modified in order to have the ability to simulate the human immune system. The mice were destroyed.
“We pleaded with the authorities, prior to euthanizing and even after euthanizing these mice, to test these mice, and they refused to test them,” said Ms. Zieba.
According to the congressional report, the CDC compiled its list of pathogens based on the labels that were on the samples. They didn’t test these samples to see if the labels were correct, or test any of the samples that were labeled with a code that was a combination of Mandarin characters or English letters and numbers, or test the samples that were unlabeled.
The congressional report quotes the CDC as stating, “Although some pathogens could have come from Nigeria or Canada, there were no import or shipping records available at the time of the visit to establish conclusive evidence of violations.”
In its three-page report, although the CDC hadn’t tested any samples, it concluded that there “was no evidence of select agents or toxins” at the biolab, according to the congressional report.
In October 2023, after the county had destroyed the illegal biolab’s contents, Mr. Zhu and Universal Meditech, through lawyers, submitted a claim to the city for $30 million for “unlawful seizure by city officials” and another to the county for $50 million for “unlawful seizure and destruction by county officials.”
Adidas Prepares To Sell “Remaining Yeezy Inventory” After Nuking Partnership 14 Months Ago
Adidas AG revealed on Monday that it will sell another batch of Yeezy products. The German sportswear company is working through hundreds of millions of euros in Yeezy inventory following the canceled partnership with rapper Kanye West, also known as “Ye.”
The “further release of YEEZY inventory with a range of existing products being available in phases over the coming weeks across the world,” Adidas wrote in a press release, adding the remaining YEEZY inventory includes products from 2022, such as 350 V2 sneakers in steel gray.
Adidas said that Yeezy sneaker offerings will be made through its digital platforms.
The products will be exclusively available through adidas digital platforms including the CONFIRMED app, adidas app and adidas.com. The phased release of products will help ensure a fair and premium experience for consumers. Availability and timing of release will vary depending on location. -Adidas
However, by November, the company boosted its full-year guidance due to the sales of Yeezy sneaker inventory. That helped it work through about 40% of the Yeezy inventory in warehouses.
Besides selling sneakers produced in Chinese sweatshops, Adidas stated it was a proud activist company:
Since terminating the YEEZY partnership in October 2022, Adidas has donated to selected organizations to combat discrimination and hate, including racism and antisemitism. -Adidas
In its financial guidance statement last month, Adidas stated that it had 250 million euros of remaining Yeezy products left.
The good news, as Cowen analyst John Kernan explained in a recent interview via Bloomberg, is that “There’s still demand for that Yeezy silhouette in the marketplace.”
Two years of fighting after Russia’s brutal 2022 invasion of Ukraine has the world asking what peace between the two nations can possibly look like and what is the possible path to end a war that has left a nation shredded and hundreds of thousands dead.
Calling the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine a violation of the UN Charter and international law, UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday said the war has created “an open wound at the heart of Europe” that only diplomacy could fix. “It is high time for peace—a just peace, based on the UN Charter, international law, and General Assembly resolutions,” declared Guterres.
The Secretary-General condemned the invasion as a “dangerous precedent” set by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has claimed eastern regions of Ukraine rightfully belong to Russia and justified the war as necessary to block the ongoing expansion of NATO that betrayed earlier promises by the military alliance.
As the war enters its third year, foreign policy experts argue that the current standstill—in which Russia has realized it cannot possibly take the whole country by force and Ukraine is unlikely to have the might to push the invading army back over the border—proves there is no military solution.
In a brief published to mark the two-year anniversary of the war’s start, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecrafts analysts Anatol Lieven and George Beebe argue that the people of Ukraine have much more to win than lose by seeking a diplomatic solution.
“Conventional wisdom holds that a negotiated end to the Ukraine war is neither possible nor desirable,” Lieven and Beebe’s paper states. “This belief is false.”
The pair war that resistance to diplomacy is “also extremely dangerous for Ukraine”s future because the bloody war—in which over 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 5 million displaced—”is not trending toward a stable stalemate, but toward Ukraine’s eventual collapse.”
The New York Times reports Sunday that while Ukrainians are “weary” of the bloody war that has taken so much from them, “but ever determined to repel the invaders.”
The Times interviewed Dr. Maryna Prokopenko, a surgeon at Kharkiv Regional Hospital, who said the battered bodies and suffering she sees inform her desire for “this war to end,” but said ceding territory to the Russians was unacceptable.
But with the Ukrainian military “outgunned and outnumbered against a more powerful opponent,” as the Associated Press reports—and additional foreign military assistance stalled in the U.S. Congress and by other allies in Europe due to domestic concerns about prolonging support for a war with no end in sight—the idea of a negotiated settlement has deep appeal for many.
“As things stand, neither side has won. Neither side has lost. Neither side is anywhere near giving up. And both sides have pretty much exhausted the manpower and equipment that they started the war with,” claimed Richard Barrons, a retired British general and current co-chair for Universal Defence & Security Solutions, a military consultancy firm.
While militarists argue the U.S. and other NATO countries must double-down on their support for Ukraine to combat Russian aggression, critics of endless war say it is Ukranian civilians paying the biggest price over the refusal to forge a negotiated settlement leading to a peace agreement to end the war.
“To resolve the ongoing crisis, diplomatic engagement through negotiations and mediation needs to be given more consideration,” says Omotola Adeyoju Ilesanmi, a senior research fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, in a memo this week. “Further, it ought to take precedence over other inefficient measures, such as using military force to accomplish political goals.”
The U.S.-based peace group CodePink issued a statement Friday similarly arguing that two years of war have proved that there is no military solution and that another $61 billion in U.S. military assistance—mostly in the form of more bombs, missiles, and other armaments—would not do more than the $113 billion already spent overall on assistance.
“Prolonging the war in Ukraine will not stabilize the region nor bring peace to Ukrainians; only peace talks and diplomacy can do that,” the group said. “Stop the weapons. Start the talks.”
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Lieven and Beebe argue in their assessment that the United States and other powerful allies to Ukraine have more leverage now to bring Russia to the negotiating table even as the Ukraine army appears weaker than at previous intervals in the war. As they write:
Russia cannot conquer, let alone govern, the majority of Ukraine, nor can Russia secure itself against the ongoing threats of Ukrainian sabotage or potential NATO strikes absent a costly permanent military buildup that would undermine its civilian economy. Reducing the deep dependence on China created by the invasion will also sooner or later require Russia to seek some form of détente with the West.
As a result, the United States has significant leverage for bringing Russia to the table and forging verifiable agreements to end the fighting. But this leverage will diminish over time. The United States should therefore quickly challenge Putin to make good on his insistence that Russia is willing to negotiate by publicly supporting calls from China, Brazil, and other key Global South actors for talks to end the war.
In a recent column promoting a new kind of engagement by the U.S. government, Lauren Evans, program assistant for peacebuilding at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), mourned the “devastating conflict and catastrophic harm to civilians” across Ukraine over the last two years and said the “situation cannot improve un the war stops.”
“While the U.S. cannot and should not dictate terms of peace,” wrote Evans, “it can be a better champion of a diplomatic resolution and help envision a new security paradigm in Europe based on the principles of shared security, not the threat of force.”
Those pushing for the diplomatic path acknowledge it will be a hard path, but say the alternative of war cannot be the permanent choice. “Even if the United States embarks seriously on an effort to create a path to negotiations, the process of compromise will not be easy or simple,” Lieven and Beebe conclude. “But the alternatives—for Ukraine and the world—will be far worse.”
Biden’s FTC Sues To Block Kroger & Albertsons Merger, Saying Deal Will “Eliminate Competition”
The Biden administration has actively pursued legal actions against companies pushing for mega-mergers. Just weeks ago, the Justice Department sued to block a proposed merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines. Now, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit to halt Kroger Co.’s proposed $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons Cos, warning the merger would “eliminate competition and raise grocery prices for millions of Americans, while harming tens of thousands of workers.”
The FTC filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Oregon on Monday. Nine attorneys general – from Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia – have joined the suit to block what the FTC describes as the “largest supermarket merger in US history.”
“The FTC charges that the proposed deal will eliminate fierce competition between Kroger and Albertsons, leading to higher prices for groceries and other essential household items for millions of Americans,” the agency said.
It continued: “The loss of competition will also lead to lower quality products and services, while also narrowing consumers’ choices for where to shop for groceries.”
And added: “For thousands of grocery store workers, Kroger’s proposed acquisition of Albertsons would immediately erase aggressive competition for workers, threatening the ability of employees to secure higher wages, better benefits, and improved working conditions.”
“This supermarket mega-merger comes as American consumers have seen the cost of groceries rise steadily over the past few years. Kroger’s acquisition of Albertsons would lead to additional grocery price hikes for everyday goods, further exacerbating the financial strain consumers across the country face today,” said Henry Liu, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.
Liu continued: “Essential grocery store workers would also suffer under this deal, facing the threat of their wages dwindling, benefits diminishing, and their working conditions deteriorating.”
In 2022, Kroger and Albertsons agreed to merge. The supermarket chains claimed the merger would allow them to compete with larger grocery chains like Walmart, Amazon, and Costco. A recent note by JPM analyst Ken Goldman showed that Kroger and Albertsons would control about 13% of the US grocery market share, while Walmart controls 22%.
“Albertsons Cos.’ merger with Kroger will ensure our neighborhood supermarkets can better compete with these mega retailers, all while benefitting our customers, associates, and communities.,” Albertsons wrote in a statement, adding, “We are disappointed that the FTC continues to use the same outdated view of the US grocery industry it used 20 years ago.”
Kroger stated: “This decision only strengthens larger, non-unionized retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon by allowing them to further increase their overwhelming and growing dominance of the grocery industry.”
The Biden administration has demonstrated that it will kill any mega deal during the election cycle. This was evident in the DoJ’s recent suit against the planned merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines.
“Democratic Party elites such as those on CNN are not just angry but genuinely confused by the fact that American voters don’t obey them.”
– Glenn Greenwald
What’s most amazing about the fiasco that was the French Revolution is that it happened at exactly the same time that the United States successfully organized themselves into an orderly and effective government following the American Revolution. George Washington was elected and sworn-in by April of 1789, with the backing of an exemplary constitution assembled by the best minds in the land. The Bastille fell in July that same year. France then fell into a years’ long orgy of beheading and chaos that went nowhere until 1799 when an artillery officer named Bonaparte put an end to it by sheer force of personality.
Of course, France had assisted America in concluding our revolt against King George — surely you remember the Marquis de Lafayette from your high school history class (or has he been replaced by George Floyd?). There were plenty of Frenchmen still on the American scene during the years following the British surrender at Yorktown in the fall of 1781. Some of them must have kept tabs on the Constitutional Convention, May to September, 1787, out of which came our blueprint for managing national affairs, and not a few of these Frenchmen were active in their own revolution which kicked off two years later.
By the way, Thomas Jefferson was in Paris from 1784 until autumn of 1789, months after the Bastille fell. He succeeded Ben Franklin as minister there to negotiate trade agreements (Ben went to London as ambassador). John Adams was also on-the-scene in Paris as our ambassador there when Jefferson arrived. These Americans met daily and chatted endlessly with France’s political players. The American Articles of Confederation were in effect then, to be replaced by the improved US Constitution in 1787. The people of France, including the various elites involved in public life, royal, haut bourgeoise, lawyers and generals, might have taken a lesson from the American experience of how to successfully come out of a political tribulation. Alas, they simply could not get their shit together.
Rewind a little to 1793 in Paris, the revolution in full swing: King Louis XVI went to the guillotine in January. The National Convention had replaced the National Assembly as the furnace of political action. The radical Jacobin faction, led by Robespierre and Saint-Just, coalesced into a power-seizing majority there. They took their name from a political club founded by anti-royalists, but their platform became increasingly extreme as the revolution lurched toward pandemonium.
During their year in power, the Jacobins turned the life of the nation upside down in their zealous quest to create a perfectly equitable society. They abolished the church (and replaced it with their own “cult of the supreme being”). They changed the week from seven days to ten days, they changed the names of all the months of the calendar. (1792 was denoted “the Year One.”) They put in price and wage controls while churning out money (paper assignats) which triggered (voila) monetary inflation! They confiscated grain from farmers all over the country. They condemned thousands (estimate: 20,000 to 40,000) of political enemies to the guillotine in their “Reign of Terror.” In short, the Jacobins made a bloody mess of things and pissed-off a lot of their countrymen.
By the summer of 1794 (in their renamed month of Thermidor), everybody else finally had enough of the Jacobin nightmare. On July 27, Robespierre was at the rostrum once again denouncing his enemies and crying for blood when the out-group members present started throwing food at him and shouting him down. That was the magic moment when everything flipped — the shock of recognition that the Jacobins had lost power. Just like that! The chamber fell into a melee, a lot of shoving and shouting. . . Robespierre and his cronies were chased across town to the city hall (Hôtel de Ville) and barricaded themselves inside.
The mob broke through and arrested them. Somewhere in the confusion a policeman shot Robespierre in the face, shattering his jaw (no more speeches for you!). . . and the very next day, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and twenty of their associates had their appointment with “the national razor.”
The Arrest of Robespierre, The Night of the 9th to 10th Thermidor, Year Two, 27th July 1794
This event became known as the Thermidorian Reaction. The insane Jacobin program of terror and social derangement was swiftly abolished. Nothing like it was seen again until the Bolsheviks, the Maoists and the Khmer Rouge came along in the 20th century, and now, in our time, The Party of Chaos as led by “Joe Biden” (or whoever and whatever is behind him), with their open border, their lust for another world war, their drive for censorship, their sadistic lawfare, their race and sex hustles, their compulsive lying, and their sick destruction of every norm and boundary in daily life.
America is headed for its own Thermidorian Reaction. It’ll end up being called something else, of course, because it is a different time, place, and set of circumstances. But it feels close, doesn’t it? Everybody I know or correspond with mentions this feeling that something is going to blow in our country, and pretty soon. The air is alive with it, just as the air is alive with portents of spring. Are you waiting for it?
