iftttwall

In just the latest sign that things are about to get a whole lot worse for the city of Chicago, especially in their efforts to deal with that pesky little $130 billion pension problem, the latest population statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that people are abandoning the Windy City in record numbers.  Per the table below from Crain’s, the population of metropolitan Chicago has now declined two years in a row, a rate of decline that is accelerating, with over 65,000 people choosing migrate to other safer areas of the country.

The metro area declines are heavily concentrated in Cook County, but show signs of spreading to outlying counties, too. For instance, the bureau estimates that DuPage County lost 3,000 people in the past two years, and that Will and Grundy counties had small population losses last year.

 

The bureau did not break down the data by municipality, so it’s impossible to tell for sure if the Cook County decline was in Chicago proper, suburban areas, or both.

 

One particularly stunning figure: net domestic migration, with an estimated 89,000 more people moving from the Chicago area to other portions of the country in the past year than those who moved in.

 

And while some “policy analysts” (a.k.a. “Rahm Emmanuel Drones”) tried to suggest that the mass exodus from Chicago is just a reflection of the general migratory patterns afflicting all of the MidWest…

Liz Schuh, principal policy analyst for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency
for Planning, said the figures are “of concern for the region’s
continued economic success.”

 

“Residents often choose to stay in or migrate to a region because of economic opportunity and quality of life,” she added. While the region has recovered from the recession, and indeed has the largest workforce since recording began, “that recovery has lagged our peers.”

 

Others suggested that the region, like much of the Rust Belt, eventually will return to slow-growth form after those who wanted to leave during the recession but couldn’t do so for economic reasons finally are gone.

 

“But data also suggest that African-Americans are now leaving the region at a significantly faster rate than whites, Paral added. That suggests that rising crime rates and the loss of jobs on Chicago’s South and West Sides are continuing to encourage residents to look elsewhere for a better life.

…we would be willing to bet that it just might have something to do with those spiking murder rates..but that’s just a hunch.

(Chart per HeyJackAss!)

via http://ift.tt/2ncsXK8 Tyler Durden

Authored by Duane Norman via Free Market Shooter blog,

Over three years ago, The Daily Mail reported a story about a 16-year-old boy who died at a border crossing.  Allegedly, the boy was trying to pass off liquid methamphetamine as “apple juice” and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Officers asked him to prove it was indeed apple juice:

Customs and Border Protection officers at the port of San Ysidro reported that the boy appeared nervous and their suspicions grew when they found he was carrying two small containers of an amber-colored liquid that he claimed was juice.

The officers took the teen to an inspection area, where he drank some of the liquid, said San Diego police Lt. Mike Hastings.

A Mexican high school student died from drinking highly concentrated liquid methamphetamine at a San Diego border crossing in an attempt to persuade inspectors that it was only apple juice, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday.

 

Cruz Marcelino Velazquez, 16, volunteered to take “a big sip” at the San Ysidro port of entry Nov. 18, the report said. He was then handcuffed and taken to a security office, where he began screaming in pain, said something about “the chemicals,” and shouted, “My heart! My heart!” in Spanish, it added.

 

San Ysidro, the nation’s busiest border crossing, has emerged as a major corridor for smuggling methamphetamine in the past five years as Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel has increased its presence in the area. To avoid detection, crystal methamphetamine is dissolved in water and disguised in juice bottles, windshield wiper fluid containers and gas tanks. It is later converted back to crystals.

 

Children are caught with methamphetamine several times a week at San Diego crossings, an “alarming increase,” Joe Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations in San Diego, said in an interview last year. They are typically paid $50 to $200 a trip.

So CBP has been dealing with increasing numbers of drug mules smuggling meth across the border, who are almost certainly aware that what they are doing is dangerous and illegal.  Knowing full well what is being smuggled daily, and the large number of excuses they have heard on a day-to-day basis from smugglers, the conversation allegedly went something like this:

The 16-year-old Mexican national told the two officers that the bottles contained “apple juice,” but they didn’t buy it and asked Acevedo to take a sip to “prove” he wasn’t lying, according to court records.

 

He took a swig.

 

Minutes later, Acevedo began sweating and screaming in Spanish about “the chemicals.”

If the boy wasn’t lying and it was apple juice, a swig would have been harmless.  If it was meth as they suspected, they wouldn’t expect him to be suicidal and actually take a swig of it.  If he refused, all that happened is he would have been arrested and deported.  Wouldn’t any rational human think a little brush with the law is preferable to death?

In the age of frivolous lawsuits, it is not surprising that his family would file a wrongful-death lawsuit for their son’s suicide at a border crossing.  And, like many other happenings these days, it was shocking, but not surprising when his family was awarded $1 million dollars from the suit:

A Mexican family has been awarded $1 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the U.S. government following the death 16-year-old Cruz Velazquez Acevedo at a southern border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana.

On November 18, 2013, Acevedo was attempting to smuggle liquid methamphetamine into the U.S., but was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers who found two bottles of the narcotic on his person. After claiming the liquid narcotic was apple juice, CBP officers told him to drink it to prove his claim.

What was shocking was the mainstream media headlines in response to the incident.  The Washington Post (who the readers know is a common target at Free Market Shooter) posted the following headline:

Yes, WaPo alleged in their headline that “U.S. border officers told a Mexican teen to drink liquid meth.”  At what point were the officers 100% aware it was meth?  You guessed it…

Iredale said the officers did test the liquid for drugs, but only after the teen started overdosing.

The New York Daily News (another target of Free Market Shooter) was no better with their headline:

The NYDN had no such headline when they reproduced the AP story three years ago during the Obama administration:

You have to give the NYDN some credit though; at least they ran the original AP story.  The Washington Post never bothered to.

Unless CBP handcuffed him, tilted his head back and poured the liquid down the boy’s throat, there should be no culpability whatsoever on part of CBP or the US government.  If he drinks it on his own without CBP asking him anything, he just kills himself without getting a million dollars.  Instead, because CBP simply asked him to prove his own frivolous statement, his family has been awarded a million dollars.

Yes, it is infuriating to see this lawsuit paid out in the first place.  A smuggler knowingly committed suicide, while trying to subvert customs and (illegally) cross into the United States carrying (illegal) drugs.  All he had to do to save his life was refuse to drink the substance, and get arrested and deported.  That has to be a better alternative to dying.

But instead of covering this as a case of a frivolous lawsuit, the MSM is pushing this as a case of abusive CBP agents, ignoring the smuggling that transpires on our border on a day-to-day basis, and it seems they are simply doing so in an attempt to subvert President Trump’s push for a border wall.  If you think that conclusion doesn’t make any sense, just remember: Both Obama and the MSM were singing a very different tune about this story during Obama’s Presidency.  Why else would the music suddenly change?

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

CBO has scored the revised RyanCare plan that was released on Monday night (notably not with amendments that have likely been discussed this week with the Freedom Caucus) and it is even worse… considerably less budget deficit reduction, the same number of uninsured, and similar effects on healthcare premium. 

CBO Comparison With the Previous Estimate

On March, 13, 2017, CBO and JCT estimated that enacting the reconciliation recommendations of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (which were combined into H.R. 1628) would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 1628, with the proposed amendments, would save $186 billion less over that period. That reduction in savings stems primarily from changes to H.R. 1628 that modify provisions affecting the Internal Revenue Code and the Medicaid program.

 

Over the 2017-2026 period, modifications to provisions affecting the Internal Revenue Code that are not directly related to the law’s insurance coverage provisions would reduce JCT’s estimate of revenues by $137 billion. Reducing the threshold for determining the medical care deduction on individuals’ income tax returns from 7.5 percent of income to 5.8 percent would reduce revenues by about $90 billion. Other changes include adjusting the effective dates and making other modifications to the provisions that repeal or delay many of the changes in the Affordable Care Act, which would reduce revenues by $48 billion.

 

A number of changes to the Medicaid program would reduce CBO’s estimate of savings by $41 billion over the 2017-2026 period. The reduction would result from revising the formula for calculating the per capita allotments in Medicaid to allow for faster growth of the per capita cost of aged, blind, and disabled enrollees. The effects of changing that formula would be offset somewhat by the effects of three other provisions that would increase savings: reducing the per capita allotment in Medicaid for the state of New York in proportion to any financing the state receives from county governments; providing states the option to make eligibility for Medicaid conditional on satisfying work requirements for enrollees who are not single parents of children under age 6 or who are not pregnant or disabled; and allowing states to receive a block grant for Medicaid coverage of children and some adults instead of funding based on a per capita cap.

 

Other smaller changes resulting from the manager’s amendments would reduce savings by an estimated $8 billion over the period.

 

Compared with the previous version of the legislation, H.R. 1628, with the proposed amendments, would have similar effects on health insurance coverage: Estimates differ by no more than half a million people in any category in any year over the next decade. (Some differences may appear larger because of rounding.) For example, the decline in Medicaid coverage after 2020 would be smaller than in the previous estimate, mainly because of states’ responses to the faster growth in the per capita allotments for aged, blind, and disabled enrollees—but other changes in Medicaid would offset some of those effects.

The legislation’s impact on health insurance premiums would be approximately the same as estimated for the previous version.

Simplified:

• The bill would save $150 billion between 2017 and 2026. The original bill would have saved $337 billion.
• In 2018, 14 million people would lose coverage. This number would increase to 24 million in 2026. This number did not change.

We would imagine conservatives will throw up all over it as it has all the negatives of the original bill with less than half the positives – less coverage and less deficit reduction!

Full CBO Score below:

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

In recent months, Ray Dalio seems to be undergoing a deep midlife and identity crisis, which has not only led to dramatic recent management changes at the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater, but also resulted in some fairly spectacular cognitive dissonance, as Dalio first praised, then slammed, president Trump. Yesterday. in the latest expression of his building anti-Trumpian sentiment, Bridgewater released a 61-page report looking at “Populism: the Phenomenon“, which describes what Bridgewater sees as the “archetypical populist template,” which the fund built out through studying 14 past populist leaders in 10 different countries.

The unspoken message in the report is that the US is the 15 example of the “populist leader”, and since all 14 cases presented by Dalio had less than happy endings, the implication is that Bridgewater is hardly optimistic or excited about the near-term future for the US.

Dalio’s politics aside, however, the report, among other notable historical observations, has a fascinating aside into what happened some 100 years ago in post-World War I and Tsarist Russia under Vladiir Lenin and the Russian Revolution.

Here are the key highlights;

World War I proved to be Tsarist Russia’s death knell: Russia’s military suffered severe defeats against Germany, leading to massive casualties, as well as high inflation and food shortages. In response, an initial revolution occurred in early 1917 (the February Revolution), forcing the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and producing a liberal republic that legalized political parties.

It was during Russia’s short-lived and weak democratic period that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party were able to seize power. The new provisional liberal government, formed by members of the prior legislative assembly, was barely more effective than the earlier regime. It was forced to share power with the councils of workers (the “Soviets”) that helped organize the revolution and had more support from workers and soldiers. The provisional government became unpopular when it unsuccessfully continued Russian participation in WWI. With political parties no longer barred, Lenin decided to return from his exile in neutral Switzerland (with the help of the German army, which hoped to create further disorder in Russia). Lenin helped lead the Bolshevik Party to prominence, and in the October Revolution of 1917, he led a second (initially largely bloodless) revolution against the new Russian republic, seizing power. Hoping to give the revolution democratic legitimacy, the Bolsheviks still held a previously planned election in November—which they lost to a different socialist party (the Socialist Revolutionaries) that was broadly supported by the rural poor. But Lenin was able to take advantage of Russia’s weak democratic institutions, no rule of law, and disunity among the Socialist Revolutionaries to void the election and maintain control. Almost immediately, anti-communist forces rebelled against Bolshevik rule, sparking a brutal, multi-sided civil war that resulted in the victory of the more united and better organized Red Army, and the creation of the USSR in 1922.

Lenin aimed to create an economy where the means of production were state-owned and centrally planned. As a central Bolshevik policy, abolishing private property was one of Lenin’s first moves. Following the Russian revolution, the Decree on Land in October 1917 abolished private property and seized the estates of wealthy Russians with no compensation, giving the land to the state and allowing peasants to continue to farm. Lenin also launched a campaign to seize the personal wealth of the aristocracy and return it to the government, rallying mobs to prevent the wealthy from escaping the country:

“The bourgeoisie are concealing in their coffers the riches which they have plundered, and are saying, ‘We shall sit tight for a while.’ We must catch the plunderers and compel them to return the spoils.”

This was followed by the compulsory nationalization of Russian industry. Nationalizations started at the company level, with workers, empowered by Lenin’s decrees, replacing the factory owner with newly formed committees to run the business. Later on this process became more centralized, as entire sectors were nationalized at once as the Bolsheviks installed commissioners to oversee major corporations or industries. By mid-1918, the Bolsheviks had nationalized most factories, mines, and farms, and the government was strictly regulating production and prices—ordering workers to produce, then seizing and reissuing the output.

* * *

Lenin’s nationalization of the banks appeared to precipitate an economic crisis. In late 1917, Lenin seized all deposits of the aristocracy and corporations, sparing only the small savings accounts of workers, effectively creating capital controls on the aristocracy’s ability to get wealth out of Russia. In addition, Lenin’s policies criminalizing capitalism expanded through 1918 to outlaw interest payments and he defaulted on all government debt (worth over $600 billion in today’s dollars), wiping out most of the wealth that investors had left in Russia.

Liquidity seized up in response. A strike by bank workers in response to nationalization, starting in December 1917 and going for months, effectively shut down the banking system, meaning many newly nationalized businesses that relied on banks couldn’t pay their workers. The government responded to the crunch by printing money to fund the newly nationalized industries. Still, many factory committees, in search of someone to blame for late wages, fired managers and other senior employees, making it difficult to function and meet the decreed production quotas. At the same time, foreign governments retaliated against the Russian default by freezing Russia’s foreign assets. As controls escalated, many Russians tried to move what remained of their wealth, and often themselves, out of the country, reinforcing the squeeze. From 1917 to 1920, between 1 and 2 million Russians left the country and settled across the globe.

The resulting economic collapse—caused by the combination of asset confiscation, civil war, and a banking crisis—was devastating. As capital pulled out, the ruble collapsed, and the economy spiraled into hyperinflation.

* * *

How did all of the above look like through the prism of capital markets? Actually, very much like something out a Nassim Taleb book, specifically when looked at from the perspective of the Turkey, because while stocks were shut down during World War I, they nearly doubled upon reopening after the fall of the Tsarist regime, however not for long… Because just a few days later, Russian stocks had a very bad day, and once Lenin nationalized everything and abolished private property, Russian equities lost all their value overnight.

Ironically, “Turkey” investors were just as delighted with not only the early days of the post-tsarist regime in Russia, but also of Hitler Germany. where the stock market nearly tripled between Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, and March 1938 when Germany annexed Austria.

As for the only asset that survived the disintegration of the Russian economy one century ago, it is shown in the chart below.

It would be ironic, and painfully amusing, if the US – as Dalio is implying tongue-in-cheek – and its stock market, ends up as Russia circa 1917.

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

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines.

I've been writing about the divided Deep State for a number of years, most recently in The Conflict within the Deep State Just Broke into Open Warfare. The topic appears to be one of widespread interest, as this essay drew over 300,000 views.

It's impossible to understand the divided Deep State unless we situate it in the larger context of profound political disunity, a concept I learned from historian Michael Grant, whose slim but insightful volume The Fall of the Roman Empire I have been recommending since 2009.

As I noted in my 2009 book Survival+, this was a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse. The shared values and consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power and swag remained.

A funny thing happens when a nation allows itself to be ruled by Imperial kleptocrats: such rule is intrinsically destabilizing, as there is no longer any moral or political center to bind the nation together. The public sees the value system at the top is maximize my personal profit by whatever means are available, i.e. complicity, corruption, monopoly and rentier rackets, and they follow suit by pursuing whatever petty frauds and rackets are within reach: tax avoidance, cheating on entrance exams, gaming the disability system, lying on mortgage and job applications, and so on.

But the scope of the rentier rackets is so large, the bottom 95% cannot possibly keep up with the expanding wealth and income of the top .1% and their army of technocrats and enablers, so a rising sense of injustice widens the already yawning fissures in the body politic.

Meanwhile, diverting the national income into a few power centers is also destabilizing, as Central Planning and Market Manipulation (a.k.a. the Federal Reserve) are intrinsically unstable as price can no longer be discovered by unfettered markets. As a result, imbalances grow until some seemingly tiny incident or disruption triggers a cascading collapse, a.k.a. a phase shift or system re-set.

As the Power Elites squabble over the dwindling crumbs left by the various rentier rackets, there's no one left to fight for the national interest because the entire Status Quo of self-interested fiefdoms and cartels has been co-opted and is now wedded to the Imperial Oligarchy as their guarantor of financial security.

The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity. I have characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp–currently the dominant public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the "Russia hacked our elections and is trying to destroy us" narrative–and a much less public, less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in the military services and fringes of the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire and the resulting decay of the nation's moral/political center.

What few observers seem to understand is that concentrating power in centralized nodes is intrinsically unstable. Contrast a system in which power, control and wealth is extremely concentrated in a few nodes (the current U.S. Imperial Project) and a decentralized network of numerous dynamic nodes.

The disruption of any of the few centralized nodes quickly destabilizes the entire system because each centralized node is highly dependent on the others. This is in effect what happened in the 2008-09 Financial Meltdown: the Wall Street node failed and that quickly imperiled the entire economy and thus the entire political order, up to and including the Global Imperial Project.

Historian Peter Turchin has proposed that the dynamics of profound political disunity (i.e. social, financial and political disintegration) can be quantified in a Political Stress Index, a concept he describes in his new book Ages of Discord.

If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines. There is no other possible output of a system of highly concentrated nodes of power, wealth and control and the competing rentier rackets of these dependent, increasingly fragile centralized nodes.

via http://ift.tt/2mVL31x Tyler Durden