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According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, Russians still have a high level of confidence in President Putin’s ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

Despite his high overall approval rating, however, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, Putin is actually losing public support on many key issues…

You will find more statistics at Statista

Support for his handling of relations with Ukraine and the EU have dropped 20 and 15 percentage points respectively since 2015.

Russians are also increasingly dissatisfied with the way their president is handing relations with the United States. In 2015, 85 percent of people were satisfied with Putin’s handling of relations between Moscow and Washington and in 2017, that has fallen to 73 percent.

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Authored by John Mills via The Mises Institute,

In December 2016, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) nationalized Ukraine’s largest private bank for what we now know was an incorrect understanding of the facts. It remains unclear who benefitted from this expropriation…

But it wasn’t just a misunderstanding. The nationalization of PrivatBank very likely was the result of a still-unexplained refusal by the NBU to accept the financial reality of the situation.

This extraordinary government takeover has made the banking and economic situation in Ukraine much worse rather than better, and is an almost classic case of government overreach.

The NBU’s inappropriate and unnecessary nationalization has hurt the Ukrainian economy, stolen millions from PrivatBank’s owners and is forcing Ukraine’s taxpayers to bear a substantial additional burden.

The NBU took its action in large part because of what it said was an unacceptable level of related-party loans: 90 percent or more was the number it frequently used.

But Ernst & Young, the global “Big Four” accounting firm the NBU hired to undertake an audit of PrivatBank at the end of 2016, said the actual level of related-party loans at PrivatBank was merely 4.7 percent.

And that very low level (an astounding almost 95 percent less than what the NBU used to justify its nationalization) is itself lower than the level of related-party loans reported a year earlier in a separate audit conducted by yet another Big Four firm: PWC.

Perhaps to protect itself from what will undoubtedly be withering criticism, the NBU is now considering suspending PWC from auditing Ukrainian banks, has accused one of the most renowned and highly esteemed auditors in the world of being “unprofessional,” and is at least hinting that its audits contributed to the situation.

The NBU has claimed that PrivatBank siphoned a majority of its equity to related party loans to enrich the bank’s shareholders. Operating activities show that the cash flow for 2016 was 21 billion Ukrainian hryvnia to client funds, but not to the issuance of loans to related parties.

Similarly, the NBU made an arbitrary, erroneous and harmful decision to regard PrivatBank’s collateral as unacceptable even though a significant amount of the loans that were classified as “impaired” should have been acceptable under IFRS standards.

But it’s not just the NBU’s decision to nationalize PrivatBank that’s questionable; serious issues have now been raised about the way the NBU carried out the nationalization once it decided to move forward.

The NBU’s capitalization of PrivatBank after the nationalization was a transfer of government bonds, rather than cash, that effectively was worthless.

Up to then, the NBU always required the valuation of collateral from independent appraisers so that its value would be recorded appropriately on the balance sheet. But, as E&Y stated in its 2016 audit report, ten days after the nationalization, there was a sudden increase of investments in government bonds that were never valued. Who will buy those bonds now?

But the biggest issue is why the NBU ever thought that government control through nationalization of Ukraine’s largest privately owned bank was appropriate in the first place. PrivatBank had a strong vote of confidence from its customers with 40 percent of the country’s private deposits and serving 44% of corporate clients. It had a strong positive track record of supporting Ukraine’s economy and creating jobs. And, as a report by E&Y (the auditors chosen by the NBU) subsequently confirmed, according to IFRS standards its financials were far stronger than the NBU was charging.

All of this makes the NBU’s nationalization of PrivatBank more of an unnecessary expropriation – a taking by the government – than a good banking practice. That is the textbook definition of a scandal.

 

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We have written frequently on the topic of migrant crime in Sweden over the past several months.  From attacks on journalists and cops, to the development of so-called “no-go zones” where basic police and postal services have been suspended due to soaring crime levels, parts of the otherwise quite Nordic country have been literally transformed by an influx of migrants over the past several years. 

So, what’s attracting the droves of migrants to the frozen tundra of northern Europe.  Well, luckily U.S. News & World Report has an official ranking to help answer that question and turns out it’s not just the allure of Swedish soccer, or their fans…

As US News points out today, 80 countries around the globe were ranked based on their appeal to migrants and Sweden ‘won’ the coveted top spot.  Criteria for the ranking ranged from economic stability and income equality to the availability of language training and the amount of remittances that migrants sent back to their home countries.

To determine the Best Countries to Be an Immigrant, U.S. News assessed international perceptions of a country, as well as immigration policy and economic data.

 

More than 21,000 people from all regions of the world participated in the Best Countries survey, in which they assessed how closely they associated 80 countries with specific characteristics. Four of these – “economically stable,” “good job market,” “income equality” and “is a place I would live” – were included in the Best Countries to Be an Immigrant ranking.

 

Countries also were scored in relation to others on the share of migrants in their population; the amount of remittances the migrants they host sent home; and graded on a United Nations assessment of integration measures provided for immigrants, such as language training and transfers of job certifications, and the rationale behind current integration policies.

 

Scores for these eight factors on a 100-point scale were averaged together for an overall score.

Of course, we suspect that not everyone in Sweden is excited about this new honor, including that Swedish police officer who recently offered up a little more truth than people are used to when he posted an epic rant on Facebook about immigrant crimes plaguing his police department and his country.  Here is a small taste of the rant (full post here):

“Here we go; this is what I’ve handled from Monday-Friday this week: rape, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, rape-assault and rape, extortion, blackmail, assault, violence against police, threats to police, drug crime, drugs, crime, felony, attempted murder, rape again, extortion again and ill-treatment.”

 

“Suspected perpetrators; Ali Mohammed, Mahmod, Mohammed, Mohammed Ali, again, again, again. Christopher… what, is it true? Yes, a Swedish name snuck in on the edges of a drug crime. Mohammed, Mahmod Ali, again and again.”

 

“Countries representing all the crimes this week: Iraq, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Somalia, Syria again, Somalia, unknown, unknown country, Sweden. Half of the suspects, we can’t be sure because they don’t have any valid papers. Which in itself usually means that they’re lying about their nationality and identity.”

As the Washington Post points out, Sweden wasn’t the only Nordic country to fare well in the ranking, with Norway, Finland and Denmark all winning a spot in the top 10 largely due to favorable perceptions found in the survey about their economies and commitment to income equality. Other countries, such as Canada and Switzerland, were given positive marks not only for their economy but also integration measures for immigrants, such as language training.

Meanwhile, the U.S. scored well because of the large numbers of remittances. Britain ranked even lower — 17th — despite its strong economy, because its immigration policy specifically favored its own nationals. U.S. News noted that it was one of only six countries that had similar policies, including Saudi Arabia and Myanmar.

 

To summarize, the countries with the best economies and highest entitlement spending per capita allow their migrants the greatest opportunity to export domestic wealth and are therefore the ‘winners.’

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Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

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The violent riots that engulfed the city of Hamburg during the G20 summit have prompted some deep soul-searching among ordinary Germans while provoking a wave of indignation among German politicians, who demanded a radical change of approach toward violent protests, as well as to left-wing extremism. Speaking to Bild, Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said “Germany’s image in the international community has been severely damaged due to the incidents in Hamburg” following three nights of violent clashes between the left-wing radicals and police in the German northern port city that hosted the G20 summit.

“All alleged political motives for this orgy of violence are full of deceit and should just serve as a disguise for the real motive of the offenders that [came] from all parts of Europe: violence in itself,” Gabriel blasted, perhaps not knowing that NYC Mayor de Blasio flew to Hamburg with the explicit “noble” intention of encouraging said group of protesters.

The minister also demanded the creation of an EU-wide special investigative committee that would launch an inquiry against all those involved in the violent riots in Hamburg. “A state governed by the rule of law must now demonstrate an ability to defend itself.”

Echoing Gabriel, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas also spoke about the necessity of an EU-wide response to outbreaks of left-wing extremism. He particularly demanded the establishment of the European information databank on extremists as well as more intensive exchange of data on extremists committing violent crimes. “We have faced a new form of violence, to which we should respond with enhanced cooperation in fighting extremists,” Maas told the German media on Monday in Berlin. He also vowed to employ a tougher approach toward violent extremists’ supporters. “Those, who support rampant violence will also have to stand trial,” he said, as cited by the Der Tagesspiegel daily.

Maas told German broadcaster NDR he backed creation of a “database of left-wing extremists”, but said it could take a long time to set up. In the meantime, countries should at least exchange data about those convicted of violent acts, he said.

Also on Monday, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere compared the left-wing rioters in Hamburg to neo-nazis and islamic terrorists. “The brutality with which extremely violent anarchists have proceeded in Hamburg since Thursday is unfathomable and scandalous,” de Maiziere told reporters. “Those were not demonstrators. Those were violent and felonious radicals,” the minister said during a press conference on Monday, adding that those who staged violent riots in Hamburg were “despicable, violent extremists just like neo-Nazis and Islamist terrorists.” He added that people who had thrown paving slabs from rooftops had essentially been “preparing attempted murder”.

He also echoed Gabriel’s words, saying that they have no right to use any political motives to justify their actions and expressed his hope that the German courts would pass “tough sentences” upon them. He went on to say that summits similar to the G20 would continue to be hosted in major German cities, despite any threats of violence from various extremists. “Any other approach would be a capitulation of the law-bound state,” the minister added.

Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat (SPD) challenger to Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s national election in September, said the militants had acted like terrorists. He said the “marauding gangs” could not claim to have any political legitimacy for their actions, adding: “It had the characteristics of terrorism.”

“Such small-minded skirmishes are the business of people who took a whole city hostage for their dim-wittedness in an almost terrorist manner,” said Schulz, whose party is trailing Merkel’s conservatives in the opinion polls.

* * *

There were also mutual accusations among Germany’s political parties, as many politicians focused specifically on the flaws of the existing approach towards left-wing extremism and violence in Germany by saying that this problem has long been neglected by the authorities.

The head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Christian Lindner, did not go quite as far as Maas’ suggestion of a database of left-wing extremists, but demanded that extremists’ activities be “much more closely monitored” by the German domestic security service, the BfV, which is usually tasked with dealing with terrorist activities or far-right extremists.  A member of the presidium of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, Jens Spahn, told Bild on Sunday that “the extent of left-wing extremism in Germany has been downplayed for years.”

If those were neo-Nazis who reduced Hamburg to “wreckage and ashes,” the public indignation would be rightfully big, he said, adding that “the left-wing fascists with their hatred and violence need just the same clear response.”

The politician also went further, accusing the Social Democrats, Greens and Left parties of deliberately downplaying the left-wing violence and “closing their eyes” to it. His words were echoed by CDU Secretary General Peter Tauber, who told Bild that “nobody would come to the idea of just tolerating far-right extremist centers” while, “in case of the left-wing extremist centers such as Rigaer Strasse in Berlin or the Rote Flora in Hamburg, people are often too reserved.”

“That must change,” Tauber added.

His words were echoed by Stephan Mayer, an MP from the CDU’s ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party, who said that the city authorities in Berlin and Hamburg “should no longer tolerate squatting by left-wing extremists and lawless zones in Rigaer Strasse and the Rote Flora.” Both places were squatted by left-wing groups after being abandoned years ago. Similar ideas were expressed by the head of the Federal Chancellor’s Office, Peter Altmaier, who said that the closure of the left-wing extremists’ centers would be a “test” for Germany.

“We should not tolerate any lawless zones,” he said, adding that the left-wing extremists consistently spread the idea that “damage to property is not that bad.” He went on to say that tolerating such ideas is a “grave mistake.”

In his Twitter post, Altmaier also compared what he called “repulsive extreme terror” in Hamburg to terror from right-wing extremists and Islamists. He also thanked Hamburg police for its efforts aimed at containing the rioters.

Linksextremer Terror in Hamburg war widerwärtig und so schlimm wie Terror von Rechtsextremen und Islamisten. Danke Polizei. Danke Hamburg.

— Peter Altmaier (@peteraltmaier) July 8, 2017

* * *

Police said almost 500 officers were injured during the protests, with 186 people arrested and 225 taken into custody.

As Reuters reports, some commentators have criticized Merkel’s choice of Hamburg, a seaport with a strong radical leftist tradition, to host the meeting, saying her desire to demonstrate her commitment to freedom of speech had backfired.

To be sure, the chancellor also condemned the violence in her speech at the summit.

“I sharply condemn the rampant violence and unrestrained brutality the police was facing over and over again during the G20 summit,” she said at that time, adding that “there is not the slightest justification for looting, arson and brutal attacks.”

Merkel promised compensation to those who had property damaged. De Maiziere said he expected judicial authorities to pass tough sentences on the militants and added that breaching the peace could result in prison sentences lasting several years.

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Authored by Michael Hart and StockBoardAsset via StockBoardAsset.com,

Despite Big Agriculture claiming for years that their pesticides only kill pests, a report published in late June in the Journal Science proved what many people have suspected for years: the type of pesticides that Bayer pioneered, known as neonicotinoids, are responsible for diminishing numbers of honeybees.

“Two studies, conducted on different crops and on two continents … find that bees near corn crops are exposed to neonicotinoids for 3 to 4 months via nontarget pollen, resulting in decreased survival and immune responses, especially when co-exposed to a commonly used agrochemical fungicide.” the report said.

The studies even found neonicotinoid residue inside of hives where no chemicals had been used nearby. The study also noted that the presence of these insecticide residues was correlated with fewer queen bees in the hives and fewer egg cells in solitary bees nests.

This comes on the heels of the United States placing the rusty patched bumblebee on the endangered species list earlier this year.

This is especially troubling, because bees are responsible for pollinating nearly 75 percent of all crops grown for human and animal consumption worldwide.

And US honeybee colonies have been on a steady decline for the last four decades, as this chart illustrates:

However, perhaps the major contributing factor to not only the threats facing the honeybee but also many other species of plants and animals is the threat of globalization. A 2012 report in the journal Nature noted the following:

“Here we show that a significant number of species are threatened as a result of international trade along complex routes, and that, in particular, consumers in developed countries cause threats to species through their demand of commodities that are ultimately produced in developing countries. We linked 25,000 Animalia species threat records from the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List to more than 15,000 commodities produced in 187 countries and evaluated more than 5 billion supply chains in terms of their biodiversity impacts. Excluding invasive species, we found that 30% of global species threats are due to international trade.”

This map shows the species threat hotspots caused by US consumption. The darker the color, the greater the threat caused by the consumption. The magenta color represents terrestrial species, while the blue represents marine species.
Credit: Daniel Moran and Keiichiro Kanemoto

While the Donald Trump presidency has placed the spotlight on the ways in which globalist policies have harmed the economies of the US as well as many other countries in the developed world, we tend to overlook the ways in which the demand for cheaper and more goods from the developing world harm our environment.  Indeed, the Trump era has ushered in a demand not only for political decentralization, but also for the decentralization of our media, our currencies, and now our food supply as the damage of agricultural centralization becomes apparent. Our demand for 99 cent hamburgers has taken us to the edge of total ecological collapse, and at this point it is unclear if the damage is irreversable.

An interesting development over the last few years has seen large cities in the US most acutely ravaged by globalist policies, such as Detroit and Baltimore, turning derilect buildings within the city into multiacre urban farms as a solution to growing food insecurity within these deindustrialized urban centers. Urban flight from these cities over the years has facilitated the use of large swaths of the city to satiate demand for locally produced fresh produce, and has led to the growth of many year-round farmers markets that have helped to increase food security in these areas while decreasing dependence on these global agribusiness cartels. It seems that some of the Districts in our Hunger Games society are attempting to gain independence from the Capital.

Urban farms, such as this one in Baltimore, have increased food security in cities that have been hit hard by globalism and free trade.

Certainly, as we have noted before in previous columns, we are living in an era where massive change is taking place in almost every sphere of human activity. Right now is the critical juncture in which we will decide whether power will be returned to the people, or will be further consolidated into the hands of those who wish to micromanage every aspect of the human and natural world for their own private gain. The fight for control over the food supply is just one of many battlegrounds in this war for the future of the planet and our lives. Growing public awareness about the dangers of these pesticides as well as GMOs, and an increased demand for locally produced organic agriculture are signs that the public is waking up and understanding the great peril that agricultural centralization poses to not only our health, but the health and wellbeing of our entire planet.

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Today’s visualization comes from data scientist Henrik Lindberg, and it shows America’s favorite past-times based on the participation of people in different income brackets.

It uses data from the American Time Use Survey that is produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to break down these activities.

 

COMMON INTERESTS

As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, while activities are all over the map, it appears that some past-times are more common across all income groups.

Team sports and solo pursuits both are represented well in the center. In fact, reading for personal interest, dancing, computer use, hunting, hiking, walking, playing basketball, or playing baseball can all be found in the middle of the spectrum, appealing to Americans in every income group.

Closer to the top and bottom of the visualization, however, we see where income groups diverge in how they spend their time. It’s probably not surprising to see that people with higher incomes spend more time golfing, playing racket sports, attending performing arts, and doing yoga than average. On the flipside, lower income Americans spend more time watching television, listening to the radio, and listening to/playing music.

CURIOUS ANOMALIES

Every data set has its own peculiarities. Sometimes these things can be explained, and sometimes they are just aberrations created as a result of how data was collected (i.e. how a survey was worded, bias, or some other error).

Here are some of the stranger anomalies that appear in this data set. We won’t attempt to explain them here, but feel free to speculate in the comments section:

• Higher income Americans disproportionately enjoy softball – while baseball has more universal appeal across income groups.
• While activities like boating are typically associated with higher income levels, the activity of running is generally not. Yet, running is disproportionately enjoyed by higher income Americans, according to this survey.
• Despite playing baseball being fairly universal across the spectrum, watching baseball skews higher income.
• Writing for personal interest has an interesting distribution: it is enjoyed disproportionately by poorer and richer Americans, but is underrepresented in the middle class.

Can you find anything else that stands out as being an anomaly?

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The prosecution in the trial of former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli called more investors to testify about alleged malfeasance by Shkreli during his time as a hedge-fund manager on Monday. And while two witnesses echoed earlier descriptions of Shkreli being evasive when investors asked for their money, both ultimately admitted that they were paid back with interest.

One corroborated an earlier witness’s claim that Shkreli became evasive when asked to return clients’ money, stalling for more than a year before making investors whole with questionable payouts from Retrophin, the pharmaceutical company he co-founded, as well as grants of Retrophin stock, which is now worth $20 a share.

Another played into the portrayal of Shkreli that defense attorney Benjamin Brafman has sought to sell to the jury: That any liberties taken by Shkreli were ultimately made in good faith, but his clients’ odd behavior and personality quirks at times caused friction between him and his clients.

Schuyler Marshall, chairman of the board of the real estate company Rosewood Corp, said the former drug company executive reminded him of Dustin Hoffman's autistic character in the movie "Rain Man," according to Reuters. Though Marshall added under cross-examination by Shkreli's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, that he was not claiming Shkreli was autistic.

"'The reference here was that this was just an intensely focused, bright guy who knew his stuff,'" Marshall told jurors. Hoffman's character in the 1988 film is an autistic savant with exceptional mental abilities but difficulty relating to other people.

 

Like other investors who have testified in the trial, Marshall, who invested more than $200,000 in MSMB Capital, said that while Shkreli misled him about the fund's operations, he did not lose money. At one point, Marshall testified, he even used the phrase "no harm, no foul" in a communication with Shkreli.

 

'He paid back my investment and then some,' Marshall said.”

Shkreli is being tried on eight counts of securities fraud and wire fraud related to his time running two hedge funds, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare, and a pharmaceutical company he founded called Retrophin. In particular, Shkreli has been accused of falsifying investor statements, backdating documents and misleading investors about his record as a fund manager. He also allegedly misstated how much money was in the funds, according to prosecutor G. Karthik Srinivasan, who, in his opening statement, accused Shkreli of being a “con man” who managed to convince his investors that he was “a Wall Street genius.”

Last week, judge Kiyo Matsumoto hit Shkreli with a partial gag order, prohibiting him from talking about his case in or around the Brooklyn courthouse after he went on a rant to reporters gathered there last week. The order leaves him free to speak with journalists and conduct his marathon livestreams on YouTube.  

Another witness on Monday, the seventh day of a trial that’s expected to last for as long as six weeks, was somewhat less charitable.

Richard Kocher, 65, told a Brooklyn federal jury Monday that his construction business saw a deal fall apart while he begged Shkreli to return his investments in a hedge fund, but the former pharmaceutical executive told him he was too busy running his new drug company, according to Bloomberg.

Kocher told the Brooklyn jury that, in one of his first forays into the hedge fund world in early 2012, he put $100,000 into Shkreli’s fund because he was assured investors could get their money back anytime. In May 2012, Kocher said he bailed out the fund, putting in another $100,000 after one of Shkreli’s employees told him it had a shortfall. Shkreli announced in September of 2012 he was closing his funds to focus on Retrophin Inc., but promising customers a full refund or shares in the startup pharmaceutical company.

 

Kocher pleaded for his money for five months but said he got a “run around” and Shkreli only offered 23,654 shares of Retrophin stock, which at the time he couldn’t sell.

“When you were in trouble and needed $100,000, I wired it over to you the next day,” Kocher wrote Shkreli in a March 2013 email. “I expect to get, in addition to this (insulting) untradable stock” my money back, he wrote.

However, Kocher too was eventually paid back…with interest. Though he says it's hard to say if he ultimately came out ahead, given the opportunity costs.

“Shkreli eventually returned Kocher’s investments. Kocher also sold the Retrophin stock, after several years, making about $350,000 in total profit. But Kocher said he had to pay a lawyer, lost a business deal and lost time from his business, so he’s not sure if he ended up ahead.”

If convicted, Shkreli could face up to 20 years in prison. He has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence.
 

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From the Slope of Hope: OK, time to unload………

It is Monday evening, and ever since the closing bell, I’ve been seeing story after story about how that piece-of-shit company SNAP is now below its IPO price. Huge publications – – hundreds of times larger than our beloved Slope – – are making hay out of this big event, with such headlines as this:

Now, there’s no reason to single out TechCrunch in particular, but I’ll do it all the same. As you can see, I’ve highlighted a particular sentence, which seems to assert, now that the closing price is below the IPO price (by all of a penny……..) that, at last, public investors at at last lost money on this. In other words, since it came public at $17, and has been trading above it ever since, everyone has been just fine and dandy until now.

Let me share my first reaction to this: AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Oh, and I’ll add ARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, moving on………..

The young woman who wrote the story appears to be well-credentialed – – certainly far more than me – – as evidenced by her profile (and, let’s face it, her glasses):

But why……..WHY………does the business press continue to press forward this canard that the “public” all bought in at the IPO price?

Let’s take the chart of SNAP as the obvious example. Here’s the chart of its entire life as a public firm:

Let’s all get this nice and perfectly clear: the IPO price doesn’t necessarily have ANYTHING to do with what the public pays. NOTHING! Nada! Zilch!

The first public investors in SNAP paid $24 per share, not $17. That was the opening price on its first day of launch. The investment banks were delighted, of course, because they were, in fact, the ones who enjoyed the $17 price (a little less, but we’ll keep this simple) and got to sell it to the public for whatever the public was willing to pay.

So SNAP had a good first day (high of $26.05) and a good second day (high of $29.44).

And that, my friends, was the end of the SNAP success story. From then on, it sucked whale, and since that time, it has lost nearly HALF its value in a little over four months.

So ever since the SECOND DAY of the company’s public existence, this company has been a money loser for “investors”. The losing didn’t start just today. It started almost immediately after the public offering! And yet the web is littered with ludicrous nonsense like this:

The “return from IPO” was never 60% (except for the investment bankers). We’re talking about the PUBLIC here, right? The greatest return was actually 25% for the lucky bastard (if any, which I doubt) that bought at the open and sold at exactly the next day’s high.

So I hope I’ve made my point. My own view, as I’ve expressed countless times on Slope, is that SNAP is heading for the single digits, and it might not even exist as a public entity in a couple of years. I was very ambivalent about SNAP at first, but once I saw this cover story on Time in March, I knew they were doomed beyond redemption. The “genius” of Snapchat my ass……..

via http://ift.tt/2sKd4MY Tim Knight from Slope of Hope

Authored by Joshua Krause via ReadyNutrition.com,

There are a lot of reasons why people prep for disasters, but there’s one reason that’s far more popular than the others. What people fear most when they think about what would happen if society collapsed, isn’t hunger, disease, or exposure. They fear what other people might do to them when the chips are down. They worry that members of their community might hurt or kill them to survive.

And though most preppers won’t admit it, I think most of us fear what we might be capable of in a bad situation. We don’t have to find out if we have enough food stocked up in our pantries.

However, it should be noted that there is an alternate view on what most people will do if society collapses. For historians who study disasters and social collapse, there is hope that people won’t automatically turn into savages if the grid goes down. A writer for Slate recently interviewed several experts on this topic, and here’s what they had to say:

And there are countless examples of people being altruistic and coming together during disasters; perhaps even more so than examples of people turning on each other.

 

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