Oil Slides As US Rig Count Slumps To New Record 41-Year Lows

The US Oil rig count continues to track lagged oil prices perfectly, falling 8 rigs in the last week to 354 – its lowest since Nov 2009. Oil rigs have now declined 15 of the last 16 weeks. While gas rigs rose by 1 this week, the total rig count slipped 7 to 443 – yet another fresh record low. While the reaction was delayed, crude prices are sliding from their exuberant rally highs.

Oil Rigs dropped to Nov 2009 lows…

 

As the total US rig count plunged to fresh record lows…


 

And oil prices are sliding after the data…



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Robert Moses Gets the Off-Broadway Rock Musical Treatment

Last night, New York’s Triad Theatre hosted a Robert Moses, the musicalone-night preview performance of “BLDZR: The Gospel According to Moses,” a new rock musical in the tradition of RENT and American Idiot that dramatizes Robert Moses’ evolution “from a young idealist fervent with a desire to build the greatest city in the world to a power-insulated enemy of the people, corrupted, lost and alone.”

The brainchild of Seattle native and self-described “grunge rock refugee” Peter Galperin and starring David Driver (who 20 years ago was an understudy in the original cast of RENT) as the Power Broker himself, the still-in-the-works show depicts the urban planner dreaming about re-shaping New York into a car-centric metropolis, conspiring with the powerful, dismissing any criticism outright, and trying to maintain a relationship with a woman he mostly ignores.

Addressing the audience before the show, Galperin explained that all the show’s songs would be included in the performance, but only select “book” portions made it into last night’s truncated preview, which is a shame, because those missing moments might have provided more context and clarity to the narrative.

Galperin added that “the verdict is still out on Moses,” citing the construction of vital bridges and highways that helped make New York a 20th century economic powerhouse, but also the many neighborhoods destroyed in the process. 

Four actors portraying characters including Moses, Fmr. New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and activist Jane Jacobs crammed onto the snug off-off-Broadway stage in front of a four-piece rock combo (featuring Galperin on guitar), while a narrator hunched in front of the stage to set each scene.

Moses, who for decades was the most powerful unelected official in the US, sings about “the view from my imagination,” before Rockefeller coos about how “impressed” he is by Moses’ “system…set up so everyone profits.” What is meant by that line is unclear, but the gist seems to be that Rockefeller and other forces of capitalism and government approved of Moses’ vision for the city and state which included public beaches, state parks, and the Triboro Bridge, all of which even Moses’ detractors would admit were net positives for the public. 

The narrative gets shaky when Jane Jacobs enters the scene. The urban preservationist and author of The Death of Life of Great American Cities is widely credited with forcing Moses into his Waterloo battle over his plans to build the Lower Manhattan Expressway through Jacobs’ beloved Greenwich Village neighborhood. Jacobs is seen being lectured by Rockefeller (who by now considers Moses a political liability) in a conversation that almost certainly never took place about her “commie ideology.”

But Jacobs was no communist, having renounced her membership in the Federal Workers Union because “it was communist dominated.” Moreover, her opposition to Moses wasn’t based on sentimentality or populism, it was her philosophical aversion to top-down central planning and the collusion of government and commerce, which she saw as a potentially fatal threat to her home and her neighbors’.

Though she’s now the patron saint of New York’s anti-gentrification movement, she had faith in local economies, as opposed to supposedly benevolent forces in government, as the main drivers for maintaining the authentic soul of communities. Though she was undoubtedly “of the left” in her day, her preference for liberalized markets over the state would likely make her views “problematic,” perhaps even beyond the pale, among today’s left.

Another vignette depicts a journalist grousing over the Brooklyn Dodgers absconding to Los Angeles as an example of heartless greed, but the scene only momentarily alludes to Moses being the man most directly responsible for the end of Dem Bums‘ reign in Flatbush. As I noted last year in a post about Bernie Sanders crediting the Dodgers’ move West for facilitating his socialist awakening, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley actually tried for years to build a new stadium in Brooklyn. However, Moses forbade it, insisting on far-flung Flushing, Queens as the only acceptable destination. 

But like Sanders, the play eschews the “extraordinarily powerful and unaccountable bureaucrat chased businessman out of town when he insisted on uprooting the Dodgers from Brooklyn and dropping them on a landfill in Queens” narrative for one that prefers to hover around vague references to greed and local heartbreak. 

The play correctly nails Moses for his indifference to the neighborhoods he destroyed, even if some of the dialogue is a bit tin-eared and suspiciously Ayn Randian (representative examples: “You’re getting teary-eyed over the non-productive members of society,” and “Those who can build, build. Those who can’t, criticize.”)

Although Jacob’s Greenwich Village is most oft-referred to, Moses’ creation of the odious Cross Bronx Expressway, which eviscerated the once-idyllic neighborhood of East Tremont (and thus created what is now known as the South Bronx), is never mentioned. 

There are some undeniably catchy songs in BLDZR, particularly one where Jacobs (played by the fantastic Sara Jecko) sings about “the voice of the people,” though too many instances of squarely-on-the-nose lyrics like, “He built so much, but now he’s out of touch.”

Interestingly, this isn’t the only time the Moses v. Jacobs battle has been committed to a musically theatrical performance. The opera A Marvelous Order has been in the working stage for years, and looks set for a New York bow sometime later this year.

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Zika Coming to America: Use GMO Mosquitoes to Fight It!

AedesAegyptiZika virus is most likely coming to the U.S. this summer. Researchers are more certain than ever that the virus is responsible for infants with microencephaly born from mothers infected with it and also cases of the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome in some infected adults. The disease is spread by moquitoes, especially by the non-native Aedes aegypti mosquito that also carries yellow fever, West Nile, dengue, and chikungunya viruses. According the the Centers for Disease Control, Aedes aegypti is especially prevalent in the southern United States. Although infections acquired from mosquitoes on the mainland of the U.S. have not yet been confirmed so far, 82 cases of zika virus have been reported in southern Florida as of this week.

There is not yet a vaccine against the virus, but we are not totally defenseless. The first line of defense will be normal efforts at mosquito control including the elmination of breeding sites and spraying pesticides to kill off the bloodsuckers. But an even more elegant and efficient technique is waiting in the wings, if only the objections of anti-biotech activists can be overcome – mosquitoes genetically modified with a gene lethal to their larva. The GMO mosquito has been created by the biotech company Oxitec (now a subsidiary of Intrexon) and has already been successfully used to drastically reduce the populations of mosquitoes at test sites in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Panama.

A terrific op-ed in the New York Times by molecular biologist Nina Federof and former Secretary of Agriculture John Block asks, “Why aren’t we quickly gearing up production and beginning large-scale programs to release these mosquitoes?” Their sad answer:

It’s because the Oxitec mosquitoes are genetically modified organisms and subject to different regulatory oversight in different countries. In Brazil, for example, release of Oxitec mosquitoes has been approved by one government agency but awaits approval from another agency.

Despite its substantial expertise in insect control, the Department of Agriculture has regrettably not taken a role in helping navigate the regulatory complexities for this mosquito. So these insects are being regulated as a “new animal drug” by the F.D.A. The agency is now accepting public comments on Oxitec’s plan and will then evaluate each one before deciding whether to approve the Florida trial.

You get the picture. None of this happens fast.

Then there’s public opinion. More than 160,000 people signed a petition opposing Oxitec’s trial in the Florida Keys, but most signed before the Zika crisis. In a recent Purdue University survey, 78 percent of respondents supported the use of genetically engineered mosquitoes to control the spread of the Zika virus.

The released male mosquitoes have no effect on people because males don’t bite. While we might wait years for a Zika vaccine, the genetically modified mosquito is tested, scalable and ready to go.

Zika looks more devastating with every new study. Are the stakes finally high enough to expedite an effective, hemisphere-wide mosquito eradication program that makes use of modern genetic modification techniques?

Excellent question. Think how much further along we might have been in preventing the spread of this disease had Oxitec been permitted in 2012 to conduct its trial in the Florida Keys.

In March, the FDA actually ruled preliminarily that trials using the GMO mosquitoes are safe and could proceed. However, the agency yesterday bowed to pressure from the Friends of the Earth, the Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, and GMO Free USA and delayed approval while extending the public comment period on the possible release of the mosquitoes to May 13.

My hope is that the public will reject scaremongering anti-biotech activism – one particularly kooky group actually suggested that the GMO mosquitoes in Brazil were responsible for microencephaly – and demand that FDA give its approval to use modern technology to combat this disease. After all, for how many babies born with microencephaly do FDA bureaucrats really want to be responsible?

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For Albert Edwards, This Is The “One Failsafe Indicator” Of An Inevitable Recession

When trying to time the next US recession, most economists – as one would expect – look at economic data. The problem with such “data” as last year’s farcical double seasonal GDP adjustments have shown, is that if the government is intent on putting lipstick on the pig that is US GDP, it will do just that over and over, unleashing non-GAAP GDP if it must, to avoid revealing the truth until it is prepared to do so.

To avoid such purposeful obfuscation SocGen’s Albert Edwards looks at places where it is more difficult to fabricate and goalseek data. Conveniently, he has discovered precisely that in what calls a “failsafe recession indicator,” one which has stopped flashing amber and has turned to red. He is referring to whole economy profits data, which in his own words “shows a gut wrenching slump.”

What Edwards is referring to is not that different from what we posted about back in October when we said that on 5 of the past 6 times when corporate profits dropped 60%, the economy entered a recession. This time the drop is far worse, and it’s no longer just energy (the loophole used by many to explain away why in 1985 there was no recession). However, instead of looking at bottom up data, the SocGen strategist instead collapses corporate profits from the top down.

Edwards lays out the reasons why he believes that “a recession now virtually inevitable”, and since this is Albert Edwards after all, he has a jovial follow up: not only will the US economy contract, it “will surely be swept away by a tidal wave of corporate default.”

From his latest Global Strategy Weekly

Despite risk assets enjoying a few weeks in the sun our failsafe recession indicator has stopped flashing amber and turned to red. Newly released US whole economy profits data show a gut wrenching slump. Whole economy profits never normally fall this deeply without a recession unfolding. And with the US corporate sector up to its eyes in debt, the one asset class to be avoided – even more so than the ridiculously overvalued equity market – is US corporate debt. The economy will surely be swept away by a tidal wave of corporate default.

 

The temper tantrum risk assets threw at the start of the year was sufficient for the Fed to backpedal furiously on rate hikes. Like the Grand Old Duke of York, the Fed marched us up to the top of the hill and then down again – at the behest of the markets. And as more and more contorted excuses are wheeled out to justify its inaction we all surely know by now that the Fed?s articulated ?data-dependent? rate hikes are primarily focused solely on the level of the S&P, i.e., when it slumps they will quickly back off rate hikes and use any excuse necessary  including dismissing surging core CPI inflation. How sad that Central Bank policy should have come to this.

 

I suppose now the S&P has recovered we are about to go through another turn on the monetary/market merry-go-round. Ignore this noise. Recent whole economy profits data show that while the Fed plays its games, the economic cycle is withering and writhing from within. For historically, when whole economy profits fall this deeply, recession is virtually inevitable as business spending slumps. And if I had to pick one asset class to avoid it would be US corporate bonds, for which sky high default rates will shock investors.

 

 

 

We have written extensively in the past as to why sell-side economists almost to a man and woman fail to predict recessions. One of the key reasons ? aside from the obvious wish not to make an unpopular call that might prove wrong and likely fatal to their career – is that they do not place enough importance on the role of profits as a driver of the economic cycle.

My own observation has led me to the conclusion that when whole economy profits begin to fall sharply, this is usually followed shortly after by the overall economy tipping over into recession, driven by the volatile business investment cycle. The national accounts, whole economy profits data give a wider and ?cleaner? estimate of the underlying profits environment than the heavily doctored ?pro-forma? quoted company profits data (the former also often leads the latter). As illustrated below, a longer term chart shows how whole economy profits tend to be a leading indicator of the business investment cycle. It also shows the current profits downturn is notably worse than the 1998 downturn – which is often cited as evidence that a profits recession does not necessarily lead to a full blown economic downturn.

 

At this point Edwards observes that some fellow skeptics like Gerry Minack do not see a recession as imminent (he sees a stagflation). However, he remains adamant: “My own view is that Fed tightening may not be a necessary condition to catalyse a recession and that the deep profits downturn is sufficient in itself. Historically all recessions are effectively caused by slumps in business investment driven by a profits downturn: the chart below shows that whenever GDP growth (dotted line) is negative it is almost totally overlaid by the contribution of GDP growth in business investment (red line).“

Will Edwards be right? Of course, but at that point the government – which needs to preserve confidence in growth at all costs – will simply change the definition on GDP first, and when that fails, of “recession” next. And all shall once again be well.


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Was the Panama Papers “Leak” a Russian Intelligence Operation?

Screen Shot 2016-04-08 at 10.25.21 AM

As I wrote on Monday, ever since I started reading about the Panama Papers “leak” something kept rubbing me the wrong way. From the absence of any well known, politically powerful Americans on the list, to the anonymous nature of “John Doe” as whistleblower and the clownish reporting from Soros and USAID affiliated organizations, the whole thing stunk from the start.

The first plausible theory I came across attempting to explain the strangeness of it all was proposed by Craig Murray, and it basically went something like this. The leaker is a real whistleblower, but he placed the information in the wrong hands, therefore the organizations and journalists reporting on the story were not giving us the whole truth. Here’s some of that theory from the post, Are Corporate Gatekeepers Protecting Western Elites from the Leaked Panama Papers?

Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing.

The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”

The corporate media – the Guardian and BBC in the UK – have exclusive access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations’ sensitive information by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6. 

Initially, this seemed to be a theory worth exploring, but in the following days I’ve come to a far different conclusion. The primary divergence between what I currently believe and what Mr. Murray proposed is that I do not think the leaker was a genuine whistleblower motived by the public interest. I think the leaker was working on behalf of a sophisticated intelligence agency.

The fact that we seem to know nothing about “John Doe” concerns me. Say what you will about Edward Snowden, but he came out publicly shortly after his whistleblowing and offered himself up for the world to judge. His life, career and personality have been put on full display, and each and every one of us has had the opportunity to decide for ourselves whether his motivations were noble and pure or not.

With the Panama Papers’ “John Doe” we are given no such opportunity, and in fact, the whole thing reads very much like a script concocted by some big budget intelligence agency. Once I started coming around to this conclusion, the obvious choice was U.S. intelligence; given the lack of implications to powerful Americans, the clownishly desperate attempts to smear Putin, and the appearance of Soros, USAID, Ford Foundation, etc, linked organizations to the reporting.

So for someone who already thinks the whole Panama Papers story stinks to high heaven, a CIA link to the release seems obvious; but is it too obvious? Perhaps.

continue reading

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Panama Partners In Crime

Submitted by Golem XIV,

“We have broken no laws and cooperated with the government at all times.”

Variations of that statement seem to be the default defence of everyone from bankers to politicians when their names come up in the Panama Papers.

In the UK the latest to resort to some version of it, was first Downing Street on behalf of the Prime Minister David Cameron, and then HSBC on behalf of it’s notorious Swiss subsidiary.  The former because his father who lived in the UK, set up an off-shore company which has never paid any taxes in the UK, and the latter because it turns out HSBC has once again been handling dirty money, this time holding and moving money for off-shore companies owned by relatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Now HSBC is a well known money laundering bank. They have been indicted and convicted of money laundering so many times in so many different countries.  The best known case was in 2012 when HSBC were found guilty of  laundering drug money out of Mexico. HSBC were tried in the US and fined $1.9 billion. They paid and said how sorry they were, and their group Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver accepted responsibility for their past mistakes, but assured everyone they had now put all that behind them and had even,

spent $290m on improving its systems to prevent money laundering,

That was 2012. In 2015 HSBC all that was found to be blather. HSBC were caught laundering  – again. This time it was HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary which had laundered

the proceeds of political corruption and accepted deposits from arms dealers while helping wealthy people evade taxes.

And so I have been thinking about this phrase we keep hearing, about not breaking laws and cooperating with governments.  Now obviously the first part is rubbish for the likes of HSBC, but perhaps not for the origin of the Panama papers themselves the Panamanian Law firm, Mossak Fonseca. I think they probably have been operating within the law. Doing so by having laws with more holes in than a sieve and governments who leave critical areas of compliance in the semi dark of self regulation or even connive with skirting round the rules.  And this connivance is why I am so interested in the second part of the phrase we keep hearing, the cooperating with governments.

You see I think when we hear the whole phrase, in one variation or another, we are meant to think the two halves of the statement are linked. The bank, law firm or individual has never, at least not ‘knowingly’, broken the law and is now cooperating with the government. The cooperating is seen as the antidote and response to the embarrassing lapse in obeying the law.

But let’s tease the two halves apart. The ‘knowingly’ is precisely how HSBC, Wachovia, Citi or Standard Chartered all admit laundering was done at the bank, but are never guilty of having laundered it…not knowingly.  It is always a huge surprise. A discovery which saddens and angers them. Which they then move on from…. with the blessing of their government.

This is how they are fined but never guilty, how dirty money can have engorged their balance sheet but they never lose their banking license.

I think we could be forgiven for getting the sneaking suspicion that governments cover for their banks.

So I look again at the phrase I started with and hear it differently now. Instead of hearing how the  bank, law firm or individual is contrite about an ‘unwitting error’ about which they are now cooperating with the government, I now hear first a lie about not breaking the law, but then a startling truth.  You see, I wonder if we shouldn’t think that the one truth being hidden in plain sight in all this is that the financial world has indeed been cooperating with governments – but doing so all along.

Does it not make more sense to think that what we are seeing is not a few rogue bank employees and lawyers breaking the law and embarrassing their employers and their pathetically useless, regulators, but rather two cooperating parts of a system of finance and government who are suddenly revealed together? It’s not dirty bankers and corrupt lawyers who are – now they have been caught – having to cooperate with government, to clean up. Not at all. I think we should at least consider that the better explanation is that the two, financial/legal world and government have been cooperating all along.

It stretches the limits of credulity to keep imagining that the bankers aren’t well aware who their clients are and how dirty the money is they are accepting. Equally it is ridiculous to think that governments aren’t aware of how oligarchs become wealthy or presidents suddenly become billionaires. And that dirty but hugely wealthy system is there just whispering to our leaders – who let’s face it are mostly drawn from the wealthiest families.

I suggest that what we are seeing with the Panama Papers is two partners in crime who have been caught together – The ‘criminal’ and the inside man/bent cop together. Normally the criminal – or at least the organisation that he works for – look to the bent cop to protect them. Someone will have to do time of course, but the arrangement remains hidden and therefore protected.

But now the arrangement itself might be uncovered. And if the bent cop, the inside man, is revealed, that threatens everything doesn’t it? That is far more serious. And so here they are, both caught in the light, both being questioned in public. The bankers and lawyers must be wondering how far they can trust the politicians.

Normally this sort of thing is covered over by finding some poor low level fall-guy. Who even if he tries to say the corruption goes higher is easy to discredit or shut up. But now big level people on all sides are blinking in the unwelcome lights.

I think we should admit that both the global financial/legal system, and our governments are both systemically corrupt and have been partners in crime – laundering money and evading taxes – as a matter of undeclared policy. It has been and remains just the way the system they profit by, works.  The only people who were not to know is us – The little people of every country, who are told they must pay their taxes, accept cuts because they aren’t paying enough taxes, and obey the laws and respect their betters.

Time to wake up surely?


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European Banks Crash For 4th Straight Week

Even with today’s 3% surge – the most in a month – on the heels of Unicredit’s CEO proclaiming that EU banks are “intensely” looking for fundin solutions, European banking stocks have collapsed for a 4th straight week for the worst losses since 2012.

 

 

Following the brief exuberance after Draghi unleashed his latest bazooka – which it seems was all front-run – European banking stocks have collapsed almost 20% – the biggest loss since April 2012.


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FX Volatility Soars To 4-Year Highs As Central Bankers Lose Control

Since The Fed ended QE3, the world's FX markets have become increasingly turmoily as the loss of Janet's foot on the throat of volatility sends chaotic sprres through carry traders' P&L. In fact, after rising 6 days in a row amid Japanese Yen strength, Global FX rates are the most turbulent since January 2012.

 

Chart: Bloomberg

As Bloomberg reports, volatility in currencies of the Group-of-Seven nations climbed for a sixth straight day Friday, the longest streak of increases this year. Price swings accelerated after the yen strengthened past 110 per dollar for the first time in almost 18 months this week, fueling speculation on whether the Bank of Japan will intervene to weaken its currency.

The trouble with turmoiling FX markets is it forces deleveraging in carry trades and tightens the much-needed liquidity that unerlies the fast-money purchasing of risky-assets around the world.  It is no coincidence that as FX volatility has surged in the last year, so equity performance has ebbed.


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Final Reason Weekly Contest: Laugh at Trump’s Misfortune (and the Nation’s)

TrumpAnd now for the results of our final contest. After word leaked that Donald Trump’s campaign manager was once arrested for walking into a Congressman’s office with a loaded gun (he claimed he’d gotten his bags mixed up), we asked you to come up with a headline announcing the next surprising bit of gossip from the Trump campaign.

WINNER:

Trump to Rename Guantanamo “Trump Torture Chamber” — Jock Hoffman, Arlington, MA

SECOND PLACE:

Trump Admits to Hand Transplant — Joyce  Farrell, Wuatoma, WI

THIRD PLACE:

Trump Reveals Well Thought-Out Economic Plan to Repeal O-Care and Introduce a Balanced Budget.  — Bobarian, Vine Grove, KY

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Donald Trump Press Secretary Accidently Releases Sex Tape Involving Candidate and his Undocumented Housekeeper, Lupita. Trump Poll Numbers Jump 8 Points. —  Bobarian, Vine Grove, KY

Rosie O’Donnell Endorses Trump — L. B. Lebin, Mill Hall, PA

Breaking: Evidence Points to Possibility Ivana, Marla, and Melania All Married Donald Trump for his Money. — Tim Whalen, Manassas, VA

Trump Taps Christie for VP, Will Campaign as “Big and Rich” — Robert Ryan, Dallas City, IL

AND FROM THE COMMENTS:

Trump Support Staff Revealed to be 13 Undocumented Nicaraguans Pulling Policy Positions Out of a Fishbowl

Donald Trump Suspends Campaign after Allegations of Propriety

Trump: “I am no longer ‘The Donald’ anymore. I am ‘The Caitlyn’ “

Trump Campaign Expects Women to Lift Up Toilet Seat for Men

Support for Trump’s Candidacy Surges to 90 Percent After He Announces Plans to Immediately Deport Whining Millennials

Hillary’s Campaign is Biggest Trump Contributor

After a Debate, Donald Treats Himself to a Warm Bath and Good Cry

Trump-Kardashian 2016

Donald Trump Used to Comment at Reason Under the Name “Lone Whacko”

Thanks for the fun!

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The 1994 Crime Bill Was A Liberal Policy

Bill Clinton has become part of the 2016 election news cycle once again. He confronted protesters associated with Black Lives Matter who were denouncing the 1994 crime bill, a major piece of legislation that instituted a lot of the policies that drove over-criminalization and hyper-incarceration in the last twenty years.

“You’re defending the people who kill the lives you say matter,” Clinton told the protesters, attempting to link tough on crime policies (which are popular in urban area and among urban Democratic politicians despite the mainstream rhetoric) to crime reduction.

Twenty years ago the 1994 crime bill passed with broad support. It has become an issue this election cycle given increased interest in issues of police and criminal justice reform. Yet arguments over the crime bill have avoided engaging the uncomfortable truth about the role of bigger government in promoting police violence in favor of rhetorical acrobatics.

For example even while acknowledging the 1994 crime bill was largely “a sincere attempt to respond to a real epidemic of violent crime,” Slate‘s Jameille Bouie has to insist there were “bad actors” as well. The focus on intentionality in politics is a distraction. The effects policies have on real people matter, not the intentions of the politicians first proposing them. Evaluating how policies will play out on the ground is a more effective way of protecting people from government abuses than the parlor game of trying to divine what’s in someone’s hard.

It matters. One revisionist tact taken with the 1994 crime bill is that it was never supported by liberals. Salon, for example, insists Bill Clinton’s “right-leaning New Democrat policy record is a bad fit for today’s liberal politics.” Clinton blames Republicans for forcing him to add tougher provisions to the bill. Yet the 1994 crime bill went through Congress when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. It was supported by Democrats across the political spectrum, from center-left to hard left. Every member of the leadership of the progressive-leaning Congressional Black Caucus voted for the 1994 crime bill, even as their chairman at the time has now tried to deny he voted in favor of it. 75 percent of House Democrats voted for the bill. They were joined by 46 Republicans and one Independent, the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.

Hillary Clinton receives more focus on the 1994 crime bill because her husband signed it into law, but Bernie Sanders actually voted for the legislation. He says now that was because of provisions about violence against women, but laws are not passed a la carte. Sanders has also claimed police departments are just examples of everyday socialism. Nothing about his rhetoric or policy positions suggests he’d even consider commonsense reform proposals from Black Lives Matter like reforming the police union contracts that often allow officers to kill with almost complete impunity.

Such exercises aren’t just a distraction from solutions like the ones Black Lives Matter’s Campaign Zero have proposed, they provide cover for future policy pushes that will also have the effect of exacerbating police violence. Victims of police brutality can no longer afford to have progressives deny that there’s nothing about the good intentions of their policies that inoculates them from causing more government violence when they create the legal opportunity for such, especially in communities of poor and marginalized people.

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