It’s getting a little tight around the neck for emerging market central bankers.
On the same day that the governor of Malaysia’s central bank quit, and just days after Urjit Patel, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, took the unprecedented step of writing an oped to the Federal Reserve, begging the US central bank to step tightening monetary conditions, and shrinking its balance sheet, thereby creating a global dollar shortage which has slammed emerging markets (and forced India into an unexpected rate hike overnight), Indonesia’s new central bank chief joined his Indian counterpart in calling on the Federal Reserve to be “more mindful” of the global repercussions of policy tightening amid the ongoing rout in emerging markets.
As Bloomberg reports, in his first interview with international media since he took office two weeks ago, Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo – who bears a remarkable resemblance to what Jamie Dimon would look like if he were about 40 pounds overweight – echoed what Patel said just days earlier, namely that the pace of the Fed’s balance sheet reduction was a key issue for central bankers across emerging markets.
Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo
As a reminder, the RBI Governor made exactly thew same comments earlier this week, arguing that slowing the pace of stimulus withdrawal at a time when the US Treasury is doubling down on debt issuance, would support global growth, as the alternative would be an emerging markets crisis that would spill over into developed markets.
In a thinly veiled warning addressing the Fed, Warjiyo said that “we know every country must decide their policy based on domestic circumstances but look, you have to take account of your actions and the impact of your actions to other countries, especially the emerging markets.”
The growing complaints from EM central bankers come at a time when the Fed continues to tighten monetary policy, and with another interest-rate hike expected next week, emerging markets across the globe are bracing for a further selloff. Bank Indonesia has already raised its key rate twice to help bolster its currency, while the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday became the latest to move, increasing its policy rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%, surprising a majority of analysts who expected no change.
“Communication is very important,” Warjiyo said. “We are looking for the Fed to communicate more clearly the intention of their policy so the market can understand clearly and also react and all the central banks can also anticipate and consider it in their policy making.”
Actually, here the Fed has been especially clear, often more so than the market, and unlike in 2015 and 2016, has been hiking just as often as its “dot plot” said it would.
Still, Warjiyo’s comments underscore the difficult policy choices central bankers are being forced to make as they try to respond to external forces driving their currencies.
On Tuesday, South African central bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said the Fed is communicating its intentions better than it did in 2013 during the taper tantrum, but its job is being complicated by U.S. fiscal policy.
“Nobody figured out that the U.S. could embark on all of these trade policies that they had embarked on and that complicates the work of the Fed,” he said in Johannesburg. “I don’t think that they had factored in earlier that there will be stimulus that had been put in for the U.S. economy from the fiscus.”
Unfortunately for all these central bankers, it’s about to get even more difficult as policy normalization in Japan and Europe will bring more uncertainty, further monetary tightening and more outflows from emerging markets. Warjiyo said that while the “dollar is king” at the moment, it may lose that status next year.
“There are three global players that impact the future of interest rates and exchange rates. Now it’s only the U.S.,” Warjiyo said. “That’s why the U.S. and the dollar are king. But next year if Europe starts normalizing, Japan starts normalizing, then I don’t think the U.S. or the dollar will be the only king.”
Like India, the Indonesian central bank moved decisively – and unexpectedly – to support the rupiah, holding an out-of-cycle meeting last week in which he increased the benchmark rate by 25 bps to 4.75%. The thinking goes that by pre-empting the uncertainty in financial markets, the central bank has been able to stabilize the currency, Warjiyo said on Wednesday, adding that more rate hikes are possible if financial and economic conditions warrant it.
“Yes, there is a possibility of a rate hike,” Warjiyo said. “Of course, the magnitude and timing will be measured and will depend on our calibration of new information that will be coming.”
And while rate hikes are great to stabilize EM currencies and capital outflows, if only briefly, there is a just as unpleasant tradeoff: they cripple economic growth, and the result – in virtually every single case – is a recession, which sooner or later shits into capital markets..
Indeed, as Bloomberg’s Garfield Reynolds writes, “India’s rate hike was Asia’s latest forced policy action as USD strength and Fed tightening spur emerging-market central banks to follow suit to stop FX routs. The result has been a massive surge in the average 2-year swap rate for EM Asia, and that may make conditions tight enough to hold down the region’s equities relative to U.S. peers.“
And once enough peripheral emerging markets tumble, it is only a matter of time before the contagion spills over into the core, and – eventually – the US.
Literally just hours after Elon Musk got on stage at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, and reassured investors and the general public that he was confident the company could meet it’s 5,000 per week Model 3 production goal by the end of June, Business Insider released a report with a vastly different take.
According to the Springer-owned publication, new Model 3 production robots that had been expensively flown to Tesla headquarters in order to help with production are still in test mode and have not yet been put into operation. Tesla admits that the robots are not operational, but disputes the facts that a source gave BI.
One massive machine meant to put together the modules that make up Tesla’s battery packs is still not fully operational.Tesla aimed to have the new machine up and running by this weekend, according to a source at the company who requested anonymity. Business Insider has also seen video of the dormant machine, and at the time of this article’s publication, it was still in test mode.
A spokesperson from Tesla told Business Insider confirmed that the robots are not yet operational, however, they disputed the idea that the robots were supposed to be up and running by Sunday.
This machine was part of a high stakes, rare and expensive aerial delivery by auto industry standards. Tesla had it delivered in an effort to achieve its goal of getting the Gigafactory to produce enough batteries to make 5,000 Model 3 cars a week by the end of June.
Musk said that the Gigafactory was currently only a one-third of its planned size and that once it was completed it would be the biggest factory in the world. “This one factory is making more batteries than all the other factories on Earth,” Musk said. “It’s like, epic. it’s like two hours to walk through everything.”
But by the end of the day on Wednesday, it hardly mattered. Elon Musk’s reassuring comments that all of Tesla’s problems were in the rear view mirror: about not needing a capital raise, being cash flow positive for Q3 and Q4 and being confident about meeting its Model 3 production targets already lit the fuse of a monster short squeeze that was Tesla shares up about 10% on the day.
And so, it’s once again “stormy weather in Shortsville“, at least the next lethal Tesla autopilot crash finally prompts the NTSB to force a recall of all Model 3s, S, X and what not currently on the road.
For all of Europe’s bluster, and increasingly vocal “resistance” to Trump unique approach to international politics, especially when it comes to Iran when Brussels swore it would defy the US president and continue business as usual with Tehran, it took Europe about a month to fold, and as Reuters reports European refiners are now unofficially winding down oil purchases from Iran, closing the door on a fifth of the OPEC member’s crude exports.
And since the only true leverage that Iran had vis-a-vis Europe was its deeply discounted crude oil, the shuttering of crude purchases from the Islamic republic will suddenly make European governments especially ambivalent whether to continue fighting Trump in hopes of salvaging the Iranian nuclear, when there is only downside left.
How did Trump win? By the implicit threat to sanctioning and cutting off Europe’s financial institutions, and although European governments have not – yet – followed Washington by creating new sanctions, banks, insurers and shippers are gradually severing ties with Iran under pressure from the U.S. restrictions, making trade with Tehran complicated and risky, and if anything, all cash (or bitcoin).
Immediately after Trump announced on May 4 announced that the US is quitting the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, effectively making Iranian exports “radioactive” on the global scene, ministers from Germany, France and Britain protested vocally and repeatedly, urging U.S. officials to shield European companies from the sanctions, but the refiners have decided to not take any chances.
“We cannot defy the United States,” a senior source at Italy’s Saras, which operates the 300,000-barrels-per-day Sarroch refinery in Sardinia, told Reuters. Saras is determining how best to halt its purchasing of Iranian oil within the permitted 180 days, the source said, adding: “It is not clear yet what the U.S. administration can do but in practice we can get into trouble.”
Saras is hardly alone: virtually all other European brand refiners, including France’s Total, Italy’s Eni, Spain’s Repsol and Cepsa as well as Greece’s Hellenic Petroleum are preparing to halt purchases of Iranian oil. These refiners account for most of Europe’s purchases of Iranian crude, which represent around a fifth of the country’s oil exports.
Iran’s crude sales to foreign buyers averaged around 2.5 million bpd in recent months; and while the bulk of the exports go to Asia, roughly 500kbp/d in Iranian output will now be mothballed.
There is a few months before all purchases are cut off: the companies will continue to purchase cargoes until the sanctions take effect, after the 180-day wind down period ends on Nov. 4.
Europe’s largest refiner, Total, does not intend to request a waiver to continue crude oil trading with Iran after Nov. 4. Eni said it had an oil supply contract outstanding for the purchase of 2 million barrels per month, expiring at the end of the year.
“Our trading activity (remains) business as usual … We continue to strictly conform with European Union and international laws and regulations,” a Cepsa spokesman said, clearly forgetting that Europe’s poseur leaders are now part of the anti-Trump resistance. Or “are” only as long there are some fringe benefits to be had. Because if Europe can’t have access to Iran’s cheap oil, watch how the continent’s liberal elite forgets how to even spell Tehran.
All this is happening as Europe continues to pretend it is fighting Trump, if only for naive public consumption, and on Wednesday, the EU again urged the Trump administration to exempt European companies from sanctions on Iran.
Ministers from Germany, the UK and France, along with EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, have signed a letter asking the US to allow its companies to continue to trade with Iran and spare certain industries from punitive measures. “As allies, we expect that the United States will refrain from taking action to harm Europe’s security interests,” the letter states before outlining a list of demands.
📝 We ask the American authorities, in a letter signed with Germany, the UK and @eu_eeas to exempt European businesses doing legitimate trade in Iran from all extraterritorial American sanctions. Those businesses must be able to pursue their activities. pic.twitter.com/mDZP42gb0b
The letter is the functional equivalent of tweeting “thoughts and prayers” after yet another tragic terrorist incident or mass shooting event. Oh well, at least Europe can pretend to say “it did its best.”
However, at the basis of Europe’s humanitarian betrayal are not the oil companies but the banks: banks, shipping firms and insurance companies are now distancing themselves from the Islamic republic, leaving Europe’s refiners few options but to stop oil purchases.
“It’s a matter of finding a tanker and an insurer that will cover it. It’s definitely not easy right now,” a source at Repsol said.
Hellenic had to stop imports because the Swiss bank that it used was no longer processing payments to Iran, an industry source familiar with the situation said.
Yet as Europe prepares to wind down its Iranian oil imports, the wildcard is Asia, where some buyers are also expected to reduce their purchases, such as India’s Reliance Industries. The owner of the world’s biggest refining complex plans to halt oil imports from Iran, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week.
The big question is whether China, which has been making aggressive inroads into Chinese commerce in recent years, which recently launched a new train landline to Iran, and whose state-owned oil giant, CNPC – the world’s third largest oil and gas company by revenue behind Saudi Aramco and the National Iranian Oil Company – is now set to take over the role held by Total in a huge gas project in Iran, will step up its Iranian oil imports and offset the loss of Iranian oil exports to Europe, India and Japan, and if so, just how will the Trump administration react.
The latest example of widespread pain comes from the San Francisco Bay Area where a poll released this week by a local advocacy group showed that 46 percent of Bay Area residents surveyed said they want to move out of the area within the next few years. That number is up from 34 percent in 2016 and 40 percent last year in the same poll.
As SacBee’s Michael McGough reports, the reason for the urge to leave might be pretty obvious, at least to anyone knowledgeable on California: It’s just too expensive.
Cost of living (45 percent) and housing prices (27 percent) were the main reasons cited among the 461 residents who said they want out.
On top of that, 42 percent of survey respondents called housing costs/availability the most important problem facing the area, beating out traffic (18 percent) and poverty/homelessness (14 percent).
They may be the highest there, but housing prices aren’t just booming in the Bay Area.
It’s not just housing prices driving the exodus, of course. Punitive taxes – more than twice as much as some other states, are eating away at disposable income. Nearby Arizona’s income tax rate is 4.54% vs. California’s 9.3%, while the new tax bill may accelerate the exodus.
“But now the new tax bill has made some major changes, and some experts believe that this will actually accelerate the exodus out of the state of California. The following comes from CNBC…”
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined “So Long, California. Sayonara, New York,” Laffer and Moore (who have both advised President Donald Trump) say the new tax bill will cause a net 800,000 people to move out of California and New York over the next three years.
The tax changes limit the deduction of state and local taxes to $10,000, so many high-earning taxpayers in high-tax states will actually face a tax increase under the new tax code.
So where are people going?
The top destination for Bay Area residents is either a cheaper part of the state such as Alameda, Sacramento, San Juaquin or Placer counties, where homes can be found for $500K – $894K less than Santa Clara. Silicon Valley residents heading out of state are setting up camp in Arizona, Nevada, Idaho and Texas.
And as South Bay Silicon Valley residents in particular are flocking to nearby Alameda County – one of the top destinations for in-state moves, Alameda County residents are being pushed further east to lower-cost Contra Costa, San Juaquin, Sacramento and Placer counties.
Meanwhile, the median home price in Sacramento County — $357,000 — has risen each month for the past six years, the Sacramento Bee reported last week, jumping by 12 percent in the past year. –Mercury News
This morning after my plane landed from Bangkok, I was having breakfast in the business lounge in Sydney and glanced at the local paper, The Australian.
The front-page headline told the story of yet another banking scandal:
“Cartel case nets six bankers”
The article was about how six prominent investment bankers in Australia colluded to defraud investors.
This comes the day after Australia’s financial regulator hit Commonwealth Bank with an AUD $700 million (~USD $525 million) fine for aiding criminal organizations to launder money.
And earlier this week the United States government slammed French bank Société Générale with a $1 billion fine for rigging interest rates and bribing Libyan government officials.
I’ll pause and acknowledge the obvious – banks are constantly screwing their consumers and violating the public trust.
That much is a given.
It’s been proven time and time again that banks lie, cheat, steal, and otherwise do whatever they have to do to make more money at our expense.
They manipulate markets. They make wild bets with their customers’ savings. They engage in accounting tricks to make themselves appear financially healthier than they really are.
And if that weren’t enough, the banks have the audacity to treat us, the customers, as if we’re the criminals.
Completely normal, innocent bank transactions are viewed with suspicion and heavily scrutinized.
And if you’re adventurous enough to test this point, try withdrawing a few thousand dollars of your own money in cash and see if you feel like a valued customer.
Even for banks that behave with a modicum of decency, there’s still the simple fact that an average deposit account pays a laughable, minuscule amount of interest.
JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo all currently offer rates between 0.01% and 0.04% for checking and savings accounts.
Sure, interest rates in general are obviously low. But they’re no longer zero– the Federal Reserve has been gradually raising rates over the last 2 ½ years. Even short-term Treasury Bills pay nearly 2% on an annual basis.
Yet despite these steady increases, the biggest banks haven’t budged on how much interest they pay to their depositors.
In light of all this, there’s literally no reason to leave the bulk of your savings in a bank, especially with so many alternatives for savings and lending, including short-term bonds, blockchain, and Peer-to-Peer loan websites.
Yet in some sort of bizarre financial Stockholm Syndrome, most people still keep the vast majority of their savings in the very same banks who have a history of defrauding them.
This is pretty strange behavior. These banks are stealing your money, whether directly (Wells Fargo) or indirectly (in the case of the interest rate mismatch).
It’s not like this is some closely-guarded secret either. It’s all over the news, and the banks have admitted their guilt.
So people who don’t make any financial changes are deliberately choosing their captors over common sense.
It’s that time of the year again when the world’s richest and most powerful business executives, bankers, media heads and politicians gather for the highly secretive Bilderberg conference.
The multi million dollar security operation paid for by taxes is being fortified right now. Against those pesky indie journalists trying to find out what the Banksters are up to with of course total silence and compliance from the msm at #bilderberg
The high security three-day summit kicks off June 7th at the Lingotto Hotel in Turin, Italy – the one with the Fiat race track on its roof.
While last year’s event in Chantilly, VA was focused on the Trump administration and “Why is populism growing?,” this year’s themes – most of which can be filed under “pleb management” include:
1. Populism in Europe
2. The inequality challenge
3. The future of work
4. Artificial intelligence
5. The U.S. before midterms
6. Free trade
7. U.S. world leadership
8. Russia
9. Quantum computing
10. Saudi Arabia and Iran
11. The “post-truth” world
12. Current events
In other words – why do Europeans care so much about their “borders, language and culture,” how to keep blaming Russia for said populism, what to do once AI and automation replace most jobs, and how to shape narratives in a “post-truth” world where nobody believes the MSM anymore.
Ironically, Italy just took a major step towards populism after the country’s anti-immigrant League party formed a populist coalition with the 5-Star Party, while League leader Matteo Salvini stepped into his new job as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior last Friday – pledging to deport 500,000 illegal immigrants, eschew globalization, monitor mosques and reinvigorate the country’s Christian heritage.
The whole “post-truth” discussion will likely revolve around “fake news” – the label applied to whatever trending topics do not comport with their desired narrative – facilitated through alternative news platforms and social media.
Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars, per usual, provides a great take on the summit:
Although the mainstream media habitually dismisses Bilderberg as a mere “talking shop” with no actual power, there are innumerable examples of the group exerting its influence over world affairs.
In 2010, former NATO Secretary-General and Bilderberg member Willy Claes admitted that Bilderberg attendees are mandated to implement decisions that are formulated during the annual conference of power brokers. If this is the case, it would violate laws in numerous countries that forbid politicians from being influenced by foreign agents in secret.
In 2009, Bilderberg chairman Étienne Davignon even bragged about how the Euro single currency was a brainchild of the Bilderberg Group. –InfoWars
Founded in 1954, the secretive meeting has been held annually “to foster dialogue between Europe and North America,” according to its organizers.
Around 2/3 of attendees come from Europe with the rest hailing from North America. Around 25% come from politics and government, with the rest from other fields. It’s all very hush-hush of course.
“The conference is a forum for informal discussions about major issues facing the world. The meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule, which states that participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s) nor any other participant may be revealed.”
“[T]he participants are not bound by the conventions of their office or by pre-agreed positions,” the organizers state. “As such, they can take time to listen, reflect and gather insights. There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written. Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”
In other words – an orgy of side-deals and master plans…
And if you still think this is all conspiracy theorist craziness and that in fact these elites are meeting to discuss what’s in your best interest; simply listen to what a 39-year member of the Steering Committee had to say about one of their main goals.
Although members do not as a rule discuss what goes on within its conferences, Labour MP and onetime party deputy leader Denis Healey, a member of the steering committee for more than 30 years, did offer a clear statement of its intentions when quizzed by journalist Jon Ronson for his book Them in 2001.
“To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair,” he said.
“Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.”
Over the past few months, many questions have been raised regarding the ‘mysterious Maltese Professor,’ Joseph Mifsud, and his involvement in the Trump – Russia saga. Disobedient Media broke coverage of Joseph Mifsud’s connections to UK intelligence, as well as the connection of Russiagate’s central ‘witnesses’ to British Intelligence. Disobedient Media was also the first outlet to report on the findings of UK political analyst Chris Blackburn, who recounted evidence that included reference to Joseph Mifsud’s close relationship with Italian Senator Gianni Pittella.
In July 2016, during the heat of the 2016 Presidential election, Pittella attended the Democratic National Convention where he was interviewed by TIME Magazine. In the interview, Pittella formally endorsed then-candidate Hillary Clinton, stating:
“I have taken the unprecedented step of endorsing and campaigning for Hillary Clinton because the risk of Donald Trump is too high,” Pittella told TIME. “I believe it is in the interest of the European Union and Italy to have Hillary Clinton in office. A Trump victory could be a disaster for the relationship between the U.S.A. and Italy.”
“This campaign is special…This campaign is not between Democrat or Republican. It’s between democracy and no democracy in the U.S. It’s between having a relationship between the U.S. and the E.U. and the U.S. and other countries, or not. And Italian citizens, together with the world, have the duty not only to intervene, but to act, to support Hillary’s campaign.”
Pittella also spoke at the DNC in Philadelphia, decrying the “virus of populism,” stating that the U.S. “[has] the same virus in your society. And this virus is represented by Donald Trump.”
However, according to internal documents from George Soros Open Society Foundation leaked in 2016, Pittella is considered to be a close ally of George Soros. The 127-page document by the Open Society European Policy Institute, titled “Reliable allies in the European Parliament (2014 – 2019),” lists the names of 226 EU MEPs that are likely to support the Open Society Foundation and its many initiatives. Included among the names of 226 MEPs is that of Gianni Pittella.
According to the document, Pittella is one of six members of the EU’s Conference of Presidents, the highest political decision-making body of the European Parliament, who are deemed to be among the Open Society Foundation’s reliable allies in the EU.
Using his influence as a highly regarded member of European Parliament, Pittella inserted himself into American politics during the 2016 Presidential race.
Lee Smith of Real Clear Politics, later reported on Chris Blackburn’s exceptional research, including Mifsud’s relationship with Pittella.
Disobedient Media will continue to follow this story as it develops.
Several US citizens have been evacuated from the US consulate in Guangzhou, China, after falling ill with various neurological symptoms from mysterious “sonic attacks” similar to incidents reported in Havana Cuba which left 20 State Department employees with serious injuries.
On Wednesday night, consulate worker Mark Lenzi and his family were evacuated after hearing strange noises over the course of several months, which Lenzi described as “marbles bouncing and hitting a floor then rolling on an incline with a static sound,” according to the Washington Post.
At first, he and his wife thought that their neighbor — a fellow Foreign Service officer in the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China — was responsible. The neighbor denied having anything to do with it.
A few months later, the headaches started — excruciating pain that lasted for days at a time. Lenzi, his wife, and their 3-year-old son experienced the same symptoms, which soon included chronic sleeplessness as well. Lenzi says that he asked his superiors for help but that they dismissed his concerns. Consulate doctors prescribed painkillers and Ambien, which did nothing to address the underlying causes of the problem. –WaPo
Lenzi then learned that his next-door neighbor had been evacuated from the consulate and flown back to the United States to undergo a thorough medical assessment – which concluded that the person was suffering from “mild traumatic brain injury.”
The State Department issued a statement on May 23, warning that an unnamed “U.S. government employee in China recently reported subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure,” and urging anyone with “concerns about symptoms or medical problems that developed during or after a stay in China” to “consult a medical professional.”
The statement also said that the U.S. government was unaware of any other cases — a point strongly disputed by Lenzi, who insists that he had repeatedly informed both the embassy in Beijing and State Department headquarters in Washington of his family’s predicament. “Mark is a very capable guy,” says political consultant Michael Getto, a longtime friend of Lenzi’s. “If he says something is wrong or amiss, then it is.” –WaPo
The description of the sound – which the victim said produced abnormal sensations and pressures – sound eerily familiar to a series of similar “sonic attacks” that afflicted US embassy personnel in Havana, beginning shortly after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.
On May 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted the comparisons between the China incidents and the Cuban attacks during a House hearing, stating “The medical indications are very similar, and entirely consistent with, the medical indications that were taking place to Americans working in Cuba.”
Meanwhile, a team of scientists at the University of Michigan say they may have found the source of the mysterious sounds. They said that two sources of ultrasounds – such as eavesdropping – may have been placed too closely together, provoking an intense sound like the one described by the victims, according to the Miami Herald.
US-China relations
Though their source has never been determined, the attacks damaged relations between the US and Cuban governments and also left some embassy employees with mild brain damage. The US recalled most of its embassy staff from Havana before expelling 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington in response to the alleged attack.
Lenzi says he believes that the number of those affected will turn out to be higher than Washington expects. If he’s right, U.S.-Chinese relations could start to enter a rocky patch. -WaPo
Likewise, the new sonic attacks risk straining relationships between Washington and Beijing – which the Trump administration has been pressing hard on trade, while at the same time relying on China to help negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. As WaPo notes, “A widening scandal involving the possible mistreatment of U.S. diplomats couldn’t come at a worse time.“
So far, the fact that only a single staff member is publicly known to have been affected has allowed the Trump administration to play down the Guangzhou case. That may no longer be possible if more victims present themselves — and Lenzi, for one, is not prepared to go away quietly. –WaPo
Would you if your wife and three-year-old had been sonically attacked to the point of brain injury?
Mike Pompeo has dispatched the “Health Incidents Response Task Force” to Guangzhou on May 31 to examine consulate employees who so request, including Lenzi and his family – who have been told they will likely receive a detailed brain analysis in the United States.
The high-level medical team’s role includes “identification and treatment of affected personnel and family members, investigation and risk mitigation, messaging, and diplomatic outreach.”
In the same announcement, Pompeo said that “24 US government personnel and family members who served in Cuba have been medically-confirmed as having symptoms and clinical findings similar to those noted following concussion or minor traumatic brain injury”, as well as the initial China consulate victim.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a press briefing that China had investigated the May 16 cases but found no reason for the illness.
“China has conducted a very careful investigation and has given preliminary findings to the US, and we haven’t found the reason or clues that led to the situation mentioned by the US,” he said.
“China has always followed the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and consular relations to protect the US diplomatic staff and staff from other countries.”
There are a lot of industries in our world that wreak outsized amounts of havoc. Think the biggest global banks and oil companies. Think plastics. But there is one field that is much worse than all others: agro-chemicals. At some point, not that long ago, the largest chemical producers, who until then had kept themselves busy producing Agent Orange, nerve agents and chemicals used in concentration camp showers, got the idea to use their products in food production.
While they had started out with fertilizers etc., they figured making crops fully dependent on their chemicals would be much more lucrative. They bought themselves ever more seeds and started manipulating them. And convinced more and more farmers, or rather food agglomerates, that if there were ‘pests’ that threatened their yields, they should simply kill them, rather than use natural methods to control them.
And in monocultures that actually makes sense. It’s the monoculture itself that doesn’t. What works in nature is (bio)diversity. It’s the zenith of cynicism that the food we need to live is now produced by a culture of death. Because that is what Monsanto et al represent: Their solution to whatever problem farmers may face is to kill it with poison. But that will end up killing the entire ecosystem a farmer operates within, and depends on.
However, the Monsantos of the planet produce much more ‘research’ material than anybody else, and it all says that the demise of ecosystems into which their products are introduced, has nothing to do with these products. And by the time anyone can prove the opposite, it will be too late: the damage will have been done through cross-pollination. Monsanto can then sue anyone who has crops that show traces of its genetically altered proprietary seeds, even if the last thing a farmer wants is to include those traces.
Anyway, when reading John Vidal in the Guardian yesterday, I was struck by some numbers. Bayer-Monsanto, soon to be just Bayer, own 60% of proprietary seeds and 70% of agrochemicals in the world. That’s roughly comparable to the numbers of vertebrates and insects that have vanished from the countrysides of Germany, France and England. Life itself is dying. Species extinction is now a bigger threat than climate change. Vidal:
“Through its many subsidiary companies and research arms, Bayer-Monsanto will have an indirect impact on every consumer and a direct one on most farmers in Britain, the EU and the US. It will effectively control nearly 60% of the world’s supply of proprietary seeds, 70% of the chemicals and pesticides used to grow food, and most of the world’s GM crop genetic traits, as well as much of the data about what farmers grow where, and the yields they get.
It will be able to influence what and how most of the world’s food is grown, affecting the price and the method it is grown by. But the takeover is just the last of a trio of huge seed and pesticide company mergers.” It will be able to influence what and how most of the world’s food is grown, affecting the price and the method it is grown by.
But the takeover is just the last of a trio of huge seed and pesticide company mergers. Backed by governments, and enabled by world trade rules and intellectual property laws, Bayer-Monsanto, Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta have been allowed to control much of the world’s supply of seeds.
Do note that although Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta may be large companies, Bayer-Monsanto alone own 60% of proprietary seeds and 70% of agrochemicals. Since they ‘only’ own 60% and 70%, they can’t be accused of running a monopoly. But their main product, glyphosate (Roundup) is also produced by Dow, DuPont and Syngenta. So together they do effectively run a monopoly. Just not ‘technically’. These guys have the world’s best and biggest legal, lobbying and PR teams. Because they’re after global control.
[..] because most farmers in rich countries already buy their seeds from the multinationals, opposition has barely been heard. Instead, it is coming from the likes of Debal Deb, an Indian plant researcher who grows forgotten crops and is the antithesis of Bayer and Monsanto. While they concentrate on developing a small number of blockbuster staple crops, Deb grows as many crops as he can and gives the seeds away.
This year he is cultivating an astonishing 1,340 traditional varieties of Indian “folk” rice on land donated to him in West Bengal. More than 7,000 farmers in six states will be given the seeds, on the condition that they also grow them and give some away.
This seed-sharing of “landraces”, or local varieties, is not philanthropy but the extension of an age-old system of mutualised farming that has provided social stability and dietary diversity for millions of people. By continually selecting, crossbreeding and then exchanging their seeds, farmers have developed varieties for their aroma, taste, colour, medicinal properties and resistance to pests, drought and flood.
The battle is between biodiversity and Monsanto, and the latter is winning big. Monsanto-Bayer wants farmers to grow only a few crops, that it has patents on, and to kill off everything else with the chemicals without which these crops will not grow. Monoculture on steroids, raised in sterile environments bereft of life. 75% of insects gone in Europe’s countrysides, 60% of vertebrates, birds and butterflies becoming a rarity.
It is insanity in its purest form. Insanity of individual people, insanity of legal systems, insanity of governance. No-one, and no country, should be obliged to prove that Monsanto’s products are killing off biodiversity. We have an instrument called the precautionary principle, and we must use it. Like Hippocrates’ First Do No Harm. It is not complicated.
But I must admit I sometimes think it’s already too late. Once you kill off 70% of any form of life, in any ecosystem, how is it going to recover? Because mind you, with the Bayer-Monsanto merger being approved worldwide, things are only going to get worse at ever increasing speed. The agro-chemical industry is a culture of death that relies for its profits on a giant die-off, probably worse than whatever it is that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
And the odds that mankind will survive this one are slim to none. Our survival depends one on one on the diversity in the ecosystems we reside in. But yeah, I hear you: intelligent species.
* * *
Here’s something I first published in December 2016. ..
Things have gotten much worse much faster than I could have predicted back then. Kill Monsanto before it kills your children.
Mass Extinction and Mass Insanity
Extremely rare albino elephant, Kruger National Park in South Africa
Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back …
– Springsteen, Atlantic City
“Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment – that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatium as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products.”
– Herman Daly and Kenneth Townsend
What drives our economies is waste. Not need, or even demand. Waste. 2nd law of thermodynamics. It drives our lives, period.
First of all, don’t tell me you’re trying to stop the ongoing extinction of nature and wildlife on this planet, or the destruction of life in general. Don’t even tell me you’re trying. Don’t tell me it’s climate change that we should focus on (that’s just a small part of the story), and you’re driving an electric car and you’re separating your trash or things like that. That would only mean you’re attempting to willfully ignore your share of destruction, because if you do it, so will others, and the planet can’t take anymore of your behavior.
This is the big one. And the only ones amongst us who don’t think so are those who don’t want to. Who think it’s easier to argue that some problems are too big for them to tackle, that they should be left to others to solve. But why should we, why should anyone, worry about elections or even wars, when it becomes obvious we’re fast approaching a time when such things don’t matter much anymore?
The latest WWF Living Planet Report shows us that the planet is a whole lot less alive than it used to be. And that we killed that life. That we replaced it with metal, bricks, plastic and concrete. Mass consumption leads to mass extinction. And that is fully predictable, it always was; there’s nothing new there.
We killed 58% of all vertebrate wildlife just between 1970 and 2012, and at a rate of 2% per year we will have massacred close to 70% of it by 2020, just 4 years from now. So what does it matter who’s president of just one of the many countries we invented on this planet? Why don’t we address what’s really crucial to our very survival instead?
The latest report from the WWF should have us all abandon whatever it is we’re doing, and make acting to prevent further annihilation of our living world the key driver in our everyday lives, every hour of every day, every single one of us. Anything else is just not good enough, and anything else will see us, that self-nominated intelligent species, annihilated in the process.
Granted, there may be a few decrepit and probably halfway mutant specimens of our species left, living in conditions we couldn’t even begin, nor dare, to imagine, with what will be left of their intelligence wondering how our intelligence could have ever let this happen. You’d almost wish they’ll understand as little as we ever did; that some form of ignorance equal to ours will soften their pain.
It’s important to note that the report does not describe a stagnant situation, there’s no state of affairs, not something still, it describes an ongoing and deteriorating process. That is, we don’t get to choose to stop the ongoing wildlife annihilation at 70%; we are witnessing, and indeed we are actively involved in, raising that number by 2% every year that we ‘live’ (can we even call it that anymore, are you alive when you murder all life around you?) in this world.
This is our only home.
Without the natural world that we were born into, or rather that our species, our ancestors, were born into, we have zero chance of survival. Because it is the natural world that has allowed for, and created, the conditions that made it possible for mankind to emerge and develop in the first place. And we are nowhere near making an earth 2.0; the notion itself is preposterous. A few thousand years of man ‘understanding’ his world is no match for billions of years of evolution. That’s the worst insult to whatever intelligence it is that we do have.
Much has been made through the years of our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and much of that is just as much hubris as so much of what we tell ourselves, but the big question should be WHY we would volunteer to find out to what extent we can adapt to a world that has sustained the losses we cause it to suffer. Even if we could to a degree adapt to that, why should we want to?
Two thirds of our world is gone, and it’s we who have murdered it, and what’s worse – judging from our lifestyles- we seem to have hardly noticed at all. If we don’t stop what we’ve been doing, this can lead to one outcome only: we will murder ourselves too. Our perhaps biggest problem (even if we have quite a few) in this regard is our ability and propensity to deny this, as we deny any and all -serious, consequential- wrongdoing.
There are allegedly serious and smart people working on, dreaming of, and getting billions in subsidies for, fantasies of human colonies on Mars. This is advertized as a sign of progress and intelligence. But that can only be true if we can acknowledge that our intelligence and our insanity are identical twins. Because it is insane to destroy the planet on which we depend one-on-one for everything that allows us to live, and at the same time dream of human life on another planet.
While I see no reason to address the likes of King of Subsidies Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking is different. Unfortunately, in Hawking’s case, with all his intelligence, it’s his philosophical capacity that goes missing.
Professor Stephen Hawking has warned humanity will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth unless the human race finds another planet to live on. [..] Professor Hawking, 74, reflected on the understanding of the universe garnered from breakthroughs over the past five decades, describing 2016 as a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics”. “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution,“ he went on.
”The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph.” Highlighting “ambitious” experiments that will give an even more precise picture of the universe, he continued: “We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super] computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe.”
“But we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”
The tragedy is that we may have gained some knowledge of natural laws and the universe, but we are completely clueless when it comes to keeping ourselves from destroying our world. Mars is an easy cop-out. But Mars doesn’t solve a thing. Because it’s -obviously- not the ‘fragile planet’ earth that is a threat to mankind, it’s mankind itself. How then can escaping to another planet solve its problems?
What exactly is wrong with saying that we will have to make it here on planet earth? Is it that we’ve already broken and murdered so much? And if that’s the reason, what does that say about us, and what does it say about what we would do to a next planet, even provided we could settle on it (we can’t) ? Doesn’t it say that we are our own worst enemies? And doesn’t the very idea of settling the ‘next planet’ imply that we had better settle things right here first? Like sort of a first condition before we go to Mars, if we ever do?
In order to survive, we don’t need to escape our planet, we need to escape ourselves. Not nearly as easy. Much harder than escaping to Mars. Which already is nothing but a pipedream to begin with.
Moreover, if we can accept that settling things here first before going to Mars is a prerequisite for going there in the first place, we wouldn’t need to go anymore, right?
We treat this entire extinction episode as if it’s something we’re watching from the outside in, as if it’s something we’re not really a part of. I’ve seen various undoubtedly very well-intentioned ‘green people’, ‘sustainable people’, react to the WWF report by pointing to signs that there is still hope, pointing to projects that reverse some of the decline, chinook salmon on the North American Pacific coast, Malawi farmers that no longer use chemical fertilizers, a giant sanctuary in the Antarctic etc.
That, too, is a form of insanity. Because it serves to lull people into a state of complacency that is entirely unwarranted. And that can therefore only serve to make things worse. There is no reversal, there is no turnaround. It’s like saying if a body doesn’t fall straight down in a continuous line, it doesn’t fall down at all.
The role that green, sustainability, conservationist groups play in our societies has shifted dramatically, and we have failed completely to see this change (as have they). These groups have become integral parts of our societies, instead of a force on the outside warning about what happens within.
Conservationist groups today serve as apologists for the havoc mankind unleashes on its world: all people have to do is donate money at Christmas, and conservation will be taken care of. Recycle a few bottles and plastic wrappings and you’re doing your part to save the planet. It is utterly insane. It’s as insane as the destruction itself. It’s denial writ large, and in the flesh.
It’s not advertized that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how it works. Saying that ‘it’s not too late’ is not a call to action as many people continue to believe. It’s just dirt poor psychology. It provides people with the impression, which rapidly turns into an excuse, that there is still time left. As almost 70% of all vertebrates, those animals that are closest to us, have disappeared. When would they say time is up? At 80%, 90%?
We do not understand why, or even that, we are such a tragically destructive species. And perhaps we can’t. Perhaps that is where our intelligence stops, at providing insight into ourselves. Even the most ‘aware’ amongst us will still tend to disparage their own roles in what goes on. Even they will make whatever it is they still do, and that they know is hurtful to the ecosystem, seem smaller than it is.
Even they will search for apologies for their own behavior, tell themselves they must do certain things in order to live in the society they were born in, drive kids to school, yada yada. We all do that. We soothe our consciences by telling ourselves we mean well, and then getting into our cars to go pick up a carton of milk. Or engage in an equally blind act. There’s too many to mention.
Every species that finds a large amount of free energy reacts the same way: proliferation. The unconscious drive is to use up the energy as fast as possible. If only we could understand that. But understanding it would get in the way of the principle itself. The only thing we can do to stop the extinction is for all of us to use a lot less energy. But because energy consumption provides wealth and -more importantly- political power, we will not do that. We instead tell ourselves all we need to do is use different forms of energy.
Our inbuilt talent for denying and lying (to ourselves and others) makes it impossible for us to see that we have an inbuilt talent for denying and lying in the first place. Or, put another way, seeing that we haven’t been able to stop ourselves from putting the planet into the dismal shape it is in now, why should we keep on believing that we will be able to stop ourselves in the future?
Thing is, an apology for our own behavior is also an apology for everyone else’s. As long as you keep buying things wrapped in plastic, you have no right, you lose your right, to blame the industry that produces the plastic.
We see ourselves as highly intelligent, and -as a consequence- we see ourselves as a species driven by reason. But we are not. Which can be easily demonstrated by a ‘reverse question’: why, if we are so smart, do we find ourselves in the predicament of having destroyed two thirds of our planet?
Do we have a rational argument to execute that destruction? Of course not, we’ll say. But then why do we do it if rationality drives us? This is a question that should forever cure us of the idea that we are driven by reason. But we’re not listening to the answer to that question. We’re denying, we’re even denying the question itself.
It’s the same question, and the same answer, by the way, that will NOT have us ‘abandon whatever it is we do’ when we read today that 70% of all wildlife will be gone by 2020, that 58% was gone by 2012 and we destroy it at a rate of 2% per year. We’re much more likely to worry much more about some report that says returns on our retirement plans will be much lower than we thought. Or about the economic growth that is too low (as if that is possible with 70% of wildlife gone).
After all, if destroying 70% of wildlife is not enough for a call to action, what would be? 80%? 90? 99%? I bet you that would be too late. And no, relying on conservationist groups to take care of it for us is not a viable route. Because that same 70% number spells out loud and clear what miserable failures these groups have turned out to be.
We ‘assume’ we’re intelligent, because that makes us feel good. Well, it doesn’t make the planet feel good. What drives us is not reason. What drives us is the part of our brains that we share in common with amoeba and bacteria and all other more ‘primitive forms of life, that gobbles up excess energy as fast as possible, in order to restore a balance. Our ‘rational’, human, brain serves one function, and one only: to find ‘rational’ excuses for what our primitive brain has just made us do.
We’re all intelligent enough to understand that driving a hybrid car or an electric car does nothing to halt the havoc we do to our world, but there are still millions of these things being sold. So perhaps we could say that we’re at the same time intelligent enough, and we’re not.
We can see ourselves destroying our world, but we can not stop ourselves from continuing the destruction. Here’s something I wrote 5 years ago:
We have done exactly the same that any primitive life form would do when faced with a surplus, of food, energy, and in our case credit, cheap money. We spent it all as fast as we can. Lest less abundant times arrive. It’s an instinct, it comes from our more primitive brain segments, not our more “rational” frontal cortex. It’s not that we’re in principle, or talent, more devious or malicious than more primitive life forms. It’s that we use our more advanced brains to help us execute the same devastation our primitive brain drives us to, but much much worse.
That’s what makes us the most tragic species imaginable. We’ll fight each other, even our children, over the last few scraps falling off the table, and kill off everything in our path to get there. And when we’re done, we’ll find a way to rationalize to ourselves why we were right to do so. We can be aware of watching ourselves do what we do, but we can’t help ourselves from doing it. Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.
The greatest miracle you will ever see, that you could ever hope to see, is so miraculous you can’t even recognize it for what it is. We don’t know what the word beautiful means anymore. Or the word valuable. We’ve lost all of that, and are well on our way, well over 70% of it, to losing the rest too.
PS Please note I could not gather all sources for all pictures here, but I’d be more than happy to add them. It’s not that I don’t recognize the effort that goes into them; it’s an emotional thing.
President Trump and the Pentagon have completed an initial draft proposal for the emergence of low-yield sea-launched nuclear weapons intended to increase deterrence programs throughout the world and allow new precision capabilities on the modern battlefield.
Pentagon officials told Warrior Maven, “final requirements for both a low-yield sea-launched nuclear cruise missile and long-range sub-launched low-yield warhead are still in development,” adding that, “the process has taken several substantial new steps forward.”
“The Nuclear Weapons Council has met and approved the draft plan moving forward. The NWC agreed to allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to begin developing scope, schedule and costs for this activity,” Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, Pentagon spokeswoman, told Warrior Maven.
Citing the Trump administration’s “Nuclear Posture Review” (NPR) geared towards combating Russia, Baldanza said a new set of identified “low yield requirements” is “currently being used as the basis for initial study work and as the baseline for the program.”
In February, we explained, how the Trump administration and the Pentagon believe that Russian policies and actions can lead to an uncontrolled escalation of conflict in Europe. The NPR points to a Russian military doctrine known as “escalate to de-escalate,” in which Moscow would use or threaten to use low-yield nuclear weapons in a limited, conventional conflict in Europe.
The next-generation of low-yield nuclear weapons are designed to provide naval commanders with a broader range of attack possibilities should they be needed, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told Congress earlier this year.
Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists, told the Warrior Maven, “technical configurations are still to be determined,” though Pentagon officials have developed a schematic diagram of what this next-generation weapon might include.
Kristensen explained how the first-of-its-kind low-yield warhead could be configured onto existing nuclear-armed Trident II D5 submarine-launched nuclear missiles. The Warrior Maven describes low-yield as it sounds – smaller, “more surgical and less destructive than most nuclear weapons.” Instead of decimating an entire city, the Trump administration would instead nuke a city block.
The Warrior Maven points out that sea-launched low-yield nuclear weapons would enable the Pentagon to strike targets anywhere in the world in stealth without endangering traditional aircrews.
Kristensen said the nuclear missile potentially fired from a submarine or ship, can bring even more precision than a Trident configured with a low yield weapon.
“A nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile and the modification of a small number of existing submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads to provide a low-yield option – will enhance deterrence by ensuring no adversary under any circumstances can perceive an advantage through limited nuclear escalation or other strategic attack,” Gen. Paul Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters earlier this year, according to a DoD transcript.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration could run into resistance via a group of House Democrats this week, who plan to halt Trump and the Pentagon from developing low-yield nuclear weapons.
House Democrats are planning to defund the new warhead program by $65 million in the coming year under an amendment to a Department of Energy appropriations bill proposed by Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Dan Kildee, D-Mich.
According to The Washington Examiner, the bill could land on the House floor this week following Rules Committee meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide if their amendment will get a vote.
“While I’m disappointed the bill includes unnecessary funding for new nuclear weapons, this bill is the result of a truly bipartisan process and I look forward to bringing it to the Senate floor,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the energy and water subcommittee, said in a statement for the Democrat minority.
U.S. Representative Blumenauer wrote a “Dear Colleague” letter to House lawmakers urging support to defund the Trump administration and Pentagon’s attempt to fund more nuclear weapons. The letter read: “To pretend that we can control nuclear war — and that a “small-scale” nuclear war can stay small — flies in the face of common sense.”
As the Trump administration and Pentagon have completed the initial draft proposal and have shifted the program several steps forward, it seems as the Democrats sounded the alarm that this administration does not need any more nuclear weapons. Stay tuned; more developments are coming.
