The Ideological Roots Of The Open Borders Push

Authored by Simon Hankinson via The Epoch Times,

Why does the Biden administration want open borders? As a researcher and writer on immigration, that’s the question I often get asked.

Here are the three reasons I think are behind President Joe Biden’s deliberate border chaos:

1. electoral politics,

2. extortion, and,

3. most insidiously, ideology.

I’ll start with ideology and come back to the other two reasons in my next columns.

The most dangerous driver behind Biden’s open borders is ideological. Policy differences can be negotiated, but as we’re seeing on college campuses, people fanatically committed to an idea can prove intransigent, regardless of the facts.

When you see the word “abolition” used in connection with criminal justice and immigration, you might be confused. Americans rightly associate the term with ending slavery and abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison who were active before the Civil War.

Why are academics, politicians, and race professionals using it in 2024?

Those saying “abolitionist” today have appropriated it for the positive historical connotation it possesses, but they mean something else entirely. To see the roots of their ideology, you have to go back to the dawn of the New Left, as described by Chris Rufo in his book “America’s Cultural Revolution.”

Under their intellectual godfather, German academic Herbert Marcuse, Marxist-Leninists, Black Panthers, the Weather Underground terrorist group, and Students for a Democratic Society gathered.

This leftist alliance believed—as the Students for a Democratic Society magazine Prairie Fire explained—that the United States was founded on genocide, slavery, and racism. Its goal was to abolish the existing capitalist America and build a new society. One element of this was destroying the justice system. The Black Panthers’ manifesto thus called for the release of all black men who were incarcerated, no matter for what crime.

As Rufo writes, “[Communist Angela] Davis and her comrades began to call not for the release of individual criminals, but for the abolition of the entire system.” Davis said that “a society without racism … has to be a society without prisons.”

The Black Lives Matter organization adopted the same agenda of “abolition.” The mobs that destroyed a police station and looted Minneapolis in 2020 shouted, “Abolish the police, then the prisons.” The “abolitionist” activists in the Seattle CHAZ commune wanted to abolish the police, prisons, and courts.

BLM founder Patrisse Cullors was crystal clear in this Harvard Law Review essay from 2019: “Abolition means no borders. Abolition means no Border Patrol. Abolition means no Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” America is the source of world evil, in her view, and thus has no right to exist as a nation state nor keep anyone in the world from entering its borders.

Some Biden administration officials seem to share this core belief. Avideh Moussavian, a senior appointee at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted “#abolishICE” in 2018 and “cut ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] funding” in 2019.

Another Biden appointee, Claire Trickler-McNulty, undermined ICE from within before leaving for a nongovernmental organization partly funded by the Vera Institute for Justice. The Vera Institute says, “The U.S. immigration system is an arrest-to-deportation pipeline rooted in racism,” wants no detention of people in the United States illegally, and grants millions to nongovernmental organizations defending illegal immigrants.

“Abolition” ideology also has clear links with today’s campus support of Hamas. Take a look at this course taught at Columbia University this Spring by professor Mohamed Abdou, titled “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN.” SWANA likely stands for South West Asian and North African people. A sentence from the course description sums it up:

“Using intersectional/assemblage-based theories, what decolonial, gender-based readings and formulations of feminisms/queerness exist that evade the apparent tidiness of European feminist and narrow LGBTQIA categories that characterizes most (non)Euro-American political queer-feminist scholarship beyond the depiction of queer BIPOC as co-opted and duped, colonized pawns of ‘Gay Empire’ towards elucidating critical discussions on identity, agency, subjectivity, and dissidence?”

Parents are paying $90,000 a year for their kids to learn that kind of balderdash. But even if you can’t make any sense of that sentence, you can be sure of what Abdou means by “abolition.”

Columbia University now resembles Gaza as designed by outdoor equipment retailer Eastern Mountain Sports. Meanwhile at Princeton University, students briefly set up a camp last week “in solidarity with Gaza to protest Princeton’s role in funding the ongoing genocide,” according to organizers Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta was among faculty who signed a letter supporting the Princeton students and boycotting Columbia University. He is a “classics” professor who calls his field “equal parts vampire and cannibal” and the foundation of white supremacy, and argues that it should be abolished.

Peralta came from the Dominican Republic as a child, and his family overstayed their visas and became illegal immigrants. Leftist academics such as Peralta do not like nations or borders any more than they do classical antiquity. In his book “Undocumented,” Peralta wrote, “Demography is a [expletive]. Holla at me if you want me to break it down for you.” By this, Peralta implies that without immigration enforcement, the “global majority”—defined here as everyone but white Europeans—will be able to dominate every country.

What we’re seeing at the southern border and on college campuses comes from the same ideological roots and ends the same way: anarchy.

*  *  *

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 18:40

The World's Fastest Growing Emerging Markets (2024-2029 Forecast)

Large emerging markets are forecast to play a greater role in powering global economic growth in the future, driven by demographic shifts and a growing consumer class.

At the same time, many smaller nations are projected to see their economies grow at double the global average over the next five years due to rich natural resource deposits among other factors. That said, elevated debt levels do present risks to future economic activity.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows the emerging markets with the fastest projected growth through to 2029, based on data from the International Monetary Fund’s 2024 World Economic Outlook.

Top 10 Emerging Markets

Here are the fastest-growing emerging economies, based on real GDP compound annual growth rate (CAGR) forecasts over the period of 2024-2029:

As South America’s third-smallest nation by land area, Guyana is projected to be the world’s fastest growing economy from now to 2029.

This is thanks to a significant discovery of oil deposits in 2015 by ExxonMobil, which has propelled the country’s economy to grow by fourfold over the last five years alone. By 2028, the nation of just 800,000 people is projected to have the highest crude oil production per capita, outpacing Kuwait for the first time.

Bangladesh, where 85% of exports are driven by the textiles industry, is forecast to see the strongest growth in Asia. In fact, over the last 30 years, the country of 170 million people has not had a single year of negative growth.

In eighth place overall is India, projected to achieve a 6.5% CAGR in real GDP through to 2029. This growth is forecast to be fueled by population trends, public investment, and strong consumer demand.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 18:05

Pritzker Doubles-Down With $827 Million Taxpayer Handout To Troubled EV-Maker Rivian

Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

At $1.5 million per job, this new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.

Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that the State of Illinois will provide an $827 million incentive package for Rivian to invest $1.5 billion to expand its electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois. The expansion is expected to create at least 550 full-time jobs within the next five years, and will build Rivian’s next model EV, the R2. Rivian initially got $49.5 million under Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2017 to create 1,000 jobs at the same location.

The new deal gives $1.5 million per job created, which is astronomical in the world of location incentives. Estimated average location incentives paid by state and local governments around the nation range from $13,000 to $84,000 per job, though sometimes go as high as $100,000 per job for capital intensive projects. Even using that high end, Rivian’s package will be 15 times what’s typical.

Moreover, Rivian is on shaky wheels, along with the rest of the U.S. EV industry. Rivian loses over $43,000 for every vehicle it sells and has had two rounds of layoffs this year. The decision to move its R2 production to Illinois is a further reflection of the company’s need to preserve cash. R2 production was initially planned for a new $5 billion plant in Georgia, heavily subsidized by the state. But Rivian concluded that moving production to the existing Illinois facility would save cash.

Its stock price has consequently been hammered. It reached a high of $172 per share in 2021 but now trades at less than $10 per share.

Rivian is not alone. As a CNBC headline recently declared, “EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.” Since then, the news is no better. Ford announced last week that it is losing a stunning $132,000 per vehicle. Hertz announced last week a second round of sales of its EV fleet due to heavy maintenance and depreciation costs. For the first quarter of this year, EV sales continued to slow and the share of EV sales for all autos actually decreased. While total EV sales are still up a bit from last year, the growth rate is not nearly enough to put EV makers on a path to profitability.

EV makers pin their hopes on less expensive models that they promise soon, and on more public charging stations, into which Illinois last month announced it would invest an additional $50 million. Rivian hopes its new R2 will be among the new, lower priced models. However, its starting price is expected to be about $45,000 and it won’t come out until the first half of 2026.

Regarding the astronomical incentive package to be paid by Illinois, in fairness, it should be noted that most of it is in the form of tax credits to be granted over the next 30 years. They are available on condition that the company retain 6,000 already existing jobs. However, the fact remains that just 550 new jobs are to be created, and incentive packages like this are not supposed to be payoffs for merely standing still. And a less charitable way to look at it would be that future taxpayers will be on the hook for the high cost of the incentive package — if it works.

Aside from thinking that the incentive package is too low, my first instinct was to ask, “Where’s the warrant coverage.” That is, I know from working as a lawyer and then as an investor, often with troubled companies, that it’s not unusual to make risky bets. However, it’s routine for the investor to get part of the upside if the venture succeeds, usually in the form of stock or warrants (basically, options) on stock that pay off nicely if things turn around. The federal government, for example, got stock and warrants as part of the deal for its 2010 bailout of the auto industry.

This new Rivian deal has nothing like that. Since the job creation per dollar is minimal, it’s just not worth the price.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 17:30

Man vs Bear Debate: The Dumbest Feminist Argument Yet?

When it comes to identifiable differences in female vs male psychology as well as differences in brain biology, as a general rule and as most studies show women focus far more on feelings than men do.  Specifically, women tend to be more sensitive to negative emotions and negative imagery.  Obviously, men and women are not the same, never have been the same and never will be the same, and this includes how they process information and come to conclusions.

This is the reason why many of women's perceptions on life tend to bewilder men; most women operate from a place of emotion and assumption (which they call "intuition") and come to conclusions based on feelings rather than facts.  Intuition can be a powerful tool for identifying threats before they occur, and when women get it right they might appear to be clairvoyant. However, when they get it wrong they get it really wrong and the result is foolishness and disaster.

How one feels is not necessarily what is true. 

Enter feminism, a movement which claims to be fighting for women's "equality" but is actually fighting for women's privilege.  Legal equality for the sexes was achieved long ago and one would think that feminism would have faded away with its mission accomplished.  This has not been the case.  Instead, feminists move the goalposts and the notion of equality has given way to desires for power.  But unlike most political movements feminism does not chase power by applying direct force (in most cases).  Rather, feminists chase power by magnifying and exaggerating their own weaknesses and victimhood. 

In other words, they gain power by demanding reparations for perceived injustices.  The more they feel oppressed or afraid or abused the more power society supposedly owes them.  Feminism exploits the natural tendency of women to hyperfocus on negative emotions and promotes feelings over logic.  If women feel like victims, that means they are victims.

This is where the "Man vs. Bear" narrative comes from.  A bizarre thought experiment in which random women are asked if they were lost in the woods, would they rather run into a man or a bear?  The question has created considerable controversy across social media, with a majority of women apparently choosing a bear over a man.

On the surface we can dismiss the thought experiment with the simple reality that women encounter men daily while most have never dealt with or seen a real bear in the wild in their entire lives.  If they did run into a bear all of them would be screaming for help from the nearest man available to protect them.

It's perhaps the dumbest feminist mind-game so far in this respect.  Life is not a Disney movie with friendly talking animals and there's a reason why men make up the vast majority of solo hunters - Female hunters don't want to go into the woods by themselves because they know predators like bears represent great potential injury or death.  

To be fair, plenty of women have laughed off the question as ridiculous and pointed out the reality that with a man there's a good chance they will be helped out of the woods.  With a bear there's no chance.  But this hasn't stopped feminists from pretending as if the pro-bear response represents some kind of revelation about men and masculinity. 

The issue has also revealed once again that math is the kryptonite of woke activists and critical thinking is their enemy.  

Citing the predominance of men in crime stats, feminists argue that it's far more likely for a man to harm a woman than a bear to harm a woman.  In fact, bear encounters are far more rare than encounters with men, and the percentage of men that commit violent crimes is tiny compared to the total male population in western countries.

By feminist logic, men are also actually safer with bears than with women.  In 2021, 1,078 men were killed by women in the U.S. There have only been 180 fatal human/bear conflicts in North America since 1784.  Again, this is about proximity.

In 2019, there were 283,467 violent crimes committed by men in the US, out of 161 million men.  That's around 0.1% of the male population.  The chances of a woman running into a violent man in the woods in this fantasy scenario is negligible.  Feelings are being elevated over facts. 

Most feminist narratives lean heavily on the fear dynamic.  If women feel afraid of men then men and society must take them seriously and assuage those fears; the fears fabricated in women's minds are suddenly everyone's problem.  In the past society used to laugh off female melodrama as an unfortunate bi-product of their nature; how can society fix a problem that doesn't exist in the tangible world?  But as the male commentator in the first video argues, it doesn't matter if women are actually in danger from men, it only matters that they believe they are in danger.

But who created that fear in women?  Was it men?  Or, was it feminist propaganda?  The numbers suggest feminism has rotted women's minds with fear.   

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 16:55

US Covert Missile Launcher Touted As Game Changer In Future Taiwan War

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via AntiWar.com,

After the US withdrew from a major nuclear arms treaty with Russia in 2019, the Pentagon began to develop weapons that would have violated that agreement. Such a covert missile has now been deployed to the Philippines as part of the US military buildup surrounding China. The New York Times reports this system to be a covert missile launcher that Washington believes could jeopardize Xi Jinping’s position as president of China.

Capable of firing Tomahawks and other munitions, the Typhon launcher is concealed in a 40-foot shipping container and can hold up to four missiles. The Defense Department first deployed the launchers to the Philippines during war games late last month, after which China accused the US of "stoking military confrontation."

Typhoon system, via US Army

According to the Times, Washington hopes to use the Typhon launchers to protect Taiwan from a Chinese attack. Sources who spoke with the outlet believe that Typhon’s strike power is enough to thwart an invasion of Taiwan and even force Xi from power in Beijing if an invasion fails.

Below is a section of the NYT report which sets a dramatic scene:

Setting squadrons of Chinese amphibious ships packed with troops ablaze in the Taiwan Strait, Pentagon officials believed, would not only protect the de facto independent island but may also make Mr. Xi’s own grip on power within the Communist Party untenable.

Without the legal restrictions of the I.N.F. Treaty, the Pentagon began experimenting with existing assets.

The Typhon launcher would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Signed near the end of the Cold War, the treaty outlawed land-based missiles and launchers with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

Tomahawks have carried nuclear payloads in the past, although the US retired that variant of the missile in compliance with the INF Treaty.

The Times’ Pentagon reporter also notes that the Typhon system could be deployed to the southwestern Philippines for a potential conflict in the South China Sea. Tensions between Beijing and Manila have been rising for several months over dueling claims about sovereignty over reefs in the sea.

The White House has reaffirmed its mutual defense pact with the Philippines, suggesting the Biden administration is ready to go to war with China over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Washington and Manila are additionally working on an intelligence-sharing agreement that is expected to be finalized this year. This pact, and a raft of other partnerships Washington has formed in the Indo-Pacific, are aimed at fighting a future war with Beijing.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 15:10

US Pushing G-7 To Accept Long-Term $50 Billion Aid Package For Ukraine

As part of the latest in the Western allies' (some of them at least) controversial push to confiscate Russian sovereign assets and give them to Ukraine, the Biden administration is leading talks among G7 nations to commit to a new military aid package for Kiev worth up to $50 billion.

"Ideally, this is something we would like the entire G7 to participate in, be part of, not just have the United States doing it alone," US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Bloomberg. She further confirmed that Group of Seven countries are currently "discussing" the plan.

Image via Yahoo News

The package would be funded from interest accrued via investments utilizing the some $300 billion in Russian assets currently frozen in Western banks. The bulk of the frozen funds are in European banks, and some EU leaders fear devastating backlash and global distrust in its banking system would be the end result.

These frozen assets within the European Union (some $280 billion) are currently said to generate about 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in windfall profits annually. 

According to more details via Bloomberg:

Some €159 billion of frozen Russian assets have generated net profit of €557 million ($601 million) from Feb. 15, according to Euroclear’s first quarter financial results. Since last year, the assets have generated about €3.9 billion in net profit.

Russian sovereign assets held by the company could grow to as much as €190 billion by 2028 as they mature into cash, one of the people said. 

The US is hoping that consensus agreement can be achieved for its plan by the time of the G7 June meeting in Italy, where it could be signed off on. Biden officials have recently floated concepts like "freedom bonds" to sell the idea among allies.

In response, the Kremlin has vowed to be "extremely tough" on "thieves" who appropriate what belongs to Russia. "Considering that our country has qualified this as theft, the attitude will be towards thieves," Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier stated. "Not as political manipulators, not as overplayed technologists, but as thieves," she emphasized.

The Western allies have out of recent desperation over Ukraine's diminished ammo been getting creative, and seeking to find loopholes in order to free up extra funds that could be used in the war effort.

Which Russian assets are sanctioned and where are they held... (click image for bigger):

Via Financial Crime News

Britain has meanwhile been at the forefront of countries arguing that the total of all underlying Russian assets should be fully confiscated and used for Ukraine.

"Our view is simple: One day, Russia will have to pay reparations and it doesn’t make sense to wait for those reparations. It makes better sense to use the frozen assets and to make that money available now," UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in March. The UK has since stuck by the position, also jumping on board with Washington's ambitious asset seizure plan.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 11:05

University Of California Now Discriminates Based On Parental Income, Education

Authored by James Breslo via The Epoch Times,

In 1996, Californians voted, 55 to 45 percent, to ban the use of affirmative action in admissions to state schools and in state employment. In 2020, Californians voted to maintain the ban by an even wider margin, 57 to 43 percent.

Last year, the United States Supreme Court struck down college affirmative action policies on the grounds they violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The clear message from the people and the Court is that admission should be based upon merit. But those running the University of California (UC) maintain their obsession with race and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). They are undeterred in their mission to enforce equity via affirmative action. Rather than complying with the law and the will of the people, they search for loopholes to achieve the racial balancing they deem ideal for the shaping of society.

The most recent example comes from its San Diego campus (UCSD) which implemented a rule that discriminates against students whose parents make more than a certain amount of money or who went to college. It just so happens that this rule greatly advantages black and Latino students. In a nice side benefit for the administrators, it hurts Asians, who are already overrepresented at the UCs (as well as most universities, as addressed in the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which specifically addressed discrimination against Asian students.)

Beginning next year, certain “selective” majors (such as biology and most engineering degrees, including computer science) will have a special selection criteria at UCSD. “The selection criteria for entry to the major will consider academic achievement in the specified screening courses and will also be aligned with UC San Diego’s priorities of serving California residents, first-generation college students, and students from low-income families.” Thus, UCSD, without any direction from its constituents, has decided that it should prioritize students based on the status of their parents.

Here is how it works. There is a new point system “that awards one point each for having a 3.0 GPA or higher in the major screening courses; California residency; Pell Grant eligibility [i.e. parental income]; and first-generation college status.” Thus, half of the criteria is based upon the student’s parents. And since the majority of UC students are from California, and a 3.0 GPA is pretty easy, it really means that the primary determiner will be the status of the children’s parents.

The reason for the new policy is pretty obvious: It will advantage black and Latino students, and disadvantage white and Asian. It is unique, however, in that it is using old-school class warfare to achieve it.

Many have noted that the left has typically substituted race for class as a means of implementing socialism in the United States. Due to the U.S.’s strong middle class and upward mobility, class warfare has not worked as a means of implementing socialism here. But with courts striking down admissions policies based upon race, the left is now going back to old-fashioned class conflict. Will it work, or is it also illegal to discriminate based upon parental income or education?

If a court determines that the intent of the policy is to discriminate based upon race, then it will apply a “strict scrutiny” test to the policy. This is the standard the Supreme Court used in striking down affirmative action in the Harvard case. The UCSD policy, in fact, appears to be thinly disguised discrimination.

It is well-known that the average income of black and Hispanic people is below that of white and Asian, as is the percentage with a college degree. Thus, a court should hold the policy to the same standard as the ones struck down in the Harvard case. Justice John Roberts wrote that the Equal Protection Clause applies “without regard to any difference of race, of color, or of nationality” and thus must apply to every person. As such, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” adding that “For ‘[t]he guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.’”

It is interesting that the policy, for now, appears to only apply to currently enrolled students attempting to transfer into these majors, not upon admission. Perhaps recognizing that the policy will have a discriminatory effect and thus subject to challenge, UCSD limited it to leave open the argument that it is not denying anyone an education, simply the major of their choice. But this is unlikely to fly, considering that the two most important elements of a quality education is the school and the major. If you cannot get a degree in engineering, you cannot become an engineer, while a biology degree is the natural feeder to medical school.

The UCSD policy is not the first time the UC has attacked students based upon their parent’s income. It used the same rationale to dump the SAT test. It argued that the test benefits children from wealthier families who can afford SAT prep courses. They now rely exclusively on high school grade point averages to determine scholarly merit. This allows them to easily create the racial balance they desire. They treat all high schools the same, whether it be the best private high school or the worst public school. We know that finishing in the top ten percent of your school is much easier to do at a public school than a private one, but that does not matter to UC. Achieving the desired racial makeup is more important to them than the merit of the individual.

The UC faculty, through the “Academic Senate,” oversees the admissions process. It explained getting rid of the SAT test: “This decision, which is part of the ongoing effort by the university to advance educational opportunity and equity, was based on the view that these tests are biased because they systematically and unfairly reduce the likelihood that underrepresented and low-income high school students will be accepted to the university.”

I have lots of stories from friends whose children could not get into a single one of the nine UC campuses across the state, but were accepted by the University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin, two of the best public universities in the country. That’s a nice consolation prize, except for the price, which is about five times more due to out-of-state tuition.

It is really incredible and the height of arrogance that California’s preeminent public university continues to fight against the will of its people. The Academic Senate asserts that “as a state public institution, the UC is obliged to create a student body that is representative of the demographic profile of California.” UC has even placed a Vice Chancellor of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, overseeing an entire department, at each campus to ensure this.

That sounds nice, the only problem is Californians have twice voted against it, and the discrimination required to achieve it is unconstitutional. But when you are on a cultish mission to create your utopian vision, those are minor inconveniences.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 10:30

Which States Have The Highest Minimum Wage In America?

This year, 22 states are raising their minimum wage, impacting almost 10 million workers across the country.

Many states raise the minimum wage each year to adjust to a cost of living index, while others have raised the pay floor for delivery drivers and fast-food workers. Today, the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25, a rate that has remained the same for 15 years.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the states with the highest minimum wage in America, based on data from Bloomberg Law.

The Highest Minimum Wages, by State

Here are the states with the highest minimum wage as of January 1, 2024:

1 District of Columbia: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation

2 New Jersey: Seasonal/small employer with five employees or less= $13.90, agricultural employers= $12.81, long term care facility direct care staff= $18.13

3 New York: New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties= $16.00

4 Oregon: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation. Nonurban counties= $13.20, Portland metro= $15.45

The District of Columbia has the highest minimum wage in the country, at $17 an hour.

Next in line is Washington state, where the minimum wage was raised to $16.28 an hour at the start of the year, up from $15.74. Both jurisdictions tie their minimum wage increases to inflation, along with several of the states on this list such as New York, Colorado, and Arizona.

With the largest planned increase nationally, Hawaii is raising its minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2028. Currently, the minimum wage stands at $14 an hour in the Aloha State.

As we can see, many of the top states have minimum wages that are more than double the federal minimum wage, which has declined in real value for many years. For context, the real value of the federal minimum wage hit a peak in 1970, where it would be worth $12.61 today.

California’s New Fast-Food Wage Hike

Fast-food workers in California recently received a pay bump after a new law raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, $4 more than the state’s minimum wage.

In response, Pizza Hut announced it was laying off over 1,200 delivery drivers, while McDonalds said that it would increase prices in California due to higher wage costs. Other chain operators are reducing hours, while El Pollo Loco plans to automate part of how it makes salsa.

Affecting half a million workers at 33,000 restaurants, the law applies to chains with 60 or more locations across the country, making it the highest minimum wage in America.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 09:55

Who's Funding University Unrest?

Via OpenTheBooks substack,

FOUR MIDDLE EAST COUNTRIES GAVE $10.3 BILLION TO U.S. COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES!

The civil unrest playing out at America’s elite universities continues to headline the news.

And OpenTheBooks is here to follow the money.

Previously, our reporting broke down the massive taxpayer subsidy of America's elite universities.

This week, we continued to highlight it in national media.

We found that foreign countries also are providing immense subsidy of the U.S. university.

In fact, more than $44 billion in FOREIGN gifts have been disclosed under the Higher Education Reporting Act since 1986.

Here's what Mark Tapscott, at PJ Media noted:

"If you aren't already familiar with OpenTheBooks, you are missing one of the crown jewels of the transparency in government movement...

The facts are front and center, including the reality that the total amount in checks written by the U.S. Treasury and sent to these elite campuses exceeds the income the schools receive in tuition payments."

Here are some media highlights from the week: 

Yesterday FOX News aired segments of my interview across daytime programming including FOX & Friends and Varney & Co.

Economist Larry Kudlow at FOX Business showcased our oversight of the elite universities on the air and in his column.

My interview on The National Desk by Sinclair Broadcast, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX local stations across America, broke down all the numbers:

INTERVIEW: AMERICAN COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES MUST BE UNABASHEDLY "AMERICAN!"

Here is just a sample of our findings: 

• $10.3 billion given by Qatar ($5.2 billion), Saudi Arabia ($3 billion), United Arab Emeritus ($1.3 billion) and Kuwait ($800 million) dwarfed China who gave $2.8 billion.   

• During the past 40 years $1 of every $4 of foreign gifts into U.S. colleges and universities flowed from these four countries.

• Are these countries buying seats in our elite schools? Our auditors found millions of dollars in restricted gifts paying the tuition bills for their students.  

Columbia, Harvard, Yale and other elite universities are turning out graduates who believe that open antisemitism and the championing of terrorism are forms of "social justice."

Congress should convene hearings to preserve our top schools as unabashedly "American" institutions. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 08:45

Fraudulent Logic Guides The UK Smoking Ban

Authored by Owen Ashworth via The Mises Institute,

It is the waning days of the Sunak premiership, and the Conservative party still has a stonking majority despite its cataclysmic capitulation in the polls. The government is effectively a lame duck; everyone knows it has no support, yet it will still be around for a few more months. One would think that since the Conservative party still has a large majority in the House of Commons that it would let loose with policy and attempt real reform so that the MPs have something to take to the people when election time begins.

The Conservative party could radically reform the housing sector so that young people do not turn their backs even more on the free market, they could be tackling NHS reform so our healthcare could match, or even surpass, international standards. Alas, it chose the path that states around the world naturally desire: more state intervention.

The prime minister has decided to go on a crusade against smoking! The government passed its legislation that effectively bans smoking for those born after 2009. The government says it is doing this to reduce the burden on the NHS, billions of pounds will be saved in the long run due to fewer people developing smoking related illnesses. The NHS needs saving so the conservatives are standing their defense of the legislation on the grounds they know are extremely popular amongst the electorate. Perhaps this is the perfect encapsulation of how MPs being guided by public opinion necessitates creation of bad policy.

Members of Parliament from all political parties voted for the legislation showing bipartisanship is alive and well. MPs scrambled to save the NHS and the government’s reasoning that this legislation saves the NHS billions is magnificent PR for all parties. There is a bigger matter at stake here, bodily autonomy. You own yourself, and this is indisputable. Thus, you can put whatever you like in your body as long as it does not harm anybody else. I will return later why this applies to smoking despite it seemingly violating the rule I have set out through the creation of second-hand smoke. If the sole reasoning behind running roughshod over one’s bodily autonomy is to save the NHS billions of pounds, then this logic raises absolutely zero issues with a rather uncomfortable number of crazy policies.

Obesity is becoming a major health issue in the UK, particularly in children, it will undoubtedly cost the NHS billions of pounds to treat these people once they get to an age where the massive medical issues become prevalent. To save the NHS, we should force feed these people a healthy diet so they lose the weight and do not develop costly obesity related diseases. In fact, we should force feed everyone a healthy and balanced diet so a myriad of other diet related health issues does not cost the NHS billions in treatment.

You see how this is nutty right? They would clearly object to these policies but there is nothing in their own logic telling them it is wrong. This means the matter of bodily autonomy to them is a completely arbitrary one, there is no limit except one they “feel” is just about right. Bodily autonomy is not an arbitrary matter; you either own yourself or you don’t. There can be no in-between unless you want to take the massive risk of going down a dystopian path where bodily autonomy is slowly chipped away until you have none left, since it is entirely arbitrary for our politicians to decide. State policy should never be decided based on a completely incoherent, inconsistent and arbitrary view on your right to self-ownership.

Reason Magazine does an amazing series titled “Great Moments in Unintended Consequences”. Readers should watch a few of their videos in that series because they illustrate how the law of unintended consequences can create some absolutely wild outcomes. It also relates to the smoking ban. The government has been slowly restricting smoking over the years until its now becoming a full-fledged ban where it is entirely realistic to say that in 30 years there may be very few people who can legally smoke. The UK had not even reached the stage of a complete ban before the vaping market exploded.

While this is anecdotal, I have witnessed how the development of the vaping market has meant that people who I thought would never touch that stuff have happily accepted vaping as part of their life. Vaping is becoming something of an epidemic amongst young people who would never have smoked normal cigarettes but the government has slowly restricted the market for normal cigarettes, creating the market for vapes. Obviously, the government did not intend to create the perfect storm for such an unintended consequence, yet it has done just that and we will not know for years if the storm will make landfall and destroy any of the savings accumulated from the smoking ban through health issues created by excessive vaping.

The law of unintended consequences is well-established, yet state actors will never connect the dots that lead to the problems. It is also quite amusing (but incredibly revealing about the level of thought our leaders do) to hear from contributors to the Politics Live daily show that they want to heavily restrict vaping too! They even acknowledge that mass vaping is an unintended consequence of the restrictions on smoking, but their solution is to further restrict vaping because, presumably, they will get it right this time with no further unintended consequences.

Returning to how we should deal with second hand smoke. This is a problem entirely perpetuated by the state. Any of the public areas that the state purports to own are havens for smokers who know there will be no private citizen who can legally tell them to stop. If public property did not exist, then private owners could either choose to accept or refuse smokers who will create second hand smoke on their property. That way, individuals would clearly know which route to take and what establishments allow smoking and refuse to allow smoking.

The conception of public property supported through our current system allows for actions that some people do not approve of with no restriction. If all property were private, then we could easily control the actions we wish to approve or disapprove. Smokers can frequent those dark and cloudy bars that are ever-present in some of our favorite classic films while those who do not wish to have any relation to such activity can completely avoid those establishments. Clear, coherent private property law shifts the choices about second hand smoke to individuals instead of taking it away from them.

The smoking ban is an entirely ludicrous policy. To add one last dash of inconsistency to the mix, the government also wants to reduce the burden on police for events they describe as “non-police demands.” The logic is the exact same for the smoking ban but the legislation will be incredibly costly to enforce so it is just going to lead to demands for more funding for the police as they need extra resources to deal with the extra workload now heaped on them by this legislation; the inconsistency is alarming.

Rishi Sunak could have gone to his government, acknowledged that he will most likely lose the next election and decide to fight for what really matters but alas, he chose to be a spineless individual and further drive us down the slippery slope towards zero bodily autonomy. Even his own reasoning for the ban perfectly captures the pitiful level of thought that goes into his (along with many other members of the government, including most other political parties) decisions. The smoking ban should clearly magnify to everyone the state of our supposed political leaders and how intellectually shallow they really are.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 08:10

Trump Develops 'Detailed' Plan On Achieving Ukraine Peace: Telegraph

Trump has long touted on the campaign trail that he can stop the Ukraine war in 24 hours while taking shots a Biden's inability to oversee a negotiation that would ultimately end the war.

The Daily Telegraph is now reporting, citing an unnamed source who is said to be close to the former president and current GOP frontrunner going into the November election, that Trump has developed a detailed plan for achieving Ukraine peace.

AFP via Getty Images

"There is a plan, but he’s not going to debate it with cable news networks because then you lose all leverage," the source said.

Below is the section of the Friday Telegraph report which previews the plan: 

A source close to the Trump campaign has told The Telegraph that a detailed Ukraine-Russia peace plan has been drawn up but will not yet be disclosed in any detail before his in an effort to maintain leverage.

Mr Trump will style himself as the only candidate who can end the war, with a simple “bumper-sticker” slogan, they said.

“He wants to stop the killing,” said the source. “That’s the bumper sticker: Trump will stop the killing.”

Last month a Washington Post report claimed that key to Trump's plan would be pressuring Kiev to permanently give up Crimea and part of the Donbas to the Russians.

The Post had cited aides who said the plan is to push for "Ukraine to cede Crimea and Donbas border region to Russia" in return for an end the Russian occupation and invasion.

But the truth is that at the very least Kiev would have to forever relinquish claims of sovereignty over Crimea. Moscow is also never going to let go to the four annexed territories in the east.

But Trump had slammed the apparently premature report as "fake news". At the time a statement from the Trump campaign said "The whole thing is fake news from the Washington Post. They’re just making it up." Spokesman Jason Miller did emphasize, however, that "President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing. Joe Biden is talking about more killing."

Meanwhile, things on the battlefield are making it increasingly clear that Ukraine may soon have no other option. The country's military and intelligence leadership also appears to be coming around to the hard reality that it will have to surrender territory, or else continue suffering massive losses and ceded ground. The Telegraph writes in its fresh report:

Ukraine is preparing for peace talks with Russia as there is “no way to win on the battlefield alone”, Kyiv’s deputy spy chief has said.

Maj Gen Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, said both sides were currently vying for “the most favorable position” ahead of possible negotiations in 2025.

As with virtually all wars, negotiations will likely be the final stage of the conflict, he told the Economist.

Yet President Zelensky himself has yet to echo this perspective. Instead he's currently urging the West for more and more advanced weapons, and talking about "ten year defense" plans ensured by the US and Kiev's backers.

He has further recently said that if Ukraine ever hopes to formally join NATO, it must 'win' against Russia - which at this point seems in the realm of fantasy. The White House has so far done nothing to dispel this fantasy, but has instead encouraged it.

Russian state media had captured and translated key lines of Zelensky's address. "I believe that we will be in NATO only if we win. I don’t think that we will be admitted [...] during the war," Zelensky had said during a meeting with officers. Ukrainian sources also confirmed the remarks.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 07:35

Largest Review On Transgender-Youth Medicine Finds Insufficient Evidence For Medicalization

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

England may be the third country to withdraw from a “gender-affirming” treatment pathway due to recommendations from a long-awaited report.

(Illustration by The Epoch Times, The Cass Review, Getty Images, Freepik)

In April, the country published the Cass Review, “most comprehensive summary on transgender-youth medicine,” psychologist Erica Anderson, who identifies as transgender and has a doctorate in clinical psychology, told The Epoch Times.

The review, chaired by Dr. Hilary Cass, British honorary physician, consultant in pediatric disability, and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, stated that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate the long-term benefits of medicalizing children who want to identify as a different gender. Instead, the review recommends focusing on psychotherapy.

For some clinicians and researchers, this recommendation was a long time coming. Others are concerned that it potentially threatens medicalization—currently the primary treatment—for gender-incongruent youths.

The National Health Service (NHS) England, which commissioned the report in 2020, stated it would be committed to following through on the recommendations.

“[The Cass Review] final report will not just shape the future of healthcare in this country for children and young people experiencing gender distress but will be of major international importance and significance,” the statement read.

Eight days after the Cass Review’s release, Scotland’s health boards announced a pause on new prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as they gather evidence to support the safety and clinical effectiveness of these medications.

‘End of the Era’

The Cass Review is based on the work of 237 papers, including 214 studies, 21 guidelines, and two position statements, which covered data of over 113,000 children and young people. The authors also analyzed anonymized data from over 3,700 children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, survey responses from professionals, and numerous interviews and testimonies from stakeholders of the issue.

The review team commissioned researchers at the University of York to conduct systematic reviews of these papers and get feedback by interviewing young gender-incongruent children, their parents, and clinicians.

The University of York disclosed that it interviewed 12 young people who were part of voluntary organizations or the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), along with 12 parents. The university researchers also interviewed clinicians at the UK’s gender identity clinics.

Additionally, Dr. Cass also interviewed numerous transgender youths, adults, parents of these children, advocacy groups, psychologists, pediatricians, and related clinicians, both British and international, though the number of interviewees was undisclosed. She also wanted to do a follow-up with 9,000 patients referred to England’s Tavistock Centre, but that could not be done due to the lack of cooperation from all but one adult clinic.

The review found insufficient and inconclusive evidence demonstrating the effectiveness and benefits of gender reassignment treatments for children. Additionally, many of these children are on the autism spectrum and share mental comorbidities often overshadowed by the medicalization model.

Dr. Cass hence advised cautionary psychological interventions while also leaving room for children to explore their identities.

The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a medical group that advocates for evidence-driven research on transgender care, stated that for England, the review marked “the end of the era of a highly medicalized approach to the treatment of young people with gender-related distress,” which has come to be known as “gender-affirming” care.

The report also mentioned that while medicalization comprising puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery, known as the “Dutch Protocol,” was invented in the Netherlands in the 1990s, the concept of “gender affirmation”—accepting children’s gender identity at face value—actually originated in the United States and then spread internationally.

As a result of the review, children under 18 in England will not be treated using such protocol but with the same level of care as other youths with mental health struggles. Finland and Sweden made similar changes in 2023.

The NHS Tavistock Centre, England's first gender-identity development service for children, in London on April 10, 2024. (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)

Puberty blockers and hormones will only be made available to 16-year-olds and older under the context of research-controlled conditions. Therefore, experimentation of such treatment on minors will be hindered.

“So as the Cass report made clear, they can design a study, but the study has to be approved by a larger body that passes on its ethics,” said Dr. Stephen Levine, clinical professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University.

Top Findings and Suggestions

The report found that, unexpectedly, most current influential guidelines have been determined based on board consensus instead of science.

Most of the current guidelines were influenced by two American standards of care: the 2012 World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society 2009.

Both relied on a consensus process among professionals to decide on the best treatment for gender dysphoria and were built upon one another. WPATH members were co-sponsors of the Endocrine Society guidelines. WPATH’s 2012 standards of care adopted the Endocrine Society’s consensus-based recommendations but did not refer to WPATH’s own systematic review data, which found inconclusive evidence of the benefits of hormone therapy.

The recommendations from these guidelines were then referred to by subsequent guidelines, snowballing into what we now see.

The Cass Review is not about “rolling back on people’s rights to healthcare,” Dr. Cass wrote in the review’s foreword. “It is about what the healthcare approach should be.”

The review presented the following findings and recommendations.

1. Psychotherapy Is Recommended

Effectiveness and risks: Due to low quality and poor reporting of interventions in transgender children, the review couldn’t form a proper conclusion about the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

However, there is evidence that psychotherapy can help address mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, common among transgender youths, and hormone interventions often overshadow these therapies. The review highlighted that psychotherapy is not the same as conversion therapy, as it is not about changing a child’s perception of who they are but exploring the cause of their concerns and experiences and helping alleviate distress.

A young girl at the annual NYC Pride March in New York City on June 25, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) 2. Partial Social Transitioning Is Preferred

Effectiveness and risks: The systematic reviews did not show clear evidence of the positive or negative effects social transitioning has on mental health. Social transition generally refers to a person making only social changes, including altering hair and clothing and changing names and pronouns, instead of medical changes to live as a different gender.

The review noted that many children grow out of gender dysphoria by adulthood but that those who socially transition often medically transition, meaning that they continue to have gender dysphoria.

While it is unknown whether social transitioning contributes to gender dysphoria, the review authors speculated that a partial transition may be more advantageous and offer greater flexibility to help children explore and express their gender identities.

3. Hormonal Treatments Not Recommended Except Under Research Conditions

Effectiveness and risks: The review showed no significant improvements in gender dysphoria symptoms or body satisfaction from medicalization. While some reports showed short-term improvement in mood when patients began hormonal treatment, the magnitude of such improvement was small.

Hormonal treatment, which refers to the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, is not recommended for minors due to the permanence of its effects. Children 16 or older may instead be enrolled in high-quality research studies on experimental treatments.

Evidence about the effects of puberty suppression on psychological well-being, cognitive and bone development, and cardio-metabolic risk or fertility was found to be inconsistent and insufficient.

Evidence also did not support the claim that hormonal treatment reduced the risk of suicide.

The report did not discuss recommendations and changes to guidelines on gender-reassignment surgeries since, unlike children in the United States, minors in the United Kingdom typically cannot undergo these.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2024 - 07:00

The Interlocking Of Strategic Paradigms

Authored by Alastair Crooke via the Ron Paul Institute,

Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, has provided a forensic analysis of the videos and evidence emerging from Iran’s 13th April swarm drone and missile ‘demonstration’ attack into Israel: A ‘message’, rather than an ‘assault’.

The leading Israeli daily, Yediot Ahoronot, has estimated the cost of attempting to down this Iranian flotilla at between $2-3 billion dollars. The implications of this single number are substantial.

Professor Postol writes:

“This indicates that the cost of defending against waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary”.

“The videos show an extremely important fact: All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles”, [fired from mostly U.S. aircraft. Some 154 aircraft reportedly were aloft at the time] likely firing AIM-9x Sidewinder air to air missiles. The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000”.

Furthermore:

“The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes [an indication of hyper-speed], indicates that whatever the effects of [Israel’s] David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective. Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems”.

A Tel Aviv demonstrator holds an Israeli flag during a Ukraine-related protest, AFP via Getty Images

Postel adds, “I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability … it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones”.

“The implications of this are clear. The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented. At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability”.

Just to be clear, Postol is saying that neither the U.S. nor Israel has more than a partial defense to a potential attack of this nature – especially as Iran has dispersed and buried its ballistic missile silos across the entire terrain of Iran under the control of autonomous units which are capable of continuing a war, even were central command and communications to be completely lost.

This amounts to paradigm change – clearly for Israel, for one. The huge physical expenditure on air defense ordinance – 2-3 billion dollars worth – will not be repeated willy-nilly by the U.S. Netanyahu will not easily persuade the U.S. to engage with Israel in any joint venture against Iran, given these unsustainable air-defence costs.

But also, as a second important implication, these Air Defense assets are not just expensive in dollar terms, they simply are not there: i.e. the store cupboard is near empty! And the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity to replace these not particularly effective, high cost platforms speedily.

‘Yes, Ukraine’ … the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm where Russia has succeeded in destroying so much of the western supplied, air-defence capabilities in Ukraine, giving Russia near complete air dominance over the skies.

Positioning scarce air defense ‘to save Israel’ therefore, exposes Ukraine (and slows the U.S. pivot to China, too). And given the recent passage of the funding Bill for Ukraine in Congress, clearly air defence assets are a priority for sending to Kiev – where the West looks increasingly trapped and rummaging for a way out that does not lead to humiliation.

But before leaving the Middle East paradigm shift, the implications for Netanyahu are already evident: He must therefore focus back to the ‘near enemy’ – the Palestinian sphere or to Lebanon – to provide Israel with the ‘Great Victory’ that his government craves.

In short, the ‘cost’ for Biden of saving Israel from the Iranian flotilla which had been pre-announced by Iran to be demonstrative and not destructive nor lethal is that the White House must put-up with the corollary – an attack on Rafah. But this implies a different form of cost – an electoral erosion through exacerbating domestic tensions arising from the on-going blatant slaughter of Palestinians.

It is not just Israel that bears the weight of the Iranian paradigm shift. Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalissation) with Israel.

In the event of wider conflict embracing Iran, clearly Israel cannot protect them – as Professor Postol so clearly shows. And can they count on the U.S.? The U.S. faces competing demands for its scarce Air Defenses and (for now) Ukraine, and the pivot to China, are higher on the White House priority ladder.

In September 2019, the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility was hit by cruise missiles, which Postol notes, “had an effective accuracy of perhaps a few feet, much more precise than could be achieved with GPS guidance (suggesting an optical and computational guidance system, giving a very precise homing capability)”.

So, after the Iranian active deterrence paradigm shift, and the subsequent Air Defence depletion paradigm shock, the putative coming western paradigm shift (the Third Paradigm) is similarly interlinked with Ukraine.

For the western proxy war with Russia centered on Ukraine has made one thing abundantly clear: this is that the West’s off-shoring of its manufacturing base has left it uncompetitive, both in simple trade terms, and secondly, in limiting western defense manufacturing capacity. It finds (post-13 April) that it does not have the Air Defence assets to go round: ‘saving Israel’; ‘saving Ukraine’ and preparing for war with China.

The western maximalization of shareholder returns model has not adapted readily to the logistical needs of the present ‘limited’ Ukraine/Russia war, let alone provided positioning for future wars – with Iran and China.

Put plainly, this ‘late stage’ global imperialism has been living a ‘false dawn’: With the economy shifting from manufacturing ‘things’, to the more lucrative sphere of imagining new financial products (such as derivatives) that make a lot of money quickly, but which destabilize society (through increasing disparities of wealth); and which ultimately, de-stabilise the global system itself (as the World Majority states recoil from the loss of sovereignty and autonomy that financialism entails).

More broadly, the global system is close to massive structural change. As the Financial Times warns,

“the U.S. and EU cannot embrace national-security “infant industry” arguments, seize key value chains to narrow inequality, and break the fiscal and monetary ‘rules’, while also using the IMF and World Bank – and the economics profession– to preach free-market best practice to EM ex-China. And China can’t expect others not to copy what it does”. As the FT concludes, “the shift to a new economic paradigm has begun. Where it will end is very much up for grabs.”

‘Up for grabs’: Well, for the FT the answer may be opaque, but for the Global Majority is plain enough – “We’re going back to basics”: A simpler, largely national economy, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. Call it ‘old- fashioned’ (the concepts have been written about for the last 200 years); yet it is nothing extreme. The notions simply reflect the flip side of the coin to Adam Smith’s doctrines, and that which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans.

‘European leaders’, however, see the economic paradigm solution differently:

“The ECB’s Panetta gave a speech echoing Mario Draghi’s call for “radical change”: He stated for the EU to thrive it needs a de facto national-security focused POLITICAL economy centered around: reducing dependence on foreign demand; enhancing energy security (green protectionism); advancing production of technology (industrial policy); rethinking participation in global value chains (tariffs/subsidies); governing migration flows (so higher labour costs); enhancing external security (huge funds for defence); and joint investments in European public goods (via Eurobonds … to be bought by ECB QE)”.

The ‘false dawn’ boom in U.S. financial services began as its industrial base was rotting away, and as new wars began to be promoted. It is easy to see that the U.S. economy now needs structural change. Its real economy has become globally uncompetitive – hence Yellen’s call on China to curb its over-capacity which is hurting western economies.

But is it realistic to think that Europe can manage a relaunch as a ‘defense and national security-led political economy’, as Draghi and Panetta advocate as a continuation of war with Russia? Launched from near ground zero?

Is it realistic to think that the American Security State will allow Europe to do this, having deliberately reduced Europe to economic vassalage through causing it to abandon its prior business model based on cheap energy and selling high-end engineering products to China?

This Draghi-ECB plan represents a huge structural change; one that would take a decade or two to implement and would cost trillions. It would occur too, at a time of inevitable European fiscal austerity. Is there evidence that ordinary Europeans support such radical structural change?

Why then is Europe pursuing a path that embraces huge risks – one that potentially could drag Europe into a whirlpool of tensions ending in war with Russia?

For one main reason: The EU leadership held hubristic ambitions to turn the EU into a ‘geo-political’ empire – a global actor with the heft to join the U.S. at Top Table. To this end, the EU unreservedly offered itself as the auxiliary of the White House Team for their Ukraine project, and acquiesced to the entry price of emptying their armories and sanctioning the cheap energy on which the economy depended.

It was this decision that has been de-industrializing Europe; that has made what remains of a real economy uncompetitive and triggered the inflation that is undermining living standards. Falling into line with Washington’s failing Ukraine project has released a cascade of disastrous decisions by the EU.

Were this policy line to change, Europe could revert to what it was: a trading association formed of diverse sovereign states. Many Europeans would settle for that: Placing the focus on making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military actor.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 23:20

CIA Engaged In "Infinite Race" With China For AI, Other Tech

The CIA is engaged in an "infinite race" with China when it comes to AI and other top technologies, according to the agency's Chief Technology Officer, Nand Mulchandani, who outlined a strategy that prioritizes technological prowess as crucial to national security.

Speaking at the Hill & Valley Forum's gathering of top technology and government officials in Washington this week, Mulchandani’s made it clear that the agency is aggressively pursuing advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster both offensive and defensive capabilities, the Washington Times reports.

"We’re looking at transforming every single part of what the agency does," he stated, underscoring the depth of the CIA's commitment to integrating AI into its core operations. The agency's push includes the development of large language models, sophisticated algorithms that are the backbone of generative AI tools, aiming to enhance everything from field operations to analytical and support functions.

This strategic pivot comes as geopolitical rivalry with China is intensifying. The CCP has repeatedly expressed its ambition to dominate the AI sphere, which would present profound challenges and implications for global power dynamics. Mulchandani emphasized the need to rethink the concept of this competition as a "race," suggesting that viewing it as having a definitive end is a misstep. "This is an infinite race. This is not going to stop. It’s going to keep on going," he explained, framing the scenario as a continuous struggle for technological superiority.

The implications of this shift are profound. If the deployment of these new tools escalates to warfare, it will test America's position in the technology stakes, a scenario Mulchandani hopes will never materialize. He predicts the next major conflict will be "primarily a software war," driven by AI, changing the nature of warfare from hardware-dependent to software-driven.

The concerns are not just theoretical. At Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Herbert Lin of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review highlighted the shift in global tech leadership, with the U.S. losing its primacy in certain key areas like AI. Lin pointed out the critical need for a robust talent pipeline and a strategic vision, especially in fields like biotechnology, to maintain competitiveness.

Moreover, the CIA is particularly wary of AI-driven Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance (UTS), which threatens the secrecy of U.S. intelligence operations. In response, the agency is engaged in foundational infrastructure work, which Mulchandani described as the "sewer and plumbing work" necessary to navigate the AI revolution. This involves constant adaptation to rapid technological changes, ensuring that the CIA remains agile in its tech tactics.

"We talk about UTS, which is basically something that’s really, really killing us out in the field in terms of competitively, you know, biometrics, video cameras," he said. "Well, how do we turn it around [and continue] those operations in the face of this much AI being thrown at us is another big area that they’re looking at. So directorate by directorate, we’re rethinking, reshaping every part of what CIA needs to do in the face of using it and deploying it."

The urgency of these initiatives is echoed in the broader governmental plea for collaboration from Silicon Valley. House Speaker Mike Johnson's call to technologists and venture capitalists at the forum to guide and assist the government underscores the critical role of public-private partnerships in navigating the technological labyrinth.

As the U.S. and China continue their relentless pursuit of technological dominance, the narrative is clear: this is not a sprint with a finish line but a marathon without end, defining the future of global power, security, and technological innovation.

Big Mike Begs

No, not that Big Mike... House Speaker Mike Johnson (R?-LA), who implored the technologists and venture capitalists at the forum to help the government wherever they can.

Via @jacobhelberg

"There are not many industries, not many leaders and experts, who we just openly plead for your counsel, but I am doing that here today," said Johnson. "Because a lot of the people who are of goodwill here, who want to do the right thing, could use some of your guidance along the way to make sure that we don’t step on any land mines that we don’t see. You have a much better vision, I think, on a lot of that than we do."

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 22:45

Almost Half Of Health Care Workers Hesitant To Take COVID-19 Boosters: Study

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Approximately half of the health care workers in a Polish study were found to be averse to taking COVID-19 booster shots, with one of the reasons for this hesitancy being their negative experiences with previous vaccinations.

A man received a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle, on Jan. 24, 2021. (Grant Hindsley/AFP via Getty Images)

The peer-reviewed study, published in the Vaccines journal on April 29, examined factors underlying “hesitancy to receive COVID-19 booster vaccine doses” among health care workers (HCW) in Poland. Almost 50 percent of the participants were identified as being wary of the boosters. “Our study found that 42 percent of the HCWs were hesitant about the second booster dose, while 7 percent reported no intent to get vaccinated with any additional doses.”

“As reasons for not vaccinating, participants most frequently highlighted lack of time, negative experiences with previous vaccinations, and immunity conferred by past infections.”

The study involved 69 healthcare workers composed of nurses, midwives, physicians, other health associate professionals, and administrative staff.

At the time of enrollment, 47 had a history of lab-confirmed COVID-19 infection and 31 had at least one comorbidity, a situation where a person suffers from more than one disease or medical condition at the same time.

Over 92 percent of study participants received at least one vaccine booster, with 50.73 percent getting two doses. Five out of the 69 HCWs did not take any boosters.

“Booster hesitancy among health professionals (physicians, nurses, and midwives) was lower than among administrative staff and others. Almost 79 percent of the physicians had received two COVID-19 vaccine booster doses. However, apart from physicians, about half of the HCWs from each occupation group were hesitant about the second booster dose.”

“The highest number of HCWs without any vaccine boosters was observed among administration personnel.”

HCWs in the age groups of 31-40 and 41-50 were found to be the most skeptical about taking the second booster shot. Thirty-four out of the 69 HCWs provided reasons for their COVID-19 booster vaccine hesitancy.

Two of the health care workers who did not take booster shots said their decision was based on their personal experience with the vaccines.

“They reported negative experiences with past COVID-19 vaccination and stated that the natural immunity developed after SARS-CoV-2 infection could protect them against COVID-19, which, overall, does not pose serious health risks,” the study said.

“Responses from HCWs who received only one COVID-19 booster dose can be categorized into two themes: (i) influences arising from personal perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine and disease prevention and (ii) issues directly related to vaccination and its safety.”

Six health care workers reported suffering negative adverse effects after previously taking COVID shots. Four had safety concerns about the vaccines.

In an earlier study conducted by the researchers, COVID-19 antibody levels among HCWs after receiving the mandatory primary vaccine series were found to have decreased by around 90 to 95 percent within seven months of vaccination. However, “none of the HCWs contracted COVID-19,” it said.

The current study was funded by the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences. The authors of the study reported no conflicts of interest.

Vaccine Concerns, Harms

Other studies have also explored vaccine hesitancy among health care workers. A March 2023 study that looked at HCWs from Cameroon and Nigeria found that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was “high and broadly determined by the perceived risk of COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines on personal health, mistrust in COVID-19 vaccines, and uncertainty about colleagues’ vaccine acceptability.”

An April 2022 study found that “a concern for vaccine side effects” and “the belief that the vaccines are inadequately studied” were some of the key reasons for vaccine hesitancy among health care workers.

A May 2022 analysis at BMJ Global Health warned that indulging in policies like mandatory vaccination “may cause more harm than good.”

“Current mandatory vaccine policies are scientifically questionable and are likely to cause more societal harm than good,” it said.

“Current policies may lead to a widening of health and economic inequalities, detrimental long-term impacts on trust in government and scientific institutions, and reduce the uptake of future public health measures, including COVID-19 vaccines as well as routine immunizations.”

The analysis recommended that vaccines should only be mandated “sparingly and carefully to uphold ethical norms and trust in institutions.”

During Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) roundtable discussion on COVID-19 vaccines on Feb. 26, researcher Raphael Lataster, associate lecturer at the University of Sydney, claimed that data from Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials exaggerated the efficacy of the shots.

The data exaggeration could make an ineffective vaccine have a perceived effectiveness of up to 48 percent, he stated.

Meanwhile, a Jan. 27 narrative review found that repeated COVID-19 vaccination may end up boosting the likelihood of experiencing COVID-19 infections and other pathologies. Taking multiple vaccine doses could trigger higher levels of IgG4 antibodies and impair activating white blood cells that protect a person from infections and cancers.

“While booster doses have been recommended to enhance and extend immunity, especially in the face of emerging variants, this recommendation is not based on proven efficacy, and the side effects have been neglected,” the paper said.

In an interview with EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program last year, clinical pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole said that DNA contamination in some of the COVID-19 vaccines could be behind an increase in cancers. He pointed to “turbo cancers,” referring to the phenomenon of cancer symptoms arising faster.

“Now I’m seeing the solid tissue cancers at rates I’ve never seen ... Patients that were stable, or cancer-free for one, two, five, ten years and their cancer’s back, it’s back with a vengeance and it’s not responding to the traditional therapies,” he said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 21:00

Bitcoin Vs. Gold: Who Won The ZeroHedge Debate?

Friday night’s ZeroHedge Debate explored which is the superior asset: Gold or Bitcoin.

Arguing in favor of Gold were investor Peter Schiff and NYU economist Nouriel Roubini, who went toe-to-toe with crypto proponents Erik Voorhees, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and wealth manager Anthony Scaramucci.

Schiff made the case that Bitcoin cannot be a viable currency because “money needs to be a commodity” and that Bitcoin has no inherent value.

“It’s not just a unit of account and a medium of exchange. It needs to be a store of value,” he added.

“[Bitcoin] is no more ‘digital gold’ than if I create an image of a hamburger on a computer screen. That’s not digital food.”

Does Bitcoin’s transferability give it value?

Voorhees argued that Bitcoin’s ability to seamlessly cross borders is an example of inherent value.

“I can send $1 million to Europe in five minutes from my phone.”

As things heated up, Roubini echoed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), suggesting that crypto could be exchanged between a “criminal and a terrorist” and that Bitcoin’s transferability allows for the subversion of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws.

He blasted Voorhees for being too idealistic.

“Live in your Libertarian cave! That’s not the world we live in.”

Voorhees then gave his best impression of Socrates, attempting to dissect Roubini’s argument that Bitcoin is not "decentralized."

Roubini, meanwhile, made the case that Bitcoin mining is controlled by an oligopoly, and that "The Gini coefficient of Bitcoin is worse than North Korea," - a point he's made in the past, suggesting that Bitcoin contributes to income inequality, rather than reducing it.

One topic the panelists agreed on: inflation is crushing the work class.

According to Schiff, “there’s only one source of inflation and that’s government.”

So, who do you think won?

If you would like to protect yourself from rising inflation, consider checking out this debate's sponsors: Preserve Gold and Bitlayer Labs. ZeroHedge would like to offer a special thank you to each of them for helping to facilitate free speech and open debate.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 20:33

Northern Gaza In Grip Of Full-Blown Famine, UN Food Agency Chief Says

Starting early last month the director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power informed US lawmakers in Congress for the first time that the population in parts of northern Gaza have begun facing famine. This testimony served to hasten international efforts to more efficiently get aid into the Strip, such as the Pentagon's Gaza pier project, though it didn't put a halt of the Western weapons flowing to Tel Aviv.

Now, a top UN official has warned the crisis is worse than previously assessed. The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) Cindy McCain is now warning that northern Gaza is in the midst of a "full-blown famine".

AFP via Getty Images

She further said that famine is "moving its way south" in a new NBC News interview set to air Sunday. She described that this is base on the humanitarian office's assessment on the ground.

"It’s horror. It’s so hard to look at and it’s so hard to hear," McCain told Meet the Press. "What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a ceasefire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings."

But a ceasefire is unlikely to come for at least a week, given that is how long Israel has just given Hamas to respond in a a fresh ultimatum. "Israel has informed Egyptian mediators that Hamas has one week to agree to a hostage deal or Tel Aviv will begin the invasion of Rafah," AntiWar.com writes. "The Israeli proposal does not offer a permanent ceasefire, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared the attack on the city will occur with or without the release of hostages."

Conditions for the civilian population are expected to compound in the south if Israel's military goes through with its planned ground offensive against Rafah.

"The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu told representatives of hostage families this past Tuesday. "We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory."

The southern city is packed with some 1.5 million people at this point - with most of these being internally displaced refugees. But Israel says that some final key Hamas battalions and commanders are hiding out in the city, embedded within the civilian population, and that there will be no way to root them out except to send in the IDF infantry.

In her early April testimony, USAID's Power warned that "Food has not flowed in sufficient quantities to avoid this imminent famine in the south, and these conditions that are giving rise already to child deaths in the north."

"There's been significant damage during the war; bullet holes, walls missing, roofs not intact" @UNWateridge

Critical @UNRWA & @WFP mission to expand food distribution in north #Gaza. Agencies working closely to avert famine through meaningful supply despite massive destruction. pic.twitter.com/khMHxOU7qH

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) May 2, 2024

Aid officials have warned that in addition to the likelihood of mass deaths, famine would grow in the south of the Strip as well in the wake of a major Rafah assault. The population is so concentrated there that people would have few or no safe places to which to flee for safety. The US has been leaning on Israel to establish a credible civilian evacuation plan, but it's unclear the degree to which this is being realized.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 20:25

California Bill Would Give Black Applicants An Edge In Getting Occupational Licenses

Authored by Sophie Li via The Epoch Times,

California lawmakers are considering a bill that would give preference to African American applicants seeking occupational licenses, for such professions as teaching, nursing, counseling, electrical work and others, especially those who are descendants of slaves.

Assemblyman Mike Gipson, author of AB 2862, said the state’s licensing process poses barriers for African Americans seeking employment, particularly in terms of wage disparities and access to leadership or managerial positions.

“There has been historical longstanding deficiencies and internal barriers … [for] African Americans seeking professional work, and by prioritizing their applications, we are bridging the gap of professional inequities of under representation and under compensation,” Mr. Gipson said in a bill analysis.

Under current law, only veterans are eligible for such prioritization.

Mr. Gipson argued in the analysis that if such priority can be granted to veterans, similar standards should be applicable to African-American applicants.

“If expediting licensure for veterans does not discriminate, then perhaps prioritizing African American applicants also is not discriminatory,” his statement reads.

“Nor would a preference for African American applicants violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution any more than the existing preference for veterans.”

Supporters of the bill, including the Greater Sacramento Urban League and the California African American Chamber of Commerce, said the legislation addresses historical injustices and “promotes equity and provides opportunities for economic advancement within our community.”

However, opponents say it is “unconstitutional” and lacks legal backing.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm, argues in a statement that both the U.S. and California Constitutions guarantee citizens equal protection under the law, prohibiting the government from treating citizens differently based on race, ancestry, or other protected categories.

The law firm suggested if the bill were to become law, it would probably not hold up against legal challenges, referencing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard last summer. The court deemed the consideration of an applicant’s race as a factor in admissions decisions unconstitutional.

They argued that while the constitution allows the government to use race to remedy instances of past discrimination, the bill doesn’t cite any specific California laws that exclude African Americans or that were drafted with the intention of excluding workers needing redress.

Additionally, they said that introducing race as a factor in the licensing process would exacerbate barriers for many Californians seeking to enter the workforce, particularly low-income workers, who already face numerous challenges.

The law firm also pointed out that the representation of minority groups within industries often varies, suggesting that prioritizing one group over others would fail to address the root of the problem.

They argued that if the state were to do so, it should reduce barriers to licensure for all Californians.

The bill, which will now be heard in the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, passed the Assembly’s Business and Professions Committee on a 13–2 vote last week.

If ultimately passed, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2029.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 19:50

Cargill Recalls 8 Tons Of Ground Beef At Walmart Stores Nationwide Over Possible E. Coli

Eight tons of ground beef, processed at a Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Pennsylvania and distributed to Walmart stores nationwide, have been recalled due to potential E. coli contamination. 

On Wednesday, the US Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced that 16,243 pounds of raw ground beef products may be contaminated with E. 

In recent days, Cargill shipped the raw ground beef to Walmart stores in a wide range of states, including Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, DC, and West Virginia. 

The recalled beef from Cargill includes:

• All Natural Lean Ground Beef with lot code 117 (2.25 pounds)

• Prime Rib Beef Steak Burgers Patties with lot code 118 (1.33 pounds)

• Fat All Natural Angus Premium Ground Beef with lot code 117 (2.25 pounds)

• Fat All Natural Ground Beef Chuck with lot code 118 (2.25 pounds)

• Fat All Natural Ground Beef Chuck Patties with lot code 118 (1.33 pounds)

• Fat All Natural Good Beef Sirloin Patties with lot code 118 (1.33 pounds)

This comes about one month after walnuts sold at Whole Foods were recalled for potential  E. coli contamination. 

Last month, Trader Joe's recalled fresh basil sold in 29 states and Washington, DC, due to dozens of cases of salmonella. 

The recent spate of food recalls, including the current ground beef recall, highlights the need for Americans to understand better the sourcing of their food. 

Here's what X users said about the recall: 

It was eggs last week, peanut butter the week before that, granola bars before that, who tf is letting this all threw.

— Godhasreturned (@Godhasreturned_) May 2, 2024

I wouldn’t eat any meat sold at Walmart regardless

— Mang (@Manglonian) May 2, 2024

I can’t believe that many people buy meat there.

— Mrs.America (@NeoAndTrinity_) May 2, 2024

That’s what you get for buying meat at Walmart

— Bobby (@0gbobbyEth) May 2, 2024

This calls for reevaluating food sources, moving away from big companies, and shifting towards more localized and transparent farming practices. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 19:15

David Stockman On The $1.3 Trillion Elephant In The Room

Authored by David Stockman via InternationalMan.com,

These people have to be stopped!

We are talking about the nation’s unhinged monetary politburo domiciled in the Eccles Building, of course. It is bad enough that their relentless inflation of financial assets has showered the 1% with untold trillions of windfall gains, but their ultimate crime is that they lured the nation’s elected politician into a veritable fiscal trance. Consequently, future generations will be lugging the service costs on insuperable public debts for years to come.

For more than two decades these foolish PhDs and monetary apparatchiks drove the entire Treasury yield curve to rock bottom, even as public debt erupted skyward. In this context, the single biggest chunk of the Treasury debt lies in the 90-day T-bill sector, but between December 2007 and June 2023 the inflation-adjusted yield on this workhorse debt security was negative 95% of the time.

That’s right. During that 187-month span, the interest rate exceeded the running (LTM) inflation rate during only nine months, as depicted by the purple area picking above the zero bound in the chart, and even then by just a tad. All the rest of the time, Uncle Sam was happily taxing the inflationary rise in nominal incomes, even as his debt service payments were dramatically lagging the 78% rise of CPI during that period.

Inflation-Adjusted Yield On 90-Day T-bills, 2007 to 2022

The above was the fiscal equivalent of Novocain. It enabled the elected politicians to merrily jig up and down Pennsylvania Avenue and stroll the K-Street corridors dispensing bountiful goodies left and right, while experiencing nary a moment of pain from the massive debt burden they were piling on the main street economy.

Accordingly, during the quarter-century between Q4 1997 and Q1 2022 the public debt soared from $5.5 trillion to $30.4 trillion or by 453%. In any rational world a commensurate rise in Federal interest expense would have surely awakened at least some of the revilers.

But not in Fed World. As it happened, Uncle Sam’s interest expense only increased by 73%, rising from $368 billion to $635 billion per year during the same period.  By contrast, had interest rates remained at the not unreasonable levels posted in late 1997, the interest expense level by Q1 2022, when the Fed finally awakened to the inflationary monster it had fostered, would have been $2.03 trillion per annum.

In short, the Fed reckless and relentless repression of interest rates during that quarter century fostered an elephant in the room that was one for the ages. Annualized Federal interest expense was fully $1.3 trillion lower than would have been the case at the yield curve in place in Q4 1997.

Alas, the missing interest expense amounted to the equivalent of the entire social security budget!

So, we’d guess the politicians might have been aroused from their slumber had interest expense reflected market rates. Instead, they were actually getting dreadfully wrong price signals and the present fiscal catastrophe is the consequence.

Index Of Public Debt Versus Federal Interest Expense, Q4 1997-Q1 2022

Needless to say, the US economy was not wallowing in failure or under-performance at the rates which prevailed in 1997. In fact, during that year real GDP growth was +4.5%, inflation posted at just 1.7%, real median family income rose by 3.2%, job growth was 2.8% and the real interest rates on the 10-year UST was +4.0%.

In short, 1997 generated one of the strongest macroeconomic performances in recent decades—even with inflation-adjusted yields on the 10-year UST of +4.0%. So there was no compelling reason for a massive compression of interest rates, but that is exactly what the Fed engineered over the next two decades. As shown in the graph below, rates were systematically pushed lower by 300 to 500 basis points across the curve by the bottom in 2020-2021.

Current yields are higher by 300 to 400 basis points from this recent bottom, but here’s the thing: They are only back to nominal levels prevalent at the beginning of the period in 1997, even as inflation is running at 3-4% Y/Y increases, or double the levels of 1997.

US Treasury Yields, 1997 to 2024

Unfortunately, even as the Fed has tepidly moved toward normalization of yields as shown in the graph above, Wall Street is bringing unrelenting pressure for a new round of rates cuts, which would result in yet another spree of the deep interest rate repression and distortion that has fueled Washington’s fiscal binge since the turn of the century.

As it is, the public debt is already growing at an accelerating clip, even before the US economy succumbs to the recession that is now gathering force. And we do mean accelerating. The public debt has recently been increasing by $1 trillion every 100 days. That’s $10 billion per day, $416 million per hour.

In fact, Uncle Sam’s debt has risen by $470 billion in the first two months of this year to $34.5 trillion and is on pace to surpass $35 trillion in a little over a month, $37 trillion well before year’s end, and $40 trillion some time in 2025. That’s about two years ahead of the current CBO (Congressional Budget Office) forecast.

On the current path, moreover, the public debt will reach $60 trillion by the end of the 10-year budget window. But even that depends upon the CBO’s latest iteration of Rosy Scenario, which envisions no recession ever again, just 2% inflation as far as the eye can see and real interest rates of barely 1%. And that’s to say nothing of the trillions in phony spending cuts and out-year tax increases that are built into the CBO baseline but which Congress will never actually allow to materialize.

What is worse, even with partial normalization of rates, a veritable tsunami of Federal interest expense is now gathering steam. That is because the ultra-low yields of 2007 to 2022 are now rolling over into the current market rates shown above—at the same time that the amount of public debt outstanding is heading skyward. As a result, the annualized run rate of Federal interest expense hit $1.1 trillion in February and is heading for $1.6 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year in September.

Finally, even as the run-rate of interest expense has been soaring, the bureaucrats at the US Treasury have been drastically shortening the maturity of the outstanding debt, as it rolls over. Accordingly, more than $21 trillion of Treasury paper has been refinanced in the under one-year T-bill market, thereby lowering the weighted-average maturity of the public debt to less than five- years.

The apparent bet is that the Fed will be cutting rates soon. As is becoming more apparent by the day, however, that’s just not in the cards: No matter how you slice it, the running level of inflation has remained exceedingly sticky and shows no signs of dropping below its current 3-4% range any time soon.

What is also becoming more apparent by the day is that the money-printers at the Fed have led Washington into a massive fiscal calamity. It is only a matter of time, therefore, until the brown stuff hits the fan like never before.

*  *  *

The truth is, we’re on the cusp of an economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/04/2024 - 18:40