F-35 Stealth Fighter Only Mission Capable About Half The Time, Government Report Finds Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times, A new government report has found that U.S. F-35 fighter jets are only ready for a mission about half of the time, with the remaining time spent awaiting maintenance. On Thursday, the the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report (pdf) which concluded that the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, was only mission capable about 50 percent of the time for the A and B variants and 57 percent for the C variant of the fighter. These mission capability rates, the GAO report states, are "far below program goals" of 90 percent for the F-35A variant and 85 for the B and C variants. The F-35—which is operated by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as a host of U.S. allies—is one of the most advanced systems in Western arsenals. The 5th Generation fighter jet is made with an array of special radar-absorbent materials and other "stealth" features. The multirole fighter jet boasts capabilities for a range of different mission types, and the F-35B variant operated by the Marine Corps has unique short take-off and vertical landing capabilities. The F-35 is also one of the most expensive systems in Western arsenals. The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the F-35 program will cost the department about $1.7 trillion over its life cycle. A majority of this estimated lifetime cost, $1.3 trillion, is expected to go toward maintenance. The GAO said it conducted this latest sustainment study of the F-35 in part because of this high program cost. Contributing to this low mission capability rate, the GAO report concluded the F-35 program is heavily reliant on contractors for maintenance work and the DOD has been slow to take over the program's responsibilities. The GAO report said the DOD is still working to determine the right balance of government and outside contractor roles to sustain the F-35 program going forward. The DOD also lacks both the technical data and training to support its desired program sustainment model. While the GAO report identifies challenges with the F-35 program, it also describes an opportunity to overhaul the program to both bring down costs and improve the maintenance process that drags on it. "The military services must take over management of F35 sustainment by October 2027 and have an opportunity to make adjustments—specifically to the contractor-managed elements," the report states. "Reassessing its approach could help DOD address its maintenance challenges and reduce costs." Repairs Department on Secretive Spare Parts List The new GAO report derived its conclusions about the F-35 program over the course of visits to two military F-35 depots and three military installations that host F-35 squadrons. A recurring problem for military aircraft maintainers at these depots and installations have limited information about the spare parts needed to keep their aircraft running. The list of parts for the F-35 program is maintained in a database that is proprietary to the program's prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Corporation. With all this proprietary information, the military has to outsource much of its maintenance to Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors. Not having ready access to part numbers hinders the repair of the aircraft because it delays the ordering and receipt of needed parts," the GAO report states. "Maintainers at one installation we visited told us that they would not need contractors on the flight line if they simply had access to part numbers. However, since access to part numbers is an issue that can affect readiness of the aircraft, units and squadrons need contractors on a daily basis." As of March 2023, the F-35 program had a backlog of over 10,000 F-35 parts in need of repair. In a press statement to NTD News, Lockheed Martin spokesperson Jacqueline Lorenzetti said the corporation provides "all data required under its F-35 government contracts and is committed to providing data required for the Department of Defense to sustain the aircraft under applicable sustainment contracts." Ms. Lorenzetti said the U.S. government has unlimited access to all Operation, Maintenance, Installation, and Training (OMIT) data for the aircraft. She also said 90 percent of parts in the F-35 program are performing better than expected and the average time that parts remain on F-35 aircraft before failure is more than twice that of a typical 4th Generation fighter jet. The GAO report provided a list of recommendations, advising the military to assess whether they or private contractors will take primary responsibility for various components of the F-35 program, as well as what resources and proprietary information the Department of the Air Force and Department of the Navy will require for these revised responsibilities. Ms. Lorenzetti said Lockheed Martin is partnering with the government to increase repair capacity for the F-35 fleet. "We stand ready to partner with the government as plans are created for the future of F-35 sustainment ensuring mission readiness and enabling deterrence," Ms. Lorenzetti said. Tyler Durden Fri, 09/22/2023 - 23:20.....»»

Governments Start Calling For Price Controls, Rationing & CBDCs Come Next Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us, Last month in the middle of the surreal “Bidenomics” hype I published an article titled ‘Nothing Is Over: Inflation Is About To Come Back With A Vengeance.’  I outlined the misconceptions surrounding CPI and how it is not an accurate model for the effects of inflation.  I also noted that the index had been manipulated downwards by Joe Biden as he flooded the market with oil from the strategic reserves.  Because so many elements of the CPI are connected to energy, Biden had created an artificial drop in CPI using this strategy. I argued that as the strategic reserves ran out and Biden lost his leverage, CPI would rise again and prices on a number of necessities would climb.  This is happening now, with the biggest jump in CPI in 14 months and gas prices clawing back towards all-time highs. Inflation is not going away anytime soon, but the bigger issue at hand is who benefits most from inflation and rising prices? The answer might be obvious to some but many people are oblivious to the root cause of inflationary dysfunction and often see it as a consequence of random economic chaos rather than a product of clever engineering. The truth is, banking oligarchs and political authorities revel in the inflationary tidal wave because it is a perfect opportunity to institute far reaching socialist controls over resources. In most cases central bankers are the primary culprits behind the creation of an inflationary event, and the word “creation” best applies because it is nearly impossible for overt inflation to occur without them. While money supply is not the only factor when dealing with inflation (sorry purists, but there are indeed other causes), it is the most important. More money chasing less resources triggers supply-side instability and prices go up. Central banks have a number of excuses as to why they “need” to conjure up more dollars or pesos or pounds or marks, but there is no doubt that they know what the ultimate end result will be. It’s happened too many times for them not to know… These inflation events trigger a predictable set of dominoes in society as well as in economy and finance. Price spikes, diminished savings, rising poverty, rising crime, and rising interest rates – This is then followed in most cases by failed rate hikes, more inflation, then more hikes, diminishing foreign investment in debt, foreign currency dumps (causing more inflation), plunging consumer spending and job losses. This same pattern has been witnessed from 1920s Weimar Germany to 1970s America to 1990s Yugoslavia to 2000s Argentina and Venezuela and beyond. But what happens next? In each case the trend leads first to price controls on producers and distributors, which ultimately fail. Then comes government rationing and the complete takeover of necessities including the food supply. Think it can’t happen in the US? It already has. In 1971 Richard Nixon issued Executive Order 11615, (under the Economic Stabilization Act which was established in 1970); the order demanded a 90 day freeze on wages and prices in order to counter inflation. It was an exceedingly rare action outside of a world war and conveniently took place during the election cycle. Keep in mind, the real inflationary crisis had not happened yet, but the price controls gave markets a short term boost and gave Nixon an election win. In 1973, controls returned during the Arab Oil Embargo. They failed and resulted in long term gas price inflation. Gerald Ford then called for American businesses to institute price controls under his “Whip Inflation Now” campaign; it was the subject of ridicule and was even made fun of by a young Joe Biden (who now falsely claims to have solved his own inflation problem with his useless Inflation Reduction Act). Finally, Jimmy Carter introduced price and wage “guidelines” (controls) which rewarded businesses that raised prices below a set percentage. Any businesses that raised prices above the percentage and made a pre-tax profit above the previous two years would be penalized. In no case could a firm increase its dollar profit by more than 6.5 percent unless the excess was attributable to increased unit sales volume. This plan, of course, also failed to stop inflation. Ultimately, the Fed had to jack rates up to around 20% in 1980-1981 to stop exponential inflation, which led to considerable business losses and high unemployment. The problem is simple, price controls lead to lost profit incentive which leads to less production. Less production leads to less supply and less supply leads to rising prices. This is on top of the root cancer that is fiat money creation. Politicians will rarely if ever address the actual cause of an inflationary crisis:  The government and the central banks. Instead, they try to blame free markets, “greedy” businesses and profit taking in times of distress. Sadly, the pattern is repeating again today as it is now becoming clear to the public that central bank interest rate hikes are not having a significant effect and the public is still paying between 25%-50% more on the majority of goods they purchase compared to three years ago. As inflation grinds forward, multiple leftist governments are now openly discussing price controls. Recently, Canada’s Justin Trudeau ordered top grocery chains in the country to cut prices while admonishing them for making higher profits, insinuating that they are the cause of inflation.  In Canada, profit margins among grocers are actually flat due to rising costs. If one looks only at raw profits without taking into account inflation in producer costs as well as transportation, distribution and wages, then it might look like these companies are pulling in the cash. There is zero evidence to support this claim. What Trudeau is doing is pretending to be stupid while engaging in a very clever strategy of scapegoating. It’s the government and the central bankers that are the foundational cause of inflation, but by blaming individual business sectors he sets the stage for government enforced price controls. When these fail and create a crisis in supply he will then introduce rationing, and once the government has conditioned the public to accept rationing the elites then control the entire population’s access to food and necessities. Some people may say “Well that’s Canada, what about the US?” The same agenda is in progress in America, but is being pursued at a city and state level. For example, the socialist Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, just announced a plan for the city (using state and federal tax funds) to build government run grocery stores in “food deserts.” These are places where a combination of inflation and shoplifting has forced grocers to leave certain areas of the city. The Chicago program would include price control measures and there’s ample opportunity for these institutions to use rationing in the future. Similar projects are also being considered in other cities across the country. In other words, leftist cities are scaring away businesses while planning to replace “essential services” with government run operations. I wrote about the inevitability of government rationing after price controls last year in my article ‘The Stagflation Trap Will Lead To Universal Basic Income And Food Rationing.’  Rationing generally comes when price controls fail. It’s been a long time since the US has faced these kinds of conditions but we are likely to in the near future. This time around, I believe that if the establishment is given rationing power they will never let go again. Rationing could also be used to lure the public into accepting Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).  Government run food centers can easily restrict purchases of goods to a limited list of items, and also demand payment using specific methods (like digital currencies).  In a short period of time, cash would be removed because retailers, pressured by government, will refuse to accept it. It’s hard to say what the future will bring in terms of politics, given that the next presidential campaign is looking like a complete circus. Historically speaking, though, both Democrat and Republican presidents have tried price controls in the past. Public pressure must be applied (at the state level at minimum) to stop this from happening. As convenient as it might seem to blame producers and distributors, the real threat is coming from governments and banks. We cannot let the people who caused the crisis also benefit from it by giving them even more power. * * * If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE. Tyler Durden Fri, 09/22/2023 - 23:40.....»»

Britain"s Parliament Demands That Rumble, X Deplatform Russell Brand.....»»

The BRICS Commodity Powerhouse: Can It Force A New Economic 'Order'? Authored by Alastair Crooke via Straight Line Logic, Who now controls inflation in the U.S.: A trapped Fed, or the new commodity king? A quiet ‘watershed’ moment has passed. It was nothing ‘splashy’; many perhaps barely noticed; yet significant it truly was. The G20 did not descend into the expected sordid confrontation, with the G7 states (which Jake Sullivan has called the ‘steering committee of the free world’) demanding explicit condemnation of Russia over Ukraine, versus the Rest – as happened last year at Bali. No, the G7 unexpectedly ‘surrendered’ to an ascendant global ‘Non-West’ – one that cohesively insisted on its collective stance. The stirrings of insurrection had been evident from the BRICS summit in August – the writing was on the wall. The Non-West would not be corralled or coerced into support for the G7 ‘line’ on Russia. The war in Ukraine was barely mentioned in the final – agreed – declaration; the export of grain (Russian as well as Ukrainian) was treated even-handedly. It was a masterpiece of diplomacy by India. The G7 evidently decided that the Ukraine ‘point-scoring game’ was not worth the candle. The former prioritised getting to consensus, rather than crashing the G20 (perhaps ‘finally’, with a deadlocked declaration). But for the sake of clarity, it was not the downplaying of Ukraine that marks the ‘watershed’. The shift on Ukraine – now consolidated within a wider U.S. Ukraine policy-switch – was very important but not primordial. The ‘primordial’ was that the collective Non-West was able to coalesce around their urgent demand for radical reform of the global system. They want change in the global economic architecture; they contest the structures (i.e. the voting systems that lie behind those institutional structures such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF) – and above all they object to the weaponised dollar hegemony. The demand – to put it plainly – is for a seat at Top Table. Period. None of this is new, it has been germinating since the famous Bandung Declaration (1955), whose resolution laid the foundation for the non-aligned movement. Then, those states lacked the clout to realise their aims. It is different today: Led by China, Russia, India and Brazil, the BRICS has the economic weight and ‘frontline standing vs the West’ to contest the ‘Rules Order’, and to insist that if there are to be ‘Rules’, they must be consensual. This is a truly radical agenda. Again, the ‘watershed’ is that the Non-West, even without Presidents Xi or Putin being present, showed it has the ‘heft’ to wrestle the G7 to a ‘fall’. Good in theory – but now comes the ‘concrete’: Plainly, India aspires to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Many would argue that India is well qualified. That may be so – The Security Council structure today tends to look a fossilised relic from the post-WW2 era. Yet, who would volunteer to yield up their seat to a worthy India? Brazil (surprise, surprise) thinks that South America should have its permanent say in the Council, too. All in all, reform of the Council has been an issue that, at least until now, has proved ‘untouchable’. Times though ‘are a-changing’. This is an issue into which the Global South has its teeth, and will continue to tug at it, irrespective, terrier-style. Then there is the issue of the ‘Two Spheres’. Both the BRICS and G20 statements insist that their aim is not to supplant the existing ‘Order’, but to inhabit it on equitable terms, after major reconstruction and re-orientation. India, in particular, is reluctant to burn all bridges with the West, and leans towards the notion of an incremental reform of the global economic structure, leading to the establishment of a single trading sphere (India has many interests in the West). Other BRICS too, states share this view. They decline to be forced to choose between two incompatible spheres. (China was of this view, but now sees that it is the U.S., despite its denials, that is the one intent on burning bridges with China!) But isn’t it a tad naïve though, to expect the West to recant its stealth colonialism? Western primacy hangs on the pillars of the threat of financial and sanctions war; the monopoly of tech patents, regulatory standards and protocols, and in holding and keeping a global ‘technological edge’. Does Prime Minster Modi truly think that the West can be induced simply to relinquish these assets because the Global South asks it? It seems ‘a stretch’ (though no doubt Xi and Putin have explained some of these financial ‘facts of life’ to Modi). Well, these ‘facts of life’, which some BRICS members are not yet ready to internalise, are precisely the reason why both Russia and China are preparing an alternative Economic Sphere, totally severed from the dollar and the dollar-linked banking and financial system. It is a plan ‘B’, which can easily become plan ‘A’. This debate (one single trading sphere, or two) possibly will become the key issue facing the BRICS and the West. It rests with the Western reaction: Will it be possible to compel the U.S. to make such radical reforms to the present U.S.-aligned Institutions and Structures, such that a quite separate Non-Western economic sphere becomes is not required? These issues may surface earlier than some expect – perhaps even at the UN General Assembly next week. Frankly put, the hard reality is that were the U.S. to yield up its grip over the global financial architecture, Americans’ standard-of-living may be expected to fall significantly as demand for dollars withers (with increased global own currency trading). The dollar demand, of course, will not wholly disappear. The timing of this collective demand for a new financial architecture – a new ‘Bretton Woods’ Accord – could not have come at a more delicate moment for the West. Serendipitously for Russia and China …? Although many in the West think everything ‘is fine’ – that the U.S. Fed likely will bring inflation under control, and soon will be cutting interest rates. Yet oil prices are up 37% and rising. This has been the case since the price bottomed out a few months ago. “People forget oil prices fell almost 50% from their peak, and that fall ended in May of this year. And that big decline in oil prices was the major factor in bringing headline inflation [down] from 9% to 3%”. Energy is a major cost input that needs to be passed on to consumers. And so is interest on debt, which increases as interest rate rises cut across the economic spectrum. Everybody is waiting for the Fed to cut rates, because the only way for the U.S. government, American consumers, and businesses to manage their present debt (on which they loaded-up – at zero rates) is if interest rates drop. People may understand this, but they just assume that it’s not going to be an issue because, of course, the Fed ‘is going to cut rates’. It is very unlikely however, that the western authorities will be able to get rates down again to zero. Selling further oil from the U.S. Strategic Reserve just isn’t going to happen: At this point, the U.S. economy can only run for 20 days on its current oil reserves. And the Fed is not going to be able to launch much of another round of money-printing, should the economy drop into recession. The Fed may try to rescue the economy in this way, though when inflation is the problem, it is not possible to solve an inflation problem by creating more inflation. Inflation (and interest rates), after a short lag, would again rise. The point is that much of the ruling strata still do not ‘get it’: the decades-long experience of near-zero inflation that the West has experienced has imprinted itself on the collective mindset – but that world of effortless money-making was an aberration, not a norm. Plainly put, the West now is somehow trapped in various diverse financial ways, such as fiscal exhaustion (i.e. U.S. deficit spending has reached 8.5% of GDP). Whilst true, that many in the West do not understand that the zero-inflation era was an aberration, caused by factors that no longer pertain – for sure, the aberration is well understood in Beijing and Moscow. Liam Halligan notes similarly that oil prices are up almost a third over the last three months: “It’s a hugely significant increase that could seriously aggravate the cost of living crisis. Yet the surge seems to have barely been noticed by much of our political and media class”. Crude markets began to tighten earlier this summer after the Opec exporters’ cartel agreed to withhold oil supplies in a bid to raise prices, and Halligan tartly observes: “Anyone who downplays the power of Opec knows nothing about worldwide energy markets and even less about geopolitics”. (Emphasis added.) Is it happenstance that a quiet financial war, triggered by the drip-drip of de-dollarisation and higher energy costs, might finally give BRICS the leverage to coerce a change of policy in the West? And should western reluctance to re-structure persist, might the BRICS leadership ratchet higher? The newly expanded BRICS, after all, is now a Commodity Powerhouse. So, who now controls inflation in the U.S.: A trapped Fed, or the new commodity king? Tyler Durden Thu, 09/21/2023 - 03:30.....»»

Backfire: World's Fourth Largest Iron Ore Producer Stops Purchasing Carbon Offsets  About three weeks after Shell, Europe's largest oil company, quietly shelved the world's largest corporate plan to develop carbon offsets, the world's number four iron ore producer, Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., has decided to end purchases of voluntary carbon offsets. This comes as at least one major study has revealed carbon offsets are prone to 'greenwashing' and most credits don't actually benefit the climate.  Billionaire Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals produced about 2.55 million tons of scope 1 and 2 carbon dioxide emissions in the year leading up to June 30. Bloomberg said the company has implemented a new policy to halt purchases of carbon offset credits from the current fiscal year.   "We are the only heavy emitter in the world to stop purchasing voluntary offsets," Dino Otranto, chief executive officer of Fortescue's metals business, said in a statement.  The move by Fortescue comes after Shell laid out an updated strategy for the company that included cutting costs and doubling down on profit centers (oil and gas) - which notably shelved the world's largest corporate plan to develop carbon offsets.  According to Bloomberg Green's investigations, many offset programs don't deliver the promised environmental benefits. A study by the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy found that REDD+ credits account for a quarter of the carbon offset market. And according to researchers, "Most credits probably don't represent any climate benefit."  The Berkeley findings raise serious questions about the carbon offsets market come months after the world's leading carbon credit certifier, Verra, sold worthless offsets to major corporations.  Recall Elon Musk tweeted one year ago, "ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors."  As we noted earlier this year, "Carbon Credits Are The Biggest Scam Since Indulgences... How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced."    Tyler Durden Thu, 09/21/2023 - 04:15.....»»

"Our kids always give a little salute, so we said: 'Look at the plane. Oh my gosh, it's so low,'" Adrian Truluck told NBC News. A US Air Force F-35A Lightning II performs on the first day of NATO Days in Ostrava and Czech Air Force Days in Mosnov, Czech Republic on September 16, 2023.Lukas Kabon/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesA family in South Carolina said they spotted the missing F-35 flying almost inverted.They told NBC News they were celebrating a birthday when they saw the aircraft at about 100 feet.The family heard a "boom" later on, but assumed it may have been thunder, per NBC News.A family in South Carolina said they saw the F-35 jet that went missing this weekend just before it crashed, and noticed that the aircraft was almost inverted and oddly close to the ground.The Truluck family told NBC News they were celebrating their son's seventh birthday in Williamsburg County on Sunday when they saw the jet and then heard a "boom."Stephen Truluck said they could see the "canopy" of the aircraft, and that it was about "three quarters" upside down, per NBC News.His wife, Adrian Truluck, estimated that the jet was "probably 100 feet above the tree tops.""Our kids always give a little salute, so we said: 'Look at the plane. Oh my gosh, it's so low,'" she told NBC News.Since they were about 60 miles from Shaw Air Force Base, they didn't think anything was amiss at the time, the outlet reported.F-16s often use the area for training, and are sometimes spotted practicing flare-outs and simulated dogfights, Stephen Truluck told Charleston-based paper The Post and Courier.He added that the jet was flying northeast from where his son, Charlton Truluck, was celebrating his birthday at his grandparents' house, per the outlet.When the family later heard a "boom," they assumed it was thunder, Adrian Truluck told NBC News."We were thinking it was rolling thunder and didn't give it another thought until we saw the plane was missing," she said.But when news emerged on Monday that an advanced F-35 fighter jet had gone missing on Sunday during a training mishap, the family realized the plane they saw was likely the lost aircraft, NBC News reported.The pilot had ejected from the aircraft, and it's suspected to have kept flying in autopilot mode. On Monday, debris from the jet was found about 80 miles away from where the pilot exited the aircraft.Meanwhile, another Williamsburg County resident's description of how he heard the F-35 crash has gone viral."I heard a screeching. Between a screech and a whistle," Randolph White told local channel WCBD, before demonstrating the screech himself."I said, 'What in the world is this?' And I heard a boom!" White added. "And my whole house shook."The Marine Corps is investigating the incident.The press service for the Marine Corps did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Syria On The Verge Of Collapse? Authored by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi via the Gatestone Institute, Syria's southern province of al-Suwayda', whose population primarily comes from the Druze minority, is currently witnessing protests on an unprecedented scale. Pictured: People protest in al-Suwayda', Syria on September 5, 2023. (Photo by Sam Hariri/AFP via Getty Images) Syria is clearly on the verge of collapse in terms of the economy and humanitarian situation. The country's southern province of al-Suwayda', whose population primarily comes from the Druze minority, is currently witnessing protests on an unprecedented scale. While the province has previously seen protests motivated primarily by the country's deteriorating economic and livelihood situation, these protests are now far more widespread in the province and larger in scale. There has also been a definite paradigm shift in these protests: the main initial demands to improve the economy and livelihood situation were endorsed by the Druze community's three leading religious authorities in Syria. Calls for the government to resign, for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad and a political transition are now stronger and more prevalent. In multiple localities in the province, which has formally been under government control since the start of the unrest and civil war in 2011, demonstrators have closed the Ba'ath Party headquarters and removed portraits of Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad. While these protests are in themselves remarkable for the province in terms of the numbers participating, their persistence and how open the calls for political change are, they do raise the question about whether they constitute the potential for a real shift in Syria's "status quo" since spring 2020. However much one might sympathise with the protests, they are probably unlikely to shift the situation in a significant way. The protestors, although immensely courageous, are too few, and have little leverage. The current status quo means that Syria is effectively divided into three major zones: the majority of the country that is held by the Damascus-based government backed by Russia and Iran; the northeast held by the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (the second-largest zone of control); and parts of the northwest and north of the country on and near the border with Turkey, controlled by an assortment of insurgent factions that are backed by Turkey to varying degrees. What has kept the frontlines frozen since the spring of 2020 are the understandings between the main foreign powers involved in the war as well as policies of deterrence through the stationing of foreign troops in these zones of control. The most important in this regard seems to be the Turkey-Russia dynamic, whereas American influence is far more limited. At the same time, all the major zones have been seeing low-level skirmishes along their frontlines and experiencing internal security concerns. The Syrian Democratic Forces, for example, which are dominated by Kurdish cadres linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party, are contending with an ongoing Islamic State insurgency and more recently have had to deal with an uprising among Arab tribal elements in the east. In a similar vein, the southern province of Deraa, which is next to al-Suwayda' and formally came back in its entirety under Syrian government control in 2018, sees regular incidents of assassinations and bomb attacks, some of which can be attributed to Islamic State, while others, in terms of responsibility, remain murky. For the Syrian government, however, it is not the military frontlines and internal security that are the main issue today, but rather the deterioration of its economy and the accompanying fall in standards of living. The clearest indication of this decline is the fall in the value of the Syrian pound. Since the onset of the war, it had been steadily falling, but took a sharp turn for the worse in late 2019. This steep decline has continued despite some brief hiatuses; the currency now stands at record low values versus the U.S. dollar. In 2010, the rate of exchange was around 50 Syrian pounds to the dollar, now the rate of exchange is hovering near 15,000 Syrian pounds to the dollar. There is much debate about the causes of this downturn, but it seems clear that the decline can be attributed in significant part to the Syrian government's economic isolation and its shortage of hard currency. Despite controlling the country's most important cities and the sole access to the Mediterranean Sea along the northwest coastline, the government faces extensive Western economic sanctions; it does not benefit from the main oil assets held by the Syrian Democratic Forces and sees only marginal trade over the land border with neighbouring Jordan to the south. The Syrian government also has extremely little control over its extensive northern border with Turkey, which could be a major trading partner with the government. The Syrian government's isolation has also meant that its economy became ever more intertwined with that of neighbouring Lebanon, which is also facing its most severe economic crisis since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990 and has also seen a sharp decline in the value of its currency. In the meantime, the Syrian government has no real solutions to its economic woes. It has been offering up measures such as increasing the salaries of state employees, military personnel and pensioners while also cutting fuel subsidies. While the normalisation of relations between Arab states and Syria (foremost embodied in Syria's return to the Arab League) has attracted considerable media attention, it is probably unrealistic to expect that this development will lead to a sudden turn-around in the Syrian government's economic fortunes. The government is not going to be given handouts of billions of dollars in aid and foreign investment from Arab states or the international community at large in a short timeframe and for nothing in return from Damascus. In the meantime, any concept of normalisation with Turkey still has a long way to go, with a fundamental sticking point: that the Damascus-based government would like Turkey to agree to withdraw troops from Syrian territory, whereas Turkey appears to have no interest in doing so in the near- or even medium-term. Few within government-held areas would deny that the economic and livelihood situation is difficult. It is common to see people there venting their frustrations on Facebook about the quality of services provided, the rising prices of goods, perceptions of corruption, and so on. Yet opinions about the causes of these woes are varied. Some blame the Western economic sanctions on Syria, others see the economic problems as created from within. Some impugn government corruption but consider criticism of Assad himself to be a red line: they seem to think that he is doing all he can to try to help the country -- while being surrounded by corrupt officials. Unfortunately, trying to determine what proportion of people subscribe to which views is virtually impossible: no reliable polling data exist, and it is doubtful anyone could conduct such surveys under the present circumstances. Yet qualitatively speaking, it can be said that in al-Suwayda', criticism of Assad is less of a red line than in other areas that have remained under government control throughout the war. Besides the current deterioration of both the economy and living standards, there has long been resentment of a perceived marginalisation of the southern province in economic and developmental terms. In addition, there are grievances against conscription; conspiracy theories that the government colluded with the Islamic State to allow the group, in 2018, to attack the eastern countryside of the province while killing hundreds of Druze in the process; complaints about the spread of drugs in al-Suwayda' and the use of the province as a gateway for smuggling them into Jordan. The government's most recent economic decisions to raise salaries of state employees, military personnel and pensioners while cutting fuel subsidies provided a spark for protests in the province that are even larger than before. It is nonetheless important to be realistic about what these protests can achieve. The protestors remain committed for now to sustaining a civil disobedience movement that is peaceful. There appears to be no plan to launch an armed rebellion and make the province a separate rebellious enclave akin to the Turkish-backed enclaves in the northwest. Moreover, the Syrian government is adopting a non-confrontational stance towards the protests. The government seems to have issued general directives to its security forces in the province to lie low and avoid opening fire or taking any repressive measures unless they are attacked. In effect, these protests remain a peripheral rebellion in the grander scheme of things and are unlikely by themselves to bring down the government and lead to real change. There are really only two ways in which Assad can be brought down: either being militarily overthrown (not being contemplated by any international power) or if the elites propping up his rule decide that his presidency is no longer worth preserving. Despite the deterioration of Syria's economy and living standards, it seems that those closest to Assad who could bring about his removal from within are either largely unaffected by the situation or possibly even benefitting from it. To stand some sort of chance of realising change, the al-Suwayda' protests would have to transform into a large-scale movement of protests and unrest across government-held Syria, including in areas such as the capital Damascus and the coastal regions that have served as key constituencies of support for the government throughout the war. In turn, these protests raise the question about the efficacy of the ongoing Western sanctions on the Syrian government. A more optimistic portrayal would see the protests as bringing about the precise results intended by the sanctions: a deterioration in the economy and living standards, popular discontent with that deterioration, unrest, and thus some sort of pressure that would lead the government to agree to a peaceful political transition. Yet it is unlikely that these sanctions will accomplish those results. Instead, one finds an immiserated population that is unable to do much to better its own lot, with outbreaks of ultimately ineffectual protests, the continued outflow of people from Syria seeking to migrate to other countries in the region and Europe, and the persistence of the country's division between its major zones of control. A greater focus on stemming the country's collapse in terms of the humanitarian situation could certainly help -- if "middlemen" were left out. The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) now faces a much larger shortfall in terms of funding requirements and actual funding for WFP's operations in Syria, with the result that monthly assistance was cut to 2.5 million people in Syria in July. An important reason behind this reduction, according to the Syria Report, is a reduction in the American contribution to WFP's global budget. Making up for that shortfall would at least provide some short-term relief. Sanctions – no doubt well-intended to prevent governments from brutalizing their own people even further and to encourage the leadership toward a democratic form of rule – seem simply not to work. First, it is harder for a people who are starving to rise up against a dictatorship; they are often too busy looking for food and trying to survive on a daily basis, besides having an understandable fear of reprisals. Countries such as Russia and Iran, as we well know, find ways around sanctions; or else the population starves, while the leaders go on living in indifferent comfort. Perhaps a more realistic approach might be as follows: rather than tying sanctions to vague hopes of political transition, sanctions could instead be linked to more specific concessions such as serious efforts to combat drug trafficking, the release of political prisoners, and so on. Otherwise, sanctions often deliver just a punitive message, which, although understandable for dictators such as Assad, does not really accomplish anything in terms of accountability, change or bettering the lot of Syrians like the protestors in al-Suwayda'. Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is an Arabic translator and editor at Castlereagh Associates (a Middle East-focused consultancy), a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, and an associate of the Royal Schools of Music. Follow on Twitter and at his independent Substack newsletter. Follow Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi on Twitter ZeroPointNow Thu, 09/21/2023 - 02:00.....»»

Is This Time Different - Unpacking Bond Yields Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, In Our Elevator Pitch For Bonds, we ask, “is this time different.”  Our view of the attractiveness of bonds can be honed into an elevator pitch. It essentially boils down to a straightforward question – Is this time different? Have the forty-year pre-pandemic economic trends reversed, and the economy’s inner workings changed permanently over the last three years? expectations More specifically, are slowing productivity growth, weakening demographics, and rising debt levels about to reverse their prior trends and become a tailwind for economic growth? NO, this time is not different. Yesterday’s economic headwinds have not vanished. They will eventually overcome the massive pandemic-related stimulus that continues to prop up the economy. This article employs a classic bond model that allows us to solve for the expected economic growth as implied by bond yields. As you will see, the bond market believes economic growth will be significantly higher than expectations for the last 20 years. If they are correct and this time is different, current bond yields may be fair or even too low. However, if this time is not different, the market is grossly offside in its growth expectations, and bond yields are too high. Decomposing Bond Yields U.S. Treasury bond yields are a function of three factors: term premium, inflation, and economic growth expectations. Because Treasury securities are considered risk-free, credit risk is not a factor. For more on that, please read our recent article, Risk Free Government Debt- Fact Or Fiction. Term Premia Term premium, also called term premia, is the amount by which the yield of a long-term bond exceeds the expected yields of short-term bonds. It quantifies the amount investors expect to be compensated for committing to one long-term interest rate versus a series of shorter-term interest rates.   Term premia is not an exact science, but there are many models that calculate it, including the Fed’s Three-Factor Nominal Term Structure Model. We use this model to decompose yields later in this article. The Fed model, graphed below, shows a steady decline in the term premium for the last 30+ years. Since rates have been reliably trending lower, long-term bond investors have been increasingly willing to accept less of a term premium because they expect short-term yields to continue to trend lower. As shown, the premium has primarily morphed into a discount since 2018. Such indicates that a series of short-term rates over the next ten years will average less than current long-term rates. Inflation Expectations Gauging inflation expectations is done via numerous surveys of consumers and business leaders. They can also be calculated through the difference between TIP and nominal bond yields. Further, the Fed updates its outlook for longer-term inflation rates quarterly. This analysis uses the difference between TIPs and nominal bonds, known as the breakeven inflation rate. Unlike surveys and Fed estimates, the breakeven rate is based on investors and traders putting their money where their mouths are. Thus, we might claim it to be a little more credible. The following graph shows the long-term trend in 10-year inflation expectations and the actual rate of inflation that followed in the subsequent ten years. Other than during recessions, the market tends to overestimate future inflation rates by a quarter to half a percent. The chart ends in 2013, as we do not have ten full years of future inflation data after that year.  Economic Growth Expectations The third factor is economic growth expectations. Like inflation expectations, there are many sources for this data. To put context to our opening question, “Is this time different?” we solve for economic growth expectations using the Fed term premia model and ten-year breakeven inflation rates. Before we look at expectations, let’s look at the historical economic growth trend. As shown, real GDP has been trending lower since 1990. Assuming the trend holds, real GDP will average 1.65% over the next ten years. The trend currently resides at 1.90%. Decomposing Bond Yields The following graph uses the current ten-year yield and decomposes the rate based on term premia, inflation expectations, and the implied economic growth rate we solve for. The following chart singles out real growth expectations (green above), which we solved for. Bond yields imply the highest economic growth rate in the last 20 years! The next graph allows us to compare growth expectations, as shown above, to the trend growth rate over the 20-year period. The last time the bond market implied such a high forecast for economic growth was around the financial crisis and recession of 2008-2009. However, real GDP was trending 0.5% higher during that period than today. On a relative basis, the current expectation is .75% higher. Our analysis assumes the Fed’s term premia and the market’s 10-year breakeven inflation estimates are correct. They are not, nor will they be accurate in the future. As a result, growth expectations, as we solve for, have been about 1.50% short of reality. However, context is essential. While the growth estimate will likely be too low, the current deviation versus prior readings is what matters. Currently, yields imply almost 2.50% more growth than its average forecast for the last 20 years. Summary The bond market implies something has changed in the last couple of years to reverse the nation’s downward economic growth trajectory. There is nothing that leads us to that conclusion. The pandemic only aggravated the debt burden, which reduces future growth rates. Demographics continue to worsen slowly, detracting from economic growth. Given debt, demographics, and other social and political factors, we see no reason productivity growth won’t continue to decline, which also weighs on economic growth. Can AI be a productivity game changer and rationale for higher economic growth rates? Maybe, but productivity growth has declined over the last 25 years despite the internet, robotics, and numerous other productivity-enhancing inventions. Can the economy grow 2.0% to 2.5% faster per year over the next ten years than the last 30 years? We don’t think so. Therefore, the graphs suggest ten-year yields are about 2.0% to 2.5% too high. This time is not different, and bond yields are too high.  Tyler Durden Wed, 09/20/2023 - 08:30.....»»

The UAW Strike Is A Thorn In The Side Of Biden's Domestic EV Agenda It isn't any wonder that the Biden administration seems to have no idea what, if any, role it can and will play in the ongoing UAW strike. After all, the strike (among many other indicators), "exposes a conflict at the heart of the Biden administration’s economic policy that could be difficult to resolve," the Wall Street Journal wrote this week.  Namely, big wage increases are going to make it difficult for U.S. EV production to compete with vehicles coming out of China - a problem that Europe is also having, resulting in the EU recently launching an inquiry into Chinese subsidies.  Willy Shih, a management professor at Harvard Business School, commented to WSJ: “This puts the administration really in a fix. You can take the side of labor and say OK, let’s raise everybody’s costs. I get that, but then what’s the long-term competitiveness of the domestic industry?" The UAW, whose ranks saw some of their workers initiate a strike last Friday, is pushing for a salary boost exceeding 30% to be spread across a four-year period, the Journal writes.  UAW demands also encompass a reduction in the workweek to 32 hours, an insistence on eliminating the utilization of temporary laborers, and a rollback of certain concessions that were conceded during the 2007-09 economic downturn. This period notably saw General Motors and Chrysler, now under the Stellantis umbrella, grapple with bankruptcy. Among the key requests is the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments to ensure that wages keep pace with inflation. The UAW has reported an average increase of 6% in base wages since their prior contract in 2019, according to the report.  Additionally, their members have benefited from lump-sum payments and profit-sharing arrangements. Over the same time frame, vehicle prices have surged by nearly 23%, with overall consumer prices experiencing a 19% uptick, according to data from the Labor Department. The labor union underscores the substantial profit margins reaped by the major automotive players, including GM, Ford, and Stellantis. These profits have been amplified due to limited supply resulting from parts shortages and robust household demand, which have driven prices upward.  However, the companies argue that these profits are earmarked for facilitating the transition to electric vehicles. Notably, the total compensation for union workers, encompassing benefits, hovers around $60 per hour, as per company figures. This surpasses the $55 hourly average at nonunion facilities and the $45 mark at nonunion Tesla, as assessed by analysts from Barclays. Recall, we noted this week that the effects of the UAW strike were already wreaking havoc on automakers: we pointed out that Ford had already laid off 600 workers as a result of the strikes and Stellantis was considering shuttering 18 plants as part of contract negotiations.  Tyler Durden Wed, 09/20/2023 - 08:50.....»»

September Siesta By Philip Marey, Senior US Strategist at Rabobank In the US House of Representatives, Republicans can’t seem to agree on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded beyond September 31. Failure to pass this stopgap measure would lead to a government shutdown on October 1. The continuing resolution is needed because the necessary appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024 (which starts on October 1) have not yet been approved in the House. Sunday’ s proposal by the Freedom Caucus and the Main Street Caucus of the House Republicans is unacceptable to the Democrats because of spending cuts attached to the continuing resolution, so passage depends on Republicans who have a narrow 221-212 majority. However, even some members of the Freedom Caucus oppose the bill, so it is still unclear whether this proposal will be adopted. Consequently, some Republicans are now raising the possibility of making a temporary deal with the House Democrats.   Meanwhile, in the real world, US housing starts saw a steep decline in August (-11.3%), extending the downward trend since April. On the bright side, building permits grew by 6.9%, but they have been zigzagging this year. The interest-rate sensitive housing market has been a casualty of the Fed’s hiking cycle from the start. Given the Fed’s focus on fighting inflation, a sustained recovery of the housing market should not be expected anytime soon. Day ahead This morning, UK inflation data were weaker than expected with a 0.3% month-on-month increase in the price level in August (against 0.7% expected), leading to 6.7% year-on-year, not only below the expected 7.0%, but even lower than July’s 6.8%. So even headline inflation unexpectedly continues to fall. Meanwhile, core CPI inflation fell to 6.2% from 6.9%. The largest downward contributions to the monthly change in CPI annual rates came from food, where prices rose by less in August 2023 than a year ago, and accommodation services, where prices can be volatile and fell in August 2023. Today, the FOMC will conclude its two-day meeting with a policy rate decision, fresh economic projections and a press conference by Powell. As explained in our FOMC Preview, we expect the FOMC to remain on hold in September because of the gradual decline in core inflation and the improving balance in the labor market. The formal statement is likely to repeat that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace, but we may see some acknowledgement that the labor market is softening. For example, according to the Beige Book “job growth was subdued.” Regarding monetary policy, the FOMC is likely to repeat that “In determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time, the Committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments” and that “The Committee would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate.” At the press conference, Powell is likely to repeat his Jackson Hole performance, stressing that the FOMC remains data-dependent, but underlining the upside risks to the outlook and the Fed’s willingness to act if warranted by the incoming data. We also expect him to continue his battle against expectations of an early pivot. The new economic projections, featuring the dot plot, are likely to imply another 25 bps hike before the end of the year, similar to the June dot plot. This would underline the Fed’s willingness to deliver another 25 bps hike before the end of the year if warranted by the incoming data. Meanwhile, the projections will be extended through 2026. However, we still expect the economic data to deteriorate before the November meeting and avert additional rate hikes. In fact, we expect the US to slip into a recession in the final quarter of the year. Although a soft landing is possible, we find it less likely. The Fed has no reliable model to forecast inflation (remember they initially thought that the current episode of inflation was transitory and did not warrant a monetary policy response), and at Jackson Hole Powell admitted there is considerable uncertainty regarding the lags of the impact of monetary policy and the precise level of monetary policy restraint (for a given level of the federal funds rate). Therefore, we think it will be very difficult for the Fed to engineer a soft landing. If they succeed, it will probably be luck Tyler Durden Wed, 09/20/2023 - 09:10.....»»

Trump To Skip Second GOP Debate, Will Instead Address Detroit Auto Workers Former President Donald Trump will skip the second GOP debate and will instead address current and former members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Detroit, the NY Times reports. The move will directly inject Trump into one of the largest strikes in the past three decades, as 146,000 workers rival the 1998 UAW/General Motors strike when 152,200 workers walked off the job for nearly two months (and the largest being a 10-day UPS strike in August 1997, when 180,000 workers walked off the job). Trump's decision will mark the second consecutive primary debate he won't attend, while the remaining candidates vie for Trump's VP spot on the eventual ticket (based on current polling). In response to Trump skipping the debate, former Vice President Mike Pence, who's polling 'somewhere in that mess' above, told CBS News it was a "missed opportunity" for both Trump and Republican voters. "Look, this country is in a lot of trouble. Joe Biden has weakened America at home and abroad, and I think the former president – just like all the rest of us vying for the Republican nomination – owe it to the American people to express what our agenda will be for turning this country around," Pence said. Tyler Durden Wed, 09/20/2023 - 09:30.....»»

Permanent Strike: Ford Lays Off 600 Workers Due To UAW Strike As a result of the UAW strikes, 600 Ford employees will now be taking a permanent strike.  Just hours after it was reported that Stellantis could be shuttering 18 facilities as part of a new "improved" contract with the UAW, Ford faces additional realities of the ongoing strike: it has laid off 600 workers at the Michigan Assembly Plant's body construction department, ABC Detroit reported.  The company said this week: “Our production system is highly interconnected, which means the UAW’s targeted strike strategy will have knock-on effects for facilities that are not directly targeted for a work stoppage. In this case, the strike at Michigan Assembly Plant’s final assembly and paint departments has directly impacted the operations in other parts of the facility." "Approximately 600 employees at Michigan Assembly Plant’s body construction department and south sub-assembly area of integrated stamping were notified not to report to work Sept. 15. This is not a lockout. This layoff is a consequence of the strike at Michigan Assembly Plant’s final assembly and paint departments, because the components built by these 600 employees use materials that must be e-coated for protection. E-coating is completed in the paint department, which is on strike," it continued. At the stroke of midnight last Friday, the United Auto Workers initiated their labor strike, focusing their initial efforts on three facilities—Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Stellantis' Toledo Assembly Complex in Toledo, and a General Motors factory in Missouri. To add insult to collateral-damage-injury, Stellantis, in a recent bargaining move with the United Auto Workers union, has floated a contract proposal -- that could result in the shuttering of 18 American facilities, according to CNBC, citing sources familiar with strike discussions.  On Tuesday, the head of United Auto Workers, Shawn Fain, declared he will unleash additional strikes across manufacturing facilities of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Stellantis NV on Friday. This move is contingent on the three automakers not properly addressing the union's demands for a new four-year labor contract for its 146,000 members.  "Either the Big Three get down to business and work with us to make progress in negotiations, or more locals will be called on to stand up and go out on strike," UAW boss Fain said in a YouTube video published Monday evening.  Fain said, "We're not waiting around, and we're not messing around. So, noon on Friday, Sept. 22 is a new deadline."  The union said Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have "failed to put fair contract offers on the table." A union representative told Bloomberg "no new offers" have come from the automakers "since the union made its latest proposals on Sept. 14, right before its strike began."  Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 19:05.....»»

Trump Gambles On GOP Support For Abortion Compromise Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., on April 27, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) In a wide-ranging interview on with NBC's "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker, former President Donald Trump described his approach to a potential federal abortion ban. "It’s a very polarizing issue. Because of what’s been done, and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we’re going to have people come together on this issue," he said. President Trump said he would seek to bring together a bipartisan group, hear all sides, and create consensus. "We will agree to a number of weeks, which will be where both sides will be happy. We have to bring the country together on this issue." 15 Weeks? He claims the activists pushing for abortion on demand with no restrictions represent only an extreme view that even many pro-life Democrats are against. "Nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months," he said, adding that laws that allow mothers to terminate babies even after they have been delivered alive should be done away with. Asked whether he would sign a 15-week ban that made it to his desk, he said "no." "Let me just tell you what I’d do. I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable," he said. "What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy. Because 92 percent of the Democrats don’t want to see abortion after a certain period of time." He said many people have offered up the "15-week" period for a ban, which is early into the second trimester, but he wouldn't consider legislation without bringing more people into the room first. "I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years," he said, declining to say whether he would support a federal ban. "I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t," he said, adding that he was proud of the overturning of Roe v. Wade because it gave the power back to the states. "For 52 years, people including Democrats wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right," he said. "I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated, [it] was put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time." He clarified that the consensus he hoped to bring could result in state-level action instead of a federal ban. "It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t frankly care," he said. "From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better [remaining a state issue], but I can live with it either way." "The number of weeks is more important," he said, sharing that the public opinion on abortion has changed greatly in the last few years. "The most powerful people that are anti-abortion are okay with that [banning abortion after a certain period] now. And you know what? They weren’t okay with that even a year ago." Former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, previously stood his ground on the idea of a full abortion ban and no exceptions. He recently called on other GOP candidates to support a federal 15-week ban. Exceptions He further called out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, runner-up in the GOP lineup of candidates, for his six-week ban. "I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake," he said, without specifying a reason. He added that exceptions in any abortion ban were critical. "I think people should have exceptions. I think if it’s rape or incest or the life of the mother, I think you have to have exceptions. It’s very important." Tudor Dixon, a Republican who ran for and lost the governor's seat in Michigan last year, recently said on a podcast that President Trump gave her advice on abortion policy which she failed to take. He had told her to “talk differently about abortion” when she took a hardline, no-exceptions approach. “We could not pivot in time, and it really, you were absolutely right, sir,” Ms. Dixon said. “And that’s what happened to a lot of other people and—didn’t happen to me because, you know, there’s a way of talking about it. They’re the radicals. They’re the radicals, and you have to explain it. And I think exceptions are very important. I think you need the exceptions. You and I talked about that,” President Trump said. DeSantis Responds Mr. DeSantis's campaign responded on social media after President Trump singled out Florida's six-week ban, criticizing his political rival's conciliatory approach. "Trump says he will compromise with Democrats on abortion so that they’re nice to him," the campaign wrote on an X, formerly Twitter, post. "RonDeSantis will NEVER sell out conservatives to win praise from corporate media or the Left." Mr. DeSantis's communications director Andrew Romeo added that previous compromises with Democrats brought "disastrous" results such as an unfinished border wall. Several states have a "heartbeat" abortion bill, which bans the procedure once a heartbeat is detectable in the womb, which is normally around the six-week mark. Most of these states have included exceptions in their abortion laws from the beginning, though Texas initially passed a no-exceptions ban, and later added exceptions. Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 19:25.....»»

Zelensky Seeks To Cancel Russia At UN, Asks Why "Russian Terrorists" Have A Place.....»»

California Legislature Approves $25 Per Hour Healthcare Worker Minimum Wage Bill By Kelly Gooch of Beckers Hospital Review The California legislature has passed a bill that would establish a $25 hourly minimum wage requirement for workers in hospitals and other medical settings. The bill, proposed in February, now awaits a decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom and comes after union and hospital representatives reached agreement on how such a requirement could be addressed. Under the bill, cities and counties would be blocked from increasing pay via ballot measures for 10 years.  Workers at healthcare facilities with 10,000 or more full-time equivalent employees would earn $23 per hour starting in 2024, with pay increasing to $25 an hour in 2026. That affects workers including nursing assistants, medical coders, launderers and hospital gift shop workers, according to the Los Angeles Times. Workers at a hospital with a high governmental payer mix, an independent hospital with an elevated governmental payer mix, a rural independent covered healthcare facility, or a covered healthcare facility that is owned, affiliated or operated by a county with a population of less than 250,000 as of Jan. 12 would earn $18 per hour starting next year, with pay increasing to $25 an hour in 2033.  Urgent care clinics, skilled nursing facilities and other smaller facilities would be required to pay workers $21 per hour in 2024, with pay increasing to $25 per hour in 2028, according to the Los Angeles Times. The bill allows some healthcare facilities to apply for a temporary pause or alternative phase-in schedule of the minimum wage requirements if they have documentation proving financial distress.  Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, described the bill as a balanced approach that supports workers and protects jobs and access to care in vulnerable communities. "The bill creates a pathway to improving wages for our lower-wage healthcare workers, while also recognizing the needs of our state's most troubled hospitals," Ms. Coyle said in a statement shared with Becker's.  "And, by preempting local ballot measures on minimum wage and compensation, all healthcare workers will be paid equitably regardless of where they work. SB 525 demonstrates hospitals' commitment to healthcare workers, patients, and communities." Tia Orr, executive director of Service Employees International Union California, also praised the bill. "Healthcare in California will be more accessible and equitable because workers and healthcare providers stood together and stood up for patient care," she said in a statement.  She added that the bill also invests in a strong, diverse workforce.  "By and large, Black and brown workers have held the lowest-paid and most overlooked jobs in healthcare, so SEIU workers are particularly proud of this landmark investment in equity," Ms. Orr said. Read more about the bill here.  Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 20:05.....»»

NYT In Rare About-Face Now Says Ukraine (Not Russia) Behind Mass Casualty Missile Strike On Market.....»»

Sperry: Did Hunter Biden Lie In His Own Memoir To 'Protect The Family'? Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClear Wire, In a raft of glowing reviews, Hunter Biden’s 2019 memoir “Beautiful Things” was celebrated as an “unflinchingly honest” (Entertainment Weekly), “confession and an act of contrition” (Guardian), that was “candid” and “doesn’t hold back details” (New York Times) of his substance abuse and broken relationships.   While describing the book as an “unvarnished confessional,” the Washington Post exalted it as a “harrowing, relentless and a determined exercise in trying to seize his own narrative from the clutches of the Republicans and the press.  In the years since, testimony from a former business partner, Devon Archer, and newly disclosed emails indicate that the president’s son’s memoir was an exercise in spin rather than truth-telling, especially concerning his father’s role in his foreign business dealings, which are now the subject of a House impeachment inquiry. That evidence shows how the Bidens used the memoir to create a politically charged narrative – one largely embraced by the mainstream media – that distorted the truth to protect the family.   On page 118, for example, Hunter writes that after accompanying then-Vice President Joe Biden to China on Air Force Two in 2013, he merely introduced his father to a well-connected Chinese investor. It was a quick greeting that lasted just long enough for a handshake. “While we were in Beijing, Dad met one of Devon’s Chinese partners, Jonathan Li, in the lobby of the American delegation’s hotel, just long enough to say hello and shake hands,” Hunter wrote. “Li and I then headed off for a cup of coffee.”  The account seems to comport with now-President Biden’s repeated denials that he discussed business with his son or had any substantive involvement with his partners.  However, Archer told a different story to U.S. lawmakers during a deposition earlier this year. “Jonathan Li and [Vice] President Biden had coffee,” Archer said, according to a recently released transcript of his interview with the House Oversight Committee. “They had coffee in Beijing,” he recalled, suggesting there may have been talk about their business relationship. Li would later offer Hunter a 10% stake worth potentially millions in a Chinese investment fund controlled by the state Bank of China. The fund, BHR Partners, is based in Beijing.  Archer’s testimony included other details ignored or distorted in the memoir. He said the vice president called Hunter while he was meeting with Li in Paris, and Hunter put his father on speakerphone so he could join their conversation. And in early January 2017, while Biden was still in the White House, Hunter arranged for his father to write letters of recommendation for Li’s son and daughter to Ivy League colleges.  Before committee lawyers began questioning Archer during the July 31 closed-door hearing, they warned him that providing false testimony could subject him to criminal prosecution for perjury. Hunter, in contrast, was under no such legal peril while writing his manuscript. The same Oversight panel that quizzed Archer will now lead a formal impeachment inquiry, announced this month by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to investigate whether Biden used his office to enrich his family. Investigators are weighing subpoenaing Hunter Biden, which makes examining his claims in his memoir highly instructive as to his and his father’s credibility. They're also tracing millions of dollars wired from China into a maze of accounts that ended up in the hands of Hunter and several other Biden family members, belying claims by the president that Hunter received no money from China.  Hunter also raked in millions from Ukraine while his father was “point man” for Ukraine policy as vice president.  Hunter addresses the controversy in the sixth chapter of “Beautiful Things,” describing the allegation that he traded on his father’s influence in Ukraine to land an unusually lucrative five-year stint on the board of the corrupt Ukraine energy giant Burisma Holdings as “the decade’s biggest political fable.”  He insisted neither he nor his father, who as vice president husbanded Ukraine’s new regime, did anything criminal or corrupt. “There is, in short, no there here,” Biden wrote.  Hunter then explained how he came to serve on the Burisma board, raking in $83,000 a month despite having no experience in the energy sector. Biden claimed that Archer, his international consultancy partner, brought Burisma into their business orbit after first meeting Burisma’s founder in Kyiv.  “During one such trip to Kyiv, he met Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner and president of Burisma,” Biden said. “After returning from Kyiv, Devon told me about his talk with Zlochevsky.”  But Archer, who served on the Burisma board alongside Biden, relayed a different account to Congress, testifying he first met the Russian-tied Ukrainian oligarch in Moscow, not Kyiv.  In fact, Archer said he sat down with Zlochevsky in the Russian capital on the same day that Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. “It was just me meeting [with him],” Archer added. Within days, Burisma asked him to join the board. And Hunter Biden came aboard shortly thereafter.  Archer's disclosure that their relationship with Burisma was hatched in Moscow is at odds with the political narrative President Biden has carefully crafted, demonizing Russia as Enemy No. 1 of America and NATO. Hunter’s telling of the genesis, with the initial meeting with Zlochevsky taking place in Ukraine’s capital, is far more palatable.  Hunter wrote that he only agreed to accept Zlochevsky’s offer in order to enable Ukraine to strengthen its energy independence from Russia. He said the prospect of helping build a “bulwark" against Russian oil and gas imports assuaged “whatever dissonance I might have felt between idealism and generous compensation.” He said he was more interested in “fighting" for the Ukrainian people against an aggressive neighbor, which aligns his employment with Burisma with his father’s pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia stance.  “Having a Biden on Burisma’s board was a loud and unmistakable fuck-you to Putin,” Hunter maintained.  But according to Archer’s testimony, Burisma hired them in part to help expand its energy operations outside of Ukraine – particularly in the U.S., where the energy industry is heavily regulated by the federal government, and having such politically connected Americans on the board was valuable to the oil and gas conglomerate. Plus, he and Hunter were motivated by the windfall Burisma was paying them: “It was a million dollars per year [apiece] on the board contracts,” Archer confirmed.  Hunter further contends in his memoir that his father didn’t know about his joining the Burisma board until he read about it in the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2014. But White House emails show the vice president’s staff was coordinating damage control weeks earlier when the news first broke in the foreign press.   And Archer testified that a month earlier, he had met with Vice President Biden in his White House office with Hunter, who had arranged the meeting. Their high-level pow-wow took place on April 16, the day after records show Archer received his first payment from Burisma.  It’s not clear what the trio discussed in Biden’s office, but Hunter had emailed Archer a Burisma strategy memo just three days earlier. Also on April 13, Hunter had emailed Joe Biden’s best friend Ted Kaufman and the vice president’s then-deputy counsel Alex Mackler to discuss Ukrainian politics. On April 21, Biden visited Ukraine to offer energy and economic aid.  But that’s not the biggest whopper Hunter apparently told about Burisma in his book. On page 127, he claimed: “No one at Burisma had even hinted at wanting me to influence the [Obama-Biden] administration.”  Several Burisma emails to Hunter, along with Archer’s congressional testimony, put the lie to this claim.  On May 12, 2014, for instance, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi sent an “urgent" email to Hunter – who by then was officially on Burisma’s payroll – demanding to know “how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc. to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions.” At the time, Ukrainian prosecutors were aggressively investigating Burisma for corruption.  Several months later, in the spring of 2015, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter to thank him for giving him the “opportunity to meet with your father and spent [sic] some time together.” Archer confirmed that the then-vice president sat down for dinner with the Burisma official and others at the Cafe Milano in D.C. the previous evening. The meeting, long denied by Biden officials, was held in a private room in the back of the restaurant.  In late 2015, after Viktor Shokin took over the prosecutor general’s office in Ukraine and turned the screws on Burisma, Pozharskyi again turned to Hunter Biden for assistance.  Archer testified that Hunter called his father to help deal with Shokin's investigation at both Pozharskyi’s and Zlochevsky's request following a Burisma board meeting at the Four Seasons in Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015.  “They were getting pressure and they requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure," Archer said, explaining the pressure was coming “from Ukrainian government investigations into Mykola [Zlochevsky].”  Archer suggested their benefactors wanted Hunter to use his influence with the vice president to get Kyiv to take "the heat" off Burisma. He testified he did not overhear Hunter's phone call, but noted “he called his dad.”  At the time, Hunter Biden was not registered as a foreign agent as required by federal law when lobbying the U.S. government on behalf of a foreign entity. Federal prosecutors revealed at a recent court hearing that Hunter is actively under investigation for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that was used to prosecute several Trump advisers.   Two days after the Dubai phone call, Biden flew to Kyiv and warned the Ukrainian president that he had to fire Shokin or he wouldn't get a promised $1 billion in aid. Three months later, after withering pressure from Biden, Shokin was removed from office.  “[Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then-Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma," Shokin said in a recent Fox News interview.  In his memoir, Hunter maintained that his father had Shokin ousted because he wasn’t doing enough to tackle corruption, which matches the current spin of the White House.    “A priority for my dad was the ouster of the country’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, for his failure to adequately investigate corruption,” he wrote. “Among the high-profile companies that Shokin was criticized for not pursuing: Burisma.”  In effect, Hunter implied he relished more criminal scrutiny for his own employer, an odd position to take particularly given the millions he was getting paid. But as Archer testified, it’s simply not true. Democratic counsel for the Oversight Committee tried to get Archer to agree with the White House spin that Shokin’s firing was “bad for Burisma ... because they had Shokin under their control.”  “No,” Archer said. “Burisma never informed me of that.”  Quite the opposite, he said, Burisma viewed Shokin as a threat after the prosecutor seized its founder Zlochevsky’s assets, including his house and cars.  If Shokin was not in fact soft on Burisma and Joe Biden did not press for his ouster to better fight corruption, it would seem to leave just one possible reason for his ham-fisted demand: to protect Burisma for the sake of his son – and the millions he was hauling in.  House impeachment investigators want to know whether Biden engaged in a quid pro quo: shaking down Ukraine’s former president for a political favor that would benefit his son by threatening to withhold a U.S.-backed aid package from the country. According to one Republican staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, they also want to know if Joe Biden or his staff helped Hunter draft the chapter of his book, titled “Burisma,” or had a hand in editing it.  “Beautiful Things” was published by an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which had no comment. Hunter’s attorney Abbe Lowell did not reply to requests to speak about the discrepancies in his client’s book. Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 20:45.....»»

No Big Deal: Newsom Defends Hunter Biden Influence Peddling Scheme On today's episode of Damage Control Theatre... California Governor Gavin Newsom, who will undoubtedly be decanted if and when Joe Biden can't manage to mount a 2024 campaign, says that Hunter Biden's alleged influence peddling scheme - in which prominent foreign businessmen, including the "fucking spy chief of China," paid the Biden family millions to affect US policy while Joe was VP - is no big deal. "One of the things that Republicans are relentless on, of course, is Hunter Biden," CNN host Dana Bash asked Newsom, adding. "There is no evidence that Joe Biden benefited from anything that Hunter was doing, but Republicans have shown that Hunter Biden – he tried to leverage his father's name, and that the president allegedly before he was president joined phone calls that Hunter Biden's business associates were on. Do you see anything inappropriate there?" To which Newsom, whose career was undoubtedly helped by his family's connections with the Pelosis, replied: "I don't know enough about the details of that. I mean I've seen a little of that," adding "If that's the new criteria, there are a lot of folks in a lot of industries – not just in politics – where people have family members and relationships and they're trying to parlay and get a little influence and benefit in that respect. That's hardly unique." Newsom on a Biden impeachment inquiry: "Give me a break. This is student government. This is a joke. This is a perversity of what the Founding Fathers ever conceived of." pic.twitter.com/63x4kKxnag — TheBlaze (@theblaze) September 18, 2023 "I don't love that any more than you love it or other people I imagine love that. We want to see a lot less of that, but an impeachment inquiry? Give me a break," he continued according to Fox News. Gov. Gavin Newsom justified Hunter Biden's business dealings in an interview with CNN. (John Nacion/WireImage) "Threatening a government shutdown again after we went through that process with the debt ceiling. This is student government," he added. "This is a joke. Ready, fire, aim. I mean, this is a perversity that the founding fathers never conceived of and imagined. So, if that’s the best they can do, give me a break. That’s about public opinion." Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 21:05.....»»

Voter Registration Charities: A Massive, Overlooked Scandal Authored by Parker Thayer via RealClear Wire, “Nonprofit voter registration” doesn’t sound interesting. Yet nonprofit voter registration, or the use of tax-exempt charitable organizations to conduct and fund voter registration drives, is one of the most important and underreported political scandals of our time. Nonprofit voter registration, and the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities that usually accompany it, have become the heart of a billion-dollar industry in America. According to Candid’s Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy database, since 2011 nearly 60,000 grants have been made for “Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout” and “Civic Participation,” benefitting 15,000 different organizations to the tune of $5.9 billion dollars. Most of the largest grantors and grantees in this industry are left-leaning. Despite IRS rules prohibiting 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit groups from engaging in partisan electioneering, it has long been an open secret that the purpose of their work is to register voters from favorable demographics in order to help get Democrats elected. The voter registration industry has always retreated behind the fig-leaf of “nonpartisanship” when necessary, which has protected it from serious scrutiny.. Until now, that is. My recent special report, How Charities Secretly Help Win Elections, ripped away that fig-leaf. The report reveals the untold story of a nondescript charity named the “Voter Registration Project” that was used to funnel over $100 million into a five-year voter registration scheme hatched by Clinton campaign operatives to help Democrats win elections in 2020. Using tax forms, leaked documents, and leaked emails, the report shows how the scheme aimed to register over 5 million “non-white” voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevada; how it was developed through multiple drafts and edits into a highly sophisticated plan dubbed the Everybody Votes Campaign; and how that plan was eventually adopted by a super PAC tied to Sam Bankman-Fried that instructed billionaire donors to keep it completely secret since it was the most “cost-effective” method for “netting additional Democratic votes.” The report even shows several of the plan’s major donors admitting, in signed tax forms, that their “charitable” grants to the Voter Registration Project were made for the express purpose of supporting the super PAC that had recommended it to them. It was the largest, most organized, and most blatantly partisan nonprofit voter registration drive in American history. By our estimates it generated between 1 and 2.7 million swing-state votes for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Americans are expected to believe the excuse, given on the Everybody Votes Campaign’s new website, that their left-wing donors are merely “committed to creating a more representative democracy by building and supporting large-scale, long-term voter registration in communities of color.” Their website notably boasts that 76% of the 5.1 million voters they have registered were people of color, but then curiously declines to mention which states said people of color were from. A recent job listing from the organization shows that their targets states for 2024 will be Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. That’s right, the donors and directors of the Everybody Votes Campaign care deeply about the civic participation of “communities of color.” So deeply, in fact, that they have been, and will be, registering millions of minority voters, but only in the most important presidential swing states. No room for California and New York (two of America’s most populous states) nor Mississippi and Louisiana (which have the highest Black population by percentage). It should be obvious to anyone who looks a little deeper than the mission statement that “Everybody Votes” is more than a little bit of a misnomer. Tyler Durden Tue, 09/19/2023 - 21:25.....»»

Kherson mayor Ihor Kolykhaev disappeared last year. Ukraine has now confirmed that he is being held by Russia, and it wants him back. A still from a video of Kherson Mayor Ihor Kolykhaev, shared in February 2022Facebook/Kherson City Military Administration A Ukrainian mayor went missing more than a year ago, when his city was under Russian control. Ukraine confirmed for the first time that he is a Russian captive, saying it's trying to get him back. The Kherson mayor is considered a civilian, making getting him back more complicated, Ukraine said. Ukraine said it is trying to get a captured mayor back from Russia more than a year after he disappeared while defying aspects of Russian rule in his city.Ihor Kolykhaev was the mayor of the southeastern city of Kherson, which was captured by Russia in March and then retaken by Ukrainian forces in November.Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian intelligence, told the Kyiv Post that Kolykhaev was being held by Russia after he disappeared last year, describing him as "a civilian held illegally by the occupiers."Yusov's comments are the first official confirmation that Kolykhaev is being held by Russia, the report said.He added that Ukraine is working to get Kolykhaev released.Ukraine has been able to get back some soldiers and military members from Russia through swaps, but Yusov said that because Kolykhaev is a civilian, it's difficult to say what the conditions for his release would be.Yusov would not comment on whether Russia had identified any prisoners that Ukraine holds that it might exchange for Kolykhaev."Civilians are not an exchange fund. Military personnel are not exchanged for civilians," Yusov said.Yusov said last week that Russia refuses to give many Ukrainian prisoners back, without giving any explanations, including some who were held on made-up charges, he said.He added that Ukraine is "dealing with a state that often ignores international law and the Geneva Conventions."Yusov did not say where Kolykhaev is being held, or how long Ukraine has known that he was in Russian hands, only saying Ukraine has known for "a long time."Kolykhaev's son also said this month that the Red Cross told him that Russia listed his father's name as a prisoner, the Kyiv Post reported.The mayor was reportedly captured in June 2022. The Kyiv Post reported that there were rumors he held pro-Russian views, but Ukrainian intelligence did not respond to questions on that.Kolykhaev told residents in the city to follow Russia's orders and not fight back after Russia's victory there. But he was also critical of Russia after it took over the city and before he disappeared.Galyna Lyashevska, an advisor to Kolykhaev, said after he was taken that he had refused a request from Russia's puppet government in the area and said they "threatened to arrest him if he refused to meet him. He did refuse."Kherson is the biggest city that Russia has captured since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.Russia installed a proxy government in the city when it controlled the area and tried to remove aspects of Ukrainian life and identity there.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»