Privatization Is At The Core Of Fascism

off-guardian  |  The first group of privatizations occurred in the first fascist nation, Italy, in the 1920s; and the second group of privatizations occurred in the second fascist nation, Germany, in the 1930s. Privatizations started under Mussolini, and then were instituted under Hitler. That got the fascist ball rolling; and, after a few decades of hiatus in the wake of fascism’s embarrassing supposed defeat in WW II, it resurfaced and then surged yet again after 1970, when fascist forces in the global aristocracy, such as via the CIA, IMF, Bilderberg group, and Trilateral Commission, imposed the global reign of the world’s main private holders of bonds and of stocks: the world’s aristocrats are taking on an increasing percentage of what were previously public assets.

Privatizations, after starting in fascisms during the pre-WWII years, resumed again in the 1970s under the fascist Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet; and in the 1980s under the fascist British leader Margaret Thatcher (a passionate supporter of apartheid in South Africa) and also under the smiling fascist American leader Ronald Reagan (who followed the prior success of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of White domination in the by-then resurgent-conservative U.S., and might even be said to have been America’s first fully fascist President); and in the 1990s under several fascist (formerly communist) leaders throughout the former Soviet Union, under the guidance of Harvard University’s fascist economics department, which transferred control from the former nomenklatura, to the new (Western-dependent) “oligarchs,” all under the virtual guidance of its former head, Lawrence Summers, who then was serving as the World Bank President.

And, privatizations are now all the rage throughout the world, such as in today’s fascist United States, and today’s fascist United Kingdom.

Mussolini was the man-of-the-future, but — after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, and finally Thatcher and Reagan and other ‘free-marketeers’ came into office — Mussolini’s “future” has increasingly become our own “now”: the Axis Powers’ ideology has actually been winning in the post-WW-II world. Only, this time, it’s called instead by such names as “libertarianism” or “neo-liberalism,” no longer “fascism,” so that only the true-believing fascists, the aristocrats, will even know that it’s actually fascism. It’s their Big Con. It’s their Big Lie. Just renaming fascism as “libertarianism” or “neo-liberalism,” has fooled the masses to think that it’s pro-democratic. “Capitalism” has thus come to be re-defined to refer to only the aristocratically controlled form of capitalism: fascism. The ideological battle has thus apparently been won by a cheap terminological deceit. That’s all it takes for dictatorship to be able to win.

The democratically controlled form of capitalism, such as in some northern European countries, has commonly been called “socialism”; and, of course, it’s opposed to all forms of dictatorship, both communist and fascist. Socialism is the democratic form of capitalism. It’s not the dictatorial form of socialism, which is Marxism. It’s the form of capitalism that serves the public, instead of the aristocracy, at any point where the two have conflicting interests. It subordinates the aristocracy to the public. Fascism instead subordinates the public to the aristocracy, which is the natural tendency (because the “World’s Richest 0.7% Own 13.67 Times as Much as World’s Poorest 68.7%,” and the “World’s Richest 80 People Own Same Amount as World’s Bottom 50%”).

Are These Banksters Ecto Or Endo Parasites To You Peasant Hosts?

newindianexpress  | The UBS acquisition of Credit Suisse requires the Swiss National Bank to assume certain risks. It will provide a Swiss Franc 100 billion ($108 billion) liquidity line backed by an enigmatically titled government default guarantee, presumably in addition to the earlier credit support. The Swiss government is also providing a loss guarantee on certain assets of up to Swiss Franc 9 billion ($9.7 billion), which operates after UBS bears the first Swiss Franc 5 billion ($5.4 billion) of losses.

The state can underwrite bank liabilities including all deposits as some countries did after 2008. As US Treasury Secretary Yellen reluctantly admitted to Congress, the extension of FDIC coverage was contingent on US officials and regulators determining systemic risk as happened with SVB and Signature. Another alternative is to recapitalise banks with public money as was done after 2008 or finance the removal of distressed or toxic assets from bank books.

Socialisation of losses is politically and financially expensive.

Despite protestations to the contrary, the dismal truth is that in a major financial crisis, lenders to and owners of systemic large banks will be bailed out to some extent.

European supervisors have been critical of the US decision to break with its own standard of guaranteeing only the first $250,000 of deposits by invoking a systemic risk exception while excluding SVB as too small to be required to comply with the higher standards applicable to larger banks. There now exist voluminous manuals on handling bank collapses such as imposing losses on owners, bondholders and other unsecured creditors, including depositors with funds exceeding guarantee limit, as well as resolution plans designed to minimise the fallout from failures. Prepared by expensive consultants, they serve the essential function of satisfying regulatory checklists. Theoretically sound reforms are not consistently followed in practice. Under fire in trenches, regulators concentrate on more practical priorities.

The debate about bank regulation misses a central point. Since the 1980s, the economic system has become addicted to borrowing-funded consumption and investment. Bank credit is central to this process. Some recommendations propose a drastic reduction in bank leverage from the current 10-to-1 to a mere 3-to1. The resulting contraction would have serious implications for economic activity and asset values.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen cannot have his brother, who thinks he is a chicken, treated by a psychiatrist because the family needs the eggs. Banking regulation flounders on the same logic.

As in all crises, commentators have reached for the 150-year-old dictum of Walter Bagehot in Lombard Street that a central bank's job is "to lend in a panic on every kind of current security, or every sort on which money is ordinarily and usually lent."

Central bankers are certainly lending, although advancing funds based on the face value of securities with much lower market values would not seem to be what the former editor of The Economist had in mind. It also ignores the final part of the statement that such actions "may not save the bank; but if it do not, nothing will save it."

Banks everywhere remain exposed. US regional banks, especially those with a high proportion of uninsured deposits, remain under pressure.

European banks, in Germany, Italy and smaller Euro-zone economies, may be susceptible because of poor profitability, lack of essential scale, questionable loan quality and the residual scar tissue from the 2011 debt crisis.

Emerging market banks' loan books face the test of an economic slowdown. There are specific sectoral concerns such as the exposure of Chinese banks to the property sector which has necessitated significant ($460 billion) state support.

Contagion may spread across a hyper-connected financial system from country to country and from smaller to larger more systematically important banks. Declining share prices and credit ratings downgrades combined with a slowdown in inter-bank transactions, as credit risk managers become increasingly cautious, will transmit stress across global markets.

For the moment, whether the third banking crisis in two decades remains contained is a matter of faith and belief. Financial markets will test policymakers' resolve in the coming days and weeks.

Rescuing Anything Touched By SVB Is A Catastrophic Policy Error

wired  |  When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, Garry Tan, president and CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator, called SVB’s failure “an extinction level event for startups” that “will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more.” People have been quick to point out how quickly the cadre of small-government, libertarian tech bros has come calling for government intervention in the form of a bailout when it’s their money on the line.

Late yesterday, the US government announced that SVB depositors will regain access to all their money, thanks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company's backstop funded by member banks. Yet the shock to the tech ecosystem and its elite may still bring down a reckoning for many who believe it’s got nothing to do with them.

SVB’s 40,000 customers are mostly tech companies—the bank provided services to around half of US startups—but those tech companies are tattooed into the fabric of daily lives across the US and beyond. The power of the West Coast tech industry means that most digital lives are rarely more than a single degree of separation away from a startup banking with SVB.

The bank's customers may now be getting their money back but the services SVB once provided are gone. That void and the shock of last week may cause—or force—startups and their investors to drastically change how they manage their money and businesses, with effects far beyond Silicon Valley.

Most immediately, the many startups who depended on SVB have workers far from the bank’s home turf. “These companies and people are not just in Silicon Valley,” says Sarah Kunst, managing director of Cleo Capital, a San Francisco firm that invests in early-stage startups.

Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham said yesterday that the incubator’s companies banking with SVB have more than a quarter of a million employers, around a third of whom are based outside California. If they and other SVB customers suffer cash crunches or cut back expansion plans, rent payments in many parts of the world may be delayed and staff may no longer buy coffees and lunches at the corner deli. Cautious about the future, businesses may withhold new hires, and staff who remain may respond in kind, cutting local spending or delaying home purchases or renovation work.

The second- and third-order impacts of startups hitting financial trouble or just slowing down could be more pernicious. “When you say: ‘Oh, I don’t care about Silicon Valley,’ yes, that might sound fine. But the reality is very few of us are Luddites,” Kunst says. “Imagine you wake up and go to unlock your door, and because they’re a tech company banking with SVB who can no longer make payroll, your app isn’t working and you’re struggling to unlock your door.” Perhaps you try a rideshare company or want to hop on a pay-by-the-hour electric scooter, but can’t because their payment system is provided by an SVB client who now can’t operate.

Biden Administration Effectively Nationalized The American Banking System

market-ticker  |  Next up - Republic, which apparently had lines out the door (if you believe the Internet) on Saturday.  Again: So what?

Folks, bubbles attract stupidity.  Stupidity is a constant in the universe; in fact it is likely the only thing that is truly infinite (with all due respect to the late Mr. Einstein.)

The so-called "Chief Risk Officer" at SVB had a masters in..... public administration.  Anyone care to bet if she passed any form of advanced mathematics -- you know, like for example Calculus or Statistics?  Do you think she understood exponents and why this graph made clear that concentration of risk and duration was stupid and likely to blow up in everyone's face -- including hers?

How about Bill Ackman and the others on the Internet screaming for a bailout?  How about the CFOs of public companies like Roku that stuck several hundred million dollars in said bank?  Was it not widespread public knowledge (and available to anyone who took 15 minutes to do research, which you'd think someone would do before putting a hundred million bucks somewhere) that this institution was chock-full of VC-funded startup companies which, historically fail 90% of the time and their debt becomes impaired or even worthless?

Where are the indictments for fiduciary malfeasance among these people?

It takes a literal five minutes with Excel to prove to yourself that if debt is rising faster than GDP no matter the interest rate eventually the interest payments on that debt will exceed all of the economy.  This of course is impossible because you cannot use over 100% of anything as its not there, but long before you reach that point you're going to have trouble putting food on the table, fuel in the vehicle and paychecks are going to bounce.  It was for this reason that one of the first sections in my book Leverage, written after the 2008 blowup which I chronicled and laid bare upon the table featured exactly this chart.

The last bit of insanity was just 15 years ago by my math.  Did we fix it?  No.  What was featured in the stupidity of 2008?  Allowing banks to run with no reserves.  Who did that?  Ben Bernanke, who got it into the TARP bill that eventually passed and which I reported on at the time.  It accelerated that which was already going to happen because Congress is full of people who think trees grow to the moon, leverage is never bad and exponents are a suggestion.

Oh by the way, your local Realtor thinks so to as does, apparently, the former SVB "risk officer" who, it is clear, didn't understand exponents -- or didn't care.

The simple reality is that it must always cost to borrow money in real terms.  This means the rate of interest must be positive in said real terms, which means across the curve rates must be higher than inflation -- again, in real terms, not in "CPI" which has intentional distortions in it such as "Owner's Equivalent Rent" when you're not renting a house, you're buying it.  Had said "CPI" actually had home prices in it then it would have shown a doubling in many markets in that section of the economy over the last three years.

In other words housing alone would have resulted in a roughly 10% per year inflation rate, plus all the other increases, which means the Fed Funds rate should have been 300bips or so beyond that all the way back to 2020 -- which would put Fed Funds at about 13% for the last three years.

It isn't of course but if it had been then all those "housing price increases" would not have happened at all.  Incidentally even today the Fed Funds rate is below inflation and thus the crazy is still on.

It's a bit less on however, and now you see what happens when even though they're still nuts being slightly "less" nuts means that these firms are no longer capable of operating without the wild-eyed crazy; even a slight reduction of the heroin dose caused them to fail.

Never mind the wild-eyed poor choices of executives (who signed off on all of this?) at SVB which the regulators all knew about and ignored.  The CEO?  A director of the San Francisco Federal Reserve.  Why don't you look up a few of the other "chief" positions and what they used to do.  Bring a barf bag.  No, really.

And what did Forbes think of all this?  Why it was good for five straight years of SVB being rated one of their BEST BANKS!

Negative real rates are never sustainable.  The insidious nature of that nonsense is that it extends duration in pre-payable debt, specifically mortgages.  Mortgages have had a roughly 7 year duration forever, despite most of them being 30 year paper nominally because people move for other than necessity reasons (e.g. "I want a bigger house", "I want to live here rather than there" and so on.)  A huge percentage of said paper was issued at 3% and now is double that or more.  Since a mortgage is not transportable (when you sell the house you extinguish the old one and take a new one) and changing that retroactively would be both wildly illegal and ruin everyone holding said paper you can't retroactively patch the issue -- which is that now nobody with a 3% mortgage is going to prepay it and move unless they have to and so the duration is extending and will continue for the next couple of decades.  This in turn means if you have a 3% mortgage bond, the new ones are 7% and there's 10 years left on the reasonable expectation of its life you're now going to have to discount the face value by the difference in interest rate times the remaining duration or I won't buy it since I can buy the new one at the higher rate!  This is not a surprise and that it would happen and accelerate was known as soon as inflation started to rise and thus force The Fed to withdraw liquidity.  The Fed cannot stop because inflation is a compound function and at the point it forces necessities to be foregone the economy collapses and, if continued beyond that point THE GOVERNMENT collapses because tax revenue wildly drops as well.  The only sound accounting move at that moment in time as a holder of said paper was to dispose of the duration or immediately discount the value of that paper to the terminal rate's presumption and adjust as required on a monthly basis.

Nobody did this yet to not do it is fraud as these are not only expected outcomes they're certain.

Where was the OCC on this that is supposed to prevent such mismatches from impairing bank capital?  How about The Fed itself, or the FDIC?  The San Francisco Fed was obviously polluted as the CEO was on their board (until he was quietly removed on Friday) but isn't it interesting that all these people who were intimately involved in firms that blew up in 2008 were concentrated in one place in executive officers with direct fiduciary responsibility?

And isn't it further quite-interesting that all the screaming you're hearing right now is about how "terrible" it will be that "climate change" related firms will be unable to make payroll and the new upcoming VC-funded startups won't because their favorite conduit has been disrupted?  What's that about -- the entire premise of these firms requires them to not only force their startups to bank in specific places with large amounts of money (since they don't earn anything they have to have access to and consume tens of millions or more a year) but cash management, you know, putting all of it other than what you need to make payroll next week in 4 week bills is too much to ask?

There's a rumor floating around (peddled by Bloomberg) that over one hundred venture and investment firms, including Sequoia, have signed a statement supporting SVB and warning of an "extinction-level event" for tech firms.  Really?  Extinction for technology or extinction for cash-furnace nonsense funded by negative real interest rates which make all manner of uneconomic things look good but require ever-expanding, exponentially-so, levels of debt issuance?

Again, that is not possible on a durable basis and once again the reason why is trivially discernable with 5 minutes and an Excel spreadsheet and graph.  It takes about an hour to do it manually using graph paper, a basic 4-function calculator or the capacity to perform basic multiplication on said paper and a pencil.

What If The Norfolk Southern Derailment Wasn't Accidental?

WCPO  |  Greater Cincinnati Water Works will close Cincinnati's water intake in the Ohio River ahead of anticipated contaminated water from the East Palestine train derailment, the agency announced Friday morning. Closing the intakes is "out of an abundance of caution," GCWW said.

The contamination was expected to reach the portion of the Ohio River from which Cincinnati draws its drinking water early Monday. GCWW has since said its latest models are anticipating it early Sunday morning.

They derailed the East Palestine train directly over a drainage culvert. The drainage pond feeds into streams which feed into the Ohio River. Look how the orange train car is tipped right over the drainage culvert, a deliberate act of terrorism against the America.--Julian Rum pic.twitter.com/CBRweBE2sh

— whiteaglesoring (@whiteaglesoarng) February 18, 2023

GCWW said the estimated time can vary based on factors like wind and water flow speed.

Jeff Swertfeger, superintendent of water quality treatment at GCWW said the time of arrival is subject to change, but the agency will continue to provide updates.

During an update on Friday, shortly after GCWW announced their intention to close the intakes, Governor Mike DeWine said the chemical plume in the Ohio River has completely dissipated, citing latest samples. Swertfeger said testing in Cincinnati and at other locations upstream have not revealed any of the derailment chemicals in the Ohio River; he added GCWW's data has been consistent with data presented by DeWine.

As of Friday, GCWW and the Ohio EPA said it still hadn't yet detected chemicals in the Ohio River, so the intakes remained open. Swertfeger said when the intakes are closed, they can remain closed, drawing on reserve water, for several days without issue.

He added that it's not unusual for GCWW to choose to close intakes at least once a year out of precaution, though it's never been triggered by a spill as large or prominent as the one in East Palestine.

The intakes will remain closed until GCWW performs multiple tests along the Ohio River and it determines there are no chemicals present near Cincinnati or further upstream.

"We want to make absolutely sure the chemical is not there, that we're not bringing in any of it," said Swertfeger.

In the meantime, Cincinnatians have nothing to worry about in regards to their drinking water, he said.

"Absolutely, your drinking water is safe," said Swertfeger. "There's absolutely no danger to the drinking water."

The contaminated waters containing the chemicals from the Feb. 3 derailment were moving at a rate of roughly one mile per hour, Ohio EPA Chief Tiffani Kavalec said Tuesday.

Norfolk Southern Has Track Safety Detection Systems That Are Not Maintained/Not In Use

freightwaves  |   One union of rail workers has questioned declining maintenance standards following the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which forced the evacuation of the 5,000-person town earlier this month. 

A device that can play a role in preventing derailments is the wayside hot-box detector. It uses infrared sensors to detect bearings, axles or other components of a rail car that are overheating, then uses radio signals to flag rail crews of any overheated components. 

The rail car that initiated the derailment had an overheated wheel bearing, according to a Tuesday report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB is still investigating the cause of the derailment and will publish a preliminary report in two weeks. 

Wayside hot-box detectors are typically placed every 25 miles along a railroad, according to a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) report. Their use has contributed to a 59% decrease in train accidents caused by axle- and bearing-related factors since 1990, according to a 2017 Association of American Railroads study.

Declining head counts have led to these mechanisms receiving less preventative maintenance, according to an official from the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen union. 

The FRA has no regulations requiring the use or maintenance of hot-box detectors.

A hot-box detector in East Palestine notified the crew moments before the train derailed, according to the NTSB’s report. 

It’s unclear if any hot-box detector prior to East Palestine notified crews. A surveillance video shared on Facebook from an industrial facility in Salem, Ohio, about 20 miles from East Palestine, suggests the train’s axle was already on fire. 

Norfolk Southern did not respond to a request for comment, and the FRA declined to comment on the record. 

From 5 ‘electronic leaders’ to zero in derailment region

Specialized signalmen called “electronic leaders” specialize in maintaining devices like hot-box detectors.

As recently as three years ago, Norfolk Southern employed five electronic leaders in the area of its rail network that includes East Palestine. Today, it employs zero, according to Christopher Hand, director of research at the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen.

The area in question is Eastern Region North – Division B, shown in red on the map. It runs east to west from Mansfield, Ohio, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and north to south from Morgantown, West Virginia, to Astabula, Ohio. It also includes rail track in Pittsburgh, as well as Youngstown, Ohio.

You'll Know Things Are Serious If Obama Goes To East Palestine And "Drinks" Some Water...,

doomberg  |  For the rest of the country, let’s take a step back and dig into what has transpired. For this exercise, we will rely heavily on the extraordinarily detailed resource page put up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shortly after the event began. The site represents the agency’s best efforts to be as transparent and timely as possible in releasing information to the public.

Before proceeding, we need to address the fact that there are many on social media who are convinced the government is somehow covering up the severity of this event – hence the hyperbolic and totally irresponsible references to Chernobyl. In our experience, the EPA would not look to minimize the severity of an industrial accident of this type. Quite the opposite. For the rest of this piece, we will take their reports, measurements, and commentary at face value. To do otherwise is to assume the EPA would fabricate complex technical data on the fly to deceive the public and protect the very corporate interests they otherwise infuriate with their harsh oversight on a daily basis.

The most important document on the EPA’s website is the full accounting of each of the 52 derailed cars. The two-page PDF file details what was in each car and what happened to them during the accident. Twenty-seven cars suffered no major damage or significant leaks, and one is listed as having an unknown status. Let’s systematically walk through the other 24:

• Two hoppers of solid polyethylene were consumed in the initial fire shortly after the derailment. Polyethylene is the major component of trash bags and plastic buckets. Nobody would recommend getting too close to such a fire, but the environmental damage here is minimal.

• Four hoppers of solid polyvinyl were consumed in the initial fire. Polyvinyl is the major component in PVC plumbing pipes available for purchase at your local hardware store. While its combustion fumes are certainly more toxic than those observed with polyethylene, essentially every major home fire in the US results in significant burning of PVC pipes. Unfortunate for sure, but not a catastrophe.

• One hopper of semolina, a coarsely milled durum wheat, was consumed by the initial fire. This is the functional equivalent of burning wood.

• One box car of medical-grade cotton balls was consumed by the initial fire.

• One box car of sheet steel is listed as being consumed by the initial fire, although it is unclear to us how sheet steel burns. We suspect this material was damaged by the surrounding fire to the point where it could not be commercially salvaged. 

• One box car of frozen vegetables was consumed by the initial fire.

• One hopper of something called “powder flakes” was partially burned, and the fire is noted as having been extinguished. 

• One tank car of propylene glycol was breached, and most of the load was spilled into the local environment. Propylene glycol is the dominant ingredient in aircraft deicing fluids, a substance routinely and openly sprayed onto aircraft packed with passengers at major airports across the country. It is also a common ingredient in many processed foods.

• One tank car spilled an unknown amount of ethylhexyl acrylate. This highly reactive monomer is used in the production of many household adhesives. The material is considered moderately hazardous and is readily biodegradable.

• Two tank cars of petroleum lube oil were spilled. As the name suggests, this product is derived from the refining of oil. As far as oil spills go in the US, two tank cars worth is relatively inconsequential.

• One tank car of diethylene glycol was fully breached and a second lost at least part of its load to the local environment. Although the compound has historically been used in criminal poisoning, according to this study: “Diethylene glycol is readily biodegradable and unlikely to bioaccumulate. Diethylene glycol has low potential to adsorb to soil and sediment. Diethylene glycol is of low toxicity concern to aquatic organisms.”

• One tank car of butyl acrylate was either lost to the local environment or consumed in the initial fire. This compound has low acute toxicity.

• One tank car of polypropylene glycol was breached and spilled into the local environment. This material is considered to be relatively benign.

If you are keeping track, we have accounted for all rail cars involved in this derailment except for the five that contained vinyl chloride. Given their prominent role in the media narrative observed in the past few days, these five deserve special treatment. Although none of the five rail cars containing the now infamous substance were damaged by the initial derailment and fire, in the days after the accident, local officials became increasingly concerned that the material could explode in an uncontrolled fashion. Given the circumstances, the decision was made to isolate the cars and implement a controlled burn. Here’s a quote from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s office announcing the decision ahead of time:

“Following new modeling information conducted this morning by the Ohio National Guard and U.S. Department of Defense, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro are ordering an immediate evacuation in a one-mile by two-mile area surrounding East Palestine which includes parts of both Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The vinyl chloride contents of fiveon.

Even though this, and all information quoted in this piece, is readily available to any reporter with access to Google, countless references to the dangers presented by phosgene are giving the public anxiety over the decision to execute the controlled burn. To pick one example from many dozens, a Newsweek story, titled Did Control Burn of Toxic Chemicals Make Ohio Train Derailment Worse?, includes the following sentence: “Phosgene is a deadly gas that was used in chemical warfare during World War I.” The report goes on to quote – and we kid you not – a TikTok video from an “entrepreneur” for more insight.

Sigh.

Where do things stand now? For the answer, we return to the EPA’s incident response website and quote from a statement that was widely available the same day Newsweek published its report:

“On the evening of Feb. 13, U.S. EPA discontinued air monitoring for phosgene and hydrogen chloride community air monitoring. After the fire was extinguished on Feb. 8, the threat of vinyl chloride fire producing phosgene and hydrogen chloride no longer exists. U.S. EPA will continue 24-hour community air monitoring for other chemicals of concern. 

As of end of the day February 13th, U.S. EPA has screened indoor air at 396 homes, with 100 homes remaining, and 65 homes on the schedule for today.”

There are many well-documented reasons to question communications issued from government agencies these days – and the widespread alarm over the incident lays bare the chronic stress such distrust lets simmer under the surface for much of the population. If we have earned any credibility with our readership over these last two years of publication, please take this to heart: residents of Mississippi need not stock up on bottled water, at least not because of this.

That is not to say there isn’t a cause for nationwide upset here. As we will detail in a future piece, this incident demands a much-needed light be shined on the scandalous state of the US rail industry. That we even allow vinyl chloride to be shipped in this fashion is unnecessary and unacceptable. As few are aware, there are other, even more, dangerous materials on trains passing by residential neighborhoods every single day. It would take but a few simple rule changes to chemical industry regulation to alleviate much of this risk.

Stay tuned for more.

Norfolk Southern Values An East Palestinians Life At ~ $Two Piece And A Biscuit

bloomberg  |  Amid criticism of the response to a train derailment that spilled hazardous chemicals in a small Ohio town, Norfolk Southern Corp.’s chief executive officer pledged to ensure the safety of local residents, and the state’s governor asked for federal help. 

“We are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive,” CEO Alan Shaw said in a letter released Thursday. The statement came after a town hall Wednesday in East Palestine, Ohio, which the company did not attend because of concerns about “the growing physical threat to our employees,” according to a report from a local ABC News station.

Also read: Norfolk Southern will be held accountable, White House says

Crews are cleaning up the site, and the railroad implemented a testing program for the water, air and soil, Shaw said. The company created a $1 million fund as a “down payment” to help rebuild the community of about 4,800. 

On Thursday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said he asked three federal agencies for assistance, according to the Associated Press. The White House said that President Joe Biden had offered DeWine help.

“We’re going to hold Norfolk Southern accountable,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday during a daily press briefing. 

Norfolk Southern could rack up tens of millions of dollars in costs from the derailment, according to one analyst’s estimate. The Environmental Protection Agency has urged the company to reimburse for costs related to the crash as soon as possible, citing “potential liability” in a Feb. 10 letter.

Norfolk Southern is likely to take a special charge in the first quarter to cover costs, Cowen Inc. analyst Jason Seidl wrote in a Tuesday report.

The company’s shares have declined more than 8% since the derailment on Feb. 3. Rail operations resumed last week, although delays continue.

Residents have raised concerns about whether it’s safe to return home after the 150-car train derailed, caught fire and spilled chemicals, including vinyl chloride. There were 20 chemical cars on the train. 

Three days after the accident, authorities intentionally vented and burned five tank cars containing vinyl chloride, in a safety measure designed to relieve pressure and prevent an explosion that would eject chemicals and metal shards in all directions. The dramatic cloud of black smoke and fire that resulted sparked even more concerns.  

“I know there are still a lot of questions without answers. I know you’re tired. I know you’re worried,” said Shaw, who visited the disaster site last week. “We will not let you down.”

 

Precision Scheduled Railroading: A Capitalist Disaster With Consequent Mass Niggerization

NC  |  In this post, I will not cover what has been well-covered elsewhere: The derailment itself (50 cars, 20 of which carried toxic materials, 14 of those vinyl chloride), the subsquent fire, which burned for three days, the ultimate “controlled release” of the poisonous gas, the toxicity of vinyl chloride, the effects of the poison on locals, their pets, and their streams, or the arrest of the reporter who asked questions at Governor DeWine‘s presser. On the bright side, Norfolk Southern donated $25,000 to community shelters. NS is also funding a hotline to a toxicologist at an environmental consulting firm. The EPA has a timeline.

Rather, I shall begin from the very concrete (“for want of a nail…”) and move to the very abstract: From the wheel, to the truck, the cars, the firm (Norfolk Southern), and the owners.

Steel Wheels on Steel Rails

Steel wheels on steel rails inherently produce 85-99% less friction than rubber truck tires on roads; the contact point of a wheel to the rail is about the size of a dime. Hence the inherent advantage of rail over trucks for moving goods:

Compared to truck – its main competitor – train is cheaper (in the US it’s 4 cents vs 20 cents per ton-mile), more efficient (the record-breaking train was 682 cars and 4.5 miles long carrying 82,000 metric tons of ore), and more sustainable (one ton of freight can be moved over 470 miles on just a single gallon of diesel fuel).

However, if you want that advantage to be real and not just theoretical, you’ve got to maintain all that steel in good working order; after all, when things go wrong with a train that’s 4.5 miles long, they can go very, very wrong. Norfolk Southern adopted Precision Scheduled Railroading (see NC here, and alert reader Upstater, here) in 2019 (“average train speed increasing by 10%”), achieving a record operating ratio of 60.4% in 2022[3]. In so doing, it threw away the inherent advantage of rail. Specifically, in the East Palestine disaster, it did not maintain its steel wheels.

Due to NS intimidating (or corrupting) the regulators, train 32N was not classified as a “high-hazard flammable train,” despite its obviously hazardous and flammable cargo. Such a classification would have affected both its speed and its route (possibly not through East Palestine). From Lever News:

Though the company’s 150-car train in Ohio reportedly burst into 100-foot flames upon derailing — and was transporting materials that triggered a fireball when they were released and incinerated — it was not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train,” federal officials told The Lever.

Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds. The decision effectively exempted many trains hauling dangerous materials — including the one in Ohio — from the “high-hazard” classification and its more stringent safety requirements.

I don’t have a documented connection to 32N’s classification and PSR, but it seems pretty obvious. Here from 49 CFR § 174.310 – “Requirements for the operation of high-hazard flammable trains”:

(2) Speed restrictions. All trains are limited to a maximum speed of 50 mph. The train is further limited to a maximum speed of 40 mph while that train travels within the limits of high-threat urban areas (HTUAs) as defined in § 1580.3 of this title, unless all tank cars containing a Class 3 flammable liquid meet or exceed the DOT Specification 117 standards, the DOT Specification 117P performance standards, or the DOT Specification 117R retrofit standards provided in part 179, subpart D of this subchapter.

No railroad company dedicated to increasing average train speed by 10% through PSR would ever want to comply with that statute (which also imposes restrictions on the routes to be followed and allowable cars).

Railroad Owners

Here are the owners of the NS:

No doubt they are very happy with the Operating Ratio that NSR achieved through NSR. 

BLM Is Elite Mimetic Diversion For What's Around That Signpost Up Ahead....,

unz  |  Let’s assume that Black Lives Matter is not a “social justice” movement, but a corporate-sponsored public relations vehicle that’s being used to advance the agenda of elites? Is that too much of a stretch?

And let’s say that the massive protests that erupted across the country were not random or spontaneous events as some people seem to think, but part of a broader strategy to control the headlines by shifting the dominant “narrative” to race. The death of George Floyd fits perfectly with this “broader strategy”, as the incident took place 6 months before the general election, which (conveniently) gave the Democrats enough time to mount an effective attack on Donald Trump using an issue on which they feel he is particularly vulnerable. (Race)

Was it all a coincidence?

Maybe or maybe not. But it’s certainly worth investigating, after all, we’ve just endured 3 and a half years of relentless fabrications connected to the Russiagate scam, so the idea that this latest headline-grabbing fiasco might be, well, fake, is certainly within the realm of possibility.

So, let’s see if we can figure out “why” wealthy elites and their giant charitable foundations would choose to dump millions of dollars into an organization that claims to be Marxist. Could be that….

1. They are genuinely committed to social justice for black people?
2. They think “racist” cops are the Number 1 problem facing black people today?
3. They think the massive protests are raising consciousness which will have a transformative effect on the country?
4. They need a flashy social justice organization (BLM) to divert attention from widening inequality, spiraling unemployment, ballooning poverty, shrinking growth, and the savage restructuring of the economy that is creating a permanent underclass forced to scrape by at food banks, homeless shelters and tent cities that are sprouting up across the country but which are religiously ignored by our prostitute media?

If you chose Number 4, you guessed right. The protests, demonstrations and riots are all part of a spectacular “Product Launch”, the most impressive Madison Avenue-type extravaganza of all-time. BLM has exploded onto the scene just months before the election eliminating all of the 10 Top issues listed by Gallup that voters really care about, and skillfully shifting the public’s attention to race, race relations, social justice and cops. What an astonishing turnaround! In the old days we would have called this the “old switcheroo”, an art-form that has been perfected by BLM (and their Democrat handlers) who have turned the election on its head by burning down half the country, then claiming they are the victims. How’s that for twisted logic?

So, what can we say definitively about BLM? What does the group really believe and what is it trying to achieve? Having spent a fair amount of time on their website, I’m still puzzled. The website contains a number of emotive videos with pulsing background music and lively narration. But–like everything else with this shadowy group– there doesn’t seem to be much substance. The emphasis seems to be on appearances rather than policy, slogans rather than remedies, and catchy monikers (Black Lives Matter) rather than thoughtful recommendations for real change. So, where’s the beef? 

Who is Black Lives Matter and what do they want?

Corporate Economization Is Complete Little Man - You Cannot Escape - No Lives Matter!

counterpunch  |  It is a truism to suggest that the public has now been replaced by the consumer; that the public good has been replaced by individual desire; that public space has been reduced to the private visions of the individual; that democracy has been sacrificed on the altar of economics. As Wendy Brown writes, in, Undoing the Demos, 2012, “Neoliberal reason, ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, culture, and a vast range of quotidian activity, is converting the distinctly political character, meaning, and operation of democracy’s constituent elements into economic ones.”. Thus, the Left’s traditional urge to build a bureaucracy that restrains predatory commerce in the interest of the public good is subverted by the growth of a corporate state designed to suppress its vestigial caring dimension.

This neoliberal attribute fatally weakens the viability of the obvious ‘Alternative’ to which Thatcher was so averse, that of democratic socialism, which thrived in post-war Western Europe as it emerged from the worldwide crisis. Those governments were driven by a mission: to embrace responsibility for the health of all of their citizens – rather than let it be controlled by black marketeers or corporate looters; to ensure that elder care, youth services and childcare be freely available – not powered by profit; to provide good, free education to all – not restricted by its expense to the privileged few; to declare that housing and adequate nutrition are a human right – not resources to be leveraged by the financially strong; to assert that homelessness has no place in an enlightened state – not accepted as a necessary alternative to the supposed evils of welfare; to declare that the mentally ill, together with the anxious and alienated, find a haven in adequate social services – not left to swell the ranks of mendicant street people; and to ensure that public order is maintained without a militarized police force supporting the criminalization of poverty, the presumption of Black and minority criminality and the thuggish treatment of those it arrests. All these beneficent outcomes must now be sought elsewhere. As Bruno Latour points out in his recent essay, ‘Are you ready to extract yourself from the Economy?’, “After a hundred years devoted to socialism limited just to the redistribution of the benefits of the economy, it might now be more a matter of inventing a socialism that contests production itself”.

Latour makes the point that in the miraculous COVID-inspired halting of production, travel and pollution, the world discovered a hitherto unsuspected superpower – the power of interruption. We have the ability, collectively, it now seems, to become globalization interrupters, neoliberalism interrupters and interrupters of all those modes of production that are destroying the habitability of the earth for humans and our neighboring species. He suggests we have an opportunity of, “Getting away from production as the overriding principle of our relationship to the world.” This constitutes a retreat from the very principle that informed the colonization of the Americas and continues to inform its despoliation.

The Panic-Demic Has Entered Its No Lives Matter Phase

theintercept |  Our rulers did demonstrate a spasm of rationality with the passage of the CARES Act in March. It was partly a cash-grab by big business but did get lots of people a $1,200 check and provided an extra $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits on top of state benefits.

Without these benefits, the 30 million people who lost their jobs in March and April would have already plummeted into the void. And because everyone’s spending is someone else’s income, as they fell they would have grabbed onto tens of millions more and taken them down as well.

And in fact, this downward spiral began to happen in mid-March. As the danger of Covid-19 became clear, consumer spending dropped by an astonishing 30 percent in a matter of days. But as soon as the government cash started flowing, spending began to recover, and it’s now more than 90 percent of normal. In poorer zip codes, it’s returned to almost 100 percent.

This has kept the lives of tens of millions of Americans merely bad, rather than totally impossible. But the supplemental unemployment benefits expire at the end of July. The GOP opening bid is to extend them but to cut the amount from $600 to $200. The reason, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin explained in the Oval Office, is to prevent malingering: “We’re going to make sure that we don’t pay people more money to stay home than go to work.” In addition, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that the Republican “red line” in negotiations is making it essentially impossible for employees to sue employers on the grounds that their workplace is failing to protect them from Covid-19. Furthermore, under the proposed new rules, employers and even the Trump Justice Department would find it easy to countersue workers for bringing a coronavirus lawsuit.

Rationally, of course, this makes no sense. For most of the unemployed, there aren’t any jobs to go back to, and won’t be until the pandemic is under control. If their unemployment benefits are cut, people without jobs will desperately cut back on spending, leading to more unemployment, which will lead to less spending, and so on. The process will be accelerated as states and cities, which until now have attempted to avoid slashing payrolls in hopes that the federal government would rescue them, finally do so.

This may plausibly lead to basic material deprivation — true hunger and homelessness — on a scale few alive today have ever seen. According to the Census Bureau, the number of America’s 249 million households reporting that they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat has already jumped from 22.5 million earlier this year to 29.3 million in July. With Republicans opposing an expansion of food stamp funding, as well as the renewal of the CARES Act supplemental food program for children, that is likely just the beginning.

Then there’s housing. The CARES Act contained a federal ban on evictions that covered about 30 percent of U.S. rental units. That ban just ended, as have most state-level bans. Forty million people could potentially lose their homes in the next several months. In states like Florida, Texas, and New York, half of the tenants will shortly be unable to make the rent.

The Great Reset REALLY Starts Ripping And Tearing This Week

cnbc |  The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the jobless rate in New York, Los Angeles and other major urban areas to near or above 20%, nearly twice the national rate.

The unemployment rate is a barometer of financial hardship for American families, since losing a job typically leads to a significant drop in household income.

A rate of 20% means 1 in 5 Americans in the labor force can’t find work.

That’s double the national peak during the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and a level unseen since the 1930s, when the country was in the throes of its worst-ever economic downturn in the industrial era.

“It’s devastating, in terms of how high that unemployment rate is,” said Ioana Marinescu, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

The local business mix and policies around mandated business closures are likely partly responsible for elevated joblessness in some major urban areas, said Wayne Vroman, a labor economist at the Urban Institute. Cities are also generally areas of higher business concentration when compared with other regions, he said. 

New York’s unemployment rate rose to 20.4% last month, according to state-level data issued Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that detailed figures for some large metro areas. That’s up from 18.3% in May and 15% in April.

The ranks of unemployed New Yorkers have grown by 261,000 people since April, to more than 811,000, according to the Bureau.

The trend stands in contrast to the broader U.S. labor-market recovery in May and June.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 11.1% last month from 14.7% in April, largely driven by furloughed workers being recalled to their jobs as states began reopening their economies.

New York, the hardest-hit area of the country early in the health crisis, has been cautious in lifting the economic shutdowns officials imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Keep Your Stinking Experts, Their Strategies, And Your Vaccines....,

HBR |  For those who believe that a vaccine for Covid-19 will end or largely contain this pandemic or who hope that new drugs will be discovered to combat its effects, there is plenty cause for concern. Instead of working together to craft and implement a global strategy, a growing number of countries are taking a “my nation first” approach to developing and distributing potential vaccines or other pharmaceutical treatments.

This “vaccine nationalism” is not only morally reprehensible, it is the wrong way to reduce transmission globally. And global transmission matters: If countries with a large number of cases lag in obtaining the vaccine and other medicines, the disease will continue to disrupt global supply chains and, as a result, economies around the world.

In the midst of this global pandemic, we must leverage our global governance bodies to allocate, distribute, and verify the delivery of the Covid 19 vaccine. We need the science — not politics — to inform the global strategy.

 Experts in epidemiology, virology, and the social sciences — not politicians — should take the lead in devising and implementing science-based strategies to reduce the risks that Covid-19 poses to the most vulnerable across the globe and to reduce transmission of this novel virus for all of us. To avoid ineffective nationalistic responses, we need a centralized, trusted governance system to ensure the appropriate flow of capital, information, and supplies.

Comments Stay Free Off-Guardian Discusses EU Vaccination Passports

off-guardian |  A  report published by the European Commission in late 2019 reveals that the EU has been looking to increase the scope and power of vaccination programmes since well before the current “pandemic”.

The endpoint of the Roadmap is, among many other things, to introduce a “common vaccination card/passport” for all EU citizens. 

This proposal will be appearing before the commission in 2022, with a “feasibility study” set to run from 2019 through 2021 (meaning, as of now, it’s about halfway through).

To underline the point: The “vaccination roadmap” is not an improvised response to the Covid19 pandemic, but rather an ongoing plan with roots going back to 2018, when the EU released a survey of the public’s attitude toward vaccines titled “2018 State of Vaccine Confidence”

 

On the back of this research, the EU then commissioned a technical report titled “Designing and implementing an immunisation information system”, on – among other things – the plausibility of an EU-wide vaccination monitoring system.

In the 3rd quarter of 2019 these reports were all combined into the latest version of the the “Vaccination Roadmap”, a long-term policy plan to spread vaccine “awareness and understanding” whilst counteracting “vaccine myths” and combatting “vaccine hesitancy”.

You can read the entire report here, but below are some of the more concerning highlights [emphasis throughout is ours]:

Comments Not Free Guardian Frets Over EU Anti-Vaxxer Coalitions

Guardian |  In front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate a politically incongruous crowd of protesters gathered on Saturday. They wore flowers in their hair, hazmat suits emblazoned with the letter Q, badges displaying the old German imperial flag or T-shirts reading “Gates, My Ass” – a reference to the US software billionaire Bill Gates.

Around the globe, millions are counting the days until a Covid-19 vaccine is discovered. These people, however, were protesting for the right not to be inoculated – and they weren’t the only ones.

For the ninth week running, thousands gathered in European cities to vent their anger at social distancing restrictions they believe to be a draconian ploy to suspend basic civil rights and pave the way for “enforced vaccinations” that will do more harm than the Covid-19 virus itself.

Walking towards the focal point of the protests down the Straße des 17. Juni boulevard, one woman said she believed the Covid-19 pandemic to be a hoax thought up by the pharmaceutical industry.

“I’d never let myself be vaccinated,” said the woman, who would give her name only as Riot Granny. “I didn’t get a jab for the flu either, and I am still alive.”

The alliance of anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazi rabble-rousers and esoteric hippies, which has in recent weeks been filling town squares in cities such as Berlin, Vienna and Zurich is starting to trouble governments as they map out scenarios for re-booting their economies and tackling the coronavirus long term.

Even before an effective vaccine against Covid-19 has been developed, national leaders face a dilemma: should they aim to immunise as large a part of the population as possible as quickly as possible, or does compulsory vaccination risk boosting a street movement already prone to conspiracy theories about “big pharma” and its government’s authoritarian tendencies?

This Phase Of The Plan Failed Because Not All Palestinians Will Cooperate

benjaminstudebaker |  All around us, the quarantine is beginning to die. In the United States, the Southern states are slowly abandoning it and many Midwestern states are planning to follow. But it’s not just Republicans. The European states are bailing too. If you ask Democrats why states are beginning to defect, they will tell you it comes down to greed and stupidity. They’ll tell you the rich Republicans are greedy and the poor Republicans are stupid. But this policy was never a good fit for either the American or European political systems. To work, it needed a lot of economic support from regional authorities, and it never got that support.

For most of the last century, the social pact in America has been pretty simple. If you’re willing to work, you get healthcare and housing. If you’re not willing to work, you lose both. If there are no jobs available, the government promises to create them, and to take care of your healthcare and housing in the interim. Full employment protects against precarity. The quarantine violates this pact by deliberately annihilating millions of jobs. It intentionally sets about destroying full employment.

If we’re to end full employment, there needs to be an alternative way to provide healthcare and housing. These things will have to be guaranteed to us regardless of employment status. That’s really expensive. Individual US states don’t have the tax revenue to pay for that. The European Union’s fiscal rules would ordinarily prohibit that kind of spending. To get it, we’d need action from the federal government and from the EU.

But nobody consulted political economists. Public health officials conceived of the quarantine policy in a deeply naive way. For them, the only goal was to save lives. They pursued that goal at the expense of the social pact, with no plan to replace it. For weeks, they dismissed any discussion of the economy as indicative of greed or stupidity, ignoring the immense cost of their policy and the political consequences of the cost. Any attempt to introduce complexity into the public discussion was equated with denying the threat of the virus. Because of this, the quarantine is going to end, and when it ends the virus will take off again. Through their absolutism, the advocates of the quarantine have guaranteed the very result they sought to avoid.