Authored by Michael Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

It appears that planet Earth has assumed babysitting duties for a minor space object that came too close to our world and chose to stay for a few weeks. The traveling object fell into Earth’s orbit in September and will remain there until late November. Rocky in disposition and roughly the size of a school bus, the object is an asteroid, yet scientists are calling it a “second moon.”

How the Earth Came to Have Two Moons

Traveling along a horseshoe-shaped path through the solar system, this asteroid is classified as a near-Earth object, or NEO. There are many NEOs in outer space. While making a flyby close to Earth, this particular object’s gravitational energy temporarily fell to negative levels, according to a study published by the American Astronomical Society. This implied that it was in Earth’s orbit.

On Sept. 29, it became official. The NEO got caught in Earth’s orbit, technically making it a second moon. It was named 2024 PT5. However, it won’t last long; the rock won’t even revolve once around the Earth before hurtling off in a few weeks.

Although technically a “moon,” the object measures only 33 feet long, roughly 345,000 times smaller than our permanent lunar satellite. Most people won’t see it, as it will be far too small for human eyes or amateur equipment to spot. Astronomers will be able to observe it using high-powered telescopes, Live Science writes.

“The object is too small and dim for typical amateur telescopes and binoculars,” study author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, a professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, told Space.com. “However, the object is well within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers.”

So, for now, planet Earth is babysitting an asteroid, though it won’t overstay its welcome. On Nov. 25, it will depart from orbiting Earth and start its journey back into deep space, not to be seen again for decades.

Where Did It Come From?

Over the years, countless other space objects like 2024 PT5 have grazed by Earth. This NEO is said to originate from the Arjunas, a secondary asteroid belt in the solar system that aligns closely with Earth. Hoards of NEOs can be found within this cluster, and some have even visited Earth before. The latest flyby closely resembles a prior one called 2022 NX1, which orbited Earth in 1981 and 2022 before bidding farewell.

When 2024 PT5 says sayonara in November, it won’t return to greet us again until 2055.

Authored by Patrick McDonald via Campus Reform,

Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard University, was recently given a “Leadership and Courage” award despite her controversial response to anti-Semitism and the plagiarism allegations that surrounded her time in Harvard’s leadership.

The Harvard Black Alumni Society granted the award to the former Harvard president on Sept. 28 at a gathering of the school’s black alumni. 

Harvard Black Alumni Society President Monica M. Clark praised Gay and said: “This reunion — all these people who were expressing all this support for her — they were all there. Celebrating her, and clapping for her, and cheering her on.”

One alumnus, Thomas G. Stewart, said: “She’s humble, she’s smart, she’s — fortunately — someone that still is affiliated with the University, and has pledged her support to it to her dying day.”

“She’s in good spirits, and folks should know that,” Stewart added.

Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2 following her controversial congressional testimony, during which she failed to unequivocally state that she would condemn rhetoric “calling for the genocide of Jews.”

Gay was asked at the hearing: “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Gay responded: “It can be, depending on the context.”

“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay told The Harvard Crimson at the time. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”

Gay was plagued by a controversy regarding her allegedly repeated plagiarism as well. 

The former president was accused of committing plagiarism almost 50 times, and later acknowledged that she had “made mistakes,” but still tried to justify herself by claiming she was only guilty of “citation errors.” 

“I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others. Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. 

“My critics found instances in my academic writings where some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution,” she continued. “When I learned of these errors, I promptly requested corrections from the journals in which the flagged articles were published, consistent with how I have seen similar faculty cases handled at Harvard.”

Gay also accused her critics of racism, saying they “recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament.”

Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University and Claudine Gay for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

A mysterious staffing firm operating a complex van transportation network supplying low-cost Haitian labor to a Charleroi, PA-based company that operates multiple food packing plants in the area has been at the center of a federal investigation. 

On Friday, local media outlet Action News revealed that federal investigators had been investigating staffing firm Prosperity Services, which supplies cheap migrant labor to Fourth Street Foods in Charleroi. 

According to Action News, Fourth Street “employs 700 immigrants from 41 countries, many of them Haitians.” The migrants work on conveyor lines in massive ice boxes to slap breakfast bowls and sandwiches together under various private-label brands for big box retailers. 

Here’s the bombshell from the media outlet published Friday evening:

Many of Fourth Street’s workers are actually employed by a contractor, Prosperity Services. Prosperity also transports workers in vans, which can be seen throughout Charleroi.

In court records, federal investigators said Prosperity “knowingly paid undocumented non-citizen employees with cash” and “transported and housed undocumented non-citizens for employment purposes.”

Earlier this year, the feds seized nearly $1 million in cash from Prosperity and two men affiliated with the company, including Andy Ha, the company president.

Incredible footage revealing an operation in Charleroi, PA where Haitians are being bussed to and from food factories operated by Fourth Street Foods.

It’s estimated that 90% of workers are now made up of Haitians.

Kamala imported 2,000 Haitians into this town of 4,000 people… pic.twitter.com/6KrjecNdmh

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 17, 2024

In a separate report, journalist Christopher Rufo found out…

At the center of this system in Charleroi is Fourth Street Foods, a frozen-food supplier with approximately 1,000 employees, most of whom work on the assembly line. In an exclusive interview, Chris Scott, the CEO and COO of Fourth Street Barbeque (the legal name of the firm that does business as Fourth Street Foods) explained that his company, like many factory businesses, has long relied on immigrant labor, which, he estimates, makes up about 70 percent of its workforce. The firm employs many temporary workers, and, with the arrival of the Haitians, has found a new group of laborers willing to work long days in an industrial freezer, starting at about $12 an hour.

Many of these workers are not directly employed by Fourth Street Foods. Instead, according to Scott, they are hired through staffing agencies, which pay workers about $12 an hour for entry-level food-processing roles and bill Fourth Street Foods over $16 per hour to cover their costs, including transportation and overhead. (The average wage for an entry-level food processor in Washington County was $16.42 per hour in 2023.)

Rufo uncovered other staffing companies …

According to a Haitian migrant who worked at Fourth Street and a review of video footage, three staffing agencies—Wellington Staffing Agency, Celebes Staffing Services, and Advantage Staffing Agency—are key conduits for labor in the city. None have websites, advertise their services, or appear in job listings. According to Scott, Fourth Street Foods relies on agencies to staff its contract workforce, but he declined to specify which agencies, citing nondisclosure agreements.

He continued:

A property search for David Barbe and his other business, DB Rentals LLC, shows records of more than 50 properties, many of which are concentrated on the same streets.

And continued some more:

No doubt, the situation is advantageous to David Barbe of Fourth Street Foods, who can pay $16 an hour to the agencies that employ his contract labor force, then recapture some of those wages in rent…

Fourth Street Foods owner David Barbe told the media outlet: “I don’t know anything about it.” 

Considering the town has been swamped by Haitians … solely for the purpose of supplying Fourth Street Foods with cheap labor, the owner’s statement to the media outlet seems a little suspicious. 

The travesty in Charleroi begins with the failure of the federal government’s open borders, flooding the nation with ten-plus million migrants. This has led to a ‘great job replacement’ of native-born factory workers. 

How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2024

Rufo noted:

The basic pattern in Charleroi has been replicated in thousands of cities and towns across America: the federal government has opened the borders to all comers; a web of publicly funded NGOs has facilitated the flow of migrants within the country; local industries have welcomed the arrival of cheap, pliant labor.

This is spreading…

First Springfield, Then Charleroi, Now Migrant Crisis Swamps This Small Indiana Town https://t.co/g1ev2yZwi7

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 10, 2024

“Blow Your Mind”: Ex-WSJ Journo Uncovers Hub Of An Alleged Migrant Trafficking Network In Springfield, Ohio https://t.co/Wz1hOGy3XD

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 18, 2024

Union Makes Shock Claim: Colorado Meat Factory Involved In “Mgmt-Led Human Trafficking” Of Haitians https://t.co/fusclWbmax

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 25, 2024

This is nationwide. 

US Map Shows Potential Areas Of Migrant ‘Great Job Replacement’ https://t.co/L0IfntWwmK

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 19, 2024

This is not America First – this is globalist open border corporate profits first, at the expense of the native-born blue-collar worker. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

The 2024 race is still close.

But then so was the 1980 Carter-Reagan race at this same juncture.

Indeed, incumbent president Carter was then comfortably up in the last two October Gallup polls – before utterly and suddenly evaporating on Election Day.

But in the last seven days, there seems a sense of panic in the Harris campaign.

How do we know that?

Why are Democratic pundits – from Axelrod to Carville – blasting the Harris campaign and otherwise warning of bad things to come?

Why are some of the once Democrat sure-thing senate races—e.g., in Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Michigan—tightening up?

Pundit poll-watchers are suggesting that Trump is close, even, or slightly ahead in the swing-state polls, suggesting that he is nearing a margin that could cancel out anticipated “ballot irregularities”.

The expected October Harris-Biden surprises – the opportune Fed interest rate cut, the transparently desperate Jack Smith beefed-up re-indictment, the current new Hollywood Trump-hit movie, the desperate Zelensky fly-in to Pennsylvania, the election-cycle customary Bob Woodward unsourced gossip book – seemed so far to have had no effect.

Why would any campaign send out the bumbling Tim Walz to a Fox Sunday interview after his disastrous debate?

Why is a suddenly smiling Biden so eager to claim candidate and VP Harris as a co-conspirator to his disastrous four years?

Why would Harris pivot and now agree to (admittedly mostly softball) interviews, thus confirming to the voting public why she wisely had previously avoided all press conferences, interviews, and town halls?

Why – after the last two moderator-rigged ABC and CBS debates – would Harris desperately want another and possibly believe that Trump would ever agree to any such warped forum?

The last 4-5 Harris scripted interviews, but especially on CBS’s 60 Minutes, have been train wrecks.

Everyone expected (and was not disappointed) the on-spec word salads, predictable sappy retreats to her misleading bio, the now accustomed deer-in-the-headlights confusion about her prior three years with Biden, and the general mush in lieu of any policy prescriptions.

Why would CBS think it worth ruining its already debased reputation by doctoring the transcript of the Harris disastrous interview in a vain attempt at Orwellian repair?

Why is a rusty but still narcissistic Barack Obama at last hitting the campaign trail?

And is he still effective—or reduced to becoming an Oprah-like caricature?

After all, is it wise for the elite Obama (in his now accustomed snarky “clingers” style) to venture out of his mansions (Kalorama? the Hawaii beachfront? or the Martha Vineyard estate?) to talk down to black males struggling under years of a hyperinflationary economy, a flood of illegal immigrants from an open border, and a four-year-spiking crime rate?

Does the Netflix grandee berating black men as victims of false consciousness, misled, and brainwashed into voting for the Trump agenda really win them over to Harris?

Does the hundred-million-dollar-plus man Obama persuade anyone by reverting for a few moments to his old community-organizing, fake black patois and his pseudo-racial intimacy of “brothers”?

And does it work for Obama (remember “when they go low, we go high”) to blast Trump as racist and crude, when Obama jokes that Trump wears diapers – this after previously suggesting at the Democratic convention that Trump suffered from small genitalia?

If this should continue, soon the July 21st coup that removed Biden, along with the Harris pick of Tim Walz, will go down as days of Democrat infamy.

Anything can happen in the next three weeks. But so far, the cures for the Harris slide are far worse than the malady itself.

A massive explosion which appears the result of sabotage or even a possible bombing rocked the Chechen capital of Grozny on Saturday. 

Local authorities say a fuel tank exploded at a fuel station, resulting in a large blast and fire which left four bystanders dead, including two children, the Russian region’s emergency authority confirmed. The fuel station is reportedly located near a college.

Statements suggest that authorities believe it was either an attack or else severe neglect: “Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, said on Telegram that he had taken the situation under his personal control. He said that those responsible for the blast would be brought to justice, but did not give further details.”

There have been other recent ‘mystery’ blasts in the region, as Reuters details: “Explosions at fuel stations in the neighboring region of Dagestan in September 2024 and August 2023 killed 13 people and 35 people, respectively.”

Though very far away from fighting in Ukraine – as Chechnya is all the way over in the Caucuses next to Georgia – Chechen troops have been very active among Russian forces along the Ukraine front lines.

Given the context of war, suspicion for the blast is likely to fall on the possibility of some kind of Ukraine-connected sabotage op, as has been happening throughout Russia proper since the war began. But there have long been immense tensions between Chechen leaders and neighboring republics, and the incident could have something to do with this internal feud.

Footage from the scene of the fuel station explosion show a massive fireball which sent debris flying in all directions:

GROZNY pic.twitter.com/3bNEU9IQtW

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) October 12, 2024

Newsweek has provided the following recent context:

Chechnya is largely ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a pro-Russian strongman installed by the Kremlin after two devastating wars involving Chechen separatists and Islamic fundamentalists in the 1990s and 2000s. In recent months, Russian infrastructure and military facilities have been hit repeatedly by Ukrainian drones, though the cause of Saturday’s explosion is unclear.

…Tensions have surged in Russia’s restive Caucasus region, which includes Muslim dominated Chechnya, with Kadyrov this week threatening to declare a “blood feud” against Russian lawmakers from the neighboring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia who he said were involved in a plot to assassinate him.

No official explanation for what caused the deadly blast has yet to be given. Certainly it’s high unlikely that a drone could have made it all the way to Grozny from the Black Sea region, suggesting this was connected to regional politics.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Do you want to live in a society where you are required to have your face scanned wherever you go?  If not, you may want to speak up now while you still can.  As you will see below, the U.S. government is aggressively expanding the use of facial recognition technology for identification verification purposes.  For now, the use of facial recognition technology will be optional.  But as we have seen before, once a voluntary option is adopted by enough people our leaders have a way of making it mandatory.  Of course it isn’t just our government that is pushing facial recognition technology.  It is popping up throughout our society, and given enough time it would literally be everywhere.

Login.gov is billed as “a single sign-on solution for US government websites”, and now users of Login.gov will be given the option to use facial recognition technology to verify their identities…

An online hub for Americans to access benefits and services across the federal government is giving its users a new option to sign on.

The General Services Administration will begin offering facial recognition technology as an option for users of Login.gov, a one-stop for government-provided public services, to verify their identities.

GSA’s Technology Transformation Services announced Wednesday it will allow Login.gov users to verify their identity online through facial technology that meets standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 800-63-3 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) guidelines.

We are being told that this will help reduce identity theft and fraud, and I don’t know anyone that likes identity theft and fraud.

But do we really want to live in a dystopian world where our faces are constantly being scanned all the time?

I certainly don’t.

We are being told that this new facial recognition system will rely on “best-in-class facial matching algorithms”…

After months of testing and a delay in 2023, users will now be able to verify their identity using a ‘proven facial matching technology’ approved by the General Services Administration, which will follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and will rely on ‘best-in-class facial matching algorithms’

All of this sounds really creepy to me.

And this is certainly a way for the government to start getting all of our faces into a giant database.

Login.gov already has more than 100 million users, and lots of them will inevitably choose the “convenience” and “security” of facial recognition…

Federal agencies use Login.gov for people to verify their identities when logging in to access government benefits and services. The offering has over 100 million users already across over 50 federal and state agencies, and this news could affect how future users have to verify their identity to access information and benefits.

“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement.

For now, you will still be able to use other identification verification options.

But once most people start using facial recognition, those other options could easily be taken away.

Sadly, it isn’t just the government that we need to be concerned about.

AI programs such as ChatGPT have turned out to be quite adept at identifying faces…

Using “a crafted prompt designed to bypass the safeguard mechanisms of ChatGPT,” the researchers were able to test the program’s biometric capabilities – which they found to be significant.

“Our study reveals that ChatGPT recognizes facial identities and differentiates between two facial images with considerable accuracy,” says their summary. “Additionally, experimental results demonstrate remarkable performance in gender detection and reasonable accuracy for the age estimation tasks.”

Even more alarming is what a couple of Harvard students have been able to accomplish.

They integrated PimEyes facial recognition software into a pair of Meta’s smart glasses, and they were able to instantly pull up the personal information of strangers by scanning their faces…

Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses offer an iconic wearable packed with some smart features that allow users to engage in a hands-free experience. Two Harvard students have integrated smart glasses with a facial recognition system that helps automatically dox strangers and access their information in public.

According to 404media, the facial recognition system called I-XRAY can be used to retrieve information such as phone numbers, addresses, or even social security numbers of strangers. All the user needs to do is look at the person. While software capabilities have been making the rounds, it is the hardware running the software that has been the talk of the town, which is Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Nguyen and Ardayfio created I-XRAY using Meta’s smart glasses along with PimEyes facial recognition software, which is currently the largest search engine. The entire system of fetching information on the individual is automatic, and the smart glasses start digging the data as soon as the face is in the frame.

If we stay on the current trajectory that we are on, it would likely only be a matter of time before this sort of technology is everywhere.

Can you imagine what criminals could do with this?

A predator would not even need to follow you home.  He could just scan your face without you even realizing it, and by scanning your face he could get your address, your phone number, and a whole host of other private details about your life.

A lot of people out there just don’t get it.

In a society without any privacy, the bad guys can always find you.

Of course in a society without any privacy, there would be no hiding from tyranny either.

When facial recognition technology is literally everywhere, there will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Every time your face is scanned, your location will be known.

Needless to say, most people already carry around phones that constantly monitor where they are anyway.

But as the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us becomes even more pervasive, it won’t be too long before there is literally no opting out.

I have been a very vocal advocate for privacy for over a decade, but during that time our privacy rights have been greatly eroded.

Now is the time to take a stand, because once our privacy rights are completely gone it will be nearly impossible to get them back.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

As expected, Saturday’s much-anticipated press conference by China’s Ministry of Finance, where many China watchers were expecting another major stimulus announcement with some hoping for a number as large as 10 trillion rmb, was a dud.

To be sure, China did announce intentions to further ramp up support for the economy, promising more aid for the slumping property sector and indebted local governments. But, as Bloomberg reported, officials again failed to convince economists that they’re doing enough to defeat deflation.

At today’s highly anticipated briefing, Finance Minister Lan Fo’an refrained from putting a price tag on China’s fiscal stimulus as many investors expected, signaling instead that – as Goldman warned on Friday – details would come when China’s legislature meets in the coming weeks. More importantly, Lan did not announce any new stimulus on consumption/household subsidies, and instead he said he will introduce further incremental measures in the near future without providing more details. Lan also suggested some of the proposed measures would require approval by the NPC Standing Committee, which is expected to meet tin the coming weeks. Expectations on fiscal stimulus size heading into today’s event was wide at 1t to 1-t yuan, with no clear consensus on the outcome.

The supportive measures he did announce, however, gave little indication Chinese authorities felt any urgency to ramp up consumption, which many economists see as essential to reflating the economy and putting it on a more positive growth trajectory yet which the market was convinced would happen which is why Chinese stocks erupted in a 30% frenzy in recent weeks. The problem is that the post-meltup hangover comes next, and stocks will plunge, draining what little “wealth effect” had been created.

Here is a snapshot of the package announced by the MOF, courtesy of Goldman who writes that major fiscal stimulus measures include:

• Raising the government debt limit “by a relatively large amount in a one-off effort” to accelerate local government debt resolution, with the magnitude of debt resolution to be the largest in recent years;
• Increasing local government funding by RMB400bn through the unspent bond issuance quota accumulated from previous years;
• Issuing additional central government special bonds (CGSB) to help large state-owned banks replenish their equity capital;
• Allowing local government special bonds (LGSB) to be used for land acquisition and redevelopment, as well as the purchase of housing inventory;
• Increasing the transfer payment to students.
• On forward guidance, MOF Head Mr. Lan Fo’an emphasized that the central government has relatively large space for debt expansion and deficit increases, and flagged that policymakers are studying other incremental policy tools.
• Goldman views today’s MOF meeting as largely in line with the market’s wide-ranging expectations, with the upside from clear forward guidance on multi-year fiscal expansion, a larger-scale local government debt resolution, and more central government debt financing, but downside from a lack of specifics on the size of stimulus, and little detail on the RMB1tn CGSB to support consumption speculated by markets previously.
• Given falling tax and land sales revenue, we estimate the gap between government revenue (including on-budget fiscal revenue and off-budget government-managed fund revenue) out-turns and MOF projections made in the 2024 budget could be RMB2.3tn this year,
• Goldman expects policymakers to approve an additional RMB1-2tn in ultra-long-term (ULT) CGSB quota in the next NPC standing committee meeting (around late Oct – early Nov), scale up the local government debt swap plan potentially to the magnitude of around RMB5tn for multiple years, and plan notably higher government bond issuance quotas in 2025 and beyond vs. the 2024 budget (by setting a higher official deficit target and larger ULT CGSB quota).

“The policy to support consumption sounds quite weak,” said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas SA. “It is still too early to call an imminent significant turnaround in deflationary pressure or a bottoming-out of the property market, which are the two key issues faced by the Chinese economy.”

As noted yesterday, investors and analysts expected China to deploy about 2 trillion yuan ($283 billion) in fresh fiscal stimulus (and as much as 11 trillion yuan on the high end), including potential subsidies, consumption vouchers and financial support for families with children. That still might come in a few weeks: Last year, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, used a late-October meeting to announce a budget revision and additional bonds. But every delay shows that – once again – Beijing is making the cardinal error of failing to stimulate forcefully, and instead hopes that the market meltup, meant to spark a virtuous wealth effect circle, will reinforce itself. Spoiler alert: it won’t, and instead both stocks and the economy will crater, forcing Beijing to stimulate that much more later (as described in “China Must Do QE Now, “Or It Will End Up In A Bigger Hole In 12 Months“).

Worse, Lan’s remarks on Saturday signaled that China is comfortable with the overall direction of the economy, where recent measures should be sufficient to push GDP just above the 5% target, but not more.

He vowed to allow local governments to use special bonds to buy unsold homes and promised the biggest effort in recent years to relieve the debt burden of local authorities, neither of which is likely to provide a short-term boost to growth.

“My sense is that the fiscal policy moves will take a little too long to roll out for us to hit 5% this year, unless the ultimate scale of fiscal stimulus ends up being much larger than forecast,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank N.V., referring to China’s economic growth target for 2024.

Others were more hopeful. In his comments this morning, Goldman economist Philip Sun wrote that “the most important sentences in Minister Lan’s speech was the following:

我再补充一点，逆周期调节绝不仅仅是以上的四点，这四点是目前已经进入决策程序的政策，我们还有其他政策工具也正在研究中。比如中央财政还有较大的举债空间和赤字提升空间。

Translation: 

“Let me add a comment. Couter-cyclical adjustments are ABSOLUTELY constrained just within the 4 points I mentioned above. These 4 points are the policies that already entered the formal decision-making process. We are studying other policy tools, too. For example: Central Government still has relatively big room for increasing the debts and there is room for increasing the fiscal deficit.” 

The 4 points that Lan referred to:

• Raising the government debt limit “by a relatively large amount in a one-off effort” to accelerate local government debt resolution, with the magnitude of debt resolution to be the largest in recent years; Increasing local government funding by RMB400bn through the unspent bond issuance quota accumulated from previous years;
• Issuing additional central government special bonds (CGSB) to help large state-owned banks replenish their equity capital;
• Allowing local government special bonds (LGSB) to be used for land acquisition and redevelopment, as well as the purchase of housing inventory;
• Increasing the transfer payment to students.

In this context, Sun said that most of the clients he talks to said they feel: (1) The forward guidance is strong enough. (2) There were a lot of concrete RMB numbers mentioned in the speech associated with specific initiatives; (3) The manner with Minister Lan delivered the messages clearly showed: “We have much more to come.”

When answering the “X trillion RMB” stimulus, Minister of Finance Mr. Lan’s mentioned it as the end of a long paragraph of speech: 关于你提到的具体资金数量安排问题，经过法定程序后，会及时向社会公开。Translation: regarding the specific RMB amount you asked, we will disclose promptly to the general society after the proper legal procedures have been passed.

We’ll see if this cheerful take is correct come Monday’s open (as a reminder, Goldman top-ticked the Chinese stock market meltup by going overweight China just as Chinese stocks resumed their plunge, as we warned they would).

Data on Sunday are expected to show consumer prices in September were stuck below 1% for a 19th straight month as factory-price deflation deepened, highlighting sluggish demand before the recent stimulus bonanza. Officials spoke little about deflation at the hourlong briefing on Saturday, which confirms that China is stuck in a debt-deflationary vortex.

Lan also hinted at room for issuing more sovereign bonds and greater government spending, steps that could be announced when legislators meet later this month or early November. However, neither involves the massive bazooka that markets assumed was coming at the end of September when even Xi effectively announced China’s “whatever it takes” moment.

Allowing local governments to swap their debt with cheaper loans will free up money for public services and encourage the authorities to spend more. And enabling them to use special bonds to buy unsold apartments and turn them into social housing may help stabilize a downturn in real estate prices, giving homeowners a greater sense of security.

The Finance Ministry didn’t provide an exact value for either measure. But these are among steps that lead economists to think “this time can be different” after previous stimulus efforts faltered, according to Societe Generale SA.

“The prospects for a sustained recovery and reflation are improving, with better chances of housing stabilization and less pressure from local government deleveraging,” Wei Yao and Michelle Lam, both economists at the bank, said in a note.

As far as direct subsides are concerned, Lan said Saturday that China would hand out twice the number of scholarships and step up financial aid to students, a move that comes after youth unemployment soared to a record high this year. He also vowed to continue to provide support to groups in need, citing a one-off handout to the poor last month as an example.

The lack of large-scale handouts is unsurprising, as Beijing – unlike the Democrat administration in the US –  has long looked down on what it calls “welfarism.”

“No free food for lazy people is the fundamental thinking of policymakers as to why large-scale subsidy for the whole nation is unlikely,” said Bruce Pang, chief economist for Greater China at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc, referring to a similar comment made by the country’s top economic planning agency.

Economists have long urged a shift in priorities for fiscal policy to focus more on domestic consumption. Such a move toward a more balanced and sustainable growth model would reduce the country’s reliance on exports to power the economy amid rising trade tensions. The old playbook of using debt-fueled investment into public projects — from roads to bridges — has become less effective after decades of urbanization left the country saturated with infrastructure. Because of a lack of high-quality projects, authorities have more money at their disposal than projects to spend it on.

The Finance Ministry also said the government will expand the sectors eligible to receive funding support from the issuance of special local bonds. This could infuse the economy with as much as 1 trillion yuan now sitting idle, according to Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Plc.

The finance woes of local governments are closely linked with the property downturn. Land sales, a major driver of revenue, are dwindling just as a broader slowdown reduces taxes and other income sources. After going on a borrowing binge following the 2008 financial crisis to prop up growth, and then dealing with a costly pandemic, many localities are now struggling to meet daily spending needs, like paying civil servants.

As Bloomberg notes, some regions have opted to delay payments to contractors, impose hefty fines and slap companies with tax bills dating back decades. The moves have dealt a further blow to already fragile confidence in the private sector, prompting Beijing to warn local officials against excessive penalties.

By allowing local governments to swap more “hidden debt,” Beijing is also trying to rein in credit risks at companies that borrowed aggressively on behalf of local governments in past years to help fund infrastructure. However, bonds spent for debt swaps generate no new growth in the economy even though they help maintain financial and social stability.

Efforts to tackle local government debt risks “largely involve shifting debt from one arm of the state to another” and will have limited impact on near-term demand, said Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics. He maintained his 2024 growth forecast at 4.8% and revised up the forecast for next year to 4.5% from 4.3%, citing the fiscal boost.

Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Group, said that China’s two-speed growth model in which it relies on manufacturing and exports to offset the property sector is “increasingly unsustainable.” He said authorities will need to pivot once exports weaken or domestic demand deteriorates further, leading to social unrest.

“The strong sense of urgency from the September Politburo meeting suggests that it’s the pivot moment,” Hu wrote in a note on Saturday. “But to confirm this, we need more evidence.”

Unfortunately for China’s markets and the country’s “wealth effect”, investors who bought into the frenzy, will not demonstrate the patience demanded of them and will proceed to dump Chinese stocks at first opportunity. The good news is that anyone who listened to Cramer, knew exactly when to sell.

Finally, for those who, like Goldman, believe that somehow Saturday’s announcement will meet market demand and want to implement a bullish view (besides just buying single stocks, or CSI or Hang Seng index calls), Goldman’s Delta One desk has the following recommendation (full notes available to pro subs here and here).

Implied vol remains high and call wing skew now extremely inverted – those looking to take advantage that can consider HSCEI Jan call spreads, 110/120% gets you 5x max payoff where you collect 1.5v diff on the further strike. My US colleague also like collaring China longs (buy put / sell call) – for example, 3m 80% / 120% collars line up for a credit. For those looking to cheapen initial premium outlay but keeping a max loss = prem paid risk profile, Dec24 HSCEI up / USDCNH up dual digis can get you ~13x payoff. Do reach out to the desk for more details – all pricing above indicative only.

For everyone else: sell.

Much more for professional subs here, here, here and here.

The Israeli government is now saying that the United States is preparing to deploy THAAD anti-ballistic missile systems in Israel, a major development which will possibly put troops in the directly in harm’s way amid the tense showdown with Iran. 

Times of Israel writes that “according to reports by Channel 12 news and Army Radio that describe the move as part of preparations for the expected Israeli response to Iran’s recent missile attack.” Importantly, “Channel 12 news says the advanced missile defense system will be operated by American troops on Israeli soil,” TOI continues. However, there have been some initial contradictory reports.

The THAAD is an anti-ballistic missile defense system capable of shooting down short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. There has been no formal US vote or Congressional authorization for this, but it marks yet another escalation in the Biden White House’s ongoing multi-billion dollar military aid program for Israel – a high risk one at that.

Any potential new exchange of ballistic missiles with the Islamic Republic is likely to involve direct attempts to target anti-air batteries positioned in Israel.

Other Israeli media reports say the same:

The U.S. is set to deploy THAAD air defense batteries in Israel, according to a report on the Ynet website on Saturday. The move, set to reinforce the Jewish state’s defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles, and is another sign that Washington believes Israeli action in Iran likely to be very forceful and trigger a response.

Even though US special forces and commanders have previously been in Tel Aviv and probably near Gaza in an “advisory” role, if the THAAD is indeed deployed in Israel utilizing US Army operators, this without doubt constitutes American boots on the ground.

Axios’ Barak Ravid observes the following based on the latest reports:

Deployment of US missile defense systems in Israel with operators (“boots on the ground”) would be a departure from Netanyuahu’s principle that “Israel defends itself by itself”.

It will demonstrate the strength of the alliance, but also the depth of the dependence on the US.

As for whether the decision has been ‘finalized’ – there appears to be contradictory reports as of Saturday afternoon.

Propaganda or fact? Iranian state media has claimed that Iran took out anti-air systems in Israel during the Oct.1 strike…

Here is the moment when Iran successfully targeted a transportable Raytheon X-band radar belonging to the THAAD Air Defense System in occupied Palestine, followed by strikes with ballistic missiles on several areas within occupied territories. pic.twitter.com/MZVXbBPYnw

— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) October 12, 2024

A separate Times of Israel story and headlines reads: “The US has yet to make a final decision on whether to deploy the THAAD anti-missile defense system in Israel, according to reporters for the Walla news site and Kan public broadcaster, who cite American officials.”

So clearly the US has been mulling it, but whether the administration has pulled the trigger on the plan is likely to become more clear in the coming days. We are likely witnessing a premature leak from the Israeli side, sending US officials scrambling to manage the narrative. Israel is still vowing to hit Iran hard in retaliation for the Oct.1st attack on Israel, which involved some 200 Iranian ballistic missiles fired, and resulted in damage to Israeli airbases.

Authored by Fred Fleitz via American Greatness,

Iran has made enormous progress in its nuclear weapons program during the Biden/Harris administration and reportedly can now enrich enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel nine nuclear bombs in one month. Although Iran may be nine months to a year away from having an operational nuclear weapon, recent attacks by Iran and Israel against each other’s territory have raised concerns that Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program could lead to a nuclear war in the Middle East.

Biden/Harris administration officials have tried to blame President Trump for the advances in Iran’s nuclear program because he withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA. Democratic Governor Tim Walz made this claim during the October 1 vice presidential debate when he said, “There had been a coalition of nations that had boxed Iran’s nuclear program in . . . Donald Trump pulled that program and put nothing else in its place.”

This is absolutely false. The huge advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program are the result of major flaws in the JCPOA and a series of terrible national security policy decisions, including repeated attempts to appease Iran, by the Obama and Biden administrations.

The first of these bad policy decisions was when the Obama administration conceded to Iran the “right” to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, such as nuclear medicine and nuclear reactor fuel.

This decision reversed the positions of prior Republican and Democratic administrations who believed Iran could not be trusted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes because of covert Iranian efforts to establish a nuclear weapons program and because it is easy to reconfigure uranium centrifuges supposedly constructed for peaceful purposes to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

Allowing Iran to enrich its own uranium for peaceful purposes has never made economic sense due to a glut of reactor fuel and nuclear medicine on the world market. Iran also does not need nuclear power due to its vast oil and natural gas reserves.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained this to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an October 2014 interview when he said Iran’s centrifuges “are only good for one thing: to make bomb-grade material.”

The JCPOA Was a Dangerous Fraud

The Obama administration’s dangerous uranium enrichment concession to Iran was enshrined in the flawed 2015 JCPOA agreement which, allowed Iran to enrich uranium to reactor-grade and develop advanced centrifuges. In effect, this gave Iran the world’s blessing to continue to develop a uranium enrichment program whose only practical purpose was to make nuclear weapons fuel.

But it gets worse. The JCPOA lifted sanctions on Iran and provided it with $150 billion in sanctions relief. This included $1.7 billion in “pallets of cash” that the U.S. secretly flew to Iran in small planes as ransom to release five innocent Americans being held in Iranian prisons. A related UN resolution imposed limited, short-lived sanctions against Iranian conventional arms transfers, which expired in 2020, and missile transfers, which expired in 2023.

The JCPOA has a weak inspection regime that Iran did not cooperate with. This inspection regime was further weakened by secret side deals, discovered by then-Rep. Mike Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton, that allowed Iran to evade inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Obama officials reportedly wrote the secret side deals and refused to share them with Congress.

And to top off this all off, there was substantial cheating on the JCPOA by Iran.  This included clandestine efforts to acquire illicit nuclear technology and equipment, violating JCPOA restrictions on advanced centrifuge development, and excess production of heavy water.

In 2018, a huge cache of documents on Iran’s nuclear weapons program stolen by Israel provided evidence of massive Iranian cheating on the JCPOA, including several undeclared sites where nuclear weapons work had been conducted since 2015. IAEA inspection of two of these sites found evidence of enriched uranium particles, which proved covert nuclear weapons work had occurred at these locations.

In addition, Iran quietly worked to develop advanced centrifuge designs and parts in violation of the JCPOA between 2015 and 2020. This allowed Iran to start deploying advanced centrifuges in 2021. This included completing a factory in July 2018 to make carbon fiber rotors for advanced centrifuge machines.

These and other extremely serious weaknesses of the JCPOA are why Donald Trump justifiably called it “the worst deal ever” and why he withdrew the United States from this agreement in 2018.

Iran said it would no longer honor its JCPOA commitments after Trump withdrew from the agreement and began to slowly back out of JCPOA limits in 2019 and 2020. However, Iran did little to ramp up its uranium enrichment program until January 2021—weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The reason why there was not a surge in Iran’s nuclear weapons program during President Trump’s term after he withdrew from the JCPOA was because Iranian leaders were afraid of how Trump would respond. The global American deterrence Trump established helped keep Iran and other U.S. adversaries in check during his presidency.

Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program Takes Off Under Biden/Harris Administration

It is clear that Iran’s leaders were not afraid of Joe Biden. They saw a new American president desperate to revive the JCPOA and who would resume the Obama administration’s appeasement policies. The results have been a catastrophe for global security, with huge advances in Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran also gained at least $100 billion in additional revenue during the Biden administration because it refused to enforce U.S. oil sanctions. Most of this oil has been sold to China. Iran spent this windfall on its military, nuclear, and missile programs as well as to fund its terrorist proxy groups: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq.

The Biden administration took office in January 2021 determined to renegotiate the JCPOA to make it “longer and stronger.” Iranian officials repeatedly said they would not agree to changes to the JCPOA, but they participated in fruitless talks in Vienna to restore the JCPOA until March 2022. Not only did Iran refuse to negotiate in good faith in these talks, a Russian ambassador, with the assistance of a Chinese ambassador, ran the Vienna talks because Iranian diplomats refused to meet in the same room with their U.S. counterparts.

Iran significantly stepped up its nuclear weapons program while multilateral talks to revive the JCPOA were underway between April 2021 and March 2022.  This included deploying advanced centrifuges in February and April 2021 and producing uranium metal in February 2021.

The most serious development was when Iran announced in November 2021 that it had enriched uranium to the 60% U-235 level for the first time. 60%-enriched uranium can be further enriched to 90% (weapons-grade) in about a week.

Biden officials worked hard to convince Iran to agree to a new nuclear deal by offering a series of dangerous concessions. This included proposing to take Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Several members of the U.S. negotiating team resigned in late 2021 because they believed the concessions being offered to Iran were excessive and would lead to a bad nuclear agreement.

Multilateral talks with Iran to revive the JCPOA broke down in March 2022 after Russia threatened to block a new nuclear deal unless its trade with Iran was exempted from U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Russia due to its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

After the multilateral talks broke down, the Biden/Harris administration used Oman as an intermediary to negotiate a secret, oral, and unwritten agreement with Iran. Biden Administration critics claimed this was done to evade Congress’s oversight of this agreement.

The secret deal was described as an interim agreement with major U.S. concessions. These reportedly included freezing Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 60%. This concession meant the Biden/Harris administration agreed to accept Iran enriching to the dangerous 60% level. Iran was also allowed to keep its nuclear infrastructure, including advanced uranium centrifuges, and permitted to continue to develop this technology.

Iran reportedly agreed under the deal to stop its proxy groups from attacking U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq and to cooperate with IAEA investigations of its nuclear program. Iran never abided by either of these provisions.

In exchange for agreeing to the above requirements, Iran was to receive over $20 billion in sanctions relief. The U.S. also reportedly agreed not to impose new sanctions on Iran.

In addition, this agreement included a U.S.-Iran prisoner exchange and a U.S. ransom payment to Iran of $5 billion. This payment was frozen in October 2023 after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran engaged in other malign activities during the Biden/Harris administration, such as selling attack drones and missiles to Russia for its use in the Ukraine War and working with Russia, China, and North Korea to form a new anti-West “axis.”

There also were significant advances in Iran’s missile program, including a possible hypersonic missile launch, advanced cruise missiles, space launches (which were believed to be ICBM test launches), and new missiles designed to evade missile defenses.  It is unclear whether Iran fired its newest missiles during two missile attacks on Israel this year.

The Biden/Harris Administration’s Appeasement of Iran Caused the Middle East to Explode

The breakdown in security and stability in the Middle East since the October 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas is a consequence of the Biden/Harris administration’s incompetent Iran policies. Their appeasement of Iran emboldened Iran and its terrorist proxies to attack Israel and U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. Iran also attacked Israel twice in 2024 with missiles and drones.

There have been conflicting press reports of Iran’s involvement in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. The Wall Street Journal reported on October 8, 2023, that Iran helped develop and fund the Hamas attack and gave Hamas the green light to launch it. A Hamas spokesman told the BBC on October 8 that Hamas had direct support from Iran. However, although Iranian leaders praised the attack, they claimed that Iran was uninvolved in it. A senior Hamas official backed up this claim on October 9 by saying that Iran and Hezbollah were not involved in the Hamas terrorist attack.

Although Iran’s exact role in the horrendous October 7 Hamas terrorist attack is unclear, I also believe it will at least be proved that Hamas could not have conducted the attack without arms and funding from Iran.

Iran is Much Closer to Becoming a Nuclear Weapons State Because of the Biden/Harris Administration’s Incompetent Iran Policies

This article provides a summary of the profoundly incompetent and naïve Iran policies by the Biden/Harris administration that did enormous damage to Middle East and global security. Because of these deeply flawed policies, Iran today is enriching uranium at the 60% level, just below weapons-grade.  It can enrich enough uranium to fuel nine nuclear weapons a month. Iran has installed advanced centrifuges that will significantly increase the amount and speed of the production of weapons-grade uranium if Iran’s leaders decide to do so.

Iran is at least $100 billion richer today than it was when President Trump left office because of unwise concessions by the Biden administration, especially its failure to enforce U.S. oil sanctions. Iran used this additional revenue to fund its military, nuclear, and missile programs, terrorist proxies, and meddle in regional conflicts.

There is no question that the Biden/Harris administration’s Iran policies have been a spectacular failure.

Obviously, attempts by Biden/Harris officials and their allies to blame the surge in Iran’s nuclear program and its belligerent behavior on President Trump are absurd.  The greatly increased threat from Iran occurred during the Biden/Harris administration due to their weakness and incompetence. The JCPOA has also been proven to be a deeply flawed agreement that actually facilitated Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. President Trump made the right decision to withdraw from this terrible deal and kept Iran in check with enhanced American deterrence and his maximum pressure policy, which almost bankrupted Iran.

America and the world desperately need a strong and decisive U.S. president to undo the enormous damage done to American and global security by the Biden/Harris administration’s disastrous Iran policies. Although there is a lot of damage to repair, I am confident that if Donald Trump wins the 2024 U.S.  presidential election, he will quickly do this with a capable and experienced national security team that will halt Iran’s belligerence by restoring American deterrence and peace through strength.