Concern is mounting in the French capital over the latest wave of illegal immigrants to head from the Italian island of Lampedusa to northern Europe, with Parisian residents worrying about their own security.
Several local residents discussed the issue of immigration with the French broadcaster CNews, expressing their fear that Paris could see an influx of new arrivals, with tens of thousands of migrants landing on Italian shores in recent weeks.
“We don’t feel safe,” one resident of the 18th arrondissement near the Jardins d’Éole told the channel, explaining that a number of newcomers to the neighborhood had participated in civil disorder and organized crime including drug trafficking.
“They fight and cause problems,” added another resident who admitted she felt scared and intimidated by groups of adult males loitering in her neighborhood.
It isn’t just local residents who are expressing concern. Local politicians have also voiced their displeasure at the degradation witnessed on Parisian streets in recent times, with many new arrivals to the French capital resorting to sleeping rough and establishing ghettos due to a saturation of social services.
“You regularly have clashes, cases of alcoholism and drug addiction on the public roads of these neighborhoods, and unfortunately, networks of crack traffickers who take advantage of the presence of these people,” said Pierre Liscia, regional councilor for Île-de-France.
Other elected officials have called for strong measures to be put in place to relocate newcomers from the streets to more secure accommodations in an attempt to clean up affected neighborhoods.
“I am calling for a major emergency plan for the northeast of Paris, to get migrants out of the street is the dignity that we owe them, and thus resolve the problem of local residents who are on the frontline of nuisances and inconveniences,” said Parisian councilor Pierre-Yves Bournazel.
The European Union is currently discussing asylum reforms in a bid to prevent migrants from entering the bloc and traveling at will to desired, more prosperous nations. The EU migration pact will see countries obligated to receive their fair share of newcomers and face financial penalties should they fail to comply.
The plans have been vociferously opposed by both Hungary and Poland, which claim the pact infringes on their national sovereignty. Initial proposals were recently passed in Brussels by qualified majority voting, despite resistance from Budapest and Warsaw.
Lampedusa has been inundated with scores of illegal migrants arriving in small boats from the African mainland, many of whom continue to migrate to the north of Italy and cross into France and Germany.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stressed ahead of an informal summit of EU leaders in Granada, Spain, this week that his government will never agree to the EU’s asylum proposals, adding that Poles “do not want another Lampedusa in Poland.”
Ahead of the Polish election next weekend, Morawiecki reiterated his government’s commitment to border security and took aim at Poland’s liberal opposition who would waive Brussels’ plan through.
“We are at a turning point in how Polish sovereignty and borders will be treated. For (the opposition) PO and the European Commission, borders are obsolete,” Morawiecki said.
Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.
Hamas launched an unprecedented sneak attack on Israel over the weekend that completely caught the self-professed Jewish State by surprise after all its security systems unexpectedly failed at the same time. The border wall was breached, some military bases were captured, and dozens of hostages were taken back to Gaza.
Israel responded by launching airstrikes inside the strip and preparing a ground operation.
Here are the top ten takeaways from everything that’s happened thus far in the latest Israeli-Hamas war:
1. Israel’s Alleged Invincibility Was Dispelled As An Illusion
For starters, nobody is under the illusion any longer that Israel is invincible. Up until this weekend’s sneak attack, some had continued to cling to the claim that its conventional military-technical capabilities and massive aid from America made it the regional hegemon, but that perception was just shattered.
2. It Was Totally Unprepared For Hamas’ Hybrid War Tactics
Upon the breaching of its border wall, which was the result of a colossal intelligence failure and subsequent collapse of all security systems, Israel proved that it was totally unprepared to counter Hamas’ Hybrid War tactics of lightning-fast squad assaults and rudimentary drone attacks.
3. Political Infighting Likely Contributed To This Intelligence Failure
Had Israel’s military and intelligence services not gotten involved in the political dispute over Netanyahu’s planned judicial reforms, which was exacerbated by the Biden Administration’s meddling as explained here, then they might have detected Hamas’ plans in advance and thus been able to foil them.
4. It Also Didn’t Help That US Spies Are Distracted With Ukraine
Israel must take full responsibility for its intelligence failures, but it also didn’t help any that its American ally’s spies have been distracted with Ukraine. If they weren’t so focused on that conflict, then they might have kept at least one satellite over Gaza that could have discovered Hamas’ military buildup.
5. America Is Now In A Dilemma Over Who Gets Finite Military Aid
Business Insider drew attention to America’s newfound dilemma over whether to give finite military aid, particularly artillery shells, to Ukraine as planned or redirect these resources to Israel instead. Its decision could have major implications for both conflicts since the choice between them is zero-sum.
6. Saudi Arabia Will Probably Freeze Its Peace Talks With Israel
Saudi Arabia is under immense pressure from the international Muslim community to freeze its reported peace talks with Israel after the latter’s strikes against civilian targets in Gaza. It’ll probably comply with these demands, which would then ruin the Biden Administration’s plans for a deal before the elections.
7. The IMEC Megaproject Will Likely Be Put On Ice For Some Time Too
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) can’t be completed if Saudi Arabia and/or especially Jordan freeze their role in its construction to protest Israel’s involvement in the latest conflict, though this won’t harm India’s trade with any relevant party since it’s entirely conducted by sea.
8. Russia & China’s Balanced Statements Surprised Some Observers
Many in the Alt-Media Community wrongly thought that Russia and China favored Palestine, hence why those two’s balanced statements here and here surprised them. Even fewer knew that President Putin fully supports the IDF as proven by his official statements over the years that were documented here.
9. The Debate Over Whether The Ends Justify The Means Has Re-Opened
Hamas’ killing of IDF-trained settlers-civilians and kidnapping of children, women, and the elderly to swap for prisoners was justified by some Palestinian supporters as a legitimate means for pursuing national liberation while other supporters criticized these tactics for undermining their cause’s morality.
10. Hezbollah Is The Wild Card In The Latest Israeli-Hamas War
Hamas’ sneak attack against Israel brought to life one of the latter’s worst nightmares, which might become even worse if Hezbollah decides to commence large-scale hostilities. In that event, Lebanon and possibly also Syria could be dragged into the fray, which could easily become existential for all parties.
Everything that’s happened thus far has been eye-opening for everyone.
The reputation of Israel’s security services has been shattered, Hamas’ has never been better in the eyes of most non-Western observers, and many among the latter finally learned that neither Russia nor China favor Palestine.
Should the latest conflict become protracted, let alone expand into a regional one, then there’s a real possibility that the US will freeze the UkrainianConflict in order to redirect finite military aid to Israel.
“Can You Be Extradited For Treason?”: Former Army Soldier Arrested Over Attempted China Espionage Involving Classified Materials
A former US Army soldier has been arrested and charged with two felonies over alleged attempts to deliver national defense information to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as illegal retention of national defense information following his exit from the service.
Joseph Schmidt, a former Sergeant, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Friday after a grand jury indicted him on Wednesday.
Schmidt, who served as a team leader of an Army human intelligence squad supporting US espionage in the Indo-Pacific, is accused of attempting to spy for China following his departure from the service in February 2020.
The “shocking” plot includes allegations that Schmidt’s search history includes “can you be extradited for treason?”
During a trip to Istanbul the same month he left the military, Schmidt made nearly 30 Google searches related to defection and spilling military secrets, ranging from “countries with most negative relations with US” to “what is China’s intelligence agency?” and “soldier defect,” according to an FBI investigative report.
Other search terms included “subreddit spying” and “looking for a subreddit about spy stuff.”
Schmidt also queried Google Maps for driving directions from Beijing’s airport to the headquarters of China’s Ministry of State Security, which has a similar role to the CIA.
On Feb. 24, 2020, Schmidt sent a message to the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul requesting a meeting, calling himself a United States citizen looking to move to China.”
“I also am trying to share information I learned during my career as an interrogator with the Chinese government,” he wrote. –NY Post
“I have a current top-secret clearance, and would like to talk to someone from the Government to share this information with you if that is possible,” Schmidt wrote.
“Individuals entrusted with national defense information have a continuing duty to protect that information beyond their government service and certainly beyond our borders,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen in a prepared statement.
“The National Security Division is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who violate that duty.”
Mr. Schmidt served in the Army for five years, ending his service in 2020.
His primary active-duty assignment was at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where he served in the 109th Military Intelligence Battalion. He was given access to Secret and Top Secret information in his role there.
After separating from the military, Mr. Schmidt is alleged to have illegally held onto classified intelligence about national defense matters that he had obtained as part of his duties. Mr. Schmidt then allegedly reached out to the Chinese consulate in Turkey and then through email to Chinese security services and offered the information to the regime.
“As alleged by the government, Schmidt betrayed his promise and potentially placed our nation at risk in his attempts to pass national defense information to Chinese security services,” said FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Suzanne Turner.
“The FBI and our partners remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting the American people and U.S. national security.”
Two months after Mr. Schmidt’s separation from the Army, he traveled to Hong Kong where he allegedly told Chinese security services that he had access to a device that could access the United States’ secure military computer networks. It is alleged Mr. Schmidt offered to provide this device to the regime.
Mr. Schmidt has resided in Hong Kong since 2020, but was arrested upon flying into San Francisco this week.
“Members of our military take a sworn oath to defend our country and the Constitution,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman.
“In that context the alleged actions of this former military member are shocking, not only attempting to provide national defense information, but also information that would assist a foreign adversary to gain access to Department of Defense secure computer networks.”
Both of the alleged crimes are punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
A Georgia judge on Thursday rejected lawyer Sidney Powell’s attempt to dismiss her charges in a racketeering case that also ensnared former President Donald Trump and multiple others.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee denied her motion to dismiss the charges, coming after she alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in her case.
“I don’t see that as clearing just a procedural bar of being something that’s under the court’s authority,” the judge said as he denied Ms. Powell’s motion, the Washington Examiner reported. He added that it is the “jury’s job to decide contested issues” regarding her case.
Ms. Powell is scheduled to go on trial later this month along with election lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. Several weeks ago, the two tried to sever their cases from each another, which Judge McAfee also denied, while the other 17 defendants—including President Trump—will go on trial at a later undetermined date.
Both Ms. Powell and Mr. Chesebro have pleaded not guilty.
“I can sympathize with the idea that someone who vigorously contests and believes in their innocence doesn’t want to sit through a long trial, but that is the state’s right to do,” Judge McAfee said in his remarks. “That’s simply the process as it stands.”
Election Claims
In August, Ms. Powell, a former federal prosecutor who drew headlines in 2020 for her “Kraken”-related claims about the 2020 election, was charged with racketeering and conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, and more after prosecutors alleged that she was involved in an unlawful breach of voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia.
Her motion to dismiss accused Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, of misconduct because her “indictment represents troubling and unethical conduct by the prosecutors.”
Ms. Powell’s lawyers also said Ms. Willis and her team of prosecutors likely violated Napue, referring to a 1959 Supreme Court decision about the knowing use of false testimony by a prosecutor, and therefore violated the due process clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
The prosecutors “must have presented a misleading and false case to the grand jury, or the grand jury simply rubber-stamped the Indictment,” her filing in late September stated. “The State was in possession of substantial exculpatory evidence which it must not have presented, and this Court should carefully review the grand jury proceedings for Napue and ethical violations by the prosecution.”
But the Fulton District Attorney’s Office vigorously opposed Ms. Powell’s motion to dismiss, saying Thursday that her claims about her innocence should be up to the jury.
While reports have said that Ms. Powell was an attorney for President Trump after the 2020 election, she wrote in a filing that she didn’t serve on the former president’s legal team at the time. There was some confusion after she appeared alongside then-Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis in a news conference about election irregularities.
After Judge McAfee’s ruling, Ms. Powell has not made any public comments.
Powell’s Co-Defendants
The ruling comes weeks after Ms. Willis’ team confirmed that attorney Lin Wood, who also made a number of claims around the 2020 election, would serve as a “state witness” in Ms. Powell’s trial. In a comment to The Epoch Times, Mr. Wood said last month that he did not flip on President Trump or others, saying: “I have no idea why I am being called as a witness in the [Sidney] Powell trial.”
In the Georgia case so far, all the defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges except for one. Last week, bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty to multiple charges as part of a plea agreement that requires him to testify against the other co-defendants.
His case relates to the incident in Coffee County, according to prosecutors. It’s not clear if Mr. Hall will be called to testify against Ms. Powell or the others.
As for President Trump, he also faces state charges in New York City after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him for allegedly falsifying business records in connection to the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors earlier this summer charged President Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House and for his actions following the 2020 election.
Attorneys for President Trump last week made a court filing saying he won’t seek to move the Georgia case to a federal court, coming after he previously wrote in a court filing that he might do so.
“This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this Honorable Court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of
Fulton County, Georgia,” Trump attorney Steven Sadow wrote.
What Was Behind Last Week’s Stunning Drop In Oil, And Where Does Crude Go Next
Oil prices have been a veritable rollercoaster in just the past 10 days.
After soaring more than 36% from its June lows to a 1-year high just above $97 at the end of September, Brent tumbled $14 in just six sessions, including last Wednesday’s brutal plunge, which was the biggest one-day drop since the UK’s Mini-Budget fiasco of Sept 2022 when funds were literally blowing up and liquidating commodities to avoid collapse, and which ended up with another BOE bailout.
What was behind the furious plunge? While there wasn’t one single catalyst, Goldman’s commodities strategist Callum Bruce views the tumble in oil as driven by three reasons:
Overvaluation: Goldman’s inventory-based modelling suggests oil timespreads and flat price was already elevated versus the bank’s forecasted inventory draws. Discretionary positioning was the longest since the Russia-Ukraine war, and the market was very much overbought.
Recession fears: Renewed fears in a rates-led recession saw significant sell-offs in the more deferred timespreads, implying concerns regarding next year’s demand; this was exacerbated by the strategically timed very weak US EIA weekly gasoline demand print, that as many have observed (and speculated about the EIA’s political mandates) were implausibly low. In response, Goldman maintains its relatively serene macro-economic outlook, with FCIs not overtightening and real incomes still rising. Retail prices similarly are not yet at demand destructive levels and demand is still tracking robustly.
CTA unwinds: Mechanical selling of oil as prices hit sell-stop triggers for short term momentum flows. Admittedly much length likely remains here.
Goldman commodity products trader Madhav Janakiraman chimes in and writes that while “not a lot has actually changed fundamentally…. the market created a bit of downside momentum because of government shutdown risk/chatter about Kurdish crude coming back to market/Russian diesel returning etc. Once that little push occurred, the positioning did the rest particularly because a decent chunk of the length was CTA style momentum following strategies and they were quite close on some of their signals turning. At the same time index, commodity ETFs saw decent outflows into month-end and earlier this week. So retail, pension fund type long term investors were also exiting the space. Discretionary playxers simply didn’t have the ability to stem the tide…”
So while it is tempting to think this is silly CTA led washout and a huge buying opportunity, Janakiraman says that the path risks are still significant. China being out this week for Golden week hasn’t helped either in terms of liquidity. They also tend to be pretty aggressive buyers of physical molecules when they see flat price get to cheap levels. One could also argue at current price set Saudi Arabia is unlikely to bring back crude they have held out from the market “and so it is cheap.”
Whatever the reason for the drop, Goldman has stuck to its view of steep deficits into next year driven by (1) robust demand, and (2) significant OPEC+ discipline and pricing power, allowing inventories to draw down to critically low levels once again. The bank also expects prices to reach $100/bbl by mid-24 – driven by deferred timespreads – while the back-end of the curve is kept anchored by plentiful spare capacity and cost deflation in US shale. Meanwhile, the sudden break out of the Hamas-Israeli war in the middle east will likely push oil prices higher and faster (for more see “Oil Could Spike Well North Of $150″: Here Are The Main Implications For Oil From The Israeli War“.)
In retrospect, last week’s oil tumble now seems like ancient history, and after Saturday’s unprecedented events in Israel, oil has moved sharply higher after the weekend attack by Hamas against Israel, with Brent topping $88 a barrel to repair some of last week’s heavy losses, and according to some, set to continue rising until it tops $150.
Here, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Jake Lloyd-Smith are five early highlights from the market’s reaction that will help to shape trading in the coming days.
First, the immediate fallout has been seen right along the curve, with timespreads widening. Among them, Brent’s prompt spread — the difference between its two nearest contracts — gapped out to $1.64 a barrel in backwardation, a bullish pricing pattern. Still, banks aren’t yet rushing to upgrade their price forecasts.
While the latest events in Israel don’t pose an immediate threat to supply, the risk of escalation across the region remains acute, especially the potential for Hamas-backer Iran to be drawn in. That could pose a risk to supplies from Tehran, particularly if the US enforces sanctions with greater rigor.
Market watchers are also putting the spotlight on the fallout for Riyadh, which has been both curbing output to bolster prices, while at the same time seeking to normalize ties with Israel. If the latter now proves to be a far tougher ask, the former voluntary supply restrictions could last for longer.
OPEC+ members are signaling that there’ll be no immediate change to their collective stance. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates’ energy ministers all stressed their support for OPEC+ policy, saying continued cooperation was needed.
While benchmark prices did take a tumble last week before the weekend assault, the global oil market remains very tight following OPEC+ supply cuts. Further draws in inventories this week, especially at the Cushing hub, could trigger a meaningful surge in prices.
Finally, going back to Goldman, the bank’s preferred oil trade is one that is bullish yet net sells volatility. The bank is currently recommending buying a 90-95 Jun-24 Brent Call spread and selling a 80-100 Jun-24 Brent Straddle to benefit from convex and backwardated forward curves, contangoed vol structure, and rangebound price action. Such a strategy raises almost $8/bbl up front, for a max profit of $13/bbl, and currently make profits in the $72-$113/bbl range.”
More on Goldman’s current positioning and proposed trades as discussed earlier in “
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has pledged to send 275 National Guard troops to the southern border while blaming President Joe Biden’s policies for fanning the flames of the illegal immigration crisis.
With the move, Ms. Ivey joins other Republican governors in dispatching their military forces to help stem the tidal wave of people seeking to cross the border without authorization.
“Every state has become a border state under the current policies,” Ms. Ivey said in a statement.
“Alabama remains committed to being an integral part of the mission to protect our Southern Border,” she added.
Earlier, Ms. Ivey joined 24 other governors in writing a letter to President Biden on Sept. 19, blaming his policies for incentivizing illegal immigration, which they said had risen exponentially under his watch, “in some areas by nearly 850%.”
“States are on the front lines, working around-the clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted,” Ms. Ivey and the others wrote, citing estimates that the annual cost of illegal immigration at federal, state, and local levels is at least $150.7 billion.
Citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, the governors pointed out that there have been over 5.8 million illegal crossings since President Biden took office—and another 1.6 million gotaways who evaded capture.
In September, CBP recorded over 260,000 illegal crossings at the southern border, marking an all-time high in a single month.
Republicans have blamed President Biden for gutting the policies of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, whose pledge to build a wall was a rallying cry for a series of actions that they credit for yielding comparatively low numbers of illegal border crossings.
During his first 100 days in office, President Biden took dozens of executive actions on immigration, including ordering a halt to the construction of the border wall—which his administration is now rushing to resume in an embarrassing yet welcome about-face.
In early 2021, when the Biden administration stopped the ongoing construction of the border wall, President Biden claimed that his predecessor’s focus on constructing the wall was misguided and an example of his supposed inability to manage immigration and secure the border.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has denied that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants while accusing Republicans of turning the border issue into a “political stunt.”
One of the most outspoken critics of the Biden administration’s border policies is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Sept. 20 declared an “invasion” at the southern border due to the surge in illegal immigration while ordering the National Guard and law enforcement to assist with the crisis.
“I officially declared an invasion at our border because of Biden’s policies,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, wrote in a post on X.
“We deployed the Texas National Guard, DPS, and local law enforcement. We are building a border wall, razor wire, and marine barriers. We are also repelling migrants,” he added.
The governor’s office has also deployed more buses to ship illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, such as New York and Chicago, saying the state is “at capacity.”
While Republicans have long been tough on the problem of illegal immigration, Democrat governors are also getting fed up.
‘They’re Coming From All Over’
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, recently expressed frustration with the illegal immigration crisis gripping the Big Apple, telling would-be asylum-seekers to “go somewhere else.”
“They’re coming from all over,” she told CNN in an interview. “But we have to let the word out that when you come to New York, we’re not going to have more hotel rooms. We don’t have capacity.”
Saying that New York City has run out of space and is at a breaking point, Ms. Hochul also threw her weight behind an initiative by New York Mayor Eric Adams’ office to suspend a decades-old “right to shelter” law that basically says officials must give shelter to anyone who asks for it.
According to New York City officials, over 110,000 illegal immigrants have come to the city over the past year, with around 60,000 living in the city’s shelter system, costing billions of dollars per year.
Ms. Hochul, too, has called in the National Guard, but in New York’s case, the troops are being deployed locally to help with case management operations meant to get asylum seekers work permits and clear out some of the tens of thousands crowding the city’s shelters.
New York City officials are pressing ahead with an effort to suspend the right to shelter law, asking the state Supreme Court to modify the mandate, which they have described as “onerous” and “demonstrably ill-suited to present circumstances.”
So far, New York City has spent more than $2 billion dealing with the influx, and Mr. Adams’ office has said it expects that to climb to $5 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
Oakland Police Tell Residents Not To Confront Auto Burglars
Police in Oakland, California are telling residents not to confront people breaking into their cars after seven suspects were arrested in three incidents late last month.
“The individuals involved in locked auto burglaries have become extremely brazen. Something that’s typically a non-violent crime has become much more dangerous for police and for the community,” said Oakland interim assistant police chief, Tony Jones. “We want to caution the public. Don’t try to engage with these individuals who are breaking into your car.”
During one of the incidents, officers caught thieves cutting a catalytic converter out of a vehicle in an underground garage. When officers approached, the suspects fled and rammed a police vehicle blocking the exit.
“A lot of these individuals have guns, and they’re armed, and they’re dangerous,” said Jones. “[Our officers] got rammed, it could have gotten deadly, and so we don’t want people to risk their personal safety over personal belongings that they can acquire some other day. It’s just not worth it.”
Jones says that officers have trained for such encounters, which allows them to respond without the use of lethal force.
“This operation got a little dangerous, and our officers showed tremendous restraint,” he continued. “We have experienced an uptick in individuals ramming our police cars attempting to escape.”
Following a chase which include a foot pursuit, police apprehended the catalytic converter thieves, discovering burglary tools and catalytic converters in their vehicle.
In another case, criminals who switched license plates fled when officers attempted a traffic stop. Upon apprehending them they found several firearms in their car.
According to Jones, stolen vehicles with swapped license plates are common.
“We have to be just as vigilant in how we adapt to the different techniques they do,” he said, adding “We’re aware of the plates being switched, but you can’t switch the color of the car. You can’t turn a Honda into a Lexus.”
There have been approximately 11,000 auto burglaries and 11,000 auto thefts in Oakland this year, a 40% increase over last year, according to OPD.
“That’s a significant increase, and that’s why you’re seeing the police department take more of an initiative to focus on auto burglaries in the city,” said Jones. “We’re going to be out there a lot more, focusing on this, trying to prevent these crimes from occurring, trying to investigate these things and find people’s property that’s been taken.”
Oakland residents have recently taken to complaints regarding calls for emergencies, with some saying they are put on hold for extended periods of time and often wait hours or days for officers to respond.
The interim assistant chief acknowledged the predicament and said the department is working on solutions.
“We are aware of the challenges with the 911 system, and we’re doing everything that we can to get the staffing up in the communications division so that those problems are rectified,” Mr. Jones said. “What’s more important is the personal safety of the people of Oakland.”
With budgetary constraints facing the department, and the city failing to secure millions of dollars in public safety grants because they missed a state deadline earlier this year, the department is working to reallocate its budget to further investigate auto burglaries, he said.
“We do have limited resources, but we can manage them in a way that allows us to do these operations regularly,” Mr. Jones said. -Epoch Times
“We must and we will do more to hold accountable those individuals behind these crimes,” said Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during a recent press conference. “This is harming our community at large. We take this very seriously.”
In August, a recall effort was launched against Oakland’s Alameda County ‘Soros’ DA, Pamela Price, after several groups called out the rampant violence and lack of response.
Members of a “Save Alameda for Everyone” (SAFE) filed a Notice of Intent with Alameda County officials to begin the recall process, following years of inaction by Price.
“As crime spirals out of control on Alameda County streets, DA Price reduces sentencing for criminals and even refuses to charge violent felons with crimes,” reads a statement from the group which cites Oakland PD statistics stating that homicides are up 80% vs. pre-pandemic figures, and violent crime and burglaries are up 15% and 40% respectively over the same period.
“African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland,” the group states, per KRON. “Women have been beaten and robbed by youths; hate crimes against Asian Americans are surging; street vendors have been assaulted, and basic services are under attack.”
Earlier that month, the Oakland branch of the NAACP said that the city’s “failed” leadership had placed ‘everyone in danger.’
“Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis,” reads the letter.
“Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” reads the op-ed by Cynthia Adams, President of the Oakland Branch of the NAACP, and Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church.
By John Cheng, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
Chinese markets are set to reopen after the Golden Week holidays against an uncertain global market backdrop, which may temper optimism from the spending boom at home.
A lot has happened overseas while mainland markets were shut. Risk assets were hammered as renewed concern about higher-for-longer US interest rates spurred a Treasuries selloff that rippled through world markets, while the surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas added a fresh layer of uncertainty. On the domestic front, however, tourism revenue from the holidays surged year-on-year, adding to bets that China’s economy has likely bottomed.
The conflicting signals set the stage for a choppy start for mainland equities on Monday. A gauge of Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong rose on Friday, helping trim its losses since Sept. 28 — when onshore markets last traded — to 0.3%. Meanwhile, an index of the nation’s US-listed stocks has gained 0.3% in the period. The offshore yuan has weakened about 0.2% against the dollar.
“The Golden Week consumption data should give more confidence to markets that demand is stabilizing, which may help boost sentiment for consumer and service sectors,” said Marvin Chen, a strategist with Bloomberg Intelligence. “But easing domestic worries come with rising external headwinds from markets adjusting to higher-for-longer Fed rates.”
Traders had been pinning their hopes on a holiday consumption boost to provide a new catalyst for the sluggish market. Travel and spending surged compared with lockdown-hit 2022, with 826 million travelers representing a 71% increase from last year. Spending jumping nearly 130%. Other key sets of data released during the break also showed the broader economy is on the mend, though far from roaring back.
Investors will weigh these modest improvements against concerns about tighter Federal Reserve policy following a hotter-than-expected US jobs report. China is seen at particular risk as a wider interest-rate gap with the US can increase pressure on the yuan and accelerate a capital flight.
The CSI 300 Index, a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks, was down 4.7% for the year before heading into the break. A further 4.9% decline will see it erase all its gains from the reopening rally that took off in October 2022. Reaching that grim milestone may embolden China skeptics, who continue to shun the market due to deepening property-sector woes and geopolitical concerns.
The housing market slump remains a major overhang, with the crisis embroiling debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group and other key builders showing little signs of abating. Home sales continued to post double-digit declines from a year earlier in September, a traditionally busy season for builders, underscoring weak buyer confidence despite a recent slew of property easing measures.
Some investors, however, say this year’s relentless selloff has created some buying opportunities. There are also hopes that the upcoming third plenum of the 20th Party Congress, a gathering of top leaders to discuss major economic and reform issues, will offer hints of further stimulus. The meeting, to be held toward the end of October and early November, could act as a positive catalyst, said Chen of Bloomberg Intelligence.
“We can expect a recovery toward the end of the year or early next year with the economy coming toward the end of the de-stocking cycle, and as we see more coordinated policy efforts to tackle the weak economy,” said Elizabeth Kwik, investment director of Asian equities at abrdn Plc.
For now, winning back foreign investors is proving to be hard. Global funds sold Chinese shares on a net basis for a second consecutive month in September, trimming their exposure to the lowest level since 2020. Pessimism is such that “short China equities” emerged as one of the biggest convictions among money managers in the latest Bank of America Corp. monthly survey.
“We have economic data showing improvement so that’s a good start, but markets are skeptical given how confidence was badly damaged,” said Christopher Wong, FX strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. It will take time for Chinese markets to recover, he added, as “sentiment needs to recover and confidence needs to be repaired.”
“There’s Just Way Too Much Debt”: This Is Now The Greatest Bond Bear Market In History
There was a remarkable chart in the latest Flow Show note from BofA resident bear Michael Hartnett: after peaking in July 2020 and in the subsequent 28 months drawing down by a record 25%, this is now the single greatest bond bear market of all time!
Considering that BofA’s historical data goes back 236 years all the way to the founding of the republic, this is a jarring statistic, and a poignant reminder of the magnitude of the pain rippling through the financial world in the aftermath of an inflation shock and interest-rate surge that few saw coming… a shock which Deutsche Bank last week quantified as a $70 trillion Mark to Market hit to duration portfolios (while some may claim it’s not a loss unless you actually sell the bond, the truth is that any bond which is pledged as collateral in the repo markets or elsewhere is valued daily, and the cumulative haircut assuming all eligible duration was pledged is, drumroll, $70 trillion).
Worse, the historical bond bear market also underscores the growing angst in some corners of Wall Street about the increasingly shaky state of US government finances. As a reference, it took the US government just 18 days to add more than $500 billion dollars in debt after rising above $33 trillion for the first time: a run-rate of $1 trillion in new debt in under 2 months. Also, it took the US until March 1975 to accumulate its first $500 billion. It just did the same in 18 days.
And just 18 days later we are at $33.513 trillion. That’s $28.5 billion in new debt per day, and on pace to add another trillion in 1.5 months. https://t.co/tOrhqmldNj
As Bloomberg Markets Live reporter Ye Xie writes, massive deficits as far as the eye can see seemed fine when the Federal Reserve had interest rates pinned at zero and was monetizing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Treasuries every week. Free money can mask a lot of problems.
But at today’s 5% rate, though, the math gets tricky. The government’s tab, and, as a result, the supply of bonds it needs to sell, adds up so fast that it can overwhelm what was long considered to be insatiable demand for the world’s safest investment.
“There’s just way too much debt,” says Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni Research. And so, Xie goes on, the price on the 10-year Treasury bond is tumbling, driving its yield up to the highest level in 16 years. Investors, in other words, are demanding a discount to buy the debt, a dynamic that’s magnified by the Fed’s sudden exit from the market. Quantitative easing, as the Fed’s bond-purchase program was known, became untenable once policymakers deemed inflation was Enemy No. 1; it just pumped too much cash into an already overheated economy. Central banks in Brazil, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have also halted their US bond purchases. In some cases, they’ve taken to outright selling.
The vacuum created by the central banks’ departure is once again empowering the traditional forces in finance: banks, hedge funds, insurers. Yardeni refers to this group as the bond vigilantes, a term he coined first back in the 1980s. Right now, he says, they’re back to doing their thing, pushing bond prices down and yields up, and sending a warning to Washington to rein in the deficit and inflation.
This isn’t about the US defaulting on its debts. The periodic histrionics surrounding the debt ceiling and government funding deadlines are, for now at least, just that. The real concern is that by pursuing a fiscal policy that drives up yields so much, Washington is putting the squeeze on companies and consumers across America. Push yields too high, too fast and something in the economy will break, something both JPMorgan and Goldman agree on (see “Goldman, JPMorgan Pull The Alarm: As Yields Soar “Risks Are Growing Of A Sharp, Impulsive, Negative Feedback Loop… There Will Be A Financial Accident“.)
Last March, it happened with SVB, and while nothing was fixed the problem of massive mark to markets bond losses was masked courtesy of the Fed’s BTFP facility which has hit new record highs every weeks since its inception (the facility is supposed to terminate next March; instead it will be greatly expanded). Yardeni frets it will happen again now, and potentially drag the economy into a painful recession in the process.
“We’re getting pretty close to the level where something could break,” he says. A key level for him: 5% on the 10-year bond. Surpass that, he says, and the odds of a recession really pick up. The yield got as high as 4.89% last week. Just two months earlier, it was hovering around 4%. During the pandemic, it was as low as 0.3%.
Meanwhile, Xie points to the latest Hartnett notes and reminds readers that the superlatives quantifying the bond rout are endless. One comparison being made is to the wipeout in stocks during the dot-com bust (in both cases, the losses reached 50%).
Another startling reference is that at one point last quarter the spike in yields was the biggest since the increase that proceeded the 1987 stock market crash. The pain has started to spill into stocks this time, too, albeit to a far lesser extent. Corporate bonds have also slid while the dollar has rallied against most other currencies. Even oil, which had largely been impervious to broader economic forces throughout the summer, got sucked into the bond market vortex last week, posting losses that broke a months-long rally.
What makes this moment all the more shocking to Wall Street veterans is that it disrupted years of Fed-orchestrated stability in the bond market. That comatose state, in which benchmark yields hovered around 2% day after day, year after year, had become known as the new normal. The US—and much of the rest of the world—had entered an era of low growth and low inflation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, so rock-bottom rates made sense.
Few on Wall Street saw much that might change that, not even when the pandemic unleashed a torrent of government spending. Now that change is here at such a radical pace, many of finance’s best and brightest are suddenly citing all sorts of economic forces that could keep yields high for years: global warming, the transition to green energy, deglobalization, demographic shifts and, of course, the ever-growing supply of government bonds. “We are in a world with a permanently higher cost of capital, and that does have consequences,” says Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management.
The years from 2008 to 2020 were abnormal, even if at some point they came to feel normal, Slok says. The Bank of America strategists dug up another historical nugget to underscore the point: Global interest rates during this period were the lowest in 5,000 years. “The new world that we live in,” Slok says, “is really the normal world that we were in.”
It’s a world in which Yardeni’s vigilantes, the bond traders, have a much bigger voice, the Fed has a smaller one, and consumers, corporate executives and Washington lawmakers have to confront a harsh reality: America’s free-money experiment is over.
And while it is certainly admirable that central banks are, at least superficially, seeking a return to the old normal, the problem is that if the Fed truly hopes to put the QE years behind it, it better be prepared to also wipe away about 80% of the stock market gains since 2009.
Of course, this will never happen, as the alternative would be the biggest depression in global history, one which promptly mutates into social unrest and civil and global war. Which is why it is amusing to watch the Fed play chicken on two front: inflation on one, and the threat of unprecedented capital markets collapse on the other.
In academia, one of the most common criticisms in research and discussions is that correlation does not mean causation.
It refers to the logical fallacy for some who draw a cause-and-effect relationship between two events. The logical fallacy is captured in the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc (‘with this, therefore because of this’). With the horrific attacks on Israel this week, some well-known commentators have been criticized for using the killing of hundreds by Hamas as a criticism of conservative figures or Republicans in general.
That includes the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin who appeared to blame the GOP for inviting the attack and Professor Laurence Tribe who suggested (and later retracted) that the war was actually a “wag-the-dog” operation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to distract from corruption allegations.
Rubin (who goes by the moniker “Jennifer Truthful, Not Neutral Rubin”) immediately attempted to use the attack as another attack on Republicans: “How about this: With US House in chaos and US military promotions on hold, Hamas struck. Republicans’ weakness invites terror.”
How about this: With US House in chaos and US military promotions on hold, Hamas struck. Republicans’ weakness invites terror.
— Jennifer Truthful, Not Neutral Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) October 7, 2023
Putting aside the effort to use this tragedy as a political cudgel domestically, Rubin ignores the fact that the motion to vacate the chair succeeded due to a unanimous Democratic vote and just eight dissenting Republicans. The Democrats wanted to vacate the chair even though McCarthy was being criticized by the dissenters for working with them and they will now likely receive a far more strident speaker.
Rubin has also called for expelling Republican members, who voted against certifying the 2020 election. She further declared that “we have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.”
Now Rubin is suggesting that Hamas decided to launch this massive attack because there is an acting Speaker in the House until next week. It appears that Hamas was just waiting for the motion to vacate to pass.
Citing the Washington Post, Tribe wrote “Is Netanyahu wagging the dog of war to take attention away from his own war on the independent judiciary? Can anyone put that past him?”
The response was fast and furious.
It was even too much for figures like Keith Olbermann who condemned Tribe stating, “Well this is a moronic and indefensible POV.”
These controversies highlight the need to restore an element of maturity and civility to commentary. The “everything-goes” mentality has now taken hold of major media outlets, which regularly feature trash talking and sensational claims. If the target of these attacks is a conservative or Republican, there is a sense of license to remove the safeties in public engagements.
Once again, it is possible to restore a modicum of civility and accuracy in our public discourse. All it takes is for people of good faith to turn away from the rage and return reason in our commentary.
