Abu Dhabi’s main oil producer Adnoc is set to make its bond market debut more than two years after creating an entity to pursue such financing.
The company began a two day roadshow on Monday and is looking to raise five-, 10- and 30-year debt, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified.
by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,
There is the reality all around us - restaurants struggling to survive, bills eating household income, jobs ever less secure, costs soaring for all enterprise, even the local dollar stores hitting hard times - and there are the macroeconomic statistics reported daily by the media. They seem to have ever less connection to each other.
Why do we have macroeconomic statistics? We all want to know more about the world outside of our direct experience. That is especially true for those whose livelihoods are bound up with knowing. For economics, that includes academics, investors, and just regular business people who are trying to make plans and would like to make sense of their prospects in a different market.
Starting about a century ago, a new market for data opened up. It was for government planners to exercise newly granted powers to plan the economy better than markets. The idea was that with better data, they could do a better job in adjusting outcomes in a way that would be more socially optimal.
The data collection industry was born. And it grew and grew, taking a huge leap in the 1930s during which time governments and central banks embarked upon a grand plan to tame business and trade cycles. They imagined themselves to have various levers in control rooms, with handles and names like “fiscal policy” and “monetary policy.” They would pull and push these levers to smooth out the recklessness of markets.
If you head to Washington, D.C. today and go to the Federal Trade Commision, you will see an impressive statue from the 1930s called “Man Controlling Trade.” It’s a muscular man representing government and a wild horse representing the market economy. The man is successfully keeping the market in check. That’s how it was imagined to work back then and still today.
To be sure, we’ve learned that the reality is otherwise. It is more like the horse is riding the man or actually the horse is pulling the man, depending on your perspective. The man only intervenes to get something for himself, not serve the public. If that outlook sounds dark, have a look at the operation of any sector of economic life and look at it honestly. You will see, if you look carefully, that the storied vision of how it is supposed to work contradicts the reality.
In any case, back to statistics. Consistent with the way in which our times have lost faith in so much of what is called “science,” the science of data collection for purposes of economic planning has not gone well. For instance, back in the 1960s, it was widely believed that there was a consistent tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. When one was up, the other was down. It was said to be possible to control each element by manipulating the other.
To some extent, the Fed’s Jerome Powell seems to believe something like this now. His idea of controlling inflation was not, at least overtly, to better manage the money stock but rather to “slow down” economic growth that is believed to be the underlying cause of inflation. At least that is what he said.
And yet when you think about this alleged tradeoff, it keeps being contradicted by reality. In the 1970s, we saw our first big bout of what was named stagflation, when both inflation and unemployment were high. At that point, the Fed had no idea what to do. And in our own time, we had low inflation and low unemployment for nearly two decades when suddenly they began to see-saw in strange ways with lockdowns. Unemployment soared but inflation stayed low, until inflation rose and unemployment went back down. Now we are seeing inflation still high and unemployment rising with it.
That’s a problem with the theory, but there’s an even more fundamental problem with the data collection itself. When we see numbers and charts, there is something in the modern human brain that suspends incredulity. We simply take it for granted that what we are seeing is true.
We saw this in COVID. The charts were everywhere: exposure, infection, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and they were presented in waves. We thought we were following the science. We were told to look at the data and follow the science. We heard it over and over like a mantra. But people rarely if ever stopped and wondered: is any of this even true?
Obviously the case and infection data is entirely contingent on testing, and the testing results were themselves contingent on accuracy, and the death data were contingent upon a judgment call concerning the cause of death. Put it all together with possible errors and what do you end up with? We came to realize that much of what we were being told was accurate was in fact complete gibberish.
Sadly, the same thing is happening in economics today. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports as true inflation does not comport with anything being pushed by industry. Groceries are a good example. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) lists them as up 20 percent over four years but industry puts the figure closer to 34 percent. It’s the same with cars: the rates of inflation are double what government reports. Meanwhile, many costs are not reported at all, such as taxes, interest, or home prices.
It reaches absurdity with home prices because government reports “Owners Equivalent Rent” rather than, you know, the actual home prices. We end up with figures that are twice as high as government reports.
(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED
As for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers, take them with a grain of salt. That’s because some 17 percent of the number is attributable to increases in government spending. Take that away from the total and you turn numbers in the black to numbers in the red. And if you want to go further and adjust those by actual inflation numbers as versus BLS fictions, you end up with deep recessionary conditions.
We just learned that the jobs numbers have been overstated for two years by some 1.2 million jobs that really do not exist. In searching for a reason for such an egregious error, we come across a strange statistical adjustment deployed by the BLS called the “birth-death” rate—not of lives but of businesses.
What in the world is this? Well, the BLS has a model that estimates based on historical data how many businesses have formed vs how many have gone out of business. They smash this together with surveys and adjust the results. What you end up with is a complete fiction, some kind of cockamamie bureaucratic baloney that does not comport with any reality.
And keep in mind that they are running this model during times of epic business failure as lockdowns wrecked countless small businesses around the country. Extend your historical data far enough and you can pretend as if this never happened, which means that you can estimate jobs data in ways that entirely circumvent all existing business conditions. That is apparently what they did, which means that we are likely going to see dramatic downward revisions hit following the election in November.
Mark my words, come January we are going to get a backwards-dated recession that will extend six months at least but maybe even more. A fully honest reporting would likely revise the economic history all the way back to March 2020. I doubt they will go that far because doing so would be too much honesty too soon. We’ll likely have to wait decades for that kind of brazen transparency.
It’s bad enough that government collects all this data in order to “to plan, regulate, control, or reform various industries—or impose central planning and socialization on the entire economic system,” as Murray Rothbard wrote in 1961. It’s even worse when one discovers that no one can even trust the results. It’s garbage in, garbage out.
I’m hardly alone in feeling a sense of shock that we cannot actually believe the data coming out of these government agencies. Everyone depends on it. We don’t really have alternatives overall even if we have snippets from this or that industry. Mostly we are stuck with the data we have however fictional. That is quite the commentary on the Age of Science, isn’t it?
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/failure-economics-statistics
On Monday a mob of Turkish men attacked American soldiers who had been walking the streets of Izmir in southern Turkey, apparently as the US personnel were on liberty after the USS Wasp which they are attached to made port call.
Social media video shows a group of men surrounding one US soldier and while violently constraining him. The Turkish men then stick a white bag over his head in an effort to humiliate and possibly kidnap the American and those with him. The brief clip then shows a couple more US troops jumping in to push the Turkish men off their fellow soldier.
Reuters has confirmed of the incident, "A nationalist Turkish youth group on Monday physically assaulted two U.S. soldiers in western Turkey, the U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the local governor's office said, adding that 15 assailants had been detained over the incident."
The same report says that a total of five other US soldiers quickly came to their fellow servicemember's aid to fight off the attackers, after which local police quickly intervened.
The US Embassy in Turkey has subsequently confirmed the American personnel are safe after the incident, "We can confirm reports that U.S. service members embarked aboard the USS Wasp were the victims of an assault in Izmir today, and are now safe," it said on X. There was no mention of injuries.
The Izmir governor's office identified that the attackers were part of an ultra-nationalist group called the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), which is associated with the opposition Vatan Party. The statement said that the Turkish group "physically attacked" two American soldiers who were in civilian clothes in the Konak district.
The assaulting group reportedly chanted "Yankee, go home!" while detaining at least one of the Americans. It all happened in broad daylight.
The UK Mirror details of the USS Wasp's weekend port call:
The USS Wasp arrived in the port of Izmir on Sunday for a scheduled visit, with sailors and marines taken on tours organised by the ship’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation team during while it is docked. Previously on a scheduled deployment to Europe, the Wasp was recently sent to the Mediterranean and Middle East amid rising tensions between Hezbollah and Israel along the border with Lebanon, and had made a stop in Turkey. It marked the first time that the Wasp had operated in the Mediterranean region since being moved back from Sasebo, Japan to Norfolk, Virginia in 2019.
Turkish journalist and regional correspondent Ragıp Soylu described that it was "A payback in their understanding for US soldiers placing sacks over Turkish soldiers operating in Northern Iraq almost 20 years ago."
It appears that the whole incident then turned into an anti-American demonstration, and involved US Marines which the crowd tried to detain or essentially kidnap:
One commenter said that it is time to "kick Turkey out of NATO" and provided additional details as follows:
Second US soldier comes in trying to help his comrade but disengages shortly after receiving several punches - likely fearing an escalation, aware of the mob-mentality and readiness to use excessive violence by these elements of the Turkish society. Incident happened in the tourist area of Izmir close to the harbour where the USS Wasp aircraft carrier of the US navy is anchored.
However, Turkish investigators have yet to given an official motive. Likely it could also be connected with events in Gaza. Turkish-Israeli relations have of late reached a low point in modern history, and it is well understood in the region that US-supplied bombs and aircraft aid in Israel's Gaza operations.
Such an attack on a group of American service personnel is incredibly rare in Turkey, which is a NATO country, given also the presence of several US military installations attached to bases in the country, and frequent US Navy port calls.
Health is a complex equation with multiple variables: genetics, socioeconomic status, birthplace, luck, and more. Presence or absence of disease is not the only consideration for leading a healthy life. This has shifted how people seek medical care and guidance.
Healthcare is typically defined by three areas: prevention, diagnosis, and treatments. As a physician, your goal is to recommend science-based practices to prevent adverse health events, like heart attacks and infectious diseases. You expect that the tests you order have been scientifically validated and assess real problems. You prescribe and recommend science-based treatments that will help to stabilize or cure your patient's condition(s).
For all the credentialed and trained healthcare experts operating within the confines of evidence-based healthcare, there are practitioners in the wellness world operating in parallel without training or education. For every medication that's undergone clinical trials for safety and efficacy, multiple supplements haven't, yet claim to treat the same symptoms. For every preventive health recommendation, there is a detox or enema claiming to accomplish the same goal.
The wellness industry is blurring the lines of what healthcare is, and it's confusing patients and providers alike.
Health and Wellness Technology
Healthcare technology is rapidly advancing, which changes where healthcare happens. Today, FDA-approved tests are available over the counter for HIV, chlamydia, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), and more. Now, there's an app for prescriptions for contraception and antidepressants, which previously required in-office appointments. Medical advice can now be provided via telehealth, allowing providers to see more patients with limited resources. Technology has improved the ability to manage certain conditions with convenience.
Unfortunately, pseudoscience rides the coattails of some of that technology. The $5.6 trillion global wellness industry also responds to patient complaints and desires. While the wellness industry has brought attention to the multi-dimensionality of health and well-being, it has a more nefarious side too. Wellness companies use the same strategies as evidence-based medicine to sell tests for diseases that don't exist and treatments that don't work, recommended by individuals who aren't qualified.
As a provider, your guidance should be informed by rigorous scientific research. You expect performance to be better than a placebo. You expect to see peer-reviewed papers and results from clinical trials. The wellness market does not operate under these constraints or adhere to safety standards. Under the guise of "prevention" and "root cause treatment," unsupported and potentially dangerous claims can be made without evidence.
This market, which patients and providers are eagerly exploring, has exploded in recent decades as a result of: increased attention toward overall health; the deregulation of dietary supplements; aggressive marketing campaigns by prominent celebrities; and a concerted effort to erode trust in evidence-based medicine. If you can convince your customers that "conventional medicine" doesn't have their best interests in mind, then it's that much easier to sell them on unproven products. Even better? If your customers are providers who will plug your product to their patients.
Scientific knowledge about health and its translation into medical interventions accrues over time. We don't have every answer to everything, and it can be frustrating to feel like you can't provide the care your patients want or need. But acknowledging those limitations isn't a weakness; it's a fundamental part of the scientific method. Wellness companies claim they're offering solutions that "conventional medicine" is ignoring, but that sometimes translates into exploiting providers and patients: patient vulnerabilities, frustrations, and confusion; and provider compassion and lack of time.
Health and Diagnostic Tests
Providers know that when assessing a patient's symptoms and running down a differential, certain tests are warranted to help identify the underlying causes and address them using evidence-based modalities. Under the guise of giving providers more options for patient care, companies offer a myriad of tests that might sound scientific but lack data to support their use.
Tests run the gamut. These days, you can purchase tests that claim to diagnose pseudoscience conditions like leaky gut syndrome and adrenal fatigue. Other tests claim to give insights about longevity like metabolic health, genetic panels, and inflammation markers. Wellness companies in partnership with commercial laboratories even offer tests for medical issues that are real, but the tests use unvalidated methods like urine tests for Lyme disease.
The lines may become more blurred for providers who might not be familiar with regulatory jargon when companies add verbiage to augment the perceived legitimacy of unapproved tests.
For example, the phrase "Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-certified" is often used to make direct-to-consumer tests seem equivalent to FDA-approved diagnostics, but they are not one and the same. CLIA certification merely attests that the laboratory processing clinical samples adheres to specific laboratory procedures. CLIA means nothing about the test being run.
FDA approval of a clinical diagnostic test involves extensive testing, validation, clinical data, rigorous controls, and regulatory and quality oversight in the test methods, manufacturing, and administration. If a company is selling a test that isn't explicitly FDA-approved, it means the results have not been proven to be accurate.
Treatments and Supplements
Passed under the guise of medical freedom (and going hand in hand with the ongoing anti-vaccine movement), the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act opened the floodgates to a lucrative market of unregulated dietary supplements. As a result, the shelves overflow with products claiming to boost patient immunity, balance hormones, slow aging, increase brain health, heal the gut, increase metabolism, improve sexual function, and more.
Companies bulk up the perceived legitimacy of these products with buzzy phrases like "science backed" which sound like there might be clinical data, but often refer to Petri dish or animal studies on an isolated ingredient.
When you aren't bound by the regulations and laws of scientific oversight and government agencies, the jargon world is your oyster. Unfortunately, dietary supplements are not as benign as many people have been led to believe. Without the requirement of testing for safety, quality, and efficacy, many supplements are not only ineffective, but potentially harmful.
How to Protect Yourself and Your Patients
The wellness industry has a recipe for success: manufacture health issues, offer tests to diagnose them, and sell unproven and untested treatments to treat them. As clinicians, you can help navigate the deluge of wellness products with empathy while upholding scientific integrity.
Technology is changing where, when, and how healthcare is accessed. But as always, progress is a double-edged sword. The wellness industry leverages the same technology to develop products and services that exploit our desire to take charge of our health. Unfortunately, clever yet unfounded claims can mislead patients and colleagues toward using interventions that might cause more harm than good.
Providers play a critical role in combating the proliferation of pseudoscience to help keep healthcare operating in sound scientific spaces with efficacious prevention techniques, diagnostics, and treatments.
Andrea Love, PhD, is an immunologist and microbiologist with expertise in infectious diseases, cancer, and autoimmunity. She works full-time in life sciences biotech, is the founder of ImmunoLogic, the executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, and writes a monthly column for Skeptical Inquirer.
Katie Suleta, DHSc, MPH, MS, is a trained epidemiologist with a background in infectious diseases and health informatics. She works as a regional director of research in graduate medical education for HCA Healthcare, and is a writer for the American Council on Science and Health.
We are facing a totalizing ideology, known as Palestinianism, executed by Hamas and its enablers, that seeks nothing less than ending the humiliating specter of sovereign Jews.
Our enemy is dedicated, by all means necessary, to teaching a final lesson to those Jews who dared imagine themselves equal, sovereign, and masters of their fate in their own state on their ancestral land—so that they never attempt to do so again.
We are up against an enemy that not only invaded our country and our homes to gleefully murder and mutilate the most peace-loving people in their beds but went on to kidnap hundreds of them to ensure they face no consequences for what they did on October 7.
The brutal executors of the ideology of Palestinianism, Hamas, did not kidnap people for the limited goal of releasing murderers from Israeli jails. Rather, they did so to ensure they pay no price for what they did, enabling them to do it again, and again, and again.
Make no mistake: as far as Hamas is concerned, it has paid no price and suffered no consequences for October 7. The devastation in Gaza and the people killed are all meaningless to Hamas. Buoyed by global pressure to provide it with ongoing supplies even as it conducts a total war, Hamas remains in firm control of Gaza and its people.
It has secured a position as a legitimate negotiating partner. At the same time, all the pressure is placed on Israel to yield to its demands to return to the status quo of October 6—with no consequences for its actions. Nothing is being done against the backers of Hamas—Qatar, Egypt, and Iran—with the first two being falsely portrayed as helpful (they're not) and the latter as uninvolved.
Once Hamas exchanged the women and children it kidnapped—who were, above all, a liability for their total cause—for guaranteed ongoing supplies that secure its rule in Gaza, the only additional deal to which it would agree, as it has repeatedly made clear, is one that returns to October 6: Hamas remains in charge of Gaza, including the border with Egypt that has been the site of endless supplies for its army and economy, Israel withdraws completely, and Hamas continues receiving billions from the world through UNRWA and other channels, allowing it to become even more effective in executing acts of mass murder in the future.
Hamas executes hostages or attempts to do so when Israeli soldiers are close to rescuing them because the one thing they cannot accept is the idea of lowly Jews rescuing their own people. The kidnapped hostages are Hamas's insurance policy to continue fighting until there is no more Israel.
In the face of a totalizing ideology that plays a long game with an annihilationist goal, there is only one moral position for any government or international organization to pursue (and it should have been the policy from October 8):
1. Unconditional release of the hostages.
2. Unconditional surrender of Hamas.
That is the only way to end the immediate war.
(Ending Palestinianism as the ideology that negates a sovereign Jewish state in any borders is necessary to end the century-long war.)
And until then? It is war and should be waged as such, with no illusions about the enemy we face.
Einat Wilf is a former Israeli politician and author who served as a member of Knesset for Independence and the Labor Party.
by Andrea Peyser
I’m a pro-choice, anti-gun, gay-marriage-friendly Democrat. And I’m voting for Donald Trump for president.
This is the only way to save the country I love.
I realize that people will shun and ridicule me. I’ll create chaos at family gatherings. Hip restaurants will lose my reservations. I’ll shed a ton of Facebook friends.
But while I recognize the Republican ex-president’s flaws, I have come to realize that electing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to the highest office in the land would be far scarier.
During her kiss-up interview Thursday with CNN, Harris consistently flip-flopped on what she called her core “values” — the environment, the border, health care, crippling inflation — in a craven bid for
Middle American votes. She threw Israel under the bus.
The performance was so brutally, blatantly bad, it showed such a win-at-all-costs mentality that left me gasping, I wondered how else she would immorally shape-shift in pursuit of the prize. Does she believe in anything but herself?
With her running mate and emotional support Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota — himself caught falsifying his National Guard record — by her side, Harris obfuscated her dismal record in which, as veep and before as US senator and prosecutor, she neglected the border as unvetted migrants flooded into America, and championed all manner of offense decriminalization. And now she wants to be seen as the law-and-order candidate.
Seriously?
We wanted answers to pressing questions. And Harris replied with a heaping helping of word salad as she — there’s no nice way to say this — lied to our faces.
There was her flip about fracking, a lucrative method of removing oil and natural gas from the ground that she has vowed to ban as injurious to the environment, and also called for eliminating gasoline-powered automobiles. But now that votes might depend on fracking and fossil fuel, particularly in battleground states — never mind.
“You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed and — I’ve worked on it — that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash, who absorbed the gobbledygook with a straight face and little skepticism.
While saying she was “unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not going to change,” she threw in, “how it does so matters.”
“Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Dead, tortured and kidnapped Israelis were placed on the back burner.
She refused to say if she would withhold US weapons shipments to Israel.
Trump, meanwhile, has signaled a moderate approach to the social issues I ardently believe the government has no business butting into, including going against traditional Republican opposition to same-sex marriage.
He said he thinks a six-week abortion ban was “too short” — and that state governments elected by the people, not the feds, should determine abortion limits in their areas. He also said he favors in-vitro fertilization treatments — opposed by pro-lifers because the baby-making procedures may lead to the destruction of embryos — be paid for by the government or medical insurance companies.
He is unequivocally supportive of Israel.
Secure borders. An end to runaway crime. Relief from crushing inflation. As Kamala Harris dithers, we at least stand a chance at solving some of our problems with Donald Trump at the helm.
I’m with him.
The US has seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro - claiming it was bought illegally for $13m (£9.8m) and smuggled out of the country.
According to the US justice department, the Falcon 900EX aircraft was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the US state of Florida.
It is unclear how and when the plane ended up in the Dominican Republic. Tracking data showed it leaving La Isabela airport near the capital Santo Domingo on Monday, arriving at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida soon after.
There has been no comment so far from Mr Maduro or the Venezuelan government over the matter.
A spokesperson for the White House national security council said the action represented "an important step to ensure that Maduro continues to feel the consequences from his misgovernance of Venezuela".
