1538: FedNow

The Zen TV Experiment

by Bernard McGrane

from Adbusters Magazine

this copy from http://www.mimbres.com/holp/gloss/zentv.htm

"How many of you know how to watch television?"

"How many of you know how to watch television?" I asked my class one day. After a few bewildered and silent moments, slowly, one by one, everyone haltingly raised their hands. We soon acknowledged that we were all "experts," as Harold Garfinkel would say, in the practice of "watching television."

The purpose of our un-TV experiment was to provoke us into seeing television as opposed to merely looking, and to stop the world as the first step to seeing. Here we engage in stopping the world by stopping the television.

For the experiment, students were asked to watch TV consciously. Insofar as this is sort of "Zen and the art of TV watching," I said to them, "I want you to watch TV with acute awareness, mindfulness and precision. This experiment is about observing television scientifically, with Beginner's Mind, rather than watching television passively with programmed mind. Ordinarily, if you are watching TV you can't also observe and experience the experience of watching TV. When we watch TV we rarely pay attention to the details of the event. In fact, we rarely pay attention."

Count the Technical Events

In this particular experimental odyssey, we are going to be exploring how we subject ourselves on a daily basis to the overwhelming sirens' song of TV entertainment (the great electronic cyclops) and, like Homer's Odysseus, we will need to strap ourselves to the mast—in this case, the mast of counting technical events. For 10 minutes simply count the technical events that occur while you are watching any show. This is a TET or Technical Events Test as Jerry Mander discusses it in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. What is a technical event? We've all seen TV cameras in banks and jewelry stores. A stationary video camera simply recording what's in front of it is what I will call "pure TV." Anything other than pure TV is a technical event: the camera zooms up, that's a technical event; you are watching someone's profile talking and suddenly you are switched to another person responding, that's a technical event; a car is driving down the road and you also hear music playing, that's a technical event. Simply count the number of times there is a cut, zoom, superimposition, voice-over, appearance of words on the screen, fade in/out, etc.

Now proceed with these experiments:

Watch any TV show for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.

Watch any news program for 15 minutes without turning on the sound.

Watch television for one half hour without turning it on.

The time requirements in these experiments are extremely important. I would urge you, the reader, to undertake the experiment personally rather than merely going on to read the results.

Anger and Resistance: What's the Meaning of This?!

In examining the results of this experiment, one of the first things that consistently comes up is students' anger and resentment at being made to do such a thing—an anger and resentment very different from what comes up, say, in regard to the reading load or the writing requirements of the course. This anger, I think, is quite good and useful—not per se, but insofar as students notice their anger and then inquire into and examine the sources of that anger. For, in studying society, we often unconsciously assume we are studying "them"—but we are not. We are studying ourselves and we resist that, we dislike that. It makes us uncomfortable and it makes us angry. Socrates wasn't given a medal and a tickertape parade after all. As the Russian existentialist philosopher Shestov said, "It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man."

One expression of this anger that comes up repeatedly is "I wasted 30 minutes of my time." Is it possible that this is a very valuable waste of time? Is it possible that "wasting time" is a very valuable thing to do in studying society? Pursuing this experience puts us smack in the middle of the infamous Protestant Ethic in a very direct and personal way. We are almost re-creating through verstehen Max Weber's deep intellectual perplexity and fascination with what he saw as Benjamin Franklin's codification of the Protestant Ethic: "Remember that time is money." After some discussion it invariably turns out that all the students admit to having wasted a lot more than a half hour in front of the TV set. So why this anger about watching TV for 30 minutes without turning it on?

Labor in the Mode of Relaxation

When you turn the TV on, in effect, you turn the world off. The TV is only two feet high or so, yet we are fooled into thinking we are watching life-sized things. How is it that everything on it appears real and life-like?

Technical events produce the illusion of being natural and realistic. They produce the feeling of being non-produced (a good cut is one you don't notice, as the editors say). In the same way, we are unaware that the practice of watching TV is a practice because we have never experienced it as a phenomenon in its own right. Doing the Technical Events Test forces us to notice that watching TV is a practice, an active, ongoing achievement that we accomplish "for another first time through" each time. We see what the texture of the experience of watching TV consists of. We are shocked into seeing what it is we've been doing all these years.

Counting the technical events brings about what Thomas Kuhn would call a "paradigm shift." When you focus on the technical events you can't focus on the plot or storyline. You learn very quickly how difficult it is to divide your attention. Either you watch the program or you count the technical events. You are unable to do both at the same time. In terms of the phenomenology of perception, this is a little like the famous demonstration of either seeing-the-vase or seeing-two-profiles, but not seeing both simultaneously in any sustained manner.

In doing the TET, we notice the discrete segments of independent footage that are presented with a rapid-fire quality. As we watch, we, the "passive" viewers, apparently put together, synthesize and integrate the scenes: we link, we knit, we chain, we retain the past and anticipate the future. We methodically weave them all together into a coherent narrative. A high-speed filling-in-the-blanks and connecting-the-dots occurs. Our actively synthesizing mind, our labor, goes on while we sit back, relax and absorb. This high-speed integration of often wildly disconnected phenomena (angles, scenes, persons, music) is experienced in the mode of blank and passive absorption. It would seem that our minds are in high gear without our knowing. Mander addresses this pointedly:

This difference between internally generated and imposed imagery is at the heart of whether it is accurate to say that television relaxes the mind.

Relaxation implies renewal. One runs hard, then rests. While resting the muscles first experience calm and then, as new oxygen enters them, renewal.

When you are a watching, absorbing techno-guru, your mind may be in alpha, but it is certainly not "empty mind." Images are pouring into it. Your mind is not quiet or calm or empty. It may be nearer to dead, or zombie-ized. It is occupied. No renewal can come from this condition. For renewal, the mind would have to be at rest, or once rested, it would have to be seeking new kinds of stimulation, new exercise. Television offers neither rest nor stimulation.

Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes. The mind is never empty, the mind is filled. What's worse, it is filled with someone else's obsessive thoughts and images.

TV And the Social Construction of Reality

The Technical Events Test dramatically reveals the functions of the political institution of television in (a) training us to shorten our attention span, (b) making ordinary life appear dull, (c) injecting a hypnotic quality into our ordinary awareness and (d) coercing us into its reality.

Television is the quintessential short-term medium. Like jugglers, television lives for the split second. Its relationship to viewers is measured in tiny fractions. Solemn hierarchies of men and women react to overnight program ratings with something approaching nervous breakdowns, because one percentage point can mean $30 million a year. The result of this manic concern is to design programming that will serve attention-getting rather than the humanistic substance that will stay with the viewer. The ratings race serves the advertisers, not the audience.

It is easier to shorten attention spans and increase distraction than to lengthen attention spans, increase concentration, and calm, quiet and still the mind. There is an old Zen analogy that the way to calm, clear and quiet the mind is similar to the way to clear a muddy pool—not by action, by doing, by stirring it up, but by stillness, by letting it be, by letting it settle itself. The function of TV is to create, maintain and constantly reinforce what—in the Zen tradition—is often called "monkey-mind." The question to ask is: What is the good of a jumpy, volatile, scattered and hyper monkey-mind?

Hypnosis Unlimited

Since the emergence of long-term space flight in orbit above the earth, a new physiological phenomenon has arisen among our astronauts. They found that as a result of long-term weightlessness, some rather drastic physical changes began to occur in their bodies. They experienced a marked and dramatic reduction of muscle size. Even their hearts became markedly smaller. The astronauts also experienced a loss of co-ordination abilities -- such as the ability to focus on and follow moving objects with their eyes. All of this seems to be due to taking the human organism outside the experience of gravity. In order to preserve their earthbound physiology in conditions of weightlessness, astronauts need to do two to three hours of custom-designed exercises per day. Perhaps watching TV produces the equivalent mental condition of weightlessness for the human mind, together with the attending shrinkages and deteriorations. The normal, invisible, all-pervasive pressure of mental gravity, of our ordinary, active, inncessntly thinking mind is suspended when we turn on the television.

Coercing Us Into Reality

Our culture and education conspire to condition us, to create a reliance on media to reinforce our actions, feelings and self-perceptions. When we seek media confirmation we acknowledge and assume that our personal experiences are not qualified as reality any longer. We lose the drive to pursue direct experience as well as the drive to participate in co-creating reality. We no longer do, we watch, and reality is someone else's creation. As Todd Gitlin has said, it's not until an event (institution, thought, principle, movement, etc.) crosses the media threshold that it takes on a solid reality for us. Stretched out across our world is the media membrane, over the threshold of which—and only over the threshold—lies legitimate, confirmed reality, and though we don't have to believe what the media tell us, we can't know what they don't tell us.

TV Without Sound

Just as Charles Tart talks about us being caught up in a consensus trance, we can talk about a narrative trance, a narrative-consciousness. We have been programmed to become narrative subjects, subjected to the developmental narrative mode, intertwined with the storyline. In the TET we're suspending our narrative consciousness and hence de-stabilizing the narrative subject. We identify not with a character, nor with the omniscient author, but with the camera. During usual viewing, however, our eyes do not see what is actually there because our narrative-trained mind overrides our eyes. We don't see with our eyes, we see with our programming, and we are programmed to see stories. TV programs are made so that we don't notice the "technical events," the details -- so that we don't pay attention. We are programmed to be unaware of the programming, the non-narrative structure and possibilities of that structure. To watch TV programs is to be lifeless and unresisting. This is the state that allows the commercials to take full effect and operate our minds for us.

The Nature of the News

As a usual daily routine, only the unusually tragic or triumphant is shown—not the ordinary routines and day-to-day reality of our lives. It is true that the news show has fewer technical events. There is a good reason for this. With fewer technical events the news show appears realistic relative to other shows in the TV environment. Further, it appears super-realistic relative to the commercial shows in this environment. As earlier, we witnessed the joining of technical events in a coherent narrative. Here, we witness the reduction of worldly events into a narrative.

The problem is not that TV presents us with entertaining subject matter, but that TV presents all subject matter as entertaining. This transcends TV and spills over into our post-TV life experiences. TV trains us to orient toward and tune in to the entertainment quality of any experience, event, person. We look for that which is entertaining about any phenomenon rather than qualities of depth, social significance, spiritual resonance, beauty, etc. In this sense TV doesn't imitate life, but social life now aspires to imitate TV.

Further, we become greedy. Not greedy in the traditional sense in reference to material wealth, rather, we experience a greed to be entertained. It's not just a need for entertainment, but a downright greed for entertainment, and it becomes a 24-hour obsession. In the absence of entertainment, we usually entertain ourselves with plans for future entertainment.

As one formula puts it, Media Power = Political Power Squared The TV has shown us that politicians can't be trusted but TV can. That is, according to Joshua Meyrowitz in No Sense of Place, implicit in showing us this about politicians is the message, "We who are showing you this, the TV, can be trusted." We can trust TV, and the institution of TV, to reveal how politicians and the institution of politics can't be trusted.

Discoveries About Self

TV has become such a mechanical friend, such a substitute for social interaction, that one's solitude becomes acutely magnified, doubly experienced and doubly reinforced if one is deprived of its glowing, life-like presence (as if one wouldn't still be alone if it were on). If one is alone in one's room and turns on the TV, one actually doesn't feel alone anymore. It's as if companionship is experienced, as if communication is two-way. We have achieved a new level of isolation, solipsism and withdrawal. "It's just an object when it's turned off," hundreds of students have bemoaned. When it is turned off it more clearly reveals itself as an object, as an appliance—rather than as a friend, a companion. It is shocking after all these years to discover this. Mander captures the phenomenology of the situation well:

Television is watched in darkened rooms ... it is a requirement of television viewing that the set be the brightest image in the environment or it cannot be seen well. To increase the effect, background sounds are dimmed out just as the light is. An effort is made to eliminate household noises. The point, of course, is to further the focus on the television set. Awareness of the outer environment gets in the way... . Dimming out your own body is another part of the process. People choose a position for viewing that allows the maximum comfort and least motion ... thinking processes also dim. Overall, while we are watching television, our bodies are in a quieter condition over a longer period of time than in any other of life's nonsleeping experiences. This is true even for the eyes ... the eyes move less while watching television than in any other experience of daily life.

Almost every household's living room is arranged around the television set. As a weight room is arranged for weight training, our living rooms are arranged for TV training. The furniture is purposely arranged for the transcendent practice of "watching TV," rather than for the immanent, human practice of communication or interaction. The interior design of the average American living room with its lines of attention, hierarchy, and transcendent TV is very similar to the interior design of the average American church with its transcendent altar, lines of homage and gestures of genuflection.

TV and the Illusion of Knowing

Marshall McLuhan says TV opens out onto an electronic global village. It would seem, rather, that it gives us only the illusion of being. It reinforces security by presenting danger, ignorance by presenting news, lethargy by presenting excitement, isolation by promising participation. The media confines reality to itself. And it limits knowledge by giving the illusion of knowledge. In the same way that the most effective way to deflect, diffuse and terminate a social movement is to announce that it has been achieved (the feminist movement must contend with this on an almost daily basis), the most effective way to deflect inquiry is to present it as fulfilled. TV acts in this guise as a thinking presentation device which offers non-experience as experience and not-knowingness as knowing.

In the words of Mat Maxwell, "Television becomes the world for people... . The world becomes television." The overall and cumulative effect of the media is to heighten our insensitivity to reality. Rather than breaking the chains of ignorance, political domination and illusion in our Platonic cave, something insidiously similar yet different is going on. Instead of actually turning away from the shadows to see the realities, instead of actually leaving the darkness of the cave and going up into the sunlight, we merely watch an image of ourselves doing this, we fantasize about doing it and think it's the same.

Boer Burger Beweging

Build Back Better

BBBeter

Dear John and Adam,

Thank you for your response.

One more thing I noticed Sirs.

There appears (a word from my old consulting/auditing days) to be a banking industry bail out going on right now and yet 'No cost or losses to the taxpayer' keeps being repeated by all politicians.

The Fed said it will establish a “Bank Term Funding Program” (BTFP) that will allows U.S. banks to borrow billions, at favorable market terms, if the loans are backed by Treasury bonds, high-quality agency debt or mortgage-backed securities.

Those securities will not be subject to the usual discount, or haircut, when used as loan collateral, the Fed said, allowing U.S. banks to get fast cash based on their full par value. Banks are sitting on an estimated $620 billion worth of unrealized losses from Treasury, agency and MBS bonds following the surge in market interest rates that has swamped fixed income portfolios around the world.

Effectively, the banks can wipe out those losses by exchanging those instruments for face value and all the losses arising from the interest rate increases impact will be wiped out. Those instruments will now be held by The Fed and the US Govt will have to pay back The Fed in some as yet undetermined future. Effectively, The Fed bought the losses and now own it. The taxpayer takes the hit: https://www.thestreet.com/markets/fed-unveils-massive-loan-plan-to-stem-contagion-from-svb-collapse.

The UK and EU will shortly follow suit if history is anything to go by. All of these on over leveraged economies and in the midst of unsustainable huge money creation/printing. Hmmmmnnnnn!.

Sorry to bother you both, but just thought worth a note.

Amazing work Sirs.

Have a good rest of the week.

Best regards,

Anonymous

Program advocates say it will get money out to people much more quickly. For instance, they said, government payments like those issued in the early days of the Covid pandemic would have been credited to accounts immediately rather than the days it took to reach most people.

Some Fed officials say the program even could supplant the need for a central bank digital currency.

Link

Stec

Notice each entry may contain many patents, so 4,122 entries is likely ten thousand or more patents

Assume they loaded these Jamokes $10,000 per patent (a conservative and defensible number since that would be the minimum cost basis that their lawyers charged the startup to obtain the patent). Pretty soon you're talking real money, LOL

The way it supposedly worked is that the VC's not wanting to dilute their shares in a startup, wanted debt rather than equity, so they got SVB to loan the VC's startup a ton of cash pledging the patents (worthless or not) as collateral.

Source US patent and Trademark Office

I wonder how many of these patents were ever viable. How many are still alive and not already abandoned? Apparently no one ever checked and that was well known, according to the article I previously sent you.

How many of these companies are still in business?

I can do the research but have not yet.

Many patents go abandoned for want of the payment of maintenance fees. I see it all of the time.

Hey Adam,

Thank you for the podcasting 2.0 infrastructure. Fantastic product!

I agree with the NA thesis that TikTok needs to go because it's business model is attracting more ad dollars and poses a threat to Facebonk and InstaHell.

Here's where I disagree: While FB and Insta can collect just as much data as TikTok, are they? Younger people don't use FB so much these days. Insta might be popular with aging Millenials, but maybe younger Zoomers are opting for TikTok.

So TikTok is segmenting consumer demographic chunks just by getting girls to dance in their rooms in front of their phones. FB needed users to input their whereabouts, and Insta is losing zoomer interest.

To all the great people on NoAgendaSocial.com, CHOOSE BETTER MEMES!

Best regards,

Tokyo Matt

They are not all-in with the National Security Apparatus. People are saying things that are not approved

Not Woke = Not Broke

Now search ads! Whoops!

HE who screams loudest against them is for the most censorship.

Toure on twitter

At this point woke is a slur. The way the right uses it is an undercover way of saying "those people," or "non-white people." It's a polite way of saying the n-word but in this case the n-word includes Blacks, LGBTQ folks, and other marginalized groups.

In his book, "The Lost Art of Healing," Nobel Laureate Bernard Lown recounts a remarkable experiment conducted on a condemned prisoner in India in 1936. Given the choice between being hanged or having his blood gradually and painlessly drained, the prisoner chose the latter. Strapped to a bed and blindfolded, water containers were secretly attached to the bedposts, and drip buckets were set up below. The sound of dripping water was then played loudly and gradually, and as it stopped, the healthy young man's heart stopped as well. He died without losing a drop of blood.

Link

Adam,

I have a friend who is Ukrainian. She was on a multi-month trip to the USA in January 2022 when the war hit. The apartment where she lives in Kiev was hit with a missile shortly after the war started and she was afraid to return. The U.S. rolled out a plan to allow citizenship or residency for Ukrainian refugees and she applied. They are now telling her she has to get vaccinated or leave because we require that for all applicants. She's considering whether to go back or live in Europe. LOL

Hi Adam! Prescription uppers lead to prescriptions downers. My best friend has used it so long for its appetite suppressing effects. She has other prescription to calm down and sleep. Big Pharma dreams! It is so sad that doctors keep perpetuating this cycle because we are all scatter brains! I’m also wondering if some of these “died suddenly” cases could be from long term use of prescription uppers.

Enjoy your trip to Jamaica with Tina! I am Tina’s 75 friend that is joining in on the Bible Recap. I am so thankful to share that with her. Your wife is a jewel! Blessings to you and your faith journey!

Ashley

Hi Adam,

I have to share with you my sisters and then my coworkers experiences with getting ozempic. My sister is 72 years old and morbidly obese with diabetes. She was taking meds orally for her A1C but last summer her numbers were off the charts, so her doctor prescribed Ozempic. By Thanksgiving, her A1C numbers were in the good range AND she'd lost 45 lbs. She said her appetite had lessened. So for her, this medicine was a literal life saver. She has continued to lose weight and therefore is more active and her A1C has been steady.

I have a 40 year old coworker who is obese and pre-diabetic. Her doctor wanted to prescribe Ozempic for her borderline diabetes. Our insurance denied her because she is not yet diabetic!

How horrible that someone that would medically benefit from this medication is denied, but Hollywood and the like can purchase it to use in unhealthy ways. God only knows the long term effects to your sugar levels if only using it for weight loss.

I'm also disheartened that Weight Watchers is buying the company that manufactures Ozempic. I've used the Weight Watchers plan. It works! In my opinion, they are selling out! Very sad indeed.

Thanks for listening!

Joanne`

Makes sense now why USA still has vax requirement for non cvitizens and residents. Need to justify the billions in contracts

Link

Hi Adam,

A brief note in support of the rants about vasectomies: I had one in 1997 and it remains a regret. I'm not looking for more children, but I've never felt whole since.

As anyone who has handled firearms knows, there is a very different feeling between hitting a target with a live round and holding a gun and saying "Bang!"

I am pretty wizened-looking these days from years of squinting into the sun, but, as you and John suggest, I did maintain a youthful, and too-pretty-looking face until my mid 40s.

I expect the resistance you are hearing is from men who don't want to admit that their wives keep their balls in a box on the mantle.

Sincerely,

Sandy, the Knight who says NI!

My wife was diagnosed with adhd 2 years ago. She was looking for treament for anxiety, and was diaganosed with adhd instead. She started taking vyvanse. She tried 3 different doses and went to the middle dose. she thought it worked best for her there. She had better focus and productivity and the anxiety disappeared. I guess vyvanse is supposed to be less habit forming than other adhd drugs. (which we all know how oxycontin was supposed to be less addictive and we know how that turned out). a few months ago she started noticing that it seemed to not be working as well. She thought she was paranoid or losing her mind. Then she found these tiktok videos too. So we got to talking about it, and she now drinks coffee most of the morning. the caffeine seems to work better than the vyvanse did when she stopped taking it but not as well as when she started taking it. she hasn't noticed any withdrawal symptoms or anything like that. She stopped it easily. When she started it 2 years ago, she couldn't drink any coffee in the morning after she took the pill. The combo made her jittery and made her heart race so much that she had to lay down. When she noticed it wasn't working as well, she noticed it because she could drink coffee in the morning and didn't get jittery or have to lay down. We wonder if the actual tablets are being weakened or diluted or something like that. Or was it the plan to get people dependent on this medicine and then limit supply or effectiveness and cause chaos? Who knows, what we do know is that the coffee and caffeine she consumes works well enough that she isn't missing the vyvanse.

Thanks for the great show!

Jake

calnieloftn

lol! omg Curry is the first person besides myself who tried their kids Vyvanse to see what was up. I only tried it because my son (THANK GOD) was flushing them down the toilet and cried about taking them! I tried ONE! I WAS UP 3 FUCKING DAYS! I tried to take them a week straight just to make sure i wasn't freaking out. I WASN'T! They even made my damn balls hurt!

Here’s another even crazier outcome. Because pilots hate working redeyes and the freight companies fly almost all redeyes, UPS/FedEx have to pay more than everybody else to get pilots. So they are now at the top of the food chain and are hiring pilots away from Southwest and other major carriers in pretty large numbers.

So the planes with no passengers are now the most experienced pilots and the ones with the most passengers (large airlines) are getting less experienced both because they are now hiring at the legal minimums and because the more experienced ones are leaving for freight. Thanks Schumer.

The U.S. Treasury Department may need to choose between climate integrity today and a high-stakes gamble that the hydrogen industry can decarbonize in the future. At its core is a debate over what “green” hydrogen really is.

The maximum value of the new tax credit, $3 per kilogram, is available only for hydrogen with the lowest possible carbon footprint. In theory, this should apply to hydrogen manufactured through “green electrolysis,” in which renewable electricity is used to separate hydrogen molecules from water. Up to now, nearly all hydrogen is instead “gray” or “blue” — derived from natural gas, a process that could negate its climate benefit: Under the IRA this would qualify for a much lower credit.

Deciding which projects qualify as green is less straightforward than it may seem. Imagine a producer plugs an electrolyzer into the grid, and buys certificates from a wind or solar farm to show that the hydrogen was made using clean power. That clean power is now unavailable to other users, which may cause the grid operator to ramp up a fossil fuel power plant to compensate. Should that count against the hydrogen’s carbon footprint?

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Stock Market News, March 13, 2023: Dow Falls, Nasdaq Rises to Cap Turbulent SessionLast Updated: Mar 13, 2023 at 10:52 pm ET

Live updates of what's moving markets, including the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite.

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Former congressman and co-sponsor of the Dodd-Frank bill says there is no evidence the change enabled bank's failure

Updated March 13, 2023 6:27 pm ETWASHINGTON'--Former Rep. Barney Frank co-sponsored the law that tightened banking regulations after the financial crisis, but since leaving office he has been working the other side of the street'--as a board member of Signature Bank, which regulators shut down Sunday.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation set tougher regulatory safeguards on banks with more than $50 billion in assets. After leaving office and joining Signature's board, Mr. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, publicly advocated for easing those new standards for smaller...

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WASHINGTON'--Former Rep. Barney Frank co-sponsored the law that tightened banking regulations after the financial crisis, but since leaving office he has been working the other side of the street'--as a board member of Signature Bank , which regulators shut down Sunday.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation set tougher regulatory safeguards on banks with more than $50 billion in assets. After leaving office and joining Signature's board, Mr. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, publicly advocated for easing those new standards for smaller banks.

Part of what former President Donald Trump signed into law in 2018 raised the asset threshold to $250 billion, meaning Signature and other regional banks no longer needed to comply with the extra regulation set out in Dodd-Frank.

After the bill was signed, New York-based Signature more than doubled in size to $110 billion in assets, and $88.6 billion in deposits as of the end of 2022. The stricter requirements, had they been in place, might have prompted bank executives and their overseers to move more quickly to place the lender on sounder financial footing, some industry observers say.

Mr. Frank, who has earned more than $2.4 million in compensation from Signature Bank since 2015, rejected the idea that the regulatory change abetted Signature's collapse.

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''Nobody has shown me any evidence of systemic or other kinds of fraud that would have been prevented'' without the 2018 rollback, Mr. Frank said.

Lifting the threshold, Mr. Frank said, was a good change that ''saved smaller banks a lot of paperwork.'' Mr. Frank said that as early as 2013 he began talking publicly about the need to change it, predating his employment with Signature Bank.

Jeff Hauser, who analyzes corporate influence on government for the Revolving Door Project, a progressive group in Washington, said Mr. Frank's position with Signature Bank after years of working on banking regulation was ''a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too.''

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''Democrats like to develop story lines about institutions it is supposedly OK to revolve into,'' Mr. Hauser said. ''It always comes back to bite.''

Both Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, which failed and was taken over by regulators Friday, have close ties to policy makers.

Mary Miller, a former Treasury official under former President Barack Obama, has been on SVB 's board since 2015. ''Her investment and regulatory knowledge as well as cultural alignment will enable Mary to add unique perspective and insight,'' the board's chairman at the time said in the announcement of her appointment.

Ms. Miller couldn't be reached for comment.

The bank's president and chief executive officer,

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Greg Becker, was on the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco until Friday, and was one of its three finance executives.

All seven of Silicon Valley Bank's registered lobbyists last year previously held government positions, according to public records. Signature Bank didn't employ registered lobbyists last year, the records show.

During the lobbying push ahead of the 2018 legislation, Signature Bank retained former Sen. Al D'Amato

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(R., N.Y.) and his firm, records show.

Mr. Frank joined Signature Bank's board in 2015, about two years after retiring from Congress. Mr. Frank's long government career and ''distinguished expertise in financial services'' will be an asset to the bank, the board's then-chair wrote at the time.

He didn't register as a lobbyist, but appeared frequently on television and in opinion pieces and newspaper articles to weigh in on the 2018 plan to roll back pieces of his namesake bill.

He told The Wall Street Journal in 2017 that the $50 billion threshold in Dodd-Frank was ''arbitrary'' and ''seemed like a much bigger number'' than it was.

And in a March 2018 op-ed for CNBC, he wrote that the limit was ''a mistake'' and that a higher amount'--he suggested $100 billion'--''could in fact provide a more competitive environment, lessening, even marginally, the foundation of the mega banks.''

Lawmakers including Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.) and then-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, cited Mr. Frank's assessment as a reason they felt comfortable voting for the bill.

Andrew Ackerman contributed to this article.

Write to Julie Bykowicz at julie.bykowicz@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications Jeff Hauser works for the Revolving Door Project, a progressive group in Washington. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Mr. Hauser's employer was the Center for Economic and Policy Research. In addition, in an earlier version of this article, Barney Frank's surname was spelled incorrectly as Franks in one instance. (Corrected on March 13) In addition, in an earlier version of this article, the surname of Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.) was spelled incorrectly as Carp. (March 14)

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The logo of Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in New York City,

Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Google on Tuesday announced new health initiatives and partnerships at its annual event called "The Check Up." The Google Health team shared updates about features coming to search, tools for building health apps and the latest in artificial intelligence-powered health research.

During the event, the company discussed new partnerships to help develop AI-assisted ultrasounds, cancer treatment and tuberculosis screenings, but there was a particular buzz around the latest version of its medical large language model called Med-PaLM.

Google first introduced Med-PaLM late last year. It's designed to provide high-quality responses to medical questions. Med-PaLM was the first AI system to successfully receive a passing score, or more than a 60%, on multiple choice style questions similar to the ones used in U.S. medical licensing exams.

The company said the second iteration of the technology, Med-PaLM 2, consistently performed at an "expert" level on medical exam questions. Med-PaLM 2 has reached more than 85% accuracy, scoring 18% higher than its earlier results.

Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam, a research lead at Google Health, said the company is also testing Med-PaLM's answers against responses from real doctors and clinicians. He said Med-PaLM's responses are evaluated for factual accuracy, bias, and potential for harm.

Karthikesalingam showed controlled examples '-- the demo wasn't live '-- of how Med-PaLM 2 might answer questions like "what are the first warning signs of pneumonia?" and "can incontinence be cured?" In some cases, Med-PaLM 2's answers were on a par, and even more detailed, than the answers that clinicians had provided. But in other cases, Med-PaLM 2's responses were not as accurate.

"You can see from this sort of work that we're still learning," Karthikesalingam said during the event.

Given the sensitive nature of medical information, Karthikesalingam said it could be a while before this technology is at the fingertips of the average consumer. He said it is important to innovate responsibly and in a controlled environment.

Google will continue to work with researchers and experts on Med-PaLM, and Karthikesalingam said the company will share more updates about it in the future.

"The potential here is tremendous," he said, "but it's crucial that real-world applications are explored in a responsible and ethical manner."

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:02

Key Points:

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Silicon Valley Bank had the largest number of patent loan transactions over the past six years '-- accounting for 16.0% of all deals.Data shows that pledgees accept a substantial amount of problematic collateral '-- including patents that became inactive before or soon after the transactions.Among six different types of financial institutions, capital and corporations have a significantly greater share of inactive patents than others.Table of contentsIntroductionPatent-based financing has become more prevalent. According to a paper by X.T. Nguyen and E. Hille at the UCI Law Review, the number of patents and patent applications recorded as collateral went from almost 67,000 in 2007 to more than 178,000 in 2016 '-- an increase of 167% over the ten years. However, as more patents become a funding source for companies, more current updates are missing, and important information remains unknown.

Using data from the USPTO, we analyzed 489,732 patents pledged between June 7, 2015, and June 9, 2021, and identified 24,079 transactions. We ranked the lenders by the number of transactions over the past six years. Compared to ranking by patents, this approach allowed us to spot active pledgees '-- which would have otherwise been unnoticed.

A common issue in the patent pledge market is that lenders may not have all the information about the pledgors' patent portfolios, such as the remaining life and the value in the patent market. However, with the availability of big data and artificial intelligence, these pieces of intelligence are readily available to both pledgors and lenders.

In this article, we found that a significant amount of collateral patents are of little value to the pledgors and the patent market. Analyzing the legal status of patents pledged over the past six years shows that some types of lenders likely have a greater share of inactive patents. These patents '-- whether they became inactive before, during, or after the conveyance agreements '-- are less valuable to borrowers and are therefore less ideal collaterals.

The Top 20 Pledgees In The U.S. At A GlanceAmong all types of patent pledgees, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Silicon Valley Bank had the largest number of deals between June 7, 2015, and June 9, 2021. BoA took the lead with 1401 deals '-- only slightly higher than the 1390 deals of JPMorgan Chase. Silicon Valley Bank ended up in 3rd place with 1057 deals '-- much fewer than the top two lenders.

The top three companies account for 16% of the transactions over the six years. Only the top three pledgees have a transaction amount greater than 1,000, while the companies between 5th and 10th place have less than 600 deals. The largest ten patent loan lenders made up 31.7% of all deals, and the proportion for the top 20 lenders is 42.8%. The results indicate that the patent loan market is highly skewed.

Silicon Valley Bank has a much smaller number of patent-backed loans than BoA and JPMorgan Chase, making it less prominent in previous patent loan rankings. The California-based investment bank has VC and PE businesses and may be more open to IP-backed financing for startups, leading to a decent amount of transactions with few patents. The types of companies SVB works with '-- including life science and energy '-- are both capital and technology-intensive, making patent lending an ideal vehicle for financing.

The top three are followed by Wells Fargo, Antares Capital, Wilmington Trust, and Credit Suisse. West Fargo Bank is one of the ''big four'' major banks in the U.S. '-- the other three being BoA, JPMorgan, and Citigroup. Credit Suisse is the only non-American bank among the top 10 lenders. Notice that Credit Suisse took 277,273 collateral patents over the past six years, only second to BoA and JPMorgan Chase '-- and is greater than West Fargo Bank.

Of the top 20 lenders, there are 13 banks, 2 capital firms, 2 trusts, and 3 financial companies. All lenders are categorized based on the relative level of risk acceptance for collateral. Banks and credit companies are least acceptable to risks, finance and trust companies are second, and capital firms and corporations are the most likely to accept patent collateral risks.

The Issue With Inactive Patents as CollateralWhile some patent experts hold that patent loans are usually secured on granted patents, empirical evidence found that this is not the case. Our data shows that patent applications and inactive patents are used to secure loans in practice. However, inactive patents are not ideal collateral to lenders because they can hardly incentivize borrowers to pay back.

A patent or a patent application becomes inactive when (1) the application is abandoned prior to its grant, or (2) a granted patent has lapsed, expired, or has been revoked by the PTO. Once a patent is revoked, the patent is annulled, failing to provide protection from day one. Expired patents '-- or lapsed patents not revived within 24 months '-- no longer protect against infringing behavior.

We found a decent amount of problematic collateral patents, indicating that the patent pledge procedure is somewhat flawed.

The analysis shows that pending applications account for 31.1% of patents pledged between 2015 and June 2021. Among the pending patents, 5.4% of them had been abandoned before they were pledged, and 12.1% of the applications later failed to pass the examination at the USPTO. Those abandoned patent applications should not be included in security packages because they were never granted any legal rights. The applications rejected by the PTO also provided no legal protection.

For issued patents, around 1.8% of them had lapsed before they were taken as collateral, and another 8.9% lapsed after the security agreements were made. Since the patents became inactive because the owners did not pay the maintenance fees, these patents cannot protect the owners against infringement.

Around 2.9% of the patents were inactive before being pledged, and 9.9% became inactive within a year from the pledge deal date '-- these patents account for 12.8% of all collateral patents between 2015 and June 2021.

Even though some security agreements may have been released before the collateral patents became inactive, these patents are still less than ideal for security agreements.

''When collateral patents lapse shortly after they are released, it suggests they are not worth the maintenance fee to the patent owners,'' advises Leon Hsu, Director of the Product Planning & Management Division at InQuartik.

''If the patents became inactive before being released from security, that literally means that they fail to serve as collateral.''

In both cases, these patents are not fit for securing patent loans.

To understand the pledge behavior of different lenders, we looked at the collateral patents' legal status by financial institutions '-- please note that the data used in this analysis is between 2015 and April 27, 2021. The legal status here refers to a patent's status up until April 27, 2021, and not when the security transaction occurred.

Lenders of all types hold a certain percentage of patent applications, ranging from 3.22% for individual lenders to 5.42% for banks. The analysis shows that some types of lenders have more inactive patents than others. Only 14.52% of the patents pledged to banks are no longer active, followed by credit and trust companies '-- whose intake of inactive patents is fewer than 16.5%. By contrast, inactive patents account for 32% of the collateral patents accepted by capital firms, and the proportion is 30% for corporations.

Concluding ThoughtsAnother important aspect of patent transactions is the quality and value of a patent portfolio. The PTO has emphasized patent quality in the past few years, but the quality of most patents is unknown until they are examined by the courts. Lenders should also be mindful of low-value patents because they are unlikely to get a good price in the market.

In the following article, we will examine the quality and value profiles of the top 20 lenders using proprietary data from Patentcloud. If you are interested in receiving the next article, please fill out the floating form to subscribe to our newsletter.

In conclusion, our analysis discloses patent loan lenders with a decent number of deals under their belts but are less renowned in previous studies. Banks have the least amount of inactive patents among all types of lenders. Capital and corporation lenders have a significantly greater share of inactive patents than other types of lenders. The lenders may want to check up on the health of their patent portfolios to ensure they are capable of becoming collateral.

Check out the patent portfolio of a company, inventor, or agency:

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:49

What to KnowChinese billionaire Guo Wengui was arrested in New York for orchestrating what the Department of Justice called a more than $1 billion fraud conspiracy.Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, is an associate of former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon.Bannon, while working with ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, had "arranged for Guo and his followers to spread salacious videos and pictures from" a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, a magazine has reported.Controversial exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui '-- an associate of former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon '-- was arrested Wednesday in New York for allegedly orchestrating a complex $1 billion fraud scheme that duped online followers with promises of outsized investment returns.

Guo allegedly used some of the money raised through his company GTV Media and other entities to buy a 50,000-square foot New Jersey mansion, a $37 million yacht, a $3.5 million Ferrari for his son, a $140,000 Bosendorfer piano and two Hasten 2000T mattresses that cost a whopping $36,000 apiece.

Prosecutors seized more than $650 million in alleged fraud proceeds from 21 different bank accounts and assets that included a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster automobile as part of the case against Guo and his financial advisor William Je in Manhattan federal court.

Guo, 52, is due to appear in court Wednesday afternoon.

The Securities and Exchange Commission separately filed a related civil complaint against Guo and the 56-year-old Je, a resident of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong who remains at large. The SEC accuses Guo and Je of involvement in unregistered and fraudulent financial offerings.

The SEC separately accused Guo of making misrepresentations in raising hundreds of millions of dollars from investors through a cryptocurrency asset known as H-Coin.

Last September, three companies linked to Guo, including GTV Media, agreed to pay nearly $540 million to settle civil allegations by the SEC of making illegal offerings of stock and digital assets.

Guo, who is known by multiple different names, including Miles Guo and Miles Kwok, Brother Seven, and The Principal, has lived in the United States since 2015 after fleeing China, reportedly to duck looming corruption charges.

In 2018, he founded two nonprofit organizations, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society, which engaged in a public relations campaign against the Chinese Communist Party.

Guo "used the nonprofit organizations to amass followers who were aligned with his purported policy objectives in China and who were also inclined to believe [Guo's] statements regarding investment and money-making opportunities," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement on the criminal case.

Bannon, who served former President Donald Trump as senior White House advisor for less than a year, at one point was on the board of directors of the Rule of Law Society.

In June 2021, Guo's two nonprofits hosted a private party in New York attended by Bannon, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, and the Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow.

In August 2020, federal authorities arrested Bannon on a mega-yacht belonging to Guo off the coast of Connecticut on charges related to siphoning off money for the "We Build the Wall" fundraising campaign. Months later, shortly before Trump left office, he pardoned Bannon in that case.

NBC Connecticut "Lady May" Yacht, owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, in the Long Island Sound.

Last month, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, sent Guo a letter demanding he retain any records related to Hunter Biden. The letter was sent two months after Mother Jones magazine detailed how Bannon, while working with Giuliani, had "arranged for Guo and his followers to spread salacious videos and pictures from Hunter Biden's laptop," which was obtained from a Delaware computer repair shop.

A 12-count grand jury criminal indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges that Guo and Je "conspired to defraud thousands of victims" in the scheme, which spanned from 2018 to this month.

The alleged conspiracy involved the use of different entities and programs to obtain investments from the victims, who were deceived by misrepresentations and false statements, prosecutors said.

"Kwok lied to his victims and promised them outsized returns if they invested, or provided money to, GTV [Media], his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance, G|CLUBS, and the Himalaya Exchange," prosecutors said in a press release.

Guo and Je are charged with wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

Je also is charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to transfer money related to the conspiracy to the United Arab Emirates since last September, after U.S. authorities served seizure warrants on several banks to seize about $355 million of proceeds from the alleged fraud.

Both Guo and Je face possible sentences of up to 20 years in prison if convicted in the criminal case.

Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC's enforcement division, called Guo "a serial fraudster, who raised more than $850 million by promising investors outsized returns on purported crypto, technology and luxury good investment opportunities."

"In reality, Guo took advantage of the hype and allure surrounding crypto and other investments to victimize thousands and fund his and his family's lavish lifestyle," Grewal said.

The SEC's complaint said that one example of Guo and Je's alleged fraud was a private placement offering of common stock in GTV Media Group.

"Guo and Je allegedly diverted $100 million of investor funds to a hedge fund for the sole benefit of a company that is owned by Guo's son," the SEC said.

And Guo allegedly misappropriated investor proceeds in two other offerings to pay more than $40 million to buy and renovate the New Jersey mansion, and to buy the Ferrari for his son, the SEC said.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:29

Since the nationwide shortage started, some have said their medication no longer helps with their symptoms. But there could be other factors at play.

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Credit... Jenny Kane/Associated Press ''My Adderall's not working.''

Videos of people who claim that their medication is no longer effective have recently catapulted through TikTok. In one, someone clutches a prescription bottle, rattling the pills as she shakes her fist. ''They're giving us 'fake' Adderall during the shortage,'' the caption reads. ''The adderall isn't adderalling,'' another user claims in a video.

Some people urge their viewers to submit complaints to the Food and Drug Administration about what they believe is a ''new'' Adderall being distributed and to call for the agency to run lab tests of the medication. Videos related to the phrase ''adhd meds not working'' have been viewed more than 15 million times on TikTok.

For nearly half a year, many people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have struggled to obtain their medication amid a nationwide shortage. The F.D.A. first announced the shortage in October, and Adderall is still in short supply. Among the patients who do manage to find Adderall, health care providers are left fielding their questions, though some say the concerns aren't new. Danielle Stutzman, a psychiatric pharmacist at Children's Hospital Colorado, estimates that up to a quarter of her patients over the past few years have said their medication seems less effective, a trend she said began around the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

''To date, the F.D.A. has not identified safety or quality issues with Adderall products, or signals indicating a loss or change in efficacy,'' a representative for the F.D.A. said in a statement. A representative from Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest manufacturers of Adderall, wrote in a statement that ''all Teva manufacturing processes and practices are the same (and we continue to distribute the same brand and generic Adderall products).''

There's no clear-cut explanation for why some people believe their prescription is ''different,'' but a combination of factors could potentially explain the phenomenon, pharmacists and A.D.H.D. experts said.

Tolerance buildupSome children and teenagers who take Adderall may build up tolerance to the medication over time as they grow into adults and eventually require higher doses, Dr. Stutzman said. Both adults who were diagnosed as children and those new to the medication can also build tolerance, though that is less common, she said. Those who have developed a tolerance to their A.D.H.D. medication may struggle with managing their symptoms. They may have a harder time concentrating at school or work, feel more impulsive and hyperactive, and become more fidgety.

But most people do not develop a tolerance to prescribed stimulant medications, and many stay on the same, stable dose of Adderall for years, said Dr. Frances Levin, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and an expert on A.D.H.D. ''It's not like somebody's on 20 of Adderall and then the next year you've got to have them on 50 or 100,'' she said. ''That just doesn't usually happen.''

Switching medicationsThe brand name Adderall and the generic version of the medication are pharmaceutical equivalents, Dr. Stutzman said, so patients should experience the same level of relief even if they are prescribed the generic version. A tiny subset of patients could be sensitive to slight variations in how a medication is manufactured, said Dr. Anish Dube, the chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Children, Adolescents and Their Families. Even the substance used to coat the pill could potentially change how your body absorbs the medicine, he said.

This means that, theoretically, obtaining a generic form of Adderall from a different manufacturer could alter how you feel while on the medication. However, the differences between generics are so small that an overwhelming majority of patients wouldn't feel any change from their previous medication. ''It's not supposed to have drastic differences,'' Dr. Dube said.

If Adderall is out of stock, prescribers may recommend that a patient start taking a different A.D.H.D. medication in the interim, such as Vyvanse; people may experience varying responses to new types of medication.

''What we've seen over the recent years is there's been a ballooning of available stimulants in the marketplace, and they're not all equivalent,'' said Sandy Mitchell, a clinical pharmacy specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University Health.

As the shortage slogs on, it has become increasingly common for clinicians to prescribe, say, an extended-release version of Adderall to a patient who used to take a shorter-acting tablet, or for prescribers to switch medications for patients based on whatever drugs are available, Ms. Mitchell said. Those changes can affect the way a patient feels throughout the day.

Starting and stopping medicationThe shortage has forced some patients to go weeks, or even months, without Adderall. As a general rule, the higher the dose of medication and the longer a patient is on Adderall, the more likely it is that the person will develop withdrawal symptoms after going off it, Dr. Dube said. Patients may also struggle to readjust to the drug once they do resume taking it. Those who jump back into taking a large dose of the medication without incrementally working toward it from smaller doses may feel jittery and restless; some may even have heart palpitations, he said.

Disruptions and other factors''You can't diagnose A.D.H.D. in a vacuum,'' Dr. Levin said. People with A.D.H.D. can be particularly sensitive to disruptions in their day-to-day lives; symptoms can flare up or intensify when a person grapples with the stress of a new job or a move, for example, or when there are changes to a routine. That's why many patients with A.D.H.D. have struggled during the pandemic, Dr. Stutzman said. As more people return to the office or spend more time in public spaces with fewer masking guidelines, their daily habits may change and symptoms may worsen as a result.

Sleep also plays a critical role in how effectively medications like Adderall might work, Dr. Levin said. The consequences that come with sleep deprivation, like a foggy memory or difficulty concentrating, can overlap with A.D.H.D. symptoms. People who struggle to get a good night's sleep may feel as if their A.D.H.D. is worse, or that their medication isn't working as well.

Around a third of patients with A.D.H.D. have another mental health condition, Dr. Stutzman said. Symptoms of both can overlap with each other '-- the jitteriness that can come with anxiety, for example, may look a lot like hyperactivity. Patients who think that their A.D.H.D. has become worse, or that their treatment is not sufficient, may also be grappling with multiple disorders at once.

Cognitive biasIf you feel that your Adderall prescription isn't working as well as it once did, Dr. Dube recommends that you ask your prescribing doctor if there was a change in the manufacturer or dosage of your medication. ''It's also possible that nothing's happening,'' he said, noting the power of cognitive bias: People who keep hearing that Adderall doesn't work anymore may become inherently more skeptical about their medications.

Through online platforms, particularly TikTok, patients with A.D.H.D. have connected with one another over the last few years, Dr. Stutzman said, finding comfort and solidarity. While that has helped many people via support and resources, she said, medical misinformation can also spread through these channels. ''I do wonder how much of it is suggestibility '-- wanting community around a diagnosis,'' she said.

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Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:25

The latest artificial intelligence model follows a multibillion-dollar partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft

A new artificial intelligence program can keep up with human beings on a number of professional and academic tests, according to its creator, which said the model scored among the top 10% of test-takers on a simulated bar exam.

Technology firm OpenAI unveiled its latest language model on Tuesday, dubbed GPT-4, saying the program is ''more reliable, creative, and able to handle much more nuanced instructions'' than its predecessor, GPT-3.5.

''GPT-4 is a large multimodal model (accepting image and text inputs, emitting text outputs) that, while less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,'' it said. ''For example, it passes a simulated bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers; in contrast, GPT-3.5's score was around the bottom 10%.''

The AI model also performed at the 93rd percentile on a SAT reading exam and at the 89th percentile on a SAT math test, the company added.

The GPT software has been embedded in a number of other apps, such as the language-learning program Duolingo, which is aiming to create conversational bots, as well as automated tutors for the online education company Khan Academy.

The model's previous iteration, GPT-3.5, gained popularity in the form of the ChatGPT chatbot program, which is capable of holding complex, human-like conversations with users.

According to OpenAI, GPT-4 is its ''most advanced system yet,'' and unlike GPT-3.5 is able to process image prompts in addition to text. However, despite its improved capabilities, the company warned the new model is ''not fully reliable'' and still suffers from some glitches, including what it calls ''hallucinations,'' in which the AI simply fabricates information or generates erroneous answers.

The company partnered with Microsoft earlier this year, receiving a multibillion-dollar investment from the tech giant to further develop its AI models. The new GPT-4 program will play a major role in Microsoft's Bing chatbot, which was unveiled on a limited basis earlier this year, and the company is expected to announce integration into other consumer products sometime in the coming weeks, according to the Financial Times.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:23

A Royal Air Force Wing Commander has described how Second World War Spitfire pilots might have used their airborne skills to tip V1 Flying Bombs out of the sky to bring them down.

The tactic has become the subject of urban legend, with many social media commentators discussing if the method is simply a myth, or whether pilots really did use this risky tactic to bring down the feared bombs that were also known as buzz bombs or doodlebugs and which were the early forerunners for modern drones or cruise missiles.

Wing Commander Nick Robson, of today's RAF Air Command High Wycombe, said: "This was not a routine action.

"It was innovation of the highest degree of skill from our pilots of the 1940s.

"The bumping action was a last resort. The idea was to get the wing of the plane as close to the missile as possible.''

A lively debate was sparked online around the subject in 2018 after Hanger 7 Art, which features historical military digital aviation art by Mark Donoghue, posted one of its creations on social media showing how the Spitfire vs V1 wing tipping might have looked mid-flight.

Amy Casey, of Forces Radio BFBS, got the debate going on air when she discussed the concept during a broadcast at the time.

Spitfires often scrambled to intercept a V1 when one was detected in the airspace.

It is thought that some pilots would not shoot down a flying bomb but instead use the tip of their aircraft's wing to bump the wing of the V1 '' throwing its gyroscope off kilter and in effect ramming the flying bomb out of the sky, forcing it to nosedive to the ground.

Pilots are said to have used the tipping method in a bid to save their limited ammunition or as a last resort once they had expended all their ammunition while still airborne.

The tactic is also thought to have mitigated some of the risks involved in shooting down a highly explosive flying object, as V1s were packed with 1,000kg of Amatol-39, a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate, and pilots often had to fly in close to them to take a shot, especially as the pulse-jet-propelled doodlebugs flew at speeds of up to 400mph.

Spitfires reached speeds of about 369mph which meant that pilots had to target a V1 by diving from higher altitudes, about 5000ft, to build up enough speed to allow them to close in on their target at ranges as close as several hundred yards.

This meant that debris from an exploding doodlebug sometimes shattered through a pilot's fuselage.

If a pilot could dive in and gain enough speed to fly alongside, the tipping method is thought to have saved them from any blast risks, albeit that the tactic posed enough danger in itself.

The 'wing tipping' tactic is said to have involved impressive levels of skill in flying given the risks of things going wrong, including misjudging distances and risking a collision if wings hit each other with an unintended impact.

However, Wg Cdr Robson explained that the skill of the Second World War pilots ensured that the wing of a Spitfire did not need to actually 'hit' a V1 wing '' but instead used an ingenious method of using airflow to throw the flying bomb off course.

Speaking to Amy Casey, of Forces Radio BFBS, he said: ''The V1 is what you and I would call today a 'drone' '' a pilotless missile '' that came off the rails, it was pointed towards London, probably from northern France, and it was just fired.

''It was literally fire and forget.

''The problem we found in that time was that shooting it down from the ground was very difficult '' they are very fast, and also it's very difficult to see, so we had to find a way around it.''

He pondered, however, as to what a Spitfire pilot might actually have done.

He said: ''There is a difference in air pressure above and below the wing '' as it gets closer is it actually touching the wing?

''Some pilots would have touched the wing '' the different air pressure at the tip of the aircraft would be enough to cause a disturbance in the aerodynamics around the wing which is then enough to knock it off course, disrupt the gyroscopes and then get the aircraft crash into the ground.

''That's all it needed to do to disrupt the flightpath, just slightly, and either by physically hitting the wing, or actually it takes more skill, to put the wing so close that the vortexes at the wingtip disturb the air around the V1 wing itself, causing it to go off course.''

He said a mid-air collision could well have done some damage to the Spitfire but pilots would have had to hit the wing of a V1 very hard for that to happen.

Instead, he suggests a different scenario might have been taking place, saying: ''We're not looking at 'ramming it off the road' in the sense of the police programmes you see now, this is just very sensitive disruption of the airflow around the wing.

''This is a good example of how the Royal Air Force at that point, roughly in its 50th year, had to be innovative in how it combatted the new developing weapon systems.

''And if you look at RAF 100 and one of the themes of RAF 100 is inspire and innovate, this is exactly what we do in today's modern aircraft.

''This is a really good example of how the RAF is continually at the forefront of technology and forward thinking.''

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:22

The Federal Reserve Banks have extended $6.3 billion to the Swiss National Bank through the Dollar Liquidity Swap line.

That's after swapping $3.1 billion last week, with Credit Suisse announcing shortly after last Friday that they will buy back up to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3 billion) of debt after credit default swaps skyrocketed for the bank.

Those concerns have now eased, with Goldman Sachs stating on Tuesday that Credit Suisse faces a capital shortfall of as much as 8 billion Swiss francs ($8 billion) in 2024.

They argue that at the minimum they need $4 billion to restructure their investment banking.

Jefferies analyst Flora Bocahut also said in a note on Tuesday that Credit Suisse needs to build about 9 billion Swiss francs of capital in the next two-to-three years.

Fed swap with the Swiss central bank, Oct 2022The stock price of Credit Suisse has plunged, down 56% since November 2021. So they might not want to raise capital through equity considering the very low price.

Their bond yields spiked, making it very expensive to borrow through bond markets.

Borrowing from their central bank however may make sense. The swap line is at 3.33% interest, just above the base rate of 3.25%, and coincidentally is in combination about as much as Credit Suisse needs.

The Swiss bank therefore may have been bailed out, with its stock up 2.5% in the past five days.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:54

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency authorization to the updated Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for children as young as 6 months old, even though Pfizer has produced no clinical efficacy data for any age group.

FDA officials on March 14 said the emergency clearance was based on trial data that showed 60 children had ''an immune response'' after receiving the updated bivalent booster, and trial data that found 60 young children experienced side effects such as fatigue, diarrhea, and vomiting after bivalent vaccination.

None of the trial data has been released to the public.

The authorization means children aged 6 months to 5 years will be encouraged to get a booster dose just two months after the final dose of a three-dose Pfizer primary series.

The bivalent vaccines protected well against symptomatic infection for children aged 5 and older initially, but the protection waned to close to 50 percent after several months, according to federal data. There were no estimates for protection against severe illness.

Children are less likely to experience severe COVID-19 and many have already been infected, giving them protection that's similar to or superior to vaccination.

A man fills syringes with COVID-19 vaccine booster shots at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in San Rafael, Calif., on April 6, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)The authorization provides parents ''an opportunity to update their children's protection by receiving a booster dose'' of the updated vaccine, Dr. Peter Marks, an FDA official, said in a statement. ''Currently available data show that vaccination remains the best defense against severe disease, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 across all age groups, and we encourage all eligible individuals to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine.''

Regulators were more cautious in their formal letter to Pfizer updating the emergency authorization. They said that, based on the scientific evidence available, ''it is reasonable to believe'' the bivalent ''may be effective'' and that it ''is reasonable to conclude'' the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks.

The authorization is for the prevention of COVID-19 disease.

The expanded authorization was also based on data for people who aren't in the age group in question, including elderly people, and safety and effectiveness data for the monovalent vaccines, which were first rolled out in late 2020.

Some experts have said the vaccines shouldn't be authorized without clinical efficacy data. Some have said the new vaccines aren't necessary for most or all people, especially those who recovered from COVID-19. Others say the updated shots are a good option for people to have to boost antibodies, which are believed to protect against the disease.

Bivalent shots from Pfizer and Moderna were authorized and recommended in the fall of 2022 for adults. Access has since been expanded to all age groups. Regulators authorized Pfizer's bivalent as the third dose of the three-dose primary series, and Moderna's bivalent as a booster after a two-dose primary series, in late 2022.

Pfizer and BioNTech said earlier in the month that among 60 participants under 5, a fourth dose of the bivalent elicited a higher level of neutralizing antibodies compared to children in the age group who received three doses of the monovalent vaccine. The companies also said that the safety profile of the updated shot was ''similar to that of the original vaccine.''

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:50

HYDE-SMITH COSPONSORS TRAVELER'S GUN RIGHTS ACT

Bill to Protect the 2nd Amendment Rights of Full-time RVers, Active Duty Military

WASHINGTON, D.C. '' U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) on Thursday joined U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) in reintroducing legislation that would remove roadblocks that prevent individuals with no fixed physical residence from completing an instant background check prior to a firearm transfer.

The Traveler's Gun Rights Act (S.741) would clarify ''state of residence'' and ''resident'' in the Gun Control Act of 1968 to overcome various residency-related issues facing full-time recreational vehicle travelers, individuals with multiple physical residences, active duty military personnel, and military spouses.

''Bureaucratic red tape shouldn't be used to stop law-abiding Americans and our brave servicemembers from purchasing a firearm. It's their constitutional right, and that's what the Traveler's Gun Rights Act would protect,'' Hyde-Smith said.

''As a supporter of the Second Amendment, I am committed to protecting the rights of lawful gun owners,'' said Rounds. ''The Traveler's Gun Rights Act removes an unfair prohibition facing Americans with unique living situations. This legislation will make certain that law-abiding citizens do not face a burdensome roadblock when trying to exercise their Second Amendment rights.''

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) currently prohibits firearm buyers from listing a post office box or private mailbox (PMB) on ATF paperwork. This ATF prohibition unfairly hurts full-time travelers, many of whom live in their RV year-round and utilize a P.O. Box or PMB to receive mail. These alternate addresses are able to be listed on driver's licenses, but they cannot be used on the ATF paperwork.

S.741 would preclude the ATF from rejecting private mailboxes on and restore the ability to purchase a firearm to Americans who choose to spend their life on the road.

Additional original cosponsors include U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kan.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), John Thune (R-S.D.), and John Hoeven (R-N.D.).

The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Firearm Industry Trade Association endorsed this legislation.

''The NRA greatly appreciates Senator Rounds for sponsoring legislation to uphold the constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights of those who travel full-time,'' said Brian Calabrese, National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action managing director for federal affairs.

''The Second Amendment rights of Americans should never be denied simply because some Americans choose to use a post office box address instead of a physical address. This is especially important to Americans with unique living situations that aren't fixed physical locations and those active duty military members who routinely move from one location to another,'' said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association senior vice president and general counsel. ''Senator Rounds' legislation fixes this overlooked obstacle that disenfranchises citizens of the full spectrum of their Second Amendment rights while ensuring the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System ensures firearms remain out of the hands of those who should never possess them.''

U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) introduced companion legislation (HR.1508) in the House of Representatives

###

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:32

The plan had a fatal flaw: It underestimated the danger that a deluge of bad news could spark a crisis of confidence

Updated March 15, 2023 8:00 pm ETSilicon Valley Bank executives went to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in late February looking for advice: They needed to raise money but weren't exactly sure how to do it.

Soaring interest rates had taken a heavy toll on the bank. Deposits and the value of the bank's bond portfolio had fallen sharply. Moody's Investors Service was preparing for a downgrade. The bank had to reset its finances to avoid a funding squeeze that would badly dent profits.

The...

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Silicon Valley Bank executives went to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in late February looking for advice: They needed to raise money but weren't exactly sure how to do it.

Soaring interest rates had taken a heavy toll on the bank. Deposits and the value of the bank's bond portfolio had fallen sharply. Moody's Investors Service was preparing for a downgrade. The bank had to reset its finances to avoid a funding squeeze that would badly dent profits.

The conversations'--held over the course of about 10 days'--culminated in a March 8 announcement of a nearly $2 billion loss and a planned stock sale that badly spooked investors. SVB Financial Group shares tanked the next morning. Startup and venture-capital customers with big uninsured balances panicked, attempting to pull $42 billion out of the bank in a single day.

While few could have predicted the market's violent reaction to the SVB disclosures, Goldman's plan for the bank had a fatal flaw. It underestimated the danger that a deluge of bad news could spark a crisis of confidence, a development that can quickly fell a bank.

Goldman is the go-to adviser to the rich and the powerful. It arranges mergers, helps companies raise money and devises creative solutions to sticky situations of the financial variety'--a talent that has made the firm billions.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Yet, for SVB, Goldman's gold-plated advice came at the steepest possible cost. SVB collapsed at warp speed in the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, setting off a trans-Atlantic banking crisis that regulators are working furiously to contain.

This account of SVB's last days is based on interviews with bankers, lawyers and investors who almost participated in the doomed deal.

SVB's problem was mechanical: Banks make profits by earning more from putting money to work than they pay depositors to keep it with them. But SVB was paying up to stop depositors from leaving, and it was stuck earning a pittance on low-risk bonds bought in low-rate times.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Selling a slug of those bonds would ease the pressure: SVB would have extra cash on hand, and it could use at least some of that cash to buy new bonds that paid more. Yet the transaction came with a big asterisk: SVB would have to realize a big loss.

SVB executives came to Goldman with the rough outlines of a plan to raise capital. Two private-equity firms, General Atlantic and Warburg Pincus LLC, were on the bank's list of possible investors.

The executives wanted to do a private stock placement'--a deal in which they would quietly line up investors to buy a set number of shares at a set price'--and they wanted to do it fast. Moody's was preparing to downgrade the bank, a move the executives feared would alarm investors.

Bankers in Goldman's equity-capital markets business, led by David Ludwig, and its financial-institutions group, run by Pete Lyon, began piecing together a share sale during the first week of March and approached the two private-equity firms.

Goldman pitched a hybrid public-private share sale: The firm would find enough investors to fully fund a $2.25 billion deal but would also offer the public an opportunity to buy shares at the same price.

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By March 5, Warburg had dropped out. It needed more time to evaluate the deal than SVB was willing to give, and it didn't want to participate in an offering with a public component.

On Goldman's trading desk, another deal was coming together. SVB was seeking a buyer for its $21 billion portfolio of available-for-sale debt securities. The buyer would be Goldman.

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General Atlantic, meanwhile, agreed to pony up $500 million in the stock sale. But time was running out to line up more investors to supply the remaining $1.75 billion that SVB was looking to raise. SVB executives weren't ready to give investors the information they needed to get everyone on board.

Goldman decided the only option was a public share offering anchored by General Atlantic. SVB executives signed off on the plan.

Mr. Ludwig and others at Goldman thought SVB had to move quickly. The Moody's downgrade was coming, and then the bank would close for the weekend. Better to get all the bad news out of the way to avoid a Monday meltdown.

On March 8, Goldman completed the purchase of the SVB securities portfolio at a discount to its market value. After the market closed, SVB announced that it had realized a $1.8 billion loss on the sale, without disclosing the buyer, and said it would sell shares to raise capital.

By that point, SVB's management team was already bracing for the bad news. Just before the bank launched its doomed share sale, it hired deal-advisory firm Centerview Partners to explore a plan B.

Goldman bankers were still confident that the share sale would come together. SVB's stock at first fell around 8% in aftermarket hours, not as steep a drop as feared, and Goldman's bankers received many orders to buy shares.

The mood shifted less than an hour later when another bank, Silvergate Capital Corp. , announced it was shutting down following a run that drained its deposits. A one-notch Moody's downgrade, less severe than SVB executives feared, landed at around 8 p.m.

SVB shares tanked when the market opened on March 9, prompting customers to pull their deposits. It was the beginning of a downward spiral: As news of the deposit run spread, the shares fell further, prompting more customers to yank their money. The stock closed down more than 60%.

Still, the deal wasn't dead yet. Goldman had lined up a slate of investors at $95 a share, about $11 less than the day's closing price.

At around 5 p.m., Goldman bankers got a report on SVB's deposit outflows.

SVB's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP said the deal couldn't go forward without a disclosure about the deposit losses. Goldman abandoned the deal. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized SVB before it could open the next morning.

Write to AnnaMaria Andriotis at annamaria.andriotis@wsj.com, Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@dowjones.com and Miriam Gottfried at Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:32

Below is my column in the New York Post on the suggested censorship of bank critics by Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.). It was only the latest example of how censorship has become a reflexive response of many Democrats to opposing views. It is now increasingly common for certain views to be declared as simply too dangerous to be tolerated or allowed on social media, including (it seems) questioning the solvency of banks.

Here is the column:

Concerned about your money after recent bank failures? You might want to keep those thoughts to yourself.

While some rushed to get their money after the collapses, at least one leading Democrat is pushing for censorship of those who do not have faith in the banking industry.

The Democratic Party for more than a decade has alienated many of us in the party with its embrace of censorship and speech controls.

Democratic leaders actively promote censorship on social media and vehemently defend government efforts to target citizens or groups.

Some have even adopted McCarthyite labels like ''Russian lovers'' to paint free-speech advocates as disloyal or dangerous in opposing censorship efforts.

Subjects from climate change to gender identity to COVID to elections have been gradually added to the list of prohibited thoughts.

Now Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has put bank solvency on the list.

It is only the latest example of censorship's slippery slope.

Kelly shows how censorship is addictive; it not only builds an increasing tolerance for speech limits but a decreasing tolerance for opposing views.

The immediate inclination becomes to silence those who challenge you or refuse to accept your ''truth'' on any given subject.

In a Zoom call this week with a couple hundred participants, Kelly asked representatives from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation about censoring social media to remove those raising doubts over bank solvency in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank crises.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) confirmed Kelly suggested ''that government should work with social media companies to censor information that could lead to a run on banks.''

As in past censorship calls, Kelly reportedly cited the danger of ''foreign actors'' using social media '-- to undermine banks. It's those pesky Russians again.

The list of subjects justifying censorship keeps getting longer.

In a critical November 2020 hearing, tech CEOs appeared before the Senate. Twitter's then-CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for censoring The Post's Hunter Biden laptop story but pledged to censor more people in defense of ''electoral integrity.''

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), however, was not happy. He was upset not by the promised censorship but that it wasn't broad enough.

He noted it's hard to define the problem of ''misleading information,'' but tech companies had to impose a sweeping system to combat the ''harm'' of misinformation.

''The pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm,'' Coons said. ''But I'd urge you to reconsider'' putting in place a ''standalone climate change misinformation policy'' because ''helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world.''

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also warned he and his colleagues would not tolerate any ''backsliding or retrenching'' by firms ''failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.''

He demanded companies keep using ''the same kind of robust content modification'' '-- the new Orwellian term for censorship '-- they did in the 2020 election.

History has shown censorship becomes an insatiable appetite. Once you silence opposing views in one area, opposing views in other areas become increasingly intolerable.

Rather than convince citizens that their deposits are safe, it is easier to just silence anyone who disagrees with you.

With Democrats' vocal support, Twitter's former censors recently revealed the standard they used to censor citizens.

Ex-Twitter executive Anika Collier Navaroli explained at a House hearing last month that Twitter tried not to just ''balance free speech and safety.''

Rather, it asked ''free expression for whom and public safety for whom. So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety, and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the wind so that people can speak freely?''

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) responded: ''Exactly right.''

So now ''the expense'' of free speech is too high if it might undermine faith in our banks' stability. It is that easy.

Parag Agrawal explained it years ago. After taking over as Twitter CEO, Agrawal said the company would ''focus less on thinking about free speech'' because ''speech is easy on the Internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.''

The great civil libertarian Justice Louis Brandeis once warned, ''The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.''

Sen. Kelly is now that man in seeking censorship to protect banks' assets while leaving free speech insolvent.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:29

The plan had a fatal flaw: It underestimated the danger that a deluge of bad news could spark a crisis of confidence

Updated March 15, 2023 8:00 pm ETSilicon Valley Bank executives went to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in late February looking for advice: They needed to raise money but weren't exactly sure how to do it.

Soaring interest rates had taken a heavy toll on the bank. Deposits and the value of the bank's bond portfolio had fallen sharply. Moody's Investors Service was preparing for a downgrade. The bank had to reset its finances to avoid a funding squeeze that would badly dent profits.

The...

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Silicon Valley Bank executives went to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in late February looking for advice: They needed to raise money but weren't exactly sure how to do it.

Soaring interest rates had taken a heavy toll on the bank. Deposits and the value of the bank's bond portfolio had fallen sharply. Moody's Investors Service was preparing for a downgrade. The bank had to reset its finances to avoid a funding squeeze that would badly dent profits.

The conversations'--held over the course of about 10 days'--culminated in a March 8 announcement of a nearly $2 billion loss and a planned stock sale that badly spooked investors. SVB Financial Group shares tanked the next morning. Startup and venture-capital customers with big uninsured balances panicked, attempting to pull $42 billion out of the bank in a single day.

While few could have predicted the market's violent reaction to the SVB disclosures, Goldman's plan for the bank had a fatal flaw. It underestimated the danger that a deluge of bad news could spark a crisis of confidence, a development that can quickly fell a bank.

Goldman is the go-to adviser to the rich and the powerful. It arranges mergers, helps companies raise money and devises creative solutions to sticky situations of the financial variety'--a talent that has made the firm billions.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Yet, for SVB, Goldman's gold-plated advice came at the steepest possible cost. SVB collapsed at warp speed in the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, setting off a trans-Atlantic banking crisis that regulators are working furiously to contain.

This account of SVB's last days is based on interviews with bankers, lawyers and investors who almost participated in the doomed deal.

SVB's problem was mechanical: Banks make profits by earning more from putting money to work than they pay depositors to keep it with them. But SVB was paying up to stop depositors from leaving, and it was stuck earning a pittance on low-risk bonds bought in low-rate times.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Selling a slug of those bonds would ease the pressure: SVB would have extra cash on hand, and it could use at least some of that cash to buy new bonds that paid more. Yet the transaction came with a big asterisk: SVB would have to realize a big loss.

SVB executives came to Goldman with the rough outlines of a plan to raise capital. Two private-equity firms, General Atlantic and Warburg Pincus LLC, were on the bank's list of possible investors.

The executives wanted to do a private stock placement'--a deal in which they would quietly line up investors to buy a set number of shares at a set price'--and they wanted to do it fast. Moody's was preparing to downgrade the bank, a move the executives feared would alarm investors.

Bankers in Goldman's equity-capital markets business, led by David Ludwig, and its financial-institutions group, run by Pete Lyon, began piecing together a share sale during the first week of March and approached the two private-equity firms.

Goldman pitched a hybrid public-private share sale: The firm would find enough investors to fully fund a $2.25 billion deal but would also offer the public an opportunity to buy shares at the same price.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

By March 5, Warburg had dropped out. It needed more time to evaluate the deal than SVB was willing to give, and it didn't want to participate in an offering with a public component.

On Goldman's trading desk, another deal was coming together. SVB was seeking a buyer for its $21 billion portfolio of available-for-sale debt securities. The buyer would be Goldman.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

General Atlantic, meanwhile, agreed to pony up $500 million in the stock sale. But time was running out to line up more investors to supply the remaining $1.75 billion that SVB was looking to raise. SVB executives weren't ready to give investors the information they needed to get everyone on board.

Goldman decided the only option was a public share offering anchored by General Atlantic. SVB executives signed off on the plan.

Mr. Ludwig and others at Goldman thought SVB had to move quickly. The Moody's downgrade was coming, and then the bank would close for the weekend. Better to get all the bad news out of the way to avoid a Monday meltdown.

On March 8, Goldman completed the purchase of the SVB securities portfolio at a discount to its market value. After the market closed, SVB announced that it had realized a $1.8 billion loss on the sale, without disclosing the buyer, and said it would sell shares to raise capital.

By that point, SVB's management team was already bracing for the bad news. Just before the bank launched its doomed share sale, it hired deal-advisory firm Centerview Partners to explore a plan B.

Goldman bankers were still confident that the share sale would come together. SVB's stock at first fell around 8% in aftermarket hours, not as steep a drop as feared, and Goldman's bankers received many orders to buy shares.

The mood shifted less than an hour later when another bank, Silvergate Capital Corp. , announced it was shutting down following a run that drained its deposits. A one-notch Moody's downgrade, less severe than SVB executives feared, landed at around 8 p.m.

SVB shares tanked when the market opened on March 9, prompting customers to pull their deposits. It was the beginning of a downward spiral: As news of the deposit run spread, the shares fell further, prompting more customers to yank their money. The stock closed down more than 60%.

Still, the deal wasn't dead yet. Goldman had lined up a slate of investors at $95 a share, about $11 less than the day's closing price.

At around 5 p.m., Goldman bankers got a report on SVB's deposit outflows.

SVB's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP said the deal couldn't go forward without a disclosure about the deposit losses. Goldman abandoned the deal. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized SVB before it could open the next morning.

Write to AnnaMaria Andriotis at annamaria.andriotis@wsj.com, Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@dowjones.com and Miriam Gottfried at Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com

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Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:12

Image source, Sem van der Wal/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock Image caption, A stunned Caroline van der Plas said that Dutch voters had spoken

By Anna Holligan & Paul Kirby In The Hague and London

BBC News

A farmers' party has stunned Dutch politics, and is set to be the biggest party in the upper house of parliament after provincial elections.

The Farmer-citizen movement (BBB) was only set up in 2019 in the wake of widespread farmers' protests.

But with most votes counted they are due to win 15 seats of the Senate's seats with almost 20% of the vote.

"This isn't normal, but actually it is! It's all normal citizens who voted," said leader Caroline van der Plas.

The BBB aims to fight government plans to slash nitrogen emissions harmful to biodiversity by dramatically reducing livestock numbers and buying out thousands of farms.

But its appeal has spread rapidly beyond its rural heartland, on a populist platform that represents traditional, conservative Dutch social and moral values.

Shocked by the scale of their success, Ms van der Plas told supporters that voters normally stayed at home if they lost faith in politics: "But today people have shown they can't stay at home any longer. We won't be ignored any more."

A left-wing Green-Labour alliance is also on course to win 15 Senate seats, while Prime Minister Mark Rutte's four-party coalition is poised to fall back to 24 - down eight seats.

Turnout in Wednesday's vote, estimated at 57.5%, was the highest for years and the biggest loser of the night was the far-right Forum for Democracy party.

For rural voters, the main incentive for backing the BBB was to protest against cuts in nitrogen emissions, according to an Ipsos poll for public broadcaster NOS.

But voters also turned out in force for the Greens, and environmental groups warned that the Netherlands' problems were not going away.

"Restoring nature is just as necessary today and tomorrow as it was yesterday," tweeted Natuurmonumenten.

The run-up to the vote was dominated by the sight of farmers' tractors on the streets of The Hague and outside the venue that hosted a pre-vote leaders' debate.

Image source, JEROEN JUMELET/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Image caption, Tractors took part in a noisy protest on the eve of the vote in the southern city of Den Bosch

Commentator Ben Coates described the result as "something of an earthquake in Dutch politics".

Although their policies are very much focused on opposing the government's environmental policies, he told the BBC most people would characterise them as a right-wing, populist party that was quite anti-EU, anti-immigration and in favour of banning burkas for Muslims.

Standing before supporters on Wednesday night, Caroline van der Plas wore her trademark green nail polish and a ring featuring an upside-down Dutch flag, a symbol of the anti-government protests.

The daughter of an Irish mother and a Dutch father, she lost her husband Jan to pancreatic cancer as the protests took off in 2019. She is unlike any Dutch party leader - and for many voters, that is her appeal.

She had to step back from public campaigning last year because of death threats. She was told the same fate awaited her as Pim Fortuyn, a populist leader assassinated days before the 2002 Dutch general election.

Speaking to the BBC during a visit to farmers in the rural east, she sprung to her feet in mid-sentence to avoid a bee, explaining she had been stung as a toddler and had been terrified ever since.

Media caption, Dutch farmers clogged up more than 1,000km during 2019's protests

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Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:44

Dr. Simon Goddek : This Eye-Opening Analogy Will Change Your Perceptions of the Covid PandemicIn his book, "The Lost Art of Healing,'... https://t.co/uy4u6N9B6H

Tue Mar 14 12:33:43 +0000 2023

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:42

By Michael Snyder

Do you remember when wealthy people all over the world would stash their money in Swiss banks because there were so strong and so private? Well, the second largest bank in Switzerland is literally on the brink of collapse. As I discussed yesterday, Credit Suisse is a prime candidate to be one of the next dominoes to fall. It has been on very shaky ground for a long time, and now the global banking panic has greatly accelerated the outflow of assets from the bank. So why should you care if it fails? Unlike Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Credit Suisse is so critical to the worldwide banking system that it has officially been designated ''as being systemically important by the international Financial Stability Board'''...

Credit Suisse is one of just 30 global financial institutions designated as being systemically important by the international Financial Stability Board. In other words, it's too big to fail.

A ''too big to fail'' bank has not collapsed in more than a decade.

If Credit Suisse does go under, the shockwaves will reverberate all over the planet. Even though Credit Suisse is now smaller than it once was, it is still vastly larger than SVB'...

Credit Suisse had total assets of $574 billion at the end of 2022 '-- down 37% from $912 billion at the end of 2020. Its asset-management arm supervises another $1.7 trillion in assets. Those numbers dwarf anything seen at Silicon Valley Bank, which had total assets of $212 billion.

So let us hope that Credit Suisse can be stabilized, because the alternative would be a complete and total nightmare.

Just like SVB, one of the reasons why Credit Suisse is in so much trouble is because it loaded up on government bonds that have now gone down in price dramatically'...

The balance-sheet problems that took down SVB are probably even bigger at Credit Suisse. While SVB bought mortgage bonds at 1.5% yields, big European banks were forced to buy sovereign debt at sharply negative yields.

At this point, large European banks are holding mountains of such bonds, and that is truly an existential threat to the entire European banking system.

Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It

by Michael Snyder

Unless emergency measures are implemented, a whole bunch of these institutions will inevitably implode.

As for Credit Suisse, the stock price hit yet another brand new all-time record low on Wednesday'...

Shares of Credit Suisse on Wednesday plunged to a fresh all-time low for the second consecutive day after a top investor in the embattled Swiss bank said it would not be able to provide any more cash due to regulatory restrictions.

Trading in the bank's plummeting stock was halted several times throughout the morning as it fell below 2 Swiss francs ($2.17) for the first time.

There had been hope that Saudi National Bank would come riding to the rescue, but those running Saudi National Bank have ruled that out'...

The fresh losses came after the chairman of the bank's top shareholder, Saudi National Bank, ruled out investing any more into the bank in a Bloomberg interview on Wednesday. The Saudi bank has just under a 10% stake in Credit Suisse, and crossing that threshold would subject it to new rules.

BREAKING: "Absolutely" not another cent for Credit Suisse. That's what Saudi National Bank, the embattled lender's top shareholder, tells Bloomberg TV in an interview https://t.co/fVEEB8116Z pic.twitter.com/Fy4KdEbfNc

'-- Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) March 15, 2023

After that news broke, Credit Suisse default swaps soared to levels that are absolutely absurd'...

The cost of insuring the bonds of Credit Suisse Group AG against default in the near-term is approaching a rarely-seen level that typically signals serious investor concerns.

The last recorded quote on pricing source CMAQ stood at 835.9 basis points on Tuesday. Traders were seeing prices of as high as 1,200 basis points on one-year senior credit-default swaps Wednesday morning, according to two people who saw the quotes and asked not to be named because they aren't public.

Easiest way to get your first bitcoin (Ad)If you can believe it, Credit Suisse default swaps are now ''about 18 times the contract for rival Swiss bank UBS Group AG'''...

The level recorded on Tuesday is about 18 times the contract for rival Swiss bank UBS Group AG, and about nine times the equivalent for Deutsche Bank AG.

That is nuts!

But that is where we are.

Things have gotten so bad at the bank that employees are reportedly ''crying'' and having ''meltdowns'''...

Breaking from a @CreditSuisse employee: ''panic, meltdowns, people crying.''

'-- Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) March 15, 2023

When your employees are weeping uncontrollably, that is clearly a sign that your days are numbered.

But the good news is that an emergency rescue plan has been announced, and so there is hope that the bank can be stabilized'...

Switzerland's central bank said Wednesday it was ready to provide financial support to Credit Suisse after shares in the country's second biggest lender crashed as much as 30%.

In a joint statement with the Swiss financial market regulator FINMA, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) said Credit Suisse (CS) met the ''strict capital and liquidity requirements'' imposed on banks of importance to the wider financial system.

''If necessary, the SNB will provide CS with liquidity,'' they said.

Just like the emergency rescue plan that we just witnessed in the United States, this isn't being called a bailout because people hate that word.

But that is what it actually is.

Unfortunately, there are several other European banks that may soon need bailouts as well'...

The share price rout renewed a broader sell-off among European lenders, which were already facing significant market turmoil as a result of the Silicon Valley Bank fallout. Some of the biggest decliners included France's Societe Generale, Spain's Banco de Sabadell and Germany's Commerzbank.

Several Italian banks on Wednesday were also subject to automatic trading stoppages, including UniCredit, FinecoBank and Monte dei Paschi.

In the weeks and months ahead, I expect central banks all over the world to wildly create money in a desperate attempt to prop up their most important financial institutions.

But just because these central banks can create an ''infinite amount of cash'' does not mean that they should actually do it.

''There is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve''

ðŸ--Š pic.twitter.com/xw2N5FvNJB

'-- Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) March 14, 2023

When you create crazy amounts of money, it leads to crazy amounts of inflation.

Just ask Argentina. Right now, they are dealing with a triple-digit inflation rate'...

Data released Tuesday showed annual inflation surpassed 100% for the first time since the early 1990s, bringing back memories of the hyperinflation that ravaged South America's second-largest economy.

The United States and Europe are going down the exact same road.

And it is a road that we should not be too eager to travel.

In Venezuela, virtually everyone is a ''millionaire'' thanks to the rampant hyperinflation that has plagued that nation for years.

But just about everyone is also living in poverty because the money is almost totally worthless.

Having a stable currency is so important, and the U.S. dollar was once incredibly stable.

Unfortunately, our leaders have been treating our currency like toilet paper for many years, and so it is just a matter of time before it has similar value.

***It is finally here! Michael's new book entitled ''End Times'' is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled ''End Times'' is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including ''7 Year Apocalypse'', ''Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America'', ''The Beginning Of The End'', and ''Living A Life That Really Matters''. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this ''About the Author'' section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: ''For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'' If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:38

One in six people living in the UK admitted they struggle to tell the time unless it's on a digital clock.

Some 16% out of 2,000 people asked in a survey said it often took them several seconds to read a traditional analogue clock.

They said they have to look at the 'big hand' and 'small hand' to 'figure it out'.

Younger people were those who struggled the most, with 21% in Gen Z '' between age 18 and 24 '' saying they found telling the time a problem.

It becomes less of an issue in older age groups, with 19% of Millennials '' aged 25 to 35 '' struggling.

Those between 35 and 44 came in at 15%, ages 45 to 54 said 13%, and only 12% people aged 55 and over struggle.

The study further found people struggled with many different kinds of everyday tasks, such as ironing clothes, putting together flatpack furniture and changing a duvet cover.

The demand is so high one man even recently quit his job as a delivery driver to become a flatpack furniture assembler full-time on £35,000.

Phil Hollis, of Harrow in north-west London, admitted he'd never really paid attention to a 'normal watch'.

The 23-year-old said: 'I've had a mobile phone since I was 11 and I've never owned a watch, so telling the time on a watch or clock takes me a while.

Other everyday things people struggle to doPutting flatpack furniture together: 68%Ironing clothes: 60%Using a washing machine: 56%Defrosting a freezer: 50%Using a dishwasher: 44%Changing a duvet cover: 41%Changing a fuse: 40%Fixing a puncture on a bike: 32%Changing a lightbulb: 28%Telling the time: 16%'When I go to my gran's and see all the clocks on the wall and mantlepiece they all seem to showing the wrong time anyway, so why bother learning how?'

A spokesperson for clearitwaste.co.uk, a waste collection firm which carried out the survey, said: 'Assembling flatpack furniture topped the list with 68% saying they don't know how to do it.

'We also found thy 16% of those polled struggled with telling the time on an analogue clock or watch.'

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 13:04

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) formally endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) for president, despite the Governor not yet making a 2024 bid for the White House.

On Wednesday, Roy sent an email showing his support for the Florida governor, praising him for his courageous leadership over any other contender for the 2024 race, including former President Trump.

''The next President of the United States must be a vibrant and energetic leader with the faith, vision, and courage to chart a new course. America needs a leader who will truly defend her and empower the people against the destructive force of unrestrained government and corporate excess, profligate spending, and woke cultural indoctrination,'' Roy stated in his email.

Roy, who serves as the policy chairman for the Freedom Caucus, called DeSantis an ideal candidate as a ''man of conviction'' who puts his faith and family first.

''That leader is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Governor DeSantis is a man of conviction '-- a man who puts his faith in God first as a dedicated husband and father. He grew up a blue-collar kid who worked hard, got a great education, and used it immediately to serve his country,'' Roy continued.

His email highlighted several of DeSantis's achievements, including his fight against the woke mob, the Left's authoritarian Covid-19 mandates, and a defender of the nation's southern border. Roy described the Governor as a true American who loves his country and is unafraid to fight for our freedoms.

''He loves America unapologetically but loves freedom and the rule of law even more, with the courage to fight for both. As Governor, he unequivocally has made Florida stronger and freer. Economic growth and prosperity in Florida surged upon his firm rejection of the devastating COVID mandates foisted upon us by foolishly empowered Washington bureaucrats. He stared down woke corporate America and higher education. And he stood with Texas in defense of our border '' sending a message to elites in Martha's Vineyard that they cannot ignore the human and economic toll of open borders,'' Roy added.

Roy's endorsement shows that conservatives who were and may still be die-hard Trump supporters'--such as Roy himself'--approve of DeSantis as the 2024 Republican nominee, bringing fresh blood into D.C.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 12:49

GENEVA (AP) '-- Credit Suisse shares surged Thursday after the Swiss central bank agreed to loan the bank up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to bolster confidence in the country's second-biggest lender and blunt concerns about the international financial system following the collapse of two U.S. banks.

Credit Suisse announced the agreement before the Swiss stock market opened, sending shares up as much as 33% before they settled at a 25% gain, to 2.13 francs, in midday trading. That was a massive turnaround from a day earlier, when news that the bank's biggest shareholder will not inject more money into Credit Suisse sent its shares tumbling 30%, dragging down other European banks.

European banking stocks also rose modestly Thursday.

The Swiss National Bank said Wednesday that it was prepared to back Credit Suisse because it meets the higher capital and liquidity requirements imposed on ''systemically important banks,'' adding that the problems that have hit some U.S. banks don't ''pose a direct risk of contagion'' to Switzerland.

''You need to restore trust as quickly as possible, and that's what the Swiss National Bank is trying to do,'' Carlo Lombardini, an international banking expert at the University of Lausanne, told the BBC. ''And we all know that the central bank is a lender of last resort, and it will lend money to a bank which is solvent because central banks do not lend to insolvent banks.''

Credit Suisse, which was beset by problems long before the U.S. bank failures, said Thursday that the loans from the central bank would give it time to complete a reorganization designed to create a ''simpler and more focused bank.''

''These measures demonstrate decisive action to strengthen Credit Suisse as we continue our strategic transformation to deliver value to our clients and other stakeholders,'' Chief Executive Ulrich Koerner said in a statement.

The banking turmoil has cast a shadow over Thursday's meeting of the European Central Bank. Before the chaos erupted, ECB head Christine Lagarde had said it was ''very likely'' that the bank would make a large, half-percentage point rate increase to tackle stubbornly high inflation.

After European bank shares plunged Wednesday, analysts said the meeting outcome was hard to predict, with some saying the central bank might dial back to a quarter-point increase. Higher rates fight inflation, but in recent days have fueled concern that they may have caused hidden losses on bank balance sheets.

Central banks in the U.S. and Europe have moved quickly to restore confidence in the banking system after last week's collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

U.S. authorities on Sunday said they would guarantee all of the deposits of California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the smaller Signature Bank of New York, making sure people wouldn't be hurt by the collapse of the banks. The U.S. Federal Reserve also announced additional funding to ensure other banks could meet the needs of depositors.

The British government and Bank of England on Monday said they had facilitated the sale of Silicon Valley Bank's U.K. arm to HSBC, one of Europe's biggest banks, ensuring that the bank's customers would have access to their money.

John Gieve, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, said the rapid response is different from what happened at the start of the global financial crisis 15 years ago. At that time, U.S. authorities allowed the investment banking giant Lehman Brothers to collapse.

''That was what spooked the markets as a whole, because they didn't stand behind it,'' Gieve told the BBC. ''So what we've seen overnight is the Swiss central bank saying, 'No, we will not let this get into a disorderly collapse.'

''I don't know what the future of a Credit Suisse holds, but so far they're still standing,'' he added. ''And it looks like the Swiss central bank will ensure it's standing long enough to rearrange its affairs for the future.''

Banks are under pressure after interest rates rose rapidly following a prolonged period of historically low rates.

In order to boost the return on their investments, banks needed to take more risks and some ''did this more prudently than others,'' said Sascha Steffen, professor of finance at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

As a result, some banks are now facing a shortage of ''liquidity,'' meaning they can't sell assets quickly enough to meet the demands of depositors.

Credit Suisse shares had dropped to a record low Wednesday after the Saudi National Bank said it wouldn't put more money into the Swiss lender to avoid regulations that kick in if an investor's stake rises above 10%.

Credit Suisse also reported Tuesday that managers had identified ''material weaknesses'' in the bank's internal controls on financial reporting as of the end of last year. That fanned new doubts about the bank's ability to weather the storm.

Its stock has suffered a long, sustained decline: Now trading for a little over 2 francs, the stock was valued at more than 80 francs ($86.71) in 2007.

The Swiss bank has been pushing to raise money from investors and roll out a new strategy to overcome an array of troubles, including bad bets on hedge funds, repeated shake-ups of its top management and a spying scandal involving Zurich rival UBS.

Credit Suisse is ''a much bigger concern for the global economy'' than the midsize U.S. banks that collapsed, said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist for Capital Economics. It has multiple subsidiaries outside Switzerland and handles trading for hedge funds.

''Credit Suisse is not just a Swiss problem but a global one,'' he said.

The troubles ''once more raise the question about whether this is the beginning of a global crisis or just another 'idiosyncratic' case,'' Kenningham said in a note. ''Credit Suisse was widely seen as the weakest link among Europe's large banks, but it is not the only bank which has struggled with weak profitability in recent years.''

European finance ministers said this week that their banking system has no direct exposure to the U.S. bank failures.

Europe strengthened its banking safeguards after the global financial crisis that followed the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 by transferring supervision of the biggest banks to the central bank, analysts said.

The Credit Suisse parent bank is not part of EU supervision, but it has entities in several European countries that are. Credit Suisse is subject to international rules requiring it to maintain financial buffers against losses as one of 30 so-called globally systemically important banks, or G-SIBs.

___

Kirka reported from London. AP reporters David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, Colleen Barry in Milan and Joseph Krauss in Ottawa, Ontario, contributed.

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 03:39

According to a recent survey by the OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute that was cited by SWIFT, 24% of central banks will introduce a CBDC within the next couple of years.

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According to a statement on March 9, bank messaging platform Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT, disclosed that the financial institution witnessed positive results related to its pilot test of linking different central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

During a 12-week testing period, SWIFT simulated nearly 5,000 transactions between two different blockchain networks and existing fiat payment systems. Over 18 financial institutions worldwide participated in the study, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Banque de France, Soci(C)t(C) G(C)n(C)rale, BNP Paribas, Monetary Authority of Singapore, HSBC, Deutsche Bundesbank, NatWest and more. As told by SWIFT:

''Overall, the results of the sandbox testing found that Swift's experimental interlinking solution can meet the needs of central and commercial banks for CBDCs interoperability, ensuring CBDCs can be successfully used in cross-border payments.''Furthermore, SWIFT said there was a ''strong degree of alignment'' between participants as to how CBDCs are likely to function in the future. For the next steps, SWIFT plans to run a second phase of its CBDC sandbox and develop its ''CBDC interlinking solution into a beta version for payments with enhanced atomicity.''

Within the next couple of years, the OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute expects 24% of central banks to develop a CBDC solution. Over 110 central banks around the world are currently investigating the use cases of CBDCs. Lewis Sun, global head of domestic and emerging payments at HSBC, commented:

''Interoperability is key to realising the potential of CBDCs to deliver real-time cross-border payments. While interest in CBDCs is growing, so is the risk of fragmentation as a widening range of technologies and standards is being experimented with.''Payment flow of the SWIFT CBDC connector. Source: SWIFT

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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 03:21

Credit Suisse announced it will be borrowing up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion) from the Swiss National Bank under a covered loan facility and a short-term liquidity facility.

The decision comes shortly after shares of the lender fell sharply Wednesday, hitting an all-time low for a second consecutive day after its top investor Saudi National Bank said it won't be able to provide further assistance.

The latest steps will "support Credit Suisse's core businesses and clients as Credit Suisse takes the necessary steps to create a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs," the company said in an announcement.

In addition, the bank is making a cash tender offer in relation to ten U.S. dollar denominated senior debt securities for an aggregate consideration of up to $2.5 billion '' as well as a separate offer to four Euro denominated senior debt securities for up to an aggregate 500 million euros, the company said.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon"These measures demonstrate decisive action to strengthen Credit Suisse as we continue our strategic transformation to deliver value to our clients and other stakeholders," Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Koerner said.

"We thank the SNB and FINMA as we execute our strategic transformation. My team and I are resolved to move forward rapidly to deliver a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs," he said.

U.S. futures climbed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gaining by more than 100 points after the announcement. S&P 500 futures also rose 0.45% and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.54%.

'Interconnected' banksIn the wake of the Credit Suisse saga, Tabbush Report founder Daniel Tabbush emphasized that a wider concern for the banking sector is trust.

"The obvious problem is a restoration of trust, and to stop the deposit flight, which maybe this has been partly or wholly addressed by the central bank," he told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia."

Credit Suisse timeline

CNBC

"But what is more difficult is not simply containing its issues, is really how this feeds through to so many interconnected banks, where there are Credit Swiss contracts '' where there are derivatives, where there are facilities '' which is really the next order issue," he said.

Banks in the Asia-Pacific also pared some earlier losses '' Japan's Topix earlier plunged by more than 2% and last traded 1.4% lower.

Credit Suisse announced late Wednesday it will be borrowing up to about $54 billion from Swiss National Bank. People walk by the New York headquarters of Credit Suisse on March 15, 2023 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia pared most of its losses in volatile trading '' it traded 0.15% lower after falling as much as 1.97% earlier. Westpac Banking and National Australia Bank fell as much as 2.35% and 1.81% respectively before erasing some declines. They were last down 1.34% and 0.58% lower, respectively.

Some South Korean banks also fell as much as 2% earlier before partially reversing declines.

The Swiss franc remained volatile following the announcement, strengthening 0.17% to 0.9315 against the U.S. dollar. The Japanese yen also strengthened further to trade at 132.86 against the greenback.

Stock Chart IconStock chart iconEarlier this week, Credit Suisse chairman Axel Lehmann told CNBC's Hadley Gamble that the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is "local and contained."

When asked if he would rule out some kind of government assistance in the future, Lehmann said, "We are regulated, we have strong capital ratios, very strong balance sheet. We are all hands on deck. So that's not the topic whatsoever."

'' CNBC's Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 23:52

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C.

Sarah Silbiger | Reuters

The Federal Reserve's digital payments system, which it promises will help speed up the way money moves around the world, will debut in July.

FedNow, as it will be known, will create "a leading-edge payments system that is resilient, adaptive, and accessible," said Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, who is the program's executive sponsor.

The system will allow bill payments, money transfers such as paychecks and disbursements from the government, as well as a host of other consumer activities to move more rapidly and at lower cost, according to the program's goals.

Participants will complete a training and certification process in early April, according to a Fed announcement.

"With the launch drawing near, we urge financial institutions and their industry partners to move full steam ahead with preparations to join the FedNow Service," said Ken Montgomery, the program executive and first vice president at the Boston Fed, which helped spearhead the project under former Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren.

Institutions that participate in the program will have seven-day, 24-hour access, as opposed to a system currently in place that closes on weekends.

Program advocates say it will get money out to people much more quickly. For instance, they said, government payments like those issued in the early days of the Covid pandemic would have been credited to accounts immediately rather than the days it took to reach most people.

Some Fed officials say the program even could supplant the need for a central bank digital currency.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 23:35

[1/3] A farmer works at his dairy farm in Oldetrijne, in the Dutch province of Friesland, Netherlands March 15, 2023. Dutch farmers are worried about plans by the government to limit the amount of nitrogen in the soil and water blamed on overuse of fertilizers. If nitrogen pollution rules are enforced, many livestock farms will have to get rid of animals or close. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

AMSTERDAM, March 15 (Reuters) - A farmers' protest party shook up the political landscape in the Netherlands on Wednesday, emerging as the big winner in provincial elections that determine the make-up of the Senate.

The BBB or BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement) party rode a wave of protests against the government's environmental policies and looked set to have won more Senate seats than Prime Minister Mark Rutte's conservative VVD party.

A first exit poll projected BBB won 15 of a total of 75 seats in the Senate, which has the power to block legislation agreed in the Lower House of parliament, with the VVD dropping from 12 to 10 seats.

The meteoric rise of BBB is a major blow for Rutte's governing coalition, casting doubt over its aim to drastically cut nitrogen pollution on farms, the single issue upon which BBB was founded in 2019.

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"Nobody can ignore us any longer," BBB leader Caroline van der Plas told broadcaster Radio 1.

"Voters have spoken out very clearly against this government's policies."

The government aims to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030, as relatively large numbers of livestock and heavy use of fertilizers have led to levels of nitrogen oxides in the soil and water that violate European Union regulations.

The nitrogen problem has crippled construction in the Netherlands as environmental groups have won a string of court cases ordering the government to limit the emissions and preserve nature, before new building permits can be granted.

The BBB says the problem has been exaggerated and that proposed solutions are unfairly balanced against farmers, leading to the closure of many farms and food production shortages.

Rutte's government has not had a Senate majority since the previous provincial elections in 2019 and must negotiate deals with mostly left-wing opponents.

The two most cooperative parties, Labour and GreenLeft, looked set to have held on to their seats, keeping their combined group at a par with BBB and possibly enough to maintain support for Rutte's policies.

BBB won a single Lower House seat in 2021, but its popularity has surged on the back of growing distrust of the government and anger over issues such as immigration.

Rutte's government, in its fourth consecutive term since 2010, has dropped to a 20% approval rating, its lowest in a decade.

Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Susan Fenton and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:38

With the rising popularity of weight loss drug injections, I've received many questions from patients about the pros, cons, and costs. While Ozempic (semaglutide) is perhaps the best known, it's technically an agent approved only for type 2 diabetes that has been used off-label for obesity. The same substance, semaglutide, is approved for use in obesity, but at a higher dose, under the brand name Wegovy. Alternatives are available, and results will vary depending on the specific agent used and the individual.

Ultimately, I decided to try these new injections for myself. I am not a paid representative for, nor an advocate of, any of these medications; I'm here only to share my personal experience.

C. Nicole Swiner, MD

In my discussions with patients about weight, I sometimes felt like an imposter. While I was overweight by medical standards, I fortunately had none of the underlying health problems. I wasn't on medications for blood pressure nor did I have diabetes, but I was counseling people to lose weight and eat better while not always following my own advice. Since having children and turning 40, my metabolism, like many other women's, seems to have plummeted. I tried a number of older weight loss medications, like phentermine and phendimetrazine, under the supervision of medical professionals.

Each time, the efforts worked for a short while, particularly when I followed good portion control and practiced moderate exercise. Once the side effects (ie, tachycardia, palpitations, mood changes, constipation) became intolerable, or I became tired or fearful of being on the medications too long, I'd stop and I would regain some of the weight.

When the newer subcutaneous injectable medications arrived on the scene and I started to talk to my patients about them, I was intrigued by their novel mode of action and seeming benefits.

These medications, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, were first approved for type 2 diabetes, and it soon became apparent that patients were losing significant amounts of weight taking them, so manufacturers conducted further trials in obesity patients without type 2 diabetes.

The first of these, liraglutide, is injected daily and was first approved as Victoza for type 2 diabetes; it later received an additional approval for obesity, in December 2014, as Saxenda.

Semaglutide, another of the new GLP-1 agonists, was first approved for type 2 diabetes as Ozempic but again was found to lead to substantial weight loss, so a subsequent approval of the drug for obesity, as Wegovy, came in June 2021. Semaglutide is injected once a week.

Semaglutide was branded a "game changer" when it was licensed for obesity because the mean weight loss seen in trials was around 15%, more than for any other drug and approaching what could be achieved with bariatric surgery, some doctors said.

These medications work in a different way from the older weight loss drugs, which had focused on the use of amphetamines. The newer medications became very popular because treating obesity helps lower blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol, kidney disease risk, and other comorbidities that occur with diabetes. Plus, for most people, there were fewer side effects.

I first tried Saxenda when it arrived on the market, via some samples that our pharmaceutical representative brought, both out of curiosity and to see if it would help me lose the stubborn baby weight. I ended up stopping the daily injections after my second or third week because of nausea and vomiting. I took a break, got a prescription for antinausea medicine, and tried again because it did indeed decrease my appetite. However, when I took my prescription to the pharmacy, my insurance wouldn't cover it. It happens to doctors, too.

Fast-forward to 2017-2018. The baby weight was still holding on despite lifestyle changes, diet, and exercising. The newer drug classes hit the market, and again we had samples from our reps. When our rep explained the potential for weight loss in patients without diabetes, I tried Ozempic off-label. Within the first 2 weeks, I noticed a 3- to- 5-lb weight loss.

When Ozempic was on backorder, I switched to a low dose of Mounjaro (tirzepatide), a new dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) agonist, approved for type 2 diabetes last May, again using it off-label as a weekly injection, as it isn't currently approved for weight loss. However, it does produce significant weight loss and is awaiting approval for obesity.

With these new medications, I noticed that both my patients and I didn't complain as much about nausea and vomiting, but I did experience stomach upset, constipation, and acid reflux.

The appetite suppression is effective. It slows down the emptying of the gut so I feel full longer. I've lost 30 lb with these weekly injections and would like to lose another 20 lb. I follow a routine of reasonable, portion-controlled eating and moderate exercise (30 minutes of cardiovascular activity at least two to three times a week).

Discontinuing the medications may cause rebound weight gain, especially if I'm no longer following a routine of healthy eating and/or moderate exercise. I deal with minimal constipation by taking stool softeners, and I take antacids for acid reflux.

Here's what I recommend applying when working with patients who have obesity: First, explain how these medications work. Then conduct a health history to make sure these injections are right for them. Patients with a family history of pancreatic cancer can't take these medications. You also want to monitor use in patients with a history of hypoglycemia so their blood sugar doesn't drop too low. It's also important to make sure your patients are able to afford the medication. My husband takes Ozempic for diabetes, and recently we were told that a refill would cost about $1500 a month, even with insurance. "Covered" doesn't necessarily mean affordable.

Take a baseline A1c and repeat it after the patient has been on the medication for 2-3 weeks. Also remind them that they can't rely solely on the medication but need to practice portion control and healthier eating and to exercise more.

For myself, I want to lose those remaining 20 lb or so by eating healthy and being physically active without having to rely on medication for the rest of my life. Research on these medications is still early so we don't know the long-term effects yet.

As clinicians, I feel it's okay to be honest with our patients about our own personal struggles to help them understand that they are not alone and that losing weight is a challenge for everyone.

Note: Dr Swiner provides consulting services and gives recommendations on health and wellness but no longer directly prescribes medications to patients.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:28

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A Vermont Christian school has been banned from future sports tournaments by the Vermont Principals' Association (VPA) after it forfeited a girls' basketball game in the state playoffs. The school made this decision because their opponent had a high school boy on its girls' basketball roster.

The controversy highlights the ongoing debate surrounding the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports and the potential erosion of fairness and safety for female competitors.

In February, Mid Vermont Christian School's girls' basketball team was scheduled to play against Long Trail Mountain, which had a high school boy on its team.

Vicky Fogg, the head of Mid Vermont Christian School, issued a statement explaining the school's refusal to participate in the game, citing concerns about fairness and player safety.

"We withdrew from the tournament because we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players," Fogg stated. "Allowing biological males to participate in women's sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women's sports in general."

On Monday, the VPA sent a letter to Mid Vermont Christian School, informing the school of its ineligibility to participate in VPA activities going forward. The VPA claims the school's actions violate its policies, which are aligned with Vermont state law.

VPA executive director Jay Nichols said the VPA board voted unanimously, 15-0, to ban the school, stating, "If you don't want to follow VPA rules, that's fine. But then you're just not a VPA member. It's fairly simple,'' the Daily Wire reported.

The Daily Wire added:

In January, Fogg wrote to Vermont's Agency of Education asking permission to receive public tuition funding while noting it had the right to protest anti-discrimination laws.

''As a religious organization, the school has a statutory and constitutional right to make decisions based on its religious beliefs, including hiring and disciplining employees, associating with others, and in its admissions, conduct and operations policies and procedures,'' Fogg wrote. ''By signing this form, the Mid Vermont Christian School does not waive any such rights.''

''Transgender and gender nonconforming students are to be provided the same opportunities to participate in physical education as are all other students,'' the Vermont Agency of Education's best practices states. ''Generally, students should be permitted to participate in physical education and sports in accordance with the student's gender identity. Participation in competitive athletic activities and sports will be resolved on a case-by-case basis.''

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 22:11

The first letter from Carmel Central School District officials arrived on Feb. 13, alerting parents that three high-schoolers had ''used artificial intelligence to impersonate the staff'' and made them appear to make ''inappropriate comments'' in videos.

There was no threat to school safety, the letter added.

Abigail Santana didn't think much about that last part. After reading the letter from her child's school district in Putnam County, N.Y., she assumed it had handled the situation. But then her 10-year-old told her they'd seen the videos on TikTok '-- and apart from the deepfake of her middle school principal making a profanity-laced racist rant, other videos created by the high-schoolers included ''threats to shoot up Black and Latino students,'' Santana said.

''I just keep thinking to myself, 'What if something had happened?''' said Santana, who is Afro-Latina. ''What if my child would've gotten hurt or killed because I sent them to school without knowing these videos existed?''

In the days following the Feb. 13 letter, more details emerged about the videos as parents tried to piece together what happened on their own. And while Carmel Central School District officials later said they were trying to balance disclosing sensitive information without generating panic, many parents believe the administration downplayed the seriousness of the videos, which began circulating in early February. The incident naturally became a firestorm, touching on several hot-button issues schools across the country are grappling with: racism, student privacy, abuse of artificial intelligence and threats of gun violence.

Teachers are on alert for inevitable cheating after release of ChatGPT

When reached for comment, the school district declined to make Superintendent Mary-Margaret Zehr available, instead referring The Washington Post to her last letter.

The videos, which were removed from TikTok but obtained by The Post, all seem to target George Fischer Middle School. In one, a male voice laid over a video of the middle school's principal, John Piscitella, goes on a 37-second tirade against Black students, saying they should be sent back to Africa and calling them monkeys and the n-word. It ends with: ''I am bringing my machine gun to school.''

In another video following the same template, a voice making racist slurs against Black and Latino students says the ''KKK legacy will return.'' Other videos show an animated version of George Fischer Middle School as the scene of a video game where a shooter runs into the building and begins firing at Black and Brown students.

It used to take weeks of intense computer analysis to make a deepfake, but now with smartphone apps, online harassment and disinformation may get much worse. (Video: Jonathan Baran/The Washington Post)

After the deepfakes began popping up online, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office was contacted immediately, Zehr would later say. But while the sheriff's office closed the case Feb. 13, finding that the high-schoolers had not committed any crimes and that students were never in danger, the district did not immediately inform parents of those developments.

'Noah' and 'Daren' report good news about Venezuela. They're deepfakes.

Two days after the investigation concluded, the school district put out a statement condemning ''the blatant racism, hatred and disregard for humanity'' displayed in the videos. But the statement did not address the specifics in the videos, or what Santana and other parents considered to be potential threats against students of color.

Then, on Feb. 16, Putnam County Sheriff's Office deputies would investigate another threat, following a teacher's concerns over a student's drawing at an elementary school in the district. But although parents saw news crews and sheriff's vehicles outside of the school, they say they were not given any information about the drawing, what it depicted or whether it meant students were in danger.

On Feb. 28 and March 1, Carmel Central hosted a set of forums with families and law enforcement officials to discuss school safety. But after breaking into groups, Santana said she and other parents were left with ''more questions than answers.''

''Those meetings felt like a bunch of kumbaya and trying to brush up what happened without addressing the giant elephant in the room: How do we know are children are safe, and how do we know this won't happen again?'' Santana said.

Finally, on March 8, parents got another letter outlining how law enforcement investigated the two incidents, as well as plans for improving safety and communication.

More schools have panic buttons, locks and police, new data shows

Santana said while the situations were troubling enough as-is, she was more bothered by the ''hush-hush way'' they were handled, leaving parents to speculate about the presence of reporters and deputies at their children's schools for over three weeks.

''Parents had no idea about these videos, and they never told us what the issue was at the elementary school. They took away important and necessary context from the letters they sent and left us with a very vague message at the end. It truly felt like they were trying to sweep everything under a rug,'' she said.

In the letters to parents, Zehr said disciplinary action was taken against the high school students who made the deepfake videos but added that she couldn't provide details, citing privacy laws. Law enforcement officials determined that the students' actions didn't break any laws, the superintendent added.

Santana, who's lived in Putnam County for 27 years, said she's faced racism in the predominantly White community, but hoped for better for her child.

The videos have taken a toll on her 10-year-old, Santana said. Her child, she said, was always excited to go to school '-- even waking up early in anticipation. Not anymore.

I don't want to go to school. I'm scared and no one understands.

I just want to go home. I feel nervous and anxious. Please, could someone pick me up?

''These are the texts I'm getting from my kid now,'' Santana said.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 21:56

March 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department is actively reviewing the U.S. financial sector's exposure to Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S) after the bank's shares fell to a record low, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

Officials from the Treasury are working closely with the Federal Reserve and European regulators as well, the report added.

U.S. Treasury spokesperson declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

Reporting by Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi; Editing by Franklin Paul and Chizu Nomiyama

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 21:35

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 20:26

Tour(C) : At this point woke is a slur. The way the right uses it is an undercover way of saying "those people," or "non-whit'... https://t.co/PWwW1jPz4a

Wed Mar 15 14:02:43 +0000 2023

FlynlowJG : @Toure So no white person can be wokeðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚ðŸ‚🤣🤣🤣

Wed Mar 15 20:25:30 +0000 2023

Ted Mchugh : @Toure This👆is woke. Spending half your day, making up stupid shit and the other half defending it.ðŸ¤

Wed Mar 15 20:24:20 +0000 2023

So Sweet : @Toure It means a Cultural Marxist.It means something worse than Nazism.

Wed Mar 15 20:23:18 +0000 2023

Person of Interest : @Toure Stop trying to racinate the word "woke," a good majority of white people are woke. Nice try but you failed a'... https://t.co/7HJDptp5Ft

Wed Mar 15 20:23:12 +0000 2023

PeteDavidson : @Toure https://t.co/a7Cxs7En8Q

Wed Mar 15 20:23:08 +0000 2023

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:07

We have been following the recommendations of reparations for black residents of San Francisco, including a proposed payment of $5 million per resident payment. The Board of Supervisors met Tuesday and reportedly gave unanimous support for reparations. Among the possible forms of reparations, the Board is considering a guaranteed annual income of $97,000 for 250 years and a home ''for just $1 a family.''

The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020. The African American Reparations Advisory Committee voted to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created his own Reparations Task Force, which just reached its own recommendations for $223,000 per person. Others have insisted the figure should be $350,000 for individuals and another $250,000 for Black-owned businesses. One California politician insisted the figure needs to be $800,000 per person, reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.

Even Disney has gotten into the act with a controversial children's episode in which cartoon children demand reparations.

Notably, California's law expressly states that this money should not be treated as compensation for federal reparations. Some congressional Democrats have pushed for similar federal reparations and passed a bill out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021 that failed to receive a floor vote. BET founder Robert Johnson has called for $14 trillion in federal reparations.

The proposals now put the San Francisco politicians in a bind after declaring that reparations are a moral imperative. Some are already saying that they will not accept reduced awards. One well-known California activist declared: ''It's a debt that's owed, we worked for free. We're not asking; we're telling you.''

San Francisco is already facing a $728 million budget shortfall.

The Board notably did not approve the proposed $5 million payments and some members issued statements that bordered on the incomprehensible. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman spoke to ''those of my constituents who lost their minds about this proposal, it's not something we're doing or we would do for other people. It's something we would do for our future, for everybody's collective future.''

Unpack that for a moment. ''It is not something we're doing . . . it's something we would do for our future.'' That sounds a lot like wanting to be seen as approving reparations while not approving reparations.

Virtue signaling has ended with the formal proposal. If the Board was not playing black voters by dangling the possibility of reparations, it can now prove its commitment by approving these payments. Of course, it would likely bankrupt the city, but that was not a concern when people like Mandelman were declaring their support for reparations. After all, if this is a moral imperative, it would seem that the ''future'' can't wait for Mandelman and his colleagues.

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Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:40

In an academic version of the debate raging over ''TERFS'' and figures like J.K. Rowling, Wellesley College President Paula A. Johnson is being condemned as ''transphobic'' after she opposed a referendum to admit trans male students at the all-women school. While the school previously admitted trans women, Johnson is drawing the line on admitting ''nonbinary'' or trans male applicants. The students, however, approved the referendum.

The college has long billed itself as a place for ''women who will make a difference in the world'' with graduates like Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. However, the referendum would admit all transgender and nonbinary students.

That was too far for Johnson who wrote:

Wellesley was founded on the then-radical idea that educating women of all socioeconomic backgrounds leads to progress for everyone. As a college and community, we continue to challenge the norms and power structures that too often leave women, and others of marginalized identities, behind. We are not a ''historically women's college,'' a term that only applies to women's colleges that have made the decision to enroll men. We have chosen a different path, one that aligns with peer institutions including Barnard, Smith, and Bryn Mawr colleges.

What does Wellesley mean by ''a women's college''? In accordance with our admission policy, Wellesley admits applicants who identify and live consistently as women, regardless of the gender they were assigned at birth'...

The reaction was the Rowling treatment. The student newspaper led the condemnation of Johnson:

We disapprove of and entirely disagree with President Johnson's email. As journalists, we understand the power of rhetoric to do good or harm. The need for newspapers to take stances on their editorial standards is more important than ever, as demonstrated by the harm caused by The New York Times' anti-trans pivot. In the past year, the Times has published ''more than 15,000 words' worth of front-page stories asking whether care and support for young trans people might be going too far or too fast.'''...

College administration and the Board of Trustees have once again monopolized conversations about Wellesley's community and future, conversations that should be led by students, who make up the majority of the College community. We also want to remind the Wellesley community that President Johnson is the spokesperson for the Board of Trustees, which must be held equally responsible for the College's transphobic rhetoric.

Wellesley student editors previously opposed certain speech deemed harmful and intolerable. The Wellesley News published a column entitled ''Free Speech Is Not Violated At Wellesley.'' The editors heralded the Wellesley students who refuse to respect the free speech rights of those deemed to be hateful. Simply defining such people as unworthy of free speech protections then allowed the editors to become actual advocates of mob action to silence them:

''Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government.''

So speech deemed as ''undermining the existence and rights of others'' is all that is needed to relieve the conscience of these students and allow them to indulge in their desire to forcibly silence those with whom they disagree. There is no attempt, of course, to define what constitutes speech that ''undermines.'' If those people still insist on being heard, the editors declared that ''hostility may be warranted.''

Johnson now finds herself on the wrong side of the academic mob. For years, academics have allowed a culture of orthodoxy to take hold on our campuses, including attacks on free speech values. Many administrators and faculty have remained silent as conservative, libertarian, or dissenting faculty have been investigated and even fired. This is why French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan famously observed during the French Revolution that ''like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.''

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Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:31

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 10, 2022 ~

At Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's last press conference on September 21 he said that there is ''good reason to think that this will continue to be a reasonably strong economy.'' Unfortunately, the U.S. can't have a strong economy without strong banks willing and able to lend. And there are serious storm fronts in that area that the Fed Chair and mainstream media are choosing to ignore.

Last week multiple news outlets raised the question as to whether the troubles at Credit Suisse signaled another ''Lehman moment.'' (See here, here, and here, for example.) A ''Lehman moment'' refers to the former 158-year old Wall Street investment bank, Lehman Brothers, collapsing into bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 during a widening financial crisis on Wall Street. Because Lehman was the only major Wall Street firm that the Fed allowed to collapse into bankruptcy (rather than orchestrating a bailout), it has been mistakenly viewed all these years as the catalyst for the carnage that followed. As we will explain shortly, that role rightfully belongs to Citigroup.

According to documents released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), at the time of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy it had more than 900,000 derivative contracts outstanding and had used the largest banks on Wall Street as its counterparties to many of these trades. The FCIC data shows that Lehman had more than 53,000 derivative contracts with JPMorgan Chase; more than 40,000 with Morgan Stanley; over 24,000 with Citigroup's Citibank; over 23,000 with Bank of America; and almost 19,000 with Goldman Sachs.

Below is a share price chart of what contagion looked like on Wall Street in 2008. Notice the highly correlated share price pattern in 2008 and the highly correlated share price pattern in the chart above in 2022.

Lehman's interconnectedness with other major Wall Street firms certainly fueled some of the systemic contagion on Wall Street in 2008. But the real culprit was Citigroup '' a reckless trading house on Wall Street which owned, both then and now, a large federally-insured commercial bank, Citibank. These are just a few of the headlines about Citigroup that ran long before Lehman's collapse into bankruptcy:

January 10, 2008, Wall Street Journal: ''Citigroup, Merrill Seek More Foreign Capital,'' noting: ''Two of the biggest names on Wall Street are going hat in hand, again, to foreign investors.''

January 17, 2008, Los Angeles Times: ''Citigroup Loses Nearly $10 Billion''

March 5, 2008, MarketWatch: ''Citigroup CEO Says Firm 'Financially Sound''' with the opening sentence explaining that ''The chief executive of Citigroup sought to allay investor fears Wednesday, a day after the stock hit a multiyear low'...''

April 20, 2008, New York Times: ''Citigroup Records a Loss and Plans 9000 Layoffs,'' explaining that the bank reported a $5.1 billion loss and would have to slash jobs.

June 26, 2008, Wall Street Journal: ''Citigroup: Worth Less and Less Every Day,'' shares the news that the stock was worth one-third of where it had been at its 52-week high.

July 23, 2008, Bloomberg News: ''Citigroup Unravels as Reed Regrets Universal Model.''

On July 14, 2008, Bloomberg News reported that in addition to holding $2.2 trillion in assets on its balance sheet, Citigroup has $1.1 trillion of ''mysterious'' assets off its balance sheet, including ''trusts to sell mortgage-backed securities, financing vehicles to issue short-term debt and collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, to repackage bonds.''

Sheila Bair, the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 2008, wrote the following about Citigroup in her book Bull by the Horns:

''By November [2008], the supposedly solvent Citi was back on the ropes, in need of another government handout. The market didn't buy the OCC's and NY Fed's strategy of making it look as though Citi was as healthy as the other commercial banks. Citi had not had a profitable quarter since the second quarter of 2007. Its losses were not attributable to uncontrollable 'market conditions'; they were attributable to weak management, high levels of leverage, and excessive risk taking. It had major losses driven by their exposures to a virtual hit list of high-risk lending; subprime mortgages, 'Alt-A' mortgages, 'designer' credit cards, leveraged loans, and poorly underwritten commercial real estate. It had loaded up on exotic CDOs and auction-rate securities. It was taking losses on credit default swaps entered into with weak counterparties, and it had relied on unstable volatile funding '' a lot of short-term loans and foreign deposits. If you wanted to make a definitive list of all the bad practices that had led to the crisis, all you had to do was look at Citi's financial strategies'...What's more, virtually no meaningful supervisory measures had been taken against the bank by either the OCC or the NY Fed'...Instead, the OCC and the NY Fed stood by as that sick bank continued to pay major dividends and pretended that it was healthy.''

Notice the sentence in the above paragraph that reads: ''It was taking losses on credit default swaps entered into with weak counterparties'....'' Bair was describing the situation in 2008. Now consider this headline we ran just last week at Wall Street On Parade: New Study: Wall Street Banks Are Doubling Down on Risk by Selling Credit Default Swaps on their Risky Derivatives Counterparties. It is nothing less than an indictment of the U.S. Congress that this is allowed to happen after derivatives caused the greatest U.S. economic collapse in 2008 since the Great Depression.

The official report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, following an in-depth investigation of the 2008 collapse, wrote this about Credit Default Swaps:

''OTC derivatives contributed to the crisis in three significant ways. First, one type of derivative'--credit default swaps (CDS)'--fueled the mortgage securitization pipeline. CDS were sold to investors to protect against the default or decline in value of mortgage-related securities backed by risky loans'...

''Second, CDS were essential to the creation of synthetic CDOs. These synthetic CDOs were merely bets on the performance of real mortgage-related securities. They amplified the losses from the collapse of the housing bubble by allowing multiple bets on the same securities and helped spread them throughout the financial system'...

''Finally, when the housing bubble popped and crisis followed, derivatives were in the center of the storm. AIG, which had not been required to put aside capital reserves as a cushion for the protection it was selling, was bailed out when it could not meet its obligations. The government ultimately committed more than $180 billion because of concerns that AIG's collapse would trigger cascading losses throughout the global financial system. In addition, the existence of millions of derivatives contracts of all types between systemically important financial institutions'--unseen and unknown in this unregulated market'--added to uncertainty and escalated panic, helping to precipitate government assistance to those institutions.''

This morning the Bank of England is in full blown crisis mode, setting up another emergency bailout facility that is very similar to that used by the Fed during the 2008 financial crisis. And, once again, derivatives are at the heart of the problem.

For its part, the Fed announced last year that it had, for the first time in its 109-year history, created a Standing Repo Facility where, on a permanent basis it will make $500 billion available to bail out the hubris on Wall Street. The Fed Chair has the power to increase that $500 billion on a temporary basis at his ''discretion.''

And if all of this wasn't sickening enough, the Fed Chairman who set the Fed on the course of endless Wall Street bailouts, quantitative easing, and destructive meddling in markets '-- Ben Bernanke '-- was one of three receiving the Nobel Prize in economic sciences this morning. (You can't make this stuff up.)

It's long past the time for the United States Congress to put an end to these serial bailouts of Wall Street by the Fed and pass legislation to restore the Glass-Steagall Act so that the casinos on Wall Street are permanently separated from the nation's federally-insured banks.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:20

The Ring of Truth '' ''I am too well accustomed to the taking of evidence not to detect the ring of truth.'' 1908, Edith Wharton

Much has been made of the events of January 6, 2021, and with the latest broadcast of CCTV video from inside the Capitol Hill complex, more questions have been raised.

Within the questions: the FBI and government apparatus had advanced knowledge of the scale of the J6 mall assembly yet doing nothing? Why were the Capitol Hill police never informed of the FBI concerns? Why didn't House Speaker Nancy Pelosi secure the Capitol Hill complex, and why did she deny the request by President Trump to call up the national guard for security support? Why did the FBI have agent provocateurs in the crowd, seemingly stimulating rage within a peaceful crowd to enter the Capitol building? There have always been these nagging questions around 'why'?

Long time CTH reader ''Regitiger'' has spent a great deal of time reviewing the entire process, looking at the granular timeline and then overlaying the bigger picture of the constitutional and parliamentary process itself. What follows below is a brilliant analysis of the federal government motive to create a J6 crisis that permitted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to trigger an emergency session and avoid the 2020 election certification challenges.

Those congressional floor challenges, known and anticipated well in advance of the morning of January 6, 2021, would have formed a legal and constitutional basis for 'standing' in judicial challenges that would have eventually reached the Supreme Court. The certification during ''emergency session'' eliminated the problem for Washington DC.

Regitiger explains below, only edited by me for clarity and context:

I think most, not all, but a large number of people, are totally missing what happened; and why this happened on Jan 6th. I am going to try my best to outline the events that day, blast past the commonly held assumptions and get right down to the core corruption.

I will present this as a series of questions and answers.

'... Q1: How do you prevent congress from delaying the certification of state electoral votes?

A: It requires a crisis. A crisis that creates an ''emergency'' '...An ''emergency'' that invokes special house rules.

FACTS: Remember carefully, focus please. Just moments, literally 3 minutes before two representatives issued a vote for motions to suspend the certification, the House members were ''informed'' by capitol police and other ''agents'' that a protest was about to breach the chambers. It was at this time that key people: Pence, Pelosi, Schumer, Mcconnell can be seen being walked out and escorted from the chamber. This effectively halted the Entire Chamber Process.

'... Q2: Why was it necessary to halt the chamber process?

A: The crisis was created to eliminate the motion challenges to halt the certification and to begin voting to look into voting irregularities and fraud

FACTS: The two motions were completely legal and constitutional under at least two constitutionally recognized procedures'... procedures that would REQUIRE the house to pause the certification and then vote to determine whether the motions of suspend could move forward.

'... Q3: What was so important to refuse this motion and the subsequent votes to suspend the electoral certification?

A: It was important to remove that process entirely and continue the fraud and certify the fraud with no detractors on record. This effectively gives no standing for a SCOTUS ruling appeal! Understand this. If those two motions, even just one had successfully been voted EVEN IF THE MOTIONS were DENIED IN VOTE, this gives those who presented them with STANDING FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL LEGAL ARGUMENT BEFORE SCOTUS.

'... Q4: Could this have been done some other way other than creating a crisis/protest?

A: Unlikely. In order to prevent those two motions, requires that speaker of the house, minority leaders, and the president of the congress (vice president of the United States: Pence), to NOT BE PRESENT IN THE CHAMBERS.

Once the capitol police and other ''law enforcements agents'' informed the speaker and these three other individuals, Pelosi UNILATERALLY UNDER EMERGENCY RULES, suspended the business of the congress. This protest was necessary. The crisis was created because there is no other way to suspend the business of certification UNILATERALLY. By creating a crisis invokes emergency procedures. No other circumstances other than war or mass simultaneous explosive diarrhea can create such unilateral speaker delivered suspension of the certification.

'... Q5: Why did the motions, once that the speaker RECONVENED congress, move forward back again to the floor for votes? Why were members disallowed to even consider putting forward ANY motions to the floor in when the chamber business was reopened?

A: The Speaker initiated the NEW sessions under special emergency rules. These rules abandon and make it clear that the ONLY purpose of the new session was to EXPEDITE the certification and dismiss all prior regular session procedural rules. This is why those two motions to table votes to consider a debate and pause to the certifications of state vote electors never happened later that evening when the house business was reconvened!

'... Q6: Other than new rules, emergency rules, what other peculiar things occurred when the speaker reconvened?

A: Members were allowed to ''vote'' in proxy, remotely, not being present. You can use your imagination about what conditions were placed on ALL members during this time to prevent anyone from ''getting out of line''.

Also clearly, it was at THIS NEW SESSION that VP Pence, President of Congress, would also have no ability to even consider pausing the electoral certification, because there were no motions of disagreements on the matter. So, in a technical legal claim, he is correct that he had no constitutional authority to address any issues of fraud or doubts about electoral irregularities. But this completely dismisses the FACT that congress created rules in this crisis/emergency that never allowed them to be floored!

Understand what happened in Jan 6, 2021. Don't get hung up on Viking impostors, stolen Pelosi computers, podium heists, and complicit capitol police. Understand the process and what happened and what WAS NOT ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.

This was a coup'....it was a very organized and carefully planned coup. VP Pence without a doubt as well as most members of the house were quite aware of how the certification was going to be MANAGED. It would require new rules to prevent the debate clause from occurring! New rules that ONLY AN EMERGENCY CRISIS COULD CREATE! So, they created an emergency.

'NOTED: I understand why many people have great interest in debunking the j6 event. I get that. I think it is important to dissect and examine the events of that day but please, step back and understand WHY these things happened. Examine the chain of events in congress. Why those two motions that would have at least paused the certification THAT WOULD GIVE VP PENCE THE CONSTITUTIONALLY RECOGNIZED POWER TO MOVE TO SUSPEND THE ELECTORAL CERTIFICATION AND THEN EXAMINE THE IRREGULARITIES AND CLAIMS OF FRAUD!

At the very center of this coup stands Mike Pence, the same individual who also spoiled President Trump's first opportunities in the earlies hours of his Presidency just 4 years prior, when he created and facilitated the removal of Lt General Michael Flynn. I will not spend much time on this thread explaining why Lt Gen Flynn was so important to President Trump and why the IC was so afraid he would have advisory power to the President. That I will leave for another day, another time. But understand this clearly: MIKE PENCE WAS AND IS WORKING FOR THE MOST CORRUPT CRIMINAL TREASONOUS PEOPLE IN GOVERNMENT.

'PRO TIP: If you really want to get a true understanding of this matter videos of protesters walking in the capitol is not going to address them. Actual video and timeline records of events and the specific actions taken by the speaker just moments before TWO MAJOR ELECTORAL ALTERING MOTIONS WERE ABOUT TO BE FLOORED.

This crisis was developed just in time with a precise coordination to prevent those two motions to be entered into the chamber record. The two motions do not exist. The emergency powers established in the new session made sure they never could be entered. The emergency powers could never happen without a crisis.

God Bless America!''

[link]

Note from Author: ''I started this effort years ago. To date, no one and I mean no one has replied. It's as if everyone that can expose it that has a larger platform is either disinterested, or suspiciously withdrawn from the issue. I made several comments about this over the years right here at CTH, on article threads that are relevant to the topic.

I was watching the certification live that day. I recorded it ALL on every channel. I was doing this because no matter what happened that day, I KNEW IT WOULD BE A PROFOUND AND SIGNIFICANT EVENT TO REMEMBER. I never in my wildest imagination (and I have a pretty vivid imagination, always have), expected to see the unmistakable perfectly timed ''coincidences'' that occurred.

One member raises a motion (with another in waiting for his turn) those two motions were well known and advertised. These were motions to vote for a pause in the certification to examine electoral vote fraud and irregularities. I can't speak to the veracity and substance of those motions. They were never allowed to even be floored. it was at that exact moment that the house chambers were suspended and 4 of the key members, Pence, Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell were escorted OUT right after initiating the end of the session.

Effectively, this resulted in that motion never being floored at all. Then, when reconvened under special emergency rules, inexplicably those two motions (and perhaps more '' we will never know '' or will we?) were not even attempted to be motioned. That was not just peculiar to me.

It all started to make more sense when I did some study on constitutional law AND THE HISTORY of specific special authorities given to president of the congress, Pence in this case. Not only did he have the authority and power to suspend the certification, but the duty to address the motion in the same sense that it becomes vital to the debate clause.

There really is no higher significance of weight given to the debate clause than the certification of the votes. This was more than odd to me the way that the media and pence framed their narrative: Pence would not have the constitutional power to suspend certification. Then it hit me, like the obvious clue that was there all the time. He was right. But the reason he is right, is because there WAS NO MOTION ON THE FLOOR TO CAUSE HIM TO SUSPEND!

Understanding this, happened for me about 4 or 5 months after this Jan 6 day. I took me this long to examine the facts, look at the video again, compare it to the arguments made by several leading constitutional academics, and again, inexplicably even some that I respect seemed to dodge that central reality. The motions were never allowed to be floored in the re-convened house rules later that evening. Most would not even venture to address the exotically coincidence that the moment those two members would stand to place the motion before the house, that the House Speaker Pelosi AND Pence ended the session, effectively blocking the motions from being heard in normal house rules.

It's been a journey for me. A journey that was initiated because I am just a simple but curious person. Perhaps even to a point where I get obsessive in those efforts. Many days and nights combing over the details. praying and trying to make sense of what makes little sense. With over 6 states having serious well known and obvious defects in the voting process, some more credible to believe '' some less, but one would not expect the house would be so deliberate in marching past the motions that were definitely going to be present to slow this process down and take the time to get it right. Even IF the claims never reached an intersection that would change the outcome.

There are two possibilities: Millions of people, against all the odds, hitting all-time records even past Obama and Clinton, voted for a naval gazing ambulatory pathological racist moron. And chose Joe Malarkey as their leader. Or this was a coup, a conspiracy, and a treasonous manipulation regime change because President Trump could not be controlled by the deep state and globalists who OWN AND OPERATE WASHINGTON DC.

BOTH POSSIBILITIES ARE TERRIFYING.

The only way for THE PEOPLE to gain power in this country is to force the transfer of it. If truth isn't the fuel and vehicle, we will just be replacing deck chairs and hitting the next series of expected ice bergs.

Knowing the truth is not enough; however, it is truth that makes it a righteous cause.

God Bless America!''

~ Regitiger

Sundance provides an addendum in support:

Julie Kelly '' ['...] Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election ''irregularities'' in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day.

And no one opposed the effort more than ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

During a conference call on December 31, 2020, McConnell urged his Republican Senate colleagues to abandon plans to object to the certification, insisting his vote to certify the 2020 election results would be ''the most consequential I have ever cast'' in his 36-year Senate career.

From the Senate floor on the afternoon of January 6, McConnell gave a dramatic speech warning of the dire consequences to the country should Republicans succeed in delaying the vote. He downplayed examples of voting fraud and even mocked the fact that Trump-appointed judges rejected election lawsuits.

''The voters, the courts, and the States have all spoken,'' McConnell insisted. ''If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever. If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.''

Roughly six hours later, McConnell got his way. Cowed by the crowd of largely peaceful Americans allowed into the building by Capitol police, most Republican senators backed off the audit proposal. McConnell, echoing hyperbolic talking points about an ''insurrection'' seeded earlier in the day by Democratic lawmakers and the news media, gloated. ''They tried to disrupt our democracy,'' he declared on the Senate floor after Congress reconvened around 8 p.m. ''This failed attempt to obstruct Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic.''

Congress officially certified the Electoral College results early the next day. (read more)

[ Support CTH Mission Here ]The J6 pipe bombs were the insurance policy, in the event they couldn't get the crowd to comply with the FBI provocations. If no one stormed the Capitol, the finding of the pipe bombs would have been the emergency needed to stop the process. https://t.co/JqVcGROAPN

'-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) March 12, 2023

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:17

Officials in some EU states say the bloc is forcing them to foot the bill for millions of unused vaccine doses

Pfizer has offered to extend its Covid-19 vaccine contract with the European Union while scaling back deliveries, but still expects the bloc to pay billions of euros for unused doses amid a major supply glut in some countries, the Financial Times has reported. The offer prompted outrage from a handful of member states, who say the deal would serve the interests of Big Pharma over their own citizens.

The contract extension would push the vaccine agreement out to 2026, with a proposed 40% reduction in the number of doses supplied as well as delays to deliveries, the newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing two unnamed officials.

However, despite the suggested cuts, the US pharma giant still insists that it be paid for the full number of doses originally agreed upon, many of which would never be produced under the new terms.

The amendments to the deal '' the full text of which has never been made public '' were presented by European health commissioner Stella Kyriakides during a closed-door meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, but faced objections from some EU members.

In a joint statement issued following the meeting, officials from Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland said they would not sign the agreement with the proposed changes, as they ''do not present a final and fair solution to the problems of the Covid-19 vaccine surplus and do not meet the needs of the healthcare systems, the needs of citizens and the financial interests of the member states.''

Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski argued that the current Pfizer proposal would favor Big Pharma, and has called for the secretive contract to be published, questioning the role European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen played in the negotiations for the massive vaccine deal.

An EU watchdog launched a probe into the negotiation and procurement process late last year, after von der Leyen's office failed to produce personal text messages sent to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during the talks for nearly 2 billion vaccine doses, prompting accusations of corruption.

The 27-member bloc originally signed a joint contract with Pfizer in 2020, but since the pandemic receded, demand for vaccines has steadily dropped, leaving an overabundance across the continent. Some countries have been forced to throw away vaccines, with Germany alone tossing out some 36.6 million doses, according to public broadcaster BR24, while others are sitting on large stocks of unused shots, such as Austria, which has reported around 17.5 million in its supply.

However, Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Valek pushed back on the criticisms, arguing that the ''majority of countries'' had agreed to the deal and that ''the contract is not bad.'' He added that the large stock of doses would not pose a problem as ''Covid is still here'' and ''It will be necessary to repeat vaccination each year for a particular group of patients.''

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:09

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:07

Artificial intelligence software development firm OpenAI released GPT-4, its latest AI language model, with a massive array of new capabilities.

In a press release announcing the rollout of GPT-4 on Tuesday, OpenAI claimed that while GPT-4 still lags behind human beings in real-world scenarios, the AI can excel at theoretical and academic applications. In a developer livestream, the company showcased the software's powerful problem-solving and image recognition, describing images, creating a working website, and even doing simulated taxes.

The first thing OpenAI discussed in its release was the problem-solving improvements made between GPT-4 and its predecessor, GPT-3.5. To illustrate these new capabilities, OpenAI showed a table of academic and professional exams, and the scores the software garnered. The AI scored:

A 298/400 on the Unified Bar Exam, which was in the 90th percentile of results.A 163 on the LSAT, in the 88th percentile.A 710 on the reading and writing SAT, the 93rd percentileA 700 on the math SAT, the 89th percentileA 169 on the verbal GRE, in the 99th percentileA 5 on the AP Art History, Biology, Macro- and Microeconomics, Psychology, Statistics, US Government, and US History examsIn the developer livestream, OpenAI President Greg Brockman discussed several new features the updated software has. First, GPT-4 has a new system prompt in the user interface that allows the user to input new parameters for the AI to work with so that it can refine its model. Brockman demonstrated this capability with some basic prompts, including summarizing the OpenAI press release into a sentence where each word begins with G. While GPT-3.5 effectively gave up on the assignment, GPT-4 synthesized the article into the sentence: ''GPT-4 generates groundbreaking, grandiose gains, greatly galvanizing generalized AI goals.''

When Brockman pointed out that ''AI doesn't count,'' GPT-4 created a new sentence: ''Gigantic GPT-4 garners groundbreaking growth, greatly galvanizing global goals.'' The software was able to create similar sentences using only A's and even Q's.

Next, Brockman experimented with GPT-4's ''vision model.'' The AI built a Discord chat bot that could analyze and describe images posted to the chat server. Brockman then prompted the bot to describe a screenshot of the Discord channel, and the bot responded with a detailed description of the image, including the Discord layout and messages posted into the chat. The bot was also able to describe another image of a snowboarder on an alien planet, and a cartoon of a squirrel holding a camera.

Brockman then uploaded a photograph of a hand-drawn joke website. The AI-built Discord bot was able to recognize Brockman's drawing, then write Javascript code for a working website with jokes and a button to push to reveal the punchline.

Finally, Brockman showed that GPT-4 was able to do simulated taxes. Using a system prompt he dubbed ''TaxGPT,'' and a prompt that included large parts of the federal tax code, he asked ChatGPT to estimate 2018 taxes for a married couple with one child. The software was able to reason out the answers using the tax code, and came up with the family's standard deduction and estimated tax liability.

The model is still not in at its full potential, OpenAI noted. According to the press release, system messages are the easiest way to ''jailbreak'' the AI from its boundaries, like the infamous viral ''DAN'' instance; the model also still ''hallucinates,'' making up facts that don't exist, and makes reasoning errors. The company is also working with experts to reduce ''harmful advice, buggy code, or inaccurate information,'' it said.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:06

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:04

Early in the morning hours of a polar vortex in January 2019, FOX's "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett claimed two White supremacist Trump supporters attacked him near his Chicago apartment in a racially-motivated hate crime that would soon incite outrage from activists and the media.

It's the "hate crime" that dominated headlines, but facts proved none of it was true.In December 2021, the now-40-year-old actor and singer was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct. One year ago, he was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in county jail.

Brothers Abimbola "Bola" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo, Smollett's accomplices in the act, finally broke their silence to the media about the hoax for the first time in an interview now streaming on Fox Nation.

JUSSIE SMOLLETT TESTIFIES TO RECEIVING TEXT FROM CNN'S DON LEMON DURING CHICAGO POLICE ATTACK INVESTIGATION

Brothers Abimbola "Bola" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo. (Fox Nation)

"A friend of mine had sent me a screenshot of the front page of, I believe a TMZ article, that showed that Jussie had been attacked. I ran to my brother and was like, 'Yo, mission accomplished. We did it,'" Bola recounted in the five-part series. "Now we've secured the payment of our $500 that he owes us because he only wrote us a check of [sic] $3,500, and that was the day we were supposed to leave for Nigeria."

Bola said he and Ola were heading out of the country for an audition for a popular TV series at the time.

"Things were on the up and up for us. Things were looking pretty good," Ola said.

FLASHBACK: KAMALA HARRIS ONCE CALLED JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S CLAIMS OF AN ATTACK AN 'ATTEMPTED MODERN DAY LYNCHING'

Jussie Smollett's $3,500 check to Abimbola "Bola" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo. (Fox Nation/Screengrab)

Smollett alleged the "White supremacists" - or the brothers in disguise, rather - threw chemicals on him and put a noose around his neck, while shouting racially and homophobically-charged slurs and telling him he was in "MAGA country."

But the identities of the men behind the masks slowly began to unravel.

"You know Eddie Johnson [former Chicago Police Superintendent] said he could tell in the footage that you guys are Black, right?" an off-camera interviewer asked the brothers.

"Really?" Ola asked. "I feel like he's just saying that'... we were in character the whole time."

"So you think you guys are believable White supremacists?" the interviewer pressed.

BIDEN, HARRIS LED FRENZY TO AMPLIFY JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S FALSE HATE CRIME CLAIMS

Actor Jussie Smollett appears with his attorneys at his sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Thursday, March 10, 2022, in Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool) (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via AP)

"One hundred percent! Look at me," Bola laughed. Chicago Police released images of the incident shortly after it took place, but Johnson said the initially released image of two silhouettes walking shoulder-to-shoulder down the snowy Chicago street was not the best image they had at the time.

The other showed one brother wearing a red hat '' presumably a MAGA hat.

"I didn't want people to focus on that," Bola said upon reflecting, later explaining that Black and LGBTQ+ communities would have been outraged. "Sometimes, once the toothpaste gets out of the tube, you can get it back in there."

CLICK HERE TO GET FOX NATIONStill, others believed the fabricated incident alluded to larger problems with racism in Trump's America.

"Everyone immediately thought 'This is what Trump's America is like," New York Post national correspondent Gabrielle Fonrouge said in the special. "You had people in MAGA hats chasing after a Black man in the night, tying a rope around his neck calling him racist slurs, calling him homophobic slurs," she continued.

The new Fox Nation special "Anatomy of a Hoax" hones in on other voices like Bola's and Ola's who never spoke to the media about the case '-- until now.

To take a deep dive into the Jussie Smollett-staged hate crime, sign up for Fox Nation and stream the special today.Fox Nation programs are viewable on-demand and from your mobile device app, but only for Fox Nation subscribers. Go to Fox Nation to start a free trial and watch the extensive library from your favorite Fox News personalities.

Taylor Penley is a production assistant with Fox News.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 17:03

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:59

TikTok could separate from ByteDance, the Chinese technology firm which controls the exceedingly popular social media platform, in an effort to ease American lawmakers' concerns about national security risks and data privacy.

Executives are weighing the sale of TikTok to another company or an initial public offering as a last resort should American officials reject an existing national security proposal offered by the company called Project Texas, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg. Authorities with the Chinese Communist Party would have to permit the divestiture.

The report comes as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a board composed of nine cabinet-level officials who weigh the national security implications of international investments into American companies, conducts a review of TikTok. Representatives from the Justice Department have reportedly not accepted the proposal from the firm.

''Neither a ban of TikTok nor a divestiture of TikTok from ByteDance does anything to address national security concerns about data transfers,'' TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement to Bloomberg, adding that American users ''would be held to a significantly higher security standard than any comparable American company'' under Project Texas.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) recently exhorted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who leads the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to force the divestiture of TikTok. A letter from the lawmakers referenced the body mandating that Beijing Kunlun Company divest itself of homosexual dating site Grindr and health care platform PatientsLikeMe four years ago under the Trump administration.

Renewed controversy over TikTok comes amid worsening tensions in broader Sino-American relations sparked by at least one Chinese surveillance balloon recently traversing the continental United States. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week.

Beyond the prohibition of TikTok on federal devices issued by President Joe Biden and similar actions from multiple state governments, lawmakers have unveiled a number of bills that would force the divestiture of TikTok or otherwise significantly restrict the platform, which outranks other social media companies such as Meta and Twitter with respect to daily usage. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) unveiled the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, abbreviated as the RESTRICT Act, to grant the Commerce Department authority to review information communications and technology transactions that pose undue risk to American security.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently publicized allegations from a former TikTok employee who claimed that employees of the firm, including members of the Chinese Communist Party who are on the company's payroll, can allegedly switch between Chinese and American data with ''nothing more than the click of a button.'' Workers allegedly use proprietary software created in China to reduce foreign scrutiny and let engineers ''insert software backdoors,'' Hawley described on the basis of the unnamed whistleblower's account.

''I have seen first-hand China-based engineers flipping over to non-China datasets and creating scheduled tasks to backup, aggregate, and analyze data,'' the whistleblower told Hawley. ''TikTok and ByteDance are functionally the same company. They use the same data analysis tools and chat apps, and managers are in constant contact.''

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:58

The US government may have made tens of millions of dollars in duplicate payments for virus research at the Wuhan Institute for Virology, according to a review of government records by a former federal investigator, CBS News reports.

"What I've found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research," said Diane Cutler, whose services were engaged by Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall.

Cutler has more than 20 years of experience investigating healthcare fraud and white-collar crime, an her conclusions spring from her review of over 50,000 documents relating to US grants that financed coronavirus research in China.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (Roman Pilipey/EPA via The Guardian)The apparent double-payments, made via the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and US Agency for International Development (USAID), related to a variety of claimed costs, including salaries, travel, medical supplies and equipment.

Anonymous sources told CBS the damage may amount to tens of millions of dollars. Marshall has turned over Cutler's findings to USAID and the agency's internal watchdog, which has launched an investigation of its own. It could take six months or more.

On Feb. 28, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau had long ago concluded the Covid-19 pandemic was most likely the result of a leak from a Chinese lab. Days earlier, it was reported that the Department of Energy had -- in 2020 -- reached its own determination that a lab leak was most likely.

This month, former NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci was accused of prompting a cadre of scientists to publish a paper disproving the lab-leak theory -- just days after scientists warned Fauci, in February 2020, that Covid-19 may have indeed leaked from a lab.

Two authors of that same paper -- who initially expressed concerns over a lab-leak but then changed their tune -- went on to receive millions in NIH grants under Fauci.

Fauci earned at least $480,654 a year in his NIH-NIAID role, making him the highest-paid employee in the federal government. Now, the increasingly disgraced graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts is raking in a pension estimated at $414,000 -- more than the US presidential salary.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:39

The Biden Administration's 2023 budget bill made headlines by proposing a so-called ''billionaire tax,'' imposing a 25-percent minimum rate on the ''unrealized capital gains'' of the wealthiest Americans. The Biden measure rests on an economic falsehood. The new proposal rests on the work of far-left academics such as Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, who erroneously claim that wealthy Americans pay a lower tax rate, on average, than the poor. This assertion arises from a compounding of basic empirical errors, beginning with the blurring of the distinction between income (annual earnings) and wealth (net worth) as well as a fair amount of intentional statistical manipulation.

In addition to being premised on bad economic reasoning and contrived evidence, Biden's proposed wealth tax will also likely face another obstacle: it is blatantly unconstitutional.

To see how, we must turn to the text of the Constitution itself. Article I, Section 8 of the document establishes the ''Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States'' with the stipulation that these measures must be uniform. A separate clause in Article 1, Section 9 stipulates that ''No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.''

When read together, these two clauses divide the taxing power of the federal government into two categories: direct and indirect taxation.

If a tax is indirect, it may meet constitutional muster by simple uniform application across the entire country. Consider a national excise tax on alcohol sales, one of the earliest and longest-standing federal tax measures in existence. Under the current federal excise tax, distilled spirits are taxed at $13.50 per proof gallon, regardless of the state in which they are purchased and consumed. A parallel tax similarly covers liquor that is imported from abroad, again, meeting the uniformity requirement by applying to all states.

A direct tax, by contrast, must meet the apportionment requirement of the Capitations clause, with one notable exception arising from a later amendment. As originally designed, this meant direct taxes had to be divided in proportion to the population of each state, and then assessed within the population of that state. Since state population is the determinant, this formula could conceivably lead to 50 different tax rates, under the Constitution's design. The resulting system would likely face insurmountable political opposition, in addition to being impractical to implement and enforce.

So, how did the Constitution originally differentiate direct and indirect forms of taxation? That subject came up in one of the first major Supreme Court cases, Hylton v. United States in 1796. Borrowing his reasoning directly from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Justice Paterson wrote that ''All taxes on expenses or consumption are indirect taxes.'' The Court, accordingly, affirmed the constitutionality of a federal sales tax on carriages, finding that it was not subject to the apportionment formula of the census.

This outcome precluded the need to elaborate on direct taxation, however, the legal arguments from the case also settled that question. Alexander Hamilton's brief for the case defines direct taxation to include ''capitation or poll taxes,'' ''taxes on land and buildings,'' and ''general assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals, or on their whole real or personal estate.'' All other taxes, Hamilton continues, ''must of necessity be considered as indirect taxes.''

Although the Court determined that the carriage tax fell outside of the direct-tax classification, another federal tax almost a century later would run afoul of the apportionment rule. In 1894, Congress established a federal tax of two percent on incomes over $4,000. The measure sparked a complex array of legal challenges, on the basis that Congress had laid a direct income tax without meeting the apportionment requirement from the census. The following year, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the new income tax measure. Taxes on income derived from interest, dividends, and rent, the Court ruled in Pollock v. Farmer's Loan & Trust, qualified as direct taxation. Since this tax did not meet the apportionment requirement, the Court struck it down.

The fallout from the Pollock ruling dominated national politics for the next decade, as opponents of the existing tariff-based revenue system lobbied to replace it with an income tax. The impasse finally broke in 1909, when Congress adopted the 16th Amendment (ratified in 1913).

This Amendment authorized the modern federal income tax, but not by repealing the older apportionment rule of Article 1, Section 9 as is commonly assumed. Rather, the 16th Amendment carved out a very specific exception to the existing clause. As its text states, ''Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.''

Congress may accordingly levy a direct tax on income earnings without needing to meet the census-based apportionment stipulation. It has done so from 1913 to the present day, under the all-too-familiar form that we fill out every April. Note, however, that the Amendment's text does not exempt other forms of direct taxation from the apportionment requirement.

A tax on ''unrealized capital gains'' cannot be a tax on income, as no income is generated in the process, only an estimated increase in valuation. It is ''unrealized'' by definition. Indeed, post-16th Amendment jurisprudence has generally held that money must be ''realized'' and received in order to qualify as income, most notably the 1920 case of Eisner v. Macomber.

If Biden gets his tax, it would face a steep and immediate constitutional challenge. The administration is likely banking on a series of extremely tendentious arguments by far-left law professors to argue that previous jurisprudence on this question should be discarded. These arguments often begin from the assumption that Pollock was wrongly decided, and openly advocate judicial activism from the bench, as a strategy to bypass the apportionment requirement through semantic games. Even supporters of the idea concede that this strategy is unlikely to pass muster with the current Supreme Court.

It's a fitting realization. Much like the contrived economic arguments behind the wealth tax, its legal arguments are a result of politically motivated reasoning to bring about a new tax system that the Constitution prohibits.

Phillip W. MagnessPhillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and Director of Research and Education at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University's School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston). Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College. Magness's work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specializations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains an active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. In addition to his scholarship, Magness's popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Selected Publications''How pronounced is the U-curve? Revisiting income inequality in the United States, 1917-1960'' Co-authored with Vincent Geloso, Philip Schlosser, and John Moore. The Economic Journal (March 2022) ''The Great Overestimation: Tax Data and Inequality Measurements in the United States, 1913-1943.'' Co-authored with Vincent Geloso. Economic Inquiry (April 2020). ''The anti-discriminatory tradition in Virginia school public choice theory.'' Public Choice. James M. Buchanan Centennial Issue. (March 2020). ''John Maynard Keynes, H.G. Wells, and a Problematic Utopia.'' Co-authored with James Harrigan. History of Political Economy (Spring 2020) ''Detecting Historical Inequality Patterns: A Replication of Thomas Piketty's Wealth Concentration Estimates for the United Kingdom.'' Social Science Quarterly (Summer 2019) ''James M. Buchanan and the Political Economy of Desegregation,'' Co-authored with Art Carden and Vincent Geloso. Southern Economic Journal (January 2019) ''Lincoln's Swing State Strategy: Tariff Surrogates and the Pennsylvania Election of 1860'' Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, (January 2019) ''Are Adjuncts Exploited?: Some Grounds for Skepticism.'' Co-authored with Jason Brennan. Journal of Business Ethics. (Spring 2017). ''Estimating the Cost of Adjunct Justice: A Case Study in University Business Ethics.'' Co-authored with Jason Brennan. Journal of Business Ethics. (January, 2016) ''The American System and the Political Economy of Black Colonization.'' Journal of the History of Economic Thought, (June 2015). ''The British Honduras Colony: Black Emigrationist Support for Colonization in the Lincoln Presidency.'' Slavery & Abolition, 34-1 (March 2013) ''Morrill and the Missing Industries: Strategic Lobbying Behavior and the Tariff of 1861.'' Journal of the Early Republic, 29 (Summer 2009).

Books by Phillip W. MagnessGet notified of new articles from Phillip W. Magness and AIER.

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:36

Update(1510ET): After nearly two hours since the story first broke in international press, the Kremlin has issued its version of events concerning the US drone crash in the Black Sea Tuesday. The Russian Defense Ministry said nothing about the Pentagon's allegations that a Russian Su-27 aircraft dumped fuel on the MQ-9 drone, but instead blamed the pair of Russian jets' erratic maneuvering for the collision.

"US drone MQ-9 fell into the Black Sea on Tuesday morning due to its own sharp maneuvering, Russian fighters did not come into contact with it and did not use weapons, the Russian Defense Ministry said," according to Russian media. The statement is as follows [emphasis ours]:

"As a result of sharp maneuvering around 09:30 Moscow time [06:30 GMT], unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 went into an uncontrolled flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface. The Russian fighters did not use airborne weapons, did not come into contact with the unmanned aerial vehicle and returned safely to their home airfield" the ministry said.

The Russian fighters had been scrambled in response to the drone being picked up on radar: "The ministry clarified that on the morning of March 14, the airspace control of the Russian Aerospace Forces had recorded the flight of US unmanned aerial vehicle MQ-9 over the Black Sea in the region of the Crimean peninsula in the direction of the Russian state border." However, the ministry further noted that the UAV had been flying with its transponders turned off while headed towards Russia's border.

Interestingly, the Kremlin is accusing the Pentagon of ignoring military-to-military protocols related to the war in Ukraine, established in order to avoid inadvertent NATO-Russia clashes:

The flight of the drone "was carried out with transponders turned off, violating the boundaries of the area of the temporary regime for the use of airspace, established for the purpose of conducting a special military operation, communicated to all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international standards," the MoD said.

So given the Russian side has confirmed there was no shootdown, both sides can collectively breath a sigh of relief for now, given this was a highly dangerous incident that had the potential to unleash a shooting war as the two superpower rivals continue crisscrossing airspace over the Black Sea, not far from frontline fighting in Ukraine.

* * *

Update(1328ET): The US military statement of events, blaming a pair of Russian fighter jets for "reckless" maneuvers which resulted in the MQ-9 drone being struck and crashing in international waters at a "complete loss":

Two Russian Su-27 aircraft conducted an unsafe and unprofessional intercept with a U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance unmanned MQ-9 aircraft that was operating within international airspace over the Black Sea today.

At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner. This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional.

''Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,'' said U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa. ''In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.''

''U.S. and Allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely,'' Hecker added.

This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with U.S. and Allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea. These aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation.

NSC spokesman John Kirby followed up by saying the US aircraft posed no threat to anyone, and that it was operating in international airspace. He additionally confirmed it was brought down in international waters. Presumably there may be a recovery operation underway.

Kirby stressed in a briefing, "If the message is that they want to deter or dissuade us from flying and operating in international airspace over the Black Sea, that message will fail."

NSC's John Kirby says that intercepts of planes and drones are common, but this is the "first time an intercept resulted in a splashing of one of our drones"

'-- Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) March 14, 2023Reaction from Trump Jr...

The US Air Force issued a statement accusing the Russian aircraft of acting in a ''reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner.''Environmentally unsound. That's what they're worried about. Not the start of WWIII.

Trump was right again!

https://t.co/LxJAP5JgbM

'-- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 14, 2023* * *

A major incident involving a US military drone is being widely reported as happening over the Black Sea on Tuesday, with NATO sources telling AFP there's been an "incident" and that an investigation is ongoing. Western military sources identified that a US-made Reaper drone may have crashed for as yet unknown reasons:

"Something happened but we don't have confirmation that the drone has been shot down. An investigation is underway," one of two Western sources who confirmed "an incident" told AFP.

MQ-9 drone, military file image"The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information, did not say which country was operating the drone, which is used extensively by the United States as well as many of its NATO allies," the AFP report continues.

As more details trickled out in the minutes following initial reports, a war correspondent for Politico is citing US European Command officials who say the US drone has been downed over the Black Sea.

"A Russian Su-27 fighter collided with a US MQ-9 drone over the Black Sea this morning, causing the drone to crash, US European Command says," Politico Paul McLeary writes.

NEW: A Russian Su-27 fighter collided with a US MQ-9 drone over the Black Sea this morning, causing the drone to crash, US European Command says.

'-- Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) March 14, 2023Naturally, the next question is what happened to the Russian jet... did it too crash? If so, the incident poses great danger for possible imminent US-Russia escalation, given this is the kind of rare direct military encounter and incident that many have long feared could unleash a deadly spiral of escalation.

The White House was briefed over the incident, according to NSC spokesman John Kirby:

BIDEN BRIEFED ON RUSSIA JET INCIDENT THIS MORNING: KIRBY

However, some pundits and reporters are already positing a narrative of events which contradicts the Pentagon's. Is Pentagon leadership hoping to avoid WW3 by downplaying it as a mere accident (in the scenario this was actually a shootdown incident)? The Kremlin version of events will be interesting to hear as the aftermath unfolds.

The two Russian Su-27 returned to their baser in #Crimea after destroying a $32 million, for the latest versions of MQ-9, #US drone.

'-- Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) March 14, 2023developing...

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Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:34

For years, members of Congress have asked for access to suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to the Biden family's foreign business deals. Those efforts were cut off by the Biden Administration and the Democratically controlled houses of Congress. Even after the GOP took over the House, however, the Treasury Department continued to refuse to turn over the SARs. While the GOP had to threaten hearings with Treasury officials, the department has finally relented. It now appears that time is up for Hunter Biden on the SARs fight and it could finally answer a number of questions over the alleged influence peddling of the Biden family. It may also put pressure on the Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is looking into possible criminal conduct by Hunter Biden.

I previously wrote about how few people in Washington are eager to expose the influence peddling by the Biden family. Influence peddling is the cottage industry of Washington. However, even by the corrupt standards of this city, the Bidens took influence peddling to an unprecedented level in raking in millions from foreign interests, including some with alleged ties to foreign intelligence.

The least eager group to see these transactions may be the media, which not only buried the Hunter Biden story but has shown remarkable disinterest in these allegations. Indeed, this alleged influence peddling could not have occurred without the assurance that the media had the back of the Bidens. Imagine what the media would have done with even one of these deals with foreign political or influence figures if a Trump child was the recipient. The genius of the Biden influence peddling operation was to make the media an early and active participant. They became invested in the denial over two years of belittling or dismissing the story.

The SARs are relevant to the scope of the alleged influence peddling. It could also supply added evidence of possible criminal charges over tax crimes as well as unlawful work as a foreign agent. There are also possible allegations of evading financial rules, false statements, and even money laundering.

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R., Ky) has objected that the Biden Administration changed rules governing access to these reports that stood for more than 20 years. Comer has also subpoenaed Bank of America for financial records of three of Hunter Biden's business associates. That effort was also opposed by Democratic members. these inquiries will cover 14 years of deals and transactions.

Comer this morning revealed that the first SARs report shows money going from China to ''three'' Biden family members including one not previously discussed as a recipient of such money.

It is not clear what these SARs will reveal, but the effort to prevent any congressional investigation is striking. This investigation goes to an alleged corrupt effort to sell influence. Many Democrats and legal experts have objected that influence peddling is not a crime. However, it is corrupt and squarely within the oversight authority of Congress. Indeed, if it is not a matter for criminal charges, such congressional action may be the only way to force accountability for corrupt efforts to sell influence and access.

We will now have access to hard data on the dates, amounts, senders, and recipients of money transfers. That will reduce the speculation over the alleged influence peddling efforts and allow for a fuller understanding of what occurred in the Biden family business.

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 16:35

A new zero-emissions ferry powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology has arrived in San Francisco, where it will undergo trial runs and preparations to carry passengers later this year.

The 70-foot catamaran is believed to be the first commercial maritime vessel in the United States powered entirely by hydrogen fuel cells, officials said. The boat is a key part of an ambitious plan by the San Francisco Bay Ferry to replace a significant number of its pollutant-spewing diesel vessels with zero-emission watercraft by 2035.

''We know the future is zero emissions with marine transportation,'' San Francisco Bay Ferry spokesman Thomas Hall said in an interview Monday. ''We're really pushing the envelope.''

Known as the Sea Change, the aluminum catamaran can transport up to 75 passengers at a top speed of 15 knots, according to the California Air Resources Board, which provided a $3-million grant to help fund the project. The boat will have enough hydrogen storage capacity for two days of normal operation.

Fuel cells operate like batteries and use chemical energy or hydrogen to produce electricity quietly with minimal moving parts, according to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Hydrogen fuel cells emit only water, addressing a critical need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide spewed into the environment.

Crews will begin training on the Sea Change and outfitting it for passenger use in the coming weeks, Hall said. After the vessel is tested and inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard, it will begin taking passengers later this year.

The San Francisco Bay Ferry operates 16 vessels to cities including Oakland, Richmond and Vallejo.

The Angel Island-Tiburon Ferry, which transports tens of thousands of visitors annually from Tiburon to the state park on the island, recently announced that it would convert to an electric-propulsion vessel next year.

''We are very excited that the Angel Island will be the first of the short-run ferries in California to be 100% zero-emission,'' said Capt. Maggie McDonogh, owner and operator of the Angel Island-Tiburon Ferry.

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 16:33

Researchers claim that moose are potentially a leading cause of climate change and that the species should be balanced, suggesting they are "one of the biggest potential single sources of carbon emissions from wooded parts of Norway."

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology studied moose in Norwegian forests for several years and concluded that the species have a major effect on vegetation growth and are altering the carbon cycle by dining on tree buds. "Moose are an ecosystem engineer in the forest ecosystem, and strongly impact everything from the species composition and nutrient availability in the forest. A grown animal can eat 50 kilograms of biomass each day during summer," Gunnar Austrheim, an ecologist at the NTNU University Museum, said in a press release.

Moose tend to eat birch and young samplings in clearcut forests, an act researchers claim is where the ungulates "gobble up" possible carbon storage in trees.

ENERGY SECRETARY GRANHOLM CLAIMS US CAN 'LEARN FROM WHAT CHINA IS DOING' ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Some scientists believe moose are leading a cause contributing to climate change. (Jackson Hole EcoTour Adventures)

"It was really a surprise to see how much moose can influence vegetation growth, the carbon cycle and the climate system," said Xiangping Hu, a researcher at NTNU's Industrial Ecology (IndEcol), said in the release.

OREGON EYES MANDATE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE LESSONS IN SCHOOLS

The study also claimed that moose were not only bad for the climate but aided the forest industry.

The solution suggested to the latest climate change theory was to balance moose numbers and forest management in an effort to limit CO2 emissions. "We don't only regulate the amount of animals, we very carefully regulate the proportion of females, males and calves. So there's a stronger management for moose than for most livestock in Norway," Francesco Cherubini, director of IndEcol Programme said. "I think as we get more of an understanding of how all these different things are interrelated, land managers could come up with an optimal plan. That could be a much-needed win-win solution for climate, for biodiversity and for timber value."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has previously claimed "farting cows" were contributing to climate change. (CSPAN)

The moose is not the first animal on climate activists labeled a potential threat to the climate after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) linked "farting cows" to causing climate change.

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In 2019, the congresswoman suggested "we shouldn't be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner" in her effort to reduce carbon emissions coming from cows.

"We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero, emissions in 10 years because we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast," Ocasio-Cortez's FAQ page for the Green New Deal read.

Aubrie Spady is a Freelance Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 16:31

The U.S. Treasury Department may need to choose between climate integrity today and a high-stakes gamble that the hydrogen industry can decarbonize in the future. At its core is a debate over what ''green'' hydrogen really is.

The maximum value of the new tax credit, $3 per kilogram, is available only for hydrogen with the lowest possible carbon footprint. In theory, this should apply to hydrogen manufactured through ''green electrolysis,'' in which renewable electricity is used to separate hydrogen molecules from water. Up to now, nearly all hydrogen is instead ''gray'' or ''blue'' '-- derived from natural gas, a process that could negate its climate benefit: Under the IRA this would qualify for a much lower credit.

Deciding which projects qualify as green is less straightforward than it may seem. Imagine a producer plugs an electrolyzer into the grid, and buys certificates from a wind or solar farm to show that the hydrogen was made using clean power. That clean power is now unavailable to other users, which may cause the grid operator to ramp up a fossil fuel power plant to compensate. Should that count against the hydrogen's carbon footprint?

The nascent hydrogen industry is fiercely divided on this question. Environmental groups and some entrepreneurs argue that truly ''green'' hydrogen should need to match its electricity use in real-time to renewable sources that were built explicitly for that purpose, or else billions of taxpayer dollars could be poured into an ostensible climate solution that actually increases net emissions.

DENIS BALIBOUSE/ReutersOthers, including some oil majors and utilities, argue that with looser rules, electrolysis-derived hydrogen will still be cleaner than that made from gas. They say the greatest imperative should be to use the tax credit to scale the industry and make it cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Today, electrolyzer hydrogen is roughly three times the price of natural gas in Europe and 15 times the price in the U.S., but the green tax credit is high enough to drastically change the economics.

''If the regulations are too tight, no one will qualify, and it will limit the ability of this industry to get moving,'' Andy Marsh, CEO of fuel cell company Plug Power, said in an interview.

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 15:27

Lawmakers in Congress have previously raised concerns about Ring's close ties to police, and how often the Amazon-owned company has shared footage with law enforcement without owners' consent. Markey in particular has long criticized the company over potential privacy concerns stemming from its video doorbells.

Larkin's story illustrates how far a request can go, even when a camera owner initially cooperates with the police.

After sending the initial footage, Larkin started to find the police demands onerous. ''He sent one asking for all the footage from October 25,'' Larkin said. That was a far bigger ask, he said. Larkin told POLITICO that he has five cameras surrounding his house, which record in 5 to 15 second bursts whenever they're activated. He also has three cameras inside his house, as well as 13 cameras inside the store that he owns, which is nowhere near his home. All of these cameras are connected to his Ring account.

He declined that request. He says his main concern at first was practical: each clip, even if it were only 5 seconds long, would take up to a minute to download and send over.

After he stopped cooperating, he didn't hear from the detective again, until he received an email from Ring, notifying him that his account was the subject of a warrant from the Hamilton police department.

Ring began in 2020 publishing a transparency report on law enforcement requests the company receives.|Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This time, Larkin wasn't able to choose which cameras he could send videos from. The warrant included all five of his outdoor cameras, and also added a sixth camera that was inside his house, as well as any videos from cameras associated with his account, which would include the cameras in his store. It would include footage recorded from cameras he had in his living room and bedroom, as well as the 13 cameras he had installed at his store associated with his account.

Larkin, now incensed that police were requesting footage from inside his home for an investigation that didn't even involve him, wanted to fight the warrant. He estimated that a lawyer would have been too expensive, and he only had about seven days to challenge it before Ring would comply. He still doesn't understand how a judge could have signed off on a warrant asking for footage from a camera inside his home, when the investigation was on his neighbor.

''That says to me that the cops can go in and subpoena anybody, no matter how weak their evidence is,'' he said.

The Hamilton police department got the video footage it requested.

Its community affairs supervisor, Brian Ungerbuehler, declined to comment on why the agency requested footage from all of Larkin's cameras, citing an active investigation. He added that the department did not obtain any video footage from inside the house.

Larkin said it was fortunate his indoor camera listed in the request was unplugged for the timeframe the warrant specified, while his living room and bedroom cameras are only activated when his home alarm system is active.

Privacy advocates point out that the police don't have unfettered authority in demanding footage: They need to get a warrant from a judge, who's expected to exercise some control, just as they do when granting a search warrant. Judge Daniel Haughey, who signed off on the warrant, didn't respond to requests for comment on Larkin's case.

Though Larkin's warrant was unusually sweeping, warrants themselves are increasingly common. After concerns from activists and lawmakers about Ring's role in community surveillance, the company began in 2020 publishing a transparency report on law enforcement requests the company receives.

The report shows that the number of search warrants it receives has grown significantly each year. It received 536 search warrants in 2019, the first year covered by the report. In the first half of 2022, it received 1,622 requests.

Ring, too, has declined to provide footage in the past. According to its transparency report, it sent back no information in response to 113 out of the 536 warrants it received in 2019, and 634 out of 1610 warrants in 2020.

Daley, the spokesman, told POLITICO the company carefully reviews every search warrant and legal process it receives when it determines how to respond, and that its products give its customers choices to maintain people's privacy. While Ring lets you delete stored footage and data associated with your account, you need a court order to prevent the company from complying with government requests.

While companies are legally obligated to cooperate with police when they receive a warrant, they're able to push back on what they provide if it feels like the request is too overreaching. Apple has famously pushed back against the FBI's requests to unlock devices, a stance it still holds.

Ring stopped providing information on how many warrants received no responses in 2021, and did not offer a response to POLITICO's question about why the disclosures changed.

Though the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect Americans from broad law enforcement searches, the legal system's protection for citizens hasn't caught up to digital advances.

When police request a warrant for a physical search, the affidavits are usually required to be specific, down to the item that they're searching for and what room it's in. When it comes to electronic communications, the line is blurrier. In the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Congress created a fresh standard for surveillance as technology evolved: The law prevents unauthorized government wiretaps on electronic data. But it doesn't address more nuanced questions, like how much data the government can request. For an electronic search, because data can be nearly unlimited, courts have struggled with how to restrict these warrants, Lynch said.

As a result, she said, it's common to see warrants for data asking for swaths of digital records that would be considered an overreach by judges if it were for a physical search.

In warrants for digital communications such as emails, search histories and messages, the warrant's subject is usually the suspect under investigation '-- but when it comes to surveillance footage, which is passively recording hours of footage in public spaces, you can be an innocent bystander and still find police asking for your data. The lack of legal controls on what police can ask for, and judges failing to properly scrutinize these warrants, opens the door for even indoor home footage to be lumped in with these legal demands.

For its part, Ring says it would be open to discussing data request guidelines and guardrails on what law enforcement agencies can get from an electronic warrant. ''We welcome the opportunity to work with Congress to help ensure we are protecting customers while also supporting the legitimate needs of law enforcement,'' Ring's Daley said.

Privacy advocates at organizations such as the EFF and the ACLU have called for reforms to ECPA, which would close some of the loopholes in government data requests like being able to obtain data without a warrant through third parties.

Still, these reforms wouldn't address issues with judges rubber-stamping warrants without proper review, leaving people like Larkin struggling for privacy from government requests.

''That's the thing that upsets me the most '-- the fact that a judge just signed off on that,'' Larkin said. ''He's just going to hand over footage of mine, and the case doesn't even involve me in any way, shape or form.''

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 15:09

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 14, 2023 ~

Last Wednesday, federally-insured Silvergate Bank announced that it was closing shop and liquidating. Its parent's stock price (Silvergate Capital, ticker SI) had lost over 90 percent of its value over the prior year; it was under a Justice Department investigation for how it moved money for crypto-kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried's house of frauds; and its depositors were fleeing. Oh '' and by the way '' its primary regulator was the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Last Friday, California state regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) became the receiver. Its stock price had lost over 80 percent of its market value over the prior year; $150 billion of its $175 billion in deposits were uninsured, either because they exceeded the $250,000 FDIC cap and/or they were foreign deposits. The bank was effectively operating as a Wall Street IPO pipeline in drag as a federally-insured bank. The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco had quietly been bailing it out '' to the tune of $15 billion. Oh '' and by the way '' its primary regulator was the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. And while all of this hubris was occurring, the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, Gregory Becker, was sitting on the Board of Directors of his regulator, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Let's pause right here for a moment. This is far from the first time that the CEO of a questionable bank was sitting on the Board of a Federal Reserve Bank. As Citigroup CEO, Sandy Weill, was burying the bank under off balance sheet vehicles that would eventually crater the bank in 2008; send its stock price to 99 cents in early 2009; and require the largest bank bailout by the Fed in U.S. history, Weill was also serving on the Board of Directors of the New York Fed. And while Jamie Dimon was CEO of JPMorgan Chase and it was losing what eventually grew to $6.2 billion of bank depositors' money in wild derivative bets in London, Dimon was also sitting on the Board of the New York Fed. Even when there was a big public uproar over Dimon's presence on the New York Fed Board as the London Whale derivatives scandal came to light, Dimon remained in place.

Oh, and by the way, the Fed member banks in each of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts that can choose to be regulated by the Fed, literally own their regulator. That's right, they own the stock in their regional Fed bank, which is a private institution, unlike the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. which is an ''independent'' federal agency. (See, for example, These Are the Banks that Own the New York Fed and Its Money Button.)

As the first crypto-related bank failure occurred on Wednesday (Silvergate Bank) and the second largest bank failure in U.S. history occurred on Friday (Silicon Valley Bank) and the third largest bank failure in U.S. history occurred on Sunday (Signature Bank), President Joe Biden attempted yesterday to reassure the public, stating that ''Americans can rest assured that our banking system is safe.''

But by the close of the stock market yesterday, two more banks whose primary regulator was a Fed regional bank had lost more than 40 percent of their market value '' in one day's trading session. (That doesn't sound to us like things are under control.) Western Alliance Bancorp (ticker WAL), which is also supervised by the San Francisco Fed, lost 47 percent of its market value by the closing bell. Metropolitan Commercial Bank (bank holding company ticker is MCB) lost 43.78 percent of its market value yesterday. It is supervised by the New York Fed.

Adding to the ongoing arrogance of the Fed, its Chairman, Jerome Powell, released a statement two minutes after the market closed yesterday, stating that ''The events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank demand a thorough, transparent, and swift review'...'' So, once again, it's decided to investigate itself. The Fed's Vice Chairman for Supervision, Michael Barr, will oversee the investigation.

The last time the Fed decided to investigate itself was over its unprecedented trading scandal where various Fed officials engaged in highly inappropriate trading during the pandemic when Fed officials had insider knowledge of bailout actions the Fed planned to take to stem the stock market rout. Powell referred the investigation into that matter to the Fed's Inspector General '' who reports to (wait for it) the Federal Reserve Board, which is headed by Powell. The first news of that trading scandal came to light in early September 2021. It's now 19 months later and the public has yet to hear a peep about the results of any investigation into the worst actor in the trading scandal, former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan. (See our report: Robert Kaplan Was Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years while President of the Dallas Fed; a Dozen Legal Safeguards Failed to Stop Him.)

Against this backdrop of Fed hubris, the PBS program, Frontline, will tonight premiere a two-hour documentary on the Fed's controversial monetary policies that have led us to this dangerous point in time. The Age of Easy Money comes from the award-winning producers James Jacoby and Anya Bourg.

In the documentary, economist Nouriel Roubini says ''We lived in a bubble, in a dream, and this dream and bubble is bursting.'' Jim Millstein, Co-Chairman of Guggenheim Securities, shares this: ''I've never been more worried in the 42 years that I've been a professional. The Fed is absolutely right to try and get it [inflation] under control by raising interest rates in slowing economic activity. But the most highly levered players in our economy are going to come under real stress whether that's households or businesses or governments, as interest costs rise.''

Actually, what's blowing up right at this moment and scaring the daylights out of the American people are the U.S. banks (some of which were supervised by the Fed) that are sitting on a cumulative $620 billion of unrealized losses.

According to a February 28 statement from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on the condition of federally-insured U.S. banks and savings associations, ''Unrealized losses on securities totaled $620.4 billion in the fourth quarter, down 10.1 percent from the prior quarter. Unrealized losses on held''to''maturity securities totaled $340.9 billion in the fourth quarter. Unrealized losses on available''for''sale securities totaled $279.5 billion in the fourth quarter.''

Age of Easy Money will air tonight on PBS stations (check local listings) and on Frontline's YouTube channel at 9 p.m. eastern time and 8 p.m. central time.

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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:12

M asks have played a key role in keeping us all safe throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. At the start, masks helped flatten the curve to protect our hospital systems, and since, masks have helped make public spaces and essential services more open and accessible to everyone. Many studies show that masks work, and they work best when everyone wears a high-quality one to protect each other. Masks are magnificent.

Yet, three years into the pandemic, we still see conflicting stories in the news about masks on a daily basis. The latest culprit powering the confounding headlines is a new scientific review published in Cochrane. The paper analyzes many different studies that assess how physical measures '' including masks '' fare against respiratory viruses.

The analysis is flawed because it compares apples to oranges. The paper mixes together studies that were conducted in different environments with different transmission risks. It also combines studies where masks were worn part of the time with studies where masks are worn all the time. And it blends studies that looked at Covid-19 with studies that looked at influenza.

If apples work and oranges don't, but your analysis mixes them together, you may come to the false conclusion that apples don't work. Out of the 78 papers analyzed in the review, only two actually studied masking during the Covid-19 pandemic. And both of those found that masks did protect wearers from Covid-19. But these studies are drowned out by the greater number of studies on influenza included, where the benefit of masking is harder to detect because it's a far less contagious virus than Covid-19.

Even the authors themselves acknowledge in the paper: ''The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.''

The clear problems with the study did not stop loud voices from exaggerating its findings on large platforms. Bret Stephens proclaimed in the New York Times that ''The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?'' And Tom Jefferson, first author of the Cochrane paper, asserted in an interview: ''There is just no evidence that [masks] make any difference. Full stop.''

Neither are objective nor reliable sources. Stephens once called global warming ''mass hysteria'' and claimed climate science had been ''discredited''. Jefferson works for the Brownstone Institute, a Covid-19 misinformation group that is powered by dark money.The mischaracterization of the Cochrane review by its authors and like-minded supporters is deliberate. Those with vested interests are sowing doubt about the science of Covid-19 protections by using the same disinformation playbook that tobacco companies, the fossil fuel industry and the anti-vax movement have used in the past.

The overselling of the Cochrane study is a classic example of cherry-picking, where biased groups highlight a subset of data that support their position, while ignoring the larger pool of evidence that disagrees with them. Many direct studies in labs show that high-quality masks significantly reduce the number of viral particles mask-wearers inhale and emit, but these are intentionally omitted in the arguments of anti-maskers.

These disinformation tactics are successfully quashing public health policies. Policymakers are susceptible to bad faith arguments about masks because they are beholden to short-term corporate interests. Masks are a visible symbol that the pandemic is ongoing, and politicians fear that these reminders stop people from consuming. It's easy to lie to those who want to believe.

Covid-19 is still a crisis that requires attention and action. Covid-19 is still a top three cause of death, millions of people are getting long Covid and many are unable to work as a result, and without public health protections, higher-risk people, including people who are immunocompromised, disabled and/or elderly, are unable to access essential needs like healthcare and public transport safely, and are being excluded from public life. The pandemic isn't over. It is only becoming even more unjust and inequitable.

As high levels of Covid-19 transmission persist over the long term, we need to prioritize policies that make society open and accessible to everyone, especially for those at higher risk. Masks remain a key solution. While masks alone can't single-handedly stop the pandemic because Covid-19 spreads fast in places where masks come off, such as in households and social settings, masks help keep people safe in spaces where they can wear them continuously, such as in hospitals and on public transit.

The CDC still recommends masks on public transport at all times, in healthcare settings when transmission is high and in all indoor public spaces when hospitalizations are high too. And though many political leaders have abandoned their responsibilities, some states and counties rightfully still have mask mandates in some essential spaces. In addition, mask guides put together by groups around the country show that many individual businesses, workplaces and public spaces are continuing to protect their workers and communities by requiring masks.

We could do much more. Polls consistently show that the majority of the public, especially low-income communities and communities of color, support mask mandates. But because many places have dropped mask mandates, fewer people are wearing masks. CDC research shows that people are more willing to wear a mask when there's high Covid transmission, but most also think Covid-19 transmission levels are much lower than they actually are. Another barrier is that a number of people can't afford N95 and KN95 masks, but the government is not providing them for free. Widespread disinformation about the science of masks undermines policy and education efforts that can bridge these gaps.

This doesn't mean that we don't need better studies on masks. In science, we always seek more evidence. Better studies will help us implement more effective mask policies. There is much more we can learn about what messages and policies work best to encourage more people to wear masks more frequently, wear them properly, and wear high-quality masks like N95s.

But we need to stop giving so much air to bad faith actors. Their goal is to exhaust us and numb us into losing empathy and giving up. Unchecked Covid-19 spread is still significantly harming and disrupting the lives of many people, especially those who are at higher risk. We can't let the avalanche of disinformation give us a convenient excuse to look the other way. Plenty of science shows us that masks protect ourselves and our communities when we all wear one, and masks are still needed now. Let's put that science into action.

Dr Lucky Tran is a scientist and public health communicator who works at Columbia University. During the pandemic, he has led several efforts to provide the latest information about Covid-19 to the public and policymakers, and advocate for more equitable and just public health policies. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge

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Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 13:01

A venture capitalist and podcaster who claims he warned investors about Silicon Valley Bank has hit out at critics after they accused him of taking a victory lap after it's demise.

Jason Calacanis, who hosts the All-In tech podcast, caused a stir on Twitter at the weekend when he told his nearly 700,000 followers he was 'ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED RIGHT NOW' and predicting that SVB could 'SPIRAL INTO CHAOS.'

After the federal government pledged on Sunday to secure the assets of all depositors in the now-defunct bank, Calacanis took to Twitter once again to boast about how he had successfully 'rang the fire alarm' to warn others.

Calacanis criticized his critics for being 'ungrateful', but not before he continued to fan the flames of panic once more.

Jason Calacanis, a well-known venture capitalist and host of a popular tech podcast caused a stir on Twitter by expressing concerns about SVB's collapse

Calacanis posted a series of panicked tweets all written in block capitals

Some of the tweets which were predictions began to verge on hysteria

Calacanis painted a picture of panic if the government didn't step in... which it did

He tweeted in all-caps and was one of the loudest voices pushing for the Biden administration to throw SVB a lifeline before urging the president and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen 'MUST GET ON TV TOMORROW AND GUARANTEE ALL DEPOSITS UP TO $10M.'

Calacanis is known for being one of Silicon Valley's most influential voices, alongside his co-hosts on the All-In podcast, including self-described 'populist' entrepreneur David Sacks.

The trio often tout their connections to industry heavyweights like Elon Musk and German-American billionaire entrepreneur, Peter Thiel.

But Calacanis and Sacks drew criticism for their role in essentially spreading panic about the bank run on SVB and their enthusiastic support for the Biden administration's intervention to save the bank.

Calacanis was also called out by fellow Twitter users with one telling 'your tweets are not helping' while another asking 'why are you doing this?'

Some tech journalists and experts have described Calacanis and Sacks' behavior as irresponsible and obnoxious, with one commentator comparing them to 'tech bros' who were more interested in self-promotion than constructive engagement.

'Taking an undeserved lap for irresponsibly panic screaming and all-caps pants p***ing is a novel approach,' tech journalist Kara Swisher wrote.

'I would doubt anyone in real power in DC paid mind to one bit of the Ozymandias, King of Kings '-- Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair '-- nonsense of some tech bros.'

UC Davis professor Martin Kenney was quoted as saying that he would 'keep [his] mouth shut and count [his] blessings that [he] got bailed out by the taxpayer.'

Following the government's commitment to secure depositors' assets, Calacanis took credit for sounding the alarm and then said his critics for were unappreciative of his warnings

People wait outside the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, California on Monday to withdraw funds after the federal government intervened upon the bank's collapse

Customers could be seen waiting outside branches of SVB on Monday, here in Santa Clara

The Biden administration assured taxpayers this weekend that such funds would not be used to bail out the bank.

The issues at SVB had been in the works for months. As the Federal Reserve increased interest rates it placed pressure on many of the bank's core clientele which including venture capital and tech firms, who began withdrawing their deposits.

SVB's executives had made the decision to lock up many further exacerbating the bank's problems.

'They were so desirous of profits,' venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said on the All-In podcast. 'Somewhere along the way, the risk folks at SVB just made a really large miscalculation. They basically went and bought 10-year risk in order to pay back money that could be called on a daily or weekly basis.'

After SVB sold its long-term investments, it became apparent that the bank had incurred an enormous loss of almost $2 billion. This revelation led to widespread panic, with several influential members of the startup community advising their portfolio companies to withdraw their assets.

Throughout the weekend Calacanis continued to spread worry through his tweets

Calacanis was called out by fellow Twitter users with one telling 'your tweets are not helping'

Even after the government moved to intervene, Calacanis continued to post how the situation was 'about to spiral out of control'

Following the government's intervention Calacanis looked for compliments declaring himself to be someone who provided warnings and 'pulled the fire alarm'

According to The Wall Street Journal, the frenzy began in private Silicon Valley Slack channels on Thursday morning, but rapidly spread to social media platforms as startup founders started pulling out their funds.

In no time, a full-blown bank run ensued, with depositors requesting a whopping $42 billion from the bank in a single day.

'They made the right business decision: If the theater is on fire and you panic first, that's the best business decision for you,' UC Davis professor Martin Kenney told The Daily Beast. 'For society, the panic is catastrophic.'

'And that's sort of what happened,' he added. 'A bunch of them panicked and headed for the exits, some of them yelling fire after they were out the door.'

As customers left, almost $10 billion of the bank's market value was wiped out before the government took it under its control.

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 18:14

A top scientist who dealt directly with victims of Havana Syndrome has slammed the government finding that the condition was not caused by foreign adversities as 'bulls**t.

The scientist '' and their patients '' remain convinced that the mysterious condition was caused by directed energy weapons: guns firing intense ultrasound, radio or microwaves.

Around 1,500 personnel at US embassies around the world were inflicted with strange headaches, dizziness, ringing sounds and even brain damage '' dubbed Havana Syndrome after the Cuban embassy where the first case was detected in 2016.

'There's no environmental cause that causes the body damage that I saw,' said the source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because revealing their identity could unmask their patients, whom they are required to keep secret.

'And I don't know how you create damage inside of a body, like what was seen, that comes on all of a sudden, and could be called pre-existing conditions.

A study by seven intelligence agencies concluded Havana Symptom was 'probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary'

In a statement last week, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the 'symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors'

The mysterious aliment is named for the US embassy in Havana where the first cases were reported in 2016, and hundreds of people have since reported symptoms

Earlier this month, a study by seven intelligence agencies concluded the symptoms were 'probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors'.

But a top PhD who played a central role in the initial investigation of hundreds of embassy officials, told DailyMail.com that both they and their patients are convinced the mysterious condition was caused deliberately.

'A directed energy weapon is just focusing of electromagnetic energies,' they added. 'They've been around since the 80s.

'We know that the Soviets had sonic weapons. Anyone in the intelligence community will tell you the US has had these kinds of energy weapons for a while.'

The PhD expert worked with the US intelligence community, analyzing body scans of several Havana Syndrome patients and studied data on scores more.

They told DailyMail.com that both they, their scientific colleagues who worked on those cases, and the victims themselves, are furious at the government's explanation.

'A lot of the people I've spoken to, some of whom have been the target of this stuff, just throw up their hands in disgust,' one scientist said.

'Everybody just rolls their eyes and says bulls**t.'

Experts honed in on energy weapons as a potential explanation for Havana Syndrome early on '' especially after a second wave of incidents occurred in China in 2018.

According to a paper by the German Foundation for Peace Research, 'in April 2007 an airman in an ADS test got an overdose and received second-degree burns on both legs that needed to be treated in a hospital for two days'

In December 2020 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published a report saying that 'directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases.'

'Havana Syndrome' started in the US embassy in Cuba and causes memory and hearing loss The problem has been labeled the 'Havana Syndrome,' because the first cases affected personnel in 2016 at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba.

At least 200 cases across the government are now under investigation.

People who are believed to have been affected have reported headaches, dizziness and symptoms consistent with concussions, with some requiring months of medical treatment. Some have reported hearing a loud noise before the sudden onset of symptoms.

Countries it has been reported in include Cuba, United States, China, Russia, Vietnam, Austria, Germany, Serbia, United Kingdom, Georgia, Poland, Taiwan, Australia, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

Symptoms include:

-hearing loss

-severe headaches

-memory issues

-dizziness

-brain injury

One August 2021 incident in Hanoi, Vietnam, even caused Vice President Kamala Harris to delay her trip there.

A February 2022 report by a panel of independent experts, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said a foreign power could have used 'pulsed electromagnetic energy' against US personnel, and that the theory 'plausibly explains' many of the victims' symptoms.

But the claim has now been denied by several US intelligence agencies '' including the ODNI itself, which says it was ruled out in an extensive two-year investigation of about 1,000 'anomalous health incidents'.

In a statement, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the 'symptoms reported by US personnel were probably the result of factors that did not involve a foreign adversary, such as preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors.'

She added that 'the evidence points away from a foreign adversary, causal mechanism, or unique syndrome.'

Intelligence officials told the Washington Post that they found no pattern or common set of conditions that could link individual cases.

Officials told the Post that forensics and geolocation data did not point to directed energy ultrasonic or radio waves, and that in some cases there was no 'direct line of sight' to the victim, making the case difficult to explain with an energy weapon attack.

But the expert who studied patients told DailyMail.com that the differences between cases was to be expected, and there was a core of patients within the larger group whose cases could be explained by nothing other than directed energy.

'It's just rubbish. It implies it's a single disease vector. It's not a single disease vector. It's probably multiple different players all using some kind of similar technology,' the top PhD said.

'There's a wide range of energy weapons. That's why it's called a syndrome. And in fact, they are quite consistent.

'What do you say to the people who have huge blotches on their body scans? Did a mosquito cause it? No. It just flies in the face of everybody's personal testimonies.'

Seven intelligence agencies took part in the most recent study, including the CIA.

According to the Post, five agencies determined that a foreign adversary being responsible was 'very unlikely', one agency 'unlikely', and one abstained. None dissented from the joint report's overall conclusion that it was not Chinese or Russian directed energy weapons.

'There's no environmental cause that causes the body damage that I saw,' said the source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. 'And I don't know how you create damage inside of a body, like what was seen, that comes on all of a sudden, and could be called 'pre-existing conditions'

A now-deleted page on the Navy's website discloses a project with the codename Medusa, a prototype of a microwave weapon made for the Marine Corps in 2004 which had a 'temporarily incapacitating effect' and was small enough to fit in a car

CIA Director William Burns said in a statement: 'We applied the Agency's very best operational, analytic, and technical tradecraft to what is one of the largest and most intensive investigations in the Agency's history. I and my leadership team stand firmly behind the work conducted and the findings.'

The use of energy weapons around the world has been documented for years

A now-deleted page on the Navy's website discloses a project with the codename Medusa, a prototype of a microwave weapon made for the Marine Corps in 2004 which had a 'temporarily incapacitating effect' and was small enough to fit in a car.

In 2005 a patent was filed in the US for a 'electromagnetic personnel control' device, with side effects including those described by Havana Syndrome victims.

Raytheon has created a microwave crowd control tool called the Active Denial System (ADS) which creates an intense burning feeling on skin.

According to a paper by the German Foundation for Peace Research, 'in April 2007 an airman in an ADS test got an overdose and received second-degree burns on both legs that needed to be treated in a hospital for two days.'

Earlier this month, a highly trained former government staffer believed to be 'patient zero' of Havana Syndrome spoke to Fox News, slamming the joint intelligence report

The Pentagon confirmed in June 2010 that ADS had been deployed in Afghanistan.

The same year, Russia's military doctrine called for the use of sonic weapons in future wars. US police forces currently use a kind of sonic cannon called a Long Range Acoustic Device.

Earlier this month, a highly trained former government staffer believed to be 'patient zero' of Havana Syndrome spoke to Fox News, slamming the joint intelligence report.

'When I was first attacked, I was in my room. Very, very loud sound, penetrated into my room,' the official, named only as Adam, told the TV news channel.

'In reading the report, there's a myriad of errors, mistruths, twisting of the truth and flat out, as far as I'm concerned, lies in there.

'To say that a foreign adversary doesn't have the same sort of technology or equipment, frankly, is laughable. I mean, it was just two years ago that China was bragging that they were using microwave weapons on the Indian border against India,' he said.

'There is open source reporting that in 2012, the NSA released a report about one of their officers that was heading abroad with a high powered microwave system that was designed to bathe in living quarters and cause neurological deficits.'

'Russia sold a system to China in the early 2000s, and China developed their own off of that and called it Torch one. So we know that these exist. And so to say otherwise, this is frankly, is insulting to the U.S. public because a simple Google search will reveal all the things I'm telling you to be true.'

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 16:23

De Duitse coronaminister Karl Lauterbach heeft erkend dat de coronavaccins ernstige schade kunnen veroorzaken. Volgens hem leidt (C)(C)n op de 10.000 injecties tot een ernstige bijwerking. Dat betekent dat (C)(C)n op de 2500 viervoudig gevaccineerden een ernstige bijwerking krijgt.

In juli vorig jaar publiceerde het Duitse gezondheidsministerie al dat (C)(C)n op de 5000 injecties leidt tot een ernstige bijwerking.

Sensationeller Plottwist: um seine Haut noch zu retten, hat Karl Lauterbach soeben die Impfung beerdigt ('žabsolut best¼rzende Schicksale'' 'ž1 pro 10k Impfungen schwer gesch¤digt'') und Biontech 'žexorbitante Gewinne'' vorgeworfen 🂠pic.twitter.com/shoRcZLRjO

'-- Corona Realism (@holmenkollin) March 12, 2023

(Video verwijderd? Klik hier...)

Het gaat veel sneller dan ik dacht''Wow! Wat een nieuws,'' reageert FVD-Kamerlid Pepijn van Houwelingen.

Neuroloog Jan Bonte schrijft: ''De oren klapperen aan mijn hoofd. Werkelijk. I'm completely flabbergasted.'' Hij voorziet dat het cijfer nog gaat oplopen.

''Het gaat veel sneller dan ik dacht. Maar ik kan alleen vertellen wat ik nu kan en mag vertellen,'' voegt hij toe.

VerketterdStatisticus Fritsander Lahr merkt op dat Lauterbach deze aantallen al lang kende. ''Bijwerkingsvrij? En daar wilden overheden vele jonge mensen mee enten die zonder bijwerkingen al geen risicoreductie van deze vaccinatie zouden hebben,'' aldus Lahr.

''Niet vergeten hoe de minister van Volksgezondheid in Duitsland ongevaccineerden verketterd heeft en nu moet toegeven dat (C)(C)n op de 10.000 prikken met ernstige schade gepaard gaat,'' zegt huisarts Frank Peeters.

Iedereen is voorgelogenDe Duitse publieke omroep ZDF verdiepte zich daarnaast in de contracten met de vaccinfabrikanten en komt tot de slotsom dat de Duitse overheid onrechtmatig heeft gehandeld door de 'vaccins' werkzaam en veilig te noemen.

''In Nederland is dat niet anders, iedereen is voorgelogen,'' stelt jurist Jeroen Pols.'...

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:19

Virtual meeting between Chinese and Ukrainian leaders would be first since start of war

March 13, 2023 7:00 am ETSINGAPORE'--Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war, likely after he visits Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter.

The meetings with Messrs. Putin and Zelensky, the latter of which is expected to take place virtually, reflect Beijing's effort to play a more active role in mediating an end to the war in Ukraine, some of the people said.

Mr....

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SINGAPORE'--Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war, likely after he visits Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter.

The meetings with Messrs. Putin and Zelensky, the latter of which is expected to take place virtually, reflect Beijing's effort to play a more active role in mediating an end to the war in Ukraine, some of the people said.

Mr. Xi is considering visiting other European countries as part of his trip to Russia, though his full itinerary has yet to be confirmed, according to the people.

A direct conversation with Mr. Zelensky, if it happens, would mark a significant step in Beijing's efforts to play peacemaker in Ukraine, which have so far been met with skepticism in Europe. It would also bolster Beijing's credentials as a global power broker after it facilitated a surprise diplomatic breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Iran last week.

Reuters earlier reported that Mr. Xi's Moscow visit could happen as early as next week. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Mr. Xi was preparing to visit Moscow in the coming months.

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The overseas trip would mark Mr. Xi's first after he secured an unprecedented third term as China's head of state. It comes as the 69-year-old leader seeks to burnish his status as a global statesman and navigate escalating competition with the U.S. and its allies.

China's Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Xi's travel schedule is intended in part to capitalize on momentum from the Saudi-Iran deal, signed in Beijing, which marked the end of seven years of estrangement, according to some of the people. That agreement heralded a notable rise in China's influence in the Middle East, which had been previously dominated by the U.S. as the primary power broker.

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The bridge-building effort marked the first time that Beijing has intervened so directly in the Mideast's political rivalries, and was its first time successfully brokering such a deal.

China's last ambitious effort to play the role of global peacemaker came in the early 2000s, when it launched six-party talks aimed at curtailing North Korea's nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid. The talks, which included the U.S., failed in 2008 when North Korea withdrew despite relying heavily on economic support from Beijing.

Achieving a breakthrough in Ukraine would be a taller task than the Saudi-Iran deal, especially as both sides in the war believe too much remains to be played out on the battlefield. Neither has shown an inclination to stop fighting.

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Beijing nevertheless has an active interest in bringing an end to the conflict. The war has put Beijing in a precarious situation, forcing Mr. Xi to balance China's ''no limits'' partnership with Russia and his own close relationship with Mr. Putin against increasing distrust and tension with the U.S. and its allies.

Last month, China cast itself as a neutral mediator in calling for a cease-fire and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. In a 12-point document, China's Foreign Ministry called for the pursuit of a political solution to the conflict and an end to unilateral sanctions. It also appeared to warn Moscow against escalating the conflict with nuclear weapons.

During an event last month marking the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, Mr. Zelensky said he planned to meet with Mr. Xi to discuss China's ideas on ending the conflict in Ukraine. He also expressed his hope that China wouldn't supply weapons to Russia'--a step the U.S. said it believed Beijing has been considering but which China has denied.

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Russia's government said it shared Beijing's views of the conflict and welcomed China's peace proposal.

The first item in China's peace plan, which calls for ''respecting the sovereignty of all countries,'' is a bedrock of Beijing's foreign policy. It is one that has been tested over the past year by Russia's invasion.

China officially regards Ukraine as a sovereign nation, and Messrs. Xi and Zelensky had a phone call to mark 30 years of relations between the two nations just weeks before Russian troops attacked. Yet Beijing has refrained from condemning Russian military action in Ukraine, which it has resisted defining as an invasion.

Mr. Xi isn't known to have spoken with Mr. Zelensky since the hostilities broke out, though the Chinese leader has engaged with Mr. Putin several times through video calls and face-to-face meetings since the war unfolded. That included a meeting in Uzbekistan in September in Mr. Xi's first international trip since the pandemic.

China was Ukraine's largest trading partner before the war, importing almost 30% of its corn from the Eastern European country. China has also invested in infrastructure projects in Ukraine, though at least one of them'--a rail line connecting Kyiv's main airport to the city center'--was scrapped following corruption allegations.

Trade between China and Ukraine fell 60% in 2022 from a year earlier to $7.6 billion. Meanwhile, trade between Moscow and Beijing rose by roughly 29% from a year earlier to $190 billion, according to official Chinese data. As Russia's sales of oil and gas to Europe have declined, China has emerged as a significant buyer. Russia has also begun to increase its use of China's currency, the yuan.

Write to Keith Zhai at keith.zhai@wsj.com

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:08

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 13, 2023 ~

If you want to genuinely understand why Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed and why Jerome Powell's Fed led the effort yesterday to make sure $150 billion of the bank's uninsured depositors' money would be treated as FDIC insured and available today, you need to take a look at how the bank defined itself right up until it blew up on Friday. (That history is still available at the Internet Archives' Wayback Machine at this link. Give the page time to load.)

This was a financial institution deployed to facilitate the goals of powerful venture capital and private equity operators, by financing tech and pharmaceutical startups until they could raise millions or billions of dollars in a Wall Street Initial Public Offering (IPO). The bank was also involved in managing the wealth of those startup millionaires or billionaires once they struck it big in an IPO.

Many of the former startup companies also continued to keep their operating money at the bank '' in many cases in the millions of dollars, ignoring the fact that just $250,000 of that was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Last Friday, dozens of publicly-traded companies made filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that they had large sums of uninsured deposits now frozen at Silicon Valley Bank. Several indicated that the amounts represented 23 to 26 percent of the company's cash and/or cash equivalents.

Roku, Inc., the publicly-traded manufacturer of digital media players for video streaming, reported the following to the SEC: ''The Company has total cash and cash equivalents of approximately $1.9 billion as of March 10, 2023. Approximately $487 million is held at SVB, which represents approximately 26% of the Company's cash and cash equivalents balance as of March 10, 2023.''

Publicly-traded Oncorus, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing RNA-based medicine for cancer patients, reported the following to the SEC: ''The Company informs its investors that it has deposit accounts with SVB with an aggregate balance of approximately $10 million, which is approximately 23% of the Company's total current cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. In addition, the Company has a standby letter of credit in place with SVB of approximately $3.4 million securing obligations under its lease agreement with IQHQ-4 Corporate Drive, LLC.''

In big, bold type on its website, Silicon Valley Bank bragged that ''44% of U.S. venture-backed technology and healthcare IPOs YTD [year-to-date] bank with SVB.''

To put it bluntly, this was a Wall Street IPO machine that enriched the investment banks on Wall Street by keeping the IPO pipeline moving; padded the bank accounts of the venture capital and private equity middlemen; and minted startup millionaires for ideas that often flamed out after the companies went public. These are the functions and risks taken by investment banks. Silicon Valley Bank '' with this business model '-- should never have been allowed to hold a federally-insured banking charter and be backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer, who was on the hook for its incompetent bank management.

We say incompetent based on this fact alone (although there were clearly lots of other problem areas): $150 billion of its $175 billion in deposits were uninsured. The bank was clearly playing a dangerous gambit with its depositors' money.

Adding further insult to U.S. taxpayers, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco was quietly bailing out SVB throughout much of last year. Federal Home Loan Banks are also not supposed to be in the business of bailing out venture capitalists or private equity titans. Their job is to provide loans to banks to promote mortgages to individuals and loans to promote affordable housing and community development.

According to SEC filings by the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, its loan advances to SVB went from zero at the end of 2021 to a whopping $15 billion on December 31, 2022. The SEC filing provides a graph showing that SVB was its largest borrower at year end, with outstanding advances representing 17 percent of all loans made by the FHLB of San Francisco.

Notably, another bank which had $14 billion of loans outstanding from the FHLB of San Francisco '' First Republic Bank '' saw its stock price plummet by 14.8 percent on Friday. In premarket trading this morning, its stock was down another 70 percent, despite the announcement of a new bailout facility last evening by the Fed.

Western Alliance Bancorp, also on the FHLB of San Francisco's list of its top 10 borrowers, saw its stock close with a loss of 20.88 percent on Friday. It had lost another 29 percent in premarket trading this morning.

Another member of the top 10 borrowers at FHLB of San Francisco, Silvergate Bank, announced last Wednesday that it was closing shop and liquidating. Silvergate's problem stemmed from the hot money it held in deposits from crypto companies heading for the exits as investigations began into its role in potentially laundering money for Sam Bankman-Fried's collapsed house of frauds.

Another crypto-related bank, Signature Bank, was shuttered by New York State regulators on Sunday, with the FDIC being named the receiver. All of its depositors, including its uninsured depositors, will also be made whole, according to a statement from the FDIC yesterday. Signature Bank's filings with federal regulators indicate that more than $79 billion of its $88 billion in deposits were uninsured at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.

Signature Bank was also quietly tapping into ongoing bailouts from a Federal Home Loan Bank. In this case FHLB of New York. Its borrowings from FHLB of New York exploded in the fourth quarter of last year, rising to $11.3 billion. According to an SEC filing, as of September 30, 2022, it had total borrowing capacity of $23.4 billion from FHLB New York.

We're starting to see a pattern here. If you want to know which banks are going belly up next, simply look at which ones took the largest loan advances from a Federal Home Loan Bank last year. That appears to mean that they were seeing an exodus of depositor money and needed to plug their liquidity holes.

The new emergency lending program set up by the Federal Reserve was announced last evening, as follows:

''The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution's need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.''

The translation of the above is as follows: to prevent banks from further panicking the markets by taking massive losses on their underwater Treasury securities by selling them in order to meet depositor withdrawals, we're going to accept these Treasury securities as collateral for one-year loans and pretend that their market value is par (the full face amount at maturity).

It's not clear if this new emergency bailout program from the Fed complies with the statutory language of Dodd-Frank, which prohibits the Fed from setting up an emergency bailout program to bail out a specific financial institution; requires that it accept good collateral; and requires that any new Fed emergency facilities be broad-based across the financial industry.

Federally-insured banks that did themselves in with crypto deposits or functioned as an IPO pipeline to Wall Street, do not appear to us to represent a broad base of the federally-insured, commercial banking industry in the U.S. The Fed's bailout program, once again, appears to be rewarding hubris and enshrining moral hazard in the U.S. banking system.

Equally troubling, both Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank were supervised by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Why the San Francisco Fed's bank examiners didn't blow the whistle on the dangerous manner in which these banks were operating deserves its own investigation. For years now, Wall Street On Parade has warned that the crony Fed should be stripped of its supervision of banks.

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:47

Despite the urgency, brace for a long season of disagreements about how to proceed on this megaproject of historic proportions, David Olive writes. By David Olive Star Business Columnist Sat., March 11, 2023 timer 4 min. read

The coming overhaul of Ontario's electric power system will be a megaproject of historic proportions.

In a nutshell, the goal is to double Ontario's electricity supply while decarbonizing the power system to net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.

If that sounds like trying to square a circle, it's pretty close.

But Ontario has no choice than to embark on this admittedly fraught mission, whose stakeholders include everyone in the province.

Queen's Park has yet to divulge its plans. But it recently posted a call for public input.

The post includes highlights of the landmark report on reinventing the Ontario electricity system released in December by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which oversees all electric power in the province.

The IESO puts a staggering $400-billion price tag on decarbonizing the power system by 2050.

As the economy increasingly electrifies, with electric-powered vehicles (EVs), electric home heating and greater electricity demand from industry, demand for power will skyrocket.

Forecasters expect Ontario peaks in power demand to almost triple by 2050, putting the province at risk of rotating blackouts.

At the same time, the urgency of decarbonizing the economy, including the electric system, grows more pronounced by the day.

And finally, Ontario has a head start in decarbonizing an electricity system that already is one of the cleanest on the continent.

Today, more than 90 per cent of Ontario's electricity supply comes from clean sources, chiefly nuclear and hydro.

Ontario derives 58 per cent of its electricity supply from nuclear, 24 per cent from hydro, 8.6 per cent from natural gas and oil, and 8.4 per cent from wind.

Solar and biofuels each account for less than 1 per cent.

Ontario, says Lesley Gallinger, CEO of the IESO, ''has a real advantage for an orderly transition'' to a totally decarbonized power system.

But because of the dual purpose of this ambitious goal '-- doubling the supply of power while also getting to net-zero GHG emissions from power generation by 2050 '-- the project is unusually multi-faceted.

In its December report, the IESO says the goal can be met only with ''new storage, nuclear, renewables and expanded conservation efforts.''

That will require participation by all stakeholders, including household and industrial power consumers, local utilities like Toronto Hydro, large public and privately owned power generators, and governments at all levels.

For instance, Ottawa has already provided close to $1 billion in financing for the development of a small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington nuclear power plant.

''Small'' can be misleading. The SMR at Darlington is intended to generate about one-third the power of a conventional nuclear reactor.

The Ontario reinvention project fits with Canada's goal of becoming a superpower in clean energy.

And decarbonizing the electricity grid holds economic development promise.

The large storage batteries called for by the IESO, for use in storing intermittent power from wind, solar and other alternative energy sources, could be engineered and built in Ontario.

Once perfected, that technology could be exported, and so could that of SMRs.

And Russia's lock on as much as 35 per cent of the world's enriched uranium is reason to not only extract uranium in reserve-rich Ontario and Saskatchewan, but to refine it here too.

The IESO's blueprint relies on some good luck.

It assumes that renewables will be ramped up, notably solar where Ontario lags other jurisdictions. And that energy sources like hydrogen eventually prove their viability.

And that Ontario can secure clean hydro power from Quebec and Manitoba.

Now the caveats, which are abundant.

Latest-generation nuclear power plants under construction in the U.S., France, Britain and Finland have reported spectacular cost overruns.

And so have new hydro plants, including B.C.'s Site C and Labrador's Muskrat Falls.

The commercial viability of SMRs remains unproven. Recall that the vaunted made-in-Canada CANDU reactor found just one export buyer, Romania.

And controversy will attend every step of the project. Advocacy groups Environmental Defence and the Ontario Clean Air Alliance already oppose the new nuclear plants in the IESO blueprint.

And the consultation process will be lengthy and exhaustive.

It will engage Indigenous communities, industrial power consumers, the growing alternative energy industry, and NIMBYists wherever power and battery storage plants are proposed.

As noted, the Ford government has yet to reveal its plans. Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith has allowed only that new nuclear plants are just a ''possibility'' in a decarbonized system.

But the IESO's comprehensive report isn't credible without its nuclear component.

A candid IESO warns that Ontarians will have to make some ''no regrets'' decisions about a reinvented electricity system.

''No regrets'' means having to live with some of the biggest decisions the province has ever made.

So, brace for a long season of disagreements about how to proceed on this transformative project. There has never been a megaproject without regrets.

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Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:22

TikTok is reportedly expanding its offerings by entering the search ads market, putting it in direct competition with Google and Microsoft.

TikTok is preparing to launch its own search ads platform, which will allow advertisers to bid on specific keywords and phrases related to their products or services. During the beta test rollout last year, testers confirmed that when search ads were enabled, advertisers could gather the search terms responsible for conversions and leverage those high click-through rate search terms as headlines for their best-performing TikTok videos, resulting in additional benefits.

What's happening. So why is TikTok making this move, and what does it mean for advertisers and consumers alike? Let's take a closer look.

Google has long been the dominant player in this market, thanks to its massive user base and sophisticated advertising platform. However, TikTok has been making strides in the advertising space in recent years, and its user base is rapidly expanding.

By entering the search ads market, TikTok is looking to capitalize on this growth and provide a new advertising platform for businesses looking to reach younger, more engaged audiences. TikTok's user base is largely comprised of Gen Z and millennial users, who are notoriously difficult to reach through traditional advertising channels.

Studies suggest ''almost 40%'' of young people searching for a lunch spot would do so on TikTok or Instagram rather than Google Maps or Search, Prabhar Raghavan, svp for Google's knowledge and information division, said last year

How it works. TikTok's search ads platform will allow businesses to bid on specific keywords and phrases related to their products or services, just like they would on Google. However, TikTok's platform will likely offer some unique features and targeting options that Google does not.

For example, TikTok's platform may offer more robust audience targeting options, allowing advertisers to reach users based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics. This could make TikTok's platform more appealing to advertisers looking to reach specific audiences.

For consumers, TikTok's entry into the search ads market could mean more relevant and targeted ads. If advertisers are able to more effectively target their ads to specific audiences, consumers may be more likely to engage with those ads and find products and services that are relevant to their interests.

Not so fast. However, it's important to note that TikTok's foray into the search ads market is not without risks. Google has a massive head start in this market, and TikTok will need to offer compelling features and competitive pricing in order to attract advertisers away from Google's platform.

Additionally, TikTok will need to ensure that its search ads platform is user-friendly and does not detract from the user experience on the app. If users feel inundated with ads or if the ads are not relevant to their interests, they may be less likely to engage with the platform overall.

Why we care. TikTok's entry into the search ads market represents a new opportunity to reach younger, more engaged audiences. TikTok's user base is largely made up of Gen Z and millennial users, who are difficult to reach through traditional advertising channels. By offering a new advertising platform with robust audience targeting options and unique features, TikTok may be able to provide advertisers with a more effective way to reach these valuable demographics.

Additionally, TikTok's platform may offer more competitive pricing and better ROI than Google's platform, making it an attractive option for advertisers looking to stretch their advertising dollars.

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Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:13

Since the nationwide shortage started, some have said their medication no longer helps with their symptoms. But there could be other factors at play.

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Credit... Jenny Kane/Associated Press ''My Adderall's not working.''

Videos of people who claim that their medication is no longer effective have recently catapulted through TikTok. In one, someone clutches a prescription bottle, rattling the pills as she shakes her fist. ''They're giving us 'fake' Adderall during the shortage,'' the caption reads. ''The adderall isn't adderalling,'' another user claims in a video.

Some people urge their viewers to submit complaints to the Food and Drug Administration about what they believe is a ''new'' Adderall being distributed and to call for the agency to run lab tests of the medication. Videos related to the phrase ''adhd meds not working'' have been viewed more than 15 million times on TikTok.

For nearly half a year, many people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have struggled to obtain their medication amid a nationwide shortage. The F.D.A. first announced the shortage in October, and Adderall is still in short supply. Among the patients who do manage to find Adderall, health care providers are left fielding their questions, though some say the concerns aren't new. Danielle Stutzman, a psychiatric pharmacist at Children's Hospital Colorado, estimates that up to a quarter of her patients over the past few years have said their medication seems less effective, a trend she said began around the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

''To date, the F.D.A. has not identified safety or quality issues with Adderall products, or signals indicating a loss or change in efficacy,'' a representative for the F.D.A. said in a statement. A representative from Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest manufacturers of Adderall, wrote in a statement that ''all Teva manufacturing processes and practices are the same (and we continue to distribute the same brand and generic Adderall products).''

There's no clear-cut explanation for why some people believe their prescription is ''different,'' but a combination of factors could potentially explain the phenomenon, pharmacists and A.D.H.D. experts said.

Tolerance buildupSome children and teenagers who take Adderall may build up tolerance to the medication over time as they grow into adults and eventually require higher doses, Dr. Stutzman said. Both adults who were diagnosed as children and those new to the medication can also build tolerance, though that is less common, she said. Those who have developed a tolerance to their A.D.H.D. medication may struggle with managing their symptoms. They may have a harder time concentrating at school or work, feel more impulsive and hyperactive, and become more fidgety.

But most people do not develop a tolerance to prescribed stimulant medications, and many stay on the same, stable dose of Adderall for years, said Dr. Frances Levin, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and an expert on A.D.H.D. ''It's not like somebody's on 20 of Adderall and then the next year you've got to have them on 50 or 100,'' she said. ''That just doesn't usually happen.''

Switching medicationsThe brand name Adderall and the generic version of the medication are pharmaceutical equivalents, Dr. Stutzman said, so patients should experience the same level of relief even if they are prescribed the generic version. A tiny subset of patients could be sensitive to slight variations in how a medication is manufactured, said Dr. Anish Dube, the chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Children, Adolescents and Their Families. Even the substance used to coat the pill could potentially change how your body absorbs the medicine, he said.

This means that, theoretically, obtaining a generic form of Adderall from a different manufacturer could alter how you feel while on the medication. However, the differences between generics are so small that an overwhelming majority of patients wouldn't feel any change from their previous medication. ''It's not supposed to have drastic differences,'' Dr. Dube said.

If Adderall is out of stock, prescribers may recommend that a patient start taking a different A.D.H.D. medication in the interim, such as Vyvanse; people may experience varying responses to new types of medication.

''What we've seen over the recent years is there's been a ballooning of available stimulants in the marketplace, and they're not all equivalent,'' said Sandy Mitchell, a clinical pharmacy specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University Health.

As the shortage slogs on, it has become increasingly common for clinicians to prescribe, say, an extended-release version of Adderall to a patient who used to take a shorter-acting tablet, or for prescribers to switch medications for patients based on whatever drugs are available, Ms. Mitchell said. Those changes can affect the way a patient feels throughout the day.

Starting and stopping medicationThe shortage has forced some patients to go weeks, or even months, without Adderall. As a general rule, the higher the dose of medication and the longer a patient is on Adderall, the more likely it is that the person will develop withdrawal symptoms after going off it, Dr. Dube said. Patients may also struggle to readjust to the drug once they do resume taking it. Those who jump back into taking a large dose of the medication without incrementally working toward it from smaller doses may feel jittery and restless; some may even have heart palpitations, he said.

Disruptions and other factors''You can't diagnose A.D.H.D. in a vacuum,'' Dr. Levin said. People with A.D.H.D. can be particularly sensitive to disruptions in their day-to-day lives; symptoms can flare up or intensify when a person grapples with the stress of a new job or a move, for example, or when there are changes to a routine. That's why many patients with A.D.H.D. have struggled during the pandemic, Dr. Stutzman said. As more people return to the office or spend more time in public spaces with fewer masking guidelines, their daily habits may change and symptoms may worsen as a result.

Sleep also plays a critical role in how effectively medications like Adderall might work, Dr. Levin said. The consequences that come with sleep deprivation, like a foggy memory or difficulty concentrating, can overlap with A.D.H.D. symptoms. People who struggle to get a good night's sleep may feel as if their A.D.H.D. is worse, or that their medication isn't working as well.

Around a third of patients with A.D.H.D. have another mental health condition, Dr. Stutzman said. Symptoms of both can overlap with each other '-- the jitteriness that can come with anxiety, for example, may look a lot like hyperactivity. Patients who think that their A.D.H.D. has become worse, or that their treatment is not sufficient, may also be grappling with multiple disorders at once.

Cognitive biasIf you feel that your Adderall prescription isn't working as well as it once did, Dr. Dube recommends that you ask your prescribing doctor if there was a change in the manufacturer or dosage of your medication. ''It's also possible that nothing's happening,'' he said, noting the power of cognitive bias: People who keep hearing that Adderall doesn't work anymore may become inherently more skeptical about their medications.

Through online platforms, particularly TikTok, patients with A.D.H.D. have connected with one another over the last few years, Dr. Stutzman said, finding comfort and solidarity. While that has helped many people via support and resources, she said, medical misinformation can also spread through these channels. ''I do wonder how much of it is suggestibility '-- wanting community around a diagnosis,'' she said.

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Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:11

Journal List Brain Sci PMC9332474 Brain Sci. 2022 Aug; 12(8): 959.

Kenneth Handelman1Centre for Integrative Mental Health, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8N 3K7, Canada

Fernando Sumiya2ADHD Fellowship, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 3L8, Canada; moc.liamg@ayimusmf

Joseph Sadek, Academic Editor and Smadar Val(C)rie Tourjman, Academic Editor

1Centre for Integrative Mental Health, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8N 3K7, Canada

2ADHD Fellowship, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 3L8, Canada;

moc.liamg@ayimusmfReceived 2022 Jun 29; Accepted 2022 Jul 20.

AbstractRecommended treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) includes stimulant medication. While these medicines are effective for most ADHD patients, benefits may wear off, suggesting tolerance. This paper reviews the published literature on tolerance to stimulant medication treatment for ADHD. As there are relatively few studies published, pivotal studies and ADHD treatment guidelines were also reviewed. Research demonstrates physiological changes related to continued stimulant usage in neurons and certain brain regions, suggesting a mechanism for tolerance development. One clinical study showed that 24.7% of patients developed tolerance to stimulants in the time of days to weeks; another showed 2.7% developed tolerance over 10 years. Long term follow-up studies demonstrate that medication response may lessen over longer durations of treatment in a high percentage of patients. Strategies to manage tolerance include switching stimulant medicines, drug holidays, or clinical reassessment. Three cases illustrate challenges with treating patients who develop tolerance to stimulant medication. The paucity of research and lack of guidance to clinicians may contribute to significant under recognition of tolerance to stimulant medication. Further research is required to define clinical tolerance for stimulants in ADHD and to provide guidance on identifying and managing tolerance in clinical practice.

Keywords: stimulant medication, ADHD, tolerance, methylphenidate, amphetamines

1. IntroductionAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and/or inattention. The symptoms affect cognitive, academic, behavioral, emotional, and social functioning [1]. A meta-analysis of 175 research studies worldwide on ADHD prevalence in children aged 18 and under found an overall pooled estimate of 7.2% [2]. The global prevalence of persistent adult ADHD was 2.58% and that of symptomatic adult ADHD was 6.76%, translating to 139.84 million and 366.33 million affected adults in 2020 globally [3].

ADHD has been linked to significant decreases in quality of life and functioning. In children and adolescents with ADHD, there are higher risks of school failure, parental and family conflict, social rejection by peers, low self-esteem, and delinquent behaviour [4]. In adolescence and adulthood, ADHD has been tied to academic and vocational underachievement, reduced occupational functioning, obesity, emotional dysregulation, unemployment, and suicide attempts [4]. Treatments for ADHD can reduce functional impairments and improve quality of life [4].

Stimulant medications are the most used and considered the most effective medications for treating ADHD children, adolescents and adults with ADHD, and they are recommended as first line medication in clinical treatment guidelines for ADHD [5,6,7,8]. Although stimulants can work well for most people with ADHD, clinicians may notice that some patients have a good initial response to stimulant medication, but then the benefits are lessened and tolerance may develop [9]. Tolerance is defined as the phenomenon whereby the effect of a drug decreases following repeated administration, requiring an increase in the dose to maintain the original efficacy [10]. The research on tolerance to stimulant medication is limited, and there are no clear recommendations in ADHD treatment guidelines for managing tolerance in clinical practice [5,6,7,8]. A literature review was performed to review the currently published research on tolerance to stimulant medication. We report on three retrospective case studies to share clinical aspects of tolerance to stimulant medications.

2. Materials and MethodsA literature review was performed in OVID Medline from 1946 to 2022. Search terms included: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, methylphenidate, amphetamine, drug tolerance, tolerance. Then, an extensive search of references was performed on the papers found. Pivotal studies (such as the multimodal ADHD treatment (MTA) study and its longitudinal follow-up papers) and ADHD treatment guidelines were reviewed. Inclusion criteria for this review included: child, adolescent, or adult ADHD; English language; basic science research on the physiological impact of stimulant medications on the brain and/or neurons; specific research on tolerance to stimulant medications or related papers; treatment guidelines for the treatment of ADHD. This review yielded 23 papers. Three retrospective case reports describe the clinical management of tolerance to stimulants. These clinical cases were patients who developed early tolerance to stimulant medicine and who had complete or substantial loss of clinical benefit from stimulant medicine. They were drawn from a suburban specialty ADHD clinic that assesses and treats ADHD across the lifespan.

3. ResultsThe literature review will be divided into the sections of physiological studies on tolerance, clinical research, and a review of clinical ADHD treatment guidelines. Then, case reports will be shared.

3.1. Physiological Studies on Tolerance to Stimulant MedicationFrom a physiological perspective, chronic use of medication can cause brain changes. Animal models demonstrate that chronic treatment with methylphenidate (MPH) in rodents yields an attenuation of dopamine release probably due to an upregulation of the dopamine transporter or an increase in autoreceptor sensitivity [11].

Research also shows acute tachyphylaxis with MPH. Tachyphylaxis is defined as a rapid decrease in efficacy, often related to a rapid depletion of neurotransmitters [10]. Acute tachyphylaxis with MPH was demonstrated with PET scans, where intravenous MPH caused a fast adaptation in the brain to MPH [12]. Research in the dosing regimens in children with ADHD demonstrated that a flat pharmacokinetic dosing regimen of MPH lost 40% of its efficacy in the afternoon (compared with the same blood level in the morning), suggesting that acute tolerance occurred [13]. The researchers noted that although acute tolerance occurred, clinical observations found that tolerance does not develop over time. The researchers noted that the time course of acute tachyphylaxis suggests that acute tolerance would dissipate between the afternoon dose and the morning dose on the following day [13].

In a PET study of medication na¯ve adults with ADHD taking MPH for 12 months (compared with controls), it was shown that there was a significant increase (+24%, p < 0.01) in striatal dopamine transporter availability in the caudate, putamen, and ventral striatum [14]. Despite this measured change, clinical questionnaires showed that the response to ADHD medication was maintained throughout the year of treatment, though the authors speculate that the upregulation of dopamine transporters may decrease treatment efficacy and exacerbate symptoms while not under the effects of the medication [14].

These studies demonstrate pharmacodynamic tolerance, which is defined as adaptive changes in the organs, tissues, or networks that are affected by the interaction of the drug with the receptors responsible for its effects [10]. Even though there are demonstrated changes with repeated medicine use, these studies do not demonstrate that people taking stimulants for ADHD experience a clinical tolerance to the effects of the medicine.

3.2. Clinical Research on Tolerance to Stimulant MedicationA retrospective chart review of medication treatment of randomly selected ADHD patient documents that, of 166 patients treated with methylphenidate between 1976 and 1990, 68 (41%) required more than 60 mg of MPH per day, which is an off-label high dose of this medication. Of the 68 high-dose patients, 41 (60%) developed tolerance (they did not maintain a clinical response to the same dosage over time); that is 24.7% of the original sample (41/166 patients). The authors note that tolerance only developed in patients taking higher-dose MPH. Tolerance either developed within a few days or it could have taken more than a year. The authors noted that if patients developed tolerance to MPH they were switched to dextroamphetamine. If the substitute was less effective than MPH, the latter would be tried again in about one month, and in many cases, tolerance disappeared after one month [9].

A meta-analysis and a meta-regression were completed to assess the duration of treatment with pharmacological treatment for ADHD and efficacy [15]. They included 87 randomized controlled trials of treatment for ADHD, where the mean age was 21.9 years, the samples comprised mostly male patients, and there were moderately severe ADHD symptoms at baseline. Treatment duration was 9 weeks on average and ranged from 3''28 weeks. The bivariate model found that treatment duration was positively related with treatment efficacy. When other potential confounding variables were accounted for (baseline ADHD severity, type of drug, and comorbidity), only baseline ADHD severity was negatively associated with treatment efficacy [15]. This study did not find tolerance to medication treatment in studies with the treatment range of 3''28 weeks. The authors note that they excluded studies shorter than 3 weeks, as it is a minimum time to titrate medication. They acknowledge that while tolerance to medication could develop after 28 weeks, it was unlikely, as tolerance usually starts earlier [10].

In a study of longer-term response to methylphenidate treatment, researchers monitored the behavioural benefits of MPH in patients who were treated with medication from 3 years to 10 years. When the dose of MPH was adjusted for growth, the medication remained effective for the majority of the patients for 10 years. Only 3 of 108 patients (2.7%) lost the therapeutic response without an evident explanation other than the possibility of tolerance. The data showed that successful long-term treatment with MPH did not require increasing the dose beyond the need to adjust for body growth. The authors acknowledge that they only looked at children who were good responders to MPH, and if they had lost their response to MPH prior to 3 years of treatment, they would not have been included in this study [16].

In a study of 47 children with ADHD and reading disorder, researchers looked at different doses of MPH (0.3 mg/kg, 0.5 mg/kg, 0.7 mg/kg) twice daily for 6 months. They found that the 0.7 mg/kg group had significant improvements in teacher and parent rated hyperactive behaviours, as well as improved short-term memory and associative learning tasks. The teachers noted an increase in hyperactivity during the last three months of treatment, and this was not explained by MPH plasma levels. The cause of this change was suspected to be tolerance, though the authors acknowledge that it could possibly relate to situational issues, particularly because there was a (smaller) worsening in the placebo group as well in the last three months of the study [17].

In a meta-analysis and a meta-regression study of pharmacotherapy in adults with ADHD, researchers analyzed data from 44 studies with 9952 patients. The range of duration of the studies was 4''26 weeks. The analysis showed that the longer the study duration the smaller the efficacy of the pharmacological treatment for reducing ADHD symptoms. This may suggest chronic tolerance to the medication in adults treated for up to 26 weeks [18].

Two randomized withdrawal treatment studies have been reported, one with lisdexamfetamine (LDX) [19] and one with MPH [20]. In the LDX trial, after 26 weeks of LDX treatment, 157 children and adolescents were randomized to either continue LDX or take a placebo for 6 weeks in a randomized withdrawal period (RWP). During the RWP, significantly fewer LDX patients met failure criteria than the placebo. The study demonstrates the maintenance of efficacy of LDX in the treatment of children and adolescents with ADHD over 26 weeks. The rapid return of symptoms upon discontinuing LDX demonstrates the need for ongoing treatment [19]. In the MPH trial, 94 children and adolescents with ADHD who had been treated with MPH for 2 years were assigned to double-blind continuation of treatment for 7 weeks, or discontinuation of treatment for 7 weeks (with 3 weeks of taper of MPH and 4 weeks of placebo treatment). On average, the ADHD scores deteriorated significantly more in the discontinuation group than the continuation group. The researchers found that MPH treatment was still effective at 2 years, and discontinuing treatment led to worsened symptom ratings by both investigator and teacher-rated ADHD symptom ratings. That said, there were some participants who were able to stop the medication and not experience worsened symptoms. The authors note that many participants who were approached to participate in the study declined, and they speculate that this may have related to the fact that these patients/parents knew that the MPH was still needed (based on their experience of worsened symptoms with missed doses); in other words, the sample may have included patients who had milder ADHD symptoms or patients for whom their ADHD was resolving [20]. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that for the majority of patients stimulant medication is still effective after 6 or 24 months, and stopping medication generally worsens ADHD symptoms.

In the pivotal National Institutes of Mental Health funded multimodal treatment study (MTA), 579 children with combined-type ADHD were treated for 14 months in a randomized study design that compared medication management, behavioural therapy, combination treatment, and community control [21]. There was naturalistic follow-up for 16 years, with a local normative comparison group recruited at 24 months and followed for the subsequent 14 years. At the 36-month follow-up evaluation of the patients, growth mixture modeling found three latent classes. Class 1, which comprised 34% of the children in the study, had the smallest initial benefit to medication in the study, but their medication effects increased over time and were significant at the 36-month assessment. In Classes 2 and 3, the medication benefits were larger than Class 1 at 14 months; however, by the 36-month assessment, the medication benefits were not significant. This demonstrated that for the majority of children treated with medication (66%), beyond the 24-month assessment point in the MTA protocol, the overall effect of medication treatment was not beneficial for the reduction of ADHD symptoms. This suggests the possibility of waning benefit for continued medicine beyond 2 years for children with combined type ADHD [21]. In a review paper summarizing the long term outcomes from the MTA study, Hinshaw et al., write: ''medications targeting dopamine and norepinephrine neurotransmission may, at least in some cases, have an 'expiration date' with respect to their effectiveness over the course of continuous administration'... In short, just like behavioral treatments, which are known to lack continued benefit once the contingencies are lifted, medication for ADHD may not always be a viable lifelong option'' [22].

Sibley et al., analyzed the course of ADHD during the naturalistic follow-up of the MTA study, from each of the assessments from 2''16 years. They found that approximately 30% of children with ADHD experienced full remission at some point during the follow-up period; however, a majority of them (60%) experienced recurrence of ADHD after the initial period of remission. Only 9.1% of the sample demonstrated recovery by study endpoint, and only 10.8% demonstrated stable ADHD persistence across the study time periods. Overall, 63.8% of participants with ADHD had fluctuating periods of remission and recurrence over time [23]. The natural course of ADHD over many years may impact a clinician's assessment of the effectiveness of medication and whether tolerance has developed.

Two research papers addressing clinical treatment of ADHD were relevant, one on ADHD drug holidays [24] and the other on a practical evidence-informed approach to managing stimulant refractory ADHD [25]. In the drug holiday paper, researchers reviewed the literature and identified 22 studies published that documented research on drug holidays. They found that drug holidays are prevalent in 25% to 70% of families with children taking stimulant medication for ADHD and are more likely to be taken during school holidays. The reason for the drug holidays were to see whether medicine was still needed and to manage side effects (such as growth slowing) and for drug tolerance. One of the studies documented that doctors used breaks from medication to allow the body to readjust to the stimulant and to avoid the need to raise the dose of the medication; in other words, to reset tolerance to the medicine [24]. In the study that addressed the treatment of ADHD that is refractory to stimulant medication, the authors reviewed the treatment guidelines, used their expert clinical knowledge, and reviewed the published literature. They defined refractory ADHD as a failure to remit, minimal improvement, partial response with persistence of impairments, or no benefit at all to medication. They note that, to deal with refractory ADHD, it is important to: optimize stimulants for ADHD core symptoms; try alternative monotherapies for ADHD core symptoms; try non-stimulants for ADHD; use combination pharmacotherapy; use off-label medications with evidence that they help ADHD; treat comorbid conditions with ADHD. They note that some patients may develop tolerance to stimulant medication, but the extent and frequency of this is not understood. They note that raising the dose of stimulant medication may provide a temporary solution, but a short drug holiday may help with tolerance [25].

These studies are summarized in Table 1 .

Table 1Summary of Clinical Research on Tolerance to Stimulant Medicine.

AuthorTitleDesignMain FindingsRoss et al. 2002 [9]Treatment of ADHD when tolerance to methylphenidate developsRetrospective chart review, n = 166-24.7% of patients developed tolerance'--some within days and some after one year of treatment-predictor of tolerance was needing higher/off label dosage of MPH-switched classes of stimulant medicine to treat toleranceCastells et al., 2021 [15]Relationship Between Treatment Duration and Efficacy of Pharmacological Treatment for ADHD: A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of 87 Randomized Controlled Clinical TrialsMeta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of 87 randomized controlled trials; treatment duration was 3''28 weeks; 9 weeks on average; included children, teens and adults-This study did not find tolerance to medication treatment in studies with the treatment range of 3''28 weeks.-Excluded studies shorter than 3 weeksSafer et al., 1989 [16]Absence of tolerance to the behavioral effects of methylphenidate in hyperactive and inattentive childrenRetrospective chart review, n = 108; tracking stimulant treatment of ADHD for 3''10 years-the dose of methylphenidate, when adjusted for growth, did not change significantly during the 3 to 10 years of treatment;-Only 2.7% of patients lost the therapeutic benefit from medicine without an evident explanation other than the possibility of tolerance-the dose calculations that minimized the effects of growth with age were milligrams per kilogram to the 0.7th power and milligrams per square meter of estimated body surface areaKupietz et al., 1988 [17]Effects of Methylphenidate Dosage in Hyperactive Reading-disabled Children: II. Reading AchievementProspective Study, n = 47; children with hyperactivity and reading disorder, treated for 6 months with methylphenidate immediate release twice daily-Results showed positive effects of methylphenidate on reading that were mediated through behavioral control especially during the first 3 months of treatment.-The teachers noted an increase in hyperactivity during the last three months of treatment, and this was not explained by MPH plasma levels.-The cause of this change was suspected to be tolerance, though the authors acknowledge that it could possibly relate to situational issues, particularly because there was a (smaller) worsening in the placebo group as well in the last three months of the studyCunill et al., 2016 [18]Efficacy, safety and variability in pharmacotherapy for adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analysis and meta-regression in over 9000 patientsSystematic Review, meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of 44 studies with 9952 adult ADHD patients; the duration of the studies was 4''26 weeks-The analysis showed that the longer the study duration, the smaller the efficacy of the pharmacological treatment for reducing ADHD symptoms.-This may suggest chronic tolerance to the medication in adults treated with stimulant medication for up to 26 weeks.Coghill et al., 2014 [19]Maintenance of Efficacy of Lisdexamfetamine Dimesylate in Children and Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Randomized-Withdrawal Study DesignRandomized Withdrawal Period (RWP) Study; n = 157 children and adolescents treated with lisdexamfetamine for 26 weeks underwent a 6 week randomized withdrawal period-During the RWP, significantly fewer LDX patients met failure criteria than placebo-demonstrates the maintenace of efficacy of LDX in the treatment of children and adolescents with ADHD, and the rapid return of symptoms upon discontinuing LDX-the study demonstrate that for the majority of patients, stimulant medication is still effective after 6 months, and stopping medication generally worsens ADHD symptoms.Matthijssen et al., 2019 [20]Continued Benefits of Methylphenidate in ADHD After 2 Years in Clinical Practice: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Discontinuation StudyRandomized Withdrawal Period (RWP); n = 94 children and adolescents who had been treated with methylphenidate for 2 years; assigned to double blind continuation or withdrawal of treatment over 7 weeks-On average, the ADHD scores deteriorated significantly more in the discontinuation group than the continuation group.-The researchers found that MPH treatment was still effective at 2 years, and discontinuing treatment led to worsened symptom ratings by both investigator and teacher rated ADHD symptom ratings.-There were some participants who were able to stop the medication and did not experience worsened symptoms.-The study demonstrate that for the majority of patients, stimulant medication is still effective after 24 months, and stopping medication generally worsens ADHD symptoms.Swanson et al., 2007 [21]Secondary Evaluations of MTA 36-Month Outcomes: Propensity Score and Growth Mixture Model AnalysesNaturalistic follow-up of the NIMH Multimodal Treatment Study (MTA) at 36 months-At the 36 month follow-up evaluation of the patients, growth mixture modeling found 3 latent classes.-In class 1, which comprised 34% of the children in the study, they had the smallest initial benefit to medication in the study, but their medication effects increased over time and were significant at the 36 month assessment.-In classes 2 and 3, the medication benefits were larger than class 1 at 14 months; however, by the 36 month assessment, the medication benefits were not significant.-For the majority of children treated with medication (66%), beyond the 24 month assessment point in the MTA protocol, the overall effect of medication treatment was not beneficial for the reduction of ADHD symptoms.-This suggests the possibility of waning benefit for continued medicine beyond 2 years for children with combined type ADHDSibley et al., 2022 [23]Variable Patterns of Remission From ADHD in the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHDAnalysis of the 16 year naturalistic follow-up of the NIMH Multimodal Treatment Study (MTA), reviewing the ADHD assessments from years 2''16-Approximately 30% of children with ADHD experienced full remission at some point during the follow-up period; but a majority of them (60%) experienced recurrence of ADHD after the initial period of remission.-Most participants with ADHD (63.8%) had fluctuating periods of remission and recurrence over time; According to our review, theoretically, the natural course of ADHD may impact clinician's ability to assess medication response during longer term follow up of ADHD medication treatmentIbrahim et al., 2015 [24]Drug Holidays From ADHD Medication:International Experience Over the PastFour DecadesReview of literature-Drug holidays are prevalent in 25% to 70% of families with children/teens taking stimulant medication and are more likely to be exercised during school holidays.-They test whether medication is still needed and are also considered for managing medication side effects and drug tolerance.-One of the reviewed studies documented that doctors used breaks from medication to reset tolerance to the medicineCortese et al., 2021 [25]Evidence-informed Approach to Managing Stimulant-Refractory Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)Review of literature, review of clinical guidelines, knowledge of expert practice in the field-Refractory ADHD is defined as a failure to remit, minimal improvement, partial response with persistence of impairments, or no benefit at all to medication.-They note that to deal with refractory ADHD, it is important to:-Optimize stimulants for ADHD core symptoms;-Try alternative monotherapies for ADHD core symptoms;-Try non-stimulants for ADHD;-Use combination pharmacotherapy; use off-label medications with evidence that they help ADHD;-Treat comorbid conditions with ADHD.-Some patients may develop tolerance to stimulant medication, but the extent and frequency of this is not understood.-Raising the dose of stimulant may provide a temporary solution, but a short drug holiday may help with tolerance3.3. ADHD Treatment Guidelines and TolerancePublished ADHD treatment guidelines were reviewed, looking for direction to clinicians around tolerance to stimulant medication. The following ADHD guidelines were reviewed: American (child and adolescent ADHD) [6], European (adult ADHD) [7], Canadian (child, adolescent, and adult ADHD) [5], and German (child, adolescent, and adult ADHD) [8]. Each guideline discusses the importance and usage of stimulant medication for ADHD and includes comments about what to do if the medicine is not effective. Only the Canadian ADHD treatment guidelines comment specifically about tolerance [5]. They note that some patients may confuse the energetic, mood, or pleasure side effects of a stimulant with the attention and behaviour control clinical effects. Even when ''the energetic side effect tends to be reduced over time, the improvement of sustained attention is usually still there'' [5]. They further note that if there are escalating doses of stimulants, or other atypical responses to them, clinicians should reevaluate the treatment goals or the appropriateness of that treatment for the individual [5].

3.4. Case 1: Patient AA was seen in consultation in April 2020 at the age of 38 years old. She had been diagnosed with ADHD as a child and briefly took MPH immediate release but did not want to continue it. She restarted ADHD medication in the recent past and was referred for assessment. She was taking LDX 40 mg daily at the time of consultation. Her diagnoses were: ADHD combined presentation, binge eating disorder, cannabis use disorder, past history of substance use disorders (cocaine and ecstasy) in remission for 10 years, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and prediabetes. When she started LDX, it was helpful, but the benefits were wearing off early in the day after several weeks. At the initial consultation, the dose of LDX was increased by adding a midday dose of LDX 10 mg. The patient also started cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for adult ADHD. A pattern developed that A would have benefit to increased doses of LDX, but the benefits disappeared after days or weeks, and the medicine would wear off earlier and earlier in the day. With discussions of the safety of ''off-label'' dosing, and with blood pressure monitoring, A was doing better with LDX 110 mg daily (with LDX 70 mg in the morning, 20 mg at 11 a.m., and 20 mg mid-afternoon). After several months, the LDX stopped working completely.

A was switched to OROS MPH, with a rapid upward titration of dosing. She reached a dose of OROS MPH 117 mg daily, with OROS MPH 72 mg in the morning and 45 mg midday. This proved somewhat helpful, though not as helpful as the LDX. The benefits started to wear off, and after 4 months she was not experiencing benefit from the medication anymore. She was switched back to LDX.

While working with A over time, a pattern was established: she did better with LDX than she did with OROS MPH, it provided better symptom control overall for her ADHD and functioning. When she took OROS MPH, she wanted to minimize the time she took it for. Initially, she would take it for 4 weeks in an attempt to reset her tolerance to LDX, and it was successful. Since it did not work as well for her ADHD, we tried lowering the duration of OROS MPH as a break from LDX. When A tried it for only 7 days, the tolerance to LDX did not reset, and it was eventually discovered that she required at least 10 days of MPH to reset her tolerance to LDX. Furthermore, while initially A took LDX for around 2''3 months and waited for its benefits to drop off before taking MPH to reset the tolerance, it was decided to proactively switch the medicine earlier to avoid the loss of benefit from the LDX and to maintain more stability.

After approximately 1 year of adjusting and experimenting, A found that taking LDX for 5 weeks followed by MPH for 10 days provided the most stability for her and allows her to function best. Her final dosing is: LDX 110 mg daily (70 mg AM, 40 mg 2 h later); OROS MPH 117 mg od (72 mg AM, 45 mg 1 h later). She continues with CBT for ADHD, has lowered her cannabis use, and started working again after a long hiatus of unemployment.

3.5. Case 2: Patient BB is a 17-year-old man who was diagnosed with ADHD combined presentation, mild oppositional defiant disorder, and adjustment disorder with anxiety. He had taken OROS MPH 72 mg daily and, while it worked well for him, it stopped working completely after 2 months. He tried other formulations of long-acting MPH with no success. He tried amphetamine-based medicines, including LDX and mixed amphetamine salts extended release (MAS XR). LDX did not provide symptom relief and contributed to anxiety symptoms. MAS XR worked for one week and then the benefits wore off.

B was tried on several other ADHD medications, including: guanfacine XR (GXR), up to 3 mg daily, in combination with stimulant medicines. He did not find that it helped at all, and no benefits were noted. He tried MPH Immediate release and, while it was helpful, the benefits disappeared after 2 weeks. He tried dextroamphetamine immediate release and, while it was helpful, the benefits wore off after 1 week. He tried atomoxetine (ATX) 60 mg daily (1 mg/kg/day) and there were no benefits plus significant nausea side effects. He tried bupropion XL 300 mg daily (as an off-label treatment for ADHD) and there were no benefits for focus, and he had significant insomnia. He tried modafinil 100 mg daily (as an off-label treatment for ADHD) and it did not help focus, but worsened insomnia.

B stopped all ADHD medication and also stopped his post-secondary education/training. His anxiety got worse, and he was treated with an SSRI, sertraline at 150 mg daily, and it was somewhat helpful for his anxiety symptoms, though his ADHD remained untreated.

3.6. Case 3: Patient CC is a 10-year-old girl who was diagnosed with ADHD combined presentation by her pediatrician. She has no comorbid diagnoses. Her father has ADHD, both grandfathers have alcohol use disorders, and one also has bipolar disorder. There are no significant stressors in the family, apart from the recent global pandemic. She was initially prescribed LDX and it worked well for her symptoms. Within weeks, the medicine wore off earlier in the day, until it stopped working by noon. When it wore off, she experienced significant symptoms, including worsened focus, hyperactivity, anxiety, and emotional dysregulation. Immediate release dextroamphetamine (Dex IR) was added midday to extend the benefits of LDX with good effect. When this combination of medicines' benefits wore off after several weeks, GXR was added and brought up to 3 mg daily. The GXR helped the stimulant medicines to last longer in the day and C did not experience significant negative symptoms when the medicine was wearing off.

Eventually, the benefits of LDX, Dex IR, and GXR were not significant, i.e., she had become tolerant. C was put onto OROS MPH and it worked well initially, but then the medicine was wearing off earlier in the day and the dose had to be increased. Eventually, she reached OROS MPH 72 mg daily, with MPH IR 7.5 mg midday, and she continued on GXR 3 mg daily. C did well with this for about 3 months and then the medicine was no longer helping.

She then switched back to LDX with GXR. When she first switched over to LDX, it lasted long enough and she did not need a midday dose of DEX IR. Then, the pattern repeated. She has been on LDX, Dex IR, and GXR for about 5 months and she has become tolerant; she will soon switch back to the MPH medications.

4. DiscussionADHD is a condition that starts in childhood and lasts into adulthood for most patients. There are significant impairments related to ADHD. Standard treatment includes stimulant medication, among other possible medicines and psychotherapy. While stimulant medicines can work very well for ADHD, there is a concern about tolerance developing to these medications.

Physiological research demonstrates the biological adaptation to medication. With stimulant medication, there are changes in neurons and brain regions that can explain the mechanism of pharmacodynamic tolerance. The studies reviewed document that, although their studies demonstrated cellular changes, the stimulant medicines continued to work clinically.

Clinicians have observed patients who have lost benefits to stimulant medicine over time (i.e., the benefits ''wear off''), though it can be hard to establish whether this is tolerance to the medicine, other clinical factors such as poor adherence to treatment, comorbid conditions, or the natural course of ADHD over time. The 16-year follow-up of the MTA study demonstrates that over time, ADHD may worsen or improve, related to the natural course of ADHD [23]. As such, a clinician's assessment of medication effectiveness over time may be impacted by the natural worsening or improving of the disorder itself over months or years. This may lead to a misattribution of continued medication benefits or loss of medication benefits (i.e., tolerance), when it may actually relate to the natural waxing and waning of symptoms of ADHD over the course of the disorder.

A 2002 paper suggested that tolerance to stimulant medicine was common, occurring in 24.7% of randomly selected charts, and, interestingly, all the cases of tolerance were in patients who were on doses higher than 60 mg MPH per day [9]. In a study looking at response to stimulants over 3''10 years of treatment in children, the rate of tolerance was found to be 2.7% [16]. In the 36-month review of the MTA study, researchers showed that for 66% of the patients, the benefits of stimulant medication were notable at the start but wore off over time [21]. In a meta-analysis of 44 studies in adult ADHD medication treatment with 9952 patients, the studies had a range of 4''26 weeks. The longer the study duration the smaller the efficacy of pharmacological treatment for reducing ADHD symptoms [18]. These studies demonstrate that there can be a gradual loss of benefit from stimulant medicines over time with treatment.

While Ross et al., [9] discuss patients whose benefits wear off quickly from the stimulants, the MTA study [21], the meta-analysis of adult medication studies [18], and the 3''10-year follow-up of medication treatment [16] suggest that there can be slow and gradual loss of benefit to stimulant medication treatment.

There is no clear definition of tolerance to stimulant medication. These different studies suggest that clinicians should consider ''early tolerance'' for the clinical situation of losing the benefits of stimulant within days or weeks, and a more gradual or ''late tolerance'' for the clinical situation of losing the benefit of stimulant medicine over the course of months or years.

Furthermore, the extent of clinical benefit lost related to tolerance is not always documented clearly in the research. Some studies refer to complete loss of benefit to the medication, and other studies refer to a reduction of clinical benefit obtained from the medication. To assist with the clinical care of patients, future research could consider documenting whether there is ''partial tolerance'', i.e., some reduction in ADHD symptom control, or ''complete tolerance'', referring to a substantial or complete loss of benefits of the medicine.

Published ADHD treatment guidelines are helpful summaries of the research and its clinical application to treat patients with ADHD. Unfortunately, they do not provide guidance to clinicians around defining tolerance to stimulant medication, how to identify tolerance, nor how to clinically approach tolerance when it occurs.

When patients experience tolerance to stimulant medicines, the research suggests the following strategies: medication holidays to reset the tolerance [24,25]; switching between stimulant families, i.e., from MPH to amphetamines (AMPH) or vice versa [9]. Both the Canadian ADHD treatment guidelines and a paper on treatment refractory ADHD recommend that if patients lose their benefits to medicine or have a partial/inadequate response, the clinician should reevaluate treatment or address comorbid conditions which may be impacting treatment response [5,25].

Three clinical cases reviewed demonstrate patients who clinically develop tolerance to stimulant medicines in a short period of time, i.e., ''early tolerance''. They also experienced ''complete tolerance''. In two of the cases, clinical care has been successful by switching patients from one stimulant family (i.e., MPH) to the other (i.e., amphetamines AMPH), similar to the recommendation from Ross et al., [9]. Clinically, this has helped to ''reset'' the tolerance. In one of the cases, where patient B's tolerance developed within days, i.e., 7''14 days, we were unable to find treatment for ADHD that proved helpful with any significant duration of effect, and he has untreated ADHD that has continued to cause impairment in his functioning.

Based on this review, the research suggests that there is a small percentage of patients with ADHD who develop ''early tolerance'' to stimulant medicines and a potentially larger percentage have a more gradual or ''late tolerance'' over years. Similarly, it seems that there are relatively few patients with ADHD who develop ''complete tolerance'' (complete loss of benefit of the medicine) and potentially a larger percentage who have ''partial tolerance'' (partial loss of benefit). Strategies to combat stimulant tolerance include: switching classes of stimulants (i.e., from MPH to AMPH and vice versa); taking medication holidays to reset the tolerance; using other treatments, such as psychotherapy, non-stimulant medications, and reassessing clinically (for factors such as medication adherence, comorbid conditions, or the natural course of ADHD over time).

There is a significant disparity between the reported rates of tolerance in the published literature (anywhere from 2.7% of patients over a 10-year study to 66% of children at 3 years to 9952 adults with ADHD losing some benefit of the medicine over a period of 26 weeks). There are demonstrated physiological mechanisms that underlie the biological basis of tolerance. Since there is a paucity of research on tolerance to stimulants, no clinical guidance in published ADHD treatment guidelines on identifying and managing tolerance to stimulant medication, and no clear definition of tolerance to stimulants, it is likely that tolerance to stimulant medicine is significantly under-recognized and under-reported. This is a significant clinical issue with a biological basis that urgently requires more research and clinical guidance. As the rate of stimulant usage is reported to have doubled in the United States of America between 2006 and 2016 [26], this issue takes on even more importance. Future research could elucidate: the incidence of tolerance (whether there is a difference in the rates of tolerance in youth compared with adults treated with stimulant medicine), provide a definition of tolerance which is relevant for clinicians treating ADHD patients, and provide more guidance on treatment approaches to address stimulant medication tolerance.

Furthermore, tolerance to psychopharmacology is not unique to ADHD. With mood disorders, studies document that patients treated with lithium for bipolar disorder may experience tolerance or discontinuation-induced refractoriness [27]. Treatment of major depressive disorder with antidepressant medicine can also lead to tolerance to medication in a significant percentage of patients [28]. While psychopharmacology is a powerful tool for treating psychiatric disorders, medication tolerance may decrease the effectiveness of medication treatment in the short term and/or longer term and may have a significant negative impact on patient outcomes.

5. ConclusionsTreatment of ADHD with stimulant medicine is generally effective and can help for many years. Research shows that some patients develop an ''early tolerance'' to these medicines, meaning they have an initial good response but the benefits wear off within days or weeks; some patients may develop more gradual or ''late tolerance'' to stimulants, where the benefits are lost over months or years of treatment; some patients also develop ''complete tolerance'' with a substantial or complete loss of clinical benefit to stimulants; some patients may develop ''partial tolerance'' with a partial loss of clinical benefit. There is insufficient research to clearly define clinical tolerance to stimulant medication in ADHD, and there are suggestions in the literature on strategies that may help, such as switching classes of stimulants (from MPH to AMPH and vice versa) to reset the tolerance or taking medication holidays and reassessing clinically for comorbid conditions or other clinical factors which may affect treatment response. There is a clear biological basis for stimulant medication tolerance, and the lack of sufficient research and guidelines may suppress recognition of this significant clinical issue and negatively impact patient outcomes. More research is needed and clinical guidelines should be updated to provide more guidance to clinicians on how to identify and manage tolerance to stimulant medication.

Funding StatementThis research received no external funding.

Author ContributionsConceptualization, K.H.; literature review, K.H. and F.S.; case reviews F.S.; writing'--original draft preparation, K.H.; writing'--review and editing, K.H. and F.S.; supervision, K.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board StatementThe study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Canadian SHIELD Ethics Review Board (REB Tracking Number 2022-06-001 on 22 June 2022) for studies involving humans.

Informed Consent StatementInformed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper, and efforts were made to conceal any identifiable features of their cases.

Conflicts of InterestK. Handelman has received speaker's and advisory board honoraria from Elvium, Janssen, and Takeda. F. Sumiya declares no conflict of interest.

FootnotesPublisher's Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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A TPUSA event with founder Charlie Kirk at University of California, Davis plunged into chaos on Tuesday night when protesters, including black-clad Antifa members, clashed outside the venue in a fracas that resulted in two arrests.

Kirk's appearance at the campus was already causing anxiety before the event. In an opinion piece for the Sacramento Bee published the morning of the event, Bee opinion assistant Hannah Holzer called Kirk a ''fascist'' and claimed he called for the lynching of trans people '-- an allegation Kirk has denied.

The piece was corrected to remove the claim about lynching and the description of Kirk as a fascist after blowback. A tweet from the Bee which said ''Charlie Kirk has called for the lynching of trans people, a comment that should warrant the cancelation of his speaking engagement at UC Davis'' was deleted.

The Bee updated its piece with an editor's note: ''An earlier version of this column included a reference to trans people that Charlie Kirk has strongly denied. His denial has been added to the column.''

The UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May released a statement clarifying that the TPUSA chapter at the university had the right to invite speakers onto campus but said, ''UC Davis stands with our transgender and non-binary Aggies in opposition to this hateful and divisive messaging.''

According to the local news outlet CBS Sacramento, hundreds of protesters were on the campus ahead of the event, including a large group of law enforcement officers.

The two groups clashed as objects were thrown, including eggs, while glass window panes were broken.

Protesters also reportedly used pepper spray and attempted to block the entrance to the building where the event was taking place.

Two protesters were arrested during the event for spray painting on a campus building.

After the event, UC Davis released another statement saying that one police officer was injured in the clash, ''One officer sustained an injury when he was jumped on from behind and pushed to the ground.''

NEW VIDEO: Violent leftwing agitators just smashed through windows outside of the event venue here at UC Davis. Reports are that some of this group made their way into the building before police successfully removed them. Pray for peace and safety for all involved. 🏠pic.twitter.com/IbZd2v9pRn

'-- Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 15, 2023

Kirk shared footage from the event, which showed officers blocking the building entrance before the group of protestors reached the doors and broke a window. The video, which garnered 2.5 million views on Twitter, also caught the attention of the platform's CEO Elon Musk.

Another video from journalist Drew Hernandez, a TPUSA contributor, shows protestors blocking the walking path toward the event space.

Davis, CA

Antifa and far leftists pepper spray and hit UC Davis student with umbrellas.

They're currently blocking student pathways protesting a @TPUSA Charlie Kirk event on campus tonight. pic.twitter.com/qSoS7mTnP5

'-- Rebecca Brannon (@RebsBrannon) March 15, 2023

Watch above via CBS Sacramento.

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Clown World ' 🤠: https://t.co/MKKVG8zYmr

Wed Mar 15 17:24:55 +0000 2023

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Sunny Hostin, a co-host on "The View," faced online ridicule when she revealed that she had avoided going into grocery stores since the pandemic and instead had delivery people go in her place.

The hosts were discussing their shopping habits when Hostin made the admission on the show Wednesday.

"I don't like a supermarket. I haven't been in a supermarket since COVID '-- for about three years," she said.

"That's when I discovered Instacart. And I give them a big tip because they don't always pay their people well. And it's '-- So, that's been an issue I think for the company," Hostin continued. "But man, you can get toiletries, you can get fire logs, you know, those big Bounty towels you don't want to carry."

Many on social media thought Hostin, who is a millionaire, was expressing how out of touch many on the left are with regular Americans.

" This is a mental illness, @sunny . Really. Its not healthy. I say this with someone with empathy for your situation," tweeted Pradheep Shanker of National Review.

"So she's scared of COVID, but totally willing to let one of the poors risk their life on her behalf. *chef's kiss*," tweeted Mark Hemingway.

"So according to her logic'... it's okay to put someone else at risk but not herself? Seems pretty selfish if you ask me," read another popular tweet.

"I'm so afraid of COVID that I have the butler and maid hosed down with disinfectant twice a day. It's expensive, but I'm worth it," joked another user.

Hostin was also among the hosts who angrily blamed racism and sexism for a report that some Democrats were rejecting Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination in 2024.

Here's the video of Hostin's comments: What Does Your Grocery Order Say About You? | The Viewwww.youtube.com

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On Friday, Signature Bank customers spooked by the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank withdrew more than $10 billion in deposits, a board member told CNBC.

That run on deposits quickly led to the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Regulators announced late Sunday that Signature was being taken over to protect its depositors and the stability of the U.S. financial system.

The sudden move shocked executives of Signature Bank, a New York-based institution with deep ties to the real estate and legal industries, said board member and former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank. Signature had 40 branches, assets of $110.36 billion and deposits of $88.59 billion at the end of 2022, according to a regulatory filing.

The Signature Bank headquarters at 565 Fifth Avenue in New York, US, on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

Lokman Vural Elibol | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

"We had no indication of problems until we got a deposit run late Friday, which was purely contagion from SVB," Frank told CNBC in a phone interview.

Problems for U.S. banks with exposure to the frothiest asset classes of the Covid pandemic '-- crypto and tech startups '-- boiled over last week with the wind down of crypto-centric Silvergate Bank. While that firm's demise had been long expected, it helped ignite a panic about banks with high levels of uninsured deposits. Venture capital investors and founders drained their Silicon Valley Bank accounts Thursday, leading to its seizure by midday Friday.

Worries spreadThat led to pressure on Signature, First Republic and other names late last week on fears that uninsured deposits could be locked up or lose value, either of which could be fatal to startups.

Signature Bank was founded in 2001 as a more business-friendly alternative to the big banks. It expanded to the West Coast and then opened itself to the crypto industry in 2018, which helped turbocharge deposit growth in recent years. The bank created a 24/7 payments network for crypto clients and had $16.5 billion in deposits from digital-asset-related customers.

Stock Chart IconStock chart iconShares of Signature Bank have been under pressure.

But as waves of concern spread late last week, Signature customers moved deposits to bigger banks including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup , Frank said.

According to Frank, Signature executives explored "all avenues" to shore up its situation, including finding more capital and gauging interest from potential acquirers. The deposit exodus had slowed by Sunday, he said, and executives believed they had stabilized the situation.

Instead, Signature's top managers have been summarily removed and the bank was shuttered Sunday. Regulators are now conducting a sales process for the bank, while guaranteeing that customers will have access to deposits and service will continue uninterrupted.

Poster childThe move raised some eyebrows among observers. In the same Sunday announcement that identified SVB and Signature Bank as risks to financial stability, regulators announced new facilities to shore up confidence in the country's other banks.

Another bank that had been under pressure in recent days, First Republic declared that it had more than $70 billion in untapped funding from the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase.

For his part, Frank, who helped draft the landmark Dodd-Frank Act after the 2008 financial crisis, said there was "no real objective reason" that Signature had to be seized.

"I think part of what happened was that regulators wanted to send a very strong anti-crypto message," Frank said. "We became the poster boy because there was no insolvency based on the fundamentals."

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Posted by Kane on March 13, 2023 4:12 amNEWS JUNKIES -- CHECK OUT OUR HOMEPAGE

Fauci responds to Covid lab leak theory'There's no response to that craziness, Jim. Prosecute me for what? What are they talking about? I wish I could figure out what the heck they're talking about. I think they're just going off the deep end.''

On Friday, the House voted unanimously to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the pandemic.

The 419-0 vote was final congressional approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk. It's unclear whether the president will sign the measure into law, and the White House said the matter was under review.

'I haven't made that decision yet,' Biden said Friday when asked whether he would sign the bill.

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