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Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Ryan Taylor Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran and disaster-rescue specialist who argued that post-traumatic stress drove his behavior at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced on May 2 to more than five years in prison and fined $200,000 for assaulting police and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Marine Corps veteran and Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Nichols during a hurricane rescue mission. (Joseph McBride via U.S. District Court)

Mr. Nichols, 33, of Longview, Texas, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to serve 63 months behind bars and fined $200,000—the lion’s share of the $237,708 raised on a GiveSendGo page set up for his legal and household expenses.

It was the largest fine issued in a Jan. 6 criminal case.

Judge Lamberth also ordered Mr. Nichols to serve 36 months of supervised release and pay $2,000 in restitution.

Prosecutors sought an upward departure from federal sentencing guidelines in asking for an 83-month prison sentence. The Department of Justice stressed Mr. Nichols’s use of pepper spray on police and his incendiary rhetoric before, during, and after Jan. 6.

Mr. Nichols argued for time served after 28 months in custody, citing his severe PTSD and “horrific prison conditions” at the District of Columbia jail as major mitigating factors.

“Ryan Nichols is a good guy who made a bad decision on January 6. He’s paid his debt in the most cruel and unusual way possible,” defense attorney Joseph D. McBride told The Epoch Times. “The fact that he’s got to go back to jail for any period of time sickens me to my stomach.”

Mr. McBride said despite not objecting to the sentencing calculation made by the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System, the DOJ complained to Judge Lamberth on May 2 that an error needed correcting that would bump up Mr. Nichols’s sentencing range.

The judge allowed the last-minute change, Mr. McBride said.

“I’m disappointed. I respect his [Judge Lamberth’s] service, but I don’t respect his decision today.”

‘Expletive-Laden Tirade’

Federal prosecutors stressed Mr. Nichols’s use of potent pepper spray on the police line near the Lower West Terrace tunnel and his participation in a heave-ho maneuver against police as evidence of his propensity for violence.

Mr. Nichols’s speech and his belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump drew extensive commentary and attention from prosecutors in their 36-page sentencing memorandum.

On his walk from the Ellipse to the Capitol after President Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, Mr. Nichols let loose with an “eighteen-minute, expletive-laden, threatening tirade,” prosecutors wrote.

Ryan Nichols aims a stream of pepper spray at police on the Capitol's Lower West Terrace on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Department of Justice/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

“I’m hearing reports that [Vice President Mike] Pence caved. I’m telling you if Pence caved, we’re gonna drag [expletive] through the streets,“ Mr. Nichols said on a social media broadcast. ”You [expletive] politicians are going to get [expletive] drug through the streets. Because we’re not going to have our [expletive] stolen. We’re not going to have our election or our country stolen.”

After hearing that protesters had breached the Capitol, Mr. Nichols urged them to “get up in there.”

“Cut their heads off,“ he said. ”Hey, Republican protestors are trying to enter the House right now at the Capitol is the word that I’m getting. So, if that’s true, then get up in there. If you voted for treason, we’re going to drag your [expletive] through the streets.”

Mr. Nichols also chanted, “Lock and load, lock and load, lock and load,” the DOJ memo said.

Late on Jan. 6, Mr. Nichols took to social media again to proclaim himself leader of a revolution, the DOJ said.

“So, yes, I’m calling for violence! And I will be violent!“ Mr. Nichols said. ”Because I’ve been peaceful and my voice hasn’t been heard! I’ve been peaceful and my vote doesn’t count! I’ve been peaceful and the courts won’t hear me. So you’re [expletive] right, I’m going to be violent now!”

PTSD Drove Behavior

Mr. McBride cited Mr. Nichols’s PTSD that grew out of his Marine Corps service and his work rescuing stranded residents and pets after countless hurricanes to cast his Jan. 6 behavior in context.

Because Mr. Nichols had stopped taking his psychiatric medications during the summer of 2020, he believed the country was at war when he traveled to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, Mr. McBride wrote in his 28-page sentencing memo.

Jan. 6 was a “PTSD-related aberration in Ryan’s law-abiding life,” Mr. McBride wrote.

“Ryan’s earnest desire to legally participate in political protest was hijacked by his PTSD, which told him that America was under attack,” Mr. McBride said. “By the time Ryan walked over to the Capitol from the Ellipse on January 6, his PTSD had reached category-5 five hurricane status. His pupils were dilated. His heart was pounding.”

The man who recorded the video late on Jan. 6 “was so detached from reality that neither Ryan nor anyone from his family recognized him,” Mr. McBride wrote. “That is a man who lost impulse control because PTSD hit the override button in his brain.”

Mr. Nichols founded a nonprofit organization called Rescue the Universe that has saved the lives of more than 150 people in the aftermath of hurricanes, tropical storms, and tornadoes.

During Hurricane Michael in 2018, Mr. Nichols drove from Texas to Florida to assist the Coast Guard with rescues. He saved a woman who was eight months pregnant after she was trapped under the rubble of her home, Mr. McBride wrote.

Ryan Nichols of Rescue the Universe transports an elderly woman and child to safety during a hurricane operation. (Joseph McBride via U.S. District Court)

“On another occasion, he was called upon to evacuate several nursing homes. The staff evacuated and left the elderly residents to die,” Mr. McBride wrote. “Ryan tried to save as many lives as possible but could not save everyone.”

Although Mr. Nichols informed the U.S. Marshals and jail staff that he suffered from PTSD when he was arrested in January 2021, solitary confinement was used against him, and he suffered from other “horrible” conditions during pretrial detainment, Mr. McBride said.

‘Driven to Suicide Watch’

In one instance, “he was thrown into solitary confinement for three weeks,” Mr. McBride wrote. “His drinking water was regularly cut off for 20-hour periods. He was harassed and prodded to the point where he was driven to suicide watch.

“Suicide watch involved Ryan being stripped naked and forced to wear a plastic Tyvek suit in a brightly lit room where the guards continued to harm and encourage him to kill himself,” Mr. McBride said.

The mistreatment of Mr. Nichols was the subject of an Aug. 22, 2022, habeas corpus petition and numerous follow-up petitions seeking his release from custody. On Nov. 22, 2022, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ordered Mr. Nichols released to the custody of his wife, Bonnie Nichols.

Ryan Nichols of Rescue the Universe saves three dogs from floodwaters in Leland, North Carolina, after Hurricane Florence in September 2018. (Joseph McBride via U.S. District Court)

Mr. Nichols spent 350 days on home detention before being ordered back behind bars in November 2023 when he pleaded guilty to two criminal counts under a deal with the DOJ.

In his sentencing memo, Mr. McBride argued that pretrial services erred in its calculation of possible prison time under federal guidelines. The correct range should have been 24–30 months, he said. Given Mr. Nichols’s 28 months in pretrial detention, he would be eligible for a sentence of time served.

Mr. McBride filed 57 character letters with Mr. Nichols’s sentencing memo and video statements from his client’s wife, father, and sons.

“I don’t think my Dad is a criminal and he’s been locked away for a long time,“ Blake Nichols, 8, said in one video. ”I’ve known him for seven years and I think he’s a hero and he did a lot of good things in life and all of that added up to one bad thing.

“I was just wondering if you could make him come home,” the boy said. “It’s been very bad for him not to be here and I’ve been thinking about him all night.”

Mr. Nichols has great remorse over Jan. 6, Mr. McBride wrote, and he has suffered greatly in prison for it.

“Ryan is mortified by the videos and images depicting his outlandish January 6 behavior,” Mr. McBride wrote. “He apologizes sincerely for his words and actions on January 6, 2021, which harmed his family, country, and himself.

“January 6 is a severe and unfortunate aberration in his law-abiding life.”

By Teeuwe Mevissen, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

Is the wealth effect being substituted?

Summary

• China’s real estate market suffered heavy losses early this year while stock market investors continue to face huge uncertainty.
• This will add to the deterioration of household balances and as such could influence private domestic (consumer) demand.
• While the wealth effect predicts a deterioration of consumption, the substitution effect would predict the exact opposite.
• This paper concludes that the substitution effect is more likely in the case of real estate.
• This could be explained by the fact that housing is still expensive despite declining housing prices while at the same time wages are suppressed and youth unemployment is high.
• But more explanations (like prepayment risks) could be given for the positive correlation between housing prices and the savings ratio.

Introduction

The new year in China kicked off with turmoil on China’s stock markets. Amongst others, the decision of the court in Hong Kong to liquidate real estate giant Evergrande further undermined investors’ confidence in China’s stock market. A market that already had been battered during the last three years due to ongoing worries about China’s economic prospects, regulatory crackdowns, a changing geopolitical landscape and a real estate sector in crisis. While China’s stock markets have pared some of the most recent losses due to (expectations of) increased government support, investor sentiment will likely remain fragile for some time to come. Moreover, many of the recently imposed government regulations, such as short selling curbs, are likely to be temporary assuming China is really serious about attracting more foreign investments. This follows from the fact that a full functioning market environment includes the possibility to sell stocks short and let market forces determine market outcomes.

Given that stock markets tend to be a leading indicator for the economy’s travails, this special zooms in on the question what the recent market turmoil could mean for China’s economic prospects in the coming year(s). The relation between the stock market’s performance and economic prospects is, amongst others, reflected by the expected future cash flows that companies are expected to make. But there may also be a wealth effect which predicts a positive relationship between stock market performance and consumption. Since the value of real estate also affects the willingness to consume, we also take a closer look at this particular topic in this research note. But before we do so, we will start with a general overview of China’s stock markets, its performance over the last 5 years and the measures that China’s government has implemented so far in order to prevent a further slump, which already evaporated a stunning amount of $7 tn during the recent lows in February. For more information regarding the real estate sector we refer to an earlier publication that covered this topic.

China’s stock markets experiencing a rout.

After a sharp recovery of China’s stock markets in 2021 – which was part of a global relief rally that followed the panic sell-off in March 2020 – 2022 saw investor sentiment souring and China was no exception. However, whilst Western indices recovered sharply thereafter, China’s stock markets struggled to keep up during the first half of 2023 and showed a very poor performance in the second half of 2023. The start to this year can only be characterized as a true stock rout. As a result, the benchmark MSCI China stock index is down 60% from its peak in 2021. All in all the total decline in value of China’s stock markets is approximately 7 tn renminbi (close to $1 tn) since the peak in 2021. The majority of these losses are borne by domestic holders of Chinese equities and retail investors in particular.

Some background on China’s stock markets

China’s restrictions related to foreign investments, geopolitical tensions and regulatory crack downs have soured foreign investors’ appetite for Chinese stocks and in October 2023 it was estimated that foreigners only hold $600 billion in Chinese stocks listed on mainland China or Hong Kong. This is indeed a small share of a total market capitalization that is estimated to be a little less than $9.7 tn in January 2024. While institutional investors’ share in Chinese stock holdings has significantly increased over the past two decades, China’s stock markets are still more influenced by retail investors than is the case in, for example, the United States. The box below explains some of the most common features of its stock market.

The structure of China’s stock market is important because it gives an idea of who has ownership and to what share classes. But for this it is clearly also relevant to have an idea about the total market capitalization of China’s main stock markets. This is why we show a table below that provides an overview of China’s stock exchanges ranked by market capitalization and which also includes the stock market returns YTD and for longer periods; It also provides an estimated breakdown between the share of private owned enterprises and state owned enterprises where available.

Connecting the stock market with consumption

While stock markets are less connected to the economic process and performance in China than is the case in most advanced economies (for instance, equity financing plays a relatively small role for China’s corporates who generally rely more on retained earnings and bank loans), the recent stock market rout adds to the wealth loss Chinese households already had suffered from China’s real estate crisis.

As can be seen from figure 4 below, surveyed consumers continue to signal weak confidence regarding developments related to employment and, related to it, income. Furthermore, consumer confidence is near record low levels. Moreover, close to 60% of respondents expect to increase savings in the next quarter while less than 25% of respondents indicate that they are expecting to consume more in the next quarter. We do note, though, that the most recent data is from Q2 2023.

Measures to support China’s stock markets

While most recently Beijing fired the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) Yi Huiman and replaced him with Wu Qing, it is questionable whether this will result in the much needed restoration of investors’ confidence. However, as a previous head of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and in various roles within the CSRC, where he earned the nickname ‘the broker butcher’, it seems that a further crackdown on illicit trading practices is on the cards.

Several other measures have been announced, although the majority lacks details as is often the case when new policies and/or guidelines are announced. Below is a broad selection of measures that have been decided upon in recent months:

• More liquidity support for developers
• The CSRC announced it would look to support listed companies to find possibilities to merge and or restructure businesses in order to create value
• Sales of stocks were also restricted for some domestic institutional investors as well as some offshore units of those investors
• A lowering of 0.5% of the reserve ratio requirement for banks
• Monetary authorities provided 1 tn yuan extra liquidity into the markets in order to provide ample liquidity
• Promises to deal with margin call risks
• More active involvement of the CSRC in addressing concerns from listed companies
• Placing restrictions on security lending

More recently announced measures are:

• Cease displaying real-time data for flows into the world’s second-largest stock market through Hong Kong
• China’s ‘national team’ buying for $50 billion of stocks
• Clarification of new delisting rules which are aimed at zombie firms
• Tighten stock listing criteria
• Crack down on illegal share sales
• Strengthening the supervision of dividend payouts

While the PBOC has added additional stimulus since the end of last year, this stimulus still seems not to have fully fed into China’s economy and the real estate sector. Earlier this year, the PBOC offered 1 tn renminbi in loans to the banking sector and lowered the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5% bringing the average RRR for financial institutions to ‘about 7.0% after the cut’. A move that is expected to free up about 1 tn yuan according to the central bank chief who held a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday the 24th of January.

The last and perhaps most draconic measure announced this year is a ban on net stock selling during the first and last 30 minutes of a trading session. This measure came into effect on the 21st of February. This makes it harder for entities affected by this measure (mainly hedge funds and institutional investors) to apply certain trading strategies. At the same time it makes it easier for government-backed funds to influence the stock market during those crucial trading windows.

These measures clearly influence the extent to which stock valuations are determined by market mechanisms but they won’t increase the profitability of any company traded at any of China’s stock exchanges. It also remains to be seen how offshore investors will react on measures that increase the risk of not being able to sell your stocks anymore because of decreasing liquidity on the sellers’ market. Moreover, the restrictions on security lending are likely to have more effect on stocks listed on the Hong Kong exchanges than those listed in Shanghai. Mostly because stocks listed on the Shanghai stock exchange are held for more than 80% by individual investors vs 15% of stocks traded at the Hong Kong stock exchanges.

While Chinese stock markets initially showed a sharp recovery since their February lows, the stock rally seems to have stalled again since the midst of March. Taking all of the above into account, it remains to be seen whether the recent recovery of stock prices can be continued, especially when the current stock market trading curbs would be lifted again.

How the loss of wealth could lower consumption

Wealth effect

We will now look at a few behavioral phenomena when it comes to the relationship between wealth and consumption. This so-called wealth effect is a behavioral economic theory which postulates that peoples’ willingness to spend increases when the wealth of their homes or asset portfolio increases because they feel more financially secure. Since (for now) we want to exclude the extreme swings of consumption and stock market prices arising from the Covid-19 pandemic (which is even more relevant given China’s strict lock down measures and its obvious effect on consumption), we first use the results of an academic paper from 2010 which studies the importance of the wealth effect on China’s consumer spending.

This paper estimates a long run consumption elasticity of total assets to be around 0.51 or roughly one half. This would imply that a 20% drop in share prices would result in a drop of about 10% in consumption. Compared to Western elasticities, which are often found to be closer to 0.05, this is extremely high. Based on such a positive relationship between wealth and consumption, one would expect a significant negative impact on consumption from the recent decline in house and equity prices. The elasticity on income is estimated at 0.76, which seems plausible in our view.

Based on the elasticity from the paper above and given the price developments of the separate asset classes we can make a rough estimate of the impact of declining asset prices on consumption. We take 2021 as the starting point because the real estate crisis started in the summer of 2021 and we want to omit the results during the pandemic because of reasons discussed above. These estimates are shown in table 2 below. We abstain from the impact of increased saving via (bank) deposits.

This is based on a total value of real estate in China of $55tn in 2021. So, if we assume the elasticities from this paper to be realistic, this suggests that the decline in asset values has depressed consumption by some 3.4% since August 2021. This would amount to a drop of consumption of more than $2 tn! Given a level of nationwide per capita consumption expenditure of 26.796, a total population of 1.425.000.000 people and the current USD/CNH exchange rate of around 7.25, this would boil down to a total amount of consumption of $5.3 tn. Our estimates above are generally inline with other research indicating that ‘a 5% decline in home prices will wipe out 19 trillion yuan ($2.7 trillion) in housing wealth’.

We should also add, though, that rising incomes have overshadowed its impact so that a positive gain in consumption (in nominal terms) results after all.

The (opposite) substitution effect

Having said this, there could also be reasons to assume an increase in consumption. So how would that work? Young people in China have been faced with a prolonged episode of rising housing prices while at the same time facing high levels of youth unemployment and an economy slowing down. As such, young people have increasingly felt discouraged. This has even led to the so-called lying flat movement, where young people deliberately choose to not join the tough rat race that recent graduates face when entering the labour market. Additionally, despite the gradual decline of house prices (both newly built and existing homes), suppressed wages have not made housing that more affordable especially in China’s tier-1 cities. This may have led many young people in China to delay or even give up on buying a house entirely.

Another reason why some young people are delaying or have given up on purchasing a house is the huge impact it has on the ‘quality of life’. Young people that have been able to purchase a house face relatively high monthly mortgage payments despite significant down payments. This has led a large amount of young Chinese citizens increasingly willing to spend their money on
consumption like traveling. This effect is called the substitution effect. Many economists have indeed claimed that the effect on consumption of declining stock and housing prices in China is different. Let’s say a wealth effect with Chinese characteristics, i.e. an inverse wealth effect.

For about two decades, consumption in China has been partially suppressed since households had to channel an unusual large share of their income to savings in order to make the necessary down-payment for purchasing a house. Back then, this often boiled down to about 30% of the value of the house. In other words, consumption was substituted for expenditures on housing. Indeed last year we saw signs of the substitution effect when the savings rate for households dropped while real estate prices dropped as well. This effect is in sharp contrast with the findings of the wealth effect discussed in the academic paper mentioned earlier.

Our data shows yet another picture

Since we lack data about the net savings rate for households in China we have derived the savings ratio by subtracting household expenditures from disposable income. We plot this estimated saving ratio against both real estate prices as well as the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index. This results in the two graphs below:

While positive correlation between (inflation-adjusted) real estate prices and savings (i.e. a negative correlation with consumption) is evident from the first graph, stock prices don’t seem to have an impact on private domestic savings or consumption at all. Both results are at odds with the results from the academic paper discussed above whilst the first chart suggests that there is – if anything – a substitution rather than wealth effect.

However, we should be aware of the fact that in China, the major component of household wealth is invested in real estate and not the stock market. As such, declining stock prices could reduce consumption of the holders of these stocks; but if only a relatively small percentage of China’s citizens hold stocks or if many Chinese citizens only hold very small portions of their wealth in stocks, the impact on an aggregate level would still be negligible.

It is therefore important to take into account that approximately 70% of household wealth is in real estate while it was estimated in an article published by Atlantic press that household financial assets only accounted for about 13%. The rest is allocated towards other financial assets like saving accounts, deposits, gold etc. etc. The important conclusion we can draw from these figures is that much of the wealth of China’s households is either being held in illiquid assets, such as real estate or in low return deposits. From this angle it becomes easier to understand why in China the wealth effect arising from declining stock market prices is less likely to have a significant influence on consumption patterns.

Moreover, as we argue, the wealth effect arising from the developments in the real estate sector, may not apply in the case of China. We therefore conclude this special by discussing a number of explanations for the observed effect from real estate prices on consumption.

What about other factors? (prepayment risk)

Above we have shown conflicting findings on the existence of a wealth effect in China arising from price developments in both the real estate- and stock market. While older research seems to conclude that the wealth effect is indeed present, most recent data seems to indicate the absence of it. Indeed, in the case of real estate we actually observe an opposite effect, i.e. lower housing prices lead to lower saving rates. Does this mean that we observe a substitution effect in China? We would, albeit hesitantly, answer this question with a yes. But there could be more at play.

Aside from the substitution effect which has been outlined above, lower interest rates could also play a role. This is via the so called prepayment risk. It is well known that when interest rates and/or housing prices decline, house owners tend to increase their mortgage payments in order to reduce their outstanding amount of mortgage debt. Most mortgage prepayment models indeed predict increasing prepayments when the contract rate and the current market rate diverge, i.e. a situation where the contract rate is significantly higher than the current market rate.

One way to look at this phenomenon is the following: house owners have an incentive to refund themselves against lower rates and pay off the outstanding amount of mortgage debt if the terms and conditions of the mortgage allow for this. However, prepayment risks can also work in the opposite direction. When home owners expect rising interest rates the home owner also has an incentive to repay the mortgage more quickly to avoid higher interest rate payments in the future. Since interest rates have gradually and steadily declined in China, the former prepayment risk is more likely.

Additionally, the relationship between real estate prices and consumption is not necessarily static. Its effect could very well change over time. A prime analogy is the famous Phillips curve that tries to explain the inverse relationship between (wage) inflation on levels of unemployment. If other factors occasionally flip the relationship between wealth and consumption this would make it very hard to predict the impact of real estate prices on consumption at any point in time. Finally, developments in the labor market, such as adverse job conditions, could also impact the savings rate where higher unemployment levels lead to decreasing levels of savings and consumption, if households are forced to dip into their savings to maintain consumption levels.

Finally - as our analysis shows – the consumption effect arising from the rise in disposable income (which according to the paper has an elasticity of 0.76) has offset the wealth effect arising from the decline in assets. This could be another reason why the predicted decline in consumption cannot be observed.

Conclusion

Altogether it is extremely hard - and with a lack of relevant data – impossible to draw strong conclusions about a permanent presence or absence of a wealth effect arising from price developments in the real estate sector in China. Unfortunately we cannot present a solid relationship between real estate price developments and consumption. At his point in time we can only conclude that we observe a negative relationship between consumption and house prices and offer some reasons that are likely to have influenced this relationship, with prepayment flows and possibly a weak labor market situation as relevant factors. The only firm conclusion we can draw is that economics continue to work in mysterious ways.

Authored by Simon Hankinson via The Epoch Times,

Why does the Biden administration want open borders? As a researcher and writer on immigration, that’s the question I often get asked.

Here are the three reasons I think are behind President Joe Biden’s deliberate border chaos:

1. electoral politics,

2. extortion, and,

3. most insidiously, ideology.

I’ll start with ideology and come back to the other two reasons in my next columns.

The most dangerous driver behind Biden’s open borders is ideological. Policy differences can be negotiated, but as we’re seeing on college campuses, people fanatically committed to an idea can prove intransigent, regardless of the facts.

When you see the word “abolition” used in connection with criminal justice and immigration, you might be confused. Americans rightly associate the term with ending slavery and abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison who were active before the Civil War.

Why are academics, politicians, and race professionals using it in 2024?

Those saying “abolitionist” today have appropriated it for the positive historical connotation it possesses, but they mean something else entirely. To see the roots of their ideology, you have to go back to the dawn of the New Left, as described by Chris Rufo in his book “America’s Cultural Revolution.”

Under their intellectual godfather, German academic Herbert Marcuse, Marxist-Leninists, Black Panthers, the Weather Underground terrorist group, and Students for a Democratic Society gathered.

This leftist alliance believed—as the Students for a Democratic Society magazine Prairie Fire explained—that the United States was founded on genocide, slavery, and racism. Its goal was to abolish the existing capitalist America and build a new society. One element of this was destroying the justice system. The Black Panthers’ manifesto thus called for the release of all black men who were incarcerated, no matter for what crime.

As Rufo writes, “[Communist Angela] Davis and her comrades began to call not for the release of individual criminals, but for the abolition of the entire system.” Davis said that “a society without racism … has to be a society without prisons.”

The Black Lives Matter organization adopted the same agenda of “abolition.” The mobs that destroyed a police station and looted Minneapolis in 2020 shouted, “Abolish the police, then the prisons.” The “abolitionist” activists in the Seattle CHAZ commune wanted to abolish the police, prisons, and courts.

BLM founder Patrisse Cullors was crystal clear in this Harvard Law Review essay from 2019: “Abolition means no borders. Abolition means no Border Patrol. Abolition means no Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” America is the source of world evil, in her view, and thus has no right to exist as a nation state nor keep anyone in the world from entering its borders.

Some Biden administration officials seem to share this core belief. Avideh Moussavian, a senior appointee at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted “#abolishICE” in 2018 and “cut ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] funding” in 2019.

Another Biden appointee, Claire Trickler-McNulty, undermined ICE from within before leaving for a nongovernmental organization partly funded by the Vera Institute for Justice. The Vera Institute says, “The U.S. immigration system is an arrest-to-deportation pipeline rooted in racism,” wants no detention of people in the United States illegally, and grants millions to nongovernmental organizations defending illegal immigrants.

“Abolition” ideology also has clear links with today’s campus support of Hamas. Take a look at this course taught at Columbia University this Spring by professor Mohamed Abdou, titled “Decolonial-Queerness and Abolition in SWAN.” SWANA likely stands for South West Asian and North African people. A sentence from the course description sums it up:

“Using intersectional/assemblage-based theories, what decolonial, gender-based readings and formulations of feminisms/queerness exist that evade the apparent tidiness of European feminist and narrow LGBTQIA categories that characterizes most (non)Euro-American political queer-feminist scholarship beyond the depiction of queer BIPOC as co-opted and duped, colonized pawns of ‘Gay Empire’ towards elucidating critical discussions on identity, agency, subjectivity, and dissidence?”

Parents are paying $90,000 a year for their kids to learn that kind of balderdash. But even if you can’t make any sense of that sentence, you can be sure of what Abdou means by “abolition.”

Columbia University now resembles Gaza as designed by outdoor equipment retailer Eastern Mountain Sports. Meanwhile at Princeton University, students briefly set up a camp last week “in solidarity with Gaza to protest Princeton’s role in funding the ongoing genocide,” according to organizers Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest.

Dan-el Padilla Peralta was among faculty who signed a letter supporting the Princeton students and boycotting Columbia University. He is a “classics” professor who calls his field “equal parts vampire and cannibal” and the foundation of white supremacy, and argues that it should be abolished.

Peralta came from the Dominican Republic as a child, and his family overstayed their visas and became illegal immigrants. Leftist academics such as Peralta do not like nations or borders any more than they do classical antiquity. In his book “Undocumented,” Peralta wrote, “Demography is a [expletive]. Holla at me if you want me to break it down for you.” By this, Peralta implies that without immigration enforcement, the “global majority”—defined here as everyone but white Europeans—will be able to dominate every country.

What we’re seeing at the southern border and on college campuses comes from the same ideological roots and ends the same way: anarchy.

*  *  *

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,

At $1.5 million per job, this new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.

Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that the State of Illinois will provide an $827 million incentive package for Rivian to invest $1.5 billion to expand its electric vehicle factory in Normal, Illinois. The expansion is expected to create at least 550 full-time jobs within the next five years, and will build Rivian’s next model EV, the R2. Rivian initially got $49.5 million under Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2017 to create 1,000 jobs at the same location.

The new deal gives $1.5 million per job created, which is astronomical in the world of location incentives. Estimated average location incentives paid by state and local governments around the nation range from $13,000 to $84,000 per job, though sometimes go as high as $100,000 per job for capital intensive projects. Even using that high end, Rivian’s package will be 15 times what’s typical.

Moreover, Rivian is on shaky wheels, along with the rest of the U.S. EV industry. Rivian loses over $43,000 for every vehicle it sells and has had two rounds of layoffs this year. The decision to move its R2 production to Illinois is a further reflection of the company’s need to preserve cash. R2 production was initially planned for a new $5 billion plant in Georgia, heavily subsidized by the state. But Rivian concluded that moving production to the existing Illinois facility would save cash.

Its stock price has consequently been hammered. It reached a high of $172 per share in 2021 but now trades at less than $10 per share.

Rivian is not alone. As a CNBC headline recently declared, “EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.” Since then, the news is no better. Ford announced last week that it is losing a stunning $132,000 per vehicle. Hertz announced last week a second round of sales of its EV fleet due to heavy maintenance and depreciation costs. For the first quarter of this year, EV sales continued to slow and the share of EV sales for all autos actually decreased. While total EV sales are still up a bit from last year, the growth rate is not nearly enough to put EV makers on a path to profitability.

EV makers pin their hopes on less expensive models that they promise soon, and on more public charging stations, into which Illinois last month announced it would invest an additional $50 million. Rivian hopes its new R2 will be among the new, lower priced models. However, its starting price is expected to be about $45,000 and it won’t come out until the first half of 2026.

Regarding the astronomical incentive package to be paid by Illinois, in fairness, it should be noted that most of it is in the form of tax credits to be granted over the next 30 years. They are available on condition that the company retain 6,000 already existing jobs. However, the fact remains that just 550 new jobs are to be created, and incentive packages like this are not supposed to be payoffs for merely standing still. And a less charitable way to look at it would be that future taxpayers will be on the hook for the high cost of the incentive package — if it works.

Aside from thinking that the incentive package is too low, my first instinct was to ask, “Where’s the warrant coverage.” That is, I know from working as a lawyer and then as an investor, often with troubled companies, that it’s not unusual to make risky bets. However, it’s routine for the investor to get part of the upside if the venture succeeds, usually in the form of stock or warrants (basically, options) on stock that pay off nicely if things turn around. The federal government, for example, got stock and warrants as part of the deal for its 2010 bailout of the auto industry.

This new Rivian deal has nothing like that. Since the job creation per dollar is minimal, it’s just not worth the price.

When it comes to identifiable differences in female vs male psychology as well as differences in brain biology, as a general rule and as most studies show women focus far more on feelings than men do.  Specifically, women tend to be more sensitive to negative emotions and negative imagery.  Obviously, men and women are not the same, never have been the same and never will be the same, and this includes how they process information and come to conclusions.

This is the reason why many of women's perceptions on life tend to bewilder men; most women operate from a place of emotion and assumption (which they call "intuition") and come to conclusions based on feelings rather than facts.  Intuition can be a powerful tool for identifying threats before they occur, and when women get it right they might appear to be clairvoyant. However, when they get it wrong they get it really wrong and the result is foolishness and disaster.

How one feels is not necessarily what is true. 

Enter feminism, a movement which claims to be fighting for women's "equality" but is actually fighting for women's privilege.  Legal equality for the sexes was achieved long ago and one would think that feminism would have faded away with its mission accomplished.  This has not been the case.  Instead, feminists move the goalposts and the notion of equality has given way to desires for power.  But unlike most political movements feminism does not chase power by applying direct force (in most cases).  Rather, feminists chase power by magnifying and exaggerating their own weaknesses and victimhood. 

In other words, they gain power by demanding reparations for perceived injustices.  The more they feel oppressed or afraid or abused the more power society supposedly owes them.  Feminism exploits the natural tendency of women to hyperfocus on negative emotions and promotes feelings over logic.  If women feel like victims, that means they are victims.

This is where the "Man vs. Bear" narrative comes from.  A bizarre thought experiment in which random women are asked if they were lost in the woods, would they rather run into a man or a bear?  The question has created considerable controversy across social media, with a majority of women apparently choosing a bear over a man.

On the surface we can dismiss the thought experiment with the simple reality that women encounter men daily while most have never dealt with or seen a real bear in the wild in their entire lives.  If they did run into a bear all of them would be screaming for help from the nearest man available to protect them.

It's perhaps the dumbest feminist mind-game so far in this respect.  Life is not a Disney movie with friendly talking animals and there's a reason why men make up the vast majority of solo hunters - Female hunters don't want to go into the woods by themselves because they know predators like bears represent great potential injury or death.  

To be fair, plenty of women have laughed off the question as ridiculous and pointed out the reality that with a man there's a good chance they will be helped out of the woods.  With a bear there's no chance.  But this hasn't stopped feminists from pretending as if the pro-bear response represents some kind of revelation about men and masculinity. 

The issue has also revealed once again that math is the kryptonite of woke activists and critical thinking is their enemy.  

Citing the predominance of men in crime stats, feminists argue that it's far more likely for a man to harm a woman than a bear to harm a woman.  In fact, bear encounters are far more rare than encounters with men, and the percentage of men that commit violent crimes is tiny compared to the total male population in western countries.

By feminist logic, men are also actually safer with bears than with women.  In 2021, 1,078 men were killed by women in the U.S. There have only been 180 fatal human/bear conflicts in North America since 1784.  Again, this is about proximity.

In 2019, there were 283,467 violent crimes committed by men in the US, out of 161 million men.  That's around 0.1% of the male population.  The chances of a woman running into a violent man in the woods in this fantasy scenario is negligible.  Feelings are being elevated over facts. 

Most feminist narratives lean heavily on the fear dynamic.  If women feel afraid of men then men and society must take them seriously and assuage those fears; the fears fabricated in women's minds are suddenly everyone's problem.  In the past society used to laugh off female melodrama as an unfortunate bi-product of their nature; how can society fix a problem that doesn't exist in the tangible world?  But as the male commentator in the first video argues, it doesn't matter if women are actually in danger from men, it only matters that they believe they are in danger.

But who created that fear in women?  Was it men?  Or, was it feminist propaganda?  The numbers suggest feminism has rotted women's minds with fear.   

This year, 22 states are raising their minimum wage, impacting almost 10 million workers across the country.

Many states raise the minimum wage each year to adjust to a cost of living index, while others have raised the pay floor for delivery drivers and fast-food workers. Today, the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25, a rate that has remained the same for 15 years.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the states with the highest minimum wage in America, based on data from Bloomberg Law.

The Highest Minimum Wages, by State

Here are the states with the highest minimum wage as of January 1, 2024:

1 District of Columbia: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation

2 New Jersey: Seasonal/small employer with five employees or less= $13.90, agricultural employers= $12.81, long term care facility direct care staff= $18.13

3 New York: New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties= $16.00

4 Oregon: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation. Nonurban counties= $13.20, Portland metro= $15.45

The District of Columbia has the highest minimum wage in the country, at $17 an hour.

Next in line is Washington state, where the minimum wage was raised to $16.28 an hour at the start of the year, up from $15.74. Both jurisdictions tie their minimum wage increases to inflation, along with several of the states on this list such as New York, Colorado, and Arizona.

With the largest planned increase nationally, Hawaii is raising its minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2028. Currently, the minimum wage stands at $14 an hour in the Aloha State.

As we can see, many of the top states have minimum wages that are more than double the federal minimum wage, which has declined in real value for many years. For context, the real value of the federal minimum wage hit a peak in 1970, where it would be worth $12.61 today.

California’s New Fast-Food Wage Hike

Fast-food workers in California recently received a pay bump after a new law raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, $4 more than the state’s minimum wage.

In response, Pizza Hut announced it was laying off over 1,200 delivery drivers, while McDonalds said that it would increase prices in California due to higher wage costs. Other chain operators are reducing hours, while El Pollo Loco plans to automate part of how it makes salsa.

Affecting half a million workers at 33,000 restaurants, the law applies to chains with 60 or more locations across the country, making it the highest minimum wage in America.