Preparing for the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)

Scenario Earthquakes for Urban Areas Along the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States
NYCEM

The Sixth Seal: NY City DestroyedIf today a magnitude 6 earthquake were to occur centered on New York City, what would its effects be? Will the loss be 10 or 100 billion dollars? Will there be 10 or 10,000 fatalities? Will there be 1,000 or 100,000 homeless needing shelter? Can government function, provide assistance, and maintain order?

At this time, no satisfactory answers to these questions are available. A few years ago, rudimentary scenario studies were made for Boston and New York with limited scope and uncertain results. For most eastern cities, including Washington D.C., we know even less about the economic, societal and political impacts from significant earthquakes, whatever their rate of occurrence.

Why do we know so little about such vital public issues? Because the public has been lulled into believing that seriously damaging quakes are so unlikely in the east that in essence we do not need to consider them. We shall examine the validity of this widely held opinion.

Is the public’s earthquake awareness (or lack thereof) controlled by perceived low Seismicity, SeismicHazard, or SeismicRisk? How do these three seismic features differ from, and relate to each other? In many portions of California, earthquake awareness is refreshed in a major way about once every decade (and in some places even more often) by virtually every person experiencing a damaging event. The occurrence of earthquakes of given magnitudes in time and space, not withstanding their effects, are the manifestations of seismicity. Ground shaking, faulting, landslides or soil liquefaction are the manifestations of seismic hazard. Damage to structures, and loss of life, limb, material assets, business and services are the manifestations of seismic risk. By sheer experience, California’s public understands fairly well these three interconnected manifestations of the earthquake phenomenon. This awareness is reflected in public policy, enforcement of seismic regulations, and preparedness in both the public and private sector. In the eastern U.S., the public and its decision makers generally do not understand them because of inexperience. Judging seismic risk by rates of seismicity alone (which are low in the east but high in the west) has undoubtedly contributed to the public’s tendency to belittle the seismic loss potential for eastern urban regions.

Let us compare two hypothetical locations, one in California and one in New York City. Assume the location in California does experience, on average, one M = 6 every 10 years, compared to New York once every 1,000 years. This implies a ratio of rates of seismicity of 100:1. Does that mean the ratio of expected losses (when annualized per year) is also 100:1? Most likely not. That ratio may be closer to 10:1, which seems to imply that taking our clues from seismicity alone may lead to an underestimation of the potential seismic risks in the east. Why should this be so?

To check the assertion, let us make a back-of-the-envelope estimate. The expected seismic risk for a given area is defined as the area-integrated product of: seismic hazard (expected shaking level), assets ($ and people), and the assets’ vulnerabilities (that is, their expected fractional loss given a certain hazard – say, shaking level). Thus, if we have a 100 times lower seismicity rate in New York compared to California, which at any given point from a given quake may yield a 2 times higher shaking level in New York compared to California because ground motions in the east are known to differ from those in the west; and if we have a 2 times higher asset density (a modest assumption for Manhattan!), and a 2 times higher vulnerability (again a modest assumption when considering the large stock of unreinforced masonry buildings and aged infrastructure in New York), then our California/New York ratio for annualized loss potential may be on the order of (100/(2x2x2)):1. That implies about a 12:1 risk ratio between the California and New York location, compared to a 100:1 ratio in seismicity rates.

From this example it appears that seismic awareness in the east may be more controlled by the rate of seismicity than by the less well understood risk potential. This misunderstanding is one of the reasons why earthquake awareness and preparedness in the densely populated east is so disproportionally low relative to its seismic loss potential. Rare but potentially catastrophic losses in the east compete in attention with more frequent moderate losses in the west. New York City is the paramount example of a low-probability, high-impact seismic risk, the sort of risk that is hard to insure against, or mobilize public action to reduce the risks.

There are basically two ways to respond. One is to do little and wait until one or more disastrous events occur. Then react to these – albeit disastrous – “windows of opportunity.” That is, pay after the unmitigated facts, rather than attempt to control their outcome. This is a high-stakes approach, considering the evolved state of the economy. The other approach is to invest in mitigation ahead of time, and use scientific knowledge and inference, education, technology transfer, and combine it with a mixture of regulatory and/or economic incentives to implement earthquake preparedness. The National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) has attempted the latter while much of the public tends to cling to the former of the two options. Realistic and reliable quantitative loss estimation techniques are essential to evaluate the relative merits of the two approaches.

The current efforts in the eastern U.S., including New York City, to start the enforcement of seismic building codes for new constructions are important first steps in the right direction. Similarly, the emerging efforts to include seismic rehabilitation strategies in the generally needed overhaul of the cities’ aged infrastructures such as bridges, water, sewer, power and transportation is commendable and needs to be pursued with diligence and persistence. But at the current pace of new construction replacing older buildings and lifelines, it will take many decades or a century before a major fraction of the stock of built assets will become seismically more resilient than the current inventory is. For some time, this leaves society exposed to very high seismic risks. The only consolation is that seismicity on average is low, and, hence with some luck, the earthquakes will not outpace any ongoing efforts to make eastern cities more earthquake resilient gradually. Nevertheless, M = 5 to M = 6 earthquakes at distances of tens of km must be considered a credible risk at almost any time for cities like Boston, New York or Philadelphia. M = 7 events, while possible, are much less likely; and in many respects, even if building codes will have affected the resilience of a future improved building stock, M = 7 events would cause virtually unmanageable situations. Given these bleak prospects, it will be necessary to focus on crucial elements such as maintaining access to cities by strengthening critical bridges, improving the structural and nonstructural performance of hospitals, and having a nationally supported plan how to assist a devastated region in case of a truly severe earthquake. No realistic and coordinated planning of this sort exists at this time for most eastern cities.

The current efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) via the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) to provide a standard methodology (RMS, 1994) and planning tools for making systematic, computerized loss estimates for annualized probabilistic calculations as well as for individual scenario events, is commendable. But these new tools provide only a shell with little regional data content. What is needed are the detailed data bases on inventory of buildings and lifelines with their locally specific seismic fragility properties.Similar data are needed for hospitals, shelters, firehouses, police stations and other emergency service providers. Moreover, the soil and rock conditions which control the shaking and soil liquefaction properties for any given event, need to be systematically compiled into Geographical Information System (GIS) data bases so they can be combined with the inventory of built assets for quantitative loss and impact estimates. Even under the best of conceivable funding conditions, it will take years before such data bases can be established so they will be sufficiently reliable and detailed to perform realistic and credible loss scenarios. Without such planning tools, society will remain in the dark as to what it may encounter from a future major eastern earthquake. Given these uncertainties, and despite them, both the public and private sector must develop at least some basic concepts for contingency plans. For instance, the New York City financial service industry, from banks to the stock and bond markets and beyond, ought to consider operational contingency planning, first in terms of strengthening their operational facilities, but also for temporary backup operations until operations in the designated facilities can return to some measure of normalcy. The Federal Reserve in its oversight function for this industry needs to take a hard look at this situation.

A society, whose economy depends increasingly so crucially on rapid exchange of vast quantities of information must become concerned with strengthening its communication facilities together with the facilities into which the information is channeled. In principle, the availability of satellite communication (especially if self-powered) with direct up and down links, provides here an opportunity that is potentially a great advantage over distributed buried networks. Distributed networks for transportation, power, gas, water, sewer and cabled communication will be expensive to harden (or restore after an event).

In all future instances of major capital spending on buildings and urban infrastructures, the incorporation of seismically resilient design principles at all stages of realization will be the most effective way to reduce society’s exposure to high seismic risks. To achieve this, all levels of government need to utilize legislative and regulatory options; insurance industries need to build economic incentives for seismic safety features into their insurance policy offerings; and the private sector, through trade and professional organizations’ planning efforts, needs to develop a healthy self-protective stand. Also, the insurance industry needs to invest more aggressively into broadly based research activities with the objective to quantify the seismic hazards, the exposed assets and their seismic fragilities much more accurately than currently possible. Only together these combined measures may first help to quantify and then reduce our currently untenably large seismic risk exposures in the virtually unprepared eastern cities. Given the low-probability/high-impact situation in this part of the country, seismic safety planning needs to be woven into both the regular capital spending and daily operational procedures. Without it we must be prepared to see little progress. Unless we succeed to build seismic safety considerations into everyday decision making as a normal procedure of doing business, society will lose the race against the unstoppable forces of nature. While we never can entirely win this race, we can succeed in converting unmitigated catastrophes into manageable disasters, or better, tolerable natural events.

We are at the brink of nuclear war: Revelation 16

Nuclear nightmare: reckless leaders are pushing the world back to the brink

It’s not just Putin or the refusal of the major powers to disarm. Unstable regimes in Israel and North Korea are also raising global nuclear tensions

Sun 19 Mar 2023 02.00 EDT

Leaders of unstable nuclear-armed states do dangerous and foolish things when under stress. They miscalculate, provoke, overreach. Given the febrile state of bilateral relations, last week’s aerial military clash between Russia and the US over the Black Sea inevitably intensified fears of nuclear escalation. The incident dramatised how dangerous Vladimir Putin, cornered by his existential Ukraine blunder, truly is – and the risks he is increasingly prepared to run. But he’s not the only one.

As often the case over the past year, Putin relied on American restraint. US forces could easily have gone after the offending Su-27 fighter at its Crimea base. Each time Russia’s president darkly hints at going nuclear, that once unthinkable prospect becomes a little less outlandish – and western leaders must steel their nerves. Russia’s repeated bombing of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant fits this pattern of minacious brinkmanship.

Russia possesses about 1,600 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, out of a military stockpile of about 4,500. Like the US and other nuclear weapons states, it is modernising and adding new systems. At the same time, a vital safety net of arms control treaties dating from the Soviet era is shredding. Last month, Putin ditched New Start, which caps deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. It was Russia’s last such treaty with the US.

In other words, at the very moment when the Kremlin is under unprecedented pressure and US-Russia relations are at their most tense since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the political channels, agreed mechanisms and binding limits that could help avoid a nuclear collision are less robust and dependable than ever before. While the risk of unintended nuclear confrontation is ever-present,Putin’s recklessness makes it infinitely worse.

Israel is another nuclear-armed state under extreme stress, mostly due to its volatile rightwing prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu’s perceived attempt to avoid jail by destroying judicial independence, and with it Israel’s democracy, has caused uproar. Significantly, his “coup” is under fire from serving members of the military and former defence ministers as well as much of civil society.

If this destabilising nationwide upheaval were taking place in Pakistan, for example, loud international expressions of concern about the security of its secretive nuclear arsenal would be heard. So the comparative silence over the safety and control of Israel’s 90 or so undeclared warheads is disturbing. Amid an extraordinary standoff between Netanyahu and US president Joe Biden, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, fears civil war. “The abyss is within touching distance,” he said last week.

There is good reason to worry about what Netanyahu may do, Putin-like, to escape his self-made troubles. He has threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities in the past. Israeli media suggest he may now be planning an attack. Netanyahu warned this month of a “horrible nuclear war” unless Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme was halted. Would he start a Middle East conflict to save his skin? Past experience suggests he might.

If the US and its allies were not so distracted by Ukraine, they might pay more attention to Netanyahu’s antics. Much the same may be said of the developing crisis in nuclear-armed North Korea, where inherent weakness is compounded by looming famine. New doubts surround dictator Kim Jong-un’s health and a problematic succession. Stirring the pot, China and Russia back him against the west despite the danger he poses.

Kim spent last week firing off nuclear-capable ballistic missiles like there’s no tomorrow – and there may not be if he carries on like this. Analysts anticipate another underground atomic test. Kimregularly threatens the US – and South Korea and Japan, which met last week to ponder what to do. Earlier this month he ordered his military to prepare for “real war”. Is Kim waving or drowning, seeking attention or waxing desperate? Ignoring North Korea, which is unspoken western policy, stores up trouble.

It’s difficult to tell from his lugubrious appearance but Xi Jinping, China’s newly anointed president for life, is a leader under severe pressure, too. His zero-Covid policy damaged a struggling economy and sparked something close to popular revolt. His aggressive foreign policy, debt diplomacy and rights abuses have produced a global anti-China backlash. By vowing to conquer US-backed Taiwancome what may, Xi has created another rod for his back.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which CIA director William Burns predicts may happen by 2027, is a probable nuclear flashpoint – especially if it goes badly for Xi. It’s estimated China has about 400 operational nuclear warheads, rising to approximately 1,000 by 2030. American nuclear-armed ships, submarines and bombers constantly patrol the western Pacific.

For his part, Xi can point to continuing US and UK nuclear weapons modernisation, and to last week’s deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. China complained at the UN that the deal breached the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by transferring fissile material and nuclear technology to a non-nuclear weapons state.

In an arrogant riposte, the US claimed it would actually strengthen non-proliferation efforts – without explaining how. Iran and others will register this double standard.

The longstanding refusal of the main powers to disarm is the root cause of rising nuclear tensions – but irresponsible present-day political leaders greatly exacerbate the danger. “The United States and its allies … are faced with a choice,” wrote Lt Col Brent Stricker of the US Naval War College in a bleak assessment of the changing nuclear world order. They could either “restart arms limitation discussions to include both Russia and China, or restart the arms race”.

The former course is wildly improbable at this juncture. So the old cold war-era nuclear helter-skelter ride towards mutually assured destruction looks set to resume and accelerate – under new, stressed-out management. Assuming no one presses the button first.Kim is firing off nuclear-capable ballistic missiles like there’s no tomorrow – and there may not be if he carries on like this

Who is the Antichrist who ordered protesters to breach Iraqi parliament?

Explained: Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, cleric who ordered protesters to breach Iraqi parliament?

An Iraqi Shia scholar, militia leader and the founder of the most powerful political faction in the country right now, Muqtada al-Sadr rose to prominence after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein government.

Explained Desk

The Iraqi parliament Wednesday was stormed by hundreds of protesters chanting anti-Iranian slogans. The demonstration was against the announcement of the prime ministerial nominee, Mohammed al-Sudani, selected by the Coordination Framework bloc, a coalition led by Iran-backed Shiite parties and their allies.

The majority of the protesters, who breached Baghdad’s Parliament, were followers of influential populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr, a shia himself, is fighting against former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s plans to reinstate his Iran-affiliated leaders at the elite posts in the government.Supporters of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protest against corruption inside the parliament building in Baghdad, Iraq July 27, 2022. (Reuters Photo: Thaier Al-Sudani)

So, who is Muqtada al-Sadr, the founder of the Sadrist movement and the master of mass mobilisation in the current Iraqi political system?

Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadrist movement

An Iraqi Shia scholar, militia leader and the founder of the most powerful political faction in the country right now, Muqtada al-Sadr rose to prominence after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein government.

In the recent incident, after his followers occupied parliament, al-Sadr put out a statement on Twitter telling them their message had been received, and “to return safely to your homes”. After which, the protesters began to move out of the Parliament building with the help of security forces. His ability to mobilise and control his large grassroot followers gives him a strong advantage over his political rivals.

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Back in 2016, in a similar manner, al-Sadr’s followers stormed the Green Zone and entered the country’s Parliament building demanding political reform. The US worries Iranian dominance in the country because its influence can alienate the Sunni communities. Although al-Sadr right now looks like the only viable option to have in power in Iraq for the US, back in the day, he was enemy number one after the fall of Saddam.

Back in 2004, The Guardian quoted Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez saying, “The mission of US forces is to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr.” The Sadrist and the affiliated militia (Mahdi army) started a resistance against the US troops following the country’s invasion in 2003. These militias under al-Sadr are now called the “peace companies”.

However, the growing influence of al-Sadr could cause problems for both the US and Iran. He has demanded for the departure of the remaining American troops and has told the Iranian theocracy that he will “not let his country go in its grip”.

The Sadrist movement, which is at its strongest right now in Iraq, was founded by al-Sadr. A nationalist movement by origin, the Sadrist draws support from the poor people of the Shiite community across the country.

News agency Reuters in a report claimed that over the past two years, members of the Sadrist Movement have taken senior jobs within the interior, defence and communications ministries. They have had their picks appointed to state oil, electricity and transport bodies, to state-owned banks and even to Iraq’s central bank, according to more than a dozen government officials and lawmakers.

Iraq’s political turmoil

Iraq has been unable to form a new government nearly 10 months after the last elections, this is the longest period the political order has been in tatters since the US invasion. The deadlock at the centre of Iraqi politics is largely driven by personal vendettas of elites. The storming of the Parliament Wednesday was just a message to al-Sadr’s opponents that he cannot be ignored while trying to form a new government.

The fight, majorly between the Shia leaders al-Sadr and al-Maliki, is due to the nationalist agenda. Al-Sadr, challenges Iranians authority over Iraq while the former PM derives great help from the country.

Having great religious influence, al-Sadr’s alliance won the most seats in October’s Parliamentary election, but political parties failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pick a president. After the negotiations to form the new government fell apart, al-Sadr withdrew his bloc from Parliament and announced he was exiting further talks. Expectations of street protests have prevailed in Baghdad since he quit the talks.Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans during an open-air Friday prayers in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, July 15, 2022. (AP/PTI Photo)

On the other hand, Al-Maliki, al-Sadr’s arch rival heads the Coordination Framework alliance, a group led by Shiite Iran-backed parties. With al-Sadr’s withdrawal, the Framework replaced his resigned MPs from the Iraqi Parliament. Although the move was within the law, it was also provocative, and provided the Framework with the majority needed in Parliament.

Iraq’s former labour and social affairs minister, Mohammed al-Sudani’s announcement as the PM nominee, is seen by al-Sadr loyalists as a figure through whom al-Maliki can exert control. The former PM Al-Maliki wanted the premiership for himself, but audio recordings were leaked in which he purportedly was heard cursing and criticising al-Sadr and even his own Shiite allies.

At the moment, neither the al-Sadr nor the al-Maliki factions can afford to be cut-off from the political process, because both have much to lose. Both the rivals have civil servants installed in Iraq’s institutions, deployed to do their bidding when circumstances require by halting decision-making and creating bureaucratic obstructions.

Iran’s role

The Islamic Republic of Iran shares a 1,599 km-long border with Iraq, which provides the former with a clear added advantage over the war-torn country. After the fall of Hussein, the border helped Iran to send militias to take power and resist the US forces, as the result right now, the country’s top ruling elite are Shiites, fighting among themselves for power.

Iran currently is trying to work behind the scenes, just like Lebanon, to stitch together a fragmented Shiite Muslim elite. The nomination of al-Sudani is evidence of Iranian efforts to bring together the Shiite parties in the alliance. However, the electoral failure of the Iranian-backed parties in the recent elections has marked a dramatic turnaround.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Esmail Ghaani, commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, has made numerous trips to Baghdad in recent months. The Quds Force is a part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Working on the already established network of his predecessor, Qasem Soleimani, Ghanni is trying to help the parties in Iraq to stay united and agree on a PM candidate.

Earthquakes and Birth Pains Continue: Matthew 24

At least 16 dead after magnitude 6.8 earthquake shakes Ecuador

Estimated 381 people injured in quake, officials say

At least 16 people died after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck southern Ecuador on Saturday afternoon, according to government officials.

The earthquake struck near the southern town of Baláo and was more than 65 km (nearly 41 miles) deep, according to the United States Geological Survey, CNN reported.

An estimated 381 people were injured in the quake, the General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency of Ecuador tweeted on their official account.

In the province of El Oro, at least 11 people died. At least one other death was reported in the province of Azuay, according to the communications department for Ecuador’s president. In an earlier statement, authorities said the person in Azuay was killed when a wall collapsed onto a car and that at least three of the victims in El Oro died when a security camera tower came down.

People who were injured were being treated at hospitals, the Presidency added, but did not provide further details.

The USGS gave the tremor an “orange alert,” saying “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread.”

“Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response,” the USGS added. It also estimated damage and economic losses were possible.

Relatives of a CNN producer in the western port city of Guayaquil said they felt “very strong” tremors.

CNN afiliate Ecuavisa reported structural damage to buildings in Cuenca, one of the country’s biggest cities. The historic city is in the UN list of world heritage sites.

There is no tsunami warning in effect for the area, according to the US National Weather Service.

The airports of Guayaquil and Cuenca remained open and operational, the country’s statement said.

(The-CNN-Wire & 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.)

Man’s Fruit Continues to Fail

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse will not be a one-off – a banking crisis was long overdue

Sun 19 Mar 2023 09.47 EDT

It has been a year since the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates and banks are starting to fall over in the US. Anybody who thinks Silicon Valley Bank was a one-off is deluding themselves. Financial crises have occurred on average once a decade over the past half century so the one unfolding now is if anything overdue.

The reckoning has been delayed because since 2008 banks have been operating in a world of ultra-low interest rates and periodic injections of electronic cash from central banks. Originally seen as a temporary expedient in the highly stressed conditions after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, cheap and plentiful money became a constant prop for the markets.

Over the years, there was debate about what would happen were central banks to raise interest rates and to suck the money they had created out of the financial system. Now we know.

The action deemed necessary to rein in inflation has deflated housing bubbles, sent share prices plunging and left banks nursing big losses on their holdings of government bonds.

The Bank of England was quicker out of the blocks than the Fed. Threadneedle Street began raising rates in December 2021 and has now raised them 10 times in a row. The European Central Bank waited until July last year before making the decision to increase borrowing costs for the first time in a decade, and went ahead with an increase last week despite news that the banking malaise had spread across the Atlantic to Credit Suisse.Credit Suisse: Bank of England won’t object to takeover as UBS considers $1bn bid

Ignore the fact that the US, UK and eurozone economies have all held up better than was expected in the immediate aftermath of the energy price shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It takes time for changes in monetary policy – the decisions central banks make on interest rates and bond-buying or selling – to have an impact.

As Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research pointed out last week there are three classic signs that a recession is coming in the US: a downturn in the housing market, bank failures, and rising unemployment. Housebuilding is down by 20% in the past year, which means the first has already happened. The problems at SVB and other US regional banks suggest the second condition is now being met. The third harbinger of a US recession is a rise in the US unemployment rate of 0.5 percentage points. So far it is up by 0.2 points.

“Banks tend to fail just before recessions begin,” Joshi says. “Ahead of the recession that began in December 2007, no US bank failed in 2005 or 2006. The first three bank failures happened in February, September, and October of 2007, just before the recession onset.

“Fast forward, and no US bank failed in 2021 or 2022. The first bank failures of this cycle – Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank – have just happened. If history is any guide, the start of bank failures presages an economic recession that is more imminent than many people anticipate.”

The Fed and the Bank of England meet to make interest-rate decisions this week and the financial markets think that in both cases the choice is between no change and a 0.25 point increase. Frankly, it should be a no-brainer. Given the lags involved, even a cut in interest rates would be too late to prevent output from falling in the coming months, but against a backdrop of falling inflation, plunging global commodity prices and evidence of mounting financial distress any further tightening of policy would be foolish.

Central banks seem to think there is no problem in achieving price stability while maintaining financial stability. Good luck with that. The Fed, the ECB and the Bank of England have tightened policy aggressively and things are starting to break.

It wasn’t always thus. There was a marked absence of banking crises in the 25 years after the second world war, a period when banks were much more tightly regulated than they are today, and played a more peripheral economic role. Reforms put in place after the Great Depression, including capital controls and the US separation of retail and investment banking were designed to ensure governments could pursue their economic objectives without fear that they would be blown off course by runs on their currencies or turmoil in the markets.

Over the past 50 years, the financial sector has been liberalised and grown much bigger. Regulation and supervision has been tightened since the global financial crisis but with only limited effect. SVB was supposed to be a small bank that could operate with less stringent regulation than a bank deemed to be “systemically important”. Yet when it came to the crunch, all the depositors of SVB were protected, making the distinction between a systemic and non-systemic bank somewhat academic. The financial system as a whole is both inherently fragile and too big to fail.

There is not the remotest possibility of a return to the curbs on banks that were in place during the 1950s and 1960s. Desirable though that would be, there is no political appetite for taking on an immensely powerful financial sector. But that, as has become evident in the past 15 years, has its costs.

One is that economies dominated by the financial sector only really deliver for the better off: the owners of property and shares. A second is that the financial markets have become hooked on the stimulus that has been provided by central banks. A third is that the crises endemic to the system become much more likely when – as now – that stimulus is removed. Which means that eventually more stimulus will be provided, the markets will boom, and the seeds of the next crash will be sown.

Hamas supports escalating resistance outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Sharm El-Sheikh summit: Hamas supports escalating resistance against occupation

March 18, 2023 at 11:09 am | Published in: Asia & Americas, Israel, Middle East, News, Palestine, US

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas announced on Friday that it advocates escalating resistance against the Israeli occupation, which has intensified its crimes against Palestinians, Al-Resalah newspaper reported.

This came in press remarks delivered by senior Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouq, who stressed that the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting plans to rein in Palestinian resistance.

Regarding European and US efforts to de-escalate Israeli violations against Palestinians, Abu Marzouq criticised: “The Europeans do not take practical measures to pressure the Israeli occupation to stop its crimes.”

He commented on the security coordination between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli occupation: “The security coordination is based on passing information about the Palestinian resistance to the occupation. The Palestinian Authority should know that coordination with the Palestinians is more important than security coordination with the Israeli occupation.”

Abu Marzouq indicated that his movement supports hunger striker Khader Adnan, who has been under illegal administrative detention inside Israeli jails.

Regarding his visit to Moscow, Abu Marzouq said the two sides discussed the latest developments concerning Palestine and the Israeli occupation forces, as well as the escalating crimes of colonial settlers in the occupied West Bank under the cover of the extremist Israeli government.

Russia is Helping the Chinese Nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

Russia is helping China speed up its nuclear buildup. The US is unprepared to counter it

By 

Patty-Jane Geller

& Jack Kraemer

March 17, 2023 01:24 PM

Policymakers are increasingly concerned about evidence of increasing cooperation between the United States’ two greatest adversaries, Russia and China.

While recent discussion has focused on China providing Russia with lethal aid to support its aggression in Ukraine, a potentially more dangerous element to this budding relationship has just come into public view: Russian support for China’s nuclear buildup.

China is pursuing a significant nuclear expansion as part of its strategy to supplant the U.S. as the leading global power. It recently surpassed the United States in its number of long-range missile launchers, it has tested new and novel nuclear technologies , and it is now projected to possess at least as many nuclear weapons as the U.S. does by 2035 , if not sooner.

Central to this nuclear buildup is China’s need for nuclear material; namely, plutonium. Historically , China operated two nuclear power plants capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. The two plants were shut down in 1984 and 1989, respectively, leaving China with only a limited stockpile of plutonium. But at that time, China still maintained its historic posture of “minimum deterrence,” possessing just a very limited arsenal of nuclear weapons.

With its newfound nuclear ambitions, China must remedy its limited access to plutonium. As part of the effort, China has been constructing new fast-breeder reactors called the CFR-600. While China claims these reactors serve civilian purposes, they are also equally capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium .

Compared with a typical nuclear reactor that utilizes the energy from nuclear fission to power a generator or create electricity, a fast-breeder reactor can be designed to maximize the output of plutonium from the fission reactions. For that reason, these reactors are useful for nuclear weapons programs.

That’s where Russia enters the picture. Recent reports reveal that Russia, through its state-owned nuclear corporation, Rosatom, has been providing fuel for China’s new fast-breeder reactors. China is thought to have already purchased more than 25,000 kilograms (55,000 pounds) of fuel for a price of $384 million since shipments from Russia began arriving in September .

Nuclear collaboration between Russia and China is not entirely new. It dates back to the 1950s, when the Soviet Union provided materials and technical assistance to China’s fledging nuclear program. While tensions developed between the two states for much of the rest of the Cold War, causing nuclear aid to stop, they resumed cooperation in the 21^st century.

This time, the implications of Russia’s aid to China’s plutonium reactors are quite significant. For starters, it proves that when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, they really meant it.

Perhaps worse, this development means that the more fuel Russia provides, the more plutonium China can produce. And the more plutonium China can produce, the more nuclear weapons it can build.

China is already on track to multiply the size of its stockpile over the next several years, and it’s moving faster than the U.S. had expected. In 2020, the Pentagon predicted China would double its stockpile by the end of the decade, but by the end of 2022 , it had already done so. With Russian help, China might be able to accelerate this buildup even further.

Given the state of geopolitics, any advancing relationship between Russia, a country with significant nuclear experience and an abundance of nuclear material, and China, an aspiring nuclear superpower with money to spend, comes with great risk.

Meanwhile, as Russia supports China’s efforts to crank out more nuclear weapons, the United States has no similar capability to produce the cores of weapons-grade plutonium needed for new nuclear weapons, called plutonium pits . In fact, the U.S. is the only nuclear weapons state without this capability.

The U.S. Energy Department is pursuing a project to ultimately be able to produce 80 of these plutonium pits per year, but it has been delayed, and will not be complete until after 2030. And even then, at first it will produce enough pits only to replace current aging warheads, rather than expand the inventory. To avoid falling behind China, the U.S. needs to significantly progress on this program.

Whether the United States is prepared to admit it or not, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it will need to compete in the nuclear arena to prevent China from surging ahead and gaining nuclear advantages. Combined with the threats posed by a recalcitrant Russia , the U.S. needs to strengthen its nuclear deterrent to ensure it retains a strategic edge against these increasingly hostile adversaries.