#i am Tired of america and their impact on global politics

[lemoncupcake]

i'm tired of how drunk on their own koolaid americans are

[dapper-comedy]

the world is just getting worse

[therandomfandomme]

"Sometimes I really hate Americans"

that is the post I wanted to make yesterday in the middle of the night, but that is not true. I don't hate Americans, I do not know many of them, but you seem okay and I have nothing against you.

It's just that I'm tired.

I'm tired of the us-centric view the internet holds and how it sometimes seems that the USA forgets the rest of the world exists or is not also the USA but then in a different spot.

While the USA has made itself important, the world isn't all centered around it. You're problems might not be my problems and my problems might not be yours.

I know that as I make this post, I make it from a place of privilege.

I am not black, nor islamic, nor jewish, nor Roma, nor disabled. I live in West Europe, my parents are middle class and they are fully supportive of my queerness.

So I cannot make appeals on their part and I know their struggles are global, so in the USA as well as in Europe and the rest of the world we need activism for them, and I'm not trying to undermine them.

I'm also not saying that none of the USA's problems are relevant here, but I am saying that the USA's problems are more advertised everywhere. Like how I know so much about Stone Wall and hardly anything about how I got my rights, to the point that Pride overtakes those voices that fought for me.

In the years 2016-2020 I saw the US president more than my own prime minister, even in the pandamic. I know more about USA politics than those in my own country and I can argue more for changes in America than here.

And it is good that those problems are being talked about. I love learning about what I can do to help and it's good to educate yourself. It's just that American activism isn't something each country can import.

I know that if I make an awareness post for an American issue it will get more attention than if I post about the leader of our growing fascist party comparing his racists and homophobic texts with saying you dislike snow while you actually like snow.

I know that it's harder to start up conversations about the prejudice in west Europe about eastern Europe even though the word slave most likely comes from Slav due to the amount of slaves captured from there during the Carolingian era. And the cold war had a massive impact on the relationship between the two sides, not just between Russia and America.

I know the Wall was a big thing and what's happening on the border betweenthe USA and Mexico is terrible, but I see post that romanticise European borders, completely ignoring how Europe is trying to keep out so many people who are fleeing from wars we contributed to.

I know that smaller issues in America get more attention than bigger issues elsewhere, a gap that is more apparent when it's not an European country.

That's just how it is.

But that's not how it should be.

This post is not made for you to feel guilty, you are watching out for yourselves in an environment catered to you.

However, this post is meant as a call to every American. A call to ask yourself: am I as educated about the issues of other countries as I expect them to be of mine? Do I assume people are American? Will I be less invested in the issues when they're not American?

It's not your fault for your mindset, but I have had so much stress over American politics on top of my worries about my own country and I would like Americans to realize that their issues get highlighted more than others.

We don't make Americans are dumb jokes because we think that, but just because your mistakes get the most attention.

Just be kind and look to help others, I think that's what I want to motto of this post to be. Be kind and advocate for everyone, everywhere

TL;DR: The internet is an us-centric place and that can be kind of annoying when not American. Try to think of your non-American neighbors on this platform and learn about their issues too :D

[dyns33]

Sorry, this post will be a little, a lot, political. I don't really like to do it, but yesterday I had a panic attack in my bed when I realized the election was approaching.

I remembered what happened four years ago. I had fallen asleep peacefully, convinced that there would be a woman in the White House for the first time in History. And when I woke up my mom came to my room looking tired, she just sadly said 'they did it' and I understood. I spent hours crying in front of the TV because I couldn't believe it was possible. I was scared. I was angry when I saw the numbers, when I saw that the majority of Americans had not voted for him, but that the electoral system had allowed him to win.

This year I am very scared. There are only a few days left to vote, and I know a lot of Americans have already done it, but if not, please go and vote. It's not a Republican or Democrat question. We can agree to disagree, I see good things and bad things in both parts. I would have preferred Bernie personally, but Joe is still better than this man.

This man who lied for four years. He cheated, he insulted, threatened, harassed. He is responsible for thousands of deaths,in his own country only. He wants to stay because of all the court cases that lie ahead. He does not care about the fate of his fellow citizens. If all the people he hurt were voting against him, he wouldn’t have a single chance. I'm not asking you to vote for Joe, I'm asking you to not vote for him, even though I know you're scared and want a change. He won't make a change. He will cause even more damage because he will feel invincible.

I am not an American, but I am concerned about this election. The whole world is looking at America right now, holding its breath. It's going to have a global impact. Again, Democrats or Republicans, we don't care. We respect your beliefs. But you can't believe or want this man. He's the problem. 

It’s not too late. Please think, then vote, for the good of your country and the good of the world.

[srwestvikwrites]

Privilege is the Haven of Thorns

I wrote this post the week George Floyd was murdered. I was angry, and tired, and confused, and increasingly more apprehensive in my capacity as a person and as a writer as I was drawn in to the immense whirlpool of the zeitgeist gripping the internet and society. 

It was such a complicated and emotional time. I was wracked with guilt at not going to the BLM protest in Madrid because we had just opened up into Phase 2 of the desescalada and I was scared of COVID. I was furious at the denial of individuals in my home country of Singapore who refused to believe that just because our race riots were in 1964 and not 2020 that it meant we had no more issues of systemic discrimination or privilege to challenge. I was exasperated and uneasy and inspired at having been drawn into a massive shitshow about race that rocked the Tolkien fandom within the same timeframe.

All of this made me question my place and my purpose as an author writing a story like Haven of Thorns. It doesn’t dwell on these issues, but it draws on them, in the same way that my life doesn’t linger on the colonisation of my home country or the country of my ancestors (India) and yet is irrevocably shaped by this history. 

Haven of Thorns was always going to be a story taking place in the strange rivers of colonial legacy. It is a story of drowned histories and ghosts that reside in the very stones of a city and demons that linger inside people who were happy enough to let them back in. All of it is pushed along by the current of time, where history is not stagnant but forces change. It is about war, and it is about subtle discrimination, and it is about what we choose to do when we’re so hung up on our independence story that we refuse to acknowledge the rot in our roots.

I’m reproducing the post as I wrote it all those weeks ago, even though there are better ways I could have expressed my thoughts, and indeed some of these thoughts have new nuances now as I have drafted pivotal scenes in the story. There are other things I’d rather have focused on. The haven of thorns is more than mere privilege now. And perhaps one day I’ll expand on that.

But for now, this is a historical record of what I was thinking as it was all going down and I was trying to decide what sort of story I wanted to tell in the world I lived in as the person I am.

_________________________________________________

I’m not going to be coy about the metaphor anymore. This book was always going to be highly political. It has just become even more political. I cannot begin to describe how apt and how heartbreaking it is to be drafting my novel right now.

Some context should perhaps be given as to the kinds of politics that are informing this story. I began outlining the earliest iterations of Haven of Thorns at the height of the European migration crisis. While migration itself is not a main theme of the story – and where it does feature, it’s from a rather inverted historical power dynamic – the backlash against it was always present in the telling of the tale. The rise of the European right terrified me. I had never experienced open racism before until one incident when I moved to Norway in late 2015, where I was lucky enough to have an ally at the time, though I never learned her name. I have seen far too many swastikas misappropriated from their holiness to represent hatred, spraypainted on neighbourhood walls in Trondheim, London, and Madrid.

For many years, I likened racism and xenophobia and white supremacy to a contagion, even to possession (which may have been down to the title of this book I read during high school). My view on this has changed, now. For those raised into these ideas, sure, the demon metaphor may still apply. But for many, these corrupted values take root and fester because we allow them to.

The old first draft of Haven of Thorns was begun in the first week of November, 2016. I feel I have no need to elaborate on why this timing is significant. Globally, the sense of the triumph of ignorance and vitriol was palpable. Over the next few years, partially because I became more active on social media and partially because of the degree I was studying for, every day required exposure to injustices very often predicated on culture, ethnicity, language, and/or race.

Then in 2019 Singapore commemorated the bicentennial – our 200 year anniversary of being colonised. And once again I was confronted with the bizarre lack of acknowledgment of how blatantly race relations had been directed and segmented by the British, and how whatever the government line says, we have not bounced back from the wounds that gouged in our society. I interned at an NGO dealing with race relations, and it only illuminated what we’d rather cover up – the value judgements we make of people based off their skin colour, the god(s) the pray to, or the language they speak. When COVID-19 reared its head Singapore was lauded for their response, until it hit the migrant worker dormitories. That was a powder keg waiting to explode. And it is false and unjust to pretend that the conditions they are living in do not have their own origins in the petulant protests of those who unfairly profiled and characterised the workers and robbed them of better conditions, resulting in the tragedy that has taken place now.

Even climate justice and its link to ethnicity began to seep into the story, particularly during the early 2020 fires in Australia and how severely the Aboriginal peoples were affected.

As I write this post Minneapolis is up in arms, and Americans are out in the thousands across the country protesting for justice for George Floyd and the countless other black Americans who have been victims of the system and of police violence.

Growing from childhood to adulthood in the 2000s-2010s has meant growing up in a time when discussions about race, ethnicity, culture, and the legacies of our most backward perceptions and prejudiced notions have come to the forefront, both of activism and of violent action taken against others. How could I not be impacted, for example, by the horror of the massacre in Norway on 22 July? How could I not have felt the shadow of the War on Terror through the rampant Islamophobia in the media and in society?

The extent to which all these disparate ideas of politics and power and race and xenophobia and colonialism actually manifest in Haven of Thorns isn’t perhaps measurable in the amount I’ve discussed them here. But the core of this book is that the haven is privilege, and thorns are both the barrier of our ignorance and the spears upon which we sacrifice those who challenge it.  White privilege in the West. Chinese privilege in Singapore. Yes I fucking said it. To refuse to see that is privilege, in and of itself. One can feel hurt, to be associated with the violent ways these ideas manifest. Or, one can choose to acknowledge that feeling implicated by despicable acts is perhaps the spark to challenge one’s own biases.

This story is about breaking that thorn barrier and letting in the light, in all its unbridled blinding glory, to burn away the festering hatred we’ve allowed to take root in our flesh.

In the end an important theme in Haven of Thorns – perhaps the most important – is the power structures and prejudices that prevail when colonisation has ended, along with its associated forms of exploitation, and a state becomes self-governing. It’s about who remains in power, why they remain there, and what it means for those who do not have an equal share in that power. I’m not just talking about physical force. I’m talking about value judgments that disenfranchise people based on their inherent qualities. Things like language, religion, or skin colour. Having a voice and having the power to exercise and sustain what you advocate for are all very different things, and this is why these stories cannot be apolitical. A person’s life, their right to life, and their rights to liberty and equality should not be a matter of politics – and yet they are. Because politics is about power. And power is far too often exercised unjustly.

Blaming the old oppressor only works up to a point. At some stage, a country has to face what it has done and continues to do to itself, and whether they are going to choose to make collective, powerful, and perhaps jarring value changes for the sake of basic human rights and justice. After all, prejudice is learned. It can be unlearned.

While this tale focuses on the legacy of colonisation, these same principles lie behind the abuse of authority and the untended wounds of what has happened to the black community in America for centuries, itself founded upon ideas of racial superiority. The police brutality coupled with endorsement from the highest offices in the land is a horrific ugliness – but worse, is those who choose not to see it for what it is. Those who tweet #alllivesmatter. Those who say they don’t see colour. Those who question why race has to be dragged into everything. To quote Moses in Dreamworks’s The Prince of Egypt: “I did not see because I did not wish to see.” This is privilege. This is us inviting contagion into our societies and refusing to mask up and letting it kill us from the inside out. But unlike a contagion, this is discriminatory. That is the essence of it. The differential treatment is the point. If you question why people are burning and looting, why they aren’t being “peaceful”, why they don’t comply (they do – it doesn’t work, as anyone who watched the clip of the CNN reporter would know), why they are so angry – then you are in the haven of thorns. You just refuse to acknowledge it, because the only light seeping into your little puddle is filtered, screened, and you’d rather ignore the shadows cast by the thorns.

So many of the choices in Haven of Thorns hinge upon deciding whether to preserve or whether to overturn these vicious cycles of hatred. It’s so painful to see these struggles continue to be mirrored in the real world, happening to real communities at this very moment. Part of me wants to stop writing this, because I cannot begin to capture the true agony of what is happening, no matter how much I empathise. But another part of me knows that I am in a position of great privilege, and perhaps it is time I put my voice to something that truly matters. Add another line to the anthem that advocates for these deep-set value changes that we need to make on a domestic and an international scale.

In the first very first chapter of this story, the royal palace burns. It may just as well have been a police station.

[ltamerica]

Thoughts on what Stan Lee (and superheroes) contributed to the world

I know that Stan Lee’s death was some time ago by now, but I wanted to muse out loud on something I feel important, while I’m in a contemplative mood. Consider this something of my own personal eulogy for Stan Lee. I never met him obviously, but he still impacted my life and many others, in what I believe to be a positive way.

Bill Maher, a rather... jaded man, mocked the world for mourning Stan Lee on the grounds that, to paraphrase, “All he did was inspire people to watch more movies.” He also proceeded to more or less mock and degrade Superheroes as a whole, like many in the past have and many more in the future will.

Now, I doubt I really need to tell anyone here why that’s incorrect; I’d be preaching to the choir. But it was, if nothing else, food for thought. On the impact of Stan Lee’s life to the world, and the impact of the Superheroes that he used to tell his stories, give his ideas.

Many have downplayed the value of superhero stories, or demonized them, in every medium (after all, superheroes are in every medium these days). They’re disposable popcorn fantasy, mindless entertainment; they can’t express real pathos or challenging ideas, no meaningful morals or epiphanies; even worse, they’re vessels for Fascism or Objectivism, allegories for supermen who rule over the weak and mindless; they’re the “new” form of god/idol worship. They’re the oncoming Death of Western Culture, of Global Culture. And so on and so on.

But to me, that’s not what superheroes are about. At least, I don’t think that’s what they taught me, or what I think they taught other people. No one reads or watches Superman or Iron Man or Spider-Man and thinks “Eh, I shouldn’t do anything because someone else will do it for me,” or anything like that. Instead, they think “They’re so cool! I wanna be like them! I wanna help people like they do!” Superheroes aren’t about mindless entertainment with no implicit message, and they’re not about submitting to Big Brother. They’re about imagining a world where people have the power to make the world a better place, and then do exactly that. And because everyone wants to be like superheroes, they want to believe that they can, too.

And because kids like Superheroes so much, they and their messages hit us at the perfect age to soak them in. There’s nothing wrong with a good, mass-appeal action-adventure story if it has brains. The spectacle helps the medicine go down. Batman teaches us that people with money and status should do everything they can to serve the common good, using that very wealth. Superman teaches us to be as simply good as we can be, from altruism to idealism to simple politeness. Wonder Woman was deliberately written as a woman of power, sent to whip the world into shape from an ideal paradise isolated from the chaos of the wider world.

Ah, but those are DC superheroes. So what did Stan Lee bring to the table? Well, it’s true that Stan Lee didn’t invent Captain America, and that people like Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko (to name a few) created a lot of the biggest things we think of when we think of Marvel. But it was Stan Lee who changed the entire superhero landscape with the debut of The Fantastic Four, and pretty much all his works and contributions revolved around a single main idea:

Superheroes are people too.

That is to say, superheroes, for all their grand power and flashy costumes, are flawed, limited individuals who make mistakes, have issues, and ultimately can’t solve everything, in their lives or in the world around them. Many read into superheroes as the Master Race (especially those wishing to deconstruct them), but Stan Lee’s grand thesis behind the heroes he created and the stories he told are that, even with their amazing, impossible powers and their talents, they’re still only human. And yet, despite being only human, they still try to help, to make the world a better place, even if it costs them. And with the success of the comic books he created, that idea took hold and transformed the entire industry, changing even DC’s tune.

Stan Lee in generally loved to push the envelope when it came to superheroes, and he did most of it in a decade all about cultural revolution: the 1960s. He created the X-Men to talk about prejudice and superstition; he created Iron Man (currently the MCU’s heart and soul) specifically to make his target audience connect with the kind of man they would normally hate. He created the Black Panther to express the concept of an African nation leagues ahead of the rest of the world; he published books without the Comics Code Authority consent, opening the floodgates for comic books to publish more subversive and mature content. And of course, he created Spider-Man, who I’ll be getting to more later.

Now, again: it’s true that Stan Lee didn’t do it all alone. And as Jack Kirby could most certainly attest, he was not a man above misdeed or vanity. Nor did he himself actually write the Superhero content most of us today grew up with. He didn’t write the Tobey Maguire Spidey movies, or the PS1 Spidey game (though he did narrate that one, and I grew up listening directly to his one-of-a-kind flair for narrating and hyping). But if it wasn’t for him, none of those things would exist today. And they were all created and written with his central idea in mind, something that set Marvel apart from the competition back in the day, but is now the standard to everything Superhero: Superheroes aren’t perfect, they’re people like us, people who screw up and have issues, but who pick themselves back up and then learn from their mistakes. And most importantly of all, they still do the right thing.

Which brings me to Spider-Man. I don’t think I’ll get much disagreement when I say Spider-Man is the biggest/most important thing Stan Lee ever made or helped make. He’s big; everyone has grown up with Spider-Man and his adventures, whether through comic books, cartoons, movies or games. My dad never gets tired of telling me about that part in Secret Wars when he made a fool of the entire X-Men team without really even trying, or all the times he gets serious and wipes the floor with whoever he’s fighting. And he’s unique; no other superhero in all of the superhero landscape is really like Spidey.

So what point am I getting at here? Well, Spider-Man even today is probably one the best role models a kid could have in fiction, and given how universal he is, that’s a good thing. For all of his money problems, for all that he’s vilified, for all that he’s lost, he does the right thing, and he keeps up a friendly, upbeat attitude in front of the people he’s saving. He’s been faced with some hard decisions, but even when those decisions are absolutely miserable, he makes the choice he knows is the right one (if you’ve seen the recent Spider-Man video game, you know exactly what I’m talking about).

And that’s exactly how Stan Lee envisioned him, wrote him. Plenty of people have written Spider-Man stories, but (at least when they’re written well) they always stick to the mold that Stan Lee created.

And that’s why Stan Lee was so loved, and so important; that’s the good that he put in the world. I grew up with a superhero who was just a naive kid from Queens who gets dragged through the gutter again and again, yet never gives up and never breaks his integrity, never abuses his vast power even when nobody could really blame him if he did. Spider-Man doesn’t use his powers for himself, he uses them to help as many people as he can. Spider-Man taught me, as cliche as the line has become by now, that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. And I wanted to be like him; I still do. After all this time, Spider-Man is still “cool”.

And I’m not the only one who grew up with Spider-Man or that message. Pretty much all of us did. Because Stan Lee created that superhero and wrote those words in Amazing Fantasy #15, millions (perhaps billions, given Spidey’s popularity abroad) of people had a positive influence, one that they willingly read or watched again and again as it surreptitiously told them the right way to behave. That if you have the ability to do the right thing, you do the right thing.

So yeah, that’s why everyone loved Stan Lee in life, and why they mourn him in death. It’s why he’s considered not just famous, but important. The things we soak up in our youth are important to how we turn out, even if we don’t realize it, even if they’re not considered “Art” or made to be “Art”. Superheroes as a concept are all about doing everything you can to help others even when it’s hard, and Spider-Man managed to condense that concept into the phrase we all know and love. He’s all about the struggle of being a good person in a life filled with a hundred personal problems, and Stan Lee brought him and what he stands for to the entire world, along with all the other Superheroes he created.

So thanks, Stan Lee. Rest in peace.

[castrateurfate]

im sick and tired of you americans trying to downplay other people's struggles to argue that you have it worse.

the other day, i posted my ex's rant about first worlders not giving a fuck about people in third world countries

and every american leftist in the comments proved their point by not giving a fuck about anyone else outside of the us, even the anarchists.

so yeah, i get snappy at americans because evrrybody outside of the US is TIRED of your bullshit and always taking centre stage on every issue.

like holy shit, american brain rot is fucking real.

america DOES impact a lot of global politics, you are right. for all the fucking wrong reasons. they bomb houses, kill innocents, economically cripple other nations, fund terrorist groups, poison the world with propaganda and drugs and above all, are the fucking worst country on this planet.

BUT. the fact that problems WITHIN AMERICA always take centre stage REALLLY FUCKING AGRIVATES ANYONE OUTSIDE OF THE US.

oh we can't talk about poverty in the uk or the grenfell disaster or the racist immigration laws that are sending so many people who were apart of the windrush generation back to countries that they have barely any memory of, a school shooting by a brony happened in texas.

we can't talk about japan's rising far-right fascists, ugly present racism, mass discrimnation of LGBTQ+ folk or their horrific working conditions that cause thousands of deaths a year, matt gaetz said a slur on a podcast.

we can't talk about the fucking fact that a man in brazil was killed in a fucking gas chamber that was in the back of a police car, the fact that a huge chunk of the nation doesn't have drinkable tap water, how hyper-inflation is causing the nation to fall apart or that brazil has the highest number of trans people dying at the hands of hate crimes that rarely go punished, joe biden decided to ban "peepee poopoo" from ever being said at the white house an alex jones' left testicle has something to say about it.

you americans are crowding the fucking online left and all of you downright refuse to talk about other nations. the only time you talk about other nations is when they've done something you agree with and can fit into a headline.

EVERY online leftist outside of the US is forced to talk about YOUR countries own problems. it polutes our feeds like the festuring cesspit your country is.

we only get a MINUTE of attention in the millions of hours wasted debating some random GOP's belief that jesus was gun or whatever the fuck.

your country, america. i fucking hate it.

i can't even imagine what the natives have to go through to get THEIR problems spoken about.

you talk about the internationale and all that shit, but the moment we ask you to read a vice article with hard to pronounce names you COMPLETELY lose your shit.

i am tired of this bullshit.

i am fucking tired of it.

death to america.

fuck you, fuck your awful country, fuck everybody who thinks you cam save that hell hole of scab on the earth.

let. it. die.

[khalilhumam]

What the international press did not understand about the demonstrations in Peru

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/what-the-international-press-did-not-understand-about-the-demonstrations-in-peru/

What the international press did not understand about the demonstrations in Peru

What happened in Peru was not ‘just another emergency’

Demonstration in Berlin, in solidarity with the protests in Peru. Photo by Yudy Berlly Muguerza Diestra, used with permission.

As a Peruvian living in Germany, the main way for me to find out what was going on in Peru was through Peruvian social networks and the Peruvian press. The coverage in Germany on the subject has been minimal, and within the limited amount I have seen, most has come from sources that specialize in covering current issues in Latin America (such as the Deutsche Welle network in Spanish). A cousin of mine, a Peruvian woman in the United States, told me exactly the same thing: the media there have not covered the demonstrations in Peru either. And I doubt that these are isolated cases. Between November 9 and 17, Peru was shaken by large civic demonstrations that were brutally repressed by the security forces. The protesters blamed Congress for unconstitutionally removing the country's president from office. Although the demonstrations calmed down after Francisco Sagasti was nominated as the new president until the next elections, it sparked a political crisis that continues to this day. The way the international press dismisses news coming from developing countries takes me back to anthropologist Greg Beckett's concept of “normal emergency.” Beckett points out that these countries are seen from abroad as always being in a state of emergency, so much so that the nuances are missed when events happen at unprecedented levels. So, those extreme situations are not given the proper coverage, because every emergency, even the most serious, is “just another emergency” from the outsider's point of view. I came to the conclusion, after seeing the absence of an analysis that goes beyond the actual events, that the international press was also considering the events in Peru to be a “normal emergency.” In this sense, the international press failed to recognize in a timely fashion that the type of emergency that Peru went through last November was something much more complex than a demonstration: on the one hand, it is a historical milestone in the contemporary political life of Peru; and on the other hand, within the international community, it represents another case of police violence and human rights abuses. First of all, it is a turning point because it was the first time in contemporary history that such a demonstration took place in which the majority of the protesters were not politicized. This makes me think about what author Carlos León Moya points out when he says “we work in a counterintuitive way: it is not ‘first you organize, then you march;’ it is ‘first you march, then you organize.'” The vast majority of protesters have no affiliation whatsoever to political organizations or parties, and they certainly won't have any in the future, either. But this has not been a prerequisite for going out to protest. It seems that the condition, more than anything else, is that we are weary; we are tired of our political leadership, so we go out to protest. And the fact that they have been able to jump over pre-existing organizations and still protest effectively points to Leon Moya's second reflection: the relevance of internet and virtual communities to rallying people and relaying information (from sharing the techniques used in Hong Kong to neutralize tear gas bombs, to spreading the list of those who disappeared after the demonstrations). At the end of November, we learned that 13 per cent of the nation actively participated in the protests and 73 per cent of the nation has expressed support for the protesters. This has now become part of the contemporary history of Peru, for this is the first time since the March of the Four Corners that so many Peruvians have come together for a common cause. It is for this reason that I have been struck by the relative lack of importance given to the case in the press at the global level. Also, I am shocked that the international press has not highlighted the blatant violation of human rights by the Peruvian National Police: almost a hundred people injured, dozens of young people disappeared for days, and two dead in a country that is (in principle) a democracy. How is it possible that the foreign press does not consider this to be newsworthy? The year 2020 will not be remembered only as the year of COVID-19 on the global scene, but also as a year in which police forces around the world have shown that they can trample on the right to protest, and on human rights in general: we have witnessed police brutality in the United States against the Black Lives Matter protesters; the unjustifiably violent response by the police to people demonstrating against SARS in Nigeria, and we have also seen how the Free Youth movement in Thailand faced harassment and intimidation by the Thai Armed Forces. Don't we see a pattern? The level of police violence in Peru between November 9 and November 15 is easily compared to the events in the United States, Nigeria, and Thailand as mentioned above. The Peruvian case is yet another compelling example of why this type of situation is not only a national problem, but also a problem for the global community, and why it is so urgent that the authorities respond not only to local justice but also to the entire global community who are defending human rights. Counting on the global community as allies to put pressure on the authorities in cases of abuse of power would be a precious resource to help balance the power between the governments and its citizens and thus increase the degree of power of the average citizen. We already have technology on our side to do this. But the ability of individuals to get their message across on the Internet is still far from having the same reach or impact as the institutionalized press, both nationally and even more so, internationally. Therefore, I think it is coherent with the mission of journalism as a discipline that the press—not only Peruvian or Latin American, but global—should also be concerned with what is happening in Peru and anywhere else in the world, especially when it is an issue that directly concerns human rights. There are no normal emergencies.

Written by Carla Ramos Translated by Anthony Sutterman · View original post [es]

[exxar1]

Episode 1: A New Beginning

9/23/2020

2020 has been, to put it mildly, an eventful year thus far. A global pandemic, social and civil unrest, and a national election in 6 weeks. America has been thrust into a crucible, and, if you’re like me, you’ve stood at your front door, staring out at the world with a mixture of astonishment, befuddlement, anxiety, and, at times, quiet fear. Every morning has brought news headlines worse than the day before. Since mid-March, it has felt to most of us as if the entire world was flipped upside down and turned inside out. Where daily life was once an ordinary, comfortable routine, it has now taken on the feeling of a long, terrifying roller coaster ride: lengthy, nervous pauses followed by heart-stopping, terror-filled drops, and we never know at each sundown what the next sunrise will bring.

For me, personally, the last six months have been all of that – and more. No, thank God, I did not lose my job. Ever since moving to Las Vegas in 2012, I have had a successful career at a payday loan company. For the last eight years I have done well for myself, attaining the rank of assistant manager and making more than enough money to not only meet my needs but also put some away for the future. I’m still single with no children to support, so I have always been a workaholic; not so much that I burn myself out and have no social life, but neither do I believe in stopping at just 40 hours a week when I’m still young and capable enough to go for at least 60 or 65 on a good week. The last 8 years have been incredibly rewarding for me, and I’ve been very happy with my decision to relocate to Las Vegas.

But then, in mid-March of this year, my luxurious comfort zone was abruptly – suddenly – shattered. The Nevada governor declared a statewide shutdown of all non-essential businesses and a forced quarantine of non-essential workers. My job remained intact due to our status as a financial services company, but because all the casinos, restaurants, and most of the other businesses on the Las Vegas strip were abruptly shut down, most of my job’s customer base was suddenly unemployed. As a result, our company had to adjust accordingly. We have 26 stores in Las Vegas and Henderson, four of them operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of the reasons I was making so much money was because I could pick up overtime shifts at other stores. As soon as the statewide shutdown and quarantine went into effect, our company was forced to cut back store hours, lay off some employees, and cancel all overtime. Other perks such as quarterly bonuses were also canceled along with annual raises. All of this caused a sudden and immediate drop in my monthly income that I was not ready for.

Something you should know about me is that I am a type “A” personality. That means that I prefer schedules, planning, and as much preparation as possible for anything and everything. I live my life by a clock and lists. There’s no such thing as spontaneity or lollygagging. We workaholics believe time is money, and even on our days off we never really relax. We’re using that precious little free time to get the household chores done and prepare for the busy week ahead. Even when I watch TV I’m multitasking – usually doing the crossword or playing a game on my phone or Nintendo Switch. Type “A” people need to know exactly what’s coming and we usually plan not just for tomorrow or the week ahead or even the month ahead. We plan for at least 3 months ahead, and we freak out if anything unexpected pops up to ruin our best laid plans.

Now, of course, we all know that daily life is full of little surprises and upsets. But, if we’ve planned and prepped well, then we’re not entirely thrown out of whack by life’s minor emergencies. Flat tire on the expressway? No problem. We have great auto insurance, and there’s plenty in savings to cover a new tire and time lost in wages for missing that day’s work. Wake up with my throat feeling a little scratchy and nose stuffed? No problem! Grab that emergency bag of tea bags and cough drops from the bathroom medicine cabinet on my way out the door to work. Type “A” folks are what keep the world running smooth and on time. We’d control the timing of the sunrise and sunset if it were possible.

So, you can see why the economic shutdown of 2020 threw a massive and wholly detestable wrench into my comfortable, orderly life. I say this with a dryly humorous tone, but it was no joke. I had to scramble to rearrange my finances, but my monthly bills depended on a specific amount to make all ends meet, and I was suddenly going to be very short. The future, which had once seemed so bright and certain, was now dark and unknown, and I could no longer plan for even one week ahead, let alone three months. Yes, there was some relief in the form of the economic impact payments from the government as well as a one-time withdrawal allowed by my 401K. But always, in the back of my mind, there was the nagging worry about what would come after that extra money ran out. If the statewide shutdown wasn’t lifted, if my job didn’t allow me to work overtime, and if I hadn’t found a second job by then, what would I do? This is where it began to feel as if I was on a roller coaster. There were days when I felt good, when I forced myself to not worry about the future and live in the present, and I focused on my work. And, because I had so much free time now that I was working only 35 or 38 hours a week, I used the opportunity to catch up on my reading list as well as my writing. (I also watched more TV and movies in two months than I had in my entire life to that point.)

But then there were sleepless nights where all I could do was toss and turn and worry. April dragged into May, May slowly turned into June, and the news headlines just got worse and worse. George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis in late May, and suddenly the nation was erupting with violent and frightening civil unrest. Portland, Chicago, Seattle, New York – and even Las Vegas – saw marches, protests, demonstrations, and none of them were peaceful. Social media was flooded with black squares and “Black Lives Matter” posts, and now we didn’t have just a global pandemic to worry about. For me, personally, it wasn’t my own financial future that had suddenly become uncertain. The future of the nation which I have called home for my whole life was unexpectedly called into question.

Life had turned upside down and inside out. My own anxiety and worry multiplied with each passing day, and I did my best to distract myself with writing, reading, binging old TV, and a brief vacation back home to Idaho. But always, in the darkest hour of the night, in the back of my mind all during the day, there was that steady, drumming fear: how much worse could things get? How much longer could we endure all of this? What in the world would happen next? I began to suffer periods of genuine depression. It took everything I had to force a smile on my face and pretend at work that everything was fine. Inside, I was falling apart.

In the first week of July I landed a second job at Walmart. My financial future suddenly became a lot more certain, and there was some genuine relief in that. But the violence, the unrest, and politics of the world around me continued to be a major source of worry and anxiety. It wasn’t just my daily life – job, home, friends, local government – that needed to be orderly, calm and predictable. I needed the world at large to also be certain, ordered and organized. I needed to know that my basic freedoms that I had taken for granted my entire life were not going to suddenly disappear. In just a span of a few weeks, the American dream that I had been living for 42 years was rapidly disappearing in a rising tide of ideological dogma that was gaining a foothold in every American institution with alarming speed. For the first time in my life I was witnessing the stuff that I had only read about in sci-fi novels such as 1984. All I could think was, What if the democrats win this election? What if the police really are defunded? Could America really devolve into a true socialist state? What if the worst-case scenario really happens?

And that is what finally brought me to what I can only describe is a mid-life spiritual crisis. I throw the word “spiritual” in there for good reason. I’m an atheist, you see. I was raised in the Baptist church, but I walked away from the church and all religion in my senior year of high school because I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I’m gay with what the Bible teaches about that particularly heinous sin. The only way I could live a successful, happy life was to be myself. I have always been out and proud, and I had no room for any religion that would call me a sinner and claim that my soul was damned because of my lifestyle “choice”. (More detail on this in a later post.) I’ve been on my own for 23 years now, and I’ve been just fine. I decided a long time ago that God doesn’t exist. He’s a figment of man’s overactive imagination, a crutch for those too weak to face life on their own. I have never needed such a crutch, and, until this year, I was doing just dandy living my own life and my truth.

My job at Walmart is to stand outside the front entrance and, per the new health mandates from the state governor, ensure that everyone entering the store is wearing their mask. Those who aren’t and who don’t have a valid reason for not wearing one – such as a medical exclusion – cannot go in. This means that I’m paid $11/hour to do basically nothing. I stand outside by myself, greeting the customers, and doing a LOT of thinking. For the last few weeks I have thought about everything happening just beyond my front doorstep. I’ve thought about the future of my nation, as well as the future of my own soul. I have silently questioned all of the beliefs and convictions that were once so certain. I have wrestled with my ego and my intellect, confused and angry with the fact that I was so certain of many things in my youth, yet now I am so unsure and afraid. My parents say that God is in control. Yet I see no evidence that God – or anyone – is in control. The world has lost its collective mind, and America, in particular, is on a fast track to chaos and anarchy. IF God really is out there, why is he allowing any of this to go on?

One of the fundamental changes that occurred as a result of this soul-searching was my decision to switch political parties. For the last 20 years or so I have been a staunch democrat. I have had no use for the conservative views of the republican party. I’m gay, after all, and I proudly supported all the progressive movements over the last two decades that eventually culminated in 2015 with the nationwide legalization of gay marriage. I also believed that no one other than the police, the military and government agents needed to own a gun. I was also pro-choice. But I have never been much interested in politics. Until 2012 I had never even voted. My reasoning for this was a combination of laziness and apathy. No matter which political party won the election, my life never changed. The world went on every day as it always had since before I was born, and besides, thanks to the electoral college, the majority vote doesn’t always mean a win. Therefore, I reasoned, my one vote didn’t really matter unless I was in a swing state. And since Nevada is a blue state, and since I was a democrat, I knew which candidate would get my state’s vote every time, no matter what. (The only reason I voted in the 2012 national election was because I wanted Obama to have a second term just to piss off my conservative family and friends; and I was bored that afternoon after work.)

But then, in the wake of George Floyd’s death in late May, as the Black Lives Matter movement began a newly rapid ascension in almost every aspect and institution of American life, I began to do a lot of reading online during my lunch breaks and days off. Later, in July and August, as the national election campaigns kicked into full gear, I read even more news from both sides of the biases on the candidates, their views, and their platforms. In particular, I started subscribing to The Daily Wire and The Federalist. As time went on, as I read more and more opinions and news, and as I spent my days in front of Walmart in the Las Vegas heat, I started to ruminate on everything happening in the headlines as well as the ideological war going on behind the scenes in daily American life. I also began to wrestle with my own beliefs and convictions.

There was no specific time and day for my change of heart. I do know it was somewhere in late July that I decided I was no longer a democrat. I was going to vote all republican in November, and I was now a proud supporter of Donald Trump. But this was only the start of my mid-life spiritual crisis. I realized in early August that I wasn’t just a republican. All of my fear and anxieties about the civil unrest, the economic shutdowns due the pandemic, the war over whether or not mandated masks and social distancing were, in fact, the first step in many that would end with all Americans under a socialist dictatorship after November 3rd, the national debates about critical race theory and “white fragility”, the numbers of Americans on forced unemployment with no hope in the near future of any economic relief, the conflicting reports in the media surrounding everything to do with COVID-19 – all of it was just becoming too much to bear. It seemed that there was too much happening at once, every day, for me – or any of us ordinary citizens – to keep track of, let alone properly digest and analyze. By the end of the summer, as every state was debating whether or not to re-open public schools for the fall semester, it appeared to me as if everyone was close to their breaking point. My time spent every day in front of Walmart gave me plenty of firsthand evidence of just how frayed the nerves of all Americans had become. Everyone seemed on edge, yelling at one another because someone wasn’t wearing a mask, or someone else was wearing a “Trump 2020” t-shirt, or a black man cursing at the white store security officer, calling her a racist, because she was kicking him out for shoplifting. Tempers were short, nerves were frayed (including mine), and I – like so many others – started wondering: Just how bad things could really get?

In other words, it seemed to me as if the entire world around me had lost its fucking mind.

It was around the end of August that my worry finally turned into genuine fear. In the last few weeks, I have to come realize that America’s future as a democratic republic is not as sure as it’s been these last two centuries. My mind started to spin with all the “What if?” scenarios. What if Biden wins the election? What if the police force everywhere – not just cities like Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle and New York – really are defunded and scaled back? What if all the chaos caused by the unchecked rioting in those cities spreads to other cities and states? What if this pandemic doesn’t end soon? What if all this “white fragility”, “critical race theory”, and BLM nonsense actually gains traction in the worst possible place: the white house? What if? What if? What if? (Remember, I’m type “A” all the way!)

And now, the present; my reason for putting all this down on electronic paper. I came to a decision about a week ago that I was tired. No, scratch that. Fucking exhausted is more like it. I realized that, for the last six months, I have been trying to digest, analyze, categorize, rationalize, and compartmentalize everything that’s been happening around me so that I can sleep peacefully at night. I’ve been trying to make sense of all of this in order to calm myself and stop worrying. This has always worked before, but not this time. I realized that everything I had put my faith in for the last 23 years – my own reason and intellect, the ordered certainty of the world around me, the calm predictability of everyday life – had been wiped away in the span of six months. For the first time in my adult life, I felt truly helpless.

And that’s when I turned to the one thing that I had been ignoring for most of my life. For the last couple months, during my day shifts at Walmart, as I baked in the summer heat with no company other than my own thoughts, memories started to re-surface. Long forgotten memories, in fact. I began to wonder if maybe God really did, after all, exist. I remembered pieces of old sermons, fragments of Bible verses, lyrics from old songs of the Christian artists whose CDs I had long ago burned into iTunes. Some nights, as I drove home after finishing my late shift at my other job, physically and emotionally exhausted, I would pull up an old playlist on my phone and listen to Steven Curtis Chapman or Amy Grant or Michael W Smith. I have always enjoyed their music over the years as it reminds me of my youth and better times. Lately, however, it was reminding me of something else.

 As I finish writing this, September 23, 2020, I am sure of two things:

1.    I am saved. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart in 1985 when I was 7 years old. I don’t remember exactly what time of day it was – or even the exact date – but I do remember it was after a SPARKS meeting. I believe without a shadow of a doubt that if I were to die this moment, I would be reunited in Heaven with both of my grandmothers, my grandfather, as well as others in my family who have passed on before. I believe that that prayer whispered by that seven-year-old boy those many years ago was genuine and heartfelt, and that it was uttered in sincere desire to have Jesus come into his heart. I have wandered far from grace in the decades since, but in just the last few days I have felt a peace and a calm deep in my soul that I have not felt for a very, very long time. God does not go back on His promises, and if we are sincere in our prayer for salvation, then I believe we are saved, no matter how far we might stray from Him afterwards.

2.    I am gay. This right here was the main issue that I have been grappling with for the last couple months. I will go into this more in another post, but, put simply, I had been taught for all of my youth that homosexuality is a sin. It is an abomination against God, and the Bible clearly condemns it in several different passages. But I know that I am made in the image of God, and I know that I was born this way. There is no doubt in my mind about this. I knew as early as sixth grade that I was different, and, later, in high school, I came to realize what exactly that difference was. I now believe that God created me this way, and that I can still serve Him and His will without converting my sexuality. I don’t yet know exactly how or why I believe that with such conviction, but I do. Part of this new journey will be to understand and reconcile this conviction through reading, prayer, and other research.

 My reason for creating this blog is twofold:

1.    I have felt a need for some time now to get all of my thoughts and feelings down in black and white. Just writing this post alone has helped me clear my head from what has been piling up in my brain for the last six months. The act of writing helps me organize, digest, and analyze exactly what it is I need to understand about all of this.

2.    And since I’m writing it all down, why not share it with the world? I know that I can’t be the only one who’s struggling to make sense of the world right now. Or, perhaps, there’s others out there, like me, who are trying to reconcile their belief in God with their sexual orientation? Or maybe they’re struggling with their own faith in some way in response to the chaos around us? Whatever the case, I want to be an inspiration for them, and I hope that this blog will help them in some way.

 I don’t know where this journey will take me. For now, I am just re-reading my Bible, starting at the beginning in Genesis. I have the love and support of my family, and, as with everything else in this fucked up year, I – and God – are going to take this one day at a time.

 Thank you for reading.

[must-be-mythtaken]

Not a Moment But A Movement

(I wrote this a year ago but it’s still relevant and I’m too tired to write something new)

I've been trying to write this post for a while, trying to put my thoughts into some sort of order rather than funneling my rage, disappointment, fear, and sadness into an incoherent jumble of sound and fury. If I'm going to scream, I want it to signify something. I can't promise that it will, but I think I'm ready to try.

Now, I've never been the most patriotic of people. I grew up in a hippie stronghold in the middle of a consistently Democratic state, and while my parents are about as American as they come, we were never the sort of people to chant USA! USA! well...ever. When my family asks if I'll ever move back to the states, my stock reasons against it usually boil down to "but my country hates me". However, despite all that, there have always been so many things to love about the USA. While it could be better, the diversity and opportunity are real, especially compared to a homogeneous place like South Korea.

As so many have said, fuck 2016 (2017 as well). For a while I even had to delete the Facebook app from my phone, because the constant bombardment of depressing news was just too much for me. It all came to a head two last month. Watching the election was not unlike that meme, which goes like this.

me (to america): hoe don't do it. america: *does it* me: omg

While 99% of me was sure there was no way the American people could be stupid enough to elect that cheeto man to office, there was a small part of me that was entirely unsurprised when it happened. A resigned, hopeless, almost nihilistic part of me even thought...good. You get what you asked for, people. You wished on the monkey's paw, don't be surprised when everything falls apart. Let's just scrap the country and start over. We're only 200 years in, that's barely past the tutorial! Or maybe...did you have autosave turned on? A backup? No?

But this isn't a game. This is real life, real people. This is my queer sister and her trans partner. This is the lives of my friends and family. This is a country that has abandoned so many of its own people. If I feel hated as a cis, white, bisexual woman, how must immigrants, people of color, and all those people who have it even worse than me, feel right now? If I am disappointed and hurting, how must they feel?

More than ever, I feel my privilege, and it leaves me torn. There's an entire ocean between me and Tronald Dump (I hope to keep it that was as much as possible) and it would be so, so easy to just ignore it all. My friends and most of my family back the US live in very liberal areas and are comparatively safe. A treacherous part of me wants to keep my head down, focus on the day to day of my job, and leave the fighting to someone else. But I hate that part.

The bigger, better part of me wants to fight, and simultaneously makes me feel incredibly guilty for being an ocean away, unable to be on the front lines. It takes more than a blog post, a tweet, a donation. I tell myself that teaching kids to be better people in any country adds to the global non-shittiness quotient, but it's hard to believe when the shit has so dramatically hit the fan in my own country. Sure, it feels as if my country hates me, but have I already abandoned my country? Is it my responsibility as a teacher to go home?

Admittedly, a big part of this is that ongoing existential crisis I've been grappling with for the past few months. What am I doing with my life? Am I really accomplishing anything? What will my legacy be? I blame Lin-Manuel Miranda for that last one. His quotes are haunting me.

On the one hand, being an American abroad gives me a better perspective on the global impact of American politics. It's often surreal to live in a country that has such a generally positive opinion of the US. Just like the US, Korea's political system is rife with corruption and nepotism, college graduates are unable to find jobs, and women are still fighting for many rights that they should have without question. However, many of the people I talk to seem genuinely surprised to find out that America isn't the shining city on the hill it claims to be. They believe in the American dream as much as I wish I could.

I'm doing the best I can. I may not be strong, or loud; my voice can reach only a few. I want to believe in an America that is everything we like to say it is. So I'm going to keep fighting, in the small things I can do. I'm going to teach my students. I'm going to call out racism and inequality and shittiness when I see it. I'm not going to keep my head down, even when I want to.

“You're gonna miss each and every shot you can't be bothered to take. That's not living life--that's just being a tourist. Take every shot, Kate. If it's worth caring about, no matter how impossible you think it is--you take the shot.”

-Hawkeye, Matt Fraction

[mastcomm]

Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Coronavirus outbreak tests China’s resolve

Chinese leaders on Monday called the coronavirus epidemic “a major test of China’s system and capacity for governance,” as confirmed infections surge by more than 2,000 daily and the outbreak unnerves the global economy.

The announcement by the Communist Party leadership came as the government was applying familiar authoritarian techniques — like asking neighbors to inform on one another — to help control an outbreak that had killed 427 people as of this morning, all but two in mainland China.

Many people from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, are desperate for treatment, but the government’s approach has led many to be ostracized. Experts warn that the approach could further damage public trust across China, and send people who should be screened and monitored deeper underground.

Context: The death toll from the new coronavirus has exceeded that of the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003 in mainland China — and the impacts on the global economy may prove more severe. Still, the number of people who have recovered nationwide has been rising, suggesting that the new virus’s fatality rate is relatively low.

As of midnight in Iowa, or 6 a.m. Tuesday in London, the results were delayed because of what Democratic Party officials called a “quality control” effort before they were made public. A party spokeswoman said there was no issue with the integrity of the vote.

Why Iowa matters: Winning the state’s nominating contest typically gives a Democratic candidate fairly decent odds of eventually capturing the Democratic nomination, if not the White House. Whoever is declared the winner will become the candidate to beat when New Hampshire holds its primary on Feb. 11.

Catch up: Our reporters covered the contest in real time, and looked into why the results were delayed. Here’s why the contest, known as the Iowa caucuses, is unlike any other political event in America.

Go deeper: Apparent technical glitches with an app that the Democratic Party was using to calculate, tabulate and report results marked an early 2020 test for a party still grappling with the effects of disinformation in elections.

Today: President Trump will give the annual State of the Union address in Washington. It was written by two little-known aides.

Tomorrow: Senators will vote on two articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump, but his acquittal is a near certainty. Here are five takeaways from the latest developments in the trial.

Opening salvos in Brexit trade talks

Britain and the European Union on Monday staked out tough opening positions on trade negotiations, highlighting how Brexit is making them into economic competitors.

Europe’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, insisted from Brussels that Britain commit to preventing unfair competition if it wants access to the E.U. market without tariffs and quotas.

But in a riposte from London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain threatened to walk away from talks on a free-trade agreement if the bloc tries to tie his country too closely to its rules as a price.

Key questions: Will Britain open its extensive territorial waters to European fishing fleets? And will it continue to abide by E.U. rules on labor rights, environmental standards and antitrust rules?

Looking ahead: Few expect serious progress in talks to be made until the fall, and many trade experts see Mr. Johnson’s timeline — wrapping up the talks by the end of the year — as breathtakingly optimistic.

“Brexodus”: For British officials who worked for years in Brussels, saying goodbye was a little awkward.

If you have a few minutes, this is worth it

Iraq’s unlikely gallery

Beauty and color in Iraq were suppressed for decades by poverty and government oppression or indifference.

No longer: A 15-story shell of a structure in Baghdad is full of paintings, sculptures, photographs and shrines that criticize the country’s leadership and pay homage to protesters who have died in recent antigovernment demonstrations.

Our correspondent Alissa Rubin sees the unlikely gallery as a window into a broader expressive flowering. “It is as if an entire society is awakening to the sound of its own voice, and to the shape, size and sway of its creative force,” she writes.

Here’s what else is happening

Syria: Turkey deployed F-16 fighter jets against government forces in northwestern Syria on Monday, a sharp escalation designed to counter a Russian-Syrian offensive in the country’s last rebel-held province. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been fleeing north toward Turkey, and Ankara worries about a fresh surge of refugees.

Spain: A Toronto-bound Air Canada jet that suffered engine damage and a ruptured tire during takeoff has returned safely to Madrid, after flying in circles near the city for hours in preparation for an emergency landing.

Iran: Tehran halted its cooperation with Ukraine’s inquiry into the downing of a passenger jet over Tehran last month. The Ukrainian news media had published leaked audio in which the pilot of a nearby plane describes the doomed Ukrainian jet being blown up in midair.

Britain: About 220 people currently locked up on terrorist offenses in Britain would have their prison terms extended under a proposed measure to stop the early release of hundreds of terrorism convicts. Legal analysts say there is no evidence that increasing the length of someone’s time in prison reduces the risk of their committing another offense after their release.

Snapshot: Above, the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada, serves high tea several times a day. The city, on Vancouver Island, has long marketed itself as Canada’s most English city. Now actual royals — Prince Harry and Meghan — are reportedly ensconced there.

In memoriam: Mike Hoare, an Irish soldier of fortune who led white mercenary forces in Africa and was called “Mad Mike” for his recklessness under fire, died on Sunday in South Africa. He was 100.

What we’re reading: This piece from The Chronicle Review. “It poses an interesting question for academics,” Lynda Richardson, a Travel editor, writes. ���Is unending email making professors stupid? Perhaps something for us all to ponder.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: With homemade hamburger helper, you don’t have to be a stickler about measurements or ingredients. (Our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter has more recommendations.)

Read: “Tyll,” Daniel Kehlmann’s eighth novel, plops a 14th-century jester into the Thirty Years’ War.

Smarter Living: These seven podcasts can help you nurture a healthier mind and body.

And now for the Back Story on …

Reporting from Iowa

Sydney Ember, a reporter on our politics team, moved to Iowa to get to know the state ahead of the caucuses. She wrote about her experiences for our Reader Center. This is a condensed version.

DES MOINES — I was in a tree.

It was November and I had been in Iowa for less than a month, and set out to profile someone who brings Iowa to life for our readers. Rob Sand, the state auditor, pitched himself as a subject — and then took me bowhunting for deer.

That turned out to involve climbing a tree and quietly waiting for a deer. As my fingers and toes lost feeling in the cold, I thought, not for the last time in my three-month stint: What am I doing here?

My goal was to understand the people of Iowa and the issues they care about, in addition to the presidential candidates spending time and resources in the state and the web of volunteers, staff members and strategists who help them.

I spent many days at campaign events in high school gymnasiums and college auditoriums and senior centers, analyzing the candidates’ messages and talking to voters.

I learned that many Democrats here want above all to beat President Trump — a desire that made it extraordinarily difficult for them to choose a candidate. Some Republicans and independents wanted that, too.

I learned that cars with all-wheel drive can still fishtail in the snow and that pizza from Casey’s General Store is delicious. (But no, I did not try the breakfast pizza, a particularly polarizing Iowa delicacy.)

It might be more practical, and less expensive, for The Times and other news organizations not to move reporters out to Iowa before the caucuses. But there is no substitute for spending a lot of time here, talking to Iowans every day and experiencing the all-consuming nature of the run-up to the state’s caucuses firsthand.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Mike

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news.You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the Iowa caucuses. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Ethnic group making up more than 90% of China (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Hanna Ingber, who started The Times’s Reader Center in 2017, will be the editor of our new technology newsletter.

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[rolandfontana]

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 15

This is the fifteenth episode in our ongoing Saturday series on eight+ things to read about China and a lot more. We constantly get emails from readers asking what to read on China and all sorts of things related and even barely related to China and this series is intended to constantly and consistently answer these questions.

As we said in our initial post on this, our plan is to list out eight (or so) articles we benefitted from reading and think you our readers would also benefit from reading, along with a very brief explanation as to why the particular article was included. More specifically:

The articles will likely include many on China and on Asia and a few on international trade, international politics, Spain and Latin America, economics and really just anything else we believe might benefit our readers or even that we just want people to read. We do not plan to choose articles that push our or any other political agenda or any other agenda for that matter, but having said that, we are not objective and our views may creep through. Our goal though is to focus on articles that are important or helpful or — most importantly — that make you think. Our posting of an article will NOT mean we agree with all of it or even any of it. Most of the articles will be from the week preceding the post but we will also sometimes throw in older articles (classics if you will) as well.

Please do not hesitate to comment at the end of this or any other post. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your comments, good, bad and indifferent.

Here we go, in absolutely no particular order.

1. Negotiating in China: Jack’s Ten Rules for Success. Managing the Dragon. Because knowing how to negotiate with Chinese companies is crucial and because Jack Perkowski knows how to negotiate in China. My personal favorite was “nothing succeeds like indifference,” because Chinese companies know exactly how to play against foreign overeager foreign companies.

2. China’s happy future: One system, six countries. Politico. Because it at least bears asking whether “the inevitable dismantlement of the Chinese Communist empire has begun.”

3. All the World’s Coal Power Plants in One Map. Visual Capitalist. Because global warming is real (duh) and because coal is a chief contributor to it and because the graphics in this article are fantastic (which is par for the course for this site). And because China “retains the largest fleet of coal plants, consuming a staggering 45% of the world’s coal.”

4. The ‘dark side’ of Finland’s famous free health care. CNN. Because if this is the worst CNN can come up with to besmirch healthcare in Finland it still sounds amazingly good to me. Because I am tired of how whenever anyone in the United States talks about how something works well in any Scandinavian country, the retort is always, “but of course that could never work here [in the United States] because we are so much different demographically” and I think that is code for saying I am not even going to consider learning from other country’s successes.

5. A 50,000 Person Harvard Study Reveals the 3 Telltale Signs of the Most Toxic Employees. Inc. Because when I started my own law firm I initially (and wrongly) believed every employee problem could be solved. Because early on we had a lawyer who everyone else (lawyers and staff) hated because he was so condescending and because his firing hugely improved morale almost instantly.

6. Gastronomic terrorism: How the cucumber has sliced Spain in two. Guardian. Because Spain is apparently “gripped by the question of whether or not the vegetable is a vital ingredient of gazpacho soup” and since we have offices in Spain, this fissure could prove detrimental for my law firm. Because I love it both ways I am probably well equipped to help moderate this dispute. Because this has to be the first time the words “terrorism” and “cucumber” (but probably not gastronomic”) have been used in the same sentence.

7. German government backs mandatory vaccinations for all schoolchildren. CNN. Because this headline defines a major difference between the typical EU country and the United States, with the EU tilting toward protecting its citizens and the United States tilting towards protecting its citizens’ freedom to choose. As lawyers we deal with these differences all the time when it comes to things like data privacy, advertising and product safety.

8. The Trade War Is Flooding the U.S. with Soybeans. Luckily, They Could Be Better for Us Than We Thought. Barrons.  Because this is a great example of how big changes always spawn unintended consequences, good and bad.  

9. The Nuns Who Bought and Sold Human Beings. New York Times. Because who knew? Because who thinks it is not important to know this?

10. The Great Land Robbery: The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms. Atlantic. Because I believe too many Americans desperately (or not so desperately) want to believe racism ended long ago and its impacts did as well.

11. The water is so hot in Alaska it’s killing large numbers of salmon. CNN. Because even small temperature increases can have major impacts on how we live.

12. Worried Hong Kong Residents Are Moving Money Out as Protests Escalate. Wall Street Journal. our immigration lawyersBecause Hong Kong as an international financial/business center is in its death throes. Because have seen an uptick in work from Hong Kongers looking to immigrate to the United States.

13. No Mercy/No Malice: WeWTF. Professor Galloway. Because this takedown of WeWork’s upcoming IPO has to be one of the most amazing takedowns of a company or an IPO I’ve ever read. Because it will serve as a great contrast to the typical Buy or Hold recommendations we will no doubt be seeing from Wall Street soon.

 Please give us your feedback on  the above, good, bad or indifferent. 

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 15 syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[smartwebhostingblog]

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

New Post has been published on http://rentts.org/bank-of-america-is-an-all-american-bargain/

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

It has been about two and a half years since I have written up a research report on Bank of America (BAC), and six and half years since I wrote up my first one. After the election rally, we were able to lock-in profits on some very large positions for our firm, including Bank of America; as the valuation finally came close to approximating the intrinsic value of the business, and we were able to utilize that capital in other places. Now, in this winter market maelstrom, it feels good to be back and once again Bank of America has become an extremely compelling buying opportunity. It is my contention that market participants are fighting the last battle once again, thinking the next recession will look the same as the Great Recession. They will be wrong and Bank of America’s stock will grind materially higher over the next 3-5 years.

It is amazing to see just how far Bank of America has come. Obviously, the company completed one of the worst acquisitions in business history when it made its distressed purchase of Countrywide Financial. Far worse than the actual economic losses that the portfolio of mortgages brought on, was the tens of billions of dollars of legal costs and penalties that hammered shareholders in the years following the Crisis. BAC made a good call when it hired Brian Moynihan to run the show. Moynihan implemented one of the best handled cost-cutting exercises I’ve seen, while continuing to invest in responsible growth. Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust are blue-chip assets, capable of generating returns on invested capital far higher than traditional banking operations and growing these franchises has been a priority. BAC hasn’t tired to hit homeruns in investment banking and instead has been trying to hit for contact. Arguably they have been overly conservative there and we have now seen some management changes, but I’d argue that Bank of America has taken the right approach to prepare itself for the next crisis, whatever and whenever that may be.

As stocks fell in October and the S&P was down by roughly 10%, I attended an event with roughly 100 business owners and executives talking about the market and the economy. There was a speaker from Merrill Lynch that asked if they thought the correction meant the end of the 9-and-a-half-year bull market, and not one person raised their hand. That worried me quite a bit because I tend to feel more confident when there is far less of a consensus and it was clear that fear hadn’t set in. I am not surprised to see that markets have continued to selloff, but I do think that fear has started to become more prominent. Many of the fin twits etc., that have been advocating being 100% long ETFs and index funds for the last 2-3 years, have already started talking about their tactical strategies to handle downturns. This to me is as a good sign as there has been that a lot of really stupid money has been pouring into stocks with zero regard to valuations. If those people want to sell their high-beta names such as Bank of America to me at silly valuations I’m glad to accept the offer.

Today’s paranoia revolves around a few different areas. Firstly, you have the trade negotiations with China. I’d say that it is pretty clear that both countries are willing to make some sacrifices and resuming more friendly relations would be a clear positive. China is likely trying to wait out American politics to change its focus on fair trade with a new party taking over, while the U.S. is trying to make its inroads via brute force. Secondly, the yield curve has become very flat, leading to concerns about economic growth. This compresses margins, but net interest income is so strong, this shouldn’t be a huge deal for the big banks as long as credit stays strong. Italy was a major concern, but they are starting to talk down their budget deficit agenda and there appears to be room for negotiation. Brexit is a mess but there is the possibility that we could see another referendum or vote on it as nobody seems satisfied. Higher interest rates and SALT tax changes are most certainly impacting the housing market, causing a slowdown in sales and price reductions. Affordability is an issue, but there isn’t the silly credit underwriting or excess supply that would likely lead to a major downturn there.

Credit is phenomenal for the big banks, and while it can only really get worse from here, there is nothing that I see that in any way would jeopardize these companies being incredibly profitable, including a mild to medium recession. If you look at consumers, leverage appears to be benign. Student loans are a disaster, which taxpayers are mostly on the hook for. Mortgages aren’t much of a concern, as underwriting has been night and day different from the past. Credit cards have been a very competitive space, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see losses pick up there. Corporate leverage is high but a lot of that is due to the benefits a levered capital structure gave companies under the prior tax regime, in combination with low interest rates. I’d expect companies to aggressively reduce their leverage over the next few years.

The fact that the Federal Reserve might end up pausing rate hikes is very good for just about everyone, including the banks. While many analysts tend to focus on myopic issues such as net interest margins, the biggest risk to banks is a large credit bubble, like that which existed in the last recession. Now the big banks have double the capital and double the liquidity, so they can still thrive in just about any environment. They have gobbled up market share and have access to the lowest cost of capital in the sector. Mortgage rates are starting to come down, and I believe if that continues the housing market should stabilize.

On October 15th, Bank of America reported 3rd quarter financial results that were exceptional. Diluted earnings per share of $0.66, were up 43%. Net income of $7.2 billion was a record and was up 32% YoY. Pretax income of $9 billion was up 18% YoY. Total revenue of $22.8 billion was up 4%. Net interest income was up 6%. Noninterest income was up 2%. Despite all this revenue growth, noninterest expenses of $13.1 billion was down 2% YoY. The net charge-off ratio was up 1 paltry basis point to 0.4%.

BAC’s return on average assets of 1.23% was up 28bps, and its return on average common shareholders’ equity of 11% was up 310 bps. BAC has made dramatic improvements towards increasing its return on average tangible common shareholders’ equity to 15.5%, up 450 bps YoY. The efficiency ratio of 57% has improved by 396 bps. These were numbers that 4-5 years ago many analysts said were virtually impossible for the big banks to achieve once again.

BAC’s loans and leases grew by 3% overall, with consumer up 5% and commercial up 2%. Average deposits continued to increase by 4%. Merrill brokerage assets increased by 22% to over $200 billion. Client balances within Global Wealth & Investment Management increase to $2.8 trillion. The bank’s capital and liquidity position is stronger than it has ever been with $164 billion of Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (CET1) and a CET1 ratio of 11.4%. Bank of America has a staggering $537 billion of average Global Liquidity Sources. Year-to-date, BAC has repurchased $14.9 billion of common shares and paid $4 billion in common dividends, returning 96% of net income available to common shareholders.

In years past when I wrote about Bank of America, I found myself extremely frustrated at times. I saw what the future could be and the returns the company should be able to generate, which were being ignored by the market, which was focused on the short-term issues plaguing the firm. Now as we sit going into 2019, we have a bank generating a 15% plus return on tangible equity, without taking the excessive risks as in prior cycles. The balance sheet has never been stronger. The company has multiple business platforms such as Merrill and U.S. Trust that delineate it versus many of its competitors and warrant a higher valuation. The worst part about past selloffs in the stock though was that management couldn’t fully take advantage with a massive buyback. Instead they had to horde capital to raise their capital ratios. Finally, we have a major selloff that management can capitalize on by using most of its profits to buy back stock at a considerable discount to intrinsic value, thereby enhancing intrinsic value per share.

At a recent price of around $24.50, BAC trades right around its book value per share of $24.33. Tangible book value stands at $17.23 per share and it is important to note that these numbers would be meaningfully higher if it weren’t for the tax changes that caused the company to reduce the value of its DTA, but ultimately the company should realize the benefits of those lost DTAs via a reduced tax rate into the future. BAC’s normalized earnings power is around $2.50 per share and should grow at a faster rate than the overall economy. While management should certainly continue to devote the majority of capital returns to stock buybacks, BAC will offer a rapid growth rate on its dividend payments over the next 5-10 years.

While BAC may not be priced for bankruptcy like it has been in the past, it is priced as though it won’t be able to grow intrinsic value whatsoever and that will not be the case. The company is a well-oiled machine, with several of the most enviable business franchises in the world. For the patient investor that is willing to look past current fears and realistically assess the soundness of the enterprise, BAC offers a great opportunity to average double-digit returns in a market that is highly unlikely to do anything close to that. At T&T Capital Management, we believe BAC is worth between $32-$35. The big banks are not going to be nearly as cyclical as they were in the past, but they are still cyclical. Paying 10 times earnings for a business like this is an absolute steal and I don’t believe that the next recession, whenever it comes, will be anything like the last one. It appears that Warren Buffett feels a similar way about the big banks, as he dramatically increased his positions in them at much higher prices than what they are trading at today. Last I checked, BAC is actually a larger position than WFC in dollar size and I can see why when you look at the outlook and valuations for both firms.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BAC. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

New Post has been published on http://rentts.org/bank-of-america-is-an-all-american-bargain/

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

It has been about two and a half years since I have written up a research report on Bank of America (BAC), and six and half years since I wrote up my first one. After the election rally, we were able to lock-in profits on some very large positions for our firm, including Bank of America; as the valuation finally came close to approximating the intrinsic value of the business, and we were able to utilize that capital in other places. Now, in this winter market maelstrom, it feels good to be back and once again Bank of America has become an extremely compelling buying opportunity. It is my contention that market participants are fighting the last battle once again, thinking the next recession will look the same as the Great Recession. They will be wrong and Bank of America’s stock will grind materially higher over the next 3-5 years.

It is amazing to see just how far Bank of America has come. Obviously, the company completed one of the worst acquisitions in business history when it made its distressed purchase of Countrywide Financial. Far worse than the actual economic losses that the portfolio of mortgages brought on, was the tens of billions of dollars of legal costs and penalties that hammered shareholders in the years following the Crisis. BAC made a good call when it hired Brian Moynihan to run the show. Moynihan implemented one of the best handled cost-cutting exercises I’ve seen, while continuing to invest in responsible growth. Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust are blue-chip assets, capable of generating returns on invested capital far higher than traditional banking operations and growing these franchises has been a priority. BAC hasn’t tired to hit homeruns in investment banking and instead has been trying to hit for contact. Arguably they have been overly conservative there and we have now seen some management changes, but I’d argue that Bank of America has taken the right approach to prepare itself for the next crisis, whatever and whenever that may be.

As stocks fell in October and the S&P was down by roughly 10%, I attended an event with roughly 100 business owners and executives talking about the market and the economy. There was a speaker from Merrill Lynch that asked if they thought the correction meant the end of the 9-and-a-half-year bull market, and not one person raised their hand. That worried me quite a bit because I tend to feel more confident when there is far less of a consensus and it was clear that fear hadn’t set in. I am not surprised to see that markets have continued to selloff, but I do think that fear has started to become more prominent. Many of the fin twits etc., that have been advocating being 100% long ETFs and index funds for the last 2-3 years, have already started talking about their tactical strategies to handle downturns. This to me is as a good sign as there has been that a lot of really stupid money has been pouring into stocks with zero regard to valuations. If those people want to sell their high-beta names such as Bank of America to me at silly valuations I’m glad to accept the offer.

Today’s paranoia revolves around a few different areas. Firstly, you have the trade negotiations with China. I’d say that it is pretty clear that both countries are willing to make some sacrifices and resuming more friendly relations would be a clear positive. China is likely trying to wait out American politics to change its focus on fair trade with a new party taking over, while the U.S. is trying to make its inroads via brute force. Secondly, the yield curve has become very flat, leading to concerns about economic growth. This compresses margins, but net interest income is so strong, this shouldn’t be a huge deal for the big banks as long as credit stays strong. Italy was a major concern, but they are starting to talk down their budget deficit agenda and there appears to be room for negotiation. Brexit is a mess but there is the possibility that we could see another referendum or vote on it as nobody seems satisfied. Higher interest rates and SALT tax changes are most certainly impacting the housing market, causing a slowdown in sales and price reductions. Affordability is an issue, but there isn’t the silly credit underwriting or excess supply that would likely lead to a major downturn there.

Credit is phenomenal for the big banks, and while it can only really get worse from here, there is nothing that I see that in any way would jeopardize these companies being incredibly profitable, including a mild to medium recession. If you look at consumers, leverage appears to be benign. Student loans are a disaster, which taxpayers are mostly on the hook for. Mortgages aren’t much of a concern, as underwriting has been night and day different from the past. Credit cards have been a very competitive space, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see losses pick up there. Corporate leverage is high but a lot of that is due to the benefits a levered capital structure gave companies under the prior tax regime, in combination with low interest rates. I’d expect companies to aggressively reduce their leverage over the next few years.

The fact that the Federal Reserve might end up pausing rate hikes is very good for just about everyone, including the banks. While many analysts tend to focus on myopic issues such as net interest margins, the biggest risk to banks is a large credit bubble, like that which existed in the last recession. Now the big banks have double the capital and double the liquidity, so they can still thrive in just about any environment. They have gobbled up market share and have access to the lowest cost of capital in the sector. Mortgage rates are starting to come down, and I believe if that continues the housing market should stabilize.

On October 15th, Bank of America reported 3rd quarter financial results that were exceptional. Diluted earnings per share of $0.66, were up 43%. Net income of $7.2 billion was a record and was up 32% YoY. Pretax income of $9 billion was up 18% YoY. Total revenue of $22.8 billion was up 4%. Net interest income was up 6%. Noninterest income was up 2%. Despite all this revenue growth, noninterest expenses of $13.1 billion was down 2% YoY. The net charge-off ratio was up 1 paltry basis point to 0.4%.

BAC’s return on average assets of 1.23% was up 28bps, and its return on average common shareholders’ equity of 11% was up 310 bps. BAC has made dramatic improvements towards increasing its return on average tangible common shareholders’ equity to 15.5%, up 450 bps YoY. The efficiency ratio of 57% has improved by 396 bps. These were numbers that 4-5 years ago many analysts said were virtually impossible for the big banks to achieve once again.

BAC’s loans and leases grew by 3% overall, with consumer up 5% and commercial up 2%. Average deposits continued to increase by 4%. Merrill brokerage assets increased by 22% to over $200 billion. Client balances within Global Wealth & Investment Management increase to $2.8 trillion. The bank’s capital and liquidity position is stronger than it has ever been with $164 billion of Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (CET1) and a CET1 ratio of 11.4%. Bank of America has a staggering $537 billion of average Global Liquidity Sources. Year-to-date, BAC has repurchased $14.9 billion of common shares and paid $4 billion in common dividends, returning 96% of net income available to common shareholders.

In years past when I wrote about Bank of America, I found myself extremely frustrated at times. I saw what the future could be and the returns the company should be able to generate, which were being ignored by the market, which was focused on the short-term issues plaguing the firm. Now as we sit going into 2019, we have a bank generating a 15% plus return on tangible equity, without taking the excessive risks as in prior cycles. The balance sheet has never been stronger. The company has multiple business platforms such as Merrill and U.S. Trust that delineate it versus many of its competitors and warrant a higher valuation. The worst part about past selloffs in the stock though was that management couldn’t fully take advantage with a massive buyback. Instead they had to horde capital to raise their capital ratios. Finally, we have a major selloff that management can capitalize on by using most of its profits to buy back stock at a considerable discount to intrinsic value, thereby enhancing intrinsic value per share.

At a recent price of around $24.50, BAC trades right around its book value per share of $24.33. Tangible book value stands at $17.23 per share and it is important to note that these numbers would be meaningfully higher if it weren’t for the tax changes that caused the company to reduce the value of its DTA, but ultimately the company should realize the benefits of those lost DTAs via a reduced tax rate into the future. BAC’s normalized earnings power is around $2.50 per share and should grow at a faster rate than the overall economy. While management should certainly continue to devote the majority of capital returns to stock buybacks, BAC will offer a rapid growth rate on its dividend payments over the next 5-10 years.

While BAC may not be priced for bankruptcy like it has been in the past, it is priced as though it won’t be able to grow intrinsic value whatsoever and that will not be the case. The company is a well-oiled machine, with several of the most enviable business franchises in the world. For the patient investor that is willing to look past current fears and realistically assess the soundness of the enterprise, BAC offers a great opportunity to average double-digit returns in a market that is highly unlikely to do anything close to that. At T&T Capital Management, we believe BAC is worth between $32-$35. The big banks are not going to be nearly as cyclical as they were in the past, but they are still cyclical. Paying 10 times earnings for a business like this is an absolute steal and I don’t believe that the next recession, whenever it comes, will be anything like the last one. It appears that Warren Buffett feels a similar way about the big banks, as he dramatically increased his positions in them at much higher prices than what they are trading at today. Last I checked, BAC is actually a larger position than WFC in dollar size and I can see why when you look at the outlook and valuations for both firms.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BAC. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[lazilysillyprince]

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

New Post has been published on http://rentts.org/bank-of-america-is-an-all-american-bargain/

Bank Of America Is An All-American Bargain

It has been about two and a half years since I have written up a research report on Bank of America (BAC), and six and half years since I wrote up my first one. After the election rally, we were able to lock-in profits on some very large positions for our firm, including Bank of America; as the valuation finally came close to approximating the intrinsic value of the business, and we were able to utilize that capital in other places. Now, in this winter market maelstrom, it feels good to be back and once again Bank of America has become an extremely compelling buying opportunity. It is my contention that market participants are fighting the last battle once again, thinking the next recession will look the same as the Great Recession. They will be wrong and Bank of America’s stock will grind materially higher over the next 3-5 years.

It is amazing to see just how far Bank of America has come. Obviously, the company completed one of the worst acquisitions in business history when it made its distressed purchase of Countrywide Financial. Far worse than the actual economic losses that the portfolio of mortgages brought on, was the tens of billions of dollars of legal costs and penalties that hammered shareholders in the years following the Crisis. BAC made a good call when it hired Brian Moynihan to run the show. Moynihan implemented one of the best handled cost-cutting exercises I’ve seen, while continuing to invest in responsible growth. Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust are blue-chip assets, capable of generating returns on invested capital far higher than traditional banking operations and growing these franchises has been a priority. BAC hasn’t tired to hit homeruns in investment banking and instead has been trying to hit for contact. Arguably they have been overly conservative there and we have now seen some management changes, but I’d argue that Bank of America has taken the right approach to prepare itself for the next crisis, whatever and whenever that may be.

As stocks fell in October and the S&P was down by roughly 10%, I attended an event with roughly 100 business owners and executives talking about the market and the economy. There was a speaker from Merrill Lynch that asked if they thought the correction meant the end of the 9-and-a-half-year bull market, and not one person raised their hand. That worried me quite a bit because I tend to feel more confident when there is far less of a consensus and it was clear that fear hadn’t set in. I am not surprised to see that markets have continued to selloff, but I do think that fear has started to become more prominent. Many of the fin twits etc., that have been advocating being 100% long ETFs and index funds for the last 2-3 years, have already started talking about their tactical strategies to handle downturns. This to me is as a good sign as there has been that a lot of really stupid money has been pouring into stocks with zero regard to valuations. If those people want to sell their high-beta names such as Bank of America to me at silly valuations I’m glad to accept the offer.

Today’s paranoia revolves around a few different areas. Firstly, you have the trade negotiations with China. I’d say that it is pretty clear that both countries are willing to make some sacrifices and resuming more friendly relations would be a clear positive. China is likely trying to wait out American politics to change its focus on fair trade with a new party taking over, while the U.S. is trying to make its inroads via brute force. Secondly, the yield curve has become very flat, leading to concerns about economic growth. This compresses margins, but net interest income is so strong, this shouldn’t be a huge deal for the big banks as long as credit stays strong. Italy was a major concern, but they are starting to talk down their budget deficit agenda and there appears to be room for negotiation. Brexit is a mess but there is the possibility that we could see another referendum or vote on it as nobody seems satisfied. Higher interest rates and SALT tax changes are most certainly impacting the housing market, causing a slowdown in sales and price reductions. Affordability is an issue, but there isn’t the silly credit underwriting or excess supply that would likely lead to a major downturn there.

Credit is phenomenal for the big banks, and while it can only really get worse from here, there is nothing that I see that in any way would jeopardize these companies being incredibly profitable, including a mild to medium recession. If you look at consumers, leverage appears to be benign. Student loans are a disaster, which taxpayers are mostly on the hook for. Mortgages aren’t much of a concern, as underwriting has been night and day different from the past. Credit cards have been a very competitive space, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see losses pick up there. Corporate leverage is high but a lot of that is due to the benefits a levered capital structure gave companies under the prior tax regime, in combination with low interest rates. I’d expect companies to aggressively reduce their leverage over the next few years.

The fact that the Federal Reserve might end up pausing rate hikes is very good for just about everyone, including the banks. While many analysts tend to focus on myopic issues such as net interest margins, the biggest risk to banks is a large credit bubble, like that which existed in the last recession. Now the big banks have double the capital and double the liquidity, so they can still thrive in just about any environment. They have gobbled up market share and have access to the lowest cost of capital in the sector. Mortgage rates are starting to come down, and I believe if that continues the housing market should stabilize.

On October 15th, Bank of America reported 3rd quarter financial results that were exceptional. Diluted earnings per share of $0.66, were up 43%. Net income of $7.2 billion was a record and was up 32% YoY. Pretax income of $9 billion was up 18% YoY. Total revenue of $22.8 billion was up 4%. Net interest income was up 6%. Noninterest income was up 2%. Despite all this revenue growth, noninterest expenses of $13.1 billion was down 2% YoY. The net charge-off ratio was up 1 paltry basis point to 0.4%.

BAC’s return on average assets of 1.23% was up 28bps, and its return on average common shareholders’ equity of 11% was up 310 bps. BAC has made dramatic improvements towards increasing its return on average tangible common shareholders’ equity to 15.5%, up 450 bps YoY. The efficiency ratio of 57% has improved by 396 bps. These were numbers that 4-5 years ago many analysts said were virtually impossible for the big banks to achieve once again.

BAC’s loans and leases grew by 3% overall, with consumer up 5% and commercial up 2%. Average deposits continued to increase by 4%. Merrill brokerage assets increased by 22% to over $200 billion. Client balances within Global Wealth & Investment Management increase to $2.8 trillion. The bank’s capital and liquidity position is stronger than it has ever been with $164 billion of Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (CET1) and a CET1 ratio of 11.4%. Bank of America has a staggering $537 billion of average Global Liquidity Sources. Year-to-date, BAC has repurchased $14.9 billion of common shares and paid $4 billion in common dividends, returning 96% of net income available to common shareholders.

In years past when I wrote about Bank of America, I found myself extremely frustrated at times. I saw what the future could be and the returns the company should be able to generate, which were being ignored by the market, which was focused on the short-term issues plaguing the firm. Now as we sit going into 2019, we have a bank generating a 15% plus return on tangible equity, without taking the excessive risks as in prior cycles. The balance sheet has never been stronger. The company has multiple business platforms such as Merrill and U.S. Trust that delineate it versus many of its competitors and warrant a higher valuation. The worst part about past selloffs in the stock though was that management couldn’t fully take advantage with a massive buyback. Instead they had to horde capital to raise their capital ratios. Finally, we have a major selloff that management can capitalize on by using most of its profits to buy back stock at a considerable discount to intrinsic value, thereby enhancing intrinsic value per share.

At a recent price of around $24.50, BAC trades right around its book value per share of $24.33. Tangible book value stands at $17.23 per share and it is important to note that these numbers would be meaningfully higher if it weren’t for the tax changes that caused the company to reduce the value of its DTA, but ultimately the company should realize the benefits of those lost DTAs via a reduced tax rate into the future. BAC’s normalized earnings power is around $2.50 per share and should grow at a faster rate than the overall economy. While management should certainly continue to devote the majority of capital returns to stock buybacks, BAC will offer a rapid growth rate on its dividend payments over the next 5-10 years.

While BAC may not be priced for bankruptcy like it has been in the past, it is priced as though it won’t be able to grow intrinsic value whatsoever and that will not be the case. The company is a well-oiled machine, with several of the most enviable business franchises in the world. For the patient investor that is willing to look past current fears and realistically assess the soundness of the enterprise, BAC offers a great opportunity to average double-digit returns in a market that is highly unlikely to do anything close to that. At T&T Capital Management, we believe BAC is worth between $32-$35. The big banks are not going to be nearly as cyclical as they were in the past, but they are still cyclical. Paying 10 times earnings for a business like this is an absolute steal and I don’t believe that the next recession, whenever it comes, will be anything like the last one. It appears that Warren Buffett feels a similar way about the big banks, as he dramatically increased his positions in them at much higher prices than what they are trading at today. Last I checked, BAC is actually a larger position than WFC in dollar size and I can see why when you look at the outlook and valuations for both firms.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BAC. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Sleepless in America: Prescribing Sleep at CES 2018

Las Vegas is known for glitzy neon lights brightly shining along the strip and casinos without clocks reminding us of the time, stimulating us to stay awake at all hours of day or night. But inside the Sands Convention Center are a couple dozen technologies and connected things designed to put us to sleep, which is a growing digital health category at the annual CES.

Form factors for sleep-things at CES 2018 include masks, beds, lights, apps, and even a huggable sleep “robot.”

Why is sleep seeing such a huge influx on the consumer tech-supply side? Because there’s growing, mainstream recognition that good sleep is a key determinant of health, decreasing risks for obesity and overweight, contributing to mental wellness, and boosting personal productivity and alertness.

Sleeplessness has increased due to many factors, notably consumers’ use of technologies at night and in the bedroom (and bed). That blue screen has a negative impact on a user’s ability to fall asleep, and FOMO — fear of missing out — leads to some people developing addictive behavior. That’s why the World Health Organization (WHO) is considering creating a new ICD-9 code specifically for digital gaming addiction. [Here’s more on WHO’s thinking]. Stress, too, negatively impacts our ability to sleep. And stress, like digital addiction, is, sadly, a common threat in 2018 modern life.

 Thus sets the stage on the consumer-demand side for sleep-help. At CES 2018, there are all kinds of flavors and forms to solve the insomnia epidemic.

Start with headbands: there are many introductions of sleep-supportive things to wear above-the-neck (consider these sleep-wearables). Philips launched the SleepSmart headband, which has been informed and developed based on the science of deep wave sleep. An audio device is embedded at the front-center of the headband which sends out a noise signal when the user enters deep wave sleep: the signal continues to lull the sleeper in this deep wave mode, which is meant to maximize the user’s high quality sleep time. The device doesn’t promise more sleep — just more high quality sleep. Philips’ clinical trials demonstrated efficacy among consumers using the device, such as greater clarity, energy and sense awakeness after using the system.

Another headband device comes from Dreamlight, which was one of the technologies I judged in this week’s Showstoppers event. Dreamlight was developed by an entrepreneur who is a frequent flyer, subject to jet lag on a chronic basis. The Dreamlight headband covers the eyes, and features light and color and sound to nudge the use to sleep and keep the user in sleep mode.

Nokia has been deepening the company’s position in health and wellness, and this year adds sleep tech to its device ecosystem. Nokia acquired Withings several years ago, growing its position in consumer health tracking from weight scales to activity and fitness. Nokia Sleep is the company’s CES 2018 offering with the tagline, “Know your nights. Master your days,” which is part of a larger communications strategy asserting, “Know Yourself.” (Good coverage of this campaign is in this issue of Advertising Age). To help us improve our sleep, Nokia has developed a sleep sensing pad that is placed under the sleeper’s mattress and measures his sleep cycles, heart rate, and snoring.

On the app front, welcome Shleep, developed by a European team led by Dr. Els van der Helm, with roots in clinical psychology and sleep studies. The app offers bite-sized sleep coaching lessons that are The cleverly-named tool, which is downloadable in app stores now, has been adopted by some employer groups, in its early days at the Huffington Post (where I write a column), and is also used by individuals. As one of the competing innovators in the IHS Markit wearable tech competition I judged this week at Showstoppers, I am impressed with this team and their approach to helping people sleep better.

Beyond headbands and sensor pads and apps, of course, there are beds: and bed-tech has been featured at CES for several years. Sleep Number’s booth is always well-visited at CES because those of us who want to kick the proverbial tires of the bed get to lie down on these comfortable mattresses as part of the process (hey, someone’s got to do the hard work!). This year, Sleep Number asks the question, “Can SleepIQ® Technology Identify a Heart Attack and Detect Sleep Apnea?” And the company will, of course, answer, an emphatic, “yes!” Sleep Number is akin to the Fitbit or My Fitness Pal or Lose It! of the sleep world in terms of the scale of the data the company has collected on consumers’ sleep patterns: the company claims to have one of the largest databases of biometric consumer sleep data in the world, with over 4 billion data points. The company’s future scenarios include that ability to detect heart attacks, do remote health monitoring, and monitor patients post-hospital discharge.

Sitting on the night table are sleep-inducing (and wake-up) lights such as HOMNI from Terraillon (who worked with the European Sleep Center on the technology) and Philips SOMNEO.

Another tech for the bedside table is SleepScore Max, a system that combines sleep sensor, an app, and a sleep guide that serves up coaching advice based on the sensors’ collected data. SleepScore was developed by ResMed, sleep apnea experts, and a team of sleep experts and clinicians including Dr. Oz. SleepScore launched last year at CES 2017, so the Max is an updated version of the inaugural device incorporating users’ input collected over the past year of consumers’ use.

Rounding out sleep tech at CES 2018 is Somnox, billed as the world’s first “sleeprobot.” Somnox takes the form of a soft pillow, accompanied by an app, and adapts to the sleeper’s breathing rhythm. The device plays music or sounds based on the sleeper’s preference — from lullabies to white noise, audiobooks, and guided meditation. Somnox, developed in the Netherlands, is based on the science of breathing regulation.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Sleep is one of the largest health and wellness categories at CES 2018. Sleeplessness is a global health challenge: note the number of innovations described in this post, and their origins: my quick inventory of sleep-tech innovations gauges that developments this year come out of Asia, Europe and the U.S. this year. It’s intriguing that the Netherlands seems to be a net-exporter of sleep-tech.

Like healthy food, activity and exercise, not smoking, and drinking in moderation, sleep plays a big part of whole health. If we have challenges sleeping, there are various hacks we can adopt to try and remedy insomnia, such as meditating, doing yoga, getting more exercise during the day, and of course, staying away from political news and blue light in the evening. The last chart suggests some additional tips from the National Sleep Foundation.

And then, of course, there is a growing menu of sleep-tech options that one can try out. Given the tenor of the moment, my short to mid-term forecast is that the demand side for sleep-health will continue to grow, especially for solutions that avoid prescription and over-the-counter medications.

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