After unexpectedly slumping last month to 37.9, the Chicago PMI index cratered even more unexpectedly in May, when it defied hopes of a rebound to 41.5, and instead tumbled even more, sliding to a cycle low of 35.4 which was not only below the lowest estimate, but was staggeringly low. To get a sense of just how low, the last two times it printed here was during the peak of the covid and global financial crises...
... which seems to suggest that at least according to Chicago-based purchasing managers, the economy is in a depression.
This is how the final number looked relative to expectations.
Looking at the report we find the following:
Business barometer fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
New orders fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Employment fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Inventories fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Supplier deliveries fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction
Production fell at a slower pace; signaling contraction
Order backlogs fell at a faster pace; signaling contraction
Did nothing rise? One thing did:
Prices paid rose at a slower pace; signaling expansion
So we have not just a depression, but a stagflationary depression in which everything else is going to hell, except prices: they keep on rising.
And while it is unclear what has prompted this unprecedented bearishness (the surely negative contribution from Boeing is likely to blame for a substantial portion of the apocalyptic outlook), one thing is certain: Goldman will have to come up with even more goalseeked surveys that explain away reality and tell us how purchasing managers really should feel...
The UK government has banned private gender clinics from prescribing puberty blockers to under-18s, in a move which campaigners say will close a loophole for access to the drugs.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced on Wednesday that it would put a three-month emergency ban on supplying puberty-suppressing hormones to gender-confused children in England, Wales, and Scotland. It will apply to prescriptions written by prescribers in the UK and those registered in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.
The ban, taking affect on June 3 until Sept. 3, was made “to address risks to public safety,” the DHSC said.
“Indefinite restrictions” have also been put in place on the prescription of these drugs within the National Health Service (NHS), the UK’s publicly-funded health care system. The NHS has already stopped the routine prescription of puberty blockers.
Announcing the measures on social media platform X, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said, “Today I have taken bold action to protect children following the Cass Review, using emergency powers to ban puberty blockers for new treatments of gender dysphoria from private clinics and for all purposes from overseas prescribers into Great Britain.”
Ms. Atkins added that she had introduced similar restrictions for NHS prescriptions “to further close the loopholes"
Since the start of Israel's Rafah offensive, numerous videos and photos have been spreading online, but some make false claims about civilian suffering. DW investigates some of the viral ones.
https://p.dw.com/p/4gQbM
Image: https://x.com/Osint613
Since May 6, the Israeli army has been advancing into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, engaging in bombardments and exchanges of fire with the Islamist militant group Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by Germany, Israel, and other countries. Dozens of civilians have been killed during Israel’s offensive, according to witnesses,emergency workers, and hospital officials. Simultaneously, fake news and misleading visuals have flooded the internet. Here are a few examples.
Do Palestinian crisis actors stage scenes of death and injury?
Image: x.com/redbrasco
Claim: A post on X, formerly Twitter, features a picture of a person draped in a white shroud holding a smartphone. The caption claims that this image is a proof of "Palestinians media manipulation", where actors stage scenes of death and injury to exaggerate civilian casualties relating to Israel's military operation in Gaza. Since it was posted on May 26 and the time of this article's publication, the tweet had garnered over 100,000 views and been shared by about 3,000 accounts.
DW fact check: False.
The picture has nothing to do with Rafah or Gaza. A Google image search shows it actually comes from a Halloween party in Thailand that took place in October 2022, according to Thai websites. The same picture has circulated on multiple social media platforms in recent months, often attached to posts with similar claims.
Dubious visuals accuse Palestinians of exaggerating war casualties
Claim: Another video shared on Xand viewed about 190,000 times, purports to show "crisis actors" in Rafah being prepped for a propaganda shoot. The caption reads: "Rafah actors are preparing, and we may soon witness disturbing footage from Rafah." In the footage, two men are seen in a graveyard — one on a stretcher having makeup applied to his neck, and another sitting in a body bag, smoking a cigarette. The video's caption reads "Make-up Gaza Style."
Image: x.com/GAZAWOOD1
DW fact check: False. This allegation has been refuted by various media outlets, including Palestinian fact-checking network Kashif. The video is actually a behind-the-scenes look at a Palestinian TV drama series titled "Bleeding Dirt," which was broadcast months before the Rafah offensive. The series is available on YouTube and the graveyard scenefeatures in the second episode.
Claims that Palestinian crisis actors fake injuries have been circulating for months on social media. Such accusations often use derogatory terms like "Gazawood" or "Pallywood," combining "Palestine" and "Hollywood" to imply that Palestinians are orchestrating a large-scale misinformation campaign. Unverified videos supporting these claims have even been shared by prominent Israeli influencers, such as Hananya Naftali, who has about half a million followers on X.
DW Fact Check investigated several of these videos posted by an account known for spreading these accusations, but it could not verify whether they were filmed in Gaza. More proof is needed to substantiate these claims; for example, images and footage showing the same individuals acting as real victims.
Does this image show the aftermath of the Rafah offensive?
Claim: While some visuals allegedly showing Palestinians faking death and injury have been debunked, many instances of photos and images falsely claim to depict the aftermath and victims of the Rafah offensive. For example, one widely circulated photo purports to show the shrouded corpses of victims following an Israeli bombardment of Rafah on May 26. This aerial view of a mass funeral has been posted by several accounts, with one postreceiving over 12,500 views and being shared more than 700 times at time of publication.
Image: x.com/swilkinsonbc
DW fact check: False. The photo indeed shows a funeral in Gaza, but the victims were not killed during Israel’s recent strikes on Rafah. Instead, they were killed during another outbreak of the conflict in 2023. The photo, taken by Gazan journalistMahmud Hams, can be seen in a news article published by France 24 News Agency in December 2023.
Video showing Gazan child killed by the Israeli army?
Claim: Some photos and videos allegedly show injured civilians in hospitals, but are often taken out of context, depicting different incidents with emotional captions. A post on X, garnering about 15,100 views, features a cat "saying goodbye to a Palestinian child killed by Israeli occupation."
DW fact check: False. The video predates the conflict in Gaza. A reverse image search of a snapshot of the video shows it was posted on Russian social media VK in May 2021. This video is one of many instances of visuals falsely attributed to the ongoing Gaza conflict debunked by DW fact check and other media.
Asghar Ali being led out by NYPD cops after he tried to mow down Orthodox students and a rabbi outside a Brooklyn Jewish school Wednesday.Simon Gifter
After demented driver Asghar Ali allegedly attempted to mow down Orthodox students and a rabbi outside a Brooklyn yeshiva this week, cops were quick to say that there was no nexus of terror.
But the disturbing caught-on-camera video captured Ali revving his engine and mounting the curb as he tried to run down the Jewish men while screaming, “I’m gonna kill all the Jews” in a terrifying antisemitic attack.
Even if Ali is a lone madman, his act is clearly fueled by the rank antisemitism and anti-Jewish climate splashing into the open at pro-Palestinian protests, online and in the media.
As Mayor Adams recently fumed, New York has “normalized” a horrific hatred toward Jews, as has much of the rest of the world.
NYPD data show antisemitic attacks have soared since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel — and anti-Jewish hate crimes in the Big Apple nearly doubled in this year’s first quarter.
Just this week, prosecutors indicted Skiboky Stora on hate-crime charges involving what they describe as “anti-female, anti-white and antisemitic attacks” in Chelsea from September to March.
In one instance, Stora allegedly stalked a couple and told them to “die, Jews, die” after they photographed him tearing down posters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Ali, Stora and the thousands of anti-Israel protesters, many violent, are succeeding in terrorizing Jews in Gotham, a city with a biggest Jewish population in the city.
Indeed, Jews have been subjected to the most vile remarks and even violence on college campuses from Columbia to UCLA and on the streets.
They’ve seen the world single out Israel for reprobation while closing its eyes to nations committing realcrimes — simply because Israel is the Jewish homeland.
Law-enforcement and other officials looking at Ali’s attack mustn’t dismiss it as a merely the act of a lone lunatic. The case signals a putrid turn for the city that must be halted, pronto.
As Adams said, such a climate would never be tolerated if, say, blacks were the target.
It mustn’t be allowed to stand when Jews are in the crosshairs either.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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