Liberal Free Chat Zone

[realfast95]

2018 Greatest Hits: The Most Popular Articles Of The Past Year And A Look Ahead

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-31/2018-greatest-hits-most-popular-articles-past-year-and-look-ahead

....

So without further ado, here are the articles that you, our readers, found to be the most engaging, interesting and popular based on the number of hits, during the past year.

In 20th spot, with just over 600,000 page views, was a question affecting a company that investors either love or hate: Tesla. Elon Musk got in a lot of trouble with the SEC in 2018 after tweeting, without reason, that he had "funding secured" for an LBO deal, only for it to emerge that he was merely hoping to "burn the shorts" and force a short squeeze. Well the shorts enjoyed a brief moment in the sun as TSLA stock tumble, only to rebound after the company's best quarter yet. However, questions have emerged when people asked "Why Are "Thousands" of Teslas Sitting In a Field in California?" prompting questions if Musk is merely stashing away excess inventory in order to represent ongoing strong ongoing demand for the Model 3. This, along with many other questions involving Tesla and its ongoing viability will hopefully be answered in the coming year.


In 19th spot, with just over 650,000 page views was a troubling report about the ubiquitous presence of big brother when "Police Raided The Home Of Man Who Posted Pictures Of His Mushroom Dinner On Facebook" in which we described the story of a man who posted photos of his homegrown morel mushrooms on Facebook, and which led to a visit to his home hours later from law enforcement apparently investigating possible use of psychedelic mushrooms. Increasingly, social media is becoming a giant privacy liability, as many around the world have learned in a year of scandals for Facebook and its peers, when it emerged that there is no such thing as "privacy", and one's data is sold with impunity to the highest bidder.


In 18th spot, with over 667,000 page views, was the latest story of economic collapse out of that Latin American "socialist paradise" - Venezuela - which as part of its ongoing hyperinflationary disintegeration succumbed to another round of "Chaos After Maduro Announces Massive 95% Devaluation" with the new FX Rate Tied, paradoxically, to the country's Cryptocurrency. While the endgame for now officially bankrupt Venezuela is clear, the biggest question is just how much longer will the people tolerate Maduro at the head of what is now the worst instance of hyperinflation in world history, with Venezuela's hyperinflation of 1,000,000% now surpassing even that of the Weimar Republic.


In 17th spot, over 687,000 readers were shocked to learn that in parallel to what Trump has dubbed the biggest "witch hunt in history", the "DOJ's Inspector General Horowitz Found that FBI, DOJ Broke the Law In Clinton Probe" and has refers to prosecutor for criminal charges. President Trump has repeatedly accused the DOJ of a campaign to spy and discredit his presidency, and has claimed that the "Russian collusion" is just an ongoing attempt to distract from the real story: the coverup of alleged crimes of Hillary's email server. 2019 will provide some closure on this matter with the Mueller investigation expected to conclude early in the year. What happens next, and whether Trump is impeached as a result, remains to be seen.


In 16th spot, readers shifted their attention to yet another political crisis, this time in South Africa, where "As Land Confiscations Loom, South Africa Rules 300,000 Gun-Owners Turn Over Their Weapons." While the South African economy was relatively stable in 2018, this may not persist next year especially if, as the ruling party has decided, white landowner lands are to be expropriated, potentially resulting in a nationalization of private assets. And since such an act may be accompanied with mass weapon confiscation, some see in current events in South Africa a preview of the worst case scenario for any developed nation in which the government becomes too powerful and seeks to pander to a specific group of voters.


In 15h spot, with just under 690,000 page views, was a surprising and in fact shocking admission by the Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who admitted in a CNN interview that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and those in his orbit. Meanwhile, instead of focusing on potential abuses by the prior administration, the US media and public dutifully follow every twist and turn in the most contrived narrative, that of Vladimir Putin somehow winning Trump's election for him, which of course has been a recurring sideshow for the past two years, mostly meant to "explain" why Hillary Clinton lost an election which every expert said she was assured of winning.


In 14th spot, with over 738,000 page views, was the latest troubling development in Sweden, which in recent years had become a haven for immigrants with dire consequences for the local population, and which in mid-August was "burning", after "Migrant Gangs Unleash Coordinated Fire-Bomb Rampage Across Multiple Cities." And amid public calls for tougher policies on crime and immigration, 2018 saw yet another populist anti-immigrant party, the Jimmie Åkesson-led Sweden Democrats, storm the polls in the country's September election, in the latest slap to Europe's legacy establishment, an outcome that was only made possible, ironically, thanks to Angela Merkel's liberal "open door" policies.


In 13th spot, over 787,000 readers were shocked to learn that a photograph of two migrant children sleeping in a cage at an ICE detention facility which quickly went viral on the net, and which served as the focal point of outrage du jour at President Trump's immigration policy, had in fact been taken under Obama, prompting hilarious responses from blue checkmarked liberals, such as CNN's Hadas Gold, who deleted her previous outraged tweet saying "Deleted previous tweet because gave impression of recent photos (they're from 2014)"


The 12th most popular post of 2018, with over 804,000 page views, belonged to the Democratic Party's rising socialist icon - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - who had been on an intense media junket since her upset primary victory over establishment Democrat Joe Crowley. The socialist phenom had told the Washington Post "I wasn’t born to a wealthy or powerful family — mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx. I was born in a place where your Zip code determines your destiny." Except that Ocasio-Cortez grew up in one of the richest counties in the United States, Yorktown Heights a wealthy suburb of Westchester County. There has been a lot of cognitive dissonance within America's Democratic Socialists ever since.


More than 886,000 readers tuned in on November 7, when the midterms revealed that a significant portion of America had grown disenchanted with Trump/Republican policies and as a result the House flipped to Democrat control with a sizable majority even as the GOP retained control over Congress (and the all important Supreme Court decision process). The resulting gridlock assures that even less will be done for America's middle class in the coming two years than was done in the prior two years.


In 10th spot, with over 935,000 page views, readers were amused to learn of the fall of one of the most prominent leaders of the anti-Trump resistance, prominent lawyer Michael Avenatti, who had risen to resistance defending porn star Stormy Daniels and staged a furious campaign to discredit Trump's latest pick for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanugh, only to see it backfire as "Michael Avenatti Turns Radioactive As Liberals Blame Porn Lawyer For Kavanaugh Confirmation" after many of the allegations from his client Julie Swetnick proved to be false, thereby discrediting much of the anti-Kavanaugh grassroots campaign, in the process also scuttling any hopes Avenatti may have had to run for president in 2020.


In 9th spot, over 964,000 readers were amazed to learn of a "modest proposal" floated by the Chicago Fed, which in May unveiled its "solution" to Chicago's pension problem: as we reported, an "audible gasp" was heard from the audience when a speaker from the Chicago Fed proposed levying a special property assessment they estimate would be about 1% of actual property value for 30 years. In other words, the Fed had just floated to "confiscate wealth from current owners because they will pay, whether they stay or not, through an immediate reduction in home value." While Wirepoints said that "It surely ranks among the most blatantly inhumane and foolish ideas we’ve seen yet" it may be a harbinger of the proposals the Fed will implement during the next financial crisis, especially if the Fed is unable to cut rates to negative or launch a new round of QE.


Nearly 1 million readers were surprised to learn, or perhaps not, that as diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated sharply in the spring, Russia - which had repeatedly warned it would pursue dedollarization, had quietly liquidated virtually all of its Treasury holdings, in the process setting off a sharp spike in Treasury yields. Indeed, from $96 billion in March, Putin shrank his US Treasury holdings to just $9BN in May, converting the bulk of the proceeds into gold and Chinese yuan. The bigger question remains: will China do the same?


1,147,000 readers may have been wondering if we were joking or not when we reported that "poop patrollers" in San Francisco make a cool $185,000 a year in salary and benefits. Alas, it was not joke, but merely the latest in a string of shocking revelations exposing how deep San Francisco's crisis of vast amounts of vagrant-generated feces covering its public streets actually runs. It was also the 7th most popular article of 2018.


And speaking of San Francisco's homeless problem, the 6th most popular article with over 1,167,000 page views was our report that "terrified" San Francisco tourists were shocked to find aggressive vagrants, discarded needles and dead bodies. "Is this normal or am I in a 'bad part of town?' Just walked past numerous homeless off their faces, screaming and running all over the sidewalk near Twitter HQ and then a murder scene. Wife is scared to leave hotel now," a Reddit user wrote in shock. Meanwhile, despite its homeless crisis, San Francisco remains the city with the biggest real estate bubble in the US, courtesy of the unlimited dollars flowing through the Silicon Valley Venture Capital mecca.


In 5th spot, with over 1,240,000 page views, a troubling report involving California's unstable geological foundations found that "California Was Hit By 39 Quakes In 24 Hours As Scientists Warn Of "Movement Along The San Andreas Fault"." As we wrote at the time, when you live in an area that sits along a major earthquake fault, it can be easy to forget the potential danger if nothing happens for an extended period of time. But the danger is always there, and for many California residents the rattling that we witnessed was a clear reminder of that fact. The good news is that so far "the big one" has yet to strike.


In 4th spot, with 1,380,130 page views in 2018, readers were amazed to learn, at long last, that the CFO of the Clinton Foundation admitted to investigators that the charity had widespread problems with governance, accounting and conflicts of interest, and that Bill Clinton has been commingling business and personal expenses for a long time. In other words, confirming what for years the mainstream media has slammed as, you guessed it, "fake news."


The third most popular article of 2018, with almost 1.4 million page revealed even more reader fascination with events in South Africa, where popular politician Julius Malema, aka "the Hitler of South Africa", was recorded saying that “we have not called for the killing of white people. At least for now. I can’t guarantee the future." It is unclear what will happen in the future if and when Malema does order the killing of white people.


In late April, in response to an incident in which a Philadelphia manager called the police on a pair of black men who were sitting in A Starbucks store without having purchased anything, the contrite coffee chain announced that as part of its "inclusiveness" training, it would allow vagrants to use the coffee chain's bathrooms as they please. So, perhaps it wasn't surprising, that with over 1,465,000 page views, the second most popular post of 2018 were the furious responses Starbucks employees to "becoming the world's biggest public toilet" as yet another attempt at virtue signalling imploded spectacularly.


And speaking of "spectacular backfiring", it is perhaps appropriate that the most popular article of 2018 was what happened in September when the head of the California Democratic Party called for a boycott of famed burger chain In and OUt after a public filing revealed that the company had recently donated $25,000 to the state’s Republican Party. The result was that instead of a boycott, a torrent of customers came to their favorite restaurant and bought extra food, resulting in a blockbuster revenue day for the private hamburger chain. Nearly 2.1 million readers got a chuckle out of that one.

.......