Apr 14

Today’s News 14th April 2018

  • A Map Of The Syrian War: Who Is Who (And Where)

    On Thursday, just 24 hours before Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria for the second time in just over a year, we said that “with war likely set to break out in Syria at any moment, a question many Americans are asking is… where is Syria?

    We then added that “geographical challenges aside, it is safe to say that the situation in Syria is extremely fluid, and changing on an almost daily basis” which is why we showed several strategic and tactical snapshot maps of Syria as of this moment.”

    Fast forward to Friday night, when at exactly 9pm ET on Friday 13, Trump announce that war airstrikes on Syria have once broken out, as expected, and for those who may have missed the various tactical and strategic maps of the Syrian theater, here they are again.

    The first and most useful one, courtesy of Turkey’s Omran Dirasat think tank, shows updated areas of control and influence in Syria by international military forces with reference to the most prominent international military sites in Syria.

    The second map, from Dirasat employee Nawar Sh. Oliver lays out the control and influence zone in Syria as of April 2018, revealing the relative % of gains and losses in the last 24 days.

    Finally, from the regional political journal, Suriye Gündemi English, here is a map showing the latest military situation as well as location of key military bases in Syria ahead of the expected US strikes.

  • Russia Responds: "We Are Being Threatened. A Predesigned Scenario Is Being Implemented"

    After the a joint force of US, French and UK fighter jets and ship launched an attack which as Mattis said, “used a little over double the number of weapons this year than we used last year”, and amid unconfirmed reports that the Syrian air force managed to shoot down one or more Tomahawk missiles, the question everyone was asking is whether Russia has responded, and if so, how.

    The answer, for now at least, is that Russia has not activated a response, although that may soon change.  Here is the statement from Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anataloy Antonov, posted on Facebook:

    The worst apprehensions have come true. Our warnings have been left unheard.

    A pre-designed scenario is being implemented. Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.

    All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris.

    Insulting the President of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible.

    The U.S. – the possessor of the biggest arsenal of chemical weapons – has no moral right to blame other countries.

    Despite repeated warnings from Russia, President Trump ordered American forces, along with their British and French allies, to strike military targets in Syria on Friday night; as noted previously, during a press conference late on Friday, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Russian military operating in Syria was not notified about the American targets in advance told reporters following the attacks.

    The US “specifically identified” targets to “mitigate the risk of Russian forces being involved,” Dunford said. “We used the normal deconfliction channel to deconflict airspace. We did not coordinate targets.”

    While Trump said that the purpose of the US actions is to “establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread, and use of chemical weapons,” Antonov reminded that “the US – the possessor of the biggest arsenal of chemical weapons – has no moral right to blame other countries.”

    The combined decision by the US and its allies to strike Syria comes after Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Major-General Igor Konashenkov presented evidence claiming that last Saturday’s alleged chemical attack in Douma was orchestrated.

    The attack also comes just hours before experts from the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were scheduled to visit Douma on Saturday to determine whether chemical weapons had indeed been used there. That particular trip is now moot.

  • Visualizing The U.S. States Most Vulnerable To A Trade War

    Last year, nearly $4 trillion of U.S. economic productivity was the result of international trade.

    However, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, with talk of a trade war heating up once again (Russia and China), , there is a real possibility that the global trade landscape could shift dramatically over the coming months and years.

    Any such shifts wouldn’t likely impact the country in a uniform and evenly distributed fashion – instead, any impending trade war would pose the largest direct risk to states that are dependent on buying and selling goods on international markets.

    THE STATES MOST AT RISK

    Today’s visualization comes to us from HowMuch.net, and it shows every U.S. state and district organized by GDP size, as well as percentage of GDP resulting from international trade.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Here are the 10 states most reliant on international trade:

    On a percentage basis, Michigan tops the list with 38.9% of the state’s GDP reliant on international trade.

    THE LOWEST RISK STATES

    On the flipside, here are the states or districts with less to lose in the event of a trade war.

    Washington, D.C. tops the list, with only 1.5% of its regional GDP tied to trade.

    This makes sense since The District’s economy is mostly linked to the government, service, and tourism sectors. Nearby Virginia also has surprisingly little international trade, at just 8.9% of its economy.

    Want to see more on international trade? See the numbers behind the world’s closest trade relationship in this infographic.

  • Army Major Exposes America's Circle Of Absurdity: Killing The Extremists We Create

    Authored by Major Danny Sjursen via TruthDig.com,

    The U.S. military remains mired in countless wars in the Greater Middle East. Ironically – and tragically – it tends to combat Islamists that Washington either armed or birthed.

    We, Americans, truly are a strange lot. Our government in Washington – ostensibly representative of “We the People” – speaks of peace, but wages endless war, prattles on about “freedom,” but backs absolute monarchs and authoritarian strongmen the world over. A bipartisan array of politicians warns of the evils of radical Islamic (though Islamist is more accurate) terrorism; and yet, truthfully, the US once supported and/or funded those same extremists not too long ago. In some cases, and certain circumstances, it backs them still; until, that is, all those guns are turned on the US military, or those fighters threaten Washington’s (ever shifting) “interests.”

    Perhaps, one imagines, there are lessons here: be careful who you arm; be careful where you meddle; today’s “friends” are, all too often, tomorrow’s enemies; and, in the turbulent Middle East, sometimes less is more.

    Washington would do well to remember that before its next – and there will be a next – intervention.

    Russia, it seems, is once again center stage in the Middle East. Congressmen and Senators – usually neocons or hawkish liberal interventionists – warn that Russia is “running wild,” or will “win” Syria. In fact, they argue, the US military must stay put in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, indefinitely one presumes, to block potential Russian gains. US troops must also back assorted proxies, even some nefarious characters, in order to deter Russian efforts in the region.

    The whole presumption, of course, is flawed and simplistic. We are led to believe geopolitics is a simple zero-sum game, whereby any “gain” for Russia (or Iran) is somehow a “loss” for the United States. Much evil, and plenty of mistakes, stem from such warped assumptions.

    The thing is, the historian in me has seen this movie before, and knows it ends badly. A generation raised on post-9/11 alarmism regarding terrorism and the (admittedly real) dangers of political Islam, might be surprised to know the US once backed many of these very same Islamist zealots in the name of countering the then Soviet Union. It was fear of the looming Russian bear – and the competition for oil – that first brought the US military into the region in a serious way.

    US Central Command (CENTCOM), which controls all US servicemen in the Greater Mideast, was only formed in the early 1980s, largely in response to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1979) and the ostensible threat of a broader Soviet armored assault straight south to the Persian Gulf. Of course, no such danger ever really existed; nor was it very plausible. Nonetheless, Washington took action, which heralded just the most extreme version of the sad, recurring, tales of US support for Islamists. Fighters, who, more often than not, would later turn their guns, bombs, (and box cutters on 9/11!) on America.

    The US supported, funded, and armed (including with surface to air missiles) the Afghan mujahedeen – many of whom were Islamist zealots – throughout the 1980s. It also backed its long time frenemy, Saudi Arabia, which acted as patron for the Arab extremists who flocked to the Afghan jihad. The various mujahedeen, many of whom were rather extreme, morphed into warlord militias after the defeat of the Soviets. The excesses of these venal warlords in the 1990s, and the refugee crisis that landed millions of unemployed youths in various squalid camps, led directly to rise of the Taliban. Many of the Taliban’s senior leaders had previously fought the Soviets, often with US weapons or support.

    We all know the next part of the sordid tale: Arab volunteers who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, returned to the Mideast radicalized, confident, and – after US troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 – increasing anti-American. A popular leader of these “Afghan Arabs,” as they were called, was one young Saudi named Osama bin Laden.

    You’d think contemporary policymakers would learn from and heed this warning. By and large, though, they have not.

    US support for the Saudis continues, and, in fact, stretched way back to the 1940s – in a devil’s bargain of oil for arms and influence that remains in effect. Even in conflicts that preceded the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-1988), the U.S.-backed Saudis tended to support the forces of Islam (often of the Saudis’ own extreme Wahhabi variety) against secular Arab nationalist and/or socialist regimes from North Africa to South Asia.

    The US, frankly, was then more concerned with “radical,” secular, Arab nationalists such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Yemen’s Civil War in the 1960s, American-backed Saudis supported religious, royalist forces against the secular nationalists backed by Nasser. Furthermore, throughout that era – and even today – our Saudi “allies” invested billions in mosque construction and the propagation of their own intolerant brand of Wahhabi Islam across the Greater Middle East.

    Think on that for just a second. The US spent most of the Cold War backing religious kingdoms and organizations against the very, albeit authoritarian, secular movements we now purport to favor. Furthermore, the Saudis – second only to Israel among America’s regional allies – were busy spreading the toxic Islamism we’ve spent the last 17 years combating.

    Worse still, since 9/11 (and remember 15/19 of those hijackers were Saudis) the US track record is just as dismal, with America’s military all too often battling Islamists we once armed or helped create. In 2001, there existed only one truly transnational terror threat group with the aspiration and capability to attack the US homeland: Al Qaeda. More than a decade and a half later, such Islamist groups have only proliferated in response to US military interventions

    Most of the groups the US military now fights – and I’ve spent a career combating – are an outgrowth of, or reaction against, American actions in the region. Talk about counterproductive. It borders on the absurd!

    Consider just a few examples:

    • In Iraq, today, the US combats the remnants of ISIS. ISIS didn’t even exist on 9/11. There were no Iraqis on those planes, and Saddam had no serious relationship with Al Qaeda. The local AQ franchise only grew and gathered recruits in response to the wide perception of US neo-imperialism. Then, years later, ISIS, the most radical offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was birthed in that ultimate incubator of Islamist extremism: US military prisons. The rest, so they say, is history.

    • In Yemen, the US is complicit in the Saudi terror bombing and blockade. In addition to killing civilians, instigating a famine, and contributing to the spread of cholera, this war has only empowered the main AQ affiliate in the area: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). While US planes are refueling Saudi jets which bomb local Houthi “rebels,” the campaign all but ignores AQAP. If anything, they’re bombing the wrong people! This group, mind you, has been labeled the Al Qaeda affiliate most dangerous to the homeland.

    • In 2011, President Obama authorized what he’d later label a “shit show:” bombing and regime change in Libya. Muammar “Mad Dog” Gaddafi was certainly an unsavory character, but toppling him without a plan for the day after only further empowered regional Islamism. The country split into rival statelets, tribal fighters migrated south with a veritable arsenal of weapons, and too often joined or backed West African Islamist militias. And, well, you guessed it, US troops are now fighting, and dying, combating those very groups in Mali, Cameroon, and Niger.

    • In Syria, the US is mopping up ISIS and trapped between several hostile actors: Turkey, Russia, Iran, Assad’s regime, and various non-ISIS Islamist groups. The crazy thing is, our Saudi frenemies sent boatloads of cash and weapons to many of these Islamist fighters. In fact, even US arms – intended for so-called moderate rebels – ended up in the hands of the local Al Qaeda franchise, the Nusra Front.

    The disturbing truth is, that I, and most professional soldiers in the post-9/11 military, have almost never fought the enemy who’d attacked the US in the first place: Al Qaeda, that is. For the most part, US troops spent the last two decades combating Afghan farm boys, African tribal militias, local Arab Islamists, and various franchises of ISIS – the true Frankenstein’s monster of the global war on terror.

    I recount this dismal record for a specific purpose: to warn. To warn against shortsighted interventions or carelessly working through regional proxies.

    Today’s convenient friend is too often tomorrow’s sworn enemy.

    We reap what we sow, and, in the stormy Middle East, more often than not, the US sows chaos.

  • Russia Has "Irrefutable Evidence" UK Staged Syrian Chemical Attack

    As the blame game over the alleged chemical attack in Syria escalates ahead of what is expected to be an imminent, if contained, air strike campaign by the US, UK and/or France against Syria, on Friday morning, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow had “irrefutable evidence” that the attack – which allegedly killed more than 40 people in an April 7 chemical weapons strike on the former rebel outpost of Douma  -was staged with the help of a foreign secret service.

    “We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event,” he said during a press conference according to AFP.

    Speculation that said “certain state” was the UK was confirmed shortly after, when Russia’s defense ministry alleged that Britain was involved in the suspected chemical attack. According to defense ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Kremlin has evidence that Britain was behind the attack.

    Quoted by Reuters, he said: “We have… evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organising this provocation.”

    As RT further adds, the Russian Defense Ministry presented what it says is “proof that the reported chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged.”

    It also accused the British government of pressuring the perpetrators to speed up the “provocation.” During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said, are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

    During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said, are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

    In the interviews released to the media, the two men reported how footage was shot of people dousing each other with water and treating children, which was claimed to show the aftermath of the April 7 chemical weapons attack. The patients shown in the video suffered from smoke poisoning and the water was poured on them by their relatives after a false claim that chemical weapons were used, the ministry said.

    “Please, notice. These people do not hide their names. These are not some faceless claims on the social media by anonymous activists. They took part in taking that footage,” said Konashenkov.

    “The Russian Defense Ministry also has evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in arranging this provocation in Eastern Ghouta,” the general added, referring to the neighborhood of which Douma is part. “We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were preparing.”

    According to Konashenkov, the group, which was a primary source of photos and footage of the purported chemical attack, was informed of a large-scale artillery attack on Damascus planned by the Islamist group Army of Islam, which controlled Douma at the time. The White Helmets were ordered to arrange the provocation after retaliatory strikes by the Syrian government forces, which the shelling was certain to lead to, he said.

    The UK rejected the accusations, with British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce calling them “grotesque,” “a blatant lie” and “the worst piece of fake news we’ve yet seen from the Russian propaganda machine.”

    One of the interviews published by the ministry showed a man who said his name was Halil Ajij, and who said he was a medical student working at Douma’s only operational hospital. This is how he described the origin of the footage:

    “On April 8, a bomb hit a building. The upper floors were damaged and a fire broke at the lower floors. Victims of that bombing were brought to us. People from the upper floors had smoke poisoning. We treated them, based on their suffocation.”

    Ajij said that a man unknown to him came and said there was a chemical attack and panic ensued. “Relatives of the victims started dousing each other with water. Other people, who didn’t seem to have medical training, started administering anti-asthma medicine to children. We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.

    The first photos claiming to show the aftermath of the alleged chemical attack on April 7 were published online on the same day, and featured the bodies of many people, including children, some with foam around their mouths and noses. Footage from the hospital was released on Sunday, with the sources behind it claiming that it had been shot on Saturday.

    Konashenkov said Russia hoped that international monitors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is due to investigate the circumstances of the incident, will help establish the truth. He added Eastern Ghouta is currently trying to return to peaceful life after being liberated from militant groups by Syrian government forces. He called on other nations and international organizations to provide humanitarian aid, which is badly needed in the area. Russia is already supplying food, medicine, building materials and other essential supplies to the neighborhood, he said.

    Residents of the neighborhood, who previously fled violence, are returning to their homes now that the area is relatively safe, the Russian official said. The latest reports from the ground say about 63,000 people have returned, which is over half of the displaced residents, he added.

    The reported chemical weapons attack escalated tensions over Syria, just as Damascus was about to seize full control of Eastern Ghouta. The US and allies such as the UK and France threatened military action in response to what they claim is an atrocity committed by the Syrian government. Russia insists the incident was staged and said it reserves the right to counter any attack on Syria.

    RT also spoke about the Russian claims with Lord Alan West, a retired officer of the British Royal Navy. He said he had strong reservations about taking allegations against Damascus at face value, because it didn’t make much military sense.

    “It seems to be utterly ludicrous for the military that is in the process of taking over an area to go and do something with chemical weapons, which will draw the wrath of the larger enemy down upon them,” he said. “If I was advising the opponents of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, I would be delighted to kill a few people there. Let’s face it, [the insurgents] don’t care if they kill women and children.”

    “I am not willing to accept tweets. We need to see incontrovertible truth about what has happened there and make a decision on that basis,” he added.

    * * *

    On Wednesday, Russia made the first allegation that the chemical attack was staged by Western powers, in this case by the infamoous “white helmets,” a US-funded NGO lauded by mainstream media for their humanitarian work, while long-suspected of performing less-than humanitarian deeds behind the curtain. 

    Speaking with EuroNews, Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, said “Russian military specialists have visited this region, walked on those streets, entered those houses, talked to local doctors and visited the only functioning hospital in Douma, including its basement where reportedly the mountains of corpses pile up. There was not a single corpse and even not a single person who came in for treatment after the attack.”

    “But we’ve seen them on the video!” responds EuroNews correspondent Andrei Beketov. “There was no chemical attack in Douma, pure and simple,” responds Chizov. “We’ve seen another staged event. There are personnel, specifically trained – and you can guess by whom – amongst the so-called White Helmets, who were already caught in the act with staged videos.”

    Russia said previously that it sent experts in radiological, chemical and biological warfare – along with medics, in order to inspect the Eastern Ghouta city of Douma where the attack is said to have taken place. 

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the experts “found no traces of the use of chemical agents,” following a search of the sites, adding “All these facts show… that no chemical weapons were used in the town of Douma, as it was claimed by the White Helmets.” 

    “All the accusations brought by the White Helmets, as well as their photos… allegedly showing the victims of the chemical attack, are nothing more than a yet another piece of fake news and an attempt to disrupt the ceasefire,” said the Russian Reconciliation Center. 

    * * *

    In any case, if Russia indeed has “irrefutable evidence”, it is probably just a matter of time before it is made public in an attempt to sway public opinion, ideally before the Syrian airstrikes begin afresh. If confirmed, it would be a major slap in the face of neo-con forces across “western democracies”, if hardly a shock: after all the US using a fabricated pretext to wage war or simply to effect a much needed distraction from domestic affairs, in the middle east is a painfully familiar narrative.

    Meanwhile, as we wait for Trump to announce what happens next, late on Thursday we reported that US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Defense Secretary James Mattis are reportedly feuding over the strategy in Syria, with Mattis favoring a more cautious approach, even as France and Britain are crafting broad strike plans and are willing to pursue any military strategy, even though as noted, a readout of a Thursday phone conversation President Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May suggests that military action may be days away, instead of hours.

  • Has London Fallen?

    “Let me be clear – there is no reason to carry a knife. To anyone who does – they will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.” – London Mayor Sadiq Khan

    Dear Mr. Bad Guy, please deposit your knife here because “only cowards carry”?

    Source: The Burning Platform

  • The Rise Of Japan's Android Population: "When Abnormal Becomes Normal"

    Authored by MN Gordon via The Economic Prism blog,

    One of the unspoken delights in life is the rich satisfaction that comes with bearing witness to the spectacular failure of offensive and unjust system.  This week served up a lavish plate of delicious appetizers with both a style and refinement that’s ordinarily reserved for a competitive speed eating contest.  What a remarkable time to be alive.

    Many thrilling stories of doom and gloom were published across the tops of the finest digital news sites.  The main object of our satisfaction, however, was buried further down the pages, well below the latest Trump tweets and relentless reports on the global war buildup.  Nonetheless, our focus is not without merit.

    Today’s foil is played by Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor, Haruhiko Kuroda.  If you’re ignorant of Mr. Kuroda, we apologize.  What follows shall forever end your bliss.

    You see, Kuroda and his cohorts at the BoJ have been surfing the razor’s edge, executing policies of mass money debasement, for several decades.  In fact, their forward thinking ways – and good intentions – have become a source of national pride.  There’s not a deranged monetary policy idea the Japanese brain trust hasn’t pioneered in the name of saving the nation from itself.

    Negative interest rates.  Direct purchases of Japanese stocks via exchange traded funds (ETFs).  Government sponsored shopping sprees.  They’ve tried it all.  And they’ve tried a lot of it.  All to suspend the deflationary effects that followed the bursting of a cheap credit induced asset bubble that popped nearly 30 years ago.

    Brutal Trifecta

    Kuroda, and those who came before him, have gone about their business with steady hands, blind eyes, and a zealous belief that they could increase wealth by increasing the supply of money.  Indeed, our hats are off to them; their track record’s unblemished.  They’ve achieved a 100 percent success rate of failure.

    By all accounts, the Japanese economy’s stagnated over the last quarter century.  At the same time, government debt has jumped up and off the chart.  The last we checked, Japan’s government debt had exceeded 250 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

    This, no doubt, is an amazing achievement.  It more than doubles, on a percent basis, the U.S. government debt to GDP ratio of roughly 105 percent.  Moreover, it pushes the limits of honest comprehension into dishonest comprehension.  There’s no other way to understand it.

    By this, consider that the way Japan’s government debt has eclipsed 250 percent of GDP is through massive central bank asset purchases.  Specifically, the BoJ owns 41 percent of the Japanese government bond market.  They buy government bonds with money they, in effect, create from thin air.

    Yet Japan also has another preeminent distinction.  The country is pioneering precisely what happens to an economy that has an aging population, burdensome debt obligations, and stagnating growth.  Taken together, these factors compose a brutal trifecta.

    Rise of the Japanese Androids

    Japan’s aging demographic trend generally precedes the European Union by about 5 years and the United States by roughly 9 years.  Japan’s government debt trend precedes the European Union and the United States by about 10 years, give or take.  How will Japan pay its massive debt bills when its population is projected to fall by about one-third by 2065?

    Obviously, something’s got to give.  Once it has become impossible for a government to service its debt one of two things can happen.  The government can humbly default on its debt.  Or the government can attempt to inflate it away.

    Can you guess what the government of Japan, and most western economies including the U.S.A., will do?  If you guessed the latter, you get a gold star for your answer.

    So it was with this context that we happened across several clarifications from Kuroda on how Japan would one day have to consider normalizing its ultra-stimulative monetary policy.  Here are several of Kuroda’s notable utterances, which were delivered in his inaugural news conference after being reappointed for another five-year term as head BoJ banker:

    “We’ll do our utmost to hit our price target.  But we’ll also need to eventually consider kicking off a process towards policy normalization.

    “I think the process of any shift (from easy policy) would be cautious and gradual, as with U.S. and European central banks.”

    Question: When does the abnormal become normal?

    Surely, after nearly 30 years of abnormal monetary policy, the abnormal is now the normal – right?

    We suspect the BoJ will never, ever remove its finger prints from the country’s money and credit markets.  They’ll keep pushing and pushing until no market’s left at all.  By then the Japanese android population – which is well on the rise – will far outnumber the human population.

    Without question, this is where an abnormal money system takes you.  It takes you straight to an abnormal world.

  • Trump Orders Military Strikes On Syria: 3 Waves Of Airstrikes Launched

    Summary:

    • Around 9pm ET on Friday, April 13, the US, UK and France launched attack on Syrian regime targets
    • Strikes targeted regime bases and chemical weapon production facilities in Damascus and Homs
    • The Strikes consisted of 3 waves of attacks and are now complete
    • Russia was not pre-notified about tonight’s “kinetic activity”
    • Double the number of weapons was used compared to last year’s Syria strike, when 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched.
    • Regime and Russia condemn what they call a ‘flagrant violation’, but have not retaliated so far.
       

     

    Update 7:  Russia responds. Here is the full statement posted by Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anataoly Antonov:

     

    The worst apprehensions have come true. Our warnings have been left unheard.

    A pre-designed scenario is being implemented. Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.

    All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris.

    Insulting the President of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible.

    The U.S. – the possessor of the biggest arsenal of chemical weapons – has no moral right to blame other countries.

    Update 6: The White House has released the list of US demands from Assad regime  

    • Dismantle the chemical weapons program
    • Declare the weapons  
    • Destroy the stockpile
    • Allow OPCW fact-finding mission
    • Comply with the de-escalation zone

    * * *

    Update 5: Video showing the moment a tomahawk missile hits a research facility in Syria:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    * * *

    Update 4:  Joint Chiefs chairman Dunford said that while the strikes sought to minimize risk of Russian casualties, the US did not pre-notify Russia of the Syria strikes; separately Mattis said that double the number of weapons used compared to last year’s Syria strike – when 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched.

    More from Dunford:

    • “We did have some surface-to-air missile activity from the Syrian regime.”
    • “The US did not pre-notify Russian forces in Syria about tonight’s kinetic activity.”
    • “Russia was alerted of Syria strikes through “deconfliction” line in Qatar”
    • “U.S. forces in Syria did make adjustments to force protection levels ahead of the combined air operations against the Syrian regime.”
    • “This wave of airstrikes is over. More information will follow in the morning.”
    • “Manned aircraft involved in Syria operation”
    • “Pentagon will brief tomorrow will more strike details”

    And Mattis:

    • “We used a little over double the number of weapons this year than we used last year…We were very precise and proportionate, but at the same time, it was a heavy strike.”
    • “I am confident the Syrian regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people.”
    • “Right now we have no more attacks planned”

    * * *

    Update 3: at 10PM ET, Defense Secretary Mattis and Joseph Dunford, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff provided the Pentagon’s update, repeating that U.S., British and and French forces struck Syrias chemical weapons infrastructure tonight. Mattis said that “Clearly, the Assad regime did not get the message last year. This time, our allies and we have struck harder.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Mattis adds that “I want to emphasize these strikes are directed at the Syrian regime. In conducting these strikes, we have gone to great lengths to avoid civilian and foreign casualties.”

    Then, Dunford said that the first target was a Syrian research facility, and adds that the US selected targets that would minimize risk to innocent civilians. He adds that attacks on multiple sites of Syria chemical weapons infrastructure “inflicted maximum damage.”

    In total, Targets were specially associated with the Syrian regime’s CW program. These included:

    • Scientific research center in the greater #Damascus area.
    • Chemical weapons storage facility west of #Homs.
    • Chemical weapons equipment storage facility and command post west of #Homs.

    The third target, which was in the vicinity of the second target, contained both the chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post.”

    Meanwhile, the White House said that the US is confident the Syrian regime was behind the chemical weapons attack, based on:

    • media sources
    • victims’ symptoms
    • videos
    • “reliable information indicating coordination between Syrian military officials before the attack.”

    * * *

    Update 2: Witnesses are reporting explosions heard in Damascus, including residential areas, although the first wave of US, UK and French attacks is allegedly targeting the following:

    • Republican Guard headquarters
    • Military airbases
    • Chemical weapon production sites

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Meanwhile, Reuters adds that a total of three scientific research centers struck in the attack.

    According to media reports in addition to American ships, Tomahawk missiles and aircraft – including B-1 bombers, leading the attacks, four British Tornado GR4s have targeted a military facility in Homs with Storm Shadow missiles.

    While unconfirmed, Syria state TV claims that it shot down 13 missiles near Damascus.

     

    More details:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Pentagon: There will be a press briefing at 10 p.m. EDT, tonight, April 13, in the Pentagon Briefing Room on operations in Syria.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    *  *  *

    Update 1: President Trump has now confirmed that in a combined operation with France and UK, a military strike is now under way against Syria…

    “A short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad.”

    “This massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime.”

    “These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead.”

    “The combined American, British, and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power, military, economic, and diplomatic.”

    “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”

    “In 2013, President Putin and his government promised the world that they would guarantee the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons.”

     “Assad’s recent attack and today’s response are the direct result of Russia’s failure to keep that promise. Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace.”

    “The United States will be a partner and a friend, but the fate of the region lies in the hands of its own people.”

    “Tonight, I ask all Americans to say a prayer for our noble warriors and our allies as they carry out their missions. We pray that God will bring comfort to those suffering in Syria.”

    Theresa May has commented:

    • *MAY: AUTHORISED FORCES TO CONDUCT TARGETED STRIKES IN SYRIA

    • *MAY: WE ARE ACTING TOGETHER WITH OUR AMERICAN & FRENCH ALLIES

    • *U.K.’S MAY SAYS STRIKE IS LIMITED, TARGETED

    • *MAY: SYRIA’S PERSISTENT PATTERN OF BEHAVIOUR MUST BE STOPPED

    • *MAY: ATTACKS `NOT ABOUT REGIME CHANGE’ IN SYRIA

    • *MAY: CAN’T ALLOW CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO BECOME NORMALISED

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Mr. Trump has threatened military action against Syria for days as retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad on a Damascus suburb last week.

    *  *   *

    With two Tomahawk-capable destroyers in The Mediterranean Sea, and following “highly confident” intel that Syria launched the chemical attack, NYTimes reports that President Trump is expected to make a statement about Syria on Friday evening at the White House, an administration official said.

    Additionally,  Gateway Pundit’s Josh Caplan reports that Vice President Mike Pence was seen “‘rushing back” to his hotel in Peru amid speculation about possible U.S. military action in Syria.

    FOX News reports that President Trump has approved military strikes on Syria and is set to announce them within 30 minutes.

    Watch Live:

    The Donald Cook and The Winston Churchill are capable of carrying up to 150 Tomahawk missiles between them (last April Trump fired 59 Tomahawks into Syria).

    As a reminder, here is the largest missile diplomacy strikes from Washington…

  • Comey Failed To Tell Trump Hillary Paid For Dossier

    Former FBI Director James Comey admits in an upcoming ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos that he never told President Trump that the infamous unverified Steele Dossier was paid for in part by Hillary Clinton. Comey notified Donald Trump in the fall of 2016 that the FBI had received “materials” alleging deviant behavior and financial misconduct tied to Russia. 

    The “Steele Dossier,” created by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele on behalf of Clinton-commissioned opposition research firm Fusion GPS, was notably used as the basis for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page (and presumably, via unmasking, anyone he communicated with) as part of a sweeping, ongoing counterintelligence operation which began during the 2016 election. 

    Curiously, the FBI refused to pay Christopher Steele $50,000 when he couldn’t verify claims within the dossier, yet the agency felt that it was fit to use in a FISA warrant application and bring to Donald Trump’s attention.

    New York Times

    When Comey was asked by Stephanopoulos whether or not he thought President Trump should know about the origins of the salacious and unverified dossier, the former FBI Director simply replied “I don’t know the answer to that.” 

    “Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?” asks ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

    “No. I didn’t,” Comey responded. 

    “But did he have a right to know that?” continued Stephanopoulos.

    “That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don’t know the answer to that,” Comey said.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Comey also said that he “wasn’t sure” about a claim in the dossier that in 2013, Donald Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed that President Obama had slept in.

    As Kate Pavlich of TownHall points out, Hillary Clinton initially denied knowing anything about the dossier.

    Hillary Clinton was unaware of the now-infamous dossier of allegations about Donald Trump and Russia prior to Buzzfeed’s publishing of the document earlier this year, a source familiar with the matter has told CNN.

    Clinton was disappointed that the research from the document was not made public before she lost the 2016 election, the source said. –TownHall

    Then, when reports emerged that Clinton actually funded part of the dossier – “she and her team justified the move as “opposition research,” writes Pavlich.

    Not surprisingly, Clinton misrepresented the original hiring of Fusion GPS by a Republican donor. That donor was Peter Singer, who hired the firm on behalf of the Washington Free Beacon to do research on all of the GOP candidates during the primary, including Trump. Fusion GPS did not employ Christopher Steele, a British spy, to do any of this work. When the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS after Trump won, Steele was hired and worked with Russian officials to come up the infamous and salacious dossier.

    Keep in mind the Clinton campaign and DNC officials have denied paying for the dossier for nearly a year, but were forced into an admission after a subpoena from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes revealed both entities had in fact employed Fusion GPS to create the dossier. –TownHall

    See a longer preview of Comey’s upcoming interview below:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 13

Today’s News 13th April 2018

  • Visualizing America's Cruise Missile Diplomacy

    President Donald Trump has threatened the use of missiles against targets in Syria. “Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’”, he tweeted, referring to Russia as an ally of the Syrian regime which stands accused of having once more used chemical weapons against targets in rebel-held areas, this time in Douma, a suburb of the capital Damascus.

    Statista’s Dtfed Loesche notes that only a year ago, the United States Navy fired 59 “Tomahawk” cruise missiles from two destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean to hit a Syrian military airfield in Homs province. Trump ordered the assault in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, five days before.

    However, as our infographic shows, that wasn’t the first time the U.S. military fired such devices at targets in Syria. According to U.S. Central Command, Islamic State positions were targeted with up to 50 cruise missiles in September 2014, launched from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf at the onset of the continuing aerial bombardment of the Islamist militants.

    Infographic: United States Cruise Missile Diplomacy | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Cruise missiles have been employed by the United States military (mostly the Navy) regularly, ever since their introduction during the Gulf War of 1991. Though they have been used as a tactical weapon in full scale wars, cruise missiles have mostly been used in limited strikes.

    In his 1997 thesis, Timothy Sparks calls these strikes a “means of delivering a military punch to achieve political gain” and “an instrument in the execution of U.S. foreign policy”. In this sense, the cruise missile has been said to have replaced the gunboat. Hence, the phrase “gunboat diplomacy” has been modified to read “cruise missile diplomacy”.

    Cruise missiles have often been favored by U.S. civilian and military leadership, as they allow for limited strikes, a show of force or punitive raid, while not placing service personnel in danger of death. The missiles are fired from a safe distance to the target and can travel up to 1,500 miles, depending on make and explosives payload.

  • Taking The World To The Brink Of Annihilation

    Authored by Rick Sterling via Oriental Review,

    Western neoconservatives and hawks are driving the international situation to increasing tension and danger. Not content with the destruction of Iraq and Libya based on false claims, they are now pressing for a direct US attack on Syria.

    As a dangerous prelude, Israeli jets flying over Lebanese airspace fired missiles against the T4/Tiyas Airbase west of Palmyra.

    This was Predicted

    As reported at Tass, the Chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, predicted the current events almost a month ago. The report from March 13 says, “Russia has hard facts about preparations for staging the use of chemical weapons against civilians by the government forces. After the provocation, the US plans to accuse Syria’s government forces of using chemical weapons … furnish the so-called ‘evidence’ … and Washington plans to deliver a missile and bomb strike against Damascus’ government districts.”

    Gerasimov noted that Russian military advisors are staying in the Syrian Defense Ministry’s facilities in Damascus and “in the event of a threat to our military servicemen’s lives, Russia’s Armed Forces will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their delivery vehicles.”

    The situation is clearly dangerous with risk of sliding into international conflict and even WW3. If that happens, it would mean the demise of civilization. All of this so that the West can continue supporting the sectarian armed groups seeking to overthrow the Assad government … in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

    US President Donald Trump, joined by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, Vice President Mike Pence, second from left, and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, speaks to the media as he arrives at the Pentagon in January 2018

    The most powerful country in the world is now led by a real estate, hotel and entertainment mogul without political experience. Behind the scenes, there is a powerful foreign policy establishment determined to maintain and reclaim US unilateral “leadership” of the world. They don’t like the fact that the US is losing influence, prestige and power around the world. Israel and Saudi Arabia are especially upset that their plans for regional domination are failing.

    East Ghouta, Damascus

    East Ghouta is a district of farms and towns on the north-east outskirts of Damascus. For the past six years, various armed factions controlled the area. On a nearly daily basis, they launched mortar and hell cannon missile attacks into Damascus, killing many thousands. This author personally witnessed two such mortar attacks in April 2014.

    By the end of March most of East Ghouta had been retaken by the government. With the peaceful evacuation of armed militants, civilians flooded into the humanitarian corridors and then government camps for the displaced. The campaign was proceeding quickly with minimal loss of life as the Russian Reconciliation officers negotiated agreements which allowed the militants to keep small weapons and be transported to Idlib in the north. Vanessa Beeley documented the situation including the happiness and relief of many civilians as they finally made it to safety. One described the feeling as “like being reborn”. Robert Fisk was on site and reported what he saw first hand in stories titled Watching on as Islamist fighters are evacuated from war-torn Eastern Ghouta and Western howls of outrage over the Ghouta siege ring hollow.

    As reported at the Russian Reconciliation Centre, by the end of March, 105,857 civilians had moved into government controlled areas while 13,793 militants plus 23,433 family members had been transported north. Those who wanted to stay, including former fighters, were welcomed. They could rejoin Syrian society with the same rights and obligations as other Syrians.

    Jaish al-Islam terrorist fighters in East Gouta

    The last remaining opposition stronghold was the town of Douma, controlled by the Saudi funded Jaish al Islam. Negotiations were prolonged because Jaish al Islam did not want to go to Idlib which is dominated by another militant opposition group, Jabhat al Nusra also known as Hayat Tahrir al Sham.

    The Chemical Incident

    On Saturday April 7 video and stories claiming a chemical weapons attack in Douma were broadcast. The video showed dozens of dead children. On Sunday the story grabbed western mainstream media headlines. US President Trump quickly come to a conclusion: “President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay”.

    There has been no objective investigation. The media claims are based on statements and videos from members of the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and White Helmets. Both organizations receive significant funding from the US government and call for Western intervention in Syria.

    Chemical weapons have emerged as the quick and easy justification for aggression. One year ago, in April 2017, it was the incident at Khan Shaykoun. That resulted in a US attack on a Syrian air base just days later. The subsequent investigation discovered that dozens of victims had shown up in hospitals in diverse locations and up to 100 km away from the scene of crime BEFORE the event happened. Strangely, and indicating the investigation team bias, this red flag pointing to fraud was not investigated further. If it was just a few victims or just one location, it might be a mistake in time record-keeping. However in this case there were dozens of discrepancies in multiple locations, clearly raising the possibility of fraud.

    Now we have the incident in Douma, at town on the outskirts of Damascus. The armed opposition is in retreat. They have tried to pressure the US and NATO to intervene directly since 2012. They have access to chemical weapons in East Ghouta and motive. They also have thousands of prisoners. This is the group which put hundreds of prisoners, primarily women and children, in cages on the streets of Douma.

    Who Benefits?

    The timing of the chemical weapons incidents is also noteworthy. As documented here, one year ago on 30 March 2017 Ambassador Haley said the US policy was no longer focused on getting Assad out. Five days later the chemical incident at Khan Sheikhoun happened, quickly followed by blaming the Syrian government, a US attack and a restoration of the demand that “Assad must go”. On March 29 Trump said that US forces will withdraw from Syria “very soon”. This was followed by outcries from the media and political establishment. Now, following the Saturday chemical weapons incident, the US is again threatening to intervene directly. The chemical weapons incidents have consistently resulted in the reversal of a proposed change in hostility toward Syria.

    US Ambassador to UN Security Council Nikki Haley

    Neoconservatives and the supporters of ‘regime change’ foreign policy have various theories why the Assad government would perpetrate a chemical weapons attack. Senator John McCain says the Syrian President was “emboldened” by the previous Trump statement.

    Juan Cole, an academic who promoted the assaults on Libya in 2011, has a different theory. He says“Chemical weapons are used by desperate regimes that are either outnumbered by the enemy or are reluctant to take casualties in their militaries. Barrel-bombing Douma with chem seems to have appealed to the regime as a tactic for this reason. It had potential of frightening the Douma population into deserting the Army of Islam.” In contrast with his theory, chemical weapons were used extensively by the US in Vietnam and Iraq when they were far from desperate. As evidenced in the flow of civilians into government held areas, most of the civilian population are happy to get away from the sectarian and violent Army of Islam (“Jaish al Islam”). Cole seems to be basing his theories on inaccurate western media coverage just as he did regarding Libya where sensational claims about a looming massacre in Benghazi were later shown to be fraudulent.

    It’s clear who benefits from sensational media coverage about a chemical weapons incident: those who seek to demonize the Syrian government and President and want the US government to intervene militarily. Every time there is an incident, it is quickly accepted and used by the governments and organizations who have been seeking ‘regime change’ in Syria for many years.

    Manipulating Public Opinion

    The manipulation of western opinion about the Syrian conflict using fake events is not theory; it has been proven.  A good example is the fake kidnapping of NBC reporter Richard Engel in December 2012.  Engel and his media team were reportedly kidnapped and threatened with death by “shabiha” supporters of the Syrian president. After days in captivity the American team was supposedly rescued by Free Syrian Army “rebels” after a shootout. In 2015 it was confirmed this was a hoax perpetrated by the FSA and their American supporters. The entire charade was carried out by the “rebels”. The goal was to demonize the Assad government and its supporters, and to romanticize and increase support for the armed opposition. Neither Engel nor NBC confessed to the reality until it was about to be exposed years later, pointing to duplicity and collusion in the deception.

    Four and half years ago, on 21 August 2013, the most famous chemical weapons incident occurred. The Syrian government was immediately accused of launching a sarin attack which killed hundreds of children and civilians. Over the next six months investigations were carried out. The conclusions of Seymour Hersh, Robert Parry and the research site whoghouta.com concluded that the attack was almost certainly NOT from the government but actually from one of the ‘rebel’ factions with support from Turkish intelligence services. Two Turkish parliamentary deputies held a press conference and publicly revealed some of the evidence. The intent then, as now, was to provide justification and provocation for the US and NATO to intervene directly.

    Conclusion

    Today there is the imminent possibility of a major attack based on the allegations of a clearly biased source. What ever happened to international law and legal due process? Why is violence being threatened before there is a serious objective investigation of the chemical incident? If the accusations against Syria are true, why not have a serious investigation, especially now that the area has been liberated today (9 April) and safe access can be provided?

    The drums of war are pounding. After over one year of incessant Russia bashing and disinformation, is the public ready to go to war with Russia over Syria? Neoconservative hawks and their Israeli and Saudi allies seem to want this. Their plans and predictions for Iraq, Libya and Yemen were delusional fantasies with the price paid in blood by the people of those countries and in treasure by Americans as well. Sadly, there has not been any accountability for the media and political establishment that promoted and launched these wars. Now they want to escalate the aggression by attacking Syria, causing vastly more blood to flow and risking confrontation with a country which can fight back.

  • Amazon Pulls Child Sex Dolls Following Complaints

    Amazon UK has pulled child sex dolls from their online storefront after widespread complaints from a watchdog group and others in Britain over concerns that pedophiles may use them as a “gateway doll” which would lead to the sexual abuse of children.

    Over a dozen child sex dolls were removed in all, having been listed by third-party sellers. 

    “All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account,” said an Amazon spokesman in a statement. “The products in question are no longer available.”

    Amazon does not sell the products itself but instead receives money from the sellers.

    Dolls found on the website were typically three or four feet tall with waist sizes around 16 inches (41cm).

    In the accompanying pictures they were placed in sexual poses with descriptions such as “Mannequin Sexy” and “100% mimics girl’s body”.

    Several dolls were described as coming with “sexy lingerie”.

    A couple from Durham were horrified to find that a child sex doll came up in the results for their online search for sex toys.

    “We felt disgusted and we straight away reported it to Amazon,” they told the BBC.

    Twenty four hours later the couple had received no response from the retailer. –BBC

    UK authorities want to know how the dolls were allowed on Amazon’s platform in the first place.

    England’s Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, said that Amazon needs to explain what happened (Too bad the Children’s Commissioner wasn’t around during Jimmy Savile’s reign of pedophilic terror, or while former PM Sir Edward Heath was abusing children for decades, – which we’re isn’t going on today of course).

    Last year, a judge at Canterbury Crown Court dismissed ex-primary school governor David Turner’s argument that a child sex doll he imported was not obscene. Turner, a former churchwarden, pleaded guilty last July to importing the child sex doll.

    Responding to a BBC investigation, Anne Longfield, England Children’s Commissioner, said: “These dolls are disgusting and are clearly meant to look like children.

    “Not only do I, as Children’s Commissioner, but the wider public also, have a right to expect a huge company like Amazon, to not only remove these products from their platform, but to explain why they are on there in the first place and ensure they can’t just be reloaded having been taken down.”

    “Such dolls are clearly built for one purpose and that purpose is a clear danger to the safety of real children,” she added.

    Ms Stewart said the dolls were unlike those people might associate with stag dos and were the precursor to more sophisticated child sex robots, which she warned were “just around the corner”.

    “They are the weight of a seven-year-old child, they are not something that is the traditional blow-up doll,” she said.

    “(They are) very, very different – very, very more accurate anatomically.”

    The dolls, with their unnerving glass-eye stare, false eyelashes and crooked fingers and toes, often come packaged with accessories including a choice of wigs, a USB device to warm the spongy silicone skin, and a cleaning device. –independent.co.uk

    The UK has seized 179 child-like sex dolls since March of 2016 as part of Operation Shiraz – an operation set up in conjunction with the National Crime Agency. Last July, a judge ruled that child sex dolls were obscene, and therefore covered under the 1979 Customs and Excise Management Act. That said, it is not a criminal offense to manufacture or own a child sex doll – just to import them.

    The dolls are designed to be as lifelike as possible – made of silicone type material and weighing as much as a child, and made in such a way as to enable sexual acts to be performed on them. 

    NPSCC head Almudena Lara told the BBC “We already know that there is a risk that people using these dolls could become desensitised and their behaviour could become normalised to them, so that they go on to harm children, as is often the case with those who view indecent images of children online.

    “There is absolutely no evidence that using the dolls stops potential abusers from abusing children.”

  • The US Fading Into Irrelevance – A Good Thing For The World?

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Chaos reigns in the United States, spreading to its closest allies. The war amongst Western elites is in full swing, manifesting itself from commercial wars to failed diplomacy, empty threats of war, corruption, and announced military withdrawals and attacks.

    To sum up the last few weeks of international events, it is worth comparing the direction taken by the multipolar troika of Russia, China and Iran, and the one taken by the fading unipolar order led by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

    We can analyze the respective changes taking place within the unipolar and multipolar camps, especially in the economic, commercial, diplomatic and military fields.

    The introduction by the US of duties on imports, applied to 1,300 products, including iron and aluminum, has triggered a chain of events, including the imposition of as many duties on various products exported by the US to China. The pressure on America’s European allies continues, against the protests of France and Germany. It seems that Europe is struggling to form a common front on many issues relating from foreign policy to trade. The Western elites continue its in-fighting, between the European Union (led by Berlin and Paris) and the UK and the US, clashing over agreements between London and Brussels and Washington and Brussels. The Trump tariff war aims to deliver a blow to America’s opponents, but it risks provoking strong responses, even from allies. Moreover, many analysts and economists have warned that this form of commercial warfare risks harming American workers the most.

    A divided Europe finds itself dealing with an ever-increasing need to justify its defense and security package. The British, thanks to the artificial Russian threat – characterized by fake chemical attacks, hypothetical invasions of the Baltic countries, and the situation in Ukraine – continue to sustain an environment in which Europeans seek the protection of NATO, which includes Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Looking at this critically, the intent of Berlin, Paris, and especially London and Washington, is evidently to justify increased military spending to counter an alleged threat emanating from Moscow. All this comes down to increased sales of British, German, French and, above all, American weapons to NATO and EU countries. This only serves to continue the flow of money into the coffers of the elite, thanks to artificial tensions like the one generated between Russia and the UK over the poisoning of the former Russian spy in England.

    If the unipolar world seems to have thrown to the wind the concept of diplomacy and adherence to international norms – with a flurry of expulsions of diplomats, false accusations, one-sided motions in the UN’s Security Council, and ignoring the basic rules of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – in Asia, on the other side of the globe, diplomacy continues to bear fruit. Xi Jinping just met with Kim Jong-un, in the first of a series of meetings that could bring the North Korean leader to an initial meeting with Moon Jae-in, and later with Putin. We have heard from Washington only bellicose rhetoric directed against Pyongyang, even within the confines of the United Nations. In line with the ideological attitude of American exceptionalism, the American establishment appreciates Trump’s threats, but is quite naturally less enamored with the announcement of a meeting between the American president and the North Korean leader. According to America’s traditional ideology, no negotiations are to be entered into with geopolitical opponents and peer competitors, for the simple reason that Washington is not willing to negotiate or make any concession on any matter; the only way it knows how to engage in international relations is to impose its will by any means possible. In Syria, the example is clear, where indirect or direct military force has failed to remove Assad, and now Washington finds itself isolated, mainly diplomatically, with the Geneva II Conference on Syria now replaced by the agreement reached in Sochi, from which the United States excluded itself on account of not enjoying a leading position, thereby conceding this role to Ankara, Tehran and Moscow. This is a good example of how the Western elite’s strategic attempt to overthrow Assad and partition Syria has ran into the military reality on the ground, which includes the strength of alliances (especially between Iran, Russia and China), and the willingness of Moscow and Tehran to resolve the Syrian crisis by military and diplomatic means.

    In economic terms, the revolution the petro-yuan represents becomes more and more real, this new medium of exchange set to sooner or later involve Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, with China as its largest buyer. The Western elites will try to oppose by any means possible such an arrangement, given that the petrodollar is the basis American military power. But it is an inevitable process, which must necessarily be backed up with a military component in order to discourage the United States from behaving recklessly. Iraq and other countries have been on the receiving end of America’s imposition of its petrodollar hegemony militarily. For this and other reasons, mainly related to US ABM systems placed all around Russian borders, Putin has had to resort to a very public demonstration of the Russian Federation’s means of deterrence, advertising the existence of the country’s new hypersonic weapons.

    As demonstrated by the recent meeting between the defense ministers of Russia and China, the multipolar strategy is now wide-ranging, relegating Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh to further digging themselves into the hole they have already dug themselves into (see recent events in Syria with Israel launching 8 missiles and Trump beating the drums of war). As General Wei Fenghe stated, “We came to Moscow to let the Americans know about the close military ties between the armed forces of China and Russia.” When these two military and economic powers unite their efforts, involving regional powers and mediating over various conflicts, it becomes clear that the challenge to Washington’s hegemony is progressively leading away from an international reality consisting of one superpower to one consisting of three to four powers that maintain an international balance via diplomatic, economic and military means.

    The phase in which we currently live is turbulent and is essentially caused by a single factor that has two very strong thrusts.

    The acceleration of the dwindling of the unipolar phase is directly connected with the strategic and tactical errors of the American deep state and its main sponsors, like Israel and Saudi Arabia.

    At the same time, the opposing push comes from the multipolar environment, which tends to consolidate its sphere of influence via diplomatic and military means. The goal for Moscow and Beijing is to present to the American and European elites a viable alternative that is shared among several actors. For the time being, the Euro-Atlantic establishment continues to consider itself capable of changing the course of events and preventing the drift towards multipolarity.

    Whether the Western oligarchy is a victim to its own propaganda or whether it simply wishes to avoid facing reality and is using every means available to postpone an epochal change, is difficult to determine; and this makes the future uncertain, and is therefore highly dangerous.

  • Increase In US Exports Rendering Once Crucial Cushing Data Irrelevant

    Houston is quickly becoming the new benchmark for oil, while Cushing is losing its relevance to the industry.

    Cushing wasn’t just relevant to the industry for storage purposes, but also for sector wide data purposes. According to Reuters, it “got its distinction in the early 1920s when tanks sprung up to store oil en route from Oklahoma and Texas to major metropolitan areas and refineries in the Midwest. In 1983, it became the delivery point for the newly-launched WTI futures contract CLc1.”

    For years, Cushing oil inventories were a staple for any business, trader or entity that dealt in the commodity, not to mention those who actively traded it on a daily basis. Cushing inventories were once the key indicator the the supply of crude oil held in the United States. These are the Cushing storage tanks in Cushing, OK:

    (Photo: Reuters)

    Decades ago, Cushing was seen as a fairly easy way to measure oil supply because the United States was not exporting any oil, but rather only importing it. This made it a novel and effective idea to have one major storage point to reference when trying to help gauge the amount of supply the United States had, which could quickly be used by traders and those in the industry to help with price discovery on oil futures contracts.

    Just as the trading market for oil futures has evolved, replacing open outcry with computers, so has the efficiency and method with which we collect oil inventory data. Cushing seems to be “slowly going the way of the buffalo“ while focus turns further south. Reuters reported about Cushing’s storage this morning:

    But those tanks could soon drain to levels near effectively empty, even as U.S. oil production soars past a new record of 10.4 million barrels per day.

    Oil supplies have fallen before in Cushing for a variety of seasonal or market-driven reasons. But this time, there is no shortage of crude in the market. In fact, U.S. production is straining pipeline and storage capacity.

    The declining volumes stored at Cushing reflects a more permanent shift, underscoring the hub’s waning influence as the primary measuring stick for the U.S. oil market and the leading barometer of future supply, demand and prices.

    Things have changed in the industry over the years. Nowadays are oil exports play as big of a role as our imports and, with that, our infrastructure needs have vastly shifted.

    The most obvious change in our infrastructure needs naturally and organically pushes focus toward port cities like Houston to be better indicators of oil activity coming both in and out of the United States. To arrive at spot prices, traders need to have a full grasp on what is now a much more dynamic oil inventory situation that it was decades ago. For this purpose, Houston is now the area most traders are focusing on and want to replace Cushing as a gauge for the oil market in the United States. The article continues:

    Instead, producers are increasingly shipping directly to seaports such as Houston, where vessels carry the oil to dozens of countries worldwide. That reflects a major transformation in global crude flows since the United States lifted a four-decade ban on oil exports in late 2015. Some traders and buyers argue the benchmark needs to change to reflect this.

    Joshua Wade, a crude oil marketer in Oklahoma, sees the benchmark delivery point moving south before long.

    “That’s the direction it’s moving,” he said. “As opposed to importing, now you’re exporting through the same infrastructure … The oil capital of the nation is in Houston.”

    Although it ends decades of focus on the Cushing area for the oil industry, this move toward establishing a new focus on Houston is commensurate with an oil market that has changed significantly over the last several decades. In addition, new pipelines are being built and are expected to come online over the next 2 years, as the country’s oil infrastructure continues to evolve to meet the needs of both importing and exporting. 

    Cushing’s future may not be completely bust, however – it could simply wind up as off-shore gulf storage, or a to act as a back up, rather than a primary storage site:

    A spokesman for Magellan Midstream Partners, which owns about 12 million barrels of Cushing storage, said it will remain important because of its connections to the Gulf and Midwest.

    Cushing is also connected via pipeline to the Gulf, 500 miles to the south, and can offer cheaper storage than what’s available on the coast, said SemGroup’s Conner.

    “I believe Cushing’s next chapter,” he said, “is that it’s going to become an offsite Gulf Coast storage center.”

    But Cushing’s relevance seems to be on the way out, as least as a crucial data point for the industry. Just as markets “evolve”, so do their data points and methods for collecting crucial sector wide data. Now, if we could only get the Fed to do the same with the way it measures CPI.

  • Russia's Real Endgame

    Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

    Russia’s Putin has never taken his eye off the ball. His ambition is not global hegemony or European conquest. Putin seeks what Russia has always sought: regional hegemony and a set of buffer states in eastern Europe and central Asia that can add to Russia’s strategic depth.

    In Syria, Russia has the warm water port of Tartus – which is important when you consider that most Russian ports are ice-bound for months of the year.

    It is strategic depth — the capacity to suffer massive invasions and still survive due to an ability to retreat to a core position and stretch enemy supply lines – that enabled Russia to defeat both Napoleon and Hitler. Putin also wants the modicum of respect that would normally accompany that geostrategic goal.

    Understanding Putin is not much more complicated than that.

    In the twenty-first century, a Russian sphere of influence is not achieved by conquest or subordination in the old Imperial or Communist style. It is achieved by close financial ties, direct foreign investment, free trade zones, treaties, security alliances, and a network of associations that resemble earlier versions of the EU

    Russian military intervention in Crimea and eastern Ukraine is best understood not as a Russian initiative, but as a Russian reaction. It was a response to U.S. and U.K. efforts to attack Russia by pushing aggressively and prematurely for Ukraine membership in NATO. This was done by deposing a Putin ally in Kiev in early 2014.

    This is not to justify Russia’s actions, merely to put them in a proper context. The time to peel off Ukraine for NATO was 1999, not 2014.

    The Russian-Ukraine situation is a subset of the broader U.S.-Russian relationship. Here, the opposition comes not just from domestic opponents but from the globalist elite.

    Globalization emerged in the 1990s as a consequences of the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. For the first time since 1914, Russia, China and their respective empires could join the U.S., Western Europe and their former colonies in Latin America and Africa in a single global market.

    Globalization relied on open borders, free trade, telecommunications, global finance, extended supply chains, cheap labor and freedom of the seas. Globalization as it existed from 1990 to 2007 made steady progress under the Bush-Clinton duopoly of power in the U.S. and like-minded leaders elsewhere. The enemy of globalization was nationalism, but nationalism was nowhere in sight.

    The financial crisis of 2007–2008, caused by the elites’ own greed and inability to grasp the statistical properties of risk, put an end to the easy gains from globalization.

    Ironically, globalization gained in the short-run despite financial calamity. The same elites who created disaster were empowered to “fix” the situation under the auspices of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. This global rescue began with the first G20 summit hastily organized by George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy, then the President of France, in November 2008.

    Despite the financial bailouts and central bank easy money of the decade following the crisis, robust self-sustaining growth in line with pre-crisis trends has never really returned. Instead the world has suffered through a ten-year depression (defined as depressed below-trend growth), which continues to this day.

    What little growth emerged was captured mostly by the wealthy, which led to the greatest income inequality levels seen in over 80 years.

    Discontent was palpable in middle-class and working class populations in the world’s major developed economies. This discontent morphed into political action. The result was the U.K. decision to leave the EU, called “Brexit,” the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of politicians such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, among others.

    What unites these politicians and political movements is nationalism. This can be defined as a desire to put national interests ahead of globalization. Nationalism can mean closing borders, restricting free trade to help local employment, fighting back against cheap labor and dumping with tariffs and trade adjustment assistance, and rejecting multilateral trade deals in favor of bilateral negotiations.

    This brings us to the crux of the U.S.-Russia relationship.

    Simply put, Putin and Trump are the two most powerful nationalists in the world. Any rapprochement between Russia and the U.S. is an existential threat to the globalist agenda.

    This explains the vitriolic, hysterical, and relentless attacks on Trump and Putin.

    The globalists have to keep Trump and Putin separated in order to have any hope of reviving the globalist agenda.

    Just as Trump and Putin are the champions of nationalism, President Xi Jinping of China and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have emerged as the champions of the globalist camp.

    Understanding this dynamic requires consideration of the paradoxical roles of Xi and Merkel.

    Xi positions himself as the leading advocate of globalization. The truth is more complex.

    President Xi is the most nationalist of all major leaders. He continually puts China’s long-term interests first without particular regard for the well-being of the rest of the world.

    But, China’s relative military and economic weakness, and potential social instability, require it to cooperate with the rest of the world on trade, climate change, and supply-chain logistics in order to grow. Xi is in a paradoxical position of being nationalist to the core, yet wearing a globalist veneer in order to pursue the nationalist long game.

    Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany is also in a paradoxical position — but the opposite of Xi’s role. Merkel knows Germany must embrace globalism both because of its unique historical burden of being the source of three major wars (Franco-Prussian, World War I, and World War II), and the necessity of German integration with the EU and Eurozone.

    At the same time, Merkel has advanced her globalist agenda by promoting German interests through exports and cheap foreign labor.

    For the globalists, the world breaks down into Manichean struggle between the nationalists, Trump and Putin, and the globalists, Xi and Merkel. Globalists may be playing a two-sided game of nationalists versus globalists, but they need to widen the lens to see that the world today is really a three-party game.

    There are really only three superpowers in the world today — Russia, China and the U.S. All other nations are secondary or tertiary powers who may be aligned with a superpower, neutral or independent, but who otherwise lack the ability to impose their will on others.

    Some analysts may be surprised to see Russia on the superpower list, but the facts are indisputable. Russia is the twelfth largest economy in the world, has the largest landmass, is one of the three largest energy producers in the world, has abundant natural resources other than oil, has advanced weapons and space technology, an educated workforce and, of course, has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons of any country.

    Russia has enormous problems including adverse demographics, limited access to oceans, harsh weather, and limited fertile soil. Yet, none of these problems negate Russia’s native strengths.

    Notwithstanding the prospect of improved relations, Putin remains the geopolitical chess master he has always been.

    His long game involves the accumulation of gold, development of alternative payments systems, and ultimate demise of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

  • Burned-Out Shack In Silicon Valley Selling For $800k

    Silicon Valley, the southern region of San Francisco Bay Area of California, is arguably the most expensive place in the United States to live. At the epicenter of all this, Palo Alto is a breeding ground for many unicorn start-ups and overvalued technology companies. The region has a median home price of roughly $2,598,200.

    To gain a perspective of just how outrageous real estate in Silicon Valley is, the median sales price of existing homes in the United States averages around $241,000.

    The meteoric rise in home prices has accelerated Silicon Valley’s real estate market into bubble territory. Even San Francisco’s median cost of a one-bedroom rental floats around $3,590 per month. As the housing bubble infects much of the San Francisco Bay area, we have stumbled across the latest installment of real estate insanity that could very well be an essential clue to what comes next.

    Take, for instance, a burned-out shack in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood listed on Monday for $799,000. The realtor said the asking price is reasonable — given the housing market dynamics and its geographical location, said KTVU FOX 2.

    The owners of an abandoned, fire-destroyed home in San Jose are asking $800,000 for the house and surrounding 5,800 square foot lot. Holly Barr

    Realtor Holly Barr told KTVU the owners of an abandoned, fire-destroyed shack reflects the value of the property, not necessarily the burnt down structure. She noted in the interview, the home caught fire more than two years ago, and has been dormant ever since.

    “They did leave it standing so you can remodel it versus tearing it down so you save a lot of money when you can leave a wall up and do a remodel versus a complete tear-down,” Barr told the station. The Bird Avenue address in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood sits close to a proposed transit-oriented Google “village” of offices, research sites and retail stores.

    Barr’s realtor Facebook page describes the home and lot combination as a “Great opportunity to build your dream home!” Since the posting, Barr told KTVU she has received ten offers and expected a contract on the property by the end of the week.

    Barr has yet to list the property on multiple listing services (MLS), a suite of services that real estate brokers use for completing transactions. However, she says, a home down the street recently sold for $1.6 million. Glancing at the current Glen San Jose real estate market (Zillow), the average price of a home is around $1,365,900 with total square footage around 2,500 sqft.

    Some Facebook users found the price of the shack as absurd. Here is what they said:

    “800k for that…What has this area come to when a family earning good money cannot even afford to buy even a burnt out wreak.Greed, pure greed from all concerned right here,” said Cally Jayne, a Facebook user.

    “And here we see a perfect example of unchecked free market capitalism. A Chinese billionaire will pay $850k without blinking an eye because all they are interested in is the land as an investment. Thousands of properties bought up like this with zero interest in actually living in that lot or renting or anything. The actual housing market shrinks as a result to the point where even Silicon Valley engineers are priced out. Years later, we’ll all shrug our shoulders and go “WHAT HAPPENED!?!” like it’ll be some big mystery,” said another Facebook user.

    Shocking, one Facebook user claims this million dollar neighborhood filled with shacks is located down the street from “homeless encampments every which way you turn!!!”

    Another user warns the neighborhood where the million dollar shack resides is “full of crime” and homeless people.

    About a hundred comments down, Facebook users started revolting against the realtor — showing pictures of their non-shack, McMansions for substantially less in other states…

    “This only cost me 250k to build but I’m in Texas lol,” said Gomez.

    “This is what you can get in Spicewood Texas for under $500,000,” said another.

    While it is interesting to watch the dynamics of the market. What we see in San Francisco Bay Area of California is a classic bubble. Let us explain below:

    The first graph shows house prices in the Bay Area have increased faster than the national average…Why has this been happening?

    S&P/Case-Shiller CA-San Francisco Home Price Index/S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index

    The second graph shows the working population in the region has, in fact, declined versus the national average. So, perhaps, an influx of residents is unlikely the cause behind the rising housing prices.

    All Employees: Total Nonfarm in San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA

    The third graph follows the progression of personal incomes in the Bay Area compared with the rest of the country.

    Per Capita Personal Income in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA

    ..And alas, the problem has been solved, the Bay Area has fewer people with much more money chasing the same houses, a classic symptom of a bubble. As for the burned out shack worth 3.3x than the median sales price of existing homes in the United State, well, that is also a sign of peak stupidity for whoever buys it next.

  • Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out Of Social Media

    Submitted by Bill Blunden,

    As the Facebook fracas unfolds, the agenda-setting members of the press have been inclined to frame Cambridge Analytica as an isolated incident. This belies the fact that mass surveillance is a fundamental aspect of social media’s business model, and that social media users cannot have their cake and eat it too, despite what tech CEOs might claim. In lieu of regulatory measures, protecting your privacy online entails swallowing a bitter pill: opting out of social media.

    While the pool of Facebook accounts suspected of being harvested by Cambridge Analytica continues to grow it’s important to recognize that there’s more to this story than a cabal of shady republican operators. By focusing on Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, SCL, the major news outlets are creating the perception that what’s happening is the work of a few bad apples. When the reality is that the underlying problem is systemic in nature.

    It’s not just the GOP. Political influence operations are a bipartisan affair. According to a number cruncher who worked for the Democrats, the 2012 Obama campaign aggregated almost five times as much Facebook data as Cambridge Analytica. It’s just that in Obama’s case Facebook execs decided to turn a blind eye. As the source explained, “they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”

    In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, Zuckerberg has hired public relations experts and launched an extensive damage control campaign. Note, for example, the tacit assumption baked into the title of Brian Chen’s piece in the New York Times: “How to Protect Yourself (and Your Friends) on Facebook.” Are editors at the Times alleging that users can have their cake and eat it too?

    Reading down into the article, Chen acknowledges that truly protecting your data would entail deleting your Facebook account. This frank admission underscores the fact that it’s nearly impossible for social media users to escape data collection. After all that’s how social media companies make their money. Well over a hundred billion dollars per year. Your online activity inside their walled internet gardens as well as your dopamine addiction to “tweets” and “likes” are their income stream.

    What? You thought these online services were free? A miracle of the new economy?

    Social media’s big data collection directly informs Madison Avenue. All that aggregation begets carefully targeted attempts at manipulation (though marketing execs prefer harmless euphemisms like “educate” and “inform”). And if that wasn’t bad enough, when intelligence services ask to have a gander its dollars to donuts that social media will silently collaborate, chatting away with spy masters on a first name basis. Keep moving folks, nothing to see here.

    So there you have it. Social media is a form of mass surveillance and a tool of elite control. Buy product X, vote for candidate Y, support regime change movement Z. Pay no attention to the CEO behind the curtain.

    What to do, what to do?

    In the spirit of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), journalists like Matt Taibbi have suggested that government regulation is the way forward. The idea is that lawmakers should enact laws that force social media companies to “dial back the use of the data-collection technologies.” Luminaries like Richard Stallman have echoed similar thoughts. And although there’s merit to the idea, it’s unlikely to be immediately feasible in the United States given the tech industry’s lobbying footprint. Companies like Facebook and Google have been more than generous with lawmakers. At best, serious legislative reform is a long term approach that’s linked to state capture. At worst it’s wishful thinking.

    Thus we return to Brian Chen’s advice: cold turkey. Take personal responsibility for your own social life. Go back to engaging flesh and blood people without tech companies serving as an intermediary. Eschew the narcissistic impulse to broadcast the excruciating minutiae of your life to the world. Refuse to accept the mandate that you must participate in social media in order to participate in society. Reclaim your autonomy. 

    Having said that, the option of forgoing digital platforms in favor of genuine human interaction is related to another legitimate critique of social media; that it tends towards ideological echo chambers. Where people take refuge in the comfort of messaging that serves only to reinforce their existing beliefs. A novel incarnation of the divide and conquer strategy which the power elite have traditionally wielded to hobble the proles.

    Readers should be wary of social media bubbles, safe spaces, and the like. In the absence of billionaire donors like Robert Mercer and Tom Steyer, instituting societal change means reaching out to other folks. Some of whom may have different ways of viewing the world. Resist the temptation to write them off and have the humility to accept the limits of your own understanding.

     

  • Students Demand Penn State Defund Conservative "Hate Groups"

    Authored by Adam Sabes via Campus Reform,

    Student demonstrators at colleges across Pennsylvania are demanding that their schools cut funding to “hate groups” such as Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and the Bull Moose Party.

    The Pennsylvania Student Power Network, as well as students from other clubs such as the United Socialists, protested Monday outside an administrative building at Pennsylvania State University, complaining that the school provides funding to groups such as TPUSA and the Bull Moose Party, according to The Daily Collegian.

    The students also delivered a petition President Eric Barron’s office that urges him to defund the conservative “hate groups” that have “attracted avowed white nationalists to campus.” 

    Additionally, the petition demands that “school and student activities funds, which mostly draw from students’ tuition and fees, not be used to support student hate groups,” and that “our colleges and universities formally and publicly denounce hate groups on and around campus…”

    PSU has pushed back on the accusation that it funds TPUSA and the Bull Moose Party, arguing that neither group receives direct financial support from the school.

    “TPUSA and the Bull Moose Party have not requested nor received any funding from the University Park Allocation Committee, the entity that distributes portions of the student-initiated fee for student organizations,” Lisa Powers, a senior director for PSU’s Office of Communications, told Campus Reform.

    To that extent, Powers said that the university is committed to upholding First Amendment rights, even when it comes to defending speech that people may disagree with.

    “As an institution of higher education, Penn State not only has an obligation to support Constitutionally protected free speech, but also is committed to open and civil exchange of ideas,” Powers maintained.

    One protester, Leslie Johnson, argued during the protest that “right-wing student organizations have a responsibility to shut down hate and violence stemming from their own members” while accusing TPUSA members of previously using offensive slurs against individuals with disabilities, the Daily Collegian reported.

    Michael Csencsits, the treasurer of TPUSA at Penn State, told Campus Reform that the group’s members “never spoke with ill intent towards minorities of any kind,” adding that “we, TPUSA at Penn State, were shocked to hear [the demonstrators] calling us a hate group, as we don’t associate ourselves with any of those ideals.”

    Vincent Cucchiara, the communications director for the Bull Moose Party at PSU, echoed Csencsits criticism of the protest, arguing that the activists’ claims are “unfounded.”

    “The claims are completely unfounded, which is why they make no specific accusations, and they serve as excellent examples of how unreasonable and indecent college leftists really are,” Cucchiara told Campus Reform.

    According to its Facebook page, activists from the Pennsylvania Student Power Network protested on 21 campuses across the state, making similar demands to “denounce campus hate groups” and “deny these groups school funding.” 

    Campus Reform reached out to the Pennsylvania Student Power Network, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

    Disclaimer: the Leadership Institute previously provided financial support for The State Patriot, which is affiliated with the Bull Moose Party at PSU.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 12

Today’s News 12th April 2018

  • Europe's Civilizational Exhaustion

    Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

    • Islam is filling the cultural vacuum of a society with no children and which believes — wrongly — it has no enemies.

    • In Sweden, by 2050, almost one in three people will be Muslim.

    • The European mainstream mindset now seems to believe that “evil” comes only from our own sins: racism, sexism, elitism, xenophobia, homophobia, the guilt of the heterosexual white Western male — and never from non-European cultures. Europe now postulates an infinite idealization of the “other”, above all the migrant.

    • A tiredness seems to be why these countries do not take meaningful measures to defeat jihadism, such as closing Salafist mosques or expelling radical imams.

    • Muslim extremists understand this advantage: so long as they avoid another enormous massacre like 9/11, they will be able to continue taking away human lives and undermining the West without awakening it from its inertia.

    In a prophetic conference held in Vienna on May 7, 1935, the philosopher Edmund Husserl said, “The greatest danger to Europe is tiredness”. Eighty years later, the same fatigue and passivity still dominate Western European societies.

    It is the sort of exhaustion that we see in Europeans’ falling birth rates, the mushrooming public debt, chaos in the streets, and Europe’s refusal to invest resources in its security and military might. Last month, in a Paris suburb, the Basilica of Saint Denis, where France’s Christian kings are buried, was occupied by 80 migrants and pro-illegal-immigration activists. The police had to intervene to free the site.

    Pictured: French police eject some of the 80 migrants and pro-illegal-immigration activists who occupied the Basilica of Saint Denis, on March 18, 2018. (Image source: Video screenshot, YouTube/Kenyan News & Politics)

    Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London, recently published a report, “Europe’s Young Adults and Religion”:

    “Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years,” Bullivant said.

    According to Bullivant, many young Europeans “will have been baptised and then never darken the door of a church again. Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them… “And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.”

    Richard Dawkins, an atheist and the author of The God Delusion, responded to the study’s release by tweeting to his millions of Twitter followers:

    Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme:
    “Always keep a-hold of nurse
    For fear of finding something worse.”

    Dawkins is apparently concerned that that after the demise of Christianity in Europe, there will not be an atheistic utopia, but a rising Islam.

    That is the major point of what Philippe Bénéton in his book The Moral Disorder of the West (“Le dérèglement moral de l’Occident“): Islam is filling the cultural vacuum of a society with no children and which believes — wrongly — it has no enemies.

    According to Radio Sweden, fewer newborns in that country are being baptized due to the demographic shift. By 2050, almost one in three people in Sweden will be Muslim, according to a recent Pew report

    The European mainstream mindset now seems to believe that “evil” comes only from our own sins: racism, sexism, elitism, xenophobia, homophobia, the guilt of the heterosexual white Western male –and never from non-European cultures. So Europe now postulates an infinite idealization of the “other”, above all the migrant. The heritage and legacy of Western civilization gets sectioned off piece by piece so that nothing remains; our values are mocked and our survival instinct is inhibited. It is a process of decomposition that Europe’s political authorities seem to have decided to mediate, as if it were inevitable. Now, the European Union waits to receive the next surge of migrants, from Africa.

    In German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s major speech in the Bundestag after the unprecedentedly long and difficult process of forming a new government, she struck a conciliatory tone on immigration while offering an inclusive message on Islam. “With 4.5 million Muslims living with us, their religion, Islam, has also become a part of Germany”, she said.

    The most powerful politician in Europe capitulated: she evidently forgot (again) the difference between the civil rights of individuals, which Muslim citizens enjoy in Germany, and the sources of a national identity, on which Europe is based: humanistic, Judeo-Christian values. This realization may why a week earlier the new German Interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said that “Germany has been shaped by Christianity” and not by Islam.

    Europe’s tiredness can also be seen in a generational conflict embodied in the alarming rise of public debt. In Italy, the political establishment was recently shaken up by the election of two major populist parties. It is a country with a public debt of 40,000 euros per capita, and a tax burden equal to 43.3% of GDP. The average age of the population is the third oldest in the world, together with one of the lowest birthrates on the planet, one of the lowest retirement ages in Europe and the highest social security spending-to-GDP ratio in the Western world. It is also a country where pensions account for one-third of all public spending and where the percentage of pensioners in proportion to workers will rise from 37% today to 65% in 2040 (from three workers who support one pensioner to three workers who support two pensioners).

    An Islamist challenge to this tired and decaying society could be a decisive one. Only Europe’s Christian population is barren and aging. The Muslim population is fertile and young. “In most European countries—including England, Germany, Italy and Russia, Christian deaths outnumbered Christian births from 2010 to 2015,” writes the Wall Street Journal.

    Terrorist attacks will continue in Europe. Recently, in Trèbes, southern France, a jihadist took hostages in a supermarket and claimed allegiance to ISIS. It seems that Europe’s societies consider themselves so strong and their ability to absorb mass immigration so extensive, that nothing will prevent them from believing they can assimilate and manage terrorist acts as they have automobile fatalities or natural disasters. A tiredness also seems to be why these countries do not take meaningful measures to defeat jihadism, such as closing Salafist mosques or expelling radical imams.

    Muslim extremists understand this advantage: so long as they avoid another enormous massacre like 9/11, they will be able to continue murdering people and undermining the West without awakening it from its inertia. The most likely scenario is that everything will continue: the internal fracture of Europe, two parallel societies and the debasement of Western culture. Piece by piece, European society seems to be coming irreparably apart.

  • The World's Two Superpower Countries Are Walking On The Edge Of The Abyss In Syria

    Authored by Elijah J. Magnier,

    For the first time since he is in office, the US President Donald Trump has launched a clear threat in the direction of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin saying “he will pay a price”. This menace is related to the claim that the Syrian army had launched a chemical attack against the city of Duma, in eastern Ghouta, the last stronghold of Saudi Arabia’s proxies close to Damascus.

    Trump is maybe thinking of bombing the Syrian Army positions spread throughout the Syrian geography, or perhaps even the Al-Muhajereen President’s palace in Damascus- of course, without necessarily saying when and where his army will strike.

    On the other side, Russia is saying it won’t stand still and will respond to any threat against its soldiers. Indeed, Russian officers are deployed in every single Syrian unit on the ground and in command and control headquarters in the Levant, coordinating and participating in attacks against jihadists since September 2015. Therefore, it is almost certain that any direct hit against the Syrian Army will cause Russian casualties.

    Such an act of war may trigger a Russian response by President Putin who will certainly not want to look weak in front of Russian politicians, the Russian military and in front of his own people. Russia has just returned to the international arena, not only as a country in possession of nuclear weapons, but also as a country trying to create a world balance and put an end to the US unilateral dominance that Washington enjoyed since the Perestroika in 1991.

    But how could the US benefit from military action in Syria?

    The mainstream media, the think tank generously financed and nourished by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrein, Trump’s team and the intelligence community- are all asking the US President to go to war in Syria to change the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and replace it with “freedom fighters” that the same Donald Trump is very familiar with and has specifically criticised.

    These rely on a video by activists close to the jihadists, claiming civilians were killed by a chemical attack on the city of Duma, which has gone viral on social media.

    The world chooses to believe mainstream media reporting the content of this video without proof or reference to any verified sources or neutral investigation by any reliable and international investigation committee. The lies of mainstream media during the war in Syria are too numerous to count, amplified by a journalism motivated by the “regime change” agenda, rather than by accurately reporting verifiable events.

    It was perfectly possible for the world to send an international investigation team, since the jihadists of “Jaish al-Islam” have been talking for a long time with the Russians, who are coordinating the exit of these to the north of Syria. Nonetheless, this option seems unavailable and remains unused. The US thirst for waging war and seeing blood flow may not be realisable if the jihadists’ version of the “incident” were seen to be untrue.

    What is more plausible is the fact that the US is not after Assad’s head to cut off, but after Putin’s hands, to cut him off from his new dominance over the Levant.Moreover, what the US would like to see ending is Russia offering the possibility of rejecting US supremacy to Middle Eastern countries (and others in far continents to reject US supremacy).

    The other problem the US finds difficult to digest is the fact that both Assad and Putin have won the war with the help of Iran, and that the US failed to change the regime, and did not protect its Kurdish allies in Afrin. It was unable to stop its NATO partner, Turkey, from striking alliances with Russia and Iran.

    Moreover, the Jihadists (al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State” ISIS) card failed to achieve their objective to replacing a secular Syrian regime with a bloody radical Islamic regime. These Takferee were willing to eliminate the presence of all minorities (Christian, Shia, Allawite and others) and cover the Middle East with black banners. Transforming the Middle East into a sectarian arena and creating failed states like in Libya was not possible to reproduce in the Levant, thanks to the strategies pursued by Russia and Iran.

    So as a winner, it would be foolish for Assad to use chemical attacks and turn the entire world against him when he is about to celebrate his total victory over Ghouta. The city of Duma was not only surrounded but thousands of Jihadists had already left.

    Negotiations failed last week only because these Jihadists in Duma were buying time and were asked to hold on until the world intervened in their favour. They have presented many excuses to their Russian interlocutor asking that:

    • 1000 of these would remain in the city and take up the police role.
    • The $900 million they have accumulated throughout the years from taxes and donations should be transported outside Ghouta by those exiting to the north of Syria.
    • No Syrian intelligence services be allowed to be in Duma.

    All these demands were rejected by the Russian and the Syrian government, who finally understood that the jihadists were waiting for something, a hope: a chemical attack! This is why Russia and Damascus ordered the military to resume the pressure. Today over 165,000 jihadists and civilians left eastern Ghouta and the remaining twenty to thirty thousands are expected to leave in the coming days.

    So Damascus will be totally cleared and no force on the ground – as the US four star general Joseph Votel said – can make a change on the ground in Syria or defeat /change the regime. Therefore, there will be no one who could take advantage of the consequences of a possible US attack on Syria in the coming days.

    Furthermore, a possible US war in the Middle East would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to Trump, he who is digging into the Saudi and Emirates’ pockets to take every single penny, for any excuse.

    It is not a matter of cost or a question of human principle because Saudi Arabia, with US, France and UK support, has been killing tens of thousands of Yemenites for 3 years without blinking an eyelid, under the gaze of the world.

    It is absolutely not a matter of “chemical attack”, because Russia warned the world about this staged excuse Jihadists were preparing, weeks before it was announced to the world in Duma. When it comes to human casualties, the US, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of the embargo on Iraq (and indeed in many other US “adventures”), clearly has almost zero sensitivity, considering these casualties as collateral damage.

    So what can hundreds of tomahawks do against the empty Presidential Palace? Are these going to create a difference on the ground? Will bombing Syrian Army airports and military bases defeat Assad? No, it will only increase the number of those killed. The Syrian war casualties are close to 400,000 men, women and children. If the number becomes 401 or 405 or 410,000 to achieve……. There is no answer here but one: to slap the face of Putin and make him look weak, a head of state incapable of defending his friends and allies.

    So the aim is to create a balance in the existing equation to embarrass Russia. The US has no friends, only “common interests”, whereas ‘rising Russia’ is striking alliances yet feels impotent to react faced with an American decision to strike Moscow’s ally.

    Yes, all these possibilities exist. But these other possibilities are much more dangerous:

    • What if Syria decides to react by bombing Israel with dozens of missiles? Damascus already has an excuse to retaliate against the Israeli violation of its air space this week and the bombing of a military air base at the T4 in rural Homs, killing 8 Syrian and 7 Iranian officers. Iran, at the Syrian government’s request, supports the Syrian Army in its fight against jihadists.

    • What if US destroys the Syrian air force? Not a huge change because Russia overwhelms the sky above Syria and is running the show against the Jihadists. It would be an opportunity for the Syrian Air Force to get more modern jets.

    • What if Russia decides to react and hit back at all sources firing against Syria? What if Russia executes its menace and stands against the US? Are the American people ready to die for a country only few would manage to find on the world map? Are Americans ready to receive their children in plastic bags just because Moscow’s influence in the Levant is increasing and therefore bothering Washington?

    This is a very dangerous game Trump is venturing into with his head hidden in the sand, without weighing all the possible consequences.

    The two superpower countries are walking on the edge of the abyss.

    Will both the US and Russia fall into it or will Trump stand down, pull out of this game with his tail between his legs, accept his defeat and try to find another less dangerous arena than the Levant to face Russia? Could it be that Trump is gathering larger coalition, to make sure Russia can’t respond against several nations, and therefore avoid a wider war? The coming days will carry the answer for the world.

  • This Japanese Firm Is Paying Employees In Bitcoin

    As Japan becomes more accepting as cryptocurrencies as a means of exchange, a Japanese company is offering its employees the option to receive some of their pay in crypto.

    The company, GMO Internet Group, said it introduced the option last month, and it will gradually be extended to all of the company’s 4,000 full-time employees.

    Those opting in can select what portion of their monthly salary will be received in bitcoin, between a minimum of 10,000 yen (around $88) and a maximum of 100,000 yen ($882), Fortune said.

    The company is even incentivizing its employees to choose the bitcoin option by offering to tack on a bonus of 10% to whatever portion of their salary is being paid in crypto. 

    While Japanese labor laws require paying salaries in yen, GMO claims it’s not breaking any laws since the optional bitcoin payment would be based on mutual consent and deducted from an employee’s monthly paycheck.

    Bitcoin

    GMO registers domain names and offers web hosting and other services. It also launched an exchange in May, GMO-Z.com Coin, which was later rebranded as GMO Coin. In September, GMO announced it would invest $3 million to mine bitcoin beginning in early 2018.

    The firm says it believes cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will evolve into “universal currencies” available to anyone globally, leading to a “new borderless economic zone.”

    Of course, many financial luminaries from Warren Buffett to Ray Dalio to Robert Shiller would disagree.

    Earlier this week, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller compared bitcoin to a “contagion” with rapid price fluctuations reflecting the “intensity of the epidemic”. He said this despite Fed officials’ insistence that the crypto market isn’t large enough to have an impact on the broader financial system.

    According to Japanese bitcoin monitoring site Jpbitcoin.com, yen-denominated bitcoin trading reached a record 4.51 million bitcoins last year – or nearly half of the volume on the world’s major exchanges.

  • America 2.0

    Authored by “Dr.D.” via Raul Ilargi Meijer’s Automatic Earth blog,

    Herbert Stein’s Law states “What Can’t Go On Forever, Doesn’t.” 

    This is a neat summary of the present trade and currency imbalance. China makes real goods and the U.S. consumes them by typing digits on a keyboard. This is the very definition of what cannot go on forever.

    • How long do you expect a nation can make nothing and consume everything?

    • How long do you expect a nation without manufacturing, without a workforce, and now without a viable military to remain pre-eminent?

    • How long does wealth and influence remain in a nation that makes nothing, does nothing, and knows nothing?

    Reminds me of that other Law: “A fool and his money should be parted as soon as possible”, for to be wealthy, and helpless, and dumb, is not a combination that lasts for very long.

    Since China cannot send the U.S. free goods forever, ergo, they won’t. That means slowly or quickly, now or later, they will cut us off. Right now it appears that can never happen, but I assure you it will very soon. And what will the U.S. do then?

    Actually, that’s very simple: the U.S. will have to close a $600B trade deficit instantly. Roughly, that means the U.S. will no longer import $600B worth of goods and be $600B/year poorer, or $2,000/year per person. Nor is this unusual. History is rife with examples of nations that once were prosperous and were suddenly cut off: Spain and Greece come immediately to mind. So how does this happen?

    The Core nation, the trading hub has failed dozens of times in history, from Venice to Holland, Spain to England, and although most of history was on a gold standard, nevertheless the same thing happened: repudiation and devaluation of the currency. That’s why a U.K. Pound is no longer a troy pound of pure silver ($192) and why the U.S. Dollar is no longer 1/20th ounce of gold ($267). So let’s run down how this might unfold.

    Like other empires, the U.S. rose to prominence with hard work and industry. Like other empires, this personal and physical industry was the foundation of an effective military. This military eventually stood alone, leaving the U.S. to set the rules of trade, the rules of diplomacy, and the rules of conduct. Like other nations, the U.S. bent those rules in its own favor, both early and late. Like other nations, the natural way to take advantage was to run an overvalued currency, which draws in capital from all trading partners worldwide, creating a 100-year spiral of wealth and influence that seems truly endless.

    However math, the cruelest of Mother Nature’s laws, is not fooled. If you bend the rules to create market distortions, those distortions are indeed created. If there were fair trade, a gold standard, a nation that increases their wealth would find its currency rise. A rising currency would dampen manufacturing and efficiency, the gold would flow back out, and the unfair advantage would be corrected. But only in a free market. Any market on Earth has an Army, and that Army’s job day and night is to make sure that unfair advantage does NOT end. Ask Smedley Butler.

    Mother Nature is never deterred. However long it takes, she waits. Lacking fair trade, an abnormally strong currency does the only other thing it can: destroy the Core nation’s industry, totally and completely. More certain than a nuclear explosion, economics will not miss a single spot until the wrong is righted and the truth is out. At first the low-gain commodity industries go: mining, shipping, smelting; then their sooty kinsmen: heavy rail, ships, ports, transportation.

    After that go the lighter industries: manufacturing, stamping, autos, and so on up to mainframes, silicon chips and phones, and with them, their children, manufacturing processes and R&D. However, as London and NY showed, you can forestall currency correction even now by moving market distortions into services and financial engineering. At this point, however, the Core nation has nothing left but Banks, Universities, and the Government/Military, and no underlying economy to support them.

    However, what Charles Hugh Smith calls the fiefdoms of monopoly cartels and apparatchiks of the 1% now lead an empty parade, horse-whipping the uncompliant 99% into supporting an economy that exists only in their minds. And then “What can’t go on, doesn’t.” The empire collapses from within, to the total surprise of historians of the 1%, and the total lack of interest of the 99%, for whom it had already collapsed decades before.

    And of the other side? Thanks to the overly-high currency of the Core nation, the perimeter nation has an artificially LOW currency. They didn’t do that, because they are by definition small and weak and aren’t using an army to set the rules. The artificially low currency leads to low costs, low labor, high enterprise, and in the mirror image of the Core nation, the constant INCREASE in manufacturing. The increase in wealth, and the addition of commodity goods, then heavy industry, then manufacturing, then R&D. Whose fault is that? Who used a worldwide army to enforce the very rules that gutted their homeland? Not the Vandals; not China. It was Rome; it was D.C.

    What is this whole imbalance based on? In our case, the artificially strong dollar, backed by a worldwide U.S. military. So how must it end? With a weak dollar, falling real markets, and a U.S. military returning home.

    You say this can’t happen? Yet it must happen. To say otherwise means China will give us free goods for 10,000 years, and the U.S. will get always weaker that whole time. So how does the transition go?

    The U.S. financial bulwark cracks, being highest and most based on psychology, not reality, very likely in conjunction to a military failure or withdrawal, as in empire finance, the military and currency are equivalent. Slowly, then rapidly, the tide flows out, the U.S. dollar gets weaker, the Chinese Yuan gets stronger, and the whole process reversed as it should have done years ago.

    (mind the log scale)

    Mother Nature isn’t fooled, and those 70 years of repression and manipulation are made up in a few years.

    Down on the ground, what happens is not that China shuts off free imports to the U.S. directly, with a political embargo, what happens is the U.S. is seen as a has-been and the U.S. dollar falls in purchasing power on the world market, raising the price of foreign goods in a “free” and “open” marketplace. Lacking manufacturing and the military power to stop it, the U.S. can’t hold off Mother Nature and the laws of physics any more.

    Knowing this to be inevitable, how would a nation prepare? For one thing, you would need to kick-start your industry, post-haste. Anything that can be made internally will find its prices stabilize and not rise. Yet before the currency rates are corrected this face overwhelming headwinds. Second, as income will be lost and the borders will be shut off, you need to switch the focus of taxation from income to tariffs, from finance to real goods.

    Third, you need to open your pipelines, ports, and infrastructure, and expand the required steel, oil by any means necessary, even armed standoffs. Fourth, you’ll need to shove the culture away from government support and subsidies that will soon disappear, and into self-reliance and productivity. Firth, you’ll need to downsize the government and especially the military, which will and must return home. Any of those platforms sound familiar?

    Despite what you read, it’s not all bad. Just as “The arrogant people will be brought down, and high and mighty people will be humbled”, “Every valley shall be raised up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth.”

    This is a master reversal of all manipulations, of all imbalances that have reached extremes. As the U.S. – China trade deficit must balance, we know that Chinese goods must rise. But that also means the cost of production for U.S. goods must fall. This cost-advantage puts Americans back to work just as it did the Chinese, while the rise of the Yuan will make China rich, but less productive.

    What’s more, as matters reverse, the U.S. will raise prices on their exports: food and oil, two things China must have and cannot get elsewhere. Agriculture is at an all-time, 1,000 year low and must rise. Stocks and housing are at an all-time high and must fall. In a reversal, the high prices fall, the low prices rise, that’s obvious. That’s what “reversal” means, that’s what “extreme” means.

    As for manufacturing, the world is changing fast. Even China is opening “dark” factories that employ no people, only robots. That will be true here as well, which undercuts any labor savings they once had. There’s a few problems, however: robotic mega-factories only work with very large scale of identical goods that can source reliable, high-quality inputs. If oil is too high, and/or shipping or marketing fractures, those factories scale down, retool more, and therefore require more people than presently.

    How is China going to have huge robotic mega-factories if half their export market can no longer afford them? If the U.S. and China split the market, aren’t all those factories half the size of present? Since the U.S. will now have low-cost people and raw materials, what advantage does China bring to offset shipping and tariffs? The “market” isn’t uniform. There was worldwide mass-integration of manufacturing between India and England and the world in 1910 too, yet it’s didn’t persist; it changed.

    One way it can change is to leapfrog China. We hear about how the U.S. is a has-been as we are supporting legacy copper telephones while the 3rd world goes directly to fiber and cell, and this is true. However, China has mainlined on low-price, low-profit, mass-manufacturing. Why would anyone compete with them there? It’s irrational. Build a baseline and let them have all the low-profit, environment-destroying work they want, the U.S. can’t and won’t beat them there.

    We can beat them by leapfrogging into technology that’s out there, but no one is revealing yet, things they haven’t done, but Americans are good at doing: innovating, high-tech, medical. Much as I hate high-tech and its panacea as an answer, yet I believe there are goods, ideas out there that can transform the way things work.

    Look at the rapid development and uptake of LEDs for example. The patent office is filled with them, and an outsized number are American. We have superconducting maglev, field physics, material science of no-weight foam, color-shifting paint, hyperconducting graphite, and transparent concrete to name a few. All there, all unused. Let’s make an example case in a very large, very quiet investment.

    Medical and Biotech are to some extent used up, with overpriced, mass-market pharmaceuticals being rejected by price and form even by the wider population. But that’s so last-century. The new biotech is going to take a blood or DNA sample and synthesize a drug specifically for your blood and DNA. They are going to create another organ, a blood transfusion no one but you can use.

    In one way, this may be more expensive, and that’s good for profits, but in another way, they will work for you, much better and guaranteed, and therefore fix your health faster, spare you useless drugs, bad side effects, and actually work, and therefore be cheaper. What does it take to make them? A complete revolution in drug manufacturing. Multi-billion dollars’ worth of equipment, extremely unique development and patents, a 20 year head start.

    Could you sell such a thing to the Chinese? You bet. Could they get off retail manufacturing and scoop us on it? Not a chance. So you see how such a thing could happen, even with a U.S. dollar falling and a hard readjustment ahead. And that’s just one.

    If boutique and robotic goods are the new industries, what do we do with 200 million unemployed? We won’t have 200 million. That’s a consequence of the distorted extreme of our finance, our centralization, our currency. For one thing, we have only 100 million now and a lower dollar will definitely restore the competitive advantage of highly-productive U.S. workers. At the same time, if work requires fewer workers, we will find a solution. Why?

    Because you can’t have 200 million unemployed. Not even 100 million. The resulting inequity and income disparity can and has caused a revolution. Faced with that, any nation will adjust because they must or perish. As difficult as Americans can be, they are a practical people above all. This has happened to dozens of nations in the past: Spain, France, Germany, England, China, Japan, and they all still exist. Things rotated out in the big wheel of time. New things were made and the old ones faded away, and we will too.

    We’re going back to being just one of many nations, and a fair and productive one too. There are ways and we will find them. How can I be so sure? Because “What Can’t Go On Forever, Doesn’t,” and it won’t this time either.

  • Four CBS Producers "Terrified" Over Upcoming Charlie Rose Sex Scandal Exposé

    CBS has been scrambling to have employees sign NDAs in order to silence potential sources ahead of an upcoming Exposé on Charlie Rose in the Washington Post, reports Page Six.

    We’re told that CBS News president David Rhodes, “CBS This Morning” executive producer Ryan Kadro, “60 Minutes” executive producer Jeff Fager and former “CBS This Morning” executive producer Chris Licht are all terrified about a looming Washington Post investigation that’s now been in the works for months.

    “There are a lot of executives looking around corners, hoping they’re not named in the story,” an industry insider told us. “[CBS is] trying to suppress [the story] by using the NDAs.” Meanwhile, said the source, “Jeff, Ryan and David are all waiting for the other shoe to drop.”  –Page Six

    Page Six notes the hypocrisy of CBS News framing alleged Donald Trump mistress Stormy Daniels as “brave” for breaking her NDA, while forcing their own employees to sign them. 

    Rose, a veteran journalist and paragon of the MSM saw his nearly half-century career end within hours of eight women coming forward in a November 2017 Washington Post Exposé – accusing him of predatory “casting couch” behavior similar to Harvey Weinstein. 

    Eight women have told The Washington Post that longtime television host Charlie Rose made unwanted sexual advances toward them, including lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas.

    The women were employees or aspired to work for Rose at the “Charlie Rose” show from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011. They ranged in age from 21 to 37 at the time of the alleged encounters. Rose, 75, whose show airs on PBS and Bloomberg TV, also co-hosts “CBS This Morning” and is a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes.” –WaPo

    *POOF* …end of the road Charlie. 

    Rose issued an “I’m sorry and ashamed for walking around with my dick out and groping women” statement before his dishonorable discharge into a shame-filled retirement full of country-club whisperings and fewer holiday parties, we imagine. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    It looks, however, like the Washington Post isn’t done with Rose – as those previously in his orbit who may have enabled his behavior appear to be firmly in the crosshairs of JEFF BEZOS (and his robot dog).

  • Holter: "It's Pure Math – We're Headed For A Train Wreck"

    Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

    Financial writer and gold expert Bill Holter says China has a lot of weapons to fight a trade war with the U.S. China could stop buying Treasury bonds (as it reportedly already has done).  It could sell Treasury bonds.  It could slash the value of the Yuan, or something much simpler could happen such as a failed delivery of physical precious metals.  Holter says,

    “If what has happened so far in the first three months of the year were to continue for the full year, you would be over three billion ounces (of silver).  That is not deliverable.”

    What happen when the world figures out that three billion ounces of physical silver cannot and will not be delivered to the buyers?

    Holter explains, “That’s called an old fashion run on the banks.  It will be a run on the entire system.  You would have a run on every metals exchange, and you would probably have runs on many physical commodities.  Confidence throughout the whole system would break.  You would basically show the western fractional reserve system is a fraud and has been for many, many years…

    Can London deliver a billion ounces, or two billion ounces or three billion ounces of silver?  The answer to that is no.”

    So, when does this all blow up? Holter says, “I think this whole thing has a very good chance of blowing this year.”

    There are a variety of financial trip wires, according to Bill Holter, such as thousands of sealed criminal indictments that will be unsealed in 2018. Holter also points out the explosion of global debt.  Holter charges,

    “It’s now $237 trillion.  The amount of debt grew by $21 trillion globally over the last 12 months. That’s roughly 10 %.  How much did global GDP grow?   2% or 3%, I mean that is totally unsustainable.”

    The biggest worry for Holter right now is escalating military action in Syria. Holter warns,

    “This is so, so dangerous.  Obviously, you worry about a hot war because with the weapons you have today, you could have WWIII start in a heartbeat.  But look at the market today.  It’s up 400 or 500 points.  You have talk of trade wars.  You have talk of hot wars.  It amazing the markets can hold together and ignore potential annihilation.”

    In closing, Holter says,

    “This is math logic and common sense. This is no longer opinion.  You could go back to 2006 and 2007, and it could be argued it was opinion at that point.  It’s no longer opinion.  It’s pure math.  The system is unsustainable.  We’re headed for a train wreck.  Do I absolutely know it’s going to be this year?  No, I don’t know that, but you can see the events are piling up so quickly it certainly looks like it’s going to come to a crescendo very soon.”

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Bill Holter of JSMineset.com.

  • China Launches Massive Combat Drill In Hainan As War With Taiwan "Becomes More Probable"

    Chinese President Xi Jinping promised a more transparent China on Tuesday, during a keynote speech at an economic forum in Boao, on the southern island of Hainan. Immediately after the conference, China’s PLA Navy began a 3-day combat war drill in waters to the south of Sanya, the southern tip of China’s Hainan Island, which is about 112-miles south from the economic forum.

    The Hainan Maritime Safety Administration has demarcated an area in the South China Sea that will be closed to all civilian and commercial vessels from April 10 through 13. The military exercise was made public earlier this week on the government’s website.

    The warning of yet another war drill by China comes after military jets from the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command conducted exercises over rugged terrain in western China to simulate an invasion of Taiwan, said the Daily Express.

    An editorial piece in the Global Times announced: “The mainland needs to continue to prepare for a possible military clash across the Straits.”

    “Beijing cannot be led by the nose. We have to figure out more fronts to showcase our strength and to be the venue for the battle with Taiwan.

    Meanwhile, the mainland needs to continue to prepare for a possible military clash across the Straits. A military showdown with Taiwan is becoming more probable and may take place sooner rather than later. Beijing needs to make clear its bottom line and inform Taiwan society of the dangerous acts which may lead to a military showdown, to avoid a war that could break out due to serious misjudgments by the US and Taiwan. Having got the upper hand strategically, the mainland won’t lose its head. Only the decisions of the mainland will count in deciding the future cross-Straits situation.”

    A Twitter war observer said, “A maritime area of 8 749 km², located south of the island of Haïnan, is closed from 11 to 13 April due to military maneuvers.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The observer added, “At least 7 Chinese nuclear submarines are currently at the Sanya Naval base on Haïnan Island, which borders the South China Sea. This is also the case for a few dozen surface ships of the Chinese navy. Some things are getting ready…” (not verified)

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Another Twitter user said, “On the heels of the #Boao2018 Forum and Xi Jinping’s keynote speech there- looks like large-scale exercises off Hainan.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    On Tuesday, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, sailed through the heavily disputed waters in the South China Sea to the Philippines. As the trade war with China climaxed last week, we reported how the United States Navy deployed three carrier battle groups to face-off against China’s only aircraft carrier and 40 warships.

    ” Satellite images had captured China’s only aircraft carrier in deployment, the Liaoning, flanked by 40 other warships and submarines, conducting unprecedented live-fire drills in the South China Sea. This massive Chinese naval exercise was observed for the first time, with China watchers pointing out that such a forceful display of deterrence was highly unusual for the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Perhaps in light of recent events, it was merely a warning.”

    Now it seems with all the chess pieces positioned around the South China Sea, the epicenter of World War III could easily be Taiwan as tensions between both countries escalate even further. China has declared Taiwan a “rogue state” and has never ruled out military intervention, said the Daily Express.

    General Rolando Bautista from the Philippine army said, as quoted by the Daily Express: “It’s a showcase of the capability of the US armed forces not only by sea but also by air.”

    “The Americans are our friends.

    “In one way or another, they can help us to deter any threat.”

    Last month it was also revealed in aerial photos of the alarming rate of expansion of Chinese military installations in the South China Sea.

    The photos show the extent of Beijing’s construction in the disputed Spratly Islands, with its previously minor outposts now transformed into fortresses featuring air and naval bases.

    Diplomatic relations between the five nations which have laid claim to the islands are already extremely strained, and the recent construction of bunkers on some of the atols point to China preparing to “protection against air or missile strikes”, raising the prospect of a conflict which could spark World War 3.

    While we do not have a crystal ball of the precise epicenter of World War III, in recent weeks, geopolitical events/shifts have provided us with critical knowledge that a trigger point for the next global shooting war could be somewhere around the South China Sea and or Syria. War is coming, have you prepared?

  • The Top 5 Possible Paul Ryan Replacements

    Submitted by Jim E. of The Political Insider

    This morning we learned that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will soon be announcing his retirement from Congress. With Democrat fervor at an all-time high, and Republicans set to lose a massive number of seats in the November midterm elections, Ryan appears to be turning his tail just as his party is set to lose power. Whoever replaces Ryan isn’t guaranteed to be Speaker anymore.

    Axios initially reported that Ryan would make his retirement announcement tomorrow. But House Majority Whip Steve Scalise went on “Fox and Friends” this morning to confirm that Ryan will make his announcement later today:

    With Ryan’s retirement confirmed by the man himself, all talk in Washington is now focused on who will be the next Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

    Here are the top 5 possible replacements for Paul Ryan:

    1. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise – Rep. Scalise is the most likely heir apparent, and it has been rumored for the past few weeks that he is the lawmaker with the best chance of replacing Ryan. Scalise is liked and respected on both sides of the aisle. He’s also a heroic survivor of the shooting spree last spring where a crazed Bernie Sanders supporter attempted to mow down an entire baseball field full of Republicans. During President Trump’s last State of the Union speech, he specifically named Scalise “one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House” to raucous applause.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    2. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy – Currently the second in command, Rep. McCarthy is reportedly vying with Scalise for the coveted position of House Speaker. Politico reported earlier this week that McCarthy is quietly courting support from rank-and-file members. Back when John Boehner retired from the speakership, McCarthy was heavily favored to replace him, until rumors of an affair derailed his candidacy. Rep. McCarthy is also scheduled to have dinner with President Trump tonight:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    3. Rep. Daniel Webster – When John Boehner retired, Rep. Webster, a Florida Republican, was the conservative choice for Speaker. His short-lived campaign didn’t garner many votes, but it showed dissent from the more conservative members of the GOP caucus. Webster reportedly has no plans to run for Speaker of the House again in the near future.

    4. Rep. Mike Conaway – The Texas congressman was once seen as a “compromise choice” among the Republican caucus. Politico reported back in 2016 after speculation of Ryan’s departure had reached a fever pitch: “Several senior Republican lawmakers and aides speculate that Conaway, first elected in 2005, could jump into the speaker race if Ryan steps aside and McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to take the gavel or passes.” Conaway not only has the Texas delegation to back his candidacy, but he’s also an accountant, which gives him a reputation for even-handedness.

    5. Rep. Jim Jordan – Another conservative darling and former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jordan has a lot of connections to outside conservative advocacy groups. If Scalise chooses not to run and Webster doesn’t take another stab at it, Jordan would have the instant backing of many influential groups. Jordan’s so outspoken and driven that Politico once referred to him as “the other Speaker of the House.”

  • RBC Warns Cracks "Starting To Show" In Canadian Credit

    One often wonders if the government will ever realize that, due to its policies, its “solutions” often wind up turning into bigger problems than the ones they set out to address initially? Not only that, but this has been the case for decades, and it will continue to be the case until we “engineer” ourselves into a crisis that is too big to fix or too overwhelming to print our way out of.

    Every day we discuss various aspects of a system that ends up far worse off due to a government apparatus that is convinced it knows best and that intervention and interfering are the solution to the problem. In essence, much of the financial crisis of 2008 was a result of the government interfering in the housing market in years prior, combined with the Fed not being able to forecast the crisis, despite widely ostracized skeptics such as Peter Schiff stating repeatedly that the housing market was heading into the abyss.

    Today, we face a new set of challenges as a result of the way governments and central banks dealt (or rather, didn’t) with the 2008 financial crisis. In the United States there are bubbles forming in student loans and subprime auto lending,  while mortgage debt and consumer credit both look to soon be out of control yet again.

    Meanwhile, the problem is spreading geographically and today we are presented with yet another “solution turned into problem”, and as Bloomberg reports, RBC now sees “cracks” in consumer credit becoming a problem yet again, this time in Canada. The combination of low interest rates and the cheap and easy access to capital has yet again gone from being a solution to a problem, as Canadian lenders are seeing delinquency rates “roll” out in time and duration.

    RBC analyst Vivek Selot wrote in a Monday note to clients that “cracks are starting to show in more and more places.”

    The quality of Canadian consumer credit is beginning to deteriorate, according to Royal Bank of Canada credit analyst Vivek Selot.

    The roll rate — the percentage of credit card users who “roll” from early stage delinquencies to 60-89 day delinquencies — reached the highest since 2008 for one credit card program, while delinquencies for another program were above the 10-year average, Selot said in a monthly analysis of credit securitization programs.

    As we have discussed previously, strong labor markets and historically low borrowing costs have allowed Canada’s households to amass one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the developed world.

    However, amid rising interest rates and a cooling real estate market, there is growing speculation the debt burden poses a threat to the financial system even as Canadian housing prices remain one of the world’s true bubbles.

    As RBC adds, roll rates in National Bank of Canada’s Canadian Credit Card Trust program are at the highest since 2008, while for CIBC’s CARDS II program, early stage delinquencies, 60-89 day delinquencies and roll rates are all above the 10-year average, Selot said.

    Of course, this would not be a problem if supply and demand as it relates to credit and borrowing were simply allowed to operate freely, thus establishing a free market interest-rate versus a central bank mandated cost of money. Meanwhile, Bloomberg is quick to attempt to mitigate the adverse consequences of what the above implies and quotes none other than the RBC analyst, who – perhaps worried about keeping his job – notes that these trends are really quite benign and that the rolling out of delinquencies isn’t necessarily a problem yet because they haven’t “rolled’ all the way to becoming actual charge-offs:

    To be sure, Selot pointed out “consumer credit quality seems benign,” with charge-offs — or recognized losses — remaining near cyclical lows. The average payment rate in February fell about 600 basis points from January to 41.1 percent but was up 162 basis points from the same month a year earlier.

    Which reminds us of an analysis we put together in February 2018 ,detailing discrete trends within U.S. consumer credit, and identifying where the next major problem could be hiding. 

    Net Charge-Off Rate on Credit Card Loans, All Commercial Banks

    Why the very gradual increase in aggregated NCO, and thus why the lack of economist concerns about the state of the US consumer? Simple: the larger banks that dominate credit card issuance have focused on prime and super prime consumers post the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and have enjoyed a prolonged period of low charge off rates concurrent with the Fed’s almost decade long ZIRP.  The problem here is that the vast majority of bank assets is held by a small minority of individuals as in most 80/20 distributions. Meanwhile, smaller banks – those where the bulk of the population holds its meager assets – starting to panic, as charge-off rates are back to financial crisis levels.

    Net Charge Off Rate on Credit Card Loans, (Banks Not in Top 100 by Assets)

    Canada is about to experience something very similar, and as Selot concedes “considering that fragile household balance sheets could be a precipitating factor for the credit cycle to turn, any signs of consumer credit quality deterioration seem worthy of attention.“

    A few more rate hikes by the BOC should do it.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 11

Today’s News 11th April 2018

  • Iranians Panic – "Can't Find Dollars" After Government Enforces Currency Controls

    Yesterday saw the Iranian Rial crash to a record low 60,000 per USDollar on the unregulated markets, according to Tasnim News agency, having lost more than a third of its value in the last six months.

    This prompted an angry response from Iran’s First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri who said in a statement recorded for state TV and published on its website that enemies of the Islamic Republic and of the government were behind the instability.

    As Bloomberg reports, Jahangiri said the sudden decline was “unnatural and unprecedented” because tens of billions of dollars worth of foreign currency had flowed into Iran in recent weeks from the country’s export revenues and this showed that a wider political plot sought to discredit the government of President Hassan Rouhani and foment instability.

    “It’s natural that our enemies and opponents, especially the Americans, after the nuclear deal was agreed and after Trump took office, have made great efforts to try and present Iran’s economy as turbulent and try to discourage anyone from working with Iran,” Jahangiri said.

    And so Iran enforced a rate of 42,000 Rial per USD warning that anyone found selling the dollar at rates higher than 42,000 rials “will be dealt with severely” by judicial authorities and the police, Jahangiri said.

    “We do not officially recognize any other rate than this one,” he said.

    “From tomorrow, any other price that’s offered in the market will be considered contraband, in the same way that illegal drugs are contraband.”

    Still, things remain ugly for those holding Rials…

     

    “We will certainly use all of the state’s strengths and capabilities in order to, God-willing, steady the market,” government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said in a statement shown on state TV. “We accept that this situation is not a good one and it’s against what we want.”

    As one would expect, this news prompted widespread concern among Iranians who flocked to exchange offices on Tuesday only to find there were none to buy.

    As GulfNews reports, on Ferdowsi Street in central Tehran, home to dozens of banks and currency exchanges, many had hoped to find much cheaper dollars than the day before.

    But all along Ferdowsi Street, exchangers were turning hundreds of people away or had signs up saying: “We have no dollars to sell”, while rate boards showed blank spaces for US and European currencies.

    “Last night on TV I heard it’s 42,000 so I came here to buy some for my son who is overseas. I’ve checked every exchanger but I couldn’t find any dollars,” said Tahmoores Faravahar, a 71-year-old retired oil sector worker.

    Many businesses were forced to halt work amid the uncertainty created over prices and the availability of imported materials.

    “After speaking to my usual printer, I’ve had to cancel a project because they weren’t selling anything,” said Payam, a 38-year-old in Tehran who owns a small advertising and publishing company. “I was also planning to advertise for new personnel on Saturday — I’ve also canceled that plan now.”

    Some said this had only created fear and confusion.

    “People don’t have hope in the political and economic situation in this country. People are confused and just want to keep their money safe by turning it into dollars.”

    One exchange office said it was never clear when the central bank would deliver dollars for them to sell.

    “I don’t know why they haven’t come yet today,” he said in the early afternoon. “But the new rate is good. The price was not normal these last few days.”

    But this seemed to sum things up well…

    “The truth is that the people can’t trust the word of the government that their money will be safe,” said a trader who sold currency on the street and asked to remain anonymous.

    One street trader said exchangers would find ways to fiddle the system to get round the new fixed rate, even though Vice-President Eshagh Jahangiri warned this would be considered smuggling.

  • The Future Of Europe Is Civil War

    Authored by Ash Sharp via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Europe is committing suicide – or at least it’s leaders have decided to commit suicide. Whether European people decide to go along with this is, naturally, another matter. ~ Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe

    Europe is my home. It is where I live. Everything I value is here – on this continent. Everything I love and will suffer to lose is here.

    My country, separate, slightly odd, provincial and uncool; Brexit Britain, land of bad food and uncharitable reputations on dental hygiene and house cleanliness, is a European country too.

    God knows it is a conflicted time to be an Englishman abroad.

    God knows it hurts to look at the goldfish bowl from outside. Yesterday brought the story of 78-year-old Richard Osborne-Brooks.

    A Scotland Yard spokesman said:

    ‘At 00:45hrs on Wednesday, 4 April, police were called by a homeowner to reports of a burglary in progress at an address in South Park Crescent, Hither Green SE6, and a man injured.

    ‘The 78-year-old resident found two males inside the address. A struggle ensued between one of the males and the homeowner. The man, aged 38, sustained a stab wound to the upper body.

    ‘London Ambulance Service took the injured male, who was found collapsed in Further Green Road, SE8, to a central London hospital. He was pronounced dead at 03:37hrs.’

    What happened next? Of course, this pensioner was arrested on suspicion of murder. Murder! A crime which requires premeditation and to be without lawful excuse, for stabbing an intruder to your home.

    With his disabled wife upstairs, Mr. Osborne-Brooks encountered and subsequently killed an armed man who was intruding in his home, the purported castle of the Englishman. No more a castle, you are a serf of the state and subject to prosecution for doing what any man ought to do in such circumstances. Are we to accept that criminals may just enter our homes, threaten our lives and take what they will?

    This is a travesty of justice at any time, let alone the crime nightmare we find ourselves in today. You are more likely to be raped in London than New York. Terrorism is impossible to control. Islam is appeased and treated as an exalted religion over our own and is in control of increasingly large territories across the country. The leader of the Christian faith in Britain has simply given up. White Britons are a minority in their own capital. Free speech died long ago in the land of my fathers. You’ve heard this song from me and others before. The rhetoric of terrorism will never win and strong and stable becomes a little more shrill with every passing assault on my people. The police investigate online hate speech but not muggings – as the unfairly maligned Katie Hopkins said, if this terrorism losing, I’d hate to see it win.

    Our enforcement officers are visiting mosques today to speak to residents about hate crime concerns. 
    If you face anti-Muslim hate, report it to @TellMamaUK and always dial 999 in an emergency. #WeStandTogether pic.twitter.com/j92uOU6UgC

    This is not a police officer. This is an enforcement officer, whose job is to collect information about crimes committed against the good name of Islam. He has no power to arrest, nor to issue any fines. This young man is employed by the state to sniff out hate. The kind of hate that obeys neo-Marxist ideas, the perceived hate for the minority projected into the heart of the White Briton, hate that is subjectively felt- on behalf of the minority! If you feel someone hates someone, then it is so and neither party need agree with you.

    I’m from a little place called Great Britain,

    But I dunno if I love or hate Britain,

    These words upon my page written,

    Are the things that make and break Britain. ~ Scroobius Pip

    Maybe your European country has similar problems that are being unreported. Maybe you are a Swede, lied to about your democratic socialist wonderland, or German and told that your generation must suffer the intolerable, for the indelible sins of the Reich. The Reich, the idea of which remains to this day the great weapon against the people of all Europe, against our national identity. It seems that wherever you turn, suggesting that perhaps our nations are ill-served by the Multi-Kulti experiment draws the accusation: “Nazi!”

    Is it the case that this fifty-something school teacher is a Nazi when she says with sadness of her majority immigrant students;

    “I believe the difference between their world at home and our world is so large they cannot reconcile them. The Sharia is, for many students, surely superior.”

    Only the fool or the ideologue can disagree with this assessment. Anyone who thinks for longer than ten-seconds about the nature of faith can see how obeying the laws of God is more important to the faithful than integrating with a sad shadow of a Western civilization that knows not for whom it stands. We know not why we exist. No longer allowed a national identity, Europeans are simply chattle. Though we are told that we are free, the truth is we have no freedom at all and no respite from the Orwellian demands of our masters that we ignore the obvious in favor of the fantastical.

    The sad reality is that, in all likelihood, war will come again to our continent. It will be unlike the war that nearly killed national identity, in that no more will a nation-state invade her neighbors for territory and conquest. This war will be continent-wide, but internal – and I believe firstly ideological. As the demographics slide further and further towards the annihilation of White Europeans in many countries, the powers that be – the globalist, rootless and self-serving elites that lead most European countries – will ramp up the programming. State news channels will increase the propaganda, of how values are all that matter. We will see enforcement officers like in Hackney rolling out across the land. The taxpayer will pay for their own imprisonment, fearing to leave their houses, and unable to defend their homes in any case.

    “There is a rise in knife crime because nothing is being done about it. Gang crime and gangland violence should be taken seriously as terrorism by the state. Statistical trends over the years show more fatalities of gangland activities than terrorist activities. There is no voice of reason from state officials and an absence of debate.”Dr. Mohammed Rahman

    What I contend we are seeing is the weaponization of minority groups by the state itself. One has to admit, using Islamophobia to repress verbal dissent and feral immigrant youth to make the streets so dangerous – or at least give that impression – that most civilians will simply stay at home would be a brilliant idea if your agenda is to create a submissive and servile nation of tax-cows. The neoliberal debt machine needs feeding; so for as long as the music plays the aim has to be to keep the majority dancing to the tune while they are robbed blind, and ultimately replaced by the migrants Israel is too proud to take.

    The state must encourage the Muslim community to tell stories of hate crimes, which suggests the hate crimes are few. Tell Mama, a Muslim run and state-funded collector of anti-Muslim sentiment is regularly pushed through the media as an authority on the matter, despite previously losing funding for misrepresenting statistics. Imagine if you were being persecuted – would you need enforcement officers and campaigners to encourage you speak out?

    Imagine, a state-funded NGO and enforcement officers on the streets of Telford, of Oxford, of Rotherham. Where was the state then? Looking away. Gathering evidence of anti-Muslim hate, I suppose. Imagine a constable patrolling Mr. Osborne-Brooks’ street in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Where was the state then? Not protecting the law-abiding citizen, that is for sure.

    Imagine recognizing that for all the faults in our society that this society is British, not the dar al-Islam; and that British law -not Islamic- has to rule. Imagine that offense had to be taken and not given. Imagine that instead of stifling the legitimate questions many Britons have about Islam and immigration we could be trusted to discuss them and find peaceful grounds, and non-violent solutions. Instead, old men are arrested for defending their wives and homes from burglars; criticism of Islam is banned, and London itself has been turned over to criminal gangs – the vast majority of whom are non-British in ethnicity.

    I have been a vocal opponent of interventionalist foreign policy and war in general for most of my adult life – primarily from a leftist position. I abhor violence. I find no pleasure then in telling you that we are headed for civil war in the United Kingdom if we persist in treating the native population as little more than a tax farm. For far less insult the American Revolution began, and like almost all civil conflicts we will see bloodshed in England when the financial situation becomes untenable for a critical mass of citizens. For reasons best known to themselves, our leaders – and this I fear is true of most Western nations – have abdicated. Capitulated. Do they care about anything other than living out their lives in comfort, secure that their childless lineages end during times of relative prosperity?

    [Society] is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. ~ Edmund Burke

    For whatever reason, we believe that war is over in Europe, that it may never return. Seventy years of peace with forty years of paranoid cold war have resulted in a kleptocrat European Union and brainless, soulless political elites who know nothing of their own cultures; wishing only that all Europe becomes a federal state. Looking to a utopian future has always proven to be a recipe for disaster for mankind.

    It will not start out as a race war; first Britons will first turn on each other as the hard left demands more state support and the right refuses to pay for it. The socialist cries that the government has sold the family silver will carry some weight- enough to mobilize the anti-capitalists against the working class, who are already beginning to gather together in self-interest. The riots of the disenfranchised Black youths in London will again be played off in the media and by the liberals as a just and expected response to this austerity; and Islam will continue to be protected at all costs, despite further evidence of rape gangs, jihad, and terror plots. In such an environment, all it will take is a single flashpoint to turn economic strife into sectarian violence the likes of which we have not seen since The Troubles. The fight will be undesired by all, not that this will save us.

    “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” ~ John F. Kennedy

    In a time of chaos, human beings revert to tribal states. We seek solace and comfort in those that are like ourselves. Can we deny that on some cultural-wide subconscious level that this is happening at greater and greater levels? The desire for ingroup identity is rising, across all demographics. You can feel it in the air and water itself- this is why identitarians are looked at with fear by the state. The elites know what the rise of these groups portend for the future, that none of these events are happening in isolation, that they are all connected to the state’s failure to enforce the laws fairly. Is civil war inevitable? Maybe- I hope it can be avoided. I hope, as always, that I am wrong and the world can be a Coca-Cola advert of inclusivity, just plain old getting along, in the way that our governments have promised us we all would.

  • The Slippery Slope To A Constitution-Free America

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    The ease with which Americans are prepared to welcome boots on the ground, regional lockdowns, routine invasions of their privacy, and the dismantling of every constitutional right intended to serve as a bulwark against government abuses is beyond unnerving.

    I am referring at this particular moment in time to President Trump’s decision to deploy military forces to the border in a supposed bid to protect the country from invading bands of illegal immigrants.

    This latest attempt to bamboozle the citizenry into relinquishing even more of their rights is commonly referred to as letting the wolves guard the henhouse.

    We are long past the stage where the government—at any level—abides by restrictions on its powers.

    What we are dealing with is a run-away government hyped up on its own power, whose policies are dictated more by paranoia than need.

    It works the same in every country.

    Time and again, we keep sacrificing our liberties for phantom promises of safety.

    The lesson is this: once a free people allows the government to make inroads into their freedoms or uses those same freedoms as bargaining chips for security, it quickly becomes a slippery slope to outright tyranny.

    This is fast becoming a government that has no respect for the freedom or lives of its citizenry.

    Yet there are warning signs we cannot afford to ignore.

    First off, there is no such thing as a “border” in the eyes of these military patrols. The entire United States of America has become a Constitution-free zone.

    According to journalist Todd Miller, the “once thin borderline of the American past” is “an ever-thickening band, now extending 100 miles inland around the United States—along the 2,000-mile southern border, the 4,000-mile northern border and both coasts… This ‘border’ region now covers places where two-thirds of the US population (197.4 million people) live… The ‘border’ has by now devoured the full states of Maine and Florida and much of Michigan.”

    The U.S. government has also declared that ever-expanding border region a Constitution-free zone.

    Second, this de facto standing army that has been imposed on the American people is in clear violation of the spirit—if not the letter of the law—of the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the government’s ability to use the U.S. military as a police force.

    America’s police forces—which look like, dress like, and act like the military—have undeniably become a “standing” or permanent army, one composed of full-time professional soldiers who do not disband, which is exactly what the Founders feared.

    Third, there’s the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security made up of more than 60,000 Customs and Border Protection employees, and supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S. military.

    A national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies, the DHS—aptly described as a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast”—has been ruthlessly efficient when it comes to establishing what the Founders feared most: a standing army on American soil.

    Finally, there’s this whole question of martial law.

    Technically, a good case can be made that the Constitution-free border regions within the United States are already under martial law carried out by a standing army comprised of militarized police and the U.S. military.

    Then again, for all intents and perhaps, the American police state is already governed by martial law, is it not? Battlefield tactics. Militarized police. Riot and camouflage gear. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Drones. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Concussion grenades. Intimidation tactics. Brute force. Laws conveniently discarded when it suits the government’s purpose.

    This is what martial law looks like, when a government disregards constitutional freedoms and imposes its will through military force, only this is martial law without any government body having to declare it. This is martial law packaged as law and order and sold to the public as necessary for keeping the peace.

    It doesn’t matter whether the so-called threats to national security posed by terrorists, extremists or immigrant armies ever became a reality. Once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers, it does not voluntarily relinquish them.

    The damage has been done.

    Face it: we are sliding fast down a slippery slope to a Constitution-free America.

    We’ve been heading in this direction for some time now, but this downward trajectory has picked up speed since Donald Trump became president.

    All of the government’s ongoing assaults on the constitutional framework of the nation have been sold to the public as necessary for national security.

    Remember when George W. Bush claimed the country was being invaded by terrorists post-9/11 and insisted the only way to keep America safe was to give the government and its gun-toting agents greater powers to spy, search, detain and arrest?

    The terrorist invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers made possible by the USA Patriot Act.

    Remember when Barack Obama claimed the country was being invaded by domestic terrorists and insisted the only way to keep America safe was to give the military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights, label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without trial?

    The invasion never really happened, but the government kept its newly acquired detention powers made possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

    Now you have Donald Trump claiming the country is being invaded by immigrants and insisting that the only way to keep America safe is to empower the military to “assist” with border control.

    Mind you, Trump is not the first president to deploy military forces to the border.

    Nevertheless, you can rest assured that this latest call for boots on the ground (whether those boots belong to the National Guard or the armed forces is mere semantics) to police the American border is yet another Trojan Horse that will inflict all manner of nasty police state surprises on an unsuspecting populace.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the menace of a national police force—a.k.a. a standing army—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution, cannot be overstated, nor can its danger be ignored.

  • Massive Geomagnetic Storm Set To Hit Earth This Week

    Over the weekend, a middle latitude coronal hole (88) started to face earth. This is the same coronal hole that was responsible for a moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm last month. Now it seems like the same coronal hole is at it again, spewing high-speed solar wind – headed towards Earth this week.

    According to Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm watch is now in effect for Tuesday and Wednesday. The storm watch was issued “due to the arrival of a negative polarity coronal hole high-speed stream,” SWPC detailed on its website.

    C. Alex Young, associate director for science in the heliophysics science division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, published in a report Monday that “three substantial coronal holes” arrived on his radar last week. Young describes coronal holes as an “open magnetic field from which high-speed solar wind rushes out into space.” If the high-speed solar wind is earth facing, then “it interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere” and lead to all sorts of problems.

    “For much of this week the sun featured three substantial coronal holes (Apr. 3-6, 2018). Coronal holes appear as large dark areas which are identified with arrows in the still image. These are areas of open magnetic field from which high speed solar wind rushes out into space. This wind, if it interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere, can cause aurora to appear near the poles. They are not at all uncommon. Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    As of Tuesday morning, there are radio blacks across the world. During moderate geomagnetic storms, “intense ionization within the D-layer propagation region is observed on the sunlit side of Earth, and affects a wide range of frequencies within the HF Spectrum (3 – 30 MHz),” said Solarham. In other words, solar storms can degrade HF radio communications (radio blackouts).

    Real-Time Solar Wind (RTSW) data shows an uptick in solar wind activity hitting Earth’s shields starting on Monday and increasing into Tuesday.

    The Estimated Planetary K index (Kp) charts below are “one of the most common indices used to indicate the severity of the global magnetic disturbances in near-Earth space,” said Solarham. A Kp index of five or more shows a geomagnetic storm is in progress.

    K-indices of five or greater indicates storm-level geomagnetic activity around the Earth.

    Below is a one-week K-indices view from four magnetometer reporting stations.

    Below is a one week A-indices view from four magnetometer reporting stations.

    We have stated before, U.S. power grid failures are possible due to strong geomagnetic storms; in today’s case, it looks like a G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm could produce auroras for much of Canada, over the next few nights.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Daily Star quotes Brian Gaensler, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, who gave a speech earlier this month — warning of the “carnage solar flares can cause.”

    “The concern here is that if the radiation from a solar flare hits the earth, it can knock out satellites, disrupt mobile phones, and other forms of communication,” he said.

    The effects of a solar storm could last months – or even years – as authorities would have to repair all the damaged infrastructure.

    Specialist insurance firm Lloyd’s of London estimates the repair bill could cost up to £1.8 trillion.

    Experts have warned it is just a matter of time before we suffer another direct hit.

    Pete Riley, senior scientist at Predictive Science in San Diego, California, previously predicted there was a 12% chance that Earth will be hit by a storm by 2020.

    He said: “Even if it’s off by a factor of two, that’s a much larger number than I thought.

    “Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct.

    “It is a sobering figure.”

    In 2015, the British Government published a report into the risks to the UK of severe space weather.

    It said an event such as a coronal mass ejection could wreak havoc across the world.

    Video: Geomagnetic Unrest, Storms, Predictions | S0 News Apr.10.2018

  • On The Threshold Of War – Paul Craig Roberts

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    UPDATE: There is no longer any doubt that the criminally insane government in Washington is driving the world to the last war.

    https://www.rt.com/news/423634-unsc-security-threats-syria-chemical/

    https://www.rt.com/news/423627-russian-military-checks-chemical-douma/

    UPDATE: As Americans we must face the possibility that we have a criminally insane government in Washington that is leading the world to destruction.

    A Russian Government Press Release:

    False information is being planted about the alleged use of chlorine and other toxic agents by the Syrian government forces. The latest fake news about a chemical attack on Douma was reported yesterday. These reports are again referenced to the notorious White Helmets, which have been proved more than once to be working hand in glove with the terrorists, as well as to other pseudo-humanitarian organisations headquartered in the UK and the US.

    We recently warned of the possibility of such dangerous provocations. The goal of these absolutely unsubstantiated lies is to protect the terrorists and the irreconcilable radical opposition that has rejected a political settlement, as well as to justify the possible use of force by external actors.

    We have to say once again that military interference in Syria, where Russian forces have been deployed at the request of the legitimate government, under contrived and false pretexts is absolutely unacceptable and can lead to very grave consequences.

    This is John Helmer’s interpretation of the warning:

    “WHEN THE RULE OF LAW WAS DESTROYED IN SALISBURY, LONDON AND THE HAGUE, AND THE RULE OF FRAUD DECLARED IN WASHINGTON, THAT LEAVES ONLY THE RULE OF FORCE IN THE WORLD. THE STAVKA [the high command of the Russian armed forces] MET IN MOSCOW ON GOOD FRIDAY AND IS READY. THE FOREIGN MINISTRY ANNOUNCED ON SUNDAY “THE GRAVEST CONSEQUENCES”.

    THIS MEANS ONE AMERICAN SHOT AT A RUSSIAN SOLDIER, THEN WE ARE AT WAR. NOT INFOWAR, NOT CYBERWAR, NOT ECONOMIC WAR, NOT PROXY WAR. WORLD WAR.”

    I hope that the situation is not this severe.

    On The Threshold of War

    “The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified.” — The Saker

    “The US generals, unlike the US politicians and media and US administration, are risk-averse if the outcome may be catastrophic.” — Gilbert Doctorow

    Above are two of the three most intelligent and reliable Russian experts. The third is Professor Stephen Cohen, who worries, as I do, that an arrogant Washington drowning in hubris is provoking Russia to war.

    The Saker has concluded that the Russians have concluded that it has been a mistake to put up with Washington’s lies, insults, and orchestrated events and have decided that if the dumbshit Americans attack Syria, Russia is going to take out the US forces involved.

    Doctorow has concluded that as dumbshit as Washington is, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff have more sense and will not go along with an attack on a Russian ally.

    I hope that Doctorow is correct. However, with that crazed demented warmonger John Bolton sitting in the White House next to Trump, who enjoys the role of tough guy, I am more scared by The Saker’s reading than I am reassured by Doctorow’s.

    There are reports, the validity of which I cannot confirm at this time, that the entirety of the Russian military has been put on high alert, not merely the Russian forces in Syria. See here for example.

    Nikki Haley’s threats against Russia in the UN do not support Doctorow’s hopes that reason will prevail in Washington. The crazed bitch said that the US will act against the “monster” Assad with or without the UN.

    Tough man Trump, sitting next to the crazed warmonger Bolton, declared that the alleged chemical attack in Syria “will be met and it will be met forcefully. We can’t let atrocities like we all witnessed… we can’t let that happen in our world, especially because of the power of the US, we are able to stop it.”

    There was NO chemical attack by Syria. I know that for an absolute 100% fact. I would bet my life on it. Yet here is the US president declaring a total non-fact to be something “we all witnessed.” Little wonder that the Russians have concluded that the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been hopelessly zombified.

    If Doctorow is not correct that a sane US Joint Chiefs of Staff will prevail over the crazed President and his National Security Adviser, we are headed for war.

    It is a war that the US will not win.

    Notice, dear readers, that there is no mention of this pending crisis in the Western media. Instead the media whether CNN or the BBC has as the lead news story the FBI’s raid on Trump’s lawyer.

    Insouciant Americans is too mild, isn’t it. Clueless is the correct word.

  • Ride-Hailing Apps Surpass Regular Taxis In NYC

    It has been six years since Uber drivers started roaming the streets of New York. From that day on, drivers of the notorious yellow cabs, an icon of Manhattan and the rest of the Big Apple for the past century, lived in constant fear of becoming obsolete.

    And, as Statista’s Patrick Wagner reports, Uber and other Ride-Hailing apps such as Lyft, Juno or Via are in the fast lane when it comes to the total number of pickups whilst the city’s green and yellow cabs’ share on the streets is steadily declining.

    Infographic: Ride-Hailing Apps Surpass Regular Taxis in NYC | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    By February 2017 app-based mobility providers outstripped classic cabs in New York and by November of the same year Uber alone managed to pick up more passengers than Taxis.

    In the future, the New York landscape might lack the famous yellow cabs coloring its streets.

  • Clinton, Comey, Uranium One: Who Is John W. Huber?

    Authored by Micah Morrison via Judicial Watch,

    Widespread head-scratching has followed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent disclosure that U.S. Attorney John W. Huber is leading an investigation into 2016 election controversies.

    In a March 29 letter to Republican committee chairmen, Mr. Sessions said that Mr. Huber, the U. S. Attorney for Utah, had been appointed to “evaluate certain issues” raised by the GOP. He did not say which issues, but there are plenty.

    In a July 27, 2017 letter, GOP leaders had called on Mr. Sessions to “appoint a second special counsel to investigate a plethora of matters connected to the 2016 election and its aftermath.” These included actions by Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch and others, email controversies, mishandling of classified information, Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier, FISA warrants, wire taps, leaks, grand juries, the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal.

    Mr. Sessions instead appointed Mr. Huber, “an experienced federal prosecutor,” and left the door open to a special counsel. Mr. Sessions noted that Mr. Huber “will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.”

    Translation: Mr. Huber is investigating the investigations, not the underlying allegations.

    Mr. Huber was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney in Utah in 2002. He was named U.S. Attorney in 2015 by Barack Obama. Mr. Huber has an important backer in Utah’s senior senator, Orrin Hatch.

    After President Trump requested the resignations of all sitting U.S. Attorneys, Mr. Sessions kept Mr. Huber alive with an interim appointment under the Federal Vacancies Act, until the president could be persuaded to re-nominate him. He was confirmed a second time for the post in August.

    It’s a truism of law enforcement that if you want to pursue high-level political corruption, get yourself a junkyard dog – a strong prosecutor, good in a fight. Hickman Ewing Jr. – the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee and later the Whitewater Deputy Independent Counsel – comes to mind. Mr. Ewing had a long track record of pursuing political corruption before Kenneth Starr tapped him for the Whitewater probe. The Office of U.S. Attorney in Utah, by contrast, has been toothless. Mr. Huber has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, but for the last three years it has been his shop and his responsibility. Before that, it was his training ground.

    In November, for example, a federal judge dismissed the last charges against Terry Diehl, a powerful Utah developer and former Utah Transit Authority board member. The government was widely seen as bungling the case. The Salt Lake Tribune noted that Diehl, “a well-known developer with friends in high places — including [Utah] House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper — once stood charged with 14 felony counts that stemmed from allegations that he lied about or hid assets as part of a 2012 bankruptcy. Prosecutors had whittled the case down three times since early October, dropping counts of concealment and tax evasion.” Prosecutors acknowledged “missteps” to the newspaper, including getting wrong the amount of taxes Diehl allegedly did not pay.

    Mr. Huber’s office also lost a 2017 case against real-estate mogul Rick Koerber, charged with running a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme. The case – the government’s second try – ended in a mistrial. A judge threw out an earlier case. The government will try again in September.

    But the Rosetta Stone for understanding Utah’s corruption problems may be the sprawling saga of John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff, two former Utah attorneys general charged with a multitude of corruption charges. The case gripped the state for years. Mr. Huber’s office recused itself in 2013 from the investigations, transferring the case to Colorado. Later, the Justice Department declined to charge either man and Utah state prosecutors took over. Swallow was acquitted on all counts last year and the charges against Shurtleff were dropped in 2016 by Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings, who bitterly complained about FBI and Justice Department conduct in the case.

    That’s how the game is played in Utah, locals say. Power brokers have the state wired. Mr. Huber seems like a decent man, but his tenure at the top of Utah law enforcement has been short and undistinguished. Why appoint him to such a sensitive position in Washington?

    One explanation is that Mr. Sessions knows precisely who Mr. Huber is and what he wants from him. Mr. Sessions went to bat for Mr. Huber in his re-appointment as U.S. Attorney and named him vice-chair of the prestigious Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. Mr. Huber, a political survivor, knows precisely who Mr. Sessions is and what the attorney general wants from him.

    Another more intriguing explanation is that Mr. Sessions needs someone who knows Utah. One part of Mr. Huber’s mandate, as outlined in the GOP letter, is the “purchase of Uranium One by the company Rosatom, whether the approval of the sale was connected to any donations to the Clinton Foundation, and what role Secretary Clinton played in the approval of the sale.”

    Uranium One’s assets included significant holdings in Utah and nearby states.

    Prosecutors – and the media, so transfixed by the Mueller probe that they decline to look elsewhere – should follow the Uranium One money in Utah and the rest of the West. And if Mr. Huber does recommend additional investigations or a second special counsel, Mr. Sessions should get himself a junkyard dog.

  • China Producer Price Inflation Tumbles As Global Reflation Cycle Ends

    It appears, thanks to the collapse in China’s credit impulse, that China’s commodity boom is over…

    China’s factory inflation slowed for a fifth month while the consumer price index retreated from a four-year high.

    Producer prices rose at their slowest YoY rate since October 2016… with Consumer Durables prices contracting YoY for the 4th straight month.

    And Consumer Price inflation slowed notably to +2.1% YoY (versus expectations of a 2.6% gain), dropping 1.1% MoM, with Consumer goods and food seeing the biggest slowdown.

    And as goes Coal, so goes China PPI…

    Prices for commodities such as iron ore and coal fell on “global oversupply and government policy to stem overcapacity,” Katrina Ell, an economist at Moody’s Analytics in Sydney, wrote in a recent note.

    “The government’s clampdown on financial risks is also slowing credit growth,” she said, which is a drag on investment and demand for industrial inputs.

    As Bloomberg notes, moderating factory inflation may offer limited support to the world reflation cycle, amid rising trade tensions that may weigh on the broadest synchronized global growth in years.

  • Google's File On You Is 10 Times Bigger Than Facebook's – Here's How To View It

    Authored by Jake Anderson via TheAntiMedia.com,

    With all the attention paid to Facebook in recent weeks over ‘data breaches’ and privacy violations, even though what happened with Cambridge Analytica is part of their standard business model, it’s easy to forget that there are four other Big Tech corporations collecting just as much – if not more – of our personal info.

    Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are all central players in “surveillance capitalism” and prey on our data. New reports actually suggest that Google may actually harvest ten times as much as Facebook.

    Curious about just how much of his data Google had, web developer Dylan Curran says he downloaded his Google data file, which is offered by the company in a hub called “My Account.”

    This hub was created in 2015, along with a tool called “My Activity.” The report issued is similar to the one Facebook delivers to its users upon request. Whether or not these reports are comprehensive is still up in the air, but Curran says his was 5.5 GB, which is almost ten times larger than the one Facebook offered him. The amount and type of data in his file, Mr. Curran says, suggests Google is not only constantly tracking our online movements but may also be monitoring our physical locations.

    Curran’s Google report contained an incredible amount documentation on his web activity, going back over a decade. But perhaps more importantly, Google had also been tracking his real-life movements via his smartphone device or tablet. This included fairly random places he’d frequented, many of the foreign countries and cities he visited, the bars and restaurants he went to while in these countries, the amount of time he spent there, and even the path he took to get there and back.

    This, of course, is not new. It has been well-known for some time that Google silently tracks you everywhere you go and creates a map of your physical movements through its Location History feature. You can deactivate it by going to your timeline and adjusting the preferences.

    Another Google user downloaded his file and discovered the company had been archiving his data even when he browsed in Incognito mode, a setting that advertises itself as one that does not save browsing history.

    Like Facebook, Google gathers your info for sale to 3rd-party advertisers, including your name, email address, telephone number, credit card, specific ways you use Google’s services, your mode of interaction with any website that uses Google technology (such as AdWords), your device, and your search queries. And if you don’t enter your account and make adjustments, pretty much anything you do online while deploying a Google tool is tracked. Google’s policy states:

    “If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.”

    But much of the location data stems from the use of Google apps like Maps or Now, which broadcast your location. If you want to stop this information from being shared, you have to go into your account settings and make adjustments.

    The ostensible purpose of this data-sharing is to fine-tune your user experience, but who is benefitting more is arguable. The same year it released its new activity hub, Google also unveiled a new program that shares your email with high-value advertisers. Called Customer Match, this system streamlines consumer info so that an advertiser’s “brand is right there, with the right message, at the moment your customer is most receptive.”

    Google’s policy also lists the three major categories of data collection: Things you do; Things you create; and Things that make you “you.”

    But you do have the ability to limit this info from getting out. You can turn off location tracking, voice searches, and other features; you can view and edit your preferences; you can adjust your public profile, and you can download Google’s data hoard to see what they see.

    You’re also welcome to go a bit further and delete all of your data from not only Google but also a variety of other online services.

    1. Go to Deseat.me and sign in with a Gmail address.
    2. Look down the list of synced accounts and decide which you want to delete and which you want to keep.
    3. Click the button

    Will deleting a select amount of your data from the innards of the Big 5 stop predatory data mining? Certainly not. But while Facebook testifies before Congress, we have an opportunity to draw attention to some of the consequences of a technocracy that privatizes surveillance. As the control grid tightens, our reaction indicates our level of complacency.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 10

Today’s News 10th April 2018

  • UK's Top Doctor Demands Ban For "Killer" Kitchen Knives

    Hot on the heels of London Mayor Sadiq Kahn’s city-wide ban on knives, The Express reports that one of Scotland’s leading doctors has called for a ban on “killer” kitchen knives.

    Dr John Crichton, the new chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, wants the sale of pointed kitchen knives to be banned to help reduce the number of fatal stabbings.

    Dr Crichton, who took on the role of chairman in June this year, is championing a switch to so-called “R”-bladed knives, which have rounded points and are far less effective as weapons.

    As The Express details, he said that research shows many attacks, particularly in households where there has been a history of violence, involve kitchen knives because they are so easily accessible. Dr Crichton believes a switch from sharp-pointed, long-bladed knives to the new design could save lives.

     “This is a public health measure and public health measures are always about society deciding on a self-imposed restriction for the public good.”

    Maybe – to be safer – all knives should be blunted to a government-mandated level of kill-a-bility… oh and while we are banning dangerous kitchen implements – what about rolling-pins? Perhaps they should be licensed to only those who pass a government-mandated baking sanity test?

  • America Hasn't Learned A Thing: Racism, Materialism, & Militarism Still Reign Supreme

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    As a nation, we have a tendency to sentimentalize cultural icons in death in a way that renders them non-threatening, antiseptic and easily digested by a society with an acute intolerance for anything controversial, politically incorrect or marred by imperfection.

    This revisionist history has proven to be a far more effective means of neutralizing radicals such as Martin Luther King Jr. than anything the NSA, CIA or FBI could dream up.

    This was a man who went to jail over racial segregation laws, encouraged young children to face down police dogs and water hoses, and who urged people to turn their anger loose on the government through civil disobedience. King called for Americans to rise up against a government that was not only treating blacks unfairly but was also killing innocent civilians, impoverishing millions, and prioritizing the profits of war over human rights and dignity.

    King actually insisted that people have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

    This is not a message that the government wants us to heed.

    No, the government wants us distracted, divided, warring against each other and helpless to free ourselves from a lifetime of bondage and servitude to the powers-that-be.

    It’s working.

    In life, King was fiery, passionate, single-minded in his pursuit of justice, unwilling to remain silent in the face of wrongdoing, and unafraid of offending those who might disagree with him.

    In death, King has been reduced to a lifeless face on a stone monument: mute, immobile and powerless to do anything about the injustices that continue to plague the nation.

    America hasn’t learned a thing.

    The “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism“ that King railed so passionately against have yet to be conquered.

    In fact, the evils of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism have got us in a death grip.

    America is still waging endless wars abroad, prioritizing profit margins over principle, and adopting institutionalized racist policies that result in a disproportionate number of people of color being stopped, searched, raided, arrested, thrown in jail, and shot and killed by government agents.

    Fifty years later, we have compounded the evils of racism, materialism and militarism with ignorance, intolerance and fear.

    Callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance and injustice have become hallmarks of our modern age, magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets, government-sanctioned brutality, and “the politics of exclusion.”

    “We the people” have become “we the police state.”

    By failing to actively take a stand for good, we have become agents of evil.

    None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.

    Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.

    “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” King sermonized.

    The darkness is winning.

    It’s winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies.

    It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.

    We are on the wrong side of the revolution.

    “If we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution,” advised King, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.“

    Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.

    Freedom demands that we not remain silent in the face of evil or wrongdoing but actively stand against injustice.

    Freedom demands that we treat others as we would have them treat us. That is the law of reciprocity, also referred to as the Golden Rule, and it is found in nearly every world religion, including Judaism and Christianity.

    In other words, if you don’t want to be locked up in a prison cell or a detention camp—if you don’t want to be discriminated against because of the color of your race, religion, politics or anything else that sets you apart from the rest—if you don’t want your loved ones shot at, strip searched, tasered, beaten and treated like slaves—if you don’t want to have to be constantly on guard against government eyes watching what you do, where you go and what you say—if you don’t want to be tortured, waterboarded or forced to perform degrading acts—if you don’t want your children to grow up in a world without freedom—then don’t allow these evils to be inflicted on anyone else, no matter how tempting the reason or how fervently you believe in your cause.

    As long as we continue to allow ignorance, intolerance, racism, militarism, materialism and meanness to trump justice, fairness and equality, there can be no hope of prevailing against the police state.

    Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream of a world in which all Americans “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

    He didn’t live to see that dream become a reality.

    It’s still not a reality. We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.

    But imagine…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice…

    Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against the evils of the police state…

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

  • Russia's Richest Billionaires Lost Over $16 Billion Today

    It was not a great day to be a Russian billionaire…

    After Washington unleashed yet another round of sanctions, this time targeting the Oligarch class, Russian stocks plunged the most since 2014, Russian bond spreads blew out the most since 2000, and the Ruble plunged most since Jan 2015

    But it was the richest Russians that suffered the most as Bloomberg reports the combined net worth of the country’s wealthiest people fell by $16 billion Monday — erasing all of their year-to-year gains — following last week’s U.S.-imposed sanctions.

    Not all the Russian billionaires were hit equally though.

    All but one of the 27 Russian tycoons listed on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index lost money, led by Siberian nickel miner Vladimir Potanin, whose fortune declined $2.25 billion.

    As RusLetter.com reports,  the condition of the billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who fell under personal US sanctions, is rapidly declining. Based on the rating of the richest people of the planet according to Forbes (real time) version at 18:00 Moscow time, it decreased by $ 957 million and in real time is $ 5.3 billion. This was due to a sharp drop on the background of En + London stock exchange by 20% – to $ 9.6 per share.

    In addition to Deripaska, six more participants of the Forbes list were also hit: they themselves were included in the new list of sanctions, as well as 12 of their companies. Suleiman Kerimov’s fortunes decreased (by $ 244 million to $ 6.6 billion) and Viktor Vekselberg’s F 10 (by $ 41 million to $ 14.6 billion). The condition of Igor Rotenberg and Kirill Shamalov did not change, and Vladimir Bogdanov and Andrei Skoch even grew by $ 1 million and $ 8 million, respectively.

    Before the publication of the “Kremlin report” in which the US authorities promised to name the main friends of Vladimir Putin, against whom restrictions must be imposed, the richest people in Russia were visibly nervous. When the “Kremlin report” was made public, it turned out that it fully coincides with the Russian part of the world ranking Forbes. The Russian billionaires were confused: “Will the sanctions be imposed for the entire Forbes list?” For some time everyone was waiting for new personal sanctions, but problems, as it turned out, do not threaten everyone.

    On Friday, April 6, Washington said that now “Russian oligarchs will not have a chance to profit from the Russian corrupt system, they will not be isolated from the consequences of the destabilizing activity of their government.” All assets of their assets in the US are frozen. Citizens of the United States are forbidden to enter into any business relations with them. More details about the seven billionaires who are under sanctions, via Forbes:

    Viktor Vekselberg

    Assessment of the state: $ 14.4 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 89

    Source of income: is the founder and chairman of the board of directors of the group “Renova”. Now Vekselberg’s main asset is investment in the Swiss company Sulzer, the manufacturer of pumping equipment. Previously owned assets in the “Sual Holding”, the company Deripaska “Rusal” and “Rosneft”

    For which he got on the sanctions list: “for bribing officials associated with the project for the production of electricity in Russia.”

    Andrey Skoch

    Assessment of the state: $ 4.9 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 404

    Source of income: a share in USM Holdings (30%) owned by OOO Metalloinvest Managing Company is a large Russian mining and metals company specializing in steel production, as well as a share of Vnukovo airport shares (formally the shares of Skoca are held by his father, pensioner Vladimir Skoch).

    For which I got on the sanctions list: “for being a State Duma deputy and having links with Russian organized criminal groups.”

    Suleiman Kerimov

    State estimation: $ 6.4 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 265

    Source of income: the Kerimov family owns 83% of the shares in the largest Russian gold mining company Polyus, the international airport of Makhachkala

    For which he got on the sanctions list: “for being associated with the Russian government, for money laundering and non-payment of taxes in the amount of 400 million euros for the purchase of villas in Cap d’Antibes”.

    Oleg Deripaska

    Assessment of the state: $ 6.7 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 248

    Source of income: holding company En +, which owns blocks of shares of aluminum producer US Rusal and electricity company Eurosibenergo. En + Group is an energy company that is valued at $ 9.8 billion and is managed through the NG “Basic Element”, which also fell under sanctions. Deripaska also controls the GAZ Group, Ingosstrakh, Basel Aero (airports in the Krasnodar Territory), and the Kuban agroholding

    For which I got on the sanctions list: “for representing the interests of the Russian government, for money laundering, bribing officials and links with criminal groups.”

    Vladimir Bogdanov

    Assessment of the state: $ 1.8 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 1339

    Source of income: a stake in Surgutneftegaz

    For which he got on the sanctions list: “for being the general director and deputy chairman of the board of directors of Surgutneftegaz, the company contributed by the US sanctions service to the appropriate list.”

    Kirill Shamalov

    Condition assessment: $ 1.4 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 1650

    Source of income: 3.88% stake in Sibur (17%, which he bought from Gennady Timchenko in 2014, in the spring of 2017 he sold Leonid Mikhelson)

    For which he got on the sanctions list: “for working in the energy sector of the Russian economy and for marrying Katerina Tikhonova, who is considered Vladimir Putin’s daughter (Bloomberg reported divorce in January), and for a loan from Gazprombank, which was sanctioned.”

    Igor Rothenberg

    State estimation: $ 1.1 billion

    Place in the world ranking: 1999

    Source of income: 50% of the shares of RT-Invest Transportation Systems, operator of the Platon system for collection of heavy-duty vehicles, as well as 46.2% of the shares of the Tula Cartridge Plant and 79% of the shares of Gazprom Drilling, which he acquired from his father, Arkady Rothenberg

    For which he got on the sanctions list: for his work “in the energy sector of the economy of the Russian Federation”.

     

  • The True Origins Of The US-Chinese Trade War

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

    China responded to Trump’s tariffs with economic restrictions of its own, though its market has always been notoriously difficult to enter due to Beijing’s own ironically “protectionist” policies designed to safeguard its domestic producers, but the government has been easing its prior regulations in recent years in order to facilitate the country’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity. The developing trade war between the US and China threatens to formalize the long-running economic competition between these two Great Powers as they vie with one another over control of the world order, with Washington wanting to retain its erstwhile but fading unipolar dominance while Beijing wants to pioneer the emergence of a multipolar system marked by a diversity of theoretically equal stakeholders.

    The friction between these contradictory forces is the basis of the ongoing New Cold War, though there’s a bit more of a backstory to this global struggle than just that.

    The US thought that “winning back Beijing” through its late Cold War-era alliance with China against the USSR would allow Washington to do as it pleases to what its decision makers had convinced themselves was their largest proxy state to date, but the US’ betrayal of China through the failed Tiananmen Square Color Revolution attempt of 1989 forever changed how the East Asian country’s communist leaders viewed America. Nevertheless, the naïve liberal-globalists of the Clinton era thought that they could bribe China to remain “loyal” to the US-led global world order that emerged after the Cold War by relying on “win-win” investments that would enrich the American elite while helping China rapidly modernize.

    Suffice to say, this presumption proved to be totally false.

    The so-called “Washington Consensus” and attendant “rules of the game” are rigged in order to benefit the US and indefinitely perpetuate its global hegemony, which is why China continuously broke the rules to its advantage but was allowed to get away with it for so long because of the aforementioned relationship that it had with naïve liberal-globalist American elites who profited from this system at the expense of average Americans.

    The Obama Administration tried to preemptively “balance” the inevitable geopolitical consequences of this trend by proposing the so-called “Group of Two” or “Chimerica” global partnership with China, but Beijing rejected this outreach.

    By 2013, China felt confident enough with its newfound strength to announce the world-changing OBOR megaproject that’s designed to bring a definitive end to America’s economic dominance and related unipolar “leadership”, but then the US and China suddenly “switched” global economic roles following Trump’s election.

    President Xi’s January 2017 speech at Davos saw him proclaim China as the champion of a reformed version of the globalization model that America once led, while President Trump has made no secret of his preference for the type of protectionist-nationalist policies that the People’s Republic itself embraced in the past.

    The rest of the world is now compelled to choose between these competing systems.

    Just like during the Old Cold War, however, the new one is seeing the reemergence of another Non-Aligned Movement (Neo-NAM) that’s attempting to strike a “middle ground” by “hybridizing” the best policies of both but in a more complicated and comprehensive way than before because of the inextricable geopolitical and economic dimensions that transcend the former dogmatic adherence to a single ideology. If there’s any “ideology” at all nowadays, then it’s the pure self-interest of Neo-Realism, and it’s here where Russia can play a pivotal role during this transitional period of global systemic change by assisting the Neo-NAM in “balancing” between both “blocs” and reaping the resultant advantages.

  • White House Hoping To Trim At Least $120BN From $1.3TN "Omnibus" Spending Bill

    Larry Kudlow took viewers by surprise during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” this week when – after offering the usual boilerplate about the White House’s trade beef with China – he mentioned that the White House was considering a “rescission bill” to strip some spending from the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that President Trump signed into law last month.

    Congressional and West Wing sources have apparently confirmed as much with Bloomberg, which reported that the rescission bill – which could ultimately strip $120 billion from nondefense discretionary spending – was under serious consideration.

    With the CBO now projecting a $1 trillion budget deficit by 2020 – two years sooner than previously estimated – the urgency for the government to roll back some of its deficit-fueled spending has intensified. And bear in mind, the CBO is now estimating that there won’t be a recession within the next ten years, which would make this the longest economic cycle without a contraction in US history.

    CBO

    As we noted earlier, according to the latest estimates, spending will exceed revenue by $804 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, compared with a projected $563 billion shortfall from June, the non-partisan arm of Congress said in a report Monday. In fiscal 2019, the deficit will reach $981 billion, compared with an earlier projection of $689 billion.

    Given the threat that swelling debts pose to the US financial system (not to mention the stock market), Bloomberg reported that the US is planning to ask Congress to pare back some of the domestic spending authorized by the bill.

    Meanwhile, the White House is hoping to leave military funding, funding for the opioid crisis and border security untouched.

    House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been working with the administration on a rescission maneuver, though any attempts to roll back spending will likely be opposed by Democrats.

    For those who are unfamiliar with the obscure provision, here’s an explanation of “rescission” courtesy of Bloomberg.

    The rescissions request makes use of an obscure provision in the 1974 Budget Act that allows the president to request the cancellation of some spending and gives Congress 45 days to approve the measure. Under a 1992 precedent in the Senate that limits debate, Republicans likely could pass the bill without any Democratic support.

    “The administration is working to identify potential rescissions and at this point, there is no completed list or dollar amount,” White House budget office spokeswoman Meghan Burris said.

    The 2,232-page omnibus bill was roundly criticized by 25 House conservatives, including House Freedom Caucus member Mark Meadows, who almost sunk the bill by turning against it and threatening what would’ve been a third government shutdown this year. 

    Trump also flirted with opposing the bill after it passed the House, and it wasn’t until Speaker Paul Ryan journeyed to the White House for a lunch meeting where he secured the president’s support.

    Trump

    Still, the president made clear that he was signing the bill because of a national security imperative – and that he opposed the domestic spending concessions Congressional Republicans had permitted. It also, crucially, lacked funding for Trump’s southern border wall. The White House had initially sought nearly $20 billion.

    The bill increased military spending by $80 billion this year above previous spending limits and non-defense spending by $63 billion. Trump’s 2018 budget had sought a $54 billion cut to non-defense spending.

    Despite having the ability to circumvent the Democrats, both Democratic and Republican aides told Bloomberg the package would face difficulty in the Senate as Republicans – particularly members of the appropriations committee – likely wouldn’t support breaking a good-faith agreement and doing an end-run around their Democratic peers.

    “Advancing a rescission package like the one described would lay waste to the notion that Republican leadership negotiated the omnibus in good faith and poison the well for future responsible, bipartisan legislating,” said Matthew Dennis, a spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Democrats on Friday.

    Steve Bell, a former Senate Republican budget aide of the Bipartisan Policy Center predicted that because of this, the package will face difficulties in the Senate and may not even be introduced.

    Republicans could try to pare back domestic spending by $120 billion to put it in line with the Trump 2018 budget. But the larger the request, the more difficult it will be for moderate Republicans to swallow. 

    Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a spending watchdog group, said the larger the request from Trump, the more difficult it will be.

    “Unless its a really targeted package that just focuses on some egregious waste, it is going to get enough people ticked off that it won’t go through” he said.

    Budget watchdogs say they would welcome the chance to reduce the roughly $150 billion spending increase in the omnibus bill.

    “I don’t have a view yet on this particular process, but certainly we overspent for FY 2018 and if we can pare the funds backs a bit – both on the defense and non-defense side – that would be an improvement,” Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said.

    While it’s reasonable to assume that paring back domestic spending might be unpopular with both Democrats and moderate Republicans, the CBO report cited above is just the latest sign that the White House has dramatically overspent. And at the end of the day, stopping the US from transforming into Greece might be a higher political priority than preserving domestic programs.

     

  • Petro-Yuan Is The Newest Weapon For The China-Russia-Iran Anti-USD Alliance

    Authored by Jeff Brown via The Saker blog,

    Pictured above, the currency symbols for the old Spanish peseta and the Chinese yuan. Maybe Baba Beijing can synthesize the two of them into a cooling looking petro-yuan logo.

    After 25 years of dreams, planning, rumors and testing, the Chinese petro-yuan is now official. Right now, almost all global oil trade is conducted in US dollars, using two benchmark varieties of crude, West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent, as the industry standards. It is no accident that these two benchmarks are based on imperial crude, American and British, and the irony of this is surely not lost on Baba Beijing (China’s leadership).

    China is not selling oil, so the petro-yuan is a futures purchase contract denominated in renminbi for the country to import the stuff. As the world’s biggest importer of hydrocarbons, Baba Beijing has long felt that pricing all its millions of tons of imports should be in its national currency. Why should China pay for Russian natural gas or Venezuelan crude in Western empire’s currency of global financial control, Uncle Sam’s greenback?

    Opinions outside China range from being non-plussed, to claiming it is the most important news in modern financial history, but you would have to search far and wide in Eurangloland (NATO, EU, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) and its heavily censored and suppressed media, to see for yourself. Outside the obligatory statement of fact in financial outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters and Bloomberg, silence from the West’s mainstream media is deafening, as this screenshot below shows, when searching the topic. Only one mainstream article showed up on page #1 of the web search and that was CNBC from 2017. Even just looking for “petro-yuan” gives identical results. It’s a Western media black hole.

    The West’s censorship and suppression of news that reports the truth about China, Russia and Iran is lethally effective. Hitler called it the Big Lie. Eurangloland learned from a master.

    Both end points on the above range of ideas are probably exaggerated. But, the fact that any global oil seller can now buy non-US dollar oil contracts is momentous, for sure. In 1971, Richard Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard and got OPEC to restrict global hydrocarbon sales to greenbacks. Thus, overnight, the world’s reserve currency was pure fiat money, which is still being kept propped up by the need for the world economy to buy dollars, in order to purchase the most strategic commodity on earth. Here are two ranges of opinion on Nixon’s decision (from this to this).

    Many people don’t want to acknowledge that their decision to switch from the US dollar to the euro, by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, had a lot to do with their countries being invaded, plundered, destroyed, and then they being killed in a highly humiliating and public fashion. In both cases, once they made the switch, it was just months before they were sacked.

    Other, more powerful oil producers have already ditched the greenback, but Western empire only knows how to prey on weaker states, like Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Africa and the like. Iran has already stopped using the US dollar, as has Russia with China, which helps explain the West’s vociferous, self-defeating illegal sanctions and embargos on them.

    Both Iran and Russia make Uncle Sam brown the backside of his red-white-and-blue bloomers, as well as for the Zionist state of Israel. I don’t even have to mention Eurangloland’s white knuckle fear of China. The China-Russia-Iran anti-dollar alliance versus the West is causing the latter’s elites to suffer from extreme geopolitical dysentery. Vulnerable, and it has to be said gullible Iraq and Libya, yes – but this towering trio not so much, as they are two of the world’s biggest petro-exporters next door to the biggest importer, and all are armed to the teeth with high-tech military hardware. When you look at the map below, it graphically shows how ridiculous it is for these three players to do business in dollars. New York and Washington are so far, far away.

    Whatcha gonna do about it, Eurangloland? There’s not a damn this you can do, short of destroying humanity and the world. Sadly, there are many psychopaths in Washington, Brussels, London and Paris who would prefer that, than accept imperial collapse.

    As usual, you have to go outside the Great Western Firewall and its propaganda Big Lie, to see the real world. For those who want to delve deeper, RT has done an informative series of articles and the South China Morning Post (SCMP) has done a couple of good ones.

    RT:

    https://www.rt.com/business/422314-petro-yuan-futures-dollar-death/
    https://www.rt.com/business/422448-china-oil-futures-outstrips-brent/
    https://www.rt.com/business/422472-russia-china-petro-yuan/
    https://www.rt.com/business/422776-trade-war-petro-yuan/
    https://www.rt.com/business/422838-petro-yuan-dollar-gaddafi/
    https://www.rt.com/business/423461-petro-yuan-us-dollar-oil/

    SCMP:

    http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/2139646/chinas-yuan-denominated-oil-futures-what-took-you-so-long
    http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139781/yuan-denominated-oil-futures-mark-significant-move

  • US Futures Spike As Xi Pushes Globalization Agenda, Vows To Open China To The World

    It seems the machines never sleep.

    Before China’s Xi had even uttered a word – in war or peace – Nasdaq futures were ramping up 1% from the cash close and the S&P and Dow following… And once it was clear that Xi was not going to drop another trade war tape bomb, futures extended gains to the highs of the day session.

    What futures loved was the series of traditionally hollow promises from Xi including:

    • promise to open up China to the world and expand imports
    • “work hard” to import more products that are needed by China’s people
    • implement major opening up steps,
    • lower auto and auto product import tariff later this year, open sector to higher foreign ownership
    • release a measures to broaden market access
    • expand the opening of China’s economy
    • push forward economic globalization
    • relax market threshold, widen access to market; take major measures in opening and sharply widen market access
    • implement financial and insurance market opening measures

    • strengthen IP protection for foreign firms (to restructure IP bureau

    Then there were the ideological vows:

    • China reform and opening will definitely succeed, world should push for free trade
    • Cold war mentality is out of place, its a zero sum game, isolationism will hit walls
    • Urges dialog as only way to resolve disputes
    • Says states must refrain from seeking dominance
    • Need to uphold multilateral trading system

    Incidentally, many if not all of these promises had been made previously, most extensively during last year’s Party Congress. In the meantime, the only real change was Xi upgrading himself from mere president and crowning himself emperor for life.

    Never one to dig too deep between the lines, algos loved the speech and the result has been a vertical lift in risk-assets:

    Now where have we seen that kind of vertical ramp before.. and what happened next?

    Xi’s speech is being interpreted as somewhat globalist in nature as he plays down tensions and calls for ‘free trade’…

    • *CHINA’S XI SAYS COLD WAR MENTALITY IS OUT OF PLACE
    • *CHINA’S XI SAYS DIALOGUE IS THE WAY TO RESOLVE DISPUTES
    • *CHINA’S XI SAYS SHOULD PUSH FOR FREE TRADE
    • *CHINA’S XI CALLS FOR UPHOLDING MULTILATERAL TRADING SYSTEM
    • *XI SAYS GLOBALIZATION MUST BE MORE OPEN, INCLUSIVE
    • *XI SAYS TO EXPLORE SETTING UP FREE TRADE PORTS
    • *CHINA TO REDUCE TARIFF ON AUTO-RELATED PRODUCTS: XI
    • *XI SAYS HOPES COUNTRIES WILL LOWER CURBS ON HIGH-TECH TRADE

    And a direct jab at Washington:

    • *CHINA’S XI SAYS STATES MUST REFRAIN FROM SEEKING DOMINANCE
    • *XI SAYS CHINA WON’T BE THREAT TO WORLD, EXISTING GLOBAL SYSTEM

    Then Xi heads down the comedy road:

    • *XI SAYS CHINA WON’T SEEK SPHERES OF INFLUENCE (apart from building islands in the Pacific)

    Many on the sellside agreed with the algos and said Xi’s speech marked de-escalation of trade war risks:

    According to Trinh Nguyen, economist at Natixis, Xi’s speech suggests a conciliatory tone with some concession towards market access. Question remains as to how much of the proposals will take place, and whether that’s enough to appease U.S. President Donald Trump. Still, markets will see Xi’s remarks as positive which will help to lower the risks. “Clearly this is positive for EM Asian FX, especially those closest to the China-U.S. trade spat.”

    An almost identical take from First Shanghai Securities strategist Linus Yip, who said that “Xi’s speech sends a positive signal to the market since he backs globalization and the opening up of China market,” although concern over trade disputes remains, as Xi is talking about the long-term picture.

    Alan Richardson, a fund manager at Samsung Asset Management said that Xi’s comments are positive for globalization but they don’t address Donald Trump’s immediate task of reducing the trade deficit with China.

    Some were downright skeptical, and echoed our own perspective, noting that Xi was not at all as conciliatory as the markets made him out to be:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    For now, and at least until the next Trump tweet, outburst, or Mueller raid, it’s risk is on in US markets (but China’s tech heavy Chinext is down over 1%) as it seems no news is good news in trade wars.

    Offshore Yuan strengthened

    Live feed below:

  • Goldman Dodges MiFID Regulation By Recreating Dark Pools Under A New Name

    It wouldn’t be the investment banking industry if large investment banks weren’t constantly thinking of new schemes to skirt regulation for monetary benefit. Which is why it should come as no surprise to anyone that Goldman Sachs has already created, and is likely working on fine-tuning, a method for skirting dark pool trading rules that have been established in Europe.

    That’s right, folks. Forget about “dark pools“ and say hello to “stock auctions”. What is the point of “stock auctions”? Basically to be able to place dark pool trades – where orders are kept “off the market” and quiet, almost the exact same way dark pool trades happen. But by giving these transactions a new name, Goldman Sachs thinks it has found a “work around” for MiFID II rules. Bloomberg reported on the emergence of these new auctions this morning, stating:

    Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is taking on the exchanges to win the business of fund managers eager to keep their stock trades hidden in the era of MiFID II price transparency.

    The bank has set up a so-called periodic auction service that matched its first trades on March 21, allowing investors to buy and sell shares without tipping their hand to the rest of the market. Exchanges began offering the service earlier. Europe’s largest dark pool, run by Cboe Global Markets Inc., is now doing more business through periodic auctions than it is through its dark markets.

    For those who are really looking to have a laugh today, Goldman states that these auctions actually make trading more transparent.

    “The launch represents the first bank-led periodic-auction book,” David Shrimpton, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, said by email. “The product will enable our clients to trade in a fair, multilateral and transparent environment.”

    Only in the world of Goldman Sachs would brokering orders off of major exchanges for the purpose of keeping them confidential be more transparent.

    The article continued, likely rightfully suggesting that these “auctions” will grow in size and frequency as demand for dark pool trades continues, despite the regulation:

    Periodic auctions are increasingly seen as a way of sidestepping MiFID II’s curbs on dark trading. UBS Group AG will follow Goldman Sachs with its own service later this month, a spokeswoman said. Both firms are reacting to demand from their biggest customers. Fund managers need to complete their trades without moving share prices against themselves.

    The auctions are coming to the fore because 755 European stocks are already banned from trading in dark pools, which hide orders until they have been matched. More names are likely to join that list when the European Union’s markets regulator updates it after the close of trading on Monday.

    “Periodic-auction volumes will continue to increase,” said Mark Hemsley, chief executive officer of Cboe’s European arm. “The flipside is that our competitors are trying to get their own offerings out.”

    MiFID II was introduced in Europe because regulators found “under intense lobbying from stock exchanges — that dark trading reduced the efficiency of stock markets as a whole. Fund managers, however, still need ways of trading that keep all the best bits of dark pools, so trading venues and banks alike have reacted by coming up with new ways to trade. Rather than driving trading volumes to the stock exchanges, MiFID II may have forced the exchanges’ rivals to become more innovative.”

    We’ve already offered our prediction that MiFID would sever off independent research in this article out earlier this year. Now it looks like its being skirted as easily as it was implemented. 

    Once again we are faced with several follies of government regulation. First off, investment banks and those with the resources usually always find methods around them. Second off, they are obviously suppressing supply of a method for trading and transacting securities that is still in demand. Third, the government has to put its resources directly up against those of investment banks in order to regulate effectively, and this costs everybody, but especially taxpayers, money.

    Though difficult to say if the regulators will have a next move in this game of “dark pool regulation chess” they are playing, one thing is for sure – we’re witnessing obvious blow-back to government overreach and regulation where demand is present. 

    We will keep our eyes open to see if European regulators volley back against these “auctions”. 

  • Name That 'Bank' – Cheap Debt, High Leverage, & The Largest Margin Loan Ever

    Via Grant’s Almost Daily,

    The Son also rises

    This bull-market avatar is doubling down: Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. (9984 on the Tokyo Exchange and SFTBY on the U.S. Pink Sheets) announced on Friday that it has secured an $8 billion margin loan from a consortium of investment banks backed by its stake in China’s Alibaba Group Holding, Inc. (BABA on the NYSE).

    This was one for the record books. Bethany Knight of Riverside Risk Advisors LLC told Bloomberg that: “To my knowledge, I would agree that $8 billion is the largest margin loan ever.” Bloomberg notes that the loan helps SoftBank move closer to an initial public offering of its domestic telecom business Softbank Corp., which had already been utilized as collateral for prior loans. “A successful IPO – possible only after the division proves its independence by canceling debt guarantees – could help the parent raise capital and relieve some of its debt burden.”

    On March 9, SoftBank launched a debt exchange offer, presenting its creditors the opportunity to swap existing bonds for new notes due in 2028 for a 100 basis point consent fee.  Covenant Review, an independent credit research firm, observed that this was no act of corporate generosity. Holders of existing notes are protected by a covenant stating that if SoftBank loses its investment grade status its telecom subsidiary, Softbank Corp., will guarantee the debt. That protection is set to be eliminated.

    So when investors purchased the Existing Notes, they knew that at worst either the Existing Notes would be rated investment grade or the Softbank Corp. guarantee would remain in place. If the Proposed Amendments are successful, then holders would have swapped that protection for the consent fee – and the Existing Notes could well be left with neither an investment grade rating nor a continuing guarantee from Softbank Corp. (or any other subsidiaries for that matter).

    Longtime observers of SoftBank’s charismatic and brilliant CEO Masayoshi Son (who is often compared to Warren Buffett) could hardly have been surprised by this latest bold corporate maneuver. 

    Son, who weathered a 99% loss in Softbank shares following the bursting of the late-1990’s tech bubble, has taken full advantage of the easy money and tech-happy market conditions which have pervaded in the post-2009 era. Softbank shares have advanced by 442% over the past nine years in yen terms (20.7% annualized) outpacing the Nikkei’s 142% gain (11% annualized) over that period.

    That impressive rebound, burnished by timely investments in Yahoo! Japan, and the aforementioned Alibaba, has coincided with a flurry of deals, some under the umbrella of SoftBank’s buyout arm, the $100 billion Vision Fund. Last February, SoftBank bought the Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion, a hefty 38.6% premium. On Aug. 24, the fund paid $4.4 billion for a minority stake in private concern WeWork Companies, Inc. (founded in 2010 and now the second largest private office tenant in Manhattan). Softbank has also made substantial investments in ride-sharing unicorns Uber Technologies, Inc.  and its Chinese peer, Didi Chuxing Technology Co. (which is preparing to commence operations in Mexico, according to Caixin, directly challenging its fellow SoftBank portfolio company).

    #1 conglomerate. Source: Softbank presentation PowerPoint slide from Feb. 7

    Masa Son’s spendthrift ways haven’t always gone over so smoothly in the company C-suite. On Feb. 26, the Wall Street Journal shed light on the friction between Son and SoftBank directors who don’t always share his deal-making enthusiasm.

    Shigenobu Nagamori says he objected when Mr. Son told his board in 2016 that he wanted to pay $32 billion from Arm Holdings PLC. The U.K. chip-design firm was worth a 10th of that, Mr. Nagamori, then a Softbank outside director, says he told Mr. Son. Mr. Son paid it anyway.

    To strike quickly, [Son] sometimes commits to investments before getting approval from his fund’s investment committee, some of these people say. And he often spars with his executives and board members over his proposals until they are convinced or acquiesce.

    “I’ve opposed almost all of Mr. Son’s proposed investments,” says SoftBank director Tadashi Yanai, president of Fast Retailing Co., operator of Uniqlo clothing stores. Instead of acting like a speculative investor, he says, Mr. Son should focus on “real business.”

    A month later, the Journal reported that the dynamics among SoftBank insiders have escalated beyond straightforward strategy disagreements. Specifically intriguing was the mysterious origins of a shareholder campaign to discredit a pair of senior executives at the company, including one (Nikesh Arora), whom the WSJ described as a one-time heir apparent to Son.

    At the time, SoftBank couldn’t figure out who was behind the campaign, which the company said was based on false allegations of impropriety and which a board member later called “sabotage.” Both men denied wrongdoing and said they were victims.

    People with knowledge of the matter said Alessandro Benedetti, an Italian private-equity investor, was a central figure in that campaign. They said he told associates he was working, in part, for the benefits of a SoftBank insider.

    Excessive leverage and value-destructive deals, not palace intrigue, was the crux of a Dec. 15, 2017 bearish assessment of Softbank found in the pages of Grant’s. Total debt reached $154 billion as of Dec. 31, 2017 on a consolidated basis, up from $42 billion on Dec. 31, 2013. Son’s 2013 purchase of U.S. telecom operator Sprint Corp. (SoftBank paid $22 billion for an 83% stake. Sprint’s current market cap is less than $21 billion) is one potential source of trouble, an interruption of Alibaba’s charmed existence is another.  The conclusion drawn by Grant’s was evident in the piece’s headline, “Epitome of the cycle:”

    Mix the CEO’s exuberance with cheap debt, high leverage and record asset values. Add the excitement of today’s startling advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. Combine with the karmic report that [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman], the Vision Fund’s No. 1 limited partner, is also the rumored buyer of that $450 million road-show da Vinci. Totting them all up, what do you have? Perhaps a corporation destined to read about itself on page one of The New York Times – and not in a flattering way. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 09

Today’s News 9th April 2018

  • The Richest 1% Will Own Two-Thirds Of Global Wealth By 2030, Report Finds

    Back in November, Credit Suisse highlighted an alarming – yet altogether unsurprising – milestone in the increasing concentration of global wealth that has been perhaps the most influential force behind the populist revolts that rocked the US in 2016 and have continued to unfurl across Europe. According to the Swiss bank’s annual “global wealth pyramid,” for the first time, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population had accumulated more than half of its aggregate household wealth.

    Credit Suisse’s researchers describe in stark terms how global wealth inequality had actually improved somewhat in the years between the start of the new millennium and the financial crisis – but in the years after, the gap between the world’s richest and poorest individuals widened dramatically, one of the most pernicious aspects of the Fed and the global cabal of central banks pumping easy money into the global financial system.

    Pyramid

    The researchers said that “our calculations show that the top 1% of global wealth holders started the millennium with 45.5% of all household wealth. This share was about the same until 2006, then fell to 42.5% two years later. The downward trend reversed after 2008 and the share of the top one percent has been on an upward path ever since, passing the 2000 level in 2013 and achieving new peaks every year thereafter. According to our latest estimates, the top one percent own 50.1 percent of all household wealth in the world.”

    But while CS’s report was unequivocally dire, a recent report published by the UK Parliament is even more harrowing.

    According to the Guardian, projections produced by the House of Commons library suggest that the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest individuals will own roughly 64% of the planet’s wealth by 2030.

    An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth.

    Since 2008, the wealth of the richest 1% has been growing at an average of 6% a year – much faster than the 3% growth in wealth of the remaining 99% of the world’s population. Should that continue, the top 1% would hold wealth equating to $305tn (£216.5tn) – up from $140tn today.

    Analysts suggest wealth has become concentrated at the top because of recent income inequality, higher rates of saving among the wealthy, and the accumulation of assets. The wealthy also invested a large amount of equity in businesses, stocks and other financial assets, which have handed them disproportionate benefits.

    The study was the brainchild of Liam Byrne, a former Labour cabinet minister, who hopes it will factor into the discussion when the financial chiefs of the world’s largest countries meet in Buenos Aires late this year for a G-20 summit.

    “If we don’t take steps to rewrite the rules of how our economies work, then we condemn ourselves to a future that remains unequal for good,” he said. “That’s morally bad, and economically disastrous, risking a new explosion in instability, corruption and poverty.”

    Unfortunately, the public is extremely sensitive to growing wealth disparity, and polls show most people in the UK are growing increasingly cynical about the prospects for change. Already a plurality of Britons believe the superrich have more influence and power than national governments.

    New polling by Opinium suggests that voters perceive a major problem with the influence exerted by the very wealthy. Asked to select a group that would have the most power in 2030, most (34%) said the super-rich, while 28% opted for national governments. In a sign of falling levels of trust, those surveyed said they feared the consequences of wealth inequality would be rising levels of corruption (41%) or the “super-rich enjoying unfair influence on government policy” (43%).

    Indeed, even if the incomes of the wealthiest individuals were frozen at 2017 levels, their share of the world’s wealth would still expand thanks to returns on their investments, according to Danny Dorling, a professor at Oxford.

    “Even if the income of the wealthiest people in the world stops rising dramatically in the future, their wealth will still grow for some time,” he said. “The last peak of income inequality was in 1913. We are near that again, but even if we reduce inequality now it will continue to grow for one to two more decades.”

    One Tory MP quoted by the Guardian pointed out that while wealth inequality remains a problem, liberal capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system of government. Though this overlooks the fact that, while this holds true in most of the biggest developing countries, in the developed world, the working and middle class are at risk of seeing their standard of living decline vs. that of their parents’ generation.

    George Freeman, the Tory MP and former head of the prime minister’s policy board, said: “While mankind has never seen such income inequality, it is also true that mankind has never experienced such rapid increases in living standards. Around the world billions of people are being lifted out of poverty at a pace never seen before. But the extraordinary concentration of global wealth today – fuelled by the pace of technological innovation and globalisation – poses serious challenges.

    “If the system of capitalist liberal democracy which has triumphed in the west is to pass the big test of globalisation – and the assault from radical Islam as well as its own internal pressures from post-crash austerity – we need some new thinking on ways to widen opportunity, share ownership and philanthropy. Fast.”

    Demands for action from the group include improving productivity to ensure wages rise and reform of capital markets to promote greater equality.

    While this sounds like a plausible plan, the obstacles to it being put into practice are myriad – including opposition from corporations and the wealthy, who might prove reluctant to part with what they’ve gained. And even once central banks retract their stimulus and securities valuations inevitably fall, it remains unclear whether this trend can ever be reversed.

    One thing’s for sure: While pundits have been eager to call the end of the populist wave, as long as the wealth divide continues to widen, anger toward the status quo will continue to metastasize.

  • UK: Funding Textbooks That Teach Children To Blow Themselves Up

    Authored by Douglas Murray via The Gatestone Institute,

    In 2016, a study carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) found that for literacy in the developed world, England ranks dead last. The same study also stated that for numeracy in the developed world, England ranks second-to-last. Even among graduates from English universities, the OECD study found, one in ten had literacy or numeracy skills that were classified as “low”.

    These results are astonishing, not to mention shaming. They reflect decades of misdirection in British education, including the misdirection of resources. Understandably, successive governments complain about a lack of resources. But all of those laments only serve to highlight the strangeness of Britain’s latest priorities in funding education.

    This past weekend it emerged that last year the British government funnelled £20 million to Palestinian schools. A review by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that these revenues go towards funding a curriculum which omits teaching peace, promotes the use of violence — specifically jihad — and encourages martyrdom. An analysis of the textbooks used in Palestinian schools funded by the UK government — using UK taxpayers’ money — found that these textbooks, which come from the Palestinian Authority (PA), “exerts pressure over young Palestinians to acts of violence.”

    A science textbook intended for 12-year-olds, for example, claims to teach them Newton’s second law of motion in the following way:

    “During the first Palestinian uprising, Palestinian youths used slingshots to confront the soldiers of the Zionist Occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets. What is the relationship between the elongation of the slingshot’s rubber and the tensile strength affecting it?”

    Another textbook, which is meant to be used for teaching arithmetic to 9-year-olds takes a highly local approach to the matter. Math lessons as provided by the PA — courtesy of the UK government — teach Palestinian children addition by asking them to calculate the number of “martyrs” in various Palestinian uprisings.

    Elsewhere, the study found that social studies books included images of children in their school rooms with an empty desk fitted with a sign reading “martyr”. Repeatedly the textbooks refer to the “Occupation”, to “Zionist Occupation”, “Zionists” and much more, all of which perpetuates the notion that Israelis are “invaders” and “oppressors”. In other words, these textbooks are clearly and consistently intended to indoctrinate a new generation of Palestinian children to hatred of their neighbours. Any government genuinely interested in promoting peace would withdraw funding from any entity — wherever in the world it was — which taught violence as such a core part of its curriculum.

    The British government, however, has long been strangely shameless when it comes to funding the Palestinian Authority. The British government, for instance, hides behind the claim that the PA’s authorised textbooks for use in Palestinian schools have got better in recent years. In fact, this IMPACT-se report find precisely the opposite. Last year, the PA launched a much-vaunted new school curriculum for children in grades 5-11. Just last week the Minister of State for International Development, Alistair Burt, stated that “all of their [the PA’s] schools in the West Bank are using the revised 2017 PA curriculum.”

    The IMPACT-se investigation revealed, however, that “radicalization is pervasive across this new curriculum.” And not just pervasive, but pervasive “to a greater extent than before.” The study found that in textbooks which pretend to be teaching “equal rights'”, girls are encouraged to sacrifice their lives. A textbook aimed at 5th grade children (that is, children aged 10) teaches that “drinking the cup of bitterness with glory is much sweeter than a pleasant long life accompanied by humiliation.” Another textbook urges that “Giving one’s life, sacrifice, fight, jihad and struggle are the most important meanings of life.”

    In a statement, in response to the Sunday Times (UK), which broke the story, Alistair Burt, MP, and Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister of State at the Department for International Development, revealed that the UK taxpayer continues to support this radical curriculum of incitement. He admitted that the UK taxpayer funds the wages of 33,000 teachers in the West Bank, who use these curriculums. “UK-funded public servants and teachers… are therefore involved” he said. Instead of investigating these findings or announcing the immediate cessation of funding to the Palestinian Authority until such a time as it stops preaching incitement to another generation of Palestinian children, the UK’s Department for International Development responded to the findings with a typical form of bureaucratese:

    “Our support is helping around 25,000 young Palestinians go to school each year. The UK government strongly condemns all forms of violence and incitement to violence.”

    Well, the UK government clearly is not so opposed to “all forms of violence and incitement to violence” that it isn’t happy to continue to use millions of pounds of UK taxpayer money to assist the PA in radicalising and inciting Palestinian children.

    Pictured: A screenshot from the Sunday Times article exposing the British government’s funding of a Palestinian curriculum which promotes the use of violence — specifically jihad — and encourages martyrdom.

    The Department for International Development also announced that it was now “planning to conduct a thorough assessment of the Palestinian curriculum and evidence”. It added that “if we find evidence of material which incites violence, we will take action.” Evidence has been given to it in abundance, not just now but for years.

    This is the true scandal for Britain: that while the UK government fails to pump the resources needed into helping young British children to grow up literate and numerate in Britain, it pumps millions of pounds into the Palestinian Authority to make sure that young Palestinian children think that a career of violence is a career worth pursuing. While failing to help British children grow up, the UK government helps Palestinian children to blow themselves up. It is a horrible legacy for any country, but for Britain, a shameful one.

  • Lobbying For Slavery In Brazil

    Some 10 percent of Brazil’s top politicians received donations by companies entangled in scandals involving modern day slavery. As Statista’s Patrick Wagner notes, even though donations to politicians are not illegal in Brazil, the money received is of questionable origin.

    Donators include JBS – the world’s biggest meat producer – and other enterprises that can be found on Brazil’s ‘dirty list’ for slave labor. Over 41 percent of all recipients are part of the influential ruralist caucus, a congressional faction keen on revoking land rights of indigenous communities and limiting efforts to combat slavery.

    The following chart shows the top beneficiaries and their party affiliation.

    Infographic: Lobbying for Slavery in Brazil | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    A total of 16 percent of all parliamentary deputies of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), the party of President Michel Temerand impeached president Dilma Roussef received said donations. The leftist Workers’ Party (PT) of former president Lula da Silva, who is currently facing imprisonment due to corruption, even has received a stunning 20 percent of donations from companies on the ‘dirty list’.

  • How Gun Control Laws For "Mentally Ill" Could Disarm Those Who Question Authority

    Authored by John Vibes via The Free Thought Project,

    In the growing debate surrounding the natural right to self-defense, one of the most popular proposed methods of gun control has been restrictions on gun-ownership for those who are deemed to be mentally ill.

    This is a measure that is often suggested by liberals and conservatives alike, but it is important to stop and consider what something like this might entail.

    When any collective group is banned from owning a gun, they are effectively turned into second-class citizens. In the case of mental illness, that classification is so vague and open to interpretation that it could possibly be applied to over half of the population, depending on which criteria you use.

    Mental illness can be very hard to identify since there is no kind of official test for most conditions, most people are diagnosed according to the subjective opinions of the doctors that observe them. Even the most severe conditions, like schizophrenia, can be very difficult to identify and is often misdiagnosed.

    Psychiatric drugs are another possible factor that could get someone marked by the government as mentally unstable, but a classification like this would allow for large portions of the US population to be disarmed.

    According to a 2016 study by JAMA Internal Medicine, more than 1 in 6 Americans are on some type of psychiatric drug. This is not to mention the large number of people who report symptoms of depression or anxiety and don’t take medication.

    A policy like this could also allow the government to disarm dissidents and political enemies. As psychiatry became more influential towards the middle of the 20th century, rulers around the world began using “mental illness” as an excuse to lock away anyone who might disagree with them. The Soviet regime became notorious for this practice by labeling all political dissidents as “mentally ill” so they could be locked away in institutions where they were no threat to the establishment.

    The United States government also has a long history of slapping unruly citizens with the mark of mental illness. President Franklin Roosevelt famously called his detractors “the lunatic fringe,” and this type of attitude towards activists has carried on in the halls of government to this day.

    In the dictionary of mental illnesses, known as DSM-5, published by the American Psychiatric Association, there is actually a condition listed for people who have a problem with authority. Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a name that psychiatrists made up to identify children who won’t do what they are told, and now even adults are being diagnosed with this condition as well.

    Meanwhile, politicians and mainstream media are quick to label anyone who questions the official narrative as a “conspiracy theorist,” a term that has been falsely associated with mental illness in pop culture.

    A study in 2017 set out to determine whether or not believing in conspiracy theories was a form of mental illness. As expected they found the exact answer that they were looking for, people who don’t trust the government and mainstream media are crazy, and suffering from something called illusory pattern perception.

    There is another dilemma that arises in the discussion of disarming people who are accused of having a mental illness, and that is the fact mentally ill people are 10 times more likely to be victims of violence than the rest of society because they are often seen as easy targets.

    Complicating matters further is the fact that these people can’t depend on the police to help them in these situations, as studies have shown that the mentally ill are 16 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than the average person.

    According to the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, a minimum of 1 in 4 fatal police encounters ends the life of an individual with severe mental illness.

    To prevent mentally ill people from owning firearms is a severe form of “ableist” discrimination, and also opens the door for nearly anyone to be classified as mentally ill.

    There are sometimes extreme cases where a person’s mental instability is creating a dangerous situation for the community, like the recent Parkland shooting, for example. In this case, the shooter had a known history of violence, regularly made threats and was visited by police on numerous occasions because of his threatening behavior. In cases like this, it is reasonable to keep an eye on someone, restrict their access to firearms, or possibly quarantine them from society in the most extreme situations.

    There are many laws on the books currently would have allowed the FBI or local police to intervene in their initial encounters with the shooter, but they decided that a student known for violent outbursts and talking about carrying out school shootings was not worth looking into.

    As TFTP reported earlier this month, there is a law on the books known as the Extreme Risk Protection Order or ERPO, which went into effect in June of 2017. This law is used when a person is considered an “extreme” threat as reported by police and family members. An ERPO must be approved by a judge and only after this person is proven to be a danger to themselves or others can police move in to confiscate their weapons.

    These types of targeted approaches specifically aimed at individuals who are a known source of violence in the community would do far more to prevent tragedies from happening, than a wide-reaching law that could threaten the rights and safety of millions of innocent gun owners.

  • Maryland House Passes $5BN Incentive Package Meant To Lure Amazon's HQ2

    In one of the most aggressive attempts to cajole Amazon into selecting their state as the location for the e-commerce giant’s second headquarters, the Maryland General Assembly just passed a bill offering the company a $5 billion incentive package should Amazon choose to settle in Maryland’s Montgomery County.

    Montgomery County is competing with Washington DC, Northern Virginia and 17 other areas that made Amazon’s HQ2 “short list”, which was released earlier this year. Specifically, Amazon is eyeing the site of the former White Flint Mall.

    Bezos

    The “Promoting ext-Raordinary Innovation in Maryland’s Economy,” or PRIME (yes that misplaced capitalization was intentional) would require Amazon to create at least 40,000 qualified jobs (with an average comp of at least $100,000). The company would also need to spend $4.5 billion on “eligible costs” like capital projects, the Baltimore Business Journal reported. 

    After passing the House, the bill now passes to the desk of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.

    As lawmakers see it, if Amazon chooses Montgomery County, the incentives will be worth the 50,000 jobs the company could bring to the county. If Amazon doesn’t, the state loses nothing.

    Montgomery County, specifically a site encompassing the former White Flint Mall, is the only Maryland site on Amazon’s HQ2 short list. Maryland is competing with Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and 17 other areas across the country for the 50,000 jobs and $5 billion investment the online retail and web services giant has promised with its second headquarters. Seattle-based Amazon is expected to fill at least 8 million square feet as it phases in HQ2 over the next two decades.

    However, while the bill found broad support among Democratic state legislators, Republicans vehemently opposed it on the grounds that it amounted to a corporate giveaway. A legislative study found the bill would cost the state $5.5 billion in total revenue through 2054 – while the county would lose nearly $1 billion. However, that analysis doesn’t factor in any revenue generated by Amazon.

    Opposition to the bill, largely from Republicans, was intense. They described the incentive — to include roughly $3 billion in property, income and sales tax credits and $2 billion in transportation improvements — as a “bribery package,” an “expensive pig in a poke,” as “craziness,” as “corporate welfare,” and as a “gold mine” for one of the wealthiest companies, led by one of the wealthiest people, in the world.

    “They need economic stimulus like a fish needs a bicycle,” said Del. Herb McMillan, R-Anne Arundel.

    However, a private study produced by the Sage Policy Group at the state’s request found that Amazon’s headquarters could pump $7.7 billion in wages into the state while producing $17 billion in increased economic activity.

    Amazon is expected to announce its HQ2 later this year, but there have been hints that the headquarters could wind up either in Montgomery or somewhere else in the broader Washington, DC area.

    A surge in web traffic to an article about an environmental award won by Arlington County from an internal Amazon intranet led to speculation that Maryland could be the company’s pick – or at least it would be a strong contender.

    And another study found that the Washington DC area would be the most sensible pick for Amazon.

  • Celente: "Murderers & Thieves Sold Out America"

    Via Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog blog,

    Renowned trends researcher Gerald Celente says the trade war President Trump is starting against China must be fought for America to survive. Celente explains,

    “We have lost 3.5 million jobs (to China).  Some 70,000 manufacturing plants have closed.  Why would anybody be fighting Trump to do a reversal of us being in a merchandise trade deficit of $365 billion?  Tell me any two people that would do business with each other and one side takes a huge loss and keeps taking it…

    So, why would people argue and fight and bring down the markets because Trump wants to bring back jobs and readjust a trade deficit that, by any standard, is destroying the nation?” 

    Who’s to blame for the lopsided trade deficits destroying the middle class of America? Look no further than the politicians and corporations buying them off.  Celente charges,

    “They sold us out.  The European companies and the American companies sold us out, and the people fighting Trump are also the big retailers because they’ve got their slave labor making their stuff over there.  They bring it back here and mark up the price, and they make more money.  If they have to pay our people to do that work, they have to pay them a living wage and they can’t make enough profit.  That’s who is fighting us…

    You go back to our top trend in 2017, and it was China was going to be the leader in AI (artificial intelligence) now and beyond, and that is exactly what happened.  All the corporations have sold us out. . . .The murderers and the thieves sold out America.”

    Celente thinks the odds are there will not be a financial crash in 2018 “because they are repatriating all that dough from overseas at a very low tax rate and because of the tax cuts from 35% to 21%. These are the facts.  In the first three months of this year, there have been more stock buybacks and mergers and acquisitions activity than ever before in this short period of time because of all that cheap money going back into the corporations.  That’s what’s keeping the markets up.”

    Just because the stock market is near all-time highs doesn’t mean there is no risk from a black swan. Celente says,

    “I want to tell everyone what our major signal that we are watching closely that is going to determine where the markets are going.  It’s the signal.  It’s a signal that you will know whether to bail out or stay in, and that’s gold prices.  With all of this volatility going on, gold prices have not moved much.  They are still stuck in the $1,300 to $1,350 (per ounce) range.  Even on Friday, with all the volatility, gold only moved up a couple of bucks.  That is the indicator to watch, and here is our forecast.  Gold has to break above $1,385 per ounce.  It has been unable to get near there…

    The next big number will be $1,450.  When it solidifies over that, we forecast a jump to the $2,000 range.  Gold is the ultimate safe haven asset.  It has not been acting like that during this market shift.”

    On the recent poll where 77% of people thought the MSM was putting out so-called “Fake News,” Celente says, “It’s not only “Fake News, it’s junk news, and that is why people are tuning out.” Expect the trend to continue.

    Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Gerald Celente, Publisher of “The Trends Journal.”

  • U.S. Air Force's Clandestine X-37B Military Space Plane Marks 200 Days In Orbit

    The U.S. Air Force’s unmanned X-37B space plane has marked its 200th day in orbit on a clandestine mission. 

    Known as Orbital Test Vehicle-5 (OTV-5), the latest mission began September 7, 2017 after it was launched into space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

    According to Air Force officials, one payload flying on OTV-5 is the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-11, of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). This cargo is testing experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes for long durations in the space environment. –space.com

    The Air Force has not disclosed how long the unpiloted, reusable craft will remain in orbit, however experts have said it’s likely to land at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, where the OTV-4 mission landed on May 7, 2007 – a first for the program, as previous missions all ended with a tarmac touchdown at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. 

    “The X-37B has been and remains a technology demonstrator,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. 

    “Given that most space technology is dual-use, with the ever-increasing sway toward warfare in space, it’s likely that the more militaristic uses of the space plane will be pursued more vigorously, and likely openly given the [presidential] administration’s proclivity toward chest thumping,” Johnson-Freese told Space.com. 

    Milestone Missions via Space.com

    • Each X-37B mission has set a new flight-duration record for the program.
    • OTV-1 began April 22, 2010, and concluded on Dec. 3, 2010, after 224 days in orbit. 
    • The second OTV mission began March 5, 2011, and concluded on June 16, 2012, after 468 days on orbit.
    • OTV-3 chalked up nearly 675 days in orbit before finally coming down on Oct. 17, 2014.
    • And OTV-4 conducted on-orbit experiments for 718 days during its mission, extending the total number of days spent in space for the OTV program to 2,085 days.

    The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office manages the X-37 project. According to Space.com it is used to perform “risk-reduction experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space-vehicle technologies.” 

    The space drone has a payload bay about the size of a pickup-truck bed, which can be outfitted with a robotic arm. X-37B has a launch weight of 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms) and is powered on orbit by gallium-arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.

    The classified X-37B program “fleet” consists of two known reusable vehicles, both of which were built by Boeing. Looking like a miniature version of NASA’s now-retired space shuttle orbiter, the military space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m). –Space.com

    The orbital path of the OTV-5 mission has puzzled experts, according to Toronto-based satellite analyst Ted Molczan. 

    “There were indications that OTV-5 went to a significantly higher-inclination orbit than previous OTV missions,” he told Space.com. “There was too little information to narrowly constrain a search.” 

    Molczan said he assisted in one fruitless search, but it was of the roughly 44-degree-inclination orbit implied by the OTV-5 launch’s “Notice to Airmen,” the routine report put out to warn any aircraft pilots who may be near the flight path.

    “The final orbit may be more like 60 degrees,” he said. “If an object is not found within days or a few weeks of launch, then the trail goes cold and discovery depends on a chance sighting.”

  • After Doubling US Debt In 8 Years, Yellen & Furman Fearmonger "A Debt Crisis Is Coming"

    After doubling America’s national debt in the eight short years of President Obama’s reign – expanding benefits for all, and relying on a Federal Reserve with its knee-high jack boot firmly on the throat of interest-rates, thus supressing any derogatory signal among the every day noise – five former chairs of The White House Council of Economic Affairs turned up their hypocrisy dial to ’11’ in a stunning op-ed in The Washington Post tonight, warning of a debt crisis looming due to President Trump’s deficits…

    A debt crisis is coming. But don’t blame entitlements.

    Martin Neil Baily, Jason Furman, Alan B. Krueger, Laura D’Andrea Tyson and Janet L. Yellen are all former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

    The U.S. unemployment rate is down to 4.1 percent, and economic growth could well increase in 2018. Consumer and business confidence is high. What could go wrong?

    A group of distinguished economists from the Hoover Institution, a public-policy think tank at Stanford University, identifies a serious problem. The federal budget deficit is on track to exceed $1 trillion next year and get worse over time. Eventually, ever-rising debt and deficits will cause interest rates to rise, and the portion of tax revenue needed to service the growing debt will take an increasing toll on the ability of government to provide for its citizens and to respond to recessions and emergencies.

    None of that is in dispute. But the Hoover economists then go wrong by arguing that entitlements are the sole cause of the problem, while the budget-busting tax bill that was passed last year is described as a “good first step.”

    Entitlement programs support older Americans and those with low incomes or disabilities. Program costs are growing largely because of the aging of the population. This demographic problem is faced by almost all advanced economies and cannot be solved by a vague call to cut “entitlements” – terminology that dehumanizes the value of these programs to millions of Americans.

    The deficit, of course, reflects the gap between spending and revenue. It is dishonest to single out entitlements for blame. The federal budget was in surplus from 1998 through 2001, but large tax cuts and unfunded wars have been huge contributors to our current deficit problem. The primary reason the deficit in coming years will now be higher than had been expected is the reduction in tax revenue from last year’s tax cuts, not an increase in spending. This year, revenue is expected to fall below 17 percent of gross domestic product – the lowest it has been in the past 50 years with the exception of the aftermath of the past two recessions.

    All of us have supported corporate tax reform. The statutory tax rate was too high, much higher than in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development economies. However, because of deductions and breaks in the tax code, the effective marginal tax rate was similar to the average among competitor economies. The right way to do reform was to follow the model of the bipartisan tax reform of 1986, when rates were lowered while deductions were eliminated.

    Instead, the tax cuts passed last year actually added an amount to America’s long-run fiscal challenge that is roughly the same size as the preexisting shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare. The tax cuts are reducing revenue by an average of 1.1 percent of GDP over the next four years. The Hoover authors minimized the cost of the tax cuts by noting that if major provisions are allowed to expire on schedule — certainly an open question, given political realities — they would amount to “only” 0.4 percent of GDP. Even this magnitude exceeds the Medicare Trustees’ projections of a 0.3 percent of GDP shortfall in Medicare hospital insurance over the next 75 years.

    Just as entitlements are not the primary cause of the recent jump in the deficit, they also should not be the sole solution. It is important to use the right wording: The main entitlement programs are Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and Medicaid. These widely popular programs are indeed large and projected to grow as a share of the economy, not because of increased generosity of benefits but because of the aging of the population and the increase in economywide health costs.

    There is some room for additional spending reductions in these programs, but not to an extent large enough to solve the long-run debt problem. The Social Security program needs only modest reforms to restore its 75-year solvency, and these should include adjustments in both spending and revenue. Additional revenue is critical because Social Security has become even more vital as fewer and fewer people have defined-benefit pensions. Medicare has been a leader in bending the health-care cost curve. Reforms to payments and reformed benefit structures in Medicare could do more to hold down its future costs.

    As we focus on the long-run fiscal situation, our goal should be to put the debt on a declining path as a share of the economy. That will require running smaller deficits in strong economic periods — such as the present — to offset the larger deficits that are needed in recessions to restore demand and avoid deeper crises. Last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act turned that economic logic on its head. The economy was already at or close to full employment and did not need a boost. This year’s bipartisan spending agreement contributed further to the ill-timed stimulus. The Federal Reserve will have to act to make sure the economy does not overheat.

    Several years ago, there was broad agreement that responding to the looming fiscal challenge required a balanced approach that combined increased revenue with reduced spending. Two bipartisan commissions, Simpson-Bowles and Domenici-Rivlin, proposed such approaches that called for tax reform to raise revenue as a percent of GDP and judicious spending cuts. Without necessarily agreeing with these specific plans, we believe a balanced approach is the correct one. Start with spending goals based on the priorities of the American people and then set tax policy to realize adequate revenue. The Hoover economists’ advocacy of paying for large tax cuts with entitlement reductions would take the United States in the wrong direction. 

    *  *  *
    So to sum up – everything was awesome before Trump got here, with unemployment low, interest rates low, inflation low, stocks high, and having added more debt to the serfdom-bearing shoulders of future Americans in the last eight years than since the existence of the nation over 200 years ago… But now that The Fed is blindly hiking rates, normalizing its balance sheet and Washington is continuing down its spend-as-if-there’s-no-tomorrow path, suddenly these five disgustingly hypocritical ‘economists’ decide to cry foul over fiscal largesse… and, of course, right before CBO will dump a bucket of ice cold water over Trump’s budget.

    Speechless.

  • Rockefellers Join Soros & Rothschilds In Cryptocurrency Investment Plans

    Despite the collapse in cryptocurrency prices since the beginning of the year (bitcoin is down more than 60% and ethereum down more than 70% from their ATHs), more marquee investors have decided that now is the time to buy in.

    Last week, we noted that George Soros had taken some time out from his battle of wills with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to grant one of his underlings approval to begin trading in crypto. Adam Fisher – who oversees macro investing at New York-based Soros Fund Management – has reportedly received internal approval to trade virtual coins in the last few months, “though he has yet to make a wager.”

    Soros’s involvement followed reports last year that the Rothschild family had waded into the space – first by purchasing bitcoin exposure via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

    Their involvement is a sign that regulators around the world might be relaxing their stance toward crypto, as one prominent crypto entrepreneur and investors pointed out

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Now, the latest bold-faced investor to unveil plans to invest in the space is the Rockefeller family (the descendants of Standard Oil founder John Rockefeller). CoinTelegraph reports that the family’s venture capital fund has partnered with CoinFund to invest in “cryptocurrency and Blockchain business innovation”.

    The news triggered a jump in crypto prices…

    Chart

    Sending bitcoin back above $7,000….

    * * *

    Here’s more, courtesy of CoinTelegraph.

    Venrock, the official venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, has partnered with crypto investment group Coinfund to support cryptocurrency and Blockchain business innovation, Fortune reported April 6.

    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph.

    Coinfund has recently added token-based financial services platform Coinlist, a spinoff of startup connection website AngelList, to the number of projects that it backs. Coinfund is also known for backing chat messenger app Kik, which raised almost $100 mln in the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of its Kin token last fall. Fortune notes that Venrock and Coinfund met through their mutual investment in the live video streaming app maker YouNow.

    When asked about Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent failure to strongly stay above $7,000, Venrock partner David Pakman told Fortune that the price of “a single currency over the next day, week, month, year” is not what they thought about when deciding to partner with a crypto investment group:

    “We’re really patient long term investors […] we’re wondering what happens over the next five to ten years. Can we have fundamental change to a number of different markets because of a disturbed ledger, a token economy that all participants can take part in?”

    According to an April 6 blog post by Pakman, cryptocurrency and Blockchain’s most important innovation is their creation of “the possibility of building sustainable decentralized computing platforms, services and apps”, writing:

    “It may finally be possible to build widely-distributed networks without centralized trust or control, and to allow user consensus to govern their future […] In this scenario, ‘commodity’ applications like messaging, social media and application infrastructure like file storage and compute become very much like public utilities — and they are owned and governed by their participants. For many of us, this is the mission behind crypto.”

    When asked by Fortune about the potential for scams running ICOs, specifically mentioning the recent news of the Centra-related arrests, Pakman referred to the crypto ecosystem as a “wild space up and down the whole stack,” with ICOs as “certainly one of the most wild spaces of it all.”

    Pakman added that he supports regulations of the crypto sphere in order to clear out the “bad actors,” but that one needs to be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater here”.

    Pakman also noted that decentralized systems could eventually be a competitor to traditional venture capital fundraising, which he referred to as “effectively a gatekeeper industry” that he would “actually like to see undone”, adding:

    “I don’t believe that a small group of people should make the decisions about which projects can raise some money and get off the ground.”

    Coinfund co-founder Jake Brukhman told Fortune that Coinfund will be “working closely with [Venrock] to help mentor, advise, and support teams in the space.”

    Major traditional investor George Soros, who had previously referred to Bitcoin as a “bubble,” will also reportedly be investing in cryptocurrencies, through the Soros Fund Management. In mid-February, Soros’s investment fund become the number three shareholder in Overstock, a retail company that accepts Bitcoin as payment and whose CEO Patrick Byrne is widely known for his pro-crypto stance.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 08

Today’s News 8th April 2018

  • "Events Today Could Lead To The Last War In The History Of Mankind", Veteran Putin General Warns

    The fallout from the Salisbury nerve agent attack reminds us of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was the most immediate catalyst – of many parallel narrative and sequences of events – that ultimately resulted in World War I. We are not alone in this reasoning, as one high-level retired Russian general warns the Salisbury poisoning could lead to the “last war in the history of mankind.”

    Ret. Lieutenant-General Evgeny Buzhinsky — who served in the Russian Armed Forces for more than forty years — said relations between Russia and Washington could become “worse” than the climax of the Cold War and “end up in a very, very bad outcome” following the nerve gas attack in the United Kingdom.

    More than 150 Russian diplomats have been expelled from 25 countries — including 23 from the United Kingdom since western nations accused Russia of being the sole actor responsible for using deadly chemical weapons on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in their Salisbury home.

    Buzhinsky, who is now the senior vice president of the Russian Center for Policy Studies (PIR Center), told BBC Radio Today program:

    “Please, when you say the world, you mean EU and United States and some other countries … you see it’s a cold war, it’s worse than the Cold War because if the situation will develop in the way this (is) now, I’m afraid that it will end up in a very, very bad outcome.”

    Nicholas Robinson, a British presenter on the BBC’s Today program pressed Buzhinsky on what he meant by “worse than a cold war,” to which the Ret. Russian Lieutenant-General responded with this bombshell: today’s current situation is spiraling out of control and could develop into a “real war.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Daily Express shares a chilling transcript of Buzhinsky’s conversation on BBC:

    He said: “Worse than a cold war is a real war. It will be the last war in the history of the mankind.”

    “Not the Salisbury poisoning but all the actions.”

    “You see the pressure from the United States, that you say the pressure is going to continue, what are you going to achieve? You are going to achieve the regime change, it’s useless. You don’t know Russians. The more external pressure, the more the society is solidified around the President.”

    When asked how the dispute would lead to a real war, Mr Buzhinsky accused the UK of not wanting to discuss the Salisbury attack.

    “Let’s start discussing,” he said. “You don’t want to discuss. You say Russia should change its behaviour, it’s not the kind of talk or compromise we need.

    “Okay, you expelled diplomats. We expelled diplomats. You further expel, what is the next step? The breach of diplomatic relations.”

    “After that, I said it may lead to nowhere. Actually, you are cornering Russia. To corner, Russia is a very dangerous thing.”

    Mr Buzhinsky claimed it was “nonsense” Russia was behind the attack as President Vladimir Putin had no benefit out of the attack, which took place before the Russian Presidential election. The comments come after Mr Putin’s foreign minister accused Theresa May of “resorting to open lies”.

    He said: “I believe that our Western partners, I mean primarily the United Kingdom, the United States and some countries that blindly follow them, have cast away all decency, they are resorting to open lies, blatant misinformation.”

    Between cold, proxy and trade wars, as time moves on in the Trump era, it seems like the world has gone haywire.  While history tends not to repeat itself – but rather rhymes – the fatalistic opinion of a veteran Russian expert and observer such as Buzhinsky has to be taken seriously. We can only hope that his forecast for a “last war” is wrong.

  • Kelly Goes Nuclear In Oval Office, Threatens To Quit: Report

    White House Chief of Staff John Kelly threatened to quit in late March after a blow up with Trump in a meeting in the Oval Office, reports Axios.

    Kelly was reportedly heard muttering about quitting as he stormed back to his office after the March 28 argument – however sources say it wasn’t related to the firing of former Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin which happened the same day. 

    A senior administration official said that calling it a threat was “probably too strong, it was more venting frustration.” Kelly often says he doesn’t have to be there and didn’t seek the job originally. –Axios

     Details (via Axios):

    • Kelly packed up some personal belongings, though I’m told that wasn’t necessarily because he was walking out. 
    • He was fired up enough that colleagues got allies to call in to calm him down. 
    • At one point DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — perhaps the person in the administration he trusts most — came over to talk him off the ledge. 

    Meanwhile, President Trump has reportedly been sidestepping Kelly of late – telling one confidant that he’s “tired of being told no” by Kelly, and has instead opted to simply not include his Chief of Staff in various matters, according to CBS News, citing a person who was not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity. 

    When President Donald Trump made a congratulatory phone call to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, White House chief of staff John Kelly wasn’t on the line. When Mr. Trump tapped John Bolton to be his next national security adviser, Kelly wasn’t in the room.

    And when Mr. Trump spent a Mar-a-Lago weekend stewing over immigration and trade, Kelly wasn’t in sight.

    Kelly, once empowered to bring order to a turbulent West Wing, has receded from view, his clout diminished, his word less trusted by staff and his guidance less tolerated by an increasingly go-it-alone president. –CBS News

    Kelly had made it a practice for months to listen in on many of the president’s calls – particularly with world leaders. He also reportedly advocated against the hiring of John Bolton. 

    “It’s not tenable for Kelly to remain in this position so weakened,” said Chris Whipple, author of “Gatekeepers,” a history of modern White House chiefs of staff. “More than any of his predecessors, Donald Trump needs an empowered chief of staff to tell him what he does not want to hear. Trump wants to run the White House like the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and it’s simply not going to work.”

    In December we reported that President Trump had been calling White House aides to his private residence in the evening where he would give them new assignments – asking them not to tell Kelly.

    “John has been successful at putting in place a stronger chain of command in the White House, requiring people to go through him to get to the Oval Office,” said Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton who worked with Mr. Kelly, a four-star Marine general, in the Department of Defense. “The problem has always been whether or not the president is going to accept better discipline in the way he operates. He’s been less successful at that.” –WSJ

    “This is all just inevitable,” said one person close to Mr. Trump. “It’s not that Mr. Kelly is wrong—we all know he’s terribly competent.”

    Meanwhile, frustrated friends of the President have also reportedly gotten around Kelly’s “do not call” list by calling Melania Trump in order to pass messages to her husband, according to two people familiar with the matter.

    “[S]ince she arrived in the White House from New York in the summer, the first lady has taken on a more central role as a political adviser to the president.”

     

    “If I don’t want to wait 24 hours for a call from the president, getting to Melania is much easier,” one person said. –WSJ

    Melania Trump’s office issued a harsh rebuke to the Wall St. Journal, stating “This is more fake news and these are more anonymous sources peddling things that just aren’t true. The First Lady is focused on her own work in the East Wing.” 

    Trump’s Twitter feed is still off limits to Kelly, who’s been rolling his eyes at questions over potential diplomatic quagmires such as the time he called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “short and fat.” Asked about the incident, Kelly shrugged it off – saying “Believe it or not – I don’t follow the tweets,” adding that he has advised White House staff to do the same. “We develop policy in the normal traditional staff way.”

    As one White House official told the WSJ, despite what appears to be an equilibrium between Kelly and Trump, they may never see eye to eye. “Kelly is too much of a general, and Trump is too much Trump,” adding that Trump continues to hold Mr. Kelly in high regard – often praising him during public appearances. 

    Meanwhile in March, Kelly  was reportedly so furious over the way the press was covering Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s Tuesday firing that he shouted at the television on Air Force One as the President and his staff took off for California, according to Politico.

    Accounts of Kelly’s involvement in Tillerson’s ouster have varied. While some reports describe Kelly only telling Tillerson to watch Trump’s twitter account “over the next few days,” others have said it was a much more direct conversation in which the Secretary of State was given a heads up. In that version, Tillerson implored Kelly to hold off on any decisions until he returned to the U.S. on Monday. 

    Tillerson, meanwhile, would only say that he received a “lunchtime call” from Trump during the President’s flight to California, and a separate call from Kelly – both after Trump’s tweet. 

    Kelly’s consternation over the press coverage came on the heels of former Trump staff secretary Rob Porter’s ouster in February after the Daily Mail published accounts from his two ex-wives accusing him of domestic abuse. Kelly took fire for not getting rid of Porter earler, after it emerged that the FBI had alerted the White House several times in 2017 that the allegations were holding up Porter’s security clearance.  When the allegations against Porter began to fly, Kelly put out a statement calling Porter a “man of true integrity and honor,” and “a trusted professional.” 

    With Trump playing musical chairs in the West Wing seemingly every other week, one has to wonder exactly how much longer Kelly will last.

  • Private Equity Firm Offers Cash-Strapped Connecticut $2BN For Government Buildings

    Given the precarious financial circumstances of Hartford, Conn. – not to mention the state as a whole – it’s hardly surprising that private investors sense an opportunity to buy up valuable state- and city-owned properties at a good price.

    And in the first of what we imagine could be a flood of offers, A Chicago-based private equity firm specializing in real-estate investment has sent letters to the city and to the state of Connecticut offering to spend $2 billion to purchase publicly owned office buildings, health-care facilities and trasit-related properties – and anything else the state and municipal governments might be willing to part with.

    However, there’s one catch: The firm is insisting that it secures a 7.25% annual yield on its investment by raising rents and leasing the properties back to their former owners, according to Bloomberg.

    For the record, that’s nearly double the 3.43% yield Connecticut pays on 20-year general obligation bonds sold in January. And a recent $550 million state bailout for the beleaguered capital city has inspired Moody’s Investors’ Service to boost its rating on Hartford’s GO bonds to A2 from Caa3 – the same level as the state, according to the Bond Buyer.

    Terms of the deal as it’s proposed may favor the buyer, according to Jim Costello, a senior vice president for property-research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. Capitalization rates — net operating income as a share of the purchase price — are in the mid-6 percent range now for single-tenant sale-and-leaseback office deals, he said.

    “Obviously, the details of every deal are different, but buying in at 7.25 percent, the buyer is getting a better initial yield than the market on average,” Costello said.

    Capitol

    Still, the firm believes Connecticut might be interested in its offer, considering that the state and city could use the money to help balance out their badly underfunded pensions.

    As we’ve pointed out time and time again, the state is in the middle of a taxpayer exodus.

    Last year, the state experienced a net adjusted gross income drain of $2.7 billion as wealthy residents fled the state. The average adjusted gross income of those leaving Connecticut last year was $123,377 – the highest in the country.

    Oak Street has said it would take any buildings the state would be willing to part with.

    Oak Street closed fundraising for its fourth real-estate fund – the Oak Street Capital Real Estate Fund IV – in October, raising $1.25 billion over six months, according to Pensions & Investments. Several state pension funds invested in the Oak Street fund, including the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System and the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.

    The firm’s offer was assembled by a local politician from Westport – a wealthy Fairfield County suburb – who is a mangaing partner at K Property Group, which specializes in identifying properties with “untapped potential.”

    “I just want to see our state make a smart decision,” said Gregory Kraut, a managing partner of K Property Group who is also an elected member of Westport’s town government. “And with my real estate and financial background, I have some options for them.”

    Kraut, who put together the offer, said he’s acting as a concerned citizen and isn’t taking a commission or a fee from Oak Street. He suggested the state might use the money from real estate sales to reduce its unfunded pension obligations, and Hartford could reduce its debt load.

    The state also has the highest net tax supported debt per capita in the US. It also has fewer jobs than it had a decade ago as the post-crisis recovery has largely passed it by. And recently, two of its largest companies – General Electric and Aetna – announced they would soon move their headquarters out of the state.

    Conn

    Still, with the ruling Democrats in danger of losing the governorship after Gov. Dannel Malloy said he wouldn’t seek a third term, reestablishing the party as pro-business and pro-fiscal responsibility could be a major boon during the 2018 election cycle.

    Of course, as we’ve pointed out time and time again, while politicians might try and repair pension related shortfalls, the reality is the American pension system is probably already too far gone to salvage. It’s so bad, Congress recently had to step in, quietly forming a committee to use federal funds to bail out as many as 200 “multi-employer” pension plan. They did this because the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) – the pension equivalent to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) – is completely insolvent.

    Think about that: Not only are pension funds heading for insolvency, the backstop meant to bail them out in the event of insolvency is also itself insolvent.

    The upshot, is that regardless of whether the state rejects or accepts this offer, if you’re a young teacher or government employee hoping that your state-supported pension fund will be there for you in retirement, think again.

  • As Skripal-Gate Collapses, Will May's Government Be Next?

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    The United Kingdom is headed for a break-up.  Not today or tomorrow, mind you but, sooner than anyone would like to handicap, especially in this age of coalition government at any cost.

    By responding to the alleged poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with histrionics normally reserved for The View, Theresa May’s government has set the stage for its own collapse.

    Government’s fall when the people lose confidence in them.  May has bungled everything she has touched as Prime Minister, from Brexit talks and her relationship with Donald Trump to her response (or lack thereof) to the escalating level of domestic terrorism and her pathetic campaign during last year’s snap election.

    When I confront such obvious ineptitude it’s not hard to believe that wasn’t the plan to begin with.

    Since her initial meeting with Donald Trump after his election where it looked like the two would get along, May has become more and more belligerent to both him and his base.  While he continues to affirm our special relationship “The Gypsum Lady” as I like to call her makes mistake after mistake.

    The latest of which is pushing everyone east of the Dneiper River in Ukraine to denounce the Russians and President Vladimir Putin personally for this alleged poisoning in Salisbury a month ago.

    The result of which was the largest round of diplomatic expulsions in a century, if not ever.

    And now that the whole “Russia did it” narrative has been skewered by May’s own experts at Porton Downs, she stands alone along with her equally inept and embarrassing Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson.

    The calls for their jobs will only intensify here.

    Tinker, Tailor, Traitor, Spy

    The whole thing felt from the beginning like a bad Ian Fleming novel.  I said from the beginning this this was a classic false flag to gin up anti-Russian fervor while May’s negotiator betrayed Brexit and pushed to remove Russian businesses from doing business in London.

    I’m sorry but it’s not a stretch to think this whole thing was cooked up by MI-6.  In fact, that’s been my operating assumption for a month now.

    The problem was, until a few days ago, I didn’t have a good enough reason why.

    Putting diplomatic pressure on Russia on behalf of the U.S.’s crazed neoconservative Deep State just didn’t seem like a big enough reward.  Neither did cutting Russian businesses out of European banks to stop contractor and creditor payments associated with the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

    Those things felt like nice bonus objectives but not main goals.

    And it wasn’t until the lead scientists at Porton Downs left May, Johnson and Williamson out to hang on Monday that the full operation became clear. By stating that they could not confirm the origin of the Novichok nerve agent used in the attack on the Skripals the Porton Downs officials destroyed the credibility of The Gypsum Lady’s government.

    Therefore, this operation was always about undermining May’s government to the point of a no-confidence vote.  This would then be the ultimate betrayal of Brexit in order to preserve the U.K.’s position in the European Union, which is favored by the political and old-monied British elite.

    In short, this was a coup attempt.

    And don’t think for a second that this is not plausible. Remember it was Margaret Thatcher’s own most trusted people who betrayed her to get the U.K. into the European Union in the first place.  This was why they brought down The Iron Lady.

    So, here’s the scene:

    May and Johnson both get told by trusted advisors that there is incontrovertible proof of Russia’s hand in this.  They go with this information with confidence to parliament, the U.N., high-level meetings with foreign leaders and the press.

    They convince their allies to stand strong against the evil Russians who is everyone’s bid ‘baddie’ at this point.

    Trump has to go along with this nonsense even though he is obviously skeptical otherwise there will be an uproar in the U.S. press about him betraying our most trusted ally for his puppet-master Putin.

    To be honest, I don’t think these bozos, May and Johnson, were in on the plan.  I think they were being played all along and now will be the patsies.

    Just like May was played last year, calling for snap elections.  The minute she called them there were terror attacks all over London, marches against her over public safety.  A media campaign which puffed up Jeremy Corbyn, who they are now destroying for his rightful trepidation about this fairy tale MI-6 is spinning.

    The goal was to weaken May and get Labour back in charge.  Corbyn would then be cast aside and a Tony Blair clone installed as Prime Minister to scuttle Brexit and restore order to the galaxy, Europe.  Unfortunately, the DUP got enough of the vote to re-elect a very weakened May and things have limped along for nearly a year.

    Crisis on Infinite Empires

    The problem with this however, is like all plans of those desperate to cling to vestiges of former glory (and the U.K. is definitely the poster child for that), is the crisis of confidence it will engender.

    Make no mistake, Brexit was no mistake.

    It’s what the people of Britain wanted and they want it more now than in 2016.  So, they don’t dare call for a new referendum.  But, they are also looking at a third parliamentary vote in as many years.

    And that doesn’t scream confidence no matter how much markets would prefer the legal status quo.  Opposition to Brexit comes from the entrenched monied power, not from any adherence to globalist ideology.

    But, if Brexit is betrayed through this hackneyed farce of a spy thriller, it won’t sit well with the British people.  Scotland’s call for a second referendum will continue to grow and the Pound will fall alongside the competitiveness of British labor still trapped within a euro-zone that has done nothing but choke the life out of the economy.

    The Pound will begin to sink into irrelevancy as this unfolds.  It won’t happen overnight, but we will look back on these events and see them as the trigger points for the path of history.

    Between these things and the toxic levels of political correctness as it pertains to Muslim immigration, the insanity of London liberals and the de facto police state the U.K. has become and you have a recipe for political unrest that will not be pretty.

    Brexit was meant to be the peaceful revolution that put the nail in the coffin of the march to one world government.  It is about to be nullified.

    When it is the sun will finally set on what’s left of the British Empire.

    Support this work by signing up with my Patreon Page and gain access to the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Investment Newsletter, the Private Blog as well as our private community on Slack.

  • Surviving The Next Great Depression

    Authored by Tom Chtaham via Project Chesapeake,

    Numerous economists and investors are warning of another great financial crisis to come but few people want to listen to them. No crisis is ever exactly like the last one and the next great depression will be different from the last one. In the last depression those who had money were in a good financial position to ride it out but the next depression will see those with fiat money drowning in it as it becomes worthless.

    Very few Americans have any significant savings today. Most live on credit and those with savings have it stored in financial instruments that will be wiped out as the bankers collapse the system to hide the theft they have been involved in for decades. Those who think they will retire with their IRA, pensions or social security will suddenly find them all gone never to return leaving them with no means to care for themselves.

    The west line has moved to Asia. This means that North America is no longer the shipping center of the world. The consequences of this for Americans will be disastrous. This means our economy in the future will be smaller and slower and will result in a standard of living far below what it currently is.

    Those that own very few assets free and clear will become the new homeless as they become jobless and default on all of their credit obligations.

    All of the social safety nets that exist now to keep people fat and happy will fail leaving mobs of people to roam the streets to seek out what they need to survive.

    One only has to look at Venezuela today to see where this will all lead.

    The basic minimum wage in Venezuela today is $7 dollars a month. Not a day or a week but a month. Those that hold local currency see it devalue on a daily basis making things increasingly worse as time goes on. Had any of these people stored some of their wealth in gold they would have the ability to live a little easier as the economy collapses. One ounce of gold in the hands of a Venezuelan today would last them for years. This is a lesson we all need to heed.

    Simply storing some of your wealth in gold and silver is no cure all but it is part of a bigger strategy to insure you do not have to suffer as many will in the coming years due to their blind faith in their belief the government will care for them. Keep in mind that the government is actually controlled by the same people that will destroy your standard of living so why would they care about your suffering.

    Understanding what will likely happen and insuring you have a plan to deal with it is the only hope you will have of coming through the coming bad years in tact. Those who trust in government or only live for today will reap what they sow and it will be unpleasant at best if they survive at all. A simple strategy to insure you do not suffer does not have to be expensive or complicated. The best plans are simple and allow you to adapt to the changing times. If you invest in a simple, inexpensive plan and the world somehow goes on as normal, you will not be any worse for the investment but if things takes an unexpected turn and your plan becomes necessary, it will allow you to survive the crisis much better than the bulk of the population.

    The strategy I outlined in The American Dream Lost is a basic plan that will work for just about anyone but is mainly designed for those that have only a few thousand dollars to draw on in an emergency. That is to say it is designed for the majority of Americans that have little money. It is important to understand that a plan of this type is an insurance policy against bad times that can do great harm to you and your family and needs to be understood in that light.

    One of the worst problems people have is that when something bad begins to happen they attempt to continue living as they always have and ignore the future consequences until it is too late to do anything meaningful about it. If a person loses their job they continue to live as they always have using up their small savings in the hope that things will change for the better before they run out of money. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, it depends on how lucky they are. This type of mentality often leads people to the point where they run out of money and only then do they try to come up with a plan. The problem is, by then they have no resources left to enact a plan with. This is what you need to avoid.

    When your economic situation suddenly changes for the worse you need to immediately sit down and determine what the future is likely to look like. It is good to be optimistic but if the chances of finding a new job are not very good you need to decide how best to use what resources you have to maintain a decent living standard. You may have to make some very difficult choices but the option of doing nothing could be very harmful in the long run. For those that decide radical steps may be needed to continue caring for their family the following list is a good place to start.

    Buy a years supply of basic foods and supplies that store easily

    Buy some durable clothing for future use

    Buy an older vehicle for cash that can pull a trailer

    Buy a good used camper trailer for cash that can house your family

    Buy a weapon and ammo for protection and hunting purposes

    Buy a few rolls of silver coins to preserve wealth and act as an emergency fund

    What this gives you is the ability to continue caring for your family even in the worst of situations if everything is lost to creditors. They will have food, shelter, clothing, transportation, security and the ability to buy critical items that are needed at some future time. Convincing your family they have to move to a camper for a while would not be easy but the alternative of being homeless would make it an easy choice. The fact that thousands of people all across America are at this very moment living in tents near large population centers is proof enough it can happen.

    Depending on your shopping skills all of these things can be secured for under $5,000 dollars and much less if you have time to look for bargains. Your plan may be slightly different depending on the resources and skills you have. You may have access to a small piece of land you own somewhere that a cabin can be built on or you may have the skills to retrofit a van body truck or enclosed trailer for living in. In situations like this skills are worth as much as gold coins.

    When the next great depression hits it will be unlike anything we have lived through before. Nothing will be as it seems and only those that have the resources to adapt will come through it whole. Preparation is the key to adapting to future events and those without resources will reap a bitter harvest as they struggle to survive. No announcements will be made, no warnings will be given by the establishment, it will just suddenly happen out of the blue and everyone will say it was unpredictable. But those who prepared will know better.

  • India Builds Over 14,000 Bunkers In Preparation For War With Pakistan

    The Government of India is planning to construct 14,460 bunkers for civilians in five border districts in Jammu & Kashmir – Samba, Poonch, Jammu, Kathua, and Rajouri – which reside along Line of Control (LoC) and the international Indo-Pakistani border, reports The Times of India.

    The state-owned National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) will build these bunkers in populated regions that rest within 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the de facto border between the two countries, which have experienced an increasing amount of incursions by the Pakistani Army.

    In February, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti announced during a State Assembly that 41 civilians had been killed in ceasefire violations along the LoC by Pakistan between 2015 and 2017. To safeguard civilians from Pakistani shelling across the border, NBCC will build 13,029 small bunkers and 1,431 more massive community bunkers. The Times of India said the construction program would cost around 4.157 billion rupees (US$63.8 million).

    Oneindia News: India builds bunkers along the LoC with Pakistan for villagers

    The chairman and managing director of NBCC, A K Mittal, told The Times of India that “pre-cast construction methodology” would be used for the bunkers.

    “Strategically located casting yards will be used to fabricate RCC components, which shall be transported by trailer/ tractors and the bunkers will be erected by cranes and labourers. We will plan in such a way that each bunker is completed in maximum 2-3 days,” he added.

    The Times of India provides insight into the specific locations where the individual and community bunkers will be built.

    “In Samba, 2,515 individual and eight community bunkers will be built. Similarly, in Jammu 1,200 individual and 120 community bunkers will be constructed. A maximum of 4,918 individual and 372 community bunkers will be built in Rajouri. In Kathua, 3,076 individual bunkers will be constructed. Poonch will get the maximum number of 688 community bunkers and will get another 1,320 individual bunkers.”

    In addition to building thousands of bunkers, The Times of India indicates NBCC has already started erecting border fencing along the India-Pakistan border.

    “It’s a prestigious and challenging project for us. We will meet the time line, which will be set by the J&K government. While we are building World Trade Centre in South Delhi we are also engaged in road and fencing works in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura on Indo-Bangladesh border and in Gujarat on Pakistan border,” Mittal said.

    Despite the 2003 ceasefire agreement, violence has recently erupted between both countries on the LoC, which marked 2017 as the bloodiest year since the ceasefire agreement came into effect.

    Earlier this year, we reported on 40,000 Indians fleeing the Jammu and Kashmir region, as intense military shelling from the Pakistani military turned the region into a war zone.

    “Along the 786 km-long Line of Control (LoC) which divides the State of Jammu Kashmir between India and Pakistan, sporadic cross-border military gunfire between both countries is not that unusual. However, this weekend, in the region of Noushera, Rajouri and Akhnoor sectors of Jammu and Kashmir, more than 40,000 Indians have fled their homes and shops amid the fourth consecutive day of intense shelling from Pakistani military forces, the Economic Times reports.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The sporadic cross-border military skirmishes between both countries have led to fears of another Indo-Pakistani war breaking out. According to government statistics, there were some 860 incidents of ceasefire violations by Pakistan military forces along the LoC in 2017, compared with 221 the prior year. As India prepares to build thousands of bunkers for its civilian population before the next conflict breaks out, Western media outlets have ignored this dire situation and would rather focus on unverified claims of a Russian nerve gas attack in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the LoC could very well be the epicenter of “World War III,” said the Daily Express.

  • Chris Hedges: "U.S. Citizens Are Living In An Inverted Totalitarian Country"

    Submitted by Erik Sandberg of NewsVoice

    Chris Hedges

    The mainstream media deflects attention from where power resides: corporations, not with the leaders of the free world. The arguments posed by Chris Hedges, that the U.S. is neither a democracy nor a republic but a totalitarian state that can now assassinate its citizens at will, are pertinent ones. Scary ones. Especially as consecutive governments seem equally as impotent to invoke any real change for the States. If the media won’t stand up to the marionettes who pull the strings of the conglomerates causing deep, indelible polarisation in the world abound; then so we must act. Together.

    Listen to the full interview in our weekly Newsvoice Think podcast.

    We were delighted to have Chris Hedges on an episode of the Newsvoice Think podcast as we seek to broadcast perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum. Right, left, red, blue and purple.

    In our interview with Chris, we discussed a range of topics facing the U.S. today as the Trump administration looks back at a year in power, and forward to the November ’18 midterms where Democrats will be looking to make gains. Chris was scathing of that party describing them as a “creature of Wall Street, which is choreographed and ceased to be a proper party a long time ago.”

    As a columnist with Truthdig, and a big advocate of independent media. Chris Hedges was the perfect interviewee for us to draw on the benefits of crowdsourced journalism and the challenges facing sites at the mercy of Facebook, Google and Twitter algorithms.

    Chris’s ire against the corporate interest of Facebook et al didn’t let up saying dissident voices were being shut down and that corporate oligarchs were only too happy to let them. The neutralisation of the media platforms that seek to provide independent opinion on U.S. current affairs is in full pelt.

    North Korea was the hot topic in 2017. Commentators said it was like a return to the days of the Cold War. But Hedges pointed that we need to remember what happened during the Korean War — how the North was flattened by U.S. bombs — and that as a result they, as a nation, suffer from an almost psychosis as a result. Trump, he said, is an imbecile and only deals in bombast, threats and rhetoric.

    Not surprisingly, Trump got it hard from Hedges. Describing his administration as a “kleptocracy” who will seek to attack immigrants and up the xenophobia stakes as it distracts and covers for the unadulterated theft of U.S. natural resources.

    As young people look to estimable journalists, activists and politicians in the States to help give them a voice, Hedges sees the democratic system as utterly futile. Encouraging mass civil disobedience instead, the ex-NY Times foreign correspondent states that railroads should be blocked and shutting down corporate buildings, for example, is the only way forward.

    The perennial argument between Republicans and Democrats is just that; is the U.S. a Republic or a Democracy? Hedges thinks neither. He told Newsvoice that the States is an inverted totalitarian country where the government regards the public as “irrelevant”.

    Unlike Ben Wizner from the ACLU who sees hope in delaying Net Neutrality, at least until a new administration is in power, Chris feels it is hopeless — that it is a dead duck, and as Net Neutrality slows down independent media platforms, the public will be at the behest of corporate social media sites such as Facebook who’ll increasingly deem what you do and don’t read or see.

    You can read more of Chris’ work at Truthdig where he has a weekly column every Monday.

  • Retail Real Estate Bubble Turns Manhattan Into A "Shopping Wasteland"

    The Fed loves to repeat how necessary and vital inflation is for economic prosperity, but in the case of midtown Manhattan’s “prime” retail real estate, it is doing nothing but helping cause once extremely prominent shopping areas become the very same “ghost towns” they turned into during the 2008 housing crisis.

    Mayor DeBlasio’s asinine solution to this issue created in part by faulty government policy: more government and more regulation.

    So much for the recovery.

    As if brick and mortar retail didn’t have enough problems to deal with being methodically decimated by the ever growing behemoth that is Amazon, store owners are now facing rent that is simply so high it makes it impossible for most to open retail stores and do business in once prominent areas of downtown Manhattan.

    On Saturday, the New York Post wrote an article confirming our writeup from late March suggesting that high prices are driving businesses out of town:

    If you want to see the future of storefront retailing, walk nine blocks along Broadway from 57th to 48th Street and count the stores.

    The total number comes to precisely one — a tiny shop to buy drones.

    That’s right: On a nine-block stretch of what’s arguably the world’s most famous avenue, steps south of the bustling Time Warner Center and the planned new Nordstrom department store, lies a shopping wasteland.

    It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that Amazon and other online retailers have had a profoundly negative effect on traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. One look at the recent Chapter 11 retail bankruptcy filings and it becomes obvious why one year ago the CEO of Urban Outfitters said that “the retail bubble has now burst“

    This is the narrative that has been playing out for the last couple of years as we have watched retail stocks like Sears, JCPenney and Macy’s get destroyed while online shopping names have performed extraordinarily well.

    But what may come as a surprise to some is the fact that the constant need to keep prices of real estate and rent rising, regardless of traditional supply and demand, is exacerbating things to a degree where some of the most sought after real estate in the world has now become deserted and barren. The article continued:

    The same crisis blights the rest of Manhattan. The people invested in storefront retailing — real-estate developers, landlords and retail companies themselves — tell us not to worry. It’s a “transitional” situation that will right itself over time. Authoritative-sounding surveys by real-estate and retail companies claim that Manhattan’s overall vacancy is only just 10 percent.

    But they are all wrong. Bricks-and-mortar retail is shrinking so swiftly and on such a wide scale, it’s going to require big changes in how we plan our new buildings and our cities — although nobody wants to admit it.

    …

    And yet, it’s scary to think that one of the city’s great pleasures, window-shopping — which also ensures vibrant, crime-deterring sidewalk life — will become a thing of the past except at certain locations.

    At this rate, we face a future where streets will be mostly dark at sidewalk level for miles on end. Third Avenue in the East 60s, Broadway north of Lincoln Center, many blocks in the supposedly thriving Meatpacking District are halfway there already.

    What is “progressive” Mayor DeBlasio’s solution to the problem of rising rents as a result of government policy? More regulation and more government, of course! He wants to actually fine landlords who keep spaces empty until they fine tenants. Talk about the blind leading the blind:

    Few retailers can afford to pay more than $250 per square foot annually in rent — yet landlords persist in asking $400 a square foot and up to $2,000 a square foot in prime zones like Fifth Avenue and Times Square.

    Mayor de Blasio wants to fine landlords who keep spaces empty until they find tenants who’ll pay astronomical rents. But there’s no fair way to judge who’s actually guilty. Would he punish the owners of the small corner building at 1330 Third Ave. at East 76th Street, who slashed the “ask” from $420,000 a year in 2016 to $360,000 in April 2017 and still can’t find a tenant?

    In other words a socialist mayor wants to fine capitalist merchants as punishment for policies enacted by the Federal Reserve (whose direct debt and deficit monetization also has extensive socialist underpinnings).

    To be sure, none of this comes as a surprise to us – or our regular readers – because in late March owe recalled our own 2009 tour of Madison Avenue to discover that it also had turned into a ghost town. Just a week ago we told our readers that the ghost town that was New York’s “Golden Mile” was not surprising: after all the US economy had just been hit with the worst recession since the Great Depression, and only an emergency liquidity injection of trillions of dollars prevented a global financial collapse.

    What is more surprising is why nearly 9 years later, at a time of what is supposed to be a coordinated global recovery, a walk along Madison Avenue reveals the exact same picture.

    And aside from us and the New York Post, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also noticed the disturbing trend, stating at the company’s Annual General Meeting:

    Now, as a result of what we’re witnessing, we’re also seeing something else and that is, there is a proliferation around the country right now of empty storefronts. We took a walk in New York two weeks ago from 59th street to 79th on Madison Avenue, and we lost count of how many empty storefronts there were in Manhattan. It reminded me of the cataclysmic financial crisis in 2008. But what’s happening is very simple, the rent structures for the last 5 to 10 years, have been rising at historic rates and retailers do not have the amount of  customers they had during these last 5 to 10 years and could no longer economically survive.

    So they’re closing stores and as a result of this, I can promise you just like I predicted in 2014 that rents are coming down and landlords are going to have to get religion, or else their stores are going to stay empty. And we’re already beginning to see a different level of reception in terms of what we believe the cost of occupancy should be. And this is going to bode extremely well, specifically for us. We’re adding almost 700 new Starbucks stores a year. And so we are going to take full advantage of the economic reality of this situation. And as we go forward two, three, four, five years out even though labor is going up in terms of cost of labor, we believe rents are going down and the economic model of Starbucks is going to be enhanced as a result of this macro situation. And we’re just at the beginning of this trend.

    So the hilarious irony of Keynesian theory once again rears its ugly head as New York’s current retail apocalypse and prime real estate exodus has, in effect, caused some of the most traversed city streets to look like they did during the financial crisis of 2008 once again.

    Needless to say, this is the direct result of force-engineering a “recovery”, instead of letting the free-market recover on its own: you get a “recovery” that is anything but, and only works as long as the source of endless funding – the Fed – keeps pumping. Meanwhile, the Fed and its fawning media supporters have always been able to duck behind the outperforming stock market as a false indicator of the health of the economy as a “scorecard” for the recovery. But with the market now topping out and reaching levels of significant volatility, and the March jobs number handily missing expectations, how can the Fed justify that their policy continues to make sense when it is putting a good portion of Manhattan into the very same shackles and chains it was in during the crisis we are “recovering” from 10 years ago?

  • Inside El Chapo's Lair: Plastic Furniture, Ornate Weaponry And Cocaine Bananas

    By the time DEA agent Drew Hogan arrived in Mexico City in 2010, Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman had already been on the run for nine years – having escaped from a prison in Southwest Mexico in early 2001 – reportedly hiding in a laundry basket.  

    After Hogan established his base of operation, he picked up the trail for the Sinaloa cartel chief by “looking at the details,” he said. 

    “It was in the details – in the numbers,” Hogan told NBC‘s “Today” show on Wednesday while discussing his book “Hunting El Chapo.”

    “The phone numbers don’t lie,” Hogan said. “And I was able to pair up with a crack team of Homeland Security investigative agents, and we began intercepting members of Chapo’s inner circle and starting to dismantle layers within his sophisticated communications structure until we got to the top, where I had his personal secretary’s device, who was standing right next to him, and I could ping that to establish a pattern of life to determine where he was at.”

    Hogan, his partner “Brady” and a team of 50 Mexican marines would stumble upon a safehouse used by El Chapo in February 2014, only to find the Cartel boss had already left the lair hidden behind six-inch thick steel doors.

    The DEA agent filmed the hideout on his mobile phone – revealing among other things: 

    • A black sack filled with hundreds of green bananas intended for smuggling cocaine into the United States. 
    • A jewel-encrusted semiautomatic pistol adorned with El Chapo’s initials
    • Lots of cocaine
    • A cache of weapons, including a tripod-mounted machine gun

    [insert: 4AE38DA500000578-5586785-image-a-66_1523036688323.jpg ]

    Hogan says he was shocked by the squalor of the place. “I was surprised, he really afforded himself no luxuries. Each safehouse was the same type of construction, very basic.” 

    “They had Walmart-style plastic tables and chairs, none of the trappings you would expect from a drug lord.”

     El Chapo was eventually tracked down to the beach resort of Mazatlán in late 2014. 

    For the first face-to-face meeting Hogan wore his very own black baseball cap, and ran up to the drug lord and yelling: ‘What’s up, Chapo?‘

    Hogan said from that moment he knew he was going to tell his story at some point, and chose to write about the exhaustive and enthralling hunt in a new book, called ‘Hunting El Chapo.’

    On Wednesday he spoke about the book for the first time publicly in an interview on the Today Show, and will give further details during Dateline on Sunday.

    He also shared a personal photo from those thrilling years of his life of the moment he caught El Chapo, in which the drug lord can be seen frowning with Hogan and another agent behind him and posing for the camera.

    The former DEA agent called that day he met El Chapo a ‘souvenir of the hunt,’ explaining he plucked it from another place where Chapo had been hiding out. –Daily Mail

    Within 16 months, however, El Chapo would escape from prison – tunneling below the shower in his cell at a Mexican maximum security prison. 

    [insert: 4AD2DB7C00000578-5578631-image-a-36_1522863896995.jpg ]

    “This tunnel that went underneath the prison was the same type of tunnels that went under the safe houses, the same tunnels that were at the US/ Mexico border,” said Hogan.

    Six months later, Chapo was captured again – with the aid of informants, satellite images and intercepted cell phone communications. The drug lord was extradited to the United States on January 19 of this year to stand trial on charges of running the largest drug-trafficking enterprise in the world – said to be responsible for hundreds of murders in North America. He is wanted in Chicago, San Diego, New York City, New Hampshire, Miami and Texas – and has pending indictments in seven different U.S. federal courts. 

    El Chapo is currently sitting in the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. His trial is set to begin in September. 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 07

Today’s News 7th April 2018

  • Why A Dollar Collapse Is Inevitable

    Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

    “Naturally, the smooth termination of the gold-exchange standard, the restoration of the gold standard, and supplemental and interim measures that might be called for, in particular with a view to organizing international credit on this new basis, will have to be deliberately agreed upon between countries, in particular those on which there devolves special responsibility by virtue of their economic and financial capabilities.”

    General Charles de Gaulle, February 1965

    We have been here before – twice.

    The first time was in the late 1920s, which led to the dollar’s devaluation in 1934. And the second was 1966-68, which led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods System.

    Even though gold is now officially excluded from the monetary system, it does not save the dollar from a third collapse and will still be its yardstick.

    This article explains why another collapse is due for the dollar. It describes the errors that led to the two previous episodes, and the lessons from them relevant to understanding the position today. And just because gold is no longer officially money, it will not stop the collapse of the dollar, measured in gold, again.

    General de Gaulle made himself very unpopular with the international monetary establishment by holding the press conference from which the opening quote was taken. Yet, his prophecy, that the gold exchange standard of Bretton Woods would end in tears unless its shortcomings were addressed by a return to a gold standard, turned out to be correct shortly after. What the establishment did not like was the bald implication that it was wrong, and that the correct thing to do was to reinstate the gold standard. Plus ça change, as he might say if he was still with us.

    Those of us who argue the case for a new gold standard, and not some sort of half-way house such as a gold exchange standard to address the obvious failings of the current monetary system, are in a similar position today. The first task is that which faced General de Gaulle and Jacques Rueff, his economic advisor, which is to explain the difference between the two.[i] It is now forty-seven years since all forms of monetary gold were banished by the monetary authorities, and today few people in finance understand its virtues.

    Furthermore, in the main, historians educated as Keynesians and monetarists do not understand the economic history of money, let alone the difference between a gold standard and a gold-exchange standard. These similar sounding monetary systems must be defined and the differences between them noted, for anyone to have the slimmest chance of understanding this vital subject, and its relevance to the situation today.

    Defining the role of gold

    To modern financial commentators, there is little or no significant difference between a gold standard and a gold exchange standard. Keynes’s famous quip, that the gold standard was a barbarous relic, was made in his Tract on Monetary Reform, published in 1923, before the gold exchange standard really got going, yet it is quoted as often as not indiscriminately in the context of the latter.

    Yet, they are as different as chalk and cheese. The gold exchange standard evolved in the 1920s as America and Britain went to the aid of European countries, struggling in the wake of the Great War. It allowed the expansion of national currencies under the guise of them being as good as gold. It was not. In modern terms, it was as different as paper gold futures are to the possession of physical gold today.

    A gold standard is commodity money, where gold is money, and monetary units are defined as a certain fixed fineness and weight of gold. The monetary authority is obliged by law to exchange without restriction gold against monetary units and vice-versa, and there are no restrictions on the ownership and movement of gold.

    Under a gold exchange standard, the only holder of monetary gold is the issuer of the domestic monetary unit as a substitute for gold. The monetary authority undertakes to maintain the relationship between the substitute and gold at a fixed rate. Only money substitutes (bank notes and token coins – gold being the money) circulate in the domestic economy. The monetary authority exchanges all imports of monetary gold and foreign currency into money substitutes for domestic circulation at the fixed gold exchange rate. The monetary authority holds any foreign exchange which is also convertible into gold on a gold exchange standard at a fixed parity, and treats it to all extents and purposes as if it is gold.

    The essential difference between a gold standard and a gold exchange standard is that with the latter, the monetary authority has added flexibility to expand the quantity of money substitutes in circulation without having to buy gold. A gold standard may start, for example, with 50% gold and 50% government bonds backing for money units, but all further issues of monetary units will require the monetary authority to purchase gold to fully cover them. This was the monetary regime in Britain and many other countries before the First World War.

    As stated above, gold exchange standards evolved after the First World War, in the early 1920s.[ii] It was the taking in of foreign currencies, also on gold exchange standards themselves, and booking them as if they were the equivalent of gold, that allowed central banks to expand the quantity of monetary units domestically. To understand how this operated in practice requires us to work through an example between two countries on gold exchange standards. We will take the entirely hypothetical example of two countries, America and Italy, both of which have monetary gold in their reserves and operate on a gold exchange standard.

    America lends Italy dollars by crediting its central bank’s account at the Fed with the dollars loaned. But while ownership has changed to Italy, dollars never leave America. And dollars, when drawn down by the Banca d’Italia are recycled into America’s banking system.

    The economic sacrifice to America of lending money to Italy is therefore zero. America has simply created a loan out of its own currency, and in the process increased the quantity of dollars in circulation. And because in practice Italy does not encash dollars for gold, America expects to preserve its gold reserves.

    Meanwhile, The Banca d’Italia has expanded its balance sheet by the inclusion of America’s dollar loan to it as a liability, and the dollars themselves as an asset regarded as the equivalent of gold. Because dollars are not permitted to circulate in Italy’s domestic economy, they can be used by Banca d’Italia, either to settle other foreign obligations, or as a gold substitute to back the issue of further lira. Meanwhile, the Banca d’Italia’s dollars are reinvested in US Treasuries, which give a yield. Banca d’Italia has little incentive to exchange its dollars for physical gold, because gold yields nothing and is costs to store.

    If Banca d’Italia uses dollars to discharge a foreign obligation with another country, that third party will also end up investing the dollars gained in US Treasuries, assuming it also prefers yielding assets to physical gold. Alternatively, if the dollars are used by the Banca d’Italia to back an increase in the quantity of lira or to subscribe for government debt, the effect in the domestic Italian economy is an inflation of prices.

    Therefore, the effect of a gold exchange standard is the opposite of a gold standard. A gold standard puts the requirements for the quantity of money in circulation entirely in the hands of the market, to which the central bank mechanically responds. A gold exchange standard allows a lending central bank to inflate its money supply through inward investment, and a borrowing central bank to inflate its money supply on the presumption the monetary substitutes borrowed to back it are monetary units of gold.

    The gold exchange standard in the 1920s

    After the First World War, both sterling and dollars were made available under the Dawes Plan of 1924, which provided non-domestic capital for Germany after her hyperinflation. France suffered a currency crisis in July 1926, which was successfully dealt with by the Poincaré government through raising taxes. The Bank of France was then enabled to borrow dollars and sterling and to issue francs and subscribe for government debt.

    To summarise, these loans bolstered the balance sheets of the Reichsbank and the Bank of France, which invested the sterling and dollars borrowed in gilts and Treasuries respectively. If instead France and Germany had taken gold under the gold exchange provisions, they would have had an asset with no yield, though France did opt increasingly for some gold towards the end of the decade and beyond – by December 1932 she had accumulated 3,257 tonnes. So, by lending their monetary units, the creditor nations achieved finance for their own governments, as well as providing capital for foreign central banks. It was seen to be a win-win for all the central banks involved.

    The accumulation of dollars in foreign hands from 1922 onwards accompanied and fuelled bank credit expansion in the US. This gave the roaring twenties an inflationary impetus, dramatically reflected in its stock market bubble. However, the increasing quantity of dollars in foreign ownership became an accident waiting to happen. There had been a mild thirteen-month recession from October 1926 to November 1927, after which the stock market boomed. The Fed was compelled to reverse earlier interest rate cuts and increased the discount rate from 3 ½% to 5% by July 1928.

    French investors began to repatriate capital en masse, and the Bank of France’s gold reserves rocketed from 711 tonnes in 1926 to 2,099 tonnes by 1930.[iii]The gold exchange standard had spectacularly failed, and redemption of dollars for gold, being deflationary, exacerbated the Wall Street Crash. It certainly rhymed with Robert Triffin’s dilemma: the export of dollars into foreign ownership was monetary magic, until it reversed at the first sign of trouble.

    The gold exchange standard of Bretton Woods

    In 1944, the monetary panjandrums of the day, led by Harry Dexter-White for the US and Lord Keynes for the UK, designed the post-war gold exchange standard of Bretton Woods. No doubt, Dexter-White fully understood the advantage to the US of forcing all countries to accept dollars with a yield, or gold with none. When American payments abroad exceeded receipts, the difference was generally reflected in dollars issued to foreign central banks, kept on deposit in New York, or invested in US Treasuries.

    Throughout the ‘fifties, America recorded a surplus on goods and services, which declined as European manufacturing recovered. But other factors, such as investment abroad and the Korean war resulted in an overall balance of payments deficit totalling $21.41bn, the equivalent of 19,024 tonnes of gold at $35 per ounce. However, US gold reserves declined only 4,457 tonnes between 1950 and 1960, which tells us that the balance was indeed invested in US bank deposits and US Government notes and bonds.

    The respective figures for the 1960s were total payment deficits of $32bn, the equivalent of 28,437 tonnes of gold, and an actual decline in gold reserves of 5,283 tonnes.

    The accelerating increase of foreign ownership of dollars over these two decades meant the world, ex-America, was awash with dollars by the mid-1960s. By the end of that decade, America’s gold reserves had declined from 20,279.3 tonnes in 1950, two-thirds of the world’s monetary gold, to 10,538.7 tonnes, 29% of the world’s monetary gold in 1970.

    The effect was to remove trade settlement disciplines on net importing nations, and to cause inflation in net exporting nations, the opposite of the disciplines of a pre-WW1 gold standard on global trade. It was this effect that was central to the second Triffin dilemma, whereby dollars became wildly over-valued in gold terms through their excessive issuance.

    In the mid-sixties, Washington became increasingly alarmed that foreigners weren’t playing by the assumed rule that they should take dollars and not redeem them for gold. By then, France and Germany between them had increased their gold holdings from 487.1 tonnes in 1948 to 7,089 tonnes at the time of de Gaulle’s press conference. General de Gaulle’s press conference, from which this article’s opening quote is taken, had touched some very raw nerves.

    It was clear that the dollar, with the overhang of foreign ownership, had become horribly overvalued, and so should have been devalued, perhaps to over $50 or $60 per ounce, for a gold peg to stick. A devaluation of this magnitude might have been sufficient at that time to stem the outflow of gold.

    Both Washington and American public opinion were set strongly against any devaluation. Instead, the London gold pool, designed to ensure the major central banks supported the Bretton Woods System, collapsed in 1968, when France withdrew from it. A dollar devaluation to $42.2222 shortly after was simply not enough, and in 1971 President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods System, and the new regime of floating exchange rates that is still with us to this day began.

    The situation today

    Following the Nixon shock, official monetary policy towards gold was to ignore it, and to persuade other central banks and financial markets it was irrelevant to the modern monetary system. To this day, the Fed still books the gold note from the Treasury at $42.2222 per ounce, even though the price has risen to over $1300.

    We can simplistically value the dollar in terms of gold, which is certainly a valid, perhaps the most valid approach. But to merely conclude that the dollar has collapsed since 1971, while true, side-steps an analysis that points to the risk that even today’s value may still be too high. Furthermore, with the dollar acting as the world’s reserve currency, all other fiat currencies, which are priced with reference to it rather than gold, are to a greater or lesser extent in the same boat.

    Taking a cue from our analysis of the workings of cross-border monetary flows, which allows America to have its privilege of foreigners financing its deficits, we can estimate the approximate extent of the accumulated imbalances that could lead to the dollar’s collapse.

    We know that the US balance of payments deteriorated from 1992 onwards, though those figures did not include military spending abroad, which has been a significant and unrecorded addition to dollars both in cash circulation outside America, and also to estimates of the balance of payments.[vi] Official balance of payments figures are therefore understated and have been for at least a quarter of a century.

    More recently, from September 2008 the Fed began expanding its balance sheet by policies designed to increase commercial bank reserves, as a response to the financial crisis. That August, they were $10.5bn, increased to $67.5bn the following month, and peaked at $2,786.9bn in August 2014, since when there has been a modest decline. From our analysis of the run-ups to the two previous dollar crises, we know we should try to estimate how much of the increase was effectively funded from abroad. Treasury TIC Data gives us a fairly good steer to what extent this has happened. We find that between those dates, (August 2008 – August 4014) foreign ownership of dollars increased by $6,237.7bn, over twice as much as the increase in the Fed’s record of commercial bank reserves.

    This is Triffin at its most fast and furious. Since then, foreign ownership of dollars has increased a further $2,142.4bn to a record $18,694.1, even though bank reserves declined by $572bn.[viii] In other words, the accumulation of dollars in foreign hands now stands at over 95% of US GDP.

    Another way of looking at it is to assess the market values of US securities held by foreigners and relate that to GDP, though this information is less timely,. This is shown in the following chart.

    The build-up of foreign investment in America, in large measure the counterpart of dollar loans to foreigners, has been remarkable. At the time of the dot-com bubble, it had jumped to 35% of GDP, from less than 20% in the nineties and considerably less before. At over 90% of GDP in recent years, there can be no doubt that the next financial event, whether it be derived from a rise in interest rates or a general weakness in the dollar, can be expected to trigger a substantial flight out of the dollar.

    The pricing of financial assets, and today’s extraordinarily low interest rates indicate that a flight from the dollar is the last thing expected in financial markets. If they were still alive, de Gaulle and his economic advisor, Jacques Rueff, would be instructing the ECB, as successor to the Bank of France, to dump all dollars for gold immediately. And probably to dump all other foreign fiat currencies for gold as well. However, today, it is likely that other actors will blow the whistle on the dollar, such as the Chinese, and the Russians.

    For it is clear that when the over-valuation of the dollar is corrected, the downside of a dollar collapse is far greater than it was in the early-thirties or the early-seventies. All other fiat currencies take their value from the dollar, not gold. So, the destabilising forces on the dollar, the other unexpected side of Triffin’s dilemma, could take down the whole fiat complex as well.

  • The Average Commute In America Is 26 Minutes – How Does Your City Stack Up?

    The average person is awake for 15.5 hours per day, but once you subtract hours committed to work, eating, chores, personal care, and errands, there’s only so little much free time leftover.

    That’s why, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, the amount of time spent commuting, either in a car or via transit, can be a massive difference maker towards a person’s quality of life.

    THE AVERAGE COMMUTE

    Throughout the United States, the average commute time works out to about 26 minutes one-way.

    However, as today’s infographic from TitleMax shows, the average commute varies considerably between individual states, and also between major cities as well.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    In South Dakota, a state with fewer than one million people, congestion is not a problem for most. The state is home to the shortest average commute in the country at just 16.6 minutes one-way.

    Meanwhile, as you may imagine, New York is the polar opposite of South Dakota for getting to work. The Empire State has the longest average commute in the country, which is double the length at 33.6 minutes.

    COMMUTES BY CITY

    Every city is different, which means that data can have high amounts of variability within each state.

    New York again is a great example for this: NYC has the longest average commute in the nation at 34.7 minutes, but go upstate and Buffalo actually has the shortest average commute for all major cities at 20.3 minutes per trip.

    Here are the 10 shortest commutes in the country, for major cities:

    Many people living in places like Buffalo or San Diego are able to hop to their place of the work in 20 minutes or less, giving them a little extra flexibility with their free time in comparison to bigger cities in the country.

    Here are the 10 longest commutes in the country, for major cities:

    While it’s surprising to see that Los Angeles didn’t make it onto the list of cities with ultra-long commutes, the largest city in California does have the distinction of being the most congested city in the world.

    It’s there that citizens spend an unfortunate 104 hours each year stuck in traffic jams.

  • Oceania, 'Tis For Thee: The World Of "1984" Is Forming Now

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson via SHTFplan.com,

    “Oceania” was a nation described in George Orwell’s “1984” as being comprised of Britain (called “Airstrip One,”) and the United States. There were two other superpowers, namely Eurasia and Eastasia. Other lands rich in resources were contested over, such as Africa and assumingly South America…lands never kept by any of three Super-states for any significant period. The “flux” in conquests was exactly what the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) of our time would have termed “necessary” to justify large expenditures: War as the focal purpose, rather than the exceptional event.

    We see a parallel in today’s world with huge defense budgets and troop deployments keeping the contracts on the move and siphoning off a considerable amount of national revenues to keep the patriotic war machines moving…irrespective of each nation. The psychology: keep the population agitated and on a continual war-footing, using a “threat” (either real, created, or imagined) to accomplish this.

    You are witnessing the final alignment of those spheres of influence that are almost identical to the novel that Orwell wrote. Look at the situation with the alleged Russian poisoning of an intelligence operative and his daughter in Britain. The United States showed “solidarity” with Great Britain by expelling 60 Russian diplomats and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington. Russia countered by ordering the expulsion of an equal amount of American embassy personnel.

    Yet the interesting fact is that the other nations who followed suit in the “humanitarian crusade” of the alleged Russian poisoning of former FSB agent Skripal and his daughter? The poisoning may have been done by the British, not the Russians. The U.S. State Department has made several statements to the tune that the Russians do not “see eye to eye with us or share our values of freedom and democracy.”

    Really, now…in the surveillance state that inexorably draws to its conclusion with the country losing its rights while being monitored in every activity…what “values” do we have anymore?

    I’m not characterizing the entire populace of the United States…but our government, that holds most of the “forms” that the country was founded upon without any true leadership, statesmanship, or representation of the American people. I’m characterizing much of the population…flitting from one reality show to the next dose of Hollywood propaganda and paradigm shift labeled as “movies” and only loyal to the country as long as the handouts (labeled “entitlements”) keep flowing.

    The formation of the Super-states…each with their spheres of influence in the novel…that formation is taking place now. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and Romania have expelled Russian diplomats in-line with the U.S. actions. All those nations are heavily-invested in NATO militarily, with tremendous amounts received of American money, materials, and troops. Poland is purchasing U.S. missile and anti-missile systems. Romania already has a U.S. missile base.

    Ukraine expelled Russian diplomats. Ukraine is a vassal state of the United States and the IMF. Most of the European nations such as the Netherlands (The Hague is there, go figure), Germany, France, Britain, Spain…followed suit. The battle right now is to see who will align with the U.S.-British Western hegemony [Oceania] against Russia and her allies (such as Iran, Syria, etc.) [Eurasia] with China being the “top banana” in the Orient [Eastasia]. The English-speaking countries will head the U.S.-British conglomerate…also including Canada and Australia…the former having participated in the expulsion.

    It’s even deeper than the geographical and political distinctions paralleling “1984” when you examine it further. Little by little, as the U.S. becomes more repressive, more controlling, with a “nationalistic” bent driving the framework, the citizenry is becoming isolated. After World War I the United States pursued an isolationist policy, and the policy was reflected in the mindset of the citizens. This current isolation is one that is forced.

    Oh, we’re building a wall to keep out the illegal aliens? Possibly, but look how late in the game it is. Look at how illegal incursions have taken place without any true resistance for more than a century unchecked and unabated.  Why? To satisfy the U.S. corporations’ demands for cheap labor that could be off the books…and the government that turned a blind eye to it because of the taxable revenues made from the corporations. The taxes were paid, and kickbacks were undoubtedly delivered to government officials who managed to look the other way when faced with 100 illegal aliens working in the fields in front of their eyes. Everyone looked away, the corporations made profits, and everyone was happy.

    The main reason to build the wall will not be to prevent illegal aliens from coming into the U.S., but to appear to prevent illegal aliens from coming in. That will be the main reason…subtly swathed in the name of the sacred “interests of national security” phrase we’ve all come to know and love. All the construction will be subject, of course, to taxation, kickbacks, and contracts to keep the flow of taxpayer monies moving out of their pockets and savings accounts into the hands of the rich and powerful. There is also another reason…purposed and insidious they wish the wall.

    A wall will work in the opposite direction as well: to keep the taxpayer-serfs in.

    Slowly but surely, a forced isolation policy is being pursued, and more: the ones traveling will be pursuing a government agenda in their endeavors and it will be limited to those with capital and wealth. We’re seeing it already: the new laws (Don’t you just love that? New laws?) that restrict those with a certain amount owed in taxes, in child support, or whatever…keep them in the country. How about that? The firms and corporations, and their employees…with the “trusted traveler” status…basically a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. Trusted to keep paying the taxes and conform to the existing social, political, and religious order…to be a “nark” on behalf of the government.

    To be the “guy with the watch” in the movie “They Live,” selling out to the aliens.

    All your communications are monitored: every e-mail, every telephone call. Talk to your friends in Moscow from college, and you’ll come up on a watch list. Talk to anyone outside of the U.S. and it’s a guarantee that you’ll be recorded and monitored. The new “Cloud Act” that slid surreptitiously between the thighs of the Omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill (really…$1.3 trillion, can you imagine all the kickbacks on that one?). The harmless-sounding Cloud Act…giving foreign nations the ability to carry out U.S. government directives “in cooperation,” or “in partnership” …to surveil and monitor U.S. citizens and bypass the U.S. Constitution.

    Marbury vs. Madison is extinct.  Go ahead and take them to court, protest, and write to your Congressman or Senator (accomplishing nothing except identifying and marginalizing yourself). Your suit, your protests, and your letters will go nowhere…and eventually they’ll break you…and you’ll go somewhere…in the middle of nowhere…indefinitely (synonymous with forever). The need for a chargeable offense to arrest you is gone, along with the 4th Amendment…now you just need to be a “suspicious person” and be placed “under investigation.”

    All of this is crafted to make the populations poorer, keep them monitored, and prevent them from interacting with one another as before. Limit their freedom of movement and therefore limit their freedom. This is happening in the other two “spheres of influence” as well. China has a Draconian police state where cameras and stoolies monitor and report every move of the people. China is the “model” (in the words of Kissinger and other globalist-Communists). The police in this country are becoming as the ones in China, with a capitalist agenda: To protect and serve the taxable, corporate entities, and oppress the common taxpayer.

    This is the end-state desired by the creators of the Global Governance. They follow Milton’s words to a tee: “It is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.” They will have three spheres, just as in the novel “1984,” and keep the flames of ethnic difference fanned just enough to make War not an eventuality, but a managed, controllable event. War translates into industrial output, use of supplies and materials, and largesse that ends up “boomeranging” and turning into raises and bonuses for politicians (look at Congress “voting” themselves raises and bonuses in the Omnibus bill while simultaneously increasing the “defense” budget).

    War enables favors, contracts, and immunity for oligarchs. A self-sustaining war machine that keeps the three spheres of influence at each other’s throats…while “managing” the people and tying them up in a never-ending loop of consumption, production, impoverishment, debt, and always directed by patriotic fervor.

    In the end, the world will not notice its enslavement, because the generations capable of creative thought and reason will have been replaced by a stultified, obedient mass of humanity only capable of acting in a manner predetermined by the rulers. The world of “1984” is forming today. The Gulags are just around the corner. They’ll have “occupants” as soon as the time is right. Not at gunpoint. The people will enter the camps of their own accord, enslaved with the baits of entitlements and material conveniences. The world of “1984” was written about years ago, but it is upon us, now, and before we know it, we will be in it.

  • AI Researchers Boycott South Korean University Over Plan To Build "Killer Robots"

    It looks like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin aren’t the only ones who’ve envisioned a nightmare scenario where “killer robots” stalk through neighborhoods murdering innocent Americans (or Russians).

    A group of artificial intelligence researchers from nearly 30 countries is boycotting one of South Korea’s most prestigious universities over concerns about a recent partnership with an “ethically dubious” arms manufacturer with the stated purpose to design and manufacture “autonomous weapons systems”.

    The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and its partner, the weapons manufacturer Hanwha Systems, one of South Korea’s largest arms dealers, are pushing back against the boycott, saying they have no intention of developing “killer robots” – even though the description of the project clearly states its goals, per the Guardian.

    “There are plenty of great things you can do with AI that save lives, including in a military context, but to openly declare the goal is to develop autonomous weapons and have a partner like this sparks huge concern,” said Toby Walsh, the organiser of the boycott and a professor at the University of New South Wales.

    “This is a very respected university partnering with a very ethically dubious partner that continues to violate international norms.”

    What’s worse, the scientists say, is Hanwha’s history of manufacturing and selling cluster munitions and other arms that are banned in more than 120 countries under an international treaty that South Korea, the US, Russia and China have not signed.

    Killer

    Walsh, an Australian professor, became aware of the project after reading a Korea Times article about the partnership. He said he promptly wrote the university asking for more information – but never received a response.

    Walsh was initially concerned when a Korea Times article described KAIST as “joining the global competition to develop autonomous arms” and promptly wrote to the university asking questions but did not receive a response.

    Participants in the boycott have promised not to visit KAIST or host or collaborate with any of its faculty “over fears it could accelerate the arms race to develop autonomous weapons.”

    KAIST opened the controversial research center on Feb. 20. At the time, university leaders said it would “provide a strong foundation for developing national defense technology.”

    The announcement of the initiative, which has since been deleted, said it would focus on “AI-based command and decision systems, composite navigation algorithms for mega-scale unmanned undersea vehicles, AI-based smart aircraft training systems, and AI-based smart object tracking and recognition technology.”

    However, for all their effort, it appears the boycotters are already too late to prevent the creation of killer robots, though the group is still agitating for governments to promise to ban the manufacture, use and distribution of these weapons.

    South Korea’s Dodaam Systems already manufactures a fully autonomous “combat robot”, a stationary turret, capable of detecting targets up to 3km away. Customers include the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and it has been tested on the highly militarised border with North Korea, but company executives told the BBC in 2015 there were “self-imposed restrictions” that required a human to deliver a lethal attack.

    The Taranis military drone built by the UK’s BAE Systems can technically operate entirely autonomously, according to Walsh, who said killer robots made everyone less safe, even in a dangerous neighbourhood.

    “Developing autonomous weapons would make the security situation on the Korean peninsula worse, not better,” he said.

    “If these weapons get made anywhere, eventually they would certainly turn up in North Korea and they would have no qualms about using them against the South.”

    The idea that governments should do more to prevent, or at least regulate, increasingly advanced smart weapons is gaining traction around the world. Last year, Elon Musk surprised his twitter followers by conjuring up an image of robots walking down streets murdering people. While Putin once jokingly mused “how long until the robots eat us?”

  • How To Recognize When Your Society Is Suffering A Dramatic Decline

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    When historians and analysts look at the factors surrounding the collapse of a society, they often focus on the larger events and indicators — the moments of infamy. However, I think it’s important to consider the reality that large scale societal decline is built upon a mixture of elements, prominent as well as small. Collapse is a process, not a singular event. It happens over time, not overnight. It is a spectrum of moments and terrible choices, set in motion in most cases by people in positions of power, but helped along by useful idiots among the masses. The decline of a nation or civilization requires the complicity of a host of saboteurs.

    So, instead of focusing on the top down approach, which is rather common, let’s start from the foundations of our culture to better understand why there is clear and definable destabilization.

    Declining Moral Compass

    There is always a conflict between personal gain and personal conscience — this is the nature of being human. But in a stable society, these two things tend to balance out. Not so during societal decline, as personal gain (and even personal comfort and gratification) tends to greatly outweigh the checks and balances of moral principles.

    People often mistake the term “morality” to be a religious creation, but this is not what I am necessarily referring to. The concepts of “good” and “evil” are archetypal — that is to say they are psychologically inherent in most human beings from the moment of birth. This is not a matter of faith, but a matter of fact, observed by those in the field of psychology and anthropology over the course of a century of study.  How we relate to these concepts can be affected by our environment and upbringing, but for the most part, our moral compass is psychologically ingrained. It is up to us to either follow it or not follow it.

    Watching how people handle this choice is a bit of hobby of mine, and I do take notes. You can learn a lot about the state of your environment by observing what people around you tend to do when faced with the conflict of personal gain versus personal conscience. It is saddening to admit that even though I live in rural America, where you are more likely to find self-reliance and cultural stability, I can still see a faltering nation bleeding through.

    I have seen supposedly good people act dishonestly in business agreements. I have seen local institutions scam hardworking citizens. I have seen a court system rife with bias and a “good old boy” attitude of favoritism. I have seen local companies pretend to be benevolent contributors to the community while at the same time running constant frauds and rackets. I have even seen a few people within the liberty movement itself put the movement at risk with their own avarice, gluttony, narcissism and sociopathy.

    Again, it is important to make a note of such people and institutions, for as the system continues its downward spiral it is these people that will present the greatest threat to the innocent.

    As Carl Jung notes in his book The Undiscovered Self, there is always a contingent of latent sociopaths and psychopaths within any culture; usually about 10% of the population. In normal times, they, at least most of them, are forced into moral acclimation by the rest of the populace. But in times of decline, they seem to leak out of the woodwork like a slimy fungus. During heightened collapse, they no longer have to pretend to be upstanding and they show their true colors.

    Most dangerous is when latent sociopaths or full blown sociopaths assume roles of leadership or power during the worst of times. With everyone distracted by their own plight, these people can become a cancer, infecting everything with their narcissistic pursuits and causing destruction in their wake.

    Disinterest In Rewarding Conscience

    During wider cultural collapse, it can become “fashionable” to see acts of principle as something to be scoffed at or ridiculed or to even see them as threats to the status quo. The concept of “going along to get along” takes precedence over doing what is right even when it is hard; this attitude is not relegated to the less honest people within society.

    As a system collapses, a fog of apathy can result. Good people can become passive, scrambling to their individual corner of the world and hoping evil times will simply pass them by. The phrase “I just want to put all this behind me” is spoken regularly; but as we ignore the trespasses of terrible men and women, we also enable them. How? Because by doing nothing we allow them to continue their criminality, and we subject future persons and generations to victimization.

    When doing the right thing is treated as laughable or “crazy” by what seems like a majority in the midst of widespread corruption, you are truly in the middle of a great decline.

    In Christian circles, the idea of “the remnant” is sometimes spoken of. In Christian terms, this usually represents a minority of true believers surviving a tumultuous and immoral era. I see “the remnant” not so much as a contingent of Christians alone, but as a contingent of people that continue to maintain their principles and conscience when faced with unprecedented adversity. In the worst of times, these people remain stalwart, even if they are ridiculed for it.

    Disinterest In Independent Effort

    It is said that in this world there are two kinds of people — leaders and followers.  I’m not so sure about that, but I can see why this philosophy is promoted; it helps evil people in power stay in power by encouraging passive acceptance.

    I would say that there are in fact two kinds of people in this world — people who want to control others and the people that just want to be left alone. In life sometimes we are both leaders and followers; we just have to be sure that when we lead we lead by example and not by force, and when we follow, we follow someone worth a damn.

    In any case, passivity is not a solution to determining our roles in society. In most situations, independent action is required by every person to make the world a better place. Yet, in an era of systemic crisis, it is usually independent effort that is the first thing to go out the window. Millions upon millions of people wait around for someone, anyone, to tell them what they should be doing and how they should be doing it. In this way, society finds itself in stasis, frozen in a position of inaction.  Poisonous collectivism wins through mass aggression, but also through mass passivity.

    In fact, when individualists do take action they can be admonished for it during times of societal breakdown, even if their actions have the potential to solve a problem. The idea that one man or woman (or a small group of people) could do anything about anything is sneered at as “fantasy” or “delusion.”  But mass movements of citizens working towards a practical goal are rare, and even more rare is when these movements are not controlled or manipulated to benefit the established order. It is not mass movements that change the world for the better, but individual people and small organizations of the dedicated, acting without permission and without administration.

    It is these individuals and small groups that, over time and through relentless effort, inspire a majority to do what is necessary and right. It is these people that inspire others to finally take leadership in their own lives.

    Individual Self-Isolation

    I write often on the plight of the individual and individual rights within society, and I continue to see the factor of the individual as the most important element in any culture. A culture based on protecting and nurturing individualism and voluntarism is the only culture, in my view, that will ever be successful at avoiding full spectrum collapse. That said, the downside to overt individualism is the danger of self isolation. That is to say, when true individuals only concern themselves with their personal circumstances and ignore the circumstances of the rest of the world, they eventually set themselves up to be crushed by that world.

    Organization on a voluntary basis is not only healthy but vital in the longevity of a society. The more people turn in on themselves and only care about their own general conditions, the easier it is for evil people to do evil things unnoticed. Also, self isolation in the wake of collapse sets individuals up for failure, as no one is capable of surviving without at least some help from a wider pool of knowledge and talents.

    In a system based on corruption, the establishment will encourage self isolation as a means to control the populace. Or, they will offer a false choice, between self isolation versus mindless collectivism. The truth is there is always a middle ground. Voluntary organization and individualism are not mutually exclusive. I call this the “difference between community and collectivism.” A community does not supplant the individual, while a collective requires the complete erasure of individual pursuits and thought.

    If you find yourself surrounded by people who refuse any organization, even practical and voluntary organization in the face of instability, then your society may be in the latter stages of a collapse.

    Disaster Denial

    Even as a crisis or collapse unfolds, if a society actually reels or reacts to it and takes note of the problem, there is hope for that society. If, however, that society willfully ignores the danger and denies it exists when presented with overwhelming evidence, then that society will likely suffer complete disintegration and will probably have to start all over from scratch — hopefully with a set of principles and ideals based on conscience and honor.

    The strength of a culture can be measured by its willingness to self reflect. Its survival can be determined by its willingness to accept its flaws when they arise and its willingness to repair the damage done. Self-aware societies are difficult to corrupt or control. Only in denial can people be easily manipulated and enslaved.

    If you cannot accept the reality of the abyss, you cannot move to avoid it or prepare yourself to survive the fall. I see this issue as perhaps the single most important element in the fight to save the portions of our society worth saving. Educating people on the blatant facts behind our own national decline can dissolve the wall of denial, and perhaps we will find when disaster strikes that there are far more awake and aware individuals ready to act than we originally thought.

  • Obama State Department Spent $9 Million With Soros To Meddle In Albanian Politics

    President Obama’s State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent nearly $9 million on an Albanian political reform campaign coordinated with billionaire George Soros, according to 32 pages of State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. 

    Working with Soros’ Open Society Foundation, USAID channeled the funds into a “Justice for All” campaign aimed at reforming the socialist government’s judicial system in 2016. 

    “The Obama admin spent at least $9 million in tax dollars in direct collusion with left-wing billionaire George Soros to back socialist gov in Albania,” wrote Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. “The records also detail how the Soros operation helped the State Department review grant applications from other groups for taxpayer funding,” Fitton added. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    “George Soros is a billionaire and he shouldn’t be receiving taxpayer support to advance his radical left agenda to undermine freedom here at home and abroad,” said Fitton.

    A memo from April 2016 also reveals that the U.S. Embassy in Tirana “sponsored” a survey with the Open Society Foundation to determine whether Albanians had “knowledge, support and expectations on judicial reform.” The survey revealed that 91% of respondents believed in the need for judicial reform. A corresponding memo obtained by Judicial Watch dated February 2017 corroborates the arrangement.

    The State Department pushed back following the Judicial Watch publication – telling Fox News that the agency did not directly provide grants to Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) in Albania. Instead, as the documents show, the US embassy in Tirana and the OSF “each provided funding to a local organization to conduct a public opinion poll on attitudes towards the Judicial Reform effort,” according to a February 2017 document. 

    Last year Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and five other Senators called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds ended up supporting Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania.  According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros’ Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda.

    “Foundation Open society-Albania and its experts, with funding from USAID, have created the controversial Strategy Document for Albanian Judicial Reform,” the letter read. “Some leaders believe that these ‘reforms’ are ultimately aimed to give the Prime Minister and left-of-center government full control over the judiciary.”

    As the Daily Caller’s Andrew Kerr notes, Albanian opposition leaders to the ruling left-wing party took to calling the judicial reform effort a “Soros-sponsored reform.”

    USAID and Soros

    As Fox News pointed out at the time, USAID gave nearly $15 million to Soros’ Foundation Open Society – Macedonia, and other Soros-linked organizations in the region, in the last 4 years of Obama’s presidency alone.

    The USAID website shows that between 2012 and 2016, USAID gave almost $5 million in taxpayer cash to FOSM for “The Civil Society Project,” which “aims to empower Macedonian citizens to hold government accountable.” USAID’s website links to www.soros.org.mk, and says the project trained hundreds of young Macedonians “in youth activism and the use of new media instruments.”

    The State Department told lawmakers that in addition to that project, USAID has recently funded a new Civic Engagement Project which partners with four organizations, including FOSM. The cost is believed to be around $9.5 million. –Fox News

    Similar efforts in Hungary were blasted in early 2017 by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who expressed concern about Soros meddling in his country’s political fights, and warned about Soros’ “trans-border empire.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told Fox News last month that they hoped that with a change in administration in Washington, the Soros-led push against their government would decrease.

    “I think it is no secret and everyone knows about the very close relationship between the Democrats and George Soros and his foundations. It is obvious that if Hillary Clinton had won then this pressure on us would be much stronger. With Donald Trump winning we have the hope that this pressure will be decreased on us,” he said.

    Widely cited as an example of Soros’ influence during the Obama administration was a 2011 email, published by WikiLeaks, in which Soros urged Hillary Clinton to take action in Albania over recent demonstrations in the capital of Tirana.  Among other things, Soros urged Clinton to “bring the full weight of the international community to bear on Prime Minister Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama.”

    Dear Hillary,

     

    A serious situation has arisen in Albania which needs urgent attention at senior levels of the US government. You may know that an opposition demonstration in Tirana on Friday resulted in the deaths of three people and the destruction of property. There are serious concerns about further unrest connected to a counter-demonstration to be organized by the governing party on Wednesday and a follow-up event by the opposition two days later to memorialize the victims. The prospect of tens of thousands of people entering the streets in an already inflamed political environment bodes ill for the return, of public order and the country’s fragile democratic process.

    I believe two things need to be done urgently:

    1. Bring the full weight of the international community to bear on Prime Minister Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama to forestall further public demonstrations and to tone down public pronouncements.

    2. Appoint a senior European official as a mediator.

    While I am concerned about the rhetoric being used by both sides, I am particularly worried about the actions of the Prime Minister. There is videotape of National Guard members firing on demonstrators from the roof of the Prime Ministry. The Prosecutor (appointed by the Democratic Party) has issued arrest warrants for the individuals in question. The Prime Minister had previously accused the opposition of intentionally murdering these activists as a provocation.

    After the tape came out deputies from his party accused the Prosecutor of planning a coup d’etat in collaboration with the opposition, a charge Mr. Berisha repeated today. No arrests have been made as of this writing. The demonstration resulted from opposition protests over the conduct of parliamentary elections in 2009. The political environment has deteriorated ever since and is now approaching levels of 1997, when similar issues caused the country to slide into anarchy and violence. There are signs that Edi Rama’s control of his own people is slipping, which may lead to further violence.

    The US and the EU must work in complete harmony over this, but given Albania’s European aspirations the EU must take the lead. That is why I suggest appointing a mediator such as Carl Bildt. Martti Ahtisaari or Miroslav Lajcak, all of whom have strong connections to the Balkans.

    My foundation in Tirana is monitoring the situation closely and can provide independent analysis of the crisis.

    Thank you, George Soros

    Not surprisingly, within a few days, A U.S. envoy was dispatched.

  • Syrian Showdown: Trump Versus The Generals

    Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

    With ISIS on the run in Syria, President Trump this week declared that he intends to make good on his promise to bring the troops home.

    “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home,” said the president. We’ve gotten “nothing out of the $7 trillion (spent) in the Middle East in the last 17 years. … So, it’s time.”

    Not so fast, Mr. President.

    For even as Trump was speaking he was being contradicted by his Centcom commander Gen. Joseph Votel.

    “A lot of good progress has been made” in Syria, Votel conceded, “but the hard part … is in front of us.”

    Moreover, added Votel, when we defeat ISIS, we must stabilize Syria and see to its reconstruction.

    Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been even more specific:

    “It is crucial to our national defense to maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring an end to that conflict, as they chart a course to achieve a new political future.”

    But has not Syria’s “political future” already been charted?

    Bashar Assad, backed by Iran and Russia, has won his seven-year civil war. He has retaken the rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. He now controls most of the country that we and the Kurds do not.

    According to The Washington Post, Defense Secretary James Mattis is also not on board with Trump and “has repeatedly said … that U.S. troops would be staying in Syria for the foreseeable future to guarantee stability and political resolution to the civil war.”

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who fears a “Shiite corridor” from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, also opposes Trump. “If you take those (U.S.) troops out from east Syria,” the prince told Time, “you will lose that checkpoint … American troops should stay (in Syria) at least for the mid-term, if not the long-term.”

    Bibi Netanyahu also wants us to stay in Syria.

    Wednesday, Trump acceded to his generals. He agreed to leave our troops in Syria until ISIS is finished. However, as the 2,000 U.S. troops there are not now engaging ISIS — many of our Kurd allies are going back north to defend border towns threatened by Turkey — this could take a while.

    Yet a showdown is coming. And, stated starkly, the divide is this:

    Trump sees al-Qaida and ISIS as the real enemy and is prepared to pull all U.S. forces out of Syria as soon as the caliphate is eradicated. And if Assad is in power then, backed by Russia and Iran, so be it.

    Trump does not see an Assad-ruled Syria, which has existed since the Nixon presidency, as a great threat to the United States. He is unwilling to spill more American blood to overturn the outcome of a war that Syria, Iran and Russia have already won. Nor is he prepared to foot the bill for the reconstruction of Syria, or for any long-term occupation of that quadrant of Syria that we and our allies now hold.

    Once ISIS is defeated, Trump wants out of the war and out of Syria.

    The Israelis, Saudis and most of our foreign policy elite, however, vehemently disagree. They want the U.S. to hold onto that slice of Syria east of the Euphrates that we now occupy, and to use the leverage of our troops on Syrian soil to effect the removal of President Assad and the expulsion of the Iranians.

    The War Party does not concede Syria is lost. It sees the real battle as dead ahead. It is eager to confront and, if need be, fight Syrians, Iranians and Shiite militias should they cross to the east bank of the Euphrates, as they did weeks ago, when U.S. artillery and air power slaughtered them in the hundreds, Russians included.

    If U.S. troops do remain in Syria, the probability is high that Trump, like Presidents Bush and Obama before him, will be ensnared indefinitely in the Forever War of the Middle East.

    President Erdogan of Turkey, who has seized Afrin from the Syrian Kurds, is threatening to move on Manbij, where Kurdish troops are backed by U.S. troops. If Erdogan does not back away from his threat, NATO allies could start shooting at one another.

    As the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria are both uninvited and unwelcome, a triumphant Assad is likely soon to demand that we remove them from his country.

    Will we defy President Assad then, with the possibility U.S. planes and troops could be engaging Syrians, Russians, Iranians and Shiite militias, in a country where we have no right to be?

    Trump is being denounced as an isolationist. But what gains have we reaped from 17 years of Middle East wars – from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen – to justify all the blood shed and the treasure lost?

    And how has our great rival China suffered from not having fought in any of these wars?

  • Global Trade War Could Not Have Come At A Worse Time

    Despite all the propaganda that the world had reached utopian levels of ‘globally synchronous recovery’ growth last year, 2018 has seen that narrative collapse as China’s credit impulse dries up, The Fed continues on its path to ‘normalization’, and the world wakes up to Europe’s smoke and mirrors economic renaissance…

    And, as if that was not enough to spook even the most ardent bull, Bloomberg notes that rapidly accelerating trade ‘battles’ are focusing minds on that simmering threat to markets: the eventual easing of synchronized global growth.

    The U.S. version – which includes economic, credit and corporate indicators – is close to its 2007 peak.

    The trade war tensions have arrived at a risky time, with Morgan Stanley’s cycle gauge for the developed world nearing levels last seen before prior recessions.

  • Is The 'Ring Of Fire' Becoming More Active?

    Authored by Dominic Faulder and Erwida Maulia via The Nikkei Asian Review,

    Recent eruptions prompt calls for better building standards and evacuation plans in Southeast Asia…

    When Bali’s Mount Agung started rumbling last September, authorities on the Indonesian resort island — mindful of the destruction the 3,000-meter volcano had caused in 1963 — began warning residents to evacuate. Tremors of varying intensity continued until Nov. 21, when it finally began to erupt, forcing as many as 140,000 people to seek refuge. More than four months later, it still hasn’t stopped.

    On Jan. 23, Mount Kusatsu-Shirane, about 150km northwest of Tokyo, astounded the Japan Meteorological Agency when it suddenly erupted 2km from one of 50 areas around the country kept under constant video surveillance. Falling debris killed a member of the Ground Self-Defense Force who was skiing nearby and injured five others.

    At much the same time, Mount Mayon in the Philippines began spewing ash and lava, displacing more than 56,000 people.

    Then, in mid-February, Mount Sinabung in Sumatra, Indonesia, blew spectacularly, sending billowing pillars of steam and superheated ash over 7km into the air. People fled, and schoolchildren ran home wailing.

    Sinabung’s eruption was followed in late February by a magnitude-7.5 earthquake in Papua New Guinea, its worst in a century. Earlier in the month, a magnitude-6.4 quake rocked Taiwan’s Hualien County, tilting buildings and killing 17.

    Such seismic restiveness in Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia is a fact of life along the “ring of fire,” the horseshoe-shaped belt in the Pacific Ocean that is home to about three-quarters of the world’s most active volcanoes.

    Yet after what some experts call a relatively subdued 20th century for seismic activity, the 21st has seen an uptick in “great” earthquakes. And the first 18 years of this century has seen about 25 significant volcano eruptions globally, compared with some 65 in the entire 20th century.

    Whether or not seismic activity is kicking into higher gear, it has already taken a heavy toll in Asia this century, producing deadly earthquakes in Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011, among other countries. This has taken place against a backdrop of rapid population and economic growth in Southeast Asia, where some countries have been slow to confront the threat of natural disasters. (See Asia seeks to improve its record on disaster preparedness)

    Professor Yoshiyuki Tatsumi of the Kobe Ocean-Bottom Exploration Center at Kobe University says the recent volcanic activity in Asia is “just the ring of fire being as it has always been in history.” The key, he told the Nikkei Asian Review, is to ensure that governments and scientists are prepared for eruptions before the signs are visible. “We have to be aware that we are living in a region where volcanic activity is almost always there.” 

    The recent surprise eruption in Japan is a salutary reminder of the unpredictability of these events. “We are now retrospectively investigating whether our sensors were picking up slight signs,” said professor Yasuo Ogawa from the Volcanic Fluid Research Center of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. “But the fact is that we were not able to predict it in advance this time.”

    The challenge is great in Indonesia, home to 127 volcanoes — more than half of which must be continuously monitored for activity. “The truth is that the chain of volcanoes in the Sunda Islands of Indonesia, from Sumatra through Java and Bali to Timor, constitutes the most dangerous of the world’s tectonic interfaces,” professor Anthony Reid wrote in October on New Mandala, an Australian National University website.

    Reid noted that Indonesia had a mild 20th century in seismic terms, and warned that things might be changing. “The 21st century has in its first decade already far exceeded the number of casualties from … the whole 20th century” in Indonesia, he said.

    The massive death toll largely comes down to one event. Triggered by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake off northern Sumatra, the third-largest in history, the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was the most deadly ever recorded. Affecting 14 countries surrounding the Indian Ocean, it killed almost 240,000 people, over 70% of them in Indonesia’s Aceh Province.

    Schoolchildren watch a massive pillar of ash erupt from Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung on Feb. 19.   © AP

    Of the 300 volcanoes in the Philippines, 24 are “active,” or have recorded at least one eruption in the last 10,000 years, Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), told Nikkei. Phivolcs also monitors Mount Kanlaon in the central Philippines and Mount Bulusan, 70km away from Mount Mayon. Lower alert levels have been assigned to them, and neither is thought to pose an imminent threat.

    Mount Mayon, a stratovolcano with an iconic cone shape, is the most active volcano in the Philippines, having erupted some 60 times since the 17th century. Its recent belligerence triggered evacuations in 2009 and 2014. The latest alert level was downgraded in early March from 4 out of a possible 5 to 2, but a 6km exclusion zone remains in place.

    Volcanoes and earthquakes are seismic twins, born of the natural bumping and grinding of the world’s tectonic plates, a timeless process unrelated to global warming and climate change. Mankind’s mistreatment of the environment will not cause volcanoes to erupt, or the earth to move, but seismic events do have powerful impacts on the environment.

    Earthquakes collapse buildings, destroy infrastructure and ground aircraft. Those at sea can generate tsunamis when plate subductions displace vast amounts of seawater and send it racing to shore at the speed of a jumbo jet, slowing and rising as it arrives. Northern Japan’s magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011 killed nearly 16,000 people.

    The Indonesian archipelago is located amid four major tectonic plates — the Eurasian, Indo-Australian, Pacific and Philippine — making it the world’s most earthquake-prone region. A meeting point of two plates — called a megathrust segment — stretches between the Sunda Strait and the southern sea off Java, close to Jakarta.

    Because the segment has not experienced quakes in recent centuries, some worry that a powerful shift is on the way that could affect Jakarta.

    “We call it a seismic gap,” Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, an earthquake geologist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, told Nikkei. “That means the segment has potential for a major earthquake, as a very high amount of energy may have been accumulating.” Natawidjaja believes a magnitude-8.5 or larger earthquake to be quite possible, but there is no way of telling if this will happen. “It can be in the next several years or somewhere in the coming decades.”

    Further eruptions and earthquakes are a natural certainty, but predicting them is much harder than measuring their scale and impact after the event. The relative mildness of the 20th century contrasts with the incredible ferocity of volcanic activity in the preceding century.

    Global catastrophe

    The first time a volcano truly made news is well-known: at precisely 10:02 a.m. on Aug. 27, 1883, the “day the world exploded.” The eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait west of Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, when Jakarta was called Batavia, was heard thousands of kilometers away in Australia. Through the advent of the submarine telegraph and newswire services, the disaster was also known about in real time in all the capitals of the modern world.

    News of the 1883 Krakatoa disaster traveled the globe in real time thanks to the advent of the submarine telegraph and newswire services.   © Getty Images

    In his book “Krakatoa,” British author Simon Winchester describes this apocalyptic occurrence in what is today Indonesia as the day “the modern phenomenon known as the global village was born.” Krakatoa was not only the world’s first shared news event, it was also the world’s last truly global environmental catastrophe wrought by Mother Nature.

    It affected climate and food production in all parts of the world as volcanic pollution of the upper atmosphere induced a worldwide wintering that lasted five years. The 1969 Hollywood film “Krakatoa: East of Java” wrongly placed the three collapsed volcanoes involved. Forming a natural memorial to these volcanoes today is Anak Krakatoa, or “child of Krakatoa,” which rose from the sea in 1928, evidence of lingering activity.

    Krakatoa was catastrophic. Many of the 35,000 killed at the time were victims of the tsunamis it generated. The population of the East Indies was then some 34 million, about 13% of today’s estimated 266 million — a clue to the possible impact of a future mega-event.

    Nobody alive today has any experience of an eruption of Krakatoa’s magnitude. The great blasts of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. in 1980 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which killed over 800 people, were smaller by comparison.

    Since 1982, experts have measured the power of volcanoes using the logarithmic volcanic explosivity index (VEI), which ranges from 0 to 8. A VEI 1 volcano, such as those found on Hawaii’s large southernmost island that are constantly venting lava flows, is benign compared with a VEI 6 like Krakatoa, which was 100,000 times more powerful. Pinatubo, the most serious eruption in the region in the past 50 years, also has a VEI 6 rating, but its eruption was considerably less potent than Krakatoa’s.

    For all its infamy, Krakatoa was not the worst eruption in its century and region. A few elderly people alive in 1883 might actually have recalled the even deadlier 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, which killed over 90,000 people in its immediate aftermath. Tambora was a VEI 7, with 10 times the explosivity of Krakatoa.

    It emitted a toxic cloud of ash that cooled and darkened the world for years, triggering famine, pestilence and civil disorder. There were food riots in Switzerland and freak winters in China’s Yunnan Province. The massive volcano, which sits in Indonesia’s West Nusa Tenggara Province, and its repercussions were blamed for a cholera epidemic that killed even more people five years later in Java. The most powerful eruption in recorded history, its effect was incomparably pervasive. Even the extraordinary hues in the skies and sunsets painted by one of Britain’s most celebrated artists, J.M.W. Turner, are attributed to it.

    The following year, 1816, was to be remembered in many lands as the year without summer. The extent of Tambora’s damage is better recorded in North America, Europe and China than in Southeast Asia because of more systematic records. Although Tambora was the largest eruption in thousands of years, scientists have been able to determine from evidence such as residues in the polar ice caps that Mount Samalas also wrought recent global havoc in 1257, sending record volumes of sulfur dioxide and other noxious gases into the atmosphere. Samalas belongs to the Mount Rinjani volcanic complex on the Indonesian island of Lombok.

    Like ‘opening an umbrella’ 

    Indonesia’s volcanoes are monitored by the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, or PVMBG. It advises on timely evacuations that locals sometimes grow weary of observing. When Mount Agung erupted in 1963, it went on for a year and left 1,500 dead while President Sukarno suppressed the news for political reasons. Casualties this time have so far been kept to zero.

    Citing recorded conditions of large volcanoes like Mount Agung and Mount Semeru in East Java, Surono, a former PVMBG chief, believes the chances of a second Tambora to be very small, and that there would be plenty of opportunity for advance warning in such an event. “There is no volcano erupting without giving out early signs,” Surono told Nikkei. “It’s like rain starting with drizzle — giving you a chance to open an umbrella.”

    In Japan, professor Tatsumi has found a new reason to be concerned, however. In a paper in February, he reported the existence of gigantic lava dome in a Japanese supervolcano, the Kikai caldera — a VEI 8 category potentially 10 times more powerful than Tambora. According to Tatsumi, pressure is building up inside the 32-cu.-km offshore lava dome that last erupted some 7,300 years ago.

    Tatsumi believes volcanologists actually have very little idea of what to expect from the world’s largest volcanoes, and others have remarked on how speedily they may prime themselves. “I would imagine there will be some signs like tremors, but mankind has not determined the mechanism of supervolcano eruptions, how they occur,” he said. “If it erupts, it can kill 90 million people in the worst-case scenario.” He predicts 50cm ash layers in Osaka and 20cm in Tokyo if the Kikai dome blows its top.

    There are a dozen or so VEI 8 supervolcanoes around the world that erupt full bore incredibly infrequently. The grandfather of them all is Yosemite in the U.S. state of Wyoming, but closer to home lurks Lake Toba in northern Sumatra and Lake Taupo on New Zealand’s North Island, both massive stretches of water. There is also the Aira caldera on the southern Japanese main island of Kyushu.

    Given the rarity of supervolcano eruptions, Tatsumi’s prediction for Kikai is not comforting: a 1% chance over the next 100 years. When the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake devastated Kobe in 1995, killing over 6,400 people, the predicted likelihood for such an event was 1% in 30 years. “So, 1% in 100 years is actually a code word for ‘anytime soon,'” said Tatsumi. Others debate whether Yosemite, which could kill billions in a worst-case scenario, is due for a blast in 50,000 years — or already overdue by 20,000 years.

    Mount Merapi, Indonesia’s most active volcano, forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in 2010.   © Getty Images

    Still, it is clearly the much more frequent VEI 4-6 eruptions, with their proven capacity to disrupt normal life, that pose the greatest threat, particularly in a world that has become so dependent on aviation. When Mount Merapi in central Java, Indonesia’s most active volcano, erupted in late 2010, it killed over 350 people and forced the evacuation of some 410,000 others. Merapi is rated a VEI 4, compared with Mount Agung’s VEI 5 in 1963.

    The Philippines remains less preoccupied with volcanoes than the “Big One” — the unoriginal term the media have coined to describe a possible major earthquake affecting Metro Manila. The West Valley Fault runs through the capital of over 13 million souls.

    According to a 2004 study conducted by Phivolcs, Metro Manila Development Authority and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the West Valley Fault could generate a magnitude-7.2 earthquake. The fault manifests itself every four to six centuries, and last caused grief in the 1600s. “Perhaps it can move in our lifetime,” said Solidum. “So better if we prepare.”

    Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte brought the issue up in his state of the nation address last July. Two weeks earlier, four people had perished in a magnitude-6.5 temblor in the central Philippines. “We were told that it is no longer a question of ‘if’ but a matter of ‘when’,” said Duterte. “We need to act decisively and fast because the threat is huge, real, and imminent.”

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 06

Today’s News 6th April 2018

  • Trade Is A Matter Of Survival For China

    Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

    Many investors are familiar with the fact that President Franklin Roosevelt closed all of the banks in America and confiscated all of the privately-owned gold by executive order in the early days of his administration, which began in 1933.

    Presidents since then have seized assets from countries such as Iran, Syria, North Korea and Cuba and imposed sanctions on Russia and many other countries by executive order.

    Yet, relatively few are familiar with the statutory authority for these orders.

    The president does not need an act of Congress to support such extreme actions. The laws have already been passed and the president has standing authority to act like a dictator with regard to financial assets.

    The first such statue was the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, TWE. This was used to seize German assets in the U.S. during the First World War. It’s how the U.S. took control of Bayer Aspirin from the German firm Bayer AG.

    TWE was the authority FDR used to close the banks and seize the gold. It’s not clear whom FDR considered the “enemy” when he used TWE; probably private gold hoarders. But, in 1977, the Congress enacted an even more extreme version of TWE called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA.

    This is the equivalent of a nuclear weapon when it comes to financial warfare.

    IEEPA allows the president to seize or freeze any asset or block any transaction if the president deems it to be necessary in the case of a national emergency.

    The problem is that “national emergency” can be defined broadly to include trade imbalances, lost jobs or any other economic adversity. President Trump may now use IEEPA to block a variety of Chinese deals in the U.S. in retaliation for Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property.

    With the U.S. using its nuclear option in financial warfare, investors should hope that the Chinese don’t respond in kind.

    President Trump may not appreciate the extent to which China will go to protect its interests. Trade negotiations are not the art of the deal, as far as China is concerned. Their goal is national survival.

    China’s economy is not just about providing jobs, goods and services that people want and need.

    It is about regime survival for a Chinese Communist Party that faces an existential crisis if it fails to deliver. The overriding imperative of the Chinese leadership is to avoid societal unrest.

    But China is less stable and less powerful than it appears on the surface. Its apparent stability is more of a mask concealing internal divisions.

    And it is afraid that its hold on power is weaker than many in the West suspect.

    Remember Tiananmen Square?

    Rather than showing the power and unity of the Chinese government, Beijing took a different lesson from Tiananmen Square.

    As my colleague Kevin Massengill has pointed out, it revealed China’s political fragility.

    We all know about the massacre. But what is not widely known is that several army officers refused orders to crush protests throughout China.

    Seven retired generals, including a former defense minister, signed a letter opposing the use of force against the people of Beijing:

    “Due to the exigent circumstances, we as old soldiers, make the following request: Since the People’s Army belongs to the people, it cannot stand against the people, much less kill the people, and must not be permitted to fire on the people and cause bloodshed; to prevent the situation from escalating, the Army must not enter the city.”

    “I’d rather be beheaded than be a criminal in the eyes of history,” said one general commanding forces in the Beijing military district.

    They were not the only one who felt that way. As Kevin has noted, armored divisions of 10,000 soldiers allowed themselves to be stopped for days by crowds of students and ordinary citizens who brought them food and water while explaining why their cause was just.

    An estimated 3,500 PLA officers disobeyed orders to crush protests. Many Chinese army officers were reportedly executed. Others were demoted, or faced court martial and imprisonment.

    The Tiananmen Square Massacre, Kevin says, is an example of why and proves that the position of the Chinese Communist Party is more precarious than is widely understood, even now, almost 30 years later.

    Here’s something else not widely known about the protests…

    The Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989 did not start out as a liberty movement, although that’s how they are remembered in the West. It started out as an anti-inflation protest, and that’s how the Communists remember it.

    And given China’s current economic problem, Beijing’s challenge is becoming more difficult every day. Consider what’s happening in China right now…

    Growth in GDP is conventionally defined as the sum of consumer spending, investment, government spending (excluding transfer payments) and net exports.

    Most large economies other than oil-producing nations get most of their growth from consumption, followed by investment, with relatively small contributions from government spending and net exports.

    A typical composition would show a 65% contribution from consumption plus a 15% contribution from investment. China is nearly the opposite, with about 35% from consumption and 45% from investment.

    That might be fine in a fast-growing emerging-market economy like China if the investment component were carefully designed to produce growth in the future as well as short-term jobs and inputs.

    But that’s not the case.

    Up to half of China’s investment is a complete waste. It does produce jobs and utilize inputs like cement, steel, copper and glass. But the finished product, whether a city, train station or sports arena, is often a white elephant that will remain unused.

    What’s worse is that these white elephants are being financed with debt that can never be repaid. And no allowance has been made for the maintenance that will be needed to keep these white elephants in usable form if demand does rise in the future, which is doubtful.

    Chinese growth has been reported in recent years as 6.5–10% but is actually closer to 5% or lower once an adjustment is made for the waste. The Chinese landscape is littered with “ghost cities” that have resulted from China’s wasted investment and flawed development model.

    This wasted infrastructure spending is the beginning of the debt disaster that is coming soon. China is on the horns of a dilemma with no good way out.

    On the one hand, China has driven growth for the past eight years with excessive credit, wasted infrastructure investment and Ponzi schemes. The Chinese leadership knows this, but they had to keep the growth machine in high gear to create jobs for millions of migrants coming from the countryside to the city and to maintain jobs for the millions more already in the cities.

    The Communist Chinese leadership knew that a day of reckoning would come. The two ways to get rid of debt are deflation (which results in write-offs, bankruptcies and unemployment) or inflation (which results in theft of purchasing power, similar to a tax increase).

    Both alternatives are unacceptable to the Communists because they lack the political legitimacy to endure either unemployment or inflation. Either policy would cause social unrest and unleash revolutionary potential.

    Instead of these unpalatable extremes, the Chinese leadership is trying to steer a middle course with gradual financial reform and gradual limits on shadow banking. I’ve previously predicted that this gradual policy would not work because the credit situation is so extreme that even modest reform would slow the economy too fast for comfort.

    That’s exactly what has happened. China has already flip-flopped and is easing up on financial reform. That works in the short run but just makes the credit bubble worse in the long run. China may soon resort to a combination of a debt cleanup and a maxi-devaluation of their currency to export the resulting deflation to the rest of the world.

    It is probably the best way to avoid the social unrest that terrifies China.

    When that happens, possibly later this year in response to Trump’s trade war, the effects will not be confined to China. A shock yuan maxi-devaluation will be the shot heard round the world as it was in August and December 2015 (both times, U.S. stocks fell over 10% in a matter of weeks).

    I hope President Trump knows what he’s getting into.

  • March Payrolls Preview: Watch For Another Jump In Hourly Earnings

    The BLS will release the March Payrolls Report at 0830EDT on 6th April 2018: recent macroeconomic data raises hopes for another solid month of payrolls growth, while wage growth is expected to pick up before faster growth towards the end of the year.

    Job growth accelerated in the last three reports (to +242k compared to +182k in 2017, on average), and both ADP private payrolls and the majority of employment surveys remained strong or improved further in March.  Both initial and continuing jobless claims fell to new cycle lows in the weeks leading up to the March payroll reference period. Offsetting this will be a swing towards unfavorable weather will weigh on job growth, with a drag from unseasonably high snowfall of between 30k and 60k (relative to trend). Consensus expects around 185K new jobs added.

    While attention will once again be focused squarely on the avg hourly earnings number – where consensus expects a strong 0.3% M/M pick up and a 2.7% Y/Y increase reflecting favorable calendar effects (the survey week ended on the 17th – a lingering question is whether the unemployment rate, expected to drop to 4.0%, will actually dip to a 3-handle, which of course is painfully considering there are 95 million Americans not in the labor force, also known as “record slack”, and is the main reason why wages will not rise for a long, long time.

    Here is a snapshot of what to expect courtesy of RanSquawk

    • Nonfarm Payrolls: (Exp. 185k, Prev. 313k)
    • Unemployment Rate: (Exp. 4.0%, Prev. 4.1%)
    • Average Earnings Y/Y: (Exp. 2.7%, Prev. 2.6%)
    • Average Earnings M/M: (Exp. 0.3%, Prev. 0.1%)
    • Average Work Week Hours: (Exp. 34.5hrs, Prev. 34.5hrs)
    • Labour Force Participation: (Prev. 63.0%)

    PAYROLL TRENDS: Trend rates remain firm, particularly after last month’s largest gain in payrolls in 18 months. Payroll growth has averaged 190k/month over the last 12-months, 205k/month over the six-months, and 242k/month over the last three-months, and the consensus view expects 195k in February.

    PAYROLL GROWTH: ADP reported another solid increase in March (241k vs. expected 205k; previous also revised 11k higher to 246k). However, as is often the case, it’s worth taking this figure with a pinch of salt. “The ADP survey is not a great leading indicator for payrolls, not least because it is partly based on lagged changes in payrolls,” writes Capital Economics. “Nevertheless, to the extent it is useful, it points to a labour market still in exceptionally good health.”

    EARNINGS GROWTH: Average hourly earnings are expected to increase 0.2% M/M, taking the Y/Y growth rate up to 2.7% from 2.6% last month. Capital Economics note that the share of small firms reporting they plan to raise compensation currently sits at an 18-year high, suggesting that a firmer pick up in wages could be just around the corner. Further supporting earnings this month could be a calendar quirk. “The 15th of the month fell within the payrolls survey week in March, which is historically associated with some upside bias in the month-over month change in AHE relative to the prior month,” writes Morgan Stanley.

    BUSINESS SURVEYS: The employment components of the two ISM surveys were again consistent with strong job growth. The manufacturing survey saw the employment component rise to 57.3 from 54.5 and the non-manufacturing survey rose to 56.6 from 55.0.

    UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS: In the survey week – the week that includes the 12th March – initial jobless claims increased to 229K although those continuing to claim fell to 1.828mln and remained near multi-decade lows.

    OTHER FACTORS: This month weather could have impacted the sampling process this month. “The third of four Nor’easters hit during the March survey period (the week that includes the 12th of the month), dumping multiple feet of snow in New England,” writes RBC. “Therefore, we would take hour and labour force flows with a grain of salt.” That being said, the poor weather should not have impacted the headline payroll count numbers. Capital Economics note that February’s mammoth gain would have been even stronger were it not for the worst flu season in almost a decade and they expect to see some boost from the fading flu epidemic in March.

    MARKET REACTION: As is often the case, the market will first likely first move on the payrolls headline. A stronger than expected number should cause strength in the USD and rates to move lower, and vice-versa for a lower than expected figure. However, with earnings growth a prerequisite for further Fed rate hikes, focus should turn to the details of the report. If wage growth exceeds estimates it could see markets begin to price in more rate hikes this year, with markets currently only pricing in an approximately 30% chance of three further rate hikes in 2018.

    * * *

    Next, Goldman breaks out the factors arguing for a stronger, weaker or neutral report.

    • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims fell to a new cycle low during the four weeks between the payroll reference periods (225k vs. 228k for February and 241k for January). Additionally, continuing claims resumed their downtrend, falling at their fastest pace between the survey periods in nearly a year (-50k).
    • Service-sector surveys.  Service-sector employment surveys improved on net in March, and our non-manufacturing employment tracker rose 0.9pt to 56.9, a 4½-year high. This improvement was also broad-based, with increases in five of the six business-survey measures we track in the sector. In particular, the ISM non-manufacturing employment component rebounded 1.6pt to 56.6. Additionally, the Conference Board labor market differential – the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get – rose to a new 16-year high (+1.0pt to +25.0). Service-sector job growth picked up to 187k in February and has increased 137k on average over the last six months.
    • ADP. The payroll processing firm ADP reported a 241k increase in March private payroll employment, 31k above consensus expectations and its fourth consecutive reading above 240k. While we expect a larger drag from winter weather in the BLS payrolls measure—reflecting differences in methodology—the continued strength in the ADP data is consistent with our view that the underlying pace of job growth has probably accelerated.
    • Job postings. The Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online (HWOL) report showed a 2.2% increase in online job postings (mom sa), retracting over half of its February decline (which itself followed four consecutive increases). However, we place limited weight on this indicator, in light of research by Fed economists that suggests the HWOL ad count has been depressed by higher prices for online job ads. The Conference Board is currently reviewing its methodology accordingly.

    Arguing for a weaker report:

    • Weather. NOAA weather-station data indicate that snowfall was unusually high in March (on a population-weighted basis), and this followed unseasonably mild weather in February. While most of the accumulation occurred outside of the survey  week, we nonetheless expect the incremental swing in snowfall to weigh on job growth, with an impact of between -30k to -60k relative to trend (see Exhibit 1, right axis is inverted). One mitigating factor here is that much of the survey-week snowfall occurred in New England and upstate New York, regions more accustomed to severe winter weather.
    • Retail employment. Despite weak retail sales results in the first two months of the year, retail payrolls rose 50k in February, a sharp acceleration from its prior 6-month trend (of +5k on average). We believe this strength reflected a favorable swing in the weather as opposed to an underlying pickup in labor demand. Accordingly, a flat or down March reading appears probable.

    Neutral factors:

    • Manufacturing-sector surveys. Headline manufacturing-sector surveys generally weakened in March, but the employment components were more mixed. Our manufacturing employment tracker edged down 0.2pt to 59.5, still an elevated level consistent with a solid pace of job gains in that sector. While the steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the Trump administration could potentially weigh on hiring in affected industries (due to increased uncertainty) 1, we note that the more recent escalation in trade tensions to a broader set of industries was announced after the March survey period. Manufacturing payroll employment rose 31k in February and has increased by 25k on average over the last six months.
    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas rebounded 21k to 54k in March (SA by GS), a two-year high. On a year-over-year basis, announced job cuts increased 14k. However, these increases were concentrated in  the retail industry (35k layoffs, NSA) and likely reflected the announced Toys ‘R’ Us liquidation—which had not started as of the March reference period (this retailer currently employs 31,000 workers).

    Finally, some additional thoughts on the most important aspect of tomorrow’s report – hourly earnings – from Goldman.

    We estimate average hourly earnings increased 0.3% month over month, reflecting somewhat favorable calendar effects (the survey week ended on the 17th). We also note that last month’s month-over-month increase (+0.15%) was dragged down by a sharper-than-usual drop among supervisory employees, a relatively mean-reverting subset (in contrast, production and nonsupervisory average hourly earnings increased 0.27%). Additionally, to the extent that the increase in the February workweek (+0.1 to 34.5 hours) weighed on wage growth, this would suggest scope for mean-reversion in March (the workweek is now at a 2-year high). Taken together, we estimate a 0.3% month-over-month gain that pushes up the year-over-year rate a tenth to 2.7%.

    Whether this rise in earnings, together with the latest round of Trump’s trade war will be enough to unleash another market crash, we’ll find out shortly.

  • Grant's Almost Daily: Vehicle Vestible

    Submitted by Grant’s Interest Rate Observer

    Vehicle Vestibule

    It’s alive! Much like Frankenstein’s monster, the automobile market has been jolted back to life by an external shock, this one in the form of the hurricanes which pounded large swaths of the United States last summer. After sales ebbed to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 16.03 million in August of last year (the lowest reading since early 2014), the arrival of destructive storms such as Harvey and Irma coincided with an abrupt rebound in sales: Ward’s Automotive Group calculates an average 17.57 million SAAR in the following seven months through March. 

    For industry leading-used vehicle retailer CarMax, Inc., (KMX on the NYSE), the uptick in new car sales didn’t translate into much good news. CarMax reported fourth quarter earnings yesterday (covering December to February), featuring revenues and earnings per share that each came in well shy of the sell-side consensus, while same store sales declined by a meaty 8% year-over-year.  KMX shares enjoyed a bounce in response, although the company’s 5% decline since February 2017 lags the 13% gain from the S&P 500 over that period. 


    Still in the garage. KMX in white and the SPX in orange. Source: The Bloomberg

    Volume, not price, was the culprit. While Carmax’s gross profit per used vehicle inched higher to $2,147 amid a 2.5% year-over-year uptick in average selling price, used vehicle unit sales fell by 3.1% from their year-ago level.  The large drop in volumes coupled with sturdy unit profits suggests a conscious decision to hold the line on pricing by KMX management, even as industrywide incentive spending continues to increase. 

    Average incentive spending rose for a 35th straight month in February according to Autodata, reaching $3,695 per unit from $3,594 year-over-year.  For his part, CarMax CEO William Nash observed on the company’s conference call that “incentives have started to come down a bit.” Rising acquisition costs for used and wholesale vehicles were a bigger factor, with Nash noting that “the pricing environment . . . really hits us on two sides. It’s not only that acquisition prices went up on all inventory, but I also think there was pressure on the spread . . . between a late-model used car and a new car both because of our acquisition price going up and new car prices coming down in relative terms year-over-year.”

    Taking inventory of an auto market that we judged vulnerable to both credit mishaps and a retrenchment in the used car prices which underpin trade-in activity, Grant’s took a bearish view on CarMax on Feb. 24, 2017 (“Disabled vehicles”).  A Feb. 23, 2018 follow-up analysis (“Clunkers, Inc.”) focused on the price vs. volume conundrum facing KMX amid intensifying competitive pressures:

    Strong prices were a tonic for CarMax’s revenue growth in the sweet phase of the cycle. From Feb. 28, 2009 to Nov. 30, 2015, the company’s average CarMax selling price ticked up by 23.3%, or 3.2% per annum, to $20,094. Over the same six years and nine months, the CarMax top line swelled by 93.2%, or 10.2% per annum, to $3.5 billion.

    If yesterday’s results are any guide, CarMax’s decision to hold the line on pricing has taken a toll on activity. Meanwhile, the credit wheel keeps turning. CarMax’s auto finance unit reported a 21.9% year-over-year uptick in net income during the quarter as its provision for loan losses declined by 16.7% and average managed receivables jumped by 9.4%.  Those sunny trends stand in seeming contrast with a Monday report from Bloomberg headed “Subprime New-Car Buyers Suddenly Go Missing from U.S. Showrooms.” 

    Rising interest rates and new vehicle prices are squeezing shoppers with shaky credit and tight budgets out of the market. In the first two months of the year, sales were flat among the highest-rated borrowers, while deliveries to those with subprime scores slumped 9 percent, according to J.D. Power.

    As a corporate entity, CarMax is bullish on itself. On Feb. 28, 2017, the company announced a $4.55 billion share buyback, following a $2 billion repurchase authorization announced on Oct. 22, 2014. That’s no small part of KMX’s current $11.7 billion market capitalization.  Those who know the company best have taken a different tack. Since the early September hurricanes, KMX insiders have sold 462,107 shares on the open market, cashing proceeds of just over $34 million. The only open market purchase during that period was of 35 shares

  • Nuclear Blast Simulator Shows Whether You Would Survive An Attack

    Authored by The Organic Prepper

    Did you ever think about the places close to you that would be potential targets for a nuclear strike by an enemy? Chances are, the answer is yes. But how would a strike to that nearby target affect you? In the event of a nuclear strike, there are four things to consider. The numbers below are in the event of a 300 kiloton bomb:

    • The Fireball: Everything in this range would be disintegrated, It is nearly a one-mile radius and also called Ground Zero.
    • Radiation: A wave of deadly radiation would affect everything within 5.5 miles. This will cause lung injuries, severe burns, deafness, blindness, and internal bleeding. Anyone in this range who survives the immediate danger is likely to suffer from radiation poisoning in the upcoming weeks.
    • The Shockwave: A shockwave of incredible power would spread throughout a range of about 11.5 miles.  Also called the blast wave, this highly compressed air will travel at high velocities (up to 470 mph), destroying nearly every building in its path.
    • The Heat: Heat from a nuclear blast would travel almost 50 miles. This heat can ignite fires and cause first degree burns.

    You can plug any address into this website and see how far the effects of a nuclear strike would reach.

    Here’s what a 300 KT strike on the White House would look like, so that you can get an idea of the different danger zones.

    Prepper

    Where are nuclear strikes most likely to take place?

    It depends. There are all sorts of variables with regard to nuclear targets. While most of us would think that cities like New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles would be more desirable because of high population density, the targets are more likely to be strategic militarily.

    This article from Business Insider states that cities aren’t the most likely targets anymore and that targeting has “shifted from cities to nuclear stockpiles and nuclear war-related infrastructure.” The map below shows the theoretical targets of an attack by Russia.

    Map

    However, if North Korea were to attack the United States, the goals would be different, at least based on a North Korean propaganda photo from 2013.

    In Hawaii, one of the closest targets to North Korea, the US military bases Pacific Command, which is in charge of all US military units in the region. San Diego is PACOM’s home port, where many of the US Navy ships that would respond to a North Korean attack base when not deployed.

    Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana holds the US Air Force’s Global Strike Command, the entity that would be responsible for firing back with the US’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.

    Washington D.C., of course, is the home of the US’s commander-in-chief, who must approve of nuclear orders. (source)

    The North Korean target map looks like this:

    Map

    What about radioactive fallout?

    If a nuclear strike occurs and you are outside the range of the issues above, the next risk is the radioactive fallout.

    The significant hazards come from particles scooped up from the ground and irradiated by the nuclear explosion. The radioactive particles that rise only a short distance (those in the “stem” of the familiar mushroom cloud) will fall back to earth within a matter of minutes, landing close to the center of the explosion. Such particles are unlikely to cause many deaths, because they will fall in areas where most people have already been killed. However, the radioactivity will complicate efforts at rescue or eventual reconstruction. The radioactive particles that rise higher will be carried some distance by the wind before returning to Earth, and hence the area and intensity of the fallout is strongly influenced by local weather conditions. Much of the material is simply blown downwind in a long plume.

    Rainfall also can have a significant influence on the ways in which radiation from smaller weapons is deposited, since rain will carry contaminated particles to the ground. The areas receiving such contaminated rainfall would become “hot spots,” with greater radiation intensity than their surroundings. (source)

    Radioactive fallout can cause myriad health problems. You can also be exposed to these particles when you eat plants, milk, or meat that has been contaminated by fallout.  The biggest risk is thyroid cancer, which is why those who live in a place where there is a risk of fallout should stock up Potassium Iodide pills. (Here’s how to take them to prevent cancer due to radioactive fallout.) A Stanford University study warns:

    Nuclear fallout poses health dangers, particularly in the form of cancer, to humans in the form of radiation. When radioactive chemicals break down they release a certain amount of radiation. When humans are exposed to this radiation there is a risk that it causes chemical changes in cells which can kill or makes cells abnormal. In damaging the DNA contained in cells, radiation can cause cancer and can also lead to birth defects in children due to the tampering with a person’s genetic makeup. (source)

    The other variable

    The last and scariest variable is this: how big is the bomb? On the map above, you can plug in different types of nuclear warheads for different results. If a Tsar bomb (the largest ever detonated in Russia) struck Washington, DC, it would demolish a substantially larger area and the death toll would reach 1,858,141 people, with injuries to nearly one and a half million more.

    Here’s what that would look like.

    Nukes

    As you can see, with a 50,000 KT bomb, the numbers are entirely different.

    • The Fireball: Everything in this 31-mile range would be disintegrated
    • Radiation: A wave of deadly radiation would affect everything within 44 miles. This will cause lung injuries, severe burns, deafness, blindness, and internal bleeding. Anyone in this range who survives the immediate danger is likely to suffer from radiation poisoning in the upcoming weeks.
    • The Shockwave: A shockwave of incredible power would spread throughout a range of about 345 miles. Also called the blast wave, this highly compressed air will travel at high velocities (up to 470 mph), destroying nearly every building in its path.
    • The Heat: Heat from a nuclear blast would travel 3200 miles. This heat can ignite fires and cause first degree burns.

    There is an enormous difference in the scale of nuclear weapons. This video gives you some idea of the scope.

  • Duterte: UN Human Rights Chief Is An "Empty-Headed Son Of A Whore"

    Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out at one of his favorite targets – the United Nations – earlier this week when he labeled the UN’s Human Rights chief a “son of a whore” with an empty skull.

    “Look, you have a big head but it’s empty. There is no gray matter between your ears. It’s hollow. It’s empty. It cannot even sustain a nutrient for your hair to grow because his hair here is gone,” Duterte said.

    RT reports that Duterte made the comments during a Tuesday speech after UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said last month that Duterte was in need of a “psychiatric evaluation”. He also criticized the Philippines strongman for insulting UN rapporteur Agnes Callamard with what Al Hussein described as “the foulest of language.”

    But the joke may be on Al Hussein, because Duterte said he’s already been to a psychiatrist, and the doctor gave him a clean bill of mental health – though he allegedly pointed out Duterte’s penchant for cursing.

    “Hey son of a whore, you commissioner, I need to go to a psychiatrist? The psychiatrist told me: “You are okay, mayor. You are just fond of cursing,” he said.

    Before winning the presidency in 2016, Duterte served as mayor of Davao, a city on the southernmost Philippines island of Mindanao.

    Rodrigo

    Duterte told his audience that he’d been advised to let the remark go, but had decided that he couldn’t resist seeking revenge.

    The target of Duterte’s scorn, the UN has been conducting an investigation into allegations of extrajudicial killings related to Duterte’s controversial war on drugs, something President Trump has sought to emulate by moving toward the death penalty for some drug-related crimes. Philippine police say they have killed roughly 4,100 suspects during the administration’s vicious crackdown on drug users and dealers. Aid groups estimate the number is as much as three times higher.

    In the past, Duterte caused global outrage when he said that he’d be happy to kill drug addicts the way Adolf Hitler murdered Jews.

    Duterte famously called former US President Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” and told him to “go to hell” after being criticized by the former president. He also threatened to “burn down the United Nations”, an idea which Elon Musk may be considering long and hard these days: after all insurance cash flow is still cash flow.

     

  • How Much Income You Need To Afford the Average Home In Every State

    The housing market has not only recovered its pre-recession levels, but some observers are actually starting to worry about yet another housing bubble. Housing prices are on the rise, thanks in large part to extremelytight inventory, so it’s worth asking:  are potential home buyers getting priced out of the market? The answer depends on where they live and how much money they make.

    HowMuch.net  collected average home prices for every state from Zillow which we then plugged into a mortgage calculator to figure out monthly payments. Remember, mortgage payments consist of both the principal and the interest for the loan. The interest rate we used varied from 4 to 5% in each state, depending on the market. The lower the interest rate, the lower the monthly payment. To keep things simple, we assumed buyers could contribute a 10% down payment. Another thing to keep in mind is that financial advisors commonly recommend the total cost of housing take up no more than 30% of gross income (the amount before taxes, retirement savings, etc.). Using this rule as our benchmark, we calculated the minimum salary required to afford the average home in each state.

    Source: HowMuch.net

    Top Five Places Where You Need the Highest Salaries to Afford the Average Home

    1. Hawaii: $153,520 for a house worth $610,000

    2. Washington, DC: $138,440 for a house worth $549,000

    3. California: $120,120 for a house worth $499,900

    4. Massachusetts: $101,320 for a house worth $419,900

    5. Colorado: $100,200 for a house worth $415,000

    Top Five Places Where You Need the Lowest Salaries to Afford the Average Home

    1. West Virginia: $38,320 for a house worth $149,500

    2. Ohio: $38,400 for a house worth $149,900

    3. Michigan: $40,800 for a house worth $160,000

    4. Arkansas: $41,040 for a house worth $161,000

    5. Missouri: $42,200 for a house worth $165,900

    Our map creates a quick snapshot of housing affordability across the United States. There are several pockets in which only the upper middle class and above can afford to own even the average home, most notably across the West and in the Northeast. There are only two states west of the Mississippi River where a worker with an annual salary under $40,000 can afford a mid-level home:  Missouri and Oklahoma. Colorado stands out as the only landlocked state requiring a significant amount of income ($100,200), thanks in large part to the housing market around Denver.

    Homes tend to be more affordable in the eastern half of the country, with a notable pocket of “green” (less expensive) states located in the upper Midwest. The North is generally more affordable than the South and the typical home is significantly easier to buy in places like Michigan or Ohio than in Louisiana or Arkansas.  Additionally, our map indicates that workers can more easily afford homes in the East than in the West, which is surprising given how much more land is available out West. It is important to note that there are certainly deep pockets of poverty in all of these places, which suggests that our map obscures the inequality behind averages.

    The best takeaway from our map is that housing remains affordable in large swaths of the country, even though there will always be places like California and New York where there is simply too much demand for the available inventory. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean that buying a home is suddenly out of reach for average Americans in Ohio or Mississippi, for example.

    Source: HowMuch.net

  • Body Of Missing CDC Researcher Found In River

    A body pulled from the Chattahoochee river is that of an Atlanta researcher for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) who went missing in mid-February, Atlanta police reported on Thursday.

    a

    Timothy Cunningham, 25, was last seen February 12 after he left work midway through the day due to an illness, prompting his friends and family to sound the alarm. 

    Terrell Cunningham, 60, said his son’s supervisor told him that Commander Cunningham had reported for work but that he had left midday because he wasn’t feeling well. –NYT

    The family of Timothy J. Cunningham, 35, grew concerned after the Harvard-trained epidemiologist and US Navy officer wouldn’t answer texts or calls. Driving over 600 miles from Maryland to Atlanta, Cunningham’s parents gained access to his house where they found their son’s phone, wallet and driver’s license.

    Quoted by the NYT, his father said that Commander Cunningham had “a lot going on” personally and professionally, and his most recent conversation with his son had left him worried.

    “The tone, and the numerous exchanges gave us reason to be concerned about Tim,” said Terrell Cunningham. “And I don’t know if it’s an instinct you have because it’s your child, but it was not a normal conversation and I was not comfortable.”

    Cunningham’s car was parked in the garage, while his dog – Mr. Bojangles, aka Bo, was left all by himself. 

    “Tim never leaves Bo unattended,” Terrell Cunningham told NBC News. “He just doesn’t do it.”

    “None of this makes sense,” Timothy’s brother Anterio told Atlanta Fox affiliate WAGA-TV. “He wouldn’t just evaporate like this and leave his dog alone and have our mother wondering and worrying like this. He wouldn’t.”

    “I feel like I’m in a horrible Black Mirror episode,” Cunningham’s sister Tiara told the New York Times. “I’m kind of lost without him, to be quite honest.”

    a

    Tiara was the last family member to speak with Timothy Cunningham before his disappearance – who said the last time they spoke her brother “sounded not like himself.” When she texted him a bit later, she didn’t get a response – nor did the rest of the Cunningham family.

    Atlanta police said Cunningham had been upset over not receiving a promotion – however the CDC later retracted that information, stating that he had in fact recently received one.

    a

    Cunningham – who was promoted to commander in the US Public Health Service last July, had worked on the government’s response to both Zika and Ebola outbreaks. With two degrees from Harvard’s School of Public Health, he had been named one of The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “40 under 40” award winners.

  • John Kiriakou Delivers Petition For Assange To Ecuador’s D.C. Ambassador On Behalf Of Intel Veterans

    Submitted by Elizabeth Lea Vos of Disobedient Media

    Earlier today, CIA whistleblower and member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) John Kiriakou personally delivered a letter to the Ecuadorian embassy in Washington, DC, which was addressed to Ecuadorian Ambassador, Francisco Jose Borja Cevallos.

    The document calls for the immediate restoration of communications for Wikileaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange.One week ago, Julian Assange’s internet, phone calls and access to visitors were totally cut off at the behest of Ecuadorian President, Lenin Moreno.

    A video of Kiriakou delivering the message to the Ecuadorian embassy in Washington is available here.

    Wikileaks supporters have rallied both online and on the ground in London to call for his human rights to be restored continually, ever since news emerged that Assange had been prevented from contact with the outside world.

    The Courage Foundation reported that a similar Spanish-language message calling on Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno to end the isolation of Julian Assange was also delivered to the Ecuadorian President today. That letter was signed by 338 intellectuals from 33 countries. The effort was coordinated by the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil.

    John Kiriakou’s personal support of this message was particularly noteworthy, in light of the fact that his former agency is now personally invested in arresting the Wikileaks co-founder. Kiriakou recently participated in the online vigil, #ReconnectAssange, during which he spoke to the unjust treatment Assange would likely face if extradited and prosecuted in the Eastern District Court of Virgina, saying: “[Assange] couldn’t possibly get a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

    Those who wish to support Assange and Wikileaks can sign the petition calling for his right to free speech to be respected.

    A copy of the letter delivered by Kiriakou to Ambassador Francisco Jose Borja Cevallos, as well as the signatories supporting its contents, are provided below.

    Your Excellency:

    We, the undersigned applaud and commend the decision of the Government of Ecuador to grant asylum, to welcome as a citizen, and to grant diplomatic status to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

    In the case of Mr. Assange, Ecuador has been a role model for the international community for its views on transparency and press freedom. Every country should emulate Ecuador.

    I am reminded of August 1990 when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. US President George H. W. Bush was unsure of what the US response should be. He received a call from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “Now is not the time to go wobbly, George,” she told him. Well, now is not the time to go wobbly in our support of Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

    It is only because of Wikileaks that we know about war crimes and atrocities committed against Iraqi citizens by US troops. It is because of Wikileaks that we know about the surveillance industry, about warrantless wiretapping and a great deal more about NSA spying on American citizens. And with President Trump’s appointment of the notorious Gina Haspel as the new CIA director, we know that there is a danger that the CIA will keep its torture history secret by keeping it classified.

    It is Wikileaks that has kept, and will continue to keep, all Americans informed of what their government does in their name. It is Julian Assange who has led that fight. We ask the Government of Ecuador to keep up the fight for transparency and press freedom, to continue to be a world leader in honesty and accountability. We call on the Government of Ecuador to reconnect Julian Assange to the world.

    Respectfully,

    John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

    Signatories on the letter included:

    • Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and presidential briefer
    • Bogdan Dzakovic, former team leader, Federal Air Marshals
    • Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (retired)
    • Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army Reserve and Foreign Service Officer (retired)
    • Robert Wing, Foreign Service Officer (retired)
    • Philip Giraldi, former CIA case officer
    • Todd E. Pierce, Major, Judge Advocate General (retired)
    • C. J. Laniewski, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (retired)
    • Coleen Rowley, retired FBI special agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel
    • Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council (retired)
    • Peter Van Buren, Foreign Service Officer (retired)
    • J. Kirk Wiebe, former senior intelligence analyst and whistleblower, NSA
    • Roger Waters, co-founder, Pink Floyd
    • Alex Cox, film director, writer, and producer
    • Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army Reserve and Foreign Service Officer (retired)
    • Larry Johnson, former CIA officer and former Foreign Service officer

  • All Russiagate Roads Lead To London: Evidence Emerges Of Mifsud’s Links To UK Intelligence

    Authored by Elizabeth Lea Vos Via Disobedient Media

    Over the last few months, Professor Joseph Mifsud has become a feather in the cap for those pushing the Trump-Russia narrative. He is characterized as a “Russian” intelligence asset in mainstream press, despite his declarations to the contrary. However, evidence has surfaced that suggests Mifsud was anything but a Russian spy, and may have actually worked for British intelligence. This new evidence culminates in the ground-breaking conclusion that the UK and its intelligence apparatus may be responsible for the invention of key pillars of the Trump-Russia scandal. If true, this would essentially turn the entire RussiaGate debacle on its head.

    To give an idea of the scope of this report, a few central points showing the UK connections with the central pillars of the Trump-Russia claims are included here, in the order of discussion in this article:

    1. Mifsud allegedly discussed that Russia has ‘dirt’ on Clinton in the form of ‘thousands of emails’ with George Papadopoulos in London in April 2016.
    2. The following month, Papadopoulos spoke with Alexander Downer, Australia’s ambassador to the UK, about the alleged Russian dirt on Clinton while they were drinking at a swanky Kensington bar, according to The Times. In late July 2016, Downer shared his tip with Australian intelligence officials who forwarded it to the FBI.
    3. Robert Goldstone, a key figure in the ‘Trump Tower’ part of the RussiaGate narrative, sent Donald Trump Jr. an email claiming Russia wanted to help the Trump campaign. He is a British music promoter.
    4. Christopher Steele, ex-MI6, who worked as an MI6 agent in Moscow until 1993 and ran the Russia desk at MI6 HQ in London between 2006 and 2009. He produced the totally unsubstantiated ‘Steele Dossier’ of Trump-Russia allegations, with funding from the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
    5. Robert Hannigan, the head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share ‘director-to-director’ level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan.

    Each of these strands of UK-tied elements of the Russiagate narrative can be substantially dismantled on close inspection. This untangling process leads to the surprising conclusion that UK intelligence services fabricated evidence of collusion in order to create the appearance of a Trump-Russia connection.

    This trend begins with Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese scholar with an eclectic academic history who Quartz described as an “enigma,” while legacy press has enthusiastically characterized him as a central personality in the Trump-Russia scandal. The New York Times described Mifsud as an “enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia”, citing his regular involvement in the annual meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian-based think-tank, as well as three short articles he wrote in support of Russian policies.

    Mifsud strongly denied claims that he was associated with Russian intelligence, telling Italian newspaper Repubblica that he was a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Clinton Foundation, adding that his political outlook was “left-leaning.” Last month, Slate reported Mifsud had ‘disappeared’, as did some of the other figures linking the UK to the Trump-Russia scandal. This aspect will be discussed in more detail below.

    To contextualize Mifsud’s eclectic academic career in terms of intelligence service, it is helpful to note that research undertaken by this author and Suzie Dawson as part of the Decipher You project has repeatedly shown the close ties – an outright merger in many cases – between the intelligence community and academia. This enmeshment also takes place with think-tanks, NGOs, and in the corporate sphere. In this light, Mifsud’s brand of ‘scholarship’ becomes far less mysterious.

    Mifsud’s alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.”

    WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitterthread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo].”

    The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: “…Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy.” The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.

    Claire Smith Stands next to Joseph Mifsud at LINK Campus

    First, the training program Smith attended with high-ranking members of the Italian military was organized by the London Academy of Diplomacy, where Joseph Mifsud served as Director, as noted by The Washington Post. That Claire Smith was training military and law enforcement officials alongside Mifsud in 2012 during her tenure as a member of the UK Cabinet Office Security Vetting Appeals Panel, which oversees the vetting process for UK intelligence placement, strongly suggests that Mifsud has been incorrectly characterized as a Russian intelligence asset. It is extremely unlikely that Claire Smith’s role in vetting UK intelligence personnel would lead to her accidentally working with a Russian agent.

    The connection between Mifsud and Smith does not end at bumped elbows in a photograph. Mifsud’s LinkedIn profile lists the University of Stirling as a place of occupation in connection with his service as Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD), where Claire Smith served as a visiting professor from 2013-2014 according to her LinkedIn profile. This adds yet another verifiable connection between a man who is at the center of already-flimsy Trump-Russia allegations and a high-ranking British intelligence figure.

    Screenshot of Claire Smith's LinkedIN showing her service on the Security Vetting Appeals Panel while also occupied as a visiting Professor at Stirling University

    Claire Smith also hosted a seminar titled “Making Sense of Intelligence” at the University of Stirling. The event registration form describes her career, including her service as Deputy Chief of Assessments Staff in the Cabinet Office, as a member of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and her completion of an eight-year term as a member of the UK Security Vetting and Appeals Panel.

    A particularly compelling factor indicating that Mifsud’s working relationship with Claire Smith suggests his direct connection with UK intelligence is Smith’s membership of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), a supervisory body overseeing all UK intelligence agencies. The JIC is part of the Cabinet Office and reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Committee also sets the collection and analysis priorities for all of the agencies it supervises. Claire Smith also served as a member of the UK’s Cabinet Office.

    In summary, Mifsud’s appearance with Claire Smith at the LINK campus, in addition to her discussion on intelligence at yet another university where Mifsud was also employed, as well as her long-standing role in UK intelligence vetting and her position as a member of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee, would suggest that the roving scholar is not a Russian agent, but is actually a UK intelligence asset. The possibility that such a high-ranking member of this extremely powerful intelligence supervisory group was photographed standing next to a “Russian” asset unknowingly is patently absurd. This finding knocks the first pillar out from under the edifice of the Trump-Russia allegations. It provides an initial suggestion of the UK’s involvement in procuring the ‘evidence’ that fueled the debacle.

    Claire Smith is not the only British official associated with Mifsud. He was a speaker at an event by the Central European Initiative alongside former British diplomat Charles Crawford, whose postings included Moscow, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. Crawford is listed as a visiting Professor with the same London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD) where Mifsud served as Director, associated with Stirling University. This adds more weight to the idea that Mifsud is a familiar figure among the upper echelons of the UK intelligence and foreign policy establishment.

    The final nail in the coffin of the theory that Mifsud is a Russian spy is this photograph of Mifsud standing next to Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, as reported by The Guardian. The photograph, taken in October 2017 – nearly a full year after the US Presidential election and nine months after Mifsud’s name appeared in newspaper headlines worldwide as allegedly involved in Russian meddling in that election – is either highly embarrassing for the hapless Mr Johnson, or it’s not, because Joseph Mifsud is actually a valued and security-vetted asset to the United Kingdom.

    Boris Johnson pictured at the dinner with the ‘London professor’, Joseph Mifsud (left) and Prasenjit Kumar Singh.

    Another aspect of the RussiaGate claims tied to the UK includes the reported conversation between George Papadopoulos and Alexander Downer, Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK who was based in London. The pair reportedly spoke about the alleged Russian ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton while they were drinking at a swanky bar in London. According to Lifezette, Downer is closely tied with The Clinton Foundation via his role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS.

    He is also a member of the advisory board of London-based Hakluyt & Co, an opposition research and intelligence firm set up in 1995 by three former UK intelligence officials and described as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking”. Whereas opposition research group Fusion GPS has received all the media attention so far, Lifezette states that Hakluyt is “a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm… with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign”.

    Yet another UK link to a central pillar of the Trump-Russia narrative is British music promoter Robert Goldstone, who was reported to have organized a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian nationals in June 2016. In the email chain setting up the Trump Tower meeting, both before and after the meeting, the only real ‘evidence’ of collusion with Russia come from Goldstone’s own emails; none-too-subtle heavy hints about ‘Russian help’ dropped by Goldstone but later – after the emails became public – walked back by him as “hyping the message and… using hot-button language to puff up the information I had been given.”

    Some have speculated that Goldstone was also involved with British or US intelligence efforts to concoct the RussiaGate narrative. As soon as his name emerged in the press, Goldstone – like Christopher Steele and Joseph Mifsud – went into ‘hiding’. Multiple press reports claimed he had done so out of fear for his safety, a claim also made about Christopher Steele when his name first became public. Indeed, the UK government issued a DA Notice(a press suppression advisory notice) to the British press to suppress the ex-spy Steele’s name. It is notable that, of all the people swept up into the ever-burgeoning RussiaGate investigation, it is only the UK-linked witnesses – Mifsud, Steele, Goldstone – who have felt the need to go into hiding when their role has been exposed.

    The New York Times summed up the contents of Christopher Steele’s dossier: “Mr. Steele produced a series of memos that alleged a broad conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election on behalf of Mr. Trump. The memos also contained unsubstantiated accounts of encounters between Mr. Trump and Russian prostitutes, and real estate deals that were intended as bribes.”

    Press reports also relate that Steele was ordered by an English court to appear for a videotaped deposition in London as part of an ongoing civil litigation against Buzzfeed for publishing the unverified dossier, for which Steele was paid $168,000 by Glenn Simpson’s company Fusion GPS, who were in turn paid by Mark Elias of law firm Perkins Coie, lawyers to both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.

    In his thread on the role of UK intelligence interference in the 2016 US Presidential race, Assange also noted how Christopher Steele used another former UK ambassador to Moscow, Sir Andrew Wood, to funnel the dossier to Senator John McCain in a way that moved the handover out of London, to Canada. It’s often said that no one ever really leaves the UK security services  when they retire – many ‘former’ MI6 or MI5 officers’ private intelligence businesses are dependent on maintaining good contacts among their ex-colleagues – so it is interesting to note that Sir Andrew Wood says he was “instructed” — by former British spy Christopher Steele — to reach out to the senior Republican, whom Wood called “a good man,” about the unverified document.

    Lastly, Robert Hannigan, former head of British intelligence agency GCHQ, is another personality of note in the formation of the RussiaGate narrative and its surprisingly deep links to the UK. The Guardian noted that Hannigan announced he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. Jane Mayer in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorkeralso noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing “deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level” is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner.

    Screenshot of GCHQ Tweet announcing Hannigan's resignation on 23 Jan 2017

    The central supporting pillars of the RussiaGate allegations hinge on figures with close ties to British intelligence and UK nationals. Even establishment media like The Guardian reported that British spies from GCHQ were the first to alert US authorities to so-called Russian interference. Did the entire narrative originate with UK intelligence groups in an effort to create the appearance of Russian collusion with the Trump Presidential campaign, much as the Guccifer 2.0 persona was used in the US to discredit WikiLeaks’ publication of the DNC emails?

    If it was not Russia at the heart of a complex operation to topple the Clinton campaign in 2016, then was British Intelligence responsible for creating false narratives and mirage-like ‘evidence’ on which the Trump-Russia scandal could hinge?

    Put another way, if UK intelligence is responsible for manufacturing the Trump-Russia allegations, it suggests that the UK’s efforts formed an international arm running concurrently with domestic US ‘Deep State’ efforts to sabotage Trump’s presidential campaign and/or oust him once he had been elected.

    Is British intelligence involvement in RussiaGate, as outlined above, the international version of CrowdStrike and former FBI figures manufacturing the Guccifer 2.0 persona specifically to smear WikiLeaks via false allegations of a Russian hack of the DNC? Have we been looking in the wrong place – at the wrong country – to unearth the so-called ‘foreign meddling’ in the 2016 US election all along?

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Apr 05

Today’s News 5th April 2018

  • Frankfurt Is Winning The Battle For London's Bankers

    Since the UK voted to leave the EU, its biggest financial institutions have been observing the slow moving  Brexit negotiations with a degree of discomfort.

    Last month, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, Theresa May warned that the UK’s financial companies could lose full passporting rights and single market access, leading to even higher anxiety, particularly in the City of London.

    The air of uncertainty had already prompted several companies to take action and prepare for post-Brexit life in new European hubs.

    In recent months, much has been written about the threat of financial relocations but which companies have actually followed through with the threat and announced they will shift staff abroad?

    Bloomberg has kept track of banks announcing plans to relocate staff and the following infographic provides an overview of the situation with London’s loss Frankfurt’s gain.

    Infographic: Frankfurt Is Winning The Battle For London's Bankers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Goldman Sachs recently announced to its investment bankers and traders that their future may well lie in in Germany’s financial capital. The firm has already said it intends moving 1,000 of its 6,000 strong staff to Frankfurt.

    It’s just one of many organizations to announce a shift to other EU hubs with UBS planning to shift 1,500 of its workforce in the UK to Frankfurt and Paris. Depending on the outcome of talks on a future trade agreeement, these initial moves could just herald the start of London’s financial exodus.

     

  • The Three Most Important Aspects Of The Skripal Case… And Where They Might Be Pointing

    Authored by Rob Slane via TheBlogMire.com,

    I have now asked a total of 50 questions around the Skripal case, which you can find here and here. Having gone back through these questions, as far as I can see only three have been answered by the release of public information or events that have transpired. These are:

    • Are they (Sergei and Yulia Skripal) still alive?

    • If so, what is their current condition and what symptoms are they displaying?

    • Can the government confirm that its scientists at Porton Down have established that the substance that poisoned the Skripals and D.S. Bailey was actually produced or manufactured in Russia?

    On the first two points we are now told that Yulia Skripal’s condition has significantly improved to the point where she is said to be recovering well and talking. However, although this provides something of an answer to these questions, it also raises a number of others. Is she finally being allowed consular access? Is she being allowed to speak to her fiancé, her grandmother, or her cousin by telephone? Most importantly, how does her recovery comport with the claim that she was poisoned with a “military-grade nerve agent” with a toxicity around 5-8 times that of VX nerve agent?

    On the other point, we do now have a definitive answer from none other than the Chief Executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead: No, Porton Down was not able to identify the substance as being produced or manufactured in Russia.

    It is important that reasonable questions continue to be raised, as they not only help clarify the actual issues, but the answers — or lack thereof — are also a good barometer as to how the official narrative stacks up. As a keen observer of the case — especially since it took place just a few hundred yards from my home in Salisbury — I have to say that the official narrative of the British Government has not stood up to even the most cursory scrutiny from the outset. In fact, there are three crucial issues that serve to raise suspicions about it, and to my mind these issues are the most important aspects of the case so far:

    1. The absurd speed at which the British Government reacted to the incident

    2. The British Government’s ignoring of legal frameworks and protocols

    3. The large number of discrepancies between events and the official narrative

    Let’s just look at these in turn.

    1. The absurd speed at which the British Government reacted to the incident

    I remain astonished at the manner and the speed with which the British Government reacted to this incident. There was the speed with which the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, first pointed the finger of culpability, less than 48 hours after the incident, and before any investigation or analysis of the substance had taken place. There was the speed with which Porton Down was apparently able to analyse and identify the substance, even though it is set to take the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at least three weeks to carry out a similar identification. There was the speed with which the British Government officially accused the Russian Government of being behind the incident, and the 36-hour ultimatum given to it to prove its innocence without being given any of the evidence that apparently showed its culpability. There was the speed with which the British Government, armed with evidence that looked like it was put together by a rather dull 14-year-old on work experience, managed to convince a number of other countries to expel diplomats, including 60 from the United States.

    Why, if it was so sure of its claims, did the British Government feel the need to act so hastily and recklessly, rather than await the results of the investigation?

    2. The British Government’s ignoring of legal frameworks and protocols

    Not only has the British Government acted with lightning speed, it has also ridden roughshod over a number of international legal agreements and protocols.

    Firstly, there is the involvement of the OPCW. What ought to have happened is the British Government should have invited the OPCW in as part of the investigation immediately upon suspicion of the use of a nerve agent. However, according to the British Government’s own timeline, it wasn’t until March 14th– the day that Mrs May formally announced the culpability of the Russian State to Parliament – that she actually wrote to the OPCW to involve them in the case. This is, I understand, contrary to the obligations Britain has as a member of the OPCW, and signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

    In addition, the British Government has refused to provide evidence to the Russian Government. Again, my understanding is that this is contrary to the protocols set out in the CWC.

    The British Government has also refused to grant the Russian Embassy in London consular access to two Russian nationals, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which it is legally obliged to do under Articles 36 and 37 of the 1963 Vienna Convention and Article 35 (1) of the 1965 Consular Convention.

    Why, if it was so sure of its claims, did the British Government feel the need to ignore international agreements to which it is a signatory, and instead act in this opaque and frankly suspicious manner?

    3. The number of oddities and discrepancies in the official narrative

    The speed of apportioning blame and the ignoring of international legal agreements might not have looked nearly as suspicious had the narrative presented by the British Government and the facts on the ground been in harmony with one another. But they have not been.

    Instead, many of the actual events that have transpired over the weeks since the incident was first reported simply do not fit the overarching explanation given.

    Below are five of the most important:

    1. As mentioned above, the Chief Executive of Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead has confirmed that the laboratory was unable to identify the origin of the substance used to poison the Skripals. This is in direct contradiction to the claims made by the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who said the following on the Andrew Marr Show on 18th March:

    “Obviously to the best of our knowledge this is a Russian-made nerve agent that falls within the category Novichok made only by Russia, and just to get back to the point about the international reaction which is so fascinating…”

    If it’s made only by Russia, as Mr Johnson claimed, then it must have originated in Russia. Right? Yet Mr Aitkenhead says they were unable to identify where it was made.

    Then in an interview with Deutsche Welle two days after his above comments, Mr Johnson was categorical about the source of the nerve agent as being Russian. Here’s the exchange:

    Interviewer: You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

    Johnson: “Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory …”

    Interviewer: “So they have the samples …

    Johnson: “They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt.”

    Who “the guy” is, perhaps we’ll never know. The cleaner perhaps? I suppose a politician of Mr Johnson’s calibre will happily try to weasel his way out of the implications of what he said. But to us lesser mortals, it does rather look like he was deliberately misleading, doesn’t it

    2. Much of the investigation initially concentrated on where the Skripals were poisoned. Amongst the suggestions made were the bench on which they collapsed, the Zizzi restaurant where they had eaten, Ms Skripal’s luggage or Mr Skripal’s car. Then, some 24 days after the incident, it was announced that a high concentration of the “military-grade nerve agent” had been found on the front door, and that this was the likely place of poisoning. Yet it is known that after leaving the house, Mr Skripal and his daughter drove into the City Centre, went to the Mill pub, and then to the restaurant where they ate a meal together. In other words, according to the door theory, the two of them were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, which then took over three hours to have any effect. Odd, wouldn’t you say?

    3. Furthermore, it has been stated that the two of them became ill at the same time on the bench in the Maltings. Therefore, if they were poisoned at the front door, this would mean that not only did the two of them feel little or no effects for the three hours or so that followed, but it would also mean that a large 66-year-old man and an averagely built 33-year-old woman, of different height, weight and metabolism, somehow succumbed to the effects of poisoning at exactly the same time, some three hours or so later. Again, is that not very odd?

    4. The claim that they were poisoned by a military grade nerve agent, of a type said to be 5-8 times the toxicity of VX nerve agent, is itself surely open to question. Both Mr Skripal and his daughter not only survived, but Yulia Skripal is now said to be sitting up and talking just weeks later. Perhaps it is possible to survive a miniscule dose of such a nerve agent. The problem with this is that according to many earlier claims, there were significant traces of the substance in various parts of the City of Salisbury, which indicates that it cannot have been a very miniscule amount that they came into contact with at the door. Which means that we are being asked to believe that they were poisoned by “more than a miniscule amount” of this deadly poison, but both somehow survived, despite neither receiving an antidote (a fact now confirmed by Gary Aitkenhead). Does that not seem improbable?

    5. The official explanation – that this was planned and authorised at the highest level within the Russian Government – would lead one to believe that the action was carried out by top level agents of the FSB. Yet the mode of attack – nerve agent apparently smeared or sprayed on the door – has to be one of the least effective methods that could be used to assassinate anyone. For a start, it rains a lot in Salisbury, and it did indeed rain on the day of the poisoning. If the substance was left at the front door (assuming it was the outside), the attacker(s) could have had no guarantee that it would not be washed off before Mr Skripal touched it. Nor could they have had any guarantee that he, as opposed to his daughter or perhaps a delivery person etc, would come into contact with it. And of course there is the fact that Mr Skripal is still alive. Does any of this seem consistent with the narrative of a professional, Kremlin-authorised hit-job.

    Conclusion

    Where does this leave us?

    The official narrative would have us believe that the Russian Government authorised the killing of a has-been (former?) MI6 spy, who it had freed in 2010 and who presumably posed no threat to it, just a week before the Russian election and weeks before the World Cup, using a nerve agent with an exclusively Russian signature, in a way (on the door) that could not guarantee the intended target would touch it. This would be difficult enough to swallow by itself, but the British Government’s rush to judgement, disregard for law, and the many discrepancies in the actual events themselves make this scenario absurdly implausible.

    Another possibility – that the British Government or intelligence services were behind the incident – has been given great credibility by the British Government itself, in its absurdly quick reaction to the incident and its blatant ignoring of legal protocols. These actions were bound to fuel suspicions about the possibility of its own involvement, and I have to say that such suspicions are absolutely legitimate precisely because of the way it has behaved. However, it must be said that the oddities and discrepancies in the case don’t lend themselves very well to the idea of a carefully planned false flag. If British intelligence had planned a hit job on Mr Skripal using a military-grade nerve agent “of a type developed by Russia”, in order to then pin the blame on the Russian Government, I doubt very much that Mr Skripal and his daughter would still be alive, or that the explanation for where the poison was administered would be changing on a daily basis, or that the British Government’s evidence to other countries would have been as risible as it was (unless of course our intelligence agencies are as incompetent as such a scenario would require them to be, that is).

    My hunch – and it is just that – is that Mr Skripal himself was perhaps still working for British intelligence, and may have been in possession of a nerve agent. Somehow, this involvement went wrong, and he ended up accidently poisoning himself and his daughter on the bench in The Maltings. The Government then scrambled to concoct a story in order to cover up the real story of a Russian working for MI6 and handling nerve agents, and so quickly decided to point the finger at that most convenient scapegoat, the Russian Government.

    The reason that I’m attracted to this possibility is that it explains all three aspects I have described above, and which I think are the most important aspects of the case. The rush to judgement — which looked like panic-mode to me — could have been an attempt to divert attention away from the investigation looking at the possibility of Mr Skripal having military grade nerve agent in his possession. The ignoring of international legal protocols, at least for a time, could have been done to ensure that the case was not probed by any outside body, which may well have exposed discrepancies. And it could also explain many of the oddities mentioned above, such as traces of nerve agent apparently being found in various places in Salisbury, since these could have come about because Mr Skripal was in possession of some sort of nerve agent when he left his house that day.

    As I say, this is just a hunch and purely speculative. I am probably wrong. But unless the British Government is able to produce far better evidence than it has so far produced, to back up the claims it has made, I shall consider it a more credible possibility than the one they have sold to the British public.

  • Judge Throws Out 12-Year-Old Lawsuit Against Steve Cohen

    More than seven years ago, we reported on the wide-ranging financial conspiracy involving almost every single prominent US-based hedge fund and a Canadian firm called Fairfax Financial Holdings that they schemed to short – and then crush by spreading dubious research and shoddy accounting.

    Around the time that a Reuters report on recently declassified court document from 2008, which outlined details of the plot, including Cohen’s alleged role.

    Cohen

    Now, a New Jersey judge has put an end (for now, at least) to the 12-year-long legal saga by ruling that the lawsuit didn’t belong in his court. A state appeals court revived Fairfax’s claims last April after they were previously dismissed in 2011 and 2012. Judges have already thrown out claims against Dan Loeb’s Third Point and Jim Chanos’s Kynikos Associates LP, according to the New York Post.

    Billionaire Steven A. Cohen has won the dismissal of an $8 billion lawsuit accusing him and his former firm SAC Capital Advisors LP of conspiring with other hedge funds to spread false rumors about Fairfax Financial Holdings, hoping to “crush” or “kill” the insurer.

    In a decision last week, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Frank DeAngelis said the nearly 12-year-old case did not belong in that state’s courts because there was no evidence SAC expected or intended to cause injury there while “conspiring to drive down the share price of a Canadian company.”

    According to Reuters, Fairfax said it was victimized in a coordinated raid.

    Fairfax claimed it was victimized by a four-year “bear raid” by hedge funds that engineered bogus accounting claims and biased analyst research, and persuaded reporters to write negative stories about the Toronto-based insurance and investment management company.

    It said the funds did this to profit from short sales, or bets its stock price would fall. Fairfax claimed that hedge fund operatives ran the bear raid from New Jersey.

    Cohen, whose four-year ban from the securities industry ended in January, is also facing another lawsuit from a former female employee alleging a culture of harassment and “hostility toward  women” at Point72.

  • Brave New World Revisited And The Disease Of Over-Organization

    Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

    – John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1817

    Brave New World Revisited is one of the few books I’ve read in my life that I continue to think about on a regular basis.

    In terms of understanding where humanity stands at present and what we need to do to get out of the mess we’ve created, it’s one of the more important pieces of non-fiction you can find.

    I recently felt the need to reread the book for some unknown reason, and I’m glad I did. The choices we make as a species about how we reorganize human affairs in the decades to come will determine the future of human freedom on this planet. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited offers an abundance of wisdom for us to consider as we move forward.

    Huxley was deeply concerned with the importance of individual human freedom and the forces relentlessly trying to stifle it. Here’s a brief description of how Huxley viewed our species:

    In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual. We reproduce our kind by bringing the father’s genes into contact with the mother’s. These hereditary factors may be combined in an al­most infinite number of ways. Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man’s biological nature…

    Biologically speaking, man is a moderately gregar­ious, not a completely social animal — a creature more like a wolf, let us say, or an elephant, than like a bee or an ant. In their original form human societies bore no resemblance to the hive or the ant heap; they were merely packs. Civilization is, among other things, the process by which primitive packs are transformed into an analogue, crude and mechanical, of the social in­sects’ organic communities. At the present time the pressures of over-population and technological change are accelerating this process. The termitary has come to seem a realizable and even, in some eyes, a desirable ideal. Needless to say, the ideal will never in fact be realized. A great gulf separates the social insect from the not too gregarious, big-brained mammal; and even though the mammal should do his best to imitate the insect, the gulf would remain. However hard they try, men cannot create a social organism, they can only create an organization. In the process of trying to create an organism they will merely create a totali­tarian despotism.

    It’s that very last line which is key, and forms the basis of most of Huxley’s most dystopian concerns. If you agree with his assessment (as I do), that human beings are “moderately gregarious” at a species level, and biologically unique at the individual level, any ethical conclusion about how human civilizations should be structured must promote and protect the value of human freedom at its core.

    While this may be obvious to many of you, Huxley accurately warns readers of the nontrivial numbers of dedicated ideologues and authoritarian types who disagree and actively work to turn the human being into a mere cog in a large machine of their particular fantasy. The best terms to describe such types and their worldview are: collectivists and collectivism. These sorts insist that the rights of the individual are subservient to the whole, with the whole typically being some artificial construct that happens to be most opportunistic or appealing at any given moment. Collectivism can emerge on the right or the left of the political spectrum — it knows no political party. The key calling card of the collectivist is that he or she wishes to force individuals into a structure of conformity that fits their particular worldview.

    As Mr. William Whyte has shown in his remarkable book, The Organization Man, a new Social Ethic is replacing our traditional ethical system — the system in which the individual is primary. The key words in this Social Ethic are “adjustment,” “adaptation,” “socially orientated behavior,” “belongingness,” “acquisition of social skills,” “team work,” “group living,” “group loyalty,” “group dynamics,” “group thinking,” “group creativ­ity.” Its basic assumption is that the social whole has greater worth and significance than its individual parts, that inborn biological differences should be sac­rificed to cultural uniformity, that the rights of the collectivity take precedence over what the eighteenth century called the Rights of Man…This ideal man is the man who displays “dynamic conformity” (delicious phrase!) and an intense loyalty to the group, an unflagging desire to subordinate himself, to belong. And the ideal man must have an ideal wife, highly gregarious, infinitely adaptable and not merely re­signed to the fact that her husband’s first loyalty is to the Corporation, but actively loyal on her own account.

    This isn’t to say we shouldn’t view ourselves as interconnected consciousness on a planetary level — I think we should. The key is this must emerge from an individual understanding of consciousness and not some topdown mandate from some collectivist control-freak dictator enforced via violence and coercion.

    But here’s where it starts to get really interesting. Since humans aren’t naturally collectivist animals like ants or bees, those who desire to turn us into such creatures must construct an artificial paradigm and then resort to intense and systematic propaganda to keep it going. This is precisely why Huxley devotes so much of his book to the mind-control techniques of his time and the ones he imagines will exist in the not too distant future.

    Here’s one passage that really stuck with me:

    In their propaganda today’s dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationaliza­tion — the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationaliza­tion of passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science of manip­ulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these tech­niques with the non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrele­vance the rational propaganda essential to the mainten­ance of individual liberty and the survival of demo­cratic institutions.

    Sound familiar?

    Russia, Russia, Russia.

    Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels. 

    Huxley also spent a great deal of time discussing how completely filled with propaganda all of our human societies are, and that it’s not always totally insidious. After all, the use of persuasion and the innate susceptibility for humans beings to be persuaded is in fact part of our social makeup. He notes:

    Huxley notes:

    Suffice it to say that all the intellectual materials for a sound education in the proper use of language — an education on every level from the kindergarten to the postgraduate school — are now available. Such an education in the art of distinguishing between the proper and the improper use of symbols could be inaugurated immediately. In­deed it might have been inaugurated at any time during the last thirty or forty years. And yet children are nowhere taught, in any systematic way, to distinguish true from false, or meaningful from meaningless, state­ments. Why is this so? Because their elders, even in the democratic countries, do not want them to be given this kind of education. In this context the brief, sad history of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis is highly significant. The Institute was founded in 1937, when Nazi propaganda was at its noisiest and most effective, by Mr. Filene, the New England philanthro­pist. Under its auspices analyses of non-rational propa­ganda were made and several texts for the instruction of high school and university students were prepared. Then came the war — a total war on all the fronts, the mental no less than the physical. With all the Allied governments engaging in “psychological warfare,” an insistence upon the desirability of analyzing propa­ganda seemed a bit tactless. The Institute was closed in 1941. But even before the outbreak of hostilities, there were many persons to whom its activities seemed profoundly objectionable. Certain educators, for exam­ple, disapproved of the teaching of propaganda anal­ysis on the grounds that it would make adolescents unduly cynical. Nor was it welcomed by the military authorities, who were afraid that recruits might start to analyze the utterances of drill sergeants. And then there were the clergymen and the advertisers. The clergymen were against propaganda analysis as tend­ing to undermine belief and diminish churchgoing; the advertisers objected on the grounds that it might undermine brand loyalty and reduce sales.

    That’s simply fascinating and shows there’s a institutional bias against providing people with the tools needed in order to identify mind-control and propaganda. Dominant institutions may not agree on much, but they agree that people shouldn’t be critical thinkers. This is precisely why my wife and I are determined to teach our children to question everything they’re told, including by us (I’m quite certain I’ll live to regret writing that some day).

    Huxley’s observation reminds me of that classic George Carlin quote:

    There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got… because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now… the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

    Indeed it is.

    Going back to Huxley, it’s amazing how prescient he was about the future of the U.S. and indeed much of the Western world. He observed:

    At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worth while to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything? In the United States and America is the prophetic image of the rest of the urban-industrial world as it will be a few years from now — recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censor­ship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that govern­ment of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts. That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising. “Free as a bird,” we say, and envy the winged creatures for their power of unrestricted movement in all the three dimensions. But, alas, we forget the dodo. Any bird that has learned how to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. Something analogous is true of human beings. If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone — or at least by bread and circuses alone.

    It’s important to recall that this was written in 1958. Huxley astutely noted that the youth of post WW2 America, too young to recall the horrors of the war, but old enough to appreciate the material benefits which followed total victory, had no real interest in self-government or freedom of thought. Fat on bread and expecting good times to continue indefinitely, the American public had very quickly become a people perfectly primed for those obsessed with turning humans into malleable cogs in a gigantic machine. This machine would eventually evolve into the imperial oligarchy we have today.

    Huxley also noted the following about the media environment:

    Mass commu­nication, in a word, is neither good nor bad; it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used in one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensable to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator’s armory. In the field of mass communications as in almost every other field of enterprise, technological progress has hurt the Little Man and helped the Big Man. As lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could boast of a great number of small journals and local newspapers. Thousands of country editors expressed thousands of independent opinions. Somewhere or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed. Today the press is still legally free; but most of the little papers have disappeared. The cost of wood-pulp, of modern printing machinery and of syndicated news is too high for the Little Man. In the totalitarian East there is political censorship, and the media of mass communication are controlled by the State. In the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by members of the Power Elite. Censorship by rising costs and the concentration of communication power in the hands of a few big concerns is less objectionable than State ownership and government propaganda; but certainly it is not something of which a Jeffersonian democrat could possibly approve.

    The advent of the internet and social media leveled this playing field considerably, a development which freaked out the establishment and resulted in hysterical calls to censor the web in the name of fighting “fake news.”

    Finally, while reading Brave New World Revisited can leave you with a sense of despair, I see many reasons for optimism. First, we should remember that the reason freedom and the individual human spirit is so difficult to eradicate in the long-term is precisely because the collectivist model goes against the actual nature of our species. This is why so much time and effort must be placed on propaganda and mind-control. Collectivists need to manipulate and brainwash us into accepting such unnatural and oppressive environments such as the type most of humanity live under to the present day.

    This means we can certainly change things and shift toward a different paradigm for human affairs. As most of you know by know, I believe this model must be rooted in the concept of decentralization. Huxley seems to agree:

    Take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely func­tional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily cooperating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Govern­ment.

    Over-population and over-organization have pro­duced the modern metropolis, in which a fully human life of multiple personal relationships has become almost impossible. Therefore, if you wish to avoid the spiritual impoverishment of individuals and whole societies, leave the metropolis and revive the small country community, or alternately humanize the me­tropolis by creating within its network of mechanical organization the urban equivalents of small country communities, in which individuals can meet and co­operate as complete persons, not as the mere embodi­ments of specialized functions.

    Humanity finds itself at a significant crossroads. The forces of over-organization and centralization remain dominant, but are increasingly on the run as the economic and political paradigm created in their image begins to fracture. As Huxley noted, over-organization is a disease, yet the varied proponents of the status quo will argue for more control and more centralization as a cure to a problem of their own making. In contrast, what we need to do is move in precisely the opposite direction.

    It’s become clear to me that the gigantic, bureaucratic nation-state model of counties as varied as the U.S., China and Russia make little sense in their current forms if we care at all about human freedom. Huxley observed that freedom flourishes best at a far more local level of governance and I completely agree. When you attempt to make blanket, centralized political decisions for hundreds of millions, or even billions of people, everyone ends up unhappy and collectively powerless. Significant amounts of coercion and oppression are then needed to enforce such centralized decisions that typically end up benefiting only the handful of people who are able to game the system and get what they want.

    Huxley noted:

    Self-government is in inverse ratio to numbers. The larger the constituency, the less the value of any par­ticular vote. When he is merely one of millions, the individual elector feels himself to be impotent, a neg­ligible quantity. The candidates he has voted into office are far away, at the top of the pyramid of power. Theoretically they are the servants of the people; but in fact it is the servants who give orders and the peo­ple, far off at the base of the great pyramid, who must obey. Increasing population and advancing technology have resulted in an increase in the number and complexity of organizations, an increase in the amount of power concentrated in the hands of officials and a corre­sponding decrease in the amount of control exercised by electors, coupled with a decrease in the public’s regard for democratic procedures. Already weakened by the vast impersonal forces at work in the modern world, democratic institutions are now being under­mined from within by the politicians and their propa­gandists.

    For additional thoughts on this topic, see my 2017 four-part series: “Decentralize or Die.”

    Notes:

    This is the second post I’ve written on Brave New World Revisited. See the first one here: Brave New World Revisited…Key Excerpts and My Summary (2014)

    Read the entire book online here: Brave New World Revisited [1958] 

    *  *  *

    If you liked this article and enjoy my work, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit our Support Page to show your appreciation for independent content creators.

  • "This Is The Breaking Point" – Manhattan Home Sales Plunge Most Since 2009

    For much of the past year, we’ve been carefully monitoring developments in the high-end of the world’s ritziest property markets – cities like New York, London and Hong Kong as well as tony suburbs like Greenwich, Conn. – for warning signs that America’s torrid post-crisis real-estate rally could be nearly exhausted.

    As US home prices have rocketed to within a hair’s breadth (1%) of their highs from 2006, we’ve pondered the question of whether this is a “market top” or a “breakout.” The high end, ultimately, could be the final piece of this puzzle.

    SNP

    After all, conventional wisdom would have you believe that real-estate values in dynamic urban centers like NYC could never fall – at least not meaningfully. The perception, as we pointed out back in February, is that world-class cities will never go out of style, and their already high-densities deeply limits supply.

    London

    But that logic leaves one crucial question unanswered: What happens when too many people pile into a supposedly “safe” asset?

    This is essentially the narrative that unfolded during the housing crisis, as millions of Americans assumed real-estate valuations could never retreat (beyond the occasional “gully”).

    But even the world’s trendiest markets have their breaking points.

    “Even with New York real estate prices, you do hit a point in which resistance sets in,” said Frederick Peters, CEO of brokerage Warburg Realty. “People are very anxious about overpaying.”

    To wit, one month after we reported that Manhattan apartment sales were

    For what it’s worth, analysts at UBS to Morgan Stanley have predicted that a correction is looming in the near future.

    We recently reported that, according to data collected by a private company, Manhattan apartment sales plunged to a six-year low in January.

    And now, Bloomberg is reporting that Manhattan home sales plunged the most since 2009 during the first quarter, according to a popular report compiled by Miller Samuel Inc. and Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The two firms tabulated that sales dropped 25% during the first quarter. 

    Meanwhile, Corcoran Group, which compiles its own report, recorded an 11% decrease. The drop was observed more or less evenly across the market, from the ultra-high end (which has been struggling for months) to studios and one-bedrooms.

    The drop in sales spanned from the highest reaches of the luxury market to workaday studios and one-bedrooms. Buyers, who have noticed that home prices are no longer climbing as sharply as they have been, are realizing they can afford to be picky. Rising borrowing costs and new federal limits on tax deductions for mortgage interest and state and local levies also are making homeownership more expensive, giving shoppers even more reasons to push back on a listing’s price — or walk away.

    While just a few years ago, bidding wars were the norm, “there’s nothing out there today that points to prices going up, and in many buyers’ minds, they point to being flat,” said Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of brokerage Corcoran Group. “They’re now aggressive in the opposite way: putting in very low offers and seeing what concessions they can get from the sellers.”

    Any seller who wanted to close a deal during the first quarter had to lower their ask. Indeed, 52% of all sales closed during the period were for less than the most recent ask. In 38% of deals, buyers agreed to pay the asking price. But by then, it had already been dramatically reduced.

    Per Bloomberg, no deal is too small to preclude haggling.

    Peters said that these days, he gets dozens of emails a day announcing price reductions for listings. And buyers are haggling over all deals, no matter how small. In a recent sale of a two-bedroom home handled by his firm, a buyer who agreed to pay $1.5 million — after the seller cut the asking price — suddenly demanded an extra $100,000 discount before signing the contract. They agreed to meet halfway, Peters said.

    Buyers also are finding value in co-ops, which in Manhattan tend to be priced lower than condos. Resale co-ops were the only category to have an increase in sales in the quarter, rising 2 percent to 1,486 deals, according to Corcoran Group. Sales of previously owned condos, on the other hand, fell 12 percent as their owners clung to prices near their record highs, the brokerage said.

    The median price of all sales that closed in the quarter was $1.095 million, down 5.2 percent from a year earlier, brokerage Town Residential said in its own report. Three-bedroom apartments saw the biggest drop, with a decline of 7 percent to a median of $3.82 million, the firm said.

    Both new developments (of which there are many) and existing home sales have fallen.

    To be sure, if one insists on believing this is just the beginning of another gully, one could point to expectations that US GDP growth will be relatively subdued during the first quarter – as it often is.

    But even if we see a strong rebound in Q2, perhaps the most important factor that has been driving the high-end real-estate boom exists outside the US. Chinese buyers, who’ve helped fuel the speculative boom, are finding it increasingly difficult to move their wealth offshore as China has cracked down on capital flows and, specifically, foreign real-estate transactions involving wealthy Chinese.

    Manhattan

     

  • Yet Another California City Fighting Back Against Unlawful Sanctuary Policy

    Authored by Ann via ThePoliticalInsider.com,

    Huntington Beach is the latest city in California to join a growing backlash against the state’s sanctuary law.

    In a late-night vote Monday, the Huntington Beach City Council decided 6 to 1 to sue the state of California over SB 54, which protects illegal immigrants by limiting the cooperation between local police and ICE agents. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who represents Huntington Beach, praised the decision to sue.

    “I am very proud of the USA. I would suggest that those who advocate for sanctuary states are betraying the American people.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Citizens the state over are making it loud and clear that they refuse to sit idly by while California Gov. Jerry Brown unlawfully protects illegals in their state. Los Alamitos was the first city to take action, voting 4-1 on March 19 to pass a city ordinance exempting it from SB 54. That vote created a domino effect, and the cities of Aliso Viejo and Buena Park announced that they would also push for an exemption from the law.

    California citizens aren’t the only ones taking action, either – the Department of Justice is suing the state of California under the contention that SB 54, which essentially forbids local and state law enforcement from enforcing federal immigration law, is unconstitutional. Under the rule, law enforcement officers cannot be deputized as immigration agents, arrest someone for a civil immigration warrant alone, or participate in border patrol activities, among other actions.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    It goes without saying that SB 54 is a threat to public safety. But liberals would rather protect illegals than their own citizens. No wonder Californians are fighting back.

  • CDC Finds "Nightmare Bacteria" Across United States

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a new Vital Signs report that identified an alarming trend of antibiotic-resistant genes in “nightmare bacteria” across the United States, on April 03.

    The CDC warned that nationwide testing – conducted in 2017, uncovered 221 instances of unique resistance genes in “nightmare bacteria.” According to Fortune, of all the germ samples submitted to the CDC for lab testing, one in four had antibiotic-resistant gene characteristics.

    Is America losing the war against antibiotic-resistant bacteria?

    For some time, the CDC has warned Americans about the deadly, drug-resistant ‘superbugs,’ otherwise now called “nightmare bacteria,” which seems officials have upgraded the term to a much more dangerous name — reflecting the severity of today’s epidemic.

    “Nightmare bacteria” kills more than 23,000 Americans each year, and the report states about 11 percent of Americans who were screened had “no symptoms” before the bacteria aggressively spread.

    “While antibiotic resistance (AR) threats vary nationwide, AR has been found in every state. And unusual resistance germs, which are resistant to all or most antibiotics tested and are uncommon or carry special resistance genes, are constantly developing and spreading,” the CDC said in a report.

    Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread like wildfire

    “Essentially, we found nightmare bacteria in your backyard,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, Acting Principal Deputy Director of CDC.

    “These verge on untreatable infections” where the only option may be supportive care — fluids and sometimes machines to maintain life to give the patient a chance to recover, Schuchat said.

    Schuchat states about 2 million Americans get infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and around 23,000 people die from the deadly infections.

    Dr. Jay Butler, the chief medical officer for the state of Alaska and past president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said, “even in remote areas” the antibiotic-resistant bacteria threat is real, because those who are infected can unknowingly transport the deadly bacteria.

    “Rapid identification of the new or rare threats is the critical first step in CDC’s containment strategy to stop the spread of antibiotic resistance. When a germ with significant resistance is detected, facilities can quickly isolate patients and begin aggressive infection control and screening actions to discover, reduce, and stop transmission to others,” the CDC said.

    What can the Federal Government do? 

    • Monitoring resistance and sounding the alarm when threats emerge. CDC develops and provides new lab tests so health departments can quickly identify new threats.

    • Improving identification through CDC’s new AR Lab Network in all 50 states, 5 large cities, and Puerto Rico, including 7 regional labs and a national tuberculosis lab for specialty testing.

    • Supporting prevention experts and programs in every state, and providing data and recommendations for local prevention and response.

    • Testing innovative infection control and prevention strategies with health care and academic partners.

    State and Local Health Departments and Labs must can: 

    • Make sure all health care facilities know what state and local lab support is available and what isolates (pure samples of a germ) to send for testing. Develop a plan to respond rapidly to unusual genes and germs when they first appear.

    • Assess the quality and consistency of infection control in health care facilities across the state, especially in facilities with high-risk patients and long stays. Help improve practices.

    • Coordinate with affected health care facilities, the new AR Lab Network regional lab, and CDC for every case of unusual resistance. Investigations should include onsite infection control assessments to find spread. Consider colonization screenings. Continue until spread is controlled.

    • Provide timely lab results and recommendations to affected health care facilities and providers. If the patient came from or was transferred to another facility, alert that facility.

    “The efforts detailed in the Vital Signs report were made possible through new congressional funding in 2016 to combat antibiotic resistance,” Dr. Auwaerter said. “We urge Congress to sustain and to grow that investment so that further progress will prepare us to meet the future challenges of antibiotic resistance from a position of strength.”

    Antibiotic drugs are beneficial and have been around for decades. Here is the issue, antibiotic-resistant genes in bacteria are getting used to the drugs.  It is a problem the CDC and the federal government have known for a while, but it is an issue that is more widespread than previously thought.

    Mapping Out The Rise of Resistance:

  • Viewers Outraged By CNN's "Sexist" Coverage Of YouTube Shooter

    During the chaotic hours following yesterday’s shooting at YouTube headquarters, news organizations were begging law enforcement sources and interrogating witnesses for any clue or scrap of news about the shooter, their identity and their motive.

    CNN

    And as it so often does, this approach led to some incredibly – even offensively – inaccurate reporting. And nowhere were these violations more blatant than at CNN, which quickly started speculating that the attacker may have been involved in a “love triangle” or some other relationship following reports that the shooter was female, per the Hollywood Reporter.

    One personality, CNN’s crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz, speculated on The Situation Room that the motivation for the shooting was “perhaps a love triangle.” Ongoing conversations centered on the possibility of the shooter reacting to a relationship gone bad.

    Predictably, CNN’s coverage provoked an outrage on Twitter.

     

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

     

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

     

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

     

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

     

     

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    As fate would have it, the shooting had nothing to do with a “love triangle” or “domestic violence” – the latter of which was widely reported by mainstream media organizations citing anonymous law enforcement sources. They also reported that one of the victims was believed to be the shooter’s boyfriend. Police said the shooter, who was later identified as Nasim Aghdam, had no personal relationship with anybody at YouTube headquarters.

    Instead, Aghdam, a prolific publisher of videos on the site, was seeking revenge on the company for censoring her.

  • Is Putin Winning The War Of Attrition With The U.S.?

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    The news that President Donald Trump offered to hold a meeting with his counterpart in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, has the political world in an uproar.

    Furiously keyboards are chattering away as laptop bombardiers are worried that perpetual war for perpetual empire will end if Trump and Putin see eye to eye on anything.

    From the bowels of MI-6 to the think tanks that line K Street schemes are hatched to make it politically unacceptable for Trump to do what he apparently did, if TASS is to be believed.

    If true, the offer represents the biggest shift in U.S./Russian relations since Trump’s election and the subsequent hissy fit thrown by his political opposition in every corner of the political landscape.

    Because they know what’s happening even though you could never get them to admit it in public, the U.S. is vulnerable.

    We’re not vulnerable in any ultimate weapons sense. The U.S. can certainly lob enough nukes at Russia to wipe them out and vice versa.  No, we are vulnerable where our real power comes from: our dominance of the world’s capital markets backed up by both the political will to isolate anyone who doesn’t toe our line and/or the military might to put down any marginal challenges.

    Real Might, Real Power

    So, China finally launching an oil futures contract denominated in Yuan, the so-called petroyuan, and convertible to gold is a financial WMD which doesn’t dwarf Putin’s new hypersonic missiles today.  But, over time that weapon will grow in power and destructive capability.

    China is the world’s largest importer of oil.  That makes it the source of marginal demand for oil in the world.  Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter, that makes them one of the suppliers of the marginal barrel of oil on the world market.

    While the Saudi Arabians export a lot more oil than Russia, they do so at a much higher all-in-sustaining-cost basis than Russia does (see volatility of the Saudi Budget relative to oil prices below).  At current oil prices Russia’s slowly growing economy is capable of meeting its social needs as measured by the government’s budget, which ran a very modest 1.5% of GDP in 2017 and should contract again this year.

    On the other hand the Saudis ran an 8.9% budget deficit in 2017 and has zero hope of closing that much further without higher oil prices. The Saudis are simply at the mercy of the oil price.

    Therefore, the Russians are, in my opinion, the producer of the marginal barrel of oil because of their greater economic diversity.

    Economically speaking, the marginal supplier and marginal buyer set the price.  No one else does.

    And when you are the marginal buyer you decide what currency you’ll pay in.  In the 1970’s when the U.S. was so “dependent on foreign oil” we were also the price setters.  This was the framework for the petrodollar deal.  Saudi Arabia got U.S. cover for its crimes against humanity and the U.S. got to export dollars around the world and build up confidence in our government bond markets.

    Today China is where the U.S. was and it’s position is getting stronger by the day.  And that’s why this petroyuan contract can and will succeed where others have failed in the past.

    At some point China will tell the Saudis they no longer are willing to subsidize the U.S. dollar and offer up only Yuan in payment.

    And guess what folks?  The Saudis will play ball.  So will the U.S.

    If they don’t China will continue to buy more and more oil from Russia who will be only too happy to accept Yuan in payment for services rendered.  The Saudis will see their power eroded over this.  The dollar will fall as a percentage of reserves.

    The Waiting Game

    And this brings me to Putin and his near infinite patience.  It is easy to have patience with your opponent when you know your opponent has no end-game strategy other than war.

    Putin understands that the U.S. is living on borrowed time.  That moves like this ‘petroyuan’ contract are the beginning of a new landscape.

    When Chinese banking giant ICBC bought a London Bullion Market Association vault, a seat on the fixing board and became one of thirteen market makers we all wondered what the end game was.  But, it should be plainly clear now.

    The LBMA is the means by which China can make good on its promise to back its Shanghai Oil Futures contract with gold, allaying the fears of institutional investors and traders of an exit strategy for their profits.

    China gets a way to deepen its yuan-denominated debt markets and expand the Yuan’s base via organic growth of demand for it as a trade settlement currency.  Investors are safe knowing they can hold yuan-denominated debt because it is convertible to gold as a hedge.

    The Russians get a willing partner with tremendous capital reserves to invest in Russia and benefit from the growth of their relationship.  Russia gets to diversify its reserves and lessen the impact of an exchange rate shock between the ruble and the U.S. dollar.

    Putin knew the Chinese were making the right moves to pull off what marginal players like Qaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq could not do, defy the U.S.’s control over the pricing of oil.

    The petrodollar is the U.S.’s Achilles’ heel.  Trade matters despite Martin Armstrong’s downplaying of it.  It is the basis on which an economy can or cannot sustain a virtuous credit cycle in our absurd fractional reserve banking system.

    It is the M-zero of the international monetary system, as it were.  And if anything about central banking is to be believed, shrinking a particular currency’s portion of global M-zero means shrinking its multiplier through asset valuations, c.f. Exter’s Pyramid.

    Because of this the petrodollar is one of the main conduits that allow us to finance our current spending habits.  If the U.S. only ran a trade deficit, then Triffin’s Paradox would be in play and the current system would be sustainable for a lot longer than it is today.

    But with the fiscal and demographic nightmare unfolding in the U.S. and Europe all Russia has to do is deflect the worst of their aggressions while waiting for time to catch up with their profligacy.

    And that time is catching up with us rapidly.

    And that’s been Putin’s plan all along.  Simply win a hybrid war of attrition with the U.S. and Europe.  Trump, I think, understands this, though he’d never admit it in public and nor should he.

    The very fact that he’s willing to meet Putin now after a deadly clash between U.S. forces and Russian mercenaries in the oil fields near Deir Ezzor and Putin’s unveiling weapons that render moot much of the U.S.’s current defense spending means he knows it’s time to begin pulling the world back from the brink of catastrophe.

    That Trump made this offer despite the virulent protestations of the foreign policy wonks in his cabinet (many of whom he recently fired) and the chattering class in Congress and the Media speaks to how serious the situation truly is behind the scenes.

    So, while I don’t believe this petroyuan contract will change the world now, it is another bit of leverage China has in its trade and geopolitical negotiations with Trump over Iran, North Korea, Syria and China’s One Belt, One Road project.

    Putin’s very prudent means of getting Russia’s own house in order put her in the position to outlast the U.S. who will, over the next few years have to retreat or destroy the world.

    *  *  *

    To support more work like this as well as receive the Gold Goats ‘n Guns Investment Newsletter sign up at my Patreon Page beginning at just $4/month.

Digest powered by RSS Digest