- Power To The People: John Lennon's Legacy Lives On
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rurtherford Institute,
“You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just a name for evil. The monster doesn’t care whether it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s not thinking logically, it’s out of control.”—John Lennon (1969)
Militant nonviolent resistance works.
Peaceful, prolonged protests work.
Mass movements with huge numbers of participants work.
Yes, America, it is possible to use occupations and civil disobedience to oppose government policies, counter injustice and bring about change outside the confines of the ballot box.
It has been done before. It is being done now. It can be done again.
For example, in May of 1932, more than 43,000 people, dubbed the Bonus Army—World War I veterans and their families—marched on Washington, set up tent cities in the nation's capital, and refused to leave until the government agreed to pay the bonuses they had been promised as a reward for their services. Eventually their efforts not only succeeded in securing payment of the bonuses but contributed to the passage of the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Similarly, the Civil Rights Movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to strike at the core of an unjust and discriminatory society. Likewise, while the 1960s anti-war movement began with a few thousand perceived radicals, it ended with hundreds of thousands of protesters, spanning all walks of life, demanding the end of American military aggression abroad.
Most recently, after months of protests over the construction of a pipeline that members of the Sioux tribe insisted would harm their water supply, the Army Corp of Engineers has agreed to look for an alternate route for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.
This kind of “power to the people” activism—grassroots, populist and potent—is exactly the brand of civic engagement John Lennon advocated throughout his career as a musician and anti-war activist.
It’s been 36 years since Lennon was gunned down by an assassin’s bullet on December 8, 1980, but his legacy and the lessons he imparted in his music and his activism have not diminished over the years.
All of the many complaints we have about government today – surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc. – were present in Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution.
Little wonder, then, that the U.S. government saw him as enemy number one.
Because he never refrained from speaking truth to power, Lennon became a prime example of the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.
Lennon was the subject of a four-year campaign of surveillance and harassment by the U.S. government (spearheaded by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), an attempt by President Richard Nixon to have him “neutralized” and deported. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times points out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.”
Years after Lennon’s assassination, it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of surveillance files on him. As the New York Times notes, “Critics of today’s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ … is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.”
Such government-directed harassment was nothing new.
The FBI has had a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures, most notably among the latter such celebrated names as folk singer Pete Seeger, painter Pablo Picasso, comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, comedian Lenny Bruce and poet Allen Ginsberg. Among those most closely watched by the FBI was Martin Luther King Jr., a man labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”
In Lennon’s case, the ex-Beatle had learned early on that rock music could serve a political end by proclaiming a radical message. More importantly, Lennon saw that his music could mobilize the public and help to bring about change. However, while Lennon believed in the power of the people, he also understood the danger of a power-hungry government. “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people,” observed Lennon. “It controls them.”
Unfortunately, Lennon’s time as a troublemaker was short-lived.
Mark David Chapman was waiting in the shadows on Dec. 8, 1980, just as Lennon was returning to his New York apartment building.
As Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating outside, Chapman called out, “Mr. Lennon!” Lennon turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman emptied his .38-caliber pistol and pumped four hollow-point bullets into his back and left arm.
John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Much like Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and others who have died attempting to challenge the powers-that-be, Lennon had finally been “neutralized.”
Still, you can’t murder a movement with a bullet and a madman: Lennon’s legacy lives on in his words, his music and his efforts to speak truth to power.
Unfortunately, Lennon’s work to change the world for the better is far from done.
Peace remains out of reach. Activism and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism is on the rise, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives.
For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state. And as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, those who do dare to speak up are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship or, worse, involuntary detention.
As Lennon shared in a 1968 interview:
I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives… I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody can put on paper what our government and the American government and the Russian… Chinese… what they are actually trying to do, and what they think they’re doing, I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane. But I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”
So what’s the answer?
Lennon had a multitude of suggestions.
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
“Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.”
And my favorite advice of all: “All you need is love. Love is all you need.”
- Milo Yiannopoulos Told Not to Speak of “Pizzagate” During Miami University Lecture
Submitted by Joseph Jankowski of PlanetFreeWill.com
During the introduction to his lecture at Miami University on Monday, Breitbart News journalist and technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos informed the crowd that he was unable to address the highly controversial topic of “Pizzagate” because he had received phone calls from Washington D.C. that told him “not yet.”
“We are going to talk this evening about a few things that are close to my heart,” Milo told his audience. “Although, I have one announcement to make which is that sadly when I announced I was going to be speaking about Pizzagate this evening, I got a number of phone calls with Washington D.C. area codes saying ‘not yet.’”
For those unfamiliar, Pizzagate is a wildly-popular conspiracy theory that centers around leaked emails from former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that some believe contain pedophilic lingo.
“Pizzagate subreddit was started by a group of Trump-supporting internet sleuths who were attempting to use WikiLeaks’ leaked Podesta emails to connect the Clintons and John Podesta to the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein,” Zero Hedge wrote of Pizzagate. “That said, when the Podesta emails failed to reveal a “smoking gun” linkage, the sleuths instead turned their focus to mulitple “pizza” references in Podesta’s emails which then led to the speculation that those “pizza” references must be code for something far more sinister.”
The Washington Post says the “Pizzagate” sleuths are convinced that the “secret headquarters of a child sex-trafficking ring run by Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle” is located in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza shop called Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria.
Yiannopoulos put out a flyer for his Miami speech on Monday afternoon which advertised that he would be addressing the conspiracy theory.
“I can tell you with no ego, this will be my finest show,” Milo wrote on his Facebook page.
It is currently unknown who called Milo and told him not to discuss the Pizzagate controversy but it might have something to do with the incident that occurred on Sunday when a man walked into Comet Ping Pong with a gun.
The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” the “Pizzagate” conspiracy.
Reports claim that Comet Ping Pong’s owner, James Alefantis, and his employees have been victims of continuous harassment from those exploring the theory that connects the pizza shop to child sex-trafficking.
Surrounding businesses have also said that they have been targeted by believers in the conspiracy theory.
While many of the sleuths say that their research as led them to believe that “Pizzagate” is real and not just some wild theory, there are some people who believe it has gone too far and now has become dangerous.
- Google Searches For "Conservative Outreach Manager" After Failing To Elect Hillary
After failing miserably in their effort to elect Hillary on November 8th, Google has decided it’s time to hire a “Conservative Outreach Manager.” You know your bias is deeply ingrained when you have to create a brand new “outreach” position just to figure out how to speak to people on the other side of the aisle.
Per the job listing posted to the Google Careers website, the new “Conservative Outreach Manager” would act as a “liaison to conservative, libertarian and
free market groups.”As a member of Google’s Public Policy team, you help shape various product and issue agendas with policy makers inside and outside government. In addition, you will help advise our internal teams on the public policy implications of their products, working with a closely coordinated and cross-functional global team. The role requires significant experience either working with or in government, politics or a regulatory agency as well as an ability to grasp complex technical and policy issues.
As a member of Google’s Public Policy outreach team, you will act as Google’s liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups. You are part organizer, part advocate and part policy wonk as you understand the world of third-party non-governmental advocacy organizations. You are eager to represent Google among those organizations. You can work a room, tell Google’s story in an elevator or from a podium and work with partner organizations on shared projects to advance Google’s public policy goals.
Of course, it’s not terribly surprising that Google was ill-prepared to work with a Trump administration since WikiLeaks revealed the company was all-in with the Hillary campaign…a revelation which was subsequently confirmed when Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, was spotted at Hillary’s Election Night “party” wearing a staff badge.
Somehow we suspect the “Conservative Outreach Manager” won’t be as effective at pushing Google’s policies with the Trump administration as Schmidt would have been with Hillary…Oh well, time to start building a relationship with Joe Biden.
* * *
For those who missed it, here is what we previously wrote about Schmidt’s “secret strategic plan” to get Hillary elected.
Among the latest set of Podesta releases, was the following email sent on April 15, 2014 by Google’s Eric Schmidt titled “Notes for a 2016 Democratic Campaign” in which the Google/Alphabet Chairman tells Cheryl Mills that “I have put together my thoughts on the campaign ideas and I have scheduled some meetings in the next few weeks for veterans of the campaign to tell me how to make these ideas better. This is simply a draft but do let me know if this is a helpful process for you all.“
Google head Eric Schmidt’s secret strategic plan for the US election #PodestaEmails https://t.co/LskJODXyXn
More: https://t.co/ZUfh7WDAT5 pic.twitter.com/llq5G9kp5V
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 31, 2016
While there are numerous curious nuances in the plan, presented below in its entirety, the one section that caught our – and Wikileaks’ attention – is the following which implicitly suggests Google planned the creation of a voter tracking database, using smart phones:
Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them. In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter. A dynamic volunteer can easily speak with a voter and, with their email or other digital handle, get the voter videos and other answers to areas they care about (“the benefits of ACA to you” etc.)
As a reminder, two days ago it was revealed that just days prior to the April 15, 2014 email, Schmidt had sent another email in which he expressed his eagerness to “fund” the campaign efforts and wants to be a “head outside advisor.” In the email from John Podesta to Robby Mook we learned that:
I met with Eric Schmidt tonight. As David reported, he’s ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc. He was more deferential on structure than I expected. Wasn’t pushing to run through one of his existing firms. Clearly wants to be head outside advisor, but didn’t seem like he wanted to push others out. Clearly wants to get going. He’s still in DC tomorrow and would like to meet with you if you are in DC in the afternoon. I think it’s worth doing. You around? If you are, and want to meet with him, maybe the four of us can get on t
Another email from February 2015 suggested that the Google Chairman remained active in its collaboration with the Clinton campaign: John Podesta wrote that Eric Schmidt met with HR “about the business he proposes to do with the campaign. He says he’s met with HRC” and adds that “FYI. They are donating the Google plane for the Africa trip”
The remainder of Schmidt’s proposed plan, presented in its entirety below, is just as troubling.
Notes for a 2016 Democratic Campaign
Eric Schmidt
April 2014DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
Here are some comments and observations based on what we saw in the 2012 campaign. If we get started soon, we will be in a very strong position to execute well for 2016.
1. Size, Structure and Timing
Lets assume a total budget of about $1.5Billion, with more than 5000 paid employees and million(s) of volunteers. The entire startup ceases operation four days after November 8, 2016. The structure includes a Chairman or Chairwoman who is the external face of the campaign and a President who is the executive in charge of objectives, measurements, systems and building and managing the organization.
Every day matters as our end date does not change. An official campaign right after midterm elections and a preparatory team assembled now is best.
2. Location
The campaign headquarters will have about a thousand people, mostly young and hardworking and enthusiastic. Its important to have a very large hiring pool (such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees. DC is a poor choice as its full of distractions and interruptions. Moving the location from DC elsewhere guarantees visitors have taken the time to travel and to help.
The key is a large population of talented people who are dying to work for you. Any outer borough of NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston are all good examples of a large, blue state city to base in.
Employees will relocate to participate in the campaign, and will find low cost temporary housing or live with campaign supporters on a donated basis. This worked well in Chicago and can work elsewhere.
The computers will be in the cloud and most likely on Amazon Web services (AWS). All the campaign needs are portable computers, tablets and smart phones along with credit card readers.
3. The pieces of a Campaign
a) The Field
Its important to have strong field leadership, with autonomy and empowerment. Operations talent needs to build the offices, set up the systems, hire the people, and administer what is about 5000 people. Initial modeling will show heavy hiring in the key battleground states. There is plenty of time to set these functions up and build the human systems. The field is about organizing people, voter contact, and get out the vote programs.
For organizing tools, build a simple way to link people and activities as a workflow and let the field manage the system, all cloud based. Build a simple organizing tool with a functioning back-end. Avoid deep integration as the benefits are not worth it. Build on the cloud. Organizing is really about sharing and linking people, and this tool would measure and track all of it.
There are many other crucial early investments needed in the field: determining the precise list of battleground states, doing early polling to confirm initial biases, and maintaining and extending voter protection programs at the state level.
b) The Voter
Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them. In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter. A dynamic volunteer can easily speak with a voter and, with their email or other digital handle, get the voter videos and other answers to areas they care about (“the benefits of ACA to you” etc.)
The scenario includes a volunteer on a walk list, encountering a potential voter, updating the records real time and deepening contact with the voter and the information we have to offer.
c) Digital
A large group of campaign employees will use digital marketing methods to connect to voters, to offer information, to use social networks to spread good news, and to raise money. Partners like Blue State Digital will do much of the fund raising. A key point is to convert BSD and other partners to pure cloud service offerings to handle the expected crush and load.
d) Media (paid), (earned) and (social), and polling
New tools should be developed to measure reach and impact of paid, earned and social media. The impact of press coverage should be measurable in reach and impact, and TV effectiveness measured by attention and other surveys.
Build tools that measure the rate and spread of stories and rumors, and model how it works and who has the biggest impact. Tools can tell us about the origin of stories and the impact of any venue, person or theme. Connect polling into this in some way.
Find a way to do polling online and not on phones.
e) Analytics and data science and modeling, polling and resource optimization tools
For each voter, a score is computed ranking probability of the right vote. Analytics can model demographics, social factors and many other attributes of the needed voters. Modeling will tell us what who we need to turn out and why, and studies of effectiveness will let us know what approaches work well. Machine intelligence across the data should identify the most important factors for turnout, and preference.
It should be possible to link the voter records in Van with upcoming databases from companies like Comcast and others for media measurement purposes.
The analytics tools can be built in house or partnered with a set of vendors.
f) Core engineering, voter database and contact with voters online
The database of voters (NGP Van) is a fine starting point for voter records and is maintained by the vendor (and needs to be converted to the cloud). The code developed for 2012 (Narwahl etc.) is unlikely to be used, and replaced by a model where the vendor data is kept in the Van database and intermediate databases are arranged with additional information for a voter.
Quite a bit of software is to be developed to match digital identities with the actual voter file with high confidence. The key unit of the campaign is a “voter”, and each and every record is viewable and updatable by volunteers in search of more accurate information.
In the case where we can’t identify the specific human, we can still have a partial digital voter id, for a person or “probable-person” with attributes that we can identify and use to target. As they respond we can eventually match to a registered voter in the main file. This digital key is eventually matched to a real person.
The Rules
Its important that all the player in the campaign work at cost and there be no special interests in the financing structure. This means that all vendors work at cost and there is a separate auditing function to ensure no one is profiting unfairly from the campaign. All investments and conflicts of interest would have to be publicly disclosed. The rules of the audit should include caps on individual salaries and no investor profits from the campaign function. (For example, this rule would apply to me.)
The KEY things
a) early build of an integrated development team and recognition that this is an entire system that has to be managed as such
b) decisions to exclusively use cloud solutions for scalability, and choice of vendors and any software from 2012 that will be reused.
c) the role of the smart phone in the hands of a volunteer. The smart phone manages the process, updates the database, informs the citizen, and allows fundraising and recruitment of volunteers (on android and iphone).
d) early and continued focus of qualifying fundraising dollars to build the field, and build all the tools. Outside money will be plentiful and perfect for TV use. A smart media mix tool tells all we need to know about media placement, TV versus other media and digital media. - The Biggest Gold Heist Of All Time
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
In 524 BC, a group of pirates set sail for Sifnos, an ancient Greek island famed for its vast gold and silver mines.
The mines of Sifnos were unparalleled in the ancient world.
They produced so much gold and silver that the local government at Sifnos could erect countless monuments, invest in new public works, and still easily have a substantial balance remaining at the end of each year to distribute to the citizens.
When the pirates arrived, they robbed the island of 100 talents of gold, an unfathomable sum at the time.
In the ancient world, a talent was a unit of weight equivalent to 26 kilograms, or about 836 troy ounces.
So 100 talents of gold would be worth just shy of $100 million today, ranking that ancient robbery as one of the biggest heists in history.
It’s amazing that thousands of years have passed, and yet that very same gold could still be traded in modern financial markets.
There are few other assets on the planet that have had such a long history of value, durability, and marketability.
Gold very clearly holds its value over time, whether over decades or millennia.
Now, in fairness, it’s not like any of us is going to live for 2500+ years, so realistically it shouldn’t matter if our money will maintain its value until the year 4500.
But gold has plenty of other benefits. For example, it’s also a type of insurance.
If there’s ever a major problem with your home country’s currency or monetary system (which we’ve seen over the last several years from India to Iceland, Argentina to Zimbabwe) gold will maintain its value and survive the currency crisis.
Owning some physical gold will ensure that you still have something of value in your pocket.
This is an insurance policy that you hope you’ll never need. But if you ever do, you’ll be damn glad you have it.
Another type of insurance policy we’ve discussed in this letter is physical cash.
Most people keep the vast majority of their savings in a bank, and in normal times we can access this savings online, at ATMs, and in the checkout line with our debit cards.
We view physical cash and bank balances as the same thing, i.e. $1 in a savings account is the same thing as a one-dollar bill with George Washington’s face on it.
They’re not the same thing. These are actually two distinct forms of money, they just happen to have a 1:1 exchange rate right now.
Your bank balance is nothing more than an accounting entry on a bank’s ledger.
It’s a technically a claim– an amount that the bank owes you, one of its millions of unsecured creditors.
And if there are ever any major problems at the bank, you’ll quickly see how worthless this claim can be.
Think about what happened in Cyprus back in 2013. An entire nation woke up one morning and found out that the government had frozen every account at every bank in Cyprus.
It turned out that the entire Cypriot financial system was near collapse, and the government cut people off from their funds in order to protect the banks.
At that point, bank balances were fundamentally worthless. It didn’t matter how much money you had in the bank… you couldn’t do anything with it.
But anyone who was holding physical cash could still buy food, fuel, and other necessities until the crisis subsided.
The 1:1 exchange rate between cash and bank balances broke down, literally overnight.
One day everything was normal. The next day, cash was far more valuable than anyone’s bank balance.
This is why it makes sense to hold both– gold AND physical cash.
It’s perfectly fine to stay optimistic and hope for the best. And there’s plenty to be optimistic about.
But with bank insolvencies rising (especially in Europe) and a US debt level closing in on $20 trillion, does it make sense to bet everything you’ve ever worked for on hope and optimism?
We insure ourselves against all sorts of risks.
We have fire insurance in case our houses burn down. We have life insurance in case we have an early departure.
Those risks may be extremely low. But they’re important enough that we spend money to protect ourselves against them.
The systemic risks we’re talking about may also be low. (Though I would suggest the risks are much higher than anyone realizes…)
But their impacts are extraordinary.
Yet unlike conventional insurance, these policies, i.e. cash and gold, don’t really cost anything.
Gold prices may fluctuate from day to day, but over the long-term, the metal holds its value. And it’s an asset that you’ll be able to sell, worldwide, in an instant.
It’s the same with cash.
With interest rates at historic lows and a checking account yielding 0.1%, there’s virtually no opportunity cost in holding some physical cash versus keeping all of your savings at the bank.
These are no-brainer solutions with minimal (nearly zero) cost that provide time-tested insurance against some obvious risks.
- Italian Government Prepares To Nationalize Monte Paschi
The wait is almost over.
After two previous taxpayer funded bailouts, and nearly five months of foreplay since the third largest Italian bank failed the latest European stress test at the end of July, in which the Italian government in September vow that “bailout for Italian banks has been ‘absolutely’ ruled out“, a third bailout, as we previewed earlier today, is now imminent.
According to Reuters, which cites two sources, Italy is preparing to take a €2 billion controlling stake in Monte Paschi as the bank’s hopes of a private funding rescue have faded after a fruitless five month search to secure an anchor investor, following Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s decision to quit.
The government, which is already the ailing bank’s single largest shareholder with a four percent share, is planning do a debt-for-equity swap, and buy junior bonds held by ordinary Italians to take the stake up to 40%, the sources said. The bonds would then be equitized, converting the government’s bond stake into pure equity ownership, a troubling approach as it would effectively wipe out the existing equity tranche and position the bank for a potential bankruptcy fight in court where the government faces off with the equity committee.
This transaction would make the government by far the biggest shareholder, meaning the Treasury would be able to control Italy’s third biggest bank and its shareholder meetings, or in other words, the bank would be nationalized.
The sources said a government decree authorizing the deal, which would see the state buy the subordinated bonds from retail investors and convert them into shares, could be rushed through as early as this weekend. Italy’s treasury would buy the bonds held by around 40,000 retail investors at face value, the sources said.
It is unclear how the senior bondholders, who would not be made whole would feel about a government transaction which favors the juniors (who would get par) where the bulk of the retail investors are found, would feel about such a transaction which would bring memories of the US government’s “bailout” of GM which flipped the bankruptcy process on its head by prioritizing junior pensioners over senior creditors.
That way the transaction is structure, the government would ensure retail investors do not suffer any losses in the bank’s bailout, making it politically more palatable and staving off the risk of a run on deposits that could trigger a wider banking crisis.
The bank, which needs to raise €5 billion by the end of December or risk winding down, is set to raise 1 billion euros from a bond swap with institutional investors and Rome is hoping the 2 billion euros participation from the government could help persuade private investors to fill the 2 billion euros gap. Since any new equity investors would come in as the equivalent of post-petition equity, it would mean that existing equityholders, already a token amount, would be wiped out.
“It’s a de-facto nationalization with a strong presence by the state that can attract other investors and allow the transaction to be completed,” said one of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There is another problem: in the past both Merkel and Schauble, not to mention Djisselbloem, have made it expressly clear that a bail-in mechanism should be used to preserve insolvent banks, and a state-funded and taxpayer backed bailout/nationalization is no longer permitted. Allowing Italy to proceed with this transaction would make a mockery of Europe’s entire “bail-in” protocol, not to mention the European finance ministers’ resolve and ability to implement anything, which is why the European Commission would need to assess whether the government’s intervention is taking place at market prices or if it constitutes state aid, another source said.
However, since an Italian contagion wave would inevitably slam Deutsche Bank and Germany’s various other banks, Europe will find the deal to be “whatever it needs it to be, to make it possible.
Monte dei Paschi, rated the weakest lender in European stress tests this summer, had planned to arrange a private rescue, starting with a firm commitment from one or more anchor investors and then launching a share sale this week.
There is still some hope for a private rescue without a government intervention, but that is evaporating by the hour. According to Reuters, the chances of the privately backed deal going ahead as planned were now slim. A source close to Qatar’s cash-rich sovereign wealth fund said it could inject €1.4 billion in the bank but wanted to wait to see what kind of government would succeed Renzi. Other sources were more cautious on Qatar’s willingness to back the deal.
Monte Paschi’s bank’s chief executive, Marco Morelli, held talks with European Central Bank officials in Frankfurt on Tuesday to review its options. A meeting of the bank’s board is likely to take place on Wednesday. At that point it is likely to greenlight the first major European bank bailout in a year in which the G-20 leader previously declared that the global economy is fixed and is now reflating itself back to growth.
- Is Janet Yellen Sabotaging The Trump Administration?
Submitted by Dennis E. Miller,
Is Janet Yellen trying to screw Donald Trump?
No, I’m not asking for possible titles to a porn movie (“Trump Gets Janet Yellin’” or “Trump Puts Down Ol’ Yellen”). But it really does seem like the Federal Reserve Chair(wo)man is out to get the Donald.
Yellen recently told Congress’s Joint Economic Committee that an interest rate hike could be imminent if “incoming data provide some further evidence of continued progress toward the committee’s objectives.” Markets have already priced in a hike of a quarter to a half of a percentage point. For now, stocks continue to be reach historic highs and the dollar is strong, even as Yellen and her central banking cohorts begin to ease on the gas.
But will Yellen’s gambit plunge us into a recession is the question. Just because Wall Street is gorging on high returns doesn’t mean the economy is sound. For eight years and running, the Fed has kept interest rates near zero percent in an attempt to spark investment and borrowing. Unemployment has gradually shrunk during the Obama years, yet the workforce participation rateremains low by modern standards. Prior to Election Day, two-thirds of Americans were anxious about their economic future.
Stock traders are popping the bubbly while middle America drinks the warm beer of worry. If you’re still in the dark as to why Trump stole the Rust Belt from Hillary, you need not look further than that.
Fear aside, Trump’s election has been an Advil to the ongoing economic headache felt by most Americans. Eight years of Obama’s big spending combined with ultra low interest rates has done precious little to shore up their optimism. Retirees on fixed income can’t get a yield on their savings. Millennials earning a salary for the first time in their life have little incentive to put money away.
So you might think: Hey, maybe Yellen’s hinting about raising interest rates is a good thing! Sure, it might cause the S&P 500 to dip. But it’s about time Grandma got a return on her CDs.
I’m very skeptical. Interest rates most definitely need to rise, but Yellen’s timing is suspicious. Trump, despite his admiration for low borrowing rates (and debt refinancing), has accused Yellen of keeping the lid on interest rates in order to boost Obama’s legacy. He told CNBC in September that rates were “staying at zero because [Yellen’s] obviously political and she's doing what Obama wants her to do.” In another interview with Reuters, Trump explained with perfect Trumpian simplicity, "They're keeping rates down because they don't want everything else to go down.”
Yellen wasn’t happy about the charges. She fired back at a press conference, saying, "We do not discuss politics at our meetings, and we do not take politics into account in our decisions.”
Uh huh. And I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Since the beginning, the Federal Reserve was designed to operate in secret, away from the prying eye of politics. A nation’s money supply is a fragile thing: If you have too much, you get hyperinflation that destroys the currency. If you have too little, deflation sets in, and people withhold from spending.
(The last part of the logic is phooey, but that’s a topic for another article).
What the Fed, serving as America’s central bank, does is balance the money supply to reflect market conditions. When the market is roaring, it’s time to cut off the money spigot so as to rein in inflation. When things are sluggish, pouring cash into the economy is supposed to gin up activity. There are all kinds of ins and outs and what-have-yous involved in the process, including convoluted accounting techniques. But long mythologized story short, the tinkers at the Fed are supposed to act on behalf of the economy, and not the elected shysters in Washington. Every macro-econ student learns that faux civics lesson the first week of class.
And like almost everything taught at college these days, Fed independence is a load of garbage. From its inception, the central bank has been a political tool presidents have used to bolster their administration’s approval ratings. “[T]he Federal Reserve fundamentally shifted its monetary policy course in 1953, 1961, 1969, 1974, and 1977 — all years in which the presidency changed. Fed policy almost always changes to accommodate varying presidential preferences,” writes economist Thomas DiLorenzo.
When presidents want tighter money—like Ike and Reagan did during their respective terms—the Fed obliges. When presidents demand loose monetary policy—such as LBJ and Nixon—the money magicians at the Fed make it so.
Ultimately, the Federal Reserve is a creature of Congress, and much of its leadership is staffed by presidential appointment. Should the president be unpleased by the Fed’s performance, there are consequences. G. William Miller’s short and disastrous 18-month-term under Jimmy Carter demonstrated as much.
So where does that leave Yellen? Trump threatened to oust the troll-looking monetary maiden on the campaign trail. It’s not within the president’s power to announce “You’re fired!” to a sitting Fed chairman. Pushing her out will take some cajoling. Somehow, though, I don’t think Mrs. Yellen wants to take orders from a President Trump.
And what would be a better going-away present for a new but critical administration than crippling the economy?
If it is indeed Yellen’s plan to tank the Trump presidency on her way out by raising interest rates, the Donald should fight back. He should take to his best medium, the TV, and begin making the public aware of the sabotage going on. When Yellen abandons her throne, Trump should appoint someone who is concerned about the dollar’s long-term stability. A few choices off the top of my head: finance writer and all-around mensch Jim Grant, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget David Stockman, commodity guru Jim Rogers, or former congressional representative and arch-Fed-critic Ron Paul.
Either would do nicely in turning the Fed from a politically-driven economy-destroying machine into something far less dangerous. And each could do their part in making King Dollar great again.
- New Poll Reveals Carrier Deal Wildly Popular With Voters – "Rarely Do We See Numbers That High"
As the talking heads of the mainstream media endlessly cogitate over the propriety of Trump negotiating one-off deals with companies like Carrier, the voters have seemingly made up their mind and are overwhelmingly supportive. Per a new Politico poll, 60% of the overall electorate is supportive of the Carrier deal that saved 1,000 jobs from moving to Mexico in return for tax savings.
While some conservatives and conservative groups — including The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin — have decried the Carrier deal as “crony capitalism,” the Politico/Morning Consult poll shows it’s a political winner for Trump. Sixty percent of voters say Carrier’s decision to keep some manufacturing jobs in Indiana, where Pence is still serving as governor, gives them a more favorable view of Trump. That includes not only 87 percent of self-identified Republicans, but also 54 percent of independents and 40 percent of Democrats.
“The Carrier announcement was big for Trump,” said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult co-founder and chief research officer. “Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion.”
Meanwhile, despite Sarah Palin blasting the Carrier deal as “crony capitalism” and “corporate welfare”, voters also seem to be overwhelmingly supportive of launching direct negotiations with private companies and/or offering tax breaks in return for keeping jobs in the United States.
Similarly, Republican voters say they are more likely to support one-off interventions with private companies like the Carrier deal than are Democratic voters. Asked whether it is acceptable for the president and vice president to negotiate directly with private businesses, a 51 percent majority of voters say that is appropriate, including 69 percent of Republicans. Just 27 percent say it is unacceptable, including 41 percent of Democrats.
A larger, 62 percent majority — 78 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents — say it is acceptable for the president and vice president to offer tax breaks or incentives to individual companies to keep jobs in the U.S., while only 2 in 10 voters say it’s inappropriate.
And 56 percent of voters say it’s acceptable for the president and vice president to “negotiate with individual private companies on a case-by-case basis,” including three-quarters of Republicans.
But the poll wasn’t all positive for Trump as 56% of respondents said the President-elect uses Twitter too much while nearly 80% of Hillary supporters admitted to being “triggered” by his tweets.
- Dallas Mayor Files Lawsuit To Block Withdrawals From "Insolvent" Police Pension After "Run On The Bank"
Last week, Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings sent a scathing letter to the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP) Board demanded that withdrawals be halted immediately until the “solvency and actuarial soundness of the Pension System is restored.” That said, the Mayor’s request was seemingly ignored as he has now filed a lawsuit with the Dallas District Court to force the pension board to halt withdrawals amid a “run on the bank.”
Within the suit, Rawlings notes that $500 million in lump-sum withdrawals have been made from the DPFP since August 2016 with $80 million of that amount being withdrawn in the first 2 weeks of November alone. The suit continues on to allege that “this mass exodus of DROP funds amounts to a “run on the bank” and is exacerbating the financial peril of the Pension System as a whole.”
In performing these ministerial duties, the Board has a duty to ensure that programs, such as the Pension System’s optional Deferred Retirement Option Plan (“DROP”), which is not a constitutionally protected benefit (or “benefit” at all), do not impair or reduce the Pension System’s core constitutionally protected benefits, e.g., service retirement benefits. The Board is willfully failing to perform these ministerial duties.
The Pension System, which the Board oversees, is in the midst of a financial crisis. In early 2016, the Board was warned by its own actuary that absent radical change,the Pension System would become insolvent within 15 years—irrevocably eradicating the constitutionally protected service retirement benefits (and other constitutionally protected benefits) of police and firefighter personnel of the City and their beneficiaries.
Critically, this 15-year projection of insolvency was based upon two overly optimistic assumptions that the Board has now known to be incorrect for several months. First, the actuary assumed that the Pension System’s $2.7 billion in assets would remain stable, even though approximately 56% of these assets were composed of optional DROP funds, which have historically been permitted to be withdrawn in lump-sums upon demand (even though this option was used infrequently before this year). Second, the actuary assumed that the Pension System would achieve its targeted 7.25% return or more on itsinvestments for the next 15 years.
Publication of this looming insolvency scenario prompted some DROP Participants to withdraw their DROP funds in lump-sum, which created a “snowball”effect, leading a staggering number of other DROP Participants to withdraw nearly $500 million in optional lump-sum DROP funds from the Pension System from August 13, 2016 to present. Over $80 million of these lump-sum DROP withdrawals have occurred within the first two weeks of November 2016 alone. Over this three-month time period, the Board has knowingly allowed DROP funds to continue to be withdrawn at record levels even though it is aware that doing so is irreparably harming the Pension System’s solvency and liquidity.
Lump-sum DROP withdrawals for 2016 are now on pace to be over 15 times higher than their historical average. This mass exodus of DROP funds amounts to a “run on the bank” and is exacerbating the financial peril of the Pension System as a whole.
The DPFP contreversy comes as hundreds of police and firefighters have poured millions into “DROP” accounts in which they were guaranteed exorbitant returns of 8% while the pension board has proposed a $1 billion bailout from the city of Dallas.
The city estimates that, as of November, 517 police and firefighters have DROP accounts containing more than $1 million. One, belonging to an unnamed first responder, has $4.3 million in it, city figures show. On average, the city estimates that the average DROP account contains nearly $600,000.
The controversy all comes at a time when the board has asked the cash-strapped city for a bailout over $1 billion. The board’s position is that they legally can’t stop the withdrawals, but the mayor disagrees.
Of course, this all begs the question of whether the Dallas Police and Fire Pension will be the first pension ponzi to burst?
Here is the full lawsuit filed by Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings:
- Virginia Tech Snowflakes Unveil Definitive List Of Top 50 Microaggressions That Offend Them
Submitted by William Nardi via TheCollegeFix.com,
Be careful what you say at Virginia Tech. Chances are, it could be a microaggression.
Multiple groups at Virginia Tech have collaborated to collect “microaggression testimonials” from students, who came up with roughly 50 different expressions that offend them. The examples are currently displayed on the “Microaggressions: #hokiesspeakup” Facebook page.
While the campaign lasted through the Spring semester, several posters reminding student to watch what they say still pepper the campus today.
The grievances were collected at a series of weekly meetings hosted by the NAACP, the Muslim Student Association and Jewish Student Union. They can be categorized into several identity politics genres, including: disability, race, religion and sexual orientation.
Among the posters still hanging, at least three remain up in McBryde, an academic hall, telling students not to say “All Jews are rich,” refer to other students as “spicy latinas” for giving opinions, and not to shout “run n*gger run” at black joggers while passing them on the street.
“It should have been a campaign to promote common decency, but beneath the surface, it plays into their own scornful agendas,” Virginia Tech senior Nicholas Korpics told The College Fix.
“The minority groups on campus, especially within the leftist-queer community, have little to no intentions of reconciling with their ‘oppressors.’ They just want to isolate themselves and then say nasty things about people who oppress them.”
This is not the first time Virginia Tech has put up controversial posters. Earlier this year they came under fire after displaying messages that asked Christian students to check their “religious privilege.”
As for the 50 microaggressions collected at Virginia Tech, they include:
Disability
- “Coworkers at another institution frequently tried to ‘diagnose’ people behind their back, and repeatedly described people with specific disabilities (that I share) as scary, dangerous, awkward, creepy, weird, ect.”
- “Don’t call yourself that,” where that refers to me calling myself disabled.
- “She’s so bipolar.” Disabilities are not insults.
- “You have so much to be thankful for, you have no reason to be depressed.”
- “You just need a positive mental attitude!” being told to people with mental illness or other disabilities.
- A disabled person being told “You’re so inspirational” for doing an everyday task.
- A non-disabled classmate viewing the R-word as just another swear word and including it in a poem.
- Going to other campus social justice or diversity events, and them not being accessible [for disabled people].
- Having to take a longer, less obvious route to get into buildings on campus.
Religion
- “All Jews are rich.” I’m working to pay myself through college.
- “Jew are just white people”… explain these communities who have existed for centuries.
- There are many holidays to be observant of, and I may have to miss class. Please respect my religion.
- When someone finds out that I’m Jewish and then asks if I was born that way.
LGBTQ
- “I don’t understand why you can’t just be happy with your body.”
- “Since you’re transitioning, does that make you [insert sexuality here]?”
- “What’s your real name/gender?”—One’s identity and/or gender are what they say it is.
- “Why can’t boys just dress like boys and girls just dress like girls?”
- “Why can’t you just be gay?”—Gender identity and sexuality are not the same.
- But gender is socially constructed, you don’t need to physically transition”—accept, don’t invalidate trans people’s experiences and wants for their body.
- People correcting others for not using certain terms to describe me (e.g. “No, that’s a dudette”)—let trans people describe their own identities.
Race and Ethnicity
- “When you underestimate my mental capacity based on my proficiency speaking English.”
- Arriving at a house party and hearing, “Party’s over, too many n*ggers here, time to leave.”
- Being asked if “there were pinatas” at my friend’s party.
- Being asked to present the black perspective in a predominantly white class.
- Being called an “angry black woman” when speaking in a stern voice or standing up for yourself.
- Being in a room full of fellow academics and being told that you speak “very intelligently.”
- Being the only person questioned at a party after the DJ’s IPod goes missing.
- Being told that I am “so well spoken…for a Latino.”
- Being told that I am a “Spicy Latina,” anytime that I give my opinion.
- Jogging down the street and hearing “Run N*gger Run,” shouted from cars passing by.
- Professors making condescending remarks about your undergrad because it was an HBCU.
- Treating my hair as your own private petting zoo.
- Virginia Tech students asking me what I plan to do with my degree “back home.”
- When fellow Hokies tell me, “I thought all of YOU PEOPLE were good at basketball.”
- When I tell someone about my origins and they reply with “Wait, you’re all not Mexican!”
- When meeting someone for the first time, and the first thing they ask is if “English is my second language.”
- When my white professors say “n*gger” thoughtlessly in class.
- When people tell you you’re only at Virginia Tech because of affirmative action.
- When school official state that, “people like you should stay home and not waste taxpayers dollars…despite scoring in the 90th percentile in nationwide exams.”
- When white people claim to be “blacker than you” for knowing the words to a rap song.
- When you tell people where you’re from and they automatically assume you’re from the “bad part” of that area.
- When you think it’s humorous to ask me, “how do you say taco in Spanish.”
* * *
So probably better just to stay at home.
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